Cao Erbao, an adjunct professor at the Shenzhen International Graduate School of Tsinghua University, who was the head of the Research Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong and a special researcher at the Counselor's Office of the State Council of China, held a seminar on the history of the Communist Party of China in Hong Kong and Macao at the Party History and Literature Research Office of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China on June 7 last year. Lectures in a special chapter detail the historical origins of Hong Kong and the CCP, as well as Hong Kong's unique and unparalleled position in the country.
This article is the second section of the first chapter of Cao Erbao's lecture "Learning the History of the Communist Party of China, Hong Kong and Macau Chapter One (1921-1949)". Hong Kong adopts a policy that is different from that of the mainland; it was originally published on the WeChat public account "One Insight into the World", and "Hong Kong 01" is authorized to reprint.
"Cao Erbao on the CCP and Hong Kong" Series 2
Hong Kong has an unparalleled unique position in the country.
(file picture)
Cao Erbao on the CCP and Hong Kong. 1｜The labor movement is linked with Hong Kong, the place where the CCP’s “initial aspirations are sprouting”
[02] Phoenix Nirvana, red blood
Cao Erbao has an important experience from studying the history of the CCP in Hong Kong and Macau, that is, China's "tragic national conditions" and the CCP's "special party conditions", which profoundly educates and enlightens the CCP: Hong Kong and Macau, especially Hong Kong, have an overall status that the mainland does not have or cannot replace Function; Hong Kong and Macao, especially Hong Kong, can implement policies different from those of the mainland.
Historical materials show that the CCP's understanding and practice of "unparalleled at home and abroad" experienced major setbacks and paid the price of "blood and fire": it was during the Second Revolution.
1. Hong Kong and Macao, especially Hong Kong, in the "tragic national conditions"
Cao Erbao's so-called "tragic national conditions" refers to Chiang Kai-shek's betrayal of the revolution on April 12, 1927, and he practiced white terror throughout China (actually the mainland) for 10 years: "I would rather kill a thousand by mistake than let it go" to the Chinese Communists. one person"!
From March 1927 to the first half of 1928 alone, the Kuomintang reactionaries slaughtered more than 310,000 revolutionary masses, of which more than 26,000 were members of the Communist Party (incomplete statistics of the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China).
Mao Zedong said that he "was forced to go to Liangshan in that year (1927)": "Who would have thought that Chiang Kai-shek was so powerful that he wanted to kill us all and make us disappear completely. After repeated persecution, we had nowhere to go. Forced up to Liangshan, even if you don’t know how to fight.”
Cao Erbao cites rich historical data to explain: During this period, the CCP worked hard to explore the "tragic national conditions", and vaguely saw that Hong Kong and Macao, especially Hong Kong, had a global status function that the mainland did not have or could not replace.
First, there were underground struggles and armed uprisings in the cities, and the "phoenix nirvana" was successively realized in Hong Kong. Then, for the Central Soviet Area, the central revolutionary base located in the countryside, the "Bloodline of the Party" with Hong Kong as the transportation terminal in South China was established.
(1) "Phoenix Nirvana".
Mainly two big things:
One is that on April 17, 1927, just a few days after Chiang Kai-shek's "4.12" Shanghai massacre and Wang Jingwei's "4.15" counter-revolutionary coup in Wuhan, the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China moved underground at the same time as it was transferred from Guangzhou to Hong Kong.
Cao Erbao said that since then, until the liberation of Guangzhou on October 14, 1949, the provincial leading agency established in 1922, the year after the birth of the CCP, during the 28 years of the Chinese Revolution, it was mainly active in Hong Kong for 22 years. .
Two of these features:
First, the CCP’s provincial leadership in Hong Kong is the command center of the CCP’s party organizations in southern China, including many southeastern provinces.
For example, the two provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Guangxi (called "Guangzhou Provincial Committee") during the Second Revolution and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the three provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian in the early post-war period (called "Southern Committee" or "Southern Provisional Committee", etc.) and the later period of the Liberation War The provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Guizhou (named "Hong Kong Branch"), etc.
Second, the provincial leadership of the CCP in Hong Kong is the higher-level unit of the Hong Kong and Macao party organizations, but in the name, except for the word "Hong Kong" for one month or two years, there is no word "Hong Kong and Macao" in the name.
