Chapter 64 Seven years to eliminate the private economy

In the theory of socialist planned economy, the private economy is considered to be a part that should be completely eliminated. As early as 1921, the first party program of the Communist Party of China clearly stated: "Abolish private ownership of capitalists, confiscate machinery, land, and factory buildings. Production materials such as semi-finished products and semi-finished products belong to the public.” However, how to “eliminate” has different staged propositions in the later stages.Around 1948, the party basically formed a "transition" consensus.According to Liu Shaoqi's calculations, in the industrial system at that time, the proportion of state-owned economic components was only 34.7%, and private industry and commerce still had a large weight. Therefore, he proposed the method of "joint venture transition, peaceful redemption", and believed that "we and the nation The bourgeoisie can partner for at least 10 to 15 years."In Mao Zedong's timetable, "the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce should be completed in 1967."That is to say, it will take 18 years to eliminate the private sector.

In fact, the work took only seven years.During this period, it went through five stages of "sandwichization", "five anti-tax inspections", marginalization, fixed-rate redemption and "extinction". The first stage: "sandwich".Chen Yun’s purge in Shanghai strengthened state-owned capital’s control over the industrial economy. After raw materials, capital, and sales channels were all controlled by the government, private factories seemed to exist in the cracks, and their profit margins were actually completely in the hands of the government. , lost the ability to play games.Bo Yibo described a detail in his book "Review of Several Major Decisions and Events": In February 1950, when Chen Yun was in Shanghai to rectify the gauze and grain industries, the Central Finance Committee was worried that private businessmen would launch a new round of In response to the attack, the strategy of "sending troops from four directions" was formulated, that is, to step up the collection of taxes and public debts, to urge business owners to pay workers' wages and not to close factories, to deposit all cash of public enterprises in the national bank, and to prohibit cash transfers to private banks and Private business loans.Bo Yibo recalled that at that time, "it was estimated that there might be resistance from the bourgeoisie, and we would have to fight for several rounds. In fact, they were no longer able to fight. In March and April, we saw that the momentum was wrong (the market was too tight), 'retreat Back to camp', it's too late."

The second stage: "Five anti-tax inspections".Beginning in December 1951, the CCP launched a "Three Antis and Five Antis" movement that swept across the country. This was the first large-scale political movement after the founding of New China. Carry out the campaign of "anti-bribery, anti-tax evasion, anti-theft of national property, anti-cutting corners, and anti-theft of national economic intelligence".During the movement, liquidation conferences, criticism conferences and other forms have been adopted in various places, and the phenomenon of "high hat" and corporal punishment on capitalists has generally appeared.According to statistics, among the more than 450,000 private industrial and commercial owners inspected in nine major cities including Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, 76% of the total households committed the "five poisons" to varying degrees, of which 85% were in Shanghai, and 85% were in Beijing. 90%, that is, the vast majority are people to be punished.Under the roar of the stormy crowd, the capitalists became a group that was despised and thoroughly demonized, and even they themselves became disgusted with themselves. This kind of psychological reaction can only be seen in the period of Han Wudi's warning order.According to calculations, by the end of the "Five Antis Movement" in October 1952, the "Five Poison Accounts" that had been investigated and supplemented reached more than 30 trillion yuan, more than half of the military expenditure of the Korean War.

The third stage is marginalization.In the "First Five-Year" construction plan, the participation of private enterprises and private capital is almost zero, and they have been completely marginalized.With the establishment of the planned economic system and the rapid expansion of state-owned capital, the space given to them has become smaller and smaller. The fourth stage is fixed-rate redemption. In September 1954, the National People's Congress promulgated the first constitution of the new Zhongtong, which formally confirmed the leading position of the state-owned economy, clearly stated that the state would adopt a policy of "utilizing, restricting and transforming" capitalist industry and commerce, and gradually adopted ownership by the whole people. instead of capitalist ownership.In this context, Chen Yun proposed the plan of "redemption with fixed interest". The state will issue a fixed 5% dividend to private shareholders on a regular basis based on the approved private equity. The interest rate was suspended every year, and later extended to 1965 before the "Cultural Revolution", and the interest rate was reduced.The fixed-rate redemption policy has designed an "exit channel" for the demise of private capital, which means that the transformation of property rights has been substantially completed.According to the data from the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, there are 710,000 private property owners who receive fixed interest rates nationwide, and 100,000 interest-earning agents. These 810,000 people are the remnants of the capitalist class.

Finally, "extinct".Almost at the same time that the fixed-rate redemption policy was implemented, Mao Zedong clearly stated that capitalism should be "extinct" immediately.He said at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China: "Marxism is so fierce, but conscience is not much. It wants to make imperialism extinct, feudalism extinct, capitalism extinct, and small production. In this regard, conscience A little less is better." On January 1, 1956, private industrialists and businessmen in Beijing filed an application for the implementation of public-private partnerships for the entire industry.By January 10, it took only 10 days, and the city's private industries and businesses declared that they had all realized the industry-wide public-private partnership, "has already entered socialism". On January 20, Shanghai held a public-private partnership conference, announcing that all 205 industries and more than 100,000 private industrial and commercial households in the city will implement public-private partnerships.Subsequently, large and medium-sized cities across the country completed the "socialist transformation" of industry and commerce one by one.

The progress of eliminating the private economy was so smooth and fast that even Mao Zedong himself was surprised. He said at the Sixth Supreme State Council on January 25: "The rapid pace of public-private partnerships is unexpected. .Who would have expected it? Now there is no Kong Ming, so I didn’t expect it to be so fast.” In the economic history of China, the collective demise of private enterprises in 1956 is a unique event, which means that the property-owning class among the four major interest groups has nothing to do with it. The active cecum was also resected en bloc.In the course of a century of modernization, this is the fifth and most thorough "advancement of the country and retreat of the people".