Commentary on Not Raising the Slogan of “Fighting Excessive Profits” During the Five-Anti Campaign (March 1, 1952)

Comrades: The Southwest Bureau’s telegram of February 29 [1] is correct and is being circulated for your reference.

When slogans against excessive profits were put forward in Tianjin, Jinan, Nanjing, Shanghai, and other places, the big capitalists quickly endorsed them, because these slogans could be used by them to intimidate the small and medium-sized capitalists, claiming that even the latter’s profits contained elements of excessive profit. At present, genuine excessive profits that violate the interests of the state and the people are already covered under the various targets of the Five-Anti Campaign; therefore, we should only emphasize the Five Anti, and there is no need to reiterate the slogan of combating excessive profits.

As for concealing and misappropriating enemy property and smuggling foreign exchange, the state already has relevant laws and regulations, and these can be subsumed under the category of “theft of state property.” Similarly, speculation in gold and silver, as well as the illegal sale of opium and white powder, are also subject to specific statutes, which can be enforced according to law. There is no need to create additional categories outside the Five-Anti Campaign, turning it into a Six-Anti or Seven-Anti campaign.

Mao Zedong March 1 Based on the manuscript print.

Notes [ ] Refers to the Central Committee of the CPC Southwest Bureau’s instruction dated February 29, 1952, addressed to the Party Committee of the Western Sichuan Region concerning the provisional method for calculating illegal acts during the Five-Anti Campaign. The instruction held that the notion of “excessive profits”