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In March 1949, when the chilly spring breeze blew across the land of North China, Mao Zedong led the central leadership organs to leave Xibaipo and head towards Beiping (now Beijing).

At this time, the strategic decisive battle that determined China's two future destinies entered a historical turning point. After 28 years of bloody fighting, the Party led the people of all ethnic groups in the country to win the great victory of the new democratic revolution. A new regime where the people are the masters of the country is about to be born.

This year, Mao Zedong was 56 years old. When preparing to leave for Beijing, Mao Zedong only slept for four or five hours. He excitedly said to Zhou Enlai: "Today is the day to go to Beijing. I am happy even if I don't sleep. Today is the day to go to Beijing for the 'exam'. How can I go to Beijing for the 'exam' without being in good spirits?" Zhou Enlai smiled and said: "We should all pass the exam and don't return." Mao Zedong said: "Returning means failure. We will never be Li Zicheng. We all hope to get a good score." Always keeping a sober state of "taking the exam", the Chinese Communists handed in excellent answers to the people and history, and created a century of glory that attracted worldwide attention.

In addition to the well-known "Examination Couplet", there is another touching story. Mao Zedong looked back on his arduous revolutionary career and excitedly said to his staff members Li Yinqiao and others: "Thirty years have passed! Thirty years ago, I was running around to seek the truth to save the country and the people. It was not bad. I suffered a lot and met a great man in Peking, Comrade Li Dazhao. With his help, I became a Marxist-Leninist. He is my real teacher. Without his guidance and teaching, I don't know where I would be today!"

Mao Zedong met many teachers during his youth, but he called Li Dazhao his "real teacher", which shows the importance of Li Dazhao in his mind. Li Dazhao was the earliest disseminator of Marxism in China. He was a pioneer of the Chinese communist movement, a great Marxist, an outstanding proletarian revolutionary, and one of the main founders of the Communist Party of China.

Although everyone has the impression that Li Dazhao always looks old with a long beard, he is actually only four years older than Mao Zedong. When Mao Zedong first met Li Dazhao, he was already the director of the library at Peking University, and Mao Zedong had just started his life as a "drifter in Beijing".

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Mao Zedong went to Beijing for the first time in August 1918. At that time, he had just graduated from Hunan Provincial No. 1 Normal School and was helping to organize a group of young people to go to France to work and study with his good friend Cai Hesen and others.

The opportunity to study abroad is valuable and still attractive today. But Mao Zedong had his own ideas. He said: "I don't want to go to Europe. I feel that I don't know enough about my own country. It would be more beneficial for me to spend my time in China. Those students who decided to go to France learned French from Li Shizeng, who is now the president of Sino-French University, but I did not do so. I had other plans."

Mao Zedong's former teacher Yang Changji taught at Peking University. He hoped that Mao Zedong would "enter Peking University" after coming to Beijing so as to lay a "foundation for long-term success". However, Mao Zedong did not apply for the exam as Yang Changji hoped. There are many reasons for this. According to the regulations of the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Government at that time, Mao Zedong was a secondary normal school graduate and needed to work for a few years before applying for university. It may also be due to economic reasons. In addition, Mao Zedong always advocated self-study and did not seem to want to go directly to university to study at that time.

Mao Zedong in 1919

Since he didn't want to study but wanted to stay in Beijing, he had to find a job and earn an income to live in Beijing. Mao Zedong, who was under great pressure, knew his situation very well. He thought of asking his teacher in Beijing for help. He said: "Beijing is too expensive for me. I borrowed money from my friends to come to the capital. After I arrived, I had to find a job immediately. Yang Changji, my former ethics teacher at the Normal School, was a professor at the National Peking University at that time. I asked him to help me find a job, and he introduced me to the director of the Peking University Library. He was Li Dazhao, who later became a founder of the Communist Party of China and was killed by Zhang Zuolin. Li Dazhao gave me a job as a library assistant. The salary was not low, eight yuan a month."

Li Dazhao in 1918

Mao Zedong met Li Dazhao for the first time in the director's office in the southeast corner of the first floor of the Peking University Red Building. Although this meeting was mainly for Li Dazhao to give Mao Zedong work assignments, the relationship between them as teacher and student began.

