Chen Yannian, an outstanding leader of the CPC Guangdong District Committee

　　Chen Yannian was an outstanding proletarian revolutionary and an outstanding communist fighter in the early days of the Communist Party of China. From the spring of 1925 to March 1927, he was the secretary of the Guangdong District Committee of the Communist Party of China. Over the past two years and more, it has made important contributions to the building of party organizations in Guangdong and to the vigorous great revolution.

　　Chen Yannian, a native of Huaining County, Anhui Province, was born in Anqing in 1898 to a feudal bureaucratic family and was the eldest son of Chen Duxiu. At the end of 1919, he went to France to work and study, and under the influence of Marxists such as Cai Hesen, Zhao Shiyan, and Zhou Enlai, he began to study Marxist works and accepted Marxism.

　　In June 1922, the Young Communist Party of China (later renamed the European Branch of the Chinese Socialist Youth League) was founded, and he participated in the congress and was elected as an executive committee member. Soon, the General Branch of the CPC in Europe was established, all the members of the Youth League's Brigade in Europe were turned into CPC members, and Chen Yannian was elected as the leading member of the General Branch. In the spring of 1923, the party organization sent Chen Yannian and 12 other people to the Soviet Union to study at the Communist University of Eastern Laborers. He gradually became a staunch communist fighter.

　　In the summer of 1924, Chen Yannian was transferred back to China, and in early October, he was appointed as the special commissioner of the Socialist Youth League in Guangdong to Guangzhou. In November, he was reappointed as the secretary of the CPC Liangguang District Committee, the director of the organization and the propaganda committee, and assisted Zhou Enlai, chairman of the district committee, in his work. In the spring of 1925, Zhou Enlai participated in the First Crusade with the teachers and students of the Whampoa Military Academy, and the chairman of the district committee (renamed the secretary of the "Four Congresses") was succeeded by Chen Yannian, leading the party organizations in Guangdong, Guangxi, southwest Fujian, Hong Kong and Nanyang.

　　Guangdong was the center of the Great Revolution. The decision-making and work of the Guangdong District Party Committee affect the overall situation of the whole country. After Yannian took over, he strengthened the collective leadership of the district party committees, specifically guided the building of party organizations in various localities, gradually established a party class system, and opened study classes, training classes, and party schools, so that the party organizations in Guangdong continued to grow stronger with the development of the workers' and peasants' movement. By March 1927, the province had more than 9,000 party members, who were full of combat effectiveness and became the largest local party organization in the country at that time.

　　Under the leadership and organization of the district party committee, the Guangzhou Workers' Congress and the Guangdong Provincial Farmers' Association were established one after another, and the mass movements of workers and peasants in various places flourished vigorously. In order to push the anti-imperialist patriotic movement to a climax, Yannian personally planned and led the provincial and Hong Kong strikes that shocked the world, which lasted for 16 months and dealt a heavy blow to imperialism. He actively supported the peasant movement in various places and led the peasants in their struggle against the feudal landlords, making Guangdong one of the most advanced provinces in the country at that time.

　　In leading the workers' and peasants' movement, Chen Yannian realized the importance of building and mastering revolutionary armed forces. He and Zhou Enlai decided to send some outstanding cadres to the Whampoa Military Academy to serve in the Whampoa Military Academy, and also selected a number of party members to study at the military academy; Yannian also attached great importance to the establishment of workers' and peasants' armed forces, and demanded that all localities set up trade unions and peasant associations at the same time as establishing workers' pickets and peasant self-defense forces, and later establishing the Independent Regiment of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army (headed by Ye Ting, a communist party member), which played a major role in the Northern Expedition.

　　In October 1924, imperialism instigated a rebellion by the Guangzhou Merchants Against Sun Yat-sen. Chen Yannian, together with Liao Zhongkai, confronted Sun Yat-sen and advocated the rapid suppression of the caravan, and expressed that the Communists and the revolutionary masses were willing to back up the government, thus making Sun Yat-sen determined to put down the rebellion of the merchant group; in the spring of 1925, the warlord Chen Jiongming, who had occupied the Dongjiang River, with the support of imperialism, vainly attempted to invade Guangzhou. At the initiative of Zhou Enlai, Chen Yannian, and the district party committee, the revolutionary government held the Eastern Crusade with the teachers and students of the Whampoa Military Academy as the main force and defeated Chen Jiongming's rebels; when the Yunnan-Gui warlords occupying Guangzhou took the opportunity to rebel, the Eastern Crusade Army returned to Guangzhou, and Yannian and the district party committee mobilized the masses of workers and peasants, cooperating with the Eastern Expeditionary Army to suppress the rebellion, and turning Guangzhou into a safe place. Chen Yannian led the Guangdong District CPC Committee to make important contributions to consolidating and unifying the revolutionary base areas in Guangdong.

　　With the deepening of the revolution, the struggle for leadership between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat within the united front became increasingly acute. Yannian and the District Committee issued the "Declaration on the Second Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang", exposing the conspiracy of imperialism and domestic counter-revolutionaries to sabotage the revolutionary forces, and calling on the revolutionary forces to unite and fight against separatist activities. Yannian also actively waged a struggle against Chen Duxiu and Zhang Guotao, who had adopted a policy of concession and compromise within the party, saying that they should uphold the principle of party spirit and never favor favoritism and protect shortcomings. Because Chen Yannian dared to struggle against Chen Duxiu's erroneous line, the Guangdong Party organization broke through numerous obstacles and continuously deepened the revolution.

　　In July 1926, at the initiative and support of the Communist Party of China, the National Revolutionary Army held an oath of the Northern Expedition. Yannian poured great enthusiasm into this. When the Kuomintang Central Committee held a meeting to discuss the Northern Expedition, the representatives sent by Yannian issued a "Statement on the National Revolution" at the meeting, expressing the Communist Party's strong support for the Northern Expedition's propositions; and put forward the idea that the Ye Ting Independent Regiment of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, composed of Communists as the backbone, should be the first to go out as the advance team of the Northern Expedition, which was unanimously approved by the meeting. After the drums of the Northern Expedition were sounded, Yannian personally organized nearly 3,000 strikers from the provinces and ports to set out with the army, and then mobilized tens of thousands of peasants from all over the Northwest River to rise up to assist the Northern Expedition army in transporting grain and ammunition, setting off a climax of support for the Northern Expedition, greatly inspiring the fighting spirit of the Northern Expedition soldiers, and promoting the rapid development of the Northern Expedition.

　　On April 22, 1927, Chen Yannian succeeded Luo Yinong as the secretary of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang District Party Committee. Although he did not participate in the "Five Congresses", he was still elected by the congress as a member of the Fifth Central Committee of the Party and an alternate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee.

　　In June, in order to meet the needs of the struggle situation, the central government decided to abolish the Jiangsu and Zhejiang district party committees and establish the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provincial party committees respectively, with Chen Yannian as the secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee. On the afternoon of the 16th, when Yannian presided over the inaugural meeting of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee at No. 104 Hengfengli, Shigaota Road, Shanghai, he was unfortunately arrested for informing traitors. Yang Hu, the commander of the Shanghai garrison, personally interrogated him, seduced him with sweet words, and tortured him in a vain attempt to get what they needed from him. Although he was tortured to the point of no end and covered in blood, he remained unyielding and righteous. The enemy had nothing to do, so he secretly escorted him to Longhua on the night of July 4. Before the righteousness, he did not change his face, angrily rebuked the treacherous and evil, and never knelt down, after which the enemy pressed him down and hacked him to death with a knife. He was only 29 years old at the time of his death.

Source: Guangdong Old District Network