In the context of the CCP, the term “democratic parties” refers to the collective term for eight political parties other than the CCP that participate in politics, namely the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (DRC), the China Democratic League (CDL), the China Democratic National Construction Association (CDNCA), the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy (CDPA), the China Peasants and Workers Democratic Party (CPP), the China Zhi Gong Party (CGP), the Jiu San Society (JSS), and the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League (TDS). Jiu San Society and Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League (TDSL). Under the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), these eight parties are no doubt mere vases, so they are also called “satellite parties”.
These “satellite parties” played a significant role in the implementation of the CCP’s United Front before and after the establishment of the CCP. However, although they were known as “liver and guts” by the CCP, and although they made great achievements for the CCP, they were not spared in the political storm that the CCP started. In particular, during the Cultural Revolution, a large number of high-ranking officials of the democratic parties, representatives of the upper echelons of industry and commerce, as well as leading figures of ethnic minorities, religions and overseas Chinese, and senior non-party intellectuals, were raided and seized.
The Democratic Revolution, the first of the eight democratic parties, was founded in 1948. In its early days, it was mainly composed of leftists of the Kuomintang and their descendants during the Nationalist-Communist civil war, as well as Kuomintang military and political personnel who defected to the Chinese Communist Party, represented by Song Qingling, who was appointed by the Chinese Communist Party as vice president of the state and chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Because of the association of its members with the KMT in Taiwan, its unification goals are very clear. Also because of this association, some of the top officials of the Democratic Revolutionary Party were persecuted either mentally or physically as never before in the campaign launched by the CCP. Since Song Qingling has already been introduced in “National Chairmen and Vice Chairmen Persecuted by the CCP,” this article will not be included.
Zhang Zhizhong, Vice Chairman of the Democratic Revolution, died of depression
Zhang Zhizhong, Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolutionary Party after 1949, was a former second-ranking general in the Kuomintang Army and one of Chiang Kai-shek’s top four confidants. When he was the chairman of the Hunan Provincial Government and the provincial security commander, he was suspected of burning Changsha and caused public outrage. Chiang Kai-shek once said, “The burning of Changsha is a thousand times more shameful and sad than the pain of defeat.” But Chiang did not shoot him, but only dismissed him from his post.
Zhang Zhizhong, who was so trusted by Chiang Kai-shek, was the only KMT general who had not fought the Chinese Communist Party, and in the end betrayed Chiang and helped the Chinese Communist Party seize power.
After the victory of the war in August 1945, in order to avoid war again, Chiang Kai-shek invited Mao Zedong to Chongqing for negotiations, Zhang Zhizhong personally went to Yan’an to pick up Mao to Chongqing, and also escorted him back. As the representative of the National Government, Zhang Zhizhong, Zhou Enlai and Marshall, the special envoy of the U.S. President, formed a three-person team responsible for the military integration of the two sides of the Communist Party. Zhang often complained to Marshall about the National Government and propagandized on behalf of the CCP, objectively promoting U.S. distrust of the National Government and disgust with its corruption, and thus the U.S. also reduced its assistance to Chiang militarily.
The three-year civil war, with CCP spies inside and generals colluding with the CCP outside, coupled with the KMT’s military blunders, loose organization, and internal corruption, the KMT’s defeat became apparent in early 1949. The Nationalist government proposed to make peace talks with the CCP, and the policy was to oppose the CCP’s crossing of the river and “rule by dividing the river”. In April of that year, Zhang Zhizhong led a delegation to Beiping to negotiate with Mao Zedong. Due to the lack of sincerity of Mao and the Chinese Communist Party, Zhang Zhizhong brought back the Agreement (Draft) which included the conditions of “punishing war criminals” and “crossing the river by the Liberation Army”, and the Acting President Li Zongren finally did not sign it. Chiang Kai-shek, who was in opposition, angrily denounced Zhang Zhizhong as “incompetent and a disgrace to his country”.
