Liberate the grassroots from the hassle of providing materials - How to stop the indiscriminate distribution of statistical reports in the early days of New China | Watch and learn

In New China in 1953, the national economy and social order had been restored and consolidated, and large-scale economic construction and socialist transformation were about to be comprehensively promoted. However, behind the prosperous scene, there are also problems such as formalism and bureaucracy. One prominent manifestation is the indiscriminate issuance of statistical reports. Various forms that overlap with each other and have complicated items place a heavy burden on grassroots units and the masses, and there is even a phenomenon of "cadres running all over the streets just for statistical tables." This not only wastes countless manpower and material resources, disrupts the order of normal survey and statistical work, makes necessary scientific statistical work unsustainable, and also hinders the normal progress of normal production work. In response to this problem, the Party Central Committee took effective measures to clean it up and achieved good results.

“It has become so widespread in rural areas that it has reached a completely intolerable level”

As one of the most powerful weapons for social understanding, survey statistics are an important basis for formulating national economic plans and policies. However, in the early days of the founding of New China, due to the imperfection of national statistical institutions, a statistical report management system had not yet been established. Some departments formulated and issued various statistical reports on their own. In this process, some departments or leading cadres are keen on "issuing documents and filling out forms" without considering the specific situation.

Statistical reports have reached the point of overflowing. For example, according to data from the Cleaning Report Office of the National Bureau of Statistics in November 1953, a total of 34,993 statistical reports were issued nationwide, including 6,187 statistical reports issued by 25 central departments, 5,977 statistical reports issued by major administrative regions, and 33 provinces and municipalities. 22829 kinds of statistical reports. Data from the East China Bureau of Statistics show that as many as 17,579 forms have been forwarded and issued by government agencies at the regional level in East China; more than 42 million forms have been filled out in Zhejiang Province in a year (Ai Fang: “Quickly correct the confusion in the statistical reporting work. Phenomenon”, People’s Daily, May 28, 1953). Most of these tables are repetitive and meaningless tables. Taking the former Lintong County of Shaanxi Province as an example, the 104 agricultural statistical reports issued by it included 759 items and 1,692 items, but 658 items were repeated, and the most repeated item appeared 44 times. Nationally speaking, this is not a minority or outstanding phenomenon, but is universal.

Producing a set of statistical reports with repeated arrangements, complicated forms, divorced from reality, and too urgent deadlines not only makes cadres at all levels miserable, but also directly leads to a decline in statistical quality. Some reports only assign tasks in a hurry without explaining the statistical methods and filling requirements, resulting in different understandings by different people, extremely confusing filling in, and even serious problems of false statistics and false reports. The indiscriminate distribution of statistical reports has caused clerks and statistical assistants in districts and villages to be busy filling out reports all day long. When it is impossible to complete the task due to time and requirements, some places have resorted to "sloppiness" to deal with it, encouraging false reports. bad behavior. "The top wants it, the bottom makes it", "Look down and think, look up and count", "The top forces you to ask for it, so you have to make it randomly", "When you encounter an urgent report, just raise your head, close your eyes, turn your brain, fill in the numbers and finish", etc. The statistical data collected in this way prevents the survey and statistical work that is urgently needed for national construction from being carried out seriously, making it difficult to accurately and timely submit a lot of urgently needed information, which directly affects the scientific nature of relevant decision-making.

Behind the phenomenon of indiscriminate issuance of statistical reports, in addition to the excessive and hasty demands of leading agencies and business departments, it is also more likely that some agencies use formalistic and bureaucratic methods to conduct surveys and statistics. In this regard, some district and township cadres complained, "If you are a cadre, it is difficult to hold up the form; if you do a good job, the form is too much." Coax level one." The opinions of the masses are also great. "They have nothing to do but look for trouble after eating." "It's easy to fight flies and mosquitoes, but it's difficult to count." "The higher-level bureaucracy forces us to fabricate estimates and delays our production." The masses' criticism of the cadres who do such statistical work and do such statistical work is: they have nothing to do after eating, and they come to make trouble when they have nothing to do.

“It is necessary to seriously clean up the current flood of survey and statistical forms”

The proliferation of statistical reports has seriously increased the burden on grassroots workers and brought a lot of unnecessary annoyance to the general public; at the same time, it has also hindered the timely and correct submission of formal national statistical reports.

