Xu Zirong and Luo Ruiqing

Deputy Minister and Minister of Public Security, PRC

Publication: Internal report, January 1954, and campaign reports 1951
Proof: An internal Party report, never published. It is known through historians who quote it, chiefly Yang Kuisong, whose article is linked on his own row.
Zhenfan figure: 712,000 executed
Method: Party-produced institutional assertion. It establishes what the ministry told itself, on a date, and nothing else.
Affiliations and stated position: The state that carried out the campaign, counting it.
Criticism: Party documents: the state that carried out the campaign, counting it. Shown as what the Party said.

Where we use it

1Data story · zhenfan712,000 executed (the Party's own count)executions
2Essay note 1Mao Zedong telegrams setting murder quotas (February-May 1951). Manuscripts Since the Founding of the PRC, Vol 2.
3Essay note 2Ministry of Public Security internal report, Xu Zirong to Luo Ruiqing and Mao Zedong, January 1954: 712,000 executed.