Society of September 3rd

Chinese   九三学社 Society of September 3rd
Party leader	Wu Weihua (Chairman of the Central Committee)
Secretary General	Shao Hong
founding	May 4, 1946
Place of foundation	Chongqing
Headquarters	Haidian , Beijing
Alignment	Science , patriotism , socialism with Chinese characteristics
Parliament seats	64/2980
Number of members	183,710 (2019)
Proportion of women	41.48% (2019)
Website	93.gov.cn

The Society of September 3rd ( Chinese  九三學社  /  九三学社 , Pinyin Jǐusān Xuéshè , lit. "Study Society of September 3rd") is one of nine political parties in the People's Republic of China . Their official motto is "Patriotism, Democracy, Science" (爱国 ， 民主 ， 科学). On June 30, 2019, it had 183,710 members, making it the third largest party in the country by membership after the Chinese Communist Party (90,594,000) and the Chinese Democratic League (282,000). Since it knows better than the Democratic League how to mobilize its voters, it formed the second largest faction in the National People's Congress in March 2018 with 64 members , after the CCP with 2175 members.

history

The September 3rd Society traces its ideological origins back to the May 4th 1919 Movement , when Beijing students demonstrated against the Versailles Peace Treaty and the cession of Chinese territory to Japan. When the Chinese capital was relocated to Chongqing during the anti-Japanese war in 1938 , some scholars founded the “Symposium for Democracy and Science” (民主 科学 dort) there, which initially consisted of a majority of humanities scholars. In the course of time, however, more and more scholars from the “Symposium for Natural Sciences” (自然科学 座谈会) joined him. On September 3, 1945, on the occasion of the victory over Japan, a large conference was called and the scientific association was renamed the “September 3 Symposium” (九三 座谈会). From this emerged on May 4, 1946, the "Society of September 3" (九三学社) as a political party. The first party chairman was the physicist Xu Deheng (许德珩, 1890–1990), who had been one of the leaders of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. In 1946, Xu Deheng moved the headquarters of the September 3rd Society to Beiping , where he taught as a professor at Beijing University .

During the civil war, the September 3rd Society sided with the CCP early on - Xu Deheng had known Zhou Enlai since the May Fourth Movement and later met him again while studying in France - but initially only supported it underground, not with armed associations. At the 2nd session of the VII Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (March 5-13 , 1949) in Xibaipo , Hebei Province , Mao Zedong proposed the formation of a united front in which democrats who were not members of the CCP also participate could. The Central Committee approved Mao's proposal. It was decided to convene a Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People and form a democratic coalition government. The September 3rd Society accepted the invitation and for the first time publicly stated that it would attend the Consultative Conference under the leadership of the CCP and actively participate in the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

In June 1949, the Society of September 3 was one of 23 democratic organizations that had sent a total of 134 delegates to Beiping to form a preparatory committee for the convening of the Chinese People's Consultative Conference. In his article "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship," published on June 30, 1949 on the occasion of the 28th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, Mao made it clear that the party, as a "people," comprised the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the "national Bourgeoisie ”, that is, the intellectuals, who were supposed to establish a dictatorship over the landlord class and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and their representatives, namely the Kuomintang reactionaries and their accomplices. The Society was able to live with this on September 3rd and took part in the consultative conference of the Chinese people held in Beiping from September 21st to 30th, 1949 with 662 delegates. Its members contributed to the elaboration of the "Joint Program of the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People", a kind of interim constitution, and in the first years of the People's Republic devoted themselves primarily to the development of science and technology, the reconstruction of universities and the improvement of medical science Care. The “Joint Program of the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People” of September 29, 1949, that is, freedom of speech, equal rights for women, etc., became the basic political program of the Society of September 3.

