Xingguo Soviet Area Cadres' Fine Style Memorial Park

Xingguo Soviet Area Cadres' Fine Style Memorial Park

Xingguo Soviet Area Cadres' Fine Style Memorial Park is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction.

The Soviet Area Cadres' Fine Style Memorial Park is a national 4A-level tourist attraction and a national patriotic education base built with local government funds by the county Party committee and government. The project is located east of the southern section of Wenming Avenue in the county, west of General's Park, between the planned General's Avenue and the new National Highway 319 in the urban planning area, and south of 24-meter Avenue. The total planned area is 250 mu. The entire park is designed with eight functional zones, arranged according to a "one street, two squares, four zones" structural layout. The architecture mainly consists of a monument, zigzag bridge, Soviet Area Cadres' Fine Style Exhibition Hall, cultural wall, main square, waterside plank walk, General's Lake, Model County Party Secretary Pavilion, walking trails, visitor center, parking lot, and garden landscaping.

The Xingguo Soviet Area Cadres' Fine Style Memorial Hall is located in Xingguo County. The exhibition hall, with an investment of over 10 million yuan and covering an area of 1,300 square meters, has six exhibition halls that display the fine style of Soviet Area cadres in the past and the spirit of today’s Xingguo cadres and masses through photos, physical objects, sculptures, models, scenes, multimedia film synthesis, and other forms.

"Men who don’t have wives should quickly ‘get’ a wife, women who don’t have husbands should quickly ‘get’ a husband..." In one corner of the memorial hall, such a passage is written. During his investigation in Xingguo, Mao Zedong talked about marriage freedom and once said this to local people.

What does this “get” mean? An elderly man over 80 from the area explained, “‘Get a wife’ is one of the most ‘local’ dialects in Xingguo, similar in meaning to ‘marry a wife.’ Nowadays, many young people in Xingguo no longer use this term.

It turns out that whenever Mao Zedong went to a place to conduct investigations, he liked to communicate with the masses using the local dialect.

Walking up to a group of wax figures: Mao Zedong sits on a stone by the roadside, chatting intimately with farmers. It was this kind of in-depth, mass-oriented research that enabled Mao Zedong to understand the real situation of rural China. In his “Xingguo Investigation,” Chairman Mao stated that landlords and rich peasants, who made up 6% of the population, owned 80% of the land, while 80% of the poor and lower-middle peasants owned only 20% of the land.

“Politics is land policy; if land policy is ‘right,’ then politics is ‘right,’ and it can win the hearts of the people.” This is a realization by the native intellectual Teacher Zhong in “Xingguo, Xingguo!” before he was killed. This investigation made Mao Zedong acutely aware that only by carrying out a land revolution could the hardships of the peasants be resolved and the support of the working masses be won.

Subsequently, the Red Army launched large-scale activities of “overthrowing landlords and distributing land.” The vast number of poor peasants who received land realized that the Red Army was fighting for the interests of the working masses and flocked to join them. With the support of the broad peasantry, the Red Army rapidly grew in strength, and the revolutionary cause flourished.

In May 1930, in “Oppose Book Worship,” Mao Zedong first put forward the famous assertion that “no investigation, no right to speak.” Not long after, on April 2, 1931, in the “Notice of the General Political Department on Investigating Population and Land Conditions,” he added: “Without correct investigation, there is also no right to speak.” And correct investigation depends on in-depth contact with the masses. From then on, conducting in-depth investigations among the masses became a fine style consistently upheld by Soviet Area cadres and turned into a key method for our Party to closely connect with the masses and achieve victory over the enemy.

Small wooden bridges are common in the mountainous areas of southern Jiangxi. A photo of a small wooden bridge is also displayed in the memorial hall. Mao Zedong called this bridge the “Zhangshu Pond Small Bridge,” but local people prefer to call it the “People-Loving Bridge.”

In November 1933, Mao Zedong went to Changgang Township in Xingguo to conduct an investigation. Passing by Zhangshu Pond, he saw that the bridge across the stream had broken handrails, swaying dangerously as people walked on it. He immediately ordered repairs and told the township cadres: “Issues like bridge and road repairs are practical matters that our Soviet government cadres must always pay attention to and genuinely resolve.” Several months later, the Changgang Township Soviet Government received a letter from Mao Zedong written from Ruijin, specifically asking: “Has the small bridge at Zhangshu Pond been repaired?”

