A Study Of The Peasant Association In The Late Qing Dynasty And The Republic Of China

The modern times of China is a revolutionary era that has witnessed the transformation from the traditional society to the modern society, in which one of the important things is to emancipate the farmer from the traditional kinship and the patriarchal clan organizations, gradually becoming the main body of the social, political and economic relationship in the countryside. The peasant association, as the social organization surmounting relations of the patriarchal clan, has played a significant role in the process of this vicissitude. This thesis will investigate the development of the peasant association in the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China from the following five aspects.Firstly, the peasant association in the late Qing Dynasty was set up for the purpose of the agricultural reform. The Chinese peasant association was initiated in the late Qing Dynasty. The Zhili general association of agricultural affairs established in July 1907 was the earliest peasant corporation. Afterwards, other organizations of this kind began to appear one after another in other provinces. To the date when the Republic of China was founded, most of the provinces in the nationwide had all established the general association of agricultural affairs or sub-branches of the general association. The emergence of the peasant association in the late Qing Dynasty and the republic of China was under the social background in which the national crisis deepened and the agricultural production were on the decline after the Sino-Japanese War in 1894-1995. It was advocated by the people who want to save the nation initiatively by the industry and to reform the party of the bourgeoisie under the influence of the agronomy research atmosphere of Shanghai, as well as the influence of the "New Policy" . The peasant association of the late Qing set the model of t three-level organization system with the general association at the provincial level, the branch of the association at the level of the Fu, the Ting, the state and the county and the sub-branch at the level of towns, villages and the agricultural fairs. These peasant organizations set to edit agriculture newspapers, to translate agricultural books, and to establish agriculture schools. Apart from this, they held meetings to appraise the agricultural products, put on agricultural product exhibitions, set up experimental farms and agricultural production mills, conducted land reclamations, constructed the irrigation system and undertook the a forestation. They made noticeable achievements in carrying out the investigation of agricultural situation as well as in settling the civil disputes, especially in introducing the modes of capitalist management and the mechanical operation in the agricultural production. At the same time, the peasant association of the late Qing dynasty had such characteristics as compositional complexity of organization, the modern democracy of the organizational system, the fullness of activities, the governmental supervision of organizational jurisdiction. All of these show that this organization is a modern institution with merchants as its principal members, aiming at the agricultural reform and consultation, though it attached itself to the local government.Secondly, the peasant association is taken as consulting organization of the government in the initial period of the Republic of China. After the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, either Sun Yat-Sen who begins to be the first president in the Nanjing Provisional Government, or afterward Yuan Shikai who seized the state power and starts to be the ruler of the Beiyang warlords, who both facing the situation of the broken rural economy, the declining agricultural production as well as the farmers' miserable lives. They all paid great attention to the improvement of the agriculture, and the development of peasant association organizes. However, in the initial period the Republic of China, the co-appearance of various kinds of new ideologies in the circle of thinkers, the increasingly growing call of the promotion of agriculture, provide a good social atmosphere for the development of the peasant association, which enables the peasant association organization widely developed. The peasant association in the initial period of the Republic of China has still composed the subordinate organization system which layer upon layer connects, which, however in the late Qing dynasty has been divided into four levels on the foundations of three levels in the end of the Qingdynasty, i.e., additionally built a topmost storey-the federation of the nationalpeasant association, making the organization of peasant association become more concrete and more complete from top to bottom. The Peasant Association, under the control of the Beiyang government, its effective functions were to investigate the area agriculture conditions and work out the examination table which would be submitted to the superior peasant association and authorities concerned annually; they could also make authorities some suggestions about agricultural improvements and so on. Based on the peasant association of Qing Dynasty, after the 1911 Revolution, although the peasant association presented some new characteristics in the light of the state system changing from feudalism to republicanism, the bourgeois democracy thought entering in the hearts of the people, the chaotic political situation under the government of Beiyang warlords, and the other progressive social factors and so on, they had no essentially distinction with the one of the late Qing Dynasty in respects of the organizational structure, function, characteristics and so on. That is to say, they were still the consultation social group and the contacting institution attaching to the government with the majority of bureaucracy and merchants, and the social economy self-service organization with the purpose of the agricultural improvement.Thirdly, the peasant association with a characteristic of regime in the period of democratic revolution. In the Chinese modern history, the peasant association, which as its' own organization, came into being in 1921 after the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party as an organization aiming for reforming the social system. Under the condition of the depressed rural economy, landlords and gents held the power, most of the land being accompanied by a minority, the social class constituents of countryside under a remarkable changing, this kind of new peasant association were founded. In the Chinese modern history, the Peasant Association of Zhejiang Xiaoshanya was the first new style peasant association which had a distinctive marks of class and took solving the countryside society contradictory as its own duty. Following that, the peasant associations were founded one after another in the Haifeng of