"Three Antis" Movement and "Five Antis" Movement

From the end of 1951 to October 1952, the People's Republic of China launched a campaign against corruption, waste, and bureaucracy among the staff of the Party and the government organs and against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, defective work and materials, and theft of official economic information among private industrialists and business people.

On November 30, 1951, the Central Committee pointed out to the Party that serious attention must be paid to preventing the corruption of cadres, and that attention must be paid to detecting, exposing, and punishing corruption, by considering the large amount of corruption, waste and bureaucracy problems uncovered during the patriotic campaign to increase production carried out on the industrial and agricultural fronts throughout the country in the autumn of the same year.

On December 1, the Central Committee of the Party made the “Directives on Implementing Downsizing Expenditures, Increasing Production and Practicing Economy, Fighting against Corruption, Waste and Bureaucracy”, making anti-corruption, anti-waste and anti-bureaucracy a major measure to implement the central task of streamlining, increasing production and savings, and calling for a general check on corruption, waste and bureaucracy.

On December 8, the Central Committee of the Party issued another “Directives on the Necessity of Striving Against Corruption with Great Effort.” Since then, a nationwide "Three Antis" campaign was launched on a widespread scale.

On January 4, 1952, the Central Committee of the Party issued one more “Directives on Mobilizing the Masses to Start Struggles Against the ‘Three Antis’ within a Time Limit”, requesting all units to mobilize the masses to carry out the struggle within a time limit.

On January 5, Zhou Enlai delivered a speech on the “‘Three Antis’ Movement and the National Bourgeoisie” at the 34th Standing Committee meeting of the CPPCC National Committee, calling on the national industrial and commercial circles to actively participate in the “Three Antis” Movement.

During the "Three Antis" campaign, some units uncovered the corruption, bribery, tax evasion and other illegal acts of private industrialists and business people. To this end, the Central Committee of the Party issued on January 5 the “Directives of the Punishment of Law-breaking Private Industrialists and Business people and the Resolute Repulsion of Rampant Bourgeois Attacks on the ‘Three Antis’ Struggle.”

On March 11, the State Council announced several “Regulations on the Handling of Corruption, Waste and Overcome Bureaucratic Mistakes”. On March 28, the State Council passed the “Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Punishment of Corruption”. According to the policy of "combining seriousness and leniency, rehabilitation and punishment", the document provided for the treatment of corrupt elements. During the campaign, a number of serious cases of corruption and theft were exposed in various places, and confession and prosecution meetings or public trials were held successively, and serious criminals were severely punished according to the law. The most typical examples were the death penalty issued for a major embezzler, Liu Qingshan, the former deputy secretary of the Shijiazhuang Municipal CPC Committee, and Zhang Zishan, the former secretary of the Tianjin Regional CPC Committee.

In March 1952, the "Three Antis" campaign entered the stage of verifying and finalizing the cases, so that the Central Committee of the Party issued successively "On Dealing with the Problem of Corruption and Waste", “Regulations on Dealing with Corruption and Waste", and "Five Decisions on Dealing with Small Corrupters.” On April 21, the Central People's Government announced the “Regulations of the People's Republic of China on the Punishment of Corruption”.

The local organizations at all levels of the Party and the People's Government, in accordance with the principles and policies stipulated in the above-mentioned documents, such as "combining seriousness and leniency" and " “leniency for the majority and severity for the minority, leniency for those who confess and severity for those who resist”, dealt separately with those who had committed corruption and wasteful mistakes uncovered during the campaign. During the climax of the campaign, some regions and units had the problem of forced confession letters, mistakenly hurting good people and made the mistake of exaggeration. These problems were basically corrected at the time of verification and finalization of the cases.

On October 25, 1952, the Central Committee of the Party approved the report which suggested ending of the "Three Antis" campaign, and "Three Antis" movement came to an end. The victory of the "Three Antis" campaign, which was a serious struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, strongly counteracted the corruption of the decadent bourgeois ideology on the revolutionary ranks, eliminated the degenerate elements among the cadres, educated and regained a number of cadres, improved the socialist consciousness of the cadres and the broad masses of the people, strengthened the resistance to bourgeois corruption, and established a social culture of honesty and modesty in society.

During the "Three Antis" campaign, it was revealed that a large number of corruption and theft were closely related to the "Five-anti Campaign" of the unlawful capitalists and their unlawful trade activities in society, such as bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, defective work and materials, and theft of official economic information. In order to completely eradicate the "Three-anti Campaign", we must eliminate the "Five-anti Campaign". To this end, on January 26, 1952, the Central Committee of the Party issued the "Decision on Launching a Massive, Resolute and Thorough ‘Five Antis’ Struggle in the Cities", calling for a massive "Five Antis" campaign against unlawful capitalists.

In the first half of February, the "Five Antis" campaign began in all major cities and was soon launched throughout the country with great effort.

On March 11, the State Council approved and announced the Beijing Municipal People's Government's the "Criteria and Methods for Classifying and Dealing with Industrial and Commercial Households in the ‘Five Antis’ Campaign", which classified private industrial and commercial households into five categories: law-abiding, basically law-abiding, semi-law-abiding and semi-unlawful, seriously unlawful, and totally unlawful.

The results of the finalized cases were as follows: law-abiding households account for 10% to 15% of the total number of households; basically law-abiding households account for 50% to 60%; semi-law-abiding and semi-unlawful households account for 20% to 30%; seriously unlawful households account for about 4%; and totally unlawful households account for about 1%. On May 20, 1952, the “Decision on Several Problems in the End of the ‘Five Antis’ Campaign” was published.

In October, the Central Committee of the Party approved the two reports of An Ziwen and Liao Luyan on the end of the "Three Antis" and "Five Antis" campaigns, and consequently, both the "Three Antis" and "Five Antis" campaigns victoriously ended. The victory of the "Five Antis" movement repelled the attacks of unlawful capitalists, consolidated the leading position of the working class in the society and the leading position of the socialist state economy in the national economy, established workers' supervision in private enterprises, carried out democratic reforms, and generally provided a law-abiding management education for private industrialists and businesspeople, and created favorable conditions for the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce. At the same time, it also saved a number of state cadres, played an important role in eliminating the poisons of the old society and in changing customs, and created favorable conditions for the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce.