Decision of the Central Committee of
the Chinese Communist Party on Cadre
Screening
(August 15, 1943)
It is no surprise that secret agents are numerous. Fascist countries like Germany,
Japan, and Italy and their subordinate countries and occupied territories deceive
and force tens of millions of young people to join and serve Fascist organizations.
Although the compradorial, feudal, and Fascist Guomindang has been useful in
resisting foreign Fascist invasions, ever since 1927 it has been anti-Communist
and opposed to the people and has established an enormous system of secret
agents. During the War of Resistance, although, on the one hand, it has used the
Communist Party to resist the Japanese, on the other, it has spared no effort to
oppose the Communists. It deceives and forces vast numbers of young people to
join its organizations and, moreover, to turn some of them into professional
secret agents who specialize in activities aimed at destroying the Communist
Party. Japanese Fascists use Chinese as their secret agents, and these spies are
numerous. Secret agents are therefore a worldwide problem and a problem
involving the masses. If we do not understand this point, we will not be able to
choose the correct strategy.
This time, our Party is screening cadres as part of the rectification, and it is
planning to further screen all personnel. We do not call this the elimination of
counterrevolutionaries, and we will not adopt the policy of turning over every
secret agent and suspicious element to public security organs to be dealt with.
Instead, we will adopt the policy of leading cadres taking responsibility and
getting to work personally, of leaders and backbone elements uniting with the

broad masses, of linking general calls with specific guidance, of investigating and
researching, of distinguishing between truth and falsehood and between the
minor and the serious, of winning over those who have slipped, of cultivating
cadres, and of educating the masses. We do this because it is a problem involving
the masses. If we are alienated from the broad masses of the organizations,
schools, troops, factories, and the countryside and from those strong and capable
cadres who are connected with the masses at every level, we will not be able to
solve this important issue thoroughly and in the best, most suitable way.
The strategy of placing responsibility in the hands of the leadership outlined
above is fundamentally opposed to the erroneous policy of eliminating
counterrevolutionaries used in many localities during the Civil War period. That
incorrect policy can be summed up quite simply in three words: force, confession,
and credence. The interrogators used physical punishment, mental torture, and
other coercive methods on secret agents and suspicious elements; then the
accused would arbitrarily confess, slandering the innocent; and then the
interrogators and the responsible persons would unthinkingly believe these
entirely unreliable confessions and go about arresting, beating, and killing. This
was an entirely subjectivist policy and method. During the War of Resistance, the
incidents of the incorrect elimination of counterrevolutionaries in the Huxi area
of Shandong were the result of repetition of this sort of policy and method. The
residual poison of this incorrect ideology still exists today among many cadres,
especially among those working in public security. Only with the adoption of the
strategy of placing responsibility in the hands of the leadership outlined above
will we have a real possibility of eradicating this sort of incorrect, subjectivist
ideology and of reaching our goal of screening cadres, and even all personnel, in
the best and most suitable and thorough way.
Leading cadres taking responsibility means retaining the majority of those who
have problems within their own organizations, schools, and troops and trusting
the local leading administrative cadres at every level responsible for screening
(but this does not include those few departments under the control of bad people;
in such departments we must first remold the leaders). In Yan’an, there are three
kinds of departments carrying out this sort of work: ordinary, self-examining,
and public security departments. Of those people who have problems, about 80
percent are left to the care of ordinary departments, that is, to the Party,

government, military, and civilian bodies of which they are members; about 10
percent are sent to reformatory units, such as the Northwest Public School and
the School of Administration; and about 10 percent are sent to public security
organs, such as the Social Affairs Department, the Security Office, and military
tribunals (to be arrested and interrogated). During the entire process of
investigation, these three organizations communicate and cooperate with one
another. Some people are sent from ordinary departments to reformatory and
public security departments; some are sent from reformatory and public security
departments back to ordinary departments after they have engaged in a self-examination, have been investigated and cleared, and have expressed repentance.
Of the secret agents and suspicious elements in ordinary and reformatory units,
most are still in the same work and study positions as before. They have only
been moved to new positions or have been watched in order to keep secrets or to
prevent destruction or suicide. Every department and school strictly and secretly
organizes its army for self-defense and implements martial law during a specified
period. Reliable people with passes are allowed to come and go, but all people
with problems are temporarily stripped of their freedom to go out alone; they are
only allowed to join in the collective movements of the masses.
“Leading cadres getting to work personally” means that, within a given
location, leaders, from the highest responsible comrade to the officer in charge of
the mess, must personally participate in the large and small meetings, persuasion
and interrogation sessions, and study associated with cadre screening in order to
gain experience and to guide the movement. The bureaucratic attitude of guiding
through empty talk and of sitting there motionless is wrong.
Unity between the leadership and the backbone elements and the broad masses
means that from among all the personnel in a mess unit, the most reliable
administrative leading cadre should be established as the center; then organize a
small core consisting of a few people around him. Surrounding this small core,
organize medium-size and large cores consisting of a dozen to several dozen
people. Revolving around these cores are the broad masses. Most of the people
who have problems should talk with the cores and face questioning, persuasion,
and struggle with the masses; a fervent movement to obtain confessions should
be carried out. At the core of every level are the respective study committees,
branch committees, and small group leaders. These people must be completely