On May 2, 1956, Mao Zedong suggested in a speech that intellectuals, including those from outside the CCP, should be more involved in building the country under the motto " Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools compete ". There was a mixed response within the party. Lu Dingyi (陆定一, 1906–1996), head of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee, nevertheless invited all writers, artists, and scientists to openly express criticism and suggestions at a meeting of intellectuals on May 26, 1956 make how the construction of the country should be advanced. This then happened, increasingly after the uprisings in Poland and Hungary , encouraged by Mao, who intended to allow criticism of real grievances to run in an orderly manner in this way. However, the majority of the CCP leadership was still against the Hundred Flower Movement. This then soon got out of control, criticism of the party's role in universities, etc., was presented more and more aggressively. In July 1957 the Hundred Flower Movement was ended and on October 15, 1957 the "Criteria for the Identification of Right Elements" (划分 右派 分子 的 标准) were published. Within one year, 552,973 intellectuals were identified as right-wing elements, divided into “slightly right” (微 右), “essentially right” (中 右) and “right-wing extremist” (极右). Among the latter were leading members of the September 3 Society such as Chu Anping (储安平, 1909–1966), the deputy head of the Propaganda Department, Lu Kanru (陆侃 如, 1903–1978), a member of the Central Committee, Yuan Hanqing (袁, 1905–1994), also member of the Central Committee, and many more who lost their jobs and were often sent to re-education camps. In 1978, 552,877 right-wing elements were rehabilitated. Chu Anping, who disappeared right at the start of the Cultural Revolution in September 1966 , was one of only five right-wing extremists at the national level for whom the assessment at the time was believed to be correct.

The Cultural Revolution broke out in the early summer of 1966. As one of the first steps, the party newspaper Renmin Ribao published a programmatic editorial on June 1, 1966 under the heading “Sweep away all cow devils and serpent spirits” (横扫 一切 牛鬼蛇神), which should lead to the persecution of intellectuals perceived as conservative. In the article, for example, Chu Anping, who had meanwhile returned to his place of work at party headquarters, was named as a target of the purge (扫荡). The September 3rd Society itself was neither banned, nor was there any state-ordered persecution of party members. However, after the Red Guards were officially recognized as an organization by Mao on August 18, 1966 , they occupied the party headquarters and a Red Guard woman took over the management of the day-to-day business of the Central Committee. On an everyday level, the party's life was made quite difficult. For example, the Red Guards held struggle and criticism meetings in the main administration in order to get leading party members to admit reactionary tendencies. After a while, the Revolutionary Rebels took over party headquarters and the situation got out of hand. For example, Zhao Jiuzhang , a member of the Central Committee since 1952, was abducted in mid-February 1968 without an arrest warrant or court order to the Zhongguancun re-education camp on the northern outskirts of Beijing, where he committed suicide eight months later.

All of this demotivated the party members; the number of members, which had already declined by 14% after the anti-right movement (反右 运动) in 1957, fell from 5358 in 1965 to 4148 in 1978, that is again by 23%. Political work came to a de facto standstill. Pro forma remained the 5th Central Committee elected on December 5, 1958, chaired by Xu Deheng and his deputies Zhou Peiyuan (周培源, 1902–1993), Pan Shu (潘 –, 1897–1988), Mao Yisheng (茅以升, 1896–1989) and Yan Jici (严济慈, 1901–1996) in office until 1979. On October 24, 1979, a new Central Committee was elected by the General Assembly, again with Xu Deheng as chairman, Zhou Peiyuan, Pan Shu, Mao Yisheng and Yan Jici as his deputies, plus six other deputies. It was not until the mid-1980s that the September 3rd Society became actively involved in politics again. For example, in 1987, after major student demonstrations in Hefei , Shanghai, and Beijing in December 1986 - the largest since the Cultural Revolution - it supported the CCP's left-wing demand that students first go to agriculture after graduation or do simple work in factories to give them life experience. She later campaigned for the strengthening of copyright law, the promotion of innovative strength in companies and the increase in pensions for scientists and technicians in state-owned companies. Since the Society of September 3rd has numerous doctors among its members, it was particularly committed during the SARS pandemic of 2002/2003 to efforts to find out the origin of the disease and to develop potential treatment methods.

Membership structure

The members of the Society of September 3rd are almost exclusively academics: about 25% professors, 25% engineers and 20% doctors. The proportion of members with a university degree has decreased slightly in recent years: from 96% in 2012 to 90% in 2019. From the founding of the party to the end of 2018, over 180 party members were members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the Chinese Academy Academy of Engineering . Five party members were "Satellite Two bombs" (两弹一星功勋奖章) for the employees of the Chinese atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb the Chinese or the first satellite by using the Merit Dong Fang Hong I won. Yan Jun , a member of the Party's Central Committee since 2002, has been chief scientist of the People's Republic of China's Lunar Program since 2009 , and Wan Weixing , a member of the Party's Central Committee since 2012, was chief scientist of the Mars program from 2016 until his death in 2020 . The proportion of women in the party is constantly increasing. In 2019, 41.48% of all members were women, in the election for the National People's Congress at the end of 2017, 27 of 64 elected members of the Society of September 3, i.e. 42%, were women.

