Lessons from the destruction of the CCP's Taiwan Working Committee 60 years ago

In July 1949, when the triumphant song of the Liberation War was played, Mao Zedong proposed that "we must prepare the conditions for attacking Taiwan, except for the army, mainly rely on internal response and air force." At this time, the so-called "internal response" was the party organization under the island, but unfortunately, a few months later, this organization unfortunately suffered major damage

During the period when the Communist Party of China led the democratic revolution, some revolutionaries in Taiwan also established and developed Communist Party organizations, but they were repeatedly destroyed due to the special conditions on the island. At a time when the People's Liberation Army began to plan to cross the sea to attack Taiwan and urgently needed internal response, in early 1950 the Taiwan Working Committee of the CPC suffered near-devastating losses, and its main reasons were weak organizational foundations, impatience in guiding ideology, and corruption of leading members.

I. After the defeat of the "Old Taiwan Communist Party," the CCP established the Taiwan Working Committee in 1945

After Taiwan was invaded and occupied by Japan in 1895, the people on the island still maintained close ties with the mainland, and some progressive young people accepted communist ideas when they returned to the mainland to study. For example, Xie Xuehong, a female revolutionary on the island, participated in the May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai in 1925, joined the Communist Party of China in the same year, and entered the Oriental University in Moscow at the end of the year, where she was a classmate of Deng Xiaoping and Chiang Ching-kuo. In April 1928, the Communist Party of Taiwan, with the backbone of the Taiwan revolutionary youth in Shanghai, was established on the second floor of a photo studio in the Shanghai Concession, which was later commonly known as the "Old Taiwan Communist Party". The secretaries of the Taiwan Communist Party were Lin Mushun, and Cai Qian (later renamed Cai Qian) and Xie Xuehong were members of the Central Committee.

After the arrest and defection of Cai Qian,who had been the secretary of the Taiwan Working Committee of the Communist Party of China, it caused major damage to Taiwan's underground party organization. The picture shows Cai Qian, who has become a traitor.

The Communist Party of Taiwan was established with the help and guidance of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, but in accordance with the principle of the Communist International that colonial party organizations should be under the leadership of the party organizations of the suzerain, the name at that time was "Taiwan Nationality Branch of the Japanese Communist Party", which was under the leadership of the Japanese Communist Party. After the establishment of the Taiwan Communist Party, it returned to the island to mobilize the masses, and in 1929 launched a small-scale riot in south-central Taiwan through the "peasant group", and the Japanese police launched the first "Taiwan Communist Party inspection" and arrested many backbone cadres. With the destruction of the Japanese Communist Party organization on the mainland, in 1931 the Japanese police launched the second "Great Inspection of the Taiwan Communist Party" on the whole island, arrested the leader of the Taiwan Communist Party Xie Xuehong and others and sentenced them to heavy sentences, resulting in the disintegration of the organization, leaving only a few people to hide in the people or sneak back to the mainland. For example, cai qian returned to Fujian and entered the Central Soviet Region, participated in the Second National Soviet Congress as a taiwanese representative, followed the Red Army's Long March to northern Shaanxi, and served as the minister of the Eighth Route Army's enemy industry department during the War of Resistance.

After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the Kuomintang troops were transported by the U.S. army to take over Taiwan, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China also decided to establish an organization in this province that returned to the motherland. Cai Qian, who was in Yan'an at the time, was the only Taiwanese cadre with Red Army qualifications, and although he had made mistakes in his life style before, the CPC Central Committee appointed him secretary of the Taiwan Provincial Working Committee in view of his familiarity with the situation on the island and the test of the Long March. In September, Cai Qian departed from Yan'an, and in December arrived in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province, where he met with Zhang Zhizhong, a Taiwanese cadre working at the Central China Bureau, and then returned to Shanghai in batches. In April 1946, Zhang Zhizhong, deputy secretary of the Working Committee, arrived in Taipei first, and in July Cai Qian (later renamed Cai Qian) arrived, and contacted Xie Xuehong and others on the island to secretly establish an organization. Because Taiwan has been ruled by Japan for half a century, the revolutionary trend on the mainland has had little impact on the island, the masses lack understanding of the Communist Party, and the working committee has recruited no more than 100 party members in one year.

