Chao Shih-yen

Background

Chao was born in the town of Lung-t’an in Yu-yang hsien, located in southeast Szechwan.

Education

Influenced by the new culture movement and the dangers many young intellectuals felt were imperiling China’s existence, he went to Peking, where in 1917 he enrolled in the French Language Institute (Fa-wen chuan-hsiu kuan), which was then headed by Wu Yu-chang. The purpose of the Institute was to prepare students to go to France on a work-and-study basis, and within a few years a number of similar schools were established, especially in Peking and Chungking.’ At the end of 1919 Chao was editing a short-lived semi-monthly that belonged to the literature of the May Fourth period; known as Kung-tu (Work and learning), it was published by an organization of students mainly from Szechwan, who were enrolled at the French Institute. Judging from publications to which Chao contributed, he may also have attended the middle school of the Peking Higher Normal College. He wrote for Shao-nien (The youth), a publication issued by a student society at the Normal College, as well as for P'ing-min chiao-yii (Mass education), published by another group at the school.

While attending the French Language Institute Chao presumably became acquainted with many other Szechwanese students, for the intellectual ferment was strong in Szechwan, where the provincial government had promoted the program by offering financial assistance for European study. Of the 1,600 students who went to France in 1919-1920 for the work-and-study program, the largest number who ultimately became Communists came from Hunan and the second largest from Szechwan. Chao was among a group that left for France in May 1920. There he met other Chinese students who had preceded him, including the Hunanese group. Many of the latter had belonged to the Hsin-min hsueh- hui (New people’s study society) in Changsha, which had been founded in April 1918 by Ts’ai Ho-sen and Mao Tse-tung. Chao also met Hsiang Ching-yii, whom Ts’ai married in France, and Ts’ai’s sister, Ts’ai Ch’ang . Ts’ai and the others spent much of their time at a college south of Paris, but Chao seems to have remained in the capital for most of his three years in France.

Chao presumably became acquainted with many other Szechwanese students, for the intellectual ferment was strong in Szechwan, where the provincial government had promoted the program by offering financial assistance for European study. Of the 1,600 students who went to France in 1919-1920 for the work-and-study program, the largest number who ultimately became Communists came from Hunan and the second largest from Szechwan. Chao was among a group that left for France in May 1920. There he met other Chinese students who had preceded him, including the Hunanese group. Many of the latter had belonged to the Hsin-min hsueh- hui (New people’s study society) in Changsha, which had been founded in April 1918 by Ts’ai Ho-sen and Mao Tse-tung. Chao also met Hsiang Ching-yii, whom Ts’ai married in France, and Ts’ai’s sister, Ts’ai Ch’ang. Ts’ai and the others spent much of their time at a college south of Paris, but Chao seems to have remained in the capital for most of his three years in France.

Career

In early 1923 Chao joined the exodus of students going from France to Moscow. He remained there for about a year and a half and in the company of Li Ta-chao, a CCP founder, he attended the Fifth Comintern Congress in June-July 1924. In the fall Chao returned to Peking, where he became secretary of the Party’s Peking Committee. Late in the following spring, under the leadership of Li Ta-chao, the CCP established the North China Regional Committee with jurisdiction over the entire area, including Peking. In addition to his responsibilities within the Peking apparatus, Chao now assumed new tasks under Li’s Regional Committee; he was made Propaganda Department chief and secretary of the Labor Movement Committee, activities that frequently took him to nearby Tientsin and T’ang-shan. He also edited Cheng-shih sheng-huo, a journal that published many of Li Ta-chao’s writings,8 and contributed articles to Chung-kuo kung-jen (Chinese laborer), a publication that Chang Kuo-t’ao and Teng Chung-hsia had inaugurated in late 1924.

