The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu I by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

China Today (March, 1935), I, No. 6, p. 112. This is the leading English-language journal of the Chinese Communists. Mme. Sun's letter to the paper is characteristic of the attitude toward Nanking adopted throughout the magazine.

These manuscripts consist of the following chief items: Linebarger, Paul Myron Wentworth, Conversations with Sun Yat-sen 1919-1922 (written in 1933-1935); the same, A Commentary on the San Min Chu I (four volumes, 1932-1933); and Sun Yat-sen, How China Was Made a Republic (Shanghai, 1919). These are all typescripts, with autograph corrections by their respective authors. The manuscripts of Judge Linebarger represent his attempts to replace, from memory, books which were destroyed at the time of the bombardment of the Commercial Press in Shanghai by the Japanese. He had prepared a two-volume work on the life and principles of Sun Yat-sen and had left his manuscripts and other papers in the vaults of the Press. When the Press was bombed the manuscripts, documents, plates and Chinese translations were all destroyed; the only things remaining were a few pages of proof sheets for The Life and Principles of Sun Chung-san, which remain in the possession of the present author. Judge Linebarger attempted to replace these volumes. He had a few notebooks in which he had kept the outlines of his own speeches; he had not used these, because of the secondary value. When, however, the major volumes were lost, he returned to these notebooks and reconstructed his speeches. They were issued in Paris in 1932 under the title of The Gospel of Sun Chung-shan. He also prepared the Commentary and the Conversations from memory. These manuscripts possess a certain somewhat questionable value. Judge Linebarger himself suggested that they be allowed the same weight that testimony, based upon memory but delivered under oath, upon a subject ten years past would receive in a court of justice. The seven volumes described are in the possession of the present author. Other materials to which the author has had access are his father's diaries and various other private papers; but since he has not cited them for references, he does not believe any description of them necessary. Finally, there are the manuscripts of Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Republic, which contain a considerable amount of material deleted from the published version of that work, which appeared in New York in 1925. For comments on other source material for Sun Yat-sen which is not generally used, see Bibliography.

Lyon Sharman, Sun Yat-sen, His Life and Its Meaning, New York, 1934, p. 405.

He did this in his Political Testament, which is given in almost every work on Sun Yat-sen or on modern Chinese politics. It was written in February and signed in March 1925, shortly before his death.

The Chinese text of these is given in Hu Han-min, ed., Tsung-li Ch'üan Chi (The Complete Works of the Leader), 4 vol. in 1, Shanghai, 1930. This collection comprises the most important works of Sun which were published in his lifetime. Edited by one of the two scholars closest to Sun, it is the standard edition of his works. English versions of varying amounts of this material are given in Paschal M. d'Elia, The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen, Wuchang, 1931; Frank W. Price, San Min Chu I, The Three Principles of the People, Shanghai, 1930; and Leonard Shih-lien Hsü, Sun Yat-sen, His Political and Social Ideals, Los Angeles, 1933. Each of these works will henceforth be cited by the name of its editor; for brief descriptions and appraisals, see the bibliography.

The only English version of this work is one prepared by Wei Yung, under the title of The Cult of Dr. Sun, Shanghai, 1931. Fragments of this work are also to be found in Vilenskii (Sibiriakov), V., Sun' Iat-sen, Otets Kitaiskoi Revoliutsii, (Sun Yat-sen, Father of the Chinese Revolution), Moscow, 1925; Zapiski Kitaiskogo Revoliutsionera, (Notes of a Chinese Revolutionary), Moscow, 1926; Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, Philadelphia, n. d.; and Karl Wittfogel, Sun Yat Sen, Aufzeichnungen eines chinesischen Revolutionärs, Vienna & Berlin, n. d. (ca. 1927).

This work has not been translated into any Western language.

Sun Yat-sen, The International Development of China, New York and London, 1929.

This is given in Hsü, cited above, and in Min-ch'ien T. Z. Tyau, Two Years of Nationalist China, Shanghai, 1930, pp. 439-442. Dr. Tyau substitutes the word “Fundamentals” for “Outline,” a rather happy choice.

