This paper argues that the New Life Movement and its organisations were central into the Nationalist Governments wartime mobilisation, and that the involvement of the civil servants through the NLM prevented the disintegration of society and administrative institutions under the impact of the
This paper discusses the origins and the implementation of the New Life Movement (NLM) in the Jiangxi Province between 1934 and 1938. Based upon primary sources produced during this period, it explores how the Nationalist Party utilised the NLM for the purposes of national reconstruction and social mobilisation.