![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
The mass movement was an unconventional political technique adopted by the Chinese Communist Party. Because it was superior to regular administrative means, it was used extensively for many years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China as a convenient and effective tool of mobilization and governance. The key features of the Chinese Communist mass movement included the mobilized political participation of the broad rural masses, state power’s direct intervention in rural society, class categorization, and class struggle. Continuous mass movements helped the Party-state effectively mobilize the rural masses and implement rural governance, but the results of the mobilization and governance were poorly institutionalized and had to be maintained by new and incessant movements. Subsequently, unsolvable tensions appeared between the dynamics of social transformation and the norms of social governance.
| Glossary | ||
| Binhai 滨海 | = | |
| Chen 陈 | = | |
| Deng Zihui 邓子恢 | = | |
| Fan 范 | = | |
| fanshen 翻身 | = | |
| fanxin 翻心 | = | |
| Fei Xiaotong 费孝通 | = | |
| Fuding 傅叮 | = | |
| ge er cha 割二茬 | = | |
| gongming 功名 | = | |
| guanliao zhuyi 官僚主义 | = | |
| Guo Yuhua 郭于华 | = | |
| Guo Zhenglin 郭正林 | = | |
| Huaihai 淮海 | = | |
| Huang Jiguang 黄继光 | = | |
| Laiyang 莱阳 | = | |
| laoqu 老区 | = | |
| Lei Feng 雷锋 | = | |
| Li Kang 李康 | = | |
| renmin zhuanzheng 人民专政 | = | |
| Rizhao 日照 | = | |
| sanji suoyou, dui wei jichu 三级所有、队为基础 | = | |
| suku 诉苦 | = | |
| Sun Liping 孙立平 | = | |
| Wang Jinxi 王进喜 | = | |
| Wendeng 文登 | = | |
| Wu Manyou 吴满友 | = | |
| Xiang Ming 向明 | = | |
| Xuegezhuang 薛格庄 | = | |
| Yan’an 延安 | = | |
| yi da er gong 一大二公 | = | |
| Ying Xing 应星 | = | |
| yundong 运动 | = | |
| zaichang 在场 | = | |
| Zhang Side 张思德 | = | |
| Zhang 张 | = | |
| Zhangzhuang 张庄 | = | |
| zhengzhi juanru 政治卷入 | = | |
| Zhuzhai 朱宅 | = | |
| manchan sifen 瞒产私分 | = | |
Notes
1 Hu Angang, Zhongguo zhengzhi jingji shi lun (1949-1976) [A History of China’s Political Economy (1949-1976)], vol. 2 (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2008), 560–67.
2 Cihai bianji weiyuanhui [The Cihai Editorial Committee], ed., Cihai [Cihai Unabridged Chinese Dictionary] (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 1999), 2959.
3 For a synopsis of Western social movement theories, see Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Zhao Dingxin, Shehui yu zhengzhi yundong jiangyi [Lectures on Social and Political Movements] (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2006).
4 Gordon Bennett, Yundong: Mass Campaigns in Chinese Communist Leadership (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1976).
5 Alan P.L. Liu, Mass Politics in the People’s Republic: State and Society in Contemporary China. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996).
6 See John Wong, Land Reform in the People’s Republic of China: Institutional Transformation in Agriculture (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973); Vivienne Shue, Peasant China in Transition: The Dynamics of Development toward Socialism, 1949-1956 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: The Great Leap Forward (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); Thomas Bernstein, Up to the Mountains and down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977).
7 See Joseph Esherick, Paul Pickowicz, and Andrew Walder, eds., The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006); Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008).
8 See Zhao Xiaomin, Zhongguo tudi gaige shi [A History of China’s Land Reform] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1990); Luo Pinghan, Zhongguo nongye hezuohua yundong shi [A History of China’s Rural Collectivization Movement] (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2004); Guo Dehong et al., Siqing yundong shilu [A True Record of the Four Cleanups Movement] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2005); Wang Nianyi, Dadongluan de niandai [The Era of Great Turbulence] (Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1988).
