This is a difficult question to answer, simply because there was little incentive for NRA (the National Revolutionary Army, the Guomindang’s army), warlord or collaborationist veterans to declare their wartime identities - indeed, many actively tried to hide their status as veterans. The suppression of such memories has naturally made research extremely difficult. While we have monographs on People’s Liberation Army (PLA) veterans in mainland China and on Guomindang veterans in Taiwan (see Diamant’s Embattled Glory: Veterans, Military Families, and the Politics of Patriotism in China and Joshua Fan’s China’s Homeless Generation: Voices from the Veterans of the Chinese Civil War), there is virtually nothing on NRA veterans in China. As such, while I don’t have the material at hand to summarise the varied experiences of NRA veterans in Communist China, I can give an explanation as to why attempts were made by NRA or collaborationist veterans to hide their former identities.

In the early 1950s, the Communist government was in a precarious state. China was not fully under communist control. In pursuit of retreating Guomindang forces, the PLA moved past many cities and villages without changing the status quo. Village headmen remained village headmen; Guomindang urban administrators remained urban administrators, the only change being the removal of their party affiliation. Most significantly, many former NRA and collaborationist soldiers had stayed in Communist China. Some had returned to their home villages after they deserted or when their units were scattered. Many surrendered to the PLA and quickly switched allegiances, which explains the rapid expansion of the PLA in the Civil War. Some continued to resist, especially in remote regions of China. Mao and other communist leaders also feared a return of the Guomindang to the Chinese mainland. Chiang Kai-shek continued to declare that a full-scale campaign would be mounted to return to the mainland with the support of the Americans. This was not an empty threat. With American control of the entire Chinese coastline, Guomindang infiltrators could be (and were) landed at any point to conduct espionage activities. A major Guomindang landing was not out of the question.

Threatened by the volatile situation in China, the communist leadership decided to launch a Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries in 1950, which lasted until 1953. Overshadowed by more famous events such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the Campaign was arguably even more vicious, with an explicit aim to find and punish ‘counterrevolutionaries.’ The “Directive on Elimination of Bandits and Establishment of Revolutionary New Order” and the “Directive on Suppression of Counterrevolutionary Activities,” ordered the Ministry of Public Security to register members of any Guomindang or right-leaning organisation. In many cases, this involved NRA veterans, as any member of the NRA, from the lowest private to the Commander-in-Chief, was automatically enrolled in the Guomindang. Former Guomindang members were forced to identify themselves to authorities, and many were outed by their acquaintances. They were promised lenience, but this was quickly forgotten. Peng Zhen, in charge of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee’s legal work, explicitly pointed out remnants of the NRA were able to stage counterattacks precisely because the Communist Party had been too lenient. In conjunction with the involvement of the PLA in the Korean War, the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries was kicked into full gear. Each region had yearly quotas for people to be executed that had to be met. Mao had worked out a scale for ‘counterrevolutionaries’ to be executed, and it was agreed that 0.05% of the population should be executed. Chilling cables from Mao discussed how many people should be condemned to death:

Shanghai is a big city of six million people. Considering the fact that among the 20,000 arrested people in Shanghai only 200 were executed, I believe that in the year of 1951 at least 3,000 bandit chiefs, professional brigands, local tyrants, secret agents and sectarian leaders who committed serious crimes should be executed. During the first half of the year, at least 1,500 should be executed. Please consider whether or not these figures are appropriate...Nanjing has already executed 72 people and another 150 executions are planned. This figure seems too small. Nanjing is a big city of a half million people and used to be the KMT's capital. Therefore, it appears that more than 200 reactionaries should be killed there...more executions ought to be made in Nanjing.

Initially, it was ordered that only those who had actively conducted significant ‘counterrevolutionary crimes’ would be executed. This included varied charges: collaboration with imperialism; arming rebellious forces and militias; looting and sabotaging public property and facilities; fabricating and distributing rumours; illegally crossing international borders; and harbouring counterrevolutionary criminals. There would be no retroactive punishments for past deeds. Only ‘serious cases’ were to be executed - however, there was no definition of what counted as ‘serious.’ With no criteria to follow, regional cadres went down the list of ‘counterrevolutionaries’ to fill quotas. With no more ‘active counterrevolutionaries’ to condemn, cadres started to target ‘historical counterrevolutionaries,’ notably those with GMD connections. The population was also mobilised, with locals often consciously refusing to associate with counterrevolutionaries. Family members of executed counterrevolutionaries were not allowed to cry, while villagers refused to allow ‘counterrevolutionary’ bodies to be buried in the traditional village burial grounds.

Naturally, former NRA veterans were unwilling to disclose their identities under such circumstances. NRA officers were particularly vulnerable to accusations, as those in lower ranks could at least claim they were coerced into joining the army. Many officers were accused of inciting armed rebellions in various regions - while there were armed rebellions, they were not on the scale the Communist Party had envisioned and many innocents were condemned as a result. Zhu Mai-xian had supported the Communist Party since early age, and had joined the NRA as a double-agent during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Successful in convincing several NRA officers to declare allegiance to the Communist Party during the Civil War, he was nevertheless executed for being a ‘historical counterrevolutionary’ due to his association with the NRA. Post-campaign rehabilitations have revealed more than 150,000 ex-veterans were wrongly accused. In Hunnan province, out of 17,145 cases, 13,530 of them have had their names cleared of any wrongdoing. Former collaborationist soldiers most likely had it worse. They were not only counterrevolutionaries, but also Hanjian (Han traitors), in effect doubly condemned.

According to Yang Kui-song, the official number of 712,000 executions should be much higher. Julia Strauss concurs, comparing deaths in the three-year campaign to Stalin’s Great Purges. The Communist Party had completely discarded their previous policy of lenience, and a NRA or collaborationist label was something very, very dangerous to those who held it. Those who survived the initial campaign attempted to remove all traces to their past. Those who could not were condemned in future flare ups such as the Cultural Revolution, when a familial relationship with a former NRA or collaborationist veteran were viable grounds for ‘rightist’ accusations. Pensions and commendations were certainly out of the question.

Despite all their sufferings, those who had survived to the 1990s were gradually rehabilitated. With Deng Xiao-ping’s Reform and Opening Up policies, China discarded the tenets of communism and instead embraced nationalism as the new ingredient of national cohesion. The Anti-Japanese War became an important indicator of China’s nationwide resistance against imperialism. Parallel to this change was an improvement in cross-strait relations and the possibility of peaceful reintegration of Taiwan. With both trends in mind, the Communist Party started to emphasise wartime connections with the Guomindang in a common cause against the Japanese aggressor. NRA veterans were now seen not as ‘counterrevolutionaries,’ but patriotic soldiers willing to defend their country. The rehabilitation is of course not fully complete - while there is local recognition of NRA veterans, the Communist Party is hesitant to embrace the identity of the NRA on a nationwide scale. This veers into 20-year territory, but last year a film celebrating the last stand of 800 NRA soldiers of the 88th Division in Shanghai was mysteriously prevented from airing a week before release. The memory of the Guomindang and NRA in mainland China continues to be a rather sensitive subject.

This is by no means a comprehensive overview of the post-war experiences of NRA veterans. Much more can be and should be said, but as more and more NRA veterans in China pass away, the task of historians to collect the post-war memories of veterans becomes even more pressing.