When the Nationalist Government first came to the island to take over, most of the Taiwan intellectuals were excited about returning to the motherland, and then they were extremely disappointed in the Kuomintang's scavenging and evil deeds of "accepting big members." Many people had a yearning for the Communist Party and demanded to join the party. However, some of them, out of catching up with the fashion, were not firm in their revolutionary will, and fled in the face of storms and waves, and Lee Teng-hui is a typical example of this. In September 1946, Lee Teng-hui, a 23-year-old student who had just returned from Japan to study at the Agricultural College of National Taiwan University, applied to join the Communist Party, which was quickly approved. When the "228" uprising broke out at the end of February 1947, Lee Teng-hui participated in some propaganda, and then took refuge from participating in the activities because of the bloody suppression of the Kuomintang military and police. In the summer of 1948, Lee Teng-hui, who had served as an assistant professor at National Taiwan University after graduation, approached the Taiwan Student Work Committee of the Communist Party of China and asked him to resign from the party, saying that he still believed in Marxist doctrine but was unwilling to live an organizational life and be bound by party discipline. At that time, according to organizational analysis, Lee Teng-hui quit the party for fear of danger, and after his retention was ineffective, he agreed to it, but this person also promised to keep secrets.

According to the recollection of the head of Taiwan's secret service who retired decades later, after the destruction of the CPC's Taiwan Work Committee, the Kuomintang authorities also knew about Lee Teng-hui's history, detained him for seven days, and for a long time after his release, he was regularly reported back, and he was followed up when he went out. It was not until the early 1970s, when Chiang Ching-kuo emphasized "blowing Taiwan youth" (that is, promoting new Taiwanese nationals), that he promoted Lee Teng-hui and explained to him: "Your relevant materials have been burned, and there will be no such thing in the future. It is not surprising that Chiang Ching-kuo was able to express this, because he himself joined the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and later liked to reuse communist traitors or defectors.

In 1947, the "February 28 Incident" rolled up a people's uprising against kuomintang rule throughout the island, and due to the lack of preparation in advance, only Xie Xuehong and Zhang Zhizhong organized some of the masses to participate in the struggle. Subsequent white terror by the Kuomintang authorities made it more difficult for the secret activities of the Working Committee, but the growing popular discontent with the Kuomintang also provided favorable conditions for the development of the underground party.

Second, impatience and impatience and the defection of the person in charge will lead to great destruction

At the end of 1948, the Kuomintang rule on the mainland was facing collapse, its party, government, and military organs and secret service organs were gradually relocated to Taiwan, and its control over the island was strengthened. At this time, the Taiwan Working Committee of the CPC only saw that the Kuomintang soldiers who had fled Taiwan were panicked, and that many masses believed that liberation was imminent, so they took a series of impatient and aggressive actions. When Shanghai was liberated in May 1949 and Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, the Taiwan Working Committee of the Communist Party of China reported to the Central Committee that the number of underground party members had grown to 1,300, and that there were 2,000 people who sympathized with the party and participated in underground activities, which was still weak among the island's more than 7 million people. At this time, the work committee began to establish armed strongholds in the mountainous areas, printed and distributed the Guangming Pao in Taipei City, and vigorously developed party members. The Working Committee also said in the "Proposal for Attacking Taiwan": "If it is necessary to consider the seasonal winds, the date of attacking Taiwan should be the most appropriate in April next year." According to this estimate, the working committee only prepared for the landing of the People's Liberation Army with short-term plans for only a few months.

In July 1949, the Secrecy Bureau headed by Mao Renfeng, which had been evacuated to Taiwan, discovered the Guangming Newspaper in the university, and Shunto destroyed the printing site and grasped the clues of the upper leader "Lao Zheng" (that is, Cai Qian). In October, the Secrecy Bureau took control of Li Fen, a veteran agent who had just joined the Kaohsiung Working Committee of the Communist Party of China, and after the arrest of the head of the labor movement, the head of the labor movement who lacked consciousness confessed to Chen Zemin, deputy secretary of the Taiwan Working Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the agent let him go to the joint to carry out the arrest. After Chen Zemin was arrested, he was severely tortured, although he refused to reveal the identity of "Old Zheng", his address was exposed, and the secret agents rushed to this residence and there was no one there. In late December, agents arrested Zhang Zhizhong, deputy secretary of the Taiwan Working Committee of the Communist Party of China in charge of military work, on the streets through confessions from those arrested and clues exposed by the armed stronghold's external contacts.

