Li recalled in his memoirs that many of the students were "provincial" and that he had to show them how to eat bread, drink wine, and wear western clothes instead of their Chinese padded jackets.

[4] Li and his friends Zuo Shunsheng and Zeng Qi became alarmed at the spread of Marxism among the students, such as Zhou Enlai, who became radicalized and joined the Communist Party.

They proclaimed that their objective was "internally eliminating the national robbers [the Communists and warlords] and externally resisting the foreign powers."

[5] Li's later account of the influence of the Comintern on Chinese students in Europe in his memoir Xuedunshi huiyilu (Memoirs from the Xuedun Study) has been widely accepted as lively and accurate, but the American historian Marilyn Avra Levine's research found that his account of Marxist developments contained errors of fact and interpretation.

The journal favored democracy, civil rights, national autonomy, unification, and raising the standard of living for workers and farmers.

[10] Li visited Shanxi province in brief hope that its military leader, Yan Xishan and his program of military and industrial development could be a base for CYP organizing, but returned wondering how this "barren land with its impoverished people" could "manage to build up a model province in the North?"

Li was a China delegate at the New York opening meeting of the United Nations in 1945, then in 1947 again withdrew his support of Chiang Kai-shek, and moved to Hong Kong.