Lin Xiangqian: Pioneer of Labor Movement of Our Party

　　From downtown Fuzhou, go south along Fuxia Highway, cross the Wulong River Bridge and enter the boundary of Xiangqian Town. It will take a few minutes to drive to Lin Xiangqian Cemetery. Anyone who visited Xiangqian Cemetery and learned more about Lin Xiangqian was moved by the heroic deeds and noble personality of the revolutionary martyrs.
　　by nature, generous and helpful
Lin Xiangqian was born in 1892 in Shanggan, Minhou, Fujian, to a peasant family. At the age of 14, he was forced by his livelihood to enter the Mawei Shipyard as a fitter and apprentice, leading an extremely difficult apprentice life. At the age of 20, he passed the mechanic examination and entered the Wuhan railway factory as a fitter, becoming a member of China's early industrial workers.
After the education and training of Chen Tanqiu and other Communists, Lin Xiangqian joined the Communist Party of China in the summer of 1922. When the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in July 1922, the total number of party members in the country was 195, including some industrial workers. Lin Xiangqian was one of them.
Lin Xiangqian's family was poor and lived a frugal life, but he was generous by nature, willing to help others, and had a high ideological level. At that time, railway workers were deeply oppressed and were generally in poverty. Lin Xiangqian was no exception. He was often short of rice and vegetables and had no food and clothing. However, he is keen on self-sacrifice to help others and help the poor. No matter which provincial worker has difficulties, he will help.
On one occasion, Lin Xiangqian found that a Hubei worker's family had already been unable to open several meals, so he was ready to give more than ten catties of rice to the worker. His father frowned and asked, "Xiang Qian, our family has already been unable to sustain three meals of porridge. What are you doing with these rice?" Lin Xiangqian told his father about the plight of the worker's family and said, "Dad! The poor need help if they are in trouble. We have three meals of porridge a day, and they have had no rice for three days." The father, who was deeply aware of the situation, immediately expressed his support for his son's righteous act. A child of a worker from Hubei Province suffered from an acute disease of intestinal strangulation and was dying. When Lin Xiangqian knew, he hurried home. Despite his daughter Lin Hanyu's cold and fever, he took the quilt as three dollars and sent it to the worker's home. The worker said gratefully, "Xiang Qian, you are so kind to us Hubei people!" Lin Xiangqian enthusiastically took his hand and said: "Don't divide the people from Fujian and Hubei. The workers in the world are one family!"
Lin Xiangqian unites the workers with an open and selfless mind, strives to eliminate the estrangement between the various gangs, works for the interests of the workers wholeheartedly, and gains a high degree of trust from everyone. In February 1922, the Jiangan Workers' Club was established, and he was elected as a financial officer, "with a clear distinction between public and private, meticulous, and respected by his colleagues". At the end of the year, shortly after the establishment of the Jiangan Branch of the Beijing-Han Railway Federation of Trade Unions, Lin Xiangqian was promoted to the chairman of the association. As a Fuzhou native, Lin Xiangqian can become a leader among railway workers in Wuhan, which is really due to Lin Xiangqian's personality charm in terms of character, temperament, ability and conduct.
　　Join the labor movement and set off a climax
From January 1922 to February 1923, the first upsurge of the labor movement rose throughout the country. The Beijing-Han Railway Workers' Strike was the culmination of the climax of China's first labor movement, and Lin Xiangqian was a trendsetter at the forefront of this storm.
At that time, the Beijing-Han Railway was not only a blood-sucking line for the capitalist powers to invade China and exploit the Chinese people, but also a tool for feudal warlords to raid the people and engage in warlord melee. Railway workers "have been horses and cattle for many years, eating and drinking like pigs and wearing willows", which is a true portrayal of their miserable life at that time. They issued a cry of grief and indignation: "The warlord's knife and whip are covered with blood, when can the workers come forward. As a result, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the workers' movement on the Beijing-Han Railway developed rapidly. By the end of 1922, 16 sub-unions had been established at major stations on the road.
In order to unify the trade unions of the whole road to meet the needs of the struggle, the decision to establish the Beijing-Han Railway Federation of Trade Unions was brutally blocked by the reactionary warlord Wu Peifu. On February 1, 1923, the Beijing-Han Railway Federation of Trade Unions held its inaugural meeting in Zhengzhou as scheduled despite the interference and destruction of the reactionary military and police. In the afternoon, the reactionary military police occupied the Federation of Trade Unions. The residences of delegates and guests were also surrounded and monitored, with complete loss of personal freedom.
