Annotation on the Directive to the North Sichuan District Party Committee
(April 30, 1951)

To all central bureaus, and for immediate transmission to sub-bureaus, provincial party committees, and party committees of large and medium-sized cities:

We must not kill too many people. Killing too many will forfeit social sympathy and also result in a loss of labor power. In the countryside, when executing counterrevolutionaries, the number generally should not exceed one per thousand of the population. Under special circumstances, this proportion may be exceeded, but it must be approved by the central bureau and reported to the Central Committee for the record. In cities, the number should generally be less than one per thousand. For example, Beijing has a population of two million. The number of criminals already arrested and to be arrested totals ten thousand. Seven hundred have already been executed, and it is planned to execute about seven hundred more, making a total of around one thousand four hundred, which will suffice. The principle is: those who have incurred blood debts or committed other major crimes such that they cannot but be executed to assuage public indignation must be resolutely executed, so as to assuage public indignation and benefit production. Those who have no blood debts or have committed no major crimes that have aroused public indignation, yet are guilty of crimes punishable by death—such as certain secret agents or spies, and certain counterrevolutionaries in educational and economic circles—may be sentenced to death, but with a reprieve of one or two years, during which they shall be forced to labor, so that their subsequent conduct may be observed. If they can reform through labor, then in the second step their sentence may be commuted to life imprisonment, and in the third step, to fixed-term imprisonment. (All those sentenced to imprisonment of one year or more should generally be organized to labor; they must not be allowed to eat without working.) In this way, the initiative remains in our hands, and we can handle matters however we see fit thereafter. This question will soon be raised for discussion at the conference of public security personnel to be convened in Beijing on May 10, and a decision will be made. If you have any opinions, you may have the public security personnel from your area attending the Beijing conference bring them along, or send them by telegram. Below is the directive from the Southwest Bureau to Comrade Hu Yaobang of the North Sichuan District Party Committee. This directive conforms to the spirit of the principles stated above and is hereby transmitted for reference.

[1]
Hu Yaobang, then serving as Secretary of the CPC North Sichuan District Committee.

Mao Zedong
April 30