9 I begin in 1945, because the Land Reform movement launched by the CCP in the Liberated Area after the end of the Sino–Japanese War was not only a prelude to the nation-wide Land Reform Movement, but also laid the foundation and set an example for future mass movements. It can be seen as the harbinger of the “movement-style governance model” I describe in this article. Thus, this article will highlight the continuity of CCP political maneuvering before and after 1949, deemphasizing the distinctiveness of different historical stages.
10 For the basic definition of mobilized political participation, see Samuel Huntington and Joan Nelson, Political Participation in Developing Countries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976) chap. 1; for the mobilized participation of Chinese peasants from the 1950s to the 1970s, see John Burns, Political Participation in Rural China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
11 S. N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), 207.
12 John K. Fairbank and Albert Feuerwerker, eds., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 13, Republican China, Part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 270.
13 Cited in Pauline Keating “Zuzhi nongmin: Shan Gan Ning bianqu de dang, zhengfu yu xiangcun zuzhi” [Organizing Peasants: the Party, Government, and Rural Organizations in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region], in Huabei kangri genjudi yu shehui shengtai [The Anti-Japanese Base Area in North China and Its Political Ecology], eds. Feng Chongyi and David Goodman (Beijing: Dangdai zhongguo chubanshe, 1998), 72.
14 Wang Qisheng, Dangyuan, dangquan yu dangzheng: 1924–1949 nian zhongguo guomindang de zuzhi xingtai [Party Members, Party Power, and Partisan Struggle: the KMT’s Organizational Form, 1924–1949] (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 2003) 78, 358.
15 Tao Dongming and Chen Mingming, Dangdai zhongguo de zhengzhi canyu [Political Participation in Contemporary China] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1998), 190.
16 Guo Zhenglin, Zhongguo nongcun quanli jiegou [The Power Structure in the Chinese Countryside] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2005), 164.
17 Qiang Shigong, “Quanli de zuzhi wangluo yu falu de zhilihua—Ma Xiwu shenpan fangshi yu zhongguo falu de xin chuantong” [The Organizational Network of Power and Law as Governance—The Trial of Ma Xiwu and the New Tradition of Chinese Law], in Tiaojie, fazhi yu xiandaixing: Zhongguo tiaojie zhidu yanjiu [Mediation, Rule of Law, and Modernity: A Study of the Chinese Mediation System], ed. Qiang Shigong (Beijing: Zhongguo fazhi chubanshe, 2001), 204–63.
18 Ying Xing, Dahe yimin shangfang de gushi—cong “taoge shuofa” dao “baiping lishun” [The Story of Great River Immigrants Seeking Justice: from “Asking for an Explanation” to “Settling Accounts Reasonably”] (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2001), 387–89.
19 Keating, “Zuzhi nongmin”, 69–98.
20 Shue, Peasant China in Transition, 6.
21 Mao Zedong, “Zhongguo shehui ge jieji de fenxi” [An Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society] (March 1926), in Mao Zedong xuanji [Selected Works of Mao Zedong], ed., Zhonggong zhongyang wenxianyanjiushi [CCCPC Party Literature Research Office], vol. 1 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1991), 3.
22 “Zhonggong jidong qu dangwei wei jiejue tudi wenti zhong jige zhongyao wenti gei Zunhua xianwei de zhishi” [CCP East Hebei Regional Committee’s Directive to the CCP Zunhua County Committee Regarding Several Important Questions] (20 July 1946), in Hebei tudi gaige dang’an shiliao xuanbian [Selected Archived Source Materials on Land Reform in Hebei Province], ed. Hebei dang’an guan [Hebei Provincial Archives] (Shijiazhuang: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 1990), 45.
23 William Hinton, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York: Random House, 1966), 276.
24 “Laiyang laoqu jieshu tugai jiancha baogao” [Report on the Completion of Land Reform in the Old District of Laiyang] (12 February 1951), Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. A001-02-0070-002.
25 “Guanyu Shandong wancheng yu jieshu tudi gaige gongzuo de jiancha” [Report on Shandong’s Accomplishing of Land Reform work] (7 August 1954), Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. A001-01-0158-026.
