Reaserch On Women's Work Of Wuhan Women's Federation During The "Great Leap Forward" Period

After the Liberation of Wuhan,the Wuhan Democratic Women's Federation was established.Under the leadership of the CPC and government,the Wuhan Democratic Women's Federation had used its organizational advantages to carry out women's work and to work together with other units or organizations in social governance work.The accumulation of relevant work experience and the increasingly sound organizational construction laid a foundation for the Wuhan Women's Federation to carry out women's work during the " Great Leap Forward" period After the launch of the " Great Leap Forward",the Labor gap needed for social production needed to be filled urgently by women.At the same time,the leadership of the CPC and the All-China Women's Federation believed that only by participating in productive work could women be completely liberated from the feudal shackles of the past.Under the leadership of the CPC and its superior Women's Federation,the Wuhan Women's Federation regarded the central work of the CPC and the state as the central task of its Women's work.In order to complete the women's work smoothly and efficiently,the Wuhan Women's Federation strived to cultivate a cadre team that is both pollitically conscious and professionally competent through intensive training,visiting study and so on.At the same time,using its own organizational tentacles or in cooperation with other organizations and insititutions,the federation had gone deep into the grass-roots to mobillize women to participate in literacy and cultural learning.The Women's Federation,in conjunction with the Rectification Movement,carried out life education and political learning avtivities such as the "Five Good" campaign,which provided women with an important way of understanding the task of nation-and society-building.It introduced the mission and slogan of the "Great Leap Forward" into the language of ordinary women and transformed it into a passion for production and construction.The Wuhan Women's Federation also actively organized and mobillized women to engage in industrial and agricultural production,typically through the Great Steel-making movement and the experimental fields conducted by women in the suburbs.The Women's Federation,in cooperation with Labour Union and production units,paid attention to and strove to solve the problems of women's labour protection arising from productive labour by conducting research or studies on women's labour arrangements and labour protection.While striving to publicize and promote the implementation of the "four-stage" protection,the Women's Federation also urged production units to carry out women's labor protection work.In addition,the Wuhan Women's Federation had encouraged women to actively participate in the construction of collective welfare sevice.As a supporting measure for the liberation of women's labor,the collective welfare was intended to reduce the burden of women's housework and child rearing.But under the propaganda words of the Women's Federation,it appeared as a welfare.On the one hand,the Wuhan Women's Feferation,with its organizational strength in connecting and mobillizing women,had won more political resources from the government,which had strengthened its political function and positioned itself as a"Taming Tool" of the CPC.On the other hand,the Women's Federation,as the spokesperson for women,under the multiple difficulties of women's mobillzation,such as the incomplete grass-roots organizations of the Wuhan Women's Federation,the uneven quality of its own cardres,the differences in the performance of its cadres at different levels,the gap between the expectations and reality of the "Great Leap Forward"and so on,its social function of representing women's rights and interests was limited.