Zhao Pumin, a technician of Agricultural Technology Station of Qianning County, was born in Lingxianshan Production Brigade, Xingxing People’s Commune, Pengxi County in 1952. As a cadre assigned to college to study by his organization, in 1954 he went to Agricultural School, Sichuan University (Agricultural School is the predecessor of Sichuan Agricultural University from 1950 to 1956 ) and majored in Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine. Due to his illness, he had to suspend his schooling at he beginning of 1955. On April 6, 1956, he was killed by the rebels in Edi Tow, Qianning County. Compared to other martyrs, Zhao Pumin and Li Shucheng were little-known to people, for they sacrificed their lives in rather remote places, especially Zhao Pumin. Even after all-round search and investigation, only a few materials about Mr. Zhao’s sacrifice have been found in the Communist Party Office in Daofu County and the information about when and where he sacrificed his life has been obtained in Bamei Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery. But the heroic deeds of martyrs will not be lost and forgotten. Fortunately, we have brought back what it was like about his life to some degree with many inquiries made, interviews conducted with some people and reasonable guesses made.
In December 1955, Xikang Tibetan Autonomous Area was revoked and merged into Sichuan Province, and the democratic reform bill which would be implemented in Garze Tibetan Prefecture was passed by Sichuan Provincial People’s Congress. The bill aimed to abolish the land ownership system of feudal exploitation by the landlord class and serfdom, abolish the usury system of feudal exploitation by the landlord, the lamas and the rich peasants and emancipate the farmers and other laborers so that the system of farmers’land ownership would be introduced in order to set free the rural productive forces and develop agricultural production. The plan about the democratic liberation was that a cadre meeting was held that activists were trained before February 10, 1956, that the cadres were dispatched to the country around February 10, 1956 and that to escalate the movement into the peak, the masses in the counties in East and North Xikang were mobilized to pour out their accumulated bitterness, find the reason for poverty and categorize different classes in rural areas from Mid-February to Mid-April.
The democratic reform was carried out at Daofu County after the Spring Festival in 1956 with the intention of weakening the foundations of the old regime. Therefore, the upper social strata in Tibet stood in strong opposition to the reform and tried hard to preserve the feudal administration forever. Moreover, at the their instigation, with the abetting of the Kuomintang’s remnants and under the intervention of the anti-China forces in foreign countries, the minority of the feudal rulers, landlords and rich peasants attempted to preserve the feudal privileges and object strongly to the people’s liberation, so they organized the armed rebellion and killed the reformers and activists who participated in the democratic reform in Shangzaba and Xiazaba.
The landlord Muyaaze went back to his Zhonni Town, Zaba District at the end of March 1956 after he contacted the rebel bandit in Xinlong. He conspired with Guniwadeng to start a rebellion on April 6, which killed the communist cadres Dongying etc. The rebels besieged and set fire to District Government office, looting business departments on April 8 whereas the communist cadres in the district stood their ground and kept fighting against the rebels. The rebellion spread to the whole district and part of the Zamai District with more than 600 rebels on April 10.
The Garze Tibetan Prefecture Party Committee dispatched a battalion of militia with more than a hundred militiamen from Zhuanning County and a working group consisting of progressive upper - strata Gwsan Dorjees to Zaba District to launch a military strike and win the rebels over with power of persuasion on April 27. A group of upper - strata people signed a letter to persuade the rebels to surrender and some of them even went to the mountain in person to influence and persuade the rebels to give in. Moreover, they availed themselves of the contradiction among the rebels to split and disintegrate the enemy forces and motivated the family members of the rebels heads to persuade them to surrender to avoid being attacked. One head of the rebel bandits and 9 bandits were killed, 2 heads of the rebel bandits and 44 bandits were captured after around 10 big or small battles against the rebels for over 3 months. The bandit heads Guniwadeng and Qimigongbudeng were forced to surrender successively in August. 231 guns, 150 bullets, 148 firelocks, 109 large knives and a lot of livestocks were seized after the rebellion was quelled in Zamai District. It is a pity that 38 cadres of Tibetan and Han nationality and 11 soldiers were killed in the battles for the democratic reform, among whom there were Li Shucheng and Zhao Pumin.
