A Case Study Of Jiangnan Cement Factory’s Democratic Reform Movement In The1950s (1951-1954)

Democratic reform movement is a reform movement for the enterprise internally. It was launched in the whole country after1950by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The main purposes of this movement were to change the old leadership system in the enterprises; to abolish the labour contractor system and contract system which had caused long-term harm to enterprise development; to uncover counter-revolutionaries and Gang among workers; to transform the old ideology of employees. So then, the working class could form the master consciousness of proletariate and establish the highly efficient and orderly new management system and accelerate the speed of enterprises’production.In1951—1954, the Party committee of southern Jiangsu launched the mass democratic reform movement in private enterprises. Jiangnan cement factory became a blind side because of its special historical and geographical features. In view of the complications of Jiangnan cement factory, the higher Party organizations selected capable cadres, who took many technical ways of movement, such as secretly surveying, dealing with middle-level managers, complaining and confessing, creating typical models, criticizing publicly, establishing organizations of League and Party and so on. By these ways, CCP cleaned the worker force, destroyed the old net of power, perfected organizations of CCP in this factory and completed the penetration of Party right in Jiangnan cement factory at last.The thesis’s context is based on the development of democratic reform movement in Jiangnan cement factory. It includes four parts:the Jiangnan cement factory before the democratic Reform movement, the selection of leaders in Democratic reform movement, the formal launch of Democratic reform movement and the shift of power between new power and old power. The first chapter makes a detailed introduction to the Jiangnan cement factory before the Democratic Reform movement including the constitution of staff, situation of production and labor-capital conflicts. Through specifying the background of Jiangnan cement factory, we can understand its special status in industrialization process; on the other side, we can also notice the difficulties of Democratic reform movement of Jiangnan cement factory.The second chapter includes three parts:change of higher level department, selection of leaders, deployment of working group. By a preliminary investigation to the internal situation of Jiangnan cement factory, the higher level department got a general idea of the constitution of staff. Meanwhile, they were also awake to the difficulties of launching Democratic Reform movement in this factory. Consequently, a series of actions were taken:the Party committee of southern Jiangsu became the direct leader of Jiangnan cement factory, leaders and constitution of working group were determined quickly, and then, working group entered the Jiangnan cement factory in the name of the southern Jiangsu federation of trade unions in the factory office to prepare for the formal launch of democratic reform movement.The third chapter introduces the concrete steps of Democratic Reform movement through six stages, instructions of the Party committee of southern Jiangsu, warming up of middle level, ideological propaganda and policy advocacy, complaining struggle, confession and centred criticism. From these stages, we can find out the inheritance between the ways to launch Democratic reform movement and other political campaigns. At the same time, we can also know the particularity of Democratic reform movement.The fourth chapter describes the shift of power from new to old. When the massive struggle is over, the working group must train new cadres as soon as possible. The new staff were born from the baptism of this movement. They had to fill the power vacuum after the exit of old power. The working group of Democratic Reform movement cultivated reserve forces from politically reliable young workers. As the marginal groups of Jiangnan cement factory, young workers’status and income were very low. The working group grasped these characteristics of young workers and gave them "special treatment" to improve young workers’political quality. The working group asked League members to help young workers, recruited new League members from young workers, and then recruited new Party members from League members to establish the Grass-roots unit party organization of Jiangnan cement factory. Meanwhile, the working group established mentoring relationships between young workers and experienced old workers. Through this way, the working group of Democratic Reform movement could cultivate politically reliable and skilled new workers; on the other side, they took use of mentoring affection to affect those technical workers who had prejudice to Democratic Reform movement for completing the shift of power. The Democratic Reform movement has a special status in the history of the labor movement in1950s. From longitudinal angle, it serves as a transition, it preceded from the suppressing counter-revolutionaries, it used a more flexible way to clean up the workers, and made good preparation for the public-private partnership and first five-year plan. From latitudinal angle, Democratic Reform and Agrarian Reform are two wings of a car, the former further cleaned the worker force and reformed the management system in industrial and mining enterprises of cities, and the latter reformed the ownership of rural land and rural class.Jiangnan cement factory was a large-scale private enterprise in East China, it took nearly2years for the Democratic Reform movement from preparation to end. In these2years, the leaders and the workers had undergone significant changes. The new party committee had become the leadership in this factory. Middle level managers were purged. The status of young workers in the original was raised substantially, some of them became League members or Party members through political training, the other part of them got promoted to technical positions through the short-term training. This massive transfer of personnel would have a negative impact on long-term development of enterprise.