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<p style="padding:25px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-style: italic; background-color:#ffeaee;">It's Communism Week at CRP. All this week, we're learning Chinese through the lens of historical and modern CCP propaganda, speeches, stories, essays and songs.</p> 

<strong>Quick reminder:</strong> To maintain a polite, language learning-focused environment, political comments – positive, negative, or neutral – are not allowed, and will be deleted. Dinner table rules, please.

Zhu De (朱德) is an early Communist folk hero, and the founder of the People's Liberation Army (解放军), also called the Red Army (红军). He was applauded as a "People's general", and this popular revolutionary story - in which Zhu De helps his regiment carry grain (粮食) up a mountain on a carrying pole (扁担) - shows his willingness to toil alongside the common soldiers. The story spawned popular posters, like this one:

<img src="http://chinesereadingpractice.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/chinese-reading-practice-communist-language-learning-zhude-carrying-pole.jpeg" alt="Beginner Chinese Reading Practice Exercises: Communist Folk Stories Revolutionary Heroes" width="425" height="500" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2387" /> 

Zhe De is a revolutionary from the early days of Chinese Communism. For those who don't know their CCP history: modern China was founded in 1949, but for the 20-odd years before that, the Red Army was fighting various wars for control of the country. Zhu De was instrumental in these wars, and after 1949, he became a key Party leader and politician. This story is set in the early days of the wars, in 1928. It's crazy to think that Zhu De, who was born in 1886 and died in 1976, lived to be 90 years old, but spent three or four decades of his life doing nothing but fighting battles. Whatever your opinions on Communism, that guy was one tough survivor. 

<h4>Some language stuff</h4>
This is an example of a story where some of the vocab is intermediate, but the sentence structure is beginner. The intermediate vocab is also used repetitively, so once you look up the tougher words, you'll immediately have an opportunity to see them again in the text. The first two sentences are much rougher than the rest, so push through those and it'll be easier going from there.

We have a few proper names here, namely 朱德同志, meaning "Comrade Zhu De", 红军, "the Red Army", and 井冈山, or "Jinggang Mountain". 

We also have some military words, 队伍 "troops", 敌人 "enemy", and 战士们 "soldier", 打仗 and "to fight a war".

争着去

<a href="http://www.rensheng5.com/xiaogushi/id-9965.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Source here</a>
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<h4>朱德的扁担</h4>
1928年，<span class="highlightText">朱德同志</span>带领一支<span class="highlightText">红军</span>队伍到<span class="highlightText">井冈山</span>。山上是<span class="highlightText">红军</span>，山下不远就是<span class="highlightText">敌人</span>。
 
<span class="highlightText">井冈山</span>上出产粮食不多，常常要抽出一些人到山下的田园去挑粮。从<span class="highlightText">井冈山</span>上到田园，来回有五六十里，山高路窄，非常难走。可是每次挑粮大家都<span class="highlightText">争着去</span>。
 
<span class="highlightText">朱德同志</span>也跟战士们一块儿去挑粮。他穿着草鞋，挑起满满的一担粮食，跟大家一块儿爬山。白天挑粮，晚上还常常整夜整夜地学习怎样跟敌人打仗。大家觉得他要做的工作太多，就把他那根扁担藏了起来。可是<span class="highlightText">朱德同志</span>又找到了一根扁担，写上“<span class="highlightText">朱德</span>扁担，不要拿走”八个大字。大家见了，更敬爱<span class="highlightText">朱德同志</span>，不好意思再藏他的扁担了。
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In 1928, 1928年，朱德同志带领一支红军队伍到井冈山。山上是红军，山下不远就是敌人。
 
井冈山上出产粮食不多，常常要抽出一些人到山下的田园去挑粮。从井冈山上到田园，来回有五六十里，山高路窄，非常难走。可是每次挑粮大家都争着去。
 
朱德同志也跟战士们一块儿去挑粮。他穿着草鞋，挑起满满的一担粮食，跟大家一块儿爬山。白天挑粮，晚上还常常整夜整夜地学习怎样跟敌人打仗。大家觉得他要做的工作太多，就把他那根扁担藏了起来。可是朱德同志又找到了一根扁担，写上“朱德扁担，不要拿走”八个大字。大家见了，更敬爱朱德同志，不好意思再藏他的扁担了。
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