Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun: Wedding on the execution ground

Source: Xinhua News Agency

"The head can be broken, the limbs can be broken, and the revolutionary spirit is indestructible." The head of the strong man is the party fall, and the body of the good man is a group of cracks. This is an immortal poem written on the prison wall by Zhou Wenyong, a communist party member, after his arrest.

On February 6, 1928, Zhou Wenyong, together with Chen Tiejun, a female Communist Party member who had established love in the revolutionary struggle, held a tragic wedding at the Honghuagang Execution Ground in Guangzhou.

Zhou Wenyong, a native of Kaiping, Guangdong, was born in August 1905. He joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League in 1923 and the Communist Party of China in 1925, and served as a member of the Working Committee of the Cpc Guangdong District Committee, the chief of the Guangzhou Workers' Picket Team, the director of the Organization Department of the CPC Guangzhou Municipal Committee and the secretary of the Working Committee of the Municipal Party Committee.

Chen Tiejun, formerly known as Chen Xiejun, a native of Foshan, Guangdong, was born in March 1904. In the autumn of 1924, Chen Tiejun was admitted to the preparatory department of the College of Letters of Guangdong University. During her studies, in order to pursue progress, Tie Xin followed the Communist Party, and she changed her original name to Xie Jun to Tie Jun. In April 1926, she joined the Communist Party of China.

In October 1927, after the defeat of the Great Revolution, Zhou Wenyong was elected as an alternate member of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and put into preparations for the Guangzhou Uprising. Chen Tiejun was dispatched by the party to disguise himself as Zhou Wenyong's wife and participate in the preparations for the Guangzhou Uprising.

In the early morning of December 11, 1927, under the leadership of Zhang Tailei, Ye Ting, Yun Daiying, Ye Jianying, Yang Yin, Zhou Wenyong, Nie Rongzhen, and other leaders, the armed uprising in Guangzhou, which shook China and foreign countries, broke out. The Guangzhou Uprising dealt a heavy blow to the new Kuomintang warlords who betrayed the revolution, and in the fierce war, the "Guangzhou Soviet Government" was established, and Zhou Wenyong was elected as the People's Labor Commissar and Minister of Education of the Guangzhou Soviet Government. Due to the disparity in strength and the invincibility of the masses, the Guangzhou Uprising was ultimately defeated by the joint attack of the counter-revolutionary forces of various factions supported by imperialism. Zhou Wenyong led some of the rebel armed forces, engaged with the enemy more than ten times his own, fought tenaciously, was not afraid of sacrifice, fought bravely to the death, and finally killed a bloody road, broke through and withdrew from Guangzhou, and went to Hong Kong, responsible for contacting and resettling comrades who had withdrawn to Hong Kong.

In January 1928, Zhou Wenyong was elected as a standing committee member of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and a standing committee member of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, and returned to Guangzhou with Chen Tiejun again to rebuild the party organs. On January 27, due to the betrayal of traitors, Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun were arrested by the enemy at the same time.

In prison, they were tortured and unyielding. The enemy had nothing to do and decided to sentence them to death. In the process of jointly carrying out revolutionary struggle, Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun fell in love. But for the sake of the revolutionary cause, they have always buried their love in their hearts.

In the last moments of their lives, they decided to publicize their buried love and held a revolutionary wedding on the enemy's execution ground, showing their fearless heroism.

In order to commemorate Zhou Wenyong and Chen Tiejun, Jiangmen City built the Zhou Wenyong Chen Tiejun Martyrs Cemetery in Maogang Village, Lily Town. The cemetery covers an area of 20,000 square meters, sitting south to north, and has memorial facilities such as arches, monuments, memorial halls, memorial pavilions, statues, and memorial squares.

In the cemetery, a 31.6-meter-high monument is built on a platform more than 20 meters high, on which Ye Xuanping's inscription "Monument to the Martyrs of Zhou Wenyong Chen Tiejun" is engraved, and the inscription engraved on the front of the stele records the revolutionary deeds of the two martyrs. The left side of the stele is engraved with the proverb of the martyr Chen Tiejun: "A revolutionary should learn from the noble qualities and heroic spirit of great chinese and foreign figures in ancient and modern times." The right side of the stele is engraved with the famous poem written by the martyr Zhou Wenyong before the uprising: "The head can be broken, the limbs can be broken, and the revolutionary spirit cannot be extinguished." The head of the strong man is the party fall, and the body of the good man is a group of cracks. (Xinhua News Agency, Guangzhou, May 18, 2018, reporter Li Xiongying)