On 1960s Rural Siqing Movement

The "Siqing" Movement, which was also called the Socialism Education Movement, lasted from 1963 to the early half year of 1966. It was launched by the central leaders of the Chinese Communist Party with identical views in order to solve such problems as commercial opportunism, corruption bribery,degeneration,theft and so on. The further goal was to improve the tight relationship between officials and the masses, to prevent the appearance of revisionism and "peaceful evolution" . Under the guidance of "class struggle theory" , the party misunderstood the situation and thus caused serious misfortunes that the hitting area was too large in the movement, theoretically and practically which finally led to the taking place of the "Great Cultural Revolution" . In order to understand the "Siqing" Movement objectively, the movement in Kaifeng Henan was taken as an example and the whole process of the movement was deeply analyzed and studied in this dissertation.There are five chapters except for the introduction and the concluding remarks in the dissertation. All these parts will be introduced separately and briefly.The introduction of the dissertation mainly includes three parts. Part one is about the writing meaning, the writing range and the writing value; Part two is about the introduction and the appraisal of the present researching situation; Part three is about the writing guide, research methods and learning value. Chapter 1 is about the National Situation and Directing Thought at the Beginning of "Siqing Movement" . With all kinds of contradictions both from home and abroad being intensified, the central authorities of the CCP took "class struggle theory" as directing thought and launched the vigorous movement.In Chapter 2, after the general situation of "Siqing Movement" in Henan Province being introduced, the "Little Siqing" experiment in Kaifeng area was expounded. During the "Little Siqing" experiment, series of the "left" practice of the working groups and concrete measures were discussed. Chapter 3 is about the "collect-and-train working group" . Concrete situations of Kaifeng area "collect-and-train working group" , which was under the vigorous demand of both the central authority and Henan provincial authority of the CCP, were mainly narrated in this chapter. Chapter 4 is about the "Overall Siqing" , namely, "Clear Economy" , "Clear Politics" , "Clear Thought" and so on. Detailed situations of the "Overall Siqing" , which were under the guidance of <23 Items>, were mainly discussed in this chapter. Chapter 5 is about the "Organization Construction" . The central task was to rectify and reorganize the party branches of the countryside in this stage. The organizations construction of the militia and the Communist Youth League were also discussed in this chapter. On thebase of the micro-analysis of the "Siqing" Movement in Kaifeng area, the author discussed the gain and loss of the movement in the concluding part. To sum up, the author believes the movement was a failure because it did great harm to China, even though there were some useful experiences in the movement. In the end, the author put forward some reflection to the movement.