Comments and Opinions on the Draft Regulations of the People’s Republic of China for the Punishment of Corruption (March 27, 1952) 1. Approved, with minor revisions [1]. Mao Zedong, March 27. Printed from the manuscript. 2. Embezzlement, theft, fraud, misappropriation, extortion, and bribery are all forms of seeking private gain under the guise of public duty and constitute illegal profiteering; it would seem unnecessary to retain a separate category titled “Illegal Profiteering Under the Guise of Public Duty.” 3. In practice, not every report needs to be acted upon; therefore, this sentence should be omitted. Article 15 may be merged into Article 14. Printed from Mao Zedong’s manuscript.

Revisions to the Draft Directive of the United Front Work Department Concerning the Handling of Several Issues at the Conclusion of the Three-Anti Campaign Among the Democratic Parties [1] (March 27, 1952) Some parties had planned to employ a method of ideological inspection—conducting re-education-style self-criticism and criticism focused on individual thoughts, requiring each person to express their stance. We consider this approach inappropriate and have advised them against adopting it. Within the democratic parties are representatives of various sections of the bourgeoisie, the urban upper petty bourgeoisie, as well as certain elements that have split off from the landlord class and bear capitalist tendencies. Compared with the Communist Party, they naturally hold different class positions and ideologies. As long as they do not violate the Common Program, we cannot apply the Communist Party’s standards to them. During the new-democratic period—the time when the existence of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie is permitted—if we were to demand that they conform to the working class’s position and ideology, effectively abolishing their own bourgeois and petty-bourgeois positions and ideas, the result would either be chaos or forced hypocrisy, both of which would be detrimental to the united front and illogical. To claim that, during a period in which the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie are allowed to exist, they should not possess any independent class positions or ideologies is a view divorced from Marxism—a naive and absurd notion. During the Three-Anti and Five-Anti campaigns, some members of our Party

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Note [1]: There were two main revisions. One concerned Article 2 of the draft regulations, which originally read: “All staff members of state organs, enterprises, schools, and their affiliated institutions who embezzle, steal, defraud, misappropriate state property, extort property from others, accept bribes, or engage in other acts of illegal profiteering under the guise of public duty shall be deemed guilty of corruption.” Mao Zedong deleted the nine characters “or engage in other acts of illegal profiteering under the guise of public duty.” The first paragraph of this text explains this deletion. When the regulations were formally adopted, taking Mao’s comments into account, the phrase “or engage in other acts of illegal profiteering under the guise of public duty” was changed to “and other such acts of illegal profiteering under the guise of public duty.” The other revision involved Articles 14 and 15 of the draft. Article 14 originally stated: “Anyone may report violations of these regulations to the competent administrative department, the People’s Supervisory Organs, the People’s Public Security Organs, the People’s Procuratorates, the People’s Courts, or any other organ or official whom the informant deems appropriate. The organ or official receiving the report shall take appropriate action without delay, evasion, or neglect.” Mao deleted the sentence “The organ or official receiving the report shall take appropriate action without delay, evasion, or neglect,” and incorporated the text of Article 15—“Anyone who subjects an informer to reprisals or retaliation shall be subject to criminal or administrative punishment depending on the severity of the circumstances”—into Article 14. The third paragraph of this text explains this revision. This suggestion of Mao’s was adopted when the regulations were officially promulgated. The Regulations of the People’s Republic of China for the Punishment of Corruption were announced and put into effect by the Central People’s Government on April 21, 1952, and the full text was published in the April 22, 1952 issue of the People’s Daily.


developed precisely this erroneous line of thinking, which must now be corrected. Printed from Mao Zedong’s revised version. Note [1]: The text set in Song typeface within this document represents the passages rewritten by Mao Zedong.