In April and July 1927, Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei launched the "April 12" and "July 15" counter-revolutionary coups in Shanghai and Wuhan respectively, implemented "purge the party" and "separate the communist party", arrested and killed CCP members wantonly, created "White Terror".
In the face of the enemy's brutal suppression, our party decided to create its own revolutionary army and follow the path of armed struggle that "power emerges from the barrel of a gun".
On August 1, 1927, the August 1st Nanchang Uprising broke out, firing the first shot of armed resistance against the Kuomintang reactionaries. Soon after, on September 9, the Autumn Harvest Uprising broke out.
On April 28, 1928, the Autumn Harvest Uprising troops led by Mao Zedong, and part of the Shonan Uprising and Nanchang Uprising troops led by Zhu De and Chen Yi successfully joined forces in Jinggangshan (formerly Longshi Town, Ninggang County) and established the first rural revolution. base.
Join forces in Jinggangshan
At that time, the revolutionary situation was very urgent. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai was thousands of miles away from the base area in Jinggangshan. Communication could only rely on traditional underground transportation, which was very slow and risky. Therefore, establishing red radio communication as soon as possible has become an important task of the revolutionary cause.
In June 1928, the "Sixth National Congress" of the Communist Party of China was held in Moscow. During the meeting, Zhou Enlai, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, submitted an application to the Communist International, asking it to help train radio technical cadres.
The application was quickly approved by the Comintern. Soon after, Mao Qihua, Tu Zuochao, Song Lian and many other CCP comrades were arranged to study radio communication technology at "Moscow Sun Yat-sen University" and "Leningrad Frunze Military Communication School".
In November 1928, Zhou Enlai returned to Shanghai from Moscow. In order to strengthen the leadership of secret work and ensure the safety of the Party Central Committee in the Shanghai area, the Standing Committee of the Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided that Zhou Enlai would be responsible for organizing the establishment of the Special Operations Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the basis of the Special Section of the former Military Commission. The famous Central Teke .
Zhou Enlai in the period of Central Special Branch
There are four divisions under the Special Division: General Affairs, Intelligence, Operations, and Transportation. The Transportation Section, also known as the Communication Section, was headed by Li Qiang. It was mainly responsible for setting up secret radio stations, training radio technicians, and establishing connections between the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and local party organizations and the Communist International.
Li Qiang (1905-1996)
Zhou Enlai also secretly arranged for Zhang Shenchuan, then Secretary of the Party Branch of the French Concession of the Communist Party of China, to go to Shanghai Radio School to learn radio technology.
Zhang Chenchuan (1900-1991)
The Shanghai Radio School was run by the Sixth Army of the National Revolutionary Army. The school was located at the headquarters of the Sixth Army, and Liu Henian, director of the Sixth Army Radio Station, served as the principal. In order not to reveal his identity, Zhang Chenchuan applied for the exam under the pseudonym "Zhang Yanming", but was admitted.
In May 1929, Zhang Chenchuan completed his studies and entered the Sixth Army Headquarters as an intern at the radio station. Soon after, he left with an excuse, and immediately became the first radio operator of our party.
In the summer of 1929, Li Qiang, Zhang Chenchuan, He Guo and others jointly developed a transmitter with a power of 50W and a receiver with 3 lights, which laid the foundation for the establishment of a secret radio station.
In the autumn of 1929, according to Zhou Enlai’s instructions, Teke Communications Division rented a three-story building in Fukangli, Daxi Road, Shanghai (now No. 9, Lane 420, West Yan’an Road) . A secret radio station .
Radio site (picture from IT Times)
After the opening of the first secret radio station, in order to train more radio technicians, our party arranged for local party organizations to select politically reliable and highly educated young outstanding party members and send them to Shanghai for training.
During the training process, Li Qiang was in charge of teaching aircraft operations, and Zhang Chenchuan was in charge of teaching newspaper operations. The two cooperated tacitly, and soon brought out more than a dozen "apprentices" including Huang Shangying, Wang Zigang, Wu Yunfu, Zeng San, and Pu Qiuchao.
After having talents, the Teco Communications Division began to find ways to go to various places to establish more secret radio stations, so as to realize the connection between the Shanghai Party Central Committee and various local bureaus (Hong Kong Southern Bureau, Tianjin Northern Bureau, Wuhan Changjiang Bureau) and the International Bureau.
At the end of 1929, Li Qiang and Huang Shangying secretly arrived in Hong Kong and started to establish the secret radio station of the Southern Bureau of the Communist Party of China. In January of the following year, the radio station was officially completed on Nathan Road, Kowloon, realizing the first radio communication with the Shanghai Party Central Committee.
After Li Qiang returned from Hong Kong, he took a new radio station he got in Hong Kong and rushed to Wuhan, trying to get through the radio communication from Shanghai to the Central China Bureau, but failed due to power supply problems.
Later, Li Qiang sent Weng Ying, Wang Zigang and others to Tianjin with a 50-watt radio station and rented a house to set up a secret radio station.
