Comment on Suppressing and Liquidating
Counterrevolutionaries

(February 28, 1951)



in saying “unwilling followers will not be prosecuted” we refer to those
who were coerced [into participating in wrongdoing] but [who themselves]
did not commit any wrongdoing or did not commit any serious wrongdoing.
As for those against whom there is evidence of their abetting a crime, they are
accomplices and should be sentenced. If the principal culprit is given capital
punishment, the accomplices should at least be given prison sentences, and
some accomplices who committed serious crimes should be sentenced to
death; they are not included in the category of “unwilling followers who will
not be prosecuted.”