Research On The Famine Of Northwestern Shanxi Province During Repulic Of China

The frequent disasters, such as water, drought, hail and plague, brought serious consequences to the local residents in the northwestern of Shanxi province from1912to1949. A large amount of famine refugees escaped, while the rest staying at home starved to death. Due to the serious shortage of food, victims had no choice but to turn to grass, tree, and stone powder. The frequent famines during this period were caused by geographical and human factors. The former was the basic factor. However, the later was the critical one for the aggravated famines. People were unable to fight against disasters as a result of poverty. At the same time, the fact that deteriorative finances put government to the trouble of investing water infrastructure and taking effective rescue when the famine occurred gave rise to constantly expanding and spreading famines. Further, a series of wars and turbulent society aroused more severe effects.Famines had great negative effects on every aspect of social life. For economic, the huge damage to agricultural production made it difficult in reproducing smoothly. Besides, market was depressed. For society, the direct consequences of famines were a mass of death and migration. In order to survive, the whole families chose migration. In addition, famines had a destructive influence on the national physiological and the psychological quality. Social order, meanwhile, faced the enormous challenges. Frequently natural disasters, causing starvation, intensified social conflicts. Finally, the appearance of violent conflict became a serious threat to social stability.Considering the serious consequences brought by famines, the government agencies and social organizations had adopted a series of measures. These actions enacted by government, the main member for rescuing, combined characteristics of tradition with modernization. For example, social organizations were encouraged to participate in the relief activities in a variety of methods, which boost the further development of relief industry in the northwestern of Shanxi province and relieved the damage from the disaster to a certain extent. The participation of a variety of non-governmental relief groups, the rise of non-governmental forces and the emergence of new types of relief way supplemented the deficiency of the government, injected fresh blood into relief industry during the period of the republic of China, also promoted the modernization of the local relief.There is no doubt that the historic achievement from the government and civil societies who spare no effort in the relief is indisputable. However, grave national crisis and unrest domestic situation still make the relief constrained.