--- Notes



Comment on the Experience of Xi’an City in Organizing Criminals to Study the Regulations on the Punishment of Counter-Revolutionaries during the Clearance of Backlog Cases [1] (September 1, 1951) To Comrade Luo Ruiqing [2]: Please take note and promote the Xi’an approach.
Mao Zedong, September 1.

Printed from the manuscript.
Notes [1] This comment was written on Issue No. 156 of “Internal Reference,” published on August 31, 1951.
That issue reported that, in the course of clearing backlog cases, Xi’an City had organized a group of both unconvicted and convicted counter-revolutionaries to study the “Regulations on the Punishment of Counter-Revolutionaries” and to launch a campaign of self-confession and denunciation, with very positive results.
The initiative calmed the emotional turmoil among the unconvicted prisoners, helping them to recognize that the People’s Government’s convictions were well-founded, based on solid evidence and testimony, and that sentences were handed down after due consideration of the severity of each case and appropriate differentiation.
Many of the unconvicted prisoners used Article 14 of the “Regulations on the Punishment of Counter-Revolutionaries” as a standard for self-examination, viewing it as their “only way out.”
As for the convicted counter-revolutionaries, following this study they accepted the People’s Government’s verdicts with full conviction and actively participated in productive labor as part of their reformation. [2] Luo Ruiqing was at the time Minister of Public Security of the Central People’s Government.