【文化中国行·校馆弦歌】从征途课堂马背书香到新时代的长征路

CCTV.com reports (Xinwen Lianbo): Through years of war and long journeys, the flame of seeking knowledge and serving the country never went out. One generation made the journey its classroom and horseback its library, establishing schools, educating people, and safeguarding its revolutionary roots. A Cultural Journey Through China: The Enduring Traditions of Schools and Museums visits Xidian University and Yan'an University to look back at the wartime histories of these two universities with revolutionary origins and their responsibilities in the new era, and to explore how the spirit of the Long March has been passed down across time and space.

Inside the library of Xidian University, an exhibition marking the 95th anniversary of the university's founding is on display, quietly recounting its revolutionary history of 'starting with half a radio set and running a school on the Long March.'

In 1930, the Red Army captured a damaged radio set during a campaign against 'encirclement and suppression.' This 'half a radio set' became the starting point for the school. To address the shortage of battlefield communications personnel, a Red Army radio training class opened in Ningdu, Jiangxi, in 1931. It later gradually developed into the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army Communications School.

In 1934, all of the school's teachers and students joined the marching ranks of the Long March, beginning a period of running the school while marching, fighting, and teaching.

During the Long March, revolutionary radio communications played an important role in many critical battles. During the Four Crossings of the Chishui River, teachers and students sent and received more than 300 telegrams, providing communications support for the Red Army's breakthroughs and maneuvering.

The spirit of the Long March has been passed down continuously, and efforts to safeguard revolutionary cultural traditions never ceased during the years of campaigning. In 1941, the Communist Party of China founded Yan'an University. In 1947, the CPC Central Committee moved its operations across northern Shaanxi, and the university relocated along with it. Wherever the group went, its books were carried there on pack animals—hence the 'library on horseback.'

This wartime history has become the university's most moving lesson in ideological and political education.

Amid the fighting, Xidian's people marched with their classrooms on their backs, while Yan'an University's people moved from place to place with their book trunks carried on pack animals, nurturing a revolutionary legacy of hard work and struggle and of serving the country and the people. As time has passed and the flames of war have receded, this original aspiration has never changed. The great spirit of the Long March has taken deep root and been passed down from generation to generation. At Xidian University, research efforts go wherever the country's needs lie: from developing China's first weather radar to helping Chang'e send back high-definition remote-sensing images, and then advancing the Zhuri Project to probe the mysteries of space energy. Successive generations at Xidian are continuing, in the new era, to fulfill the mission and responsibilities of a 'national team' in electronic information.

The responsibility to safeguard cultural traditions and educate people continues to gain fresh vitality at Yan'an University. The university holds more than 40,000 volumes of printed revolutionary literature. To bring these precious revolutionary historical materials to life, teachers and students spent eight years proofreading them word by word and built a digital research platform for revolutionary literature from the Yan'an period, making this revolutionary cultural heritage accessible for consultation, study, and transmission. The original aspiration of self-reliance and service to the people has also become a conscious commitment to action for generations of students. More than 70% of the university's graduates put down roots in western China, fulfilling the mission of their youth.