As a professors' party, the September 3rd Society has an inherent problem of aging. Xu Deheng was 56 years old when he founded the party in 1946, while Zhou Peiyuan was the youngest of the Central Committee elected in 1958, at 56 years old. When Xu Deheng resigned from the party chairmanship in 1987 for reasons of age, he was 97 years old, his successor Zhou Peiyuan was 85 at the time. However, since the Chinese government has been investing heavily in science since the mid-1980s, not least through Chen's among others Fangyun and Wang Ganchang , members of the Society of September 3, 1986 launched National High Technology Promotion Program , the number of young graduates in the country is steadily increasing. Between 1987 and 2002, the Society of September 3rd recorded an annual membership increase of almost 4,000 men and women, and since 2012 the annual increase has been over 6,000. By 2016, the average age of party members had been reduced to 54 years; 21.04% of all party members were under 41 years of age that year. When the biologist Wu Weihua (武维华, * 1956) took over the chairmanship of the party on December 7, 2017, he was 61 years old.

organization structure

The September 3rd Society is headed by a Central Committee (中央 委员会) that has been elected every five years (previously at irregular intervals) by the National Assembly of Delegates (全国 代表 大会) since 1992. Since the board election on December 7, 2017, the Central Committee has consisted of a chairman (主席), a general secretary (常务副 主席) and nine deputy chairmen (副主席), including two women, and 236 members. The central committee is based at the party's headquarters in the Haidian district , Beijing , where the various administrative departments such as the public relations department (宣传部), the coalition department (参政议政 部) etc. are also housed, as well as commissions for the Elaboration of the position of the party in the policy fields of interest:

• science and technology
• economy
• Agriculture and Forestry
• Education and culture
• Law
• Social affairs
• Medicine and hygiene
• Resources and environmental protection

In addition, there are working groups such as those of academy members, women, youth under 41 years of age, a working group for science popularization , a working group for strengthening technological innovation, etc.

Below the central level, there are regional associations in almost all provinces , cities and autonomous regions with the exception of Tibet, which in turn elect a committee at the provincial level (省级 委员会). In China, the constituencies for the National People's Congress are at the provincial level and it is the state associations that nominate candidates. Since the party has several thousand members in almost all national associations - the smallest are Xinjiang with 813 and Ningxia with 1071 (as of 2019) - it is no problem to nominate women and members of ethnic minorities who also address non-party members. For example, the September 3rd Society was able to send delegates from 25 of 30 regional associations to the National People's Congress for the 13th legislative period (2018-2023).

Below the state associations, the September 3rd Society has a total of 114 district associations and thus has a district committee (市级 委员会) in almost all major cities in China, two in Chongqing and four in Shanghai . Among them there are also district associations and small local groups. On December 31, 2018, the Society of September 3 had a total of 2,431 members in parliaments at various levels and 11,441 representatives in political consultative conferences . 1407 party members held offices in provincial and district governments or in the respective judicial organs.

Party leader

Since it was founded, the Society of September 3rd had the following party chairmen, who for historical reasons are called "Chairman of the Central Committee" (中央 委员会 主席):

Xu Deheng (许德珩)	1890-1990	1946-1987
Zhou Peiyuan (周培源)	1902-1993	1987-1992
Wu Jieping	1917-2011	1992-2002
Han Qide	* 1945	2002-2017
Wu Weihua (武维华)	* 1956	2017–

