Reflection on Zhao Jianmin's unjust case

Zhao Jianmin was born in Guanxian County, Shandong Province in 1912, was admitted to the Shandong Provincial No. 1 Rural Normal School in the summer of 1932, and joined the Communist Party of China in November of the same year. After May 1934, Zhao Jianmin successively served as secretary of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee, director of the Organization Department and acting secretary of the Shandong Provincial Working Committee, and director of the Organization Department of the Provincial Party Committee.

On September 27, 1936, when Zhao Jianmin went to Jinan to inspect his work, he was arrested for betrayal by the traitor Fang Chunrong, and was successively imprisoned in the special team of the Han Fuyu Provincial Government, the detention center of the Military Justice Department of the Third Route Army, and the detention center of the High Court. Despite being tried seven times, and having traitors testify in court and tortured, Zhao Jianmin still did not confess. In the end, Han Fuyu, chairman of the Shandong provincial government, personally interrogated.

According to Zhao Jianmin's recollections, several people in front of him had been convicted by Han Fuyu at that time, some were killed, and some were heavily sentenced. Han Fuyu sat in the middle hall, looked at Zhao Jianmin twice, and asked: "You are a student and don't study hard, why did you join the Communist Party?" Zhao Jianmin replied: "The purpose of joining the Communist Party is to resist Japan, and the chairman understands that the Japanese are not satisfied with occupying Northeast China and Rehe, and they will further occupy all of China, and the Chinese will only accelerate their own demise by fighting a civil war. ”

"Why did you go to Laiwu? Is there a mountain there, and what kind of riot is going to be made? I won't agree to a riot!" Han Fuyu asked again.

Zhao Jianmin said: "We are doing some propaganda activities to resist Japan and save the country to the common people, mainly to arouse the people and prepare to resist Japan, and to advocate unity for all armed forces and circles in the country to deal with Japanese imperialism together." ”

When Han Fuyu heard this, his tense face suddenly loosened, and he spit out: "Hey, you are promoting me." "The tension in the room has eased a lot. As for how to deal with Zhao Jianmin, Han Fuyu finally said: "I think he will be sent to the court, sent to the court!"

When Zhao Jianmin returned to prison, many people were surprised, and some said: "This person in a blue coat (Zhao Jianmin is wearing a Yin Dan Shilin coat, blue) is really big!" Others were stunned by Han Fuyu, Han was stunned for three or four times, it doesn't matter, it's really big!" After Zhao Jianmin was sent to the Shandong High Court, he was sentenced to five years in prison.

After the "77 Incident", under the situation of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party to resist Japan, in October 1937, Zhao Jianmin was released from prison ahead of schedule and joined the Anti-Japanese War Movement. More than a year later, due to the extremely difficult anti-Japanese battle in northwest Shandong, the Third Regiment of the Fan Zhuxian Column of the Eighth Route Army was reorganized into the Third Battalion of the Zhuxian Column after an encounter with the Japanese army in the south of Guanxian County, and Zhao Jianmin served as the battalion commander.

In the autumn of 1939, Zhao Jianmin led his troops to ambush the Japanese army in Chen Guanzhuang, Guanxian County, killing and wounding more than 110 enemies. Regarding this battle, Zhao Jianmin has a detailed account in the anthology. He said that at that time, the third battalion led by him was stationed in Chen Guanzhuang, 30 miles east of Guanxian County, and they found that a regiment of the Japanese army, totaling more than 4,000 people, was advancing south from Jiazhen to Sang'a Town through Chenguanzhuang, and the Japanese army was equipped with a heavy machine gun company, a mountain artillery team, and a baggage team of more than 40 vehicles.

When the Japanese infantry and artillery passed and the automobile convoy came within the range of the third battalion, the soldiers of the first company of the third battalion fired at the enemy's automobile convoy with a dense platoon of guns. At the same time, when the enemy's baggage cover team got out of the car, it was also fiercely attacked by the 3rd battalion. An officer of the enemy army was killed on the spot when he was being hit by a messenger and a special marksman of the 3rd Battalion. After that, the enemy from the east and northeast did not dare to approach the village.

