Summary: Enter Yuyangli , and pursue the memory of the labor movement in the century-old party history.
On the quiet Nanchang Road in Shanghai, there is an inconspicuous alley, Lane 100, Nanchang Road. Before 1949, it was Lao Yuyangli, Huanlong Road. This alley could lead to another alley on Huaihai Middle Road, , namely Lane 567, Huaihai Middle Road. Before 1949, it was Xinyuyangli on Xiafei Road.
In the spring of 1920, in order to avoid the persecution of warlords, Chen Duxiu, a professor at Peking University, secretly left Beijing and came to Shanghai, and moved to No. 2, Yuyangli, Huanlong Road, French Concession. Chen Duxiu is a "star in the ideological world", and his arrival naturally attracted a group of energetic young people. No. 6, Xinyuyangli, Xiafei Road, was originally the residence of the Kuomintang Dai Jitao . In 1920, Yang Mingzhai rented it here and opened the China-Russian News Agency and the Foreign Language Society. In August, the Shanghai Socialist Youth League was established here. On July 23, 1921, the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held at No. 106 Wangzhi Road (now No. 76 Xingye Road, ), announcing the formal establishment of the Communist Party of China. After the First Congress of the Communist Party of China , it was not until October 1922 that the apartment No. 2 of Laoyuyangli became the actual office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. As a vanguard organization of the working class, the program passed by the First Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated: "The basic task of this party is to establish industrial trade unions." On August 11, shortly after the end of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China, the China Labor Union Secretary Department was established in Shanghai, becoming the general institution that openly led the workers' movement. Since then, a series of instructions and orders from the Party were issued from Yuyang, and the Red Labor Movement set off the first magnificent climax in Shanghai.
This year marks the 101st anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Let us go into Yuyang, review the "firsts" that happened here, witness the historical start of the great journey of the Communist Party of China, and appreciate the indissoluble bond between Shanghai's Red Workers Movement and the Chinese Revolution.
The planning place for the first May Day commemoration event
In modern times, Shanghai is the birthplace of Chinese industry and the cradle of the working class. During the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Shanghai workers launched the "June 3" strike to support patriotic students in Beijing. This was the first political strike with an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal nature in modern Chinese history. The working class began to step onto China's political stage with an independent attitude. After entering the 1920s, Shanghai, as China's largest industrial and commercial center and the largest metropolis in the Far East, accounted for more than 60% of the country's industrial capital and output value. In 1920, Shanghai had a permanent population of about 2.3 million, of which 514,000 workers were workers, of which more than 180,000 industrial workers were more than one-quarter of the total number of workers in the country. After moving into Yuyangli, Chen Duxiu used his spare time to personally go to the Chinese Association of Industry and other labor groups to conduct investigations, go to the dock workers to learn about the strike situation, and fully grasp the first-hand materials about the Shanghai working class. He also invited progressive students and revolutionary young people from Peking University to go deep into the workers to further understand the current situation of workers' production and life. In April 1920, Chen Duxiu entrusted Li Cishan to go to the east of Hu to investigate the situation of enterprises and working class, and also introduced that Yu Xiusong went to Hongkou Pig Iron Factory to work. On April 2, Chen Duxiu attended the founding meeting of the Shanghai Shipping and Standalone Federation. In his speech, he pointed out: "Only the workmanship is the pillar", "only the workmanship is the most useful and most expensive", and hopes that "the workmanship is awakened quickly" and fight for his own rights. The working class in Shanghai is relatively concentrated, but without unified leadership and lacks organized actions. "It is not possible to unite ten thousand workers like Shanghai." In view of this, Chen Duxiu planned the first organized and large-scale May Day commemoration event in Chinese history at his residence in Yuyangli.
In the early morning of May 1, the military and police who heard the news occupied the Nanshi Public Stadium. But the threat of force cannot scare the workers. At 1 pm, more than 5,000 workers had gathered around the stadium. The organizers decided to expand the scale of the memorial meeting and change the venue of the memorial meeting. Along the way, the workers' team held up the red flag, with slogans shook the sky, breaking through the heavy obstacles of reactionary military and police and concession police. At 3 pm, the commemorative conference was officially held on a wasteland in the old target field on Wujin Road. Chen Duxiu gave a speech amid the thunderous cheers.Finally, the conference passed a resolution requiring the implementation of the eight-hour working system , organize real trade unions, and issued calls for "protesting on warlord oppression" and "Long live the labor force". On this day, Chen Duxiu, Chen Wangdao and others also attended the gathering at Hudong Chengzhong Middle School to commemorate the May Day International Labor Day. This massive May 1st International Labor Day commemoration event "is the first time that the Shanghai industry has completely realized", thus leaving a strong mark in the history of the Party’s founding and the history of the labor movement.
The first popular publication to promote Marxism-Leninism
On May 1, 1920, Chen Duxiu's editor-in-chief launched the "Labor Day Memorial" and Li Hanjun presided over the editorial "Weekly Commentary" published the " Labor Day Commemoration" special account, which effectively supported the Shanghai May 1st International Labor Day Memorial Conference.
"New Youth" was originally named " Youth Magazine ". It was founded by Chen Duxiu in Shanghai on September 15, 1915. It was renamed "New Youth" from the second volume in 1916. In early 1917, the editorial department moved to Beijing. In 1920, with Chen Duxiu moving south, the editorial department of "New Youth" moved from Beijing to No. 2, Laoyuyangli, Huanlong Road, Shanghai again.
