Chapter 22 Lane regime

The new regime faced a whole new problem when it came to dealing with speculators who resell silver dollars. Among these speculators, there are a large number of peddlers whose transaction volume is less than 10 yuan. These people are basically caught and released immediately, but they are often the bottom citizens of Shanghai who lack living security.Cracking down on silver dollar speculation basically cut off the source of livelihood for this group of people in the early days of liberation.The cadres of the military control committee thought of a temporary solution and organized them to help catch the big dealers and provide them with food.The problem is that this group is so huge that there must be an institutional approach to manage and place it.

"The huge number of homeless people in Shanghai is a much more difficult issue than in other cities." Tu Jiyuan, who was the secretary of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau at the beginning of liberation and later served as the office director of the Lilong Working Committee under the Political and Legal Committee of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, recalled, "We took over 30 District, 1,193 Baos, 28,552 As, 1,033,206 households, 5,406,644 population. Shanghai is a large city with extremely complex conditions, with 1 million industrial workers and students living scattered in the lanes. The population ranges from tens of thousands to as many as 400,000."

In the first half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the control of Chinese local governments at the grassroots level has always relied on the ingenious balance of power between local officials and gentlemen.The Baojia system is the product of this balance. "District-level organizations alone can't manage it. After the Baojia system is abolished, we must consider what organization below the district will replace Baojia? How will politics reach the grassroots? How will the state regulate society?" Similar to the difficulties faced by the Nationalist government in administering Shanghai, the city's high mobility has always been a challenge to its administrators.Before 1958, the basic principle of the urban household registration system implemented in Shanghai was "free movement with emphasis on management." Therefore, population turnover was very frequent.According to Tu Jiyuan's statistics, from 1950 to 1955, more than 2.63 million people immigrated to Shanghai, and more than 2.31 million people immigrated out, with a net immigrant population of about 320,000.Coupled with the large number of disaster victims and refugees who flooded into Shanghai in the early 1950s, the population flow in Shanghai was at its peak, which made it very difficult for the people's government to delineate the scope of various political spaces and people's class composition in the grassroots society.

By 1920, the Shanghai underworld had gathered 100,000 hooligans, and this number has been expanding with the increase of social proletarians and bankrupts. "In some residential areas where workers are concentrated, every large-scale population migration often injects many external factors-such as local gang forces, which constantly change the original class structure and social ecology of the community. Nanyinghuali, Putuo District, was originally the Japanese The workshops of the cotton yarn factories inside and outside the business are places where workers live together. During the Anti-Japanese War, the situation of a group of people who fled from Zhabei became more and more complicated. There were often armed fights among the Subei, Shandong, Anhui, and Henan gangs. A total of 51 people were arrested during the anti-rebellion campaign. 5 people were shot, and 46 people still need to be dealt with,” said Zhang Jishun, a researcher of Shanghai history.

In other already chaotic lower-level residential areas, as the population flow intensified in the early 1950s, the ebb and flow of various social forces became stronger and stronger.According to a survey on Hengmaoli in Songshan District, this is "one of the three famous bridges in Shanghai - a lane near the Eight Immortals Bridge. It is located in the center of the business district. , several large shops, hotels, and a bank surrounded by a square... There are 839 households and 3,711 people living in this alley. The shop assistants are the most... The population is very mobile, and the (account) enters (account) and exits (account) every day. There are about 20 people... (in the alley) the social situation is complicated, there are many apprentices under Huang Jinrong and Du Yuesheng, and 56 criminals of various types have been dealt with, there are 2 drug dealers, 17 hooligans, and 2 thieves , 8 private prostitutes and underground dancers, and 1 black lawyer. The New Life Hotel in the lane is exclusively for prostitutes, and gambling and stealing are very popular.”

In accordance with the Communist Party's basic arrangements for social and political life at the grassroots level in cities, political movements were carried out in two spaces: work units and lanes.The initial deployment was based on the units, supplemented by the lanes; the units went first, and the lanes followed.Tu Jiyuan said that this kind of consideration and approach originated from the basic idea and conception of the new regime in managing urban society, that is, to divide grassroots control and management into two systems: unit people and non-unit people. "We initially believed that nearly 1.4 million workers and cultural and educational workers were the 'main targets of urban work'." "The biggest difficulty in grassroots political mobilization lies in the latter: the non-work unit population, which is extremely difficult due to years of mobility changes. Definition. According to statistics from the Civil Affairs Department of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, by August 1954, there were more than 1.63 million street vendors in the city’s streets, about 150,000 unemployed people, and more than 10,000 unregistered factories, workshops, small shops, and undemocratic The reform personnel have not carried out systematic cleaning, and many lanes have become hiding places for fugitive counter-revolutionaries and other lawless elements.”

Nevertheless, the new regime still needs to transform this huge social resource into a political force that can be adjusted.Tu Jiyuan recalled that in a communication between Pan Hannian and him, a new way of thinking was opened up. "Mayor Pan said to me: 'Didn't you work in Shanghai during the Anti-Japanese War? At that time, didn't many people join us in anti-Japanese activities? To join the party, some people may become wives and go to the lanes. I know many such people. They have received a revolutionary education, and many of them have worked for us. Today they support us and are willing to Do some work. You can go to the Women's Federation and introduce some old activists.'" Tu Jiyuan recalled, "Later, we found many old activists, who were only in their 30s and 40s at the time, and generally educated and familiar with the conditions in the neighborhood. At that time, there was no pay, and I did a lot of work for Lilong, and became a group of backbones in grassroots work."

In the second half of 1949, the unemployed and some residents in some residential areas and lanes began to be organized, and autonomous "tenant associations", "tap water management committees" and "sanitation committees" appeared one after another in Shanghai. The residents' committee is a pioneering work in Shanghai.The new regime found a practical way to mobilize the Shanghai Lane on a large scale in the first half of the 1950s through its political functions.Zhang Jishun said that since 1950, residents' committees have been gradually established in the 11,155 lanes all over Shanghai.By January 1954, there were 1,847 residents' committees in the city, about 36,000 residents' groups, and 95,284 residents' committee members, forming a top-down organizational network covering the grassroots. "Under the effective operation of the residents' committee, the enthusiasm of non-working people to join the political movement can be said to be unprecedented."