The ideas of Marxism and Leninism were taught there by early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) like Qu Qiubai and Deng Zhongxia.

Using the alias "Bo Gu", which means "familiar with histories" in Chinese, Qin continued his studies while becoming acquainted with Wang Ming, a student who had come to the university a year earlier.

However, because of their inexperience in relation to veteran members such as Zhou Enlai and Zhang Guotao, the group was assigned to insignificant work.

Under the policy of extremism and leftism of Li and Wang, CCP suffered great loss in their power struggle with KMT in cities.

In 1933 Bo Gu and other members of the Central Bureau such as Zhou Enlai had to evacuate to Soviet Territory, which was the power base set up by CCP, in the countryside, in Jiangxi.

Due to a change in Nationalist tactics, the Chinese Red Army suffered great losses in Chiang Kai-shek's 5th Suppression against them.

[citation needed] Then in January 1935 came the convening of Zunyi Conference, and with the defection of 28 Bolshevik members Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang and Yang Shangkun to Mao's camp, the three-man team's command over military was discharged, Mao, Wang and Zhou Enlai composed a new three-man team to replace them, and Bo Gu's title of General Secretary was replaced by his former associate Zhang, but he remained a member of the Politburo.

[citation needed] When Bo Gu reached Yan'an with the Red Army, he was still a young man, longing for a bright future of Chinese revolution.

In order to make a clear distinction from his past, Bo Gu preferred others called him by his real name Qin instead of his alias.

His kindness and leniency towards the Cheng Feng movement by the newspaper under his direction received heavy criticism from Mao and his secret police boss Kang Sheng.