Streamline the Administration

The policy which was proposed by Li Dingming and 11 others at the Second Session of the First Senate Meeting of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region in November 1941.

After the Anti-Japanese War entered the stalemate period, the Japanese army encircled and suppressed the base areas behind the enemy lines and carried out the "Three Light Policy of Grab All and Burn" policy; at the same time the KMT regime quietly imposed an economic blockade and military encirclement on the border areas which made the battlefield behind the enemy lines extremely difficult for the CPC.

The over-sized government institutions of the CPC-led anti-Japanese democratic regimes established behind the enemy lines also caused great difficulties for the economy and finance situation of the Liberated Areas. In order to solve the contradiction between "big fish and small water", overcome difficulties and defeat the Japanese aggressors, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government adopted the policy of streamlining troops and simpler administration.

From November 6 to 21, 1941, Second Session of the First Senate Meeting was held in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. Li Dingming, Vice-Chairman of the Border Region Government and 11 others, proposed a motion to streamline the troops and streamline the administration, advocated that within the limits of financial and economic funds and without hindering the war of resistance, the military should adopt a policy of streamlining troops, based on the principle that all troops would be capable of fighting and will be able to win; the government should adopt a policy of streamlined administration, based on the principle that fewer cadres should be employed who are more competent in performing their duties. On December 4 of the same year, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government issued the “Directive on Implementing the Policy of Readjusting the Troops and Simplifying the Administration”.

In April 1942, the CPC Central Committee once again issued a notice on readjusting the troops and simplifying the administration. The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and the Liberated Areas gradually implemented the policy of readjusting the troops and simplifying the administration.

On December 10 of the same year, the CPC Central Committee issued another “Directive on Readjusting the Troops and Simplifying the Administration”, which stipulated that the army should readjust its troops and simplify its administration. The implementation of readjusting the troops and simplifying the administration "must achieve five elements of “streamlining, unification, efficiency, economy and oppose bureaucracy"; it was "strict, thorough and universal"; it was “not perfunctory, painless and partial." Only in this way could the Party reduce consumption expenditure, increase production income, support the improvement of the financial situation and reduce the burden on the people.

On September 7, 1942, Mao Zedong published an editorial in the Liberation Daily, calling this move by Li Dingming an "A Most Important Policy" to readjust the troops and simplify the administration.