A Comment on a Situation Briefing
(January 15, 1952)

To the major military regions, the Chinese People's Volunteers, with notice to all central bureaus:

The January 12 report[1] from the Party Committee of the Southwest Military Region is very good, and its experiences are largely the same as those described in the January 13 report[2] from the Party Committee of the East China Military Region. We are not afraid of a large number of embezzlers or large sums of money; we are only afraid of being unable to mobilize the masses to struggle and unable to fully clarify all categories of embezzlers, whether major, medium, or minor. Using these two reports from the East China Military Region and the Southwest Military Region as standards to examine the reports from military regions and armies at all levels, we can see which ones are seriously conducting self-criticisms and seriously mobilizing the masses to struggle, and which ones are full of empty words and perfunctory. Regarding these two types of reports, the former must be commended and the latter criticized, so that the Three-Anti struggle can be rapidly developed.

Mao Zedong
January 15

[1] Refers to the Situation Briefing on the Third Week of the Three-Anti Movement by the Committee of the Communist Party of China for the Southwest Military Region, dated January 12, 1952. The briefing mentions that after the Southwest Bureau conveyed the Central Committee's directive on firmly grasping the Three-Anti Movement, the Military Region Party Committee immediately notified all units by telegram and issued written directives. Leading cadres of the Military Region also went to various localities to supervise and guide. Most provincial military regions made emergency arrangements, with leading cadres personally going to the "front line," combining self-criticism with mobilization reports, taking the lead at every level, and generally launching confession and accusation campaigns, resulting in relatively rapid progress of the movement. The organs and units directly under the Military Region had fully shifted to focusing on the struggle against embezzlement by the beginning of the year. The general pattern of the movement's development was to start by exposing extravagance and waste, then proceed to expose embezzlement; to move from dealing with ordinary minor and medium embezzlement to dealing with major embezzlement; and to develop from the internal to the external, i.e., from anti-embezzlement to dealing with profiteering merchants. The briefing also pointed out that "small public treasuries" were common in all units and departments, and there was a need to immediately ban them or convert them to public ownership.

[2] Refers to the circular on the situation and experience of the Three-Anti Movement among the Nanjing troops, issued by the Committee of the Communist Party of China for the East China Military Region on January 13, 1952, to Party committees at all levels, leading cadres of all units, with copies to Mao Zedong, the General Political Department of the Military Commission, and the East China Bureau.