ABSTRACT
The unit was engaged in technical survey work over a demarcated area of the country as part of a long-term national scientific program. Many of its original personnel were recruited from similar units in the local province and from other provinces, apparently as part of a general move to shift the focus of this field of technical survey work from the eastern coastal provinces into the interior. Turning to the organizational structure of the unit, concentrates on the pre-Cultural Revolution structure as a basis for later analysis of structural changes resulting from the movement. On the Cultural Revolution, the unit had two political organizations, the Communist Party and the Young Communist League, and two mass organizations, the militia and the trade union. The relatively high percentage of people with "bad" and "middling" class origins among the technicians reflects both the continued cultural and intellectual advantages of the prerevolutionary upper and middle classes and the relatively nondiscriminatory educational recruitment policies.
