Written by Yin Shusheng
(Former Executive
Deputy Director of Public Security Bureau, Anhui Province,
also worked in
Public Security Bureau, Qinghai Province)
Translated by Jianglin
Li
(Author of Tibet
in Agony: Lhasa 1959)
Edited by Matthew
Akester
*All notes and square brackets added
by translator*
A page from the Third National
Security Conference
Partial instructions of Mao Zedong to
Huang Jing[1]
In the 17 years prior to the
Cultural Revolution, the Ministry of Public Security held a total of 14
national public security conferences. Most of these conferences were directly
guided by Mao Zedong. The Third National
Public Security Conference in particular, held in Beijing from May 10 to 15, 1951,
was under the direct leadership of Mao Zedong, to which he devoted great
energy. The first draft of the Resolution of the Third National Public
Security Conference passed at the conference was penned by Peng Zhen (彭真)[2] and Luo Ruiqing （罗瑞卿）.[3] However, dissatisfied after reading it, Mao
Zedong personally revised the document four times, making so many changes in the
manuscript that the original became virtually unrecognizable. In a sense, this
resolution was actually written by Mao Zedong himself.
The Third National Public Security
Conference was originally planned in June and July 1951, with the agenda of
reporting and summarizing situation regarding theSuppressing
Counter-revolutionaries Campaign throughout the country since the “Double Ten Directives”
[4] were issued, summing up
and exchanging experiences, and deploying tasks for the second phase of the campaign.
However, at the beginning of May, Mao Zedong called Luo Ruiqing and made it
clear to him that the Third National Public Security Conference could not wait
till June or July, it must be held immediately. Following Mao Zedong’s
instructions, the conference time was shifted to an earlier date to May 10th,
during which the resolution was passed. On May 16th, the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCP) approved the resolution and forwarded
it to provincial party secretaries, requesting that "the entire party and the entire army
must resolutely and completely implement [the resolution] as such."
At the Ninth National Public
Security Conference in 1958, Luo Ruiqing summed up the public security work in
the past nine years since the founding of the People's Republic of China:
"The Third National Public Security Conference is an meeting with great
significance not only in the history of our public security work, but also in
the history of our party. This conference played a decisive role in
consolidating the achievements of the first large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries
Campaign, enabling us to prevent and timely correct mistakes. This meeting is
also the key that allowed us to eliminate remnants of the counter-revolutionaries
in a short period of time without making mistakes of proliferating the movement.”
Luo Ruiqing spoke highly of
the Third National Public Security Conference because it was directly related
to the content of the " Resolution of the Third National Public Security Conference"
(hereinafter referred to as the Resolution) drafted by Mao Zedong
himself. Let us take a look at the main content of the "resolution",
you will have a better understanding.
The Resolution issued a
clear order that the large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign must
be pulled back and recuperate immediately. Within the next four months, with
the exception that the counter-revolutionaries who had carried out sabotaging
activities must be arrested and sentenced, all other arrests and killings must
be temporarily suspended ; and that the
number of counter-revolutionaries to be
killed must be limited to certain population ratio, that is, around 0.5 to 1‰ of
the total population, the highest ratio could not exceed 2‰. Authority of
approving arrests should be taken back from the county level to prefecture and commission
level; authority of approving killings should be taken from the prefecture
level back to the level of province, autonomous region and directly governed
cities.
In addition to these regulations, the Resolution also stipulated
that future arrests and executions must be in accordance with the following
principles: make sure not to arrest those who could or could not be arrested, to
arrest them would be considered as committing an error; making sure not to kill
those who could or could not be killed, to kill them would be considered as
committing an error. Principles of killing counter-revolutionaries were as the
following: those who had blood debts or had committed other serious crimes
(such as rape) and had to be killed to assuage the people's anger, and those
who had caused serious damage to national interests must be given death
sentence and execute immediately. For those who did not have blood debts and no
public resentment, and those who had caused serious damage to the national
interest but had not yet reached the most serious level, but whose offences
were serious enough for capital punishment, the policy of death penalty with a two-year
execution suspension and forced labor to observe the aftereffects should be
adopted.
