In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the People's Liberation Army captured a large number of Kuomintang troops, and the transformation of prisoners of war became one of the important tasks in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
At that time, the government took pains to reform prisoners of war. Finally, after careful instruction, from 1959 onwards, Chairman Mao instructed the release of prisoners of war criminals who had completed the reform work.
It was not until 1975 that the government was preparing to release the last group of Kuomintang war criminals.
These war criminals who remained in the prisoner-of-war camp to the end included many senior Kuomintang officials.
After receiving instructions to release these prisoners of war, Hua Guofeng, who was in charge of the work of prisoners of war, proposed that 13 of the prisoners of war should not be released.
Chairman Mao waved a big hand: Everything is left alone!
What is the basis for Chairman Mao's instructions? And who are these 13 people who Hua Guofeng proposed that he could not pardon?
What was the end result of these 13 people?
Organize prisoner-of-war studies
Custody management of war criminals
In the early days of the War of Liberation, our Party showed a benevolent and generous side in the face of prisoners. Those who want to defect to the Communist Party, our Party welcomes them to join the ranks, and there are those who are stubborn in their thinking, and the Communist Party concentrates on managing and explaining to them the new ideas of the Communist Party.
From the end of 1955, all prisoners of war in the country were placed under the administration of the Ministry of Public Security. At that time, the minister of public security was Hua Guofeng, and the work of managing war criminals naturally fell on his head.
A total of 997 persons have been approved as domestic war criminals, mainly including three main categories.
The first category is war criminals, with a total of 926, 72 generals in the army system, 388 major generals, 276 officers at the school level, a total of 736, 46 in the government system, 27 in the party system, and 117 in the secret service system.
The second category was a total of 61 pseudo-Manchu war criminals headed by Ai Xinjue Luo Puyi.
The third category consisted of 10 pseudo-Mongolian war criminals headed by Demuchak Donlupu (de wang).
It was not until 1959 that Chairman Mao mentioned in a letter to Liu Shaoqi that consideration should be given to releasing the first batch of well-behaved war criminals.
On September 17 of the same year, under the instructions of Chairman Mao, the Central Committee officially issued the "Instruction on Amnesty for War Criminals" document, which attracted the attention of people from all walks of life as soon as it was issued.
A total of 856 war criminals are in custody and awaiting treatment, and although they have been reformed by new cultural ideas for decades, some of them are still stubborn.
Puyi (first from the right) discusses and learns from other war criminals
At first, there were two main ideas for the treatment of imprisoned war criminals, but both methods were more extreme, one was sentencing, or even the death penalty.
Judging from the impact of these prisoners of war at that time, such an approach was more in line with the wishes of the people.
The other is "one does not kill," which is also Chairman Mao's proposition.
In mid-March 1956, at the 19th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Second National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Luo Ruiqing, then minister of public security, and Tan Zhengwen, deputy procurator general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, put forward the opinion of "no trial, no judgment, centralized discipline, and release in batches" in response to the handling of war criminals.
After discussion, the impact of the handling of war criminals was systematically analyzed, and Premier Zhou Enlai put forward the policy of "one does not kill, release in batches", and finally, the Ministry of Public Security implements the release of war criminals step by step according to the policy.
The first batch of war criminals released included 33 war criminals, including Lieutenant General Commander of the Kuomintang Northeast Security Commander Headquarters and Lieutenant General Du Yuming of Xuzhou," until 1966, when six batches of war criminals were released in batches, and a total of 296 criminals were released.
A general meeting of amnesty for war criminals was held
In May 1971, the Ministry of Public Security reported to Premier Zhou Enlai on the situation of war criminals. At this point, the issue of the release of war criminals has been put on the agenda again.
Amnesty for 13 of the last group of war criminals
Since the proposal for amnesty for the last group of criminals was put forward, Premier Zhou instructed the Ministry of Public Security to sort out the materials, summarize the information of various war criminals, and draw up a list of war criminals, so as to make preparations for the work of amnesty for war criminals after the Fourth National People's Congress.
The first thing Hua Guofeng did as minister of public security was to deal with the work of this last group of criminals, and in order to implement the instructions of Premier Zhou Enlai, he personally took command of the work.
Chairman Mao talked to Hua Guofeng
Considering the previous ranks of war criminals, the impact of the war, and the problems of various parties, the situation is complicated, and we can only sort out and investigate one by one, learn more about the war records of war criminals, find out the military and life resumes, and then classify them according to the actual situation.
