Recently, it has been observed that in many newly established rural areas where formal local governments have been in place for over a year, and even in some very long-established districts, both people’s tribunals and the State Political Security Bureau coexist alongside anti-counterrevolutionary committees. Such duplication of organs and fragmentation of functions seriously violate organizational principles, impede the smooth conduct of work, and, moreover, since no explicit provisions previously stipulated under which authority the anti-counterrevolutionary committees were to operate, these bodies have often acted independently and without unified leadership, leading to numerous grave problems.

In order to establish a sound system of anti-counterrevolutionary organs capable of effectively carrying out counter-revolutionary suppression tasks under the conditions of civil war, the Central Executive Committee hereby resolves as follows:

1. In all newly developed soviet areas and in local provisional governments, an anti-counterrevolutionary committee shall be organized under the standing committee of the county or district as a temporary anti-counterrevolutionary body. Its mission shall be to suppress and adjudicate the counter-revolutionary activities and plots of local gentry, landlords, rich peasants, capitalists, and all other reactionary elements, thereby eliminating local counter-revolutionary forces and consolidating the provisional government. Its powers shall encompass those of both a judicial organ and a political security bureau.

2. The county and district anti-counterrevolutionary committees shall, organizationally, be subordinate to the local revolutionary committee and subject to its guidance and supervision; with respect to anti-counterrevolutionary work, they shall be guided by the higher-level State Political Security Bureau. However, if the local provisional government has not yet established contact with the provincial or county political security bureaus, their anti-counterrevolutionary work shall be directed by the political security organs at or above the army level of the nearest Red Army unit. Should there be no Red Army present in the area, or if the Red Army has already withdrawn, such committees shall be entirely under the direction of the county or district revolutionary committee.

3. Under the leadership of the county revolutionary committee, the county anti-counterrevolutionary committee shall have the direct authority to arrest, interrogate, try, and pass sentence on counter-revolutionaries and ordinary criminals, and to carry out those sentences—from execution to release. District and city anti-counterrevolutionary committees may execute capital punishments only with the prior approval of the county committee; however, in cases where the crimes of local gentry, landlords, rich peasants, or capitalists are particularly flagrant and there is public demand from workers and peasants for their execution, or when urgent circumstances do not permit time-consuming reporting, district and city committees may first carry out the execution and subsequently report to the county committee for record.

4. In all counties and districts where a formal government has already been established—whether in the interior or on the frontier—it is imperative to set up people’s tribunals and State Political Security Bureaus to undertake anti-counterrevolutionary work and to handle general civil and criminal cases; the existing anti-counterrevolutionary committees are hereby abolished.

In accordance with the foregoing resolution, the county and district anti-counterrevolutionary committees now operating in all established soviet areas shall be immediately dissolved, and their functions shall be reassigned and integrated into the people’s tribunals and the political security bureaus. Similarly, all anti-counterrevolutionary committees in new areas must, pursuant to this resolution, make the necessary adjustments in their powers, organizational structure, and modes of operation.

Chairman Mao Zedong  Vice Chairmen Xiang Ying and Zhang Guotao