Ｃｈｅｒｉｓｈ ｔｈｅ Ｍｅｍｏｒｙ ｏｆ Ｉｎｔｅｒｎａｔｉｏｎａｌ Ｆｉｇｈｔｅｒ Ｍｏｒｚｅｃ Ｓｈｉｐｐｅ

Ｌｕｏ　Ｙｉｓｕ

The year 2007 marks the 70th anniversary of the July 7 Incident and the outbreak of the Chinese Peoples War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. During the 8-year anti-Japanese war, a number of foreign progressive journalists, writers and medical doctors with internationalist thought came to China to report the Chinese armys and peoples brave fight against Japanese aggressors and to go to the front to heal the wounded and rescue the dying. Among them was Morzec Shippe, a writer and journalist and a respectable international friend and fighter who was born in Poland, joined the German Communist Party and laid down his life on the battlefield of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in Chinas Shandong. We should never forget him.

Morzec Shippe was born in Krakow, Poland on June 13, 1897. At that time Poland was carved up by Prussia, Russia and Austria. Krakow was located in the Austria-occupied area. His original name was Morzec Crzyb. In 1919 at the age of 22 he went to study in Germany and after graduation from university he joined the German Communist Party and changed his name to Hans Shippe and was called Morzec Shippe by his family. He took part in the German workers movement and later went to the Soviet Union working as a journalist. In 1925 he came to Shanghai and then to Guangzhou to join the Chinese revolution working in the translation section of the General Political Department of the National Revolutionary Army. After the defeat of the Great Revolution in 1927, he returned to Germany and worked as an editor of Die Rote Fahne. During that period he in the penname of Asiaticus wrote articles about the Chinese revolution and published the book From Guangzhou to Shanghai 1926-1927. After Hitler came into power in 1933, Shippe and his wife Grzyb Rusenberg came to settle down in Shanghai. As one of the initiators, he together with Agnes Smedley, George Hatem and Rewi Alley formed a group to study Marxism, the international situation and Chinas problems. After the July 7 Incident, he followed the cause of the Chinese national liberation with greater interest and continued to write in the penname of Asiaticus and published reports and commentaries on issues about China and the Far East in the English and German publications. In 1938 he went to Yanan from Wuhan to do interviews, and Chairman Mao Zedong met and talked with him. In Yanan Shippe made extensive contacts with people of various circles and came to know better the enthusiasm and activities of the Chinese armys and peoples united fight against the Japanese aggression. After returning to Shanghai in 1939, he together with Agnes Smedley and Jack Belden went to the headquarters of the New Fourth Army in Southern Anhui to do interviews and met with the Armys leaders including Ye Ting, Xiang Ying and Chen Yi. After returning to Shanghai, he wrote reports and commentaries about the interviews, giving publicity of the New Fourth Armys struggle and praising the Armys courage and devotion to the Anti-Japanese War. Most of the articles were published in the English periodical The American Asian Review. He felt very sad at the Southern Anhui Incident, and wrote articles such as Biography of General Ye Ting and Chinas Internal Frictions are to Japans Advantage, sternly condemning the act by the Kuomintang.

In January 1941 when the New Fourth Army was rebuilt up, Shippe and his wife came to its headquarters to do interviews. Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yi and Su Yu talked with him. He visited the barracks, villages, urban residential districts and schools, making extensive contacts with people of various circles to collect firsthand materials. In two months he finished the draft of a book of 80,000 words The Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in Chinas Joint Struggle Against Japanese Aggression and a great number of reports and commentaries including Revisit the New Fourth Armys Base Area.

At that time, the Eighth Route Army was setting up anti-Japanese base areas in Southern Shandong bordering on Northern Jiangsu. In order to collect information for publicizing the Eighth Route Armys fight against Japanese aggression, Shippe asked his wife to go back to Shanghai, and he went to Shandong alone. In September he arrived at the headquarters of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army in Binghai Area of Shandong Province. The division leaders including Luo Ronghuan, Zhu Rui and Li Yu met with him. The Communist Party, the government, the army and the people in the base area jointly held a welcoming meeting at which he said, he would tell the people in the world “Whoever wants to know how the Chinese people are fighting bravely against their enemy, he must come to Chinas base areas behind the enemy lines!” In Binghai Area under very difficult living and working conditions, Shippe went here and there to collect materials and engrossed in writing. He published several long reports including The Eighth Route Army in Shandong and Fight for Recapturing Shandong and replenished and revised the first draft of his book he had written in Northern Jiangsu. He came to the conclusion: “Without the persistent struggle by the Chinese Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army behind the enemy lines, it is unimaginable that Chinas Anti-Japanese War could have been carried on up to now.”

In October 1941, the Japanese army planned to launch mopping-up operations of an unprecedented scale in the area of Yimeng Mountains. The Shandong Sub-Bureau of the CPC Central Committee asked Mrs. Shippe who had come to the base area to visit her husband and collect his manuscripts to return to Shanghai earlier than planned, and also tried to persuade Shippe to leave Shandong. But Shippe firmly refused and asked to stay with the army. Not long after, the 50,000-strong Japanese troops besieged the Yimeng mountain area. Owing to a great disparity in numerical strength, the Eighth Route Army organized retreat. The staff of the Party and government organizations and the guards regiment in the base area formed several echelons to fight and try to break out of the encirclement separately. The second echelon which Shippe followed moved about and fought against the Japanese troops in the mountains. Between battles Shippe was busy jotting down what he saw and heard and at night when the fighters took rest he did his writing. The fight became fiercer. The leaders of the Shandong Sub-Bureau of the CPC Central Committee again asked him to return to Shanghai. But he said, “This is the time that needs me most. I must stay with you.” Dressed in the Eighth Route Armys uniform, he put down his pen, took up the gun and joined the life-and-death struggle between the Eighth Route Army and the Japanese aggressors. At the end of November, the Daqing Mountain Battle, the fiercest battle in the history of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in Southern Shandong, broke out.

In the book International Friends and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression published ten years ago, there is the following account:

“At dawn on November 30 when the second echelon which Shippe had joined was on its way of evacuation, it was besieged by a Japanese brigade near Xisuo Village in Yinanyazi Township and forced to enter the battle in haste. At that time the second echelon with only one company of fighters was in a perilous position. Shippe like other fighters took up the weapon to fight a life-and-death battle against the Japanese troops. But, as there was a great disparity in strength between the enemy and our force, the battle was fought most courageously and cruelly. Shippe laid down his life in Wudaogou at the foot of Daqing Mountain. Seven cadres above the rank of division commander and soldiers in hundreds also died during the battle. After the battle when the army and civilians cleared up the battlefield, they found Shippes body riddled with bullets, and with a solemn gun-holding salute buried him on the spot.”

In this way, a communist and an international fighter laid down his precious life for the Chinese peoples cause of resisting Japanese aggression for saving the country. He died a great hero death.

After liberation in 1949, the local Peoples Government erected a monument in memory of Morzec Shippe with the inscription of “Long Live M. Shippe!” by General Luo Ronghuan, commander of Shandong Provincial Military Command.

M. Shippe died at the age of 44. He spent 10 years in China. The Chinese people will never forget his glorious deeds and great contributions.