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During the period of Soviet experts' assistance to China, the Chinese government and people were very grateful for the Soviet experts' sincere help and significant contributions, and provided them with preferential treatment and working conditions that exceeded the intergovernmental agreement between the two sides.
The expenditure required by China to hire Soviet experts is divided into three parts:
The expert's salary in China, the subsidy for the expert's work and life in China, and the compensation paid to the Soviet government to compensate for the loss of the expert's original unit.
Although the principle established in the agreement on the remuneration of Soviet experts is that the salary level of experts should be consistent with that of equivalent personnel in China, from the actual situation, the salary of Soviet experts in China stipulated by the Chinese government has been generally higher than that of equivalent Chinese personnel from the beginning. salary.
1. Salaries of Soviet experts in China
According to the report given by Chen Yun, Bo Yibo, and Li Fuchun to Zhou Enlai on February 18, 1952, on the salary standards of Soviet experts temporarily coming to China, the salary of Soviet experts who have worked in China for a long time is in accordance with The agreement is consistent with the current salary of local experts in China with equivalent positions and abilities, but the actual salary paid to them is higher than domestic standards.
In addition to paying compensation to the Soviet government according to current expert standards, the reporter formulated the salary of temporary technical assistance experts based on the salary standards of Soviet experts who have worked in China for a long time, and calculated their salary according to the work points for calculating wages at that time. The standard is divided into seven levels:
Level 1 chief design engineer, 2900 points; Level 2 design team leader, 2800 points; Level 3 design team engineer, 2600 points; Level 4 chief engineer, 2300 points; Level 5 engineer, 2000 points ; Level 6 Chief Engineer, 1600 points; Level 7 Technician, 1500 points.
For comparison, here are the salary standards (including subsidies) for administrative cadres and engineering and technical personnel at all levels in China issued by the Government Affairs Council on June 25, 1954:
The President and Vice Chairman of the State 4280 points, and the Prime Minister and Vice President of the Government Affairs Council The prime minister has an average score of 3580, the ministerial level has an average score of 1852.5, the department director level has a maximum score of 1470, a first-level engineer has a maximum score of 1360, and a general technician has a maximum score of 560.
Calculated according to the score standard, the average salary level of Soviet experts (about 2243 points) is much higher than the average score of Chinese ministers, while the salary level of the lowest-level technicians in the Soviet Union (1500 points) exceeds that of first-level engineers and department directors in China the highest score.
This is indeed the case. According to the author’s understanding, the salary of Ivanov, the general counsel of the Ministry of Public Security, is higher than that of Minister Luo Ruiqing.
The following two factors must also be taken into consideration here. After the wage reform in 1956, the national salary level increased by an average of 39%, and the salary points of Soviet experts increased from the original RMB 1,200 per cent (old currency) in January 1954. To 1,400 yuan, that is an increase of 16.67%. If we compare the salary levels at the same time (1954-1955), the salary of equivalent Chinese personnel is obviously much lower than the salary level of experts in the Soviet Union.
Another reference data can also prove the above conclusion: at the end of 1955, the State Council stipulated that the standard for preparing the salary budget of Soviet experts in China was calculated as an average of 350 yuan per expert (limited to consultants and teachers) per month.
According to the memories of Soviet expert Klochko himself, in the mid-1950s, the monthly salary of most Soviet experts in China was 520 to 540 yuan. Before coming to China, Klochko was the director of the laboratory of the Institute of Chemistry of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, with a monthly salary of 5,000 rubles (equivalent to 5 times the salary of skilled workers). After arriving in China, this salary will still be paid, and he can still receive it every month in China. 530 yuan.
As for the actual expenses of experts, this salary is incomparable to Chinese scientific and technological personnel. Klochko's own experience is that of the 530 yuan salary, about 110 yuan is spent on food, 60 to 70 yuan on clothes, and 30 yuan is used for laundry, newspaper subscriptions, books and periodicals and other expenses. There is about 100 yuan left every month. 300 yuan.
2, subsidies for Soviet experts in China
The second fee paid by the Chinese government for Soviet experts, that is, the salary of Chinese personnel (except senior cadres) generally includes all personal expenses, while the salary of Soviet experts has not yet included some Daily living expenses are borne by the Chinese side.
For example, according to the supplementary provisions of the October 25, 1950 agreement on payment terms for Soviet experts sent to China to provide technical assistance, Soviet consultants, professors and technical assistance experts working in China should pay room cleaning fees and bedding fees. However, on October 23, 1953, the Secretariat Office of the Government Affairs Council of the Central People's Government announced that cleaning fees and bedding fees for expert accommodation rooms would be stopped.
