With the support of the government or collective organizations, the masses voluntarily raise funds, and carry out mutual rescue and mutual aid activities in the form of savings and loans. * * * It is a non-governmental cooperative self-protection organization that overcomes natural disasters and other difficulties to ensure basic living needs. Since 198s, mutual savings associations with the nature of disaster relief and poverty alleviation have been widely established in rural areas of China.

historical origins in many countries, "mutual assistance" is the original form of insurance. For example, in 25 BC, the Babylonians in the Euphrates River valley accumulated reserve funds to relieve fire losses in the form of collecting taxes. In 2 BC, there was a phenomenon that merchants in the Mediterranean shared the loss of navigation. Another example is that there was a mutual aid organization among ancient Egyptian masons, which used the mutual aid fees paid by the participants to pay the funeral expenses for the death of its members. Soldiers' organizations in ancient Rome used the membership fees collected as pension expenses for soldiers' families after they were killed. In the 198s, German O.von Bismarck made use of the workers' mutual aid funds developed automatically in various parts of Germany to "nationalize" it, and in 1881-1883, he formulated the Social Insurance Regulations.

In ancient China, there was a folk custom of "going in and out to be friends and helping each other". According to "Zhou Li Da Situ", there was a reserve storage system in the Zhou Dynasty. In the Han dynasty, the "constant liquidation" was built to prepare for famine relief. In the fifth year of Emperor Wendi of the Sui Dynasty (585), according to the difference between the rich and the poor, it was stipulated that every common people should pay a "voluntary warehouse" of less than one stone in autumn for a bad year. In modern China, there were clubs, charity halls, life clubs, old people's clubs and other organizations that helped each other. During the Republic of China, there were also such organizations, such as the Shanghai rickshaw puller mutual aid fund, which was organized by the masses themselves similar to the social insurance business at that time. During the revolutionary war in China, under the leadership of the China Communist Party, the people in the liberated areas established the "Youhong Barn", "Youhong School", "Comfort Team", "Laundry Team" and "Farming Team", as well as the "Saturday Compulsory Labor Day System" for ploughing the fields for the families of the Red Army, and implemented mutual assistance and cooperative production between the military and the people.

the development of China rural mutual savings association. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the social trend of mutual assistance and mutual aid gradually formed. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the state listed "mutual assistance among the masses" as an important part of the disaster relief and relief policy, and then carried out mutual assistance activities such as "one or two meters", "persuading to raise cold clothes" and donating production and living materials for the victims. Organized and regular mutual aid activities began to appear in the rural mutual aid savings association in Jiangxi Province in the early 198s.

the development of the mutual savings association has mainly gone through three stages: ① in 1982, the government implemented the reform of disaster relief work, divided the disaster relief funds into two parts: free relief and paid support, and encouraged farmers to absorb the idle funds of the people in the form of voluntary fund-raising to establish the "Natural Disaster Mutual Savings Association" with the purpose of disaster relief. (2) The stage of mutual aid fund for disaster relief and poverty alleviation began in 1984. The function of the mutual savings association is gradually expanding, with dual functions of disaster relief and poverty alleviation. (3) The mutual savings association began to develop to a higher level, using its accumulated funds to carry out community services at the village level, and used the increased part of the savings for social welfare undertakings and social welfare enterprises to organize cooperative disaster relief insurance and medical insurance. At this point, the mutual savings association has developed into a mass self-protection organization at the grassroots level in rural areas. By the end of 1987, Jiangxi Province had set up 19,2 mutual savings associations, accounting for 94% of the total number of village committees in the province. According to the statistics of 18 provinces, by the end of August 1988, more than 74, mutual savings associations had been held, raising 32 million yuan.

nature and function mutual funds have the dual nature of finance and security, and usually achieve the purpose of security by means of financial activities. The main sources of funds are the state, the collective and the individual. The state's paid support funds and social donation funds belong to all members; Funds sponsored by collective organizations shall be collectively owned by the Provident Fund Association; The funds stored by the collective organization shall be owned by the original unit; The principal deposited by a member belongs to the individual. Appropriate management fees (lower than the interest of bank loans for the same period) are charged for the loan of funds. The principle of democratic financial management and democratic supervision shall be implemented in fund management.

Mutual Savings Association will adapt to the actual needs of rural areas in China at this stage and carry out low-level social security activities with poverty alleviation as the central content, which will help develop production, narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and promote the harmony of interpersonal relationships; It is conducive to cultivating farmers' awareness of democracy and self-reliance and promoting the construction of socialist spiritual civilization; Effectively combining the strength of the state, the collective and the individual to make up for the lack of national finance in a timely manner has become an important supplement to the national rural finance.