The Fushun Prison was originally constructed in 1936 by the occupying Japanese. At the end of World War II, the
USSR had overrun the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and captured many of its government members and military personnel, both Chinese and Japanese. These prisoners were held near
Khabarovsk (Boli) in the
Russian Far East. During 1949 and early 1950, the Chinese sent delegations to the USSR headed by
Mao Zedong in which they secured the extradition of these prisoners to China. Premier
Zhou Enlai instructed the Northeast Judicial Department to make preparations for handling the war criminals. Liaodong Provincial No. 3 Prison, on the northern edge of Fushun city, was selected for conversion into the War Criminals Management Centre. The first train carrying prisoners arrived in Fushun station at 15:00 on 21 July 1950. They were then transferred the short distance to the prison by bus. The prisoners comprised 969 Japanese detainees and 71 people who had been part of the Manchukuo puppet regime. The interns in Fushun War Criminals Management Centre were subject to intensive
thought reform, which brought about some suicides. The US's
Office of Strategic Services came to the centre to view the process. After
political rehabilitation, former
counter-revolutionaries were sent back to Japan as an advance or
vanguard party to foment a communist revolution in Japan. Some other Japanese prisoners were transferred from other locations such as Taiyuan War Criminals Management Centre, to bring the total number of Japanese prisoners to 982. The Japanese prisoners can be divided by occupation into 667 army personnel, 116
gendarmes, 155
special police and 44 administrative. Of these, 35 had the rank of general, 125 were field officers and 852 were junior officers or below. Alongside these prisoners from World War II were inmates from the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1949. These
Kuomintang prisoners numbered 354. In 1956, trials of the Japanese prisoners were held. Over the period 1956 to 1964, they were all released. Between 1959 and 1975, the Manchukuo and Kuomintang prisoners received special pardons and were released in stages. In total, over 1,300 prisoners passed through the centre. In 1986, the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre was converted into a museum and opened to the public. It was depicted in several scenes of the 1987
Bernardo Bertolucci film
The Last Emperor, which won nine
Oscars. The centre was listed at
Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level in 2006. ==See also==