True historical record Timeless literary expression

"Zhong Shan Spark: The Birth of the First Party Organization in Nanjing"

Meng Yu

Jiangsu People's Publishing House

November 2021 edition

●Wang Hui

Editor's Note

After the outbreak of the "May Fourth" Movement, Comrade Wang Hebo, an early leader of the Communist Party of China, an outstanding pioneer of the Chinese workers' movement, and the first chairman of the Central Supervision Commission of the CPC Central Committee, led the workers of the Puzhen Machinery Factory to support the student patriotic movement in the Puzhen and Pukou districts (now Pukou District of Nanjing City), commonly known as "Liangpu", and threw themselves into the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle, establishing the first trade union organization (Chinese trade union) and the first party organization (Pukou Party Group) in Nanjing, igniting the spark of revolution.

2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first party organization in Nanjing. Created by Meng Yu, a writer trained by Jiangsu's "Zijin Cultural Talent Training Project" and launched by Jiangsu People's Publishing House, "Zhong Shan Spark - The Birth of Nanjing's First Party Organization" artistically reproduces the birth process of Nanjing's first party organization through documentary literary techniques, vividly portrays the portrait of the early communists represented by Wang Hebo, profoundly reveals the core role of leadership played by the Communist Party of China in the process of leading the oppressed people to turn over and seek liberation, and is a new harvest in the creation of Nanjing-themed literature in recent years. It is also a new harvest of Jiangsu reportage creation and publication.

When it comes to Nanjing, people often give the color labels of the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties and the capital of the Ten Dynasties to this colorful and brilliant city. And red Nanjing is one of the most dazzling colors. On the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the time when the whole party was carrying out party history education activities, the publication of Meng Yu's long documentary literature "Zhong Shan Xinghuo - The Birth of the First Party Organization in Nanjing" (hereinafter referred to as "Zhong Shan Xinghuo") can be said to be timely. This work, which won the "Major Theme Literary Works Creation Project" of the Jiangsu Writers Association and the Nanjing Art Fund, has added new brilliance and path to the art of presenting "Red Nanjing".

What impressed me most about "Bell Mountain Spark" was the uniqueness of its theme selection. The whole book uses five chapters, such as "Zhong Shan Lixin Theory", "Dripping Water to Meet the Rivers", "Jinpu Yanghongbo", "Great Righteousness Bears Heavy Trust", and "Twilight Burning Spark", which delicately describes the birth and end of the first CPC organization (Pukou Party Group) in Nanjing in the autumn of 1922. From this point of view, this work expands the traditionality of Nanjing themes with elements such as ancient capital, sadness, and the Republic of China as the main colors, and further highlights the modernity and red mark of Nanjing's regional literary writing. Before that, the "Red Nanjing" documentary literature had already produced many works such as the "Rain Flower Heroic Martyrs" series and Yang Bo's "Crossing the River" on the Battle of crossing the river, but it was none other than "Zhong Shan Xinghuo" that took the creation of the first CCP organization in Nanjing as the object of documentary literature. In my opinion, this is nothing less than a useful attempt to reshape Nanjing's red literature and red culture, and it is also a strong depiction of Nanjing as a red city where "the tiger is in the dragon pan now and in the past". Compared with genres such as fiction-based novels, the choice of describing objects, that is, the subject matter, is very important for documentary literature, which is directly related to the height of meaning, social value and artistic personality of the work. To some extent, it can even be said that a good subject matter is the basis and premise for the success of documentary works. In the process of creation, the author of the book converted the original idea of recreating the historical changes of The Pukou Railway Station into the establishment of the Pukou Party Group as the object of description, which is indeed a wise choice. This undoubtedly reflects the author's keen grasp of the theme of "Red Nanjing" and the sober understanding of the historical trend of modern China that has gone through vicissitudes, ushered in strength, and marched toward glory under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