By early 1927 the Shanghai labor movement had grown to impressive proportions and thus provided one more element in the power struggles occurring in the city as the Northern Expeditionary forces approached and prepared to take over from military leader Sun Ch’uan-fang. The Nationalist forces were under the command of Chiang Kai-shek, who had split from the left-wing KMT Government established at Wuhan; Chiang was allied with the banking and comprador groups in Shanghai, who feared the growing strength of the Communists and the Communist-led Shanghai General Labor Union. Surging ahead in its organization and agitation among workers, the CCP, acting through the labor union, was sufficiently strong to call a general strike on March 21, 1927. This quickly turned into an insurrectionary movement, through which the workers momentarily got the city largely in their control. They seized police stations, the military arsenal, and even units of the municipal garrison force. Only the International Settlement and the French Concession remained relatively undisturbed when a “people’s government” for Shanghai was proclaimed by the workers. Communist accounts credit Chao, who was with the “command headquarters” in the northern section of the city, with a major role in these endeavors.10 Writing under the name Shih Ying, he also reported on the labor movement for Party journals in 1926-1927, including the important Hsiang-tao chou- pao (Guide weekly).

The Shanghai workers’ supremacy did not last long, for on March 26, 1927, Chiang Kai-shek’s troops entered the city and, assisted by the anti-labor elements, wiped out the insurrection. His campaign to take over the city actually opened on April 12. It enormously increased the dangers for all Communists, especially those assigned to the headquarters and holding official positions. At this point Lo I-nung, head of Party affairs in Shanghai, was sent to the CCP headquarters in Wuhan. Wang Shou-hua, head of the Shanghai General Labor Union, was killed by Chiang’s forces and Chao succeeded him. On April 27, after Chiang had put down the workers’ government and driven Chao and his associates underground, the CCP opened its Fifth Congress in Wuhan. Chao was unable to attend, but he was elected to the new Central Committee. In June, after the Congress closed, the Kiangsu-Chekiang Regional Committee was reorganized into separate Chekiang and Kiangsu Provincial Committees. Ch’en Yen-nien, Chao’s old colleague in France, was sent to Shanghai to become secretary of the Kiangsu Committee. In the latter part of June Ch’en was arrested by the Nationalist authorities- and executed. Chao Shih-yen’s presence in Shanghai was revealed by a Communist who had been arrested with Ch’en Yen-nien. And thus Chao was apprehended on July 2 and executed on July 19, 1927.

Politics

Although most of the Chinese students were not Marxists upon their arrival in France, they were strongly attracted to communism, socialism, and other revolutionary doctrines, and within a brief time had established a number of leftist-oriented groups and societies. In an account written by Chao’s former teacher Wu Yii-chang, the latter claims that Chao was among those who established a Communist small group (hsiao-tsu) in February 1921—at approximately the same time that other small groups were being formed in China.

Then, after the establishment of the CCP in July 1921, Chao became the Paris correspondent for the Party in China. Over the winter of 1921-1922, Chao’s small group evolved into the Young Chinese Communist Party, and then, after several changes in designation, it became in effect the French branch of the CCP in mid-1922 with Chao as its secretary. He and Ch’en Yen-nicn, the son of the CCP’s first general secretary Ch’en Tu-hsiu, were the only two full-time workers on the staff of six or seven functionaries in the Paris office.

Connections

While working in Peking in 1925 Chao married Hsia Chih-hsu, who had joined the Socialist Youth League in 1922 and the CCP underground soon afterwards. He also renewed his friendship with Wu Yii-chang when Wu went to Peking. From the early twenties his wife engaged in revolutionary activities and continued to work in the Party underground in Shanghai after her husband’s death. After spending two years in Moscow (1929—1931) with her two children, Hsia was imprisoned in Shanghai in 1932 and held until the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese War five years later. During the war years she worked for the Communists in Hankow and Yenan, and after the Communists came to power in 1949 she worked for the CCP Organization Department in Wuhan. Since 1954 Hsia has served in various administrative positions in Peking, holding a vice-ministerial post in the Ministry of Light Industry since 1960.

Spouse:

Hsia Chih-hsu

colleague:

Wu Yii-chang