Tribute to revolutionary hero due to hit cinema screens
A tribute to revolutionary heroes and the past was held in the leadup to July 1.
A film about one of the earliest Party members Zhang Renya (1898-1932), who protected the first Party constitution, will hit screens on July 1, the founding day of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
An advance screening of "The Source of Power" was held at the Shanghai Humanism Memorial Museum at Shanghai Fushouyuan Cemetery in Qingpu District on Wednesday, with about 40 audience members commemorating Zhang at the tomb.
Zhang, a pioneer of Shanghai's gold and silver industry labor movement, died of illness in 1932.
In 1927, when the ruling Kuomintang launched a crackdown against the Party, Zhang, aware of the value of the Party's founding documents and eager to keep them secure, spirited the documents away to safety in his hometown of Ningbo, neighboring Zhejiang Province. Those documents included one of the earliest Chinese editions of the Communist Manifesto.
Zhang entrusted the documents to his father and hurried back to Shanghai to continue his revolutionary work. His father lied to neighbors, telling them that his son had died in Shanghai, then secretly buried the documents in the empty grave.
Audience members watch an advance screening of "The Source of Power."
The father never saw or heard from Zhang again. After 1949, the family dug out the documents and handed them over to the government.
The earliest Chinese edition of the Communist Manifesto that Zhang protected is now kept at the Site of the First National Congress of CPC in Huanpgu District.
Some of those in the audience at the screening were the offspring of other revolutionary heroes.
The spirit of Zhang and other revolutionary heroes is worth remembering by the young generation, said Liu Sumin, director of the Shanghai New Fourth Army History Research Association.
A memorial event paying tribute to the New Fourth Army was held at the same time, with residents bowing, observing minutes of silence, and laying flower baskets to honor revolutionary heroes at the tomb.
Built in 2005, the New Fourth Army Square at the tomb is a "red" tourism base in the city that receives over 400,000 visits annually.
More than 1,800 soldiers have been laid to rest at the square.
