Chinese Human Rights Reader Entry Summary

Like many of his generation, Li Dazhao (1889–1927) spent some time studying in Japan. Upon his return to China he devoted himself to writing and teaching. Li was a central figure during the May Fourth period when he worked as a librarian at Beijing University and organized study circles on Marxism. One of the first Chinese converts to Marxism, Li wrote some of the earliest theoretical articles on Marxism published in Xin qingnian, and he was a co-founder of the CCP in 1921. Li’s early writings reflect a belief in constitutionalism and civil and political rights, and a familiarity with Western philosophers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mill, and others. In comparison with Chen Duxiu, however, Li was much less preoccupied with the concept of human rights. The article translated here is one of Li’s early writings and reveals a strong concern with the freedom of thought, which he regarded as the most fundamental freedom. Li strongly criticizes Yuan Shikai’s attempt to elevate Confucianism to a state religion, arguing that this would threaten people’s freedom of thought. Despite this critique, however, Li was not as critical of Confucius as many of his contemporaries. In this and a second article from the same year Li argued for the absolute freedom of speech, regardless of form and content, but he would in his later writings retreat from this conviction. He thus comes to argue that religion shackles people’s minds and is itself a totalitarian belief system at odds with freedom of speech. Li therefore insists that attacking religion does not constitute an interference with other people’s freedom of thought, but is actually a way of defending it. This conclusion is at odds with his insistence in the current article that people have the freedom to believe in whatever they want to, however dangerous or absurd this thought or belief might seem to others.

The Chinese Human Rights Reader:

12. The Constitution and Freedom of Thought (1916)

Li Dazhao