Chapter 28 transform

The government issued "import and export licenses" to monopolize the import trade channels at that time, which could force private businesses to cooperate with the government, but it could not completely eliminate smuggling.To fundamentally control commercial logistics and organize the supply of goods, "the socialist transformation of industry and commerce is the most efficient way."Kuang Zheng, who served as a cadre of the Guangzhou Federation of Industry and Commerce after liberation, said. The essence of socialist transformation is to strip and reorganize Guangzhou's commercial traditions to make them more in line with planning instructions. "When the government succeeded in concentrating the profits scattered in commercial channels such as capillaries in Guangzhou," Lu Jianxing said, new problems also emerged-the challenge was not due to the failure of the economic organization revolution, but precisely its Successfully, "commercial networks based on private interests were dismantled and replaced by highly organized and planned government contracts."

It was not until a longer period of time that the central government realized the lack of inner vitality in Guangzhou. "Later, in order to revitalize the circulation of commodities, the commercial enterprises of the Guangzhou government made great efforts and held a large-scale commodity exchange meeting that lasted for two weeks. After all, this only had a partial effect and could not replace a fixed commercial network. "Lu Jianxing recalled, "But from 1949 to the mid-1950s, it seemed that there was no second way to achieve the national goal." The modern factories in Guangzhou in the early days of liberation could not be compared with Shanghai and the three northeastern provinces, but the number of small shops and workshops far exceeded the initial estimates of the new regime.Li Zhensun participated in the investigation of Guangzhou's citizens' sentiments before he became the secretary of Zhu Guang, secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee.This "foundation" work called "big registration" has mobilized almost half of the cadres who took over to join it. It is regarded as the basis for the Communist Party to carry out socialist transformation in this city.

The long-term haphazard nature of commerce and trade made it difficult to collect population data on the city, and severe food shortages in the spring of 1950 helped investigators more accurately confirm birth reports and household numbers, since the government was the largest supplier of food , Those who obtain food from the government for wholesale distribution must show their household registration. "Based on preliminary census at that time, the population of Guangzhou in 1949 was 1.3 million." Li Zhensun recalled, "After further investigation, among all the employed population, there were about 20,000 industrial workers in Guangzhou, and more than 45,000 in the transportation industry. There are as many as 100,000 shop assistants."

The occupational composition of the population is the most convincing data: this is obviously a city completely attached to business.These scattered businesses mean a huge burden of supervision and transformation costs for the government. "In the 1950s, before the large-scale socialist transformation, there were only 77 industrial and commercial enterprises in Beijing, while there were more than 270 in Guangzhou. The 138 industrial enterprises represented 4,000 different enterprises. 132 commercial enterprises representing 16,500 different institutions, in addition, there are a large number of handicraft workshops and small stalls." Kuang Zheng recalled, "It is conceivable that the government will try to gradually increase the amount of materials it controls. How difficult is the quantity."

Before the climax of socialist transformation, the strategy of the new regime was to control the flow of materials, use prices to limit the profit margin of commodities, and give preferential treatment to those companies and commercial individuals that were beneficial to the economy and obeyed the government's guidance. "By 1955, about 80% of Guangzhou's industrial products were handled in the form of government commercial contracts. The government negotiated with private companies to determine the prices of basic necessities." Kuang Zheng said that through these contracts, the government further controlled the delivery of materials to retailers. flow, meanwhile, in order to maintain better control over inventories and price levels, the government also arranged for retail stores in Guangzhou to act as agents for material sales. "By the mid-1950s, 8,900 of Guangzhou's 16,500 stores were government agents for some of the sales of goods. In addition, the government directly operated 37 wholesale companies specializing in several different categories of important goods. In this way, despite Public-private partnerships have not yet been launched on a large scale, but the entire retail network in Guangzhou is effectively controlled by the government.”

This business regulation has not always worked. "It is extremely difficult to determine the prices of hundreds of products of different varieties and qualities, especially in Guangzhou, a city with deep-rooted market power. Some executive cadres and small shop assistants have opinions." Li Zhensun recalled that at that time, many people in Guangzhou Stores were dissatisfied with the profits they made as agents of the government and were unwilling to invest heavily in commodities that might be confiscated after socialist transformation. Therefore, from the early 1950s, the shops gradually withdrew funds from their sales and did not withdraw funds from the government. Buy goods in sufficient quantities from controlled wholesalers.

The new regime also found that the difficulty in transforming industry and commerce did not lie in the resistance from businessmen, but in the reorganization in the future.Manage the complexities of a commercial enterprise.Although the government has more cadres trained in industry and commerce, it has to make reasonable decisions on countless issues, reduce costs and prices while running production, and keep tens of thousands of businessmen, large and small, in Guangzhou cooperating and maintaining cooperation. It remains a daunting task to make short-term and long-term plans.Kuang Zheng said, "In fact, many small businesses with low profits were later returned to private management, because the government was really unable to deal with a large number of details."