张闻天出生在上海市郊一个殷实的农民家庭。从吴淞附近的一所中学毕业后,他考入了南京河海工程专门学校。1937年张闻天在会见美国记者奈姆·沃尔斯时说,河海工程专门学校教过他的所有老师都曾留学美国。这显然言过其实,因为给他影响最大的似乎是受过法国教育的左舜生。张闻天在河 Zhang Wentian was born in a well-to-do peasant family on the outskirts of Shanghai. After graduating from a middle school near Wusong, he was admitted to Nanjing Hohai Engineering College. When Zhang Wentian met with U.S. reporter Naim Wools in 1937, he said that all teachers he had taught in Hohai Engineering College had studied in the United States. This is obviously an exaggeration, because what seems to be most influential to him appears to have been educated by France’s Zuo Shun-sheng. Zhang Wen days in the river