Contemporary Book Printing 3

Printed capacity > Printed book production capacity in the fourth quarter

In the final analysis, the development of the book printing industry is the development of productivity in the printing of books and periodicals. Because the original industrial foundation in China is very weak, the printing capacity in the eastern and western regions is quite different, and the civil conflict in the 10 years since the “Cultural Revolution” began in 1966, The impact of printing made the balance between printing, printing, and printing of books and magazines, and the unbalanced publishing and printing capacity between regions became a major problem that plagued the printing of books and periodicals. Looking at the history of the development of the book printing industry in China for more than 40 years, it can be roughly divided into the following stages: 1 The restoration period; 2 The development period; 3 The 10 years of civil unrest during the “Cultural Revolution”; 4 The book printing industry after the reform and opening up The transition to a communitarian market economy. The above four periods are divided according to the different characteristics of each period. Changes in different periods first manifest themselves in quantitative changes, and the quantitative changes between two different periods are generally not obvious. Only after such a quantitative change accumulates to a certain extent can the characteristics of two different periods manifest themselves clearly. It is precisely because of this that the division of phase time in different periods is only comparatively speaking and not strictly defined.

Printing productivity> First, printing productivity during recovery and development

In China, book printing has always been considered as a processing industry for book publishing services. Since the establishment of the General Administration of Publication, the publication of books and magazines has been entirely in the hands of the government. The development of the printing industry serving books and publications is naturally conducted under the leadership of the government. At that time, China's printing industry was concentrated in a number of large cities on the eastern coast such as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing. Second, except for a few state-run printing plants, the vast majority were private printing plants; Simple, single production, low productivity.

On October 28, 1950, the General Administration of Administration issued the "Decision on the Specialization of Public Works for Publishing and Printing and Distribution Enterprises of State-Owned Books and the Adjustment of Public-Private Relations." Here, the so-called "adjustment of public-private relations" is between the state-owned publishing industry and the private printing industry. In terms of relations. Books and periodicals printing companies are processing companies. Their jobs can only come from publishers, and publishers are completely state-owned. Between the state-run publishing house, the state-run printing factory, and the private printing factory, it is necessary to ensure the completion of the publishing task of the state-run publishing house and to take into account the interests of the state-run and private-sector printing houses. This is an important issue for the publishing industry. As the productivity of the state-run book printing factory in the early 1950s was not enough to shoulder all the printing tasks of the books and publications, it was very important to display the production capacity of the private book printing companies. On the one hand, the state-run printing productivity can be brought into full play; on the other hand, private printing houses must also be allowed to work, so that workers in private printing factories will not be unemployed. The General Administration of Development of the People's Republic of China proposed that the principle of "coordinating and coordinating work and cooperation in division of labor" should be the road for the private printing industry to gradually develop into a planned and professional development. This will be the direction for the future development of the state-run printing industry and the transformation of the private printing industry.

In the early 1950s, the country was still in a period of economic recovery. With the support of the government, printing productivity in books and periodicals in several major cities such as Shanghai quickly recovered. However, the number of books and periodicals publications did not increase rapidly, resulting in an oversupply of productivity in books and periodicals. Some printing factories were underemployed. By 1953, the government had to take measures to limit the blind development of the productivity of books and periodicals. On October 24th this year, the General Administration of Administration issued a notice to “prevent the blind development of printing productivity in books and periodicals.” State-run or local state-run newspaper printing factories and book printing factories are required to purchase more than one pair of printing machines, which must be reported to the local publishing administrative authority for review.

The surplus of printed productivity in books and periodicals is only a temporary phenomenon. On November 30, 1953, the General Administration of Development issued the "Regulations on the Extension of Zoning and Renovation of Central-level Publishing House Publications." The number of books printed at 50,000 or more than 100,000 copies is not required to be printed in a single place and the goods should be made in the same area. In this way, the printing productivity in various places will be as effective as possible.

