Excerpt From a Comment on a Plan Submitted by the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Excerpt From a Comment on a Plan Submitted by the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China has been translated, prepared, and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following editions:

  • On Suppressing Counter-Revolutionaries, in the Collected Works of Mao Zedong, First Chinese Edition, Vol. 6, People's Publishing House, Beijing.
  • Comment on Suppressing and Liquidating Counter-Revolutionaries, in The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1949-76, First English Edition, Vol. 1, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk and London, 1986.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is an excerpt from a comment written by Comrade Mao Zedong on a plan for the Movement to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries submitted by the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China. It was first published in the Red Guard collection Long Live Mao Zedong's Thought! in 1968.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#EXCERPT FROM A COMMENT ON A PLAN SUBMITTED BY THE SHANGHAI MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

#Mao Zedong
#24th of March, 1951

#★

The Movement to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries is a great struggle. Only after it is completed can political power be consolidated.

The Movement to Suppress Counter-Revolutionaries consists of the suppression of the following categories of counter-revolutionaries:

  • Counter-revolutionaries hiding in society.
  • Counter-revolutionaries hiding among the old personnel and new intellectuals in military and government bodies.
  • Counter-revolutionaries hiding inside the Party.

In order to suppress the counter-revolutionaries in these three spheres, we must, of course, proceed one step at a time, and we cannot do it simultaneously. However, with regard to certain crucial developments in the Party, government, and army, and in particular the public security departments, it is necessary to clean out counter-revolutionaries promptly; it is absolutely essential that suspicious elements be dealt with, so that these bodies may be placed in the hands of reliable personnel. If possible, the first and second categories may be cleared out at the same time. For example, the cleanup work of the units directly under the South-Western Military and Administrative Areas is already underway and has achieved results.