Mercy, Red Style

"Twice I have missed the executions," a Shanghai fruit peddler told a Chinese reporter. "This time I'll see them even if I have to shut down my business." Other Shanghailanders were equally determined not to miss the spectacle last week. Shanghai's papers reported that "thousands of cheering and applauding witnesses" crowded into three execution grounds at Kiangwan, Lunghwa and Yangtzepoo in the city's suburbs, and published photographs showing the laughing, reveling crowds. The Liberation Daily said that many people managed to see executions in all three places by rushing from one to another on bicycles and pedicabs.

"When the counter-revolutionaries were brought to the grounds," said the Daily, "people inside and outside shouted together, 'Kneel down!' Those enemies of the people under force of the crowd then knelt down, shivery and pale. The guns cracked. The crowd then shouted: 'Good shooting! Support the campaign to suppress counterrevolutionary elements.'

"Even the little children standing in front began to sing songs for suppression of the counterrevolutionaries. When the police left the grounds, a crowd of two to three thousand rushed up to have a first chance at looking at the dead criminals. One factory worker declared: 'If you don't take a look at the bodies, you don't get a kick out of the executions.' "

Official reports were careful to note that out of 432 "spies, ruffians, counter-revolutionaries and bandits" tried by the People's Committee for Examination of Counter-Revolutionary Cases, only 284 were shot. Of the rest, 19 got "suspended" death sentences (meaning: they will not be shot until later), 115 got life prison terms, twelve were sentenced to "surveillance and reindoctrination," and two were acquitted. "This list," said the Liberation Daily, "shows that the People's Government is now following a policy of merging suppression with mercy."

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