When the great wheel of history sailed into August 1927, the darkest period of the Chinese Revolution, the Communist Party of China, in the midst of life and death, finally decided to reshape the "party heart", fight against adversity, and retaliate with tit-for-tat after seeing clearly the ungrateful and perfidious nature of the counter-revolutionaries Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei.
Thus two huge uprisings were held, namely the Nanchang Uprising and the Autumn Harvest Uprising. Since then, the painstaking efforts and achievements of the joint cooperation between the KUOMINTK and the CPC over the past few years have been stolen by Jiang Wang and the like as their own, and have completely moved toward a life-and-death confrontation.
Mao Zedong was one of the first Communists to see Chiang Kai-shek's face, so after he put forward the earth-shattering theory of "power out of the barrel of a gun", he became the leader of the Autumn Harvest Uprising.
On September 9, 1927, the Autumn Harvest Uprising broke out vigorously on the border of Xianggan and Gansu. This was the first uprising of the Communist Party of China to clearly display its own banner, called the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, that is, the First Division of the First Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, and the banner of the sickle and axe represented the workers' and peasants' class.
At the beginning of the uprising, it fought many victorious battles, successively occupied some towns, and carried out various forms of revolutionary activities, which greatly shocked the Kuomintang reactionaries and actively demonstrated and appointed armed revolution throughout the country.
Although the autumn harvest uprising, which had a very good situation, opened the prelude to the independent building of our party's army and the independent leadership of the armed revolution, the workers' and peasants' revolutionary army, which had no experience in armed struggle, quickly fell apart internally and was soon defeated under the pressure of the reactionaries' heavy troops.
By the time they reached Wenjia City in Liuyang, the 5,000-man revolutionary army had already lost most of them, leaving only more than 1,500 people, and the morale of the troops was low, and the complaints were full of complaints, each with its own reasons. Especially in Wenjia City, at the enlarged meeting of the Front Committee convened by Mao Zedong, on the issue of the direction of the future march, it was also a matter of winning the battle and rattling the sword.
In the end, Mao Zedong, with the support of convincing the majority of the people, made up his mind, changed the original strategic direction, did not fight Changsha, waved his troops to Shonan, and waited for the opportunity to go up the mountain.
However, the internal problems of the contingent remained unresolved, the phenomenon of troops fleeing and falling behind was increasing, the vigilante groups were surprised and frightened, and the contingent was getting more and more into the situation of poverty and remoteness, so that more and more people began to lose confidence in the future of the revolution.
"The roof leaks in the overnight rain". When the team marched to the town of Luxi in Pingxiang, Jiangxi, the paralyzed peasant army mistakenly regarded the enemy as a friendly army, and as a result, it was ambushed by the reactionary army, losing hundreds of people, and even the 22-year-old commander-in-chief Lu Deming died heroically. Mao Zedong, who was shocked to hear the bad news, was so sad that he couldn't help but look up at the sky and sigh: "Return me Lu Deming", "Give 3 divisions and don't change!" ”
For a time, this ragged, less than 1,000-strong team was even more lifeless, each with its own thoughts, and the more it looked, the more hopeless it became, and it was about to scatter fire. But suddenly, a few days later, when such a team arrived at Yongxin Sanwan in Jiangxi, it seemed to have divine help, such as Mu Xinyang, and suddenly its spirit came alive.
Why? It turned out that Mao Zedong, the head of the contingent, had heard and witnessed all the way, and had already reflected and summed up various problems in the army from top to bottom, and after exchanging and arguing with the backbone cadres of the army, he resoundingly put forward his own thinking on army building: Build the branch on the company. Since this thinking is different from the army building ideas of successive dynasties and dynasties since ancient times, I would like to say that "building branches on the company" has injected this seemingly mysterious unit into a cardiotonic agent and brought it to life.
Since the proposal of this reform team was put forward in Sanwan, the history is called "Sanwan Reorganization".
As soon as the "Three Bays Reorganization" policy was announced, the team was like a drought encountering Ganlin, smelled a fresh breath, and immediately got the response of most people and embraced this change.
So what is the Three Bays adaptation? What kind of changes did Mao Zedong make to this tattered army?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="84" > ●Three Bay adaptations</h1>
By the time we got to Sanwan, the contradictions within the team were irreconcilable. The insistence on revolutionaries and the capitulation of the revolutionaries have been revealed. Yu Shandu, the commander of the division at the time, and Su Xianjun, the commander of the Third Regiment, were increasingly opposed to Mao Zedong's idea of swinging the division up the mountain, which was incompatible with Mao Zedong's revolutionary idea of arduous struggle.
