Ho Shu-heng

1874 (age 61)

Ningxiang, Hunan, China

Ho was 37 when the 1911 Revolution took place and was then a teacher of Chinese literature. Just before the opening of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 he was a member of Mao Tse-tung’s group in Changsha. There Mao and Ts’ai Ho-sen were organizing activities among the students and teachers of the First Normal School where Mao was a student between 1913 and 1918. His friends often met at the Ts’ai home where they planned the creation of the Hsin-min hsueh-hui (New people’s study society), its membership mostly drawn from the First Normal School and the Hunan Students’ Union. Ho was one of the 13 members who officially brought the society into being on April 18, 1918. Hsiao San, Mao’s official biographer, speaks of Ho as “the oldest among the early members” of the Hsin-min hsueh-hui.1 After the May Fourth Movement began, the membership of the society grew to some 70 persons, a number of whom soon became Communists (see under Ts’ai Ho-sen). The organization aimed at strengthening China and training young intellectuals as future leaders. It was well-organized and continued to function for several years in Hunan, running regular programs, which included fortnightly meetings to discuss current affairs and specific problems of Chinese society. Its aggressive members often came into open opposition with the political authorities. After being society chairman for only a month, Mao left for Peking, but Ho remained to carry on in Hunan. When Mao returned to Hunan in mid-1920 Governor Chang Ching-yao, whom he had openly opposed, had just been replaced by T’an Yen-k’ai, an old associate of Sun Yat-sen. T’an was interested in reorganizing the provincial educational system and Mao was invited to teach at the First Normal School and to head the institution’s primary school. He held these posts until the close of the 1922 school year. While Mao was in Changsha, Ho was one of his associates in a number of political events. In 1920 Mao and Ho prepared a petition on behalf of the Hunan Reconstruction Association, which was presented to Governor T’an. It called for the abolition of the post of military governor in Hunan and the establishment of a provincial constitution and democratic elections. As a member of the New People’s Study Society, Ho was a contributor to its publication, which was distributed from Mao’s Wen-hua Bookstore in Changsha about 1921. De-signed only for Society members, it was not for sale. It contained correspondence from Mao Tse-tung, Ts’ai Ho-sen, and others that discussed the questions of socialism and communism; its goal was to bring about social change not only in China but throughout the world. In 1920 Ho also helped Mao organize a society for the study of Marxism, and this, like a number of similar groups then being organized in other provinces, provided the nucleus for the CCP. He was also given the cabinet post of People’s Commissar for Workers’ and Peasants’ Investigation. Half a year later, in mid-1932, Ho assumed another cabinet-level post when he became acting head of the CEC’s Internal Affairs Department,15 a position he held until mid-1933 when Liang Po-t’ai took over the post. It appears that Ho was active in training personnel in the central soviet areas; on one occasion in June 1932 he was described as the training supervisor of a group of “Soviet work personnel” when he delivered a report at their graduation exercises. He was re-elected to the CEC at the Second All-China Congress of Soviets in January-February 1934, but at this time his post as People’s Commissar for Workers’ and Peasants’ Investigation was given to Hsiang Ying, who was also one of the two vice-chairmen of the Chinese Soviet Republic. Ho’s loss of his cabinet post is almost certainly attributable to the fact that in 1933 he had been charged with following the so-called Lo Ming line. Ho did not leave southeast Kiangsi in the fall of 1934 when the major portion of Mao Tse-tung’s forces embarked upon the Long March. At age 60 perhaps he was not up to the rigors that lay ahead of Mao’s army. Instead he re-mained in the Kiangsi-Fukien area with the small group of leaders who were left behind (see under Chang Ting-ch’cng). Early in 1935 he was with Ch’ii Ch’iu-pai and Teng Tzu-hui when the Communists were driven out of Kiangsi into the mountains of western Fukien. He was again with Ch’ii when the latter was captured by Nationalist troops, but refusing to be taken prisoner he ended his life by jumping from a high cliff in the Communists’ mountain retreat near Ch’ang-t’ing, Fukien.

Ho Shu-heng

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politician

Background

He was born in Ning-hsiang, the small industrial city a few miles west of Changsha.

Education

Ho had the traditional schooling before the 1911 Revolution. He passed the lowest rank of civil service examinations and gained the Hsiu-ts’ai degree in 1892, the year before Mao Tse-tung was born. During his formative years he became a close friend of Hsieh Chueh-tsai, a radical intellectual who was some nine years junior to Ho and also from Ning-hsiang.

After graduating in 1930, Ho returned to China and went to the Kiangsi Soviet where Mao Tse-tung and Chu Te had their headquarters. When the Chinese Soviet Republic was established in Juichin in November 1931 under the chairman ship of Mao, Ho was elected to the government’s Central Executive Committee (CEC).

