Yang Zillie

Yang Zilie, born in 1902 in Zaoyang (Zaoyang City), Hubei Province, into a gentry family. Her father was Yang Yuda, and her mother was capable and enlightened in managing the household. With her mother’s insistence, she did not undergo foot-binding in childhood; at eight, she began to learn writing and reading under her grandfather, and later attended the county’s girls’ higher elementary school. When she started school, her grandfather changed her childhood nickname from “Xiao Feng” to “Zilie.” From an early age she was lively and bookish, often reading classical novels after class, such as Water Margin, The Romance of Liang Zhu, and Dream of the Red Chamber. In her later reminiscences, she recalled that she had “from childhood been somewhat like a boy.”

In 1917, after graduating from the higher elementary school, she applied to the Wuchang Provincial Female Normal School. With her mother’s support, she and fellow students went to the provincial capital. After an initial written test and an interview, among five Zaoyang applicants she ranked first and was admitted to the Hubei Provincial Female Normal School.

After entering, Yang Zilie adhered to the school motto “Sincerity, Diligence, Thrift, and Plainness,” gradually becoming more independent. In 1919, the May Fourth Movement broke out; with the school’s consent, she and her classmates took to the streets, carrying the school flag. In 1921, the New Culture Movement spread to Hubei Normal School for Women, where teachers such as Chen Tanyu and Liu Zitong taught Marxist ideas, inspiring her to adopt progressive thoughts, and she wrote short essays such as “The Harm of Breast-Binding,” “Cutting Hair,” and “Letting the Feet Unbind.” That winter, she joined Chen Tanyu’s “Women’s Reading Club,” becoming one of the earlier women to possess Marxist consciousness. In early 1922, the principal Wang Shiyu dismissed Liu Zitong due to student opposition; Yang Zilie and five other students were expelled by the principal and the Education Department, sparking student protests. After the incident, the Education Department removed the principal, and graduation certificates were issued early to the expelled students, allowing the student movement to settle.

That summer, Yang Zilie joined the Socialist Youth League, and in the autumn she joined the Chinese Communist Party. In the spring of 1923, she went north to Beijing to enroll at Beiping University of Law and Politics, but due to family finances she transferred to Beiping Renyi Drama School to study. She attended the Marxist Theory Study Association at Peking University, and established contacts with early Communist leaders such as Zhang Guotao. In February 1924, she married Zhang Guotao; because she propagated Marxism, she was imprisoned for five months. In 1925 she was elected a member of the Central Women’s Bureau and went to Moscow for further study; she returned in 1927 and went to Moscow again in 1928. In 1931 she returned to Shanghai; after the intelligence network was broken, her connections with the organization were interrupted, and she lived in hiding for a long period afterward.

In 1937, after meeting with Ye Jianying and Deng Xiaoping in Nanjing, she went to Yan’an to reunite with Zhang Guotao. In 1938, Zhang Guotao left the Communist Party under the pretext of performing Qingming rituals at the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor; with Mao Zedong’s approval, Yang Zilie returned to Hankou, found Zhang Guotao, and subsequently withdrew from the political stage, entering another phase of life. In early 1949, she and Zhang Guotao’s entire family retreated to Taiwan, later moving to Hong Kong. During her time in Hong Kong, Yang Zilie wrote the memoir “Memories Like Smoke” (later retitled “Memoirs of Zhang Guotao’s Wife”), published in Hong Kong in 1970, recounting her early experiences in the Communist Party. In 1972 she moved to Canada with Zhang Guotao. She passed away in Toronto in 1994 at the age of 92.