After dusk, the enemy suffered heavy casualties from the attack in all directions, and most of them lay on the ground and did not dare to advance. Even the commander of the enemy army, repeatedly shouting and demanding to advance, did not help. When Zhao Jianmin inspected the position, he saw Liu Changyi, the platoon commander of the third company, at the south gate, and assured Zhao Jianmin: The battalion commander can rest assured, on the side of the south gate, I promise to let the little devils die one by one, and the people are in the position.

When the battle achieved the expected goal, Zhao Jianmin immediately sent the platoon commander of the first company to lead a squad out of the north gate to reconnoitre. The scouts came back and said that there was no enemy in the north-west direction, and the 3rd Battalion triumphantly withdrew from Chen Guanzhuang. The next morning, Zhang Weihan, commander of the Zhuxian Column, went to the troops to express his condolences and told Zhao Jianmin, "You have won a great victory."

During the War of Liberation, Zhao Jianmin fought in the north and south, and led his troops to participate in the Eastern Henan Campaign, the Huaihai Campaign, the River Crossing Campaign, and the Liberation of the Great Southwest Campaign.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in February 1950, Zhao Jianmin served as the Minister of Communications of the Southwest Military and Political Commission and the Director of the Southwest Railway Engineering Bureau, and led the construction of the first railway in New China, the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway, and the Kang-Tibet Highway. After 1952, he successively served as Vice Minister of the Ministry of Railways, Third Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, Governor of the Shandong Provincial People's Committee, Member of the Standing Committee and Secretary of the Secretariat of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee.

In 1958, Zhao Jianmin was wrongly criticized during the anti-rightist movement, and at the end of 1962 he was screened, and in 1963 he became secretary of the Secretariat of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and deputy secretary of the provincial party group. After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, Yunnan, located on the southwestern border, was hit as hard as most of the country. Yan Hongyan, then first secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and first political commissar of the Kunming Military Region, was attacked. On January 4, 1967, Yan Hongyan and his wife took temporary refuge in Maiyu, which was more than 10 kilometers away from the city. On January 6, the rebels raided his home, and on the morning of that day, Zhao Jianmin was presiding over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee in the office building of the Secretariat, when he suddenly learned that the rebels were coming to attack Yan Hongyan. According to Zhao Jianmin's opinion, the secretary of the provincial party committee and the standing committee members quickly left the conference room, leaving only Zhao Jianmin. He saw the rebels climb the wall through the window, and immediately called for the door to be opened, and he stepped forward to meet him. The rebels were so angry that they couldn't catch Yan Hongyan, so they pushed Zhao Jianmin onto a truck and took him to the compound of the Kunming Military Region.

The rebels forced Zhao Jianmin to take them to Yan Hongyan, but Zhao Jianmin refused, and the rebels attacked him. The leader of the rebels also used Zhao Jianmin's words to incite the masses and forcibly put the high hat that had been prepared on Zhao Jianmin's head. Zhao Jianmin stretched out his hand and ripped off the high hat. He glared at the rebels, his eyes were on fire, and he protested loudly: "I am a member of the Communist Party, secretary of the provincial party committee, and an alternate member of the current Central Committee!" You are doing this as an insult to the Communist Party! ”

Zhao Jianmin resisted hard in the car and tore up six papier-mâché hats. Several members of the rebels moved together, twisted Zhao Jianmin's arm, stuck his neck, prevented him from speaking, pressed it on the luggage rack on the roof of the car, and marched along the main streets of Kunming City for more than three hours.