Although it was decided to resume charging fees for room cleaning and bedding in January 1956, a year later the State Council notified again: Regarding the regulations on charging room cleaning fees and bedding fees from Soviet experts, due to the different specific circumstances in various places, some regulations are still being implemented. I feel there are many difficulties, so I haven't implemented it yet.
At the same time, experts from other countries other than the Soviet Union did not actually charge this fee.
In addition, some Soviet experts brought many dependents, so charging this fee increased their burden. In order to treat foreign experts uniformly on this issue, it is now stipulated that from February 1957, foreign experts working in China will be exempted from room cleaning fees and bedding fees.
In addition, the Government Affairs Council also stipulated on October 23, 1953:
For experts who have been approved by relevant agencies to take vacation or summer vacation in China, their round-trip travel and boat expenses will be paid by the government, and no charge will be made to the expert himself (except for the expert's family members or the expert's personal weekends) Those who temporarily go to summer resorts for vacation or to visit relatives will have to pay their own travel and boat expenses).
also stipulates:
In addition to the expert’s travel expenses and medical expenses (including hospitalization expenses and meal expenses during hospitalization) that will still be reimbursed on an actual basis, the expert’s business trip expenses (including en route meal subsidies and accommodation expenses) will be reimbursed by the original plan. The daily limit of RMB 30,000 per person has been changed to RMB 40,000, and the expenditure standard for experts to give souvenirs when they return home has been increased from the previous limit of no more than RMB 200,000 to RMB 800,000. The expenditure standards for farewell banquets for experts have also increased compared with before.
On September 12, 1955, the State Council issued a supplementary notice specifically on the issue of medical expenses and dental implant expenses:
"1. The outpatient medical expenses of experts or their dependents shall be paid by us. 2. The hospitalization expenses and medical expenses of experts or their dependents during hospitalization We will pay the medical expenses, and the food and beverage expenses will be paid by yourself. 3. The medical expenses and surgical expenses of the experts or their dependents will be paid by us, and the materials for the dental implants will be paid by yourself.”
In December 1955, the State Council announced. Because the Soviet expert budget standard was on the high side in the past, adjustments needed to be made. The adjusted daily expenses standard per expert per day is:
Entertainment expenses (festival banquets, gifts and souvenirs, etc.) 0.5 yuan, entertainment expenses (book and newspaper purchase and entertainment and sports expenses) 0.25 yuan, accommodation expenses (Rent, furniture, house repairs, coal and fire bills, water and electricity bills, sanitary supplies and service staff wages) 13.5 yuan, transportation expenses (fuel consumption, car maintenance, driver wages and management fees) 7.5 yuan. In addition, there are expert medical fees and security fees paid uniformly by the Ministry of Finance.
Calculated in this way, this fee (more than 652.5 yuan per person per month) is approximately twice the average salary of experts. Moreover, the actual cost is often difficult to calculate. still takes the Ministry of Public Security as an example. There are more than 30 Soviet experts there, each of whom is equipped with a special car and a translator. All experts live in the former Prince Gong's courtyard. Each has a separate house and is guarded day and night by four or five guards.
3. Compensation to the Soviet Government
The third expense paid by China for experts is compensation to the Soviet government.
The 1950 agreement stipulated that the compensation should be 1,500 to 3,000 rubles per person per month. On December 28, 1957, the two governments signed a new agreement on the exchange of experts, which stipulated reciprocal conditions for the dispatch of experts by both sides, and stipulated in detail The standard of compensation has widened the payment standards, namely 2,400 rubles for consultants, 2,200 rubles for chief engineers, 2,000 rubles for chief engineers, 1,700 rubles for engineers, 1,300 rubles for technicians and foremen, and 900 rubles for skilled workers.
Considering that the number of Chinese personnel providing technical assistance and other services to the Soviet Union is much less than the Soviet experts coming to China, it should be said that this agreement was mainly formulated for Soviet experts. Overall, the new agreement lowers the standards for compensation.
The above situation shows that the income of Soviet experts working in China is generous. According to the experts interviewed by Professor Keppel, although many people were reluctant when they first came to this strange country, or even under political pressure, almost no one regretted it in the following days. One of the reasons is that the Chinese government compensates them well for their work in China. Some people are actually paid five times their usual salary in the Soviet Union.
4. Are the salaries of Soviet experts increased?
If we say that the Soviet experts’ generous remuneration and high wages are inconsistent with the principle of equality, it is an exaggeration and is not reasonable.
First of all, objectively speaking, no matter what the price, China will ultimately benefit from the large number of experts coming to China. When talking with Eugene, Mao Zedong admitted that learning from the Soviet Union and hiring Soviet experts would first be beneficial to the recipient countries.
