Shen Anna
On June 16, 2010, Shen Anna, one of the CCP's most prominent secret intelligence officers and the "Spy War Rose", died in Beijing at the age of 95. Before her death, Shen Anna left a will: donated her savings of 100,000 yuan to her alma mater, Taixing Middle School in Jiangsu Province, for the establishment of scholarships.
After Shen Anna's death, Major General Luo Yuan, the eldest son of Luo Qing, revealed some unknown details in the commemorative article. Shen Anna was unconscious when she was dying, but she was still muttering something about the early white terror period, and finally she was still saying: "I am exposed? They arrested people and ran through the back door..." The scene personnel, tears were incomparable.
Shen Anna went deep into the enemy camp for 14 years, lurked around Chiang Kai-shek for 11 years, obtained countless important confidential documents within the Kuomintang, and was praised as "the person who held Chiang Kai-shek's pulse." It is said that during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek scolded "Niang Xipi" during a meeting in Chongqing, and Mao Zedong, who was far away in the caves of Yan'an in the afternoon, knew it. It can be seen that the importance of Shen Anna's work.
In 2018, in the book "Zhou Enlai, Commander of the Hidden Front" published by the Communist Party History Publishing House, Shen Anna's historical contribution was evaluated as follows:
From the autumn of 1938 to the spring of 1949, he was a shorthand in the confidential section of the Kuomintang Central Committee. She was responsible for shorthand work at successive plenary sessions of the Kuomintang Central Committee, the Standing Committee of the Central Committee, the Supreme Committee of National Defense, and the military and political conferences, and recorded reports from Chiang Kai-shek, He Yingqin, Bai Chongxi, Chen Cheng, and the secret service agencies of the Kuomintang Military Command and the Central Unification. For more than 10 years, a lot of valuable intelligence has been obtained..."
In January 1939, the Fifth Plenary Session of the Fifth Central Committee of the Kuomintang was held, and the plenary session decided to implement the anti-communist policy of "preventing communism," "restricting communism," and "dissolving communism." At the meeting, Kuomintang elder Zhang Ji reprimanded: "When I think of the Communist Party, I sweat!" After saying these words, Zhang Ji saw That Chiang Kai-shek show a look of dissatisfaction, and he said directly: "You don't look at me like this." hum! The Communist Party is all around you! ”
Exhibition of Shen Anna's life deeds
Zhang Ji became a slur, Chiang Kai-shek did not expect to sit not far away from him, and the woman who buried her head in shorthand was Shen Anna, a communist party member. Hearing Zhang Ji's words, Shen Anna was shocked. "Am I exposed? Is he talking about me? Shen Anna quietly observed the surrounding situation and did not notice that anyone noticed her.
"In order to seek the truth into the tiger's den, cold to the group of demons like idle", this is Ju Zhengxiu's evaluation of her who has worked with Shen Anna, which can be described as a sharp point. A question, Shen Anna lurked around Chiang Kai-shek for 11 years without being exposed, how did she do it?
The legend begins with the birth of Shen Anna. In the autumn of 1915, Shen Anna was born in the Shuxiang Mendi family on Beimen Street in Taixing County, Jiangsu Province. When they heard about the book, many people's first reaction was that this family was good. In fact, when Shen Anna was born, the Shen family was already in decline.
Young Shen Anna is clever and clever, began to read and write at the age of 3, under the education of her father, she wrote fast and well, and was once known as a prodigy in the local area. It is often said that a person's destiny is based on the fate of the country, but character often plays a major role at critical moments. When Shen Anna was born, the Qing Dynasty had already perished, but the custom of foot binding was still prevalent in the folk, and she was not spared.
The so-called foot binding is to wrap the foot tightly with a cloth strip to prevent its normal development, artificially making the foot smaller, and the process is extremely bloody and painful. Shen Anna had a strong personality from childhood, and after more than ten days of entanglement at the age of 7, she could no longer bear this pain, and directly cut off the cloth strip with scissors. The mother loves her daughter and turns a blind eye from then on.
Perhaps the bad habit of foot binding brought extreme pain to the young Shen Anna, which laid the groundwork for her to embark on the revolutionary road later. In 1932, Shen Anna was admitted to Shanghai Nanyang Commercial Senior High School. Almost at the same time, Shen Anna became acquainted with Communist Party members and alumni Shu Yuexin and Hua Mingzhi, especially Hua Mingzhi who later became her lifelong partner and revolutionary partner. After two years at Nanyang Commercial Senior High School, Shen Anna, who was in her second year of high school, was forced to drop out of school due to the failure of her family.