Zhao Jianmin, who had returned to the military compound and was already dying, was snatched out by medical staff from the provincial party committee's health center at night and sent to the Kunming Military Region General Hospital. After examination, it was found that Zhao Jianmin's neck had been fractured. But Zhao Jianmin's efforts did not save Yan Hongyan, a veteran revolutionary who had been awarded the rank of general in 1955, and finally committed suicide two days later by taking sleeping pills.

A year later, Zhao Jianmin himself could not avoid the fate of being beaten. According to Zhao Jianmin's later recollections, in the early morning of January 21, 1968, when he was reporting to work in Beijing, he received a temporary notice to rush to the second conference room of the Jingxi Hotel to attend a meeting convened by the central authorities to resolve the Yunnan issue. The meeting was presided over by Kang Sheng, a fellow villager of Zhao Jianmin's Shandong, and Xie Fuzhi delivered a speech. At the meeting, Kang Sheng first blamed Zhao Jianmin for his work problems, and then quickly turned the conversation to Zhao Jianmin's arrest in 1936. Kang Sheng demanded that Zhao Jianmin confess how he turned himself in in prison, and claimed that Zhao Jianmin was a "traitor" who had infiltrated the party. In the end, Xie Fuzhi shouted: "I announce the implementation of guardianship review and execution of Zhao Jianmin!" Two people who had been prepared on the side escorted Zhao Jianmin away. Since then, Zhao Jianmin's "Cultural Revolution" period has been 7 years and 8 months behind bars.

In September 1978, Zhao Jianmin was rehabilitated. After April 1978, he served as deputy secretary of the party group, deputy minister and head of the advisory group of the Third Machinery Department. In July 1981, Zhao Jianmin took the initiative to submit a report to the central government, asking to take a back seat. In December of the same year, he was appointed head of the advisory group of the Third Ministry of Machinery Industry. Zhao Jianmin is an alternate member of the 8th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and was elected as a member of the Central Advisory Committee at the 12th and 13th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China.

Zhao Jianmin's nephew, Zhao Tiefeng, said that he had been to Zhao Jianmin's home in Beijing, where he lived in an ancient city with a small courtyard, and the cramped dwelling could not help but make his heart ache. However, Zhao Jianmin is very optimistic, every time his family wants to add something to him, he always says that he doesn't need it, and always says: "Actually, I don't have anything, these are all given to me by the state, and I am already very content." ”

"He likes to eat steamed buns, cakes, and porridge, and sometimes he doesn't eat well in the village." Zhao Tiefeng, who once ate and lived in Zhao Jianmin's house, recalled that Zhao Jianmin always used one hand to pick up steamed buns, and the "steamed bun dregs" that fell in the palm of his hand were stuffed into his mouth and eaten. Zhao Tiefeng, who has grown crops all his life, was surprised, "We farmers won't be like this." ”

When Zhao Tiefeng summed up Zhao Jianmin's life, he used four words "hard work". He said that Zhao Jianmin's style of hard work is both admirable and distressing.

The unjust case of Zhao Jianmin was a particularly serious case created by Kang Sheng during the Cultural Revolution, which caused Zhao Jianmin, as secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, to be illegally detained for eight years. "Kang Sheng and the "Zhao Jianmin Unjust Case" is not a case to talk about the case and make an article to overturn the case, but to examine it in the context of the Cultural Revolution in Yunnan, which can be said to be a brief history of the Cultural Revolution in Yunnan, a typical case of interpreting the Cultural Revolution from multiple perspectives. It provides a typical case study of the characteristics of the unjust cases of the Cultural Revolution.

Unjust, false and wrongly decided cases during the Cultural Revolution can be roughly divided into three categories: First, historical issues. That is, to investigate the problems of "traitors", "spies", "traitors", "historical counter-revolutionaries", and other buried "class enemies". Typical cases include the so-called "61-person traitor group case" and the "Xinneren Party case" in Inner Mongolia. Second, there are differences in political views. That is, the issue of "opposing Chairman Mao" and attempting to "usurp the party and seize power". For example, the so-called "Peng Luo Lu Yang case", "Liu Shaoqi case", etc.; The third is the conflict of the Cultural Revolution. That is, the question of political attitudes towards the Cultural Revolution movement, and the issue of disagreement with the "proletarian command". Typical cases include the "Down with Tao Zhu Case", "Yang, Yu, Fu Incident" and so on.

