Political Reconstruction In Gansu During 1930s And 1940s

The period between 1930s and 1940s is a critical stage in Gansu's history, with all the undertakings in Gansu enjoying unprecedented development, and social and economic structure as well as industrialization highly improved. In the background of war of resistance and nation-building, Gansu's social and political become stable, and local politics was rebuilt.Before 1930s, however, Gansu has been divided by warlordism. In the earlier period of the Republic of China (1912-1949), various political forces in Gansu intertwined. Due to the decline of central political authority, local political forces kept ceding territory and fighting with each other, making miserable Gansu all the worse. Gansu' politics went all the more chaotic with first the scramble between forces such as feudal bureaucrats, local warlords, progressive gentry and Elder Brothers, then the Northern Warlords'(1912-1927) reign of Gansu for more than a decade and then Feng Yuxiang's domination of Gansu for six years. Despite a number of effective administration measures adopted by National Army, it was still difficult to eliminate exorbitant taxes and levies, and the people remained heavily burdened.The War of Resistance is a historic opportunity for Gansu for it is under the banner of the War of Resistance that all forces achieved an unprecedented unity, and various political factions had to bury the hatchet and resist the enemy together, which created advantages for National Government to rule Gansu and to take measures. Therefore, Gansu government could smoothly carry out various measures ranging from the division of counties to the implementation of new county system, from local self-government to neighborhood administrative system, from the construction of grassroots political power to the reform of provincial politics, from the strengthening of Party organization to the reform of the police and politics and from propaganda to school education, all of which made Gansu a safeguard for the victory of the War of Resistance. Of course, Gansu made a great sacrifice for this war.But this situation didn't last too long. After the War of Resistance, the National Government paid decreasing attention to Gansu. The distance between Gansu province and central administration gradually went larger, and the National Government also lost the trust and support of grassroots people, which resulted in the collapse of KMT because it lost Gansu and even the Northwest.