Subsequently, Zhang Zhizhong defected to the CCP in Beiping and persuaded the defenders of Xinjiang to surrender without fighting. After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhang Zhizhong was treated with courtesy by Mao and served as vice chairman of the Northwest Military and Political Committee, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolution, and director of the Working Committee for the Peaceful Liberation of Taiwan. Under the patronage of Mao and Zhou, he escaped one campaign after another launched after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, although he did express his discontent.
According to the recollection of Zhang Su-mei, Zhang Zhizhong’s eldest daughter, during the “anti-rightist” movement, Zhang Zhizhong did not understand the movement and expressed different views, and spoke at length on the issue of the Party and the non-Party. At the same time, he was quite critical of the “anti-rightist” campaign of the DRC and had a negative attitude. His words and actions aroused the discontent of some people, and overnight the DRC compound was plastered with large-character posters of Shao Lizi and him. Due to the intervention of Mao and Zhou, the matter was not settled.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Zhang Zhizhong and his wife were still on vacation in Beidaihe when a group of Red Guards came to their home to “break the Four Olds”. After receiving a phone call from his daughter, Zhang Zhizhong returned home from Beidaihe early. On the day he arrived home, that is, August 28, the Red Guards came again to sweep, upstairs and downstairs, rummaging through boxes, smashing vases, and finally took a fruit knife and a sword, and went away. Before leaving, the Red Guards also chided: “You have no leader statue, no Mao quotations, no revolutionary atmosphere, to immediately take down the wall paintings and replace them with photos and quotations.” Witnessing this scene with his own eyes, Zhang Zhizhong said to his secretary and family members with emotion: “For years to come, this will be a big joke!” And so it was.
Soon after the Red Guards left, the secretary ran to the Xinhua bookstore and bought a Mao portrait and Mao quotations to hang. The secretary inadvertently hung a “revolution is not a dinner invitation, not an article, not painting and embroidery, can not be so elegant, so calm and unhurried, literate and courteous, so gentle and frugal. Revolution is a riot, a violent action of a class to overthrow a class”. Zhang Zhizhong was very unhappy when he read it and asked the secretary where it came from. The secretary said it was the words of the “Hunan Peasant Movement Study Report”, after listening, Zhang Zhizhong did not say a word.
Soon after, Zhang Su my husband, working in the Ministry of Water Resources Zhou Jiabin was isolated censorship. Zhang Zhizhong, who was under special protection, became more and more incomprehensible about the Cultural Revolution and had a heavy heart as he watched old cadres and ministers he used to know being beaten down, paraded in the streets and even forced to die. In Zhang Su’s eyes, Zhang Zhizhong was “very silent and did not speak from then on, looking at the newspaper every day without saying a word.
Under such mental torture, Zhang Zhizhong died of depression in April 1969, at the age of 79. Zhang Su I don’t think he had any very serious illness, but was just chronically unhappy and uncomfortable all the time. During his last three years, he asked his son Zhang Yichun, who returned from work every night, about the Cultural Revolution, asking who had been beaten down and who had been raided. He was so disgusted with the Cultural Revolution that he once told his son: “The Cultural Revolution is even more chaotic than the warlord’s chaotic war. No one could control anyone, and the government’s words were useless.
After Zhang Zhizhong passed away, the Chinese Communist Party held a farewell ceremony for his body. I wonder if Zhang Zhizhong understood until his death that Mao and the CCP were the originators of the Cultural Revolution, and that it was a tragedy that he had been deceived for decades. During his lifetime, did he regret that he betrayed Chiang Kai-shek and followed such a tyrannical Chinese Communist Party?
Deng Baoshan, vice chairman of the Democratic Revolution, committed suicide by swallowing opium
Deng Baoshan, born in 1894 in Qinzhou, Gansu Province (today’s Shui Shui), was a prominent figure in the Republican era, having joined the League of Nations, participated in the protector movement and the French movement, served as the commander of the First Division of the Provisional Army in Shaanxi Province, and was a famous general in the northwest. At that time, the Chinese Communist Party joined the Kuomintang at the will of the Communist International and developed under its shell.
