Source: Hubei Learning Platform
Author: Hai Bing Zhu Jiayi Xia Zhizhi Xu Pei
In Chen Celou Village, Chen Celou Town, Huangzhou District, Huanggang City, Hubei Province, there is a courtyard covered with pines and cypresses, which is the former residence of Chen Tanqiu, a major representative of the CPC and one of the founders of the party.
Chen Tanqiu was born in 1896 in a well-to-do family, and his ancestors were well-known in the local area. Chen Tanqiu's older brother Chen Shusan was the founder of the Xinhai Revolution, and his younger brother Chen Yinlin was also an early revolutionary of the Communist Party, both of whom achieved extraordinary achievements. Chen Tanqiu's family tree four revisions of the "Chen Family Genealogy" volume, recorded Chen Tanqiu's brilliant deeds of patriotism and love for the party throughout his life.
In 1916, Chen Tanqiu entered the English Department of the National Wuchang Higher Normal School, reading progressive publications and studying and propagating Marxism. In the autumn of 1920, Chen Tanqiu and Dong Biwu founded a communist group in Wuhan. In July 1921, Chen Tanqiu attended the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and the following year he taught at the Wuchang Higher Normal Affiliated Primary School. Under his training, a group of students embarked on the revolutionary road. During this period, under the leadership of Chen Tanqiu and others, the workers' movement, youth movement, and women's movement in Wuhan surged up.
After the defeat of the Great Revolution, under the harsh white terror, Chen Tanqiu worked hard to restore the party's organization, persisted in secret struggle, and successively served as secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial CPC Committee, responsible person of the Shandong Provisional Provincial CPC Committee, secretary general of the Manchurian Provincial CPC Committee, secretary general of the Jiangsu Provincial CPC Committee, and alternate members of the Fifth and Sixth Central Committees of the Cpc, leading the workers' movement, student movement, and military movement work in various localities, and running around for the party's cause.
At the beginning of 1933, Chen Tanqiu went to work in the Central Soviet District, and in June of the same year, he was appointed secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee. In 1934, at the Second Congress of the Chinese Soviet Republic in Ruijin, he was elected as a member of the Central Executive Committee and Minister of Food of the Central Government. After the Long March of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, Chen Tanqiu remained in the Central Soviet Region to persist in guerrilla warfare. In August 1935, Chen Tanqiu went to Moscow to attend the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, and in 1939 he was ordered to return to China as the representative of the CPC Central Committee in Xinjiang and the head of the eighth route army office in Xinjiang. After the reactionary warlords openly opposed communism, the Party Central Committee agreed to evacuate all communists working in Xinjiang. Chen Tanqiu included himself in the last batch, saying, "As long as there is still one comrade, I cannot leave." On September 17, 1942, Chen Tanqiu was arrested. The enemy tortured Chen Tanqiu and forced him to "break away from the party."Chen Tanqiu was unyielding. On September 27 of the following year, Chen Tanqiu was secretly killed in prison at the age of 47.
The "Chen Family Tree", which shines with red brilliance, is the inheritance carrier of the "red root vein", so that Chen TanQiu's spirit of taking righteousness is passed down from generation to generation. Chen Yixiang, a researcher of genealogy culture and the editor-in-chief of the editorial board of "Yimen Chen's Return to Zhuang Dacheng Genealogy", introduced that Chen Tanqiu and his father had participated in the editing of the family tree in the nine years of the Republic of China. This year coincided with the centenary of the founding of the party, and in order to sort out the lineage of Chen Tanqiu's family tree, Chen Yixiang and others visited many provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities across the country, read a large number of old genealogies distributed in various places, and collected a lot of important information. In the "Testimonial on the Second Family Ride on the Renewal of the Second Family" in the ninth year of the Republic of China, the handwriting of Chen Tanqiu can be seen, and Chen Tanqiu advocated such progressive ideas as "advocating good and eliminating evil, caring for the elderly and helping the poor" and "the true spirit of autonomy and self-determination and mutual salvation".
Chen Yixiang proudly said that Chen Tanqiu is a major representative of the CPC, one of the founders of the party, the pride of the Chen family, and even more a model for future generations to learn, and his deeds have inspired future generations to move forward courageously.