The Research Of "Observation" With Liberalism Activity In China (1945-1948)

The period between 1945 and 1948 was the climax phase of Liberalism activity in China.By means of either setting up political party in order to participate in government and political affairs, or commenting politics through public opinion, and incubated by all kinds of social and historical backgrounds, Liberalism had won a central status on Chinese political stage after the victory of anti-Japanese war. Xu Ji-lin once called the situation "participation explosion1". Among all, the weekly periodical观察(Observation) (1946-1948), including its predecessor Objective2, edited by Chu An-ping, was a typical representative and practice carrier of Liberalism during this period.An exhaustive examination of Observation would be of great help to deeply understand the characteristics of Liberalism between 1945 and 1948 in China, thus offering us a perspective to bird view Liberalism as a whole in China's history. Based mostly on Observation as studying material, from the perspective of Liberalism advocates' public appeal and political practice, this thesis is intended to make a systematic study on Liberalism between 1945 and 1948 in China.This thesis consists of four parts and a conclusion.Part One is a brief introduction of Liberalism, especially the historical origin and further development of Liberalism in China's recent history.Part Two studies the contributing authors and readers of Observation, trying to identify the characteristics of them and trace their behavior during the Liberalism activity between 1945 and 1948. A special focus will be on newspapers-the conduit of participating politics through public opinion-and its interaction with the readers, through which the feature "highlighting enlightenment while neglecting organization" is shown by Liberalism activity in China.Part Three studies the political practice of Liberalism advocates, trying to make an analysis of the proposal of building up a country with democracy and the assumption "re-building the cornerstone of the society", which were believed in and advocated in Observation. Through the study on political practice and social organization of Liberalism activists, we will locate the reasons why the Liberalism activity began with a bang but ended up failing.Part Four gives a brief account that Liberalism eventually died out when the civil war was about to end and the Liberalism activists gradually split apart. The conclusion serves as a synthetic summary of the characteristics of Liberalism activity in the recent history of China. Liberalism failed because of the social backgrounds in the recent history of China and the weakness of Liberalism advocates themselves; however, Liberalism had its historical values.Through the analysis, we can reach the conclusion: Liberalism, either as an ideal, as a branch of political power, or as social activity, had the effect of enlightening the public, restricting autocracy and promoting social development. Although it died at last, the values brought about with Liberalism-democracy, liberty, rationality, social advancement-had been gradually accepted by the public. The brave historical responsibility and the cheering spirit-"for the ideal that I hold dear to my heart, I'd not regret a thousand times to die"-exhibited by the Liberalism activists will be always born in our minds.