The Resolution specifically requested
that execution of the counter-revolutionaries swept up from the Communist
Party, the people's government, and the People's Liberation Army systems and the
cultural and educational circles, the business sector, the religious circles,
the democratic parties and people's organizations whose offenses were serious
enough for death penalty should follow the principle that in general 1 or 2 in every ten should be
executed, the other 8 or 9 should adopt the policy of death penalty with a
two-year execution suspension and forced labor to observe the aftereffects. The
resolution also contains contents of sorting out accumulated cases, organizing
prisoners into reform-through-labor camps in order to create national wealth,
etc.
Why did the Resolution urgently
put on the brakes to the large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign
that was in full swing? The reason was that since the campaign started, in a
short time of just a few months, more than 2 million people had been arrested, and
more than 500,000 killed. Mass arrests
and killings continued into May, and the momentum did not show any signs of
weakening. Instead, the pervasive feeling among party, government, and military
cadres at all levels, the ones who were responsible of leading the campaign,
especially the local and county-level cadres, was to make more arrests and
killings. They conducted hasty arrests and killings. In many places some of the
“borderline” people were arrested and killed (investigations showed about
one-third in each category) , some were even mistakenly arrested or killed. If
no emergency brake was put, more would have been arrested and killed, and the
consequences would be unimaginable.
Regarding the number of arrests and killings in the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries
Campaign, Xu Zirong, executive deputy minister of the Ministry of Public
Security, said in a report in January 1954: Since the beginning of the
Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, more than 2.62 million arrests
were made nationwide, among those, 712,000 were executed, more than 1,290,000 imprisoned,
1,200,000 successively placed under surveillance, and more than 38,000 released
after education. What Xu Zirong said was the general number of arrests and
killings in the first large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign.
This campaign, however, lasted for three years and was divided into three phases.
The first phase was from October 1950 to September 1951; the second phase from
October 1951 to September 1952; the third phase from October 1952 to the end of
1953.
According to the statistics from
public security department, the number of killings in the first phase accounted
for about 75% of the total killings in the campaign. Taking the killings as 712,000,
more than 543,000 killings took place in the first phase, mainly in the months
of February, March, April and May of 1951. Since the first phase of the campaign
was initiated after the “Double Ten Directives” were issued, there was a
process of communication, organization, and implementation. The actual implementation
began in January 1951, and the climax was in the four months of February,
March, April and May. Only a small number of arrests and killings occurred before
January 1951. The four months from June to September were period of restriction
and recuperation, the requirement was to suspend arrests and killings (except
for current offenses). Therefore, the 500,000 plus killings executed in the
first phase mainly took place in the four months of February, March, April, and
May. In just a few months, more than 500,000 people were killed, surpassing the
total number of deaths in the three major battles (Liaoshen, Pingjin and
Huaihai) in the civil war. This was truly astonishing. (According to the Full
History of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, during the four years of
the Liberation War, death toll in our army was about 300,000, that of the
Kuomintang army was 400,000, added up to 700,000. Combined death toll in both
the Kuomintang and Communist armies in the three major battles of Liaoning,
Pingjin and Huaihai was more than 400,000.)
At that time, the party,
government, and military leaders in the entire country were busy with
executions, and were rushing to kill. Some people were arrested the day before,
and were shot to death in the next day or even in the same day, some were arrested
at night and shot in the daytime. If situation continued in this way, big
trouble was ensured! More importantly,
the left-wing sentiment prevailed among the party, government, and military
leading cadres commanding the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, they demanded more arrests and killings. If
this ideological tendency was not corrected in time, the campaign would develop
toward the wrong direction. Mao Zedong saw the seriousness of the problem and gave
clear instruction: "Do not overkill, too many killings will cost us social
sympathy and lose labor power."
