"On the night of February 7, 91 years ago, the five martyrs of the Left League, Li Weisen, Rou Shi, Hu Yepin, Yin Fu, and Feng Hao, were shot and killed by the Kuomintang reactionaries. In order to expose and protest the atrocities of the Kuomintang authorities, Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng took great risks to secretly compile and print this "Outpost", and the whole process was thrilling. Walking into the memorial hall of the site of the Chinese Left-wing Writers' Union, Huang Changyong, president of the Shanghai Theater Academy, introduced.
Exterior view of the memorial hall at the site of the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union
Huang Changyong has been studying the five martyrs of the Left League for 30 years, and at this time last year, he created a drama under the name of "Outpost", and also put the process of editing and printing "Outpost" "Commemorating the War Dead" on the stage with a high-definition movie.
(Video)
A photo
The Memorial Hall of the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union is located in Hongkou District, where the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union was established on March 2, 1930. "At that time, this was the China University of the Arts, and Lu Xun lived about thirty meters away from here, and Mao Dun was his neighbor." Huang Changyong said, "On the day of the founding of the 'Left League,' more than forty people gathered here, lu Xun delivered a speech entitled "Opinions on the Left Writers' Union," stressing that revolutionary writers must be exposed to practical social struggles. ”
When the "Left League" was founded, at the time of the defeat of the first civil revolutionary war, the Kuomintang reactionaries carried out military encirclement and suppression of the revolutionary base areas on the one hand, and on the other hand, carried out harsh cultural encirclement and suppression of the Kuomintang areas. Therefore, as soon as the "Left League" was established, it was also brutally suppressed by the Kuomintang authorities, such as banning the "Left League" organizations, wanting the members of the "Left League", promulgating various laws and regulations, closing bookstores, banning publications and books, inspecting manuscripts, arresting and torturing them, and secretly killing revolutionary literary and art workers.
The scene of the inaugural meeting of the Left Alliance
"In fact, at the beginning of the establishment of the 'Left League,' it was conceived of making an organ publication of the 'Left League,' but it was forced by the encirclement and suppression pressure of the Kuomintang reactionaries and has not been able to start." Until February 7, 1931, at the detention center of the former Kuomintang Songhu Police Headquarters (now the Longhua Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Site), the sound of criminal gunshots rang out, and the "Twenty-four Martyrs of Longhua", including the five martyrs of the Left League, bravely took the initiative, "This massacre also strengthened the determination of the members of the 'Left League' to make the "Outpost".
Pen holders (reproductions), seals, and clay used in soft stones
Among the five martyrs of the Left Alliance, Roushi translated foreign literature, especially Eastern and Northern European literature, with the help of Lu Xun, and edited publications such as "Yusi", "Chaohua Xun" and "Bud Monthly". After reading Marxist theory, Hu Yepin explicitly defined literature as a service to the revolution, and in the preface to "To Moscow", he emphasized that creation should "grasp the reality of this era of struggle" and "go deep into the society of the proletariat and experience their life and experience their consciousness". Yin Fu was a proletarian revolutionary poet who published many poems, essays, and essays under the pseudonyms Yin Fu, Bai Mang, and Sha Fei. Li Qiushi and Feng Hao are also left-wing writers.
Left Five Martyrs
After the five martyrs were killed, Feng Xuefeng, Lu Xun, and other members of the "Left League," who took over as secretaries of the "Left League" party group, edited the inaugural issue of "Outpost" under very difficult circumstances and set it as a special number to commemorate the war dead. In "Outpost", the article "Chinese Proletarian Revolutionary Literature and the Blood of the Precursor" written by Lu Xun reads: "To commemorate our war dead, that is, to remember the first page of the history of Chinese proletarian revolutionary literature, is recorded by the blood of comrades, always showing the despicable ferocity of the enemy and revealing our constant struggle. ”
For the editing of "Outpost: Commemoration of the War Dead", Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng worked all night. After completion, the two families took a group photo at the photo studio as a souvenir
In the memorial hall, Huang Changyong pointed to a group photo of Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng's families and said: "This photo was left by Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng's family to commemorate this historical moment after the successful editing of "Outpost". In fact, Feng Xuefeng had written articles arguing with Lu Xun because of the revolutionary literary controversy, and Lu Xun's impression of him was not very good, but later after roushi's continuous recommendation, Lu Xun became Feng Xuefeng's mentor and friend, becoming a comrade-in-arms in revolution and literature, and the two families lived close together, often visiting the door, and roushi was the bridge of their friendship. Therefore, after the death of the five martyrs of the Left League, they fought with the same enemy, and the first thing was to edit "Outpost".
