Central Committee’s Comments Transmitting the Gansu Provincial Party Committee’s Report on the Three-Antis Campaign

(December 22, 1951)

To all central bureaus, and forward to sub-bureaus and provincial, municipal, and regional Party committees:

This report from the Gansu Provincial Party Committee is very good and should be published in internal Party journals. According to the Gansu Provincial Party Committee, the struggle against corruption, waste, and bureaucracy can be completed from initiation to conclusion in just one month. This view of the Gansu Provincial Party Committee is basically correct. Some comrades believe that launching this struggle is very difficult and will require several months to conclude. Such an opinion is not entirely correct. Of course, to completely and thoroughly resolve all issues of corruption, waste, and bureaucracy—including the investigation, public trial, sentencing, and handling of many major corruption cases, as well as the reexamination of old wasteful designs and the establishment of new cost-saving designs for many basic construction projects—certainly cannot be accomplished in one month and will require more time, with some cases possibly dragging on for quite a while. However, under normal circumstances, about one month is generally sufficient. Particularly for ordinary instances of waste, within a single organization, from investigation, research, criticism, and inspection to the formulation of new regulations and the cessation of wasteful expenditures, about half a month is usually enough, and many organizations already have such experience. Nor does this mean halting all other work to focus solely on the Three-Antis struggle; rather, it should be integrated with various tasks, especially with the Party consolidation and rectification efforts. The Three-Antis struggle is precisely the main content of the current rectification campaign.

The Central Committee
December 22

〔1〕This telegram to the central bureaus was drafted by Mao Zedong for the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.