Zhang Tailei: Transformed into a "thunder" that shattered the old world, he was sacrificed in the battlefield of the uprising

(Source: Yangtze River Daily reporter Xu Weiwei remake of "Zhang Tailei's Painting Biography" (People's Publishing House))

【Martyrs' Archives】

Name: Zhang Tailei, formerly known as Zhang Zengrang, the character Tailai

Origin: Changzhou, Jiangsu Province

Family origin: feudal decline family

Date of birth: June, 17 1898

Place of birth: Changzhou, Jiangsu Province

School: Beiyang University (predecessor of Tianjin University)

Occupation at the time of joining the Party: Student

Joined the Party in October 1920

Place of membership: Beijing

【Revolutionary Experience】

In the autumn of 1918, he served as an English translator for Bolivi, a secret member of the Communist Party of Russia (Brazzaville), secretly translating articles on the October Revolution and the new look of Soviet Russia, and accepting Marxism.

In May 1919, he participated in patriotic activities organized by the Beiyang University Student Union and other organizations.

In April 1920, he served as an English translator for Vysensky, a representative of the Russian Communist Party (Brazzaville), and participated in Vysensky's activities in Beijing and Shanghai.

In October 1920, he joined the early organization of the Communist Party of Beijing founded by Li Dazhao and became one of the earliest members of the Communist Party of China.

In November 1920, he founded the Tianjin Socialist Youth League with Chen Xiaocen and others, and served as the secretary.

In March 1921, he arrived in Irkutsk and became secretary of the China Section of the Far East Secretariat of the Comintern.

June 1921 Participated in the "Three Congresses" of the Comintern in Moscow.

In July 1921, he attended the "Second Congress" of the Young Comintern in Moscow.

In August 1921, he returned to China and arrived in Shanghai, where he served as an interpreter and assistant to Ma Lin, the comintern's representative in the Far East.

In May 1922, he presided over the first national congress of the Chinese Socialist Youth League in Guangzhou and was elected as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the League.

In July 1922, he attended the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai.

In June 1923, he attended the Third National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

In August 1923, he participated in the "Dr. Sun Yat-sen Delegation" to visit Moscow.

In June 1924, the "Five Congresses" of the Comintern were held in Moscow, and he served as the secretary and translator of the Chinese delegation.

In January 1925, he participated in the Fourth National Congress of the Communist Party of China and was elected as an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee.

In May 1925, he went to Guangzhou to serve as an assistant and translator for Borodin, an adviser to the Kuomintang, and entered the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee.

In June 1925, together with Chen Yannian and Zhou Enlai, he led a demonstration of 100,000 strikers in the province and Hong Kong and 100,000 people from all walks of life in Guangzhou.

In May 1926, he gave a lecture on "The Question of the Chinese Revolution" at the Peasant Movement Seminar sponsored by Mao Zedong.

In April 1927, he was appointed secretary of the Hubei District Committee of the Communist Party of China, attended the Fifth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, was elected as a member of the Central Committee, and later served as the secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee.

In August 1927, he attended the 1987 Conference and was elected as an alternate member of the Provisional Politburo of the Central Committee, and was later appointed as a member of the Southern Bureau and secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee.

On December 11, 1927, he led the Guangzhou Uprising, served as the commander-in-chief of the uprising and the acting chairman of the Guangzhou Soviet Government, and was attacked and killed the next day on the way to command the battle, at the age of 29.

【Words of Martyrs】

We are leaving now for the time being, for eternal happiness in the future, so you and I don't have to think it's a worrying thing. We should work hard during this period to find our happiness forever in the future.

Zhang Tailei's grandson Feng Hailong has been busy with one thing lately: he wants to collect a piece of soil in the Guangzhou Uprising Martyrs' Cemetery and take his grandfather Zhang Tailei to "return the leaves to the roots".

On December 12, 1927, Zhang Tailei, the commander-in-chief of the Guangzhou Uprising, was shot several times and died in the front line of the battle, and his body was missing. Later, whenever it came to the memorial, his descendants would bow to all the heroes who sacrificed themselves at the Guangzhou Uprising Martyrs' Cemetery. This is the burial place of ancestors, and it is also the place of ideal sustenance.

Zhang Tailei's original name was Zhang Zengrang, the word Tailai. "Willing to turn into a thunder that shatters the old world", Zhang Zengrang chose to use the name of "Tailei" after joining the revolution. In his short life, Zhang Tailei was indeed like a "thunderclap": on the stage of the Comintern, he shouted for the swaddled Chinese Communist Party; on the battlefield of the Guangzhou Uprising, he found a way out for the revolution in the battle of the Backwaters.

Law graduates do not become lawyers, and university diplomas are not issued for life

In April 2021, in the former residence of Zhang Tailei at No. 3 Qingliang Road and Li, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, three huts were renovated to the point where the windows were clear and the visitors were endless. However, more than 100 years ago, it was a sparsely populated suburb, and at dusk, pedestrians disappeared, wild dogs roamed and barked wildly. Three generations of women and children of the Zhang family had to sit in the dou room and close the door.