See bibliography for a complete list of the translations. d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 36-49, dedicates a whole chapter to the problem of an adequate translation of the Chinese phrase San Min Chu I. He concludes that it can only be rendered by a nelogism based upon Greek roots: the triple demism, “demism” including the meaning of “principle concerning and for the people” and “popular principle.”

T'ang Leang-li, The Inner History of the Chinese Revolution, New York, 1930, p. 166.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 58.

See Lyon Sharman, Sun Yat-sen, His Life and Its Meaning, New York, 1934, p. 292, for a stimulating discussion of the parts that the various documents played in the so-called "cult of Sun Yat-sen."

Sharman, cited, p. 270.

A typical instance of this sort of criticism is to be found in the annotations to the anonymous translation of the San Min Chu I which was published by a British newspaper in 1927 (The Three Principles, Shanghai, 1927). The translator and annotator both remained anonymous; the translation was wholly inadequate; and the annotations a marvel of invective. Almost every page of the translation was studded with notes pointing out and gloating over the most trivial errors and inconsistencies. The inflamed opinion of the time was not confined to the Chinese.

Paul M. W. Linebarger, Deutschlands Gegenwärtige Gelegenheiten in China, Brussels, 1936, p. 53. Judge Linebarger repeats the story told him by General Morris Cohen, the Canadian who was Sun's bodyguard throughout this period.

Nathaniel Peffer, China: The Collapse of a Civilization, New York, 1930, p. 155.

d'Elia, cited; Hsü, cited; and Wittfogel, cited.

Maurice William, Sun Yat-sen Versus Communism, Baltimore, 1932; and Tsui Shu-chin, The Influence of the Canton-Moscow Entente upon Sun Yat-sen's Political Philosophy, in The Social and Political Science Review, XVIII, 1, 2, 3, Peiping, 1934; and other works listed in bibliography, pp. 268-269.

Two such are the chapters on Sun Yat-sen's thought to be found in Harley Farnsworth MacNair, China in Revolution, Chicago, 1931, pp. 78-91 (Chapter VI, “The Ideology and Plans of Sun Yat-sen”) and Arthur N. Holcombe, The Chinese Revolution, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1930, pp. 120-155 (Chapter V, “The Revolutionary Politics of Sun Yat-sen”). The former is the shorter of the two, and is a summary of the various documents involved. The distinction between the ideology and the plans is so convenient and illuminating that the present writer has adopted it. Except for the comments on the influence of William upon Sun Yat-sen, it is completely reliable. The latter is a discussion, rather than an outline, and admirably presents the gist of Sun's thought.

Holcombe, cited, p. 136 ff.

The word “ideology” is one of the catchwords of the hour. The author regrets having to use it, but dares not coin a neologism to replace it. He does not desire that “ideology” be opposed to “truth,” but uses the word in its broadest possible sense, referring to the whole socio-psychological conditioning of a group of people. He does not, therefore, speak of ideologies as a collection of Paretian derivations, fictions which mask some “truth.” He considers his own background—or Pareto's, for that matter—as ideological, and—in the sense of the word here employed—cannot conceive of any human belief or utterance not ideological. The task he has set himself is the transposition of a pattern of Chinese ideas concerning government from the Chinese ideology to the Western-traditionalist ideology of the twentieth century. Whether one, the other, neither, or both, is “right,” is quite beside the point, so far as the present enterprise is concerned. In calling the whole non-physical background of a society the ideology of that society, the author can excuse his novel use of the term only if he admits that he establishes the new meaning by definition, without any necessary reference to the previous use of the term. He has no intention of following, in the present work, any “theory of ideology” or definition of “ideology” established by political philosophers, such as Marx, or sociologists such as Weber, Mannheim, or Pareto. (Professor A. O. Lovejoy suggested the following definition of the term, “ideology,” after having seen the way it was employed in this work: “Ideology means a complex of ideas, in part ethical, in part political, in part often religious, which is current in a society, or which the proponents of it desire to make current, as an effective means of controlling behavior.”)