The current Red Building of Peking University

At that time, Mao Zedong's salary was 8 yuan, which was far less than the 200-300 yuan salary of Peking University professors, but it was quite good compared to the consumption level in Beijing at that time. At that time, pork in Beijing was 0.12 cents per pound, the monthly salary of ordinary workers was about 3 yuan, and the monthly salary of ordinary officers was only 10 yuan. You can't live a rich life with 8 yuan, but at least you can stand firm in Beijing.

At this point, we need to know that Mao Zedong maintained a simple and frugal character throughout his life and never paid much attention to food and clothing. He once said to his guard Tian Yunyu: "When I worked in Beijing, I only had eight yuan. I bought steamed buns on the street once, and the buns were delicious." When interviewed by Snow in 1936, he said: "My own living conditions in Beijing are very poor, but on the other hand, the beauty of the ancient capital is a colorful, vivid and interesting compensation for me. I live in a place called Sanyanjing, and live in a small room with seven other people. When we all sleep on the kang, it is almost suffocating. Whenever I want to turn over, I have to greet the people on both sides first. However, in the park and in the courtyard of the Forbidden City, I saw the early spring in the north. When the North Sea was still frozen, I saw the white plum blossoms in full bloom. I saw willows hanging over the North Sea, with crystal icicles hanging from the branches, which reminded me of the Tang Dynasty poet Cen Shen's poem about the winter trees in the North Sea: 'Thousands of trees are in pear blossom'. The countless trees in Beijing aroused my amazement and praise."

Li Dazhao thought highly of Mao Zedong and praised him as "an outstanding leader of Hunan students and youth". He also exposed him to many aspects of library work, such as managing 15 Chinese and foreign newspapers, registering the names of people who came to the library to read newspapers, etc. He also sorted books and periodicals with Mao Zedong. Strictly speaking, Mao Zedong's position in the Peking University Library should be called "secretary", which is a junior position in the Peking University Library and enjoys the lowest salary. But this job was quite satisfactory for Mao Zedong, as it enabled him to read and understand the information of new books and new periodicals at that time, and to meet well-known scholars and progressive youth.

The reading room where Mao Zedong once worked

The job was temporarily stable, but new troubles followed. In 1936, Mao Zedong talked about this experience when talking with Snow: "My position was low, and no one paid attention to me. One of my jobs was to register the names of people who came to the library to read newspapers, but for most of them, I didn't exist. Among those who came to read, I recognized the names of some famous leaders of the New Culture Movement, such as Fu Sinian, Luo Jialun, etc. I was very interested in them. I planned to talk to them about political and cultural issues, but they were all busy people and had no time to listen to a library assistant speaking southern dialect." Under such circumstances, Li Dazhao treated the young people of Peking University with a motherly heart and won Mao Zedong's respect and love.

From the end of 1918 to the beginning of 1919, Li Dazhao published popular articles such as "The Victory of the Common People", "The Victory of Bolsnevism" and "The New Era", and also held many public speeches during the same period. It was a great opportunity for Mao Zedong to study, discuss and listen to the October Revolution and Marxist doctrines directly with Li Dazhao, who had a huge number of fans. It was also during this period that Mao Zedong began to "rapidly develop in the direction of Marxism."

The tables and chairs used by Mao Zedong in the newspaper reading room

Thanks to the job opportunity provided by Li Dazhao, Mao Zedong was able to freely attend and participate in various academic activities at Peking University after work, which also allowed him to come into contact with various academic thoughts and "leading figures", which really broadened his horizons. For example, Chen Duxiu, who shone with the light of the New Culture Movement, as well as Cai Yuanpei, Tao Menghe, Hu Shi, etc. In the past, he could only see the names of people in articles, but now they appeared in front of him. Mao Zedong was as excited as if he had met a big star at work.

During this period, Mao Zedong also participated in Peking University's Philosophy Research Society and Journalism Research Society (later renamed the Journalism Research Society). Especially in the Journalism Research Society, Shao Piaoping, the founder of the Beijing News, "helped" Mao Zedong a lot, which helped him improve his theoretical and practical skills in journalism. We know that Mao Zedong later fought in many battles and could "sweep away thousands of troops" with just a pen, which was inseparable from his study at Peking University during this period.

