本稿では，オラーンチャブ盟を中心に，蒙疆政権時代における盟旗制度について，領域とジャサグの権限に注目して検討する。盟はモンゴル遊牧社会の動態に沿った組織であったが，農耕化や省県の設置により，内モンゴルでは，20世紀までに盟の解体が進んだ。1930年代，内モンゴル西部において，徳王らは国民政府に対して省廃止を求める自治運動を展開した後，蒙疆政権の支配下に入った。ここで徳王は，新たに盟公署を設置してモンゴル人による支配を強化しようとする。しかし盟はそもそも組織的実態がなく，これをどのように組織化し，運用していくかは，手探りの状況であった。蒙疆政権はオラーンチャブ盟で盟会議を開催したが，そこで王公らは清代の枠組みに沿って，領域とジャサグ制度の維持を求めた。しかし蒙疆政権側はジャサグ制度の維持を認めただけで，開墾地（領域）の問題は解決できなかった。その結果，同盟の各旗は不安定化したまま1945年を迎えた。

Anti-Japanese National United Front in Manchuria was an early practice of the Chinese Communist Party’s Anti-Japanese National United Front policy. After the implementation of this policy, the military strength of the Manchurian Communist Party expanded rapidly and established many Anti-Japanese bases in remote mountainous areas.

As for the Anti-Japanese National United Front in Manchuria, previous researches have mostly discussed the content or characteristics of this policy from the perspective of the Chinese Communist Party. However, few researches examine this policy’s implementation in rural areas from the perspective of regional society. Drawing on the South Manchurian Railway Company documents, county-level historical data and oral historical materials, this paper takes a specific mountain village in North Manchuria as a case to explore how the Chinese Communist Party cooperated with local powerful figures and bandits who held local power.

Through its detailed analysis, this paper proposes that, in the 1930s, the rapid expansion of the Chinese Communist Party in the mountainous rural areas of the North Manchuria was not only related to the change of the Party’s policy, but also to the power network of the Manchurian regional society and the change of economic conditions of rural areas. Firstly, in the mountainous rural areas of the North Manchuria in the 1930s, the dominance of local powerful figures over farmers was not based on land ownership or the kinship and geographical relations within the village, but on the control of horse-drawn carriage transportation as the economic ties of regional society. Through the control of this activity, local powerful figures and bandit forces formed a cooperative relationship and expanded their influences to the county. This is the social basis for the formation of the Anti-Japanese National United Front in Manchuria. Secondly, after the founding of Manchukuo, due to the influx of Japanese enterprises into the county, the profit of horse-drawn carriage transportation controlled by local powerful figures was greatly diminished. The damage to economic interests made local powerful figures actively respond to the policy of the Chinese Communist Party to make up for their losses. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party also used horse-drawn carriage transportation to obtain resources from rural areas. Especially after gradually acquiring the advantages in weaponry, the Chinese Communist Party successfully integrated other armed forces operating in the mountainous areas of North Manchuria.

In general, this paper shows the diversity of rural regional social networks, and provides a new case for revealing the complex interaction between the Chinese Communist Party and regional society.

The Kuomintang’s (KMT) system of governance had deviated from the system of yi-dang-zhi-guo (the Party governs the country) during the “bandit suppression campaign” period in the early 1930s, when KMT conducted encirclement operations against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s various enclaves across the country. In the provinces which were designated as “bandit suppression” zones such as Henan, Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangxi in the early 1930s, Chiang Kai-shek was able to consolidate his own political regime, though it was not based on the supreme principle of yi-dang-zhi-guo. This aspect was clearly manifested when one attempts to define the relationship between the Party organ and the government organization: in the “bandit suppression” zones, a peculiar and close-knitted party-government relationship emerged where both the Party organs and government organizations were subordinate to military institutions such as “Bandit Suppression Headquarters”. Consequently, the Party organizational efforts in the “bandit suppression” areas were costly to their financial resources, thus resulting in the decrease in the number of Party members, while the “Political Study Clique (zhengxuexi),” a bureaucratic clique, expanded its influence in local government organizations. These trends were nothing but a deviation from the principle of party-ruling regime and it indicates that an alternative system of governance in the regime had already been established before the Sino-Japanese War.

In November 1949, with communists heading southward, Kuomintang’s control over southwest China quickly collapsed. What the communists were about to face was a highly militarized society with countless self-defense forces of villages and clans. Though showing their support towards communists initially, most self-defense forces openly revolted once the grain procurement program started.

In the spring of 1950, Guizhou, one of the provinces of southwestern China, had become ungovernable, leaving communist work-team members brutally slaughtered and newly established people’s governments ravaged. Official accounts of pacification actions in this region involves peace-preserving action of militia, a locally active military forces of rural proletariat freed by land reform.

Arguing Chinese Communist Party’s approach to handle popular unrests during the formative years of the People’s Republic of China was fragmented between central and local level. This article traces the continuity both of personnel composition and activities of local militia units. Utilizing newly available county-level archival resources from Guizhou, the following two questions are to be put under scrutinization. The author first compares central and local level cadres’ different approaches to popular unrest. Central level cadres, by repeatedly issuing urgent orders to their subordinate, demanded not only swift recovery of social order but also complete demilitarization of society. Under these orders, the People’s Liberation Army units and party activists were organized into work-teams and sent into villages where “bandits” were still active. Threatened with “rectification” if demands are not met within certain short period of time by their superior, local cadres decided to legitimize local self-defense forces’ existence, some of which were previously deemed as “bandits”, and utilize their presence to restore order. Self-defense forces thus rebranded first as “people’s armed forces (人民武装)” in 1951 and later the same year as “militia (民兵)”.

The author further analyzes the activities of the new militia members. Rioting and looting were rampant during 1951, and in some cases, militia members were overtly hostile towards the local government. To extend its control over the militia, “People’s Armed Forces Departments (人民武装部)”, with its reach into every county under CCP’s control, were set up by the PLA. Active military cadres were sent into PAFDs as directors, and militia captains were gathered at PLA’s compound, politically screened and trained.

In general, this article shows CCP’s experience of “internal pacification”, termed by Anthony Giddens. Screening and training secured PLA’s control over local militia units, and institutional expansion, as it is seen from the creation of PAFDs nation-wide, provides the infrastructure for state’s surveillance of the contentious society.