Eyes and Ears

Michael Schoenhals is Professor Emeritus of Chinese at the Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University. He is author of Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics (1992), Mao's Last Revolution (with Roderick MacFarquhar) (2006), and Spying for the People: Mao's Secret Agents, 1949–1967 (2013).

'This is a unique collection of first-hand documents from the clandestine inner workings of the Chinese secret police and their network of informers. Skilfully introduced, Michael Schoenhals takes us into the abysses and banalities of communist persecution under Mao. The underbelly of Stalinist civilisation – Chinese style. Anyone interested in secret police and their informers will find a wealth of comparative material in this collection.' Jens Gieseke, Leibniz-Centre for Contemporary History

• Preface; Part I. Agent Recruitment: 1. The target's own story; Part II. Capacity Building: 2. A director of public security remembers; 3. Developing doctrinal terminology; 4. Trial and error; 5. Big brother dispenses operativnyy experience; Part III. Best Practice: 6. Agent files: management and utilisation regulations; 7. Recruitment: one template and two profiles; 8. Agent termination; 9. Tradecraft dos and don'ts; Part IV. From the Agent Work File: 10. Raw intelligence: all quiet in the northeast linen mill; 11. Welfaring agent 107: 'She now has misgivings…'; 12. Tasking agent 371: active measures; 13. Debriefing agent 594: monitoring campus unrest; Part V. From the Agent Personal File: 14. Operational brief: on the recruitment of Yang X; 15. Yang X's Offer of service; 16. Private correspondence monitored; 17. Give and take: apologies and a nanny; 18. Agent validation: professional and 'leftist'; 19. Declining performance? A two-day brush-up course; Part VI. Component Chiefs: Feedback and Direction: 20. On a case officer's contact reports: 'why never anything negative?'; 21. On courses of action proposed; 22. Whose collection requirements should enjoy priority?; Part VII. Crisis Management: 23. Agent work: findings and recommendations of an inquiry: 24. Opponents: 'shitting and pissing on the heads of the people'; 25. Proponents: 'an indispensable operational resource'; 26. The government advocates a return to the status quo ante; 27. Deconfliction: provisional guidelines on informant capacity building; Glossary; Notes; Index.