Logically speaking, the causes of the problem and the political nature of these three types of cases are different. Although the first type of problem is to turn over old historical accounts, it is the most serious in nature and belongs to the scope of contradictions between friends and enemies; Although the second type of problem is very high, it is still the nature of the struggle for the party's internal line; The third type of problem is the contradictions and conflicts caused by the Cultural Revolution movement itself, although the momentum is huge and the behavior is fierce, but the nature of the problem still belongs to the ideological understanding of "the masses educate themselves". Therefore, what can really lead to a complete defeat in politics is to engage in historical issues. Therefore, it is a common method for resolving differences within the party in history to bring practical problems to history and make historical articles based on practical political needs. It can be said that all the major political cases of the Cultural Revolution are "stained" in history, "reactionary" in politics, and "crimes" in the Cultural Revolution. The "Zhao Jianmin Unjust Case" is one such case. The "six charges" fabricated for Zhao Jianmin were completely fabricated.

Since Liu Shaoqi's so-called question was raised as a "revisionist line" and there were "agents" in all localities and units, Zhao Jianmin's personal experience of the Cultural Revolution largely represented the common experience of leading cadres at all levels. The "unjust case of Zhao Jianmin" mentioned in the book is, in a sense, the Yunnan version of Liu Shaoqi and the "agents of Liu Shaoqi's revisionist line" in various places. Historically, Zhao Jianmin's heroic struggle against the enemy during his arrest during the revolutionary war was examined by the Central Organization Department and the Central Supervision Commission in 1957. In the early days of the Cultural Revolution, a large number of first-hand materials from the Red Guards' investigations can also provide proof. Moreover, Kang Sheng once served as the secretary of the Shandong Branch of the Communist Party of China, and he is clear about Zhao Jianmin's historical situation. But the reason why he ignored the facts and insisted that Zhao Jianmin was a "traitor" was entirely out of the political needs of the Cultural Revolution movement. Therefore, after Zhao Jianmin was detained, he ignored him for a long time, did not interrogate him, and did not allow him to make a statement. Perhaps this also shows that there is nothing to say about my own affairs, that is, to make him a victim of the Cultural Revolution.

Looking at the situation of the Cultural Revolution of most provincial and municipal leading cadres through the "Zhao Jianmin Unjust Case", this case provides a perspective to reflect and observe the situation of the Cultural Revolution of leading cadres in various provinces and cities. If it is said that Liu Shaoqi's situation during the Cultural Revolution represents the common characteristics of the "capitalist roaders" who were overthrown across the country. Then, the situation of the "capitalist roaders" of the local leading cadres reflects the personality characteristics of the development of the Cultural Revolution movement in various places. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, most of the main leading cadres of various provinces and cities were not the targets of the Cultural Revolution, and the purpose of the Cultural Revolution at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution may only be to solve the problem of who to follow politically. However, with the development of the Cultural Revolution, many of these local officials were on the cusp. On the other hand, they had to keep up with the Central Committee's arrangements for the Cultural Revolution, and at the same time deal with the chaotic situation in the local area to deal with the Cultural Revolution that they "did not understand"; At the same time, they had to review the mistakes of the past and become the direct targets of the mass rebellion, and at the same time express their support for the movement. In this way, they are like rats in the bellows, in the splint squeezed at both ends, in a dilemma. In them, the impact of the cadre stratum on the mass movement is reflected in a more concentrated way. Therefore, from the perspective of the study of the history of political movements, the situation of the Cultural Revolution of these provincial and municipal leading cadres may be the most informative.

