Yan Xishan - Public Policies

Public Policies

In Shanxi, Yan implemented numerous successful reforms in an effort to centralize his control over the province. Although embracing the traditional values of the landed gentry, he denounced their "oppression" of the peasantry, and took steps to initiate land reform and to weaken the power of landowners over the populace in the countryside. These reforms weakened potential rivals in his province in addition to benefiting Shanxi farmers.

Yan attempted to develop his army as a locally recruited force which cultivated a public image of being servants, rather than masters, of the people. He developed an all-encompassing, idiosyncratic ideology (literally "Yan Xishan Thought") and disseminated it by sponsoring a network of village newspapers and travelling dramatic troupes. He coordinated dramatic public meetings in which participants confessed their own misdeeds and/or denounced those of others. He devised a system of public education, producing a population of trained workers and farmers literate enough to be indoctrinated without difficulty. The early date by which Yan devised and implemented these reforms (during the Warlord Era) contradicts later claims that these reforms were modeled on Communist programs, and not vice versa.