Social Mobilization In Boxer Movement

The Boxer Movement that happened at the turn of 19th and 20th is the great earth-shaking event. It began from anti-western religion struggle in Cao County and Shan County of Shandong Province after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) to the anti-imperialist struggle with nation-wide influence in 1900 and pushed the people's fighting against the invasion to the highest peak since the late of 19th century. The Boxer Movement that is as the peasant movement of special form under the special historical background will certainly draw the attention and research of the later generations. The research on the Boxer Movement will help us understand the society better at that time.The Boxer Movement that is as the mass movement of social scale, the social mobilization plays an important role in the rise and development of movement. The keynote of the article is to provide a new perspective on the history of the Boxer Movement by hackling the social mobilization process and analyzing the social mobilization mode in the Boxer Movement. This article just wants to set the Boxer Movement as the individual case and realize and reach the Boxer Movement from the perspective of social mobilization under the keynote.The western invaders forces the development of Chinese society and history to deviate from the original track by violence, but the violence cannot change the intrinsic cultural concept and national psychology of most people at one stroke after the Opium War. Different mentalities appear in the Chinese society in the face of the torrent of the imperialist powers carving up China and coupling with the aggressive culture after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). These mentalities include superstitious and fear mentalities, falsehood and group mentalities, exclusive and struggling mentalities, these different mentalities influence the people's behaviors and even have a direct impact on the social mobilization in the Boxer Movement.The extensively-participating common people are the main body of the movement, many local official and gentry adopt the participating, sympathizing or supporting attitudes, it forms the united situation of official, gentry and people. The spearhead of struggle points to the churches and their back imperialistic powers by the extensive publicity. Therefore, the Boxer Movement takes advantage of the commonly existing nervous, terrifying and tending to the happiness and dodging the disasters mentalities consciously or unconsciously to arouse the masses and create the so-called social landscape of "one person advocates, many people support, the whole country is mad".During the Boxer Movement, the Boxers inherited the propaganda mode of arousing the masses by meeting the secret sects. On the one hand, they exaggerate the terrible atmosphere of "being faced with imminent disaster" by means of posters, martial arts, dramas and rumors etc, on the other hand, they allege that the Boxers is the organization of complying with the Providence, protecting the good and saving the suffering and being able of "guaranteeing safety in the Boxers". The Boxers unite with all forces that can be united, create a good social atmosphere for its own development by a series of motivation. And it moves towards the high tide and has a great impact and influence on the society.