Central Instructions on the Thorough Investigation of Major Smuggling Cases (March 28, 1952) To all Central Bureaus and Branch Bureaus, with copy forwarded to the Party Committees of all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions: In Beijing, an underground tram company was uncovered having illegally sold over 11 million tickets over a three-year period. In Beijing, Jinzhou, Shenyang, Tianjin, and Shanghai, cases have been exposed involving private traders colluding with cadres to smuggle large quantities of goods or traffic in narcotics. In Taiyuan and Xi’an, numerous drug traffickers and manufacturers were apprehended. However, none of these compares in scale to the massive smuggling operation recently uncovered by the Hengyang Railway Bureau. The Hengyang case implicates more than 1,800 individuals and involves smuggled goods valued at 70 billion yuan, including many prohibited items. The Central-South Regional Committee has already issued an order to all provinces and cities to rigorously investigate such major smuggling cases. It is requested that all Central Bureaus, Branch Bureaus, and provincial/municipal/autonomous region Party committees study the Hengyang experience, with particular emphasis on the need for thorough investigations into such large-scale operations by the major railway bureaus and by such large cities as Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, and Guangzhou. The report submitted by Comrades Guo Weicheng and Liu Shenzhi of the Hengyang Railway Bureau [1] is highly valuable and should be further studied. Issued by the Central Committee on March 28, based on Mao Zedong’s handwritten draft. Note [1]: Refers to the report dated March 20, 1952, jointly submitted by Guo Weicheng, Director of the Hengyang Railway Administration, and Liu Shenzhi, Director of the Administration’s Political Department, to the Central-South Regional Committee and the Ministry of Railways. The report details how, during the Three-Anti Campaign, the Hengyang Railway Administration had investigated and uncovered smuggling activities involving weapons, gold, silver, narcotics, and other contraband. It points out that the Hengyang Railway lies south of three major ports—Hong Kong, Macao, and Haiphong—adjacent to the Yunnan–Guizhou opium-producing region; to the north it connects with the Yangtze River and various key railway trunk lines, linking major ports such as Chongqing, Hankou, Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. Before the founding of the People’s Republic, smuggling was rampant in this area, and even after liberation it has not significantly abated. The harm caused by smuggling extends beyond the economic sphere: it constitutes political sabotage, military subversion, and, most seriously, poses a grave threat to the lives and health of the people. The report recommends that the central leadership promptly make a firm decision, leveraging the momentum of the Three-Anti and Five-Anti Campaigns to conduct a comprehensive crackdown both internally and externally, and to formulate specific measures for dealing with smuggling offenders so that they may be uniformly implemented.