Shen Yina, an underground party member, thought that her sister was intelligent and quick to write, so she recommended that she study shorthand at the Shanghai Bingxun Shorthand School in order to make a living in the government department in the future.
Bing Xun shorthand introduction
Shanghai Bingxun Shorthand School has low fees and short semesters, coupled with Shen Anna's original love of writing, her half a year of study at this school has provided important preparations for future intelligence work. Seeing that she is about to graduate, 19-year-old Shen Anna began to worry about her way out, what should she do next?
Shen Anna's daughter Hua Kefang said: "(After graduating from Bingxun Shorthand School) There are several roads in front of her mother, after graduation, she can go to the society to apply for a job and become a shorthand reporter; she also thought about being like some classmates, to make progressive movies and realize the dream of a star..."
At this moment, the Kuomintang Zhejiang Provincial Government sent people to bingxun shorthand school to select graduates, and the principal recommended 3 of the best students, shen anna was one of them. At that time, Shen Anna had already accepted progressive ideas, believing that the revolution engaged in by the CCP represented the future direction of China, and Wang Xuewen, the leader of the Central Special Branch, hoped that she would accept the job.
After the examination, in January 1935, Shen Anna officially became a stenographer in the deliberation section of the Secretariat of the Zhejiang Provincial Government, and her best skill was the recording speed of 200 words a minute and the beautiful handwriting. With this identity, Shen Anna gradually came into contact with a lot of provincial government intelligence, so she secretly copied a copy of the provincial government meeting documents and records and quietly brought them back to Shanghai.
At first, the information was written in the original potion, and it was revealed before the potion dried up, and it was almost exposed several times after it was sent. For the sake of intelligence security, Wang Xuewen sent Hua Mingzhi to Hangzhou to receive information in person, and the feelings of the two warmed up, and a wedding ceremony was held in Shanghai in 1935.
Shen Anna and Hua Mingzhi
In order to allow Shen Anna to stand firm within the Kuomintang, Wang Xuewen introduced to her the main points of secret intelligence work from then on: First, be loyal to the party, not afraid of hardships and hardships, and not hesitate to sacrifice everything personally, even his life; second, strictly guard secrets, abide by discipline, and are not absolutely trustworthy people, and must not disclose secrets; third, there is a revolution in his heart, but he cannot reveal progressive ideas within the enemy; fourth, he handles well the relationship between relatives and estranged people, especially with his superiors, and so on.
In the winter of 1936, Zhu Jiahua took over as chairman of the Zhejiang provincial government. Shen Anna has won the trust of Zhu Jiahua because of her excellent business and decent personality. Everyone remembers Zhu Jiahua as a person who later became a key figure in Shen Anna's penetration into Chiang Kai-shek's side, although he himself did not know this.
In 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in full swing, and with the Japanese invasion of Zhejiang, Shen Anna withdrew west with the Zhejiang Provincial Government and lost contact with the Shanghai Party organization for a time. Shen Anna and her husband Hua Mingzhi discussed that it was of little significance to continue to follow the provincial government to the west, and the two decided that Hua Mingzhi would continue to stay in the Zhejiang Gansu Railway Bureau, and Shen Anna would leave the provincial government without pay and go to Wuhan to find a party organization. In May 1938, Shen Anna came to the Eighth Route Army office in Wuhan, where she met Zhou Enlai, Dong Biwu and others.
Zhou Enlai already knew something about Shen Anna before, and when he listened to Shen Anna's work report, he thought that this female comrade was not simple. At that time, Zhu Jiahua, secretary general of the Kuomintang Central Party Department, was already recruiting troops, and Dong Biwu and Zhou Enlai decided to entrust Shen Anna with an important task: Relying on her status as Zhu Jiahua's old subordinate, she was allowed to break into the Kuomintang Central Party Department to collect intelligence for our party.
