Chapter 21 Section 3 Wu De's review speech

A day or two after the third meeting of the Central Working Conference, Wu De gave a speech on the "Tiananmen Incident" in the East China Group, explaining the situation and admitting his mistakes. The nature of the "Tiananmen incident" has been rehabilitated, so his speech did not arouse any discussion.However, I still quote it here as a historical material (this statement was also sent to those who participated in the Third Plenary Session as a written material "My Preliminary Review"): "The mourning activities in Tiananmen Square began on March 30, and by April 3, there were many wreaths, poems, and eulogies around the monument. Soldiers (all unarmed), government cadres, etc. maintained order, did a good job of evacuation, and took care of the wreaths to avoid accidents. On the evening of April 4, the Politburo held a meeting. I reported the situation in Tiananmen Square and said that the situation was good. After two or three days of work, the wreaths can be sent to Babaoshan. At this time, Lu Ying, a leader of the "Gang of Four", sent a small report to Yao Wenyuan, saying that someone made a speech at the southwest corner of the monument and cursed Jiang Qing. At this time, the "Gang of Four" made a fuss At the same time, the 'Gang of Four' arbitrarily suggested that the wreaths should be removed overnight after the Ching Ming Festival. We asked for two days to do work, but that didn't work either. I didn't stand up to the 'Gang of Four' Pressure, illegal arrests and removal of the wreath without the masses aroused greater indignation among the masses, and therefore, on April 5th a fierce struggle against the 'Gang of Four' emerged. The revolutionary masses demanded 'return my wreath, return my wreath, The righteous slogan of "My comrades in arms". Out of righteous indignation, the revolutionary masses burned cars and small buildings.

"On April 5th, Mao Yuanxin conveyed Chairman Mao's words, saying that this incident occurred in the capital city, Tiananmen Square on the second day, burning and beating three times, and changed its nature to a counter-revolutionary nature. The Politburo meeting on the 5th confirmed that: 1. To mobilize the militia to solve the problem, the militia can pick up wooden sticks; secondly, use radio speeches to mobilize the masses to leave the square. At the meeting, we decided to transfer 100,000 militiamen, but we felt that it would not be possible to transfer so many people at once, so we only transferred 30,000 .

"After the broadcast speech at 6:30, the crowd gradually dispersed. At 9 o'clock in the evening, we took the measure of turning on the lights in the square to signal the crowd to continue to leave. At 9:30, there were still more than 200 people around the monument. At this time, the militia was mobilized, and more than 200 people were detained for inspection. After a day or two of inspection, more than 100 people were released, and finally dozens of people were left for inspection. Broadcasting speeches and mobilizing militias are both to suppress the masses. Mobilizing militias The issue of injuring people happened before and after, and we are responsible.

"The original intention of the radio speech was to mobilize the masses to disperse to prevent the situation from expanding. However, there were serious political mistakes. It said that 'a very small number of bad people with ulterior motives use the Ching Ming Festival to deliberately create political incidents', and proposed that 'we must recognize this political issue. The reactionary nature of the incident', 'resolutely crack down on counter-revolutionary sabotage activities', and made false accusations against Vice Chairman Deng. "After the Tiananmen incident, according to the notice of the Central Committee on April 8, another investigation was arranged. A meeting was held and documents were issued (arranging to investigate the commander of the so-called counter-revolutionary incident, the maker of poems and leaflets, and the behind-the-scenes planner). One after another More than 260 people were arrested, and a total of 388 people were arrested and interrogated successively, resulting in extremely serious consequences. Before smashing the "Gang of Four", 224 people were released successively, and another 140 people were released by the end of November 1976. By July 1977, all After being released. The arrest and investigation of the revolutionary masses caused many comrades to suffer undue persecution, which had a very bad influence on the party. The consequences were serious. I bear a heavy responsibility. The responsible comrades of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and the Nanjing Military Region came to the Central Committee to report At that time, regarding the Nanjing political incident, I said that it was also a counter-revolutionary political incident, earlier than Beijing, and had a great impact. I expressed my self-criticism to the comrades in Nanjing.”