乡绅权势消退的历史轨迹——20世纪前期的制度变迁、革命话语与乡绅权力

Institutional Changes,Revolutionary Discourses and Squire Power in the Early Period of the 20th Century

以"新政"为导向的制度变迁实际上构成了绅权"体制化"扩展的制度性基础。从旧制走向新制的乡绅们,获得了更为广阔的权力空间,由此生成的社会矛盾和利益冲突也在不断地蓄积。当清王朝作为制度意义上的革命对象被推翻后,现存社会的一切弊端就指向了绅士阶层。绅士阶层必将被国民革命和以后更为深入的革命风暴所席卷。"大革命"退潮之后,国民党放弃了"打倒劣绅"的政治诉求,转而选择制度重建路径实施国家权力向乡村社会的渗透。抗战胜利后共产党在农村实行的土地革命和"村选政治",以各级"劳模"和"群英"为主体的乡村新式权威逐渐控制了乡村政治生活,传统权威的政治影响力大幅消退。乡绅权势地位的最终退出,才真正标志了一个时代的终结。

Since the institutional changes for the ＂New Deal＂ had been become the institutional base of squire power＇ s expansion, the squires became more and more powerful in the system of ＂New Deal＂, at the same time, social contradictions and conflict of interests incident to the change accumulated constantly. After Qing dynasty as the institutional target of the revolution had been de- throned, the gentries as the new undertaker for all the social disadvantages had been certainly stricken in National Revolution and in the subsequent more profound revolutionary. The Kuomintang abandoned the revolutionary aim of ＂striking local lords and evil gentry down＂ but turned to reconstruct the political system for the national power to penetrate the countryside after the ＂Big Revolutionary＂. The Communist Party controlled gradually the political life in the rural areas by the agrarian revolution and ＂village election politics＂, then, the gentries had been dropt out the historical stage which was a signal for end of an era.