Alan Winnington


Alan Winnington was a British journalist, war correspondent and communist activist known for his coverage of the Korean War and Chinese Communist Revolution.
His most well-known and documented work was the 1950 anti-war pamphlet titled "I saw Truth in Korea" which contained photographic evidence of mass killings of civilians by the South Korean police during the Korean War. The publishing of this leaflet led to the British government debating whether to have him executed for treason, though it was decided instead to make him stateless by refusing to renew his passport. After the Korean War he travelled to Norsu territory to record the lives of slaves and document the abolition of slavery by the Chinese Communist Party, becoming the first European to live within a Norsu community and return alive. His findings were published in the anthropological study "Slaves of the Cool Mountains".
After 1960 he spent the remainder of his life as an author of crime-fiction and children's books in East Germany. His autobiography Breakfast With Mao was published posthumously in 1986 after his death in 1983.

Early career

Winnington became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain British Communist Party around the year 1934. He became a branch secretary in Walthamstow after finding the party through discussions with leading British communist Harry Pollitt. After earning a press pass with the National Union of Journalists, Winnington became the press officer of the CPGB and was appointed chief editor of the Daily Worker for six years. In 1948 Winnington travelled to China to advise the Chinese Communist Party's information services while he accompanied the People's Liberation Army in the final stages of the Chinese Civil War. Around this time he began worked with Xinhua news department in Beijing.

Korean War – "I Saw Truth in Korea"

In 1950 Winnington became one of only two Western English-speaking correspondents to accompany communist forces in the Korean War, the other being Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett. Within his study of war correspondents, professor of Journalism Phillip Knightley wrote that "Burchett and Winnington were a better source of news than the UN information officers, and if the allied reporters did not see them they risked being beaten on stories". Despite a ban on communications with communist journalists such as Burchett and Winnington, many British and American journalist ignored the ban, considering their reports from the communist side as too valuable and important to miss and were widely considered as more trustworthy than official UN spokespeople.
In August 1950 Winnington published a pamphlet titled I Saw Truth in Korea with photographic evidence of mass graveyards containing the corpses 7,000 civilians executed by South Korean police near Taejon. Embarrassed by Winnington's leaflet, the Cabinet of the British government debated whether they could charge him with "treason", which if found guilty could lead to a death sentence. He was also accused of being involved in the interrogation of British prisoners of war in Korea. Though Winnington met with many British POWs held by the communist forces in Korea as he interviewed them and helped to improve their conditions, none of them have confirmed that Winnington ever took part in interrogations.
An investigation in 1999 leading to declassified US military archives later confirmed Winnington's claims that there was indeed a mass execution of civilians by South Korean forces near Taejon as was documented within I Saw Truth in Korea.

Study of slave owners and headhunters

In 1954 Winnington's passport expired and was not renewed by the British government authorities making him virtually stateless. Unable to return to Britain he decided to continue living in China. After hearing news of slave owning societies in south China which had been virtually untouched by the Chinese Civil War and Communist Revolution, he set out to investigate. During his journey to investigate slave owning societies he also travelled to the China-Burma border to interview head-hunters of the Wa people and the relatively peaceful Jingpaw. His findings were published in an anthropological study titled "Slaves of the Cool Mountains: Travels Among The Head-hunters and Slave Owners in South-west China".

Slavery

In Liangshan in China's southwest between Sichuan and Yunnan, there existed a complex system of slavery and nobility among the Yi people. The Yi people were split into three social classes; the nuohuo or Black Yi, qunuo or White Yi, and slaves. The White Yi were free and could own slaves and property but were bound to a lord. Other ethnic groups in Liangshan including Hans were held as slaves by the Yi. During the 1950s the Communist Party of China attempted to abolish the practice of slavery in rural China, a process which Winnington recorded in his writings. However, slavery as a way of life was so deeply entrenched within Yi society that it took years to convince the people, including many of the slaves themselves, that the system of slavery can be abolished. During his time in Liangshi, Winnington spent months interviewing Yi people from all social classes including slaves, slave owners, commoners and nobility.

Head-hunters

After months with in Liangshan, Winnington travelled to the border between China and Burma to meet the Wa people, many of whom practiced head-hunting and would keep decapitated heads in baskets in an attempt to promote crop growth. Winnington wrote that by the time he was able to interview and record the Wa, including numerous head-hunters, that the practice of head-hunting was already in the process of being abolished. Winnington found that many of the Wa he interviewed viewed head-hunting as an embarrassing and shameful practice that they would be happy to see end.

Life in Germany

Winnington arrived in East Germany from China in 1960 to start a new life in East Berlin as the Daily Worker's East Berlin correspondent. His family and children instead travelled to Britain without WInnington. He started a new family in Germany and married a woman called Ursula Wittbrodt, who later became Ursula Winnington in 1967. While in Germany he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Daily Worker and occasionally as an advisor on Asian politics for the East German government.
He began writing fiction alongside his work as a journalist, mostly novels of the crime-fiction genre.
In 1980 Winnington wrote his autobiography Breakfast with Mao which was published posthumously in 1986 after his death in 1983.

Works