Shanghai calls itself the birthplace of the Communist Party of China, and that is a matter of record rather than a slogan. The First National Congress of the Party opened in July 1921 in a shikumen house on what was then Wangzhi Road, now number 76 Xingye Road. Thirteen delegates1 attended, representing about fifty members. When the meeting was discovered, they moved to a boat on South Lake in Jiaxing and finished there.
上海自称党的诞生地，这是有据可查的事实，不是口号。1921 年七月，中国共产党第一次全国代表大会在当时望志路的一幢石库门里开幕，今天的兴业路 76 号。十三位代表出席，代表约五十名党员。会议暴露后，他们转移到嘉兴南湖的一条船上把会开完。
The city keeps three congress sites as museums, and together they tell one story. The First Congress site is where the Party was founded. The Second Congress, in 1922, produced the Party's first constitution, and its site is in Jing'an. The Fourth Congress, in 1925, is commemorated2 by a museum in Hongkou. Very few cities anywhere hold three founding-era sites of a governing party within a half-hour drive of each other.
这座城市把三处党代会会址辟为纪念馆，合起来讲的是同一个故事。一大会址是建党的地方。二大 1922 年召开，产生了党的第一部党章，会址在静安。四大 1925 年召开，在虹口有纪念馆。全世界很少有城市能在半小时车程内放下一个执政党三处建党初期的会址。
Two more sites belong to the war years. The Sihang Warehouse stands on the north bank of Suzhou Creek. In 1937, during the battle for Shanghai, a small garrison3 held it while the main force withdrew, and they did it in full view of the foreign settlements across the water, which is why the world heard about it. Longhua Martyrs Cemetery, in the south of the city, occupies the site of a former garrison headquarters where many were imprisoned and executed before 1949.
还有两处属于战争年代。四行仓库在苏州河北岸。1937 年淞沪会战期间，一支小部队据守在这里掩护主力撤退，而这一切就发生在对岸租界众目睽睽之下，所以全世界都听说了。龙华烈士陵园在城南，原址是一处警备司令部，1949 年之前很多人在这里被囚禁和杀害。
You may ask why here. The answer is the same one that explains the banks and the department stores. Shanghai in the 1920s had printing presses, a modern working class, foreign settlements where the Chinese police could not easily reach, and a railway to everywhere. A movement that needed to publish, organise and hide could do all three in this city and nowhere else in China. A red itinerary4 usually runs from the First Congress site through Xintiandi to the Second Congress site, and takes about half a day. If your interest is history rather than shopping, it is the most concentrated half day Shanghai offers.
你可能会问为什么是这里。答案跟解释银行和百货公司的那个答案是同一个。二十年代的上海有印刷厂，有现代产业工人，有中国警察不易进入的租界，还有通往各处的铁路。一场需要印刷、需要组织、也需要隐蔽的运动，在这座城市能同时做到这三件事，在中国别处不行。一条红色线路通常从一大会址经新天地到二大会址，走半天。如果你感兴趣的是历史而不是购物，这是上海能给的密度最高的半天。