China releases CPC papers' coverage of Nanjing Massacre

As the country prepares for the National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre victims, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has released a series of papers detailing brutal acts by Japanese soldiers on Wednesday.

"Bodies were littered along the Yangtze River. Japanese army cars rushed by, grinding over male and female bodies of all ages. It was a horrendous mess of flesh and blood, broken arms and legs," said a frontpage story in the Dec. 20, 1937 issue of "Giu Guo Sh Bao," one week prior to the fall of Nanjing, known as Nanking at the time.

The paper was released by the CPC and based in Paris at the time. The article was titled "Japanese Invading Nanking with Unrestrained Brutality."

In 1938, the paper publicized multiple stories and photos on the massacre, condemning the Japanese soldiers' "burning, killing, raping and whatever else they committed" in Nanjing. One story described their acts as "savage and dark to the utmost and devoid of humanity and conscience."

Meanwhile, "Qunzhong," or "Masses," a weekly magazine under the CPC Central Committee, published an editorial on the massacre on Jan. 1, 1938.

"[The enemy's acts] along the Peking-Shanghai route, especially the Nanking Massacre, have marked an unprecedented bloody, brutal and beastly record in the human history. It's a declaration of war against the Chinese people as well as the entire human race," it said.

This is the fourth in a series of archived material that will be published in the run up to the memorial day. More episodes will be released in the week preceding National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims, on Dec. 13.

Japan invaded northeast China in September 1931, followed by full-scale invasion that started on July 7, 1937. Around 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or injured in the war against Japanese invasion that continued until 1945.