Youth is the future of the motherland, the hope of the nation, and an important force to ensure the continuity of the cause of the Party. In the revolutionary process of the Party, youth work and confidentiality work have always been closely linked, stirring up the hidden front legend of generations of young workers and young Party members. Among them, the past of Anwu Youth Training Class is worth remembering.
The Anwu Youth Training Class (hereinafter referred to as the Youth Training Class), known as the "cradle of Chinese revolutionary youth and a monument in the history of youth movement", was a wartime youth cadre school founded by the Northwest Youth Salvation Federation in Anwubao, Jingyang County, Shaanxi Province in October 1937 in order to meet the needs of the Anti Japanese War and the needs of patriotic youth to resist Japan and save the country in the early days of the all-around war of resistance against Japan, Its main function is to train patriotic young people from all over the country to participate in the revolution in Yan'an.
In the short period of two years, the youth training class has run 14 sessions and trained more than 12000 students. Most of these students took part in the fight against Japan to save the nation, organized and promoted the anti Japanese youth united front, and wrote a brilliant chapter for the Chinese youth movement. Some of the students were sent to the Kuomintang controlled areas to engage in concealed front work after graduation, making outstanding contributions to the underground work of the Party. Hu Qiaomu, Feng Wenbin, Shi Luowen, Sun Jingwen, Zhang Wu, Luo Yi and others who studied and worked here also took important leadership positions after the founding of New China. The achievement of these achievements is inseparable from the practice of integrating youth work and confidentiality work with the Party organization and superior leaders of the youth training class.
United Front "No Refusal"
According to Chairman Mao's instruction that "the youth training class should receive as much as they come, and whoever comes will not refuse", the youth training class opened its door and made full use of the advantage that Xi'an is a united front area for cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, and can widely contact all kinds of young people from all over the country who want to fight against Japan. It not only received a large number of patriotic young people introduced by the Xi'an Eighth Route Army Office, but also received the Xinhua Daily The enrollment brochures are published on the.
Faced with the opening of the youth training class, the Kuomintang thought it had found an opportunity, and sent spies into the youth training class to steal secrets and sabotage. According to historical records, each youth training class will receive about 30 Kuomintang officers and soldiers, and members of the party headquarters. The vandals will hide among them. In 1938, a working document on the organization of the youth training class also recorded that many Shanghainese had come to the youth training class for six consecutive times, including some CC members sent by the Kuomintang, who often broke school discipline, cursed and beat people, refused to attend classes, and scolded instructors.
In the late 1938, the local reactionary forces in Jingyang continued to spy on Anwu Castle and set up secret surveillance points nearby. Because some youth trainees are intellectuals from big cities, who have pocket watches and watches, Kuomintang agents dress up as watch repair craftsmen and use small talk to obtain information. When students go to the snack stand to eat, the spies always come up and sneak around to inquire about the news. In addition, the Kuomintang has also set up some new elementary schools nearby to carry out propaganda and education on the so-called "Three People's Principles" among local rural youth, so as to incite young people to oppose the Communist Party.
The student composition of the youth training class itself is also very complex. As Feng Wenbin and Hu Qiaomu said in 1938, "There are more students, and the composition of students is particularly complex; Now, among our classmates, there are men and women, old and young, illiterate, students studying abroad, industrial workers, poor peasants, shopkeepers, peddlers, officers and soldiers, party members, engineers, Chinese intellectuals, monks and hermits, Mongolian, Han, Miao, Siam, Annan, Myanmar, Malaysia Overseas Chinese in the Nanyang Islands and the Philippines. "
Faced with such a situation, the general branch committee of the youth training class (hereinafter referred to as the general branch committee) requires that the issue of vigilance be raised in front of every comrade, and that the branch work "ensure the confidentiality regulations". While adhering to the anti Japanese national united front and strengthening their efforts to win over Kuomintang cadres, they began to strengthen the security work and collect evidence of the acts of spies breaking school rules. The result of "unity and struggle" is that after several criticisms and persuasions, several Kuomintang members in the sixth consecutive session of the Youth Training Class have to admit that the attitude of the Youth Training Class authorities is sincere.
Open work and confidential organization
Under the special background of the times, strong confidentiality has become a distinctive feature of the Party organization work of youth training classes.
First of all, the party organization of the youth training class is absolutely secret among students. At the same time of establishing the general branch committee secretly, the youth training class sets up party branches in each company. Most of the company instructors and captains are members of our party, but they only appear as administrative cadres, not as organizations; At the same time, there is no horizontal contact between members of each company. After October 1938, the company also set up a special assistant (actually the secretary of the Party branch) to be responsible for the work of the Party; Party groups are set up in each company, but it is also stipulated that no horizontal contact can take place between groups.
