Stratocracy And Republic Of China's Society (from 1916 To 1928)

Stratocracy, a kind of political phenomenon in the social changes of modern China, is a kind of transitional politics in the process of old feudal politics collapsing and new democratic politics not having been founded yet. The stratocracy that this dissertation expounds is a kind of political shape that groups of warlords regarded military force as their backing during the period of the Republic of China, utilized the form of democratic politics of capitalism, and handled and controlled the state power to realize their society ruling. "Its essence is ruling the society by military force, which has more characters of turmoil and darkness than the ordinary ruling of feudalism." The characteristics of this kind of politics shape are shown as followed, the military power is higher than all, and the violence and war become normality mechanism and the most effective means to solve domestic political issues. But stratocracy is not just feudally autocratic, because from the aspect of economic environment , in the period of stratocracy , the feudal natural economy was not a totally feudal form of exploitation yet, and the capital compositions of nationality and bureaucrats were increasing constantly; from the aspect of politics combination of groups of warlords, they were not the simple combination of the strictly spoken "army" and "gentry", especially the "gentry" class that was participated in the warlord's regime had changed greatly; To speak inwardly, although the warlords still regarded feudalism as their main thoughts, they had the sense of the composition of democratism and nationalism of the capitalist class. Thus, stratocracy period of the Republic of China (1916 -1928), was a transitional period that the old unification had already been pushed over and the new one had not been set up yet. The transitional period had reflected the society collision between the old and the new, and this would undoubtedly have a certain impact on the Republic of China society.This dissertation emphasizes on the illustration and explanation of the dynamic historical course from 1916 to 1928, among the issues of the inner politics combination within the warlords' factions, the framework of warlord political system and its operational mode, the social effects of stratocracy and the construction of modern united national country etc. It consists of six chapters.Chapter one mainly expounds the background of the transition of the late Qing Dynasty and the coming into being of the stratocracy. This chapter holds the opinions that the prick-up of social politics system decentralization in the period of late Qing Dynasty seriously corroded the political structure of high centralization of state power, the integration of esquire participation and power decentralization of Du and Fu officials finally evoked the split and setting-up of a separatist regime by force of arms, and the change of the order of "literator ruling " and "force ruling" offered the opportunity of traditional literator politics turning to arm force politics full of turmoil, and the basis of the latter confused condition.In this case, the failure of the political conformity of late Qing Dynasty changed the comparison political strength of growth and decline , and that determined the division trend of China's politics. At the beginning of the Republic china, though Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai both adopted Chen Xulu. Metabolism in Modern Society. Shanghai People's Press, 1990. P358.the centralization mode of government form to integrate the society, but they had essential differences. The former domestic unity was with distinct modernized politics trend; but the way that the latter rebuilt the political authoritative system turns from democratic republicanism to stratocracy which took military force as backing. The conclusion is, Yuan Shikai adjusted and controlled the structure relationship between the central and local power with force, as obviously violated the spirit of the democratic republicanism, moreover, the use of the means of this kind of violence would surely cause the...