CRI听力:CPC History in Chongqing, the City of Heroes

In the Autumn of 1938, as Japanese forces pushed ever deeper into the Chinese mainland, the KMT government was forced out of the capital Nanjing, first to Wuhan and then on to Chongqing, and relative safety.

By this time also the Communist Party of China had moved into an uneasy alliance with the Kuomintang Nationalists, recognizing that cooperation might offer the best chance to defeat the Japanese.

But collaboration was far from easy.

As part of the coalition mechanism known popularly as the United Front, Zhou Enlai arrived in Chongqing in 1938, to head a liaison office of the CPC-led Eighth Route Army. He had been instrumental in setting up the alliance, despite the reluctance of KMT leader Chiang Kai Shek, who still saw the alliance's new junior partner, the Communists, as a rival force to be contained, as he had believed and done in previous years.

The office was located at Hongyan village, in a hillside valley on the outskirts of the city.

Chongqing, became the focus of negotiations to co-ordinate the fight against the Japanese.

David Dai is the curator of the Flying Tigers Museum in Chongqing which tells the story of China's cooperation with US forces.

"Both Kuomintang and CPC represented the Chinese nation. When the country was confronted with the crisis of life and death, the two parties agreed to uNPRecedented cooperation to fight against Japanese aggression. They also worked with US troops in many areas."

Shortly after the Japanese army surrendered, in August of 1945, Mao Zedong came to Chongqing and together with Zhou Enlai engaged in 43 days of negotiations with Chiang Kai Shek to form a broad based national government that would bring together the KMT, the CPC and other political parties or non-party organizations, but to no avail.

Later negotiations were also fruitless, and in 1946 Zhou left Chongqing for Nanjing, once again the capital of the Nationalist government. Talks broke down and – the civil war resumed.

If it weren't for a novel published in 1961. Hongyan – known as Red Crag in English – which was probably read by just about every school child in China in the 60's and 70's, the Chongqing Page of the CPC's history would never have been so well-known.

Written by Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyan, it tells the story of a Kuomintang detention camp in Chongqing, in 1949. As the KMT prepared to withdraw, they killed 300 communist party members and dissidents, along with some of their family members, including babies.

The novel features Zhou Enlai as the commander of a band of covert agents battling the Nationalists.

The area where the massacre took place is now a Martyrs' Memorial park and museum complex.

Deng Tao, is a tour guide at the Hongyan museum

"After the novel of Hongyan came out in the 1960s, it became so popular that China's older generations all grew up reading the book. Hongyan has left a very deep imprint on people from different generations. In the 1990s, hongyan spirit is summarized as being patriotic, united, strenuous and dedicated. Hongyan is very important, it is a name card of Chongqing. We Chongqing people are very proud of it. "

Eventually Chang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan, and Zhou Enlai went on to serve as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China.

In troubled times, his kindness and diplomacy is well remembered in Chongqing.

Building on his solid Communist activist roots, Zhou Enlai went on to be a great statesman and leader for China, and Chongqing can rest assured much of his skill was honed in the heat of this city in Southwestern China.

For CRI this is Bob Jones in Chongqing.