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During the Soviet period, the CCP began to build a rural management system with power devolution. However, the war environment and the limitations of the Soviet model in the face of the backward environment in the countryside made the path of power exploration of the rural revolution in the Soviet period more dependent on control, that is, through the agrarian revolution, a large-scale class struggle was carried out in the rural society, following the model of "armed entry-establishment of political power-class struggle-agrarian revolution".
Although this revolutionary path relies on force to deter and quickly control rural society, although it is simple and straightforward, it also ignores the complex actual conditions of rural society, creates too many enemies, and loses political resources. The Soviet revolution was frustrated for many reasons, and the lack of lasting practical political support could not but be said to be an important factor.
1. The role of the military engineering team behind enemy lines
After the start of the Anti-Japanese War, when the CCP entered the local area, the armed forces still played a decisive role, Peng Dehuai said:
"China has no democratic historical tradition, and the military is often the main factor determining political power."
Mao Zedong put it more bluntly: "The party in the army is the most advanced, and it should create local parties and governments." ”
It is precisely for this reason that as soon as the Eighth Route Army rushed to the anti-Japanese front, the General Political Department issued the "Instructions on Local Work," demanding that all units should "assist local party departments in developing and strengthening party organizations and leadership" in local mobilization work, and that local units without party should assume the responsibility for building them.
Mao Zedong specifically arranged for the 115th and 120th Divisions to "dispatch necessary local staff to disperse their work in a planned manner and complete certain tasks in certain areas."
"One company from each battalion of each regiment has been dispatched to the front to carry out activities with the guerrillas of the local party organizations."
As a political cadre of the Eighth Route Army, Wang Enmao provided more details on where the army intervened.
At the end of September 1937, Wang wrote:
"Participate in the ministerial meetings of the Department of Political Affairs to discuss the current work of the political organs, the main ones are:
(1) political work on the front line; (2) Local mobilization organizations to arm the masses. Some comrades of the political section went to the front, that is, the organization department and the enemy's work department, and the rest moved to the Lan to carry out local work. ”
Wang arrived with his troops in Shanxi and acted quickly:
"Comrades from the Ministry of Democracy Movement and the Propaganda Department and a group of students who joined the Red Army were present at the meeting, and arranged the work in the first, second, and third districts of Lan County and the work in the city."
Subsequently, "the old comrades all went to the countryside to do mass work."
The usual methods for the CCP to go to the countryside are:
"The armed forces will bring a village chief and a squadron leader to work in this village to solve the problems of the masses and establish prestige. After a month or two, the masses got to know each other, and at the same time found new local activists, who were elected by the masses, so the cadres they brought in trained local cadres to replace themselves, and when they took power, they themselves cooperated with the armed engineering team to push forward one step further and open up the work of other villages. ”
The involvement of the armed forces has ensured that the party and the political power can quickly take up their positions in the localities, and the so-called "spreading the shelves as much as possible" and "opening up work in a big way from top to bottom" are the key to giving full play to the advantages of the CPC's military and political work in order to emphasize efficiency.
After the 120th Division arrived in the northwest of Shanxi, about 300 middle- and lower-level cadres were selected from the troops, and 13 working groups were organized to distribute work in various counties in the northwest of Shanxi, to assist the local party in reforming its political power and organizing the local armed forces to expand the army. … From the commissioner, county magistrate, and district head, the majority are party members, and most of the village heads in the central district are party members. ”
In 1938, Wang Enmao led his troops to Guangling and Hunyuan to open up base areas, and one of the tasks was to "develop the party organization, establish various mass organizations (sacrificial leagues and peasant associations), restore political power, and set up district offices", requiring "each main village to establish a branch" within half a month.