In the "Report to the North China Bureau on Inspection of Rural Statistical Reports", Yang Shijie, deputy director of the Rural Work Department of the North China Bureau, pointed out that "the chaotic situation of numerous and complex rural statistical reports has indeed reached an intolerable level", mainly manifested in "a large number of tables" , the weight is too heavy; the content is complex, without focus, comprehensive, full of surprises, but of very few uses; the requirements are too high, divorced from reality, the time limit is too urgent, it is impossible to fill in the report, and the village officials have a headache and are miserable; the top is messed up, and the bottom is filled in randomly , fabricated, estimated, very untrue" (Volume 6 of "Collected Works of Mao Zedong", People's Publishing House, 1999 edition, page 284).

A report compiled based on materials from the East China Finance Committee listed eight major crimes of indiscriminate publication of standards: multiple leaders, each with his own set of requirements and targets; arbitrary arrangements, hasty arrangements, changing orders day and night, regardless of the consequences; insatiable greed, Layers upon layers of attachments, sneaky changes, and evasion of review; if the arrangement continues, everything will be fine, without reporting or prompting, with a beginning and no end; the scope is broad, there are many forms, subjective requirements, and divorced from reality; the arrangement is hasty, completed within a deadline, false names, and forced orders; as long as the report is provided, no After reading the report, when the report came, I tied it up and went to bed; I asked for trivial things, everything was strange and inexplicable ("Eight Sins and Four Major Consequences of Indiscriminately Publishing Formats", "Statistical Work Newsletter", Issue 1, 1953).

The indiscriminate distribution of survey and statistical forms, especially in rural areas, forms a problem that is extremely objectionable to grassroots cadres and the masses. Together with the many tasks at the grassroots level, the number of meetings and trainings, the number of organizations, and the many part-time jobs of activists. On March 19, 1953, the "Instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Solving the "Five Too Many" Problems in District and Township Work" clearly stated that "bad systems and methods such as indiscriminate issuance of official documents and forms and haphazard reporting to subordinates or rural areas must be resolutely Abolish and replace them with systems and methods that are unified and suitable for the situation" ("Selected Documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (October 1949-May 1966)", Volume 11, People's Publishing House, 2013 2016 edition, page 353), while pointing out that the root cause of excessive publication of forms lies in the serious decentralism and bureaucracy existing in the party and government leading organs at the county level and above.

In response to the problem of indiscriminate issuance of statistical reports, on July 22 and August 12, 1953, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Instructions on Resolutely Suppressing the Indiscriminate Issuance of Statistical Reports" and the "Second Instructions on Resolutely Suppressing the Indiscriminate Issuance of Statistical Reports". "Instructions", instructing all ministries and commissions of the Central Committee, all party groups of the Central People's Government (mainly in charge of the National Bureau of Statistics), all central bureaus, sub-bureaus, and provincial and municipal committees to designate dedicated personnel to investigate and analyze the statistical reporting issues, and announce their suspension, retention, and improvement respectively, and Provide feasible methods for simplifying and controlling statistical reports, and resolutely put an end to the serious phenomenon of indiscriminate issuance of statistical reports (ibid., page 138). It also requested that the issue of spam issuance of statistical reports should be dealt with in conjunction with the other four issues among the "five excess" issues (Volume 6 of "Collected Works of Mao Zedong", People's Publishing House, 1999 edition, page 283). At the same time, the "Report on the Indiscriminate Issue of Statistical Reports by Comrade Xue Muqiao, Director of the National Bureau of Statistics" was forwarded. The report pointed out that "every movement is often followed by a number of ridiculous tables, which gives a very bad impression to the masses. Statistical work This kind of anarchy not only increases the burden on district and township cadres and the masses, but also damages the political prestige of the party and the government." It requires the use of the policy of "reduce quantity, improve quality, grasp key points, and make steady progress" to gradually reverse the requirements for statistical reports Problems of too much and too much urgency.

On September 5, 1953, Zhou Enlai issued the "Instructions of the Central People's Government Administration Council on Cleaning Up Current Survey Statistical Forms and Prohibiting the Indiscriminate Issuance of Statistical Forms" (hereinafter referred to as the "Instructions"), once again requiring that "all forms that are not urgently needed for work should be resolutely Abolition; although there is a need for work, but those who are unable to fill in the form below should not forcefully arrange it; all forms that are urgently needed for work and can be filled in should continue to be implemented; however, we should also study how to simplify the form indicators and adopt realistic methods. and simple and easy-to-implement methods", "Governments at all levels, statistical departments and various business departments must carefully clean up the current flood of survey and statistical forms, and strictly control the issuance of survey and statistical forms in the future."

