Since December 1952-January 1953, when they were arrested in the People's Republic of China, a number of Chinese Trotskyists have been held without trial.
Their incarceration without trial is completely illegal. According to Article 87 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of procession, and freedom of demonstration. The state guarantees to citizens enjoyment of these freedoms by providing the necessary material facilities."
Among these political prisoners are the following:
Chen Chao-lin. A founding member of both the Chinese Communist party (CCP) and the Chinese Trotskyist movement, he was born in 1901. He worked in Paris with Chou En-lai and Chen Yi (the late minister of defense of the Chinese People's Republic) at the end of World War I, and after the Bolshevik revolution went to Moscow where he studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. Chen returned to China in 1925 to work in the Central Committee of the CCP. Having become proficient in English, French, German, and Russian, he translated Communist textbooks into Chinese and engaged in the training of revolutionary cadres of the youth. During the high tide of the 1925-27 revolution, he played an important part in party work in the Wuhan area.
Following the defeat of the revolution, Chen became a Trotskyist. Arrested by the Kuomintang police, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. With the onset of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, he was released, having served seven years. Chen spent most of his time during the next few years translating the works of Trotsky into Chinese. With Japan's surrender in 1945, he edited a semimonthly magazine, The New Banner, until it was proscribed by the Kuomintang.
When the People's Liberation army took the city, some of the Trotskyists left for Hong Kong to continue political activity from the outside. Chen and others remained in Shanghai, continuing their work until they were arrested. Chen has lived as a political prisoner for twenty-seven years — seven years under Chiang, twenty years under Mao. He is now about seventy-two.
Chiang Tseng-tung. As a worker-communist, this comrade had a leading activist role in the Shanghai labor movement. He took part in the general strike and uprising in that city in 1925, continuing his work as a proletarian revolutionist under the Kuomintang dictatorship and, as a Trotskyist, upholding the banner of the Fourth International. He was arrested in the sweep by Mao's police in December 1952. If alive, he is now about sixty-two years old.
Chou Jen-sen. A revolutionary intellectual. A teacher by profession, he taught in middle school (high school). Arrested by Mao's police in the Fukien port city of Amoy. Is believed imprisoned in Shanghai.
Ho Chi-sen. Student leader in Peking in early 1920s and joined the CCP shortly after its formation. During the Northern Expedition of the Kwangtung revolutionary army that set out from Canton to wrest the country from the grip of reactionary warlords ( 1925-27), he played a leading role in revolutionary activity, together with Mao Tsetung, first in Wuhan, later in Hunan province. After Chiang Kai-shek's counterrevolutionary coup at Shanghai in April 1927, Ho worked in the underground to revive the prostrate CCP.
In 1929, following the lead of Chen Tu-hsiu, he became convinced of the falsity of the CCP's Moscow-dictated political line and became a Trotskyist. He represented the "Proletarians," one of four Trotskyist groups that fused in 1931 to form the Communist League of China. The unified organization became the Chinese section of the Fourth International when it was formally launched in 1938.
In poor health when his old colleague Mao had him put behind bars, Ho is now about seventy-five years of age, if still alive. Nothing has been heard of him for many years. There is reason to fear that he may have died in a forced-labor camp.
Ling Hwer-hua. This veteran of the revolutionary struggle was a member of the executive committee of the Printers Union of Canton when arrested by Mao's police at the end of 1952. He was sent to Wuhan with other Trotskyists arrested in the "Southwestern Administrative Area" and sentenced to work in a hard-labor camp for an indefinite term. If alive, he is over fifty years old. No word of him has reached the outside world.
Ling Sun-chi. A lecturer at Sun Yat-sen University in Canton. Arrested by Mao's police some time in 1953, after the mass roundup at the previous year-end. There has been no word of his fate.
Wang Kuo-lung. A middle-school teacher like Chou Jen-sen, Wang was arrested in Wenchow (Chekiang province) during the big roundup and is believed to be imprisoned in Shanghai.
Ying Kwan. Was with Chou En-lai as a student in France in 1920. In 1923 was active in the branch of the Chinese Socialist Youth in France together with Chen Yi and Li Fu-chwang (a member of the Political Bureau of the CCP), serving as chairman of the Planning Commission. He also served as secretary of the Chinese Socialist party organization in Europe. Later in the year he went to study in Moscow. In 1924 he was the CCP secretary for Shantung province. In 1925 he became secretary of the Shanghai regional committee in which Chen Pi-lan was also a member.
Took part in the 1925-27 revolution as a leading CCP activist in the central China province of Anhwei, where he was born. Embraced Trotsky's ideas in 1929 and worked to unify the four Trotskyist groups then in existence.
Arrested by the Kuomintang police in 1932, he spent two years in prison. Released in 1934, he was later rearrested and again set free shortly before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. During the war years he worked among students.
After Japan's surrender, Ying Kwan resumed political work in Shanghai and continued after the Communist take-over until his arrest by Mao's police. If still alive, he is about seventy-two years old. No word of him has reached the outer world.
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These are only a few of the Trotskyists held as political prisoners in China. In addition to the veterans of the movement, many of the younger Trotskyists were seized. Some were sentenced to hard labor for terms ranging from five to ten years. It may be that some have been released, but the circumstances remain unknown.
In addition, members of the families of these political prisoners were likewise arrested, to disappear from public knowledge.
The Mao regime should be pressed to provide information on the fate of these political prisoners. Are they still living? Have some of them been submitted to secret trials? What crimes or infractions of the law were they charged with?
The secretiveness surrounding their incarceration does not speak well for the way in which the constitution is observed in China. On the contrary, it indicates that they were imprisoned in flagrant violation of a constitution that "guarantees" the right of free speech. If this were not the case, why hasn't the government granted them a public trial?
Demand that the Mao government respect rights guaranteed in the constitution! Demand the observance of proletarian democracy in China! Demand the release of the Chinese Trotskyists!
We ask all the organizations that have defended the People's Republic of China against its foes, that have supported the Chinese revolution, to take a stand on this issue to help break the wall of silence.