Fang Zhimin (1899-1935)

Chinese proletarian revolutionary, politician and military strategist; founder of the Fujian-Zhejiang-(Anhui)-Jiangxi Revolutionary Base Areas and the 10th Red Army during the Agrarian Revolutionary War. Originally named Yuanzhen, nicknamed Zhenggu, also named Hui Sheng, native of Yiyang County, Jiangxi Province. In the autumn of 1919, he was admitted to the preparatory class of Jiangxi Provincial Class A Industrial School. In 1920 he was enrolled in the Department of Applied Mechanics of Jiangxi Provincial Class A Industrial School. In July 1922, he met Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai, Yun Daiying, Xiang Jingyu and other famous leaders of the CPC in Shanghai.

In August of the same year, he joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League and returned to Nanchang to set up a cultural book club in accordance with organizational decision. In early 1923, he and Zhao Xingnong founded the Nanchang Local Committee of the Chinese Socialist Youth League, the Great League of Jiangxi Civil Rights Movement and the Marxism Research Society. In March 1924, he joined the Communist Party of China. During the May 30th Movement in 1925, he participated in the work of Jiangxi Support Committee in the Shanghai Case Negotiation, went deep into remote areas and carried out Publicity and agitation work. After the Nanchang Uprising in August 1927, he returned to Yiyang to start the Autumn Harvest Riot and successively served as Secretary of Yiyang District Committee and Hengfeng District Committee of the Communist Party of China. In 1929, he led the establishment of the First Independent Regiment of the Red Army in Jiangxi. In 1930, he led the Independent Regiment to open up base areas in Northeastern Jiangxi and Northern Fujian. He led peasant riots in Guixi and Wannian counties, and repeatedly smashed the local "encirclement and suppression" of the KMT Army. In July of the same year, he led the establishment of the Tenth Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and created a 16-character strategic key point "catch off guard, strike when the enemy is unprepared, uproar east, attack west, strike where the enemy is weakest and avoid its strongholds".

In November 1931, he was elected Executive Member and Presidium Member of the Provisional Central Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic.

In November 1934, he served as Chairman of the Military and Political Committee of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Northward Anti-Japanese Advanced Detachment, and led the Party's organization and revolutionary armed forces in the border areas of Fujian, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi. In December of the same year, he and Su Yu led the Red Army's Northward Anti-Japanese Advanced Detachment. In the vicinity of Wuniguan, Baiting, and Shimengang in Tanjiaqiao Town, he was "pursued and suppressed" by the KMT Wang Yaowu's troops. Only Su Yu led more than 400 people out of the siege.

On January 29, 1935, he was captured in Huaiyushan District, Yushan County, Jiangxi Province, and imprisoned in the Military Law Detention Center of Nanchang KMT's Suijing Administration in Jiangxi Province. He refused the KMT's persuasion and fulfilled his vow of "striving to die, struggling to die". In prison, he wrote “Lovely China”, “Poverty”, “Prison Records”, etc., expressing noble patriotism and firm belief in communism, and showing unyielding revolutionary spirit. On August 6, 1935, he was secretly killed in Xiashawo, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province at the age of 36. His main works are included in the Complete Works of Fang Zhimin.