Background
Ma was born in Pao-an hsien, Shensi, which was later renamed Chih-tan hsien in honor of Liu chih-tan. Ma was a Hui, one of the several Moslem nationality groups living in China.
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Ma Hsi-wu
Edit ProfileEducation
His family, which may have originally come from Kansu, were poor peasants and Ma received only a primary school education.
Career
In the words of his obituary, he “started his revolutionary career” in 1930. He joined the CCP in 1935, the same year that Mao Tse-tung’s Long Marchers arrived in Shensi. Ma's obituary states that under the leadership of the Party he ucarried out the work of the soldiers' movement among the KMT troops” and that he took part in “organizing Red armed forces.” The exact meaning of this is not clear, but it probably refers to the continuing efforts made by the Communists in Shensi to entice KMT troops in the northwest into joining the Communists, particularly troops under the command of Yang Hu-ch’eng.
Ma is officially credited with having a role in the development of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia (Shen-Kan-Ning) Border Region Government, established in 1937. He held a number of posts under this administration. In the government’s early days these included: director of the Shensi-Kansu Grain Department, director of the Shensi-Kansu National Economic Department, and chairman of the Shensi-Kansu Soviet. At a later date (probably midway in the Sino-Japanese War), Ma was vice-commissioner and then commissioner for Ch’ing-huan and Lung-tung administrative districts under the Shen-Kan-Ning government. Information on Ch’ing-huan is lacking, but Lung-tung, centered about 100 miles west of Yenan, was one of the five subdivisions into which the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region was divided.
In the meantime, Ma was elected to serve as a delegate to the Shan-Kan-Ning Assembly, a legislative body with powers broadly similar to those of the NPC, inaugurated in 1954. Delegates from the various hsien within the Shen- Kan-Ning area sat in this assembly, Ma was named from Ch’ij-tzu hsien (Kansu) and in this capacity attended the first session of the Second Shen-Kan-Ning Assembly in Yenan in November 1941. He attended the second session of the Second Assembly in December 1944, and was re-elected to the Third Assembly, which met from 1946 until the Border Region was dissolved in 1949. At the first session of the Third Assembly (April 1946), Ma was named to the presidency of the Higher Court for the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region Government, holding the position for the remaining years of the Shen-Kan-Ning era.
In addition to the tasks already noted, Ma held at least two more posts in the Shen-Kan- Ning government in the late both related to his work in the judicial field. He was head of the border region’s prison and was a member of the People’s Supervision Committee for the border region government.
With the Communist conquest of the mainland in 1949, the Shen-Kan-Ning border area was absorbed by the newly created government organ known as the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee (NWMAC, changed to Northwest Administrative Committee, NWAC, in early 1953, and dissolved in mid-1954). As under the Shen-Kan-Ning government, Ma held several posts with the NWMAC/NWAC, positions having an emphasis on judicial work. These were: member, Land Reform Committee, 1950-1954; member, Political and Legal Affairs Committee, 1952-53, member, NWAC, 195354 and director, Election Work Committee, 1953-54 (the committee established to prepare for the elections to the First NPC in 1954). During these same years (1950-1954), Ma also served as a member of the Kansu Provincial People's Government Council. Perhaps the most important post held by Ma in the early 1950's was as chief justice of the Northwest Branch Court under the Supreme People’s Court. It was in this capacity, for example, that he was named by the Northwest Party Bureau in December 1953 as the “responsible person” for conducting a region-wide “study campaign” to examine the tasks of judicial work in the northwest.
When the constitutional government was inaugurated in 1954, Ma was transferred to Peking and named as a vice-president of the Supreme People’s Court, serving first under Politburo member Tung Pi-wu and then under Hsieh Chueh-Lsai, another Party veteran. Ma held this post until his death in April 1962. Like many senior government officials, Ma was relatively active in receiving foreign visitors in Peking; quite naturally he was mainly involved with visiting juridical delegations, and he continued in this extracurricular activity until ill health apparently incapacitated him about a year before his death.
Although his work on the Supreme People’s Court was easily his most important assignment after 1954, Ma was also engaged in other official and quasi-official activities. From its inauguration in April 1953 until his death nine years later, he served on the National Council of the Political Science and Law Association of China, then headed by Tung Pi-wu; he was a member of the presidium (steering committee) for the inaugural meeting of the association in 1953. From 1954 to 1959 he was a deputy to the First NPC from Kansu, and from April 1959 to his death he was a “specially invited personage” on the Third National Committee of the CPPCC.
Politics
During the war Ma gained a reputation for his work in the field of law, although he was not known to have had any legal training. He allegedly originated a special method of getting evidence directly from the local populace for presentation in court. This work was commended by Border Region Chairman Lin Po-ch'ii at a meeting of the government in January 1944- Reviewing the steps required to improve judicial work in the border region, Lin stated that legal procedures must be simple and easy. The method of trial invested by Ma should be promoted to educate the people. The verdict must be written in simple, popular language, not in the same old way as used by the old courts.” Lin Po-ch’ii also noted that in 1943 a change had been made in the judiciary whereby one man would be both district commissioner and the head of the local court, adding the comment that the “separation of the judicial from the executive organs is entirely meaningless.” It is interesting that by 1945 Ma Hsi-wu was serving in this dual capacity, that is, as chief of the branch court and the commissioner (executive head) of the Kuan-chung district under the Shen-Kan-Ning government. (Kuan-chung was another of the Shen-Kan-Ning sub-divisions, situated about 100 miles southwest of Yenan.) He held these two positions until 1946.
Ma’s work came to the attention of journalist Gunther Stein, who visited the Shen-Kan-Ning area in mid-1944. Stein asserted that the mass movement which propagandizes mediation has given rise to another popular figure, the Mediation Labor Hero Ma Hsi-wu.” Anna Louise Strong, who spent considerable time in Yenan during 1946, was struck by his combination of outer simplicity and inner intelligence. “In outer appearance Judge Ma was the shabbiest official who came to my Yenan cave. He wore the usual suit of dark blue cotton, but the material had been badly dyed and had faded to a streaked and dingy gray. A cap of darker gray was stuck a bit askew above his big horn spectacles. Warm, white woolly socks flowered up from his dusty cotton shoes; these were a concession to his age. He was as easygoing as his own old shoes. Yet seldom have I seen a face that so combined intelligence, kindly humor, and authority as the countenance of old Judge Ma.
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Born
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Died
1962 (aged 64) -
Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party
Career
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1937
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1946
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1954 - 1959