Important players of the revolutionary past
Print Edition
MANY Communist revolutionaries left footprints in Jing’an from their early days. Here are three of them.
Zhang Renya
Zhang Renya was one of 200 Party members who received a copy of the first constitution shortly after the second national congress was held.
In 1927, when the ruling Kuomintang launched a crackdown on the Party, Zhang spirited the Party’s founding documents, including the constitution, to safety in his hometown of Ningbo in Zhejiang Province.
At that time, some would have burned the documents, but Zhang believed they were too important.
He gave the documents to his father and hurried back to Shanghai to continue his work. His father, who supported his son’s work, lied to neighbors, telling them his son had died in Shanghai. He then secretly buried the documents in the empty grave.
The young revolutionary did in fact die in 1932 at age 34, but his family didn’t find out. When Zhang failed to return home after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, his father decided to hand the documents over to the government in 1951. They have been preserved in China’s Central Archives in Beijing.
Over the years, family members tried to uncover what happened to Zhang. In 2005, they discovered an old newspaper published in 1933 that contained an article mourning his loss.
Han Huiru
Han Huiru took part in Communist revolutionary activities in July 1935, because her elder sister Han Huiying and brother-in-law Chen Weiren were both Party members.
At that time, Chen was responsible for safely keeping the Party’s most important documents. After her sister’s arrest, Han disguised herself as Chen’s wife to cover his identity until the end of 1936 when Chen transferred all the documents to his successor.
In 1937, the Party selected her to disguise Qin Hongjun’s wife, a secret telegraph operator for the Party. However, she and Qin fell instantly in love and married the next year.
“He’s not good-looking but he’s such a sincere and honest person,” Han said in her memoir. “He looked at me tenderly when I said all I wanted was to join hands with him on the revolutionary road, which really impressed me.”
According to Han, they lived a happy life, especially after he joined the Party in 1945. However, their home was raided by police on May 17, 1949.
“It was very close to the liberation of Shanghai and Qin was very busy at work,” Han said. “When police knocked on the door, he was working on the third floor. He immediately destroyed the telegraph transmitter and telegrams. Still, we were arrested.”
They were interrogated separately, and Han insisted she knew nothing about Qin’s work. She was eventually allowed to visit Qin, but his bloody body and fractured legs broke her heart.
“Again and again, he was tortured, in a coma and woken up by cold water, until he was dying,” Han said. “And he took the chance to whisper in my ears. He said it’s worthy to sacrifice for the country.”
On May 7, 1949, Qin and 11 other Party members were killed just 20 days before Shanghai was liberated. Han escaped from jail on May 25, 1949. She died in 2009.
Liang Guangbi
When Liang Guangbi was just 3 years old, her father left the family and joined the New Fourth Army in the battle against Japan. He never returned home but made an impression on Liang.
“When Ji’nan was liberated in 1948, I was just 15 years old, but I didn’t hesitate to quit school and follow the Party’s footprints,” Liang said. “I went to Shanghai in 1950 and two years later joined the Party.”
Since then, she has worked in the Party’s East China Bureau decoding telegrams.
“Our job was secret, so we couldn’t go out or write letters to our families without approval,” she said. “During the rare times we had a rest, we sang and danced in the garden, but we couldn’t take photos to record the moments.”
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