This reminds friends who are engaged in the study of the local party history of the CCP in Hong Kong and Macau: For the name of the provincial organ of the CCP in the Chinese revolution, do not use the word "Hong Kong and Macau" to determine whether it is a higher-level unit of the Hong Kong and Macau party organization.
This is an oil painting of the Nanchang Uprising painted in 1977. It depicts Zhou Enlai (the one standing in the middle), the secretary of the former enemy committee of the Nanchang Uprising, speaking to a sergeant.
(Nanchang August Uprising Memorial Hall)
Another major event is that on August 1, 1927, the CCP launched the Nanchang Uprising against the Kuomintang reactionaries, and the Guangzhou Uprising in December. The main leaders were secretly transferred to Hong Kong and Macau, mainly Hong Kong, before they got rid of the Kuomintang. The frenzied pursuit of them; they summed up the lessons of the uprising, deployed or studied new uprisings, all of which were also carried out secretly in Hong Kong.
details as follows:
First, after the victory of the Nanchang Uprising, the retreat to the south failed: in October, Zhou Enlai and Nie Rongzhen moved to Hong Kong, and Ye Ting moved to Macau; in November, He Long, Liu Bocheng, Li Lisan, Nie Rongzhen, Yun Daiying, Guo Moruo and others moved to Hong Kong respectively.
Second, the Guangzhou Uprising failed: Zhang Tailei died; Ye Jianying was transferred to Hong Kong on the same day; Xu Xiangqian escaped pursuit in the mainland for more than a year, and was also transferred to Hong Kong in January 1929.
The third is to deploy or study new uprisings: in October 1927, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Tailei, Nie Rongzhen, Yun Daiying and others deployed the Guangzhou Uprising in Hong Kong; from July to August 1929, Deng Xiaoping and Nie Rongzhen studied the Baise Uprising in Hong Kong; in September of the same year, Deng Xiaoping Study the Youjiang Uprising in Hong Kong.
Among them, Nie Rongzhen spent the longest time in Hong Kong (October 1927-early 1930): he succeeded Zhang Tailei as secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Military Commission (November 1927) and became a revolutionary partner with Zhang Ruihua (April 1928).
(2) "Blood of the Party".
This is from January 1930 to October 1934, from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and then to Shantou, Chao'an, Guangdong, Dapu, Yongding, Shanghang, and Changting in Fujian, and the end point is the "Central Red Traffic Line" in Ruijin, Jiangxi ( Historically known as "South China Line" or "Han Tingjiang Line").
This transportation line uses Hong Kong as the "South China Transportation Terminal", and Mao Zedong praised it as "like our bloodline"!
First, form the background.
The "South China Line" was at the end of 1929. After the Zhu-Mao Red Army opened up two bases in southwestern Jiangxi and western Fujian, and formed the largest revolutionary base in the country with Ruijin in Jiangxi as the center, namely the Central Soviet Area, Mao Zedong proposed to the central government, Zhou Enlai (Zhou Enlai) It was established with the approval of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and Minister of Military Affairs.
"The central government believes that it is necessary to jointly establish an independent transportation network with the Red Army in Western Fujian and the Red Army in Zhumao."
The Central Transportation Bureau immediately started to develop it. Chen Yun, the then head of the Central Special Operations Section (“Special Section”), deployed Qin Bangli (the then chief executive of the Communist Party of China, Bo Gu, the younger brother of Qin Bangxian), with two gold bars to Guangdong for specific construction.
As early as 1927, after the "87" emergency meeting in Hankou, the Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued a top-secret "Notice No. 3": "Secret transportation agencies across the country should be established", "There should also be organizations of such agencies in all provinces. Let this party have a nationwide transportation network.”
At that time, the CCP’s secret transportation network across the country consisted of three main lines: the northern line, the Yangtze River line, and the southern line, of which the southern line had 4 branch lines.
The two main lines in the north and the Yangtze River and the three branch lines in the south were all destroyed by the Kuomintang; only one branch line in the south, the "South China Line", was secretly safe from the opening to the strategic transfer of the Central Red Army and the withdrawal of the Central Soviet Area. operate.
The CCP has experienced the lessons of the "Left" line three times, and Deng Xiaoping has repeatedly warned that the "Left" can also destroy socialism.
