Chapter 62 To suppress counter-revolutionaries, the party's mass line must be practiced[1]

(May 15, 1951) one Regarding the number of killing counter-revolutionaries, it must be controlled within a certain percentage.The principle here is: for those who have blood debts or other most serious crimes that are not enough to indignant people and those who most seriously damage the national interests, the death penalty must be resolutely sentenced and executed promptly.For those who have no blood debts, are not very angry with the public, and have seriously damaged the interests of the country but have not yet reached the most serious level, and who deserve to be sentenced to death, a policy of death penalty, two-year reprieve, and forced labor should be adopted to wait and see the effect.Especially for the counter-revolutionaries who should be sentenced to death from the Communist Party, the people's government system, the People's Liberation Army system, the cultural and educational circles, the industrial and commercial circles, the religious circles, and the democratic parties and people's organizations. The principle is to execute one out of ten, and the remaining eighty-nine out of ten should adopt the policy of imposing the death penalty, suspended execution, forced labor, and seeing the aftermath.Only in this way can we gain the sympathy of the society; we can avoid our own mistakes on this issue; we can divide and disintegrate the enemy, which is conducive to the complete elimination of counter-revolutionary forces; and we can preserve a large number of labor forces, which is conducive to the production and construction of the country.At the same time, with regard to the execution of counter-revolutionaries, mass killings should be stopped immediately in rural areas where the population has reached 1/1,000 (0.5/1,000 in the Northwest region) and in cities where the population has reached 0.5/1,000.In addition, it should be clearly stipulated that anyone who can be arrested or not should not be arrested. If he is arrested, he will make a mistake; anyone who can be killed or not should be killed must not be killed.

two There are a lot of criminals with uncleared cases across the country, and it takes several months to clear up the backlogs with all our strength.Therefore, it has been decided that within the four months from June 1 to September 30 this year, all parts of the country, regardless of rural or urban areas, except for active criminals and a small number of people who have been submitted by the party committees of each province, district, and city to the Central Bureau for approval, should All arrests should be stopped so that we can concentrate on clearing up the backlog. three In order to prevent "Left" deviation during the climax of the suppression of counter-revolutionary movements, it was decided that starting from June 1, all places in the country, including those places where few people have killed people so far, will withdraw the right to approve arrests to the prefectural committees. At the special agency level, the right to approve killings is taken back to the provincial level, and those who are far away from the province are sent by the provincial level to handle it.Nowhere may a request be made to change this decision.Regarding the arrest and conviction of counter-revolutionaries purged from within the Communist Party, within the system of the people's government, within the system of the People's Liberation Army, in the cultural and educational circles, in the business circles, in the religious circles, and in various democratic parties and people's organizations In accordance with the instructions of the Central Committee on May 8[2], all reports should be submitted to the large administrative regions or large military regions for approval. The important elements of the United Front must report to the Central Committee for approval, so as to be prudent.

Four Clearing up the backlog of a large number of criminals has been an extremely arduous task in recent months.Through the Party Committee and under the strong leadership of the Party Committee, all localities must mobilize a large number of capable cadres from all aspects, and use surprise methods to basically deal with the backlog of cases within four months from June to September.The largest part of it must be dealt with within six or seven months.If it is not dealt with in summer and dragged to the cold season of autumn and winter, there will be serious consequences. In terms of cleaning methods, first of all, clean up what should be killed and what can be released.All prisoners who are to be sentenced to more than one year in prison must be organized to participate in labor, except for those who are unable to work.In order to overcome adverse conditions such as prison overcrowding, malnutrition, insufficient medicine, and death from disease, they should be imitated in Beijing's approach and immediately let them leave the prison, participate in labor, and wait for judgment during the labor process.For prisoners sentenced to less than one year, with the consent of the majority of the masses, they can be suspended or released on parole, and the masses will be responsible for their control.