The Zhang family was originally from Changzhou, and when Zhang Tailei's father arrived, the family road had fallen in the middle and could only live in his father-in-law's house. On June 17, 1898, carrying the expectation of "no pole Tai Lai" and reviving the family business, Zhang Tailei was born. With the financial support of his relatives, he studied at Xijiao Primary School and Changzhou Fu Middle School, and was admitted to the Preparatory Department of Law of Peking University and the Law Department of Beiyang University (the predecessor of Tianjin University). He has excellent grades, especially English, and is good at playing football, table tennis, and shuttlecocks. After more than ten years of hard study, a lawyer's profession and rich income are already in front of us.

However, in February 1921, he sent home a letter: "I also had the intention of becoming an official and getting rich, so I wanted to wait until next year to take the higher civil service examination; but now I realize that wealth is a harmful thing. "Seeking knowledge is the happiest thing," "So I decided to study abroad to seek a little learning...". In the letter, he advised his wife, "We are leaving now for the time being, in order to seek eternal happiness in the future... What a happy thing. I don't have the slightest sorrow, because I have this purpose in my heart...". The inexplicable "learning" and "happiness" in the family letter are precisely the communist ideals that Zhang Tailei has been seeking for many years.

In 1918, in order to resist the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement on Joint Defense against the Enemy, Zhang Tailei became the backbone of tianjin's "Student Salvation Congress". Soon after, as a work-study student, he joined the North China Star Newspaper as a third-year law student at Beiyang University and served as an interpreter for Bolivi, a member of the Russian Communist Party (Brazzaville). The students found that during the daily self-study time, Zhang Tailei was secretly translating the socialist revolution literature. He said to his friend Li Zikuan: "I need to change my whole life as a person, and I will not become 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! During the May Fourth Movement, Zhang Tailei became the backbone of the Tianjin student patriotic movement, running in the procession of speeches and marches.

On June 15, 1920, Beiyang University issued a graduation certificate for Zhang Tailei. At this time, Zhang Tailei had consciously embarked on the road of professional revolutionary. He traveled to Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, worked as an interpreter for Vyjingsky, a representative of the Russian Communist Party (Brazzaville) who came to Tianjin, accompanied Vyjingsky to Beijing to meet with Li Dazhao, and then went to Shanghai to participate in revolutionary activities and returned to Tianjin to promote tianjin's revolutionary work. In October 1920, Zhang Tailei joined the Beijing Communist Group and became one of the earliest members of the Communist Party of China.

In early 1921, Zhang Tailei went to Irkutsk in Soviet Russia, and never had the opportunity to return to Tianjin to receive his graduation certificate. This certificate has been kept in the Archives of Tianjin University for a long time.

He worked as an interpreter for many representatives of the Comintern and became the first person in our Party to send an envoy to the Comintern

Zhang Tailei was the earliest international activist in the party, and served many times as an assistant and interpreter for the Russian Communist Party (Brazzaville) and the Soviet Union, soviet representatives in China, Vyjingsky, Malin, and Borodin, and also sent a mission to Japan, so that the Comintern established contacts with the Japanese communists. He was also a well-known political activist, theoretician, and propagandist in the party, and Li Dazhao praised him for his "outstanding talent in learning from both China and the West."

In 1921, Zhang Tailei traveled through the vast Siberian snowy plains to Irkutsk as the provisional secretary of the China Section of the newly formed Far East Secretariat of the Communist International. He became the first red emissary sent by the Chinese Communist Party to the Comintern.

His first important task was to draft a report on the early organization of the Communist Party of China to the "Three Greats" of the Communist International. The 10,000-word report provides a detailed account of China's political and economic situation since 1911, as well as the progress of the New Culture Movement, the Socialist Movement, the Women's Movement, the Workers' Movement, and the Communist Movement in China, as well as the prospects of the Communist Party of China. At that time, the Ccp Congress had not yet been convened, and when the "three major" divisions of the Communist International's qualifications were divided, China belonged to the fifth category of countries that were "too weak in the movement." Zhang Tailei's right to speak on the "Three Greats" of the Comintern was not easy to come by, but due to time constraints, he was unable to read the report in its entirety.

On July 12, 1921, at the 23rd meeting of the "Three Greats" of the Communist International, Zhang Tailei was given a 5-minute speech. He pointed the spearhead at Japanese imperialism in a clear-cut manner, reminded the Comintern and the countries of Western Europe to "pay more attention to the movement in the Far East and to support it at all costs", and asked: "In the world revolution that is bound to come, will China's rich resources and great strength be used by the capitalists to fight against the proletariat?" Or is it used by the proletariat to fight the capitalists? That depends on the Chinese Communist Party, mainly on the support of the Comintern. ”

On the stage of the Comintern, the young Zhang Tailei shouted for the young Chinese Communist Party, and his youth and talent also flourished. Shumyatsky, head of the Far East Secretariat of the Comintern, once recalled: "Comrade Zhang Tailei was not confined to a small circle of Chinese issues and affairs. International work attracted him. He also seeks to draw 'more organizational experience' from it. In the work of convening the First Congress of communist and national revolutionary groups in the Far East, "Comrade Zhang Tailei's outstanding talents and the genius of his organizers and doers have been put into play again."

