Editor's note: The 100th year is the right time! This year marks the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, and in order to relive the glorious course the party has gone through and review the historic achievements made in China's scientific and technological undertakings under the leadership of the party, the Times for Science Popularization has from now on set up a column entitled "The Road of Struggle for a Hundred Years," excavating a certain classic fragment or moment in the history of the party's history and the history of scientific and technological development in various forms, telling the little-known touching story of red scientists, and showing the great spirit of the scientific and technological circles of being determined to serve the country and stand on their own feet. Let us draw wisdom and strength from looking back at the centennial road to continue to move forward.
The Communist Party of China has gone through a glorious course of one hundred years. The centenary of the Communist Party of China is a hundred years of heroic struggle for the liberation of the Chinese nation, a hundred years of striving for people's democracy and socialist modernization, and a hundred years of unremitting struggle for the development of Science and Technology in China. Without the Communist Party, there would be no independence of the Chinese nation, no socialist new China, and no vigorous scientific and technological undertakings today.
A considerable number of the founders of the Communist Party of China and the earliest members of the Communist Party of China had a background in modern science and technology or had earlier accepted the ideas of democracy and science, and they understood the importance of developing science and technology in China more deeply and comprehensively than their contemporaries. In 1919, Chen Duxiu published the "Reply to the Crime of Benzhi" in The First Issue of the Sixth Volume of New Youth, vigorously promoting "Mr. Democracy" and "Mr. Sai" (Science). "We now believe that only these two gentlemen can cure all the darkness of China politically, morally, academically, and intellectually," he said. ”
Mao Zedong reminded the whole party in his article "The National Revolution and the Peasant Movement" in 1926: "The peasant problem originally included two aspects: namely, the problem of artificial oppression by imperialism, warlords, and the landlord class, and natural oppression such as floods and droughts, pests and diseases, poor technology, and production reduction. Although the former question is an urgent problem at present, the attention of the comrades is naturally concentrated on it. But the latter problem is also very serious, and we cannot fail to pay active attention to it. To solve the latter problem, it is necessary to have a revolutionary political power and a scientific method throughout the country, not something that can be done immediately, but the time is coming, and we must prepare in advance. "In the period of the agrarian revolution, our Party has begun to put on its agenda the technical work of military medicine, military industry and radio communications, which is urgently needed by the Red Army, as well as the education of scientific knowledge that can be carried out among the youth and the masses.
Radio factory in Yan'an during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Courtesy of the author
Speaking of the party's early radio communication work, we must introduce an early CCP member Li Qiang (1905-1996), who was a native of Changshu, Jiangsu Province, who graduated from Nanyang Academy in his early years with a major in civil engineering and grew up as a student movement leader during the May Thirtieth Movement in 1925. He joined the regiment in June 1925, became a member of the Communist Party of China in August, and then returned to his hometown to establish the first party organization in Changshu and successfully developed explosives for the Shanghai workers' movement. After the "April 12" coup d'état in 1927, he went to Wuhan to serve as the chief of the special branch special affairs unit of the Central Military Commission. In November 1928, due to the needs of the intelligence and communication revolution, Zhou Enlai instructed him to develop radio stations, and in the spring of 1929 he made the first underground radio station in the history of the CPC and trained the first batch of radio talents in the history of the CPC.
At the end of 1929, Li Qiang was ordered to establish a second secret radio station in Kowloon, Hong Kong. In January 1931, Shanghai and Hong Kong were successfully informed, becoming the first pair of notification radio stations created by the CCP itself. Soon, the voice of the CPC Central Committee was able to reach the major base areas throughout the country in a timely manner through secret radio stations.
Later, Li Qiang was organized to study in the Soviet Union, and during his work at the Academy of Communications of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the Soviet Union, he published the paper "Sending Letter Diamond Antenna", which caused a shock in the Soviet radio circle, became a researcher, and became one of the 7 radio experts in the Soviet Union. After the "July 7" incident in 1937, Li Qiang returned to Yan'an to lead the establishment of the military industrial system, and concurrently served as the president of the Yan'an Natural Science Research Institute, cultivating a large number of future new Chinese scientific and technological talents, especially scientific and technological management talents, some of whom became ministers, bureau chiefs, and even national leaders. During the Liberation War, Li Qiang was ordered to build a short-wave radio transmitter, spread the voice of Xinhua News Agency to the whole world, organized and led the takeover of radio stations in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai, and became the founder of the new Chinese broadcasting industry.
Mao Zedong wrote an inscription for Li Qiang in Yan'an in 1944
Speaking of the scientific knowledge education work carried out by our Party in the early days among the youth and the masses, we may cite the example of a patriotic young man, Wu Heng.
Wu Heng (1914-1999), a native of Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, studied in the Department of Geosciences of Tsinghua University in 1934, joined the Communist Party of China in 1936, was instructed by the party organization to establish the weekly magazine "New Science" in Tsinghua, and clearly stated in the "publication speech" that "we must let science stand under the command of national defense and serve the salvation of the dead."
At the same time, another purpose proposed by "New Science" is to "open up the deformed situation of the isolation of scholars from the public in the past, and instill in the people some scientific common sense that is urgently needed at this stage", that is, to popularize practical scientific knowledge, especially national defense science knowledge.
In January 1937, when the winter vacation arrived, "New Science" promptly proposed: "Since our students have received a special and superior education, during the winter vacation, we ask you to do your best, give up your personal comfortable life, go to the people, get close to the public, teach the scientific knowledge you know to the public, and improve the knowledge level of the public. ”
"New Science" propagates "reading without forgetting to save the country," mobilizes young students and the broad masses of the people to actively participate in the Anti-Japanese Salvation Movement; propagates the science of national defense and popularizes the knowledge of national defense science; propagates the science of democracy and the masses; propagates and popularizes knowledge about natural phenomena, on the transformation of nature, on new inventions and creations, and on the latest developments in natural science, and introduces the stories of famous scientists and their scientific spirit.
In April 1937, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Peking Research Institute and others invited the Nobel Prize winner in physics and the Danish physicist Bohr to visit China for lectures. New Science commented: "The greatest significance of our welcome to Mr. Bohr is his revolutionary spirit of pursuit of truth, free from the shackles of all classical theories. We deeply hope that the results of Mr. Bohr's lecture in China this time will bring this great spirit to every scientist in China. ”
Later, Wu Heng went to Yan'an and served as a faculty member of the Department of Geology and Mineral Resources of the Yan'an Academy of Natural Sciences; in 1949 he became the director of the Northeast Institute of Technology; in 1952, he served as the secretary general and secretary of the party group of the Northeast Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; in 1954, he served as the deputy secretary general of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the deputy secretary of the party group of the Academy; and in 1955, he was elected as the first batch of members (academicians) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The author is a member of the National Education Advisory Committee, former director and researcher of the China Science and Technology Museum
Source: Popular Science Times
Author: Wang Yusheng
Editor: Wu Tong
Review: Wang Fei
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