For who and why they are divided into this category, there must be detailed evidence to support and evidence.
Finally, after repeated collation and discussion, the Ministry of Public Security summarized the situation of more than 300 war criminals in custody at that time and made a "Report on the Seventh Amnesty Issue".
Amnesty of War Criminals Assembly
The treatment options proposed in the report include amnesty, release upon completion of sentence, early release (for those under sentence), medical parole and continued detention.
Although the time of education and detention has been relatively long, there are always some people who need to continue to be detained, and the 13 people who need to continue to be detained are Xu Tianren, Li Qing, Qiu Shenjun, and Zhang Bailing, who are detained in the Shandong War Criminals Management Center.
Guo Jiqian, Li Zongming, Fan Xun, Weng Yu, Liu Yanzhi, Zhou Yanghao, xie Daisheng, who are detained at the Fushun War Criminals Management Center in Liaoning Province,
Du Chaoqun and Shen Qinkang, who are imprisoned in Beijing's Qincheng Prison.
Fushun War Criminals Management Center
Xu Tianren was the secretary of the Second Army, Li Qing was a lieutenant colonel staff officer of the Seventy-second Army, Qiu Shenjun was the director of the Major General of the National Defense Ministry, Zhang Bailing was the deputy director of the Secrecy Bureau of the National Defense Ministry, Du Chaoqun was formerly the deputy director of the Kuomintang Central Unification Office, and Shen Qinkang was the director of the Kuomintang Xiamen City Police Bureau.
These people have caused great harm to our Party's revolutionaries and liberation work, and they have stubbornly persevered during their education while being captured, and they have been brainwashed by the culture of killing people within the Kuomintang.
Among these people, Zhou Yanghao can be described as a well-known figure, who has been engaged in Kuomintang secret service work for 16 years.
He served as the director of Xifeng Prison, the director of the Security Department of the Chongqing Garrison General Headquarters, the deputy head of the Southwest Special Zone of the Secrecy Bureau, and was one of the three musketeers of the Kuomintang military command, together with Shen Zui and Xu Yuanju.
When Zhou Yanghao was young, because of his good looks, he was also known as the "Bookish Killer".
In his bad reactionary career, the most famous is the assassination of General Yang Hucheng.
At that time, Chiang Kai-shek had already shown a posture of "home peace talks", and in late January 1949, Acting President Li Zongren issued a proclamation clearly stating the release of political prisoners.
However, Zhou Yanghao and Mao Renfeng still planned to kill General Yang and his party in September of the same year and loot their belongings.
Dai Gong Ancestral Hall (where Yang Hucheng's father and son were killed) (the flower bed pointed by the arrow is the burial place)
In addition, in the winter of the founding of the People's Republic of China, when the Kuomintang was retreating to the southwest, Zhou Yanghao was again instructed by Mao Renfeng to participate in the planning of major sabotage and massacres in Chongqing, Chengdu, Kunming and other places.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhou Yanghao was arrested during the Kunming Uprising.
He was first detained in the war criminals management center in Chongqing, and during his detention, he had a stubborn attitude and was stubborn and unwilling to change. Seven years later, he was transferred to the Fushun War Criminals Management Center in Liaoning Province.
The place of detention has changed, but his stubborn Kuomintang nature has not changed, and he has not absorbed the education of our Party's magnanimous ideology in the slightest. During his detention, Zhou Yanghao seems to maintain his image as a "scholar" and read some poems, but for him who is saddled with stubborn thoughts, this is just a microcosm of the brainwashing education of Cheng Ren.
Poems such as "Jinling Huaigu" are the kind of books he likes to read, you know, Jinling is the ancient Nanjing, which is more like a metaphor for the yearning for the Kuomintang army.
From the release of the first war criminals to the release of the sixth war criminals, there were many opportunities for pardon and release, but he was not qualified, which shows how stubborn he is.
Perhaps for him, even if he was in a prisoner-of-war concentration camp, his heart was in the Kuomintang camp.
Zhou Yanghao of the War Criminals Management Center
In the last group of amnesty personnel, in a careful and cautious manner, Minister Hua Guofeng proposed that such war criminals should not be released.
The main reason is that their thinking has not completely improved, and they may also make inappropriate remarks when released, resulting in uncontrolled effects.
