The beginning of the League of the left: Lu Xun went out to drink coffee

On February 16, 1930, Lu Xun wrote in his diary: "in the afternoon, Tong Rou Shi and Xuefeng went out to drink coffee." During this coffee, Lu Xun went to the public coffee shop at 998 North Sichuan Road for a meeting, which formally confirmed the establishment of the "China left-wing Writers' Union." On March 2, 1930, the League of the left held its founding meeting at China University of Arts, which opened a new page of the left-wing literature movement in the 1930s.

The establishment of the "League of the left" marks the emergence of a great unity in the left-wing literary and art circles. The members of the League of the left have a dual identity and live a dual organizational life. Apart from literature and art, most of the activities of the "League of the left" are political in nature, such as meetings, processions, posters, and so on, all of which are political activities related to the Communist Party. There is no doubt that the League of the left has made indelible achievements in countering the cultural encirclement and suppression of the Kuomintang, the creation of revolutionary literature and theoretical translation. In 1931, Leftist members Li Weisen, Rou Shi, Hu Yepin, Yin Fu and Feng Keng were betrayed at a Communist Party meeting and shot by the Kuomintang, known as the "five martyrs of the Leftist League". Lu Xun wrote "in memory of forgetting" for the death of Rou Shi.

The "League of the left" has successively founded dozens of publications, such as "sprout", "outpost" and so on, criticizing the literary and artistic viewpoints such as "Crescent School", "nationalist Literature and Art Movement", "Free Man" and so on. He criticized and struggled against the reactionary literary and artistic policies of the Kuomintang authorities. In terms of creation, revolutionary writers have published a large number of works in leftist journals and other progressive publications, such as Lu Xun's New compilation of stories, essays by him and qu Qiubai, midnight by Mao Dun, Lin's Shop, Spring Silkworm, Jiang Guangci's Roaring Land, novels by Ding Ling, Zhang Tianyi, Ye Zi, and dramas by Tian Han, Hong Shen, Xia Yan and others. Under the training of the League of the left, a number of literary newcomers emerged, such as Sha Ting, Ai Wu, Ai Qing, Pu Feng, Nie Ganlu, Xu Maoyong and so on, which became an active force in the literary world in the 1930s. At that time, the literary world in Shanghai was basically "monopolized" by the League of the left and its left-wing writers.