Yin Shusheng: Mao Zedong and the Third National Security Conference

  (Written by Yin Shusheng, Former Executive Deputy Director of Anhui Province Public Security Bureau,  also worked in Public Security Bureau, Qinghai Province)

Translated by Jianglin Li
Edited by Matthew Akester

*All notes and square brackets added by translator*

 

 

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 to 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 for June and July 1951, with the agenda of reporting on and summarizing the situation regarding the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign throughout the country since the issue of the “Double Ten Directives”,[4] summing up and exchanging experiences, and arranging 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, and must be held immediately. Following Mao Zedong’s instructions, the conference was shifted to an earlier date, 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 a meeting with great significance not only for the history of our public security work, but also for 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 was also the key that allowed us to eliminate remnants of the counter-revolutionaries in a short period of time without making the mistake 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" (hereafter referred to as the Resolution) drafted by Mao Zedong himself. If we 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 counter-revolutionaries who carry out sabotage activities must be arrested and sentenced, all other arrests and killings must be temporarily suspended. The number of  counter-revolutionaries to be killed must be limited to a certain population ratio, that is, around 0.5 to 1% of the total population, and the highest ratio could not exceed 2%. Authority to approve arrests should be taken back from county level to prefecture and commission level; authority to approve killings should be taken from 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 for killing counter-revolutionaries were as follows: 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 the death sentence and executed immediately. For those without blood debts and public resentment, and those who caused serious damage to the national interest but did not reach the most serious level, but whose offences were serious enough for capital punishment, the policy of death penalty with a two-year suspension and forced labor, to observe the after-effects, should be adopted. The Resolution specifically requested that for counter-revolutionaries swept up from the Communist Party, the people's government, and People's Liberation Army institutions, and from cultural and educational circles, the business sector, religious circles, democratic parties and people's organizations, whose offenses were serious enough for the death penalty the principle should be that in general one or two in every ten should be executed, the other eight or nine should get the death penalty with a two-year suspension and forced labor, to observe the after-effects. The resolution also contains decisions on 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 for leading the campaign, especially the local and county-level cadres, was to make more arrests and killings. They conducted arrests and killings hastily. 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 on, more would have been arrested and killed, and the consequences would have been 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 referred to 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 Public Security department statistics, the number of killings in the first phase accounted for about 75% of the total killings in the campaign. Taking the figure as 712,000, more than 543,000 killings took place in the first phase, mainly in February to May 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 from February to May. Only a small number of arrests and killings occurred before January 1951. The four months from June to September were a 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, the death toll on our army was about 300,000, that of the Kuomintang army was 400,000, adding up to 700,000. The combined death toll on 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 shot to death the next day or even on the same day, some were arrested at night and shot in daytime. If the situation continued in this way, big trouble was ensured!  More importantly, left-wing sentiment prevailed among the party, government, and military leading cadres commanding the Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign,  and they demanded more arrests and killings. If this ideological tendency was not corrected in time, the campaign would develop in 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 reduce labor resources."

The question is: how did the storm of hastiness, of mass arrests, mass killings, wrongful arrests and wrongful killings start? 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 evil 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 principles without procedural regulations. Therefore, there was no law to guide the implementation of the large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign, and they relied entirely on documents issued by the Central Committee and instructions from the top leaders, mainly 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 lapsed into subjective judgment and was eager for quick results by constantly issuing instructions,[6] and demanding certain numbers of arrests and killings at certain places to be done by a certain time.  Although the "Double Ten Directives" required "laying stress on evidence and not being too ready to believe confessions" in the campaign, and that "death penalties must be approved by provincial, municipal, district and the commissioned local committees", when pressed by the deadlines, task requirements and quotas imposed by Mao Zedong, it was impossible to follow these directives, not to mention that the authority to arrest and kill had been transferred by Mao Zedong the supreme leader to the lower levels.

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 from 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 was prepared to let the local government 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 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 8,000 or 9,000 as the goal for this year." On January 29th, the Central South Military and Political Committee reported to the Ministry of Public Security 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 distinction 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, but that in general, the killings were not strong and effective enough, and the procedure was slow. However, the implementation of the suppressing counter-revolutionaries plan was required to be stable and steady, and all killings must be approved by the province (Author’s note: this is the requirement of the "Double Ten Directives”). After reading the report, Mao commented: "Regarding the death sentences, execution of mild cases can be approved at prefectural level." Subordinates followed the example set by their superiors, and 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 executed was not decided in accordance with his crime, but was based on the quota set on population proportion, which required that a certain number of people be killed in a certain area or city. This is the greatest absurdity. Mao Zedong originally demanded that the proportion of execution should reach 0.5 % of total local population, and 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 should not exceed 2 % at the most.

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 more than 20,000 arrests have been made in Shanghai, but only over 200 were killed, I think that in the year 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 3^rd telegram sent by Comrade Ke Qingshi[7] to Comrade Rao Shushi,[8] 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 was the capital of the Kuomintang. Reactionary elements who should be killed seem to be more than 2000.” “Nanjing kills too few people; more should be killed in Nanjing!"

