(February 5, 1952)
Shandong Sub-bureau, with copies to the East China Bureau, the East China Military Region, and all comrades:

Your report of January 30 has been received. It is very good that you have uncovered many small and medium-sized embezzlers, but your achievements in tiger-fighting are still very small. You have not yet drawn up a province-wide tiger-fighting budget (excluding the social industrial and commercial circles) covering all Party, government, military, and mass organization systems at and above the county level. Your supervision of lower levels is not strict, and you have not criticized the right-leaning thinking among cadres that underestimates major embezzlers. These are the reasons for your lack of achievements in tiger-fighting. In a large province like Shandong, which encompasses the five spheres of Party, government, military, mass organizations, and education, has over a dozen large and medium-sized cities, and many sub-districts and county towns, the number of large, medium-sized, and small tigers involving amounts of ten million yuan or more should be not a few hundred but several thousand, not one or two thousand but three or four thousand. Among them, major tigers involving one hundred million yuan or more, calculated at one-tenth, should be not a few dozen but several hundred. I propose that the Sub-bureau immediately convene a tiger-fighting conference, set the number of tigers, and fix a deadline for fulfilling the task. The higher level shall urge progress by telephone once a day, and the lower level shall report battle results by telephone or telegram once every three days. The military region system is also not vigorous in tiger-fighting; the Sub-bureau should be responsible for exercising unified command over them. In any sphere, whoever is ineffective in tiger-fighting shall be promptly criticized, and in serious cases dismissed from office. Of course, wherever the stage of confession and denunciation has not yet been carried out, that stage must first be completed before tiger-fighting can proceed. Below the county level, it should not be launched for the time being. The internal Three-Antis and the Five-Antis in the social industrial and commercial circles should be appropriately coordinated. What is your opinion? Awaiting your reply.

Mao Zedong
February 5