Lu Xun Middle School, located at No. 45 XinwenHua Street in Xicheng District, is the site of Beijing Women's Higher Normal School, one of the few women's institutions of higher learning in China. More than 100 years ago, under the influence of Li Dazhao and other pioneers of the new cultural movement, a group of young female students, represented by Miao Boying and others, accepted Marxism, embarked on the revolutionary road, and became the vanguard of the Chinese women's liberation movement.
(1) The earliest establishment of the Intellectual Women's Patriotic Association
Stepping into the door of Beijing Lu Xun Middle School, the chic courtyard comes into view: green brick carvings, cloisters are connected, houses are scattered, and the environment is simple and elegant. For more than a century, this school has changed its name: Beijing Normal School for Women, Beijing Women's Normal School, Beijing Women's Higher Normal School (referred to as "Female High School"), National Beijing Women's Normal University, National Peking University Women's Normal College... Until 1996, it was officially renamed Beijing Lu Xun Middle School, which is still in use today.
We must not forget the distinct and firm imprint of a group of young students at this school more than 100 years ago on the road to women's liberation in China.
On the eve of May Fourth in 1919, Peking University sent two male students to the female high school to contact the march together. At that time, although the female high school was the product of the reformists in the late Qing Dynasty, she was still using feudal etiquette to bind students. On the grounds that "men and women are not intimate", the school arranged the male and female student representatives in the two corners of the auditorium, and the two sides needed to communicate through the female school supervisor sitting in the middle. Because of poor communication, the students of the female high school were unable to participate in the march on May Fourth.
On May 5, Chen Zhongfan, a chinese language teacher with progressive thought, recounted in class the unreasonable demands of Japanese imperialism at the Paris Peace Conference and the demonstrations of students in various schools in Beijing. Despite the obstruction of the school authorities, the students walked out of the school gate, chanted slogans, and joined the march.
Subsequently, the students of the Female High School established the Autonomous Association and won the freedom of reception and freedom of movement from the school. They published notices, convened meetings, wrote revolutionary publications, and participated in marches and petitions on campus in the name of the Autonomous Council.
Kyoshi Women's Normal School
On May 7, female high school students "decided to distribute leaflets and gather all girls' schools in Beijing to take concerted action." At the initiative of the female senior teacher, more than 40 representatives of more than ten girls' schools in Beijing gathered at Chongwenmen to convene the inaugural meeting of the Beijing Federation of Women's Academic Circles and issued the "Letter to the National Women's Circles", declaring that "patriotism does not distinguish between men and women, and patriotic women cannot be descendants." With the aim of "advocating social service and promoting patriotism", the federation stipulates that "all students who belong to the beijing higher primary school or above agree with the purpose of the association and are willing to join, all their students may be members". This is also the earliest intellectual women's patriotic society established during the May Fourth period.
After the establishment of the Beijing Federation of Women's Academic Circles, the students of various girls' schools opposed the aggression of Japanese imperialism, boycotted Japanese goods, attacked the traitorous government, and cooperated with the May Fourth Patriotic Movement through class strikes, marches, speeches, and leaflets. At the same time, through the establishment of civilian schools, the establishment of civilian factories, the call for women's savings, and the publication of the "Beijing Women's Academic Federation" and other measures to promote women's liberation, the women's liberation movement and the patriotic movement have been organically combined. Since then, other provinces have followed suit. These societies responded to each other, connected with each other, and gradually formed a national network of women's movements.
At that time, the press once commented: "The ladies of each school are as enthusiastic and patriotic as the students of the boys' schools. "The trend of thought in the female academic circles in Beijing has also been very exciting in recent days." It is not difficult to see that the Beijing Federation of Women's Academic Circles has played an important role in the period of historical change in China.
(2) Opened the Beijing Women's Work-study Mutual Aid Group
During the May Fourth Movement, the convergence of new ideological trends in Beijing formed a meteorological atmosphere of "Chinese and Western academic competition, and a hundred schools of thought in ancient and modern times" were formed. Influenced by the new ideas, the students of the Female High School took the initiative to carry the banner of women's liberation.
At that time, clubs or groups were popular new ways to learn theory and participate in practice, and students of female high school teachers participated in the Beijing Work-study Mutual Aid Group. Founded at the end of 1919, the society was anarchist and part-time, divided into four groups. Among them, the third group was opened by female high school students Miao Boying and other female students, because all of them were girls, also known as the "Beijing Women's Work-study Mutual Aid Group".
