Rural Socialist Education Movement In Xi'an Study

Since the Great Leap Forward's failure, there was a significant turn in understanding China's social major contradictions among Chinese leaders. Consequently, China shifted its central task from the economic construction to the class warfare and political movements under the guidance of The Class Warfare escalated unceasingly. With its focus on rural areas, the Socialist Education Movement was just a first step in the course of escalation and in two to three years, the Socialist Education Movement had a far-reaching impact on rural society.Achievements in the Socialist Education Movement in historical circles are not many. Even among these achievements, historical circles analyze the cause of the Socialist Education Movement from the angle of Sino-foreign relations and from the point of Chinese leaders' thoughts. Basically, these achievements just explore the cause of the movement statically and from the perspective of History of Events. On the contrary, this paper goes a long way to shackle the method of History of Events off and attempts to dig the root of the movement up from the dynamic angle of analyzing the rural social structure on the eve of the movement. Adopting Paths to Events and sociological methods of study in writing, the author takes rural areas of Xi'an City in 1960s as the paper's object of study and expounds the whole process of the movement. Then, the author analyzes the social structure of rural areas in Xi'an City in those years, after which, the author makes a preliminary step in analyzing the rural social structure of communist China in 1960s.After briefly introducing the background and exploring the cause of the Socialist Education Movement, the paper points out the demand of Farming on His Own set forth after the Great Leap Forward has a lot to do with the outbreak of the movement and argues the demand reflects the conflict between the prevalent peasant mentality and the collectivism.Then, proceeding along the sequence of enacting five programmatic documents, the author expounds in detail the whole process of the Socialist Education Movement in rural areas of Xi'an City. According to the way the movement was put at that time, the movement includes three phases: Rectification, Small-scale Ssu-ch'ing and Full-scale Ssu-ch'ing. Beginning with Rectification in 1962, the movement in rural areas of Xi'an City ends on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. The movement experiences the process from opposing the demand of Farming on His Own to clearing the cadres' activities in the economic field up and from fighting against landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries and evildoers to overthrowing the Group at Power Advocating Capitalism. The whole process just likes concentric circles with the cadres at the level of production team and brigade advocating the demand of Farming on His Own as the perpetual centre and with the development of the movement towards the direction of the Left deviation, the outer circle would broaden appropriately and include the cadres at the level of community and county into its scope step by step. With the broadening of the cracking down and escalation of the nature of the movement, the object of the movement shifts from the cadres' activities in the economic field to the Groun 3.1Power Advocating Capitalism. Meanwhile, the guidance of the Class Warfare penetrating the whole movement continuously pushes the movement towards the direction of the left deviation and the accumulative pressure imposed by the political campaign lashes at the old social structure in rural areas. Facing the political pressure, different responses from rural strata push the movement to the next higher level accordingly. Under the locking forces of these two aspects, the Socialist Education Movement in 1960s moves on towards its end and becomes the prelude to the Cultural Revolution.