The struggle against corruption and waste is a major issue which concerns the whole Party, and we have told you to give it your serious attention. We need to have a good clean-up in the whole Party, which will thoroughly uncover all cases of corruption, whether major, medium or minor, and aim the main blows at the most corrupt, while following the policy of educating and remoulding the medium and minor embezzlers so that they will not relapse. Only thus can we check the grave danger of many Party members being corroded by the bourgeoisie, put an end to a situation already foreseen at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee and carry out the principle of combating corrosion then laid down. Be sure to give all this your attention.

Particular attention must be paid to the fact that the corrosion of cadres by the bourgeoisie results in serious cases of corruption. Be sure to detect, expose and punish those involved and to take this as a major struggle.

The struggle against corruption, waste and bureaucracy should be stressed as much as the struggle to suppress counterrevolutionaries. As in the latter, the broad masses, including the democratic parties and also people in all walks of life, should be mobilized, the present struggle should be given wide publicity, the leading cadres should take personal charge and pitch in, and people should be called on to make a clean breast of their own wrongdoing and to report on the guilt of others. In minor cases the guilty should be criticized and educated; in major ones the guilty should be dismissed from office, punished, or sentenced to prison terms (to be reformed through labour), and the worst among them should be shot. The problem can only be solved in these ways.