Estado de cosas vigente bajo la Constitución de 1886.

(Area Corps) (Branch Corps) (Sub-Branch Corps) 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 18 28 39 47 50 78 26 72 118 160 192 261 0

The lack of action can be traced to the GMD decision to abandon the city of Wuhan in late October 1938. Like almost everything else in Wuhan, once the evacuation order was issued the Corps Headquarters also started to retreat, with the bulk of its personnel, to Chongqing. Due to geographical obstacles and a jammed transport network, the retreat of the Corps Headquarters from Wuhan turned out to be a three-month odyssey, passing sucessively through Hengyang in Hunan, Guilin in Guangxi, Guiyang

92Table is adapted from SZQ-ZGW ed.; Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan qilianlai tuanwu gongzuo zongbaogao £[ ^ ^ 3] 't* m* S I T)

d (General Work Report on the Previous Seven Years of the Three People's Principles Youth Corps (N.p., [ca. 1945]), pp. 109-110. [This report covers the period from Jul 1938 to Dec 1944.];

GW, Vol. 63 (Taibei, 1973), pp. 4-5;

For the year of 1940, a different figure of 95 Qu dui was given in [SZQ-ZT] ed., Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan zhongyang tuanbu ershijiu niandu gongzuo baogao, Table 1 after p. 9. The other figure of 28 fen tuan is similar;

For the year of 1941, similar figures were submitted in [SZQ-ZT] ed., Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan zhongyang tuanbu gongzuo baogao ZL

(Work Report of the Central Corps of the Three People's Principles Youth Corps) (N.p., Mar 1943), p. 17. [This report covers the period from Jul 1938 to Mar 1943.]

qo

in Guizhou, before arriving in Chongqing, Sichuan, on 6 January 1939. The entire machinery of the Youth Corps came to a halt while the command centre was on the move.94 Moreover, many schools and their students were themselves also busy packing up and retreating towards the safety of the Sichuan basin and the surrounding southwestern corner of China. Therefore it was only after conditions had become more settled in early

1939 that Youth Corps branches made their appearances in tertiary institutions.

In comparison with the tertiary istitutions, policy on the expansion of the Youth Corps into upper secondary schools evolved quite differently. In the early months of the war, the GMD had particular plans for upper secondary school students who were usually between 16 and 18 years old. A separate organization to be called the Student Army (Xueshengjun ^ ^ ) was originally conceived for their mobilization. This explains why the first constitution of the Youth Corps explicitly forbade recruitment of members below the age of 18. However, the launching of this Student Army floundered, apparently

99SZQ-ZT ed., "Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan zhongyang linshi changwu ganshihui yinianlai gongzuo baogao" ÜL 3L 5 C p? ^ ffi] 4"r

H f- 4=5 (Work Report on the Previous One Year of the Provisional Standing Committee of the Three People's Principles Youth Corps) unpublished, ca. Jul 1939, n.p. [This report covers the period from 9 Jul 1938 to 9 Jul 1939.]

94Speech by Chiang Kai-shek on "The Path for The Future Development of Corps Affairs), dated 19 Jul 1939, SZQTZDC. p. 178.

Zhu Jiahua, Qingniantuan tuanwu zhi jinzhan, pp. 16-17.

This Student Army scheme was apparently unrelated to that mentioned in p. 165 above.

through administrative complications.9® This therefore created a vacuum at the upper secondary level. Students in lower secondary and primary schools had the Scouts while those in tertiary institutions could join the Youth Corps. Quite naturally, the Youth Corps became interested in moving into this vacuum.

On 16 October 1938, the Corps Headquarters ignored the constitutional restriction prohibiting recruitment below the age of 18 and wrote a letter to the Ministry of Education requesting information on the general situation in secondary schools, the number of public and private secondary schools, the number of students in these respective schools as well as the curriculum vitae of their principals. The Ministry complied with the request on 26 November, but apparently no further action was taken by the Youth Corps until early March of the following year.97 In March 1939, the Central Executive Committee of the Youth Corps decided to seek formally the opinion of the Ministry of Education on the issue of expanding the influence of the Corps into upper secondary schools. Chen Lifu, then Minister of Education, was eager to

no

embrace the proposal and willingly offered some suggestions. Chen proposed that all upper secondary school students and the entire teaching staff should join the Youth Corps en masse, the latter to be appointed as

96ibid. The exact reason(s) cannot be ascertained from available records .

97Letters between the Ministry of Education and the Youth Corps Headquarters, available in the Nanjing Second Historical Archives, File 5-2/554.

98"Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan zhongyang linshi changwu ganshihui yinianlai gongzuo baogao", n.p. These undated exchanges are likely to have taken place in Mar 1939.

cadres. He also suggested that the training of the Youth Corps should be confined within the school compounds. For the implementation of youth training, Chen recommended that the various school administrations should be the deciding authorities, with the respective local youth corps branches playing a consultative role.

Upon receiving the reply, the Committee met to discuss Chen's 99

ideas. His idea of compulsory recruitment en masse was subsequently rejected by the Committee which was in favour of voluntary and selective recruitment. The Committee was actually only taking its cue from Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang had strongly opposed compulsory recruitment:100

[We should] prevent immature or undesirable elements from infiltrating into the Corps or from using the Party and Corps' names in promoting illegal or improper activities in schools....

[We] should use persuasion and not force. There was a certain degree of compulsion in our past recruitment.... This gave the students a very bad impression of the Youth Corps and caused concern among their parents. We can say that compulsory recruitment is not good at all; instead it provides others with [propaganda] materials to attack us, claiming that [we] recruit party and corps members in the fashion of conscripting men [for military or coolie service] .

The Committee had no objection to Chen Lifu's suggestion to appoint teachers as cadres, or to the idea of confining all training of the Corps to within the school compounds. However, on the issue of youth training, the Committee subtly counter-proposed that the initiative should rest with high-level youth corps branches while the local corps branches and respective school authorities should be given a consultative role.

Upon further discussions between the two parties, a seven-point

"ibid.

100See his speech on "The Path for the Future Development of Corps Affairs), Jul 1939, in SZQTZDC, pp. 175 and 180.

instruction for the promotion of the Youth Corps amongst upper secondary schools was finally drawn up on 21 April 1 9 3 9 . This instruction incorporated most of the Committee's counter-suggestions. An interesting point added was the placement of Youth Corps units in upper secondary schools under the charge of local Youth Corps branches. This exemption from direct affiliation to the Corps Headquarters indicated the lesser importance attached to upper secondary schools students as compared to students of higher learning. Also, the specific suggestion of limiting all Youth Corps training to within school compounds was dropped, while an added clause emphasized that secondary school students should adhere strictly to the Three People’s Principles and never be allowed to participate in political organizations and activities outside the sphere of these Principles. Three months later, the move by the Youth Corps to recruit upper secondary school students was legitimised when the constitutional restriction prohibiting recruitment below 18 years of age

102