Before the Communist Party of China (CPC) took power in 1949, many CPC secret agents infiltrated the Nationalist Party (KMT) to gather classified information. Among them was a CPC agent named Liu Renshou, who was known as the “versatile agent” because he could handle telegram communications, drive cars, and take photographs, among other espionage skills.
Under the leadership of the senior CPC agent Pan Hannian, Liu Renshou made significant contributions to the overthrow of the Republic of China. However, after the establishment of the CPC government, Liu Renshou was detained by the CPC for 18 years due to his involvement in the Pan Hannian case.
Today, based on the articles by Yu Jizeng titled “The ‘Versatile Agent’ Liu Renshou Infiltrated in Shanghai,” I will discuss with you the tragic life of Liu Renshou, who made great contributions to the CPC but was imprisoned by the CPC for 18 years.
In 1949, after the CPC army entered Shanghai, Liu Renshou held positions as the Deputy Minister of the United Front Department of the CPC East China Bureau, Deputy Minister of the United Front Department of the Shanghai Municipal Committee, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Government Office, and later as Director.
During his underground work, Liu Renshou’s former leader, Pan Haniannian, held positions such as CPC Central Bureau member, Minister of Social Affairs of the Shanghai Municipal Committee, Minister of the United Front Department, and Executive Deputy Mayor of Shanghai.
In April 1955, Pan Hannian, who was attending a meeting in Beijing as the Executive Deputy Mayor of Shanghai, was suddenly arrested by Mao Zedong on charges of being a “traitor.” After a lengthy detention, Pan Hannian was sentenced to 15 years in prison; during the Cultural Revolution, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and eventually died while in custody.
After Pan Hannian’s arrest, over 300 people were implicated in the Pan Hannian case.
On the second day of Pan Hannian’s arrest, Liu Renshou, who was then Director of the Shanghai Municipal Government Office, received a sudden notice to attend a meeting at the Municipal Committee. Liu Renshou, without knowing what was happening, was forcefully taken by strangers in a car and brought to an unfamiliar courtyard. A middle-aged man waiting there informed Liu Renshou that he would be segregated there for reflection and was required to reveal Pan Hannian’s issues truthfully.
This segregation lasted for 10 years for Liu Renshou. It was not until 1965 that Liu Renshou was sentenced to 12 years in prison for “following the traitor Pan Hannian.” In September 1965, Liu Renshou was granted parole.
During the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Liu Renshou was persecuted again for past issues and was arrested in May 1967 for another 8 years. He endured various inhuman tortures and experienced mental breakdown at one point. It was not until May 1975 when he was released again and was placed to supervise labor in a sewing machine factory in Shanghai.
Liu Renshou was born on March 20, 1920, in an ordinary family in Shanghai. At the age of 12, his father passed away, leaving the family to rely on meager savings and his sister’s modest income from teaching.
Later, his mother learned that the Gezhi School in the British concession area of Shanghai could help outstanding graduates find work, so she encouraged him to apply to the school. Liu Renshou not only passed the entrance exam but also became the first recipient of a scholarship at the school.
Upon enrolling, Liu Renshou started engaging with various publications by the CPC, actively participating in various student movements organized by the underground CPC organization, and his admiration for the propaganda of the “revolutionary holy land” Yan’an deepened in his heart.
In 1937, after seeing the enrollment notice for the Northern Shaanxi Public School in Yan’an in the newspaper, Liu Renshou immediately decided to go there with his girlfriend Huang Jinghe and eight other friends. Upon their arrival in Yan’an, they successfully enrolled in the Northern Shaanxi Public School. In 1938, both Liu Renshou and his girlfriend joined the CPC.
After graduating from the Northern Shaanxi Public School, Liu Renshou and Huang Jinghe were assigned to work at the Central Social Department. Soon, the Minister of the Central Social Department, Kang Sheng, personally approached Liu Renshou and Huang Jinghe, asking them to engage in secret intelligence work under the guise of reporters for the Yan’an Office of the New China Daily, under the direct leadership of the Deputy Minister of the Central Social Department, Pan Hannian.
