By Chinese Trotskyists overseas ACCORDING to reliable confirmed reports, eight Trotskyists - among them Zheng Chaolin (Cheng Ch'aolin), a founder member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — were released by the Chinese authorities and restored to full citizenship on 5 June this year.
These eight people (apart from Zheng, the only other names we know for sure are those of Wu Jingru (Wu Ching Ju), Zheng's wife, and Jiang Zhengdong (Chiang Chen-tung), a leader of the Shanghai workers' insurreçtion in 1927) were arrested along with over two hundred others on the night of 22 December 1952 by the CCP secret police. spent the entire period since then in prisons and labour camps, despite the fact that they were never publicly tried or sentenced.
As far as we know, over the last 27 years some of those arrested have been released under strict surveillance and returned to their places of origin, they were forced conditions of great participate in unpaid or badly paid manual labour, after spending five or more years in detention. Others died as a result of their sufferings in prison. Zheng Chaolin and the other released represent the fortunate enough to have survived this experience.
The Chinese Trotskyists originally constituted, and for many years remained, the Left Opposition of the CCP. This Left Opposition originally formed around Chen Duxiu (Ch'en Tu-hsiu), founder of the CCP, who was elected or re-elected general secretary at each of the first five congresses of the party.
The Chinese Left basing itself on the experience of the Chinese Revolution of 1925-1927 and the theories of internationalism and permanent revolution, ' Sodalbt Challenge 23 August 1979 Page 8 and Chinese They have ZHENG CHAOLIN in 1941 Mary democratic actively opposed hardship to 1937-1945, and actively abandon probably batch of those Tion as means Guomindang. was (1946-1949)
Opposition, of government directed its 'false energies toward freeing the CCP from the grip of Stalinist nationalism and bureaucratism. After the defeat of the revolution, we advanced a revolution- start programme and the CCP's and Moscow-inspired adventurist line.
During the Sino-Japanese war of we resolved to support participated the anti-Japanese resistance, but we did our revolutionary position, and after the victory of the rights. resistance we called for immediate implementation of agrarian revolutcountering Guomindang (Kuomintang) repression, and eventually of completely overthrowing the reactionary rule of During the period of the civil war we participated in the struggle on all fronts, and played a special role in the big cities of east and south China, where we led struggles in After the victory revolution our tain contribution was in the struggle for the democratisation of the new organs and for further advances along the road of socialist revolution. All this, far from being a crime, was positively in the interests both of the Chinese workers and peasants and of the revolution itself.
However, the CCP leaders, especially the Moscow-controlled Wang Ming faction, all along saw us as theit main enemy, and attacked us mercilessly. Their first step was to expel us from the party. Later they slandered and persecuted supporters. They took all sorts of unscrupulous measures against us, • not stopping short of murder, Finally, in December 1952, they crushed our entire organisation by arresting all our comrades throughout China.
The CCP's treatment: of Chinese Trotskyists over the past fifty years is the most flagrant of the charges, "frame-ups? 'mistaken verdicts currently being denounced by the Peking leaders. If the latter are sincere in their resolve to 'rectify such abuses, then they should by reversing the wrongfully passed on the Trotskyists, completely rehabilitate them. They should not only restore them their freedom and their right to work, * declare their innocence of any crime and restore their good revolutionaries, but also grant the Chinese Trotskyist tendency full legal Will the CCP authorities grant these demands? This depends on the struggle carried on by revolutionaries both outside China. In the past, not only did Trotskyists on a world scale protest on behalf of the comrades in China, but even the human rights organisation Amnesty International expressed its concern.
These protests and expressions of concern played at least some role in the recent release of Zheng Chaolin and the other comrades. grateful to these people for their past help, and hope that they will continue to give us support in our future struggles our the and