On December 26, 2008, a special guest came to the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall: Chairman Mao's daughter Li Ne.
It was the 115th anniversary of Chairman Mao's birth, so the Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao was packed with people, many of whom came to pay tribute to the great leader and great proletarian mentor Chairman Mao.
In the memorial hall, facing the seated sculpture of Chairman Mao, Li Ne slowly knelt and worshipped. At this time, the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army stood solemnly on both sides of the sculpture of Chairman Mao, carrying out the guard duty as usual. These soldiers are dressed in military uniforms, straight body shape, gaze, just standing there, let the solemn atmosphere in the memorial hall thickened a few points.
When visitors look at the seated sculpture of Chairman Mao, with the PLA soldiers on either side, one cannot help but feel a sense of lofty respect sprouting from the bottom of one's heart.
At this point the visitors could not help but have a question. Normally government sites and leaders are surrounded by armed police guards, while the guard of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall is the People's Liberation Army, this is why?
rivers, lakes and oceans cannot accommodate
In the early morning of September 9, 1976, Chairman Mao, the great leader and great proletarian mentor, passed away in Beijing, and in the afternoon of the same day, Xinhua News Agency issued a press release, "A Letter to the Whole Party, the Whole Army, and the Whole Nation," announcing the sad news with sorrow.
The news spread, the country mourned, after which spontaneous mourning activities were held throughout the country to pay tribute to Chairman Mao.
After the news of Chairman Mao's death was announced to the world, the United Nations lowered its flags to half-mast in mourning. In addition to the United Nations, 55 other countries, including North Korea, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam, also lowered their flags at half-mast at the first opportunity to mourn Chairman Mao's death.
September 18, Chairman Mao memorial service was held in Tiananmen Square, millions of people from all over the country to gather in Beijing, Comrade Hua Guofeng in tears on the Tiananmen City Tower read out the eulogy, the scene of mourning. On that day, more than three thousand people cried and fainted in Tiananmen Square, crying swollen eyes of countless people.
After that, the establishment of a memorial hall for Chairman Mao was put on the agenda. Architecture and art workers from eight provinces or municipalities directly under the Central Government, including Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu, gathered in the capital, and more than forty people worked day and night to discuss the design of Chairman Mao's memorial hall.
By the end of September, Chairman Mao Memorial Hall design team has made more than thirty programs, however, the building shape is mostly modeled after the style of imperial tombs, extremely high specifications, there are a large number of stone pillars stone piers, and mostly opaque heavy stone walls.
In response, the State Council gave instructions that "the ideological and political correctness of the line is what determines everything", and therefore the design ideology of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall should be clearly delineated from the mausoleum architecture of the exploiting classes in the past generations.
This means that all of the thirty or so previously designed programs have to be overturned and redesigned and planned.
On October 8, the Central Committee decided to go against Chairman Mao's will to cremate his remains and prepare to move Chairman Mao's body into a crystal coffin in the Memorial Hall for the general public to see.
The reason is that Chairman Mao's body "rivers, lakes and seas can not accommodate, three mountains and five mountains can not carry", he came from the masses, then after leaving, should also let him return to the masses. So put in a crystal coffin by the masses to look at, is the most appropriate home.
After that, the design plan of the memorial hall was changed according to the instructions of the central government, and architects from all over the country were called upon to pool their ideas and study the design plan together. late October, the design plan of Chairman Mao's memorial hall had been collected to more than 600, and the design group decided to keep three plans after meeting and discussing, and then to keep one of the three plans.
Eventually, the memorial hall was designated as a square building of 105.5 meters in length and width and 33.6 meters in height, built right in the middle of the People's Heroes Monument and Zhengyang Gate, with a spacing of 200 meters between the front and back.
This ensures that the Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao is on the central axis of Beijing city, but also ensures that the Memorial Hall will not be influenced by the Zhengyang Gate and the Monument to the People's Heroes in front and behind, maintaining the independence of the Memorial Hall.
