Former Site of the Party School of the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Provincial Committee of the CPC in Tayuo

Former Site of the Party School of the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Provincial Committee of the CPC in Tayuo

The Former Site of the Party School of the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Provincial Committee of the CPC in Tayuo is a protected cultural heritage site of Hunan Province, a classic red tourism destination, a base for patriotic education, and a national defense education base.

The Former Site of the Party School of the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Provincial Committee of the CPC in Tayuo is located at the former residence of the Tu family in Tayuo Town, Yongshun County, Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture.

The site is a traditional three-section compound with a post-and-lintel wooden structure, featuring a bluestone-paved courtyard and covering an area of 540 square meters. The main building faces west and is situated to the east. Classrooms and dormitories were located in the west wing, while the east wing housed communication equipment, also known as the radio sub-station. The site served as the office and residence of comrades such as Ren Bishi and Wang Enmao, and was also a place where young male and female cadres and students from local district and township governments in the revolutionary base areas came to study.

In December 1934, in order to strengthen the Party’s ideological development and cultivate local cadres, the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Provincial Committee established a party school in Dingjia Courtyard, Tayuo. Zhang Ziyi, a member of the provincial committee, served as the principal, while Wang Enmao was the head of the academic affairs office. Faculty members included Tang Tianzhe, Tang Kanglin, and Qi Deyuan. Students were military and political cadres, as well as young cadres from Soviet counties, districts, and townships, with hundreds of cadres attending classes over time. The school operated in secrecy, in accordance with the directive that "party organizations in newly liberated areas should maintain a covert status." There were no desks or chairs in the classrooms—students brought small stools and used wooden boards on their knees for note-taking. Course content included the Provincial Committee's "Resolution on the Tasks of Establishing the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Border Soviet Area," "Outline for Training New Party Members," "Regulations on the Preferential Treatment of Red Army Soldiers and Their Families," labor laws, and methods for class stratification. Teaching mainly involved discussions based on proposed questions. Ren Bishi, Xia Xi, Wang Enmao, Wu Defeng, and others gave lectures at the school on multiple occasions. Upon graduation, students returned to their original posts. At the same time, county and district party organizations frequently held short-term training sessions to train key members of party branches. The provincial party school trained over a thousand outstanding party members for the base areas and the Red Army. In April 1935, as the provincial committee moved to Longshan, the party school also relocated there.

The Former Site of the Party School of the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Provincial Committee of the CPC in Tayuo was designated as a Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit of Hunan Province by the People's Government of Hunan Province in January 1996, and as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level by the State Council in May 2006. It was recognized as a Hunan Provincial Patriotic Education Base by the Publicity Department of the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee in January 1995, and as a National Patriotic Education Demonstration Base by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee in June 2001.