From that point on, Liu Renshou became a trusted assistant to the senior CPC agent Pan Hannian and engaged in underground CPC work in Chongqing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Pan Hannian particularly instructed him not to reveal his identity and only maintain a direct line of contact with him.
What important intelligence work did Liu Renshou carry out for the CPC? He transmitted the relevant information collected by Pan Hannian to Yan’an.
In September 1939, Pan Hannian and Liu Renhou arrived in Shanghai from Hong Kong.
Through the intermediary of the so-called “Five-Faced Spy” Yuan Shu, a senior CPC agent, Pan Hannian established special relationships with the puppet National Government of Wang Jingwei on the one hand and with the invading Japanese army and intelligence agencies stationed in Shanghai on the other.
Pan Hannian placed Liu Renshou and other underground CPC members in the intelligence agency led by the Vice-Consul of the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai, Hideichi Iwai, known as the “Iwai Mansion.”
The “Iwai Mansion” was an intelligence agency set up by the Vice-Consul of the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai, Hideichi Iwai, in a small building at 938 Baoshan Road in Hongkou, directly under the command of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Iwai Mansion specialized in collecting strategic intelligence on China. After entering the Iwai Mansion, Liu Renshou, as a dispatch officer, oversaw a radio tower on the top floor. He copied telegraphs from the Xinhua News Agency in Yan’an daily, selected certain information to hand over to the Japanese, and simultaneously transmitted the relevant information collected by Pan Hannian to Yan’an.
After evacuating from the “Iwai Mansion,” Liu Renshou established a secret radio station in Shanghai under Pan Hannian’s orders and helped Pan Hannian with clandestine intelligence work in Shanghai. During this time, he sent a lot of confidential information about the Nationalist Army to Yan’an, including information such as:
– Intelligence on the airdropping of Nationalist Army troops from the rear to coastal cities and Northeast China in autumn 1945
– Reports on the Central Plains mop-up operations
– Maritime transport intelligence during the Northeast Campaign
– Jiang’s defense plan, Jiangyin Fortress, Wusong Fortress, and naval fleet locations
– Organization and personnel of the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China, Logistics Department, supply tables, combat sequences, Chiang’s army transportation
– Personnel of the Military Statistics and Military Security organizations in Shanghai, as well as information on grassroots revolutionary organizations
– Information on Soviet activities in Shanghai, among others
Perhaps the most significant contribution Liu Renshou made for the CPC was providing intelligence that helped the CPC win the Huaihai Campaign.
Before the outbreak of the second-largest battle during the Chinese Civil War, the Huaihai Campaign, an underground CPC member infiltrated into the Nationalist Ministry of National Defense, Wu Zhongxi, was dispatched to service at the Xuzhou mop-up headquarters with the rank of Major General. Upon learning of this situation, Pan Hannian and Liu Renshou were thrilled and hoped Wu Zhongxi would gather as much information on the Nationalist Army as possible at the front lines.
Wu Zhongxi found his former classmate at Baoding Military Academy, Wu Shi, who introduced him to his student, Lieutenant General Li Shuzheng, Chief of Staff of the Xuzhou Branck. Wu Shi gave him a letter of introduction to Li Shuzheng, requesting him to take good care of Wu Zhongxi.
In the summer of 1948, Wu Zhongxi arrived in Xuzhou, where Li Shuzheng warmly welcomed him. Li Shuzheng took him to the headquarters’ confidential room to view the operational map. Observing the detailed layouts of the forces’ locations, numbers, and unit types along the entire front line from Haizhou in the east to Shangqiu in the west, Wu Zhongxi memorized a part of it. The next day, using a pretext, he re-entered the confidential room and wrote down the key deployments.