It can be said that in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the army played an absolutely central role in the development of the CCP:
"With the troops as the mainstay, with a small number of political power functionaries, externally in the name of the political power, internally in the form of working groups to unify the organization of all forces, the comrades of the troops are responsible for the military arrangement, and the comrades of the political regime are responsible for the work arrangement, but here the general situation is that the military arrangement is subordinated to the needs of the work, and the situation has changed slightly, that is, the work arrangement is subordinated to the needs of the military."
The military has gained tremendous momentum in building the party and government, and a large number of local organizations have been set up in Hulala in many areas:
"Comrades working in the democracy movement of the local party or army should openly convene mass meetings in all villages and call for participation. … In some localities, 1,200 village organizations have been established, but district leadership organs have not yet been established, resulting in the mass organizations of each village doing their own thing (such as the Qingfeng Central District). ”
2. Transform the original local system
The development driven by the armed forces has a special situation - the training of cadres cannot keep up with the regional development:
"The army must send cadres for local work, the army must send cadres for political work, the army must send cadres to carry out the work in enemy-occupied areas, and the local armed forces (guerrillas, militia) also need cadres from the army to do production work and business. In particular, what is needed is the company platoon cadres, which are the most dispatched and consume the most. ”
Therefore, it has become an urgent need to recruit party members and train cadres.
The report of Xingtai County talks about various methods for cultivating cadres, which can be described as eight immortals crossing the sea to show their magical powers:
In the Luluo district, activists are often found in the struggle, the targets are identified and examined, or tasks are assigned, and finally they are developed by acquaintances. Songzhuang District also adopted the method of improving the lives of poor peasants, setting up a group of hired workers, selecting objects, and conducting conversations to inspire their class consciousness... When the comrades of the central branch were asked to help mobilize the struggle in other villages, the district used its own social connections to develop. Another more "mechanized" method is to hold training classes for peasant union activists, in which activists selected by the peasant unions in each village are trained.
During the Anti-Japanese War, the CCP also had a unique path to enter the rural society, that is, to make the best use of and transform the original rural operation system to maintain the operation of the controlled areas.
Peng Zhen said it very clearly:
"With the subjective forces of the time, in order to quickly open up the situation in a short period of time, it is necessary to use the same administrative method to mobilize the masses from the top down. … Whenever I went to a village, I first went to the village chief and assigned him some kind of mobilization work, and ordered him to convene a meeting of the whole village, and our cadres would speak. ”
In this regard, Huang Jing later made a judgment:
"Isn't that right? That's right, set it first, put a fixed amount of money and occupy the legal status first. At this time, the landlord controlled the mass organization and gave him control first, but you are my subordinate, and I have obtained a legal status. Only when you have a form close to the masses can you transform him. ”
Since it is an after-the-fact summary, Peng Zhen and Huang Jing's statement may highlight the deliberate use of the original system in the countryside, but in fact, it is more likely that the CCP has both the idea of using the original system to quickly enter the countryside, and also the original intention of uniting people from all walks of life to deal with foreign enemies, and in the face of the national crisis, it is not so difficult for the CCP and rural society, including the upper class, to reach a consensus.
Under the banner of the anti-Japanese united front, the CCP usually does not appear as a distinct revolutionary, but behaves more cautiously and cautiously, showing the characteristics of an active adjuster.
The CCP analyzed the psychology of ordinary landlords during the war and said:
"The banditry caused them not only to suffer a great loss of property, but also to a threat to their lives, and to the plundering and plundering of the enemy, they experienced countless ups and downs, and were in great need of the stability of social order. It just so happened that during our pioneering period, what we did was to put down the chaos and stabilize the order, so they agreed with me very much and were willing to work with us to resist Japan and build a base area. Therefore, "the gentry, celebrities, educators, and Christians, if properly united, can become resolute leaders in the work of resistance in the countryside."
The united front in the countryside greatly eased the relationship between the CCP and the gentry, and the gentry became the main source of supply for the CCP guerrillas, and "there were many rich people in the counties who tried their best to provide for them."
