Reconstructing Society: Liang Shuming and the Rural Reconstruction Movement in Shandong

Abstract The Rural Reconstruction Movement (RRM) initiated by Liang Shuming stands out as an ambitious and visionary alternative to more bureaucratic government-sponsored modernization drives, as well as to the Communist revolutionary mode) for social change. The RRM and its work in Zouping county, Shandong province, between 1931 and 1937 was just one expression of the growing attention paid to the villages by Chinese reformers and revolutionaries from the later half of the l920s. What makes Liang’s experiments particularly relevant for the discussion of the relationship between state and society in the modern transformation of China, however, is his firm belief in the potentials of rural society, and his articulate aversion to state intervention and coercive measures. Liang conceived of the drama of modernization and rural reconstruction as a triangular relationship between village communities. intellectuals, and the state. His aim was to reconstruct rural society through the establishment of village schools (cunxue) which should play the double role of administrative organs and community centres. The state should only accept and assist this process, not dominate it, while the intellectuals should contribute with new ideas and knowledge. The implementation of these ideas in Zouping was no unqualified success, however, and even before the Japanese invaded the area in 1937 Liang was forced to admit that village China resisted this remodelling more than he had imagined.