On February 2nd 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 who have committed serious crimes with well-founded evidence against them 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 18th), 58 were publicly executed. On 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 were planned. Mao Zedong commented: "I hope that Shanghai, Nanjing, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other big and medium-sized cities 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 good 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 instructions to “kill a few large batches of counter-revolutionaries”, the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee reported to the Central Committee: “Shanghai is determined to take 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 to arrests and executions, and the plan of action. 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 of the need for rapid trial after arrests are made; the first batch to be killed ought to be fixed 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, April 27^th. Three days later, on April 30^th, 285 were executed in one day, and 28 more were executed on May 9th. After the Resolution was released, Shanghai’s mass arrests and executions did not stop right away, due to inertia. On June 15th, 284 more were executed, and every few days after that, a group of people, sometimes a couple of dozen, sometimes 140 to 150, were shot to death.

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, the problem would not be solved. The Southwest and Southern [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 took place 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, or 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 arbitrary arrests and killings 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%.” (Author’s note: this was due to the fact that Shandong had already finished land reform, during which many landlords and local bullies had been killed, and the killings in both campaigns combined had already exceeded the 1% quota).

On March 23rd, 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 struggle 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 to  approve executions to provincial party committees. However, the results were minimal: in less than one month, from late April to mid-May, more than 50,000 people were executed in these four provinces, and the majority 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 increasing and that the situation had gone out of control. On April 20th, he cabled secretaries of all CCP regional bureaus requesting them to control the execution proportion: "The Central Committee meeting in February decided that the standard number of executions be 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 in some places 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 appropriate to exceed too much. The Liuzhou prefecture[9] 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% as a general standard. It should be the norm to list many prisoners as serving life sentences, 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 build houses. For example, of the 60,000 more prisoners the southwestern region plans to kill, just kill about 30,000 to assuage popular indignation, and gather the remaining 30,000 in batches to do productive work.” “Taking 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 manpower resource" (Author’s note: that is, if the three regions followed their original plan and kept the execution ratio at 0.5%, they would kill 150,000 less. In fact, all [three regions] exceeded 1%. If 1.5% ratio is reached, 300,000 more will be killed). "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. This already exceeds the 2% ratio.  To handle the situation in accordance with Guizhou’s special circumstances, it will be considered as [striking] hard and on target.” ( Author’s note: Using special circumstances as an excuse to allow Guizhou to break through the quota of 2%, means that it does not matter if other places break through the quota and kill more. There is no determination to correct the mistake).

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 and Guangxi provinces, and Guangzhou City) should stop arrests for four months from June 1st, and focus on sorting out accumulated cases, summing up experience and educating cadres. The same is also applicable to Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi [provinces].” Since Mao gave Guizhou permission to break through the quota, his instruction would 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 had to call a meeting immediately, summon the “local vassals" and step on the brakes in person, otherwise more heads would 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 were initially subject to 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 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, a big discount off the so-called “stop arresting and killing for four months” directive. However, with the gradual implementation of the Resolution, 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 saw a relatively large decline. The total number was only about a quarter of the arrests and killings in the first few months of 1951, so there is no doubt that the Resolution played its part.

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 have adopted a policy of leniency, trying best to heal the social rift and win support from all walks of life. Except those who have to be killed, killling should not have been taken lightly. Each one of the 1,107 war criminals captured from the Japanese aggression against China had caused unprecedented disaster for the Chinese people, yet they were well treated in the War Criminal Management Centre. After a few years, they were granted amnesty and went back to Japan. Why couldn’t ordinary counter-revolutionaries in China, those who had no blood debts and no serious current sabotage activities, be given a chance to live?! 

Take the 81 county 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 the 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 executed. Can it be that their crimes were greater than those of the Japanese war criminals?

Regarding the death penalties, why were they handled so sloppily 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 envelope to check the content, officials in the county public security department assumed that the death penalties were approved. All 16 people were dragged to the execution field and shot. Among them, 5 were baozhang,[10] 4 were Youth League of the Three Principals of the People[11] 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 have been arrested and should have been 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 were killed by mistake, including many people who risked their lives to engage in underground work [for the CCP]. They had managed to escape numerous assassination attempts by Kuomintang spies, only to be killed by people on their own side, This is truly, unimaginably absurd. 

Since the experience and lessons of the first large-scale Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries Campaign were never carefully summed up, these mistakes were 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,  the 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 requests from the CCP Central Committee, local public security bureaus had to make arrangements for struggle against the enemies, and Suppressing the Counter-revolutionaries was used as an important means to ensure the smooth progress of those political campaigns. That was the reason why until 1976,[12] China's Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries movement never really stopped, and continued all the way up to the Cultural Revolution when the "Six Regulations of Public Security" were issued. Movements like Clean-up Class Ranks，One Smash and Three Antis, Special Case Investigations, etc. were a continuation of Suppressing Counter-revolutionaries, and were all carried out in the same manner. No legal procedure was followed, it was 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). 

 

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[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 the Politics and Law Commission of the Government Administration Council and mayor of Beijing. [All notes by translator]

[3] Luo Ruiqing (May 31, 1906 – August 3, 1978), first Minister of Public Security, 1949 - 1959.

[4] Referring to“Central Committee 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 10^th, 1950, thus popularly known as “The Double 10 Directives”.  

[5] “Six codes” refers to the six main legal codes that made 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] is a collection of 79 instructions on the Suppressing Counter-revolutionary Campaign from January to May. See Mao, Zedong.  

[7] Ke Qingshi (柯庆施;  1902 –  1965), then mayor of Nanjing.

[8] Rao Shushi (饶漱石；1903—1975) ，then Chairman of Military and Political Committee and General Secretary of East China Bureau, and First Secretary of CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee.

[9] Today’s prefecture-level city in north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

[10] 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.

[11] A youth organization of the Kuomintang era.

[12] Mao Zedong died on September 9^th, 1976.