Sanzeng Lane and Huzhou Guild Hall: A Headquarters Hidden in Shikumen

Why they are told together

Because these two places represent two forms of Zhabei's red history:

One hid itself, the other showed itself. But both were burned down by the same war.

Sanzeng Lane: the organ of the CCP Central Bureau (1923–1924)

Basic information

Where the name comes from

At the corner of Gongxing Road and Xiangshan Road (today Linshan Road) in Zhabei, Shanghai, there was a small lane with only 3 house numbers, where 3 families surnamed Zeng once lived; hence the name Sanzeng Lane.

Three house numbers, three Zeng families — "Sanzeng Lane". A lane name utterly ordinary, and yet it became the place name of a stretch of the history of a central Party organ.

Why this place was chosen

The place was chosen after a survey. Luo Zhanglong, who was there, recalls in Records from the Chun Garden:

"We decided to find this place as an office because it lay within Chinese territory, with dozens of filature factories and some handicraft workshops around it. The residents were mostly Cantonese, and next people from Subei (north of the Yangtze). This place was neither a slum nor a gentry quarter, but a mix of people from every direction, and the conditions were very favourable for our work, so we settled on it."

Add two more geographical advantages:

1. only a few hundred metres from the North Railway Station — convenient transport;
2. close to the concession — if anything went wrong, it was easier to run into the concession.

"A mix of people from every direction" was the best cover. This is the wisdom of the hidden front.

Who lived here

In June 1923 the Third National Congress of the CCP was held in Guangzhou, and decided that the CCP Central Bureau would remain in Shanghai. The Central Executive Committee member Wang Hebo, who arrived in Shanghai first, surveyed the place and in his own name rented No. 3 Sanzeng Lane — a shikumen house of the "two rooms upstairs, two downstairs" type, with eight or nine rooms in all across the two floors.

In September 1923, of the five members of the Central Bureau, all but Tan Pingshan, who stayed in Guangzhou, had reached Shanghai: Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Cai Hesen and Luo Zhanglong. The division was:

Three families, a dozen or more people, eating from one big pot.

Cover: the brokerage and the Wang brothers

• a "Guanjuan hang" signboard hung at the gate;
• to the outside they claimed to fill in foreign-language customs forms for people;
• the three families called themselves "the Wang brothers";
• the head of the household was Xiang Jingyu.

Discipline: a pact among a group of young people

This is the most moving part of this stretch of history. These young revolutionaries agreed:

No going to restaurants, no theatre, no cinema, no photographs taken outside, no strolling in the streets.

And it was enforced strictly. One detail:

For instance, when someone came from Yang Kaihui's home village, Yang Kaihui went straight to the railway station, bought him a train ticket to send him back, and would not even let him in at the door.

Strict discipline kept this hidden organ of the Central Bureau from ever being exposed, right up to the day it moved out.

What they did here

• drew up central documents for advancing Kuomintang–Communist cooperation, strengthening the Party's own building, and strengthening the national revolutionary movement;
• from September 1923 to the first half of 1924, a great many central circulars and documents were issued from Sanzeng Lane;
• ordinary letters were signed with the code name "Zhongying" (a homophone of "the Centre");
• documents formally issued only took effect with the joint signatures of the chairman and the secretary;
• every day they found time to read more than ten newspapers and periodicals, including the Shenbao, the Xinwen Bao and Millard's Review, keeping an eye on the country's political trends.

From July 1923 to June 1924, No. 3 Sanzeng Lane was always the organ of the CCP Central Bureau.

The end

Between June and July 1924, Mao Zedong, Yang Kaihui, Cai Hesen, Xiang Jingyu and Luo Zhanglong moved out one after another. Because his work required it, Mao Zedong moved to Jiaxiu Lane on Moulmein Road (today Maoming North Road) in the concession.

In the January 28 Incident of 1932, the Japanese forces invading Shanghai destroyed Sanzeng Lane with their shellfire.

