Abstract: The implementation of the rural revitalization strategy is an inevitable requirement to solve the problem of unbalanced and insufficient rural development in China， and is the starting point for the rural work in the new era. During the period of the Republic of China， outstanding intellectuals put forward a series of ideas to promote rural development in order to advance the China’s modernization. The scholars of rural construction school represented by Liang Shuming put forward the theory of rural construction， which focuses on rural construction and revitalization. The urban relief school represented by Wu Jingchao advocated urban development to relieve the countryside from the perspective of urban and rural integration， and the academic school represented by Fei Xiaotong put forward the theory of rural urbanization aiming to develop national industry via rural industrialization. Although great changes have taken place in and outside of China with the passage of time， these theoretical viewpoints about practical experiences in agricultural and rural modernization are still of significance for the current implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

Key words: the period of the Republic of China, rural construction, rural revitalization, work on agriculture， rural areas and rural people, rural development