North China People’s Govenrment Of Famine Policy Research

Famine，which has caused enormous damage to the people’s production and daily life,seriously restricted the harmonious development of the social economy. Since ancient times,China is a disaster-prone country. From1948to1949, the Famine situation in North China, whichwas under the jurisdiction of the People’s Government of North China (hereinafter referred to asHuafu), was very serious. Floods, droughts, pests, hailstorms, plague and other disasters were veryfrequent. There were disasters almost every year, and even multi-disaster concurrent. The People’sGovernment of North China broke the traditional mode of relief, launched all the party, thesoldiers, and the masses. The government has achieved remarkable success in the relief movementthrough social mobilization.This article comprehensively reviewed the disasters and their impacts in the North Chinabetween1948and1949, discussed series of countermeasures taken by the People’s Government ofNorth China and the remarkable results. Further more, this paper analyses the important role thePeople’s Government of North China played in providing disaster relief and its problems. Thispaper is divided into four parts to study the famine under the jurisdiction of the People’sGovernment of North China and the government’s famine policies.The first part mainly introduces the overview of the disasters under the jurisdiction of thePeople’s Government of North China. Disasters in North China, such as floods, droughts, pests,hail, and pestilence, were prone to happen. This caused severe damage to the local people’sproduction and life.The second part mainly discusses the characteristics and impact of disasters in North China.A wide range of great harm, continuity, and concurrency are the main characteristics of the famine.These characteristics resulted in a lot of negative impact. Disaster caused the social and economicdisorder, made the people’s production and life pause, and further sparked plague spread, whichresulted in significant difficulties to the Support front-line Movement.The third part mainly studies the government’s famine countermeasures. The People’s Government of North China has taken a positive relief measures. The government proposed theseprinciples “conservation of disaster prevention, self-help production people to help, food forwork”. This strengthened organizational leadership, opened up the thinking of the masses, activelyexpands a forestation, development of water conservancy, innovative technologies and means topromote the famine prevention. Regulations of the famine, active aid to the victims, to take theform of disaster in the first aid of the party and government military and civilian socialmobilization, and explore the new model of a Disaster Relief. The government took many positivepost-disaster measures: agricultural credits, mutual assistance, and food for work, calling forconservation, development of sideline, restoration and development of agricultural production.Relief work achieved positive results, and received the support of the masses.The fourth part mainly analyzes the effectiveness of government disaster relief and rescue ofthe problems in the shortage. The disaster relief received obvious effects because of thegovernment leadership and the active participation of the masses. Social economy got somedegree of recovery and development, the people’s life improved. The government won the supportof the masses, consolidated its political power. This promoted the Support front-line movement. Atthe same time of positive results, there’re a number of problems to be solved exposed in thedisaster relief. These problems included the ideological problems of the masses, funding for reliefsupplies, and technical backwardness problems.Despite of the severe famine situation, under the leadership of the People’s Government ofNorth China, the masses, the CPC and the government took part in the disaster relief actively. Thegovernment adopted a method of combining traditional relief models and a new disaster reliefmode, launched a social mobilization. And the disaster relief work achieved remarkable results.Famine educated cadres and the masses, united the people, consolidated the new regime. Faminerelief mechanisms and strategies taken by the government have important implications for theNew China’s social assistance and relief crossing shortage.