When Wuxiang countered the "sweep", many landlords generously made donations, and the masses said: "The army that comforts us is more than the whole village." ”
In areas where the conflict between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was fierce, in order to cope with the Kuomintang army and "avoid the trouble and beatings of the army," they simply "set up a guest house" and selected a wealthy household as its director. Win over the lower Kuomintang members and build a united front against the recalcitrant army. ”
At that time, there were many records in the diaries of CCP cadres who invited the gentry to dinner, and Zhang Nansheng recorded in 1939: "Please eat at one o'clock at noon, and I got sixteen of them." Present at the meeting were the county magistrate Deng and 18 gentry, more than 20 people from the county government, and cadres of the Kuomintang party department. ”
The Jinxiao detachment of the New Fourth Army went deep behind enemy lines and was in a difficult situation, so it attached more importance to the relationship with the locality, and the diary of the detachment leader Yang Siyi in 1944 still recorded that the gentry were invited to a banquet: "We also prepared two tables of dishes for dinner, and invited the township chief and the local gentry. ”
Shandong Binhai invited the gentry to meet and communicate with each other in the form of a conference:
Live and stay, do what you like, listen to their autonomy and nature, and don't force order and consistency. After the meeting, the responsible comrades walked around and talked about problems, not talking about problems with a straight face, if they could talk about old knowledge, it would be better if they could not talk about old knowledge, and it would be better to ask the gentry to talk about it and listen. The gentry felt that we were amiable, open-minded, and did not feel restrained in life, just like a family. ”
Although due to changes in the situation, the relationship between the CCP and the gentry gradually tended to be tense in the middle and late stages of the Anti-Japanese War, on the whole, the Anti-Japanese War stage was indeed the best period for relations between the two sides.
The biggest advantage of using the existing rural system is that it can quickly establish an administrative foundation in the village. The CCP is a party that prioritizes efficiency, advocating a "vigorous and resolute style, doing what it says and doing it to the end, solving problems when they come, and solving them to the end." ”
Giving full play to the role of the existing system, creating scale effects as soon as possible, and organizing the people are the best choices that can guide efficiency first.
For example, in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, some mass organizations played gongs and convened, even if they wrote their names, although the organization was very loose, but in the eyes of the CCP, this was a necessary stage to carry out the work, and only when the scale was formed could there be further intensification.
After a certain scale is obtained, intensive cultivation, propaganda and education, so that the masses can experience the benefits of mass organizations, "at this time, a mass meeting of members will be convened, and then the significance of the establishment of the organization and the work program, plan, brochure, payment of membership dues, etc., will be re-registered, those who are willing to participate, and those who are unwilling can withdraw freely." First develop on a large scale, then eliminate and improve, based on the army, the party and government masses in all aspects of rapid advancement, use the existing system to infiltrate the countryside, in the shortest possible time, in all directions and rapid spread, to achieve this goal, only then can there be a foundation for deep cultivation.
This is what the report said at the time:
"The development of a region does not have to rely on the army, but must coordinate with the work of the enemy's puppet army through the in-depth work of the party, government, army, and people, and when there is no main force, it must also be able to rely on the work of the local party, political power, and the masses."
The path mentioned above is only in terms of the general direction of development of each base area, and the specific direction of each region will vary greatly.
For example, Wuxiang Township, Shanxi, where the CCP had a relatively sound organization before the war, was regarded by the Shanxi provincial authorities as "one of the four major red counties", and until the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, "the organizational foundation was not destroyed". Therefore, after the outbreak of war, the party organization quickly became active here, taking a path that relied mainly on the rapid development of the local party. By 1939, the party organization had grown from more than 200 to 2,500 people, and "became a decisive force in the political life of Wuxiang."
Generally speaking, such areas are more solid than those that rely on the military or use the established rural control system to develop, and the CCP is happy to see them. It's just that such an area was rare in the historical scene of that year, and it was impossible to meet but not find.
