| The Party rectification ranging from1947to1949, which is the link between the Rectification Campaign in Yenan and various rectification campaigns happened after the establishment of New China, deserves much attention. After the release of "the May4th Directive", land reform movement spread over all corners of China, while the long-standing grassroots cadres problem heavily affected the promotion of land reform. In order to ease the leader-masses relationship, the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu (Shansi-Hopei-Shantung-Honan) Border Region Central Bureau launched a "washing face" campaign to adjust the unhealthy work style, which was recognized by the Central Working Committee of the CCP. However, the two movements deviated from each other in their ways of rectifying the contingent of cadres. After some serious thoughts and investigations, Liu Shaoqi believed that the incompleteness of land reform lied in the "impurity in the Party". He further launched the Party rectification during the National Land Conference which was held in1947to motivate the land reform. However, not a consensus had been reached during that conference regarding the concrete methods of Party rectification, thus leaving many problems and issues unsolved.At the beginning of Party rectification, the cadre group was the first to be affected. The basic method of rectifying cadres of various levels was to convene the Party rectification meeting. During the Yehtao Conference held by the Jin-Ji-Lu-Yu Border Region Central Bureau and the first Party rectification meeting of Ji-Lu-Yu (Hopei-Shantung-Honan) Subregion, a large majority of people were harshly criticized and punished by the Party organization in the face of the policy shifting, causing a large scale of disorder and chaos in the psychology, speech and behavior of the participants. Afterwards, series of adjustments regarding the Party rectification policy were conducted from the central to local, while at the same time it was determined to reconsider the results of the first stage of the Party rectification. The second and third stage of the rectification campaign gradually became moderate in their forms and modes. The punishment scope of the first rectification campaign was narrowed during the reconsideration but still not enough. The Party rectification greatly impacted the regular work in the subregion, with large amount of cadres being dismissed, transferred, disgruntled, confused and depressed. The grass-roots units were also lost in chaos. With the spread of the adjustment, the tensions during the initial stage of the Party rectification campaign had eased to some degree.The campaign focused on the rectifying of countryside Party organization. After policy adjustments had been made regarding the land reform and Party rectification, the Central Committee of the CCP and the Central Bureau all recognized that corresponding measurements should be taken in tackling problems of different areas. Party Committee of various levels all grouped into working teams to the countryside pilot regions for the accumulation of Party rectification experience. Although some detours had been taken after the teams’going deep into the countryside, the working team of the Central Bureau successively summed up the "experience of Jiwang village", which was further promoted by the Party Committee of Ji-Lu-Yu Subregion. The release of "May25th Directive" marked the stabilization and refinement of the countryside Party rectification policies, as well as the expansion of rectification objectives. During the local expansion of countryside Party rectification,"Leftist deviations" were solved, but the "Rightist deviations" came into being. The swaying between policy and practice reflected the plight of countryside Party rectification. After1949, the CCP turned its attention to the development of production, leaving the unfinished Party rectification campaign to an end hastily, which reflected its incompleteness.It has been argued in this dissertation that, the Party rectification campaign made up some deficiencies in the CCP’s daily work of Party Building, built up the CCP’s political culture, as well as produced a impact on the social life of the liberated areas. However, the effect of the movement was limited. Under the influence of Leninism and the practice of Bolshevik Party, the "Inner-party Struggle Theory" of the CCP became the theoretical bases of the series of Party rectification campaigns. As a governing method, the Party rectification is not compatible with the trend of political democratization, and would finally disappear from the historical stage, while legalization is the only way that leads to the modernization of the CCP’ s construction. |
PDF Full Text Request