26 “Zhonggong Taihangqu dangwei guanyu tudi gaige yundong de jiben zongjie” [CCP Taihang Regional Committee’s Basic Summary of the Land Reform Movement] (25 June 1947), in Hebei tudi gaige dang’an shiliao xuanbian, 231.
27 James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
28 Tetsuya Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).
29 Hinton, Fanshen, 124.
30 Ibid., 152.
31 “Laoqu xianjin cun shinian lai tudi gaige chubu yanjiu” [A Preliminary Study of Land Reform of Xianjin Village in the Old District in the Past Dacade] (1 August 1947), Hebei Provincial Archives, file no. 90-1-36-2.
32 Ji’nan san diwei [CCP Committee of Southern Hebei’s Third District], “Fucha zhong de suku wenti” [The Problem of Speaking Bitterness in the Re-examination] (July 1947), Hebei Provincial Archives, file no. 33-1-77-27. The literal meaning of “fanshen” is turn-over-the-body, and in the vocabulary of Land Reform, it meant being liberated.
33 Ji’nan si diwei xuanchuanbu [CCP Propaganda Department of Southern Hebei’s Forth District] “Tudi gaige zhong de kouhao huiji” [A Compilation of the Slogans in Land Reform] (1947), Hebei Provincial Archives, file no. 33-1-77-27.
34 Ji’nan san diwei, “Fucha zhong de suku wenti.”
35 Tangxian xianwei [CCP Committee of Tang County], “Liangge cun suku, biku, bi guangjing de chubu jingyan” [Preliminary Experiences of Speaking Bitterness, Comparing Bitterness, and Comparing New and Old Times in Two Villages] (December 1947), Hebei Provincial Archives, file no. 520-1-274-2.
36 “Bohai qu dangwei tugai fucha baogao chugao” [Draft Report of Bohai Region Party Committee’s Reexamiantion of Land Reform] (June 1947), Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. G026-01-0240-001.
37 See Elizabeth Perry “Chongfang zhongguo geming: Yi qinggan de moshi” [Once Again—With Feeling: The Chinese Revolution Revisited], Zhongguo xueshu [China Scholarship], vol. 4 (2001), 98–100.
38 “Bohai qu dangwei tugai fucha baogao chugao” [Draft Report of Bohai Region Party Committee’s Reexamination of Land Reform], Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. G026-01-0240-001
39 Ji’nan yi diwei [CCP Committee of Southern Hebei’s First District], “Yongzhi xian fanjian suku yundong zhong de jidian chubu jingyan jieshao” [Introducing Several Experiences in the Anti-traitor and Speaking-Bitterness Movement in Yongzhi County] (16 August 1946), Hebei Provincial Archives, file number 28-1-39-3.
40 “Lingdao suku de jidian jingyan” [Several Experiences in Leading Speaking Bitterness], Hebei Provincial Archives, file no. 520-1-931-5.
41 See Chen Yung-fa, Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 189.
42 Gao Keting, “Zhichi qianxian duoqu jiefang zhanzheng shengli” [Support the Frontline; Win Victory in the Liberation War], in Shandong renmin zhichi jiefang zhanzheng [Shandong People Supporting the Liberation War], ed. Zhonggong Shandong shengwei dangshi ziliao zhengji yanjiu weiyuanhui [Commission for Collecting Party Historical Data of CCP Shandong Committee] (Jinan: Shandong renmin chubanshe, 1990), 422.
43 “Jiefang zhanzheng shiqi Shandong dongyuan canjun tongji biao” [Statistics on Army Recruitment and Mobilization in Shandong during the Liberation War], in Shandong renmin zhichi jiefang zhanzheng, 636.
44 Vivienne Shue, The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).
45 Helen Siu, Agents and Victims in South China: Accomplices in Rural Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
46 Jean Oi, State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
47 Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900–1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
48 Fei Xiaotong, “Xiangtu chongjian—jiceng xingzheng de jianghua” [Rural Reconstruction: The Petrification of Grassroots-level Administration], in Fei Xiaotong wenji [Collected Essays of Fei Xiaotong], vol. 4 (Beijing: Qunyan chubanshe, 1999), 334–43.
