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In November 1951, at the third congress of the Communist Party of China in Hebei Province, a "shocking corruption case" after the founding of New China was exposed.
At the meeting, Li Kecai, then deputy commissioner of the Tianjin Special Administration of Hebei Province, reported two party cadres, "Liu Qingshan" and "Zhang Zishan".
On December 4, the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China made a resolution to expel Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan from the party with the approval of the North China Bureau of the Central Committee.
On February 10, 1952, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan finally surrendered to the law in the ancient city of Dongguan University, becoming the first corrupt official to be executed since the founding of New China.
Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan's subjugation is very pleasant, but Li Kecai, who first discovered and reported Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, was "dusting off his clothes and hiding his body and fame".
So what kind of life is Li Kecai?
The first anti-corruption fighter of the People's Republic of China
Li Kecai was born in March 1917, and his hometown is Lianglingkou Village, Xingtang County, Hebei Province.
At the age of 20, Li Ke joined the revolution and became a member of the Communist Party in the same year. Since the day he joined the party, Li Kecai has successively served as an organization officer and organization member in the first district of Xingtang County, the secretary of the sixth district party committee, and the head of the fourth district. In December 1947, he was appointed as the commissioner of the 15th Prefecture of Eastern Hebei.
Li Kecai is a cadre of the prefectural party committee who serves the people wholeheartedly, and he has made many meritorious achievements during his tenure in Tang County. This is not only because Li Kecai is a member of the Communist Party, but also because Tang County is Li Kecai's hometown, and he deeply loves the land where he was born and raised.
Finally, looking forward to liberation, Li Ke was appointed as the deputy commissioner of the Tianjin Special Administration.
The founding of the People's Republic of China brought hope to the toiling masses and brought about a new world. Li Kecai, like all those who have seen the devastation of the old society, wants to protect this hard-won new world from the bottom of his heart.
However, at this time, some people want to stand on the opposite side of the masses of the people, indulge their selfish desires, and become moths that destroy New China.
When he was the secretary of the local party committee in Tianjin, Li Kecai worked with Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan.
At that time, it was the period of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea, and our country had just been established, so everyone was having a very difficult time, and everyone was tightening their belts to get by.
However, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, who believed that they had contributed to the party and the country during the revolutionary years, engaged in corruption at the most difficult moment for the country.
Between the autumn of 1950 and the spring of 1950, Hebei Province was hit by disasters. Considering the difficulties of the mainland at that time, the Hebei provincial government decided to provide relief for work, allowing the victims to help control the rivers in the Tianjin Prefecture, and then the state would distribute the relief food accordingly.
However, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, as magistrates, ignored the hunger and cold of the victims, and embezzled the people's life-saving grain money by raising the price of grain and oil supply, allocating grain on the spot, falsely reporting freight costs, and using shoddy products.
In order to be able to hide from the world, the two used the moldy corn to distribute to the victims of the work-for-relief work, causing dozens of migrant workers in Jinghai, Baodi and other places to fall ill and die.
After the incident, the two not only did not stop, but on the contrary, they continued to embezzle state money even more intensively.
In a period of more than a year, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan first embezzled the "compensation for the land occupied by the airport" and grain from the state treasury, and then illegally used special funds for water conservancy, fraudulently borrowed bank loans, and embezzled the shipbuilding funds of the disaster victims, colluded with profiteers, accepted bribes, engaged in speculative business at a time when the country was in danger, and arbitrarily transferred and embezzled public assets.
The people are hungry and the country is in crisis, but as party cadres, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan have lived in a villa in Tianjin Racecourse Road for a long time.
Drinking and taking drugs all day long, the two of them have long since lost the appearance of a Communist Party member. The extravagance of his life is outrageous even now, not to mention that it was still in the most difficult period for the country.
Some cadres have long expressed their dissatisfaction with the behavior of the two, but the brazen Liu Qingshan always said shamelessly in the face of the reprimands of the masses: "The revolution has won, Lao Tzu should enjoy it!" ”
Even in order to be able to better collect money, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan also implemented a privileged autocracy in the Tianjin Prefecture. even came up with a so-called "Liu Qingshan Thought".
Liu Qingshan once shamelessly said: "I am the embodiment of Marxism and Leninism in Tianjin!" ”
For such a situation, many people dared to be angry at that time, and the party members and cadres around them also persuaded the two to stop many times. But the two of them still went their own way, completely forgetting that they also came out of the toiling masses.
Finally, at the Third Party Congress of the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China in November 1951, Li Kecai exposed the evil deeds of Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan.
After the matter was revealed, the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China immediately made a decision to expel the two from the party. However, it is uncertain about how the two of them should handle the problem, because after all, the two of them contributed to the party and the people during the revolutionary years.
Chairman Mao was very uncomfortable after learning about the case of Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, they were all "red ghosts" who grew up, but after the victory of the revolution, they went to the road of corruption.
At that time, there were many people who wanted to intercede for the two, but Chairman Mao personally made instructions on the handling of the two people, with only two words "death penalty".
