Telegram Raising Questions for Opinions
(November 22, 1949)

Central China Bureau:
Your telegram of the 19th has been received. Regarding the issue of handling old personnel, please submit your opinions on the six questions you raised, one by one.
Central Committee
November 22
[1]

--- Notes

Refers to the six questions raised in the Central China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee’s telegram of November 19, 1949, to the Central Committee, concerning the Central Committee’s directive of September 21 on the various principles for handling old personnel. The six questions are: 1. Does the term “old working personnel of the Kuomintang taken over” as mentioned in the Central Committee’s directive refer exclusively to personnel of the Kuomintang regime, or does it also include personnel in economic, cultural and educational, transportation, banking, and other sectors? If it includes all organs under the Kuomintang, should there still be a distinction in the treatment of regime organs versus enterprises and cultural and educational organs, as well as between the old personnel of these two types of organs? 2. Does the principle that “generally all should be retained” mean retention in the original organs, or does it also include transfer for training, assignment to work in the countryside, retirement and old-age care, etc.? Are all persons who require government funds to support them considered as retained? 3. “However, first, not at original posts with original salaries; second, not left completely intact”—can this be understood as referring specifically to personnel retained in excess whom the given organ no longer needs and who ought to be streamlined? Or, without distinguishing between those retained in posts and those removed from posts, should all supported personnel uniformly and appropriately have their salaries reduced first? 4. Can the principle of “evenly sharing the rice of three persons among five, squeezing together in housing” be understood, in enterprises and organs, as meaning that for retained staff currently needed by the enterprise, original posts and original salaries are still maintained with individual adjustments, and that the “even sharing” and “squeezing” are implemented only for excess retained personnel who have been streamlined and for personnel transferred for training? Or should all retained personnel, whether formally employed or in excess, together undergo “even sharing” and “squeezing”? 5. For personnel undergoing training, “during the training period, they receive 60% to 70% of the reduced salary”—does the so-called “reduced salary” refer to the progressively decreasing converted salary from the period of Kuomintang rule, or to the salary we appropriately reduced after liberation? 6. For short-term and large-scale training classes, should they be organized as centralized training by region or by nature, or as decentralized on-the-spot training within various large and small units? Should their funding be undertaken through unified planning and unified expenditure, or should each locality resolve it on its own? On November 26, the Central China Bureau, in accordance with the Central Committee’s request, submitted its opinions on these six questions to the Central Committee.