But the Chairman's opinion was that they were all released. For war criminals who have been imprisoned for more than twenty years, even if their thinking has not been transformed, it is not good for us to force others to change.
To be able to express such an opinion, the president's psychology must be confident.
We only do our own thing, and as for what others do, the people have their own standard of judgment in their hearts.
In order to embody our party's benevolent policy, Chairman Mao pointed out that we will send away those who want to return to Taiwan with regard to the question of the whereabouts and retention of war criminals; if they still want to return after they return, we welcome them.
Sure enough, Zhou Yanghao was one of the ten people who proposed to return to Taiwan, and after our party escorted these ten people to Hong Kong, they had the rest of the itinerary arranged by themselves, and perhaps they also expected the Kuomintang side to come and greet them.
At that time, the Taiwan authorities were ruled by Chiang Ching-kuo, and their plan to return to Taiwan was not welcomed, and even turned away.
After a few months in Hong Kong, Zhou Yanghao finally settled in the United States and died of illness with the United States in 1990.
Opinions on the Release of War Criminals issued by Chairman Mao
The people who caused the amnesty incident and the social repercussions they caused
In accordance with the instructions issued by Chairman Mao, Hua Guofeng thoroughly implemented Chairman Mao's instructions, convened a core meeting of the Ministry of Public Security, and implemented the amnesty work.
This includes the implementation of the list of amnesty personnel, the guarantee that no one can be left behind, and the guarantee of the travel expenses and clothing of amnesty personnel.
Another thing is the issue of ensuring the number of amnesty personnel, which is very important.
From the ministry of public security submitting the list to Premier Zhou to chairman Mao's document instructions at the end of February 1975, five more people died of illness in two months.
Hua Guofeng pointed out in the Ministry of Public Security's work on amnesty for the last batch of criminals that it is necessary to ensure that no more war criminals die, especially Huang Wei.
He was the highest-ranking former Kuomintang prisoner among the currently imprisoned war criminals, and was the former commander of the Kuomintang 12th Corps.
Finally, in March 1975, Hua Guofeng made an explanation at the second session of the Standing Committee of the Fourth National People's Congress.
A total of 293 people were released, including 219 members of the Chiang Kai-shek clique, 21 party and government personnel, 50 secret agents, 2 people from puppet Manchuria, and 1 person from puppet Mongolia, and all the war criminals in custody were released on March 19.
According to Chairman Mao's instructions, a farewell party should be held when all war criminals are released.
Each person wears a tailor-made blue army civilian suit, receives 100 yuan of pocket money per person, and each person enjoys citizenship rights.
Those who have the ability to work arrange work, those who are sick enjoy the treatment of cadres, those who want to return to Taiwan to send reports back to Taiwan, and those who want to come back are welcome at any time.
Four days later, in the afternoon, a farewell party was held at the Beijing Hotel, and all the released war criminals were no longer war criminals at this time, and they talked warmly with old friends, and the hall was full of laughter.
The amnesty has left for Beijing
Previously, there were still no lenient measures in the international arena to release the personnel of the other side's army, especially those who were willing to return to Taiwan, and the Communist Party was also willing to send them back, which was also an inconceivable thing in the eyes of the outside world.
Although the policy treatment is relatively generous, only 10 of the 293 people in the last batch of amnesty are willing to return to Taiwan.
These include Wang Bingcheng, Chen Shizhang, Cai Shengsan, Wang Yunpei, Yang Nanyou, Zhao Yixue, Zhang Tieshi, Zhang Haishang, and the aforementioned Zhou Yanghao.
Compared with those who are willing to return to their hometowns or even engage in politics within the Communist Party, the movements of these returnees have attracted more attention from domestic society and even the international community.
Subsequently, the central authorities issued the "Implementation Opinions on the Resettlement of Amnesty and Released Persons" to various localities, which pointed out that for those who want to return to Taiwan, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Ministry of Public Security will handle the specific matters of relevant personnel.
In response to these 10 people, the Ministry of Public Security set up a "special task force", directly led by Hua Guofeng and Wu De, who was then a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
On April 13 of the same year, Wang Bingcheng and 10 other people left Beijing by plane.
The next morning, from Guangzhou to Shenzhen by express train, each person in Shenzhen to receive a road fee of 500 Hong Kong dollars, a set of newly made clothing, a round-trip pass, after arriving in Hong Kong, the follow-up itinerary will be arranged by themselves.
