Chapter 17 Letter to Lei Jingtian[1]

(October 10, 1937) Comrade Lei Jingtian: Both your letter and Huang Kegong's [2] letter have been read.The history of Huang Kegong's struggle in the past is glorious. Today, I and the comrades in the Party Central Committee feel sorry for him being sentenced to death.But he committed a crime that cannot be pardoned. If a Communist Party member or a Red Army cadre has such a despicable, cruel behavior that has lost the party's position, the revolutionary position, and the human position, if it is pardoned, there is no way to forgive him. Educating the party cannot educate the Red Army, revolutionaries cannot be educated, and ordinary people cannot be educated.Therefore, the Central Committee and the Military Commission had no choice but to give him the death penalty based on his criminal behavior and the discipline of the Party and the Red Army.Just because Huang Kegong is different from an ordinary person, and because he has been a member of the Communist Party and the Red Army for many years, he has to do this.The Communist Party and the Red Army have to enforce stricter discipline on their party members and members of the Red Army than ordinary civilians.When the country was in crisis and the revolution was tense, Huang Kegong was so despicable, shameless, cruel and selfish that his death was determined by his own actions.All Communists, all Red Army commanders, and all revolutionaries must take Huang Kegong as a warning.Please, at the public trial, in front of Huang Kegong and the crowd present, besides announcing the court verdict, also announce my letter.The family members of Comrade Liu Qian should be comforted and compensated.

Mao Zedong October 10, 1937 According to the "Selected Letters of Mao Zedong" published by People's Publishing House in 1983. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] Lei Jingtian (1904-1959), a native of Nanning, Guangxi.At that time, he was the president of the High Court of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and the presiding judge of Huang Kegong's case. [2] Huang Kegong joined the Red Army when he was a teenager and participated in the Jinggangshan struggle and the Long March.At that time, he was the captain of the sixth team of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University.In October 1937, he failed to force marriage to Liu Qian, a female student at the Northern Shaanxi Public School, and shot Liu Qian to death.Huang Kegong was sentenced to death by the High Court of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region.