The question is: how did the
storm of hastiness, of mass arrests, mass killings, wrong arrests and wrong
killings started? Fundamentally it started from the Central Committee. In the
early days of the campaign, some leaders were timid and hesitant and failed to
render effective strikes on current Counter-revolutionary activities. Mao
Zedong criticized the tendency of "leniency without boundary." In the
“Directives on Correcting the Right-wing Bias in Suppressing Counter-Revolution
Activities” [i.e., “Double Ten Directives”] ，the CCP Central Committee made this point:
“A serious right-wing bias exists on the issue of suppressing
counter-revolutionaries. As a result, a large number of ringleaders and wicked counter-revolutionary
elements who continued to do evils after the Liberation and even after being
leniently treated have escaped the punishment they deserve.” However, at the same time, the "Double
Ten Directives" also made it clear that in order to prevent the "left-wing"
tendency, it is necessary to insist on emphasizing evidence, investigation and
research; confession under duress and torture were strictly prohibited.
On the issue of how to implement
such a large-scale campaign and how to ensure its healthy development, the
Central Committee and Mao Zedong did not put forward effective and operable
measures. They continued to use the methods of the revolutionary war and mass
movement instead of the legal approach. At the beginning of 1949, the CCP Central
Committee announced the abolition of the "Six Codes". [5] Since then, no new laws
have been enacted to replace them. Although the Government Administration
Council later introduced “Regulations on Punishing the Counter-Revolutionaries,"
they are all substantive and difficult-to-grasp principals without procedural
regulations. Therefore, the large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries
Campaign was in fact in a state that there was no law to abide by, relying
entirely on the documents issued by the Central Committee and the instructions from
the top leaders, mainly from Mao Zedong.
To lead the campaign, Mao
Zedong used the same methods he used to command war in the revolutionary war
era. On the issue of arrests and killings, quotas, fixed tasks and deadlines were
imposed. He fell on subjective judgment and was eager for quick results by constantly
issuing instructions,[6] demanding certain number
of arrests and killings at certain places must be done by certain time. Although the "Double Ten Directives"
required "laying stress on evidence and not too ready to believe
confession " in the campaign, and "death penalty must been approved by
provincial, municipal, district and the commissioned local committees" ,
when pressed by deadlines, task requirements and quotas imposed by Mao Zedong, it
was impossible to follow these regulations, not to say that the authority to arrest and
kill had been transferred by Mao Zedong the supreme leader to lower level.
Let us take a closer look at how
the Central Committee, mainly Mao Zedong, led the campaign by issuing orders.
On January 17th, 1951, Mao
Zedong received a suppressing Counter-revolutionaries report of the 27th Army stationed
in western Hunan province submitted by the South-Central Bureau. The report stated
that in the 21 counties of western Hunan the garrison troops alone had executed
more than 4,600 bandit leaders, local bullies and spies, and prepared to let the
local government to kill another batch. Mao Zedong penned the following comment:
"This move is very necessary," and stressed that "it is
necessary to kill a few more big batches, especially in the places where
bandits, bullies and spies are congregated, " demanding that "all the
localities must be quick to follow this example without fail."
On January 22nd, Mao Zedong
telegraphed the South China Bureau and the leaders of the Guangdong Provincial
Party Committee: "You have killed more than 3,700, which is very good,
kill 3,000 or 4,000 more," "You can set killing 8 or 9 thousand as
the goal for this year." On January 29, the Ministry of Public Security
reported to the Central South Military and Political Committee [7] that Hubei Province had made
19,823 arrests, including 160 within the provincial government. The Ministry of
Public Security made this remark on the report: " Making arrests without
internal and external distinguish may easily cause panic and ideological
fluctuations among cadres." Mao Zedong saw this remark, and criticized the
Ministry of Public Security: "Hubei is doing very well, don't dump cold
water on them."
On February 5th, the Northwest
Bureau of the CPC Central Committee reported that more than 5,000 had been
arrested in two months and more than 500 had been killed. In general, the
killings were not strong and powerful enough, and the procedure was slow. However, it was required that the
implementation of the suppressing counter-revolutionaries plan must be stable
and steady, and all killings must be approved by the province (this is the
requirement of the "Double Ten Directives” - the author). After reading
the report, Mao commented: "Regarding the death sentences, execution of
mild cases can be approved by prefectural level." Subordinates followed
the example set by their superiors, thus in many places, the authority to
approve killings was transferred from the prefectural level further down to the
county level.