After these people arrived in Hong Kong, interviews from the media from all walks of life followed, and their movements attracted widespread attention from the society.
After the interview, the United Nations reported on the release of all prisoners of war by the Chinese Communist Party, and made it clear that it was surprising that the Chinese Communist Party was willing to help the prisoners return to Taiwan.
After Chiang Kai-shek received the news that Chairman Mao had released all the war criminals, he developed strong resistance to this move until Chiang Kai-shek's death.
The Kuomintang was hesitant about the reception of prisoners of war.
After all, the prisoners of war have now received amnesty, and they want to return to Taiwan to meet their relatives, so they should accept it.
However, if these 10 people enter Taiwan, it is bound to cause turmoil in the Taiwan authorities.
Because these prisoners of war have long been portrayed as "martyrs" and enshrined in the "Martyrs' Shrine" in Taipei, if they are allowed to return to Taiwan, the "image of the dead soldier" created in the early stage is bound to be affected.
After several thoughts, the Kuomintang, led by Chiang Ching-kuo, adopted a strategy of "dragging on" and has been delaying allowing 10 people to enter Taiwan.
In the end, under the fraudulent delay of the Kuomintang, Zhang Tieshi was deceived into taking all the travel expenses, and his family could not stand the intimidation of the secret agents and did not dare to vouch for Zhang Tieshi, resulting in Zhang Tieshi committing suicide.
Tsai and Wang Yunpei were stranded in Hong Kong, Tsai died in Hong Kong in early January 2022, and Wang Yunpei died in 1979, living a life of poverty.
Among them, Wang Bingcheng, Chen Shizhang, and others were all disappointed in the Taiwan authorities, but fortunately their sons and daughters were in the United States, and later with the help of the mainland government, they were finally reunited as a family.
Zhang Haishang, Yang Nan, Zhao Yixue and three others could only return to the mainland and engage in social work with the help of the mainland government. Later, Zhang Haishang served as a member of the Hubei CPPCC Committee, Zhao Yixue served as a member of the Shanghai CPPCC Committee, yang Nanyou served as a member of the Sichuan Provincial CPPCC Committee, and ten people returned to Taiwan, none of whom succeeded.
In terms of the life arrangements of Zhang Tieshi and others, whether it is the Kuomintang or our party, it seems to be a prisoner of war issue, but its essence is the Kuomintang reactionaries, and our party has different considerations of the human rights of every Chinese son and daughter, such as the right to subsistence and happiness.
The Kuomintang reactionaries trampled on it at will and our Party carefully induced it, which can be seen in this matter.
This is also the reason why our party regards the people as the country, the Vietnam War is getting stronger and stronger, and it leads the sons and daughters of china step by step to realize the great rejuvenation of the nation, and the Kuomintang is eventually abandoned by the people.
end:
From the very beginning of the founding of the Party, our Party has taken the perspective of the people as the foundation for the founding of the country and the Party, even if it is a prisoner of war of the Kuomintang.
In order to ensure their personal rights and win the legitimate rights and interests of citizens to the greatest extent possible, taking Huang Wei, Du Yuming, Zhou Yanghao and others as examples, our party has presented values with practical actions.
From Chairman Mao's decision to put forward a total amnesty to the final implementation of the amnesty work, every action has not only shocked the country and the world, but also made society aware of the correct leadership of the Communists, and the Kuomintang reactionaries who take this as a contrast deserve to be remembered and alerted by all of us for their criminal acts of undermining human rights and undermining peace and the reunification of the motherland.
Resources:
Li Haiwen.Before and After the Amnesty of Kuomintang War Criminals in 1975[J], Communist Party Member, 2011 (No. 22)
Li Haiwen.Inside the Amnesty of Kuomintang War Criminals in 1975[J], Century, 2011 (No. 5)
REN Haisheng. Amnesty for the last Kuomintang war criminals[J]. People's Public Security. 2001 (Issue 4)
ZHANG Peng,GE Xiangyu. Documentary of The New China Amnesty for Domestic War Criminals[J]. Party History Expo. 2010 (Issue 9)
MAO Zhengrong. Amnesty for war criminals applying to go to Taiwan was blocked[J]. Party History Wenyuan.2006 (No. 7)
Dang Shiwen. The Final Fate of the "Three Musketeers" of the Kuomintang Military Command[J]. Literature and History Expo. 2008 (Issue 3)