In order to fight for human rights and freedom, the Executive Committee of the Federation of Trade Unions held a secret meeting on the evening of February 1 and decided to hold a general strike of the All-Road Federation from February 4 to protest the oppression of the warlords and set up a strike leading organization. It was decided to move the Beijing-Han Railway Federation of Trade Unions from Zhengzhou to Wuhan Jiangan.
On February 3, the Beijing-Han Railway Federation of Trade Unions moved from Zhengzhou to Jiang'an, which became the center of the strike struggle of the Beijing-Han Railway Federation. As the chairman of the Jiangan Branch, Lin Xiangqian became an important leader in the revolutionary struggle.
At 9:20 a.m. on February 4, the strike siren of Jiangan Locomotive Factory shocked the sky and kicked off the general strike across the board. At noon, in less than three hours, passenger cars, trucks, and military vehicles were all stopped, and the Beijing-Han railway line, which is more than 1200 kilometers long, was suddenly paralyzed.
　Generous death, heroic sacrifice
In the general strike, Lin Xiangqian always persisted in fighting on the front line, using his actions and blood to interpret the original qualities of the Communist Party members as the vanguard of the Chinese working class and the vanguard of the Chinese nation.
On February 7, the strike entered the critical juncture of the saber-rattling, Lin Xiangqian, aware of the danger to his life, told his wife when he went home for dinner: "The enemy is unwilling, is to kill, we have to be mentally prepared. If one worker dies, millions of workers will stand up." After dinner, he rushed to the strike headquarters with a generous determination to die. In fact, Lin Xiangqian did not have the opportunity to escape at this time. Some of the leaders of the general strike in Wuhan at that time succeeded in avoiding danger. Lin Xiangqian, on the other hand, believes that as a member of the Communist Party, the more he has to stand in front of him at a critical moment of danger, and share weal and woe with his fellow workers!
In the evening, Zhang Housheng, chief of staff of the Supervisory Department, led two battalions of fully armed bandits to surround the river bank division of labor, and the imperialist warships on the Yangtze River also sent troops ashore to cooperate.
In an instant, gunfire broke out, and the picket members and workers fought bravely to meet the enemy. Half an hour later, more than 30 workers on the bank of the river had died heroically and more than 200 were injured. Lin Xiangqian's younger brother Lin Yuecheng was also killed by a bullet in the head.
Lin Xiangqian was arrested in a fight with the reactionary military police and was tied to a telephone pole on the east side of the platform. It was the night of December 22 of the lunar calendar, the sky was dark and the wind was biting. His wife, Chen Guizhen, stumbled to her husband and shouted at the top of her voice, "Xiangqian, Xiangqian! What's your explanation?" Lin Xiangqian, who had already put her life and death out of her mind, anxiously shouted to her, "Leave me alone and go back to take care of the baby!"
Zhang Housheng forced Lin Xiangqian to return to work with a knife. Lin Xiangqian sternly refused to say: "This matter is the life and death of 30,000 workers in the whole road. My division of labor union has to order the Federation of Trade Unions not to start work. The head can be broken and the work cannot be started!" He was cut seven times, would rather die than surrender, heroic sacrifice, only 31 years old.
After the founding of the Communist Party of China, the first bloody incident in which a party member died was the February 7th tragedy. Among them, the martyred Communist Party members Lin Xiangqian and Shi Yang were the first batch of martyrs of the Communist Party of China, while Lin Xiangqian, who died earlier, was the first martyr who could be identified as a heroic sacrifice among the members of the Communist Party of China. In 2009, Lin Xiangqian was honored as one of the "100 Heroes and Models who have made outstanding contributions to the founding of New China.
Martyr Lin Xiangqian added luster to the history of the Communist Party of China with his practical actions of taking the lead in setting an example and fighting bravely. His heroic spirit of "serving the country and dying all over the world, and fighting bulls" and "serving the country with sincerity and courage to take responsibility; willing to help others and benefit the people; firm faith and heroic struggle; strict discipline and selfless dedication; steadfastness and unyielding, the courage to sacrifice" The personality spirit still inspires future generations to strive for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Source: Learning Times