The person we are going to talk about today is also from the Northeast. After the September 18th Incident, under the leadership of our party, he devoted himself to resisting the Japanese invaders and made great contributions to resisting Japan and saving the country. This person is Chen Lei. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as the deputy governor of Heilongjiang Province and governor. So, what’s the story about Chen Lei?
Chen Lei was born in 1917 in Huachuan, Heilongjiang Province. In his early years, Chen Lei mainly studied in his hometown. It was also during his studies that he experienced the September 18th Incident. When the September 18th Incident occurred, Chen Lei was already 14 years old. At that time, Chen Lei had already awakened the consciousness of the country and the nation. He also witnessed the numerous crimes committed by the Japanese invaders in the Northeast. In 1933, while still studying, Chen Lei began to participate in various anti-Japanese activities. He also witnessed the vigorous development of the anti-Japanese movement in the Northeast.
In 1935, the "December 9th Movement" set off a new upsurge of the nationwide anti-Japanese and national salvation movement. Against this background, Chen Lei gradually understood that our party was the party that truly led the people of all ethnic groups in the country to resist Japan. He also strengthened his inner beliefs and officially joined our party soon after.
After joining the party, Chen Lei continued to be active in the Northeast, joined the Sixth Army of the Northeast Anti-Resistance Alliance, and began to resist the Japanese invaders with arms. After fighting in the Northeast for a period of time, Chen Lei went to the Soviet Union and joined the Soviet International Red Army. At the end of the Anti-Japanese War, he followed the Soviet Union in sending troops to the Northeast and witnessed the surrender of the Japanese invaders. During the War of Liberation, Chen Lei continued to be active in the Northeast region and did a lot of pre-war work for the Northeast Field Army. After the Liaoshen Campaign, the entire Northeast was liberated, and Chen Lei quickly devoted himself to the construction of his homeland.
After the founding of New China, Chen Lei worked in Heilongjiang for a long time and made a huge contribution to the industrial development of Heilongjiang in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. It is particularly worth mentioning that during the construction of the Daqing Oilfield, Chen Lei served as the deputy leader of the Provincial Party Committee's leading group to support the Daqing Oil Campaign, coordinating the human, material and financial resources of Heilongjiang Province and ensuring the construction progress of the Daqing Oilfield.
In 1966, the ten-year special period began, and Chen Lei was promoted to deputy governor of Heilongjiang Province. At that time, the first secretary of the Provincial Party Committee of Heilongjiang Province was Pan Fusheng. During that period, Pan Fusheng devoted himself crazily to that special movement and supported the local rebels. In this context, many veteran cadres, including Chen Lei, were affected and were suspended from their posts.
What's even more outrageous is that starting in 1968, Pan Fusheng proposed that Heilongjiang Province had "secret stumbling blocks" and that it was necessary to dig deep to find class enemies. In this context, a large number of cadres and the masses were classified as "capitalist roaders", and as many as 50,000 cadres were implicated.
In February 1969, Pan Fusheng announced the discovery of the "traitor group" at an enlarged meeting of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee. The previous main leaders of Heilongjiang Province, such as Li Fanwu, Ouyang Qin and Chen Lei, all became members of what Pan Fusheng called the "traitor group". For this reason, Chen Lei was imprisoned and brutally persecuted. You know, at that time Pan Fusheng was the director of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee (equivalent to the secretary of the provincial party committee), but he indiscriminately imprisoned senior cadres, which shows how crazy he was.
After this, Chen Lei was imprisoned for 6 years and was not released until 1975. After the ten-year special period, Chen Lei was reused and served as the governor of Heilongjiang Province in 1979, becoming a provincial-level cadre. In his later years, Chen Lei mainly lived in Harbin, leading an ordinary life. He died of illness in 2006 at the age of 89.
