Zhang Tailei's original name was Zhang Zengrang, and his scientific name was Zhang Fu; after participating in the revolution, he changed his name to Zhang Chunmu and Zhang Chunnian, and later changed his name to Tailei to Mingzhi because he was determined to "turn into a thunder that shattered the old world". When Zhang Tailei was a child, his family was in a difficult situation. In 1906, Zhang Tailei's father died of illness. In order to make ends meet, his mother went to Changzhou Zhang Shao's family to help, but the income was meager, and he often needed help from relatives and friends. Fortunately, Zhang Tailei was clever and clever, and Zhang Shao had valued him, so he sponsored him to enroll in school.
When Zhang Tailei was in elementary school, in addition to textbooks, he especially liked to read historical story books. He often imitated the plot of books such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Chronicles of the States of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty", dividing his classmates into two groups and playing a game of confrontation between the two armies. His hometown of Changzhou was the historical place where Yue Fei's resistance to the Jin Dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were anti-Qing, so he paid special attention to these stories and often tried to find yeshi notes to read. Moreover, he has a great sense of justice, loves to fight and hug, and when he sees weak students being bullied by others, he will always come forward. Because he was born into poverty, Zhang Tailei has had the same life for poor people since he was a child. One day, he and his friends were playing in the street when a rickshaw passed by them and a gust of wind blew just off the driver's hat. The buddies all laughed because there were guests in the car, and they wanted to see how the coachman could pick up his hat. Just when the coachman was looking embarrassed, Zhang Tailei ran a few steps to pick up the hat and handed it to the coachman to wear. The partners said incomprehensibly, "Why bother?" We're getting ready to see the joke! Zhang Tailei said: "He pulled the car, and there were guests sitting on it, which was not easy in itself." If you have to pick up a hat again, it will be more laborious. But for me, it's just a show of hands, so why not help him? ”
In 1911, Zhang Tailei entered the Changzhou Fu Middle School. At that time, it was the eve of the Xinhai Revolution, so he paid special attention to reading newspaper news and understanding the changes in the situation. He eagerly read in large quantities, both the Minhu Bao, the Minli Bao, and the Declaration, as well as the Xinmin Cong, the Collected Writings of the Drinking Ice Room, and renxue; he sought out the works of European bourgeois Enlightenment thinkers, such as Rousseau's Theory of the Covenant, Montesquieu's Fa Yi, and Huxley's Theory of Heaven.
Several of the teachers in the school were members of the League, and they often told the students about the revolutionary deeds of Zou Rong, Qiu Jin and others, and Zhang Tailei often listened to them with blood boiling and tears in his eyes. Influenced by revolutionary ideas, he hated the braid at the back of his head. In order to show his resistance to the corrupt rule of the Qing government, he and his classmate Qu Qiubai took the lead in cutting off their braids. After the Outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, he took the lead in marching and celebrating in the streets to propagate revolutionary ideas.
After the Xinhai Revolution, state power was usurped by the Beiyang warlords, and society was still in turmoil. In 1915, Yuan Shikai signed the "Twenty-One Articles" with Japan, which almost turned China into a Japanese colony. When the news came, the whole country was shocked, and Zhang Tailei was also deeply saddened by it, and he pointed out to the point: "The ambition of Japanese imperialism is to monopolize China and destroy China; and Yuan Shikai will not hesitate to sell out state sovereignty in order to become emperor." Zhang Tailei's patriotic actions have caused dissatisfaction among the school authorities. Soon, the school authorities forced Zhang Tailei to leave the school on the pretext of "not doing anything wrong" and organizing a strike without authorization. In the autumn of the same year, Zhang Tailei was admitted to the law department of Peking University, and soon transferred to the provisional preparatory class of the law and political department of Beiyang University. In the autumn of 1916, Zhang Tailei was officially promoted to the law department of Beiyang University.
