STEP BY STEP: REFORM, RESISTANCE, AND REVOLUTION IN CHIN-CH'A-CHI BORDER REGION, 1937-1945

This study examines the sources of the Chinese Communist Party's success in the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei (Chin-Ch'a-Chi) Border Region during the War of Resistance against Japan. Chin-Ch'a-Chi was chosen as the focus of a case study of the roots of Communist success during this period because of its strategic and policy importance for the Party nationally.;Chapter II, after presenting an outline history of the development of the Resistance War in Chin-Ch'a-Chi, develops the basic analysis of the problem of repression which shapes the later analysis. It is argued that Japanese repression, alone or in combination with repression by the traditional rural elite, often functioned to reduce the CCP's potential power by frightening away its potential supporters. It was this central problem which made it necessary for the Party to pursue the complex power management process used in Chin-Ch'a-Chi.;The four succeeding chapters flesh out the arrangement advanced in the introductory chapter, that the CCP had to pursue in Chin-Ch'a-Chi a strategy of building limited power step by step, balancing the need to expand peasant and Party power against the need to reduce the threat of repressive opposition by both limiting conflict between elite and peasant masses, and gradually whittling away elite power by indirect means. The chapters approach this explanation through analysis of the formulation and reformulation of policies and their effects, in specialized arenas. Chapter III deals with the significance for the power process of socioeconomic reforms, particularly rent and interest reduction, progressive taxation, and cooperative production policies. Chapter IV focuses on the development of the governmental system within the Border Region and its role in the power management process. Chapter V concentrates on mass organizations, the principal vehicles for increasing and channeling the use of peasant power. Chapter VI examines the growth of the Communist Party's hegemonic power, seen in terms of its ability to lead its own members, and of its members' ability to lead others. Each of these chapters explains for the subject under focus how the Party managed to increase the resources of power at its disposal through a carefully engineered process which balanced many different types, degrees, and sources of power by cultivating them separately and using them indirectly as well as directly.;Chapter VII briefly outlines the comparative significance of the Chin-Ch'a-Chi experience for the study of the Chinese or other peasant revolutions in this century.;The study is divided into seven chapters. The introductory chapter outlines the CCP's historical experience with revolutionary attempts, and critiques previous scholarly analyses of its Resistance War success (particularly as those have attributed the Party's success to popular support or mass mobilization). It then advances in outline form an alternative framework for analyzing the sources of CCP success, a process of power management which included four functions: increasing peasant power, decreasing the power of the traditional rural elite, mediating conflicts between elite and masses, and extending Communist Party hegemony over all other sources and uses of power within the Border Region.