Transformation Of Shanghai Homeless Study (1949-1958),

Around the foundation of P.R.C., the Chinese Communist Party (CPC)carried out series of social reforming and transformation movements in cities to reconstruct the urban grass-roots social order, such as the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, the banned of the evil religion organization (fandong huidaomen) , the elimination of drugs, gambling and prostitutions. National rehabilitation of displaced persons was also an important part of the movements. This dissertation mainly discusses rehabilitation of displaced persons that the Communist Party carried out in Shanghai from 1949 to 1958. Firstly, the author introduced the situation of handling vagrants and homeless in Shanghai from the late Qing Dynasty to 1949, in which there is a basic thread that the government initiated to take some methods to help and relief homeless and vagrants and then officials and the non-governmental forces cooperated on this issue during this period. The latter became more and more important, but in the anti-Japanese war and post-war period governments had to deal with aggregation and relief of the displaced people alone.This dissertation mainly concentrates on the rehabilitation movement of displaced persons by the Communist Party in Shanghai after 1949. The second chapter introduces the situation of Shanghai's vagrants before rehabilitation, and retraces the history of the CPC's vagrant policies and describes the policy changing in period of the rehabilitation. There were more than 100 thousand vagrants, widely-distributed and variously-classed, and could not be ignored in Shanghai before 1949. Around the founding of P.R.C., the Communist Party adapted to new policy of rehabilitating the displaced persons, which differed from former one. The third Chapter discusses aggregating, reclaiming and resettling the displaced persons in details, and the fourth chapter analyzes specific objects of rehabilitating movement in Shanghai. In these two chapters we strive to use specific materials and data to reconstruct the basic facts of rehabilitating the displaced persons, which manifests the essence of the policy of rehabilitation by the CPC. In nearly 10 years after 1949, more than 70 thousand people were rehabilitated in Shanghai, most of who were the staffs of previous Kuomintang regime. Fewer real vagrants,which according to the statistics by CPC around the year of 1949, were rehabilitated. The fifth Chapter describes the violence, suicides, and rumors and other incidents in the rehabilitation. The author tries to reveal how the grass-root express themselves, and explores the attitude and views of displaced persons to" salvation" policy .The chapter reveals the ideological conflicts in the rehabilitating policy of the Communist Party on displaced persons and how Communist Party to balance the contradictions between ideology and political actions to achieve their political goals.The last Chapter concludes the main forces to deal with the vagrants, how they view rehabilitation policy and the essence of the movement in Shanghai .Then the dissertation answers the question of where the "new, old displaced persons" origin and where they destine during the rehabilitation of displaced persons . The "new vagrants" rehabilitated were people laid-off during the transformation of political power as well as social reforms in Shanghai after 1949.Most of the "old vagrants" who had been planned to be rehabilitated avoided being saved by leaving Shanghai or changing their own social identity by all means.