Chen Duxiu During the Great Revolution

For the past three decades, our country's historical fraternity has been basically at one in its assessment of that part of Chen Duxiu's life falling between the establishment of New Youth in 1915 and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. However, in regard to the proper evaluation of Chen's achievements and failures during the Great Revolution (1924-27) and the assessment of specific events such as his "dismissal from office" and "expulsion from the party," as well as the activities of his later years, there still remains a great variance of opinion. In my estimation, the critique hitherto of Chen Duxiu has, on the whole, slighted his achievements and magnified his mistakes, to the extent that there has been a most detrimental exaggeration of both.