The Paper's reporter Gong Hanyu
【Editor's Note】
Shanghai is the birthplace of the party and the place where its original intention originated.
Over the past hundred years, Shanghai has continuously reformed, explored, innovated and practiced, and has become a window and a banner for the world to see China.
In 2021, the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) traces back a hundred years, visits the old revolutionary sites, toures the red venues, traces the secret radio, hooks and sinks the revolutionary publications, decrypts the red agents, rereads the left-wing characters... From now on, the "Red Shanghai • Chuxin Road" series of reports will be launched.
On the night of February 7, 1931, in Longhua, Shanghai, darkness shrouded a deserted ruin, the sound of iron shackles approached from afar, and 23 young men and women dragged heavy steps. Successive gunshots rang out, and 23 young beings collapsed in a pool of blood.
Among them was a young man named Zhao Pingfu, a 29-year-old writer who had run an education in his hometown and came to Shanghai after the setback to live in Jingyunli. Here, he created "Chao Hua", compiled "Yu Silk", entered the "Left Lian", "made literature, also created, and also translated", and joined lu Xun.
He has a more widely known pen name– Soft Stone.
Roushi portrait (remake) The pictures in this article are all pictures of the surging news reporter Gong Han
Rou shi was killed, and Lu Xun was so sad and indignant that he wrote a poem late one night to mourn:
Accustomed to long nights in the spring, the woman will have silky sideburns.
In the dream, there were still tears of the mother, and the head of the city changed the banner of the king.
Bear with watching his peers become new ghosts, angrily looking for small poems in the knife bush.
There is no place to write, and the moonlight shines like water on the clothes.
After 90 years of Roushi's sacrifice, Jingyunli has been baptized by time several times and has become a residential area composed of Shikumen buildings. In February 2021, a reporter from The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) visited the former residence of Roushi in Hongkou, Shanghai. Push open the iron door and go straight inside, at the end of the narrow alley there is a small four-storey building, with stone as the door frame and dark solid thick wood as the door leaf. There are a lot of green plants outside the door, and I think it is because of winter, many of which have withered yellow.
Jingyunli Narrow Alley - Roushi's old residence
The door of the apartment seems to be usually closed, and the back door is open, and there are a lot of debris. When the reporter asked about the nearby residents, few people knew about Roushi, only that Jingyun had lived in many revolutionary figures, including Lu Xun, a regular visitor in the textbook.
When commemorating Roushi, Lu Xun wrote: "The night is long, and the road is also long... There will always be times in the future when we remember them and talk about them again. "This small four-story building hidden in time still retains the structure of the old times, and the mottled walls seem to tell the story of soft stones in the glory years.
"As long as it is harmful to others, he will pick it up and carry it himself."
After the defeat of the National Revolution in 1927, many revolutionary writers gathered in Shanghai, which became the center of revolutionary literature. In April 1928, a peasant riot broke out in Ninghai, Roushi's hometown, and Roushi was implicated and fled to Shanghai.
At that time, Roushi lived in a small pavilion in the French Concession, living in difficulty, and had two thick original manuscripts of "Death in the Old Era" in his hand, asking Lu Xun for help.
Soon after, Roushi lived in Jingyunli No. 23. This was the place where Lu Xun once lived, and Lu Xun moved to No. 17, which was separated by four or five facades, and later moved to No. 18 because he was close to Daxingfang and the environment was noisy. This is also reflected in Lu Xun's article "For the Remembrance of Forgetting": "I and Roushi first met, I don't know when, there. He seemed to have said that he had heard my lecture notes in Beijing, then, eight or nine years ago. I also forgot how to get back and forth in Shanghai, in short, he lived in Jingyun at that time, only four or five facades away from my apartment, and somehow came back and forth. ”
Jingyunli No. 23 Soft Stone Former Residence
There is a "Lu Xun and Cultural Celebrity Exhibition" in Jingyunli, and the volunteers of the exhibition hall introduced to reporters that because the apartment is very close, and the two have similar interests, Roushi often goes to Lu Xun's home to eat, and even eats Chinese New Year's Eve meal together. The relationship between the two should be excellent, with more than ninety contacts recorded in Lu Xun's Diary; more than 100 times recorded in the Roushi Diary, and even more actual interactions.
Lu Xun admired Rou Shi, and he was the only one who not only dared to talk and laugh casually, but also dared to entrust him with some personal affairs." In "Remembrance for Forgetting", Lu Xun has a general evaluation of the soft stone in his mind: "Whether from the old morality or from the new morality, as long as it is harmful to himself, he will choose it and carry it himself." ”
In December 1928, through Lu Xun's introduction, Roushi served as the editor of "Yusi", and set up the Chaohua Society with "several other agreed youths", in addition to creation, and devoted himself to introducing foreign literature and art, especially Nordic and Eastern European literature and printmaking, publishing twenty issues of Chaohua Weekly, twelve issues of The Tenth Issue, and five copies of "Yiyuan Chaohua". Lu Xun mentioned in the "Small Biography of Roushi": "Later, because the agent did not pay the price of the book, the force could not be supported, so it was suspended. ”
However, from then on, Roushi finally stood in the Shanghai literary circle, and among the fans of the Chaohua Society, except for Lu Xun, Roushi seemed to have become the center. Soon after, "Death of the Old Times" and "February" were published one after another, and Roushi experienced his most active period in the Shanghai literary world. Among them, "February" is very much valued by Lu Xun, and there are detailed verbal criticisms of it, very specifically pointing out the advantages and also pointing out the shortcomings, and Roushi is very pleased with this sincere and specific criticism.
