Interview: Wang Pu Ouyang Dongning Organizer: Guo Liangchen

As a centenarian, he experienced and witnessed the vicissitudes of China's entire century; as a climbed the snowy mountains and walked through the grasslands, from the line of life and death to struggle out of the Red Army veteran warriors, he was reborn in the fire in the phoenix nirvana of the new wisdom and new life; as a province of high-ranking officials in charge of the power of life and death, his love of the people's livelihoods, the pen steady; as a member of the party of the Chinese communist party for 80 years of old age, he devoted his life! As a veteran member of the Chinese Communist Party for 80 years, he has devoted his life to the cause.
He is Mr. Kou Qingyan Sr., who was the Vice Governor of Guangdong Province in China, a member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee, Director of the Provincial Political and Legal Committee, and Director of the Provincial Advisory Committee.
On the occasion of his 100th birthday, we interviewed this old life star of Kou De. In the interview, Kou old hale and hearty, quick thinking, voice like a bell, passionate, from time to time waving those big hands, eloquent talk.

Kou's photo in Taihang Mountain in 1946.

Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee visited Kou Lao

I joined the Chinese Communist Party because there was no way to live.
Kou Qingyan: "I was born in April 1912, and my hometown is Kou Jiawan, Baimashan, Guangshan County, Henan Province. Because my family was poor, my father, Kou Lipei, moved the family to Dingjiawa when I was 7 or 8 years old, and I followed my father to private school for 3 years. At the age of 12, I started herding cows for the landlord, and then at the age of 14, I became a tenant, and I had very little left of the grain that I worked so hard for in a year except for paying rent to the landlord, and I didn't have a full meal, and I only had a single jacket on me in the middle of the winter. Usually girls do not go out, not even a pair of pants, home around a piece of rags to cover their shame."
"One night in April 1928, an old tenant, You Dexin, quietly called me to a threshing floor far away from the village and asked me why I didn't have enough to eat or warm clothes to wear all year round. You Dexin, who was much older than me, told me that there were two political parties in China: the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party. The two parties represent two classes. One represents the poor and the other represents the rich, and the GCP represents the poor and the CNRP represents the rich. The poor can only have a way out if they follow the Gongzheng Party. I thought it made sense and secretly joined the underground Young Communist League when I was 16."

Komsomol members are automatically converted to party members at the age of 18.
Kou Qingyan: "My hometown, Guangshan County, is located in the hinterland of the Dabie Mountains, a weak area under the rule of the Kuomintang. Once the spark of revolution was ignited, it quickly spread like a prairie fire."
"In 1929, the local peasants held the Baishaguan Riot, and I joined the Peasant Red Guard. Wherever the Red Guard went, the landlords and the landlords and shady gentry were terrified, and finally they all fled to Xinjie (now the county seat of Xinxian). After the victory of the riot, the county soviet government was established, and I was elected as a member of the soviet of Lianhuayan Township, with the regiment and the party members in the same branch, and Liu Mingpeng was the first branch secretary of Kou Lao (who served as the secretary of the Discipline Inspection Committee of Henan Province after the liberation of the country)."
"On the third day of the first month of the lunar calendar in 1931, the Red Guard and the townspeople were still immersed in the joy of opening the new set, I was escorted by my mother, carrying a letter of introduction to the Communist Youth League written by the County Youth League Committee to Qiliping, Hong'an County, to participate in the Red Army of the Fourth Front. In the same year, I turned into a member of the GONG."
 "At that time there was no big difference between a member of the League and a member of the Party, that is, age. under 18 years old to join the Communist Youth League, after reaching the age of 18 years old members of the League can be converted to the Party, the branch held a meeting, the secretary announced that they were converted to members of the Party."
Five members of the Kou family were killed.
Kou Qingyan: "The GOP was cursed to be big, and it developed and grew through continuous bloodshed and sacrifice, valor and tenacity in the struggle against the enemy. As far as my family is concerned, five of my relatives have sacrificed their lives for the revolution, but it has not shaken the will and determination to follow the Party closely."
"The first is my father, because of the Lenin schoolmaster, the enemy captured him to the new set of secret murder, so far no bones have been found. The last three were my third, sixth and seventh uncles, all of whom died during the guerrilla campaign against the four "sieges"."
"Although mom was not a martyr, she was forced to die by the Kuomintang, which forced her every day to get me back and to tui the party, so how could she listen? As a result, she was forced to die and was only 40 years old when she died."

