| In the early years of the 20th century, western thought on cooperatives was introduced to China by intellectuals who had great ambition to save the nation. The movement of Chinese cooperatives since then had been initially promoted by non-governmental entities, gradually became a tool to relieve the poor in disasters, then it was adopted as the program of Kuomintang, and finally became the national policy of that era. The year of 1927, when Kuomintang decided Nanjing as the nation's capital, would be a dividing year. Before 1927, the movements of cooperatives were sponsored by non-governmental organizations, cooperatives were regarded as the tool of relieving poor people in disasters or as the strategy to reconstruct the society, the movement kept going in a spontaneous state. After 1927, because the principle of cooperatives together with the related civil practice were in conformity with the Three People's Principles (which was adopted by the RC government as the ideal of its governance strategy), the movement of cooperatives was at a stage when it combined with the governmental policy regime, and gradually became a social movement from top to bottom, which was led by the government with the collaboration of the civil society. The movement promoted legislation. In order to regulate the development of cooperatives, the government of Republic of China(RC), after made reference to the related legislative regimes in Germany and Japan, promulgated the Cooperatives Law in 1934(CL 1934), which is the first law in this domain in Chinese history. The law was implemented soon. However, the turbulent social background affected the application of the law, and the unconformity of the law with the nation's indigenous tradition weaken the law's enforceability. The dissertation deploys on the clue of the movement of cooperatives of RC era, analysis being focused on the political, economic and social background of CL 1934 so as to reveal the social basis of the law. By studying the enforceability of CL from both the territorial and temporal perspective, the dissertation tries to give an analysis on the main factors that affect the efficiency of the law so as to provide some suggestions to the implementation of Law of the People's Republic of China on Specialized Farmers Cooperatives.The dissertation includes four parts, i.e. Introduction, Text, Conclusion and Appendix. The main viewpoints are as follows:The Introduction demonstrates the purpose and the research object of the dissertation, presenting the aim of the author, which is to make the classic ideal of cooperative to return to China. By the study, the author further aims to fill the research vacuum in the study of the history in cooperatives legislation at present Chinese academy.Chapter one studies the sources of cooperatives. Through the study of the western sources and the core institute of the cooperatives, preparing the basis to the research on cooperatives in RC era. This chapter is divided into four parts: Firstly, analysis is made on the sources of cooperatives, i.e. the traits of European Industrial Revolution, the dissertation points out that the form of economically weak group was the social basis of cooperatives, labor union, together with the cooperatives ,were the measures of the labor class different in approach but equally satisfactory in result to fight against the capital. Secondly, through the study on the evolution of the form of cooperatives, the dissertation demonstrates that the primal form of cooperatives conceived by utopian failed on account of their unconformity with the reality, and that the cooperative with the character of collective commune was the alienated form of cooperative, while only the classic cooperative raised by the Rochdele Principle would be the mainstream in international movement of cooperatives, the principle of the classic cooperative should be the guideline for various movements and legislations among all countries. Thirdly, the categories of cooperatives as well as their function are introduced so as to reveal their essence. Based on the introduction, analysis is made on the difference of the path development of cooperatives between developing countries and developed countries. The author points out that the development path from top to bottom is determined by the special circumstances of developing countries, and situation in the movement of cooperatives in RC was the same. The fourth part focus on the discussion on the various legislative values .Reformism had put much historical and social task on cooperatives, during the 20th century, the momentum to pursue the social values in legislation of cooperatives reached its peak position in European, which had great impact on the selection of legislative values for RC government. With the circumstance of the market becoming more and more complicated, economic values in legislation of cooperatives becomes obvious in the modern society, while the political aspect is abandoned on account of its distortion to the function of the cooperatives.Chapter two is an overview on the initial stage of the movement of cooperatives of RC era. The spread in China of the thought of cooperatives as well as the rise of the civil movement are the ideological and social basis of the CL 1934.The chapter is divided into four parts: In the first part, the dissertation holds the view that the rise of all social movements must be affected or guided by some thought. A lot of intellectuals, who showed concern for their people and country, through their propaganda of the western thoughts, made indelible contribution to the situation that the ideal of cooperatives being recognized by Chinese people. The dissertation presents a detailed record of these intellectuals as well as their research literatures. The second part introduces some influential cooperatives which had been sponsored by the enthusiastic intellectuals who were engaged in the project of cooperatives. The third part introduced the cooperative activity initiated by China International Famine Relief Commission(CIFRC). The CIFRC applied the cooperative system the first time in China to the victims, who were the lowest class in the society. The huge social influence it brought about provided practical experience for Kuomintang government to further enlarge this movement. The operating rule created by the CIFRC also prepared the institutional sources for CL 1934. These were the reasons why the CIFRC was praised as the"first person to eat crabs"in Chinese practice of cooperatives .The fourth part introduces the experience from Rural Reconstruction Movement sponsored by Liang Shu-ming, Yan Yang-chu in 1930's, The movement adopted Zouping and Dingxian as the experimental area, using cooperatives as its organization forms. The sponsors started their experiment in the rural area, getting valuable experience for Chinese rural cooperative projects.Chapter three reviews the process of the