The "Border Region Experience" of the Agency to Save Public Properties"

In the middle and late stages of the War of Resistance Against Japan, in order to overcome financial and economic difficulties and accumulate materials to prepare for war and famine, the Party Central Committee required the three major systems of organs, troops, and schools in the anti-Japanese base areas to carry out in-depth production campaigns and organize conservation campaigns at the same time. In the organization saving movement, saving public goods has become an important content. The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, as the seat of the Party Central Committee, the experimental area and demonstration area of the anti-Japanese base area, actively explored the saving of public goods by the organs of the entire border area, and created "border area experience".

Develop supply standards to save the first level.

Reducing the supply of public property is the first hurdle in saving public property. From 1943 to 1945, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region government formulated and issued the annual daily public goods supply standard according to the principle of saving at the beginning of each year.

The daily public property of the agency mainly includes office public property and food public property. The office public property is subdivided into lamp oil, paper, pen, ink, etc. The food public property is subdivided into grain, meat, vegetables, salt, carboniferous, green oil, etc. At the same time, the supply standard and price standard of each material are clearly defined, and the "double standard" is used to tighten the fence that saves public property to prevent unreasonable waste. For example, in 1943, the supply standard of office public goods for government agencies was: lamp oil, one lamp for two cadres, one lamp for four chores, six yuan per lamp per day in spring and winter, and three yuan per lamp per day in summer and autumn. Nine sheets of paper per person per month; Pen, one for each cadre per month, one for each handyman every two months; Ink, two dollars per month for each cadre and one for each handyman. The standard of food supply is: one catty and three taels of millet per person per day (one catty equals sixteen taels), three catties of meat per month, one catty of food per day, five dollars of salt, four taels of charcoal per catty and five dollars of green oil. The price standard for each item is clearly based on the local average price.

With the promotion of the conservation campaign, the border region government has increased the efforts of the authorities to save public goods, lowered the supply standards of some daily public goods as the case may be, and urged the staff of the authorities to form the habit of saving public goods. In 1944, the border district government greatly lowered the standard for the supply of office public goods, and the monthly supply of paper, pen, and ink for government officials was reduced by half compared to 1943.

The key to the development of standards lies in strict implementation. In the first year of the implementation of the daily public goods supply standards, the border region government conducted an annual inspection of the implementation of the first-level organs and units in the border region, and found some problems of excessive waste and the crux of the problem. The Summary of Organ Production in 1943 of Each Unit of the Banca System wrote: This year we "only paid attention to saving coal and grain, but neglected stationery, paper, lamp oil and other office supplies. The 7. 8. for 93 months, for example, the general office overspent 1914 sheets of paper... This was mainly due to the neglect of the leadership and the carelessness of the comrades doing the supply work".

To solve the problem of lax leadership checks, it is not enough to correct them through ordinary inspections. In January 1945, the Border Region government improved the supply budget review system. First, the heads of all units were required to carefully review the budget proposed by the unit and put forward opinions on whether the budget was necessary and the exact quantity of goods required. The second is to require the competent supply authority of each unit to be responsible for the second review of the budget and to examine whether the budget has been falsely reported, overreported or wasted. This provides an institutional guarantee for all units of the agency to implement leadership responsibilities, keep a good budget for public property expenditures, and strictly implement public property supply standards.

Carry out key research and promote saving experience

Saving food is not only an urgent task for the organs of the whole border region to save public goods, but also a key topic that the financial and economic work organs need to study hard. From the end of 1943 to the beginning of 1944, the Northwest Finance and Economics Office, which was responsible for the financial work in the border region, studied through extensive collection of individual experiences in saving food, and summarized and refined efficient practices suitable for promotion. They selected the central government agencies in the border region as the research sample. In 1943, the system saved 1100 stone of grain.

The Northwest Finance Office mainly conducts research on the three questions of "can you save", "how much can you save at most" and "how to save", and finds answers from practical experience. In February 1944, they wrote the research results into the "Summary of Financial Work" and promoted the experience of saving food to the organs of the whole border region.

The answer to "can you save" is "entirely possible". They pointed out: "in fact, the food standard set by the government is rich, with one catty and three taels per person per day, while the number of food eaten per person per day in the central system, regardless of special circumstances such as production raids, is generally only 11, 24 to 16, 22." according to the food standard set by the government, it is entirely possible to save food ".

The answer to "how much can you save at most" is "three or two millet per person per day". This saving goal was fully discussed by convening a forum of representatives of labor heroes and model workers of the organs directly under the Central Committee. This experience was later fully implemented and played an important role in the preparation of wasteland in the whole border area. In May 1945, in order to deal with the sudden crisis of severe summer shortage of food crops caused by no rain in spring, the border region government decisively decided to reduce the food supply standards of all units of the border region's organs, troops and school system from June 1 to three taels of millet per person per day.

The answer to "how to save" is "the key is to improve cooking". They summarized and refined six useful lessons. For example, "when cooking rice, the number of people eating should be counted in detail. according to the number of people eating rice, after eating steamed buns, the number of people eating rice should be reduced." "the remaining rice should be cooked or fried with oil. the remaining pasta should be left for cooking porridge. the yellow crispy rice should be cooked and the burnt should be fed to pigs", these two methods can effectively solve the problem of wasting food, which is common in the cooking work of the organs in the whole border region, such as not counting rice before meals and feeding pigs and chickens with leftovers after meals.

Set up example figures and carry forward the style of saving

In 1943, the border region government organized an election campaign for labor heroes and model workers in the whole border region, and selected 185 "labor hero representatives" from the five major systems of rural areas, factories, troops, organs, and schools to participate in the first labor hero Congress in the border region.

Lin Boqu, chairman of the border region government, named and praised dozens of representatives of labor heroes in the closing speech of the conference, one of whom was a representative of the agency-"Tong Yuxin who saves public assets".

Tong Yuxin is the administrator of the General Affairs Office of the Central Printing Factory under the Central Publishing and Distribution Department. In order to improve the water boiling work, he was sent to the water room by the general affairs department to boil water. "after working in the water room for 17 months, he saved a total of 125,000kg of charcoal compared with before. based on the market price of charcoal at that time, he got 112 stone and five buckets of fine grains. what a great saving achievement." Tong Yuxin was selected as a model figure for the organs in the whole border region to save public property, and was highly appreciated by Chairman Lin Boqu, not only because of his outstanding achievements in saving public property, but also because he showed the hard-working saving style formed in the Soviet area in his work. This fine style needs to be vigorously promoted by the organs in saving public property.

"Struggle, study, and increase efficiency" is the distinctive feature of Tong Yuxin's saving of public property, which embodies the fine style of saving. The "struggle" is a resolute struggle against waste. He saw that the water workers "do not care about public things, always burning large chunks of charcoal, charcoal residue everywhere", he resolutely removed him. "Drilling" is to carefully study the existing waste problems and find ways to save. He modified the size of the stove door and adjusted the height and spacing of the stove bar so that the charcoal would not leak down and could be burned through. Improve the burning method, using charcoal skin, rotten charcoal residue, crushed charcoal, charcoal residue, wood shavings and so on as fuel. "Efficiency" is to increase the efficiency of work under the premise of saving. In the past, the water room burned more than 320kg of charcoal every day, but it could only boil 10 pots of water. It took more than 1 hour and 15 minutes for each pot of water to boil. Because there was not enough water, workers often went to the water room to make noise. However, he burns about 70kg of charcoal every day, but he can boil 26 pots of water. Each pot is opened in half an hour on average. He can't drink all the hot water and have it at any time.

Source: Learning Times