As we all know, engaging in intelligence work is full of dangers, and once the consequences of exposure around you are unimaginable, this kind of life is very depressing. Zhou Enlai did two tasks: First, he arranged for Shen Anna and her husband Hua Ming to do intelligence work together and take care of each other; second, he told Shen Anna that it is glorious to engage in intelligence work, and that we must pay attention to concealment, be willing to be an unsung hero, and work boldly, cautiously and carefully, and safety first.
Shen Anna quickly found Zhu Jiahua and explained her intentions, who had originally appreciated her very much. Zhu Jiahua was very happy and said: "The Central Party Department currently lacks stenographers, so I can go through a formality for you, and the treatment is not bad." Zhu Jiahua also asked Shen Anna if she was a member of the Kuomintang, and Shen Anna immediately said: "I was very young in Zhejiang, not yet, can I join now?" ”
Zhu Jiahua immediately gave Shen Anna a "special party" and temporarily arranged her to work in the "management of the board of directors of The Sino-Ying Geng", which he was responsible for. At that time, three members of the Kuomintang Central Committee were introduced to join the Kuomintang, the procedures were simple, the approval time was relatively fast, and the party card was marked with the word "special" on it. This kind of party member is considered to have a backstage within the Kuomintang, and his identity is not simple.
In August 1938, with the defeat in the defense of Wuhan, Shen Anna and Hua Mingzhi went to Chongqing. Two months later, Shen Anna became a confidential stenographer in the Confidential Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee. After that, Shen Anna served as a shorthand reporter at the high-level meetings of the Kuomintang Central Committee, the government, the army, and the special forces, and later in all the meetings presided over by Chiang Kai-shek, Shen Anna became the only candidate for shorthand.
Shen Anna became the closest intelligence officer to Chiang Kai-shek's side, and she had access to a large number of high-level classified documents within the Kuomintang. Shen Anna is in front of the stage, and Hua Mingzhi is behind the stage. After Shen Anna obtained the information, she went home at night and handed it to Hua Mingzhi to sort out, some of which was written on specially handled paper, and some of which were directly orally conveyed in person.
In order to send the information out in a timely manner, Zhou Enlai sent Wu Kejian, then deputy secretary general of the Yangtze River Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and editor-in-chief of Xinhua Daily, to receive the intelligence of the two men. The cooperation between the three men was very tacit, and our party obtained important information again and again, planned in advance, and provided an important guarantee for the victory of the revolution.
Wu Kejian
After the Kuomintang top brass gained a foothold, the young Shen Anna became a little impatient. Shen Anna was very upset when she saw Kuomintang officials every day either robbing houses or official positions, and learned that the Chongqing office of the Eighth Route Army was going to send a group of progressive young people to Yan'an.
Shen Anna had the idea of leaving Chongqing to study in Yan'an, and she later said: "I couldn't help but run to the 'Eight Offices' and first asked Bogu to go to Yan'an, but he did not agree. I went to ask Elder Dong (i.e., Dong Biwu) again, and Elder Dong did not agree. After Zhou Enlai learned about it, he specially invited Shen Anna to his home in Chongqing, told her a lot about the significance of engaging in hidden front work, and left her to eat together.
When leaving, Deng Yingchao even said to Shen Anna: "Xiao Shen, you must work hard and have the determination to be an unsung hero." Zhou Enlai gave Shen Anna a strong handshake, and from that moment on, Shen Anna decided that she must complete her task well.
In the autumn of 1939, under bogu's introduction, Shen Anna joined the Communist Party of China. Shen Anna was very careful, never showed her political tendencies when working, once the intelligence was sent, all the materials were burned, but the danger still came.
One day in the autumn of 1942, two agents suddenly found Shen Anna and questioned: "Tell me quickly, why did you borrow money from Xu Zhonghang?" He's a communist, he's been arrested, are you a spy? Xu Zhonghang, as the agent said, was previously the direct leader of Shen Anna and Hua Mingzhi in Chongqing.
Shen Anna judged from the secret agent's question that her side was not exposed, so she calmly replied: "What are you talking about?" I'm just a little clerk, my kids are sick, borrow some money from a friend, what's that? Do you know who I am? After speaking, Shen Anna took out the "special party member" certificate in her pocket.
Shen Anna's words directly left the agent speechless, and she and her husband escaped the disaster. However, after that, the two people and the party organization "silently" for 3 years, and lost contact with the party organization again. In the past three years, Shen Anna had hoped more than once to send the information to the Eighth Route Army's Chongqing office, but she finally gave up out of secrecy.
