Abstract:  In the early 1950s, severe shortage of rural cadres was a common problem in the establishment of local governments in newly liberated areas of Southern China, which even posed impediments to their normal operation. Farmer representative conferences and farmers associations, which gradually came into being in the movements of grain requisition, rent and deposit reduction and land reform, created opportunities for new rural cadres to emerge in large number. Organizing farmers to “vent their grievances” at these meetings became an important means of mobilizing farmers to change their mindset of “fatalism”or “restoration of reactionary rule”. It was during this process of grievance venting that active participants were transformed into the backbones of farmers associations. Due to the rash decision at the early stage of farmers associations, some leading positions of the associations were often occupied by those whose class status and moral quality were flawed. With the advancement of such movements as rent and deposit reduction and the land reform, personnel replacement was launched.Seizing the momentum, the newly booming enthusiasts who were usually poor farmers or farmer laborers replaced those flawed,thus presenting a clear picture of rural cadre flow. In this process, a close coupling between governmental means of movements and theories of class struggle eventually prompted the “emergence and flow” mechanism of rural cadre group development in this period, laying an important foundation for the power transfer to the new regime in the rural society.

Key words: the early 1950s, newly liberated areas, rural cadres, the emergence and flow mechanism