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Beijing, 18 May (Xinhua) -- On 18 May, Xinhua Daily Telegraph published a report entitled "He Wrote Immortal Songs for the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and Made 'Immortal Cows' for the People -- 74 Years After the author Mai Xin's sacrifice, stories such as "tailless cattle" and "half-hat felt hats" are still circulating in Kailu County, Inner Mongolia.
Maixin Town, Maixin Village, Maixin Central School... In Kailu County, Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, there are many place names named after "Mai Xin".
Who is Mai Xin?
He was a "revolutionary musician" who composed anti-Japanese salvation songs such as "The March of the Great Knife" and used his songs to send out fierce responses to the invaders.
He was the "old wheat" in the mouths of the people in Kailu County, mingling with the villagers, and once divided the felt hat into two, half to himself, and half to the villagers; he also pulled a plough for the people, and was called "tailless cow".
He was a Communist Party member who "wanted to be a 'good cow' for the people," and he had the courage to endure hardships and not be afraid of sacrifice for the sake of the masses, and once said that "it is most glorious to abandon his head for the liberation of the people."
Mai Xin has been sacrificed for 74 years, and many moving stories about him are still passed on by word of mouth among the people.
↑ The bronze statue of Mai Xin located in Mai Xin Memorial Square in Kailu County. The photos are all taken by Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter He Shuchen
Music is a weapon and a horn
"The great knife cut off the heads of the devils..." The childish song sang an impassioned melody. In the classroom of the second grade of the maixin town center school in Kailu County, li Mingyan, the counselor of the brigade, is teaching the children to sing the "Big Knife March".
"Do you know who Mai Xin is?" Lee Myung-yeon asked.
"He wrote the Big Knife March." "He started our school." "He's a communist." The children scrambled to answer.
Mai Xin has been sacrificed for 74 years, but he is not far away for the children now, and his story is still passed down from generation to generation in Kailu County.
Mai Xin was born in Shanghai in December 1914. When he was 11 years old, his father died and he made a living by relying on his mother's sewing and washing work. After the outbreak of the 918 Incident, the 17-year-old Mai Xin, under the influence of many patriotic progressives, participated in the Anti-Japanese Salvation Movement, successively participated in the organization of the Shanghai "People's Song Society" and "Amateur Choir" and other groups, and edited and published the magazine "Popular Song" with musician Meng Bo.
Under the influence of the vigorous salvation song movement in Shanghai in the 1930s, Mai Xin composed many progressive songs, using music as a weapon, spreading salvation songs with full enthusiasm, and inspiring the wandering people with revolutionary music.
On December 9, 1936, in the "National Federation for the Salvation of All Walks of Life" organ publication "Salvation Intelligence", a piece of news attracted attention: At present, the music of salvation is universal to all corners, and we recommend to every comrade who saves the country such a detailed and beautiful song collection "Popular Songs", which is priced for one corner of the ocean.
In order to publish "Popular Songs", Mai Xin and Meng Bo spent countless sleepless nights.
In 1936, in Shanghai, where progressive culture gathered, many anti-Japanese salvation singing groups represented by "amateur choirs" emerged. At the call of musicians Lü Ji and Xian Xinghai, the singing group set up a federation, with Mai Xin and Meng Bo as the general leaders, to collect the scattered songs of many groups into a book, which became the first task in front of Mai Xin.com.
"I was inspired by this article, which says that popular songs are the voice of the masses." At that time, Mai Xin took out an article by Tao Xingzhi entitled "What is a Popular Song" and proposed to use "Popular Song" as the title of the song collection.
In about two months, Mai Xin and Meng Bo collected 87 progressive songs, and due to the high-pressure situation of the "white terror" in the Kuomintang district, Mai Xin traveled to almost all the printing factories in Shanghai to find a small factory near the Hongkou Tilanqiao that was willing to print this radical revolutionary song collection. Because the workers did not understand the score, Mai Xin and Meng Bo worked with the workers to typeset and print overnight. Meng Bo recalled many years later: "Mai Xin was like having a serious illness, and both eyes were sunken in. ”
At the end of November 1936, "The Song of the Masses," with the Latin letters "Rise Up, The People Who Don't Want to Be Slaves," was finally published. Together with many progressive musicians, Mai Xin sent a cry to the whole of China to resist Japan and save the dead.
