Comments on the South China Sub-Bureau’s Directive Concerning the New Three-Antis to Its Subordinate Units
(March 15, 1953)

Comrades Rao Shushi and An Ziwen:

Recently there have been many documents concerning the New Three-Antis, most of which conclude with a request for instructions from the Central Committee. You are both hereby requested to provide replies to all of them. Some important documents may be published in the internal Party journal of the Central Organization Department, while others may be published in *Renmin Ribao* (such as the documents from the Shandong Sub-Bureau and the Jiaozhou Prefectural Committee already forwarded to you for review).

MAO ZEDONG
March 15, 1953

This document [I] is very well written.

[I] This refers to the directive issued by the South China Sub-Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on February 23, 1953, concerning the New Three-Antis to its subordinate units, reported to the Central-South Bureau and the Central Committee. The directive analyzed the conditions of bureaucratism, commandism, and violations of law and discipline existing in the Guangdong region and made the following arrangements for the New Three-Antis in South China: (1) The focus must be on opposing bureaucratism in leading organs. It should begin first with the sub-bureau, the province, and Guangzhou Municipality, then gradually extend down to the administrative offices and below. Relevant documents must be studied, inspections carried out with clear priorities, and past inspections closely integrated with the improvement of future work. (2) From the province down to the counties, work should immediately start with handling letters from the people, dealing with typical cases, and swiftly strengthening the personnel of government supervision agencies and Party disciplinary inspection departments; forces should be organized to concentrate on exposure in order to create a strong atmosphere. (3) At the county level and below, the campaign must be conducted in conjunction with current work. (4) The nature of problems must be distinguished, and simplicity and crudeness must be strictly avoided. Problems arising from past errors in handling issues due to deviations in policy implementation need to be corrected, but these deviations must not be conflated with commandism and violations of law and discipline.