Three colors
Feng Xuefeng once recalled a certain evening after the death of the five martyrs: "Mr. Xu Guangping came out to lead me in, and Mr. Lu Xun asked me to sit down on a semi-Japanese-style kang in the outer room, his face was quite dark, and he sat silently on the kang for a while, did not speak for a while, and then took out a poem from the drawer of the kang table to show me, and only said a sentence in a low voice, 'Make up these few words'." Lu Xun "made up these few sentences", which is the famous poem that was later published in the article "For the Memory of Forgetting": "Accustomed to spending a long night in the spring, the woman will have silky sideburns." In the dream, there were still tears of the mother, and the head of the city changed the banner of the king. Bear with watching his peers become new ghosts, angrily looking for small poems in the knife bush. There is no place to write, and the moonlight shines like water on the clothes. ”
After the secret murder of five writers of the Left League, the left-wing cultural circles exposed this atrocity to the world for the first time in the newly founded "Literature and Art News" newspaper by means of letters from readers to find people
Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng began to compile "Outpost", and after the editing was completed, Feng Xuefeng contacted several printing houses, all of whom were forced by the pressure of the Kuomintang reactionaries at that time and did not dare to print it, not to mention the content in the publication, that is, when they saw the title of "Outpost", they were afraid to avoid it. Finally, a small private printing factory reluctantly agreed to print, but the conditions were extremely harsh, the cost was doubled, the masthead and photos were not allowed to be printed, and they had to be taken away immediately after printing overnight. In order to print "Outpost," these conditions were accepted, and Lou Shiyi, a member of the "Left League," and Jiang Feng, who was transferred from the "American League" to be in charge of the secret distribution of "Outpost," were sent to be responsible for proofreading and porting at the printing site.
The printing of "Outpost" was carried out at night, and during the printing process, Lou Shiyi and Jiang Feng sat in the dark machine room all night, accompanied the workers to tell jokes, bought cigarettes and snacks for hospitality, and of course, they were also ready to go to jail at any time. Before dawn, the boss did not allow them to put the printed paper in the printing house for an hour, so they took a rickshaw to transport the undried ink prints to the pavilion upstairs of the Gongdao Bookstore on Old Target Road (now Wujin Road) for binding.
Due to the harsh requirements of the printing plant, the printed semi-finished products were placed in the pavilion room, and the comrades of the "Left Alliance" had to paste the remains of the five martyrs of the Left League and Zong Hui one by one on the empty square box next to the "Biography of the Comrades who Were Killed", and then use the wooden board molds carved with the words "outpost" written by Lu Xun in thick ink, paint them with printing oil, and hand-type print them on the masthead. Because the comrades were full of feelings of grief and hatred when they knocked on the masthead, they almost pressed their entire bodies up, so the back of some covers still left traces of ink passing through.
The word "outpost" in the masthead of "Outpost", written by Lu Xun, is engraved on a wooden board (reproduction)
The two words "outpost" that can be seen now, some are red, some are blue, and some are purple, which stems from the lack of red ink under emergency conditions at that time. In order to be distributed abroad, "Outpost" not only has an English name, called OUTPOST, but also makes a complete English catalog. After the "Outpost" was bound, it was secretly distributed to members of the "Left League" league and members of left-wing cultural groups such as the "Socialist Federation."Lu Xun also specially sent two copies to Cao Jinghua, who was far away in Leningrad, Soviet Union, and sent them abroad through his international friend Smedley.
