Anti-colonial protest: China for the Chinese

With the end of the First World War and the loss of German colonial territories, the Weimar Republic, with its politically relatively open capital, offered internationalists a certain amount of freedom to try out political discussions and radical actions. Chinese, Indian and Korean freedom movements took advantage of the opportunities to forge national connections for joint anti-imperialist actions in Berlin. In this period of upheaval in the 1920s, a generation of nationally conscious Chinese students looked for ways to politically and culturally renew their homeland. Between Charlottenburg and Friedrichshain, the young academics organized demonstrations, rallies, and anti-colonial protest actions. To this end, they pursued different paths by working together with communist socialist and national revolutionary organizations. In the years from 1925 to 1927, supporters of the fledgling Communist Party (CCP) and representatives of the National Party (section of the Kuomintang/KMT) participated together in anti-colonial actions directed against the oppression of their homeland by Great Britain and Japan. Together with the KPD and international independence movements, numerous actions took place in Berlin in support of the national revolutionary struggles in China.

This anti-imperialist cooperation and broad international solidarity is documented in the picture of April 6, 1927 in the party newspaper Die Rote Fahne. It captures the historical moment in a memorable way: the German KPD leader Ernst Thälmann extends his hand to an unknown – slim, almost delicate – Chinese. The photo speaks for itself and needs no further explanation. But one line of text refers to the political relationship of the protagonists: "After that, Comrade Thälmann took the hand of the Chinese comrade and thus sealed the fighting alliance of the German revolutionary working class with the fighting Chinese brothers."

In 1926, the publicist Kurt Tucholsky commented on the propagandistic effect of the image for advertising and politics. His thoughts can be summarised as follows: A picture is worth a thousand words. Photographs are still regarded today as evidence of a historical event, of a truth. They can become more firmly established in the collective memory than texts and function in a striking form as a political message, which thus becomes an integral part of our cultural memory.

The photo is evidence of an "international demonstration of historical importance" that took place at the rally "Against the imperialist mass murder in China" with 20,000 participants in the Berlin Sportpalast. In addition to Thälmann and Wilhelm Pieck, French, English and American comrades as well as a Chinese appeared as speakers. In his speech, Thälmann denounced "the brutality with which the foreign imperialists tried to subjugate the Chinese people. The Soviet Union is the only country to side with the Chinese people." Afterwards, the Chinese comrade Chi presented the German labor leader with a trade union flag and a peasant flag. [1] The photo showing the young Chinese man handing over the flag was considered historical proof of the close cooperation between German and Chinese communists in the common struggle against imperialism. In 1932 it appeared in the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung and has been printed several times since then. [2] The importance it played in the early history of the CPC for cooperation with the Leninist CP of the Soviet Union is shown by the fact that it was exhibited in the Beijing Museum of the Chinese Revolution after the founding of the People's Republic of China. [3]

For a long time, the identity of Comrade Chi remained unclear. In the meantime, officially accessible documents and the biography of his son provide clues to his person: Xie Yunsan. At least this was the name under which he had enrolled to study in Germany. His biography in Europe began when he left Shanghai in October 1919 to study abroad together with hundreds of young Chinese. Unlike his fellow students, who stayed in France as part of the Werk-Study program, he first traveled on to England, where he attended a military school from 1920-23. In addition to his military-political training, he was particularly interested in the living conditions of workers in the region's mines. [4] In Germany, he studied mathematics, philosophy, and economics at the University of Göttingen. He joined a political group of German and Chinese students, to which the later army leader Zhu De belonged. In 1925 he became a member of the Chinese Communist Youth League; a year later of the CCP, which also maintained party groups abroad. "From it he was given the task of propagating the Chinese revolutionary movement abroad and promoting the connection of the Communist Party with the Communist Parties of Europe." [5] This meant illegal cooperation with representatives of communist organizations such as the International Workers' Aid (IAH) and the KPD.

