The Research On The Local Self-government In Xichuan County Of Henan Province In Republican Period (1930-1940)

Xichuan county lies in the southwest corner of Henan province, as a juncture of Henan、Hubei、Shaanxi province, belongs to a “no man’s land”. After entering the Republic of China,because of the influence of geographical environment factors, plus the official governanceineffective and frequent natural disasters, lead to rampant bandits and people live in poverty.In the face of this situation, in order to stabilize the local order, local elites started toimplement the local autonomy construction to “self-defense、self-government、autotrophic” ofthe “three-self doctrine” as the theoretical guidance. The local self-government group inXichuan are quite serious about education, it throughout the three policy. Because theeducation provides services for the local self-government, it inevitably has a strong local color.Through the development of the self-government, the local power in Xichuan has replaced thegovernment and the local regime in their hands. This phenomenon leads to the outside forcesare difficult to reach.The outbreak of war with Japan changed this situation. As the war went on, schools andstudents of the occupied area were flocked to move in the Western Nanyang region. Theycame here, broke the closed state of the local and spread new ideas, which prompt thepolitical environment in Xichuan active. In the face of the Communist Party and theKuomintang in Xichuan, the local self-government power exist differences on their policies indifferent periods. Before the war of Resistance Against Japan, the self-government power inXichuan mainly took a resistance attitude to the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, butthey also cooperate with the two Party which the premise was not harmful to their rule. Afteroutbreak the Anti-Japanese War, the self-government power changed the former strong andstarted with cooperation in the national united front against Japan, they made use of theCommunist Party to mitigate the Kuomintang that in order to consolidate the rule of the local.The local self-government in Xichuan is a product under the special environment, is theself-preservation instinct of the people. It does not have the connotation of real autonomy.Although it organized the autonomy construction, it is under the power implementation, notpeople’s spontaneous. People are still oppressed and exploited in the environment, the life aredifficult and hardship.