3. The institutional construction of rural management of the Communist Party of China
In the efforts of the CCP in the countryside, large-scale is the means, mobilization of the masses is the key, and the implementation of control is the goal.
After large-scale entry into the villages, the further establishment of political power, including village power, is a key step in the implementation of control. There was a precedent in the Soviet Union for the village communes that put their power base at the lowest level.
After the October Revolution in Russia, soviets were established at all levels, from the central government to the counties and then to the villages, and the village soviets became the most basic local power.
After that, the Soviet Union brought the peasants into the orbit of collective farms through large-scale collectivization of agriculture.
The resolution of the 16th Congress of the CPSU held in 1929 emphasized:
"If the expropriation of the land of the landlords was the first step of the October Revolution in the countryside, then the transition to collective farms was the second, a decisive step, the most important stage in the building of the foundations of socialist society in the Soviet Union."
The supreme power of collective production and collective management of collective farms is vested in the general meeting of collective farm members, who elects the management committee and the chairman of the collective farm to lead and manage the daily activities of the collective farm.
The establishment of the Soviets in the village community originated from the communist movement's concept of power exploration, which included the transfer of rights to the masses, that is, by ensuring that the people obtained political power and economic benefits, gaining the support of the people, and then realizing the capillary penetration of state power through the people's conscious and voluntary willingness.
The system of exercising power at the grassroots level in the Soviet Union was introduced after the CCP carried out the Soviet revolution and established base areas, and the characteristics of the communist movement based on the people at the bottom were an important boost for the CCP's power exploration.
In addition, the CCP before 1949 had its roots in the countryside, which was the lifeblood of survival and development, "not only the strategic basic unit of our activities, but also the main source of all material supplies." ”
Therefore, compared with the Soviet Union, the CCP has more incentive to intervene in the countryside and root the party's apparatus and will in rural society.
For the first time, the base area has established an administrative system at the county level and below, and this three-level administrative system of "county-district-village" has turned the village into the most basic atom of power, and the power organ of the village is the village office, which implements a specific division of labor in accordance with finance, production, education, mediation, and supervision committees, and is under the leadership of the deputy head of the village.
Like the Soviet Union, when the base areas were first established, this system emphasized popular participation and the exercise of democratic power, and established a complete system for the exercise and supervision of power at the village level, including villagers' assemblies, villagers' congresses, village affairs meetings, and joint meetings of the government and the people, forming a huge village administrative structure. The village office, which is directly elected by the villagers, is composed of up to 37 people, including the village chief, the village deputy, the chairperson of each committee, the leader of the Self-Defense Force, and the secretary.
To establish the individual status of citizens, "except for the collection and distribution of financial and material resources, which are still carried out according to the household registration, all administrative affairs in the village shall be carried out through the above-mentioned representative system and shall be carried out by individual citizens."
4. The occurrence of problems
It is not easy for the CCP to truly implement the design of this rural system. China's vast countryside, weak foundations, and wartime make it difficult for even an efficient political force like the CCP to achieve full coverage of power in a short period of time.
Li Jingying, then head of the Organization Department of the Yan Prefecture Committee, provided a statistic: by the end of the Anti-Japanese War, 1,815 of the 6,006 natural villages under the jurisdiction of the Yan Prefecture Committee still had no party members.
In other words, in the Yanzhi area in the center of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Region, 30% of the natural villages have no party members.
Even if a management system is in place, there are many cases of coping with power:
The roster of the Village Peasant Rescue Association, Zhang Wang, Li Zhao has everything, and when I pay attention to the age of the members, I find a very peculiar phenomenon: all of them are old and young people between 50 and 15, and there is no one in the prime of life. When the working comrades went to the chief of the village and asked, the chief said very naturally: It doesn't matter much if you change the age casually. After careful investigation, not only the age is fake, but most of the names are also made up, and they are afraid of being on the list, so they will draw troops in the second step, so they come up with such an ingenious way to deal with it.