Confucianism may be read in the Legge translations, a popular abridged edition of which was issued in 1930 in Shanghai under the title of The Four Books. Commentaries on Confucius which present him in a well-rounded setting are Richard Wilhelm, Confucius and Confucianism, New York, 1931; the same, Ostasien, Werden und Wandel des Chinesischen Kulturkreises, Potsdam, 1928, for a very concise account and the celebrated Geschichte der chinesischen Kultur, Munich, 1928, for a longer account in a complete historical setting; Frederick Starr, Confucianism, New York, 1930; H. G. Creel, Sinism, Chicago, 1929; and Marcel Granet, La Civilization Chinoise, Paris, 1929. Bibliographies are found in several of these works. They deal with Confucius either in his historical setting or as the main object of study, and are under no necessity of distorting Confucius' historical rôle for the purpose of showing his connection with some other topic. The reader may gauge the amount of distortion necessary when he imagines a work on Lenin, written for the information and edification of Soviet Eskimos, which—for the sake of clarity—was forced to summarize all Western thought, from Plato and Jesus Christ down to Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, in a few pages providing a background to Lenin.

There is a work on Confucianism upon which the author has leaned quite heavily: Leonard Shih-lien Hsü, The Political Philosophy of Confucianism, New York, 1932. Dr. Hsü is interested in sociological political theory. The novelty of his work has aroused a great amount of criticism among Chinese scholars of the older disciplines, whether the relatively conservative and established Western disciplines or the ultra-conservative schools of the truly classical literati. His work cannot be recommended for any purposes other than those which Dr. Hsü himself had in mind; there are several other works, the product of philosophers, historians, and literary historians, which will present a portrait of Confucius and Confucianism more conventionally exact. In its own narrow but definite field Dr. Hsü's work is an impressive accomplishment; he transposes the Confucian terms into those of the most advanced schools of social thought. A reader not forewarned might suffer by this, and read into Confucius an unwarranted modernity of outlook; if, however, the up-to-dateness is recognized as Dr. Hsü's and not Confucius', the work is valuable. It puts Confucius on common ground with modern social theory, ground on which he does not belong, but where his ideas are still relevant and interesting. The present author follows Dr. Hsü in this transposition of Confucius, but begs the reader to remember that this is one made for purposes of comparison only, and not intended as valid for all purposes. (He must acknowledge the stimulating criticism of Mr. Jan Tai, of the Library of Congress, who made it clear that this distortion of Confucius was one which could be excused only if it were admitted.)—An interesting presentation of Confucius as transposed into the older political theory, untouched by sociology, is to be found in Senator Elbert Duncan Thomas, Chinese Political Thought, New York, 1927.

Granet, Chinese Civilization, cited, p. 84. Granet's work, while challenged by many sinologues as well as by anthropologists, is the most brilliant portrayal of Chinese civilization to the time of Shih Huang Ti. His interpretations make the language of the Odes (collected by Confucius) intelligible, and clear up the somewhat obscure transition from the oldest feudal society to the epoch of the proto-nations and then to the inauguration of the world order.

Granet, cited, pp. 87-88.

Richard Wilhelm, Geschichte der chinesischen Philosophie, Breslau, 1929, p. 19.

One could therefore say that membership in a society is determined by the outlook of the individual concerned.

In modern Western political thought, this doctrine is most clearly demonstrated in the Marxian thesis of the withering-away of the state. The Marxists hold that, as the relics of the class struggle are eliminated from the new society, and classlessness and uniform indoctrination come to prevail, the necessity for a state—which they, however, consider an instrument of class domination—will decline and the state will atrophy and disappear.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, History of Chinese Political Thought during the early Tsin Period, translated by L. T. Chen, New York, 1930, p. 38.

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (cited, p. 48 and following) discusses these points.—The author is indebted to Mr. Jên Tai for the explanation of the relation of these various factors in the Confucian ideology.

Leon Wieger and L. Davrout, Chinese Characters, Hsien-hsien, 1927, p. 6.