After the program was determined, it immediately began the construction of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, for which Comrade Gu Mu is personally responsible for the leadership of the construction of the Memorial Hall.
November 24, Comrade Hua Guofeng personally shovel for the cornerstone of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall after the soil, the Memorial Hall officially began construction. Participate in the construction, in addition to ordinary construction workers, there are around the conference delegates to Beijing, the People's Liberation Army commanders, pioneers, Chairman Mao's son Mao Anqing, the last emperor Pu Yi's brother Pu Jie and so on.
In the absence of large machinery, millions of soldiers and civilians with hand-held shoulder resistance, only less than five months to the main building of the Memorial Hall was basically completed.
On May 4, 1977, the main body of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall was officially inaugurated, and the symbol of the eternal existence of the rivers and mountains, Wan Qing, was engraved on the Chinese white jade railing plate outside the main building.
On August 18, the crystal coffin of Chairman Mao's body arrived in front of the Memorial Hall, and hundreds of boys worked together to move the coffin into the Memorial Hall.
Two days later, Chairman Mao's body was transferred to a crystal coffin.
After the inauguration of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian and others came to the Hall and looked at the ceremonial appearance of Chairman Mao beside the crystal coffin.
Since Chairman Mao Memorial Hall and the crystal coffin of Chairman Mao are of the highest specifications, it is necessary to adopt the highest specification form in the interior of the Memorial Hall.
The top canopy of the memorial hall is covered with colorful paintings painted by an artist, and the chandeliers inside the memorial hall are carefully designed in the same style.
Therefore, the highest specifications must also be applied to the guarding of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall.
There is nothing higher than the People's Liberation Army to guard the specifications, plus the People's Liberation Army is under the guidance of the invincible Mao Zedong Thought, so let the Liberation Army guard Chairman Mao Memorial Hall is the most suitable, this is why the Mao Memorial Hall to use the Liberation Army to guard the reason.
In addition, there is a deeper reason for using PLA soldiers to guard the Memorial Hall, but it starts with the origin of Chairman Mao and the PLA.
Power comes from the barrel of a gun
On April 12, 1927, Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution and launched the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup, massacring the Communists and forcing the failure of the first Communist Party cooperation that had begun in 1924.
Before that, under the oppression of the Kuomintang reactionaries, Chen Duxiu adopted a compromising approach and took the initiative to disarm the Party, which led to the Communists being helpless when Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12" attack and became the meat on the enemy's plate.
On August 7, 1927, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held an emergency "August 7th Conference" in Hankow, criticizing Chen Duxiu's compromising attitude and right-leaning opportunism, and depriving him of his leadership position in the Party.
At this meeting, Chairman Mao, taking into account China's national conditions, boldly proposed: "In the past, the Party did not do military campaigns, but exclusively did popular campaigns, which was wrong. In the future, we must pay great attention to the military, knowing that power is obtained from the barrel of a gun!"
Since then, "power comes from the barrel of a gun" became the consensus of the Communists in their revolutionary work, and the agrarian revolution of armed resistance against the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang was inaugurated.
In September 1927, Chairman Mao returned to his hometown of Hunan to lead and launch the Autumn Harvest Uprising. Under the guidance of the revolutionary policy of "encircling cities in the countryside and seizing power with arms", the CPC launched the Guangzhou Uprising, the Hunan Uprising and the Huangya Uprising. By now, the CPC had embarked on the road of armed revolution.
And together, these uprising forces are called the Chinese Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army, which is the predecessor of the People's Liberation Army. From the very beginning of the revolutionary army's birth, it had the shadow of Chairman Mao.
Although Chairman Mao rarely touched a gun in his life, his figure never left the army. Since embarking on the road to the revolution, decades of military career, hundreds of command battles, he was always with the soldiers, and the revolutionary army has long been inseparable bond.
In 1929, the Fourth Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army held a meeting in Gutian, Fujian Province, at which Chairman Mao was elected secretary and established his leadership position in the Central Committee.
