Inaugural Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly of North China
"A sword stuck in the heart of an enemy"
The "North China United University" was the first institution of higher learning founded by our Party behind enemy lines during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and was the predecessor of Chinese Min University, the Central Conservatory of Music, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Central Academy of Drama, the Beijing Foreign Chinese University, and the China Academy of Art. From 1939 to 1945, the school was run for six years in the anti-Japanese base area behind enemy lines in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, of which the school was insisted on running for three years in Pingfang Village, Fuping County.
During the revolutionary war years, especially in the extremely arduous environment of struggle behind enemy lines, the North China United Congress adhered to the educational policy of "training revolutionary cadres for the needs of the actual struggle of the revolution," adhered to the direction of revolutionization, regularization, and intellectualization, explored a unique model that suited both the needs of war and the development of education, trained and transported nearly 10,000 revolutionary backbones, made outstanding contributions to the cause of national liberation, and was praised as "a sword inserted in the heart of the enemy."
On July 7, 1939, the All-Out War of Resistance entered its third year. On the square on the west side of the Qiao'ergou Catholic Church in Yan'an, northern Shaanxi, Cheng Fangwu, president of North China Union University and secretary of the party group, announced the official establishment of North China United University and asked Mao Zedong to make a report for the joint masters and students. On July 12, all the teachers and students of the United Nations General Assembly set out from Yan'an, crossed the Yellow River at The Pantang Ferry Crossing via Qingjian, Suide, Mizhi, and Wucheng, crossed the heavily guarded Tongpu Railway between Japan and Kosovo, crossed the Grand Canyon in the upper reaches of the Tuotuo River, and traveled for three months through starry night and night, and finally reached Chengnanzhuang in Fuping, Hebei Province, where the Northern Branch of the CPC Central Committee and the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region are located.
Just two months before the north China United University was announced, the Japanese army invading China suddenly increased its troops in north China in a vain attempt to cross the Yellow River and attack northern Shaanxi, the seat of the CPC Central Committee. There are 17 cadre schools in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, with tens of thousands of teachers and students, and the school has encountered many difficulties. In light of the changes in the situation, the party Central Committee decided that the Northern Shaanxi Public School, the Lu Xun Art Institute, the Yan'an Workers' School, and the Anwubao Wartime Youth Training Class would jointly establish the North China United University and go to the anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines in North China to carry out national defense education.
Cheng Fangwu, a proletarian revolutionary, proletarian educator, and famous translator, was the president of the North China United Nations University
The Fanghua years of the North China United Congress in Jin-Cha-Ji
In the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area 80 years ago, such a group of enthusiastic young people were active. They hold up books as students, backpacks as benches, knees as desks; they pick up steel guns as warriors, anti-"sweeping", guerrilla fighting; they uphold the school motto of "unity, advancement, hard work, and firmness", making progress in learning and growing up in battle. Today, 80 years later, although most of them have passed away, in the books and historical materials, in the stories of the people, we can still see their figures and hear their stories...
Pingfang Village, a quiet and peaceful small mountain village in the southern foothills of Shenxian Mountain in Fuping County. The small river in front of the village trickles and flows day and night. The cottage is built on a mountain, reaching the mountainside. A typical masonry courtyard, three main rooms are staggered with the box room and the south room. This old grandfather is a hero and a righteous man, and he is quite prestigious in the local area, and his son is upright and loves to fight and hug injustice. In 1942, Cheng Fangwu, president of North China Union University, lived in this courtyard. The south house is the meeting and office space, the east room of the main room is the lounge, the west wing room is the gang room, and there was originally a small door connecting with the neighboring courtyard, which is the passage for emergency evacuation.
In the autumn of 1942, during the Devil's 'Great Purge', Principal Cheng Fangwu received the order to evacuate and immediately led the students to move to the mountains. The day after they withdrew, the devil's plane came to bomb them, and a bomb landed on the roof of the landlord's house, and the house collapsed. Fortunately, the joint masters and students were evacuated in time. ”
The flag of North China Union University flies high in the Jin-Cha-Ji base area. Walking into the Revolution Memorial Hall of the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region in Chengnanzhuang, in the exhibition area of "Education Undertakings" in the Border District, the explanations of the docents and the introduction of pictures and texts from the North China United University gave us a preliminary understanding of the first institution of higher learning founded by the party behind enemy lines. Immersed in the search for books and documents in the library of the memorial hall, and then all the pieces are connected together, the outline of North China Union University gradually becomes clear.
