Columnist of the Observer Network Yang Du
Taiwanese writer and cultural critic
01
"I was the one who came to change the flag, and I was caught and wanted to shoot it off, and I had nothing to say. If the revolution succeeds and the flag is changed, I will arrest them as well. Liquidate the crimes they have committed against the people. ”
This is my answer to Chen Mingzhong when I interviewed him and asked him if he would hate those who tortured him and imprisoned him. "Shoot it off" means shooting.
Chen Mingzhong, the "last political death row inmate in Taiwan" who walked through the Japanese occupation period, the "228 Incident", the White Terror, and the two-time imprisonment, a man who lived an iron and well-known life, passed away in the early morning of November 21. Say goodbye to his ninety years of struggle and embark on a journey that he has already fearlessly embarked on.
Once I talked to Hou Xiaoxian about Chen Mingzhong, and he said:
"Chen Mingzhong is a natural leader, no matter where he goes. Politics is the leader, even if it is to go to the underworld, it must be the boss. Man has a temperament, which is innate. ”
He said it very accurately. In Chen Mingzhong's personality, there is a very charming leadership temperament, that is, integrity and frankness, never bending corners, full of courage, launching fierceness, sometimes close to killing; to fight, it is always a straight ball duel, and there is nothing to fear. Whether to comrades or enemies, his character is always the same.
But he was a man of wisdom and introspection.
He was born in a landlord family, and has been a young master since he was a child, and he has been waited for by someone. When he came home from school, the servants of the house would say to him, "Are you back?" master. " Respectful attitude. When he saw their humble attitude, he thought of the arrogant attitude of his Japanese classmates in school, and the way his Taiwanese classmates bowed their knees, wasn't that a portrayal of masters and slaves? He felt guilty and had an awakening that people should not live like this.
Because he was used to being a young master, Chen Mingzhong had a natural arrogant and mischievous and rebellious personality, and the more he was oppressed, the more he had to resist.
Chen Mingzhong was born in 1929, when Taiwan's peasant groups had been outlawed, social movements had been suppressed, and many leaders had been arrested. In fact, in the process of his growth, some leftist books and anti-imperialist theories have been banned and removed from the shelves, and Japan has moved toward militarism. Therefore, he could only find answers to his thoughts in his uncle's bookshelf or in the books of his elders.
The biggest irritation for him was that when he was in middle school, he once had a conflict with a Japanese classmate, and he won the battle. Later, when the class was over, the teacher left, and the Japanese students in the class closed the front and back doors, so that he could not escape, surrounded by a collective beating, so that his eyes could not be opened, and then told him fiercely: "You are not allowed to fight with the Japanese, but you cannot win." ”
This made him realize thoroughly that he was not Japanese in any way, and no education could compare with this lesson. Why the Japanese called him a "slave of the Qing Dynasty", why they despised him and bullied him so much, have now been clearly understood. At that time, the Japanese colonial government adopted a policy of discrimination in education, and the proportion of middle school students was four-fifths of Japanese, and Taiwanese could only occupy one-fifth, so it was not easy to get into middle school. As a minority, the Taiwanese simply cannot have a chance to win.
Chen Mingzhong juvenile photo
Therefore, during the Japanese occupation period, he could only passively resist, such as when he was a soldier, he did not seriously perform his duties, or faced oppression, endured beatings, but did not do things seriously. But these increased oppressions increased his endurance of resistance.
It was not until after his recovery that he went to Taichung Agricultural College to study and participated in the "228 Incident" that his life changed completely.
02
The "228 Incident" occurred in 1947, when Chen Mingzhong was eighteen years old. After the Nationalist Government came to Taiwan in 1945 to take over, due to the corruption of the Chen Yi government, the corruption of the Nationalist army, the serious unemployment of the economy, inflation and other reasons, the people's resentment was rife, and finally because of a ban on illegal smoking, it caused a riot in Taipei City. Protesters went to the Executive Yuan to demonstrate, the military and police set up machine guns to strafe the upper floors of the Executive Yuan, the protesters fled to surround the radio station, occupy the radio station, broadcast to the whole of Taiwan, and the whole riot began.
At 10:00 a.m. on February 28, 1947, protesters surrounded the Taipei Branch of the Taiwan Provincial Monopoly Bureau after the Roundabout Tobacco Seizure Incident. (Infographic/Wikipedia)
The "228 Incident" was a turning point in his life. Originally, he only had a little idea of equality, rebelling against authority and authoritarian justice, but as soon as the incident broke out, he went to the mass meeting and attacked the education association, and in order to avoid the school teachers being beaten by the people of this province, he quickly returned to Taichung Agricultural College and asked his classmate Lin Yuanyuan to protect the teachers from other provinces first. His heroism and leadership are evident.
