Recent Acquisitions

Microfilmed Records of the Kuomintang Central Reform Committee

First meeting of the Kuomintang Central Reform Committee (Taipei, Taiwan: 1950)

On August 12, 2003, Hoover director John Raisian (left) and Taiwan senator Alex Tsai signed a historic agreement with the Kuomintang to assist the party in preserving the history of modern China.

6.41-96: Confidential guidelines for KMT personnel and party officials issued by the KMT Central Executive Committee, April 17, 1950.

The Hoover Institution has been working with the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalist Party of the Republic of China, since 2003 to preserve the official historical records of the party's archives in Taipei. Those records are being microfilmed in Taipei, with a use copy being deposited at the Hoover Institution. The first microfilmed collections, containing records of the KMT's Central Reform Committee, are now available at the Hoover Archives.

As the longest-enduring political party in Asia, the KMT was China's premier revolutionary party until it was defeated in 1949 by Chinese Communist Party forces and forced to relocate in Taiwan. The KMT formally established the Central Reform Committee on August 5, 1950, to explore ways to revitalize the party. Among other activities, the committee and its successor drafted a new party platform, studied organizational changes, issued a directive on recruiting new members, and published procedures for cadres working with various mass organizations. It also published the Gaizao, the official organ of the KMT from 1950 to 1952. The committee's recommendations were adopted by the Seventh National Congress of the Kuomintang, which also reconstituted the committee as the Central Committee, in October 1952.

Several series of microfilmed records are open. Guides to the microfilm, written in Chinese, list the contents of each folder and are available here as PDF files. A searchable database, also in Chinese, is under development and should be available on this website by spring 2006.

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List of Microfilmed Records

• 6.41 Central Reform Committee Collection, 1949–54 (13 microfilm reels)
  Guide to 6.41 (partial list; complete list is pending)

• 6.42 Minutes of the Central Reform Committee Meetings, 1949–54 (12 microfilm reels)
  Guide to 6.42

• 6.43 Briefings of Various Projects of the Central Reform Committee, 1949–54 (6 microfilm reels)
  Guide to 6.43