英文摘要
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Past study by the scholars of this topic has generally taken the view that during the warlord period, and as a result of the declining power of the central government of the time, the strength of local merchants reached an unprecedented level, enjoying a high degree of autonomy. Scholars holding such view include the famous French scholar on Chinese bourgeoisie Prof. Marie-Chaire Bergère, and Mainland Chinese scholars such as Hsü Ting-hsin (徐鼎新) Chu Ying (朱英), Yü Ho-ping (虞和平) and many others. This paper takes as instances the Shanghai-area merchants’ Popular Government Movement in the 1920s, their participation in the self-rule movement for abdication of governor-generals and disbandment of troops, their holding of Eight Organizations' National Convention, their formation of the Popular Government Committee, as well their initiatives in the attempt to stop the internecine armed conflicts and in the peace movement, for an analysis of a whole range of complicated factors behind these merchants' taking part in these movements and activities and the actual effects, with a view to re-evaluating the political power these local merchants had during the period of warlordism. The conclusion is found to be that with respect to either thinking or practice, the Popular Government Movement as promoted by the merchants during this period was guided or supervised by intellectuals and foreigners and other social forces, so these merchants did not have a high degree of independence and autonomy. Moreover, there were conflicting opinions among them, in addition to infightings. All these resulted in reducing the effectiveness of their capacity. Exactly because of their lack of invincible faith in the practice of the Popular Government Movement, their lack of profound thinking and concrete plan with respect to methods and approaches for carrying out the movement, these merchants actually turned out to be disorganized and powerless, achieving no actual results, regardless of various superficial and grand fashions the movement generated. It can be seen from the Popular Government Movement as promoted by the merchants that they were not only powerless over national political issues, they were also helpless in local peace, and they were actually political weaklings during the period of warlordism.
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