Chinese Communist Party Spokesperson
Sternly Exposes Collusion between Chiang
Kaishek and the United States in Murdering
and Persecuting Democratic Personages
  (October 12, 1947)
(Xinhua News Agency, Northern Shaanxi, October 12) A Chinese Communist
Party spokesperson today pointed out to reporters that the murder of Mr. Du
Bincheng, a famous educator in the Northwest, indicates the Chiang Kaishek
bandit gang’s hope of using expanded violence against democratic personages to
maintain their shaken rule. The spokesperson stated:
When Chiang Kaishek massacres democratic personages, he shamelessly says
they are Communists. On October 7, when the Chiang Kaishek bandits shot Mr. Du
Bincheng 1 in Xi’an, they announced that Du was a leader of the Communist Party
committee in central Shaanxi. In reality, Mr. Du was in charge of the northwestern
branch of the Democratic League. Throughout his life, he had struggled on behalf
of the democratic cause, and he was revered by the people in the Northwest; he
was not a Communist Party member. The spokesperson said that to suppress the
labor strike movements in Shanghai and to arrest and murder the workers who
had participated in the strikes, the Chiang Kaishek bandits forged some so-called
Communist Party documents and said that the Communist Party sought to destroy
the electric power plants in Shanghai. To persecute the Democratic League, the
bandits spread rumors that the Democratic League had taken over the underground
work of the Communist Party, and in Beiping they arrested many of those who
had expressed discontent, including certain high-ranking officials. Both in the past
and in the present, certain officials of the U.S. government and U.S. special agencies have been spying for Chiang Kaishek. They inform the Chiang Kaishek bandits who the democratic personages and malcontents are and help Chiang Kaishek
arrest and massacre them. Among those currently being persecuted are many who
Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji, Vol. 10, pp. 91–92, where it is reproduced
from an October 14, 1947, Renmin ribao article.
1.  Du Bincheng was a prominent educator who became a leader of the democratic
movement in the Northwest. He helped rescue a number of Communists arrested by the
Guomindang, and he supported the Communist forces with supplies. He was arrested by
Guomindang agents in Xi’an on March 20, 1947.
DOI:  10.4324/9781315719436-45

unguardedly made clear their political stances to the likes of the bloody murderer
Albert C. Wedemeyer 2 and certain American officials pretending to be sympathetic to China’s democratic movements. The spokesperson said that the current
large-scale and ruthless persecution of the democratic movements by the Chiang
Kaishek bandit gang in the areas under its control shows that the Chiang Kaishek
bandit gang has already lost confidence in its ability to rule. This is because the
People’s Liberation Army has launched counteroffensives on all fronts, including
the Shandong theater. This has aroused panic among the bandits; thus, they have
rushed to find pretexts for killing so that people will be too scared to resist Chiang
Kaishek. However, such massacres will only cause the anti-Chiang movement
to grow. The more frenzied and trigger-happy a dictator becomes, the closer he
approaches his demise. This truth has already been proved countless times in the
history of China and the world.
2.  Albert Coady Wedemeyer, commander of the U.S. forces in China during World
War II, was subsequently promoted to Army Chief of Plans and Operations and then in
July 1947 he was sent to China and Korea to examine the political, economic, and military
situations. Based on his observations, Wedemeyer advocated intensive U.S. training and
assistance to the Guomindang armies.