(Getty)
Second, the main task.
According to historical data, the "Central Red Traffic Line" has three major tasks:
① Escort personnel to and from Shanghai and the Central Soviet Area.
In the past five years, more than 200 important personnel have been escorted into and out of the Central Soviet Area by this line of communication.
According to Cao Erbao's preliminary statistics:
10 members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee: Zhou Enlai, Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan, Bo Gu, Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yun, Ren Bishi, Deng Xiaoping;
New China's "Top Ten Marshals" 6 people: Liu Bocheng, He Long, Chen Yi, Xu Xiangqian, Nie Rongzhen, Ye Jianying;
Famous CCP generals Ye Ting, Yun Daiying, Peng Pai, Zuo Quan, etc., who died before the national liberation;
There are also "Yan'an Five Elders" Dong Biwu, Lin Boqu, Xie Juezai, Xu Teli, Wu Yuzhang and Chen Tanqiu, who is also a representative of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China with Dong Lao, and Deng Yingchao and Yang Shangkun, who were later leaders of the country.
Several important cadres and military advisers of the Communist Party of China sent by the Comintern to China, Li De, heads of various departments of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China who were secretly transferred from Shanghai to the Soviet area, and international friends such as the general secretary of the Thai Communist Party were all safely delivered to the central Soviet area by this line of communication. .
② Delivery of supplies and currency exchange.
The 3 million soldiers and civilians in the Soviet area need 9 million yuan of salt, 6 million yuan of cloth and various military supplies in short supply. Under the severe blockade of the slang language), all of them were collected or purchased from the mainland.
Hong Kong, which has a prosperous business and trade overseas, has provided the CCP with the convenience of purchasing materials from around the world, mainly in Southeast Asia.
In addition, there are many land checkpoints in the Mainland, and Hong Kong's waterway to enter and exit Guangdong is relatively convenient.
According to data, the central red communication line has completed the transportation of more than 6,000 important strategic materials.
In addition, hard currencies such as gold, silver and jewelry confiscated from the land reform in the Soviet Union and seized in the anti-"encirclement and suppression" battlefield can be exchanged in Hong Kong or Shantou and Shanghai, which are also Huayang Branch Offices, into currencies commonly used overseas or in mainland China to purchase materials or Turned over to the central government as revolutionary funds.
"The use of Hong Kong as the transportation terminal in South China highlights Hong Kong's unique overall status function in the Chinese revolution, which is incomparable to the mainland." Cao Erbao said.
③ Transmission of top-secret information and intelligence.
Confidential information sent from the central government, the Soviet area and the Red Army, and the top-secret information provided by the CCP’s hidden fronts, including Zhou Enlaizan, for the “Three Heroes of Longtan” (Qian Zhuangfei, Li Kenong, and Hu Di) were all provided by The transmission of this line of communication helped the three anti-"encirclement and suppression" wars led by the Zhu-Mao Red Army to continue to win.
Third, the historical miracle.
This 3,000-kilometer-long line of communication, secretly conveyed information, escorted personnel and materials in more than 1,300 days and nights, were all safe and undamaged.
Cao Erbao believes that this is a historical miracle that has not been found in ancient and modern China and abroad!
It is the countless heroic and witty trafficmen who created this miracle.
They are all members of the Communist Party of China, and even their entire family sacrificed themselves, and they have resolutely completed the three tasks assigned by the party to transmit intelligence information, escort personnel and materials.
Li Peiqun, Xiao Guichang, Xiong Zhihua, and Zeng Changming, who were once commended by the Central Soviet District, are their outstanding representatives.
In 2021, China CCTV's hit TV series "Top Secret Mission" vividly reproduces this historical miracle.
2. Hong Kong and Macao, especially Hong Kong, under the "special party situation"
Cao Erbao's so-called "special party situation" refers to the fact that during the Second Revolution, the three "left-leaning" lines within the CCP (Qu Qiubai, Li Lisan, and Wang Ming) dominated the leadership of the central government for nearly 10 years!
The result is just as Mao Zedong said: The Chinese Communist Party "suffered a great historic punishment": "It lost all revolutionary bases except the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Region, reducing the Red Army from 300,000 to tens of thousands, and the Chinese Communist Party from The 300,000 party members have dropped to tens of thousands, and almost all the party organizations in the Kuomintang area have been lost!” Specifically, the main manifestations in Hong Kong and Macau:
(1) Party organizations in Hong Kong and Macau suffered particularly heavy losses.
