China, January of 1954

“[...] It should be made clear to all government workers that corruption and waste are very big crimes. Our campaigns against corruption and waste have already achieved some results, but further efforts are required. Our system of accounting must be guided by the principle of saving every copper for the war effort, for the revolutionary cause and for our economic construction. - Chairman Mao Zedong.”

The Three-Antis Campaign

As our consolidation moved forward, with the consolidation of our land reform campaign, the education of women and minorities, and the kickstarting of the Chinese economy, the PRC also had to consolidate their control over all of China. They had to humiliate and dominate all other classes that could exist in China during this early period of National Liberation.

It is for that reason that the commander of the northeastern regions, Gao Gang, had been picked as the key coordinator of the new campaign to rectify the cadres of northeastern China; a defender of harsh policies for the rectification of opponents, Comrade Gao Gang soon proposed in late 1951 the Three-Antis Campaign in the core of CCP provinces, that is, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Tianjin, Hebei, Beijing and the easternmost part of Inner Mongolia. The name was derived from the three “sins” that the PRC was prosecuting:

• Corruption (反贪污)
• Waste (反浪费)
• Bureaucracy (反官僚主义)

This rectification movement looked towards enhancing elite solidarity by adhering to official party norms of collective leadership and democratic discussion; those who were found guilty of revisionism, or of collaborating with the GMD, were prosecuted and “encouraged” to participate in struggle sessions and in self-criticism; their denouncements were published widely in Chinese press and media, with Gao Gang being one of the most prolific instigators of these purges in northern China.

The Five-Antis Campaign

The People’s Republic of China was mired with the legacy of being the inheritors of the ROC. In their wake, the ROC left corrupt groups of capitalists that operate in our biggest cities, acting as counterrevolutionary beacons and as centers of power that the Guomindang has left in our revolutionary people’s China. It was, therefore, our duty to counteract their influence and concentrate our powers in all of China. It was due to such a burden, and such a duty, that Chairman Mao Zedong had proclaimed the beginning of the Five-Antis Campaign throughout all of the People’s Republic of China.

As previously stated, the policy for our police is civilian participation in the monitoring of reactionary behavior, which was used here as well. Employees were encouraged to denounce their employers for reactionary behavior and the tenets which we were prosecuting, which were, during the beginning of the campaign in early 1952:

• Bribery (反行贿)
• Theft of state property (反盗骗国家财产)
• Tax evasion(反偷税漏税)
• Cheating on government contracts (反偷工减料)
• Stealing state economic intelligence (反盗窃国家经济情报)

There was a vast utilization of anti-Capitalist activists, marching on the major cities of China in order to encourage business leaders to confess to their crimes, and the PRC also encouraged , once again, workers to send letters to the government denouncing the crimes of their employers. A total of 10,000 CCP cadre members to prosecute the crimes of these pro-GMD reactionaries were sent, alongside 2,500 trained workers to investigate any denouncements.

A document that Chairman Mao received by the Min. of State Security theorized that around ~47,000 reactionaries would be “prosecuted” during this revolutionary campaign; while the Chairman was reading this document, he said: “we must probably execute ten thousand to several tens of thousands of embezzlers nationwide before we can solve the problem.” It seems like the Chairman would receive his wish, as the total death toll, in a report written by Chen Yun in Jan 1954, head of the Central State Security Commission, was a total of 50,000 dead reactionaries and pro-GMD business owners.