After three years of restoration, the country entered the economic construction period of the first five-year plan from 1953. In December of the same year, the General Administration of Publishing formulated a five-year development plan for the national book printing industry. On November 27, 1952, the General Administration of Administration issued the "Preliminary Measures for the Implementation of the Publishing Plan." It stipulates that after the publication plan is approved, the publication administrative organs will control the production of books and periodicals for printing. Therefore, the construction of books and periodicals printing houses, and the scheduling of printing productivity are all planned by the administrative departments of publishing in an overall plan.

During the implementation of the first five-year plan, there were two major movements that had a greater impact on the printing industry. The first was the implementation of public-private partnerships in the private printing industry from 1954 to 1956; the second was the "Great Leap Forward" in 1958. In 1956, public-private partnerships in the entire industry, as well as adjustments and mergers in the industry, the relocation of some factories to the Mainland, and the creation of new books and magazines printing plants in the Mainland, all contributed to the rapid development of the productivity of books and periodicals and the significant improvement in printing quality. In 1959, China participated in the Leipzig International Book Art Exposition of the German Democratic Republic, including the Collection of Notes on Chu Ci, Wu Wen Qing Wen Jian, Dr. Sugano's Doctor of Engineering Collection of the Republic of Indonesia Collection, the Yongle Palace Mural, and the Shanghai Museum. "Tibetan painting" and so on, won the book binding gold medal; "Butterfly Love Story Storytelling Collection" won the silver medal printing arrangement; "Chinese currency history", "Yang Liu youth album" won the book binding silver award. At this expo, China won a total of 10 gold medals, 9 silver medals, and 5 bronze medals. This shows that after 10 years of hard work, the Chinese book printing industry has not only achieved great development in productivity, but also has basically adapted to the needs of the development of the publishing industry, and has also greatly improved product quality. Some products have Pai, printing, and assembly quality have reached the international level at that time.

Table 19-4 Statistics of books and printed production during economic recovery and construction

Note: The figures in this table are taken from the 1981 edition of "China Printing Yearbook."

However, the "Great Leap Forward" in 1958 put the book printing industry in a serious difficult situation. The “Great Leap Forward” reduced agricultural production for several consecutive years and directly affected the production of the paper industry. Without paper, the printing of books and publications has become a “no-mast”. After the “Great Leap Forward” toss, it was not until 1962 that the output of the book printing was restored to the level of 1957.

In 1960, the country was still in a period of economic difficulties after the Great Leap Forward. Due to the shortage of paper, many newspapers and magazines have ceased publication and the number of books has dropped sharply. However, in order to support education, the Ministry of Culture printed local primary and secondary school textbooks on the spot in provinces and municipalities directly under the central government, and issued the “Notice of Realizing the Printing Productivity Development of Books and Periodicals in order to Achieve Local Printing of Textbooks for Provinces, Municipalities, and Autonomous Regions.” I remember that the paper used for printing books was rough, uneven, and yellow in color. According to today's quality standards, this kind of paper can not be used for printing at all, but at that time, even such paper is rare. Imagine how difficult it was to print and print books.

From 1962 to 1965, the printing industry entered the path of normal rapid development. From 1949 to 1965, the statistics of the development of books and magazines' productivity are shown in Table 19-4.

Printing capacity> Second, regional book printing capacity

The printing of books and periodicals is not like the printing of general social parts. The words are few, the format is small, and the pages are scattered, but the quantity of printing is large. It is also necessary to print the books into volumes. Not only the typesetting, printing, and binding processes are complete, but also the productivity of the three processes is coordinated. ,balance. It seems that the technology of printing books and publications is more complicated than the printing technology of general parts, and the scale of construction is also larger. Therefore, before the 1950s, Chinese books and publications were printed in the mainland and remote provinces and regions were relatively weak. This is the main reason.

From the first "Five-Year Plan" (1953-1958)