Chapter 57 Zemstvo experiment

Weak centralization means greater space for local autonomy.During the period of the Beiyang government, there were three kinds of self-government experiments: One is warlord autonomy.For example, Zhang Zuolin and his sons in Northeast China, Yan Xishan in Shanxi, Li Zongren in Guangxi, and Chen Jiongming in Guangdong all carried out large-scale economic construction, known as "model provinces."Its characteristics are: seeking complete production and business, self-contained; focusing on investment in agriculture, education and infrastructure;This is a typical performance of the princely economy.For example, Yan Xishan, who has ruled Shanxi for more than 30 years, once wrote "Song of Realizing Hard Work": "No mountains and no forests, no fields and no water conservancy, no villages and no factories, no districts and no vocational schools, no roads and no renovation, no houses and no renovation, No one does not work, no one does not go to school, no one does not love others, and no one is unfair." It is like a peach blossom garden or an ideal picture of socialism.When he built railways in Shanxi, he deliberately did not use the 1.435-meter standard track, but built a 1-meter narrow track, which meant "closing the door into a market."

The second is merchant autonomy.In the early years of the Republic of China, the conference bureaus and merchants in various places always had financial resources and armed forces, and they were powerful. In March 1923, the Hankou General Chamber of Commerce issued a "Proposal to Protect the Safety of Commercial Ports" to chambers of commerce in major domestic cities, proposing to follow the example of the Hanseatic League in medieval Europe and establish a "true city alliance". In 1924, the Zhili and Anhui warlords fought, and the administrative system of Shanghai was completely paralyzed. Yu Qiaqing, then chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce, launched a massive fundraising campaign to quell the chaotic situation. Advocating and demanding the establishment of the Shanghai Demilitarized Zone, Duan Qirui's government appointed Yu Qiaqing as the office of the Songhu Commercial Port Association, and became the highest administrative head of Shanghai for a while.For the next three years, the General Chamber of Commerce became the actual governing body of Shanghai.The idea of ​​political participation and self-government of the entrepreneurial class was echoed by liberal intellectuals. Hu Shi, Ding Wenjiang and others put forward the concept of "good man government". Business and laborers are in power, and unemployed people such as nobles, warlords, bureaucrats and politicians are in power."

The third is to build model cities or experimental communes.Zhang Jian of Nantong was the most outstanding practitioner of this move. Since 1903, Zhang Jian has devoted himself to the urban construction of his hometown Nantong. He invested a lot of profits from Dasheng Cotton Mill in public works.Zhang Jian founded China's earliest normal school, drama theater and library here, and Nantong became one of the most famous emerging cities in the country at that time. Liang Qichao called it "the most progressive city in China". In 1922, Zhu Baosan purchased 1,000 mu of land in the suburbs of Shanghai, planning to build an experimental city similar to Nantong.The Rong brothers, on the other hand, tried to set up an "autonomous labor zone" in their factories in Wuxi.Later generations followed their example, including Lu Zuofu from Beibei, Chongqing, and Chen Jiageng from Jimei, Fujian.

From Zhang Jian's business in 1894 to Yu Qiaqing's "running" Shanghai in 1924, these 30 years were a glorious period for the Chinese businessman class. They gradually controlled almost all important industries and had a strong and positive influence among the people. In 1922, newspapers in Beijing and Shanghai held a "Successful People Poll" to vote for the "most admired person" in the country, and 70-year-old Zhang Jian received the highest number of votes.In the past two thousand years, the importance of the merchant class in state affairs has never reached such a height before, and it will never be matched again.

However, these experiments in self-government involving warlords, businessmen, and liberal intellectuals ultimately proved ineffective.The fundamental reason is that they appear naive and lack of sustainability due to the lack of broad popular base and political theoretical support.In a modern country, the true establishment of an autonomous government and a parliamentary system requires a free or stable social environment. In such a society, various interest groups coexist in a way of fair negotiation. However, in China in the 1920s, civil strife Far from stopping, violence could disrupt peace efforts at any moment.Therefore, Baijier called the failure of this period "the failure of liberalism in an unfree age", and she commented: "The behavior of the bourgeoisie usually appears ambiguous, incoherent and ineffective. partly because of the less clear-cut nature of its political status."