Liao Chengzhi has always been known in the party for his calm and relaxed views, happy and harmonious sex, and wide range of friends. He was imprisoned seven times in his lifetime, the longest of which lasted nearly four years during the War of Resistance. In many of the poems he wrote at that time and "The Experience of Prison Struggle", he clearly recorded the years of physical and mental devastation, from which he could glimpse his belief and attitude in the face of sudden transgression.
Deng Xiaoping jokingly called him a "prison expert"
The Liao family is full of heroes. Liao Chengzhi's father, Liao Zhongkai, and his mother, He Xiangning, were both well-known democratic revolutionaries. His hometown huizhou specially established the Liao Zhongkai He Xiangning Research Association, and the president Cheng Xiaojun said that unlike Liao Zhongkai, Liao Chengzhi embarked on the road of pursuing communism at the beginning and had a broader platform, so he carried forward and carried forward the "Zhongkai Spirit" very well.
In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup, on the same day, Liao Chengzhi tore his Kuomintang card to pieces, he completely broke with the Kuomintang and embarked on the road of pursuing communist ideals. Since then, prison and hardship have also accompanied him.
According to statistics, Liao Chengzhi has been imprisoned seven and a half times in his life, the first three times in Japan, when he was still a non-party mass. The fourth was in 1931, when Liao Chengzhi was arrested in the Netherlands and hamburg, Germany, when he was already a communist and working as a Chinese seaman in Europe. The fifth time was in March 1933, when Liao Chengzhi was arrested by the Kuomintang as propaganda minister of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and secretary of the party group of the All-China Seamen's Union.
In 1933, Liao Chengzhi transferred to the Sichuan-Shaanxi revolutionary base area under the name of "He Liuhua", joined the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, served as the secretary general of the General Political Department of the Red Fourth Front during the Long March, and was imprisoned by Zhang Guotao on the grounds that "he was from the White Zone, was arrested, and whether he was released for defection remained to be examined."
In May 1942, in Lechang, Guangdong Province, Liao Chengzhi was again arrested by Kuomintang agents and imprisoned in the Majiazhou concentration camp in Gannan Province, the Zha di Cave of the "Sino-US Cooperation Institute" in Gele Mountain, Chongqing, the Bai Mansion, and huangjiayuanzi.
Deng Xiaoping once jokingly called him an "expert in prison." He teased Deng Xiaoping: "Your experience in prison is not as good as mine, I can still draw cartoons, you will not." During his long prison life, Liao Chengzhi drew many cartoons, revealing the open-minded optimism and firm belief of a revolutionary.
Liao Chengzhi's second sitting in the Kuomintang prison was the most sinister and the longest. He has painted a set of self-portraits reflecting real life in prison: one is his wide-eyed cockroach and stone picking cockroaches and stones in his meal; the other is a pair of mice in new wedding dresses walking over his quilt, and Liao Chengzhi sings "Wedding March" for them.
"Tangled in shackles" to take the Long March
In August 1933, Liao Chengzhi left Shanghai, took the instruction letter from the CPC Central Committee to the Red Fourth Front and the enemy's code-breaking method manual, disguised as a dock worker, transferred from Chongqing to Chengdu, and together with Luo Shiwen, member of the Standing Committee of the Sichuan Provincial CPC Committee, escorted by traffic officers, after some twists and turns, came to the Sichuan-Shaanxi revolutionary base area to join the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army under the name of "He Liuhua". He successively served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Sichuan-Shaanxi Soviet District Cpc Committee, the director of the Propaganda Department of the Trade Union, and in early 1934, he was transferred to the Secretary General of the General Political Department of the Red Fourth Front. At that time, Liao Chengzhi was only 26 years old.
Since 1931, Zhang Guotao, the principal responsible person of the Red Fourth Front, has pursued a "Left" line; under the pretext of "suppressing rebellion," he has arbitrarily hunted down and killed party and Red Army cadres by means of torture to extract confessions, causing great losses to the construction of the Eyu-Anhui, Sichuan-Shaanxi base areas, and the Red Fourth Front. The young Liao Chengzhi bravely criticized Zhang Guotao's mistakes and was suppressed and criticized by Zhang Guotao.
