Section 4 End of China Post

Although post modification movement obtained some achievements and was appraised by public opinions, because Kuomintang launched the Civil War, national business industry was in great calamity, workers were unemployed, rural areas fell into decay, finance was out of control, prices went up, politics and economy was on the verge of collapse. Under such a situation, though China Post had the good intention of improving and developing post, and tried hard to shore up as far as possible, the situation was helpless. The plan of urban post modification movement and rural post improvement vanished like soap bubbles. Take the postages, which post's existence and development depended on, as an example, under normal situation, postage of an ordinary mail was equal to about the price of 0.5 kg pork. The ordinary mail postage of China Post was 5 fen before the resistance war and went up continuously. After Sept.20, 1940, it was 8 fen, from Oct. l, 1945, it changed to 20 Yuan. There was no unified standard in 1949. On May 16, "Unit Stamp" was carried out, the postage of an ordinary mail was 160,000 Yuan. On May 20, it was 320,000 Yuan, on May 24, it was l,200, 000 Yuan. On a certain day of June, an ordinary mail sent from Chongqing was stamped 21,600,000 Yuan, with still 1,000,000 Yuan shortage, appearing the intriguing story of "envelop was stuck on top of the stamps". In such a chaos state the decline of China Post was inevitable.

Before its escape, Kuomintang Government destroyed post. For example, it demanded post office to transfer materials and archives and persuaded post workers to flee southward with "emergency compensation" as the bait. Post workers including some high-level administrators deeply recognized that the rule of Kuomintang Government would collapse. CPC was the representative of promoting social progress, the People's Liberation Army under the leadership of CPC was an army of virtue and morality. So they supported and answered the call of CPC to undertake struggle of protecting post offices. Owing to the efforts of all patriotic post staff, the intention of Kuomintang Administration to destroy post didn't succeed in its schemes at last. After the collapse of Kuomintang Government, China Post offices in all areas were mostly in good condition. The majority of post staff stuck to their positions, carried out business to meet the liberation and the emergence of new China.