How to see it today

• The Historical Memorial of the CCP Central Bureau after the Third Congress (in Jing'an District) is the main commemorative site, and its exhibition hall includes a "Shanghai University" scene, telling the history of this red university of the East;
• the site: today 202–204 Xiangshan estate, Linshan Road and its surroundings (the original building no longer exists).

Huzhou Guild Hall: former site of the Shanghai General Trade Union

Basic information

The two identities of one guild hall

The story of the Huzhou Guild Hall is very interesting: it was a native-place guild hall, and in the end became a headquarters of a workers' organisation.

On 21 March 1927 the Zhabei forward command of the Third Armed Uprising of Shanghai Workers was set up here. After the uprising's victory:

On 24 March 1927 the Shanghai General Trade Union moved into the Huzhou Guild Hall to work.

How it looked then (according to historical records):

A banner in red cloth with white characters reading "Shanghai General Trade Union" hung high above the entrance hall of the guild hall's main building; opposite the entrance hall stood a spirit wall, and on either side of the entrance hall was a room — respectively the Shanghai General Trade Union's reception room and the workers' pickets' guard room. The workers' pickets, rifles on their shoulders and belts at their waists, stood boldly on either side, checking the papers and badges of those going in and out, and strictly guarding against the enemy slipping in to make trouble.

From "natives deliberating" to "workers' pickets on guard", a guild hall completed its most legendary change of identity.

One night in the open

After the April 12 coup, there is one scene worth recording on its own:

When the counter-revolutionary April 12 coup broke out, the chairman of the Shanghai General Trade Union, Wang Shouhua, died a heroic death. That night more than ten thousand workers spent the night in the open in front of the Huzhou Guild Hall, guarding their own organisation.

More than ten thousand people slept a night in front of the guild hall, to protect their own trade union. This is, I think, the most powerful scene in this book.

On 15 April 1927 the Shanghai General Trade Union withdrew from the Huzhou Guild Hall and went underground.

The Shanghai General Trade Union's "history of wandering"

The Huzhou Guild Hall was neither the first nor the last stopping place of the Shanghai General Trade Union. From June 1925 to April 1927 it moved, one after another, through nearly 20 lanes:

In two years it changed its address more than a dozen times. This "history of wandering" is itself a miniature of the workers' movement.

How to see it today

• the 155–163 Huiwen Road area is a memorial site;
• the original building has been destroyed; the claim that "only part of the building survives at the original site" is inaccurate — go by the memorial markers;
• we suggest seeing it together with the other sites in the Baoshan Road area (see below).

A suggested "red route"

Both these sites are in Baoshan Road sub-district, within walking distance of the following places, so they can be strung into a complete route:

Lane 499, Baoshan Road (former site of the Commercial Press)
        ↓
584 Baoshan Road (site of the Oriental Library)
        ↓
220–300 Baoshan Road (Baoshan Road Massacre memorial point)
        ↓
Gongxing Road × Linshan Road (Sanzeng Lane site)
        ↓
155–163 Huiwen Road (Huzhou Guild Hall)
        ↓
Qingyun Lane, Qingyun Road (former site of Shanghai University)
        ↓
Qingyun Road at West Baoxing Road (site of Qingyun Road Square)

Walk this whole line and you have taken in Zhabei's red history of the 1920s. Half a day is enough for the whole route.

Sources: Sanzeng Lane follows the Shanghai Party History website's The Finest Hour of "Sanzeng Lane", the People's Daily's The Early Leadership Organs of the CCP Central Committee in Shanghai, the Shanghai Municipal CPPCC website's Red Memories in Shikumen (II) and the Shanghai Party History website's A Historical-Spatial Survey of the CCP Central Committee's Early Sojourn in Shanghai; the Huzhou Guild Hall and the Shanghai General Trade Union follow A Survey of Shanghai's Important Revolutionary Sites, reproduced on Fudan University's "Shanghai red resources" website, and the Shanghai Party History website's Red Years in Shikumen Lanes. The full bibliography is in Appendix 4.