After the outbreak of the October Revolution, Li Dazhao published "The Victory of the Common People" and "The Victory of Bolshevism" in the magazine "New Youth". Zhang Tailei was deeply inspired after reading it, and from then on he began to work hard to understand and study Marxism. Once, when his high school alumni came to visit and talked about the future planning of life, Zhang Tailei firmly said: "To be a person, I must change the whole child, and I will not be a lawyer in Shanghai in the future." The rise and fall of the country is the responsibility of the puppeteer. Only by taking the road of the October Revolution can we save China! After the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, Zhang Tailei actively participated in it. He organized his classmates to go to the countryside to give a speech, and because of the painful and passionate speech, the people who listened to the lecture were greatly encouraged: "Sir's speech is really right. It is good to come once a month so that everyone will never forget. When they returned to the city, they used the time they waited for the train to speak on the platform of the station, "the listener stopped the way, and everyone nodded yes." Even when they boarded the train, the crowd who listened to the lecture still "gathered together and looked at each other from afar, as if they hated the short time and could not hear as much as they wanted." In August, in order to rescue the arrested students, Zhang Tailei rushed to Beijing as a tianjin student representative, and went to the presidential palace with his classmates in Beijing to petition, generously declaring: "If necessary, we can throw our heads and spill blood at any time, and we will not hesitate!" "As a result of the brave struggle of the classmates, the Beiyang warlord government eventually released the arrested students.
In September 1920, Li Dazhao initiated the establishment of the Beijing Communist Group; in October, Zhang Tailei joined. According to the regulations of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, "the time of joining the Party of the other founders of our Party shall be counted from the time when they joined the Communist Group. Therefore, October 1920 was the time when Zhang Tailei joined the party, and his introduction to the party was Li Dazhao. In the winter of that year, Zhang Tailei, Deng Zhongxia and others organized a labor remedial school in Changxindian, Beijing, which not only taught workers to read and write, but also spread revolutionary ideas. In order to unite the working masses, he often visited the workers' homes, ate together and slept on the soil. At that time, Zhang Tailei only had 7 yuan a month for living expenses, but he was frugal and thrifty, often spending less than 3 yuan a month, and the money saved was used to help workers. Therefore, the workers were grateful to Zhang Tailei and soon established a solid friendship with him.
In February 1921, the Central Committee decided to send Zhang Tailei to Irkutsk, Russia, to serve as the secretary of the China Section of the Far East Secretariat of the Communist International. Before leaving, he left a letter to his wife Lu Jinghua: "I am determined to go to a foreign country to seek a little advanced learning and seek an independent life for myself." I also had the desire to become an official and get rich, but now I realize that wealth is a harmful thing. This simple passage shows that Zhang Tailei has been deeply infected by communist ideas and has a nobler pursuit of life.
In the autumn of 1922, Shanghai University was opened. Under the arrangement of the party organization, Zhang Tailei went to Shanghai University as a teacher. According to Wang Yizhi, who was studying at Shanghai University at the time and later became Mrs. Zhang Tailei, "He gave us a lot of advice and explanations. There are no flowery words in his language, and he always inserts a few words when we are talking very warmly or when there is an argument or a problem. And his simple words can always go deep into the essence of the problem, have indisputable logical power, and often make us difficult to solve and stop arguing. He has no shelf and is always energetic and cheerful. He also likes to joke, has him present, always talks and laughs, and rejoices in the four seats. In August 1923, Zhang Tailei went to the Soviet Union with the "Delegation of Dr. Sun Yat-sen" to discuss soviet aid to China, the reorganization of the Kuomintang, and cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. After the mission of the delegation was completed, Zhang Tailei continued to stay in the Soviet Union and entered the Communist University of Eastern Workers in Moscow. Lenin died in January 1924. Zhang Tailei was so sad that he wrote a special memorial article and sent it back to China for publication, and the article wrote in the tragic scene of Lenin's coffin being carried out of Saratovsky Station: "At that time, there was heavy snow above his head, birds and birds were silent, and only seemed to hear the mourning voice of the receiver. After leaving the station, the coffin was in front, the sender accompanied, and the streets they walked through, lined with military police, were lined up to prevent them from entering the queue, but it was often seen that the old and young rushed into the siege, hoping to be sent along. The street is quiet, and there are countless spectators on both sides, but there is no sound. This affectionate brushstroke shows not only his mourning and admiration for the great revolutionary teacher, but also his incomparably firm belief in the cause of communism. During his time in the Soviet Union, Zhang Tailei made friends with revolutionary comrades-in-arms, often discussing the revolutionary issues of the Eastern countries with the Japanese communists Katayama Qian and the Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, and established a deep friendship with them.
