No. 3 Dongyuanheng Road, Yuexiu South Road, Guangzhou , A small red building stands quietly among the tall buildings. It used to be the garden villa "East Garden" of Li Zhun, the Admiral of the Guangdong Navy in the late Qing Dynasty. In 1925, and supported the anti-imperialist patriotic movement of the people in Shanghai on May 30, and a vigorous strike movement swept across Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Its leading organization, the Provincial-Hong Kong Strike Committee, was stationed here.
"The May 30th Massacre" ignited the strike craze.
In the development of history, sometimes a small spark of struggle will trigger a raging revolutionary flame. In May 1925, Shanghai workers opposed the strike of foreign capitalists. It is such a tinder. The upsurge of the nationwide revolution started from this strike.
On May 15, 1925, a Japanese capitalist at the No. 7 Cotton Factory in Shanghai shot and killed Gu Zhenghong, a worker representative and a Communist Party member who led the workers into the factory to demand resumption of work. On May 30, workers and students in Shanghai were protesting against imperialism, but they were brutally shot by British patrolmen in the concession, killing 13 people on the spot and injuring countless others. This was the "May 30 Massacre" that shocked the whole country.
The "May 30 Massacre" aroused great anger in the whole of Shanghai and the whole Chinese people. Under the impetus of the Communist Party of China, a national movement against imperialism quickly swept across the country, known in history as the May 30 Movement. The provincial and Hong Kong strikes in Guangzhou and Hong Kong were an important part of this movement.
.25 million people participated in the provincial and Hong Kong strike which lasted for 16 months.
After the "May 30 Massacre", the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China held a party and youth league meeting on the evening of May 31, and decided to organize a "temporary committee" to contact workers, agriculture, business, Revolutionary groups such as the school and the young soldiers held demonstrations and planned a general strike in the province and Hong Kong to support the anti-imperialist patriotic struggle of the Shanghai people.
In early June 1925, the Guangzhou Provisional Committee of the CPC Central Committee and the Guangdong District Committee of the CPC appointed Deng Zhongxia and Su Zhaozheng to form a party group to organize a strike in Hong Kong. At the same time, the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China appointed Feng Jupo, Chen Yannian and other 6 people to form a party group, responsible for launching the strike of Guangzhou foreign workers and organizing the reception of Hong Kong strikers.
On June 19, the Hong Kong seafarers first announced a strike, which shocked China and foreign countries to break out a general strike in the province and Hong Kong. Following the seafarers, more than 200,000 workers in the printing, westernization, and port handling unions joined the strike, of which more than 100,000 left Hong Kong and returned to the mainland. On June 21, more than 3,000 Chinese foreign workers also announced a strike in the Shamian Concession, leaving Shamian collectively and returning to downtown Guangzhou.
In order to effectively lead the strike, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China established the Provincial and Hong Kong Strike Workers Congress and the Strike Committee as the highest council and executive body for the strike.
Strike worker credentials (file photo). Figure According to Xinhua News Agency
The strike lasted for 16 months and the number of participants reached 250,000. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the workers of the province and Hong Kong united as one, actively participated in the struggle against imperialism and warlords, made important contributions to the unification of the Guangdong revolutionary base area, and became a powerful pillar of the Guangzhou revolutionary government.
The magnificent provincial and Hong Kong strike was an important practice in leading the Chinese revolutionary movement at the beginning of the Communist Party of China. Its length, scale, and tight organization are unprecedented in the history of the Chinese labor movement and rare in the history of the world labor movement.
In July 1926, the National Revolutionary Army took the oath of the Northern Expedition, and the focus of the revolution gradually shifted to the north. In order to concentrate on supporting the Northern Expedition and consolidate the rear of the Guangdong revolutionary base, on October 10, the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Declaration on Automatically Stopping Blockade for the Provincial and Hong Kong Strikes", and the Provincial and Hong Kong Strike Committee also issued the "Declaration on Stopping the Blockade".On this day, 300,000 people in Guangzhou held a grand rally to unanimously support the decision made by the Provincial and Hong Kong Strike Committee on ending the blockade and ending the strike. So far, the provincial-Hong Kong strike has ended.
Today, the Provincial-Hong Kong Strike Memorial Hall, built on the former site of the Provincial-Hong Kong Strike Committee, bears witness to this history that has had a profound impact on the history of the Chinese labor movement.
Reference: Ninety Years of the Communist Party of China: The New Democratic Revolution