On November 7, 1939, north China Union University held a grand opening ceremony on a wheat field in Nanzhuang, Fuping County. In addition to all the teachers and students of the North China United University and the leaders of the party, government, and army of the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, the ceremony was also attended by a delegation from the border region led by Li Gonggong, a well-known patriotic democrat at Yunnan University. Before the ceremony was over, snowflakes fell from the air, and the rumbling sound of the ghosts' winter "sweeping" cannons was faintly heard in the distance...
In the Fuping Mountains in summer, the weather is cloudy and sunny. On the hillside north of Pingfang Village, a courtyard made of earth and stone is dilapidated, and some houses are only ruined and broken walls. On the village road, several young people either talk to the villagers or take measurements to register. Village cadres said that in recent years, the village has been lifted out of poverty, some villagers have built new houses under the slope, some have moved to other places, and most of these old houses on the mountain have been empty for a long time. The leaders of Renmin University have also visited the village many times, and recently signed a contract with the county to jointly start the renovation project of the old site of North China United University, and the mapping work will be completed immediately. At that time, President Cheng Fangwu and the teachers and students of the School of Law and Politics of the United Nations University lived in the village for a while, and the old house was the dormitory and classroom of the North China United University.
In October 1939, after the North China United General Assembly arrived in Chengnanzhuang, the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region distributed a new set of yellow military uniforms, a white cloth shirt, and a military quilt to each teacher and student, which was all the equipment of the members of the United University. Because they were behind enemy lines, in order to prevent the invasion of Japanese and pseudo-sneak attacks, the school department, the social science department, the literature and art department, the youth department, the workers department and the health department were scattered to many villages such as Yijiazhuang, Liyuanzhuang, Huashan, Huagoukou and Wazadi.
Regarding the arduous study, life and struggle of North China United University in Jinchaji, from the book "The People's University" printed by the Northeast Bookstore in Harbin in 1948, we can see the following account -
Because of the war, the school could not have a fixed area; it was in the countryside, the residences of the various ministries were scattered; the financial difficulties, the equipment was very rudimentary, and there were only a few books. No classrooms, no auditoriums, no good desks and chairs benches... Under the tree is the classroom, the earthen house vacated by the peasants' home is the dormitory, the square is used as an auditorium, the backpack made of quilts replaces the chair, and the door board of the common people can also be used as a blackboard...
At this time, fighting is very frequent, and it is very common to hear the sound of gunfire. Life is even more difficult, without food, they eat sorghum beans eaten by livestock, and the ration is small, they cannot eat enough, and there is still the possibility of entering guerrilla warfare at any time...
The Japanese mobilized more than 70,000 troops to carry out a crazy and cruel autumn "sweep" of Jin-Cha-Ji, which lasted for two months and adopted a vicious "three-light policy." More than 4,000 people in the school were scattered to the villages of the five counties, fighting guerrillas with the peasants, fighting against the enemy, and helping the autumn harvest and autumn ploughing. When the purge ended in November, the school immediately gathered and continued teaching...
The uncle of a villager in Pingfang Village was one of the seven Communist Party members who died under the butcher's knife during the War of Resistance. He pointed to several mounds on the slope and said, "This is the copper-smelting cave that was repaired by the United Nations General Assembly that year." Listening to the old man," the devils blockaded the Liberated Areas and there was a shortage of materials, so the teachers and students of the United Nations General Assembly collected copper basins and bronze statues from various villages, melted them, smelted them into copper billets, and then transported them to the Eighth Route Army Arsenal to make bullets. ”
Where there is resistance, there is sacrifice. This is true for the cadres and masses in the border areas, as well as for the teachers and students of the United Nations General Assembly. Fang Ting, a 97-year-old member of the North China United University and a retired cadre of the Beijing Evening News, wrote in his "Memorial Record": "The enemy sneaked in at dawn, and we had to get up when we were directly south of Samsung, and we did not sleep a single night." During the day, I dare not light a fire to cook, and then make up for food in the middle of the night, often hungry... One day in December, a team of the General Assembly hid in the Rouge Cave area. After they climbed the mountain in the morning and hid in the grove, the stones under her feet as Xin Lin, a student of the United Nations University, walked around, sliding, and her companions watched her roll down the mountain and fall under the cliff. Everyone went down to look for it, only to see that Xin Lin's face was bloodless and he had stopped breathing. Xin Lin was the niece of Hu Zongnan, who originally went to school in Beiping, a patriotic young man who betrayed his reactionary family and threw himself into the anti-Japanese war, and unfortunately died on the Taihang Mountain without pay. ”
Cheng Fangwu's residence at Shulu School
North China United University runs schools in Shulu County
In November 1946, more than 1,000 teachers and students of the North China United University set off from Guangling, Shanxi, passed through Lingqiu, Fuping, Tang County, Anguo, Shenze and other counties, traveled more than 800 miles, and at the end of November, successfully moved to the villages around Xincheng and Dalizhuang in the east of Shulu County (now Xinji). The Faculty of Literature and Art is located in Jia LiZhuang. The North China United University runs schools in rural areas, and in order to welcome the liberation of the whole country and cultivate talents, it has declared the "Plains Mission Group" to the outside world.