After coming to Shanghai this time, Chen Duxiu's eyes and energy have begun to shift from the student and intellectual circles to the worker group. At that time, the Housheng Cotton Mill located in Yangshupu, Hudong, actively promoted the " Tailo " in pursuit of profit maximization, and the workers suffered a lot. Chen Duxiu actively participated in the debate between the press and industry in Changsha and Shanghai on the "Hunan Women's Workers Issue of Shanghai Health and Health Spinning Factory". In the "Labor Day Memorial" of "New Youth", Chen Duxiu published an article "The Issue of Female Workers in Shanghai Housheng Cotton Mill in Hunan". The article wrote: "Female workers work 12 hours a day, with a monthly salary of about 8 yuan. The degree of living in Shanghai will not die of cold and hunger. Mu Ouchu Mr. has a net profit of more than twice the wages of all workers. The remaining work value of workers is snatched away by capitalists and shareholders in the name of dividends, and the workers do not get any of them as usual." It not only shows the huge gap between the rich and the poor and sharp opposition between workers and capitalists, but further reveals that the crux of the labor problem is the irreconcilable contradiction between proletariat and bourgeois .
"New Youth" is a publication for the intellectual and ideological circles, while the majority of workers receive limited education and generally have low cultural levels. In order to be able to publicize Marxist theory to workers in an easy-to-understand manner, on August 15, 1920, Li Hanjun and Chen Duxiu founded a popular publication " Labor Circle " at their residence No. 2, Laoyuyangli. The magazine is published every Sunday, and the general sales office is the newly established Shanghai New Youth Club. The cover article on the first issue of "Labor World" is Chen Duxiu's speech "The Questions of Two Workers", and at the same time, Li Hanjun's article "Why do you need to print this newspaper". Li Hanjun pointed out in the article: "Workers are already the hardest in the world, and we Chinese workers are even harder than foreign workers. What is the reason? Just because foreign workers know a little about what they should know, while we Chinese workers don't know what they should know." The Labor Circle uses easy-to-understand language to tell workers what they should know, clarify the reasons for their suffering, and call on everyone to unite and fight, which resonates widely among workers. Chen Wenhuan, a worker at Yangshupu Electric Light Factory, wrote an article to the editorial department, saying: "With the Labor World, our troubled workers have something to say and have grievances to resolve."
The first party-led trade union organization
1920 On August 22, 1920, Chen Duxiu published "Real Workers Group" in the "Labor World" weekly, and issued a call: "Aware workers! Hurry up and unite yourself and organize real workers group!" This initiative caused a great response among the workers. Chen Wenhuan, an fitter of Yangshupu Electric Lamp Factory, and Li Zhong, a forging worker at the Navy Shipbuilding Institute, are enthusiastic readers of "Labor World". The two exchanged ideas through this "worker's mouthpiece", got to know each other, and then became like-minded friends.On September 18 of that year, Chen Wenhuan said in a letter to Li Zhong: "Now you want to launch a machine union, which I agree with, because all the clubs in China now have a nameless sign!" After receiving the letter, Li Zhong immediately sent the draft of the machine union charter he and Chen Duxiu to draft. According to this charter, Chen Wenhuan actively carried out activities to establish a trade union at Yangshupu Electric Light Factory.
, located at No. 6, Xinyuyangli, Xiafei Road, Foreign Language Society, nominally recruits students, but is actually a school for the Party to train cadres. Among the students are Li Zhong, a worker from the Jiangnan Shipbuilding Institute. At 5 pm on October 3, 1920, the Shanghai Machinery Union called for a start-up meeting in Xinyuyangli 6. In addition to more than 80 initiators from Jiangnan Shipbuilding Institute, Yangshupu Electric Light Factory, Housheng Cotton Mill, Dongyang Cotton Mill, Hengfeng Cotton Mill, and other factories, Chen Duxiu, Yang Mingzhai, Li Hanjun, Li Qihan , Wang Ping and Wu Rongcang attended the meeting as "visitors" and were invited to be "honorary members". Li Zhong served as the interim chairman of the meeting and reported on the preparations for the Shanghai Machinery Union. The meeting discussed and passed the 6 chapters and 32 articles of the "Shanghai Machinery Trade Union Brochure", which was the earliest trade union organization charter formulated under the leadership of the early organization of the Communist Party of China. After the launch of the Shanghai Machinery Union, the number of members has grown from dozens to more than 370 in just over two months. At 3 pm on November 21, 1920, after more than two months of active preparation, the Shanghai Machinery Union held a founding meeting at Shanghai Public School, No. 207 Baike Road (now Fengyang Road). Nearly a thousand members of the association, representatives of various trade unions and guests attended the conference. Famous people in the society such as Sun Yat-sen and Chen Duxiu attended the meeting to congratulate him. The atmosphere at the venue was warm and the grand occasion was unprecedented. At the meeting, Mr. Sun Yat-sen delivered a speech detailing the relationship between machines and capital forces and pointing out that in order to implement people's livelihood, it is necessary to regain civil rights in the hands of bureaucrats. Sun Yat-sen said happily: "What I have always admired the most is the people you work in, so I really like to be friends with workers. Because workers are the most beneficial people to the world, the country, and society." The establishment of the Shanghai Machinery Union has caused great responses in all sectors of society, making the Shanghai workers' movement a new look. On December 2, the Shanghai Machinery Union held a dinner party in France Park (now Revival Park ), inviting well-known people from all walks of life to attend. In his speech, Chairman Chen Wenhuan introduced the preparations and purpose of the association. On December 14, Roblang, director-general of the Executive Department of the World Workers' Labor Federation, the largest trade union organization in the United States, wrote a special letter to the Shanghai Machinery Union. This is the first connection between Chinese workers' groups and foreign workers' organizations, indicating that the Shanghai Machinery Union has also had a huge impact overseas. The Shanghai Machinery Union was the first trade union organization under the leadership of the early organization of the Communist Party of China, marking the stage of the workers' movement from the propaganda and education stage to the stage of organizing workers in a planned manner, that is, the stage of putting theory into practice.
