When it comes to Shanghai in old China, people often think of carnival dance music, confused lights, here is the city of oriental floating, but also the city of dawn. Foreign leasing sites are located here, as are factories in Japan, the United Kingdom and other countries. Seemingly peaceful paper drunk fans, but failed to cover up the crazy aggression and plunder of the imperialist powers. On May 30, 1925, the British patrol in the concession staged a May 30 massacre that shocked China and foreign countries. They shot at innocent people, killing 13 students, workers and others, and injuring countless others. It was precisely a fuse that caused the anti-imperialist anger buried deep in the hearts of the Chinese people to erupt at once. As Qu Qiubai said, May 30th! This was indeed the day when the Chinese National Revolution began, marking the arrival of the climax of the Great Revolution. So how did this day begin, let us go back to the haze-shrouded era, reminisce about the May Thirtieth Movement, and feel the condensation and accumulation of history.
Since the establishment of the revolutionary united front cooperated by the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in 1924, the workers' and peasants' movement has developed rapidly like a sea of mountains, indicating that the national revolutionary climax is coming. In order to strengthen the Party's leadership over the mass movement of workers and peasants, the Fourth Congress of the Party raised the question of the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution. And on May 1, 1925, the Second National Labor Conference was held in Guangzhou, and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions was formally established. On that day, the weather was particularly clear, and it seemed that the heavens also sensed the joy in the hearts of the workers, and at the meeting, the deputies of the people righteously and sternly shouted the export number: "No matter what kind of capital, as long as you run an enterprise in China, you must abide by the laws of China." "It can be said that the deeper the oppression, the more intense the resistance.
At that time, there were 41 Japanese spinning mills in China, and Chinese workers were treated extremely cruelly in Japanese spinning mills, working 12 hours a day, with very little wages, some of which were only a dime a day. Due to the power of the pro-Japanese faction duan qirui and the fengzhi warlords, the Japanese capitalists exploited the workers even more recklessly.
On the evening of May 15, the Inner and Outer Cotton Seventh Factory locked the gate for no reason to prevent workers from entering the factory, and Gu Zhenghong, a communist party member, negotiated with it. The Japanese foreman announced to the workers: "There is no yarn today, and the big class (factory director) told you all to go back!" The workers listened and coaxed: "We have to go to work, and if we don't work, we have to pay our wages." "Everyone gathered at the office door and insisted on going to work. Gu Zhenghong led everyone to shout loudly: "Open the door quickly, we will go to work." "Some workers lifted stones and smashed doors. Gu Zhenghong waved his hand and shouted, "Workers, rush!" The workers rushed in like a flood that broke the dike. The Japanese who guarded the door raised their sticks and beat them, and many workers were beaten to the head and bleeding. Gu Zhenghong led some people to rush to the material room and took out some "shuttle sticks" as a self-defense weapon.
At this moment, the "big class" of the Seventh Inner and Outer Cotton Factory and the "big class" of the deputy general manager of the inner and outer cotton factory received a call from the doorman, picked up a pistol, led a group of thugs, and ran straight to the door. Facing the enemy with guns, Gu Zhenghong had no fear. He stood at the front, raised his shuttle stick and asked, "Why don't you let us go to work?" The roar of hundreds of workers was earth-shattering. When the "big class" of the Inner and Outer Cotton Seventh Factory saw that it was Gu Zhenghong, who had been paying attention for a long time, he gritted his teeth and fired a shot at Gu Zhenghong, and Gu Zhenghong's calf was bleeding. He suppressed the pain and shouted: "Workers, unite and fight!" Suddenly, the bullets of the "big class" hit him in the abdomen again, and Gu Zhenghong hugged the small tree next to him, still stubbornly standing. The murderer, the Japanese "Big Class," fired two shots at Gu Zhenghong in a row, and Gu Zhenghong was finally seriously injured and fell into a pool of blood, only 20 years old. A large number of workers carried the corpses to the parade, and everywhere they went, there was incessant crying and excitement.