49 For an example, see “Tengxian diwei jinji tongbao” [Urgent Note of the Party of Committee of Teng County] (January 1951), in Qingkuang tongbao, 1951.1-10, ed., Shandong fenju nongcun gongzuo weiyuanhui [Rural Work Committee of the CCP Shandong Branch], Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. A060-02-0010-001.
50 “Zhongong Ji nan wudiwei guanyu taolun zhongyang wusi tudi zhengce de zongjie yijian” [The Concluding Remarks of the CCP Committee of Southern Hebei’s Fifth District Regarding the Party Center’s May Fourth Land Policy] (15 July 1946), in Hebei tudi gaige dang’an shiliao xuanbian, 35.
51 Sun Liping, “Gaige qianhou zhongguo dalu guojia, minjian tongzhi jingying ji minzhong jian hudong guanxi de yanbian” [The Evolution of the Interactions between the Mainland Chinese State, Social Ruling Elites, and the People], Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan [Chinese Social Sciences Quarterly (Hong Kong)], Spring Issue (1994), 37–54.
52 Tao Dongming and Chen Mingming, Dangdai zhongguo de zhengzhi canyu, 190.
53 See Scott, Weapons of the Weak, and James R. Townsend and Brantly Womack, Politics in China (Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman & Co, 1986).
54 “Zhonggong zhongyang bangongting zhuanfa guojia nongwei danzu ‘guanyu wei Deng Zihui tongzhi pingfan wenti de qingshi baogao’ de tongzhi” [General Office of CCP Center’s Notice Concerning Transmitting the Party Committee of the State Agricultural Committee’s Report Concerning Rectifying the Reputation of Comrade Deng Zihui] (9 March 1981), in Guojia nongye weiyuanhui bangongting [General Office of State Agriculture Commission], ed., Nongye jitihua zhongyao wenjian huibian [Compilation of Important Source Materials about Agricultural Collectivization] (1958–1981), vol. 2 (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1982), 1098.
55 “Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu zhengdun he gonggu nongye shengchan hezuoshe de tongzhi” [The CCP Center’s Notice Concerning Reorganizing and Consolidating Agricultural Production Cooperatives] (10 January 1955), in Nongye jitihua zhongyao wenjian huibian (1949-1957), vol.1, 277–79.
56 Bo Yibo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu [A Review of Some Important Decisions and Events], vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1991), 335.
57 “Zhonggong zhongyang, guowuyuan guanyu xunsu buzhi liangshi gouxiao gongzuo an’ding nongmin shengchan qingxu de jinji zhishi” [The CCP Center and the State Council’s Urgent Directive Regarding Rapidly Arranging Grain Procurement and Pacifying the Mood of the Peasants] (March 1955), in Nongye jitihua zhongyao wenjian huibian (1949–1957), vol. 1, 295–98.
58 The transformation of the people’s commune system from the great commune system known as “first it’s big; second it’s public” (yi da er gong) to a smaller commune system known as “ownership at three levels with the brigade as the basis” (sanji suoyou, dui wei jichu) was also related to the phenomenon of “hiding output and dividing grains privately” (manchan sifen), which was pervasive in the countryside. Thorough discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this article.
59 This method was often called “cutting (crops) for a second time” (ge er cha), and the term appeared in many places’ land reform documents. For instance, there was a “Quwei gongzuodui zai Lai xi Tan’gezhuang qu Yahou cun shi hua jieji zongjie” [Summary of Tentative Categorization of Classes in Yahou Village, Tangezhuang District, Laixi County, submitted by the Work Team of the District Party Committee] (4 October 1948), Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. G024-01-0087-005.
60 Wendeng xianwei [CCP Committee of Wendeng County], “Yigeyue lai zhibu minxuan qingkuang ji xishan Zhangjiacun zhibu minxuan dianxing zongjie” [Summary of Party Branch Election and the Exemplars in the Elections in Zhang Family Village, Western Mountain, in the Past Month] (28 May 1949), Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. G024-01-0346-011.