Mr. and Mrs. Shen Anna and daughter
Shen Anna later recalled the 3 years of difficult experience: "It was the most difficult period in my life, I stayed in a 10 square meter house, waiting for people to come and get intelligence every day. What makes me even more sad is that the information I collected had to be destroyed by my own hands because no one came to collect it. ”
Due to the arrest of the line, Shen Anna experienced many unbearable questions and blackmail. Hua Mingzhi was also distressed, and he wrote more than once in his letters to friends:
"I, as personally, as with my family and my nation, need to endure a more arduous ordeal... Anna has insomnia, can't wake up after midnight, and has to watch the dawn when she wakes up... It has been two full months after childbirth, still weak, and a month ago, I had stomach problems, blood in my stool... There was not enough milk, and the tears of mother and son were mixed together... After the salary has been borrowed for three months, the huge amount of expenditure is really impossible to cope with. ”
Hua Mingzhi's words were not exaggerated, at that time, Shen Anna was under a lot of pressure, plus she was suffering from tuberculosis. Some people say, why not rest well when you are sick? Shen Anna also wants to rest, and if she takes leave, she may be dismissed, which means that she will not be able to obtain valuable information from now on.
A few times, Shen Anna couldn't help it, so she ran to the toilet and coughed hard for a while, coughing so much that the handkerchief was covered with blood. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, prices in Chongqing soared and materials were scarce. On the surface, Shen Anna is a high-level confidential stenographer of the Kuomintang, but in fact, like her husband Hua Mingzhi, she is an "inconspicuous little clerk" with a small salary. The two already had two children, and the family lived in a dark, damp, dilapidated house that leaked water when it rained.
In the summer, Chongqing is extremely hot, with low-rise houses full of mosquitoes, flies, cockroaches, etc., and next door is the prison of the Kuomintang gendarmerie, where the screams of interrogators are often heard. Walker fang also asked her mother how she survived those 3 years, she said: "After my mother listened to my question, it took a long time to say this, 'Hope and patience are together.'" In the Kuomintang Central Committee, you must listen to their anti-communist clamor, be calm and self-assured, and not expose them. ’”
Dormant, patient, waiting, Shen Anna finally waited for the long-lost knock on the door. One night in October 1945, the knocking code sounded, and Shen Anna couldn't wait to open the door, and standing outside the door was wu Kejian, the former leader.
Seeing that it was Wu Kejian, Shen Anna shouted "Old Wu", and she could no longer speak, and tears came out of her eyes. In the eyes of outsiders, the organization has abandoned Shen Anna and Hua Mingzhi, but only they themselves know that the party organization will definitely come to them. Shen Anna later said: "The reason why I was able to stick to my post in the past three years was because Zhou Enlai persuaded me to work with peace of mind after I broke into the core organs of the Kuomintang, and then carried out revolutionary integrity education in a timely manner, so that I could be ready to deal with sudden events at any time." ”
After establishing contact with the party organization again, Shen Anna knew more and more about the value of her work. According to the organizational arrangements, in addition to recording Chiang Kai-shek's speeches, Shen Anna also paid special attention to the speeches of senior Kuomintang generals. Several times, Zhou Enlai, after receiving the information provided by Shen Anna, spoke highly of "swiftness and accuracy." ”
Chiang Kai-shek had a habit that, at the most important and confidential military meeting, he would always instruct Shen Anna and other stenographers at the crucial moment of his speech, "You should not remember the following passage. These words are often very important, Shen Anna silently wrote them down, used the break to go to the toilet to quietly write down the small pieces of paper in her shoes, and returned home at night to hand them over to Hua Mingzhi to sort out and pass them on to the party organization.