It was also during this period that Deng Baoshan began to contact the Chinese Communist Party, and the director of his officers’ training institute in Shaanxi was a member of the Chinese Communist Party, with advisors from the Soviet Union. There were also many CCP members in the General Command of the Nationalist Alliance in Shaanxi at that time, such as the Zhongshan Military School and Zhongshan College founded by the General Command, with Deng Xiaoping and Li Zizhou as Director of the Political Department and Vice President respectively, the latter also being one of the founders of the CCP organization. Deng Baoshan had close cooperation with them.
After the “September 18” Incident in 1931, when Japan invaded Northeast China, Deng Baoshan was appointed by the Nanjing National Government as the Director of the Shaanxi Appeasement Office in Gansu, and later as the Commander of the First Army of the New Army. After Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng staged a military revolt in Xi’an in December 1936 and arrested Chiang Kai-shek, Deng Baoshan sided with the Chinese Communist Party and gave support to Zhang and Yang, and went to Xi’an at Yang’s invitation.
After The Japanese invasion of China in 1937, Deng Baoshan was appointed by the Kuomintang government as the head of the 21st Army and stationed in Yulin. During this period, he went to Yan’an several times to meet with Mao Zedong, Zhu De and others. There is information on the Internet that Deng not only smoked opium but also grew opium, and opened the door for mutual convenience with Yan’an. At that time, Yan’an sold the opium he grew to the National Unification Area. This naturally made the Chinese Communist Party overjoyed, Mao said it “for the virtue of the great, more dare not forget”, while Chiang Kai-shek did not notice.
After the victory of the war, Deng Baoshan was appointed by the national government as the commander of the Jin-Shaanxi-Sui border area and deputy commander of the North China “suppression general”, it can be said that at this time, Deng’s inner scales have been completely inclined to the CPC, and become one of its internal agents. signed the agreement on Fu’s behalf.
After 1949, Deng Baoshan, who had done such a great service for the CPC and was considered an “old friend” of the CPC, served as a member of the Northwest Military Commission, chairman and governor of Gansu Provincial Government, member of the National Defense Commission, and vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolution.
When Deng Baoshan was serving in Gansu, he lived in a secluded alley outside the Guangwu Gate in Lanzhou City, which was not special from the outside, but he found something else after entering. Because there was a small garden and rockery at home, it was called “Deng Family Garden”. It was purchased by Deng Baoshan in 1932. When the Japanese bombed Lanzhou in 1941, Deng’s wife Cui Jinqin was killed here with her children.
Deng Baoshan was largely untouched by the campaigns launched by the Chinese Communist Party after 1949 due to his special background, but he did not escape the Cultural Revolution in the end. In fact, before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Deng Baoshan was already at home in bed, and the provincial government was presided over by Hu Jizong, secretary of the provincial party committee and executive vice governor. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the Gansu Provincial Party Committee also followed the pace of Beijing and the rest of the country, criticizing and killing, and Jiang Longji, the president of Lanzhou University at the time, was too humiliated to kill himself.
When the Gansu Provincial Committee was looking for typical representatives to criticize in order to promote the Cultural Revolution, a group of Red Guards who claimed that “the rebellion was justified” came to Lanzhou from Beijing in late August 1966 and pointed their fingers at the Gansu Provincial Committee, pushing the main leaders to the podium of the General Assembly for criticism. The Gansu Provincial Committee was paralyzed, but Deng Baoshan was not noticed for the time being.
