Chapter 42 Money bag supports gun barrel

In the early days of the establishment of the Soviet Area, the economy had not yet recovered and developed, and the Red Army's fundraising was the main source of military expenditure and fiscal revenue.The military expenditures for the first three campaigns against "encirclement and suppression" relied on the army's own campaign against local tyrants to raise funds and intercept materials from the Kuomintang.After the third counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression", the government of the Central Soviet Area was influenced by "Left" ideology and hastily canceled the task of raising funds for the Red Army, cutting off the main financial source of the National Bank and the government.Pursuing the wrong and aggressive military line, adopting the strategy of "positional warfare" and "regular warfare", and blindly expanding the size of the Red Army.The military expenses of the Red Army became provided by the fiscal responsibility of the Soviet government.

In order to support the guns, the Soviet government formulated the policy of "guaranteeing the provisions of the revolutionary war and ensuring the expenditure of all Soviet revolutionary expenses" [19], and adopted measures such as unifying finances, increasing savings, increasing taxes, and issuing public bonds to solve military and government expenditures . In the early days of the establishment of the Soviet Area, the Soviet governments at all levels acted independently, with no financial policy at all, random collection and use, random waste, and no plan and budget.The source of finance is to hit local tyrants.Due to lack of experience in taxation, some places collect taxes indiscriminately regardless of class, and some governments do not hand in taxes as they collect them.The expenditures of governments at all levels are extremely unbalanced. Those with low incomes suffer from no kerosene to light lamps, while those with large incomes can reach several thousand yuan a month.

In order to unify finances and overcome fragmentation, corruption and waste, the central government stipulates that all revenues of governments at all levels should be sent to the Central Ministry of Finance at any time, expenses must be collected according to the approved budget, and final accounts must be submitted to higher authorities.Mao Zedong proposed that "corruption and waste are great crimes" to warn government workers.At the same time, in view of the phenomenon that governments at all levels do not distinguish between money collection, management and use of money in the accounting system, and cannot mutually restrict each other, the National Bank, acting as the agent of the government treasury, has formulated a four-unit unified fund management system to ensure that the payee, the The management side (the national treasury), the user side and the dominator side all have strict records to prevent corruption and waste from the system.

After unifying the finances, the central government can effectively and systematically save unnecessary expenditures in order to concentrate financial resources to support the war. The great development of the rural economy in the Soviet area created favorable conditions for the government to levy land tax and commercial tax on farmers.The tax rate is divided into middle peasants and poor peasants and rich peasants according to class, and there are also a series of regulations on tax reduction and exemption.When tax authorities collect land tax, they use unified tax receipts and tax exemption certificates.At that time, many farmers regarded the tax collection and tax exemption certificates issued by the tax authorities in the Soviet area as proof of land ownership.

In March 1933, the Central Soviet Area also established a unified tariff system. Nearly 30 customs offices were successively established in 15 counties in the Soviet area. As a result, the Soviet area had an independent red "customs office". These taxes form an important part of government revenue.At the same time, the State Bank also advocated a savings campaign, "informing the party, government, and military agencies and state-owned enterprises that they must open current deposit accounts at the bank, and borrowing should be handled according to overdraft procedures." "The saving movement can encourage the masses of workers and peasants to save money in their daily lives. Everyone deposits the change they save in the bank, accumulates less into more, and turns parts into wholes. Banks generally use these social surplus funds in a concentrated and flexible manner, investing In various cooperatives, especially credit cooperatives, and production enterprises run by individual workers and peasants, vigorously develop production in the Soviet area, expand foreign trade, and quickly solve the problems of expensive salt, cloth, and cash.” [20] Issued Public debt is another means for the government to raise funds. It can not only avoid excessive currency issuance, but also provide investment opportunities for ordinary people.The government of the Soviet area issued three tranches of public bonds. The first and second tranches were war bonds, with an amount of 600,000 yuan and 1.2 million yuan, respectively. The third tranche was economic construction bonds, with an amount of 3 million yuan.Buyers of the first tranche could use the bonds to pay land and business taxes, only to have the bonds quickly returned to the government, effectively causing financial losses.Later, the government realized that the bonds could not be returned to the government before the redemption period, and it banned the practice of directly paying taxes on bonds.

The issuance of public bonds in the Soviet area did not sell all the public bonds to the banks as in Shanghai Beach, and the banks engaged in securities speculation, but mobilized the masses and followed the path of direct sales.The issuance of public bonds enriched the fiscal revenue of the Soviet area and supported the war against "encirclement and suppression". These measures have effectively raised the Red Army's military expenditures without imposing a particularly heavy burden on the common people. And all of this is based on a unified currency! If there is no unified currency, all kinds of miscellaneous coins will be collected in the treasury, which will bring great troubles to management and expenditure. The conversion between various coins, which currency to allocate funds, and counting money and keeping accounts every day may cause great trouble. They are too busy.What kind of currency is used to purchase public bonds, and which currency is used to pay interest and redeem them?It was a nightmare!It is the unification of currency that provides a unified carrier for these policy measures.

In the later period of the Soviet area, under the influence of the "Left" line, the National Bank violated the important principle that "the national bank should basically issue banknotes according to the needs of national economic development, and purely financial needs can only be placed in a secondary position"【 21], the excessive issuance of currency reached 8 million yuan. Under the military leadership of the "Left" doctrine, the Red Army kept losing wars and shrinking base areas, while the currency issuance continued to expand, causing severe inflation, and the credit of banknotes plummeted, seriously damaging the trust of the people in the Soviet area in the revolutionary government. .