In this way, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan finally accepted the trial of the party and the people, and were executed according to law on February 10, 1952.
After the conclusion of the cases of Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, the central authorities decided to conduct a thorough investigation into similar situations that might arise throughout the country and restore a clean and healthy atmosphere to New China.
Originally, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan's subjugation should have been a very happy thing. But at this time, someone pointed the finger at Li Kecai, who reported the two.
Some people even attributed Li Kecai's prosecution to his work feuds with Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan and personal grudges.
Li Kecai never defended these words, after all, justice is in the hearts of the people. After ending this incident, Li Kecai also proved his position and persistence as a member of the Communist Party with practical actions.
Since then, Li Kecai has served as the deputy commissioner of Hengshui, the secretary of the Cangzhou Prefectural Party Committee, and the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial Advisory Committee of the Communist Party of China, and retired in 1990.
During Li Kecai's reign, the entire Hebei region was clean and upright, and with him, no one dared to engage in corruption.
Resolutely fight against corruption
However, what is unexpected is that not long after Li Ke retired, another corrupt official came to Hebei Province.
In December 1991, when Ping Yizhuo was appointed secretary of the Cangzhou Prefectural Party Committee in Hebei Province, the awakened secretary of the prefectural party committee used public funds to purchase a new "Nissan" sedan for himself, and used government funds to rent a Mercedes-Benz from a unit in Beijing as his car.
At that time, it cost nearly 360,000 yuan to rent this Mercedes-Benz, and you must know that in the early 90s, this 360,000 yuan can definitely be called a huge amount of money.
In fact, many people knew that Ping Yijie had a problem at that time, but they didn't report Ping Yijie just to take care of the overall situation. But Ping Yijie didn't know how to stop, and intensified his use of his power to make a lot of money.
Two years later, Ping Yijie was transferred to the president of the Hebei Provincial High People's Court, and when he left, he took the Mercedes-Benz he had rented from Beijing with him, and regardless of the actual situation of the provincial court's tight funds, he forced the court to spend 240,000 yuan in sublease fees from the funds to Cangzhou.
Not only that, when Ping Yijie left the post of secretary of the Cangzhou Prefectural Party Committee, he also owned all the furniture and electrical appliances rented by the government at that time.
Others didn't dare to report Ping Yijie, but Li Kecai was not afraid of him at that time.
At this time, Li Ke, who was already over seventy years old, reported to the central government again with his real name. In the end, Li Kecai's whistleblower letter attracted the attention of the central government, and a thorough investigation was carried out on the "corruption of Ping Yijie", and finally the corrupt official was dismissed in 1995.
Li Kecai is such a warrior who can't rub sand in his eyes, and he has used his life to prove his perseverance as a Communist Party member.
When he was in office, he did not have any benefits for his family
He is such a good party member who has contributed to the people, and he has never sought a little "ancestral shadow" for his descendants and children during his term of office.
Li Kecai has three sons and two daughters, and the only "big official" among the five brothers and sisters is only Li Chungeng, who is the director of the communications department of the Cangzhou City Public Security Bureau, named the director, but in fact he is only a section-level cadre.
The third child, Li Qiufeng, is just a security guard at a commercial bank in Cangzhou City, and his wife has been shut down for a long time because of the poor performance of the factory, and she can only get a meager living allowance every month.
In the family, only the fourth Li Xia is the best, and she studied abroad with her own efforts and studied for a doctorate in the United States.
According to the memories of an old colleague of Li Kecai, Li Kecai has never used his relationship for anyone in his life and walked through the back door. Even the benefits that should have belonged to Li Kecai as a cadre, Li Kecai did not enjoy them.
In Li Kecai's home in the family home of the Cangzhou City Prefectural Party Committee, the living room of Li Kecai's house is only seven or eight square meters, full of old furniture, and even the ground is the cement floor he made when he moved in.
Later, considering that the living environment of Li Kecai and his boss was too simple, the organization also wanted to improve the living conditions for them, but the old couple was used to living in the old house and refused the organization's care.
He died of a recurrence of his injuries at the age of 84
In April 2001, Li Kecai was hospitalized with a recurrence of an old wound that had been left after an enemy bullet had been fired into his chest during a battle before liberation.
In the more than two months from the recurrence of old man Li Kecai's old injury and hospitalization to his death, many local party and government cadres and people in Cangzhou have come to visit the old man Li Kecai.
When the attending physician heard the story of the old man Li Kecai's brave fight against corrupt officials, he was in awe and took the initiative to take the rescue of the old man Li Kecai.
But this time the recurrence of the old injury came suddenly, and the old man Li Kecai was old, so he still failed to save the life of the old man Li Kecai.
On June 30, 2001, Li Kecai finally completed his life in Tianjin Chest Hospital at the age of 84.
References:
Who Exposed Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan Earliest - Interview with Li Kecai (continued)
China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily reporter Liu Lihua
Talking about the "first person to fight corruption" in the Republic - Li Kecai, former secretary of the Cangzhou Prefectural Party Committee, surging news Government affairs: Fang Zhi Hebei 2021-03-16