The biggest problem is still the village government, in many areas "there is no village assembly or village representative meeting, after the new village chief is 'elected', everyone is no longer in charge, there is no one to supervise him, to help him, the village chief's affairs are too heavy." ”
"The huge responsibility of war mobilization has made it a daunting way to be a village chief, and after the CCP entered, the village chiefs in many areas of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan still 'mostly take turns', 'some change once a day, and some take turns according to the land, people, and cattle'."
Such a village regime, although the foundation has been laid, does not meet expectations, the CCP reviewed:
"The village office under our leadership is even more powerful than the previous regime, because there are many mobilization tasks, there are many differences, and the enthusiasm of the masses is not high, and the village chief beats at every turn, and in some places there are more than 40 people in three days"; "Party members have become cadres, and even the village police in the village office have become our 'one color', so there are fewer branches and fewer burdens, and the masses recognize our gang as special people and their rulers."
5. How to resolve it?
In the documents of the CCP back then, these problems would be put on the table one by one, and only by facing the problems could it be possible to solve them. This is what Mao Zedong said: "Problems are solved and happen, and they happen and they are solved, and this is how we move forward." ”
The specific measures include reducing the administrative area, "bringing the government closer to the lower levels, adapting to the war environment, and reducing the waste of human and financial resources"; "Organize working groups to go deep into the grassroots and villages to assist in the transformation and operation of rural political power"; It stipulates that "the work units of cadres of local party committees are in counties, and the work centers are in villages" to ensure the direct connection between middle and high-level cadres and the grassroots level of villages.
For the sake of government and people, ensuring the selection of village chiefs who meet the requirements and giving them the right to leave production is the most important part of the CCP's realization of power in the villages.
If the traditional Chinese countryside is basically in a state of autonomy, and the political power and the rural elite have formed a compromise and profit distribution mode of operation, the biggest change after the CCP entered the country is to cultivate a group of rural cadres who are directly authorized and managed, laying the channel for power infiltration, and also laying the cornerstone for larger-scale control and transformation in the future.
At that time, the document was very clear:
"There may be more cadres, not necessarily limited to a few people, there can be a small cadre in every street and alley. In this way, it is gradually cultivated from small to large. ”
When the CCP enters the villages, the first organizational step is often the re-election of village heads. The vast majority of village chiefs who have gone through the village election process are "party members".
Despite all these problems, by overcoming the problems within the problems, the CCP gradually realized political intervention in the countryside, reversed the power structure in the villages, and formed a new authoritative group with cadres as the main body and model workers, ordinary party members, activists, and militia as auxiliaries.
Among the old authoritative groups, the landlords, rich peasants, village chiefs, and deputy village chiefs declined, and only primary school teachers still had a place.
In contrast, the new rural power group established by the CCP has incorporated more ordinary people into the power system, and the coverage is much higher than before, especially through village elections, so that the masses can experience the meaning of rights, and thus complete the landing of power.
The village regime, which has been transformed by the CCP, has undertaken the basic task of supporting the war and social and political transformation.
According to the survey at that time, the main tasks of the village government were: war mobilization, improvement of people's livelihood, democratic construction, production construction, and cultural construction.
However, the real implementation is mainly to complete the tasks assigned above:
"The fact that the most of these jobs are actually done is that there are the most meetings, surveys, and registrations. The second is that there are many public grain and village assessments. Reducing rents and interest rates and solving the problems of the masses are all done in cooperation with the above, and if the upper side does not come, it will not be done. Within a month in Ningwu, public grain, village assessments, and entertainment accounted for 43 percent of the total time, 45 percent of meetings and surveys were registered, and only 4.6 percent were solved various problems. ”
In Dong'e County, Shandong, "1,023 people have been separated from the producers, and 792 people have been separated from the local armed forces, which is enough to show the huge size of the party, government, and civil organs." This is an inevitable by-product of tighter control.
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