Central Committee Endorsement of Xu Zirong’s Report on the Punishment and Purging of Lawbreakers and Disciplinary Violators within the Public Security Organs (March 24, 1952)

To all Central Bureaus and Sub-bureaus, with copy to the Party committees of provinces, municipalities directly under the central government, and autonomous regions, as well as to the public security organs and the leading Party groups of the governments:

With regard to thoroughly carrying forward the Three-Anti Campaign within the political-legal system—particularly in the public security and judicial organs—and resolutely punishing lawbreakers and disciplinary violators, the Central Committee has repeatedly issued directives. We are now transmitting to you one document, namely Comrade Xu Zirong, Deputy Minister of the Central Public Security Ministry, “Report of March 23” [1]. The Central Committee deems this report to be correct and requests that you instruct the public security organs under your jurisdiction to implement it accordingly.

The situation in the judicial organs is also very serious, and similar measures for punishment are imperative; please accord it equal attention.

Xu Zirong’s report may be published in Party periodicals.

Printed on March 24 by the Central Committee, based on Mao Zedong’s manuscript.

Notes [ ] Refers to Xu Zirong’s report of March 23, 1952, addressed to Mao Zedong and the Central Committee, concerning the need to resolutely punish and extensively purge lawbreakers and disciplinary violators among former police officers and retained personnel within the public security apparatus.

The report states that, as the Three-Anti Campaign deepened, public security bureaus in several cities launched a “tiger-hunting” campaign within precinct police stations and among the people’s police, uncovering a large number of extremely grave and egregious cases of corruption, bribery, and other illegal and disciplinary violations among former police officers and those who had been retained. Not only were embezzlement and bribery widespread, but officials also abused their official authority to engage in extortion, the unlawful release of counterrevolutionaries, and the cover-up of illegal capitalists, thereby corrupting a small number of precinct stations and inflicting enormous losses on the state and the people.

In order to address these serious problems, it is essential to conduct a comprehensive and earnest examination and thorough rectification through the Three-Anti Campaign. As for the relatively few deeply corrupted elements—those habitually given to embezzlement, guilty of numerous crimes, and arousing intense public indignation—we must resolutely follow the policy of organizational reorganization and legal punishment, so as to redress the adverse impact left among the masses, restore the integrity of the people’s police force, and ensure that the people’s public security organs truly serve as a powerful instrument of the people’s democratic dictatorship.