At the meeting of the public sacrifice, there is a pair of knots, the upper link is: although the gentleman is dead, the spirit is not dead; the lower link is: the murderer is still there, where is the axiom; the banner is: the vanguard of the workers.
Gu Zhenghong's incident aroused great anger among the people of Shanghai and Chinese. In the early morning of May 30, Li Lisan, Cai Hesen, Xiang Jingyu, and others organized workers and students to distribute leaflets on the roads in the concession and deliver speeches opposing the shooting of Gu Zhenghong against the four proposals and the repossession of the concession. In the afternoon, more than 100 students were arrested in the old gate of Nanjing Road, and the angry masses of students demanded that the patriots who were arrested be released, and they were severely beaten. Ignoring the human rights and precious lives of Chinese, imperialism used cold guns and batons to cause the May Thirtieth Massacre that shocked China and foreign countries.
Civilized people who once flaunted themselves as advanced, on this sweltering afternoon, they took off their false masks, revealed their vicious and ugly nature, and shot at the dense crowd, and the brave young people stained the gray land red with their blood, washing away all this tyranny. They have fallen, but the banner of "fighting for freedom" is still flying, and the cries of "overthrowing imperialism" are still shaking.
After the tragic incident, the CENTRAL Committee of the Communist Party of China held an emergency meeting overnight, and Cai Hesen proposed to carry out a comprehensive strike and strike in order to more strongly oppose the atrocious acts of imperialism and set up an action committee to concretely lead the "three strikes" struggle.
On May 31, the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions was established, with Li Lisan and Liu Hua as the chairman and vice chairman, Liu Shaoqi as the director of the General Affairs Section, and the Federation of Trade Unions announced that a general strike would be implemented in the city on June 1. On May 31, students were the first to take action, and schools above the secondary level in Shanghai's Huajie and concessions had begun to strike, and thousands of students risked arrest and shooting, and handed out leaflets on Nanjing Road to encourage people to resist. On June 1, students from Shanghai University, Fudan University, Nanyang University, and many imperialist church schools also began to strike. At the same time, the workers of Shanghai held a general strike, and the workers of trams, buses and printing plants, under the leadership of the Federation of Trade Unions, formed a well-structured and disciplined main force against imperialism, and played a mainstay role in the struggle.
Suddenly, the once prosperous Shanghai Municipality was surging with wind and clouds, public opinion boiled over, more than 200,000 workers went on strike, more than 50,000 students went on strike, and most of the merchants went on strike, fully demonstrating the indomitable spirit of the Chinese nation in working together to resist aggression. In order to preserve the organisation of the working class and the victories already achieved, it was decided to change the general strike policy, focusing on economic demands, conducting individual negotiations, partial settlements and gradual resumption of work. In the end, the Japanese capitalists agreed to pension Gu Zhenghong's family for 10,000 yuan, compensate the workers for strike losses of 100,000 yuan, and gradually return to work of workers in various walks of life, ending the months-long strike struggle.
The May Thirtieth Movement opened the prelude to the climax of the Great Revolution with great momentum, just as the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out at that time in "To Tell the People of the Whole Country for resisting the barbaric and brutal massacre of imperialism": The history of China from the Battle of Opium to the Battle of Gengzi is completely a blood book of foreign robbers slaughtering the Chinese nation. However, this may thirtieth blood spatter on Nanjing Road is the first page of the Chinese nation's conscious resistance to imperialism!
The May Thirtieth Movement swept across the country quickly, with the largest and most widespread strikes held by workers in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
In order to thoroughly safeguard the interests of the workers, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions sent Deng Zhongxia and Su Zhaozheng to lead more than 50,000 workers in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, as well as peasants, citizens, students and revolutionary soldiers, to hold a mass meeting in solidarity with the May Thirtieth Movement at the East Campus in Guangzhou. After the meeting, the masses from all walks of life held a demonstration and march. The mighty procession went west in the order of workers, peasants, merchants, and soldiers, and leaflets flew one after another, and there were planes in the sky distributing leaflets. At 2 p.m., the procession reached the West Causeway Shaki Pass.
