Mass movements and rural governance in communist China: 1945–1976

The mass movement was an unconventional political technique adopted by the Chinese Communist Party. Because it was superior to regular administrative means, it was used extensively for many years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China as a convenient and effective tool of mobilization and governance. The key features of the Chinese Communist mass movement included the mobilized political participation of the broad rural masses, state power’s direct intervention in rural society, class categorization, and class struggle. Continuous mass movements helped the Party-state effectively mobilize the rural masses and implement rural governance, but the results of the mobilization and governance were poorly institutionalized and had to be maintained by new and incessant movements. Subsequently, unsolvable tensions appeared between the dynamics of social transformation and the norms of social governance.