In order to participate in the work-study mutual aid group, Miao Boying interrupted her studies, she and her partners with the yearning to create a better life, rented a house at No. 17 along the North River in Dong'anmen, hung up the small wooden sign of the Beijing Women's Work-study Mutual Aid Group, opened a tailor shop, a laundromat, and turned female students into female tailors. On the opening day, they also posted a lot of advertisements: "Do you want to make clothes?" Please come quickly to the chair hutong east exit along the North River along No. 17. Exquisite craftsmanship and appropriate style will satisfy you. ”
The Beijing Women's Work-study Mutual Aid Group is at work
At that time, the idea of female students was that "work is labor, reading is labor, and mutual assistance is evolution", hoping to create a society that combines work and study and mutual assistance and progress through their own efforts. They also published in the Morning Post, "My Dear Sisters Are Coming!" He called on the sisters who were "in the dark and bound by all kinds" and had perseverance to join the women's work-study mutual aid group to "create a new life in society". For a time, students' work-study mutual assistance became social news, and after media reports, they even attracted foreign girls to participate.
The ideal is very full, the reality is very bone. With ideals and enthusiasm, female students are not afraid of hardship and are diligent in their work. However, contrary to wishes, the social environment is still feudal, and women are cold-eyed about running shops, plus they have no business experience and lose money. Beautiful fantasies are shattered by the cruelty of the present. In less than a year, the women's work-study mutual aid group, which lasted the longest time in the four groups, also had to be disbanded. At this time, the students of the female high school realized that they could not experiment with a new life until the society was fundamentally transformed. So they abandoned work-studyism and began to seek the true meaning of the revolution.
(3) Accept new knowledge of women's emancipation
After the May Fourth Movement, great changes have taken place in female senior high school teachers, and coupled with the fact that revolutionary pioneers such as Li Dazhao have continuously introduced new ideas to students in Beijing colleges and universities, the students' thinking has become more active.
Miao Boying participated in the Hunan Student Association of Peking University, where she met He Mengxiong, a student of Peking University and a fellow villager, and with his help, Miao Boying often went to Peking University to listen to lectures and became deeply interested in the democratic study style of Peking University. Through He Mengxiong, she met a group of advanced young people who pursued the truth and dared to reform, and explored with them the road of transforming society. She carefully read and carefully understood the articles of Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun and others, and was especially impressed by the majestic momentum of transforming the country and liberating the nation in Li Dazhao's articles, as well as the realistic attitude derived from theory and down-to-earth. Miao Boying deliberately found Li Dazhao and said excitedly: "I am not a Peking University student, can you accept me as a student?" Li Dazhao saw that she was very sincere and agreed to her request. Since then, Miao Boying has often sought advice from Li Dazhao.
Li Dazhao (third from left) poses with female high school students
Li Dazhao briefly taught at the Female High School, teaching sociology, feminist history, and ethics. He used the university classroom not only as a place to impart scientific knowledge, but also as a front for propagating Marxism. Speaking of the October Revolution, he told his students that the victory of the October Revolution was the victory of the common people, and pointed out that only by destroying the rule of the bureaucracy, warlords, capitalists and landlord classes could China have a way out. Speaking about the domestic situation, he told his students that China must first eliminate feudal warlords, traitorous bureaucrats, and opportunistic politicians. Turning to the issue of feminism, he told his students that only by achieving a communist society could women achieve true emancipation.
(4) Participate in underground liaison activities of party organizations
In March 1920, the Marxist Theory Research Association of Peking University, advocated by Li Dazhao, was established. Under his influence, female high school teachers Xu Xingkai, Shi Pingmei, Miao Boying and other progressive students became members of the Marx Theory Research Society. They gradually realized that the social ills were too deep, the road to reform was not feasible, and only through revolutionary means could the old system be broken and a new society established. They slowly got rid of the influence of the idea of "mutual assistance between work and study" and initially accepted Marxism. In November 1920, the Peking University Student Union Office held the inaugural meeting of the Beijing Socialist Youth League, which Miao Boying attended, becoming the first female member of the Beijing area. After the establishment of the Beijing Communist Party Group, a group of members of the Beijing Socialist Youth League became party members, including Miao Boying, who was 21 years old at the time, and she became the first female member of the Chinese Communist Party.
In May 1925, the students of the National Beijing Women's Normal University decided to expel Yang Yinyu, the president of the feudal autocratic administration, and the Northern Party organization of the Communist Party of China mobilized students from various schools to express solidarity. In mid-August, the Beiyang government ordered the suspension of the Women's Normal University. After the outbreak of the revolution in the capital on November 28, the Women's Normal University was restored. The picture shows the students taking a group photo after the resumption of the Women's Normal University.
In 1921, the Xicheng Branch of the Communist Party of China, which was mainly composed of female senior high school teachers and beijing high school party members, was established, and Miao Boying was the first secretary of the party branch. At this time, a group of teachers and students with progressive ideas began to understand and accept Marxism, used the Marxist materialist concept of history to observe, think, analyze and study problems, and gradually used Marxism as a theoretical weapon to explore new ways for the liberation of Chinese women.
