year, **amnestyPeople are only known in hindsight.
In 1975, when the Deputy Prime Minister visited, he brought with him a list of war criminals who had not yet been released. He informed the President that only 13 war criminals remained to meet the criteria for amnesty.
After much deliberation, the chairman decided to let them all go. So why do these 13 war criminals not meet the criteria for amnesty? And why did the chairman decide that?
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, for the many Kuomintang generals who were captured by our army in the War of Liberation, we chose to give priority to pardon and reform, rather than simply and rudely executing the death penalty.
Among these generals, some were senior generals of the Kuomintang, some were famous anti-Japanese generals, but there were also some mediocre generals who had caused harm to the party and the people. The war is over, and we should look forward and give these people a chance to mend their ways.
Since 1955, the Kuomintang high-ranking war criminals from all over the country have been concentrated in Beijing Gongdelin, which is not only convenient for management, but also gives these people the opportunity to reflect on the past together and continue to exert their residual heat for the development of New China.
In an instant, the originally empty Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center instantly became a "gathering place" for Kuomintang war criminals. However, despite their gathering, the factional struggle between them is as always.
At that time, there were many factions within the Meritorious Forest, but the main distinction was between those who accepted the reformers and those who did not. The reformists who accept reform are mainly Du Yuming, Song Xilian and others, while the non-reformists led by **, Huang Wei and others are in contrast.
In the past ten years, the reformists have undergone the education and transformation of the people, realized their mistakes, voluntarily confessed their sins and repented, and vowed to contribute to the construction of New China.
The war criminals, who had not accepted reform, incited others in the Gongdelin and fantasized about Chiang Kai-shek's rescue. However, in fact, Chiang Kai-shek, in order to win the hearts and minds of the people, had already announced their sacrifice to the outside world.
However, there was no unity within the non-reformist faction, and many began to realize that the rehabilitated war criminals had been offered jobs after their release, and began to change their stance and rejoin the ranks of the rehabilitated ones.
One of the most typical examples is Pang Jingtang.
After Pang Jingtang entered Gongdelin, he always had a Kuomintang-style beard, and would stroke them every day, reminiscing about the "good times" of the past. However, starting in 1959, he decisively shaved off his beard, actively engaged in rehabilitation, and was successfully released in 1960.
Between 1959 and 1966, a total of five amnesties were granted to war criminals in Gongdelin, and most of the Kuomintang war criminals who were once full of evil chose to accept reform and walked out of Gongdelin one after another.
However, even in this case, there are still nearly 300 war criminals in the Kung Tak Lin who have not given up, some of them stubbornly resist reform, and some of them have committed serious crimes.
*, as a cousin of Chairman *** and a descendant of Wen Tianxiang, has a special status in the revolutionary cause. Although he had worked at the Whampoa Military Academy, he chose to join the Communist Party of China and fought for the revolutionary cause all his life.
However, on the issue of the rehabilitation of war criminals, ** chose to refuse to reform. Like other war criminals who refused to be rehabilitated, ** did not choose to undergo rehabilitation until 1975.
*Unfortunately in the battle with the Communist Party**, despite escaping from prison with the help of other members of the underground party, he was mistaken for a traitor by the leadership of the provincial party committee. ** Deeply dissatisfied with this, he switched to the Kuomintang and became a real traitor.
However, ** has always been suspicious of some of the leaders of the Communist Party and insisted on not admitting their mistakes. And Huang Wei has always been one of Chiang Kai-shek's cronies, and when he was young, he had a deep belief in the Kuomintang and admired Chiang Kai-shek to the extreme.
Chiang Kai-shek once inscribed Huang Wei, but due to negligence, it was written as "Pei I", and Huang Wei changed his name to "Pei I", showing how blind his worship of Chiang Kai-shek was.
Huang Wei is prejudiced against those who are willing to accept reform, believing that they have lost their face and national integrity. At a study meeting, when he heard that the four banks established by the Kuomintang were actually Chiang Kai-shek's private property, he suddenly asked: "Then are the Communist Party's banks the private property of ***?" ”
His remarks caused a lot of criticism, but he did not flinch, mocking these people with "the dragon was trapped in the shallows and was played with shrimp, and the tiger fell in Pingyang and was bullied by dogs". This led him to a fierce conflict with the team leader.
Under the education and inspiration of the Communist Party of China, many Kuomintang war criminals began to undergo reform and actively work. However, there are also some criminal war criminals who are unwilling to change, such as Huang Wei, who has spent decades studying perpetual motion machines in an attempt to prove the Chinese Communist Party's mistakes.
After being captured, another war criminal, Deng Zichao, not only refused to reform, but also instigated others to escape from prison. In the process of reform, he used self-harm and suicide as a means of resistance, and even led people to try to escape from prison, which seriously disrupted the reform work of Gongdelin.