During this time, he lived mainly in Berlin and lived in Langenbeckstraße in the Friedrichshain district. Most of the workers lived there, most of them without income. Rents were affordable. There were demonstrations and protests almost daily, and supporters of the communists engaged in fierce street battles with the Nazis. Han Sen's father had close contact with German communists, in whose apartments political meetings were regularly held. For him, cooperation in everyday life was also important. Some of the comrades, such as the Jewish communist "Grandma Sarah", took care of their son during his political activities. Han Sen remembered an overall carefree childhood. He told of ice skating on the artificial ice rink in Langenbeckstraße and sleigh rides in Volkspark Friedrichshain, but also: "Communists, Germans and Chinese, often met in our apartment, including Zhou Enlai and Zhu De, who would later hold such important positions in the Chinese Communist Party." [6] At this point, however, his information is inaccurate in terms of time. Obviously, Han Sen confused his father's stories with his own experiences from the time around 1932, because the political functionaries mentioned were no longer in Germany after 1924 or the late summer of 1925.

Officially, Xie worked as a representative of the Kuomintang with organizations of the Comintern and wrote regularly under the code name Y. S. Hsieh for the "International Press Correspondence" of the Münzenberg Group about the political developments in China. Willi Münzenberg, who had been a member of the KPD since 1919 and head of the IAH (International Workers' Aid), used his large number of publications to politically support the revolutionary movement in China. In Berlin, together with V. Chattopadhyaya and Bohumir Smeral, he formed the "International Secretariat" of the "League against Imperialism and for National Independence". [7]

Xie was not the only Chinese who had come to Europe as a student and devoted himself to political agitation during his stay. However, his example shows some of China's anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activities in the 1920s to 1933. Often, the identities of the speakers and active participants remained in the dark for obvious political reasons. Since the official party history was written after 1949 and from the prevailing point of view at that time, it did not devote enough attention to the individual fates of the early activists. [8] On the other hand, it is undisputed "that the joint combat actions only became what they were through the courageous personal appearance of Chinese communists ... and gained their broad echo in the German public." [9]

Only sporadic information about the activities of the Chinese who had immigrated to Friedrichshain since the beginning of the 19th century reached the public. In the 1920s, they formed an independent Chinese community of about 200 people around what was then Schlesischer Bahnhof. [10] The presence of traders, merchants, artists and former sailors in the working-class district was perceived with suspicion by the bourgeois press and official bodies such as national-conservative parties, politicians and authorities. According to Liang, they were practically ignored by Berlin society (meaning the bourgeois-liberal one) as well as the Eastern European Jews behind Alexanderplatz, with only one exception: when film companies needed Chinese as extras for Mongolian political commissars in anti-Bolshevik films. [11]

The German authorities often suspected illegal entry by communist agents and politically radical activists. The reason for this was the different spellings of names and entry notes in the passports of the traders who entered the country via Moscow under the guise of taking up their studies. However, the journey by train was simply cheaper. The majority of Chinese in Friedrichshain had little interest in international politics, but they also supported the anti-Japanese initiatives and political actions for the national liberation of their homeland. Little was known about the international connections of the former sailors to the strike movements of the dock workers in Hamburg and Bremen. [12] The most important link between the students in Charlottenburg and the traders in Friedrichshain remained the national struggle against British and Japanese rule in China.

Friedrichshain as the "Yellow Quarter"

Local depictions portrayed Friedrichshain in bright colors as a typical poor people's area, gray and without any greenery, with a pub on every street corner or a typical Berlin "Bouillonkeller". Supposedly, for the respectable Berliner, the city already ended at the Jannowitz Bridge. Behind it begins "what the citizen calls the underworld with horror, which differs from his world only in its desolation"[13].