In the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries
Campaign, whether a criminal should be killed was not decided in accordance with
his crime, but was based on the quota set on population proportion, which
required that certain number of people must be killed in a certain place or
city. This is the biggest absurdity. Mao Zedong
originally demanded that the proportion of execution should reach 0.5 ‰ of total
local population; in a place where the situation was more serious, it should
reach 1 ‰
of total local population. Later, he said that some places can exceed this quota,
but not more than 1.5 ‰, and the most should not exceed 2 ‰.
In mid-February 1951, Mao
Zedong directly telegrammed the heads of the Shanghai and Nanjing party
Committees: "Shanghai is a big city with a population of 6 million. Based
on the situation that in Shanghai, more than 20,000 arrests have been made but only
over 200 were killed. I think that in the year of 1951, at least around 3,000 bandit
ringleaders, professional brigands, bullies, spies, and superstitious
organizations and secret society leaders should be killed. At least about 1,500
should be killed in the first half of the year. Please consider whether this
number is appropriate. In Nanjing,
according to the February 3rd telegram sent by Comrade Ke Qingshi[8] to Comrade Rao Shushi,[9] 72 had been killed and the
plan was to kill another 1,500. This number is too small. Nanjing is a big city
with a population of 500,000 and the capital of the Kuomintang. Reactionary
elements should be killed seem to be more than 2000.” “Nanjing kills too few people;
more should be killed in Nanjing!"
On February 2, 1951, the
Administrative Council issued “Regulations on Punishing Counter-Revolutionaries".
Mao Zedong immediately instructed [leaders of] Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao,
Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing and other provincial capitals, saying
that these places were “important nests of counter-revolutionary organizations.
Reconnaissance and arrests must be arranged in a planned manner. Within a few
months, a large number of counter-revolutionaries with serious crimes and well-found
evidence must be killed."
On February 17th, 1951, under
the direct leadership and command of Luo Ruiqing, 675 arrests were made
overnight. On the second day (February 18), 58 were publicly executed. At the
night of March 7th, another 1050 were arrested, and 199 were publicly executed on
25th. Mao Zedong gave Beijing his full affirmation. To implement Mao Zedong’s
instructions, the CCP Tianjin Municipal Committee reported in early March that
on top of the 150 executions already done, another 1,500 executions had been
planned. Mao Zedong commented: "I hope that Shanghai, Nanjing, Qingdao,
Guangzhou, Wuhan and other big and medium-sized cities will have an operable suppressing
counter-revolutionary plan for the next few months to the end of this year. The
masses have said that killing the counter-revolutionaries is more exciting than
enjoying a thorough rain. I hope that every big and medium-sized city will kill
a few large batches of counter-revolutionaries."
In accordance with Mao Zedong’s
repeated urge and instructions to “kill a few large batches of
counter-revolutionaries”, the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee reported to the
Central Committee: “Shanghai is determined to give a free hand in making
another 10,000 arrests, 3,000 executions,
4,000 imprisonments and 3,000 supervisions on top of the 1,068 arrests and the more
than 100 executions already made. "
Mao Zedong fully affirmed the Shanghai Party Committee's attitude of correcting
the overcautious approach on making arrests and executions, and the action-plan
of major arrests and executions. He immediately cabled the Shanghai Party Committee:
"If you can arrest more than 10,000 and kill 3,000, it will play a great
role in promoting the suppressing counter-revolutionaries work in other cities.
You should take note to rapid trial after arrests were made, the first batch to
be killed ought to be set in about half a month, sentencing and execution
should be done every couple of days after that.” Following Mao’s instructions, the
Shanghai Party Committee arrested 8,359 people in one day on April 27, only 3
days later, 285 were executed in one day on April 30, and 28 more were executed
on May 9. After the "Resolution" was released, due to the
inertia, Shanghai’s mass arrest and executions did not stop right away. On June
15th, 284 more were executed, and every few days, a group of people, sometimes
a couple of dozens, sometimes 140 or 150, were shot to death after that.