At the time, as the chairman of the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic, even such a small matter as repairing a bridge or road was deeply on Mao Zedong’s mind. If the chairman cared so much, Soviet Area cadres were even more committed to being “close to the people and solving their practical difficulties.”

The memorial hall excerpts Mao Zedong’s then-written essay “Be Concerned with the People’s Lives and Pay Attention to Methods of Work,” specially summarizing how to care for the people—ranging from major issues like land distribution and house-building, bridge and road construction, to minor daily necessities like firewood, rice, oil, salt, and even marriage issues, covering every detail. The people were moved to say: “The 0 truly cares, thinking of everything for us.”

Time flies, and history continues.

During the visit, I happened to hear such a story. Not long ago, Fan Yufeng, a villager from Shangwu Group, Tangshi Village, Changgang Township, fell ill and was hospitalized. Xie Xinzhang, a village cadre, took the initiative to go to her home, brought her medical insurance reimbursement documents to the township, handled everything on her behalf, and soon the 7,230-yuan reimbursement was approved.

Always keeping the care for the people and governance for the people in mind—that is precisely the foundation of the enduring success of our Party’s cause.

In the memorial hall, there is a rather inconspicuous photo. Had it not looked familiar, the reporter would not have noticed it. The photo shows a simple house named “Ye Shi Ju” (Also a Residence). When it was first in Xingguo, this building standing in the bustling city area was particularly eye-catching, clashing with the surrounding architecture. Unexpectedly, I saw it again in the memorial hall.

The owner of the house was Hu Can, the first county Party secretary of Xingguo. During the Second Counter-Encirclement Campaign, when the enemy entered Xingguo, they set his home ablaze. Upon returning, he simply built a crude adobe house. At the time, some advised him to take a better house, but he said: “I am here to liberate the working masses, not myself; this is also a place to live.” Thus, he named it “Also a Residence.”

After Hu Can was martyred, his wife Zhao Ciru continued to live here. After the liberation, the local government wanted to give her a new house, but she said: “My husband gave me what house, I’ll live in that house.” Until now, although Hu Can’s descendants have done very well, this house has been preserved as a family heirloom.

This reminds me of another secretary from Xingguo, Liu Qiyao. His position was even higher—he was then the Chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government. But he refused official food allowances and led by example, carrying rice from his home to eat at the provincial Soviet office. His wife even joked: “Husband, husband, I have to supply the meals.”

In early 1935, Liu Qiyao lost contact with the organization while leading guerrilla warfare. Though ragged and begging for food, no one knew he had a large stash of gold and silver hidden around his waist as party activity funds. Only after the establishment of the Provisional Jiangxi Provincial Committee did he take out the gold and silver he had safeguarded for three years, earning him the nickname “the beggar with ten thousand strings of cash.”

Why could our Party unite the masses? The answers are not hard to find in these two secretaries. Although the cadres of those times held power in various aspects, they always shared hardships and relied on the masses in times of adversity, practicing “shared salt in times of salt, shared blandness without it,” without any special privileges. In contrast, the - were “the front lines are tense, but the rear lines feast.”

The formation of the fine style of Soviet Area cadres did not come from nowhere. At Lianjiang Academy in Xingguo, Mao Zedong first held the “Land Revolution Cadres’ Training Class.” At that time, Soviet Area leaders ate, lived, and endured hardship together with the cadres. All levels of Soviet Area Party organizations had supervisory committees, all levels of government had labor and peasant inspection departments and labor and peasant complaint bureaus, and there were “labor and peasant complaint boxes” everywhere. Soviet Area cadres consciously accepted supervision from the masses.

It was under the cohesion of the Soviet Area cadres that the people of Xingguo worked hard and fully supported the revolutionary war, becoming exemplary in ten areas including expanding the Red Army and supporting the front. In May 1933, - praised “China and foreign countries cannot compare to Xingguo” at a Central Soviet Area meeting. Mao Zedong commended Xingguo for “creating first-class work,” calling for “creating thousands of Changgang Townships and dozens of Xingguo Counties,” and inscribed the four characters “Model Xingguo.” Since then, “Model Xingguo” has become widely known and celebrated to this day.

At the end of the visit, looking back, going deep among the masses, caring for them, uniting them—all these words boil down to a simple truth: “Long live the people.”

Opening hours: Summer: 8:30–12:00, 14:30–18:00; Winter: 8:30–12:00, 14:30–17:30

Important reminder: Closed every Monday

Admission: Free

Address: No. 0 at the southern end of Jiangjun Avenue, Xingguo County, 0797-5318997