Comrade Xiao Hua:[1]

This directive[2] is inappropriate and should not be issued. The fact that the logistics system of the Southwest Military Region has uncovered 34 per cent of its personnel as embezzlers accords with the facts. The deviation in most organs and units at present is an unwillingness or failure to know how to seriously investigate and uncover embezzlers. I have already issued a separate comment on the Southwest Military Region’s report of January 12.[3]

Mao Zedong
January 15

[1] Xiao Hua, then Deputy Director of the General Political Department of the People’s Revolutionary Military Council.
[2] Refers to the directive of the General Political Department of the Military Council dated January 14, 1952, on the third weekly briefing of the Three-Antis Campaign of the Southwest Military Region. The directive pointed out: A distinction must be drawn between acts of embezzlement and general erroneous acts of not distinguishing between public and private interests, and they must be treated differently; taking petty advantages of the public cannot all be uniformly called embezzlement; the briefing stated that in many units 100 per cent of personnel had engaged in acts of embezzlement of varying degrees, and that expanding the scope of embezzlement to cover all personnel in this way would diminish the serious significance of the anti-embezzlement struggle, shift the fire of the struggle away from the truly major embezzlers, place the leadership in a passive position, and have no educational significance for the masses.
[3] Refers to Mao Zedong’s comment of January 15, 1952, on the briefing of the Party Committee of the Southwest Military Region concerning the Three-Antis Campaign.