A comparative study of state violence in mainland China and Taiwan in the 1950s

How do totalitarian and authoritarian regimes maintain political control? One of the key strategies is to create social fear. In the case of the political history of both mainland China and Taiwan in the 1950s, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) used various methods, such as political mass movements and rule by the secret police, to carry out state violence to create social fear. Based on a comparison of the state violence of mainland China and Taiwan in the 1950s, this thesis addresses the following questions: How does an authoritarian power stabilize control through state violence? What are the institutions of state violence? How is state violence achieved through psychological factors? A general examination of the political movements and suppression on each side on the Taiwan Strait, as well as specific case studies, i.e., the case of Hu Feng on the mainland and the case of Lei Zhen on Taiwan, reveals the following commonalities: the extension of the attack from the political arena to the social arena and the concomitant transformation of state violence from a political issue into a social issue, extending to every level of society. I also examine the role of the top leaders, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kaishek, to carry out state violence and the strategies used by the regime to carry out the plans of the respective top leader.