The Ruling Party And The People: A Study Of The First General Election Campaign In Wuhan In The Early Days Of People's Repu Blic Of China

This thesis presents a panorama of the first general election of Wuhan,through its mobilization, preparation, carrying out and influences, under the political background of the early days of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The author tries to uncover the interaction between the ruling party and the people through the election on the basis of huge records and descriptions in the archives and newspapers at that time. The election is divided into two periods in this article, and several procedures will be focused with great length, such as the mobilization launched by the Communist Party, the responses of the people and the nomination of the candidates. The author argues through the observation and analysis that the position between and the Party and people in the election was rather unbalanced, in which the Party showed its control and the people was on the weak side.The author hopes this article could provide some inspirations for the future construction of party politics.The thesis consists of the introduction, the text, including four chapters, and the conclusion.The introduction is about the reasons for the thesis project selection, the documents and archives of this project, literature reviews, the methods, the key points and difficulties which the author has in mind, and the basic structure of the article, so that the readers can have a general understanding of this thesis.Chapter 1 presents the historical background,which is discussed in section one,and the preparation of the election, which include the first-phase preparation discussed in section two and the pilot scheme in section three.Chapter 2 uncovers the first two stages of the election, namely, the organization and the mobilization. This chapter tries to investigate the responses of the people when the power of the Party has penetrated into the level of grassroots through the mobilizational activities. The interaction between the Party and the people would be analyzed through the observation of the daily communications between the lower representatives of the Party and the people from all walks of life.Chapter 3 further explores the general election by unfolding the process of the voter qualification and the candidate nomination. On the purpose of drawing the enemy line,the basic qualification approach adopted is the registration control conducted by People's Court of General Election, relying on the masses of workers and peasants and isolating the landlord class. The candidate nomination is a process in which the candidates were examined,and the contradiction between satisfaction and necessity was solved.Chapter 4 analyzes the election by analyzing the attitudes and performances of those activists and grassroots voters, and the situation faced by landlords. This chapter also evaluates this election by arguing that, while showing the achievement of implementing Party's general policies and promoting people's enthusiasm production, the election indicated the passive role people played in the early days of the new nation.The thesis concludes by providing some inspirations for the construction and development of contemporary election. Those inspirations are: properly adhering to the leadership of the Communist Party; correctly assessing the value of democracy;competition should be allowed in the election; and so on.