Central Telegram to All Central Bureaus Regarding the Southwest Bureau’s Decision to Halt Party Rectification Studies and Shift Entirely to the Three-Anti Campaign (December 26, 1951)

To All Central Bureaus:  According to an internal situation report from Xinhua News Agency’s Southwest General Branch dated December 22, it states: “The Southwest Region has suspended the originally scheduled party rectification studies and has shifted all its efforts to the rectification campaign against corruption, waste, and bureaucracy. The Southwest Bureau, the Southwest Military and Political Committee, and the Southwest Military Region have all held meetings of party representatives. Calls have been issued generally in Eastern Sichuan, Western Sichuan, Northern Sichuan, Southern Sichuan, Xikang, and Chongqing Municipality. Other localities are also about to enter the mobilization phase.

The phenomena of corruption and waste in the Southwest are quite serious. Preliminary findings recently revealed that the Ministry of Industry is involved in approximately 80 billion yuan of such activities, with two major cases—those of Xiao Ziyuan and Chen Songbai—accounting for 20 billion yuan alone. A preliminary inspection by the Ministry of Finance indicates 30 billion yuan of corruption, the most severe instances being within the grain administration system. In Western Sichuan, corrupt elements within the grain bureau colluded with unscrupulous merchants, stealing payment vouchers and allowing these merchants to collect public grain from various warehouses, resulting in a loss of 100,000 jin of state grain. In Northern Sichuan, a box of Renminbi was stolen from the treasury of the Provincial Department of Finance by corrupt officials, who left a note reading: ‘I am in financial difficulty; I am borrowing this amount temporarily.’ Corruption and waste are most widespread in the construction sector, with preliminary estimates already reaching hundreds of billions of yuan. The transportation system is implicated in approximately 50 billion yuan of corruption and waste,” and so forth.

The Central Committee deems the Southwest Bureau’s decision to suspend its original plan for party rectification studies and to devote itself entirely to the rectification campaign against corruption, waste, and bureaucracy to be entirely correct. It requests that all central bureaus follow suit.

Issued by the Central Committee on December 26, based on Mao Zedong’s manuscript.