In 1937, the July 7 Incident broke out, and seeing the report of Mai Xin's excitement and emotions, he wrote the "Big Knife March" that resounded throughout the land of China. This song is composed to praise the deeds of the Twenty-ninth Army's great knife team in the battle to defend the Xifengkou Great Wall, and inspires countless Chinese sons and daughters to respond to the War of Resistance and resist foreign insults.
On August 8, 1937, the National Salvation Singing Association was established at the Shanghai Confucian Temple, and thousands of spontaneous people sang "The March of the Great Knife". "Brothers of the armed forces of the whole country, the day of the War of Resistance has come! The day of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression has come..." The strongest sound of the Chinese nation holding high the banner in the years of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression has passed through the vicissitudes of the century, and the echo is like a hong bell, which still haunts the ears.
"Mai Xin, this party member, is really enough!"
When we mention the "revolutionary musician" Mai Xin, we will think of his spirit of loyalty to the party, service to the masses, and courage to sacrifice, which has infected generations of people. The elderly Wang Yiting, who lives in Maixin Village, Maixin Town, once had contact with Mai Xin when he was a teenager, although he was 87 years old, he told mai xin's story in a strong spirit and gushed endlessly. He said that after Mai Xin's sacrifice, he often heard the adults in the village chant, "Mai Xin, a party member, is really enough!" ”
↑Wang Yiting, a villager in Maixin Village, Kailu County, tells the story of Mai Xin (photographed on March 4).
Mai Xin longed for the Communist Party. In the 1930s, the "People's Singing Society" organized by Mai Xin developed and grew, attracting the attention of Lu Ji, an underground member of the Communist Party of China and a musician. One day, Lü Ji came to the rehearsal site of the "People's Song Club" to chat with Mai Xin, Meng Bo and others about the future development direction of China's new music, and the national liberation and revolutionary ideals he talked about left a deep impression on Mai Xin. On the recommendation of Lü Ji, Mai Xin joined the "amateur choir" developed by the "Chinese Left-Wing Dramatists Alliance" led by the Communist Party of China, and often communicated with progressive musicians such as Xian Xinghai, He Luting, and Sha Mei, which made Mai Xin's vision broader and his sense of mission stronger.
In 1937, Mai Xin joined the field service team of the Eighth Army led by Qian Yishi and followed the troops to the front line. On the eve of their departure from Shanghai, Sun Shen and Zhang Heng, fellow musicians, approached Mai Xin and introduced him to the revolutionary ideas and ideals of the Communist Party of China, thus further strengthening Mai Xin's revolutionary conviction. Mai Xin wrote in his diary: "On September 25, 1937, my path was completely established, and I became a member of the vanguard of the proletariat. ”
In January 1938, the field service team came to Jiangshan, Zhejiang To work, and under the introduction of Comrade Liu Tianfu, secretary of the special party branch of the service team, Mai Xin officially joined the Communist Party of China.
Later, through the introduction of Zhou Enlai and others, Mai Xin came to Yan'an, the holy land of revolution, and served as the secretary of the party branch of the music department of Lu Xun Art Institute, and participated in the large-scale production movement, the rectification movement, and the Yan'an Literary and Art Forum. Mai Xin, who came to Yan'an, completely released his enthusiasm for creation and created a large number of musical works close to the production and life of the masses, such as "Spring Ploughing Little Song", "Defending the Border Area", "Mao Zedong Song", "Red May", "Zhidanling" and so on.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the comrades of the Lu Xun Art Institute set out in several batches to north and northeast China to do cultural and educational work for the people who had just been liberated from the enemy. After Mai Xin came to the northeast, the organization wanted to leave him to work in the city, but he insisted on working on the front line of the battle with the most difficult environment and the most complicated struggle.