Specific measures to streamline and clean up statistical reports

Under the unified leadership and careful deployment of the Party Central Committee, and under the specific guidance of the National Bureau of Statistics, all major administrative regions, provinces, cities, counties and relevant departments, under the principle of unified leadership, have determined specific methods for division of labor and hierarchical responsibilities, and carried out the work step by step. Streamlining and cleaning of statistical tables.

Establish the basic principles for cleaning statistical reports. According to the requirements of the "Instructions" of the Government Affairs Council, all central ministries and governments at all levels should clean up the statistical reports issued in the past, and require responsible comrades at all levels of the party and government departments to personally review important survey and statistical reports prepared by their departments in the future. And carefully consider the necessary and possible, and master the principle of "prefer less, but better". At the same time, under the principle of centralization and unification, all departments and governments at all levels are given the necessary flexible powers to adapt to business and local needs. However, rural surveys and statistics should be strictly controlled at the provincial and county levels. To this end, the National Bureau of Statistics has specially set up a clean-up report office, which is responsible for inspecting and supervising the clean-up of tables nationwide. Most of the central ministries, under the personal leadership of the minister and under the specific leadership of the director of the general office or the director of the planning department, have set up specialized agencies to carry out clean-up work. The Northwest Administrative Council also issued the "Order on the Inspection and Cleanup of Statistical Reports", requiring all provinces, cities, and regions to inspect all current statistical forms in their regions and departments from now on, whether they are illegal forms without approval or have been Approved legal forms are subject to a thorough inspection. All survey forms that are unnecessary should be resolutely cancelled, and any survey forms that are necessary but impossible should also be cancelled. Filling out forms should not be forced. Those who are necessary for work but have not obtained approval should go through the approval procedures.

Establish a strict report approval system. In September 1953, the National Bureau of Statistics issued the "Interim Measures for the Development and Approval of Survey Statistical Reports", which systematically clarified the authority and approval procedures for various government agencies, enterprises, and groups to formulate statistical reports and survey plans. Provisions. For example, the Bureau of Statistics of a large administrative region formulates and issues regular statistical reports and one-time survey plans conducted within the administrative region, and reports them to the National Bureau of Statistics for filing; regular business statistical reports and one-time survey plans formulated by business departments of large administrative regions must be submitted to the National Bureau of Statistics for filing. After review by the head of the department, it will be submitted to the statistics bureau of the major administrative region for approval, and then reported to the National Bureau of Statistics and the central competent department for filing. It also requires that statistical statements and investigation plans issued after approval procedures are statutory statements, and the issuing authority shall be responsible for their effective implementation; and all statistical statements issued without approval procedures in accordance with the law, as well as written survey outlines similar to statistical statements, are illegal statements , government agencies, enterprises, and groups at all levels should be responsible for reporting and refuse to report. Immediately, various central ministries and commissions and regions successively formulated specific regulations such as the "Instructions on Effectively Organizing Various Statistical Reports", "Several Provisions on Cleaning Up Survey Statistical Forms", "Methods for Registration and Review of Survey Statistical Forms": all departments are required to Those who need to issue survey forms due to work needs must first be reviewed and approved by the national statistics department (important matters must be approved by the party committee). Those without approval may not be issued; any forms issued without formal approval are illegal. All business departments and grassroots The unit may not fill in the form. From now on, the responsible comrades of all agencies must be responsible for reviewing the reports prepared by their own departments. If they are deemed necessary, they will then be sent to the national statistics department for review. The work of preparing and issuing reports cannot continue to be laissez-faire and left entirely to those below. Bureaucratic attitude.

Pay attention to publicity and education on the dangers of spam issuance of statistical reports. The most fundamental aspect of statistical work is to adhere to the principle of seeking truth from facts and truthfully reflect the objective situation. Spamming of statistical reports not only fails to ensure the accuracy of statistical figures, but also hinders the progress of production work and other important work. In order to raise awareness of the dangers and seriousness of spam-issuing statistical reports and to jointly resist the behavior of spam-issuing statistical reports, party and government staff and the people across the country have been mobilized to actively respond to the clean-up of statistical reports, through oral, written, meeting and other means. Propaganda and education require a firm stance against the indiscriminate distribution of useless and unfillable statistical forms; at the same time, newspapers should be used to publicize and warn against the extreme harm of indiscriminate distribution of reports. For example, "People's Daily" has successively published "Quickly Correcting Confusion in Statistical Report Work", "Correcting Confusion in Rural Statistical Work", "Serious Confusion in Rural Statistical Work in North China", "North China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Proposes Improvement Measures", "Criticizing Misuse" A series of articles including "The Phenomenon of Bureaucracy and Decentralization in Issuing Reports", "Eliminating the Chaos in Survey and Statistics Work", "The Overflow of Survey and Statistical Forms" and "Eliminating the Chaos in Survey and Statistics Work".