Figures describe social reality in a less literary way. After the end of the war, the residents of the district lived under unacceptable social conditions. In the gloomy tenements, the majority of workers lived in extremely cramped spaces, war invalids and widows. 41 percent of the apartments did not have an indoor toilet. Of the 90,000 apartments, which consisted of only 1-3 rooms including the kitchen, 5,000 did not even have a water tap, 85,000 had no electric light but only gas lighting, and 6,000 apartments did not even have this.[14] The press described the area as a disreputable world characterized by unemployment and alcohol. Just like Kreuzberg, Neukölln or Wedding, Friedrichshain was a typical working-class district where unskilled workers and craftsmen could hardly live on their low weekly wages. In this living and working world, quarrels, brawls, theft and prostitution were the order of the day. Since the notorious mass brawl between representatives of the ring club "Immertreu e. V." and carpenters from Hamburg who were employed in the construction of the Berlin subway, the national-conservative press even fabulated about the "criminal world between Andreasplatz and Fruchtstraße" and compared the situation with the underworld of Chicago. [15] In this area, the Chinese immigrants often lived in groups as subtenants in apartments in Krautstrasse, Andreasstrasse and Markusstrasse and stayed in a Schultheiß restaurant on the corner of Krautstrasse and Langestrasse, where they were also allowed to cook their food. [16] Contemporary reporting thought it was discovering a kind of exotic, sinister Chinatown. It gave the area between Schlesischer Bahnhof and Friedrichshain the name "Gelbes Quartier" (Yellow Quarter). [17]

Joint anti-colonial activities

Since the end of inflation, the social conditions had also changed for students from wealthy families. Life in Charlottenburg had become too expensive, so the students' living space within the city had shifted, and their political actions took place in the working-class districts: the International Workers' Aid (IAH) held its rallies in the Andreasfestsäle in Andreasstraße. The meeting place for communist activities was Lange Straße, at number 56 of which the publishing house of the Youth International had its headquarters, and until 1932 there were two exits for conspiratorial actions in the hairdresser's shop at number 23. [18]

In addition to Xie, Liao Huanxing (Liau) did not live in bourgeois Charlottenburg. Like Zhu De, he led a double life during the united front. Liao had been a party member of the CCP since 1922 and came to Europe on its behalf. Officially, he was a student at the University of Berlin, but at the same time he transmitted the directives of the CP headquarters to the members in Europe. [19] Under the pseudonym Tang Shin She, he wrote for Comintern organs such as "Internationale" and "Internationale Pressekorrespondenz". For "Die Rote Fahne" he propagated the freedom struggle of the Chinese proletariat under the title "China for the Chinese" (06.06.1925) and in the AIZ he reported on the China conference of the IAH in August 1925 German. He worked in the office of the "League against Imperialism" and was a close collaborator of Münzenberg. The editorial office and publishing house of the newspaper were located at Friedrichstraße 225 Berlin SW 48, Kreuzberg. Until 1933, the small group of Chinese communists was united in a party cell of the KPD, which called itself the "Circle for the Chinese Language". The organization had 10-15 members, including Xie, Hu Lanqi (friend of A. Seghers), Wang Bingnan, and Cheng Qiying (mother of Han Sen). All of them moved in Berlin in the environment of German socialist and communist artists and intellectuals. Anna Seghers thus confirmed her direct and close contacts with the Chinese students living in Berlin. They played an important role in her works. [20] "The material for the books that speak of Chinese events ... usually follows the reports of Chinese friends and comrades or their oral and written transcriptions from Chinese newspapers or other texts." [21]

Cheng knew Zhu De and other members of the CCP from her time in Göttingen, but was not a member of the party. She was active in the "International Socialist League of Struggle" (ISK), which campaigned for a united front of social democrats and communists against the rise of fascism. At numerous rallies, she spoke about the situation in China and the task of the European proletariat, but was also isolated within the Chinese activists because of her radical positions and cooperation with German organizations such as the "League for Human Rights".