He is clearly good at leading the masses and taking action. When the situation in Taichung was already controlled by Xie Xuehong, and when he heard that Kaohsiung's resistance had been suppressed by Peng Mengji and suffered heavy casualties, he decided to go to Puli to find the soldiers of the Sidek tribe and go to Kaohsiung to participate in the battle. When he recruited twenty or thirty soldiers who were willing to follow and were about to return to Taichung to find a car to carry people, Xie Xuehong and others had already retreated to Puli because the Nationalist army had landed from Keelung and launched a strong crackdown. He also organized people and horses, set up a "death squad", and sniped at the nationalist army in Puli.
Chen Mingzhong, who was only eighteen years old at the time, was admired by Xie Xuehong and asked him to follow him, so he was able to hear Xie Xuehong discuss the layout and organization of the war with the underground communists of the CCP. That is, the rebels in Taichung will be formed into the "Taiwan Democratic United Army", while the rebels led by Chiayi Zhang Zhizhong and Jian Ji will form the "Taiwan Democratic United Army". "Democratic autonomy" was the root cause of the later establishment of the "Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League" in Hong Kong.
In Chen Mingzhong's account, the cause of the "228 Incident" was, of course, an occasional mass uprising, but once it occurred, the original underground organization system would be launched. At that time, although the underground party of the CPC only had more than seventy members in Taiwan, it did play a leading role in some areas by taking advantage of the people's enthusiasm and indignation in Taiwan. And these leaders are not without cause, but social activists who have been rebelling since the Japanese occupation.
Like Zhang Zhizhong and Jian Ji of the "Taiwan Democratic Coalition Army", they were active organizers of the Taiwan peasant movement from the beginning of the 1920s. Jian Ji once organized the Taiwan peasant group, linked with the Japanese working peasant group, the Japanese Communist Party, etc., to support each other, and had more than 24,000 members in Taiwan, with great influence.
Therefore, as soon as Japan surrendered in 1945, these social activists who dared to rebel against the Japanese became the leaders of Taiwan, maintaining social order that gradually fell out of order after Japan's defeat in the war, and maintaining Taiwan's stability. It was these people who enabled the Nationalist government to smoothly take over Taiwan. On the contrary, the corruption of the National Government disappointed these people, and eventually rebelled in the "228 Incident".
After the "228" period, the original rebels went into exile one after another, Xie Xuehong and others went to Hong Kong to organize the "Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League" (that is, the "Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League" in the mainland now), while Zhang Zhizhong, Jian Ji and other cadres of the peasant group were ordered to stay in Taiwan and continue to carry out underground resistance because they had a broad mass base.
The Taiwanese, who harbored the unfair heart of the suppression of "228", began to realize that China not only has a "white motherland", but also another "red motherland", so they organized themselves and participated in underground rebellions through book clubs and other means. From about seventy in 1947 to more than 1,200 in 1949.
Leaders of Taiwan's "228" movement, Communist Party members Xie Xuehong (front row first from left) and Yang Kehuang (back row left)
Chen Mingzhong did not go into exile after the "228", but stayed in Taiwan, joined the underground party, and was arrested and imprisoned during the White Terror of the 1950s. During this time, he finally had to meet more than a thousand underground party members who had been arrested. It includes rebels, intellectuals, and social activists of the Japanese occupation era.
He was only twenty years old that year, and like a student, he was studying his "revolutionary university" in prison. He saw one handsome young man after another, straightened his waist, sent away his belongings, sang songs, and walked to the execution ground. Like a memory of an era, he remembers their stories, preserves the imprints of the times, understands the ins and outs of history, and waits for the day when the story can be recounted.
I asked him, what do you think of this period of history, will you want revenge?
On the contrary, he said very frankly: Because of this experience, there is no hatred in his heart. "I am here for the revolution, I am the one who has come to change the national flag, the revolution is not successful, and it is right to kill the head." I ask for mercy and have no regrets in my life. It is a pity that the revolution was supposed to succeed, but it was lost because of the Korean War. So I don't blame the Kuomintang, but the United States for blocking the last step. ”
Compared with the families of many political victims I have interviewed, his determination and perseverance, his sober and calm judgment of the situation, and the spirit of "heroes do not shed tears" have given me an insight into the arrogance of revolutionaries.
After his first release from prison (arrested in July 1950)
03
Chen Mingzhong's "revolutionary university" has also added a "bloodline" to the fractured history.
Taiwan has been under martial law for 38 years under the White Terror, and basically all the social movements, peasant movements, and cultural movements of the Japanese occupation era have lost their true appearance, especially in the 1920s, when the left-wing movements around the world were in full swing, and those wonderful histories were almost purged. Even the history associated with social movements has been completely eliminated from textbooks, libraries, publications, news reports, and research topics.
In the early 1980s, when I began to study the history of the Japanese occupation era, I could hardly find any record of social movements except for the fragments in the old newspapers and magazines under the Japanese occupation.
Anti-communist fear of communism in Taiwan is omnipresent. Even after 2000, Taiwan history became a prominent study, but it was only the history of the non-left, and once it was related to socialism, it became sensitive and silent.
