Hunan Provincial Congress In The Early Period Of Republic Of China (1911-1926)

Among the profound and complicated transformations China underwent from the late Qing Dynasty to the early period of the Republic of China (ROC), the introduction and practice of modern representative congress system was an important political dev elopment in the Chinese society at that time. The congress system was operated at two levels:the national congress and the provincial congress. Previous researches in China mainly focused on the national congress while little attention was given to the provincial congress. The local congress of the provinces had been mentioned merely as a political phenomenon in the development and transitions of the local political system, or one related to the central congress, and case analyses with depths, especially the systematic arrangement of the actual activities of the provincial congress, are somewhat lacking. The destruction and missing of the relevant historical material rendered the whole process of the development and evolution of Hunan Provincial Congress (HPC) during the early ROC period rather misty, and the research on its activities and influence even rarer.However, as an important part of the development and discoveries of the representative system theory in modern China, the local democratic practice of China’s political and social transformation during early1920s cannot be neglected, especially for a traditionally populous nation like China. Hunan Province had always been a province of revolutions. Especially with unceasing chaos of war after the Revolution of1911and the society undergoing long-term radical changes, the historical material was poorly preserved. Carrying out this project we hope that we would be able to:1.get an overview of the activities of HPC so as to probe into its influence on the politics and economy both on the provincial and the central levels;2. promote the academic researches on local congress of all provinces during early ROP period;3. help to understand the features and rules of Hunan’s modern political and social evolution so as to provide useful references for the present democracy construction in our province.Based on widely collected material including the meeting minutes of HPC, important letters and telegrams, relevant news reports, contemporary narrations, personal biographies and historical documents during the ROP period (1911-1926) as well as the preceding relevant academic achievements, under the guidance of historical materialism, organized horizontally with time and events and vertically with its inner and outer relations, this paper will combine historical realities with points of view, global investigation with case analyses, and use relevant analytical tools to explore the role Hunan Provincial Congress played in the process of early ROP political and economic development and evolution in view of the relationship between the nation and the society.The paper is made up of three sections, namely the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The first section introduces the genesis and status quo of the research, the breakthroughs and innovations in the research, the definitions of time and objectives of the paper, the basics of the objectives, the basics of Hunan military and political situation during the early ROP period, and the fractional conflicts in Hunan’s politics from the late Qing Dynasty to the early ROP period.The body will be developed in2books, The first compiled a total of four chapters. Chapter One investigates the development and evolution of me local representative institution in Hunan during the earry ROP period. Through the narration of the process in which Hunan’s Constitutionalists seized the chance of the Constitution Movement, organized provincial election, established the Advisory Bureau and the operation and relevant activities thereafter, this chapter aims to probe into it’s influence on Hunan’s democratic autonomy, so as to unveil the development and evolution of Hunan’s representative institutions after the Revolution of1911. Chapter Two introduces the history from the establishment of Hunan’s First Provincial Congress and its dismissal and relevant activities, the system design based on the election of provincial congressmen, the chairman, and national congressmen and its strenuous exploration of China’s road to democracy through fighting against Yuan Shikai. Chapter Three starting from the resumption of the Provincial Congress after Yuan’s death allocates its complicated inner and outer relationship, especially its reliance on the warlord politics and its revolutionary side so as to get an overview of its activities and mentalities during the establishment of Hunan’s constitution. Chapter Four investigates all the important activities of the new congress during the Hunan’s autonomy period and depicts the whole process from it peak time to its decline so as to reveal from national and social angle the rules of development and evolution of the local democratic autonomy under that particular historical circumstances. Chapter Five, starting with the social foundation and the system design of HPC, investigates its inner and outer relationship and actual operations, especially its significance to Hunan’s politics, economy and society at that time.Research on Hunan Provincial Congress during Early ROC Period, ingeniously revealing the development and evolution of HPC under the Northern Warlords Regime and originally analyzing the system design and the actual operations of China’s provincial representative system at that time, attempts to illustrate local autonomy and democratic representative system in view of the relationship between the nation and the society. Our research dispels the layers of mist shrouding HPC during the early ROP period, renders the historical image of HPC more real and vivid, corrects the misunderstandings of the local democratic practices at that time, and will help people to learn from history, and think rationally.