Secondly, the Soviet Union also implemented preferential policies for Chinese personnel who came to study and train in the Soviet Union. According to the agreement on December 6, 1951 on the conditions for Chinese citizens to practice production technology in the Soviet Union, China only needs to pay 10% to 20% of lecture fees and instructors’ salaries to the Soviet Union.
According to the agreement on September 1, 1952 on Chinese citizens studying in Soviet higher education institutions, China only needs to pay 50% of book fees, utility fees and scholarships to the Soviet government.
Finally, according to Soviet calculations, the fees charged by the Soviet Union are much lower than the international price level of various scientific and technical assistance. The compensation paid by China to Soviet experts who aided China is only 1/4 to 1/3 of the international standard, while the payment for training The cost of Chinese personnel is only 1/6 of the international standard.
In addition, the Soviet Union also provided China with a large number of scientific and technological documents and drawings free of charge (China only had to pay for copying).
From the signing of the Sino-Soviet Scientific and Technological Cooperation Agreement in October 1954 to the beginning of 1959, the Soviet Union transferred to China free of charge 1,100 sets of design materials for industrial enterprises and other construction projects, 3,500 sets of drawings for manufacturing various machinery and equipment, 950 A set of technical information and various technical instructions on 2950 topics.
The large number of preferential policies granted by the Soviet Union undoubtedly reduced a considerable part of China's economic construction expenditure, thus offsetting the expenditure on experts to a certain extent. Therefore, when discussing this issue, researchers cannot just focus on one-sided expenditures.
Despite this, for the poor and backward New China, the cost of hiring Soviet experts was still a heavy burden. Until 1955, China paid for all expenses of Soviet experts with loans.
According to the calculation table of trade and foreign exchange income and expenditures with the Soviet Union from 1951 to 1955, only the administrative consultant and expert fees (i.e. compensation) paid to the Soviet government were 56.04 million rubles in 1951 and 40.69 million in 1952. Rubles, in 1953 it was 32.6 million rubles, in 1954 it was 32.95 million rubles, in 1955 it was 49.12 million rubles, a total of 211.4 million rubles.
China also spends a lot of money on military consultants and experts. For example, the compensation paid to the Soviet government was 9.84 million for systems experts from the Ministry of Defense in the second half of 1953 and system experts from the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs for the whole year of 1953. ruble.
No comprehensive figures have been found yet, but based on these two statistical estimates, China paid more than 220 million rubles in compensation to experts by 1955. Compared with China’s first loan to the Soviet Union, which totaled 1.2 billion rubles, this fee is indeed amazing.
5. The Chinese government’s attitude towards hiring Soviet experts
Moreover, the salary and living allowance paid to the experts have not been calculated here. Therefore, Premier Zhou Enlai of the Government Affairs Council emphasized from the beginning that as few Soviet experts as possible should be hired. In April 1950, Harbin Institute of Technology planned to hire 35 more Soviet professors to work in China due to the increase in students and departments.
Liu Shaoqi commented on the request for instructions: "There are too many and we can't afford the resettlement expenses." A few days later, Zhou Enlai gave another instruction: "The principle is to use less but more and more when necessary." Later, after discussing with the Soviet Ambassador and General Counsel, the number was determined to be 10 people.
On January 7, 1951, Zhou Enlai called Wang Zhen and Sai Fuding, who were in charge of Xinjiang, and told all major administrative regions and the Central Financial and Economic Commission:
htmlOn the 18th, regarding issues such as the retention and salary of Soviet personnel after the Soviet enterprises in Dalian were transferred to China, Zhou Enlai also called Ouyang Qin, secretary of the Gaogang-transferred Dalian Municipal Committee, and mayor Han Guang: "You should reduce the number of people you must hire. to the bare minimum”."We should no longer invite people from the Soviet Union for any specialized technical personnel we can find ourselves." ".
It was precisely because of being overwhelmed that even in some economic sectors that were in great need of Soviet help, the number of Soviet experts to be hired was repeatedly calculated and considered.
On August 12, 1955, the Party Group of the State Planning Commission and the Party Group of the Ministry of Geology jointly submitted a "Report on Requesting the Soviet Government to Provide Technical Assistance to my country's Geological Work" to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The report first explained that compared with China's current construction scale and Compared with the speed of industrial development, geological work has lagged behind. Not only are there few minerals discovered, but the growth in mining volume cannot meet the needs of industrial development.
However, when it came to the issue of hiring Soviet experts, many studies had to be conducted.
The number of experts originally planned by the Ministry of Geology was 383. The State Council believed that the number was too many. After two instructions from Li Fuchun, it was reduced to 208. After further study by Kusochkin, the chief adviser of the Ministry of Geology, and Pushkin, the acting general adviser of the Soviet Union, the number was drawn up. for 177 people.
