From 1840 to 1949, China was in a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist and semi-colonial era. Historians mostly take the May 4th Movement of 19 19 as the boundary, and divide this era into two periods: the old democratic revolution and the new democratic revolution. This division is reasonable, which is convenient for us to study the development of China's history in the past century from the perspective of the history of human activities. However, when studying the changes of social forms, the author does not intend to take 19 19 as the starting point of this series, but takes the establishment of the Republic of China from 19 12 to People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 as a historical interval. There are two reasons. First, before and after the May 4th Movement, the social form of China's economy did not fundamentally change. Second, the bourgeoisie established the Republic of China in 19 12, overthrew the last feudal dynasty in China's history, politically ended the feudal monarchy, and began to establish a * * * and democratic regime, which fundamentally changed the political system in the superstructure of China society. Although Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor and zhang xun restoration, this historical result cannot be changed. This is one of the epoch-making events in the history of China. At the same time, the sudden change of political system in 19 1 1 year obviously broke the high integration of China's original value system and political system, which relaxed the political control over culture and economy and made it possible for culture to develop relatively freely. The May 4th Movement, the spread of Marxism in China, and the birth of the * * * production party in China were all deeply related to the social and cultural renewal in the early Republic of China.
From 19 12 to 1949, China's capitalist economy has developed obviously, but on the whole, the nature of social productive forces has not changed significantly, nor has it played a significant role in the changes of social forms. However, great changes have taken place in people engaged in historical activities. The proletariat began to step onto the political stage and lead the unfinished bourgeois-democratic revolution, which decided that China society began to evolve from semi-feudal capitalism to new democracy. Therefore, the rise and fall of major political groups has become an important reference factor to observe the development trend of China's social form in this period.
We should not overestimate the development degree of capitalist production relations between urban and rural areas in China in the "golden age".
After 65438+60' s, the mechanical production tools powered by steam were introduced directly from the west, which triggered the modern transformation of social productive forces in China. During the rule of Beiyang government, except for foreign-funded enterprises and official enterprise, the growth of national industries was the most noticeable. After the Revolution of 1911, the enthusiasm of national capital to invest and set up factories was unprecedented, which was regarded as the "golden age" for the development of national industry in China.
After the climax of economic legal system construction to encourage and protect capitalist relations of production in the late Qing Dynasty, the upsurge of economic legislation was formed in the early Republic of China. Under the policy of "revitalizing industry", the Nanjing Provisional Government promulgated more than 30 decrees and measures to encourage industrial and commercial development within three months after its establishment. The Beiyang government, which reaped the fruits of the Revolution of 1911, successively promulgated more than 40 economic laws and regulations to "revitalize industry" under the auspices of Liu, a Kuomintang who was the Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, and Zhang Jian, a famous industrialist. Not only has the scope been expanded, but the regulations are also more complete. For example, during Yuan Shikai's administration, he successively promulgated the Private Railway Law, Mining Regulations, Mining Registration Regulations, General Rules for Mining Tax Collection, Rules for Qualification Examination of Miners, Interim Measures for Special Prospecting and Mining of Iron Ore, Mining Area Survey Rules, Regulations on Supervision Authority of Iron Ore Companies and many other laws and regulations. The mining tax stipulated in the Mining Regulations is significantly lower than that in the late Qing Dynasty. It is worth mentioning that China's labor legislation originated in this period. 1923 The Provisional General Rules for Factories formulated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce is known as the "First Sound of Factory Law" in China. A series of laws and regulations represented by it, involving working hours, rest time, wage payment, working conditions, welfare treatment, supplementary education and the protection of child workers and female workers, together with the proposed trade union bill, basically cover all fields of labor relations. Compared with the practice of directly applying feudal punishment to factories and mines in Qing Dynasty, these laws and regulations are progressive. Of course, there is still a long way to go from making laws to implementing them. However, the work of formulating and promulgating various capitalist economic laws and regulations since the constitutional movement in the late Qing Dynasty was not interrupted by the Revolution of 1911, but was initially completed during the Beiyang government period, which provided a certain legal guarantee for capitalist relations of production and was of progressive significance. Although it cannot be simply said that Beiyang government promoted the prosperity of national industry and commerce, at least it can be said that this warlord government did not hinder the development of national industry and commerce.
