Chen to the Magistrate's office they were turned back with the threat of machine gun fire. Chen was unarmed.
The next morning when the workers came to the Magistrate they were given the body of Chen completely riddled with bullets, eighteen of which were still in his body. They found all trade union premises occupied by troops.
The claim that the unions had been demanding wage increases up to 500 per cent was categorically denied by the union leaders; all demands had been carefully adjusted to the economic possibilities of each trade, the very highest demand being for 50 per cent increase (that is, an increase from approximately 14 cents a day, the former wage, to 22 cents a day). The grievance against Chen on the part of the Women's Emancipation League, we learned, consisted in that after this League (a small group of wives and daughters of rich merchants) had refused admittance to a group of trade unionists at a public dramatic entertainment, they had found next day same obscene writing on the wall of the girls' school, and they had blamed this upon Chen. It it rather interesting to note, that when we talked later to the leaders of this Women's League, they justified the murder of Chen on the grounds of this grievance. The entire story as told to us by the Bank Clerks' leaders was later verified by a meeting of the entire trade union executive which met with us on our boat.
I have gone into such great detail in describing the Kanchow situation because it contains in embryo one whole phase of the deep going split that was tearing the Kuomintang into two separate warring bodies throughout China.
4. The Split in the Army
But if it was the Army which had launched the counter-revolution in Kanchow, it was also the Army which played a very active role in changing the situation back again. In the Army, also, the split of the revolutionary forces had penetrated; and troops were active on both sides of the struggle.
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