In 2003, when I was working on the documentary "Restoring "228"," my biggest difficulty was that I couldn't find the true story. Only Chen Mingzhong and Mr. Lin Shuyang frankly came forward to be interviewed and assisted in arranging subsequent interviews. They seem to be a living dictionary, a dictionary of human nature, a living witness of history. From the early days of restoration to the "228", from the white terror to the non-party movement, they have witnessed with their lives the world that is real as ever, human nature is true, warm and loving.
Therefore, Chen Mingzhong has one of the most special significances: it continues the history of The Left wing in Taiwan, which has been interrupted, erased, and eliminated. Only with this left-hand history can Taiwan's history be considered complete.
And that period of history, unlike political propaganda, is that it is full of humanity and temperature. For example, Xie Xuehong invited the Sidek people to join the "228" resistance army in the Fog Society, and when the mayor of the Fog Society objected, he only said that most of us died during the "Fog Society Incident", and the Takasa Volunteer Brave Team died most of the time, and now that we have the next generation of children, we should not participate anymore.
This was something that Chen Mingzhong only knew when he went to work in the Fog Society and wanted to organize the Sidek people for the underground party. In the underground party's plan, if the Fog Society is well organized, there is Jiaobanshan Mountain in the north, Alishan Mountain in the south, and there is the Fog Society, and the entire Central Mountain Range is integrated, which is the Yan'an of Taiwan's red guerrilla warfare.
Since Jian Ji is in charge of the Mountain Committee, the area covers Taoyuan Kokubanshan, Taichung Wushe Zhushan, chiayi Alishan, and the number of indigenous people involved in white terror cases is very high in terms of proportion. But Chen Mingzhong, who knows the inside story, said that there are definitely more organizations in the Mountain Committee, and many people — including Gao Yongqing, the wife of Jiro Hanaoka in the "Kirishe Incident"— have joined the underground party, but Jian Ji and the farmers' group have not confessed and protected them as much as possible.
If Chen Mingzhong had not said it, such a secret history would have been drowned. This also became an important source for me to write a biography of Janji later.
04 In 1950, Chen Mingzhong was imprisoned and sentenced to ten years in prison. After his release from prison, he did not change his mind, and while doing business, he had contacts with people outside the party, such as Huang Shunxing, Kang Ningxiang, Yu Dengfa, and others, and contributed money to sponsor the non-party movement. In 1976, after Huang Shunxing's daughter Huang Nina visited the mainland and met Yang Side and other senior CCP officials, she was arrested when she returned to Taiwan and was asked who was most deeply influenced by her, and he was arrested twice.
On Father's Day on August 8, 1981, Chen Mingzhong's family visited Green Island
This time he endured all kinds of cruelest torture. Some people say that there are four stages of torture to extract confessions, and very few people can pass the first stage. By the second stage, all confessions will be made, and even if he forces you to admit that you stole the ancient well, you will admit it. By the third stage, no one could stop it. Chen Mingzhong, on the other hand, passed the fourth stage, not only not to confess others, but also to protect many non-party figures.
So the torturer asked him, "What martial arts have you practiced that you can withstand?" Chen Mingzhong replied, "If you decide to die, you will no longer be afraid." ”
This great torture has left all kinds of scars on his body. The foot was injured by the tiger stool, and the central nervous system in the back was damaged. Later, it was rescued by overseas fishing activists and Amnesty International that he was saved from death. So he laughed all his life and called himself "the last political death row prisoner."
Chen Mingzhong's faith in his life has not changed. After being released from prison, he was successful in business and spared no effort to help his friends. The day before he was imprisoned twice, he handed over the funds for the preparation of the non-party magazine "Xia Chao" to Chen Yingzhen, and after his arrest, even if he was beaten to death, he never confessed to Chen Yingzhen and other non-party friends. In 1987, with the help of Chiang Ching-kuo's secretary Ma Ying-jeou, he was released on medical parole. In the following decades, he participated in the organization of the "Summer Tide Friendship Association", "Mutual Aid Association for Political Victims", "China Unification Alliance", "Workers' Party" and other organizations.
In 1997, Mr. and Mrs. Chen Mingzhong invited Ma Ying-jeou, who had just left his "Minister of Justice" to return to teach at Chengchi University, to thank him for his assistance in arranging medical parole that year.
On February 27, 2005, in order to change the KMT's perception and taboo of the "228 Incident", he was invited to give a speech to the Party Department of the KMT Central Committee and gave Lien Chan, then chairman of the PARTY, a key symbolizing the "key to reconciliation", hoping that he would open up cross-strait peace. This opened the way for Lien Chan's trip to the mainland.
Throughout his life, Chen Mingzhong carried idealistic overtones and devoted himself to the cause of peaceful reunification of the two sides of the strait, like a classical personality, upright and courageous, fearless as a hero, speaking for justice, and witnessing history.
In the late autumn, his death reminds people of Su Qingli, Chen Yingzhen, and Wang Jinping, who have passed away one after another in recent years, and in a sense, the exemplary figures with idealism are entering history. And how will the new generation look to the future from this historical reflection?
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