At the beginning of 1946, Mai Xin came to Kailu County, where bandits were serious, and organized the masses to carry out land reform. In October of that year, Kailu County fell again, and Mai Xin served as the instructor of the cadre squadron of the five brigades of the "Yangtze River Cavalry Regiment" to carry out grassland guerrilla warfare with the enemy.
The winter in the northeast was bitterly cold, and Lü Mingren, the commander of the cavalry regiment, considered that Mai Xin was thin and from the south, worried that he could not withstand the cold in the north, and gave his leather clothes to Mai Xin. Who knew that Mai Xin turned his head and gave the leather coat to his comrade-in-arms Ge Liansheng. "I said he wasn't a southerner to resist freezing, let him wear it, and he said he was young and not afraid of freezing." Ge Liansheng later recalled.
After joining the cavalry regiment, Mai Xin, who could not ride a horse, was very distressed. He wrote in his diary: "We Shanghainese have rarely seen horses, and somehow, as soon as I got on the horse, I was dizzy, as if riding a cloud." ”
In order to adapt to horseback combat, Mai Xin was determined to learn to ride a horse. However, it was difficult for Mai Xin to get on the horse, and some people proposed that he step on the slope to get on the horse, and Mai Xin said that riding a horse was for war, and he had to go up anywhere. Mai Xin let his guards teach him to ride a horse, forcing himself to overcome dizziness. After many days of repeated training, Mai Xin wrote in his diary: "Riding a horse has improved a bit more than before... As long as the number of times is more, familiar with it, feel the rules, and gain experience, it will be easy to deal with. ”
After a winter of guerrilla struggle, in February 1947, Kailu County was liberated for the second time. Mai Xin served as the director of the Propaganda Department and the director of the Organization Department of the Kailu County CPC Committee, and carried out land reform and organized spring ploughing and production in the five districts with the most complicated struggle.
Wang Yiting, who was 13 years old at the time, met for the first time with the "Minister Mai" among the large population. "He didn't look like a cadre, he dressed just like us." The elderly Wang Yiting recalled, "When Mai Xin came to the village, he rarely held a meeting, but he went to the big willow tree at the mouth of the village to teach everyone to sing, and there were songs about how to make a revolution and how to divide the fields, and he often went to the fields to help the people plow the land, teach everyone to spin thread and grind tofu. ”
On the morning of June 6, 1947, Mai Xin went to the Kailu County Party Committee for a meeting, and after the meeting was adjourned, in order to implement the meeting instructions as soon as possible, he did not have time to eat and immediately returned to the work area. Attacked by bandits on the way, Mai Xin was shot four times and died heroically, at the age of 33.
↑Mai Xin Martyrdom Site in Kailu County (photo taken on March 3).
On June 8, Kailu County held a memorial service for Mai Xin, and many people rushed to send Mai Xin on his last journey. At the memorial service, a senior lady brought a roll of newly spun yarn, and it was Mai Xin who taught her to spin thread; a young man brought Mai Xin's favorite pot, mai xin rarely ate at his hometown, even if he ate, he had to leave money for food...
"Mai Xin taught the masses with his songs, and the masses remembered Mai Xin with his songs." Fang Gang, a historical researcher who has been working on the collection of historical materials related to Mai Xin for many years, said that two songs of mourning for Mai Xin were sung at the memorial service, namely "The True Hero of Mai Xin" and "Mai Xin Sacrificed for Our People", which was spontaneously created by the masses within a day or two after Mai Xin's sacrifice and quickly spread throughout the land of Kailu.
"Mai Xin is a tailless cow!"
The elderly Wang Yiting often told the story of Mai Xin to the young people in the village, and the most told was the story of "half a felt hat".
One early spring, when the sky was still cold, Mai Xin went to the big willow tree in Wanfayong Village to teach the villagers to sing. He saw a villager with a bare head and shivering with cold, and Mai Xin said that he could change his felt hat into two.
"Mai Xin pulled out the inside of the felt hat, and the whole felt hat was like a long watermelon." Wang Yiting said while comparing, "Click, Mai Xin used scissors to split in two from the middle, half a felt hat was given to the villagers, and half the top was reserved for himself."