Saki is a street built by the water, only a few inches away from the sand surface of the British and French concessions. At this time, the British military police hiding behind the sandbag fortifications fired a series of vicious machine gun bullets at the dense parade. The crowd suddenly rushed to the inner street like a flood breaking the embankment, each looking for a place to hide. The ears were full of the cries of the people, and the human eyes were the rushed colors of people's faces, and at this time, Shaji was already dead and wounded, and the blood was flowing, and it was unbearable to see. There are also many people hiding under the pillars and dare not move, and there are countless wounded people lying on the ground groaning in pain, as long as they stand up and the machine guns are a burst of strafing, these imperialists are the swordmen who exterminate humanity, and even the unarmed people must be exterminated in this way! The Shaji massacre further aroused the determination of the Chinese people to resist, and the scale of the strikers in the province and Hong Kong was even expanded.
On July 3, the Provincial and Hong Kong Strike Committee was established, with Su Zhaozheng as its chairman, to strike at British imperialism in Hong Kong. The Revolutionary Government of Guangzhou adopted a supportive attitude towards the strike and funded the strike committee with 10,000 yuan per month. One of the important tactics implemented by the provincial and Hong Kong strike committees was to impose a blockade on Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a small island with water on all sides, and a lot of food depends on Guangzhou for supply. Dock workers went on strike, Guangdong blockaded, inland meat and vegetables can not be transported, the result of pork, eggs desperately increased prices, the British like to eat beef can not be seen at all. The food market is empty, and in contrast to the garbage and excrement piled up on the streets, Hong Kong, which is known for its prosperity, has become a "hungry port". After the seafarers went on strike, the vessels were no longer in port and the docks were abandoned. Goods could not be transported in, and shops were closed. Things cannot be bought, and the social order is chaotic. Everyone also calls Hong Kong "Dead Harbor". By December 1925, HKEX had to admit that the damage caused by the strike had reached £62.5 million.
Faced with this situation, The Governor of Hong Kong, Stazi, also wanted to take the same methods as in the Opium War and attack by force. He specifically and publicly convened a so-called "citizens' assembly" in the name of the assembly to ask the British government to send troops to suppress the strike. However, at this time and at a time, the situation at this time was completely different from the situation in the era of the Opium War, and even though Stas was determined to fight to the death, he was afraid that his efforts would be in vain. He even secretly used a trust fund of 50,000 yuan to secretly instruct Donghua Hospital to instigate a mutiny in Guangzhou, and after the defeat was exposed, public opinion was in an uproar, so that Before Star's term of office expired, he slipped out of power and gave way to the newly appointed governor, Kim Wentai, to clean up the mess.
The provincial and hong Kong general strikes, under extremely difficult conditions, lasted for 1 year and 4 months (16 months) until October 1926, when they ended in victory and dealt a heavy blow to the colonial rule of British imperialism. This was the longest strike in the history of the world workers' movement and demonstrated the strong leadership and thorough revolutionary spirit of the Chinese working class. It became an important part of the May Thirtieth Movement.
The May Thirtieth Movement was a mass anti-imperialist patriotic movement under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and its scale, scope, and number of people were unprecedented. Today, when we are bathed in the rising sun and enjoying a harmonious and stable life, it is difficult to imagine that in 1925, Shanghai and the people of the whole country faced the aggressors like bloodthirsty sharks bit by bit of fear, they used life and blood to interpret the pursuit of national sovereign independence, the yearning for peace and freedom, like a dry tea, in such a harsh environment in boiling water, the leaves stretched out, a pot of boiling water finally turned into a bright tea soup, The May Thirtieth Movement vividly demonstrated the character and inexhaustible inner strength of Chinese, wrote a glorious page in the history of the anti-imperialist liberation movement of the Chinese people, and unveiled the prelude to the storm of the national revolution.