Guoshu Zhang

Zhang Goushu (1905–1930), courtesy name Xunian, also known by the alias Zhou Zhide, was from Shangli, Pingxiang County (now Pingxiang City) and was the elder brother of Zhang Guotao. His father was Zhang Yezhuang, who attained a rank in the late Qing dynasty and later served as the head of the Jiujiang Local Supervisory Office in the Republic of China era.

As a child, Zhang Goushu lived with his father in Xiangshan County, later studied at Lijiang Elementary School and Pingxiang High School, and in 1923 entered Pingxiang High School, where he performed well academically.

Influenced by the Anyuan workers’ movement during his youth, he joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League in 1924, becoming a member of Pingxiang County urban Youth League branch. In 1925 he joined the Chinese Communist Party, one of the early party-league members in Pingxiang, and served as the head of the Pingxiang County urban Party group (affiliated to the CCP Anyuan Local Committee). He carried out lectures, mimeographed publications, and night-school activities at the school, participated in promoting the National Revolutionary program, and advanced anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles.

In September 1926, he helped guide the Northern Expedition army into Pingxiang, contributing to the expansion of the Jiangxi front. Thereafter he served as an executive committee member and the head of the Organization Department of the Pingxiang County Party, and as an Organizational Committee member of the Pingxiang Special Branch of the CCP; he participated in organizing mass organizations across sectors and led Pingxiang’s mass movements. In the autumn of the same year, after the Northern Expedition, he was sent by the CCP Hunan Provincial Committee to Moscow Sun Yat-sen University for study; during this period he studied in the same class as Chiang Ching-kuo, a relationship described as complex.

Early 1930 (some sources say 1929), Zhang Goushu returned from the Soviet Union, using the alias Zhou Zhide, and served as a Central Committee inspector responsible for secret revolutionary work in the Shanghai area. In March, by order of the CCP Central Committee, he went to Jiujiang to rehabilitate the damaged Jiangxi organization, serving as the Secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the CCP. In May he was arrested due to betrayal by a traitor, and the provincial Party apparatus and the Jiujiang organization were destroyed. On July 5, Zhang Goushu was tortured and suffocated after interrogation, then packed in a hemp bag and thrown into the river. More than ten days after his death, the Kuomintang published forged confession materials, causing his reputation to be long damaged.

In 1985, the Ministry of Civil Affairs designated Zhang Goushu as a martyr. In 1986, central veteran cadres such as Kong Yuan conducted investigations and proposed restoring Zhang Goushu’s reputation, and the Jiangxi Provincial Government approved in November of the same year that Zhang Goushu and his wife Yan Bifang were posthumously recognized as revolutionary martyrs. Zhang Goushu’s deeds are recorded in places such as the Pingxiang Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Hall.