No matter how hard it was, I didn't lose my faith.
Kou Qingyan: "Bitter or not, think of the Red Army's 25,000 men. But it was in this hardship and danger, nine deaths and one life that I never doubted the Party. Especially when I was framed by the Party and my life was in danger, I believed that the Party would eventually clarify."
 "After the failure of the fifth anti-'encirclement', the Red Army started the Long March. The First and Second Front Armies crossed the grassland once, and due to the behavior of Zhang Guotao, the main leader of the Red Fourth Front Army at the time, who split the Red Army, we crossed it three times."
"The climate of the meadow is unpredictable. Just now the sun is blazing hot, then dark clouds cover the area, followed by pouring rain and even hailstones. The surface of the grass is so muddy that you can't tell which foot is going to be the bottomless mud puddle. Once, he watched his comrades in front of him stepping in the mud, slowly swallowed up by the mud puddle."
"What was the hardest and most bitter part of the Long March? It's the fighting of the war regardless of day and night, and it's the hunger that's still hard to bear after eating wild vegetables, weeds, and belts!"
"The Red Army had to go through fighting and more marching throughout the Long March. After a long and arduous trek, there were more sick and wounded, and a lack of medical care and medicine, and no food or drink. When crossing the grassland, the Red Army soldiers ate wild vegetables, grass roots and tree bark. Some wild vegetables have toxicity, eat the whole body swollen, lips black. There is water in the meadow, but after drinking it, the abdomen is like a knife strangulation, pain is unbearable. Zhu Laotong cross the grassland walked in the forefront, took on the task of trying to eat weeds, found that there can eat and can not eat quickly notify the troops behind."
"The mounts of the commanders below the division were slaughtered, and in the end, the belts, saddles and shoes made of cowhide were boiled and eaten. At that time, the troops circulated "cowhide belt song": 'cowhide belt three feet long, grassland wilderness good dry food, boiled in boiling water to have a special flavor, wildfire cooked extra fragrant. A section is used to cook wild vegetables, a section is used to boil fresh soup, there are vegetables and soup with many patterns, a section is left for comrades to taste.' This song sounds beautiful at first, but in reality the belt was burned and boiled again and again, making it bitter and hard to swallow. The troops in the rear of the temple is even more difficult, because the wild plants that can be eaten by the troops in front of them swept away, there is really nothing to eat, eat the barley grains pulled by the troops in front of the road ...... That kind of bone-deep hunger is something that people will never forget for the rest of their lives."
"But the Red Army soldiers still survived, walked through the grassland in extreme hunger, finished the Long March, overcame the difficulties and achieved victory. That was a belief in unlimited loyalty to the Party and a test of the Red Army's perseverance."
"I have heard that some people nowadays are skeptical of the Red Army's eating belts and leather shoes on the Long March, or even don't believe in them at all, so what is the problem? There is even a part of the people who got rich and wealthy by the GOP, emigrated to foreign countries, and in the blink of an eye forgot the Party's favor, the country's favor, and even did not want the old ancestors. Where is the problem?"

Sentenced to three months' expulsion from the party during the Long March
In October 1936, I was then the head of the reconnaissance section of the 91st Division Command of the 31st Army. According to the deployment of the Division Command, I took a reconnaissance company to carry out a mission between Wudu and Tianshui in Gansu: firstly, to raise funds, secondly, to expand the ranks of the Red Army, and thirdly, to reconnoiter the enemy situation. At that time, the military headquarters of the 3rd Army of the Kuomintang lived in Wudu County, and the reconnaissance company lived in the house of a runaway landowner, which was 15 miles away from the town of Lemen. One day, I took a platoon, together with the chief of the supply office, into the town to purchase supplies. Sending half a squad to stand sentry at a small hillock outside the town, my correspondent and I went to the store to confer with the shopkeeper, when suddenly the enemy rushed into the street and surrounded them with an entire battalion. In the fierce battle, two squads of Red Army soldiers died heroically. I broke through and ran back to the garrison with six soldiers. The next day, I was taken to the division headquarters and handed over to the 31st Army Defense Bureau to be tied up and imprisoned. At first they suspected that I was 'alive and fraudulent', and then they decided that I was a 'reorganizationist'.
"At that time, the military department sent a telegram to Mr. Zhu, saying that I, Kou Qingyan, was anti-ge life and demanded to be shot. Headquarters machine staff Chen Mingyi (is Kou old defense of the General Administration of comrades in arms, after liberation as deputy commander of the Chengdu Military Region) received the telegram, the heart is cold 'old Kou this time will not live.' Apprehensively, he handed the telegram to Generalissimo Zhu and waited with wide eyes for him to state his position. After reading the telegram, Generalissimo Zhu was very angry: 'How can there be so many reorganization factions? Cannot be killed'. Because Generalissimo Zhu returned the telegram, he transferred me from the Defense Bureau to the Military Justice Department, and this transfer transformed the conflict between the enemy and us into a conflict within the people."
"Death penalty exempted, living offense. Sentenced to 'three years' imprisonment, hard labor in lieu of, and expulsion from the party for three months.' After the verdict, I was put on the back of a mimeograph machine for three months in the mimeograph section of the 31st Army's political department ......"
 "I always believed that the Party was right and would sooner or later clear my name. At the time, I was sentenced to three months' expulsion from the Party, and it was only three years later that headquarters quashed the verdict and then reinstated my Party membership."

