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The Five-Anti Campaign is launched against the urban bourgeoisie

On 26 January 1952 the CCP issued the directive launching the Five-Anti Campaign against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on contracts, and stealing economic information, aimed at remaining private businessmen. In the causal graph this event strengthens Institutional Corruption, a driver that strengthens Political corruption index — a worsening welfare path.

Sources: [1][2]

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On 26 January 1952 the CCP issued the directive launching the Five-Anti Campaign against bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on contracts, and stealing economic information, aimed at remaining private businessmen. It followed the Three-Anti (corruption, waste, bureaucracy) inside the party and state. Mao’s comments set the political temperature. Struggle sessions and coerced self-denunciations were the method.

Context

The new state still used private firms. Some bribery was real. The campaigns also transferred urban capital and terrified owners into joint state-private forms. Bo Yibo and municipal leaders ran much of the machinery. Suicide in Shanghai is reported in independent histories and is not turned into a Factrail census.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

Why it matters

Medium confidence on welfare sign because some graft was punished; the method still trained arbitrary extraction.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Mao Zedong

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.48 · verified

    Mao endorsed the Three-Anti and Five-Anti as urban class struggle using corruption charges. Municipal committees and work teams extracted confessions; some graft was real.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

    1. FactThe Five-Anti Campaign is launched against the urban bourgeoisie
    2. strengthensDriverInstitutional Corruption
    3. strengthensIndicators (3)Political corruption index
    Worsening path

    impact weight 0.48 · Effect from 26 January 1952 · verified

    Politicized anti-corruption drives taught that accusation was a party weapon, strengthening institutional corruption even while some bribes were punished.

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.Britannica — Three-Anti and Five-Anti campaignsEncyclopaedia Britannica · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Mao, On the Struggle Against the ‘Three Evils’ and the ‘Five Evils’ (1951–52 comments)Marxists Internet Archive · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

Mao’s comments on the Three-Anti and Five-Anti are in Selected Works. Britannica independently names the campaigns and their 1951–52 dates. Municipal archives cited in later scholarship are not reproduced here as original scans.

Established: central directives in 1951–52, with Mao’s comments, ran the Three-Anti and Five-Anti. Not established: a unique suicide total or that every target was innocent.

That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. Mixed effects of The Five-Anti Campaign is launched against the urban bourgeoisie are separate paths.

Shared responsibility is part of The Five-Anti Campaign is launched against the urban bourgeoisie. Naming Mao Zedong does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1952-01-26 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

  1. ActorMao Zedong
  2. contributed toFactThe Five-Anti Campaign is launched against the urban bourgeoisie
  3. strengthensDriverInstitutional Corruption
  4. strengthensIndicatorPolitical corruption index

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). The Five-Anti Campaign is launched against the urban bourgeoisie. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/cn-mao-three-anti-five-anti-1952

https://factrail.ai/facts/cn-mao-three-anti-five-anti-1952

Accessed 16 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

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