On January 29, 1950, agents who had been squatting at the residence of "Lao Zheng" for a long time caught a 40-year-old man returning home. The man only reported a false name and identity, but asked for a good meal. The head of the secret service, Gu Zhengwen, later recalled that he could see at a glance that this person had a weakness in pursuing enjoyment, so he asked people to buy him dumplings every day. A week later, the man said that he was "going crazy thinking about the taste of steak", and specified that he would buy it at the most exclusive Bolero restaurant in Taipei, and after eating it, he said that as a token of thanks, he could take them to a Communist stronghold. Three dedicated agents asked him to lead the way, only to walk into a dark factory building when the man suddenly ran away.

After "Old Zheng" escaped, Gu Zhengwen discovered that he was None other than Cai Qian, the top head of the underground party of the Chinese Communist Party in Taiwan, and found the words "Wu Vice Chang" on the notes found at his residence. Since wu shi was the only person surnamed Wu Shi among the deputy chiefs of staff, Gu Zhengwen and others determined that Lieutenant General Wu Shi had provided intelligence to the Ccp, and with Shangfeng's consent, this important "undercover" was arrested and killed by Chiang Kai-shek's orders a few months later. Recording important contacts with their real surnames and real jobs in their notes is a big mistake that is not allowed in underground work, and the careless negligence of Cai Qian's work can be seen from this. Two months later, Gu Zhengwen also grasped some of Cai Qian's connections during the "old Taiwan Communist Party", and through tracking down and torturing him, he learned that he had taken refuge in the chiayi countryside, so he sent agents who had detained this person to find out. In order to avoid conspicuousness, the agents changed into peasant costumes, and when they arrived in the area, they saw a man in a suit in the distance on the country road. Seeing this abnormal target, the secret agent caught up with him and saw that it was "Old Zheng". After investigation, it turned out that he had been hiding in the countryside for two months to clear his misery, and he thought of relieving himself of the Western restaurant in the town, so he could not care about the taboo of dress. After Cai Qian was arrested for the second time, he immediately defected, and was willing to confess to all the underground organizations, with only one condition, that is, to let his wife and sister, who had been living with him for two years, come to live with him in prison. Gu Zhengwen laughed after hearing this and immediately sent this 16-year-old girl. Tsai's rebellion led to the destruction of all the subordinate organizations of the Taiwan Working Committee, and according to the statistics of the Kuomintang authorities, more than 1,800 people were arrested, and those who refused to yield were executed. Hong Youqiao, propaganda director of the Taiwan Working Committee of the Communist Party of China, was about to take a ferry back to the mainland and was arrested at the Keelung Wharf for Cai Qian's confession of his itinerary. Some of the working committee's armed training camps in the mountains were also given clues by secret agents. In March 1950, the "Bamboo Pit Armed Base" was destroyed. The last "Deer Cave Armed Base" remained hidden until 1952, when it was also destroyed under attack by secret service agents and military police. After this poignant history was declassified in Taiwan in the 1990s, the memoirs of survivors and secret service chiefs combined to clearly show the detailed process of the destruction of underground organizations in that year.

Wu Shi, who served as the "deputy chief of staff of the Ministry of National Defense," was the highest-ranking intelligence officer in our party's successful entry into the Kuomintang, and was arrested in Taipei in 1950.

Third, violations of the principle of secret work and the corruption of leaders are the source of disaster

The CPC's Taiwan Working Committee suffered great damage, and there were objective factors such as overly optimistic estimates of the TIME for the PLA to cross the sea and the small room for maneuver on the island, and the improper subjective guidance and the personal qualities of the leaders were the main reasons. When the interrogation of Taiwan's working committee secretary Cai Qian and deputy secretaries Chen Zemin and Zhang Zhizhong, deputy secretaries, was over, Mao Renfeng and Gu Zhengwen, the heads of the secret service, wanted to understand how these people had summed up their lessons, so they were put in the same cell and listened to their conversations.

