On the Struggle Against the "Three-anti Campaign" and the "Five-anti Campaign"

A group of comments and telegrams drafted by Mao Zedong from November 1951 to May 1952, totaling 19 articles, which provided ideological guidance for the smooth development of the "Three-anti Campaign" and "Five-anti Campaign" campaigns; they are important documents for the CPC in combating corruption and strengthening its own Party building under complex conditions.

It was included in Volume 6 of Collected works of Mao Zedong.

The main contents of this group of comments and telegrams are as follows:

(1) The aim and significance of "Three-anti Campaign" and "Five-anti Campaign" are expounded.

Mao Zedong stressed that we must pay close attention to the fact that cadres are corroded by the bourgeoisie and have serious corruption. We should treat the "Three-anti Campaign" as a large-scale class struggle and carry out a clean-up of the whole Party, to prevent the great danger of Party members being corroded by the bourgeoisie. The "Five-anti Campaign" is a struggle against the illegal bourgeoisie to coordinate with the "Three-anti Campaign" struggle within the Party, government, army and people.

(2) This paper analyzes the reasons for launching the "Three-anti Campaign" and "Five-anti Campaign".

Mao Zedong stressed that it is mainly because many Party members and cadres are deeply involved in affairs, their political thoughts are extremely underdeveloped, their inner-Party life is extremely unsound, and many of them are extremely people-oriented. They only care about the small situation and ignore the overall situation, falling into the mire of corruption, waste and bureaucracy. The illegal capitalists' behavior of offering bribes, evading taxes, stealing state property, cutting corners and stealing economic intelligence is in essence a rampant attack on the Party and must be countered.

(3) The principles and strategies of "Three-anti Campaign" and "Five-anti Campaign" are clearly defined.

Mao Zedong pointed out that for the "Three-anti Campaign", "firstly, we should pay attention to killing tigers and not slacken our efforts; secondly, we should pay attention to investigation and research, calculate big accounts, small accounts, check the true and false tigers, and strictly prohibit forced confessions. If you pay attention to these two points, you can win a complete victory.”

As for the "Five-anti Campaign", we should adopt the strategies of utilizing contradictions, carrying out differentiation, uniting the majority and isolating the minority, so as to quickly form a united front of the "Five-anti Campaign".

In the movement against the "Five-anti Campaign" the basic principles in dealing with industrial and commercial units are: leniency for past offenses and severity for new ones (for instance, payment of taxes that have been evaded is generally retroactive only to 1951); leniency towards the many and severity towards the few; leniency towards those owning up to their crimes and severity towards those refusing to do so; leniency for industry and severity for commerce; and leniency for commerce in general and severity for commercial speculation.