Zhai Xiangkun, born in April 1920, is a native of Xiawaquan Village, Boshan County, Shandong.
In 1935, Zhai Xiangkun was admitted to Boshan Normal School. In the second year, due to the difficulty of life at home, Zhai Xiangkun had to drop out of school and go home to farm.
After the July 7 Incident, Japan's war of aggression burned to Shandong. At the beginning of 1938, the county party committee of the Communist Party of China often went to Xiawaquan Village to carry out party activities. Zhai's mother was a progressive and very enlightened working woman, who was very supportive of the work of the party organization, and often vacated her home for the party organization to use for meetings, and cooked for her comrades. She said to Zhai Xiangkun: "The Eighth Route Army is good to the people, and the Communist Party is promising!" Mother's words sowed a seed in Zhai Xiangkun's heart.
In the spring of 1938, Zhai Xiangkun devoted himself to the struggle to resist Japan and save the country with a high degree of enthusiasm, and successively served as the chairman of the village Youth Salvation Association, the head of the Youth League, and the head of the self-defense team. In March of the same year, he was introduced by Wang Dongbu and Zhang Qian of the village and joined the Communist Party of China.
In June 1939, the Japanese army gathered 20,000 horses and horses to "sweep" the Yimeng Mountains, and the Kuomintang provincial government stationed in Donglidian, Yishui County was defeated, and the Kuomintang Boshan County government fled in a hurry. In July, the Boshan County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China first established the anti-Japanese democratic government of the four districts in the four districts where the party organization foundation was relatively good, and Zhai Xiangkun became the first head of Xiawaquan Village under the leadership of the people's government.
Xiawaquan Village is the most fundamental village in the Boshan Anti-Japanese Base Area. Some important activities and meetings of the county party committee were held in Xiawaquan Village. Xiawaquan Village was the first to set up a trade union, a peasant association, and a young women's federation in Boshan. Zhai Xiangkun conscientiously implemented the instructions of the county party committee, cooperated with the district mobilization committee to do a good job in the propaganda of the anti-Japanese war, and mobilized the masses to support the anti-Japanese war.
In November, Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to the director of the Anti-Japanese War Mobilization Committee of Nanboshan Town. At the time when the anti-Japanese democratic government of Boshan County had just been established, Zhai Xiangkun went deep into the villages to do mass work, under his initiation, the enthusiasm of the people of Nanboshan for the anti-Japanese war was unprecedentedly high, as long as the anti-Japanese democratic government issued a call, it immediately took action, sent food, firewood, shoes, and socks, and effectively supported the Eighth Route Army.
In March 1940, Zhai Xiangkun was selected to study at Shandong Anti-Japanese Military and Political University and served as a member of the Party Committee and the leader of the district squadron. In January 1941, Zhai Xiangkun finished his studies at Kang University and was transferred to the Senior Party School of the Shandong Branch as an administrative secretary.
In February 1942, Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to the Organization Department of the Luzhong District Party Committee. During this time, Zhai Xiangkun has undergone a severe test. In this year, under the attack of the Japanese army, the puppet army and the Kuomintang army, the personnel of the Eighth Route Army were reduced, the base area was reduced, the environment was extremely harsh, and the struggle was sharp and complicated; On the other hand, Boshan has been dry for many years, and there is no green and yellow crop. Not only were the leaves and bark stripped of the trees, but even the sweet potato seedlings, peanut shells, and sorghum straw cores, which were used as burning materials, were used to satisfy hunger.
Zhai Xiangkun, like the masses, ate mulberry leaves and tree bark, and participated in the struggle against "sweeping", "encroachment", and "clearing the countryside". In order to complete the tasks assigned by the district committee, he ran around day and night.
In September 1943, Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to the secretary of the Guozhuang District Party Committee of Yishui County, leading the masses to carry out the struggle of "rent reduction and interest reduction". He attached great importance to the enhancement of the combat effectiveness of the party organizations, often went deep into the village party organizations, strengthened the ideological education of party members, paid attention to carrying out adult education among young and middle-aged people, helped middle-aged and young people to learn literacy and culture, and carried out anti-Japanese education and salvation education in the course of cultural study. After Zhai Xiangkun's solid work, the cultural and educational movement in Guozhuang District has been carried out impressively.
In January 1943, under the lure of the Japanese army, Wu Huawen, commander of the New Fourth Division of the Kuomintang, led his troops to openly surrender to the enemy. Wu Huawen has long been entrenched in the border areas of Yishui, Linqu, Boshan, Mengyin and other counties, and has carried out the most cruel and barbaric bloody rule over the people, creating a "no man's land", where the people have no food in their stomachs, no clothes on their bodies, and those who die of freezing and starvation can be seen everywhere.
Following the two crusades against Wu Huawen in August and December 1943, the Luzhong Military Region mobilized superior forces and launched the third crusade against Wu Huawen in March 1944. Zhai Xiangkun actively mobilized and organized the people of Guozhuang District to prepare for war, support the front line, transport supplies, rescue the wounded, and made positive contributions to the comprehensive victory of the third "Battle for Wu".
