Qu Qiubai
| 瞿秋白 Qu Qiubai |
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| Personal details | |||||||||||
| Born |
29 January 1899 Changzhou, Jiangsu, Qing Dynasty |
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| Died | 18 June 1935 (aged 36) | ||||||||||
| Nationality | Chinese | ||||||||||
| Political party | Communist Party of China | ||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Chinese | 瞿秋白 | ||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Qū Qiūbái |
| Wade–Giles | Ch'ü1 Ch'iu1-pai2 |
| IPA | [tɕʰý tɕʰjóupǎi] |
Qu Qiubai (Chinese: 瞿秋白; 29 January 1899 – 18 June 1935) was a leader of the Communist Party of China in the late 1920s. He was born in Changzhou, Jiangsu, China.
Qu was born in the southeast corner of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. His family lived in a building named TianXianLou, located in a lane named QingGuo. Qu's father, Qu Shiwei. Qu Shiwei was born in a family which was once powerful and glorious but no longer. He was good at painting and fencing and acquired much medical knowledge, but had no interest in anything else, particularly politics and business. Qu's mother, Kim Xuan, the daughter of an elite government official, was skilled in poetry. Qu had five brothers and one sister, he being the eldest. When Qu was young, his family lived in his uncle's house and was supported financially by relatives. Though Qu’s father took a job as teacher, he was not able to support his family due to his addiction to opium. In 1915, Qu’s mother, overcome by her life's mounting difficulties and debts, committed suicide.
In 1916, Qu went to Hankou and entered Wuchang Foreign Language School to learn English with the support of his cousin. In the spring of 1917, Qu went to Beijing to apply for a job, but did not pass the general civil service examination. Not having enough money to pay for a regular university tuition, Qu enrolled in the newly established Russian Language Institute under the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (俄文专修馆), since it did not require payment of fee. The institute also offered a stipend and promised him a job upon graduation.
Qu worked hard in the language institute, learning both French and Russian and spending his spare time studying Buddhist philosophy and classical Chinese. Both were his interests cultivated since childhood, as well as the works of Bertrand Russell whose discussion of physics and perception was to Qu similar to the teachings of Buddhism.
His earliest contacts with revolutionary circles came when he participated in discussions of Marxist analysis hosted by Li Dazhao at Beijing University, who was the campus' head librarian. The future communist leader and chairman of China Mao Zedong was also present at these meetings. Qu later took a job as a journalist for a Beijing newspaper Morning News (晨報) and was sent to Moscow as a correspondent, even though this would jeopardise a career in the civil service which his earlier training had prepared him for. Qu was one of the first Chinese to report from Moscow about life in Russia during and after the Bolshevik Revolution, where he observed the harshness of living conditions. While in Russia, he also visited Leo Tolstoy's home at Yasnaya Polyana with Tolstoy's granddaughter Sofya, saw Lenin addressing a group of delegates, heard Feodor Chaliapin sing Alexander Pushkin's poems set to music, and witnessed Pyotr Kropotkin's funeral.
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