Page 41 - SELECTED WORKS OF ZHOU ENLAI Volume I

ARREST AND MURDER OF PENG, YANG , YAN AND XING 37
was questioned, he too openly admitted his personal record. On
returning to the house of detention after the interrogation, the five
comrades sang The Internationale together, showing their common
hatred of the enemy and affecting all within earshot.
After the second interrogation, the Public Security Bureau was so
afraid something might happen that it moved the prisoners to the
garrison headquarters on the morning of the 28th. That very evening,
an attempt was made on Chiang Kai-shek’s life, and those of his guards
who were under suspicion were taken to the headquarters. All the
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people there, from Xiong Shihui at the top down to those in the
Judicial Section, were in a hurry-scurry. The arrested guards were
cruelly tortured, but though they were covered with blood and their
bones were broken, no one revealed who was behind the attempt.
Because of this incident, the five comrades were not questioned again
for three days (from the 28th to the 30th). They were simply locked up
under heavy guard in the house of detention, their hands and feet
shackled in clanking chains. During these three days, they lost no
opportunity to conduct propaganda among the other prisoners and the
soldiers stationed at the headquarters. When Peng and Yang and the
other comrades touched upon matters close to the soldiers’ hearts,
some of them beat their breasts, wept and swore that the Kuomintang
warlords had to be wiped out. At stirring moments in their speeches,
the comrades sang The Internationale and The Song of the Young
Pioneers, while the soldiers and prisoners shouted slogans in response,
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so that the gloom and despair of the prison were replaced by animation
and militancy. Some prisoners who had turned to robbery out of
poverty were so moved that they declared the only way out for poor
people was to follow the Communist Party. Some persons who had
been imprisoned as suspected revolutionaries became even firmer in
their conviction that revolution was the only path. Other imprisoned
comrades remarked that the five were true leaders of the Party and had
set an example for them to follow. Some people who had long since
heard of Peng Pai rushed to see him when they learned that he was
there. And there were others who had known Peng Pai in the past
and were proud of it.
Once they entered the garrison headquarters, the five comrades
understood that they were to die. Accordingly, most of the letters they
smuggled out of the prison were in fact testaments. They enjoined
their comrades in the Party not to grieve over their arrest but to con-
tinue to work hard for the revolution. They urged important leading