Enhance statistical agencies and staff. In order to overcome the lack of understanding of the importance of statistical work in some regions and certain business departments, we should reverse the mistakes of thinking of statistical work as "moving numbers", "adding and subtracting" and "having numbers on the table but countless minds". Thoughts, the central government has repeatedly requested that all business departments should resolve to vigorously strengthen statistical work in grassroots enterprises, equip appropriate cadres, professionalize the statistical team, and reduce the mobility of statistical cadres so that their work capabilities can be gradually improved. At the same time, we will improve the quality of statistical work by opening short-term training courses and focusing on business learning in daily work.

Effectiveness of streamlining and cleaning up statistical reports

Through this nationwide streamlining and cleaning up of survey and statistical reports, not only some unrealistic or repetitive and wasteful survey and statistical reports have been abolished, but some survey and statistical reports that still need to be continued have been revised, simplified and merged. This effectively overcomes clericalism in statistical work, not only reduces the burden on grassroots cadres, especially rural cadres, but also lays the foundation for improving the quality of reports.

Streamlining and eliminating a large number of illegal and unnecessary reports. The number of canceled forms across the country accounts for about 70% of the total number of originally issued statements, the number of retained forms accounts for about 20%, and the number of revised forms that need to be studied and processed accounts for about 10%. Among the abolished statistical statements, central ministries and commissions accounted for about 56%, major administrative regions accounted for about 50%, and provinces and cities accounted for about 77% (National Bureau of Statistics Office of Cleaning up Reports: "Summary of the National Cleanup of Survey Statistical Forms", "Statistical Work" Newsletter, Issue 3, 1954). Among the various central departments, the First Ministry of Machinery has abolished 83%, the Ministry of Railways has abolished approximately 70%, and all original forms issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate have been abolished. Taking the Central and South Administrative Region as an example, 54 units at the regional level have sorted out nearly 2,000 statistical reports. Among them, 894 statistical reports have been issued by the Central and South Administrative Region, 604 have been abolished, 203 have been retained, 78 have been improved, and 9 have not been approved for the time being. 76% of the tables were abolished and improved ("A Brief History of the Central and Southern Statistics Bureau", "China Statistics" Issue 10, 2010). Among provinces and cities, Henan Province has abolished about 95% of its statistical reports, and Shanghai has abolished about 90% of its statistical reports.

The chaotic situation of spamming statistical reports has been basically stopped. This not only saves a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, but also relieves the heavy burden on grassroots workers. According to preliminary estimates, the 3,777 statistical reports abolished in Shanghai are equivalent to the workload of 1,900 people. The Ministry of Foreign Trade exempts 3,000 statistical reports every month, which is equivalent to saving the workload of 50 people. This shows how much manpower and material resources have been saved by clearing out a large number of spam statistical reports.

Revealing the serious situation of formalism and bureaucracy in statistical work. For example, during the cleanup process, it was discovered that a large number of statistical reports were issued without approval. The Ministry of Communications issued 258 statistical statements on its own, 74% of which did not go through the approval process; among the forms submitted by factories affiliated to the First Machinery Department during the year, there were 250 legal statistical statements, while there were 250 illegal statistical statements There are as many as 580 species, etc. Through newspaper publicity and exposure of "illegal" statistical statements, cadres at all levels are made aware of the dangers of indiscriminate issuance of statistical statements, and everyone is encouraged to work together to correct formalism and bureaucracy in their work.

Clarified the confusion in survey and statistics work. This not only improves the statistical department’s sense of responsibility in approving and controlling reports, and improves statistical work; it also enhances cadres, especially rural cadres’ understanding of statistical work, improves the quality of reports, and makes statistics necessary for national construction Jobs are guaranteed. More importantly, with the control of excessive statistical reports as a carrier, the survey and statistics work began to shift from a state of disunity and no one in charge to a track that focused on establishing rules and regulations and cleaning up statistical reports with institutional standards, and gradually established a series of rules and regulations. The system is the beginning of the institutionalization and formalization of statistical work in New China.

(Author: Mao Qiang, Central Party School (National Academy of Administration) Newspaper Office)

Editor in charge: Hu Xiurong

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