Chapter 14 4.2 Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea

The wounds of the war have not yet healed, and the flames of war are burning at the doorstep. With the poor and weak national strength, it is necessary to support the war with the most powerful imperialism and stabilize the market. Chen Yun works day and night to deal with the daunting challenges, and is often too nervous to sleep. . Just when the Chinese people were working wholeheartedly to recover from the wounds of the war and rebuild their homeland, on June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out. On October 18, 1950, the Chinese People's Volunteers crossed the Yalu River and marched into North Korea.

On one side is the United States with strong economic strength and powerful military power, and on the other side is China, which has been left behind after years of wars and has extremely backward military equipment.There is a direct collision between the two countries, and China can only strive for victory by mobilizing all forces and working as one. The first issue discussed at the second session of the National Finance Conference held from October 15 to 27, 1950 was the financial policy after the beginning of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea.In Chen Yun's words, the nature of this problem belongs to politics in financial work, which needs to be clarified first.

After deciding to join the voluntary army in North Korea to participate in the war, Chen Yun, the director of the Central Finance Committee, who led the country's economic work, faced this issue most directly.He gave it the most careful consideration.At this meeting, Chen Yun presented his judgment on the development of the situation and his decision on financial policy. Chen Yun advocated that on the basis of accurately judging the situation, we should concentrate our efforts and use financial resources in the main aspects to solve the main problems.All financial expenditures must be prioritized and not exhaustive.If you do everything, you will accomplish nothing.

He analyzed at that time that there may be three different situations for the development of the current situation: (1) Neighboring wars, domestic peace; (2) Neighboring wars, domestic bombing; country involved in the war. Obviously, if it is estimated as the third type, it is a state of total war.Financial and economic work must be transferred to the wartime economic system, and all forces must be concentrated to support the war. All economic recovery and economic construction will be out of the question.If it is estimated as the first or second type, the war will be limited to North Korea, and the country may be bombed by the enemy, but it will not be directly attacked.Although there are different order and size of frying, the basic situation is the same.In this way, financial work can take into account the recovery and construction of the domestic economy.

Chen Yun pointed out that the countermeasures for the country's financial and economic work should be based on the second situation.It is to put next year's financial work policy on the basis of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, which is completely different from this year's peaceful restoration of the economy. In terms of finance, it means increasing military expenditures and military-related expenditures. It must be reduced.This is the main point of countermeasures to deal with the second situation. He said: If the current situation only changes to the first situation, then I can deal with Yuru; if the current situation changes to the third situation, the financial countermeasures need to be discussed separately.But at present, the basic point is to focus on the second situation, and there is no contradiction in the countermeasures for the third situation in the future.

Based on such an estimate, Chen Yun proposed that the policy of financial work after the beginning of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea should be: war first, market stability second, and others third. After discussion, the meeting accepted Chen Yun's opinion and determined the policy of financial work in 1951, putting war first, stabilizing the market second, and other things third.After this opinion was reported to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Central Committee basically agreed. After such careful consideration, Chen Yun put forward the policy of "defense first, market stability second, and others third", and made clear arrangements for the realization of this policy.But the degree of difficulty in implementation is no less than judging the situation and determining the policy.

The cadres in the finance and economics department, including Chen Yun, were not fully sure about keeping the market stable in the face of war, and could not rest assured.Chen Yun once said: "At that time, I was very nervous. The front was to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and the latter was to stabilize the market. Both sides had heavy burdens, and no problem occurred at either end. It was necessary to be able to resist and stabilize. This was above all else." Huge financial expenditures , how to save as much as possible.In order to ensure expenditure, how can we collect more taxes.Chen Yun was so engrossed in the war ahead and the domestic market trends, he was doing economic work day and night that he was often too nervous to sleep.

After the Volunteer Army entered the DPRK, after five battles, the situation began to become clear in 1951, and the best situation Chen Yun had imagined at the beginning was achieved: neighboring wars and domestic peace.In this way, the application of the financial work policy has a looser environment than the imagined domestic bombing situation. On the basis of the policy of "defense first, market stability second, and others third", Mao Zedong further proposed the policy of "defense while maintaining stability while building", and put forward the task of construction for the financial and economic departments.This is the so-called "three-sided" financial policy. According to this policy, in addition to dealing with war and stabilizing the market, the country must prepare and start economic construction work, and pick up any one end, "you can have both."

Since it was correctly estimated from the beginning that this war was a local war in neighboring countries, the financial policy of "war first, market stability second, and others third" was formulated, and timely adjustments were made according to the development and changes of the situation. , Financial and economic work has created a miracle of maintaining market stability under war conditions.During the entire War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, domestic finances spent a huge amount of war funds, reaching 5.26 billion yuan in 1951, a sharp increase of 2.46 billion yuan over 1950. In the past three years, the state directly spent a total of 6.2 billion yuan on the Korean battlefield, almost equivalent to the total state fiscal revenue in 1950 (6.8 billion yuan).The Chinese government also ordered a batch of weapons and equipment from the Soviet Union and other countries in the form of loans or orders, with a total expenditure of 3.1 billion yuan, which were also mainly used in the Korean battlefield.During the war, China consumed a total of 5.6 million tons of various war materials, of which more than 2.6 million tons were transported from China.The domestic market, however, remained stable under war conditions.The wholesale price index in March 1950 was 100, which dropped to 85.4 in December of the same year, 92.4 in December 1951, and 92.6 in December 1952.Financial and economic work supported the war while stabilizing the domestic market without interrupting the economic recovery process. People's living standards improved steadily, economic construction achieved considerable development, and preparations for large-scale economic construction were made.