Fives Counter-revolutionaries in the "middle" and "inner layers"[3] must be systematically investigated from now on.It has been decided to follow the instructions of the Central Committee to carry out a general and preliminary investigation of the retained personnel and newly recruited intellectuals in the summer and autumn of this year by means of rectification.Its purpose is to clarify the situation and address some of the most salient issues.The method is to study anti-revolutionary documents, and to the retained personnel and newly absorbed intellectuals, call on those who have problems among them (not all of them) to use a sincere and honest attitude to explain their history and confess their hidden problems.This kind of confession campaign must be presided over by the chief, and the principle of voluntariness must be adopted, and no coercion is allowed.Each unit of time should be short and not protracted.Its strategy is to win the majority and isolate the minority, waiting for further investigation in winter.As for the head office, public security organ and other key departments, it must first be checked within June to September, and experience gained for promotion.When carrying out such checks in government systems, schools, and factories, non-Party people must participate in the committees for such checks, and avoid isolated members of the Communist Party.

six The public security system, including the police and public security forces, must be carefully reviewed, cleaned up, and supplemented in the course of this great struggle to suppress counter-revolutionaries, as in the plan proposed by the Nanjing Public Security Bureau, so as to make the public security system sound. seven In this great struggle to suppress counter-revolutionaries, mass security committees must be organized throughout the country.Such committees are organized by the people's elections, with the township as the unit in rural areas and government agencies, schools, factories, and streets in cities as units.The minimum number of committee members is three, and the maximum number is eleven. Reliable non-Party patriots must be recruited to form a united front organization for safeguarding public security.This committee is under the leadership of grassroots governments and public security organs, and is responsible for assisting the people's government in eradicating counter-revolutionaries, preventing rape and espionage, and safeguarding the country and public security.For this committee, the villages must be organized after the land reform is completed, and the cities must be organized after the counter-revolutionary work is carried out, so as to prevent bad people from taking the opportunity to invade.

Eight The current nationwide campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries is a great, intense and complicated struggle.The effective work line that has been implemented throughout the country is the leadership of the party committee, the mobilization of the whole party, the mobilization of the masses, the participation of various democratic parties and people from all walks of life, unified planning and unified action, strict review of the list of arrests and murders, and paying attention to the Struggle tactics, carry out extensive propaganda and education work (various representative conferences, cadre meetings, symposiums, mass meetings, holding accusations of bitter masters at the meetings, exhibiting evidence of crimes, using movies, slides, operas, newspapers, pamphlets and leaflets for propaganda, Make it known to everyone, everyone understands), break the closed-doorism and mysticism, and resolutely oppose the tendency to engage in haste.Anyone who completely follows this line is completely correct.Anyone who does not follow this line is wrong.Anyone who generally follows this line, but does not follow it completely, is generally correct but not entirely correct.We believe that this line of work is the guarantee for continuing to suppress counter-revolutionaries in depth and achieving complete victories.In the future anti-revolutionary work, we must fully abide by this line of work.Among them, the most important ones are strict examination of the culling list and extensive publicity and education.By doing these two things, mistakes can be avoided.

Nine In order to ensure that the great struggle to suppress counter-revolutionaries fully abides by the above-mentioned line of work, avoid mistakes and correct deviations that have already occurred, the central level, the level of large administrative regions, the level of provinces, districts and cities, and the level of special districts, a total of four levels, must send a majority The inspection team, with three people in each group, inspected the counter-revolutionary work in various places from one level to several levels down.Those working groups at all levels who have not been dispatched must be dispatched within six months without delay.The standards for inspection and inspection are the resolutions, instructions and decrees of the central government and the major administrative regions on counter-revolutionary work.

ten In order to quickly understand the situation and correct mistakes in a timely manner, it is decided that within the four months from June 1 to September 30, from the county level to the central government, there are five levels in total. Report the work situation once by telephone, telegram or other methods, and there must be no violation. Printed from originals kept at the Central Archives. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] This is a few paragraphs added and rewritten by Mao Zedong when he reviewed the draft resolution of the Third National Public Security Conference.

[2] Refers to the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on May 8, 1951 that most of the counter-revolutionaries who committed capital crimes should be sentenced to death with a suspended execution policy.See pages 121-123 of this volume. [3] The work of suppressing counter-revolutionaries is divided into outer, middle and inner layers.Cleaning up the "middle class" refers to checking out the counter-revolutionary elements hidden inside the Chinese People's Liberation Army and people's government organs; cleaning up the "inner layer" refers to checking out the counter-revolutionary elements hidden in the Chinese Communist Party.