Due to Mao Zedong’s
supervision and encouragement, arrests and killings went out of control. Some localities
requested to break through the arrest and killing quotas set by the Central
Committee, especially the killing quotas. The Guizhou Provincial Party
Committee proposed that unless the number of killings reached 3‰ of the total population, problem would not be solved.
Southwest and South China [bureaus] also requested to break through the quotas.
By the beginning of May 1951, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces had made 188,679 arrests
and 57,032 executions, among the executions, 10,488 were made in Guangdong in
April alone. By the end of April, more than 358,000 arrests were made in the
region of East China, and more than 108,400 were executed, accounting for 0.78‰
of the total population. In the southern central regions, in early May, more
than 200,000 people were executed, close to 1.5‰ of the total population.
The situation of unorderly
arresting and killing had drawn the attention of some local party committees.
On the eve of the Third National Public Security Conference, the CCP Shandong
Branch issued a notice stipulating that “the proportion of killings in
Shandong, regardless in the city or in the country, should be less than 1‰.” (This
is due to the fact that Shandong had already finished land reform, during which
many landlords and local bullies had been killed, killings in both campaigns
added up had already exceeded the quota of 1‰ - the
author).
On the 23rd of March, Huang
Kecheng, secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, reported to the
Central Committee and Mao Zedong: "There have been cases where the scope
of arrests has been expanded and the handling is sloppy - and it has begun to
involve internal (underground party branches, enterprises, governments and institutions),
and the struggles with the hidden counter-revolutionaries needs to be more
refined. " “We intend to hold back immediately – to limit the scope of
killings, and the struggle is to be carried out in a planned and step-by-step
manner." He was the first provincial party committee leader to propose
holding back the campaign and limit the scope of arrests and killings. But Mao
Zedong ignored it.
Meanwhile, in mid-April, the
South-Central Bureau ordered Hunan, Henan, Jiangxi, and Hubei provinces to stop
mass arrests and executions, and to return the authority of approving executions
to provincial party committees. However, the result had been minimal. After the
order was issued, in less than one month, from late April to mid-May, more than
50,000 people were executed in these four provinces, and majority of them did
not go through the approval procedures. It was clear that the problem could
only be solved by the person who started it. To correct the disorderly
situation of mass arrests and executions, Mao Zedong had to attend to the
matter personally and issue instructions to effectively halt it.
Mao Zedong began to worry that
the number of killings was getting bigger and bigger and that the situation had
gone out of control. On April 20, he cabled secretaries of all CCP regional
bureaus, requesting them to control the execution proportion: "Although the
Central Committee meeting in February had decided that the standard of
execution number was temporarily set as 0.5‰ of the total population, but now the Southwest has reached 1‰, and some provinces in South Central and the East
China have reached 1‰, and some places have already exceeded [1‰]. Generally
speaking, it seems that to solve the problem the three regions of East China, South
Central and Southwest all have to exceed 1‰. However, it does not seem to be
appropriate to exceed too much. The Liuzhou prefecture[10] wanted to kill 5‰, which
is obviously wrong. Guizhou Provincial Party Committee has requested to kill 3‰, that I feel is too many. I have the idea that 1‰ can
be exceeded, but not too much. Don’t set 2‰ in general as a standard. It
should be a norm to list many prisoners as life sentence, take them away from their
hometown to be concentrated by government in batches, and put them in productive
work to construct roads and dams, cultivate wasteland, and building houses. For
example, of the 60,000 more prisoners the southwestern region has planned to kill,
just kill about 30,000 to assuage popular indignation, and gather the remaining
30,000 in batches to do production work.” “Take at 0.5‰ of the population,
there are more than 150,000 people in the three regions of Southwest, South Central
and East China [to be killed], that is a big labor power" (that is, if the
three regions followed their original plan and keep the execution ratio at 0.5‰,
they would kill 150,000 less. In fact, all [three regions] have exceeded 1‰. If
1.5‰ ratio is reached, 300,000 more will be killed - the author); "Guizhou
Provincial Party Committee requested to kill another 22,000 to 25,000. We can
allow them to kill a little more than 10,000, leaving more than 10,000 not to
kill. This already exceeds the 2‰ ratio.