During this period, capitalism in China appeared a "golden age", and the average annual growth rate of domestic industry reached 19 12 ~ 1920, which reflected the development of production and the accumulation of capital. 19 13 years, 698 modern industrial enterprises (excluding mining) were established by domestic capital, with a venture capital of 330,824,000 yuan and 2,70717 employees; 1920 has 1759 factories, with a venture capital of 500.62 million yuan and 557,622 workers. The capital accumulation of individual entrepreneurs is very prominent. For example, the capital of Rong Brothers' cotton mill and Fuxin flour mill increased rapidly after 1923. The capital of Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Co., Ltd., which built Brothers, increased from 1920 to 1927, and from150,000 yuan to 2010,000 yuan. The highway construction in the early years of the Republic of China attracted people's attention. During the period of 19 13 ~ 1927, the mileage of highway construction in various provinces in China, including the mileage of highway construction funded by gentry and overseas Chinese, was nearly 30 thousand km 2. In the shipping industry, the capital of domestic freight forwarders of 192 1 increased more than 8 times compared with 1900, reaching 88.997 million yuan; The tonnage of ships has increased more than six times, reaching 489 190 tons. Some enterprises are developing at an alarming rate. For example, the capital of Yu Qiaqing Sanbei Lunbu Company increased from 200,000 yuan to 3.2 million yuan in 192 10, an increase of 15 times. It seems that the development of bank capital in China is faster than that of industrial capital. During the period of 19 12 ~ 1927, as many as 3 13 new banks were established, with a total capital of 206.028 million yuan, 8 times that of191kloc-0/. Banks have also developed and changed to a certain extent. Take Shanghai as an example. From 19 12 to 1926, the number of private banks increased from 28 to 87, and the capital increased from 1064000 to 134 102000. Banks that have little contact with industry are now facing domestic capital industrial enterprises. During the three years from 1925 to 1927, Fuyuan Qianzhuang, a famous bank in Shanghai, made 3 1 industrial loans with a total amount of 2194,000 yuan.
The main reason for the development of national industry and commerce in China is to catch up with the historical opportunity of the outbreak of the First World War. The war made imperialism temporarily relax its aggression against China, and also made the world's demand for food and raw materials increase sharply. China is in a favorable position to meet this market demand, which has been maintained until the post-war construction period. The export volume of Shanghai 19 19 increased by 30% compared with that of 19 18. The total foreign trade value of China was1910.4 billion taels in 2008, and increased to16.7 billion taels in 2003. China capitalists spent 65,438+0,965,438+0,800,000 taels on textile equipment in the western market, which increased to 390,000 taels in 65,438+0,965,438+09. The number of spindles in China increased from 1965438+658748 in 2009 to 1506634, of which 63% belonged to China factory owners. From 19 17 to 1922, 26 new flour mills were opened and some foreign oil plants were acquired, which proved the growth of China food industry. The tobacco and cigarette industries have also made great progress. From 19 12 to 1927, there were 3 new banks in China, with a total capital of 206.028 million yuan, eight times that of191kloc-0/year ago.
It should also be pointed out that during the rule of Beiyang warlords, especially after Yuan Shikai, the Beiyang government's influence and control ability on the economy was quite weak due to repeated political crises, political chaos and frequent civil wars. In a sense, if a government can't effectively manipulate the social economy, it means that it can't easily destroy the social economy, but it provides a relatively relaxed space for the development of domestic capital. Of course, during this period, the people of China repeatedly resisted the anti-imperialist and patriotic struggles of foreign goods, which also strongly supported the development of capitalist industry and commerce in China.
With the expansion of foreign capitalist aggression and the development of domestic industry and commerce, certain changes have taken place in agricultural production relations, which is the emergence and development of rich peasant economy, commercial landlords and new-type agricultural reclamation enterprises in some areas. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of Beiyang Government, there were 59 farming and animal husbandry reclamation companies registered in 8 provinces including Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Jilin and Chahar in 19 12, with a total capital of 2.86 million yuan. And 19 19 has developed to 100, with a total capital of12.45 million yuan. The business scope includes agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline and fishery, among which cotton, mulberry and other cash crops are planted. Investors are mainly warlords, bureaucrats, comprador businessmen, overseas Chinese and a few industrial capitalists. In the early 1920s, a large number of farms and pastures were operated by leasing land. For example, in 19 15, a businessman surnamed Yang in Guangdong rented 60 mu of land in Jiangwan, imitating the western method to grow indigo and making a profit. The following year, he rented 200 mu of land to expand his business. Under its impetus, some "agricultural capitalists" have used their own capital to rent land from one or several landlords and hire farmers to cultivate the land. They are completely in a supervisory position, and a few agricultural reclamation companies have adopted a large number of capitalist management methods and achieved fruitful results. For example, in 19 15, a large farm operated by people in Ningbo, Heilongjiang Province, with a capital of 800,000 and an area of 360,000 mu. There are 5 large tractors, 2 tractors with 25 horsepower, 3 threshers, 8 lawn mowers, 8 seeders, 3 large plows and 45 employees. The main crops are wheat and oats, as well as flour processing plants. Products are sold to counties. In Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province, 19 19 also saw large agricultural companies and fruit companies growing grain. [1] These companies have played an active role in introducing modern agricultural machinery, planting new varieties and advanced production technologies, and promoting the development of commercial agricultural production.
