Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries" in English language version.
According to documents collected and circulated by Red Guards during the Cultural .Revolution, Chairman Mao said in April 1956 at an enlarged meeting of the Party Politburo that "two to three million counter-revolutionaries had been executed, imprisoned or placed under control in the past".55 [....] 55 Mao Zidong Sixiang Wansui (Long Live Mao Tsetung Thought) 1969, pp. 38- 39. This collection presents texts of Mao's writings and talks from 1949 to 1968, as gathered by Red Guards. Many of these texts, including the one mentioned here, have not been officially published. They are generally believed to be authentic, but their accuracy is difficult to assess. Some of them are now available in Volume V of Mao Tsetung's Selected It'orks which presents an edited version of the original texts.
In these circumstances it is impossible to know how many people were officially executed in land reform, how many were lynched by enraged peasants, how many committed suicide. Rough orders of magnitude can, however, be suggested. It would appear that somewhere between 400,000 and 800,000 people were killed officially after 1949. What portion of these were landlords and members of the rural power structure (including rural police. Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) troops and commanders, rent collectors, etc.) cannot be said for certain, but it is possible that the rural revolution could have cost 200,000 to 800,000 lives. The Chinese Com¬ munist leadership had estimated that landlords and their families consti¬ tuted 4—5 per cent of the rural population — about 20 million people.23 This would imply that 1 to 4 per cent of landlords' families met death. If a half-million people were killed in land reform, this would be 0.1 per cent of the rural population or 2.5 per cent of the landlord class and would represent roughly one death in six landlord families.24
There was Chou En-lai's [Zhou Enlai's] statement several years ago that 830,000 "enemies of the people" had been "destroyed" during the war over land confiscation, mass trials of landlords, and the subsequent roundup of counterrevolutionaries which ended, as a "campaign," in 1954. (Incidentally, the term hsiao-mieh, usually translated as "destroyed," literally means "reduced," "dispersed" or "obliterated," but not necessarily physically liquidated.)
The original report was purported to have been compiled by an underground group in China calling itself "Democratic Revolutionary League," and to have been sent out of China by its secretary Way Min (Wei Min meaning "for the people"?) on July 24, 1952. For evidence and sources, the document merely reported "evidence and data obtained by the League; abstracts compiled by the league." No sources were cited which could be checked. It is highly probable that this report, which has provided the foundation for much scholarship, is bogus.10 The committee that released the report the Free Trade Union Committee of the AFL — was funded substantially (if not entirely) by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's International Organization Division.11 One common activity of the CIA is the creation and spreading of propaganda and "disinformation" through a wide range of publications.12 All the connections cannot be demonstrated conclusively in this case, because the authorship and methodology of the original report remain obscured. In the case of Vietnam, it has been demonstrated convincingly that the CIA helped to finance writers, generate numbers, and spread stories which vastly overestimated the violence of land reform.13
Among them, 712.000 counterrevolutionaries were executed, 1.29 million were imprisoned, and 1.2 million were subject to control at various times.
But the primarily urban campaign against counterrevolutionaries may have resulted in as many as 500,000 to 800,000 deaths (see Stavis, The politics of agricultural mechanization, 29).
Other scholars put the number of executed people during the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries between 1 million and 2 million (Dikotter 2013: 83; Pye 1991: 235; Strauss: 2002: 87).
"For a careful review of the evidence and a cautious estimate of 200,000 two 800,000 executions, see Benedict Stavis, The Politics of Agricultural Mechanization in China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), 25–30.
Have there been any people unjustly killed? Yes, at the time of the great [campaign] to eliminate counterrevolutionaries [sufan], 1950, 1951, 1952, in those three years of the great sufan, there were. [When] killing local bullies and evil gentry [tuhao lieshen] in [the campaign against] the five types of counterrevolutionaries, there were. But basically there were no errors; that group of people should have been killed. In all, how many were killed? Seven hundred thousand were killed, [and] after that time probably over 70,000 more have been killed. But less than 80,000. Since last year, basically we have not killed people; only a small number of individuals have been killed.
The basis of Mao's numbers was a report submitted by Xu Zirong, Deputy Public Security Minister, in January 1954. According to this, 2,620,000 people had been arrested in the country over the course of the zhenfan campaign. Among these, "712,000 counter-revolutionaries were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and 1,200,000 were subject to control at various times. Among those arrested, 380,000 guilty of minor crimes have been released after receiving education."61 [....] After Mao began to slow down the campaign and even mildly criticize some regions for excessive killing in April 1951, what followed was the concealment of the real rate of executions by local officials. It is very likely that the actual number of executions was much larger than the reported 712,000.63 [....] 61 "Xu Zirong's report on several important statistics since zhenfan, 14 January 1954," original in the Central Archives [....] 63 Some evidence can be found in the monthly reports on executions of counterrevolutionaries filed by the court of Chuannan district, Sichuan. Two of the court's reports have exact the same dates but the numbers reported are different. See document no. Jiannan/010/61–65, 93–96, Archives of Sichuan Province.
So how many were ultimately executed as a result of the movement to suppress counterrevolutionaries? From the quotas discussed above, we can begin to make a calculation, which is almost too frightening to consider. Of course an actual figure for the number of executions will always be classified, but various estimates put the figure at two to three million.
新中國成立后，國民黨有計劃地潛伏和殘留在大陸上的土匪、惡霸、特務、反動黨團骨干、反動會道門頭子和其他反革命分子約有３００余萬人
The basis of Mao's numbers was a report submitted by Xu Zirong, Deputy Public Security Minister, in January 1954. According to this, 2,620,000 people had been arrested in the country over the course of the zhenfan campaign. Among these, "712,000 counter-revolutionaries were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and 1,200,000 were subject to control at various times. Among those arrested, 380,000 guilty of minor crimes have been released after receiving education."61 [....] After Mao began to slow down the campaign and even mildly criticize some regions for excessive killing in April 1951, what followed was the concealment of the real rate of executions by local officials. It is very likely that the actual number of executions was much larger than the reported 712,000.63 [....] 61 "Xu Zirong's report on several important statistics since zhenfan, 14 January 1954," original in the Central Archives [....] 63 Some evidence can be found in the monthly reports on executions of counterrevolutionaries filed by the court of Chuannan district, Sichuan. Two of the court's reports have exact the same dates but the numbers reported are different. See document no. Jiannan/010/61–65, 93–96, Archives of Sichuan Province.
新中國成立后，國民黨有計劃地潛伏和殘留在大陸上的土匪、惡霸、特務、反動黨團骨干、反動會道門頭子和其他反革命分子約有３００余萬人
"For a careful review of the evidence and a cautious estimate of 200,000 two 800,000 executions, see Benedict Stavis, The Politics of Agricultural Mechanization in China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), 25–30.
So how many were ultimately executed as a result of the movement to suppress counterrevolutionaries? From the quotas discussed above, we can begin to make a calculation, which is almost too frightening to consider. Of course an actual figure for the number of executions will always be classified, but various estimates put the figure at two to three million.
根據解密檔案：全國有140多萬知識分子和幹部在這場運動中遭受打擊，其中逮捕21.4萬人，槍決2.2萬人，非正常死亡5.3萬人。
根據解密檔案：全國有140多萬知識分子和幹部在這場運動中遭受打擊，其中逮捕21.4萬人，槍決2.2萬人，非正常死亡5.3萬人。