(5) The first female member of the Communist Party of China was trained
On October 9, 1921, Miao Boying married He Mengxiong, a Communist Party member who shared common ideals and beliefs, and held a wedding ceremony at No. 5 Zhonglao Hutong on the east side of Jingshan. From this day on, their home became an underground liaison station for party organizations, and comrades often held meetings and activities in their homes.
At No. 5 Zhonglao Hutong, Miao Boying and his wife, while studying, engaged in party work, and together they wrote a large number of articles on the workers' weekly magazines and the Labor Communication Office, the organs of the Secretariat of the Chinese Labor Union, introducing the life and struggle of workers at home and abroad, which were welcomed by the workers.
Miao Boying
He Mengxiong
In the autumn of 1922, Chen Duxiu secretly came to Beijing from Shanghai and lived in No. 5 Zhonglao Hutong, preparing to go to Russia to attend the "Four Congresses" of the Comintern. He heard that the letter of introduction he brought with him when he attended the "Second Congress" of the Young Communist International and the "Letter to the International Youth Communist Congress" were sewn in the seams of his clothes with Miao Boying's help. He Mengxiong heard this and said that although he was arrested in Manchuria and did not succeed, Miao Boying did sew the documents into the cracks of his clothes. The two sons quickly agreed to Chen Duxiu's request. Miao Boying threaded the needle and skillfully sewed the document into the inner layer of Chen Duxiu's clothes.
In February 1923, a general strike of Beijing-Hankou railway workers broke out. At dawn on February 7, the army and police of wu Peifu, a direct warlord, suppressed the strikers in Changxindian. Miao Boying, together with Luo Zhanglong, Gao Junyu, He Mengxiong, and others, secretly edited the "Bloodshed of The Workers of Beijing and Han Dynasties" near this underground liaison station, and organized rescue at Changxindian to comfort the injured workers and assist the unemployed workers. In order to reasonably distribute the relief items collected, Miao Boying also went to the homes of the victim workers to learn about them one by one and delivered them to them in a timely manner.
(6) Leave valuable spiritual wealth for future generations
On May 21, 1924, Zhang Guotao defected after being arrested in Beijing, and the Beijing party organization was exposed. According to the instructions of the party organization, Miao Boying returned to his hometown of Hunan to carry out the revolutionary movement. Later, she went to Wuhan and Shanghai to lead the revolutionary movement, without stopping for a moment.
In October 1929, Miao Boying suddenly fell ill with typhoid fever and was sent to Shanghai Renji Hospital for treatment. In late October, when she was critically ill, she said to her husband solemnly: "Since I have promised the party with my own body, I should sacrifice for the cause of the party." Why is it a hate that he is about to die due to illness and fail to die on the battlefield! Meng Xiong, you must resolutely fight until victory! Miao Boying, who was only 30 years old, said goodbye to the party and his relatives, and passed away suddenly.
Reading room of Lu Xun Middle School.
Time flies, and the years fly by.
Today's Lu Xun Middle School is one of the best-preserved modern chinese educational facilities in China. People who come here to relive history will be touched by the young and determined women of a hundred years ago. The series of anti-imperialist patriotic movements in which the students of the former female high schools participated not only showed the tremendous strength of "women holding up half the sky", but also demonstrated the unremitting struggle of Communist Party members to plunge themselves into the torrent of revolution. With the fiery ideal of the people's liberation and national rejuvenation, they are not afraid of violence and sacrifice, leaving a valuable spiritual wealth for the young people of future generations.
Historical materials: "Beijing Red Relics", "Beijing Red Herald", "Beijing's Red Awakening", "Red Code", Beijing News Group Graphic Database
Co-produced by: Beijing Daily, Beijing Municipal Party Committee Party History Research Office, Municipal Local History Office
【Witness the red memory that never fades】
On May 12, 1996, Beijing Daily reported on the second page that Beijing No. 158 Middle School was renamed Beijing Lu Xun Middle School.
On February 16, 2003, the first page of Beijing Daily reported that 14 units, including Beijing Lu Xun Middle School, were named as municipal patriotism education bases.
In 2007, Beijing Lu xun middle school, which is already a national key cultural relics protection unit, was opened to the public on weekends. Pang Zhengzheng/Photo
On August 30, 2012, the 9th edition of Beijing Daily reported that 33 "centennial schools" such as Beijing Lu Xun Middle School were listed.
On October 30, 2019, the 7th edition of Beijing Daily reported that Xicheng District compiled a red map of "Chu Xin Journey", involving 26 revolutionary sites including Beijing Lu Xun Middle School.
Source Beijing Daily Client | Reporter Jia Xiaoyan
Edited by Huang Pinchao
Process Editor Liu Weili