Hsü, cited above, chapter three, contains an excellent discussion of the doctrine of rectification.

A stimulating discussion of the pragmatism of early Chinese thought is to be found in Creel, cited.

It must be pointed out in this connection that Confucius advocated an ideology which would not only be socially useful but scientifically and morally exact. He did not consider, as have some Western thinkers of the past century, that the ideology might be a quite amoral instrument of control, and might contain deliberate or unconscious deception. Hsü writes, in his Confucianism, cited, p. 93, of the various translations of the word li into English: “The word li has no English equivalent. It has been erroneously translated as ‘rites’ or ‘propriety’. It has been suggested that the term civilization is its nearest English equivalent; but ‘civilization’ is a broader term, without necessarily implying ethical values, while li is essentially a term implying such values.” Li is civilized behavior; that is, behavior which is civilized in being in conformance with the ideology and the values it contains.

Hsü, cited, p. 103.

Confucius the individual was quite nationalistically devoted to his native state of Lu, and, more philosophically, hostile to the barbarians. Hsü, cited, p. 118.

John K. Shryock, The Origin and Development of The State Cult of Confucius, New York, 1932, traces this growth with great clarity and superlative scholarship. The work is invaluable as a means to the understanding of the political and educational structure commonly called “Confucian civilization.”

This expansion took place in China in the reign of Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, who used the state of Ch'in as an instrument by means of which to destroy the multiple state-system and replace it with a powerful unitary state for all China. He sought to wipe out the past, raising the imperial office to a position of real power, and destroying the whole feudal organization. He abolished tenantry and supplanted it with a system of small freeholds. Although his immediate successors did much to restore the forms and appearances of the past, his work was not altogether undone. Himself hostile to Confucius, his actions implemented the teachings to an enormous degree. See Granet, cited, pp. 96-104.

D. H. Kulp, Family Life in South China, New York, 1925, p. xxiv.

H. G. Creel, cited, p. 10. Creole writes as follows of the significance of the village: “The village life is very important, for it appears to be the archetype from which the entire Chinese conception of the world and even of the cosmos grew. The village was, as has been said, small. It was based on agriculture. It was apparently a community of a peaceful regularity and a social solidarity beyond anything which we of the present can imagine.”

Arthur Smith, one of the few Westerners to live in a Chinese village for any length of years, wrote: “It is a noteworthy fact that the government of China, while in theory more or less despotic, places no practical restrictions upon the right of free assemblage by the people for the consideration of their own affairs. The people of any village can, if they choose, meet every day of the year. There is no government censor present, and no restriction upon the liberty of debate. The people can say what they like, and the local Magistrate neither knows nor cares what is said.... But should insurrection break out, these popular rights might be extinguished in a moment, a fact of which all the people are perfectly well aware.” Village Life in China, New York, 1899, p. 228. This was written thirteen years before the fall of the Ch'ing dynasty.

J. S. Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, New York, 1928. This is perhaps the best work on the subject of the guilds which has yet appeared. The information was gathered by the students of the author, who as a teacher had excellent facilities for developing contacts. The students, as Chinese, were able to gather data from the conservative guild leaders in a manner and to a degree that no Westerner could have done. The classification here given is a modification of Burgess'.

S. Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom, New York, 1895, p. 405. Dr. Williams, whose work is perhaps the most celebrated single work on China in the English language, wrote as follows concerning the nobility under the Ch'ing:

“The titular nobility of the Empire, as a whole, is a body whose members are without power, land, wealth, office, or influence, in virtue of their honors; some of them are more or less hereditary, but the whole system has been so devised, and the designations so conferred, as to tickle the vanity of those who receive them, without granting them any real power. The titles are not derived from landed estates, but the rank is simply designated in addition to the name....” He also pointed out that, under the Ch'ing, the only hereditary titles of any significance were Yen Shing Kung (for the descendant of Confucius) and Hai Ching Kung (for the descendant of Kuo Hsing-hua, the formidable sea adventurer who drove the Dutch out of Taiwan and made himself master of that island).