Man has his humanity, and the party has its character.
 Kou Qingyan: "There used to be a saying: all for one and one for all; now it is reversed: all for me. This is not a play on words, but essentially two worldviews! One is to set up the party for the public, one is to set up the party for private; one is to rule for the people, one is to rule for oneself. This is a question of party character!"
"People have human nature, and the party has party character. A GOP member must at all times be worthy of this title. the fundamental task of GOP members is to transform the world. One is the subjective world and the other is the objective world. The subjective world is more difficult to transform than the objective world, and great and painstaking efforts must be made. gong production party members do not have eight hours outside!"
 "Now that I am old, I cannot work for the Party, but I am still very concerned about our Party. The communiqués and resolutions of every plenary session of our Party, I want the secretary to read them to me over and over again, and I think about them line by line, whether they are in accordance with the basic principles of Marxism, whether they are in accordance with the national conditions of our country, and after I have finished thinking about each one of them, and they are in accordance with them, oops, this heart of mine, it's comfortable, ah!"
 "At present, the leadership of our Party Central Committee is strong, the line, guidelines and policies are correct, the key is the government at all levels and the majority of party members, to the party for the public, ruling for the people and all the work into practice. Practical work to prosper the country, empty talk misleads the country ah!"

Addendum: Kou Qingyan's escapades

The most important thing in life is to control your desires with reason.
In 1945, the eight-year war of resistance was won. Liu Deng drew five regiments from Ji'nan to form a westward column to Taihang, with Du Yide as commander and Kong Qingde as vice-commander. Du Yide was the commander, Kong Qingde was the deputy commander, and Kou Lao was the director of the political department.In mid-September, the troops arrived at a village near Changzhi, Shanxi Province, and camped there, and Kou Lao was arranged to stay at a villager's house by the village cadres.
At that time, the man who was the guide for the Eighth Route Army was away, and there was only the only woman in the house. In the middle of the night, Kou Lao got up to go to the toilet, and when he came back, he felt a naked body on the kang where he had just slept. "Who are you and how did you get on my bed?" Kou Lao asked. "I am the woman of this house, come to find you." "We are the people's army and are not allowed to molest women. I'm a party member and head of the political department, and even more so, I don't allow this, go back to your kang." "The village branch secretary speaks of the military and the people as one family, don't dislike me." "The military-civilian family is political, not in this regard, quickly go back." After saying this, Kou took the initiative to go to another house and live with the soldiers. At that time, Kou was 33 years old, full of vigor, and not yet married.

family traditions
Kou old man in a major position for decades, but his children's education, there has never been a very distinctive feature: not the slightest high gan children's sense of superiority, can not be half a bit special, to be hard and simple. In order to educate his offspring how to be dedicated, self-discipline and self-encouragement, Kou Lao specially wrote the "family style biography": "Listen to the Party, follow the Party, learn Marx and Lenin, will be firm ...... on their own strict, treating people wide, tree family style, passed from generation to generation."
The old man Kou often said to his children, "Obey the organization". Not only did he not open his mouth for his children's affairs, but he also forbade the staff around him to talk about it. The eldest son died young, the eldest daughter is a general cadre of the Shenzhen government, has retired. The second son retired from the organization and started a small business, and the sixth son graduated from a foreign language institute and is now doing business in Japan.
The second daughter joined the army in 1969, at the end of 1998 from the Guangzhou Military Region to the local work, in the face of the second choice of life at the critical moment, how she hoped that her father could write a note, but Kou Lao calmly said: "You can not take me as a backer, we must believe in the organization, rely on the organization." Finally was assigned to an enterprise medical office, unit mechanism reform, early internal retirement.
If the daughter's work because of the old Kou is no longer in place, can not control, but the old five 1975 discharge arrangements for work he is still in place, but still be arranged to the enterprise. 1996, the old five laid off, the year forty-four years old. The old ministry quietly to the old five in the provincial unit to arrange a post, Kou old know very angry, the old ministry called to the home harshly criticized the youngest son scolded a pass: "workers, farmers' children can be laid off, I Kou Qingyan's son why can not be laid off?" Until today, the old five are still at home waiting for a job.