Guangzhou and in the northern of Hengshan Mountains of Hunan. In January 1924 following the realization of the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, the foundations of the peasant department of KMT Central Committee and the Committee of Central Peasant Movement and a series of policies and measures on the peasant movement were benefit for its widely establishment and carrying on the peasant movement; the publish of the statute of peasant's association had provided the practical and feasible text basis for the foundations of the peasant association in every part of China; During more than two years of the six times of training peasant cadres for the peasant movement, the training had cultivated a great number of cadres for the peasant movement and accelerate the peasant associations' development in all places. In April 1927 a provisional executive committee of the Whole National Peasants Association also be established and was a national, provincial, county, district and township levels interlinked direct Organization system. The peasant associations, in the First Revolutionary Civil War period, led peasants to support the Northern Expedition War, and launched a series of activities in the Rural Great Revolution and the anti-imperialist struggle. Especially the Rural Great Revolution in the rural areas had a far-reaching influence on the Chinese society in sides of politics, economy, culture and other fields. However, the Peasant Association Movements of this period had some obvious limitations: there are some "left" errors and mistakes and the greater differences among the different regions in the process of organization development. Although the Peasants Associations in the First Revolutionary Civil War period also carried out some agriculture improvements, they had a fundamental difference with the peasant association of the late Qing Dynasty, and were no longer a consultant institution serving for the government, but a social organization set up and led directly by the Central Government under the banner of the cooperation between the KMT and the CPC. As peasants' autonomous organizations, they mainly consisted of the poor peasants and had the aim of overthrowing the feudal landlord regime and had a strong color of political and struggling.Fourthly, Farmers' organization as the complementary form of basal regime controlled by Chinese Kuomintang. The reactionaries in Kuomintang imposed a crucial crackdown on the farmers' movement as well as the farmers' association directly led by Chinese Communism Party after the failure of the Great defeat. Meanwhile, the economic in the countryside tended to decline while the movement of construction was propelled widely and actively. The farmers' community led by Chinese Kuomintang has gone through a process of being rebuilt, improved and developed when the self-management in countryside was carried out by Nanjing Kuomintang Government. The development of fanners' organization in the area governed by Kuomintang can be mainly featured by two phases: the phase of being rebuilt, which was characterized by the publication of《the Organizational Principles of Farmers' association》in the year 1928, as well as the《Law of Farmers' Association》in the year 1930; and the phase of being improved, by《the Principles for the Adjustment of all Classes of Farmers' Association》in the year 1938. The fanners' organizations, which were led by Kuomintang, were provided quite a lot of tasks by law. Nevertheless, a large of them has not been put into effect. The usual activities they have done were to investigate the conditions in the countryside and present them to the officials in the form of tables. At the same time, the following features at that specific age were also displayed: the maturity and variety of disciplines and principles, the democracy of organizational system, the strict control imposed by government, and the limited effect of their activities and effect. Nominally, the farmers' organization built and led by Kuomintang, had the purpose of developing the farmers' economy situation, improving their intelligence level, pushing their living forward, in order to retain their status as the juridical person in advanced agriculture. However, actually, they were used to help keeping social orders as the complementary form of basal regime in the form of social organizations, which mainly included the bourgeois in the countryside.Fifth, the peasant association as the enforcement institution of the revolutionary base. During the period from the failure of Great Revolution in July of 1927 to the establishment of New China in October of 1949,While the Kuomintang set up peasant associations to harness social order in its governance area, the Chinese Communist Party also established kinds of peasant associations one by one in the revolutionary base, these were " Poor Peasant Group " in soviet region, " Peasant Saving Meeting " in anti-Japan base and " Peasant Association " in liberation area etc. These peasant associations acted more extensively in the fields of politics, economy and culture. The organizations of peasant association showed time characters of variety in organizations' names, having strategies in forming ways, uncompleteness in organization system and having limited effect etc. As to its nature and functions, they are the society originations that were led by the CCP and that acted as the enforcement institutions of revolutionary regime. They were formed mainly by poor peasants. They constructed a hard base for the rise of the peasant associations in the land reform movement and the construction of originations of rural regime in the initial stage of new China.When we view the organizations of peasant associations as a whole in the late Qing Dynasty and Kuomintang Era, we can have the conclusions: 1, organizations of peasant associations showed different kinds of nature and functions;2, the organizations of peasant associations became a participation power that couldn't be lacked in the construction of state regime and rural society, and they played the roles of "protector", "destroyer" and "reorganizer" of the power structure in traditional grassroots society;3, the organizations of peasant association developed effect that couldn't be ignored in developing agriculture product, easing up the peasants' poverty, changing backward rural culture and education and pushing China' s traditional agriculture to modem agriculture;4 The modern China peasant association organizations didn't finally develop to be the social organizations in modern sense and it was only a political instrument of the party and government. The peasant association organizations in modern sense should keep "folk", "autonomy", "unconstraint" and "monocracy" as their features.5,To conclude the experiences of peasant association organizations in modern China can offer valuable reference for the dispute on reestablishing peasant association organizations in the theory field.