Mao Zedong's Public Security Thought

Just as Deng Xiaoping once said, Mao Zedong thought has developed Maxism and is a whole system. Thus it takes a lot of time and efforts to elaborate his thought from each aspect. Mao Zedong's thought on public security work is not expressed in a single work but scattered in many forms such as his works, reports, speeches, written comments and talks under different backgrounds in different periods. This dissertation researches into the shaping, development, basic contents, theoretical and practical value of Mao Zedong's thought on public security work by means of analysis of the history, induction of documents and logical analysis. Hopefully this research can strengthen public security work and boost the construction of a harmonious society. It can also help us understand Mao Zedong thought thoroughly and accurately and thus we can employ Maxist stand, viewpoint and method to solve practical problems.The history of the development of Mao Zedong's thought on public security work can be discovered in the following periods: the First Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, the Agrarian Revolutionary War, Anti-Japanese War, the Liberation War, Socialist Revolution and Construction. During the First Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong put forward a famous question: "Who are our friends? Who are our enemies? " This is a question of the first importance for the revolution, which laid an ideological basis for the principle of "being tough against the enemy and being kind towards the people" in public security work. During the Agrarian revolutionary War, lessons were drawn from Anti-Bolshevik League and Futian Incident. And the following work style came into being: being cautious and realistic, resorting to researches and studies and prohibiting extorting for confessions. During Anti-Japanese War, the idea of "public security work must uphold the leadership by the Communist Party of China and follow the mass line" was formed. During the Liberation War, the policy of "combining punishment with leniency" was fully developed. The nature and status of public security organs were defined. Moreover, the forecast that counter-revolutionary crimes and other criminal offenses would continue to appear prepared public security organs for the forthcoming fights against all kinds of crimes under people's democratic dictatorship. During the Socialist Revolution and Construction, a series of policies were formulated such as the theory of two kinds of qualitatively different contradictions, reinforcing the public security staff, fighting economic crimes and transforming criminals through reform-through-labor.Mao Zedong's thought on public security work falls into three parts which can be summarized as three words: what, how and who. To be specific, Mao's statement that "public security organs are a knife of the proletariat therefore they should be reinforced" actually answers the following questions: what is public security work and why should it be strengthened. Mao's theory about upholding the leadership by the Communist Party of China, following the mass line of combining specialized organs and the public, differentiating and dealing with two kinds of qualitatively different contradictions and transforming passive factors into active factors answers the question of how to do public security work. Mao Zedong pointed out:"Political and ideological work in public security organs should be well done." He also said that the public security staff must be capable, leaders of public security organs should have common senses, public security officers should love the people and scare the enemy. Those statements concern the subjects of public security work and answers the question of "Who does public security work ?"Mao Zedong's thought on public security work enriched and developed Maxist-Leninist theory about dictatorship of the proletariat. It had and still has great significance to the practice of public security work in China. Integrating Maxist theory into the reality of China, Mao Zedong created many theories such as theory of people's democratic dictatorship, theory of two kinds of qualitatively different contradictions and many systems such as "public surveillance", "probation", "transforming criminals through reform-through-labor", which made great contributions to the development of Maxist theory and the practice of dictatorship of the proletariat. Mao's stand, viewpoints and methods of guiding public security work still enlightens the development of public security theory and public security work in the new era. We should value this precious legacy and meanwhile develop and improve Mao Zedong's thought on public security work according to the needs of reality and the future.