61 See Ying Xing, Dahe yimin shangfang de gushi, 387–89.
62 “Yaqian xian Guocheng qu jieshu tugai de chubu zongjie” [Preliminary Summary of Ending Land Reform in Guocheng District, Yaqian County] (Spring 1949), Shandong Provincial Archives, file no. G024-01-0141-007.
63 Li Kang, “Xicun shiwu nian: cong geming zouxiang geming” [Fifteen Years in Xi Village: From Revolution to Revolution], PhD diss., Peking University, 1999, 93.
64 These descriptions can be seen in “Chengde xian Liugouqu Yezhuhe cun zhenya fangeming gaizao cun zhengquan gongzuo shidian chubu zongjie baogao” [A Preliminary Summary of the Work of Suppressing Counterrevolutionaries and Reforming Village Government in Yezhuhe Village, Liugou District, Chengde County] (November 1951); “Longhua shi qu Wang zhazi cun fadong qunzhong zhenya fangeming gaizao cun zhengquan gongzuo zongjie” [A Preliminary Summary of the Work of Suppressing Counterrevolutionaries and Reforming Village Government in Wangzhazi Village, Longhua the Tenth District] (early 1952); “Heiniuyingzi cun zhenfan gongzuo zongjie” [Summary of the Work of Suppressing Counterrevolutionaries in Heiniuyingzi Village] (February 1952); “(Chaoyang xian) di shijiu qu Dachehugou cun zhenfan gongzuo cailiao” [Work Materials about Suppressing Counterrevolutionaries in Dachehugou Village, Nineteenth District, Chaoyang County] (March 1952), Hebei Provincial Archives, file numbers 686-2-23-1, 684-2-194-2, 684-2-195, 684-2-198, respectively.
65 Roderick MacFarquhar and John K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 15: The People’s Republic, Part 2: Revolutions within the Chinese Revolution, 1966-1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 657.
66 See Jin Yaoji, “Xingzheng xina zhengzhi—xianggang de zhengzhi moshi” [Administration Absorbing Politics: the Political Pattern of Hong Kong], in Jin Yaoji’s Zhongguo zhengzhi yu wenhua [Chinese Politics and Culture] (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1997), 27. Also see Kang Xiaoguang, “Jiushi niandai zhongguo dalu zhengzhi wendingxing yanjiu” [A Study of Political Stability in 1990s’ Mainland China], Ershiyi shiji [Twenty-First Century], no. 8 (2002), 33–45.
67 Zhang Jing, Jiceng zhengquan: xiangcun zhidu zhu wenti [Government at the Grassroots Level: Issues in Rural Institutions] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2000), 175–76.
68 Frank J. Goodnow, Politics and Administration: A Study in Government (London: Transaction Publishers, 2003). This book was first published in 1900.
69 Mark Selden makes another valuable differentiation regarding the social governance style in the anti-Japanese base areas. He argues that the border region and township governments represented the administrative style and the mobilizing style, respectively, and that the two overlapped at the county level. See Mark Selden, China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995). Mass mobilization at the grassroots level was a basic instrument used by the CCP to implement village governance and carry out the will of the state. This is obviously distinct from routine governance and contains more features of political campaigns. In this sense, it can be called politics absorbing administration.
70 Philip A. Kuhn, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
71 Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua “‘Ruanying jianshi’: zhengshi quanli fei zhengshi yunzuo de guocheng fenxi” [Interchangeable Use of “Soft” and “Hard” Means: A Procedural Analysis of the Informal Operation of Formal Power], Qinghua shehuixue pinglun [Tsinghua Sociological Review], Special Issue 1 (2000) (Fuzhou: Lujiang chubanshe), 21–46.
72 Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic (New York: Free Press, 1986), 57.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lifeng LI
LI Lifeng is a professor in the School of Government at Nanjing University. His research mainly focuses on Chinese political history and Chinese Communist revolution. He is the author of Revolutionary Party and Rural Society: The Organizational Structure of the Chinese Communist Party, 1937–45 (Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2011) and co-author of A General History of Examination in China, volume 4, Republican China (Beijing: Capital Normal University Press, 2004).
![Supercharge Your Next Research Paper: Research and write your next paper with Jenni AI.]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/112444/Skyscraper-humanities.png"})