According to Gu Zhengwen's recollection, Zhang Zhizhong organized his fellow cellmates to "criticize" Cai Qian every day, pointing at his nose and scolding him for "seducing his fourteen-year-old sister-in-law, embezzling 10,000 US dollars in work funds, eating breakfast at Polly Lucy's restaurant every day, and even daring to go around publicizing that he was the leader of the Communist Party in Taiwan." Gu Zhengwen, who had changed from a traitor to a spy, had been led by Luo Ronghuan in the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army and was very familiar with the situation within the Communist Party. In his memoirs published in the 1990s, he summed up the case as follows: "I think that the failure of the Communist Party's underground work in Taiwan is not only that the members of the organization are too optimistic and the appearance is too exposed, but also the extravagant personality of its leader, Cai Qian, is a serious fatal wound!" "If we can have some talent from Zhou Enlai or Luo Ronghuan, then I am afraid that the history of the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party on the hidden front on the island will have to be rewritten."

Historical facts have proved that after Cai Qian returned to Taiwan from the hardships of Yan'an, because of the local foundation of Japanese operation and the economic level was much higher than that of the mainland, he was obsessed with luxurious life and was keen to contact the upper-class industrialists and merchants. After the death of his wife, who was a female worker in Shanghai, he lived with his sister- and sister, who was only 14 years old, and embezzled the organization's funds when he did not have enough money to spend. After entering 1949, Cai Qian actually showed off his identity to some rich people on the island to ask for sponsorship, and claimed that if he gave money, he would be taken care of after liberation, as if sooner or later such a publicity would be discovered by the enemy. Although his arrest was accidental, the accident of history lies precisely in necessity. In addition to the personal qualities of the persons in charge, the deviation in the guidelines caused by the erroneous estimation of the situation by the Taiwan Working Committee of the Communist Party of China is also the cause of the great damage. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Mao Zedong put forward the sixteen-character policy of the party's underground work, that is, "concealment and ability, long-term ambush, accumulation of strength, and waiting for the opportunity." In summing up the lessons of the destruction of the CCP's Southern Working Committee in 1942, Zhou Enlai also stressed that the underground party cannot engage in armed struggle at the same time, because the guidelines of the two are contradictory. Numerous practices have proved that waging armed struggle requires extensive mobilization of the masses, and it is bound to be impossible to conceal organizations and leaders; at that time, the Taiwan Work Committee rushed to establish an armed training base in violation of the long-term hidden policy of underground work, and vigorously developed party members among workers and students without strict examination, which precisely provided an opportunity for the enemy to infiltrate and find clues to the leader.

In 1950, after the liberation of the mainland, Li Kenong, the leader of the CPC intelligence department, spent several months summing up the party's experience in covert struggle in accordance with Zhou Enlai's instructions and drawing two principles of the party's absolute leadership and the political foundation as the mainstay. Facts have proved that even in the underground work of strict secrecy, party organizations must strengthen leadership supervision over each member and work hard to prevent the lack of faith by rallying members with political convictions. The process of sabotage of the CPC's Taiwan Working Committee has also proved that these two principles cannot be violated. A cadre like Cai Qian, who has experienced the formation of the Taiwan Communist Party and the Long March, has fallen to such an extent, which has shocked many people, and if we analyze it carefully, we can also see that people's thinking will change with changes in the environment, and that the glory of struggle in the past does not ensure that it will be consistent later, especially when facing the temptation of corrosion and getting rid of supervision and restraint, it is more likely to degenerate. When Cai Qian presided over the Taiwan Work Committee, it was precisely because it was difficult for his overseas superiors to supervise him, and he was becoming increasingly corrupt, and his political stance could not be firm after the pursuit of life was distorted.

At that time, some grass-roots workers' party members of the Taiwan Working Committee were arrested and defected, and according to the report after the interrogation of the secret agents at that time, they did not understand the concept of the Communist Party at all, but only saw that the situation would change drastically and rushed to speculate. In the absence of political beliefs, these people are naturally unable to maintain their chastity, and such lessons show how important it is to strengthen the education of ideals and convictions! With the passage of time, the situation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait has undergone tremendous changes, and the survivors of the White Terror on the island have been able to publicly pay homage to the victims since the 1990s, and the remains of some martyrs have been relocated to the mainland through the arrangements of the relevant departments. When people today commemorate those who sacrificed their predecessors, they can not only further stimulate the will to struggle for the complete reunification of the motherland, but also summarize some lessons with historical regularity by reviewing the process of the destruction of the CPC's Taiwan Working Committee, and also trigger some useful enlightenment for today's cadres and party members. (Source: Beijing Daily Author: Xu Yan)

Traitor Cai Xiaoqian: 1,800 people were betrayed, the party organization in Taiwan was completely destroyed, and the process of attacking Taiwan was forced to be postponed!