It can be said that they did the revolution with enthusiasm, and as a result, after the revolution became difficult, they were not ideologically ready at all. They pursue covetousness and comfort, warlordism is serious, they scold soldiers when they open their mouths, and they beat them when they use their hands; the bureaucracy is serious, soldiers eat big stoves, officers eat small stoves, and they are nostalgic for the "three golds" (gold teeth, gold rings, and gold-rimmed glasses) in the old army, "five skins" (leather shoes, leather armed belts, leather satchels, leather whips, and leather straps), and the pursuit of special living treatment of four dishes and one soup, etc. It can be said that they are fake revolutionaries and those who watch the wind and lean against the wall.
Unlike Mao Zedong, he was a staunchman in thought and action, and once he joined the revolution, he was consistent. Therefore, in the face of difficulties, he seems to have a kind of optimism that is beyond ordinary people, and in the march, he is like the soldiers, short shirts and straw shoes, not special, and doing everyone's ideological work while walking.
Moreover, Mao Zedong was extremely good at reflection, had a strong sense of responsibility, and had the revolutionary foresight to penetrate time and space, believing that difficulties were only temporary. So, he said this at the adaptation conference:
"Comrades, the enemy is just putting cold guns behind us, what's so great about that? Everybody is born of a woman, the enemy has two legs, and we have two legs. He Long started with two kitchen knives, and now he is a military commander and brings a soldier and horse. We have more than two kitchen knives now, we have hundreds of people, are we afraid that we will not be able to do it? You are all born out of the autumn harvest uprising, one person can be the enemy of ten, ten can be his hundred, we now have such a team of hundreds of people, what are we afraid of? Without setbacks and failures, there can be no success. ”
Mao Zedong's words have penetrating power and infect people's hearts, and coupled with his direct expression of his chest, it shows that his ideological propositions are different from those of the old soldiers, and they are even more touching to people's hearts. He said:
"I Mao Zedong did the revolution, first, I did not want to be promoted, second, I did not want to get rich, third, I did not want to support my family, and I only wanted the world's toiling masses to be liberated. On this trip, the mountains and rivers are long, the task is long, and you may be very hard and dangerous to follow me, but it is also very honorable. People have their own ambitions, can not be strong, there are willing to follow me, please stand on the left, I warmly welcome; there are willing to go home, please stand on the right, we are not reluctant. ”
This kind of arrogance, this kind of spirit, who in the ranks has ever seen, so as soon as Mao Zedong's voice fell, some people took the lead in jumping out, willing to follow him to continue the revolution, to choose the side, and at least to distinguish at once those who still wanted to continue the revolution at this time. Speaking of which, there is a true and touching story that happens next.
There was a warrior named Chen Sankui, who was worried about his sick old mother at home, and hesitated on the issue of "going" and "staying." When Mao Zedong learned of the situation, he immediately handed over to him the 40 silver millimeters and 5 silver dollars he had saved, and advised him to go home and cure his wife's illness, and to make a revolution with the poor villagers in his hometown. Chen Sankui left the army with tears in his eyes.
The next day, Chen Sankui returned again, and he returned with more than a dozen young and middle-aged watches. When he saw Mao Zedong, he said excitedly: "I will always do the revolution with you." To this day, there is still such a song in Sanwan Village: "When you are a soldier, you will come to be a Red Army, and everywhere workers and peasants will welcome you." ”
The so-called "one general is incompetent and kills the three armies." The success or failure of a revolution is not a matter of momentary success or failure, but of the revolutionaries' ideological propositions and revolutionary heights. The reason why Mao Zedong was able to get out of the dilemma of the autumn harvest uprising was because he had the "needle of the sea god" that turned the tide, that is, the revolutionary belief that was unanimous from top to bottom.
Mao Zedong deeply understood what the fundamental reason for the failure of the Autumn Harvest Uprising was not that the enemy was too strong or that the contingent was hastily assembled, but that the whole army had the same belief and the courage to sacrifice for the ideal.
Without faith, the team has no soul. Therefore, this three-bay adaptation is to shape the soul of this team. For the communist army, the soul is to listen to the party, follow the party, and be unswerving, so the party must exist all the time and infiltrate the grass-roots corners of the army, that is, the branch must be built on the company.
But even this proposition was opposed by Yu Shandu, Su Xianjun, Chen Hao, Xu Han and others, and the debate was very fierce, until dawn, mao Zedong was able to win with the support of the majority.
