Xianjiang Yang: Beacon for Youth Education

Xianjiang Yang (1895-1931), famous Marxism educator.

Xianjiang Yang started working at Nanjing Higher Normal School in 1917, and began to promote progressive ideas among students by keeping close contact with them. In 1919, he served as Secretary of the Nanjing Branch of the Youth China Society, the earliest progressive organization to spread Marxism in China. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1922. Thereafter he went to work for the Commercial Press, working as the actual editor-in-chief of Students Magazine, and assisted Daiying Yun (a famous revolutionary) in editing China Youth, both of which were among the most popular publications among the youth at the time, hence he was known as a“Beacon for Youth towards a Bright Future”.

Xianjiang Yang was elected as an alternate member of the CPC Shanghai Regional Committee in 1925, responsible for student work. In early 1927, he took part in the workers' uprising in Shanghai. After Chiang Kai-shek launched the "4.12" counterrevolutionary attack, XianJiang Yang was forced into exile in Japan. During his stay in Japan, he wrote ABC to History of Education. After his secret return to China in 1929, he wrote New Education Guideline. He was acknowledged as one of China's renowned educational theorists and leaders of youth movements, and as one of China's first Marxism educators.