After Japan's surrender, Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to Northeast China to support the revolutionary struggle in Northeast China. He first worked in Fangzheng County, Hejiang Province (now Heilongjiang Province), and was transferred to the secretary of the Boli County Party Committee in March 1946.
When Zhai Xiangkun arrived in Boli County, banditry was extremely rampant in the area, and the landlord power was basically in the hands of the old forces.
As the first secretary of the county party committee, Zhai Xiangkun first began to prepare and set up county-level party organizations in the face of the grim situation, and set up party and government organs in eight subordinate districts. Subsequently, he convened the first enlarged meeting of the county party committee to study and make arrangements for the revolutionary work in the county, and to take effective measures for struggle to consolidate political power at all levels in the county.
The rampant activities of the bandits have brought great difficulties to the work of the county party committee, and Zhai Xiangkun also risked his life to carry out the revolutionary struggle. The bandits used both soft and hard methods against Zhai Xiangkun, using various means such as assassination, bribery, and persuasion to surrender, and threatened to reward Zhai Xiangkun's head with tens of thousands of "oceans". In the face of the enemy's threat and persuasion, Zhai Xiangkun did not have the slightest timidity, and he said to the messenger categorically: "I am the secretary of the Boli County Party Committee sent by the Party Central Committee!" Want me to surrender? Can't do it! Want to assassinate me? I'm not afraid! ”
The bandits are not just talking. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1946, Zhai Xiangkun was worried about whether the villagers could have a good meal during the festival, he took a comrade to visit door to door, and went to a villager's house. But not long after he walked out, he heard a burst of gunshots. Later, I learned that the whole family of the villager had been shot dead by bandits, and Zhai Xiangkun survived.
Faced with the sacrifice of one comrade-in-arms after another, and one after another ordinary people were innocently killed, Zhai Xiangkun was extremely resentful.
He led the Boli County Party Committee to quickly set up a county brigade, a district squadron, and a basic militia unit of the villagers, and carried out an arduous struggle against bandits. He personally led the members of the work team to annihilate the Yan Guofeng bandit group that dominated one side, the "good east" bandit group that was full of evil, and cooperated with the troops of the military region to exterminate Liu Xishan and three other bandit groups, effectively dealt a blow to the arrogance of the bandits, aroused the revolutionary enthusiasm of the people of the whole county, and enabled the mass movement of Boli's anti-traitor liquidation and land reform to proceed smoothly.
On October 19, 1948, the whole territory of Changchun was liberated. The Changchun Special Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China was established, and Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to the deputy secretary of the Third District Committee (Shengli District Committee) and the head of the Propaganda Department.
Changchun, which had just been liberated, was ruined everywhere due to the war and the destruction of the Kuomintang, starvation everywhere, and the people lived in extreme poverty. In the face of this grim situation, Zhai Xiangkun organized the district party committee, the district government, and the people of the whole district to immediately plunge into the battle of "saving lives and burying death" and restoring the order of urban life. He went deep into the actual situation, organized the distribution of relief food, arranged the livelihood of the masses, cleaned up the environment, restored the supply of water and electricity and transportation, and stabilized social order. He went deep into factories and enterprises, actively organized, publicized and implemented the party's policy of protecting urban industry and commerce, and promoted the recovery and development of production.
In July 1949, Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to the director of the Changchun Cooperative Association. Since the cooperative headquarters had just been established, the relationship with other departments was not completely smooth, and the work was very difficult. At the same time, the city's financial funds are very tight, and there is neither a start-up fund nor a transfer of materials. Zhai Xiangkun ignored his physical illness, ran funds, borrowed food, coordinated the relationship between various departments, and helped workers and grassroots cooperatives solve practical problems. Through his efforts, the work of the Changchun City Cooperative has opened up the situation and carried out smoothly.
In April 1950, Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to the deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the Municipal Party Committee.
At that time, in the enterprises of Changchun City, some capitalists conspired to raise processing fees, cut corners on a large scale, used processing to carry out speculation, did not fulfill processing contracts, and resisted the leadership of the state-run economy. In public enterprises, there are often problems with the lack of specific regulations on the specifications of finished products, the supply of raw materials, the loss of materials, and the standards of fines. In response to these circumstances, Zhai Xiangkun actively organized relevant departments to conduct investigations, educate private industrialists, and correct their illegal behaviors. Meetings should be held to analyze and study the problems existing in public enterprises, and to step up the formulation of systems and measures to prevent and solve them.
In December 1953, Zhai Xiangkun was transferred to the Minister of Industry of the Municipal Party Committee and a member of the Municipal Party Committee, in September 1956, he was appointed as a member of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee, and in January 1961, he also served as the deputy mayor of Changchun City, and then served as the deputy secretary of the Changchun Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China. In February 1983, he was appointed as the chairman of the Sixth Committee of the CPPCC Changchun City. Zhai Xiangkun has worked on the industrial front in Changchun for 30 years, starting from the first five-year plan, and has experienced three years of great leap forward, three years of difficult times, three years of adjustment, ten years of catastrophe, and subsequent recovery and development.