Although Hong Kong and Macau are not part of the Kuomintang area (or "white area"), in the short seven years of this period, according to Cao Erbao's preliminary statistics, the CCP Hong Kong and Macau party organizations that have been transferred to the underground, and their provincial leading organs, have been attacked by Hong Kong. The British military and police specially destroyed it at least 8 times; its provincial party secretary was changed at least 13 times due to reasons such as being arrested by the Hong Kong and British authorities.
The most serious thing is: from September 1934 to September 1936, the Hong Kong and Macao party organizations had no provincial leadership organs at all, and their activities were suspended for two years!
As Nie Rongzhen said: "I have worked in the White District for 4 years (2 years in Hong Kong), and one thing in common is that they are all in a period of 'left-leaning' adventurism."
(2) The Mainland's policies are strictly implemented in Hong Kong and Macao.
Cao Erbao analyzed that an important manifestation of the CCP's "left-leaning" line in Hong Kong and Macao work during this period was that regardless of the special circumstances of Hong Kong and Macao, it rigidly implemented the CCP's principles and policies in the mainland, namely the Soviet or White Regions.
For example, the central task of "armed struggle" in the Soviet area was brought to Hong Kong and Macau, and the "expansion of the red" (recruitment of the Red Army) was carried out in the two places; another example was that the anti-imperialist slogans of the White District were brought to Hong Kong, and "anti-British" marches and rallies were held.
Objectively, a certain situation has been created. The white terror implemented by the Kuomintang in the mainland and the cooperation of Hong Kong and the British military and police in Hong Kong have caused the CCP, Hong Kong and Macao party organizations that have been transferred underground, especially the provincial leading organs to be repeatedly damaged, Underground party members, especially leading cadres at the provincial level, were frequently arrested: they were either escorted by Hong Kong Ying to Guangzhou to be handed over to the Kuomintang reactionary government and sacrificed heroically, or they were rescued by the CCP in special ways and secretly transferred to other parties.
For example, Deng Zhongxia (rescued), who went to Hong Kong to replace Li Lisan as secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee in 1928, Cai Hesen (sacrificed), a famous leader during the founding of the Communist Party of China and secretary of the Guangdong and Guangxi Provincial Committee in 1931, and Zhang Hanfu (rescued) who was appointed as the acting secretary of the Guangdong and Guangxi Provincial Committee in December of the same year. ), and in 1934, Zheng Huaichang (sacrifice), who successively served as the temporary provincial party committee of Guangdong and Guangxi and secretary of the Hong Kong Working Committee.
They all exposed their identities at mass events or parades in Hong Kong, and were arrested or tracked by Hong Kong British police or KMT agents.
According to Nie Rongzhen's recollection: when he was the secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee's Military Commission in Hong Kong, he advised Deng Fa, the commander-in-chief of the "May 1st" parade in Hong Kong, who was then a member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, to cancel the parade and avoid many underground party members and responsible persons of the CCP in Hong Kong. He was arrested by Hong Kong Ying, but criticized by then General Secretary Xiang Zhongfa as "right-leaning escapeism"!
(3) "Left" can also ruin the Chinese revolution.
Citing Mao Zedong's incisive analysis, Cao Erbao explained that during the Second Revolution, "the mistakes of working in the White Areas, especially the third 'Left' line", were "often and unconditionally calling for and organizing political strikes, alliance strikes, school strikes, Market strikes, exercise strikes, post strikes, demonstrations, flying rallies, and armed riots are difficult or impossible to get the participation and support of the masses. struggle"."
It is the "special party situation" that has been ruled by the "Leftist" line three times within the party for nearly 10 years, which has made the CCP deeply realize an irrefutable truth: "The "Left" thing is terrible in the history of our party! A good thing , was thrown away by him at once. The right can ruin socialism, and the 'left' can also ruin socialism" (Deng Xiaoping)!
Further reading:
Cao Erbao talks about the CCP and Hong Kong.
3｜ Zhou Enlai is a representative of the correct line of work in Hong Kong and Macau