Event

Campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries

Campaign in the first years of the People's Republic, listed in the Party's 1981 history among its early achievements.

2 links, 2 backed by primary records

Connections 2

Communist Party of China lists it among the first three years' tasks in its 1981 history Primary record 1
Mao Zedong later said how many were killed, according to historian Yang Kuisong, whose source for the figure is a January 1954 report by the deputy minister of public security; in 1957 he wrote that executions were necessary and that good people were sometimes mistaken for bad According to Mao Zedong Primary record 2 3

Timeline 1 date

Proof 3 sources

Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (text on the Marxists Internet Archive), 27 Jun 1981. Primary record
carried out agrarian reform in the new liberated areas, suppressed counter-revolutionaries, and unfolded the movements against the “three evils” of corruption; waste and bureaucracy
A Study of New China's "Counter-Revolutionary Suppression" Campaign (excerpt), China Unofficial Archives. Scholarship & press
Mao Zedong later said that 700,000 people were killed, 1.2 million were imprisoned, and 1.2 million were put under control.
Mao's statement was naturally based on a report made in January 1954 by Xu Zirong, deputy minister of public security.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (speech of 27 February 1957, as revised for print), Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, volume 5 (text on the Marxists Internet Archive), 19 Jun 1957. Primary record
After liberation, we rooted out a number of counter-revolutionaries. Some were sentenced to death for major crimes. This was absolutely necessary, it was the demand of the masses
In the course of cleaning out counter-revolutionaries good people were sometimes mistaken for bad, and such things still happen today.

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