Former Site of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee in Hankou & Former Residence of Qu Qiubai

Former Site of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee in Hankou & Former Residence of Qu Qiubai

The former site of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee in Hankou and the former residence of Qu Qiubai are both National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units and classic red tourism sites.

The former site of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and the former residence of Qu Qiubai are located at No. 126 Jiqing Street, Jiang’an District, Wuhan.

In the autumn of 1926, revolutionary forces rapidly expanded from southern to central China. Wuhan became the center of the Great Revolution.

In early 1927, the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee and National Government, which were cooperating with the Communist Party, moved their capital from Guangzhou to Wuhan. As the revolutionary situation developed, the central organs of the CPC also accelerated preparations to relocate from Shanghai to Wuhan. In mid-March, Qu Qiubai, who was serving as a member of the Fourth Central Executive Committee and the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, was ordered to arrive in Wuhan ahead of others. In early April, most of the Central Committee members and alternate members, including Cai Hesen, Tan Pingshan, and Peng Shuzhi, had gathered in Wuhan. Together with representatives of the Comintern and members of the Hubei Provincial Committee, they held a joint meeting in Wuhan to exercise the Party’s highest authority. In mid-April, Chen Duxiu, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, and Wang Ruofei, Director of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, arrived in Wuhan respectively, and the working offices of the CPC Central Committee were soon established. Departments such as the Organization Department, Women’s Department, Propaganda Department, Peasant Affairs Commission, Labor Affairs Commission, and Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee also successively moved to Wuhan. Thus, the Communist Party of China and the heroic city of Wuhan jointly shouldered the historic mission entrusted to them. During this period, faced with the severe and complex situation of the Chinese revolution, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, together with other core Party organs, formed the heart of the CPC in Wuhan. It played a vital role in publicizing the Party’s policies, awakening the working and peasant masses to join the struggle against imperialism and feudalism, boosting the revolutionary morale of the people nationwide, and expanding the political influence of the CPC.

At that time, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee was located at No. 27 Fuyi Lane, Hankou (now No. 126 Jiqing Street). Qu Qiubai lived upstairs in the Propaganda Department building. Under the complex and volatile revolutionary situation, Qu Qiubai, visiting Wuhan for the third time, was busy and hard at work for the revolutionary cause all day long. During the day, he traveled across the three towns of Wuhan, going deep among the working and peasant masses to carry out agitation and propaganda work, shuttling between various central Party organs and carrying out a great deal of effective work. At night, he worked at his desk in the small building. To align with the revolutionary situation at the time, he instructed revolutionary newspapers such as the Hankou Min Guo Ri Bao (Hankou Republican Daily) to generate public support for the worker and peasant movements. After reading Mao Zedong’s Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, he personally wrote a preface for the report and specially forwarded it to the Changjiang Bookstore run by the CPC, instructing that it be published and distributed as soon as possible, so that this guiding work on the peasant movement could spread widely. Among its contents, the theory and proposition of "encircling the cities from the countryside" had a significant guiding impact on the Chinese revolution.

After the Fifth National Congress of the CPC in 1927, Cai Hesen served as Minister of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee. Qu Qiubai was appointed Secretary of the Party Newspaper Committee, overseeing the publication of party newspapers and journals. The Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee included departments such as the Propaganda Section, Agitation Section, Publication Section, Library, Changjiang Bookstore, and Changjiang Printing House, and also established a dedicated Central Publishing Bureau. During this period, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee formed the strongest propaganda team since the Party’s founding, leading newspapers and journals such as Xiangdao (Guide) and Hankou Min Guo Ri Bao to actively promote the CPC’s revolutionary stance against imperialism and feudalism. The Central Publishing Bureau published and distributed a large number of revolutionary books, creating a revolutionary atmosphere for the vigorous Great Revolution.

After Wang Jingwei publicly betrayed the revolution and brutally suppressed worker and peasant movements, at the critical moment of the revolution’s failure, Li Weihan, Qu Qiubai, Zhang Tailei, Deng Zhongxia, Ren Bishi, Su Zhaozheng, Cai Hesen, and other Central Committee and alternate members in Wuhan, responsible comrades from central organs and neighboring provinces, held the historically significant August 7th Meeting in Hankou. This meeting established the guidelines for the agrarian revolution and armed uprisings, playing a crucial role in salvaging the crisis caused by the failure of the Great Revolution. In the period before the CPC Central Committee relocated back to Shanghai, facing the intricate and harsh realities, Qu Qiubai, with fearless revolutionary courage, took overall charge of the Party Central Committee's work, overseeing the leadership of the Peasant Affairs Commission and the Propaganda Department. In his Party work, Qu Qiubai dared to take responsibility and demonstrated a democratic style, earning high prestige within the Party. In exploring the path forward for the Chinese revolution, he left behind a valuable spiritual legacy for the Party’s theoretical construction and was one of the CPC’s rare Marxist theorists in its early days. Due to the reversal of the revolutionary situation, the CPC Central Committee decided to move its central organs back to Shanghai, and the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee accordingly left Fuyi Lane along with the central organs and departed from Wuhan.

The former site of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and the former residence of Qu Qiubai were originally built in the 1920s. The main structure of the building is of brick-and-wood construction, featuring the architectural style of Shikumen residences.

With the high attention of the Wuhan municipal Party committee and government at all levels, and following the principle of “restoring the old as it was, preserving history,” the site has been effectively protected, developed, and utilized. In 2015, relevant departments in Wuhan jointly completed the renovation, protection, and exhibition arrangement of the former residence, and it was officially opened to the public. The newly opened site has a total floor area of approximately 940 square meters, including an exhibition area of about 400 square meters. The museum displays a large number of documentary materials, historical photos, and revolutionary relics such as Qu Qiubai’s manuscripts, comprehensively showcasing the struggle history of the Communist Party of China during the Great Revolution and the early stages of the Agrarian Revolutionary War, and providing a detailed introduction to the revolutionary activities carried out by the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and Comrade Qu Qiubai in Wuhan during this period.

The former site of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee was announced by the State Council as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit in May 2013.

Further Reading:

·Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units