--- Notes

Comments on the General Political Department’s Instruction Regarding the Southwest Military Region’s Third-Week Briefing on the Three-Anti Campaign (January 15, 1952)

Comrade Xiao Hua [1]: This instruction [2] is inappropriate and should not be issued. The finding that 34 percent of personnel in the Southwest Military Region’s logistics system were found to be corrupt is consistent with the facts. At present, the prevailing tendency in most organs and units is either an unwillingness or an inability to conduct a thorough investigation into corrupt elements. I have already issued separate instructions [3] in response to the Southwest’s report of January 12.

Mao Zedong January 15 Published from the manuscript.

Notes [1] Xiao Hua was at the time Deputy Director of the General Political Department of the People’s Revolutionary Military Commission. [ ] Refers to the General Political Department of the Military Commission’s instruction of January 14, 1952, concerning the Southwest Military Region’s third-week briefing on the Three-Anti Campaign. The instruction pointed out that a distinction must be made between acts of corruption and general misconduct involving a blurring of public and private interests, and that these two types of behavior should be treated differently; it is incorrect to label every instance of taking small personal advantages at public expense as corruption. The briefing claimed that in many units, 100 percent of personnel had engaged in corrupt practices of varying degrees. Extending the scope of corruption to encompass all members in this way would diminish the seriousness of the anti-corruption struggle, divert attention away from genuine major corrupt officials, place the leadership in a passive position, and fail to provide any educational benefit to the masses. [ ] Refers to Mao Zedong’s comments of January 15, 1952, on the Southwest Military Region Party Committee’s briefing regarding the progress of the Three-Anti Campaign, which can be found on page __ of this volume.