"We all wait with fire, with blood, with death"
In the autumn of 1929, the Party Central Committee prepared to form a revolutionary literary and art group headed by Lu Xun, the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union.
When the "Left Alliance" preparatory group was established, Roushi, as one of the twelve preparatory members, did a lot of specific work, including participating in the drafting of the list of founders of the Left Alliance and discussing the outline of the Left Alliance.
On the afternoon of March 2, 1930, the official conference of the "Zuo Lian" was held, and Rou shi accompanied Lu Xun on his walk from Jingyunli to the Chinese Art Conference Hall at No. 233 Dou Le'an Road (now Duolun Road). At the meeting, Roushi was elected as an executive member, and later served as a standing committee member, director of the editorial department, participated in the editing of the monthly magazine "Sprout" of the left alliance organ, and then maintained close contact with the responsible person of the Northern Left Alliance.
Used old objects of soft stone
In May 1930, through the introduction of Feng Xuefeng, Roushi joined the Communist Party of China in Shanghai. Soon, together with Hu Yepin and Feng Hao, he attended the All-China Regional Congress of Soviets held in Shanghai in secret as representatives of the Left League. After the meeting, he wrote an article entitled "A Great Impression", which was published in the first issue of the Left League organ publication World Culture, in which he enthusiastically cheered: "China, just get red!" The flames of the whole world will also be ignited by our bottom and will be burned... We all waited with fire, with blood, with death. "A new and passionate soft stone is growing.
During this period, Roushi also participated with Lu Xun in the initiation of the Grand League of the Chinese Freedom Movement.
In addition, during the Left Alliance period, Roushi wrote a short story "Mother for Slaves", reflecting the phenomenon of "pawn wives" in rural China at that time, and was the last short story that Roushi completed. This story about the tragic fate of poor women under China's feudal system has been published by many Chinese writers and translated into many languages, and Roman Rolland praised the novel after reading the French version, saying: "I am deeply moved by this story. ”
"There will always be times in the future to remember them and talk about them again"
The growth of Roushi came to an abrupt end in 1931.
On the afternoon of January 17, 1931, Roushi was arrested during a meeting at the Oriental Hotel in Shanghai. In the middle of the meeting, a "tea room" broke in, pretending that there was something wrong with the electric light and needed to be checked and repaired. As soon as the lights came on, the ambush agents outside rushed in, and all the more than thirty comrades who participated in the rally were arrested.
Roushi and others were arrested during a secret meeting at the Oriental Hotel (remake)
On the same day, a bookstore apprentice handed Roushi's friend Lin Tanqiu a note that read: "Old Zhao suffered from an acute illness and went to the hospital", which means that Roushi was arrested. The apprentice further explained that Roushi had just been rounded up and taken to the bookstore to prove that he was an editor, and the bookstore had proved it, while Roushi was still taken back and handcuffed. Also arrested were Hu Yepin, Yin Fu, and Feng Hao.
According to "For the Remembrance of Forgetting", the night before his arrest, Roushi had just visited Lu Xun's house, and tomorrow's bookstore wanted to publish a periodical and asked Roushi to be the editor; tomorrow's bookstore wanted to print Lu Xun's translation, and Toroushi asked Lu Xun for royalties. Lu Xun copied a copy of the contract made by the Beixin Bookstore and handed it to Roushi, who stuffed his pocket and hurried away. I couldn't imagine that this meeting was the eternal trick of the two people. At the time of his arrest, because he had Lu Xun's contract on his body, the official office was also looking for Lu Xun, and the matter was urgent, Lu Xun burned the letters of his friends, and his family took refuge in the Huanglu Road (now Huangdu Road) Garden Village Hotel.
The day after their arrest, five young people were taken to the "British Concession" court for trial. Lin Tanqiu recalled that the five young writers were all disheveled, some wearing suits and some wearing robes. Roushi wears a suit, the myopic glasses she wears on weekdays are nowhere to be found, and her face is a little puffy.
"The interrogation began, a moment of kung fu, a real moment of kung fu, I didn't even hear anything clearly, the interrogation was over, the verdict was 'extradition' ('British Concession' extradition to the Chinese authorities, which is synonymous with 'death penalty')." Lin Tanqiu recalled that ten clenched fists were raised at the same time, and five young people shouted loudly:
"We are not satisfied with the verdict"
"We are not guilty"
"We protest!"
But he was immediately dragged away by the bailiffs. The matter became more and more serious, and Roushi's friends rushed to the rescue, but to no avail.
At midnight on February 7 of the same year, Roushi and 23 other people were collectively shot and killed in the wasteland inside the Longhua Headquarters, and the bodies were buried on the spot, leaving no trace.
According to residents near the headquarters who witnessed from the window of the building at the time, when they were about to be executed, they shouted "Long live the Communist Party" from the prison door, and the sound was so loud that the shouts were extinguished until the gunshots stopped.
In the Left Alliance Memorial Hall, the scene of the five martyrs of the Left League being imprisoned is animated
Rou Shi's death made Lu Xun sad and indignant, and he wrote in "In the Remembrance for Forgetting": "Witnessing the blood of many young people, layer by layer, buried me unable to breathe... The night is long, the road is long, I might as well forget it and not say it. But I know that even if it wasn't me, there would always be times in the future when I would remember them and talk about them again. ......”
(The sources of this article are "Diary of Roushi", "Biography of Roushi", "Zuolian Dictionary", etc.)
Editor-in-Charge: Gao Wen
Proofreader: Luan Meng