(January 28, 1952)
To all central bureaus, and forward to sub-bureaus and provincial, municipal, and district party committees; to all greater military regions and the Volunteer Army:

Beijing Municipality’s experience in tiger-fighting is very good; please consider and handle accordingly. A week ago, at the central level, everyone still only admitted to a few dozen big tigers. Over the past week, the number has increased daily, and as of yesterday (January 27), those already caught and those deemed catchable have reached a total of four hundred, comprising two hundred from finance and economics departments, one hundred from military departments, and one hundred from political-legal, culture-education, and party departments. These are all big tigers of over one hundred million yuan; small tigers of over ten million yuan are not included. The method of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee is: convene meetings of the heads of all units, conduct self-reporting and public discussion, set the number of tigers, assign the heads the personal responsibility of fighting tigers, and demand reports within a set deadline. “If the head of any unit believes there are no tigers in his unit, he shall sign a pledge to take responsibility and guarantee this to the party and the government, and the leadership shall then send people to re-examine.” It is said that this method is very effective; many units that originally thought they had no tigers or very few have uncovered many tigers. At present, Beijing municipal organs and enterprises have tentatively set the number of big tigers at one hundred, and industrial and commercial circles at three hundred, making a total of four hundred. It appears the number will only be more, not less. Please refer to the experiences of the central authorities and Beijing Municipality, and set your own tiger-fighting targets.

Mao Zedong
January 28