William Frederick Mayers, The Chinese Government, A Manual of Chinese Titles ..., Shanghai, 1897, devotes one hundred and ninety-five pages to the enumeration of the Ch'ing titles. His work, intended to be used as an office manual for foreigners having relations with Chinese officials, remains extremely useful as a presentation of the administrative outline of the Chinese government in its last days before the appearance of Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang. Pao Chao Hsieh, The Government of China (1644-1911), Baltimore, 1925, is a more descriptive work dealing with the whole administration of the Ch'ing dynasty. No work has as yet appeared in the West, to the knowledge of the present author, which describes the historical development of government in China in any detail.

The figures given are those of the present day, which may be more or less exact for the past century. For earlier times, the number will have to be reduced in proportion with the remoteness in time. See Richard Henry Tawney, Land and Labour in China, London, 1932.

Richard Wilhelm, Confucius and Confucianism, cited, pp. 130-132. The connection between the naming of names and the operation of the popular check of revolution is made evident by Wilhelm in a brilliant passage. If a righteous ruler died a violent death at the hands of one of his subjects, he was murdered; were he unrighteous, he was only killed. Confucius himself used such terms in his annals. His use of varying terms, terms carrying condemnation or condonement, even of such a subject as regicide, electrified the scholars of his day.

An exception must be made in the case of the first Russian colony in Peking, which was lost in two centuries and became virtually indistinguishable from the mass of the population. The Portuguese, at Macao, displayed that tendency to compromise and miscegenate which marked their whole progress along the coasts of Asia, but they maintained their political supremacy in that city; today the Macanese are largely of Chinese blood, but Portuguese-speaking, and proud of their separateness.

Too many works have been written on the relations of the Chinese and Westerners to permit any citations, with one exception. Putnam Weale's The Vanished Empire, New York, 1925, is an extraordinarily vivid history of the collision of the civilizations. It is not particularly commendable as a factual record, but as a brilliant and moving piece of literature presenting the Chinese viewpoint, it is unexcelled.

See Adolf Reichwein, China and Europe: Intellectual and Artistic Contacts in the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1925, which makes apparent the full extent to which modern Europe is indebted to China for the luxuries of its culture.

In this connection, it might be pointed out that the attractive strength of the two civilizations has not, as yet, been adequately studied, although there is an enormous amount of loose generalization on the subject: “The Chinese are becoming completely Westernized,” or “The Chinese, in spite of their veneer, are always Chinese; they will, in the end, absorb their conquerors.” But will they? In the face of a modern educational and propaganda system, there is at least room for doubt; it is not beyond all conjecture that the Chinese of Manchuria might be Japanized as easily as the fiercely chauvinistic Japanese might be sinicized. The only adequate answer to the question would be through detailed studies of the social conditioning and preferences of Chinese under foreign influence (as in Hongkong, Taiwan, Manchuria), and of foreigners under Chinese influence (the White Russians in China, the few other Westerners in preëminently Chinese milieux).

An example of this is to be found in Manabendra Nath Roy, Revolution und Konterrevolution in China, Berlin, 1930. Roy was one of the emissaries of the Third International to the Nationalists, and his ineptness in practical politics assisted materially in the weakening of the Communist position. His work quite seriously employs all the familiar clichés of Western class dispute, and analyzes the Chinese situation in terms that ignore the fact that China is Chinese.

This same line of attack seems, in the West, to be employed only by the Catholic church which, while opposing any avowedly collectivistic totalitarian state, seeks to maintain control on an ideological and not a political basis, over almost all aspects of the life of its members. No political party or governing group seems to share this attitude.

Karl A. Wittfogel, in his Sun Yat-sen, cited, as well as Roy, in the work cited, thinks very little of the justice of Confucianism. The extreme mobility of Chinese society, which largely precluded the development of any permanent class rule, is either unknown to them or ignored. If the ideologue-officials of old China composed a class, they were a class like no other known, for they provided for the continuous purging of their own class, and its continuous recruitment from all levels of society—excepting that of prostitutes and soldiers.

