Uncover the truth about Liu Shaoqi's so-called "traitor" charges

under arrest

On July 14, 1929, an ordinary passenger car slowly drove into the Fengtian (i.e., Shenyang) railway station. Two well-dressed passengers, mixed in with the hustle and bustle, hurried out of the station, then hired a car to a hotel and stayed. They are Liu Shaoqi and his wife He Baozhen.

At that time, the three northeastern provinces were collectively called Manchuria, under the rule of Japanese imperialism and Chinese warlords, and the White Terror was very serious. This time, Liu Shaoqi was dispatched by the CPC Central Committee to serve as the secretary of the Manchurian Provincial CPC Committee. Prior to this, three Manchurian provincial party organs had been destroyed by the enemy, and each time it was more and more serious. The most serious one was in December 1928, when the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee was surrounded by enemies during an enlarged meeting. In addition to the one member of the provincial party committee who escaped, Chen Weiren, secretary of the provincial party committee, all members of the standing committee, and several responsible persons of foreign ports were arrested. As a result of the severe damage to the provincial party organs, the Party's work and mass movement were close to paralysis. The Party's work in the Northeast is at an extremely difficult juncture.

Liu Shaoqi came to Fengtianhou, and after a period of arduous and meticulous work, the Manchurian Party organization was quickly restored. After the work arrangement on the surface was completed, Liu Shaoqi was ready to grasp the workers' struggle in Fengtian. In charge of fengtian city is Meng Jian (Meng Yongqian), a member of the standing committee of the provincial party committee. He reported to Liu Shaoqi that the Fengtian Spinning Mill was preparing a strike and that the preparations were almost complete. Liu Shaoqi decided to attend the meeting of the spinning mill branch with Meng Jian to learn more about the situation in order to better guide the strike.

The mill is located in a remote suburb, surrounded by a cemetery and a small forest, which looks a bit desolate. At about 6 p.m. on August 22, 1929, a man who looked like a teacher appeared in the grove, and he was Meng Jian. After a while, Liu Shaoqi, dressed as a worker, also came. According to the agreement, they would meet with Chang Baoyu, the secretary of the party branch of the spinning mill, here.

After a while, the whistle of the off-duty work sounded, but the factory door was closed tightly, and there were no workers who left work walking out of the factory door. At the gate of the factory, only a few factory police officers were turning around, searching for something. With his rich experience in long-term underground work, Liu Shaoqi sensed that the situation was different and immediately decided to quickly transfer. However, it was too late. A team of factory police officers found them and rushed up with guns to catch them. It turned out that a few days ago, Cui Fengyi, a member of the Workers' Party, had defected. He informed the factory that Chang Baoyu had been arrested two days earlier.

The factory police regarded Liu Shaoqi and Meng Jian as suspects of inciting the labor tide and began interrogation. During the interrogation, Liu Shaoqi only admitted that he was an unemployed worker from Wuhan who had come to Fengtian to look for work.

The inquisitor asked, "What the hell are you doing?" ”

"Workers who work." Liu Shaoqi answered calmly.

One of the leaders of the factory police stared up and down at Liu Shaoqi and suddenly shouted, "Put your hand out!" ”

The man looked at Liu Shaoqi's hand, laughed twice, and said, "Worker? You can't fool Lao Tzu! Look at your fine skin and tender flesh, not even a cocoon, dare to pretend to be a worker? say! What the hell are you doing? ”

Liu Shaoqi said calmly: "I am a worker, a typesetting worker." If you have typography here, I can show it to you. ”

Unable to fault it, they muttered a few words to each other, and then suddenly drank: "Why are you here to stir up the labor tide?" ”

"What kind of work tide, I don't know at all."

The factory police, seeing that they could not ask anything famous, were disappointed, pulled up Liu Shaoqi's hand and hit the board for a while, and then took Chang Baoyu to confront him. Chang Baoyu had never seen Liu Shaoqi, and after looking at it for half a day, he said, "I don't know this person." ”

The factory did not grasp the handle, and the next day they were escorted to the Second Branch of the Fengtian Police Station and detained in the temporary detention center. On August 26, the police department escorted Liu Shaoqi, Meng Jian, and Chang Baoyu to the Fengtian High Court Procuratorate Detention Center. In the detention center, Liu Shaoqi took advantage of the opportunity to let the wind blow and said to Meng Jian: "Now that the Fengtian Spinning Factory has sent us to prison, there are only witnesses, no physical evidence, and it will be easier to solve our case if we persuade the worker (referring to Chang Baoyu) to deny the incitement to the work tide." According to Liu Shaoqi's instructions, Meng Jian carried out patient work on Chang Baoyu and finally persuaded him. When Chang Baoyu returned to the hall, he denied all the confessions made during the interrogation at the spinning mill.

rescue

Moreover, the comrades of the provincial party committee organs did not see Liu Shaoqi and Meng Jian for several days, nor did they hear any news from them, and they were very anxious and worried about their safety. The provincial party committee immediately sent Yang Yichen to inquire about the news.

