Anti - Banditry And Autonomy: A Study On The Transfer Of Power And The Construction Of Villages In Wanxi Area In The 1930s

Since the late Qing Dynasty the rural area of China gradually has slid into turmoil and the western Nanyang region in the southwest of Henan province, for its remote location and poor traffic, gradually became a lair of bandits. The rampant bandits completely broke the traditional trinity social system constituted of the squire,the public and government. Against such social background the autonomic elite groups represented by Peng Yuting and Bie Tingfang became rulers of(the western Nanyang region)Waxy. The elite groups firstly won the support of the Waxy squire,the public and the local government through the fight against local bandits. And then they refrained from the influence of party politics and established the representative theory of local autonomy and rural construction — the three-self policy under the situation of confrontation between Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Despite that such theory and plan failed eventually, the three-self policy as one of the most important factions in rural construction theories during the period of the Republic of China, still has certain practical significance in building a new socialist countryside and promoting local democracy.Based on the existing historical data and research results, this paper tries to achieve certain breakthrough and innovation by abandoning the traditional narrative formula which normally took time as the thread, and instead, by placing the emphasis on the historical figures and events, especially the key events that affect the transfer of power in this area.The paper is constituted of five parts. The introductory part elaborates the current research background of the research, and the purpose and main idea of my own research. The first chapter discusses the main composition of the traditional social system and its transformation in Waxy area before the autonomy movement. The second chapter mainly analyzes the detailed process of the elites gaining power represented by Peng Yuting and Bie Tingfang by comparing their different ways and means to grasp the power. The third chapter mainly discusses theoretical sources and implementation process of the Waxy autonomy movement and interprets the specific meaning about the autonomic elite group’s rural construction concept. The last chapter investigates Peng Yuting and Bie Tingfang by exploring the influence ofpersonal factor in autonomy movements, occasionally involving other autonomy movements in Nazhao and Xinye county. And the author is able to learn from such autonomy activity and find out its significance on today’s rural construction.