Reconstruct The Social Centre: A Study On Liberal Intellectuals Community After Anti-Japanese War (1945-1949)

Liberal intellectuals, especially those university professors across China, burst forth great enthusiasm in putting forth their comments on politics after the victory of Anti-Japanese War. They unanimously called on the general public to love peace, oppose the civil war and reconstruct the social order based on fairness and justice through the vehicle of newspapers and magazines. This wave of movement was characterized by a clear-cut aim: to reconstruct the centre of society in order to mobilize the forces at all social levels, reverse the adversity brought about by the civil war and direct China onto the right track. With that in mind, these intellectuals gathered around through various connections, forming many intellectual communities based on a range of newspapers and journals, the most representative of which were the Observation, Times and Articles, Independent comments on current affairs and New Road community.The power of the liberal intellectual group depended on the internal structure within the group. In my research, it is argued that the formation of the four groups mentioned above was all closely related to university. That means the connections between the members of each group, e.g. the relations built through classmates, teachers and students, alumni, colleagues and educational backgrounds, became the most important criterion for them to build up mutual identity. What is noteworthy was that the political factors had been found filtering through the formation of intellectual groups and the social networks of the liberal intellectuals in each group took on different forms because of different urban cultural spaces. The power of the liberal intellectual group was also from institutional media behind it, for example, university (including scientific research organizations, foundations and academic groups, etc.), press industry and associations (including non-governmental organizations and political parties, etc.) and so on.However, for the lack of cultural identity, different source and structure of knowledge these modern intellectuals had were plunged into irreconcilable divergence in their viewpoints and thoughts. This divergence then gradually upgraded into political conflicts and clashes against the backdrop of the Civil War between Kuomintang and Communist Party. Eventually Politicalization among intellectuals caused differentiation between the group members and along the deterioration of their disagreements the relational network built up by them ended up disintegrating. Worse still, the war-induced social, political and economic crises severely hit those institutional media and stroke a huge blow to their development and weakened their power.Under the double erosion of policalization and war, the power of the liberal intellectual groups became ever weakening and the ideal of reconstructing the centre of society finally went unfulfilled, only scattering in the course of history.This paper consists of three parts: introduction, main body and conclusion.The introduction centers on how the research subject is chosen and its significance. It also considers the methodology taken to deal with the major problems posed in the paper. The main body is made up of five chapters which mainly presents the longitudinal and horizontal case studies of these intellectual groups, i.e. the Observation, Times and Articles, Independent comments on current affairs and New Road community.Chapter 1. Literature review and current researchesThis chapter demonstrates the sources of the literature used in the paper and the author's analysis of and comments on them. The present researches into the subject at home and abroad are also detailed and closely analyzed in this part.Chapter 2 the Observation CommunityThis chapter gives a detailed analysis of the group members of the Observation focusing on the process of their assembling and the internal structure and the productive mode of the group dynamics. It points out that common educational background served as the most important bonds to unite these intellectuals while those who had studied in England and maintained close relationship with Chu anping played a key role in the group. This section also reports the definite social appeal of the group members: to reconstruct social authority in China and argues that their power derived mainly from the public opinion invoked by Observation though lacking effective support of the institutional media.Chapter 3 the Times and Articles CommunityThis chapter introduces the establishment of the the Times and Articles, the formation process of intellectuals group, the internal structure of the group and the network woven by the institutional media. It then makes a horizontal comparison between the Times and Articles and Observation and finds that although common educational background of the group members was the main reasons to establish the journal Times and Articles, there existed between the members multifarious identity standards which could not be separated from the complex social network working behind the group. Unlike the Observation Community, the institutional media should be considered the main source to the power of the Times and Articles Community.Chapter 4. the Independent comments on current affairs CommunityThis chapter mainly deals with the establishment of the journal Independent comments on current affairs and analyzes the shaping process and the internal structure of the group members committed to the pursuit of rebuilding the centre of society. It also carries out an in-depth research into the institutional media, i.e. Peking University, in terms of its role in the group. According to the comparison between the Independent comments on current affairs and Times and Articles Community, it is demonstrated that common educational background had much to do with the formation of this group. However, the political factors that filtered through the process of its formation had finally resulted in the differentiation of the group members and the disintegration of the group as a whole, thus severely weakening the power of its institutional media---Peking University. Unlike the Times and Articles Community, the power of which is obtained from the social network built up by its members, the power of the Independent comments on current affairs Community was more to do with the university, rendering its source of power less multilateral than the Times and Articles. Chapter 5. the New Road communityThis chapter focuses on the founding of New Road, the formation process of intellectuals group and the group's relationship with Tsinghua university and Chinese Society and Economics Research Association. Based on the comparison with the Observation Community, It considers the common educational background of the group members of the New Road community as the bonding tie to connect them and reports the fact that the institutions such as Tsinghua University and Chinese Society and Economics Research Association provided forceful support for this group. Nevertheless, Tsinghua University and Peking University, though both situated in the Society of Intellectuals in Peking, came into serious differentiation for different school spirit and academic traditions against the backdrop of ever policalized intellectuals.ConclusionThe conclusion follows naturally from the preceding argumentation that the objective of the intellectuals' participation in politics after the victory of Anti-Japanese War was crystal clear: reconstructing the centre of society. In achieving this aim, groups were formed through a variety of social bonds which in this paper are referred to as the internal structure of group characterized by the relational network between the group members. At the same time, the institutional media also played a key role in supporting these groups. However, these ever weakening groups failed to realize their objective to reconstruct the centre of society under the double infliction of politicalization and war.