T'ang Leang-li writes, in The Inner History of the Chinese Revolution, New York, 1930, p. 168, as follows concerning Sun Yat-sen's early teaching of nationalism:

“Previous to the Republican Revolution of 1911, the principle of nationality was known as the principle of racial struggle, and was in effect little more than a primitive tribalism rationalized to serve as a weapon in the struggle against the Manchu oppressors. It was the corner-stone of revolutionary theory, and by emphasizing the racial distinction between the ruling and the oppressed classes, succeeded in uniting the entire Chinese people against the Manchu dynasty.” (Italics mine.) In speaking of min ts'u as a primitive tribalism which had been rationalized as a weapon, Dr. T'ang might lead some of his readers to infer that Sun Yat-sen did not believe what he taught, and that—as a master-stroke of practical politics—he had devised an ideological weapon which, regardless of its truthfulness, would serve him in his struggles. But, it may be asked, what was Sun Yat-sen struggling for, if not the union and preservation of the Chinese people?

See sections, below, on the programs of nationalism.

d'Elia translation, p. 131. Sun Yat-sen said: “Formerly China too entertained the ambition of becoming mistress of the whole world and of rising above all other countries; so she (too) advocated cosmopolitanism.... When the Manchus entered the Great Wall, they were very few; they numbered 100,000 men. How were those 100,000 men able to subject hundreds of millions of others? Because the majority of Chinese at that time favored cosmopolitanism and said nothing about nationalism.”

d'Elia translation, pp. 126 ff.

It seems to the present writer that, whatever criteria are selected for the determination of the nationhood of a given society, uniqueness certainly is not one of the qualities attributed to a “nation.” It is not appropriate for the author to venture upon any extended search for a “true nation”; he might observe, however, that in his own use—in contrast to Sun Yat-sen's—he employs the term in a consciously relative sense, contrasting it with the old Chinese cosmopolitan society, which thought itself unique except for certain imitations of itself on the part of half-civilized barbarians. A “nation” must signify, among other things, for the purposes of this work, a society calling itself such and recognizing the existence of other societies of more or less the same nature. Sun Yat-sen, on the other hand, regarded a nation as a group of persons as real as a family group, and consistently spoke of the Chinese nation as having existed throughout the ages—even in those times when the Chinese themselves regarded their own society as the civilized world, and did so with some show of exactness, if their own viewpoint is taken into account.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 130-131. d'Elia's italics, covering the last two sentences in the quotation, have been omitted as superfluous. As an illustration of the difference between the translation of d'Elia and that of Hsü, the same paragraph might also be cited from the latter translation. “The ethical value of everything is relative and so nothing in the world is innately good or innately bad. It is determined by circumstances. A thing that is useful to us is a good thing; otherwise, a bad thing. Also, a thing that is useful and advantageous to the world is a good thing; otherwise, a bad thing.” Hsü translation, cited, pp. 210-211. Excepting for occasional purposes of comparison, the translation of Father d'Elia will be referred to in citing the sixteen lectures on the San Min Chu I.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 70. The curiously significant use of the word “forever” is reminiscent of the teleology of the Chinese family system, according to which the flesh-and-blood immortality of man, and the preservation of identity through the survival of descendants, is a true immortality.

Wo-men Chung-kuo jen and ni-men wai-kuo jen.

Paul M. Linebarger, The Life and Principles of Sun Chung-shan, p. 102. There is here told the anecdote of Sun Yat-sen's first encounter with race-hatred. At Ewa, Hawaii, in 1880, Sun, then a young lad just arrived from China, met a Westerner on the road. The Westerner threatened him, and called him “Damn Chinaman!” and various other epithets. When Sun Yat-sen discovered that the man was neither deranged nor intoxicated, but simply venting his general hatred of all Chinese, he was so much impressed with the incident that he never forgot it.

Hsü translation, cited, p. 168; d'Elia translation, cited, p. 68.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 70.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 71.