While running the school with painstaking efforts, the teachers and students of North China Union University also actively helped the villages run private schools, write blackboard newspapers, and engage in high-rise radio; the literary and art work troupe performed revolutionary literary and artistic programs in the streets, taught students and rural youth to sing revolutionary songs, and twisted the songs of northern Shaanxi. North China Union University is like a huge revolutionary seeding machine, sowing revolutionary ideas and revolutionary culture in the hearts of thousands of locals.
Ai Qing, Wang Kun, Guo Lanying, Zhou Weizhi, He Jingzhi and other literary and artistic leaders who are familiar to us have all fought and lived here. To this day, the classrooms, dormitories, barracks and canteens of the North China United University are still preserved here, and they have been shining in the long river of time.
The former site of Da Li Zhuang Village is the courtyard where Cheng Fangwu, the president of the North China United University and a proletarian revolutionary of the older generation, once lived, and only the West House remains. In the second half of 1965, the Central Military Commission instructed military academies and schools to suspend classes to participate in the local socialist education movement (Siqing), and at the time of the writer's time, at the Shijiazhuang Railway Soldier College, more than 2,000 teaching staff were ordered to rush to Shulu County to participate in the local Siqing. We live in our hometowns, eat and live and work together like the old Eighth Road did in those days, engage in four emotions at night, and help villagers criticize the "four unclear elements," the main criticism is those village cadres who eat more and occupy more.
At that time, the villagers often said that we were like the students of the "North China United University" at that time, although it had been nearly 20 years, the old people in the village still had special feelings for the "Plains Mission Group", and the memory of the drama troupe was particularly deep. At that time, the stages were very simple, and they would sing to the villagers once every three to five, including "Three Dozen Zhujiazhuang" and "Forced to Go to Liangshan", and each village had set up a drama troupe, and the county had established a "Golden Bundle Deer Critic Troupe". When the play was performed, people from other villages also came, and there were many people. ”
He Jingzhi, former deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, once lived in a courtyard in Jia Lizhuang Village, which is still well preserved; in the gate cave, there is a schematic map of the north China United University stationed in Xinji New Town, and on the wall of the West Wing hang some photos, biographies, and correspondence of the masters and students of the North China Federation of china in those years. What is particularly noteworthy is that in the empty fish tank, a piece of cotton kernel cake of that year is carefully preserved, saying that the famous singer Guo Lanying gave it to the landlord as a meal fee when he left that year, and the landlord has been preserved to this day.
According to the recollections of the villagers in Jia Lizhuang Village, after the mission came, it carried out land reform, organized the masses, mobilized the masses, and armed the masses ideologically. There was also a commendation meeting for combat heroes, and Guo Lanying and Wang Kun of the Music Department left a lot of literary and artistic programs, which made people very impressed.
Villagers in Jia Lizhuang recalled that after the liberation of the North China United Congress, the old leaders and comrades of the North China United Congress all came to Jia Lizhuang to visit their relatives in the province, including Xu Guangyao and Bai Shi, the authors of "Little Soldier Zhang Ga." Guo Lanying once wrote a memoir saying that Xiao Lijiazhuang raised her and missed this history very much. Zhou Weizhi and Wang Kun's first son, Zhou Qiyue, was born here.
Although it has been more than 70 years, when asked about the scene of the North China United University running a school here, the old people passing through the village in the new town have vividly remembered this unforgettable time, and they opened the conversation box.
