The number of tourists to Xibaipo, Yan'an, Jinggangshan and many other historic revolutionary bases, desiring to recall the arduous and glorious history of the Party, has reached a peak in June.

Statistics show that Xibaipo Village, Hebei Province, where a significant CPC conference was held on the eve of the countrywide victory of the Chinese people's revolution, has received nearly 8,000 tourists everyday this month.

Jinggangshan, located in the southwest part of Jiangxi Province, was the first revolutionary base established in the countryside by the first generation of Chinese Communist Party leaders like Mao Zedong and Zhu De. It has attracted more than 300,000 travelers in the first half of the year, increasing 40 percent over the same period last year.

Various nationwide activities, including exhibitions, performances and seminars, have been staged to mark the 80th anniversary since early this year. Books and Video CDs concerning China's revolutionary age have been well sold. A series of films and TV programs depicting CPC history and Party leaders have also had a large audience.

People are obviously not satisfied with just reading about or history of the Party. They have either consulted tourist agencies, which have been promoting popular routes in these areas since early this year, or planed budget travel to the real sites of the revolutionary years to experience history by themselves.

"Besides the beautiful natural scenery, the hallowed revolutionary bases can also offer us a spiritual feast," said Dong Fan, a traveler from Jiangsu Province.

People cherish today's prosperity and mightiness much more than before, especially after reviewing the heroic deeds of the old generation of revolutionaries, Dong added, standing in front of a revolutionary memorial in Yan'an city, in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Analysts said that the CPC founding anniversary is a major stimulus for the current booming revolutionary trips, but people's passion about the historic sites was totally different with the plague of zealotry during the Culture Revolution period.

People came to seek those spiritual qualities, such as unswerving political faith, hard work and self-dependence, and the principles of being practical and realistic, said Li Zhongquan, vice president of Shaanxi Party History Research Society.

Their spiritual wealth, fostered by CPC members under extremely harsh circumstances decades ago, will continue to urge the Chinese people in their efforts to build a powerful modern socialist country, Li added.

The popular revolutionary tourism has not only brought more fame to the isolated localities either hidden in mountainous areas or in the countryside, but also activated the local economy.

During the January-May period this year, over 900,000 visitors swarmed to Yan'an city, which was the CPC headquarters during the war against Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 1940s.

Over the past five years, the city has had more than 5.5 million tourists both from home and abroad, netting a total tourist income of over one billion yuan (US$120 million), including nearly US$2 million in foreign exchange.

The thriving tourism sector is not the only focus of residents in revolutionary bases, they are also making blueprints for a prosperous economy in the future.

The revolutionary bases, also known as "red bases" by most Chinese, are now undergoing a green campaign to turn huge areas of barren farmland into forests, aiming to stop the deterioration of the ecological system caused by excess land reclamation during the wartime period.

Farmers in Yan'an have given up traditional ploughing and cultivating and begun planting fruit trees outside their cave houses on the barren hills surrounding their villages.

According to Zhang Shenian, mayor of Yan'an, more than 6.6 million ha of farmland will be planted with trees and grass by the end of 2010, and the city's green coverage rate will increase to 70 percent.

Apart from the afforestation drive, the exchange of human resources, commodities and information with the outside world have also been promoted in recent years, and local governments are launching more powerful advertising programs in some large cites across the country to attract more investment.

(Xinhua 06/30/2001)