To handle the situation in accordance with Guizhou’s special
circumstance, it will be considered as [striking] hard and on target. “ ( Using
special circumstances as an excuse to allow Guizhou to break through the quota
of 2‰, this means that it does not matter for other places to break through the
quota and kill more. There is no determination to correct the mistake. - the
author).
He then telegraphed leaders of
the South China Bureau: "Based on the situation that more than 57,000 have
been killed in South China, and there are still more than 160,000 imprisoned,
the two provinces and one city in South China (Guangdong, Guangxi provinces and
Guangzhou City - the author) should stop arresting for four months starting
from June 1, focusing on sorting out accumulated cases, summing up experience and
educating cadres. The same is also
applicable to Henan, Hubei, Human and Jiangxi [provinces].” Since Mao gave Guizhou
permission to break through the quota, his instruction will not be implemented
resolutely by the two provinces and one city of South China.
At this time, Mao Zedong felt
that his instructions and telegrams alone were not enough to halt this powerful
storm of mass arrests and killings. He must immediately call a meeting,
summoned the “local vassals" and make arrangements to step on the brakes
in person, otherwise more heads will roll on the ground.
Once the
"Resolution" was passed, the Central Committee immediately forwarded
it by telegram to local authorities, and the mass arrests and killings took
initial restraint. However, due to inertia, some places continued to make
unnecessary arrests and killings. For example, in East China, the May 1951
statistics showed that a total of 358,000 people were arrested and 100,840 were
killed; in October, the statistics showed 468,385 arrests made and 139,435
killed. This means that in the few months following the Third National Public Security
Conference, another 110,000 were arrested and 40,000 executed. It was a big
discount in the so-called “stop arresting and killing for four months”.
However, with the gradual implementation of the Resolution of the Third
National Public Security Conference, the momentum of arresting and killing
people was held back to a certain extent. The actual number of arrests and
killings nationwide in the second and third phases of the campaign in the
following two years had relatively large decline. The total number was only
about a quarter of the arrests and killings in the first few months of 1951. No
doubt that the Resolution played its roll.
Sixty years have passed since
the first large-scale Suppressing of Counter-revolutionaries Campaign took place,
and many lessons can be summed up. After years of war, people needed to recover.
When the new regime was established, those
in power should adopt a policy of leniency, trying best to fill the social rift
and win support from all walks of life. Unless those who have to be killed, do
not take killling lightly . The 1,107 war criminals captured from the Japanese
aggression against China, each one of them caused unprecedented disasters to
the Chinese people. However, they were well treated in the War Criminal Management
Centre. After a few years, they were granted amnesty and were back to Japan.
The ordinary counter-revolutionaries in China, those who had no blood debts,
and no serious current sabotage activities, why can't they be given a chance to
live and must be killed?!
Take the 81county magistrates in
Guizhou Province during the Kuomintang era as an example, when the People's Liberation
Army liberated Guizhou, some of them changed sides, some surrendered, some were
arrested and released, a few of them were given jobs, and majority of them had
already been handled in accordance with their specific situation. However, in
the killing frenzy of Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, every
single one of them was killed. Can it be that their crimes were bigger than that
of the Japanese war criminals?
Regarding the death penalties,
why were they handled so sloppy and lightly? Tongcheng County (桐城县), Anhui Province planned to kill 16
counter-revolutionaries and submitted the cases to the Anqing Prefecture Party Committee
for approval. The party committee reviewed the cases and disapproved all of them.
Related documents were sent back to the county. Without so much as opening the envelop to
check the content, officials in the county public security department assumed that
the death penalties were approved. All the 16 people were dragged to the
execution field and shot to death. Among them, 5 were baozhang,[11] 4 were Youth League of the Three Principals of
the People[12]
district branch members, 3 were gendarmes,
2 were local branch heads of the Persistent Way, a religious sect, and 6 were landlords.