adoption and promotion of the policy on cooperatives by RC government. The political basis for the enactment of CL 1934 was the strategy of RC government to realize the doctrine of Three People's Principles by cooperatives, while the vigorous movements of cooperatives in rural area played the role of the activator to lawmaking of CL. This chapter is divided into three parts: The first part deals with the theoretical basis which was adopted by RC government to advance the cooperatives system to be their economic policy. Kuomintang, led by Sun Yat-Sen ,combined the system of cooperatives with the ideal of Three People's Principles sophistically. Being aware of the importance of cooperatives to solve the civil problems, RC government was determined to adopt the policy of cooperatives, while Xue Xianzhou, who was called as the"master of cooperation", together with other non-Kuomintang members, provided theory as well as the plan for this policy. The second part analyzes in detail the contents and the implementation scheme of the policy. The third part analyzes the inner and external factors, the direct reasons why RC government selected the rural area as the center area to promote the cooperative policy, the part consults carefully relevant historical materials concerning all the rural cooperative movements that took place in provinces.Chapter four reviews the circumstance under which the CL was prepared. The emerging movement of cooperatives needed the strong promotion and careful protection by laws, regulations from the nation's authority. Only when the policy of cooperatives had been recognized by law, becoming the willing of the nation, can its implementation be strongly protected. It's the common pursuit from both the government and the civil society that start the process of policy being changed to law. Lots of preparation was made for legislation in the process. This chapter is divided into three parts: The first part reveals that constructing separate administrative system for the cooperatives so as to strengthen the mechanism of guiding, regulating, supervising, controlling the social sources, will be the necessary institutional preparation for the change of cooperative policy to law. The second part analyzes the legal circumstance before the CL was promulgated. The chaos state, in which the coexistence of legislative power of regional, local and national government department authorities ,raised the necessity of setting up an unified legislative regime. The third part makes an assessment on the contribution of the scholars. It's the scholars'opinions, suggestions that provided tremendous intellectual sources for the legislative authorities in respective of the legal principles, style and contents of the law. The dissertation discovers these opinions and suggestions, mading comprehensive citations of them.Chapter five analyzes the style and the contents of CL 1934. The categories of style in cooperative legislations among countries in the world can be classified into omnibus one, separate industry one, diversified one and accessory civil or commercial law one. They can also be classified into English style, German style and French style according to their tradition model. RC government, however, adopted the Germany -styled omnibus model, the Cooperatives Law of Republic of China was promulgated on March 1, 1934. This chapter presents a detailed introduction to the various legal styles as well as the legislative process and the contents of CL 1934.Chapter six is about the implementation of CL. With the enactment of CL, the movement of cooperative came into the stage of adjustment, this was the period of normative development of the movement. CL became effective on September 1, 1935. This chapter focuses the study on these issues. i.e. the preparation for the implementation of the law, integration of the movement of cooperative, the layside of the law during the war of resistance against Japanese aggression. In the first stage, in order to make the spirit of CL be commonly accepted and to eliminate the barriers that conflict with the norms stipulated by CL, RC government held a meeting at which a series of important resolutions were reached to integrate the cooperative movements all over the country. Based on the first-handed materials, this part records in detail the process of the meeting and various important resolutions, and then makes comments on the meeting concerning its influence. In the second stage, by the promotion of the meeting, RC government set up the Bureau of Cooperatives (BC), which is the highest administrative organization of the country. According to CL, BC started a series of adjustment activities including re-registering of the cooperatives. This chapter has a positive opinion on these activities after it makes an assessment based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. The last part of the chapter puts its emphasis on the fate of CL. In the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, cooperative policy of RC government was adjusted greatly due to the adoption of regulatory economical policy. CL 1934, which has the value orientation of"save the rural economy, improve the farmer's life", showed its unconformity with the situation at that time. Furthermore, the publishing of Prefectural Cooperative made the CL laid aside.Chapter seven is an estimation of CL 1934. In the first part, considering the situation that there was a cooperative regime in Taiwan and in so called"Manchuria State"governed by Japan, and that there was also a separate cooperative regime in the base area led by Communist Party of China(CPC), this chapter reveals the territorial jurisdiction limits of CL 1934. In the second part, this chapter provides a detailed introduction of the evolving history of the legislative regime of the present Taiwan authority, which shows some sort of character of legacy of CL, and which demonstrates the vitality and the lasting influence of CL on account of its perfect institutional design. Meanwhile, the chapter tries to find out reasons why the law, with so perfect an institutional design, didn't get a high performance in its implementation. The conclusion is that CL 1934 was an inefficient law. The external chaos circumstance together with its complicated inner demerits caused the ideal conflict with its reality, so the result turn out to be the bad performance of the law.Conclusion of the dissertation is entitled"Cognition of subject and Construction of Cooperative Legal Culture". Through the study on the subject of CL 1934, i.e. the farmers, finding their innocence of the ideal of cooperative, the author tries to explain the importance of constructing cooperative legal culture in the implementation of the cooperatives law, and further to raise some suggestions on the implementation of Law of People's Republic of China on Specialized Farmers Cooperatives.
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