The "establishment of branches on the company" is the core of this reorganization. Mao Zedong innovated a complete set of systems, and set up party organizations at all levels of the army, with squads and groups, company branches, battalions and regiments with party committees, and the troops under the command of the party's committee of former enemies. All major decisions must be decided by the collective discussion of Party organizations.
It can be said that the establishment of the branch on the company is equivalent to directly abolishing the privilege of the head of the officer of the unit, which is obviously difficult for the old soldiers to accept, and it is no wonder that they have to quarrel for one night.
However, it is this design, the purpose of the Party's leadership of all things, that plays a very important role in the revolutionary struggle in the future. Throughout the life of Mao Zedong's leadership of the revolution, no matter whether he led the troops strong or weak, when he merged with other revolutionary forces and reorganized them, almost no phenomenon of using the strong to bully the weak did occur, while other revolutionary contingents, such as the Red Fourth Front, had a series of incidents of seizing power and overpowering the weak above the party.
Later, in his article "The Struggle at Jinggangshan Mountain," Mao Zedong also affirmed the important role played by the readjustment of the army and the organizational structure, saying: "The reason why the Red Army fought so hard and did not collapse was that the branch was built on the company. ”
Not only that, Mao Zedong also redesigned the party representative system according to the actual situation. The party representative system was resilient to the Whampoa Military Academy, but the army only had party representatives and political departments at or above the regimental level. This time, however, he "built branches on companies," set up party deputies at and above the company level, served as secretaries of party organizations, specialized in ideological and political work at and above the company level, and implemented the "dual chief responsibility system." This was a major transformation of the party representative system.
At the same time, the establishment of soldiers' committees, the implementation of a democratic system within the army, the equality of officers and soldiers, and participation in the administrative and economic management of the troops, and the right to supervise and criticize officers. This is equivalent to drinking with a stick, and for the old soldiers to sprinkle them, it is difficult to accept the covetous enjoyment.
Because of this, the old soldiers were increasingly unable to understand Mao Zedong's revolutionary path, so it was only a matter of time before they parted ways. But in this way, Mao Zedong began in Sanwan and truly grasped this revolutionary contingent.
The reorganized Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, proceeding from reality, was downsized into one regiment, called the First Regiment of the First Division of the First Army of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, and the whole regiment was reduced to two battalions, seven companies, and more than five hundred guns. The first regiment had jurisdiction over the first battalion and the third battalion (the second battalion was missing), each battalion was organized into three companies, and a separate special service company, also called the fourth company. The regimental directly subordinate units include the regimental headquarters, the political department, the heavy regiment and the health brigade. However, the former officer corps was also abolished.
After the reorganization, the commander of the first regiment was Chen Hao, the regiment deputy was Han Zhuangjian (formerly known as Han Yi), the chief of staff Xu Shu; the commander of the first battalion, Huang Ziji, the party representative, Wan Xixian; the third battalion commander Zhang Ziqing, the deputy battalion commander Wu Zhonghao, the party representative He Tingying; the captain of the heavy team Fan Shude; the health team captain Wang XX, and the party representative He Changgong. Zeng Shi'e, commander of the special agent company, and Luo Ronghuan, a party representative.
In view of this, the "Three Bays Reorganization," although it was only a few days old, had a far-reaching impact on the Chinese revolution and the revolutionary contingent under the leadership of the Communist Party. Since then, the Communist Party has laid its own military soul and faced difficulties.
The fly in the ointment is that due to the time of the "Three Bays Reorganization", the team is losing maicheng and is full of dangers. Therefore, there are many specific guidelines and policies, which are difficult to implement comprehensively at once. Therefore, many other ideas put forward during the "Three Bays Reorganization" also need to be implemented and supplemented and improved in a timely manner on the later march.
For example, the Famous "Three Disciplines" of the Red Army were added by Mao Zedong at the right time in the process of waving the division.
After the reorganization of Sanwan, the team moved south along the Luoxiao Mountains, and on October 7, it arrived at Maoping, Ninggang County, Jiangxi Province, and then entered the territory of Suichuan County, and on the Thunder Stone of Jingzhu Mountain, Mao Zedong solemnly announced three disciplines to all officers and men: "Obey the command of action, do not take a sweet potato from the masses, and return to the public when beating local tycoons."
Also, if the branch should be built on the company, the proposition is good, but how many party members are there? Do you need to recruit new fighters to join the party? With party members and branches built on companies, the squad's group can be truly implemented. Therefore, in order to implement the proposition that the branch should be built on the company, the first condition is that there is a sufficient number of party members, and if there are not enough party members, it is necessary to develop party members first and then implement the proposition.