At the same time, at the beginning of the Agrarian Revolution, as the revolutionary army absorbed a large number of peasants and petty bourgeoisie to join, some rogue ideas and warlordism gradually bred in the army, and a wind of impropriety began to spread in the army.
At the critical moment when the revolutionary army was about to deviate from the direction of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army and was about to corrupt and deteriorate, Chairman Mao first put forward the idea of "politicizing and scientificizing the thinking of Party members and the life of the Party" in the Party, which turned the revolutionary army, which had almost gone astray, into a safe one.
It was also thanks to the Gutian Conference that the later immortal Red Army was forged, truly turning the original revolutionary army into the people's sons and daughters.
Since then, the party commanding the gun has become the military soul of the revolutionary army, and strict military discipline and excellent style have become the basic face of the revolutionary army, and a real people's army was born.
But the people's army at this time was still very fragile, and compared with the huge forces of the domestic and foreign reactionaries, the revolutionary army at this time was like an ungrown baby.
In October 1930, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized 100,000 troops to the revolutionary base in Jinggang Mountain and carried out the first "siege" on the base. Against the backdrop of the enemy's strength and our weakness, Chairman Mao, with only 40,000 men, defeated the 100,000-strong Kuomintang army and sent it fleeing.
The direct cause of the victory was the wise leadership of Chairman Mao, whose strategy of "luring the enemy deep" caused heavy losses to the Kuomintang troops and the failure of the first "siege" of the revolutionary base areas.
Then in 1931, Chiang Kai-shek launched a second "siege", with 200,000 troops driving into the country in an unstoppable manner. However, Chairman Mao still adopted the way of luring the enemy deeper and made the Kuomintang army defeated again and again.
In July of the same year, Chiang Kai-shek, unwilling to lose, personally took command and gathered 300,000 troops to advance to Jinggang Mountain to launch the third "siege". However, this time, Chiang Kai-shek still failed miserably under Chairman Mao's "lure the enemy deep" strategy.
Later in 1932, Chairman Mao adopted the strategy of "attacking the west from the east and concentrating superior forces in a war of annihilation" to crush the fourth "siege" of the Kuomintang.
The four "anti-encirclement" campaigns, which eliminated more than 100,000 enemy troops, dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Kuomintang reactionaries and allowed the originally weak people's army to grow up quickly and become a revolutionary iron army in the baptism of battle.
During the Liberation War, Chairman Mao sat in Xibaipo and personally commanded the three major battles, which won the Liberation War and eventually liberated the whole China.
Only then did this revolutionary army, which emerged from among the workers and peasants, truly transform into an invincible people's army. And all this was built under the guidance of the invincible Mao Zedong Thought.
Therefore, as the originator and founder of Mao Zedong Thought, Chairman Mao must be guarded by the PLA after his death.
Glorious Mission
After Chairman Mao's death, many foreigners did not understand why the Chinese were so sad to see their country's leader go. It was not until they saw the "Letter to the Whole Party, the Whole Army and the Whole Nation" issued by Xinhua News Agency that they understood everything.
Before Chairman Mao led the Chinese revolution, the old democratic revolution had achieved certain results, overthrowing the feudal rule of the Manchu court under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and establishing the Republic of China, but the country was still in a state of warlordism, poverty and weakness, and the old democratic revolution did not achieve complete victory.
At that time, Europe and the United States and other powers had already completed industrialization, and technology and culture were developing at a high speed, while China had just gotten rid of the oppression of feudalism and was still in a backward agricultural society. The three mountains of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism were always pressing down on the people's heads, making China's development difficult.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan, China was involved in the Second World War, and after the victory of the War of Resistance, it was involved in the civil war, and China fell into the quagmire of war for too long, which seriously hindered the development of China.
Even though it was difficult to establish a new China and overthrow the old society to let the people be the masters of their own house. China was oppressed by the U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism, the war against the U.S., the Cold War, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, and the nuclear deterrence, all of which were like the sword of Damocles hanging over the Chinese people's heads, making them scared all the time.