He died in the Guangzhou Uprising and became one of the few members of the Central Committee who sacrificed himself on the battlefield

At the end of November 1927, a postal ship floated in the white goose pond on the sand surface of Guangzhou, and the canvas wrapped the two-foot-long cabin tightly, and more than 20 people crowded the cabin. Zhang Tailei stepped into the cabin, sat down cross-legged, and said: "Comrades, good things are near!" We have decided to hold a great uprising of workers, peasants, and soldiers in Guangzhou! As soon as the words fell out, everyone rushed forward, not daring to amplify the sound, only pounding their fists on the cabin board, or laughing fist-to-fist.

People have been waiting for this order for a long time. At the 1987 meeting, Zhang Tailei was elected as an alternate member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, offered to work in Guangdong, and was later appointed secretary of the Guangdong Provincial CPC Committee. Zhang Tailei was all too familiar with Guangdong, who worked in Guangdong for several years as Borodin's translator and secretary, and was known as the "Four Busy People" of Guangdong along with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yannian.

The disparity in strength between the enemy and ourselves is arduous, but the flames of the uprising are unstoppable. At about 3 o'clock on December 11, Zhang Tailei issued a password to "riot and seize power", three repeated gunshots broke the silence of the city, and the rebel troops launched a surprise attack on various points in guangzhou. The sound of gunfire, shouting, and passwords became more and more dense, torches and headlights illuminated the city with blood red, and the team, like a furious beast, captured Guanyin Mountain, took down the Public Security Bureau, and quickly occupied most of the north bank of the Pearl River.

After dawn, the words "Guangzhou Soviet Government" hung at the gate of the Public Security Bureau. Zhang Tailei wore a "grass yellow velvet military uniform, with a forked belt tied around his waist and leggings... Very heroically sat in the middle", and issued a declaration to the comrades: "The masses of workers have seized power and organized a Soviet government. "Your victory is a great blow to imperialism."

Since then, Zhang Tailei has been wearing this yellow military uniform and running on the front line of the uprising. On December 12, the enemy launched a counterattack against the rebels, and Zhang Tailei held a meeting in the Watermelon Garden Square as planned, announcing in a passionate voice that "the Guangzhou Soviet Government has been established!" The propaganda was mixed with the applause of the crowd and lasted for more than 1 hour.

Just after the meeting, Zhang Tailei rushed to the Great North Gate by car to command the battle. Halfway through the car, he was attacked and killed. When people arrived, they "saw that the car was full of bullet marks, the tires were punctured and deflated, and the car could not start." Zhang Tailei's body leaned against the carriage, shot in the head, still wearing glasses, a bullet on the side of the chest, and blood flowed inside and outside the car."

Afterwards, someone recalled: "When Comrade Tai Lei was just injured, he said such a sentence in Russian: Oh, abominable devil. ”

At the age of 29, Zhang Tailei became one of the few members of the Central Committee and the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party who died on the front line of the battle.

Upon learning of the death of his best friend, Qu Qiubai wrote in a memorial article: "When he died, he still hoped that his blood would be the source of victory for the Chinese Soviet Revolution!" ”

Zhang Tailei's family has three generations of military service, and two generations of father and son martyrs.

In 1938, 11 years after Zhang Tailei's death, his 16-year-old daughter Zhang Xilei traveled alone through the occupied areas, found an underground party organization in Shanghai, disguised as refugees and went to Wenzhou, where he walked for dozens of days to reach the Anhui New Fourth Army Headquarters. A year later, Zhang Tailei's 16-year-old son Zhang Yiyang also became a member of the New Fourth Army. During the Anhui Incident, Zhang Yiyang was unfortunately arrested and suffered from "return fever" in the Shangrao concentration camp. The enemy held a special medicine in one hand and held a self-surrender book in the other, and Zhang Yiyang, who had a high fever and did not enter the rice water, always refused to surrender and unfortunately died. As he was dying of coma, he was still shouting, "Comrades rush with me!" Kill! Destroy the enemy..." To this day, the remains of the father and son are still missing.

Zhang Tailei's grandson Feng Hailong also joined the army and studied his grandfather's experience for many years. He said: "When the Guangzhou Uprising was launched, Zhang Tailei and other Communists were almost determined to die, desperately trying to awaken the revolution with their own actions. As the commander-in-chief of the uprising, he did not need to fight on the front lines. But that generation of young Communists, despite their lack of military experience, already had a firm belief that they should lead the way and should go to the most dangerous places, which was their precious belief. ”

(Yangtze River Daily reporter Wan Xuming)

【Editor: Zhu Chenying】