It is precisely for this reason that when the contingent passed through Shuikou Town in Yanling (formerly known as Yanxian County) in Hunan Province, Mao Zedong carried out an extremely important party-building activity here, and the idea of "building branches on the company" was implemented for the first time. History calls it "the founding of the party at the mouth of the water".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="88" > ● Shuikou founded the party</h1>
The establishment of the party at the mouth of the water is the first practice of the principle of "building branches on the company."
On October 12, 1927, Mao Zedong led his troops to the town of Shuikou. At this time, there were two more escape incidents in a row: first, a platoon of people sent to the direction of Ninggang, under the leadership of the platoon leader, all fled with guns; second, Yu Shandu, the former division commander, and Su Xianjun, the commander of the third regiment, fled without authorization.
Although it was only a matter of time before They fled, and Mao Zedong did not feel surprised, one platoon of people fled, from Sanwan to voluntarily continue the revolution, to shuikou but waiting for an opportunity to flee, less than half a month ago, the revolutionary confidence was greatly reduced, it can be said that the revolutionary contingent is still not pure, it seems that the specific work of strengthening the building of faith and the shaping of the military soul cannot be delayed.
The specific work of strengthening the building of convictions and the shaping of the military soul is actually to vigorously develop new party members and implement the idea that "branches are built on the company." Therefore, this opportunity of history was given to the Ye Clan Ancestral Hall in Shuikou Town, and since then this place has been famous in history because of the later revolutionary victory of the Communist Party.
On October 13, Mao Zedong decided to recruit front-line fighters into the party here and truly implement the establishment of a company party branch. On the morning of October 15, 1927, Mao Zedong held a meeting of party deputies to the company at his home in Qiaotou Jiangjia, where 6 new party members were discussed and approved on the basis of the nominations of the deputies. After the meeting, the party representative secretly informed the new party members to hold a meeting at the Ye Clan Ancestral Hall in the evening.
The 6 new party members are Chen Shiyu, Ouyang Jian, Li Heng, Lai Yi, Yan Hui, and Liu Yan. On the evening of October 15, they completed the solemn oath to the party flag.
The attic of the Ye Ancestral Hall is lit with oil lamps. A square table, several benches, two pieces of red paper pressed on the table, one with "C· C· P" written in English letters, and one with the oath of joining the party.
According to the procedure of the meeting that night, Mao Zedong first announced that tonight's meeting would be a swearing-in ceremony for new party members; then, the party representatives of the new party members would introduce the resumes of the new party members; then, Mao Zedong went to the new party members, inquired one by one, pointed to the "C. C. P" on the red paper, explained to them: It read "Sisipo", represented the Chinese Communist Party, and pointed to another red paper on which the oath of joining the party gave a detailed explanation.
Finally, Mao Zedong led them to read the oath of joining the party: "Sacrifice the individual, work hard for the revolution, class struggle, obey the organization, strictly keep secrets, and never betray the party." ”
Loud, neat sounds echoed in the humble little attic. Mao Zedong said to the new Party members with great expectations: "From now on you are glorious Members of the Chinese Communist Party and the backbone of our revolutionary army, and in the future you must unite comrades, do more mass work, strictly organize life, and strictly guard the secrets of the Party." ”
In the evening, the first battalion and two companies with the largest number of party members established branches, and the first company party branch in the history of the people's army was born, and the idea of "building branches on the company" was truly implemented for the first time.
What makes people feel nostalgic is that these 6 warriors, ordinary fighters at this moment, have undergone earth-shaking changes in their lives since then. 28 years later, in 1955, Chen Shiyu and Lai Yi had already become the generals of the storm, one became the founding general, and the other became the founding lieutenant general.
The other four, Liu Yan, Ouyang Jian, Li Heng, and Yan Hui, can basically be known in the limited data records that they did not betray their beliefs, and that they were all unyielding, some sacrificed for the revolution, and some disappeared and were separated in battle.
Founding General Chen Shiyu recalls a scene from that year in his memoirs (I decided to transcribe it):
In the process of reorganization, a problem has arisen, that is, there are not so many Party members. Some companies have only one or two party members, and it is difficult to set up party branches, and it is even more difficult to set up party groups in squads. Mao Zedong proposed: It is necessary to develop soldiers from workers' and peasant families who are heroic in battle to join the party.
