Lenin Cave, site of the Guangxi Peasant Movement Institute

Lenin Cave

Lenin Cave

This natural stone cave is located in the village of Baxue, Donglan county, and has an entrance that is 64 m wide, 43 m high, and 137 m across. The inside is spacious, brightly lit, dry, and flat and can hold several thousand people at a time. There is a spring deep inside the cave and a winding path that goes to the other side of the mountain. In March 1922, Wei Baqun convened a revolutionary meeting in the cave and published A Message to Our Compatriots in the name of the Guangxi HQ of the Chinese Nationalist Party. In September 1925, Wei and Chen Bomin organized the first Peasant Movement Institute, in Donglan, in the cave to spread Marxist and Leninist ideas, with 276 key peasants taking part in training sessions.

Afterwards, the trainees returned home, where they organized peasant associations and self-defense corps. As a result, the peasant movement developed swiftly, built on a sound base, for the Youjiang Revolution. On Feb 26, 1963, the Lenin Cave received cultural site designation with Guangxi region protection. Then, in 1995, it got Patriotic Education Base designation for the region and in 2006, the State Council put it on the key cultural site list under State protection. In April 2011, it joined the list of National Scenic Spot and Scenic Zone for Red Tourism. The Cave has a central area that acted as the classroom, with a podium to the front, trainee dormitories on the two sides of the classroom, and a canteen behind the podium. The Cave also contains a reading room, a clubroom, and a bulletin board, with the desks, stools, beds and partition boards all made of bamboo.