However, Li Fuchun still asked for careful consideration, so Zhang Xi, deputy director of the Planning Commission, Peng Tao, and Deputy Minister of Geology He Changgong conducted further research with Pushkin, and finally confirmed that this number was appropriate. On August 27, the report was approved in principle at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
6. Other treatment for Soviet experts in China
In order to enrich the cultural and entertainment life of experts, the Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs often screened movies and held various performances and parties. At that time, two of the best film equipments were imported across the country, one of which was placed in the Friendship Hotel. In 1958, Zhou Enlai also personally arranged for the famous Peking Opera performing artist Mei Lanfang to perform "The Imperial Concubine" for the experts at the Friendship Hotel. Drunk 》.
The Chinese government also noticed that, unlike the Chinese lifestyle at that time, Soviet experts were very concerned about vacations and travel after work. In order to satisfy the desire of Soviet experts to go to the seaside for vacation, the State Council's Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs agreed with the Soviet side's suggestion that Soviet experts and their families who were on vacation in China during the summer of 1957 would, in principle, be concentrated in Beidaihe and Qingdao . The round trip expenses will be borne by the hiring organization. The expert rest homes in Beidaihe and Qingdao are organized and managed by the Foreign Experts Affairs Bureau and the local People's Committee of the People's Republic of China.
In order to reduce the long journey of experts on vacation, in the summer of 1958, the Soviet experts adopted the method of zoning and concentration in China. Three vacation places were opened: Beidaihe Seaside Expert Rest House, Lushan Diplomatic Office Guest House and Qingdao Sanatorium, and divided the vacation areas. and installment time.
In terms of medical care, in December 1954, the State Council notified that heads of each unit must visit the sick and hospitalized experts in their units and send translators to take care of them.
Later, because Soviet experts had objections to the lack of a fixed doctor during medical treatment, they required all medical units to "fix a doctor as much as possible and be responsible for the treatment to the end" when treating experts and their families.
The Chinese government also gives special care to experts working in the field.
In February 1957, the Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs issued a notice specifically on the issue of food subsidies, emphasizing that during the field work of foreign experts, each hiring department should provide Western meals that are generally equivalent to Beijing International Hotel standards, and ensure that the daily needs of the experts are provided. Necessities (such as paper, cigarettes, towels, soap, etc.) are supplied and sold according to the prevailing market prices in nearby large and medium-sized cities, and the price difference is subsidized by the hiring department.
As an attachment to the notice, it also specifically lists the dosage standards for the main raw materials for Western meals per person at the Beijing International Hotel:
1 catty of clean meat, 2 to 3 catties of vegetables, 1/8 pound of butter, 2.5 taels of vegetable oil, milk 1 pound, 4 eggs, 1 pound of white flour.
Interestingly, the Chinese government has also made special regulations regarding details such as the drinking of Soviet experts. The Soviets are fond of drinking, and many things have happened to them. For example, in Urumqi, Sokolov, an expert on the aerial photography expedition team of the Soviet Air Force, got drunk, made a scene in the hospital, and beat his colleagues. A few experts also caused personal accidents due to excessive drinking.
The 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union raised the issue of prohibiting alcoholism. The Soviet expert organization also requested not to supply hard liquor to experts. For this reason, in July 1959, the Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs made a special request: When organizing expert parties and picnics, it is generally not necessary to provide alcohol. If experts insist on requesting it, some beer and wine can be provided; restaurant canteens can provide beer and wine at ordinary times, but should not sell hard liquor. Only on major festivals, a small amount of rationed supply can be adopted; when holding a banquet, a small amount of hard liquor can be provided.
also requires hospitality units in various places to properly discuss this issue with local foreign experts and leaders and obtain their consent, assistance and support.
Even for the funeral of an expert, the State Council has clearly stipulated:
Provincial and municipal expert reception committees and the expert's work unit shall organize bereavement committees together with other relevant units, and assign responsible cadres to the place where the expert died to assist in handling the aftermath; hire departments Responsible comrades should be sent to the embassy or consulate to offer condolences; a memorial service with appropriate ceremonies should be held; condolences to the relatives of the deceased expert or requesting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to send a message of condolence; disposal of the body of the deceased expert (cremation, burial or transport back to the country), The matter shall be handled according to the opinions of his family members or the embassy in China; pensions shall be provided to the relatives of deceased experts.
In short, the Chinese government has established a system for entertaining experts coming to China, requiring all localities to review and summarize the work of hosting foreign experts every six months. The matters included in the inspection summary include "welcoming and sending of experts, housing allocation, food preparation, transportation supply, disease treatment, culture and entertainment, sightseeing, safety and security, etc." The purpose is to overcome the "lack of enthusiasm and lack of enthusiasm for experts" Politeness and lack of consideration for the shortcomings of the expert’s home life habits”.
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