On The Political Thoughts, Organizational Structure And Collective Actions Of The Southern Society

South Society was prepared to be built in the winter of 1897,and it was officially established in the beginning of 1898.South Society was an important part of the Reform Movement in Hunan province,to some extent,serving as the center and hub of the whole movement.South Society was the preliminary result of the Reformists' political organization,which was different from the traditional and other political organizations in the same period in thought,organizational structure and action.First,in terms of ideology,South Society highlighted the 'groupy',namely the significance of political community in both value and technology levels.This ideology unified the Hunan gentries'thought in a way of surpassing the tradition and reforming the nowadays.But the organized presentation is incomplete,the broadness of the ideology made it difficult for the Society to integrate the individual ideas of its members.Furthermore,this also made the Society unable to adhere to its own political goals and constantly made compromises.Because of the lack of mobilization strategy,the Society failed to establish strong ties with the gentries in Hunan.Second,the organizational structure of the Society was much more rigorous than that of the other societies in the same period.On the one hand,the Society itself had a relatively perfect organizational structure,which formed the central part of the organization with Hunan Newspaper Office and the Current Affairs School.On the other hand,the Society also established organizational ties with other societies in the province,which formed the periphery of the Society.But the rigorous organization owed too much to the involvement of the local government.The involvement provided many conveniences for the creation and expansion of the Society,it also compressed the space of the Society's own independent development.Instead of growing as the organization grew,the Society's organizational strength was dependent on the government.Finally,except the daily lectures and questions,the action of the Society was focused on its participation in the establishment of Hunan Security Bureau and the conflict with the conservative forces in Hunan.In the creation of the security bureau,the participation of the Society was mainly reflected in the early publicity and design,and the actual right of control was in the official hands.In the conflict with the conservative forces,the Society' s inadequacy of the organizational actions was fully exposed.On the one hand,there was no leading decision-making body in the organizational structure to command the response to the attack.On the other hand,once the official support was lost,the Society would be on the way to the end.The new factors in the thought,organization and action of the Society breathed life into this political organization.However,the deficiency of these three aspects also restricted the further development of it.The South Society represented the characteristics of the political organization created by the reformists in the 1898 period,and it also provided enlightenment for the further development of such political organizations.If it wants to undertake the task of guiding Chinese politics from tradition to modernity,such organizations must overcome the inadequacy of the political ideology,the organizational structure and the actions.