The Former Site of Huiwentang Printing House: A Print Shop That Lasted Only Three Months

Basic information

This piece is about a print shop that lasted only three months. It is not on Baoshan Road but in a lane on Huiwen Road beside it - the less conspicuous, the longer it lasted.

One: June 1925, Shanghai Was Short of a Printing Press

On 30 May 1925 the "May 30 Incident" took place. The next day (31 May) the Shanghai General Trade Union was founded.

As soon as the movement began, the CPC Central Committee and the Shanghai General Trade Union faced a very practical problem:

There were great quantities of documents, newspapers and leaflets to print, and they had to be printed at once.

The open print shops of the day did not dare take such work; without machines of their own they had to send it out for typesetting and printing, which was slow and apt to let the news leak.

So in June 1925, in a lane off Huiwen Road, the Publication Bureau of the CPC Central Committee rented a shikumen house and set up its own first secret printing house.

A board was hung at the door: "Huiwentang Printing House".

"Huiwentang" sounds like an old-fashioned bookshop - selling a few thread-bound books, printing a few account books, engraving name cards. That was exactly the effect wanted: an inconspicuous signboard covering what was really being printed inside.

Two: Everything in 48 Square Metres

This shikumen house was small: single-bay, two storeys, 48 square metres. The equipment inside is listed in the materials in some detail:

There were only 3 people in the composing room: Chen Haoqian in charge, Shi Shurong the type-caster, and one other. The head of the whole works was Ni Youtian.

Two flatbed presses + three people + a 48-square-metre shikumen house - that was the whole of the CPC Central Committee's first underground printing house.

The Party's documents and leaflets were all printed in secret at night. By day, what came and went in the lane was a "printing house"; at night the machines began to turn.

Three: What It Printed

In those three months, what went out from here reads today like a list:

Hot Blood Daily deserves a word on its own: it was a daily founded during the May Thirtieth Movement to guide the movement in good time, the CPC's first daily newspaper. The paper for that newspaper very likely passed through the machines in this shikumen house.

These names are all in the textbooks now. But at first they were not "documents"; they were things run off overnight to be sent out the next morning - the ink not yet dry, folded, stuffed into a bundle, and carried out of the lane on Huiwen Road.

Four: It Closed Because One Man Was Arrested

In mid-September 1925 the Shanghai General Trade Union was shut down by the authorities.

Immediately afterwards, a comrade responsible for fetching the paper moulds was arrested.

A paper mould is a printing template - who fetched the moulds, where from, and where they were delivered: once that line was seized upon, the printing house's location could no longer be hidden.

The CPC Central Committee judged that the works might be exposed, and decided: close it and withdraw all personnel.

No one was left to guard it, no equipment was moved away, and it never reopened. From June to September, three months, and the printing house was over.

This is the most typical "cutting of losses" in underground work: no asking further, no attempt to save it, no trusting to luck, one line broken and the whole line drawn in at once. The works could be given up; the people must not be lost.

Five: Why It Deserves Remembering More Than Many Larger Institutions

The former site of Huiwentang Printing House is not a notable's residence, not a battlefield, and has no monumental building. It is a shikumen house still lived in today.

But it has one very solid "first":

The first secret printing institution founded by the CPC Central Committee.

The two words "first" are here not an honour but a condition: being first meant no precedent to follow, machines to be scraped together, people to be found, and rules to be made up as they went - printing at night, stopping by day, one person assigned to fetch the paper moulds, the whole line drawn in at the first sign of trouble.

Three months is short enough. Yet Guide Weekly, New Youth, Chinese Youth and Hot Blood Daily, those periodicals, in those three months went out from these 48 square metres.

Six: Huiwen Road and Baoshan Road

Huiwentang Printing House stood at No. 6, Lane 125, Huiwen Road, a few hundred metres west of Baoshan Road - the Commercial Press and the Oriental Library were in that area.

This is no coincidence. In the 1920s the Chinese quarter of Zhabei was the densest place for Shanghai's publishing and printing trade: the Commercial Press's works, compilation office and library, along with a batch of small printing houses, bookshops and paper merchants, meant lead type, brass matrices, paper, compositors and printers could all be found on these few streets.

For an underground printing house to stay hidden, it had to hide among printing houses. A broken machine could get spare parts, buying paper aroused no suspicion, and machines running at night were nothing strange.

This lane on Huiwen Road was the most suitable cover at the time.

Connections

• Sub-district：Baoshan Road Subdistrict
• See also：Baoshan Road Subdistrict, The Former Site of the Shanghai General Trade Union, The Commercial Press and the Oriental Library, The Former Site of Shanghai University, The Former Residence of Deng Zhongxia

Sources: the former site of Huiwentang Printing House is at No. 6, Lane 125, Huiwen Road, Jing'an District; the house was built around 1920 (one account says between 1915 and 1920), an old-style shikumen lane house facing south, single-bay, two storeys in brick and timber, covering 48 square metres, now a Jing'an District cultural relic protection unit and a private residence; on 31 May 1925 the Shanghai General Trade Union was founded, and during the May Thirtieth Movement the CPC Central Committee and the Shanghai General Trade Union had great quantities of documents, newspapers and leaflets to print; in June of that year the Publication Bureau of the CPC Central Committee set up here the first underground printing house founded by the CPC Central Committee, hanging a "Huiwentang Printing House" signboard at the door as cover; the head was Ni Youtian (also known as Ni Zhongxu), and the composing room had 3 people (Chen Haoqian in charge, Shi Shurong the type-caster, and others); the equipment comprised two flatbed presses, one platen press (treadle frame), one paper cutter (blade frame), one type-casting rocking furnace, one set of old No. 5 Song-type brass matrices and No. 3 and No. 4 lead type, and the Party's documents and leaflets were all printed in secret at night; it printed in turn Guide Weekly, New Youth, Chinese Youth and Hot Blood Daily, as well as Party documents, propaganda material and internal circulars; after the Shanghai General Trade Union was shut down in mid-September, a comrade who fetched the paper moulds was arrested, and the Central Committee, judging the works might be exposed, decided to close it and withdraw all personnel; the printing house lasted only 3 months; sources include the Wikipedia entry "Former Site of Huiwentang Printing House", the same entry on Kuaidong Baike, the Jing'an District People's Government's "Reply on Approving the Project Application for the Protective Restoration of the Former Site of Huiwentang Printing House, a Jing'an District Cultural Relic Protection Unit" (2025), "Reading Jing'an"'s "Cultural Relic Protection Units of Jing'an District", and Boya Place Names' "Introduction to the Cultural Relics and Historic Sites of Jing'an District" (Grade B); phrases such as "hidden among printing houses" and "went out from these 48 square metres" are the author's own synthesis, marked Grade C. See Appendix 4 for the full bibliography.