In August 1924, Zhang Tailei returned from the Soviet Union and was responsible for the work of the Chinese Socialist Youth League under the arrangement of the party organization. At the same time, he also served as the chief writer of the Shanghai Republic of China Daily and a member of the editorial committee. But he was always radiant and untiring. After the outbreak of the "May Thirtieth Massacre" in 1925, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to launch a provincial and Hong Kong strike, and Zhang Tailei was responsible for initiating and leading the strike. In order to mobilize the masses, he wrote and gave speeches in large quantities. He said: "The barrel of the pen and the tongue are the weapons of our revolutionaries' political struggle, and they should be used constantly, and it is wrong not to write or talk!" At this time, how much the masses want us to write and speak! Moreover, we now have the conditions to write and speak, so we should write more and talk more! ”
Some comrades had no experience in speaking and did not dare to speak on stage, so Zhang Tailei encouraged them to boldly speak and practice, and called the speeches to the masses "going to battle." Every time before the comrades "went into battle", Zhang Tailei had to carefully check the content of the speech and remind everyone to pay attention to the speech skills. After the comrades finished their speeches and stepped down, he would jokingly say: "How is this battle fought?" If the comrades replied, "Defeated again!" "Didn't play well!" And he said, "It doesn't matter! Better prepared next time! If the comrades say, "It's okay," he will say excitedly, "Look, I'm right, there's nothing difficult in the world, as long as you are willing to learn and practice, you will definitely succeed!" In addition to the intense revolutionary work, he often went to the outskirts of Guangzhou. He loves the country and loves all that nature has given it. However, the more he loved this beautiful river and mountain, the more he hated the destruction and trampling of this beautiful human world by imperialism and feudal warlords. Sometimes, he stood on the roof overlooking the bustling cityscape of Guangzhou; sometimes, he took a small boat to enjoy the beautiful night view on both sides of the Pearl River. The beauty of these lives evokes his love for life and his expectations for the future; he often can't help but express his yearning for his future life: "How lovely life is!" Our new society in the future must be better than the present! He also often sang the Internationale: "This is the last struggle, unite until tomorrow, Inter-Nesonal must be realized!" It can be said that he always had the greatest confidence in the victory of the revolution and was willing to make the greatest efforts and even make the greatest sacrifices.
On March 20, 1926, Chiang Kai-shek created the "Zhongshan Ship Incident" in Guangzhou. At this time, the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was already showing signs of rupture. Zhang Tailei's heart was extremely heavy, and he had a premonition that the incident would never be so simple. In fact, long before the "Zhongshan Incident," he was wary of Chiang Kai-shek's rebellion against the revolution. On March 19, the day before the Zhongshan Incident, he also published an article in People's Weekly entitled "The Crisis of the Guangdong Revolution Is Still There." Regarding the delicate situation at that time, Zhang Tailei keenly pointed out: "Guangdong has been unified, and most of the counter-revolutionary warlords have been eradicated, but the crisis in Guangdong still exists! Ordinary revolutionaries wake up! He reminded to the point: "Comrades of the revolution, the danger in Guangdong is still there!" After the overthrow of Liu Yang last year, everyone thought that the great harm in Guangdong had gone and could be safe, but they did not know that once the dark curtain was revealed, they did not know how many conspiracies and tricks there were! We see this again now. Comrades, beware. After the "Zhongshan Ship Incident," Chiang Kai-shek again proposed to "sort out party affairs," and all CPC members who held the posts of minister of the Kuomintang Central Committee were forced to resign. Zhang Tailei was indignant about this, and at this time he was convinced that there was a crisis in the revolution. At the end of March 1926, Zhang Tailei, in the name of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, issued an "Open Letter to the Kuomintang Central Committee, the Nationalist Government, the National Revolutionary Army, and the People of Guangdong," which solemnly pointed out: "The Communist Party is determined not to abandon its revolutionary work because of the enemy's rumor-mongering, and warns the society: The imperialist counter-revolutionaries' rumor-mongering of the Communist Party is a conspiracy to split the forces of the National Revolution, sabotage the Kuomintang, overthrow the National Government, and endanger the peace of Guangdong." ”
On 26 May, he published an article entitled "The Activities of Reactionaries in Guangdong," in which he again exclaimed: "The foundation of the revolution in Guangdong has never been in such a dangerous situation since the founding of the National Government. It can be said that Zhang Tailei was a rare sober-minded person during the first Kuomintang-Communist cooperation. After the Northern Expeditionary Army conquered Wuhan, the focus of the National Revolution shifted north. In November 1926, Zhang Tailei left Guangzhou with Borodin, Song Qingling and others for Wuhan. After that, it was not until the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup that he was ordered to return to Guangdong again.