However, in November another group of Beijing Red Guards of middle school students arrived in Lanzhou, and they stormed directly into Deng’s garden. Deng’s daughter, Deng Yingyi, recalls that the Red Guards stormed in in the morning and did not leave until noon. They entered the house without any reason, scurrying from room to room and found a sword engraved with the words “Presented by Jiang Zhongzheng”, which became the evidence of Deng’s reaction. The sick Deng Baoshan was pulled up from his bed and forced to kneel on the floor, while the Red Guards pulled out their swords and put them on his neck to interrogate and criticize him. It took a morning of tossing and turning before they left and took away the sword and other things. Deng Baoshan was badly frightened.
After the incident became known in Beijing, Deng Baoshan was taken to Beijing for medical treatment. Two years later, in November 1968, Deng Baoshan committed suicide by swallowing opium at the age of 74, and the official communist message was “died of illness”, and the memorial service for Deng was held only three years after the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1979. Who can blame Deng Baoshan, who helped the Chinese Communist Party, for ending up in such a state?
Mei Gongbin, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolution, was imprisoned for eight years
In August 1929, Mei Gongbin received a special assignment from the Chinese Communist Party and went to Japan as Gao Qiaoping, a student studying in Japan. While meeting with a Japanese Communist liaison, Mei Gongbin was arrested and held in a Japanese prison for over a year, and spent half a year recuperating in Japan after his release. It was also during this time that he befriended Hu Qiuyuan of the Shenzhou Guoguang Society, through whom he met Kuomintang generals Chen Mingshu and Li Jishen.
Upon his return to China in 1931, Mei Gongbin officially changed his name and conducted secret activities as a university professor and writer. After the failed mutiny in 1934, Mei Gongbin retreated with the 19th Route Army to Hong Kong, where he began his long career as an undercover agent and thus met many democrats and left-leaning members of the Kuomintang and carried out united warfare against them.
In 1947, Mei Gongbin was again instructed by Pan Hannian to assist Li Jishen in preparing for the establishment of the Democratic Revolution. Soon after, the Democratic Revolution was established in Hong Kong, with Song Qingling elected as honorary chairman, Li Jishen as chairman, and Mei Gongbin as a member of the Central Executive Committee. It is said that Mei Gongbin personally drafted all the documents when the DRC was established.
After the founding of the DRC, it played an important role in unifying the senior generals of the Kuomintang as well as the democrats and intellectuals for the CCP, among which the contribution of Mei Gongbin cannot be underestimated. History shows that from August 1948 until March 1949, Mei Gongbin sent democrats from Hong Kong to the CCP-occupied areas in four batches.
The first batch of democrats who went north included Shen Junru, Tan Pingshan, Cai Tingkai, Zhang Bojun and more than ten others. The second group on board included Guo Moruo, Ma Xulun, Xu Guangping’s mother and son, Chen Qiyou, Sha Qianli and others. The third batch had Li Jishen, Mao Dun couple, Zhu Yunshan, Zhang Naiqi, Peng Zemin, Deng Chumin, Wang Shaoguan, Liu Yazi, Ma Yinchu, Hong Shen, Shi Fuliang, Jian Bozan, Shen Zhiyuan, Sun Qiyu, Wu Maosun, Li Minxin and more than thirty others. The fourth group included Huang Yanpei, Sheng Pihua and others.
The Kuomintang at that time was very surprised by the sudden departure of these people from Hong Kong. Sadly, most of these above-mentioned people who believed in the CCP and Mei Gongbin did not escape the clutches of the CCP in the subsequent movement, except for those who died early.
Mei Gongbin accompanied Li Jishen to Beijing in 1949, and Li Weihan, who was then head of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, told him, “From now on, your organizational relations are transferred to the Central United Front Work Department, and you work as an undisclosed member of the Communist Party sent by the Central United Front Work Department to the Democratic Party.” From then on, Mei Gongbin all appeared as a democrat and served as the secretary-general of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolution for a long time, in charge of the great power of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolution. And until his death, the CCP did not recognize his membership in the CCP.