"In 1947, a mission group came from our village to help the village carry out land reform, which is said to be the foreign language institute, some of which live in Qianjie, and three retail households, most of whom are in the southwest corner of our village. They grasped the policy quite well, and I heard that in other villages or other counties, they were extremely leftist, and there were a lot of deaths and injuries, and there was not a single person in our village. In the equal division of real estate, it is particularly successful and fair, and it has been welcomed by the people. In terms of life, when they wake up in the morning, some of them read quietly on the roof, and some of them go to the wild to read foreign languages and memorize words. ”
In the more than a year that the North China United Congress has been in Shulu, it has been like a huge revolutionary seeding machine, sowing revolutionary ideas and revolutionary culture on the land of Xinji. Although these old sites are somewhat lonely and lonely, the glory they once was will be remembered and remembered by future generations forever.
North China University in Zhengding
North China Union University and North China University merged to form North China University
There is a beautiful Catholic church located in cross street of Zhengding County, Shijiazhuang City, which is now in the 256th Hospital of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and was built in the sixth year of Tongzhi (1867). The existing buildings of the church include the Catholic Church, the Priest's Building, the Nuns' Building, and two inscriptions to commemorate the foreign clergy who died to protect the local people during the Japanese occupation.
On August 24, 1948, North China Union University and North University merged to form North China University, and the campus was located here. The Catholic church sits north to south, and the main body is a typical single-storey Gothic building with a partial two-storey building. In the 1960s, the original high-rise towers on both sides of the church were destroyed, the doors and windows were replaced by new glass doors and windows, and the interior decoration of the church was changed. Located on the east side of the Catholic Church, the Priest Building (now known as the Qixian Building) is a Western-style building with two floors, five wide rooms and one deep front and rear corridors.
Chairman Zhu De and President of the North China United University Cheng Fangwu
In 1948, when North China University (the predecessor of Chinese Min University) was running here, President Wu Yuzhang and the famous writer Ding Ling worked here, and the novel "The Sun Shines on the Sangan River" was also created by Ding Ling. Except for some changes to the roof, doors, windows and decoration, the building has basically maintained its original appearance. The Nuns' Building, located on the south side of the Priest's Building, was originally a living quarters for church nuns, and was once used as a student dormitory when North China University was running the school here, but the room is now vacant.
The above three historical buildings are the remains of the Catholic Church, of which the church epitomizes the characteristics of Western Gothic architecture, with superb technology and artistry, with high historical, artistic and scientific value, providing an example for the study of Western architecture. North China University was relocated here in 1948, cultivating a large number of cadres and talents for New China, leaving an indelible mark on modern history.
The former site of the Department of Engineering of North China University
Nine years of running the school, interpreting a modern higher education legend
In the six years that Fuping, Quyang, Tangxian, Pingshan, Lingshou, and Xingtang were running schools in the middle school, in the revolutionary hot land of Jin-Cha-Ji, North China United University gathered a number of well-known scholars and professors in China at that time, such as He Ganzhi, Lü Ji, Shakov, and Jiang Longji, and absorbed a large number of enthusiastic young people in Beiping, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang and other cities and enemy-occupied areas. Li Gongpu praised the North China United Congress as "the first institution of higher learning set up behind enemy lines, unprecedented in history, a heroic cause, and a sword inserted in the heart of the enemy."
In August 1945, after Japan's defeat and surrender, the North China United University was transferred with the army, and each department went to Zhangjiakou, Shijiazhuang, Zhengding and other places, and the trainees participated in the land reform while studying. In May 1948, the North China United University in the Jin-Cha-Ji Liberated Area merged with the North University in the Jin-Ji-Luyu Liberated Area to form North China University. After the founding of New China, in order to cultivate construction talents with Marxist-Leninist qualities and professional knowledge, the Party Central Committee decided to establish Chinese University on the basis of North China University, which is also the first new type of university founded by our Party. At this point, North China United University finally completed the historical road and revolutionary task of running schools from Yan'an to Chengnanzhuang, Zhangjiakou, Shulu, and Zhengding in the capital Beijing.
Today Chinese Min University
The Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region Revolution Memorial Hall provides such a set of statistics: The North China United University has been running schools in the anti-Japanese base area behind enemy lines in Jin-Cha-Ji for 6 years, graduating more than 80 teams (classes) of students, and training more than 8,000 cadres for the Chinese people in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Among them, there are more than 3,000 political, economic and administrative cadres, more than 3,000 education cadres, and more than 1,000 literary and artistic cadres. During this period, the number of cadres assigned to work in a period of training by the North China United General Assembly reached more than 10,000, cultivated and transported a large number of talents for the Chinese revolution, and made indelible contributions to persisting in the War of Resistance Behind Enemy Lines and developing and expanding base areas.