Yang Yichen, an organization officer of the organization department of the provincial party committee, found the secretary of the regiment branch of the spinning mill and learned from him that something had happened, and Liu Shaoqi was caught by the police of the spinning mill together with Meng Jian. Based on this situation, the provincial party committee decided to send Yang Yichen to the enemy's prison to inquire again to see if Liu Shaoqi and Meng Jian had been sent there, because according to custom, the police of the spinning mill could not detain people for too long.

Coincidentally, there was a party member named Zhou Shichang who was still in prison. Zhou was an old party member who joined the party in France and showed great strength after his arrest and did not divulge party secrets. His sentence was almost full, and the enemy took good care of him, so he was allowed to sell the prison's own soy sauce at the prison gate. There was a small counter with an iron fence at the window, and no one could get out, so they had to pick up bottles from the gap in the iron bars. Yang Yichen pretended to buy soy sauce, handed the bottle in, and handed in a note that said, trying to find out whether there were arrested party members and what their names were.

Zhou Shichang looked at it and whispered, "Now there is only the bottom left of soy sauce, it's not good, come back every two or three days!" ”

Yang Yichen understood the meaning, nodded and returned.

According to the scheduled time, Yang Yichen came to find Lao Zhou again. Lao Zhou handed him a bottle full of soy sauce, along with a note. Walking to no man's land, Yang opened the note and knew that Lao Zhou had confirmed through another party member in prison, Lao Zhang (yang Jingyu), that two people had recently been detained, one of whom was named Cheng Bingzhen. Yang Yichen analyzed that Liu Shaoqi must have been arrested, and Cheng Bingzhen was his pseudonym in prison, so he hurriedly reported to the provincial party committee.

The provincial party committee reported to the central authorities on the one hand, and on the other hand, tried to rescue and sent Yang Yichen to visit the prison.

Yang Yichen came to the prison with some fruits and snacks, and waited at the prison reception office to meet with "Cheng Bingzhen". After a while, the person was brought, and sure enough, it was Liu Shaoqi.

This place of meeting the prisoners, with an iron railing in the middle, is some distance away from each other, and it is impossible to shake hands. There were jailers on both sides watching, always urging: "Hurry, hurry, hurry, the time is up, you can't talk about it." "On such an occasion, of course, it cannot be discussed in detail.

Yang Yichen asked, "How?" ”

"It doesn't matter, I guess I can go out in a few days, please don't worry." Liu Shaoqi answered.

Yang Yichen knew that the situation was not serious, so he turned to asking, "What else do you need?" ”

"No need, just save some money."

Yang said, "I can find a shopkeeper to be the guarantor." ”

Liu Shaoqi nodded.

Bidding farewell, Yang saved 240 yuan in tickets from the prison guards, equivalent to 20 oceans, for Liu Shaoqi to spend some money when he was released from prison, and found a shop as a guarantor.

A few days later, the party organization also arranged for He Baozhen to visit him once in prison.

Out

A week later, the court heard. The presiding judge was a foreign student who had just returned from studying in Japan, dressed in a judge's dress, and sat at the trial table with full fanfare. After interrogating Meng Jian, he then interrogated Liu Shaoqi: "What is your name?" ”

"Cheng Bingzhen."

The judge asked a few more questions, and Liu Shaoqi's answer was not inconsistent with the previous two times.

Then, the judge called Chang Baoyu up. Chang overturned the original confession, denied knowing Meng Jian, and insisted that the previous confession was forced by torture by the factory police.

In less than an hour, the court investigation was concluded. The judge saw that there was no physical evidence in the case file at all, and only a contradictory confession by Chang Baoyu, which was obviously insufficient to rely on.

A few days later, the Fengtian High Court's judgment on the "inciting labor tide" case came down. The verdicts against Liu Shaoqi and Meng Jian resulted: "Insufficient evidence, no prosecution, release on bail." ”

Chang Baoyu was sentenced to 40 days of detention for having a direct relationship with the spinning mill.

Due to the prior arrangement of the guarantor, Liu Shaoqi was taken by the bailiff to a small inn called Baoxingdian and released. After Liu Shaoqi was released from prison, he specially told Meng Jian to send someone to visit Chang Baoyu and send him some things.

The comrades of the Manchurian Provincial CPC Committee were naturally very happy to see that Liu Shaoqi and Meng Jian had escaped from danger safely, and immediately reported the situation to the central authorities. Subsequently, the central government called back, and Liu Shaoqi continued to serve as the secretary of the Manchurian Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, concurrently serving as the propaganda director. In this way, Liu Shaoqi once again took up the heavy burden of leading the party's work in the northeast.

——Excerpt from the third issue of "Party History Bocai", 2009