In 1955, Mao Zedong concocted the Pan Hannian injustice case to cover up the dark secret that he had colluded with the Japanese army, who was the person in charge of contact with the Japanese army in that year. Mei Gongbin, who was associated with Pan Hannian, was also implicated and was isolated and examined, and then put in prison for 8 years, and after his release, he was reformed through labor for another 8 years.
During this period, in 1975, Mei Gongbin died of depression at the age of 75. Did he ever realize what a point of no return he was taking when he was on his deathbed?
Jiang Guangnai, Vice Chairman of the DRC, and Cai Tingkai’s death
In November 1933, they refused to suppress the Communists, but held a mutiny in Fujian and established the “People’s Revolutionary Government of the Chinese Republic”, with Li Jishen as chairman. Li Jishen became the chairman and signed an agreement with the Chinese Communist Party’s pseudo-regime, the Provisional Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic, to stop military confrontation and start economic cooperation, while starting to oppose Chiang Kai-shek.
Later, Chiang Kai-shek sent his troops into Fujian and crushed the mutiny. Chiang and Cai fled to Hong Kong with some senior officers of the 19th Route Army, and the 19th Route Army was cancelled and incorporated by the Kuomintang.
Subsequently, under the coincidental words of Mei Gongbin and the Chinese Communist Party, the two returned to mainland China and were appointed to high positions after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party. Jiang Guangnai served as a member of the CPPCC, Minister of the Ministry of Textile Industry, Standing Committee of the National Committee of the CPPCC, and Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolution. Cai Tingkai served as a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC, a member of the Standing Committee of the NPC, Vice Chairman of the CPPCC, and Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the DRC.
In 1957, during the “Anti-Rightist” campaign, Jiang Guang’nai’s son Jiang Jianguo, who was studying at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, was labeled a “rightist”. Jiang Guang’nai was so disturbed by this incident that he sent his other 18-year-old son, Jiang Qingyu, to the army through Peng Dehuai, who was then Minister of National Defense, to study at the Dalian Naval Engineering Institute. But what he didn’t expect was that Peng Dehuai was criticized at the 1958 Lushan Conference, and Jiang Qingyu became the “black seedling” and “time bomb” of Peng’s arrangement in the “naval engineering”.
After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Guang’nai’s home was raided by a group of Red Guards. At that time, Jiang Guangnai was ill. When the female Red Guards broke into Jiang’s house, they fiercely told all of Jiang’s family members to gather in the living room and listen to them read out the “Ultimatum to the Democratic Party”, which was full of abusive words. Then they cursed and searched for anything of value and pulled it away.
After the Red Guards left, Jiang Guangnai was afraid that the fierce temperament of Cai Tingkai could not stand the sudden shock and insult, and urgently ordered his wife Huang Wanxia to call Cai Tingkai to prepare Cai’s mind, not to be impulsive, not to lose their temper, so as not to eat a big loss. Cai Tingkai received the phone, of course, very angry. He did not say a word, pacing back and forth in the house.
Later, as Zhang Shizhao, who had also been copied, wrote to Mao, who probably felt that these democrats still had value to use, and ordered the protection of 13 people, with Jiang and Cai also on the list. Although they did not continue to be attacked by the Red Guards, they had no one to talk to about their inner depression, and Jiang Guangnai passed away in 1967 in a state of depression. His son Jiang Jianguo recalls that once at his hospital bedside, Jiang Guangnai held his son’s hand with his non-drip hand and said, “Ah Guo, I don’t see you as bad, why do they say you are a rightist?” Jiang Jianguo faced his father’s doubts and did not tell him the answer until his father died.
A year later, Cai Tingkai also passed away in Beijing. I wonder if they saw the original face of the Chinese Communist Party before they passed away?
Death of Cheng Qian, Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolution
Cheng Qian, who was the vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic Revolutionary Party at the same time as Jiang Guangnai and Cai Tingkai, was a veteran of the Allied Association, the commander of the Sixth Army of the National Revolutionary Army during the Northern Expeditionary War, the commander of the First War Zone during the War of Resistance, and a general of the army. After the victory of the war, Cheng Qian was appointed as the chairman of Hunan Provincial Government, holding the power in Central China.