Under the impact of the Cultural Revolution, the main leading cadres in many places, regardless of their line of intimacy or opinion, were identified as "agents of Liu Shaoqi's revisionism." In August 1967, there were 55 "capitalist roaders" of provincial and ministerial-level leading cadres who were openly named and criticized in the central and local newspapers. Among them, there are 37 leading cadres from provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. In the rebellion and seizure of power, these provincial and municipal "capitalist roaders" were in the most embarrassing situation. The unjust case of Zhao Jianmin in Yunnan is only one of the more typical cases, representing the situation of these cadres during the Cultural Revolution. The book tells about the situation of the "artillery faction" and the "eight factions" factional fighting in Yunnan. Zhao Jianmin, who was slandered by Kang Sheng and his gang as a "traitor" and a "black backstage of the artillery faction", was naturally also an "unforgivable crime" and was devastated in prison. It follows from this that the artificial class struggle, once universally accepted, can become a real force for social destruction.

The "Zhao Jianmin Unjust Case" enlightens us that we cannot use the method of indiscriminate struggle to resolve differences within the party, but only by the method of intra-party democracy

To resolve differences within the party, we cannot use the method of chaotic fighting, but only by democratic means. This is a major historical lesson for the whole party from the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. In fact, during the Cultural Revolution, many cadres had realized the importance of intra-party democracy. It can be seen from the book that on March 1, 1967, Zhao Jianmin presented his views on the "Cultural Revolution" to his old chief, Kang Sheng, and proposed that the Central Committee convene a "7,000-member congress" similar to the 1962 "7,000-person congress" or the "Ninth National Congress" to solve the problems of the "Cultural Revolution" in a democratic way. He also called for the "big democracy" of the mass movement to be replaced by the small democracy of the party congress. Zhao Jianmin's approach was originally the correct way to solve the problem in accordance with the provisions of the party constitution and in the party's internal procedures. Zhao Jianmin did not expect that a group of old comrades at the top of the party at that time had just been criticized as a "February countercurrent" for opposing the Cultural Revolution. Zhao Jianmin's opinion is secretly in line with them. Kang Sheng did not make a clear statement at the time, but later told Mao Zedong that Zhao Jianmin opposed the Party Central Committee, Chairman Mao, and the "Cultural Revolution". A year later, Kang Sheng went so far as to say that Zhao Jianmin's proposal to convene the party congress was to allow Liu Shaoqi, Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang to use legal means to seize the power of the central leading organs. This led to Zhao Jianmin's eight-year prison sentence. The Cultural Revolution brought an unprecedented impact on the vast number of cadres, and many people were ruined, but it was this catastrophe of widespread persecution of the vast number of cadres that made the whole party understand the preciousness of the true value of intra-party democracy.

The Cultural Revolution was originally intended to be a nationwide anti-repair and defensive repair exercise. ("The Biography of Mao Zedong", [1949-1976] Central Literature Research Office, Central Literature Publishing House, 2003 edition) However, the masses mobilized by the Cultural Revolution formed two opposing organizations, and the masses themselves were inseparable. This was something Mao Zedong did not expect. How did this process come about? How can a fictitious notion of class struggle become a real social destructive force? This is a fundamental question in the study of the Cultural Revolution. In the process of forming the "Zhao Jianmin Unjust Case," we can see some clues to this problem.

When talking about the dangers of the Cultural Revolution, people naturally associate it with the crimes of Lin Biao, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen, Kang Sheng, and others. Taking Kang Sheng as an example, according to incomplete statistics, a total of 819 people were named and framed by Kang Sheng and his wife during the Cultural Revolution (including 239 people named and framed in the report reviewed by Kang Sheng himself). Kang Sheng was the secretary of the Shandong Branch of the Communist Party of China, worked in Shandong for many years, presided over the trial work, and knew Zhao Jianmin for a long time, and he also knew the history of Zhao Jianmin's arrest in history. Therefore, the reasons for bringing down Zhao Jianmin are complex.