In the middle of 1930, Tu Zuochao, Song Lian and others returned to China after learning radio technology from the Soviet Union. Li Qiang organized them to build a 250-watt "international radio station" in a building on Seymour Road, intending to share some tasks of Zhang Shenchuan Radio Station and report to Vladivostok International Radio Station on the one hand. As a result, things backfired. At the end of the year, the radio station was forced to move out because of a neighbor’s fire.
With the rapid development of the revolution, there is still a huge shortage of radio personnel. Zhou Enlai instructed Li Qiang: "We must expand the scale and train radio personnel as soon as possible."
After Li Qiang and Zhang Chenchuan received the mission, they originally wanted to open two more hidden training spots based on their previous experience to disperse the training. But Gu Shunzhang, the person in charge of the special department, denied their plan, boasting that he had an inside line in the police station in the French Concession, and it would be no problem to hold a large training class in one place.
In October 1930, the first intensive radio training class in the history of our party opened in a three-story building at No. 12, Sichengli, Julaida Road, Shanghai French Concession (now No. 12, Lane 391, Julu Road). In order to deceive the public, a sign of "Shanghai Fuli Electric Appliance Company Factory" was hung on the entrance of the building.
Shanghai Fuli Electric Co., Ltd. Factory
In addition to Li Qiang and Zhang Chenchuan, Tu Zuochao and Fang Zhongru, who returned from the Soviet Union, were teaching in the training class.
It is very regrettable that on December 17, 1930, less than two months after the class started, the "welfare factory" was raided by the French Concession patrol, and more than 20 people (5 teachers and 15 students) were brutally arrested.
These people were "extradited" to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau of the Kuomintang that night, and were escorted to the Nanjing Army Prison at the end of the year. The enemy tortured them for more than four months, but none of them confessed or defected.
In the end, four people including Shen Kanfu were tortured to death, and the rest of the comrades were released after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War.
Misfortunes never come singly. Shortly after the "Welfare Factory Incident", the Southern Bureau and the radio station in Hong Kong were also raided. Qiu De, a radio operator, was arrested and the work of the radio station was interrupted.
In fact, the Hong Kong Southern Bureau Radio Station had a major task at that time, which was to serve as a transfer station to open up radio links between the central government and the Soviet base areas in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian.
After Radio Hong Kong was destroyed, this plan had to be abandoned. Therefore, the central government decided to send Zeng San, Wu Yunfu, and Tu Zuochao, who survived the "welfare factory incident" because they were out on errands, to take a code book and detour to Hong Kong to try to establish a telegraph communication channel between the central government and the Soviet area.
At the same time, the central government also changed the local radio technology training in Shanghai from centralized teaching to a decentralized training method of single-line contact and door-to-door teaching, and continued to train radio students.
In September 1931, Zeng San, who came to the Central Soviet Area through hardships and obstacles, successfully exchanged an encrypted telegram with the Shanghai Party Central Radio Station, realizing the first wireless communication between the Central Soviet Area and the Shanghai Party Central Committee .
According to Comrade Deng Yingchao, who was in charge of translating telegrams at the Shanghai Party Central Committee at the time, recalled: "When we first notified the Central Bureau of the Soviet Area, Comrade Bishi (Ren Bishi) translated the Soviet area, and Comrade Enlai and I translated the Shanghai area."
Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao
The code used between them is called "Hao Mi", which was the first radio code of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China compiled by Zhou Enlai in Shanghai in 1931. Zhou Enlai once used the pseudonym "Wu Hao", so he was called "Hao Mi".
At the beginning of 1932, the Shanghai Secret Radio Station, which was moved to No. 23 Fudefang 1st Street, Hede Road, Jing'an Temple in the British Concession, was destroyed by the enemy. Yu Kun and his wife who were in charge of staying behind were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In June 1932, due to Gu Shunzhang's rebellion, the Shanghai party organization was severely damaged. In December, Zhou Enlai secretly left Shanghai and went to Ruijin in the Central Soviet Area to serve as Secretary of the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of China in the Soviet Area.
In January 1933, Jiangsu and Shandong provincial committees of the CPC were destroyed one after another, posing a great threat to the Shanghai Provisional Political Bureau of the Central Committee. With the consent of the Communist International, the Provisional Political Bureau was moved to the Jiangxi Central Soviet Area, and the "Shanghai Central Provisional Executive Bureau" was established in Shanghai.
In 1934, the leaders of Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China were arrested one after another, the head of the Shanghai Interim Central Executive Bureau and the staff of the secret radio station were arrested and defected, and Shanghai underground radio station was completely destroyed.
In the autumn of the following year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China notified the personnel of the Shanghai Provisional Bureau and the Special Section to evacuate in batches, leaving only one office in Shanghai to continue to engage in the struggle against the enemy.
The spark of Red Communications will move to the Jiangxi Soviet Area and continue its journey of starting a prairie fire.
This article is compiled by Xiaozao Jun of Fresh Jujube Classroom based on the following references:
1. "Shanghai, the Origin of Red Communication", Qian Lifu, Wang Xin, Hao Junhui, IT Times
2. "Story of red communication on a new journey after a century of struggle", Wu Suoning, People's Post and Telegraph
3. "History of Communications in China", Niyang Niya Nadanzhu, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Press
4. "Red Waves in the Historical Sky", Zhang Jin, Great Wall Publishing House
