Telegram from the Central Committee on the Need to Conduct the Three-Anti Struggle with Great Fanfare

It is as important as the revolutionary struggle, it must similarly mobilize the broad masses, including the democratic parties and people from all walks of life, to carry it out, similarly conduct it with great fanfare, similarly have the leading cadres take charge, personally participate, and call for confessions and denunciations. Minor offenders shall be criticized and educated; serious offenders shall be removed from office, punished, and sentenced to imprisonment (reform through labour), up to the execution of a large number of the most serious embezzlers. The whole country may need to execute ten thousand to tens of thousands of embezzlers to solve the problem. The majority of embezzlers, wasters, and bureaucrats are of course not counter-revolutionaries (a portion of them may indeed be counter-revolutionaries), and their crimes are embezzlement, waste, and bureaucracy. But this problem is now extremely serious, and it must be regarded as equally important as the struggle to suppress counter-revolutionaries; we must similarly mobilize the masses to carry out the struggle with great fanfare, similarly deal with them by death sentences and imprisonment, and similarly we must investigate the situation and have a clear grasp of the numbers (what percentage of all working personnel are guilty of corruption, and what percentages are minor, serious, and most serious cases respectively), and meticulously master this struggle.

Please pay attention to the above points.

The Central Committee
December 8, 1951