When training cadres for the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee, the youth training class stipulated that the provincial Party Committee should write a secret note to bring the party members, weave them together, and keep them confidential. In this regard, the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee took a positive attitude and specifically mentioned that the youth training class "held a secret work inspection", "disciplined and warned all comrades for individual negligence and loss of important documents" and "concentrated secret documents" when summarizing the fifth and sixth sessions of the youth training class, and achieved remarkable results in secret work.
During the Party class, the general branch committee also paid great attention to confidentiality. Because the Party organization is secret, Party members are not open, and Party members cannot meet each other, all Party lectures are held at night. After the secretary of the branch and the correspondent of the general branch led the party members into the darkroom secretly, everyone sat on the floor and was not allowed to smoke or talk. When everyone arrived, the teacher gave a lecture at the door. In order to enable the teacher to see the syllabus clearly, put a lantern or candle outside the door. After class, turn off the light, and everyone will disperse. Sometimes, the youth training class even adopts the way that the lecturers stand on the stairs and do not show up, but only speak loudly. In addition, the general branch committee held a party meeting to convey central documents in a dark room.
Secretly strengthen the organization
In March 1938, the General Party Branch of the Youth Training Class actively implemented the decision of the Party Central Committee on developing intellectuals to join the Party, strengthened the investigation and training of student activists, and began to recruit a large number of Party members secretly. Zhang Ze, the later secretary of Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee, and Ye Fang, the later director of the theoretical department of the Central Party School, joined the Party secretly in the youth training class.
The general branch committee pays great attention to confidentiality education for new party members. When new members join the Party, a solemn and solemn ceremony should be held in secret, but only one or two people can participate in each batch, led by the introducer. The head of the general branch presided over the swearing in ceremony, the party flag was hung on the wall, and there was a leader statue. The oath is: obey the Party's organization, actively work for the Party, observe the Party's discipline, keep the Party's secrets, never betray the Party, etc. The general branch committee also required that new party members should not reveal their identity, only contact the instructor on a single line, and should not disclose their identity to others, instead of forming a group.
At the same time, the youth training class set up an underground printing factory to secretly print the Party's publications and further expand the Party's influence.
In the winter of 1938, after the Kuomintang launched an anti Communist upsurge and arrested the Communists in Xi'an, the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee was forced to move to Yunyang Town, Jingyang County, and the official publication Northwest Weekly was also temporarily suspended. In order to make the journal continue to be published and distributed, in January 1939, the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee and the Youth Training Class jointly studied and decided to set up a printing factory in Qiantou Village, Chunyao County (part of today's Chunhua and Yaoxian), Guanzhong District, Shaanxi Gansu Ningxia Border Region, in the name of "Yunyang Left Behind Office of the 18th Division of the National Revolutionary Army", named Youth Printing Factory.
The youth training class assigned Wang Yuanyi, Qin Yifei and Han Zhiping to take charge of the preparation work. Wang Yuanyi and others, as staff of the Xi'an Eighth Route Army Office and with the help of underground party organizations, secretly bought the folio printing machine, copper mold and other equipment, which were hidden under the carriage and transported back to the printing plant.
Later, the Party organization transferred underground Party members Liu Yusheng (also known as Lu Ming) from Xi'an, and transferred Yao Wentian, Li Qinghong and other staff from the youth training class to the printing factory. According to Li Qinghong's memory, in the spring of 1939, he and Yao Wentian, who were opening up wasteland and farming fields, were asked by the instructor Lian to have a conversation: "Now we need to transfer you to work in a secret unit. Don't tell anyone, and we will leave this afternoon." After the conversation, Li Qinghong and others bundled their luggage, followed a comrade, crossed several valleys, and came to a village. After entering an ordinary house, the comrade who led Li Qinghong said, "In the future, you will work here - this is a secret printing factory that our Party will set up."
In June 1939, the Youth Printing House was officially completed and the first issue of China Youth was printed. Since then, the revolutionary environment has become more dangerous and the conditions have become more difficult, but the Youth Printing Factory still insists on running. The printed books include not only the publications and books compiled and printed by the Northwest Youth Rescue Association and the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee, but also some books in Yan'an, reprinted Chairman Mao's On Lasting War, On New Democracy, and Stalin's Introduction to Leninism And Feng Wenbin's New Direction of China's Youth Movement. It was not until April 1940 that the Youth Printing Factory moved to Yan'an with the Youth Training Class and merged with the Central Printing Factory that it completed its historical mission.
In a word, depending on a series of important and secret work, the tasks of Anwu Youth Training Class can be carried out smoothly. Later, most of the students in this class "showed the spirit of sacrifice and struggle in the regular army and guerrillas in western Shandong, northern Anhui, northern Henan, southern Shanxi, western Shanxi, eastern Shanxi, and central Hebei, in the mass work in central and southern China, in a number of high-level military and political schools, and in a number of local governments, and won the praise of the whole country". Confidentiality has also become the rule of life for many of them.
(Reprinted from the 9th issue of Confidentiality in 2021)