Finally, in January 1951, Deng Zichao was executed. In addition to Deng Zichao, other Kuomintang war criminals who committed serious crimes were also executed one after another, and most of the rest were war criminals who were unwilling to undergo reform and labor.
In December 1974, when he passed by Gongdelin, he saw that many war criminals were still locked up inside, and he couldn't help but think deeply in his heart. After going back, ** discussed the matter with *** and decided to release the last group of war criminals.
He approached the Deputy Prime Minister and asked him to investigate the circumstances of these war criminals and then grant an amnesty. In the past, amnesty conditions required war criminals to have a good attitude of admitting their mistakes, actively reforming their minds, and actively participating in labor, but this amnesty has relaxed these conditions, and as long as war criminals are willing to admit their mistakes, they may be released.
Therefore, traitors like **, as well as perpetual motion machine researchers like Huang Wei, have been successfully unleashed.
Even though the conditions for amnesty were relaxed, the basic principle of amnesty remained unchanged, that is, amnesty exempted prisoners from punishment, but not forgiveness for their crimes. As a result, it is very difficult for some prisoners who have committed serious crimes to be released if they do not meet the conditions described above.
According to this criterion,** out of 293 war criminals, 13 were screened out of those who did not qualify for amnesty. Many of these people have made serious mistakes and killed a large number of communists and civilians, and the rest are people who would rather die than admit their mistakes.
It was originally intended that these people would be allowed to go through a period of labor reform, and then decide whether to release them or not, depending on the situation. However, when he saw Zhou Yanghao, who was once known as the Three Musketeers of Military Merit, in the list, he hesitated.
Zhou Yanghao did many evils and killed many Communist Party members, but now he has no remorse. If he is released like this, he will not be able to face those comrades who have died. So, he decided to talk to ***.
At the beginning of 1975, ** approached *** with the list and told him that he was thinking about what to do with the few remaining people who had committed more serious crimes and were unrepentant.
Let's let these people go too. "But Chairman, they ......"Say no more, just do it. ”
** Tolerance and generosity, which means that there is no longer a need to force war criminals to undergo reform, believing that they are too old to make any waves. ** Deeply shocked by this and completed the follow-up work as instructed by the Chair.
However, the reason behind it was not only the magnanimity of the chairman, who also made a well-thought-out decision with a detailed understanding of the situation of each war criminal.
According to *** recollection, ** knew the families and health of the various war criminals well. He believed that these people would not pose a threat to society when they returned to society, even if they might defect to Chiang Kai-shek again.
Facts have proved that most of the war criminals chose to stay on the mainland because their relatives and friends were here, and they were willing to contribute to the new China. And those war criminals in Taiwan handed in their reports, hoping to get permission from *** to let them go back to visit their families.
Regardless of their status, ** always adhered to the spirit of leniency, agreed to their requests without exception, and generously donated money for the journey. Watching these war criminals return to Taiwan, Du Yuming, Song Xilian and others also felt the same way and walked to the airport together.
Time flies, and the generals who were once heroic on the battlefield are now different from each other, and everyone has different feelings in their hearts. By the time this group of war criminals returned to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek, although still alive, had taken a back seat and handed over all political affairs to his son Chiang Ching-kuo.
In the face of these returning Kuomintang generals, Chiang Ching-kuo's heart was full of contradictions and at a loss.
Before Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, he regarded these generals as martyrs, and their spirit tablets remained in the Martyrs' Shrine. Now, these generals plan to return to Taiwan, if they are accepted, will it have an impact on the morale of the military?
But if they are not accepted, the morale of the military will also be affected. After careful consideration, Chiang Ching-kuo put forward a condition: "Before coming back, they must make their position clear." ”
This proposal displeased the Kuomintang veterans.
Chiang Ching-kuo slandered them as Communist spies, and under pressure, the former war criminal Zhang Tieshi committed suicide to prove his innocence, causing other Kuomintang generals to angrily criticize Chiang Ching-kuo.
At the behest of ***, rearrange their residence and work to ensure they are secured. However, they were never able to see their families in Taiwan. The release of war criminals shows the tolerance and justice of New China, and also makes the international community understand that Taiwan's abuse and smear of war criminals are false, and conveys to the people of Taiwan that the people of the mainland always regard Taiwan as a family and have no hostility to anyone.
The people of Taiwan have also noticed that the Kuomintang leader Chiang's father and son have always been inconsistent in their words and deeds, and they are selfish villains. In the face of their comrades-in-arms who once gave their lives for them, they cruelly turned their backs, which is unacceptable.
In the long run, the chairman's foresight in releasing war criminals is admirable. Although the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have not been able to share the same table of food so far, I firmly believe that, just like the magnanimity of President ***, one day, the people of Taiwan will return to the embrace of the motherland and realize cross-strait reunion.