Comment on a Situation Report
(January 9, 1952)

To all Central Bureaus, and forward to Sub-Bureaus, Provincial, Municipal, and District Party Committees; to all Major Military Regions, and the Chinese People's Volunteers:

The Gansu Provincial Party Committee has grasped the Three-Anti Struggle very firmly and very conscientiously, and has reflected the true situation. Some places where the corruption is even more serious than in Gansu have, in their reports, described it as not very serious, with very few people involved in corruption and small sums of money. This is not truthful. Please pay attention to this and do not be deceived by untruthful reports from below. This report from the Gansu Provincial Party Committee[1] may be published in Party periodicals.

Mao Zedong
January 9

[1] Refers to the second report on the Three-Anti Struggle submitted by the Gansu Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Northwest Bureau on January 3, 1952. The report cited a large number of facts showing that corruption and waste were extremely serious throughout the province, and that the methods of corruption among various types of personnel were extremely numerous. It stated that the Central Committee's call to launch the Three-Anti Struggle was most timely and absolutely necessary. However, some leading cadres had insufficiently grasped the spirit of the Central Committee, were not sufficiently vigilant against the inroads of bourgeois ideology, and adopted an indifferent attitude toward the Three-Antis; among middle and lower-ranking cadres, there were many misgivings, fearing this and that. For this reason, the Provincial Party Committee convened an enlarged meeting to discuss specifically the question of leadership over the Three-Antis. At the meeting, the erroneous thinking that regarded corruption and waste as "minor matters of life" and "not a matter of principle" was criticized, and it was clearly pointed out that the Three-Anti Struggle is a major political task at present, which must be carried out with the leaders personally taking a hand, fully promoting democracy, and mobilizing the masses to conduct it with great fanfare.