Since 1958, due to the "Left" errors in guiding ideology and serious natural disasters in economic work, China's national economy has been in a serious difficult situation for three consecutive years, mainly manifested in the serious imbalance in the proportion of the national economy, the excessive scale of infrastructure, food shortage, inflation, tight market supply and people's living difficulties. In order to solve these problems, in the winter of 1960, the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong decided to implement the policy of "adjusting, consolidating, enriching and improving" the national economy. This policy was put forward in August 1960 when Zhou Enlai and Li Fuchun presided over the study of the control figures of the national economic plan in June196/kloc-0, and was formally adopted at the ninth plenary session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in June196/kloc-0. Later, the Central Committee held several meetings and further formulated a series of policies and measures for implementation, resolutely and comprehensively adjusting the national economy.
The basic contents of the "eight-character policy" are: adjusting the proportional relationship between various departments of the national economy, mainly including the proportion of agriculture, industry, production and infrastructure, accumulation and consumption; Consolidate the achievements of economic construction; Enrich light industry and handicraft production with industrial products as raw materials, and develop emerging industries such as plastics and chemical fiber; Improve product quality, enterprise management and labor productivity. The center of the "eight-character policy" is adjustment. Through adjustment, we will improve the development speed of the whole national economy and appropriately control the development speed of heavy industry, especially the iron and steel industry. At the same time, it is necessary to appropriately reduce the scale of capital construction, so that the proportion between industry and agriculture, between heavy industry and light industry, and between accumulation and consumption tends to be coordinated, so that national construction and people's lives can be arranged as a whole.
(1) Adjust the rural production relations, strengthen the agricultural front, and restore and develop agricultural production.
From 1960 to 10, the central government began to make arrangements for rectification and cooperation, and eliminated the "five winds" in the people's commune movement: "communism", exaggeration, forced command, blind production command and specialization of cadres. 1 1 In June, the Central Committee issued the "Emergency Instruction Letter on the Current Policies of Rural People's Communes", the core of which was to ask the whole party to make great efforts to correct the "communist style", and to make the provision of 12, reaffirming that "three-level ownership and team-based are the fundamental systems of people's communes at this stage"; Thoroughly clean up one level and two tones; Strengthen the basic ownership of the production team; Allow members to operate a small number of private plots and small-scale family sideline; Adhere to the principle of distribution according to work; Restore the rural market, and so on. Then, the Central Committee drafted and formulated the "Regulations on the Work of Rural People's Communes (Draft)" (referred to as Agriculture Article 60 for short), which further clarified the basic system of people's communes at this stage. At the same time, the state has increased its support for agriculture in terms of manpower, material resources and financial resources. On the one hand, reducing the over-expanded urban population in the Great Leap Forward, reducing the scale of rural water conservancy construction and streamlining rural cultural and educational undertakings, reducing the burden on farmers and enriching the agricultural labor force. On the other hand, increase the loans and materials needed by rural communes, raise the purchase price of agricultural and sideline products such as grain, and promote the recovery of agricultural production and the increase of farmers' income.
(2) Shorten the infrastructure front and reduce heavy industry production.
In order to shorten the infrastructure front, various regions and departments have stopped and postponed a large number of projects under construction in accordance with the requirements of the central authorities. 1962, China's capital construction projects decreased from more than 82,000 in 1960 to more than 25,000. Among them, large and medium-sized projects decreased from 18 15 in 1960 to 1003, a decrease of 8 12. At the same time, the state greatly reduced the scale of investment, thus making the scale of capital construction basically adapt to the financial and material resources of the country at that time. The adjusted infrastructure investment is also the need to maintain simple reproduction first, and it is mainly used to make up for the current production, rather than paving new stalls. For the adjustment of heavy industry production, the development speed of metallurgical, machinery, building materials and other industrial departments has been reduced in a planned way. 1962 The national output value ratio of heavy industry decreased by 58.6%, and the proportion of heavy industry in the total output value of industry and agriculture decreased from 53.3% to 35.5%. Shortening the front line of capital construction and compressing the production of heavy industry have eased the tight situation of financial and material supply and accelerated the pace of reversing the imbalance of economic proportion.
(3) Shut down and turn to industrial enterprises, and streamline workers and urban population.
For those enterprises that have no raw materials and material resources, as well as those that consume too much, have poor product quality, have extremely high costs, suffer long-term losses and cannot be changed in the short term, they should either temporarily stop production, close down or close down part of them. Since then, the central government has repeatedly given instructions and regulations on the closure and transfer of enterprises. After decisive and orderly closure and transfer, the number of industrial enterprises in China decreased from 31.800 in 1959 to1.970 in 1962, a decrease of 38%, which basically changed the situation of long industrial production front. The central government has also formulated the "Regulations on the Work of State-owned Industrial Enterprises (Draft)" to rectify the remaining enterprises. At the same time, since 196 1, the state has made great efforts to streamline employees and urban population. This is an important measure to overcome economic difficulties. The main target of streamlining is the new workers from rural areas after 1958. After streamlining, they will be mobilized to return to their hometowns and participate in agricultural production. By June of 196 1 year, there were18.87 million employees in China, and the urban population was 26 million. This has effectively strengthened the agricultural front and greatly reduced wages and food sales.
(4) Reduce the fiscal deficit and stabilize the market.
From 1958 to 196 1 year, the national finance showed a large number of deficits year after year. Accompanied by this, there has been a phenomenon of excessive currency and unstable market. In order to eliminate the fiscal deficit and stabilize the market, the state has taken a series of measures. Mainly: First, efforts should be made to increase the production of daily industrial products, reverse the loss situation of enterprises, increase the supply of goods and increase fiscal revenue. Second, the investment in capital construction, as well as other business expenses and defense expenditures, will be greatly reduced to reduce financial expenditures. Third, while keeping the prices of daily necessities basically stable, we should implement a high-priced policy for consumer goods such as knitwear, bicycles, watches and clocks, tea, alcohol, some sweets and cakes in order to withdraw money.
In the process of this economic adjustment, the party and the government have strengthened centralized and unified leadership over the national economy. 196 1 1 In June, the central government made "Several Provisions on Adjusting the Management System" and put forward the power of centralized economic management at three levels: the central government, the central bureau and the provinces (cities and autonomous regions). 1962, the central government successively made strict regulations and specific requirements on centralized management issues such as banking, finance, materials and infrastructure.
By 1962, the economic adjustment began to achieve obvious results. The most difficult period of the national economy has passed, and there has been an inflection point of rapid recovery in many aspects. In order to strive for the fundamental improvement of the national economy,1February 1963, the central working conference put forward the "eight-character policy" and continued it for another two or three years from that year. In the following three-year adjustment period, in addition to continuing to improve the proportional relationship of the national economy, the key point is to strengthen the existing production capacity and update a number of equipment; Improve enterprise management and increase economic benefits; Properly organize enterprises to carry out specialization and cooperation. After three years of hard work, by 1965, all the original adjustment tasks have been successfully completed, and China's national economy has taken on a new look. (Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, June 26th)