Mao Zedong said: I have observed that all companies with a certain number of Party members have high morale, are brave in battle, and their commanders can also receive effective democratic supervision. In accordance with Mao Zedong's instructions, all companies began to recruit backbone workers and peasants into the party. Because Chen Shiyu participated in the peasant movement and fought against the bully landlords in his hometown, he was included in the first batch of party members who joined the party.
Chen Shiyu's introducer to joining the party was He Tingying, a party representative at the time. On October 2, 1927, Party representative He Tingying approached him and said, "Your party members have been approved, and today you are going to take the oath of joining the party." So Chen Shiyu followed He Tingying to the attic of an ancestral hall, where there were several long wooden benches, on which seven or eight people were already seated.
They all faced the north wall, which hung two rectangular sheets of red paper. Above the red paper are written 3 foreign letters: CCP, and below it are written two lines of brush characters: sacrifice the individual, obey the organization, strictly guard secrets, never betray the party, and fight to the end for the liberation of the Chinese people and the communist cause of all mankind! It was night, and there was only a dim kerosene lamp in the house. Chen Shiyu saw those two lines and thought that it was the oath of joining the party.
Mao Zedong saw that the people had arrived and announced the beginning of the ceremony of joining the party. First, the party representatives of each company introduced the situation of the new party members, and this time a total of six party members were developed, each from six different companies. After the party representatives of each company introduced the resume and political performance of each new party member in turn, Mao Zedong began to ask the new party members: "Why did you join the Communist Party of China?" Chen Shiyu's answer was: "For the sake of the workers and peasants to turn around and be liberated!" The others answered similarly.
Mao Zedong seemed satisfied, and he began to explain the few words of the oath of joining the party, and explained the meaning of the three English letters of CCP, saying that it meant the Chinese Communist Party. He then raised his right hand, clenched his fists, and led the new party members to read the oath. After reading the oath, Mao Zedong said to the six new Party members: You are glorious members of the Communist Party of China, and Communists must not be afraid of hardship or sacrifice, unite the masses to do more work, rush to the top in difficult and dangerous moments, and set an example for ordinary soldiers in everything. It is also necessary to have an organizational concept and organizational discipline; party members must not take leave of absence for no reason in organizational life; party members must hold group meetings once a week; they must not talk about things within the party, especially secrets within the party; they cannot tell their relatives about them; and once the party's resolutions are made, they must be strictly observed.
Chen Shiyu, a Red Army soldier and founding general who joined the party at ye clan ancestral hall, never had the opportunity to return to Yanling in the Zhengrong Revolution and the great cause of building the country, and later his son Chen Renkang, because he participated in the symposium commemorating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the "Shuikou Company" and came to the Ye Clan Ancestral Hall where his father took the oath of joining the party that year, he said with emotion: "The oath ceremony for joining the party in Shuikou made my father never forget it, and the party's oath was deeply imprinted on his heart from that day on, and he adhered to it all his life. ”
In 1965, when Mao Zedong returned to Jinggangshan, he also remembered the shuikou of that year. He told the staff around him: "The establishment of the branch on the company and the development of new party members are all things that go to the mouth of the water. Shuishui is a good place. We developed the first party members there after the Autumn Harvest Uprising, when I was living in the home of a peasant surnamed Jiang. ”
Therefore, "building the party at the mouth of the water" is the first time that the principle of "building branches on the company" has been put into practice, and since then the army has truly injected the soul of the party, the party has become a strong backing for the army, and party members have become the pillars of the army.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="71" ends ></h1>
After Shuikou founded the party and put into practice the principle of "building branches on the top of the company," the morale and appearance of the contingent were renewed. With the party's leading core and grass-roots party organizations, the company immediately has a soul. The political atmosphere in Lianli gradually thickened, the number of party members gradually increased, all kinds of work were rapidly carried out, the political and military quality was improved, and the escape incidents were almost extinct.
Therefore, the "founding of the party in Shuikou" has since become an important part of the autumn harvest uprising, and the town of Shuikou has since become an important part of the Revolutionary Base Area of Jinggangshan, a battlefield of red hot soil and red flames.
Resources:
1. Timeline of the Autumn Harvest Uprising; 2. Historical materials adapted from Sanwan;
3. Historical materials on the founding of the Party in Shuikou; 4. Literature of the Autumn Harvest Uprising;
5. History of the Communist Party of China; 6. History of the Struggle in Jinggangshan;
7. Citations of network-related historical materials.
【Author】
Gu Xinguang: A native of Yueyang, Hunan, he is a senior researcher of the Chinese Academy of Management Sciences, an expert of the Shenzhen Science and Technology Expert Database, an expert on business governance, and a communicator of red culture.