The Congress Against Colonial Oppression

In February 1927, the Reichstag member Willi Münzenberg and head of the IAH organized the "Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism" in Brussels, which was attended by over 170 delegates from more than twenty countries. [22] The "League against Imperialism and National Independence" was also founded at the meeting, which had its office in Berlin at Friedrichstraße 24 in Kreuzberg. An important task was the cooperation of the Indian and Chinese independence movements. In addition to Liao, members of the Executive Committee were J. Nehru and V. Chattopadhyaya; commonly called Chatto. Xie was also represented as a delegate of the KMT under his name Y. S. Hsieh. The close political network that existed between the representatives of the various communist and national revolutionary organizations is shown by the memories and records of Agnes Smedley, Anna Seghers and Babette Gross. An important instrument for the organization and propaganda of the various political party cells were news and press organs. Münzenberg's press (including Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung) was used for international reporting. According to his widow Babette Gross, the KMT had its own news agency in Friedrichshain, "with whose secretary, the young and zealous Liau, Münzenberg was friends." [23] The American journalist Agnes Smedley, in a relationship with the Indian freedom fighter V. Chattopadhyaya, had close contacts with the "Indian Revolutionary Committee" he founded, which had been disseminating press information about the Indian freedom movement since 1915. It served to strengthen the independence movement, to organize the armed struggle against the British and to recruit volunteers for the independence struggle. In a biography of Agnes Smedley, the author states that the goal is to unite Chinese and Indians as common victims of British imperialism. [24] During her time in Berlin, the journalist and activist for the founding of a "marriage and sexual counseling center" in Berlin had close contacts with German left-wing artists such as Tilla Durieux and Käthe Kollwitz as well as with Indian and Chinese communists. This included the later founder of the People's Army, Zhu De, about whom she wrote a biography.

Anti-Japanese Action 1932

There were only a few Chinese students who lived in Charlottenburg and worked with their compatriots in the east of the city. An exception was Wang Bingnan, who during his stay in Berlin (1931-1936) had discovered the neighborhood at Schlesischer Bahnhof, which his German partner Anna described as a "Gorky-like milieu." [25] Wang, who was a member of the CCP, studied at the School of Politics and worked closely with the KPD in Berlin-Halensee. He sought contact with "revolutionary" youth from other Asian countries and established relationships with his compatriots in the working-class neighborhoods, whom he used for courier services and various actions. [26] Members like Wang had joined together in a "Chinese Language Circle" at the KPD, whose main task was political propaganda work to organize Chinese students abroad. The small political cell consisted of 10-15 members at times, including Li Kang as well as two women and secretary Xie. After the collapse of the united front of the National Party and the CCP, an "Anti-imperialist League of Chinese in Germany" was founded as a broad alliance in 1931/32 in view of the threat from Japan. [27]

Wang and some comrades carried out the anti-Japanese struggle directly in Berlin by smashing the windows of two Japanese restaurants in Wilmersdorf in April 1932. The activists had wrapped leaflets with anti-Japanese slogans around the cobblestones needed for this purpose: "The Japanese robber rabble will cut their teeth on the combativeness of the international proletariat!" Several Chinese students were summoned by the public prosecutor's office for interrogation, including Wang, Li Kang and Xie. All three claimed to have attended IAH and KPD events only out of national interest and otherwise knew nothing about the incident. Since the Chinese – "as was confidentially informed" – had contacted the Chinese Legation immediately after receiving the summons, the case was not pursued. [28]

In 1933, some of the Chinese communists had to leave Germany. So Han Sen sought refuge in Switzerland with his father (with a new identity). In 1936, shortly warned of imminent arrest by the Gestapo, Wang Bingnan was just able to leave the country with his German wife. [29] Li also returned to China via Moscow. Hu Lanqi was arrested and first published her fate in Paris after being imprisoned "In a German Women's Prison". Cheng Qiying was expelled from Germany after her prison stay. And Liao Huanxing had already been recalled to Moscow in 1927 and arrested in 1938. He was not allowed to leave for China until 1951. Chatto died during the "purges" in the Soviet Union.