Site of the First National Congress of the Communist Party (Zhonggong Yida Huizhi)

Frommer's Review

This historic building of brick and marble -- a quintessential example of the traditional Shanghai style of shikumen (stone-framed) houses built in the 1920s and 1930s -- contains the room where on July 23, 1921, Mao Zedong and 12 other Chinese revolutionaries founded the Chinese Communist Party. Also present were two Russian advisors. The delegates had to conclude their meeting on Nanhu Lake in Zhejiang Province when police broke up the party. The original teacups and ashtrays remain on the organizing table. As the anchor of the urban renewal project that spawned the open-air mall Xin Tiandi, this museum has been expanded to include several new galleries. There is the expected hagiographic treatment given the history of the Communist Party, but also more interesting displays of a Qing Dynasty bronze cannon, swords and daggers used by rebels during the Taiping and Small Swords rebellions in 19th-century Shanghai, and a boundary stone used to demarcate the entrance to the British Concession, dated May 8, 1899.

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