Comments on Xie Fuzhi’s[1] Speech Draft for the Fourth Session of the Second National People’s Congress
(November 20, 1963)
Comrades Fu Zhi and Peng Zhen121:
I have read this document131; it is very good. After you have delivered the speech, please consider whether it could be circulated down to county-level Party committees and county public security bureaus. The Central Committee might add a brief introductory note at the beginning of the document, to serve as educational material for cadres. In particular, reference should be made to the exemplary case from Zhuji1 called for, so that other localities may follow suit: after conducting pilot projects, the practice should be widely implemented.
[1] Xie Fuzhi, then Minister of Public Security.
Mao Zedong
November 20
[2]
Peng Zhen, at that time a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Second National People’s Congress.
[3]
Refers to Xie Fuzhi’s draft speech, titled “Relying on the Masses, Strengthening the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, and Transforming the Vast Majority of Reactionary Elements into New People,” which he was preparing to deliver at the Fourth Session of the Second National People’s Congress.
[4]
Refers to the experience of Zhuji County in Zhejiang Province, the most fundamental aspect of which was mobilizing the masses and, through reasoned struggle, subduing the enemy. This allowed the policy of “not executing a single person and detaining only a small minority”—originally applied during the internal purge—to be extended to the handling of landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, and bad elements who had been exposed during the Socialist Education Movement and were found to be engaged in sabotage.