Celebrity Photos (Treasure Edition)

Author: Du Zhengzheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-03-01
Features: Li Shuqing, who was called a "radical" by Mao Zedong, was born in 1874 and died in 1957. He was from Shaoshan Shao You Shan Zhuang. He was broad-minded, concerned about the nation and its people, had a strong sense of justice, and was a well-read scholar skilled in poetry and literature. In his early years, he promoted "new learning," taught at Xiangxiang Zhen Sheng Middle School, and turned temples such as the Lianhua Temple in Shaoshan and Changle An in Shixiang into schools. Mao Zedong called him a "radical teacher." Around the May Fourth Movement, Li Shuqing embraced the democratic revolutionary ideas of the working class and peasants and later joined the Communist Youth League of China.
During the period of the first Sino-Japanese cooperative, he was summoned to Guangzhou by Mao Zedong, who was then acting as the Minister of the Central Propaganda Department of the Kuomintang. Together with Shen Yanbing, he assisted Mao in editing the Political Weekly at No. 38 West Street of Dongshan Temple. In 1927, after the Ma Day Incident and the merger of Ninghan, the Great Revolution collapsed in a fierce manner, and revolutionaries were executed everywhere, including Li Shuqing's wife, Jiang Tikuang, who was beheaded at Ruyi Pavilion by the enemy. At this time, Li Shuqing had already passed the Yanyuan number and returned to his hometown. He fiercely self-styled himself as "No Son from Shaoshan" and watched as Mao Zedong and his own children and grandchildren embarked on their long journey. Mao Zedong always remembered Li Shuqing. In 1936, when the famous American journalist Edgar Snow visited the Northwest Revolutionary Base Area of our party, in Bao'an County, where the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was then located, Mao Zedong mentioned the influences of his youth and said: "There was also something that had an impact on me. A 'radical' teacher came to a local primary school. He was called a 'radical' because he opposed Buddhism and wanted to eliminate deities. He persuaded people to turn temples into schools. Everyone discussed him. I admired him and supported his ideas." (See Red Star Over China, published by the Sanlian Bookstore in 1979). This refers to Li Shuqing.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1945, Mao Zedong once discussed Li Shuqing with Zhou Liwu, a Kuomintang representative who came to Yan'an for the Sino-Japanese negotiations, asking Zhou to convey his greetings to Li upon returning to Hunan. General Zhou Liwu was from Xiangxiang, and his home was only 20 li away from Shaoshan. He graduated from Changsha Yueyun Middle School, once joined the Communist Party of China, and was both literary and martial. In 1926, during the Hunan Peasant Movement, he served as the chairman of the Xiangxiang County Peasants' Association and was an "old acquaintance" of Mao Zedong. Later, Zhou was captured by the Kuomintang, surrendered in Nanjing, and was highly valued by Chiang Kai-shek. By the end of 1945, he participated in the "Three-Person Implementation Group" as a Kuomintang representative and visited Yan'an many times, sometimes talking with Mao Zedong all night.
In the spring of 1946, Zhou Liwu was specially sent by Mao Zedong to Chenjiaqiao in Shaoshan to visit Li Shuqing and convey Mao's greetings: "I sincerely hope that Grandpa Qing will take good care of his health. I hope he will live a long and healthy life—to see the world." Afterward, Li Shuqing, who self-styled himself as "No Son from Shaoshan," recalled this incident and said: "From then on, I was completely free from the suffering of illness and sorrow," shifting from "being drunk in poetry and wine every year and month" to "waiting for clear skies every day and night."
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