Linked to the uniqueness of the choice of subject matter, "Zhong Shan Xinghuo" vividly recreates the heroic image of Wang Hebo, the pioneer of the Chinese workers' movement, the early leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and the founder of the Nanjing Party Group. Wang Hebo, who worked as a sailor and a hard worker in the northeast and other places because of his poverty when he was young, came to Nanjing Pukou in 1916 and worked as a fitter in the Puzhen Locomotive and Rolling Stock Factory, and gradually grew into a leader of the workers' movement. At present, a number of biographical works about Wang Hebo have been published, but the only one that focuses on his merits from the perspective of the establishment of the party organization is "Zhong Shan Xinghuo". Of course, the work is not a biography of Wang Hebo's life, but follows the artistic norms of documentary literary creation, and the cross-sectional selection of his process of creating the Pukou Party Group between 1919 and 1922 is close-up. This kind of writing style undoubtedly highlights the "highlight moment" of Wang Hebo, a figure in the history of the party, and also makes the work gain the uniqueness of the artistic expression of the character. Through a large number of vivid character dialogues, details and scene descriptions, the work has carried out in-depth and meticulous artistic reproduction of Wang Hebo, Li Yongfu, Gao Yide, Wang Zhenyi and others. This kind of reproduction is impressive, as the author said in the afterword of the work: "Those characters and events that have settled down in the dust have become vivid again, such as Wang Hebo, who is upright and selfless, Li Yongfu, who is loyal and sincere, and Wang Zhenyi, who has sharp thoughts and firm convictions."

In addition to the artistic reproduction of wang hebo and other characters, "Zhong Shan Xinghuo" also has remarkable points in cross-stylistic artistic transmission. In my opinion, documentary literature must not only have a true record of the "non-fictionality" of reality or history, but also an aesthetic transmission of these realities or histories. Only in this way can we confirm, rather than dissolve, the stylistic value and unique personality of documentary literature. Therefore, in addition to not using fiction, exaggeration, grotesque and other techniques, documentary literature can completely integrate novels, poetry, drama, film and television, and even non-literary styles of expression techniques and techniques in a "cross-genre" posture, and create its own artistic communication system. From this point of view, the stylistic practice of "Zhong Shan Xinghuo" as a documentary literature has its value and significance. The work follows the principle of "big things are not vain, small things are not informal", puts the characters in the torrent of history, writes out the characters and fates of the characters in the big history and their life path choices, has a broad sense of time and space, but also has a meticulous description, and the dramatic plot narrative promotes the development of events and the presentation of the character image, so that the full narrative is relaxed and swaying. During this period, the work is full of novel-style structure and language rhetoric, as well as details and scene descriptions, portraits, dialogues, psychology and other character image descriptions add a lot of color to the whole piece, highlighting its "literary" characteristics. The addition of various non-fiction documents in the works has made the texts rich and diverse - such as historical documents such as the "Declaration of the National Labor Congress Conference", news reports such as the "Declaration" news, portraits of important figures such as Wang Hebo, Deng Zhongxia, Luo Zhanglong, etc., as well as newspapers and periodicals such as "New Youth", street speeches, fine art works, longhai railway workers' strikes, Nanjing wharves and city gates, and old photos of old sites, train timetables, republic of China banknotes, etc. that exude the atmosphere of historical times. On the one hand, these documentary elements in the works fully show the non-fiction characteristics of documentary literature, on the other hand, they form an intertextuality with the vivid depictions of the novel, which strengthens the "immersive" experience of reading, that is, the sense of immersion, which is a literary restoration of historical scenes, with a strong appeal, such as - "Zhou Hongquan rowed a boat, carrying Wang Hebo and Wang Zhenyi, and once again went offshore to the dock." The canopy boat cuts a crack in the calm river and swings away the cold water halo. Slowly, the hull disappeared into a fog. Puzhen returned to silence, only to hear the sound of the wind, as if a huge storm was coming. This is a passage at the end of the work, which is not only a true record of historical facts, but also a literary expression with timeless meaning, so that the whole book shows the tension of the open-ended ending.

"The spark of a star can burn the plains", the title of "Zhong Shan Spark" is actually a very good allegory: it is not only the "Pukou Party Group" representing the communist ideal that has become the flame of hope for Nanjing, which has moved from the old capital to the new life; on the other hand, it also indicates that the young author Meng Yu will write more and better works in the years to come, and the seedlings of the "spark" will grow from the seedlings of the "spark" to the "fire plains".