Stimulated by domestic and international market demand, the commercialization of rural handicraft production has been improved, and capitalist production relations have developed to some extent. For example, in places where the weaving industry is relatively concentrated, such as Levin, Baodi, and Nantong, Jiangsu, some weavers already belong to the nature of capitalist workshops or handicraft factories; With the commercialization of farmers' hand-woven industry, the relationship between weavers and businessmen has essentially become a capitalist employment relationship, so the number of employed weavers has been increasing. In 19 12, the wage weavers in Levin accounted for 34.5% of the total number of weavers, which increased to 69.2% in 19 17 and reached 88.6% in 1927 [2].
However, the slight development of capitalist relations of production in rural areas is far from shaking feudal relations of production. After the Revolution of 1911, the feudal landlord economy still dominated. In the Beiyang government's plan of "revitalizing industry", agricultural revitalization does not occupy a dominant position; Even if there is the idea of "developing agriculture", it is not even more impossible to touch the feudal land relationship and can't change the situation of agricultural production at all. The Beiyang government implemented the so-called policy of reclaiming farmland and releasing wasteland, and sold all kinds of public land owned by the government, such as wasteland, beaches, lakes, shatian, woodland, temples, etc., and feudal government land and commons joined the ranks of privatization. However, these lands were basically taken over by landlords, merchants and warlords, who occupied a large number of wasteland and produced warlord landlords and bureaucratic landlords, which was a remarkable feature of the changes in feudal land relations since the Republic of China. With the development of commodity economy, the free sale of land is more frequent. In addition to warlords and bureaucrats using their political privileges and military violence to occupy land, businessmen and usurers also freely buy and sell land, which accelerated the trend of land concentration.
To sum up, the development degree of capitalist production relations between urban and rural areas in China during this period should not be overestimated. First of all, although the development of capitalism in China during this period can not deny the role of internal factors, the emergence of the "golden age" is mainly the role of external factors. Secondly, the semi-colonial nature of China's economy determines that the development space of national capital will be squeezed by foreign capital. "National capital, even if developed, lurks a crisis that is difficult to escape from bad luck. As the pillar of China's national industry, the history of cotton textile industry is a convincing example. After the First World War, the merger and control of China cotton mills by foreign capital is a very prominent phenomenon. ..... Surprisingly, the process of China cotton textile mill being eroded by foreign capital began immediately after its high-profit development, even in the process of great development, and appeared in the golden age of national capital cotton textile industry. Two Chinese cotton mills in Tianjin, Huaxin and Yuyuan, made a profit of 5,000 yuan at 19 19, while the other one made a profit of more than 6 million yuan during 19 18 ~ 1922, but both were in their heyday. Once foreign debts are involved, they will eventually be taken over or auctioned. Shen Xin Cotton Mill is the largest Chinese cotton mill. During the war in Europe, its profits almost soared. A factory in Shen Xin started with 300,000 yuan, and earned as much as 165438+ 10,000 yuan in/920. However, in this unprecedented period of prosperity, Shen Xin's factories have begun to borrow from foreign capital with their own factory bases and machines mortgaged many times. Some of these factories were even auctioned later. The fragility of this development foundation can be imagined. The fragility of the development foundation of Chinese businessmen and the strong pressure from foreign businessmen are inseparable pants. " [3] Third, the capitalist factor of China's rural economy was produced on the basis of foreign imperialist aggression. Under the domination and control of the capitalist world market, agricultural productivity itself cannot break through the shackles of feudal production relations. Therefore, it is difficult for the commercialization of agricultural economy in China to have lasting prosperity. Whether it is the rich peasant economy, the landlord economy, or the capitalist joint-stock new farm, it still retains the feudal roots. When faced with the heavy pressure of the feudal exploitation system, they will fall to the feudal landlord economy and lose the possibility of continuing to develop into capitalism.