None of the 16 individuals had blood debts or committed rape. Later those cases
were reviewed and it turned out that 11 out of the 16 should not even be arrested
and would have to be released immediately. When several bully landlords were
executed in the Fuyang (阜阳) area,
a few women who had slept with them were also killed together with them. Their
crimes were "disgraceful behavior that brought shame to the laboring
people." There were also innocent people who had been killed by mistake, including
many people who risked their lives to engage in underground work [for CCP]. They
had managed to escape numerous assassination attempts by Kuomintang spies, only
to be killed by people of their own side, This is truly unimaginably ridiculous.
Since the experience and
lessons of the first large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign have
never been carefully summed up, these mistakes have been repeated in successive
political campaigns after that, causing enormous disasters for the Chinese
people. The first Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign was followed by the
Campaign of Eliminating Counter-revolutionaries, Agricultural Cooperative Movement and the Socialist
Transformation in Industry and Commerce Movement, the Anti-rightist Struggle,
the Great Leap Forward Movement, and the “Four Clean-ups” Movement. Following
the requests from the CCP Central Committee, local public security bureaus had
to make arrangement for struggle against the enemies, suppressing the
counter-revolutionaries was used as an important means to ensure the smooth
progress of those political campaigns. That was the reason that before 1976,[13] China's suppressing counter-revolutionaries
movement has not really stopped, and it continued all the way to the Cultural
Revolution when "Six Regulations of Public Security" was issued. Movements
like Clean-up Class Ranks，One Hit
and Three Antis, Special Case Investigations, etc. were continuation of
suppressing counter-revolutionaries, and all carried out in the same manner. No
legal procedure was followed, completely lawless. The Chinese people have been greatly
devastated and hurt again and again.
Source: Yin, Shusheng, “Mao Zedong and the Third
National Public Security Conference”. Yanhuang Chunqiu, No. 5 (2014). Internet
version: http://www.yhcqw.com/36/9484.html
[1]
Huang Jing (黄敬，1912-1958),
the first mayor of Tianjin City. For the complete document, See Mao, Zedong. Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong
wengao. Volume 2 (1951. 1 – 1951. 12) [Beijing]: Zhong yang wen xian chu ban
she, 1987. Semi-classified.
[2]
Peng Zheng (October 12, 1902 – April 26, 1997)，deputy director of Commission of
Politics and Law of the Government Administration Council and mayor of Beijing.
[All notes added by translator]
[4]
Referring to “Central
Committees’ Directives on Correcting the Right-wing Bias in Suppressing
Counter-Revolution Activities”, one of the key documents in the Suppressing
Counter-revolutionaries Campaign. It was issued on October 10th,
1950, thus popularly known as “The Double 10 Directives”.
[5] “Six
codes refers to the six main legal codes that makes up the main body of law in
the Republic of China, including the
Constitution, Civil Code, Code of Civil Procedure, Criminal Code, Code
of Criminal Procedure and Administrative Laws.
[6]
In Jiaguo yilai Mao Zedong wegao Volume
2 (1951. 1 – 1951. 12) [Manuscripts of Mao Zedong since the Founding of
the Country: 1951. 1 – 1951.12] collected 79 instructions on Suppressing
Counter-revolutionary Campaign from January to May. See Mao, Zedong.
[7]
The author probably made a mistake here. Should be the other way around, i.e,
the Central South Military and Political Committee reported to the Ministry
of Public Security.
[9] Rao
Shushi (饶漱石；1903—1975)
，then Chairman
of Military and Political Committee of East China and General Secretary of East
China Bureau and First Secretary of CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee.
[10]
Today’s prefecture-level city in north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region.
[11]
Baojia system, a form of local political organization. A jia was
composed of 10 households, a bao was composed of 10 jia. Jiazhang
was the head of a jia, baozhang was the head of a bao. Both were
unpaid positions.
[12] A
youth organization of the Kuomintang era.
[13]
Mao Zedong died in September 9th, 1976.
