A Study On The Urban People's Commune In Ningbo City

The Urban People's Commune was an urban organization of political power at the grass-roots level.It was the product of the 'great leap forward' movement in 1958 and the continuous rural people's commune movement.At the same time it was a basic social unit with both collective production and collectivization life functions.Although the urban people's commune existed only a short time,it on one aspect gave full play the city's industrial manufacture function and further eliminated the urban private ownership,on the other aspect,it strengthened the organization and transformation of the grass-root group of the urban society and integrated the grass-root society into an uniform management system.Thus the urban people's commune is an important pert for our country to organize and transform the city.Ningbo city not only was the one that tried to run the urban people's commune at the earliest time,but also was one of the cities that promoted the movement in a more rapid pace.In Sep.1958,the Jiangbei district of Ningbo city was set as a pilot.Then in June 1960 the Haishu,Jiangdong and Jiangbei urban people's commune were duly established and the commune system completely replaced the original municipal administration system.By establishing canteen,commune run industry as well as the group living welfare service the urban people's commune realized both the collective production and collectivization life functions.Among them the commune run industry is the basis for the operation of the commune while the canteen is the center of the collectivization life welfare services.The urban people's commune also is an excellent opportunity to reorganize and transform the society's idle labor forces.The housewives labor forces were motivated to get a job in the society and the small trade people and peddlers were integrated into the political power administration system.However,due to lack of effective motivations to the labor forces it had influenced the production enthusiasm of the housewives and the peddlers in a certain degree.In the first half year of 1960,China was encountered with some economic difficulties which further deepened the dissatisfaction emotion of the commune members to the commune systems.This forced the urban people's commune reorganized constantly but only cured the symptoms,not the diseases.The deep-seated fundamental problems never had been settled effectively.Since 1961 the urban people's commune began to decline and fall gradually,In Dec.1969,the district organizational system was recovered in Ningbo city and the Ningbo urban people's commune formally withdraw from the historical stage.