Commentary on Bo Yibo’s Report Concerning the Classification of Shanghai Business Households and Arrangements for the Five-Anti Campaign (March 13, 1952) Please have Zhou [2] review this matter. This document [3] is generally sound. However, it would be advisable to expand the second category among the five classifications and transfer a portion of the third category into the second. Whether this is feasible should be discussed with Bo Yibo over the phone [4]. Mao Zedong March 13 Based on the manuscript for publication. Notes [1] Bo Yibo was then Director of the Central People’s Government Savings Inspection Commission and had been dispatched by the Central Committee to assist with the Three-Anti and Five-Anti campaigns in Shanghai. [2] Zhou refers to Zhou Enlai. [3] Refers to Bo Yibo’s report dated March 10, 1952, addressed to Mao Zedong and the Central Committee, concerning the classification of Shanghai business households and upper-level capitalists, the organization of industry-specific rankings, and arrangements for the Five-Anti Campaign. The report stated that among Shanghai’s 163,000 business households, classified into five categories, the first category consisted of law-abiding households, accounting for 15.3 percent of the total; the second category comprised basically law-abiding households, representing 36.8 percent of the total, including those whose bribery, tax evasion, or other offenses amounted to less than 10 million yuan; the third category included semi-law-abiding, semi-illegal households, making up the largest proportion at 44.2 percent, with an average of about 15 million yuan involved in tax evasion or theft per household; the fourth category consisted of seriously illegal households, constituting 2.8 percent of the total; and the fifth category encompassed completely illegal households, accounting for 0.9 percent. Regarding the deployment of the Five-Anti Campaign, in order to accommodate Shanghai’s specific circumstances and prevent a decline or stagnation in production, as well as to avoid increased unemployment and reduced tax revenues, it was proposed to proceed step by step and in controlled batches after thoroughly gathering ranking data and identifying specific targets, aiming to essentially resolve the issue within approximately one and a half months. To rapidly and gradually build a united front for the Five-Anti Campaign, the report outlined the campaign’s content, boundaries, and timeline for liquidation, and suggested several measures to ensure that production would not come to a halt due to the campaign—namely, continuing production while simultaneously carrying out the struggle. On March 16, 1952, the Central Committee forwarded Bo Yibo’s report. [4] Zhou Enlai wrote to Mao Zedong on March 15, 1952: “I have spoken with Bo Yibo by telephone. He believes that, in accordance with the Chairman’s instructions, it may indeed be possible to transfer a portion of Shanghai’s third-category business households to the second category. The exact calculations can be determined during the implementation of the Five-Anti Campaign, but roughly speaking, the first and second categories could together account for sixty percent of the total.”