Although "Outpost" was published in secret, it caused great repercussions in the international community for exposing and accusing the Kuomintang of the crime of massacring young writers. The Kuomintang authorities were greatly shocked and immediately imposed a strict ban. Therefore, the second issue was renamed "Literature Herald", and the content was dedicated to the study of literary and art theory, and from November 15 to the 8th issue of the same year, it was banned by the Kuomintang. So the first issue of "Outpost" that we saw was the inaugural issue, and it was the only issue.
Countless peach blossoms
91 years later, the story of "Outpost" is still being told. Last year, on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, we did not forget the martyrs, and Huang Changyong put that history on the stage of drama under the name of "Outpost". He said: "In the play, we specially filmed two videos related to the outpost, one is to show the young Wang nearly 30 years ago in order to study the 'Left Lian' to the Shanghai Library's old periodical reading room to borrow the "Outpost" magazine; the other is the process of Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng leading the editing of the "Outpost" commemorative number and printing after the sacrifice of the five martyrs. The drama "Outpost" only has six drafts of the script outline, and Huang Changyong writes for 12 hours a day, constantly writing and changing. The stories of the five martyrs are very exciting and touching, and the author uses a two-line nested structure to connect these group portraits. "The five martyrs of the Left League should be a group portrait, five people are 'one person', and five people are gathered together to form 'this one person', which constitutes an image of the youth of the 1930s, and together constitutes a complete image that moves us and makes us think." Huang Changyong said, "I hope that through the play 'Outpost', more young people will enter this history, so that the spirit of 'Left Alliance' will become a powerful force to inspire a new era of progress." Last year, "Outpost" was performed three times at the Shanghai Opera Experimental Theater, the Shangyin Opera House, and the Shanghai Grand Theatre, and began a nationwide tour at the end of March this year, returning to Shanghai on July 1 and performing in Shanghai again. ”
The first Standing Committee of the "Left League"
Actor Hu Ge said after watching "The Outpost" at the Shanghai Grand Theatre: "In the play is the blood and sacrifice of young people 90 years ago, the stage and the stage are intertwined, I shuttled through the stories and memories of multiple time and space, and I could not calm down for a long time. "The play not only touched the audience, but also let the actors experience a lot from it. Yuan Hong, the actor who plays Roushi, moved his family to Shanghai in order to create a role in the center of the drama "Outpost". During the rehearsal, Yuan Hong said that after walking into "Outpost", he has been reflecting, "What has our generation done, what contributions have been made to the country and society, and whether we have worked hard enough not to live up to this era." Xie Chengying, the actor of Feng Hao, said: "Since reading the script, I have always been excited. They love the world too much to take the world as their responsibility. ”
Statue of the Five Martyrs of the Left League
The costumes of the heroes in "Outpost" are very beautiful, even when the five martyrs are sacrificed, their images are also very beautiful, and the whole drama also takes the peach blossom as an image throughout, which also stems from the fact that in Longhua at that time, the peach blossom was a scene in Shanghai, and there was such a poem on the wall of the prison where the five martyrs were imprisoned: "Longhua has been looking up to the wind for thousands of years, and the hero's death is not over; the blood in the peach blossom wall outside the wall is generally bright and red." On the stage of "Outpost", before the execution, Feng Hao asked Roushi: "If we can't go out, will future people know that there was a small peach blossom here?" Roushi told her, "It doesn't matter if you know or not." Future flowers bloom every year. ”
"This, perhaps, is the meaning of the magazine "Outpost" and the drama "Outpost" today." Huang Changyong said.
>>> "Outpost"
The outpost of the organ of the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union (renamed "Literary Herald" from the second issue) is an important material for the study of the revolutionary literary movement in the Left League period. The first issue is dedicated to the five martyrs of the Left League, including the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union's "Letter to Revolutionary Literary and Cultural Groups of Various Countries and All Writers and Thinkers Working for the Progress of Mankind for the Massacre of Comrades by the Kuomintang", Lu Xun's "Chinese Proletarian Revolutionary Literature and the Blood of the Precursors", and the small biographies of the Five Martyrs of the Left League and The Martyrs of Zonghui, and the works of the martyrs Rou Shi, Hu Yipin and Yin Fu, all of which are the most precious modern literary and artistic historical materials. (Text / Wu Guanwei Photo, Video / Wang Kai)