The 73-year-old Xiao Lianfeng often listens to his father Xiao Guangqing tell the story of the half-felt hat. Xiao Guangqing had been carefully keeping a box with half a dark old felt hat inside.
"When Mai Xin saw that my father didn't have a hat and his ears were frostbitten, he had to take off his felt hat for my father." Xiao Lianfeng recalled, "My father said that he didn't want anything, so Mai Xin found scissors to cut the inside and outer skin of the felt hat into two, and gave the inside to my father." ”
"[Mai Xin] wears a white-gray uniform on the upper body, blue-gray pants on the lower body, and a gray-brown felt hat on his head." On the fortieth anniversary of Mai Xin's sacrifice in 1987, Xiao Guangqing wrote about the scene when he first saw Mai Xin, "He said that the surname is Mai, the wheat of barley, and the comrades are very curious about the surname of Mai, and the masses are very happy that the Eighth Route Army has come to rely on it." ”
Under the influence of Mai Xin, Xiao Guangqing's younger brother Xiao Guangzhu signed up for the army. Before leaving, Xiao Guangqing gave half a felt hat to his brother and told him to be a person like Mai Xin. Wearing this half felt hat, Xiao Guangzhu participated in more than 100 battles, large and small, such as the Liaoshen Campaign and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In the 1980s, Xiao Guangzhu returned to his hometown with a half-felt hat. Xiao Guangqing, who was nearly old at that time, put the half-felt hat and Mai Xin's photo together in the box and treasured it, often teaching children with the story of the half-felt hat.
Now more than thirty years later, the elderly Xiao Guangqing has passed away, and the half-felt hat has disappeared after several moves, but the story of the "half felt hat" is still sung among the people of Kailu County.
"Mai Xin often said, 'I can't be different from the masses.'" Zhang Jing, director of the propaganda department of the Maixin Memorial Hall in Kailu County, said, "He always gives his best things to the people. ”
Mai Xin wrote in his diary: "Good cattle, model cattle, loyal cattle, this is my goal of struggle, is my outlook on life." ”
In the 1970s, teachers and students of Tongliao Normal College went deep into Kailu to interview cadres and masses who had come into contact with Mai Xin, and collected many moving stories about Mai Xin.
When Mai Xin was teaching the masses to spin threads in Kailu County, he got to know the villager Zhao Da Niang. Zhao Daniang's in-laws and husband died because they did not survive the poor days, leaving only her and her two young children. In the past, there was no land to live the days of eating chaff and throat vegetables, and Zhao Da Niang had all come over, but since she had issued a land certificate and had her own six acres of land, she had been frowning: there was no livestock in her own home, and the mothers and daughters did not have the strength to do so.
After Mai Xin learned of the situation, he made a special trip to Zhao Daniang's house, saying that he had borrowed livestock from other people's homes, and in two days he would pull them into the field to plow the ground for Zhao Da niang. After a few days, there was still no movement of livestock in the field, and Lady Zhao slept in sorrow at night, and her daughter Cao'er next to the bed looked at it in her eyes and remembered it in her heart.
Late at night, Cao'er got up and took the hoe to her home, wanting to share her mother's worries, but she did not expect to see the picture that made her remember it deeply. The three figures shuttled back and forth in their own fields, and when they got closer, they saw Mai Xin, Liu Oushu and Xiao Guangqing. Xiao Guangqing supported the plough, Mai Xin and Liu Qushu pulled the sleeve like cattle. Cao'er ran to the ground and said painfully and emotionally, "Take a break, you've been tired after a night." Xiao Guangqing said from the side: "How can you turn over so much land in one night, Minister Mai has been working with us for several days, just like a cow without a tail!" ”
↑ Mai Xin restored wax statue at the Mai Xin Memorial Hall in Kailu County (left).
Mai Xin and other Communist Party members were devoted to the people and formed a deep friendship with the local people. On October 26, 1946, after mai xin's working group was forced to evacuate, the local people insisted on fighting the reactionaries and risked their lives to save the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army.