Mao Zedong's first visit to Beijing lasted only a few months. In March 1919, Mao Zedong left Beijing to return to Hunan. In order to send off the Hunan youth who were going to France to work and study, he detoured to Shanghai on his way back. On the way, he visited the Confucius Temple in Qufu, Shandong, and saw Confucius' tomb, the stream where Confucius' disciples washed their feet, and the town where Confucius lived in his childhood. He stopped by the river where Yan Hui lived and saw the birthplace of Mencius. He also visited Mount Tai. He circled the Xuzhou City Wall, which was famous in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and the Nanjing City Wall, which was famous in history. When he arrived in Pukou, he was penniless again, had no tickets, and could not find anyone to borrow money from. To make matters worse, his only pair of shoes was stolen by a thief. What should he do? There is always a way out. Outside the train station, Mao Zedong met an old friend from Hunan and borrowed money to buy a pair of shoes and a ticket to Shanghai. During the rest of the journey, Mao Zedong kept an eye on his new shoes to prevent them from being stolen again. After arriving in Shanghai and seeing his friends off on the ship, he set off back to Changsha.

During these months, he met teachers and friends, learned knowledge, especially Marxism-Leninism, which greatly broadened his horizons and made him gain a lot. All this was largely thanks to Li Dazhao's help.

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In April 1919, Mao Zedong returned to Changsha with many new ideas he had just learned. A month later, the May Fourth Movement broke out and immediately shook the whole country. Mao Zedong actively responded and participated in the leadership of the establishment of the Hunan Student Union. Under the organization of the Student Union, 20 schools in Changsha went on strike and put forward six demands to the Beijing government, including rejecting the Paris Peace Treaty and abolishing all unequal treaties.

The May Fourth Movement made some advanced elements start to think more deeply about China's problems. Based on Mao Zedong's suggestion, the Hunan Student Union decided to establish the Xiangjiang Review magazine and hired him as the editor-in-chief and main writer.

At the age of 25, Mao Zedong devoted himself to the editing work of "Xiangjiang Review". The manuscripts that were scheduled often could not be collected, so he had to fill in the blanks with ghostwriters. After the articles were written, he had to edit, typeset, and proofread them himself, and sometimes he had to go to the streets to sell them himself. It was the hottest time of the year, and mosquito bites were unbearable for most people, but Mao Zedong didn't care about these. He sweated and wrote quickly, forgetting to eat and sleep. One morning, the sun was high in the sky, and Yi Lirong, a student from the Commercial College, came to find Mao Zedong, who was still asleep. Yi Lirong lifted the mosquito net, but unexpectedly startled a group of bedbugs. "They scurried around on the dark yellow thread-bound book that he used as a pillow, and each of them looked full in the belly." In this extremely difficult life, the ideological exploration of the young Mao Zedong entered the most active state.

This magazine existed for only a little over a month, but it had a great impact in Hunan and attracted attention outside the province. After seeing this magazine, Li Dazhao attached great importance to it and immediately introduced and recommended it to readers across the country through publications such as "New Youth" and "Weekly Review": "It is very gratifying to see this very good brother journal." After seeing Mao Zedong publish "The Great Unity of the People" in the second to fourth issues of "Xiangjiang Review", Li Dazhao published a short article entitled "The Great Unity" in the 19th issue of "New Life" on December 28, 1919, and strongly agreed with Mao Zedong's proposal for the great unity of the people. With this level of support, Li Dazhao can definitely be on the list of the top ten "mentors of other people's families" in the Republic of China.

Mao Zedong came to Beijing for the second time in December 1919. He led the Hunan "Expel Zhang Delegation" to Beijing to petition and lived in a Lama Temple called Fuyou Temple on Beichang Street. At this time, Mao Zedong and Li Dazhao had more frequent contacts. They discussed studying in Russia and women studying abroad many times. Due to the influence of Li Dazhao, he became more and more interested in Bolshevism, paid close attention to articles introducing Marxism published in newspapers and periodicals, and paid special attention to searching and reading the few Chinese-language Marxist books that could be found at that time.

A group photo of some members of the Young China Association. The third from the right is Li Dazhao

In early 1920, Marxism-Leninism was not yet known to most people, but under the guidance of Li Dazhao, the Marxist Theory Research Society was secretly established at Peking University. Although the society was not publicly announced until November 1921, it began to study "Marxist theory" since its secret establishment in March 1920.