It was Chairman Mao and the invincible Mao Zedong Thought that brought us through these twists and turns and ushered in peace and development.
Under Chairman Mao's leadership, China went from being a backward agricultural country to completing the transformation of agriculture, handicrafts, capitalist industry and commerce and basically industrializing. From being unable to build a tractor to being able to build tanks, satellites, missiles and atomic and hydrogen bombs, all this was possible without Chairman Mao's leadership.
Faced with the oppression of U.S. imperialism and the nuclear deterrence of the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao boldly proposed the "family exchange tactic": "If the Soviet Union drops nuclear bombs on China, then China will shoot all the nuclear bombs in its hands, and then all 800 million people will go to the Soviet Union and mix with the Soviets. If the Soviet Union can not stay, then go to Europe, just across the Bering Strait to the United States!"
Such a genius strategy forced the United States to intercede, and the Soviet Union was too scared to make a move against China.
When the U.S. and the Soviet Union were simultaneously at war, Chairman Mao led us to actively unite the forces of the Third World and establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, Yugoslavia, India and Africa, breaking through the international blockade imposed on China by the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
It was not until the death of Chairman Mao that the disaster-ridden China slowly embarked on a normal track, and Chairman Mao spent his life protecting the growth and revival of the Chinese nation.
Therefore, we often compare Chairman Mao to the sun of the East. "The East is red, the sun rises, a Mao Zedong comes out of the East". It was Chairman Mao who took us through the darkness and waited for the light, and now that we can stand in the sunshine, how can we forget the red sun in the sky?
So, as the PLA soldiers of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, how do they see the matter of guarding the Hall?
For Dong Jinsheng, the former district chief of the guard district of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, it was a glorious mission and the most memorable event in his life.
Until leaving the army for more than thirty years, has been eighty years old Dong Jinsheng still remember when he was appointed district captain, the big leader told him the words.
In 1982, after four years of dedicated work in guarding the Memorial Hall, Yang De-zhong became the Director of the Security Bureau of the Central General Office, focusing on the security and service work of the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall Administration and other departments. At this time, Yang De-zhong met the guard salutatorian who had served in Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall for four years.
Due to the outstanding performance of Dong Jinsheng during his service, Yang De-zhong decided to promote him to the top, and promoted him to the district captain of Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, which also became the biggest opportunity in Dong Jinsheng's life, and paved the way for his gradual rise to a high position later. Therefore, Yang De-zhong is a general figure for him.
Before he took up his post, the "bole" called him to his side and eagerly instructed: "Comrade Dong, congratulations on your successful promotion from 37 candidates. But the promotion also means the increase of responsibility, the burden is heavier, you have to be psychologically prepared ah!
Dong Jinsheng immediately stood up and saluted and replied, "Please rest assured, Chief, I promise to complete the mission!"
Yang Dezhong nodded with satisfaction, then said: "Chairman Mao is the great teacher of the proletariat around the world, every day there are people from all over the world to visit, the flow of people is huge, there are many problems to deal with, the pressure of security is also very big, now the task of security into your hands, I am much relieved! Chairman Mao said that the world is most afraid of seriousness, and the Communists are even more serious! In the future, you should be more serious!"
Dong Jinsheng saluted again and promised that he would take this job seriously and this glorious mission given to him by the party and the people.
From this point on, guarding Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall became the glory of his life, and even after he was transferred back to his hometown and took up a high position, he still misses the days when he was on guard duty at Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall.
Today, it has been 46 years since Chairman Mao's death, but the ideas and spirit left by Chairman Mao live on and remain active among young people today. For many years, "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" has been a best-seller and the torch representing the revolution has been burning high, showing the way for generations of young people. Therefore, young people affectionately call Chairman Mao "instructor".
He was a mentor to the majority of young people and a guide to the direction of the revolution. The invincible Mao Zedong Thought has always guided generations of Chinese sons and daughters to move forward and guide the direction of China. Here, let us once again shout: Long live the great people's leader, Chairman Mao! Long live the invincible Mao Zedong Thought!