In an article published in 1947 titled "Kailu Guerrilla Observations," Mai Xin wrote that when the work group returned to the Tunzi where they had worked, the people were "reunited after a long absence, and there was mixed sorrow and joy." "Zhang X pulled me to someone's house, pointed to a young man on the kang and said, 'In the past two months, my family has hidden this eight-way color number... ' The central' has come three times and stripped people's clothes... When they came to search, they all said in unison, 'This is Zhang Jinming, the second son of the old Zhang family, because he went to the Hu family, a relative of Nanshatuo, to buy alkali, and he ran into the Central Army, when the Eighth Road was injured.' After that, each family in Quantun gave a bucket of grain, changed the money when they arrived in Kailu City, bought red wound medicine and came back to treat him. ”
"We must be 'good cattle' for the people"
"Transform your mind and improve yourself."
"Bow down to the cattle and be willing to be a cow, and we must be a 'good cow' for the people."
……
In the Mai Xin Memorial Hall in Kailu County, there are copies of Mai Xin's diaries from different periods on display. The cadres and masses who came to visit lingered in front of the exhibition board, carefully reading every word written by Mai Xin, and recording the original intention and mission of a Communist Party member between the lines.
In order to be a "good cow", Mai Xin has been learning.
Shortly after leaving Yan'an, Mai Xin wrote on the way to work in the Liberated Areas: "I am now interested in everything and everything, willing to study, and willing to be a primary school student. ”
After coming to the northeast to work, in order to integrate into the lives of ordinary people, Mai Xin and the locals learned to sing and dance. "Noisy song, we also joined the jump, dance is not good, very ashamed, we have to learn later." The song is really a dance of the people! ”
On the way to the road, Mai Xin laid out a study plan for himself: "Financial and Economic Issues, The Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Two Strategies, and General History of China. ”
Talking about my work in the northeast, Mai Xin said: "When I go to the northeast, I have ideals, do local work well, study the party's policies, improve my work style, learn northeast dialect, learn Russian, master a professional technology when necessary, and work hard toward the cause." ”
In order to be a "good cow", Mai Xin often criticizes himself in his diary.
"Remembering the childishness, impatience, lack of political vigilance of the past eight years ... and other problems, often chilling. "In the future, we must: talk more to the common people; remember more about the situation of the masses... Learn from reality, from society, from the peasants, from the masses. ”
Seeing the outstanding revolutionary comrades, Mai Xin often urged himself to look up to them, "Elder Song is amiable, caring, and steady in handling things, and we must learn from these specific people and specific things." "Talking with Comrade Yang Dianfa in the past few days has touched me very much. He has the excellent qualities of a veteran cadre of the Twenty-Five Thousand Mile Long March... My own party age is not short, nine years and seven days. But from the point of view of exercise, the transformation of one's own petty-bourgeois consciousness is not enough..."
In order to be a "good cow", Mai Xin always forgets his work.
Musician Lü Ji mentioned in Mai Xin's eulogy that Mai Xin took off his myopic glasses in order to make it easier for him to do mass work, and even when his children were sick, he still did not forget the work at hand and always put the interests of the masses first.
After the death of his child due to illness, Mai Xin endured grief and devoted himself to work, and he wrote in his diary: "One day, if there is no personal plan, the individualistic component is the least, that is enough to be an excellent Bolshevik!" ”
Page after page of Mai Xin's diary, I saw that even during his illness, most of the diary mentioned in the diary was still work. On September 5, 1946, Mai Xin mentioned in his diary that he had a serious fever, and the next day he wrote: "It is not good to sleep until I eat in the morning, and people are uncomfortable, and it is really bad to sleep so late." ”
In order to be a "good cow", Mai Xin thinks hard and strives to innovate.