dependable, and they will be gradually generated during the process of
rectification and cadre screening.
Linking general calls with specific guidance means that, in addition to
proposing generally the task of screening and pushing the public to do it within
their own localities during the time of cadre screening, leaders at every level
must select specific units, concentrate all forces, and make a breakthrough; only
in this way can they gain experience, create models, and push everything
forward. Afterward, they will give concrete summaries and instructions to each
and every unit, one by one. They should be consistent and constant, patient, and
able to withstand hard work: only then can the work of cadre screening get
thorough results without making mistakes, or with making fewer mistakes.
Investigation and research mean investigating and researching the history of
every person, finding out everyone’s contradictions, and discovering their
problems. In every unit, the leading core must, after careful consideration,
prepare two different lists of names according to the daily speech and behavior of
everyone: one list of names is of those who are assessed as having no problems;
the other is of those who are assessed as having problems. Upon the approval of
the upper levels, after careful consideration they can begin investigating and
researching those with problems one by one, following the principle of seeking
truth from facts. The subjectivist method of “force, confession, and credence” is
strictly forbidden.
Distinguishing between right and wrong and between the minor and the
serious means adopting the method of investigation and research. First,
determine whether they are two-faced, such as secret agents, traitors, or people
who have hidden their history of joining other parties; never mistake the halfhearted (Communist Party members with nonproletarian thoughts who once
made mistakes) for those who are two-faced. Second, distinguish how serious
their crimes were: They may be ordinary elements who only committed light
offenses (the majority), middle elements who committed heavier offenses, or
leading elements who committed very serious offenses (the latter two are in the
minority). Never think that everyone whose name has been raised must be a
secret agent or an important spy. For every person on the list, although each was
named or arrested, nevertheless in order to make clear whether he is a secret
agent and how serious his crime is, we must employ the methods of

investigation, research, and gathering and analyzing materials. This is the task of
distinguishing right from wrong and the minor from the serious. If people are
wronged or mistreated, we must rehabilitate them; those wrongly imprisoned
must be publicly declared innocent and released; for those not yet imprisoned, we
must proclaim the final verdict and restore their reputations. During the
screening movement, there will definitely occur incidents of excessively Leftist
behavior, the error of “force, confession, and credence” (both on an individual
and a mass level), the wrong being taken as right, and the minor being taken as
serious: leaders must pay careful attention to this and must make corrections
when the timing is appropriate. It is bad to correct excessive Leftism both too
early and too late. Correcting it too early would be to shoot without a target and
would hinder the launching of the movement. Doing so too late would create
errors and harm our vigor. Therefore, the guiding principle should be careful
attention and correction at the right time.
Winning over those who have slipped into error means generally adopting the
policy of winning over all those big and small spies, traitors, and ordinary
elements who were temporarily used by the Guomindang or the Japanese (the
majority), that is, the policy of leniency. In Yan’an we screened more than two
thousand people (some of whom were mistreated or wronged, and they will be
rehabilitated during the final investigation), and to this day not a single person
has been executed. Those who commit the most heinous crimes, who are
unsteady, and who firmly refuse to repent, should be sentenced to death. But this
kind of person is extremely rare. The environment on the front and in the border
region is special, and the necessity of suppressing a very few individual elements
exists. But the general policy is unwaveringly, patiently, and warmly to try every
possible means to win them over. At big and small meetings and individual talks,
make it clear to them that the end is near for the Fascists of the world; that the
Guomindang is rotten, corrupt, and unenlightened and has absolutely no future;
and that the Communist Party is open and aboveboard and has a limitless future.
Pull their ideology apart to make them collapse. Yan’an’s experience proves that
we can win over the overwhelming majority of this sort of elements and cause
them to be of one mind with us; many of them have turned out quite well. The
work of rectification is to change people who are half-hearted into people of one
mind with the Party, and the work of cadre screening is to make two-faced