Li Dazhao in 1920

At that time, there were very few Marxist-Leninist books introduced into China, and Chinese translations were even rarer, but the Peking University Marxist Research Society had already regarded "collecting such books" as an "important priority in research." Therefore, at this time, they had already collected a certain number of Marxist-Leninist works, and they also had a large translation team that translated a large number of foreign books. Although Mao Zedong did not participate in the initiation of the research society, Mao Zedong's friends Deng Zhongxia and Luo Zhanglong were the initiators of the research society. Therefore, with the recommendation of Li Dazhao, Deng Zhongxia, Luo Zhanglong and others, Mao Zedong came into contact with precious Chinese books on the October Revolution and Communism, which was a very important step for Mao Zedong to establish his belief in Marxism.

Mao Zedong (fourth from left) and Deng Zhongxia (fifth from left) at the Taoranting Cibei Temple in Beijing

Later, when recalling this experience, Mao Zedong also said: "During my second visit to Beijing, I read many books about the situation in Russia. I enthusiastically searched for the few communist books written in Chinese that I could find at that time. There are three books that are particularly deeply engraved in my heart and established my belief in Marxism. Once I accepted the correct interpretation of history by Marxism, my belief in Marxism has never wavered. These three books are: The Communist Manifesto, translated by Chen Wangdao, which is the first Marxist book published in Chinese; Class Struggle, written by Kautsky; History of Socialism, written by Kolkap. By the summer of 1920, in theory and to a certain extent in action, I had become a Marxist, and from then on I also considered myself a Marxist."

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In April 1920, Mao Zedong left Beijing again and returned to Changsha, but he maintained close contact with Li Dazhao for a long time afterwards. In June and July 1920, Mao Zedong prepared to establish the Cultural Bookstore in Changsha. But the capital was too little and turnover was difficult. At this time, Mao Zedong's life mentor Li Dazhao once again stepped forward to help him solve the problem of funds. Later, this bookstore existed for 7 years and was very popular with readers from all walks of life. In fact, this bookstore was an important position established by Mao Zedong in Hunan to study and spread revolutionary truth and carry out revolutionary activities. It was an important revolutionary activity. Its existence not only played a great role in the dissemination of Marxism, but also played an important role in the creation of the Communist Party of China and as a secret liaison agency in the early days of the party. Li Dazhao was a strong supporter of this revolutionary activity.

Li Dazhao wrote a paper titled "Land and Peasants" from the end of 1925 to the beginning of 1926. In this paper, he put forward the correct conclusion based on the viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism that "if the vast peasant masses in China can be organized and participate in the national revolution, the success of the Chinese revolution will not be far away." Mao Zedong attached great importance to Li Dazhao's paper. In September 1926, when he presided over the Peasant Movement Training Institute in Guangzhou, he included Li Dazhao's paper in the "Peasant Issues Series" edited by him as study material for students.

After the failure of the Great Revolution, Mao Zedong led the army and the people to establish the first rural revolutionary base in Jinggangshan, igniting the spark of armed separatist movement of workers and peasants, and exploring the correct path of surrounding the cities from the countryside and seizing power by force, which had never been taken by previous generations. We have reason to speculate that Li Dazhao's thinking on the peasant issue provided Mao Zedong with useful inspiration.

Lu Yao once wrote in the title page of Life: "Although the road of life is long, there are often only a few critical steps, especially when people are young." Someone asked on the Internet: "How does it feel to have a good teacher in life?" A highly praised answer said: "It's like a light suddenly appears in your ordinary life, inspiring you and guiding you to think about what kind of person you want to be and what kind of life you want, and everything has a direction." According to this statement, Li Dazhao was a light in Mao Zedong's youth. He was morally noble, kind-hearted, and upright. He fought for his revolutionary ideals and beliefs, holding high the torch of truth, illuminating Mao Zedong, a progressive young man from Hunan, and guiding him along the path of communism. Mao Zedong called Li Dazhao a "real teacher", which fully reflected Mao Zedong's deep gratitude and admiration for him.

(Author: Seventh Research Department of the Party History and Literature Research Institute of the CPC Central Committee)

Editor: Hou Mengwei

Editor: Wang Yuanyuan

Editor: Xiang Dongmin