Web links

• Official Website of the Society of September 3rd (Chinese)
• Magazines of the Society of September 3rd and its national associations (Chinese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} 九三学社 简介. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved May 4, 2020 (Chinese). 
2. ↑ 八大 民主党派. In: gov.cn. March 11, 2018, accessed August 25, 2019 (Chinese). 
3. ↑ 林 晖: 中国 共产党 党员 总量 突破 9000 万. In: gov.cn. June 30, 2019, Retrieved August 25, 2019 (Chinese). 
4. ↑ 李臣: 第十 三届 全国人大 代表 中 的 民主党派 成员. In: tuanjiebao.com. February 3, 2018, Retrieved August 25, 2019 (Chinese). 
5. ↑ Wei Changhao: Demographics of the 13th NPC. In: npcobserver.com. March 11, 2018, accessed August 25, 2019 . 
6. ↑ 吴 皓: 九三学社 创始人 许德珩 ： 一世 人中 杰 毕生 真理 求. In: cppcc.people.com.cn. June 17, 2005, Retrieved August 26, 2019 (Chinese). 
7. ↑ Stephen Uhalley Jr .: A History of the Chinese Communist Party. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 1988, p. 76.
8. ↑ 九三学社 简介. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 26, 2019 (Chinese). 
9. ↑ Mao Zedong: On the people's democratic dictatorship. In: infopartisan.net. June 30, 1949. Retrieved August 26, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Stephen Uhalley Jr .: A History of the Chinese Communist Party. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 1988, pp. 79-83.
11. ↑ 1949 年 《中国 人民 政治协商会议 共同 纲领》 全文. In: qq.com. November 17, 2011, accessed August 26, 2019 (Chinese). 
12. ↑ 九三学社 简介. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 26, 2019 (Chinese). 
13. ↑ Stephen Uhalley Jr .: A History of the Chinese Communist Party. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 1988, pp. 110-114.
14. ↑ 佚名: 揭秘 五位 终生 不予 改正 的 中央 级 “右派”. In: news.ifeng.com. April 12, 2012, Retrieved August 26, 2019 (Chinese). 
15. ↑ 储 望 华: 父亲 储安平 之 死 原因 何在. In: sohu.com. August 20, 2019, accessed August 26, 2019 (Chinese). 
16. ↑ 他 毕业于 清华大学 ， 主持 研发 人造卫星 ， 60 岁 不幸 成 囚犯. In: sohu.com. July 24, 2019, accessed August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
17. ↑ 刘晓卿: 建 社 71 周年 之 际 数 读 九三学社. In: 93.gov.cn. August 29, 2016, Retrieved August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
18. ↑ Stephen Uhalley Jr .: A History of the Chinese Communist Party. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 1988, pp. 227-229.
19. ↑ 九三学社 简介. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
20. ↑ 刘晓卿: 建 社 71 周年 之 际 数 读 九三学社. In: 93.gov.cn. August 29, 2016, Retrieved August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
21. ↑ 九三学社 简介. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
22. ↑ 贺 俊 、 罗欣: 火星 计划 首席 科学家 万 卫星: 探测 火星 就是 探索 地球 的 未来. In: k.sina.cn. June 14, 2017, accessed May 21, 2020 (Chinese). 
23. ↑ 李臣: 第十 三届 全国人大 代表 中 的 民主党派 成员. In: tuanjiebao.com. February 3, 2018, accessed August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
24. ↑ 陈 融雪: “院士 大户” 九三学社. In: zytzb.gov.cn. April 18, 2017, Retrieved August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
25. ^ National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program). In: most.gov.cn. Accessed August 27, 2019 .  That is, two of the four scientists who submitted the proposal to promote high technology on March 3, 1986, were members of the September 3 Society.
26. ↑ 刘晓卿: 建 社 71 周年 之 际 数 读 九三学社. In: 93.gov.cn. August 29, 2016, Retrieved August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
27. ↑ 张 樵 苏: 武维华 任 九三学社 中央 主席. In: xinhuanet.com. December 7, 2017, Retrieved August 27, 2019 (Chinese). 
28. ↑ 九三学社 第十四 届 中央 委员会 主席 、 副主席. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
29. ↑ 九三学社 第十四 届 中央 委员会 委员. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved May 21, 2020 (Chinese). 
30. ↑ 联系 我们. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
31. ↑ Note: there is a lack of foreign policy, military and internal security.
32. ↑ 组织 结构. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 28, 2019 (Chinese). 
33. ↑ 九三学社 64 名 社员 当选 新 一届 全国人大 代表. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 28, 2019 (Chinese).  A typical example of this is Ban Yuxia (班 宇 侠, * 1973) who, as a woman, Muslim and deputy head of the Beijing South Emergency Hospital, had very good prospects for a seat in parliament from the start.
34. ↑ 九三学社 简介. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved August 28, 2019 (Chinese).