In January 1950, Chairman Mao, who was on a visit to the Soviet Union, solemnly said to Premier Zhou: "Enlai, it has been five years since the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and now a large number of Japanese war criminals are still being held in the Soviet Union. We want to supervise

In January 1950, Chairman Mao, who was on a visit to the Soviet Union, solemnly said to Premier Zhou: "Enlai, it has been five years since the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and now a large number of Japanese war criminals are still being held in the Soviet Union. We urge the Soviet Union to hand them over to China as soon as possible. We must let these war criminals stand a just trial by the Chinese people on the soil of China! ”

Premier Zhou said: "Chairman, I am also thinking about this matter. With the founding of New China, the people are the masters of their own affairs, and it is all the more necessary to try the Chinese people who were still suffering from the Japanese army through the trial of these war criminals. ”

It should be known that in August 1945, the Soviet Red Army launched a strike against the Japanese Kwantung Army on a front of more than 4,000 kilometers. The Soviets dispatched 1.58 million troops, 3,446 aircraft, 26,137 artillery pieces, and 5,556 tanks to destroy 24 divisions, 9 mixed independent brigades, 1 mobile brigade, and 2 tank brigades of the Japanese army entrenched in northeast China, totaling about 750,000 troops. After the battle, the Soviets took back more than 600,000 Japanese prisoners. By the eve of the founding of New China in 1949, the Soviet Union had released most of the Japanese prisoners in batches and returned to China, leaving more than 3,000 Japanese war criminals who had committed war crimes in the war of aggression against China, more than 2,000 had been sentenced by Soviet military tribunals, and nearly 1,000 remaining were still held in Soviet war criminal shelters.

In accordance with Chairman Mao's instructions, Premier Zhou quickly met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyshinsky and proposed that the Japanese war criminals held by the Soviet Union should be handed over to China for trial and reform as soon as possible. On July 18, 1950, the Soviet Union handed over 969 Japanese war criminals held in the Soviet Union to the Chinese side in Suifenhe, Heilongjiang Province, in accordance with the agreement between the two sides; At the time of parting, major Kolykov, the representative of the Soviet Union, did not forget to remind the Chinese officials: "Please don't forget, these are extremely reactionary and stubborn bad guys!" Only by killing them, you don't expect to transform them. ”

Sure enough, as Kolykov said, the investigation and investigation of the criminal facts of these Japanese war criminals was not smooth. Among the 969 Japanese war criminals, there were 2 at the army commander level, 5 division commanders, 14 brigade commanders, 8 wing commanders, and 39 brigade commanders, and the rest were all members of the Japanese military administrative system such as middle and below the squad leader and pseudo-Manchu. These people are the backbone elements of Japan's forces invading China, who have been seriously "brainwashed" by Japanese militarist ideology and are not only stubborn in their thinking, but also have relatively strong anti-reconnaissance capabilities.

In particular, the 120 war criminals listed as key targets for review feared their lives and had strong resistance to the interrogation work. Knowing that their hands are stained with the blood of the Chinese people, that their sins are so deep that they cannot escape justice, they will not be able to escape justice, so in the course of interrogation and investigation, they have kept a secret of the heinous crimes they have committed against the Chinese people, or they have evaded the serious and the light, and have denied them in an attempt to escape responsibility.

When the situation was reported to the Central Committee, Chairman Mao pointed out to the point: "The diehards are not monolithic inside. Confession is lenient, resistance is strict. We can mobilize lower-ranking officers among war criminals to stand up and report and expose senior officers. "Telling all war criminals, thoroughly reflecting on and confessing their crimes, and winning the understanding and leniency of the Chinese people is the only way out for them!" Since then, a huge campaign of confession and reflection has been carried out among all Japanese war criminals. Most of the former senior Japanese officers among the war criminals ended up bowing their repentant heads.

In order to speed up the investigation and investigation of war criminals, Premier Zhou personally arranged for the deployment of two tasks: First, more than 700 people were drawn from the backbone of the national business to form an interrogation and investigation team to go all over the country to thoroughly investigate the crimes of war criminals; second, to mobilize the parties and witnesses who were deeply harmed by the Japanese army to use their personal experience and blood and tears to accuse the Japanese army of atrocities on the spot, so as to prompt a very small number of diehards to reflect and confess their guilt as soon as possible. By October 1955, the criminal facts of this group of war criminals had been basically clarified. According to incomplete statistics, during the war of aggression against China, these war criminals killed a total of 949,800 Chinese prisoners and innocent people, burned or destroyed 244,000 houses, robbed 36,914,900 tons of grain, and plundered 222 million tons of coal and more than 20 million tons of steel from the mainland.

Serious crimes include "senior officials" such as Liuzang and Guhai Tadayuki of the former puppet Manchukuo Armed Forces, who actively pursued the policy of invading China, which brought immeasurable disasters to the Chinese; Lieutenant General Shigeru Fujita, commander of the Japanese army, once ordered the massacre of 86 Chinese soldiers who had lost the ability to resist in a battle; former puppet Manchukuo Gendarmerie Training Director Mio Tooko led troops to arrest 48,172 anti-Japanese soldiers and brutally killed 5,017 of them; former police chief of the two provinces of puppet Manchukuo, Hideo Miyake, also directly or participated in the arrest of more than 3,900 patriotic compatriots General Yang Jingyu, commander of the Northeast Anti-Japanese Coalition, was killed under his command; Hideo Kamibara, the former commander of the "Unit 731" detachment of the Kwantung Army, inhumanely used Chinese for live bacteria and virus experiments, resulting in the tragic deaths of countless mainland compatriots...

After the criminal facts of these war criminals have been basically investigated, the soldiers and civilians who have suffered from their violations have been looking forward to the death penalty for the most heinous elements in order to comfort the spirits of their compatriots who have been killed in heaven. However, at the beginning of the interrogation and investigation, the mainland announced the relevant policies and principles for the treatment of these war criminals: "punish the minority and release the majority", and through a just trial, urge them to admit guilt, repent of their crimes, and be reformed.

When it was learned that these war criminals were ultimately not sentenced to death and that most of them were to be treated leniently, many cadres, fighters and those who suffered from them were mentally and emotionally difficult to accept. Upon learning of these circumstances, Premier Zhou said to the comrades involved in the interrogation, investigation, and trial with great seriousness: Please tell the comrades that the central authorities' decision to give lenient treatment to Japanese war criminals is a strategic decision with far-sightedness and foresight, which will play an important role in promoting Sino-Japanese friendship and safeguarding world peace. In 20 years, you will see that the decision of the Central Committee is completely correct.

In the end, the number of war criminals submitted to the Special Military Tribunal for trial was determined to be 36. The remaining 933 were not prosecuted, lenient treatment, and in June 1956 they were handed over to the Japanese Red Cross Society for arrangements to return home. In March 1964, in view of the better performance of the reform, China pardoned all Japanese war criminals who were serving sentences and returned to China. #I'm going to make micro-headlines##微头条日签 #