Imagine how critical and dangerous this work is, so Shen Anna is known as "the person who holds Chiang Kai-shek's pulse." For such praise, Shen Anna herself said very modestly: "Everyone has elevated me, I think only the Party Central Committee can hold the pulse of Chiang Kai-shek, I personally can never do it?" ”
Shen Anna (second from right, back row of the podium)
More often, Shen Anna sees herself as an ordinary screw in the CCP's intelligence work. Hua Mingzhi also thought so, saying:
"The hidden front of the Communist Party of China has always been to take the party's leadership as the core and form a strong and powerful fighting collective... Every unknown soldier on the hidden front, such as me and Anna, is the part and screw in this big machine. The achievements made are the result of the leadership of the Party and the crystallization of collective wisdom and strength! ”
After the victory of the War of Resistance, Shen Anna accepted instructions from her superiors and continued to lurk beside Chiang Kai-shek. In March 1946, Chiang Kai-shek secretly summoned senior generals to plan a comprehensive anti-communist military operation, and Shen Anna was one of the stenographers on the scene. At several meetings, Chiang Kai-shek and others discussed how to use the kuomintang-communist negotiations to buy time to transfer a large number of troops to the northeast and central plains, and at the same time made detailed arrangements for the military arrangements in the liberated areas of our party.
This information is of great importance, and Shen Anna sent it out in a timely manner, making a great contribution to our party's response. In April 1949, Nanjing was liberated and the Nationalist government was forced to move to Nanjing. Organizationally, in view of the fact that the defeat of the Kuomintang and the withdrawal of the mainland was a foregone conclusion, Shen Anna and Hua Mingzhi were instructed to find an opportunity to escape, and instead of going to Guangzhou, they could go to Shanghai to meet the liberation of Shanghai.
After the liberation of Shanghai on May 27, 1949, Shen Anna ended her 14-year career of lurking within the Kuomintang (11 years by Chiang Kai-shek's side). Seeing this, many people should understand why Shen Anna lurked around Chiang Kai-shek for 11 years without being exposed. To sum up, there are several reasons:
First, have lofty revolutionary convictions, be extremely loyal to the Party, and put the interests of the organization first. This seems simple, but it is difficult to really do it. Everyone knows the evil consequences of Gu Shunzhang's defection to our party, and as "the most dangerous traitor in the history of the CPC," Gu Shunzhang surrendered immediately after being arrested.
At that time, Gu Shunzhang was the head of the third section of the Central Special Branch, and he knew a lot of our party secrets. Shen Anna, on the other hand, was one of the people who broke into the Kuomintang, she knew very little about the major secrets of our party, but because of the special nature of her profession, she was exposed to a large number of confidential documents of the Kuomintang, which meant that there was a risk of being killed at any time. At this point, without lofty convictions and loyalty to the organization, it is easy to give up this dangerous job.
Shen Anna's briefcase to pass on information
Second, be cautious and be flexible. One of the keys to intelligence work is to send out intelligence in a timely manner, and Shen Anna has thought of many ways to do this. For example, Shen Anna uses the "invisible potion" to write information on the back of ordinary letters or between empty lines, and the other party uses iodine wine after receiving the letter, and the handwriting is revealed, which is the most primitive secret writing technology, the risk is very large, several times almost discovered, are relying on her improvisation to avoid a disaster.
In order to keep it a secret, Shen Anna created a symbol of rapid recording, referred to as "quick connection". For example, the "Kuomintang Central Committee Party Department" used the previous intelligence symbols to write out that it needed several symbols, and used Shen Anna's original "quick link", which only needed one symbol, which greatly increased the number of information transmitted.
Third, leave no trace, destroy the manuscript immediately after the information is sent, and do not put any progressive books in the home. Shen Anna's daughter Walker Fang once revealed the way her mother obtained intelligence, and Shen Anna would quietly write two copies of the shorthand draft of the meeting, or go to the venue to "take the sheep by the hand" in the discarded garbage can.
For example, as the Liberation War entered the later stages, Shen Anna knew that the more she came to the eve of victory, the more she should not be careless. In order to better protect themselves, Shen Anna and Hua Mingzhi decided to "go along with the flow", they bought radios to listen to popular songs, also learned ballroom dance, intended to cater to the kuomintang top brass, and even asked the kuomintang elder Yu Youren for ink treasures.
Looking at Shen Anna's 15-year espionage career, the word "legend" has long been insufficient to fully cover it. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shen Anna and Hua Mingzhi worked in the State Security Bureau and the Shanghai State Security Bureau respectively until their retirement in 1983. In December 1989, Shen Anna was awarded the Medal of Honor by the Ministry of State Security for the Unsung Hero of the Hidden Front.
In recent years, with the deciphering of the data, the intelligence personnel of our Party's revolutionary years have been able to be known to the world. This article is represented by shen anna, the "spy war rose", commemorating them and paying high tribute to countless intelligence personnel!