Living in today's era, we have a beautiful and prosperous living environment, but we should know that today's motherland can have such prosperity and strength because there are countless heroic predecessors who have fought bloody battles on the battlefield. In the life of war for decades, we have defeated the enemy again and again, which has finally established our new China. Without their past dedication and sacrifice, we would not be able to enjoy such a quiet and peaceful life now.
But for the wartime predecessors, every battle could be a turning point in their lives. Like Chen Changhao, who was once the general political commissar of the Red Front, he was famous during the Red Army, but after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, there was no news about him, and after the founding of New China, he only became the deputy director, and the main factor that led to the turning point in his life was the failure of the Leading West Road Army.
Chen Changhao, born in Hanyang County, Wuhan City, graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, joined the Communist Party of China in November 1930, and successively served as secretary of the Eyu-Anhui Central Branch of the Communist Youth League, vice chairman of the Military Commission of the Eyu-Anhui Branch of the Communist Party of China, political commissar of the Red Fourth Front, deputy director of education of the Central Marxist-Leninist Academy, and deputy director of the Central Compilation Bureau.
In October 1936, the three main forces of the Red Army met in Huining, Gansu Province, marking the victory of the Long March of 10,000 miles, although on the surface it was very brilliant, but there were still many problems hidden behind it that remained to be solved. The original Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region was sparsely populated and poorly landed, with a total population of only 400,000. However, the Red Second and Fourth Fronts that reached northern Shaanxi had nearly 50,000 people. With the production capacity of Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, it is difficult to maintain such a huge army supply, and the logistical pressure is huge.
For the sake of the subsequent survival and development of the Red Army, the Central Military Commission finally decided to abandon the original plan to capture Ningxia, and the Hexi troops formed the Western Route Army. The purpose was twofold: to first cross the west of the Yellow River, occupy Ningxia, establish a stronghold in Hexi, and enter Xinjiang from the west to establish communication channels with the Soviet Union and receive Soviet material assistance. The Central Committee also telephoned the Military and Political Committee of the Western Route Army for consultation in this regard. The Military and Political Committee of the Western Route Army held a meeting and unanimously decided to advance westward and sent a telegram to the Central Committee. Subsequently, the Central Committee sent a telegram to the Western Route Army: agreed to go west, and said that the Xinjiang relay was being prepared. In this way, the Western Route Army embarked on a bumpy road. On November 11, the central authorities called to ask whether the Western Route Army was sure to move west alone to approach Xinjiang to obtain relief, and intended to let the Western Route Army return to the east. On November 12, the leader of the Western Route Army replied that "we can complete the task."
At that time, there were 21,800 people in the newly formed Western Route Army, Chen Changhao served as the chairman of the Military and Political Committee of the Western Route Army and concurrently served as the political commissar of the Western Route Army, and Xu was the vice chairman of the Military and Political Committee of the Western Route Army and the commander-in-chief of the Western Route Army. Although there were more than 20,000 people on the western route, its equipment was backward and there was no source of materials, and although it annihilated more than 6,000 enemies after crossing the river and achieved outstanding results, the losses of our army were not small. After the Bloody Battle of Gulang, the whole army was reduced to fifteen thousand people, and after the Battle of Gaotai, the entire Red Fifth Army was almost completely destroyed, and the Western Route Army suffered heavy losses. During the retreat of the following months, the remaining personnel of the Western Route Army suffered heavy casualties. Eventually, only a few hundred people arrived in Xinjiang, and another four thousand returned to Yan'an. The rest were either sacrificed or exiled throughout the Northwest.
Due to a stomach disease on the way, Chen Changhao and Xu Xiangqian separated, and after that, the trajectory of Chen Changhao's life was very different from his old partner Xu Xiangqian, which was probably unexpected when the two broke up. The day after he arrived in Wuhan, he came to Yingshan County, Hubei Province, an old revolutionary area, with the intention of re-raising the banner of righteousness here and establishing an anti-Japanese armed force. However, the local reactionary forces were very arrogant, and Chen Changhao felt that his wish was difficult to realize. At this time, Chen Changhao's mood of missing his relatives was even stronger, so he wrote a letter to his relatives and friends in his hometown in Hanyang and asked them to meet. In Hankou, after meeting with his wife and children after a 10-year absence, Chen Changhao had a heart affair and rushed to northern Shaanxi, where he arrived in August 1937. As the main leader of the Western Route Army, he had to take full responsibility for the affairs of the big and small, and has been teaching in the public schools of northern Shaanxi ever since. In April 1938, he had a recurrence of a stomach ulcer and, after applying to his superiors, he flew to Moscow for treatment. Since then, he has begun his career of more than 10 years of wandering in foreign countries.
After the operation, he stayed in the Comintern Sanatorium, and chen Zuze, the eldest son who came to Moscow with him, was educated at the Comintern Children's Home. More than a year later, his second son, Chen Zutao, also came to the Soviet Union to attend school with his brother.
In 1941, when war destroyed their comfortable soviet lives, he was first transported to the rear and then more than a year later to Moscow to work as an interpreter for the People's Foreign Affairs Committee of the USSR. Finally, it was transferred to the Soviet Publishing House of Foreign Literature and National Culture. From 1946 onwards, Chen Changhao was responsible for the compilation of the new Edition of the Russian-Chinese Dictionary. After five years of hard work, the Russian-Chinese Dictionary was compiled in 1951. A few months later, his request to return home was approved in China.
In 1952, he returned to his homeland with his Soviet wife and son. After leaving the motherland for more than ten years, he returned again, but he was no longer human, and his comrades-in-arms and subordinates had become the founding heroes of the country with outstanding military achievements. But he spent more than a decade in the Soviet Union without making any contribution to the cause of the War of Resistance Against Japan and the liberation of the motherland.
Soon after, he waited for his appointment as deputy director of education at the Marxist-Leninist Academy, and was subsequently transferred to the deputy director of the Sino-Argentine Compilation Bureau, which, judging from his many years of experience in the Soviet Union, could be said to be a very suitable job for him.
Later, due to the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations, he broke up with his Soviet wife and eventually separated. Relatives and friends saw that it was not easy for him to live alone, so they introduced him to Meng Li, who works at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Meng Li is also an old revolutionary, her husband died a few years ago, her two daughters are still young, he likes these two little girls very much. After more than a year of getting along, Meng Li finally decided to marry him. In July 1965, 40-year-old Meng Li and 59-year-old Chen Changhao were officially married.
However, their happy life had just begun, and they entered a special era, he also experienced hardships, he could not bear the pain, he swallowed sleeping pills on the night of July 30, 1967, and died, he was 61 years old. On 20 August 1980, 13 years after his death, an organizational memorial service was held for him. The commemorative ceremony was presided over by Xu Shuai and attended by more than 500 people.