[2] As a protest to the 21 demands he was part of the group of students who surged and set fire to the house of Minister of Transport Cao Rulin, subsequently being arrested for his actions.

In the 4th and 5th Congress of the CCP, he was reappointed as a member of the Central Committee and also held membership in the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.

[1] In August 1927 he was one of the leaders that started the Nanchang Rebellion (albeit holding positions within the KMT) against the Nationalist Government led by Chiang Kai-shek.

In an enlarged meeting of the Politburo in November, Zhang Guotao appealed to the Comintern for the removal of Tan from the party as he blamed the failure of the Nanchang Uprising due to his leftist-tendencies.

[2] In 1949 September he participated in the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and was elected to the Presidium of the Standing Committee.