In September 1934, Zhang Guotao and others interrogated Liao Chengzhi in the Niangniang Temple behind the sichuan-Shaanxi provincial party committee in Bazhong County, Sichuan. Because of his opposition to Zhang Guotao's "left" mistakes, Liao Chengzhi was forcibly charged with "secret agent", expelled from the party and imprisoned. Since then, Liao Chengzhi has lost his freedom.
At that time, most of the cadres and party members arrested in the Eyu-Anhui Soviet District were killed, and Liao Chengzhi was able to survive, in addition to the prestige of his parents, the main reason was Liao Chengzhi's painting talent. Tie Zhuwei said in the book "Biography of Liao Chengzhi": "The reason why Zhang Guotao did not kill Liao Chengzhi is that in addition to his family lineage, in addition to the pressure of the Communist International and the Party Central Committee, the most practical and important thing is that he can engrave wax plates and paint, and Zhang Guotao wants to print banknotes in the base area, which is inseparable from him." ”
On the Long March, as a "prisoner", liao Chengzhi, who was escorted to accompany the army on the Long March, was in a more difficult situation. Liao Chengzhi crossed the snow-capped mountains and folded mountains all year round, and walked through the vast Tibetan nomadic area of Ganzi with difficulty. Not only did hunger, cold, and fatigue torment him, but the pain of the "wearing shackles" long march was even more unimaginable. But he always firmly believed in the party, that the revolutionary cause would be victorious, that he would be able to gain freedom, and that he always maintained an open-minded and optimistic spirit.
Liao Chengzhi is versatile, in a difficult environment, under great mental pressure, always loyal to the party, meticulous work. While working at the Red China News Agency (the predecessor of Xinhua News Agency), Liao Chengzhi was drawn to work as a news station. He understands English, Japanese, French, German, Russian and other languages, and is responsible for translating foreign telegrams into Chinese every day. He worked around the clock, translating more than 6,000 words of telegrams every day.
In September 1936, the Red Second and Red Fourth Fronts successively entered Gansu and Ningxia. Zhou Enlai, then vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, had been inquiring about Liao Chengzhi and other comrades who accompanied the Red Fourth Front's Long March. One day, on his way to the town of Prewang in Tongxin County, Ningxia, Zhou Enlai happened to encounter Liao Chengzhi and others who were being detained by the security department and marching with the army.
When Liao Chengzhi saw Zhou Enlai, he was very excited. Zhou Enlai met Liao Chengzhi in 1924, when he was only 16 years old and a student. Separated from Zhou Enlai for 10 years, he is now a "prisoner" who has been "expelled" from the party, and in this case, Liao Chengzhi does not know how to be good.
According to Liao Chengzhi's recollection, he thought to himself: Do you avoid it or not? Someone next to me was holding me, and if I greeted and talked to Zhou Enlai, I was afraid that I would cause him trouble. When I was hesitating, Zhou Enlai came over and saw that I was being escorted, and there was no expression on his face, no matter what happened, nor did he speak, but he shook hands with me tightly. That night, Zhou Enlai sent a correspondent to find me to the headquarters. When I entered the house, I saw a large room of people, and Zhang Guotao was also there. Zhang Guotao obviously knew that Zhou Enlai knew me, but he asked in a strange way, "Do you already know me?" Zhou Enlai did not answer him directly, but instead asked me sharply: "Do you recognize the error?" "Deep understanding or not profound?" "Change it or not?" ...... I answered them one by one. Zhou Enlai left me to eat. During the meal, Zhou Enlai only talked to Zhang Guotao and ignored me. After eating, he told me to go back. I saluted and left.
Zhang Guotao originally wanted to execute Liao Chengzhi that night, but thanks to the resourceful Zhou Enlai's superb art of struggle, he was able to protect the descendants of the revolutionary martyrs and preserve an outstanding diplomat for the republic. Rescued by Zhou Enlai, Liao Chengzhi was freed and arrived in northern Shaanxi in December 1936.
The special experience of participating in the Long March as a "prisoner" did not make Liao Chengzhi sink, and he enthusiastically undertook the work of translating foreign electricity. In April 1937, he served as the secretary of the Party Newspaper Committee, participated in the preparation of the publication of the political theory journal of the CPC Central Committee, Liberation Magazine, and did a lot of work for the party newspaper, party magazine and news agency.
——Excerpt from the first issue of the New Long March in 2020
Author: Chun Qi
Editor: Jiang Chuting
![Liao Chengzhi and his mother He Xiangning[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)