people become of one mind with the Party. Japan and the Guomindang have long
used a counterrevolutionary policy of trying to win over or soften Communist
Party members to serve them; they have seldom killed [them]. Our Party must
adopt the policy of winning over most or even all secret agents and having them
serve us. Otherwise we will be the losers. Do not be afraid that spies will escape.
Of course, we will not intentionally release them and let them run away, but we
should not advocate more executions out of fear that they will otherwise escape.
Under certain circumstances, it is better to let people escape than to execute more
people. It is more beneficial to let them flee than it is to execute them: in the end,
we will only be able to guarantee that we haven’t made mistakes if we either
arrest a few and execute none or arrest a few and execute a few. If people are still
alive, they may have been falsely accused but they may be rehabilitated (those
really falsely accused must be rehabilitated so that there is no room whatsoever
left for any doubt). Arresting and executing many people will lead to irreparable
mistakes.
Cultivating cadres means that we should train from 10 to 20 percent of the
people who are either participating in cadre screening or are being screened and
teach them to master the complete theories and techniques of investigation,
research, intelligence gathering, interrogation, and screening. For example, of
Yan’an’s 30,000 Party, government, and military personnel and 10,000 common
people, 4,000 to 8,000 people should be trained to master these theories and
techniques. Between April and August 1943, of the 10,000 cadres and several
thousand personnel of various kinds who took part in Yan’an’s first period of
cadre screening, we trained more than 2,000. Only in this way can we shatter the
view that public security work is mysterious; make it difficult for spies to
infiltrate; and eliminate, win over, and transform many secret agents and
destructive elements in order to prepare large numbers of cadres for future anti-espionage work. During the task of cadre cultivation, we should include both
Party members and secret agents. This is to say that we should not only pay
attention to cultivating Party members (though this, of course, is most
important), but we should also emphasize changing counterrevolutionary secret
agents into revolutionary anti-espionage cadres. The more important the secret
agent is, the more use he can be after he changes. Japan and the Guomindang
adopted this policy long ago in order to oppose the Communist Party, and it has

been effective. Over the past few months, Yan’an has won over a large group of
secret agents who have changed and come over to us and are now serving us,
which is a great help to our investigation work.
Educating the masses means that we must mobilize the broad masses and the
core backbone elements together to carry out this cadre screening and the further
screening of all personnel. In so doing, we will not only cultivate cadres but also
give the masses ample experience, develop their initiative, open their eyes, and
awaken their consciousness; only then will the Party really be solidified. Without
the mobilization and participation of the masses, and unless they undergo
training and their consciousness is awakened, it will be impossible for the Party
to be truly solidified. If we are divorced from the masses, if cadre screening is
carried out coldly and clearly by a small minority, we will surely be unable to
attain our goals. The vicious mistake of formalism which our Party made in past
cadre screening was fundamentally due to a rightist view on organizational
issues and to our being divorced from the masses during the period of cadre
screening. In order to cultivate cadres and to educate the masses, generally
speaking, higher ranks cannot take the place of lower ranks and one location
cannot take the place of another. For example, if a central bureau or a regional
Party committee were allowed to take the places of the lower levels in screening
all those who have problems, first, it would be impossible to replace them all,
and, second, even if it were possible to do so (e.g., for the higher levels to screen
most of the cadres instead of the lower levels), it would leave the regional
committee, xian committee, district committee, and district township and village
Party branches looking on with folded arms. They would be left with absolutely
no experience in screening cadres, Party members, or other bad elements; nor
would they have experience in eliminating reactionaries. Furthermore, such a
process would have the result of divorcing those with problems from the local
masses and their work posts, and it will make screening clearly more difficult. It
is necessary to move people from enemy-occupied areas to base areas for
screening, and it is also necessary to select some people from the base areas for
collective screening (e.g., they could enter a Party School or the Anti-Japanese
University, or they could begin a rectification class). But, in general, it is incorrect
to allow higher levels to take the place of lower levels and of other places. In
order to prevent erroneous tendencies on the part of lower levels, higher levels

should carry out ample thought and organizational preparation in advance, send
higher-level people to help among the lower levels, select lower-level people to
come up to the higher levels to study, be highly attentive, and never loosen
control. In this way, the problem of erroneous tendencies can be solved.
We have pointed out the major strategies and experiences above, and we hope
that comrades in every area will study and adopt them, as well as creating your
own experience from your concrete environment.
On the basis of the materials from the various localities, rectification must be
prolonged into 1944, and cadre screening may be carried out side by side with
rectification. Every place in which espionage activity has been discovered, and
which is prepared ideologically and organizationally, can begin to screen for
secret agents. Begin first with a few important institutions to gain experience and
solidify those institutions. Then gradually extend to include other departments
and places. Absolutely do not begin on a large scale or in many places
simultaneously. In those areas still without ideological and organizational
preparation, in departments and places in which the leadership is in the hands of
bad elements, do not launch cadre investigations lightly. In such places, the
emphasis should still be on rectification and reforming the leadership in order to
establish the necessary conditions for cadre screening.
Note

--- Notes

Our source for this text is Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 7, pp. 125–31, where it is reproduced from Zhonggong
dangshi cankao ziliao (Beijing), No. 5 (1979). A translation of an alternate version of this text appears in
Saich, ed., Rise to Power, pp. 1152–57.