Next, he managed to return to Nanjing for medical treatment claiming illness, which Li Shuzheng readily agreed to and secured formal approval from the Xuzhou mop-up commander Liu Zhi. Upon arrival in Nanjing, instead of staying, he immediately went to Shanghai to report the information to Pan Hannian verbally and in writing.
Pan Hannian rushed to the hospital and found Liu Renshou’s wife, Huang Jinghe, who was working as a secretary at the hospital and handling intelligence communication, to give her the written intelligence reports. She then delivered them to Liu Renshou, who was responsible for broadcasting at the radio station.
Liu Renshou promptly dispatched the telegraph, known as the “Xuzhou Mop-up Intelligence,” to Yan’an.
This was the earliest and most complete intelligence relating to the Nationalist Army’s deployment in the Huaihai Campaign that the senior CPC leadership received, which played a crucial role in the CPC’s decision-making during the battle.
Risking his life, undercover in the enemy territory in Shanghai, transmitting a large amount of confidential information for the CPC, Liu Renshou devoted six years of hard work to serving the CPC after the establishment of the CPC government, only to instantly fall from grace and become a prisoner for a total of 18 years.
In 1978, feeling unjustly treated, Liu Renshou wrote a 120,000-word appeal document, submitted it to the Party Committee of the sewing factory where he was working, requesting it to be forwarded.
After the factory committee sought instructions from higher authorities, they replied that his case had been closed and could not be forwarded.
Unwilling to accept this, Liu Renshou decided to file a direct appeal to the central authorities.
As Liu Renshou was still under supervision and unable to go to Beijing at that time, he sent his wife, Huang Jinghe, for appeals. However, upon her arrival in Beijing, no matter which unit she approached with the issues related to Pan Hannian’s case, everyone shook their heads and dared not inquire further.
After facing several roadblocks, Huang Jinghe suddenly remembered her old friend, Shi Yong, who had worked with her in underground activities in Shanghai and was currently working at the Central United Front Work Department. Shi Yong invited her to stay at his home and informed her that she could hand over the materials to Yu Ruomu, a classmate from their days in Yan’an. Yu Ruomu’s husband was Chen Yun, a veteran CPC member who had served as a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and had previously engaged in underground work in Shanghai.
At this point, Zhang Zhiyi, former Deputy Minister of the Central United Front Department, came to see Shi Yong. Zhang Zhiyi happened to know Yu Ruomu’s workplace.
Therefore, Huang Jinghe copied the appeal materials again, handed them directly to Yu Ruomu, and asked her to pass them on to Chen Yun.
Chen Yun, who had long sought to thoroughly investigate the Pan Hannian case, immediately wrote a letter to Luo Qingchang, Minister of the Central Investigation Department, requesting a review.
Although Liu Renshou’s case was eventually clarified, since the case of Pan Hannian had not been reviewed, there was still a lingering issue.
In other words, only after the case of Pan Hannian was thoroughly vindicated, could Liu Renshou’s issue be completely resolved.
Subsequently, Chen Yun informed Liu Renshou and his wife to write materials related to Pan Hannian in Beijing and began to review Pan Hannian’s case.
In 1982, the CPC Central Committee officially issued a “Notification for the Rehabilitation of Pan Hannian.” After Pan Hannian’s case was vindicated, Liu Renshou’s unjust case was finally rectified.
Pan Hannian and Liu Renshou both made significant contributions to the CPC in seizing power, yet one was detained by the CPC until death after the CPC took power, while the other was imprisoned for 18 years. Why did this happen?
To find the answer to this question, one must break free from the confines of CPC party culture and observe from a broader and more comprehensive perspective to reach the correct conclusion.
The CPC, under the guise of anti-dictatorship, anti-imperialism, and anti-totalitarianism, subverted the Republic of China, yet established the most oppressive, totalitarian regime in human history. Did they do a great deed or commit a great evil?
The prose writer Nie Dui, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the CPC after following them in the early revolutionary years, said upon release: “If I had known what the CPC was like, I would never have joined.” This statement is worth pondering.
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