Nie Er is Mai Xin's spiritual guide and musical role model, and Mai Xin has written many articles to commemorate Nie Er. In June 1942, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of Nie Er's sacrifice, Mai Xin published "A Brief Discussion on Nie Er's Mass Songs" in "National Music", "What we learn from Nie Er is to understand his realistic creation methods and nationalization and popularization of creative directions to apply to our own creations." ”
In July 1946, in order to promote the land reform work, Mai Xin combined the true stories of the local people and wrote the "Song of the Peasants' Association" with the popular "sentence and sentence double" song tune in the northeast. He took the song to the Poor Peasants' Congress for an audition, and when the song sang "Poor people are poor, why are they poor?" When the grain is laid down and returned to the east of the land, it will be five points of profit to eat the grain," an old man shouted cordially: "Old Mai, you really sang the words of our poor people' hearts." Because of the familiar tune and earnest lyrics, the "Song of the Peasant Association" was sung from generation to generation in Kailu County. 74 years later, the 87-year-old Wang Yiting sang the "Song of the Peasant Association", still in a sonorous tone.
In order to be a "good cow", Mai Xin has firm convictions and will not die for the revolutionary ideals.
According to the recollections of Mai Xin's wife Cheng Mai before his death, on the march away from Yan'an to the work area, Mai Xin said: "Another great era has arrived, I am only 31 years old, I have been engaged in music work for two years before the War of Resistance, eight years during the War of Resistance, and then for another ten or twenty years, and then I am only 50 years old." Fools move mountains, I will not change this ambition! ”
Mai Xin wrote in his diary during the guerrilla war: "To be able to bear hardships more and be more pleasant in suffering, the revolution will not be afraid of trouble, and the revolution is to suffer hardships." ”
On December 1, 1946, mai xin wrote in his diary that while being a "good cow", he also wrote down his determination to sacrifice for the revolution: "It is the most glorious to abandon his head for the survival of the party and the liberation of the people... All hardships and difficulties must be overcome with gritted teeth, and at most they will be sacrificed, and they will be afraid of suffering. ”
Mai Xin's dream is realized in Mai Xin Town
The masses in Kailu County still can't forget Mai Xin, because Mai Xin has sweated and shed blood on this land, and because Mai Xin's spirit of firm faith and hard struggle is still passed down on this land.
Mai Xin once touched the head of the young Wang Yiting and said, You little gags will all join the children's regiment in the future, and you must all advance. Later, Wang Yiting not only joined the children's league, but also joined the party, successively serving as the leader of the production team and the secretary of the village party branch.
Before Wang Yiting became the leader of the production team, the grain yield in the team was only about 100 catties per mu, and he had to eat the grain sold back every year. After becoming the captain, he led everyone to control saline and alkali land, repair water canals, and engage in production, and the grain yield reached 400 catties per mu. "Party members should be like Mai Xin, always thinking about the masses and fighting together with the masses." The party member, who is nearly 50 years old, said.
Wang Yiting's great-grandson, Wang Ruiyan, is in the second grade at Maixin Central School, whose predecessor was the Guangming Academy founded by Mai Xin. After Mai Xin came to work in Kailu, he found that children were generally illiterate, so he opened his first school in the local area. "I often listened to My grandfather tell Mai Xin's story, and he also took me to visit Mai Xin's grave." Wang Ruiyan said.
More than 70 years ago, Xiao Guangqing's family lived in a horse rack house that leaked everywhere, and his little brother almost froze to death without clothes in winter. Today, Xiao Lianfeng and his son Xiao Lijun live in a spacious and bright brick house, and the family has raised more than 60 cattle and planted more than 20 acres of corn, with an annual income of tens of thousands of yuan.
The day when Mai Xin looked forward to the poor turning over in the song has now become a reality. The five districts of Kailu County, where Mai Xin worked in the past, have been renamed Mai Xin Town, and all 1,008 poor households in the town have been steadily lifted out of poverty.
In 2021, the Party Committee of Maixin Town won the title of "National Advanced Collective for Poverty Alleviation". "Water thinks of the source, tree loves roots, poor and lower middle peasants remember wheat new." How beautiful our lives are, Mai Xin is our entrepreneur. More than 70 years later, songs in honor of Mai Xin were sung again, and the mood of the people in Mai Xin Town was particularly surging.