On Shanghai Vagabonds Transformation In The Early Years After Liberation

In the early period of the PRC,the Communist Party of China carried out not only a variety of political revolutionary movements throughout the country but also a nationwide,large-scale social reform movement,of which Shanghai is a particular representation.In the early period of the PRC,Shanghai was known as the "ten foreign markets", "adventurer's paradise," the front position of the imperialist aggression against China,the social hub of the evil forces and an important base for the reactionary rules of the KMT.On the initial stage of the liberation of Shanghai,a variety of social forces were intertwined with good and bad people.In particular,a number of vagabonds,who wandered in the street and seriously damaged the city's situations,were an evil force that disrupted the normal social order and resulted in the social unrest.The government of the local Communist Party faced with a real test of management and governing,and all the social sides paid more attention to the problem of vagabonds.In the early founding of Shanghai,the vagabonds had such qualities as homeless,well-organized,rampant,and full of bad influence. According to the unanimous requests of all sides of society,the Shanghai Municipal People's Government decided that Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau and Shanghai Public Security Bureau both took effective measures to house them by quick-housing and large-scale housing. Between December in 1949 and March in 1958,69,573 vagabonds were arrested.According to their characteristics,personaliti,in accordance with the different stages of the focus of asylum,they were placed in different correctional institutions.Following the direction of the "political and ideological education in combination with labor and production" from the central Ministry of Internal Affairs and,the branches of the Shanghai Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau began the transformation work on vagabonds under the spirit of "reform and resettlement of combined" and the instructions of the Shanghai Municipal People's Committee.First of all,centering their homeless habits,laziness and bad characteristics,the branches developed their educational work on correcting their politics and thoughts.The work was divided into such four stages as the discipline policy and education,class education, Law-abiding patriotic education,labor and education in the future,and so on.After the education,most of the vagabonds realized their own shortcomings and mistakes and decided to lead a new life.Therefore, They actively participated in the work and became self-reliant workers; Second,with the basis of education and the combination of the situation around the world and the change of the transformational conditions,they carried out the work inside and outside the production,changing their mistaken ideas and transforming them into genuine socialist new people; Finally,they tried their best to fundamentally solve the problem of the vagabonds,focusing on the resettlement of living together and scattering together.The Shanghai Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau both established farms and transferred the vagabonds outside areas off the farm,such as the reclamation area in North Jiangsu,southern AnhuiBao Maoling farms.On the other hand,they adhered to the principle of the job placement community,actively contacting the employers and the local governments of Shanghai,Gansu,Qinghai,Xinjiang,etc.Therefore, through different times and different stages of the transformation of different contents and forms,the vagabonds gave up the lazy habits, mastered the skills of production,embarked on work to complete the task of transformation,and became the self-reliant workers who were praised and respected by the society.