Commentary on Xiao Hua’s Report [1] on Further Rooting Out All Concealed Counterrevolutionaries (July 15, 1955) To Zhou, Zhu, Chen, and Deng [2]: Please review.
Return to Xiao Hua: This document [3] may be circulated to party committees at all levels, down to the regimental level.
Mao Zedong July 15 Based on the manuscript.
Notes [1] Xiao Hua was then Deputy Director of the General Political Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. [2] Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai; Zhu, to Zhu De; Chen, to Chen Yun, who at the time served as a Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council; and Deng, to Deng Xiaoping, who was then Secretary-General of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council. [3] Refers to Xiao Hua’s report delivered on July 14, 1955, at a meeting of cadres at or above the regimental level from organs directly under the PLA General Staff and from units stationed in Beijing, concerning the further eradication of all concealed counterrevolutionaries.
The report analyzed the counterrevolutionary problems and subversive activities uncovered within the military over the preceding year and a half, pointing out that the sabotage by hidden counterrevolutionaries posed a serious threat to the armed forces.
The entire army must implement the CPC Central Committee’s directive to use the Hu Feng incident as an opportunity to purge all counterrevolutionaries and launch, with great fanfare, a large-scale campaign to root out concealed counterrevolutionaries, in order to

ensure the consolidation of national defense and the people’s democratic regime, guarantee the smooth and successful completion of socialist construction and socialist transformation, and ensure the smooth progress of the modernization of the armed forces.