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Suzhou Celebrities

  • Ren Tianshi“任天石”

Life story

Ren Tianshi (1913—1948) was a revolutionary martyr. Ren was a native of Changshu, Jiangsu, whose original given name was Qisheng. He became a student of Shanghai China Medical College in 1932. Ren began to practice medicine in such places as Shanghai and Changshu since 1934 and engaged himself in the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement. In the July of 1938, he was successively appointed as the vice-captain, captain and commander of the Changshu People’s Anti-Japanese Self-defence Force. The year of 1939 saw Ren Tianshi join the Communist Party of China. Ren later worked in turn as Secretary of the CPC Changshu County Committee, Commissioner of the Prefectural Commissioner’s Office of the First Administrative Region in southern Jiangsu and at the same time the head of Changshu County, and County Magistrate of Suzhou County. In July, 1941, Ren was ordered to retrieve to the central area of Jiangsu. He took a succession of posts there as Secretary of the CPC Tonghai Working Committee while working as vice-director of Tonghai Prefectural Commissioner’s Office, Political Commissar of Tonghai Self-defence Corps of the Fourth Military Sub-command of the Central-Jiangsu Military Area Command of New Fourth Army, and a member of the Standing Committee of the Sixth Central-Jiangsu CPC Prefectural Party Committee while working as Commissioner of the Sixth Administrative Region. Furthermore, he participated in “anti-pacification” struggles in Suzhou, Changshu and Taicang as well as the area of Tonghai (Nantong and Haimen). During the War of Liberation, Ren was appointed as Secretary of the CPC County Committee of the Eastern Centre of the Shanghai-Nanjing Route and a member of the Standing Committee of the Ten CPC Prefectural Committees of the Central China while working as Minister of Social Affairs. Due to a traitor’s betrayal, Ren Tianshi was captured in Shanghai on 30 January, 1947 and killed in Nanjing in April, 1948. Ren was elected as one of the “50 Heroes and Role Models Who Made Outstanding Contributions to the Founding of New China in Jiangsu” in 2009.

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