Career

Ho was 37 when the 1911 Revolution took place and was then a teacher of Chinese literature. Just before the opening of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 he was a member of Mao Tse-tung’s group in Changsha. There Mao and Ts’ai Ho-sen were organizing activities among the students and teachers of the First Normal School where Mao was a student between 1913 and 1918. His friends often met at the Ts’ai home where they planned the creation of the Hsin-min hsueh-hui (New people’s study society), its membership mostly drawn from the First Normal School and the Hunan Students’ Union. Ho was one of the 13 members who officially brought the society into being on April 18, 1918. Hsiao San, Mao’s official biographer, speaks of Ho as “the oldest among the early members” of the Hsin-min hsueh-hui.1 After the May Fourth Movement began, the membership of the society grew to some 70 persons, a number of whom soon became Communists (see under Ts’ai Ho-sen). The organization aimed at strengthening China and training young intellectuals as future leaders. It was well-organized and continued to function for several years in Hunan, running regular programs, which included fortnightly meetings to discuss current affairs and specific problems of Chinese society. Its aggressive members often came into open opposition with the political authorities. After being society chairman for only a month, Mao left for Peking, but Ho remained to carry on in Hunan. When Mao returned to Hunan in mid-1920 Governor Chang Ching-yao, whom he had openly opposed, had just been replaced by T’an Yen-k’ai, an old associate of Sun Yat-sen. T’an was interested in reorganizing the provincial educational system and Mao was invited to teach at the First Normal School and to head the institution’s primary school. He held these posts until the close of the 1922 school year. While Mao was in Changsha, Ho was one of his associates in a number of political events. In 1920 Mao and Ho prepared a petition on behalf of the Hunan Reconstruction Association, which was presented to Governor T’an. It called for the abolition of the post of military governor in Hunan and the establishment of a provincial constitution and democratic elections. As a member of the New People’s Study Society, Ho was a contributor to its publication, which was distributed from Mao’s Wen-hua Bookstore in Changsha about 1921. De-signed only for Society members, it was not for sale. It contained correspondence from Mao Tse-tung, Ts’ai Ho-sen, and others that discussed the questions of socialism and communism; its goal was to bring about social change not only in China but throughout the world. In 1920 Ho also helped Mao organize a society for the study of Marxism, and this, like a number of similar groups then being organized in other provinces, provided the nucleus for the CCP.

He was also given the cabinet post of People’s Commissar for Workers’ and Peasants’ Investigation. Half a year later, in mid-1932, Ho assumed another cabinet-level post when he became acting head of the CEC’s Internal Affairs Department,15 a position he held until mid-1933 when Liang Po-t’ai took over the post. It appears that Ho was active in training personnel in the central soviet areas; on one occasion in June 1932 he was described as the training supervisor of a group of “Soviet work personnel” when he delivered a report at their graduation exercises. He was re-elected to the CEC at the Second All-China Congress of Soviets in January-February 1934, but at this time his post as People’s Commissar for Workers’ and Peasants’ Investigation was given to Hsiang Ying, who was also one of the two vice-chairmen of the Chinese Soviet Republic. Ho’s loss of his cabinet post is almost certainly attributable to the fact that in 1933 he had been charged with following the so-called Lo Ming line.

Ho did not leave southeast Kiangsi in the fall of 1934 when the major portion of Mao Tse-tung’s forces embarked upon the Long March. At age 60 perhaps he was not up to the rigors that lay ahead of Mao’s army. Instead he re-mained in the Kiangsi-Fukien area with the small group of leaders who were left behind (see under Chang Ting-ch’cng). Early in 1935 he was with Ch’ii Ch’iu-pai and Teng Tzu-hui when the Communists were driven out of Kiangsi into the mountains of western Fukien. He was again with Ch’ii when the latter was captured by Nationalist troops, but refusing to be taken prisoner he ended his life by jumping from a high cliff in the Communists’ mountain retreat near Ch’ang-t’ing, Fukien.

Politics

Ho and Mao were the two delegates chosen from the Marxist group in Hunan to attend the founding congress of the CCP. All the orthodox Communist accounts agree that Ho was one of the men who founded the Party at its First Congress in Shanghai in July 1921. However, Chang Kuo-t’ao (among those who attended) has claimed that Ho had little grasp of the political questions that were to come before the delegates and that Mao contrived to send him back to Hunan before the Congress opened. In any event Ho returned to Hunan in 1921 where he remained until 1927. Primarily an educator, he played a major role in the Hunanese school system, which proved to be a significant channel for spreading Communist propaganda because so many of the young teachers were Marxists. One of Ho’s most notable contributions to Party work in the early twenties was in connection with the Self-Education College (Tzu-hsiu ta-hsueh), which he and Mao opened in Changsha in August 1921. The institution is described in the biography of Mao Tse-min who was a student there while Ho was on the faculty. The CCP used the school to convert a number of young Hunanese intellectuals to Marxism.

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Ho Shu-heng

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1919

1932