At that time, Cheng Qian was very conflicted in the face of the defeat of the Kuomintang. The CCP underground used Cheng Qian’s friend, Li Da, a professor at Hunan University, to analyze the situation and convince Cheng Qian to cooperate with the CCP. Cheng Qian, who loved Hunan and believed that the CPC could establish a democratic government, was somewhat swayed.
In February 1949, Chen Mingren, who had defeated Lin Biao in the northeast, took up the post of police commander in Changsha. In order to convince Chen to join the CPC, the CPC kept sending people to do work for him. In June, the two decided to cooperate with the CCP, and Cheng Qian also wrote a Memorandum to Mao, clearly indicating his determination to support peace. Thereafter, the Chinese Communist army entered Changsha smoothly and took control of Hunan.
Sadly, during the Cultural Revolution, Chen Mingren was beaten half to death by the Red Guards, and later became so angry and hateful that he became incurably ill in 1972 and passed away in 1974. And although Cheng Qian was on Mao’s list of 13 people to be protected, it did not end well.
According to the article “The Democratic Party in the Cultural Revolution” written by He Shu, in early 1968, Cheng Qian was admitted to a Beijing hospital after falling into a fracture at home, and Zhou Enlai sent a doctor and a nurse, who was the daughter-in-law of Lin Boqu, a very experienced head nurse. After the surgery plan was made, Zhou Enlai approved it. However, changes soon occurred, all the doctors and nurses sent by Zhou Enlai were removed, the treatment plan was all changed, and the medical staff who came up instead treated Cheng Qian in a rude manner.
When Cheng Qian asked for a massage due to leg pain, the staff even said, “You still let people wait on you? Anyone like you can put up large-print posters for you at any time.” Cheng Qian’s wife, Guo Yiqing, later said, “We have doubts about Cheng’s death. Because Cheng Lao’s health was very good, the doctor said basically recovered, but the hospital suddenly withdrew people, change the program. I’m afraid there could be political reasons for this.” So, who was behind it?
In April of the same year, Cheng Qian passed away, and the memorial service was held rather coldly. On the day after Cheng Qian’s death, the Hunan Provincial Revolutionary Committee was established, and in the editorials published in the People’s Daily and the Liberation Army Newspaper, “All the Sunshine in the Furong Country” and the “Tribute to Chairman Mao” adopted at the founding and celebration meeting, the history of the revolutionary struggle in Hunan was reviewed, but not a single word was mentioned about Cheng Qian’s work, and Mao’s “latest instructions” published in the editorial said that the Cultural Revolution was essentially a continuation of the long struggle between the CPC and the revolutionary masses under its leadership and the reactionary faction of the Kuomintang, and a new reference to “the remnants of the Kuomintang The new term “remnants of the Kuomintang” was also introduced.
Conclusion
Among the senior officials of the DRC who were called “remnants of the Kuomintang”, the above six are not the only ones who were persecuted by the CCP. Among the Standing Committee of the DRC, Chen Mingshu was branded as a “rightist”, Shao Lizi was criticized during the Cultural Revolution, Wang Kunlun was raided and imprisoned for seven years, Long Yun was raided, Qu Wu was imprisoned for more than six years, and Tang Shengzhi was imprisoned …….
These “remnants of the Kuomintang” who believed in the beautiful lies of the Chinese Communist Party, perhaps after experiencing the bloodshed, realized that the Chinese Communist Party, which could kill and persecute even those within the Party, would not be soft on those outside the Party and ordinary people, even those who helped themselves…. Only then would they understand what a devilish Party they were following. The party they follow is so full of magic. To this day, such a party is still using the DPRK to harm the people of Taiwan, and the DPRK’s so-called participation in politics is just a cover for shame.
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