Sun Yat-sen said: “A scrap of paper, a pen, and a mutual agreement will be enough for the ruin of China ... in order to wipe her out by common agreement, it suffices that the diplomats of the different countries meet somewhere and affix their signatures.... One morning will suffice to annihilate a nation.” d'Elia translation, cited, p. 170.

The danger of relying too much on foreign aid can be illustrated by a reference to Sun-Joffe Manifesto issued in Shanghai, January 26, 1922. Sun Yat-sen, as the leader of the Chinese Nationalist movement, and Adolf Joffe, as the Soviet Special Envoy, signed a joint statement, the first paragraph of which reads as follows:

“Dr. Sun Yat-sen holds that the Communistic order or even the Soviet System cannot actually be introduced into China, because there do not exist here the conditions for the successful establishment of either Communism or Sovietism. This view is entirely shared by Mr. Joffe who is further of the opinion that China's paramount and most pressing problem is to achieve unification and attain full national independence, and regarding this great task he has assured Dr. Sun Yat-sen that China has the warmest sympathy of the Russian people and can count on the support of Russia.”

See T'ang Leang-li, cited, p. 156.

In view of the subsequent Communist attempt, in 1927, to convert the Nationalist movement into a mere stage in the proletarian conquest of power in China, in violation of the terms of the understanding upon which the Communists and the Chinese Nationalists had worked together, the leaders of the Kuomintang are today as mistrustful of what they term Communist politico-cultural imperialism as they are of capitalist politico-economic imperialism. It is curious that the APRA leaders in Peru have adopted practically the same attitude.

It is necessary to remember that in the four decades before 1925, during which Sun Yat-sen advocated nationalism, the word had not acquired the ugly connotations that recent events have given it. The nationalism of Sun Yat-sen was conceived of by him as a pacific and defensive instrument, for the perpetuation of an independent Chinese race and civilization. See Paul M. W. Linebarger, Conversations with Sun Yat-sen, 1919-1922, Book I, ch. 5, “Defensive Nationalism,” and ch. 6, “Pacific Nationalism,” for a further discussion of this phase of Sun Yat-sen's thought.

tien sha wei kung.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 184. A reference to clan organization, to be discussed later, has been deleted.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 181 (summary of the sixth lecture on nationalism).

Richard Wilhelm's preface to Die Geistigen Grundlagen des Sun Yat Senismus of Tai Chi-tao (The Intellectual Foundations of Sun-Yat-senism), Berlin, 1931 (henceforth cited as “Tai Chi-tao”), pp. 8-9; “Die Grösse Sun Yat Sens beruht nun darauf, dass er eine lebendige Synthese gefunden hat zwischen den Grundprinzipien des Konfuzianismus and den Anforderungen der neuen Zeit, eine Synthese, die über die Grenzen Chinas hinaus für die ganze Menschheit noch einmal von Bedeutung werden kann. Sun Yat Sen vereinigt in sich die eherne Konsequenz des Revolutionärs und die grosse Menschenliebe des Erneuerers. Sun Yat Sen ist der gütigste von allen Revolutionären der Menschheit gewesen. Und diese Güte hat er dem Erbe des Konfuzius entnommen. So steht sein geistiges Werk da als eine verbindende Brücke swischen der alten und der neuen Zeit. Und es wird das Heil Chinas sein, wenn es entschlossen diese Brücke beschreitet.”

Tai Chi-tao, cited, p. 65.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 186.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 187-8. Sun Yat-sen's discussion of the old morality forms the first part of his lecture on nationalism, pp. 184-194 of the d'Elia translation.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 66. The translation employs the words.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 129. In connection with the doctrine of wang tao, it may be mentioned that this doctrine has been made the state philosophy of “Manchukuo.” See the coronation issue of the Manchuria Daily News, Dairen, March 1, 1934, pp. 71-80, and the Japan-Manchoukuo Year Book, Tokyo, 1934, pp. 634-635. The advocacy of wang tao in a state which is a consequence of one of the perfect illustrations of pa tao in the modern Far East, is astonishing. Its use does possess significance, in demonstrating that the shibboleths of ancient virtue are believed by the Japanese and by “Emperor Kang Teh” to possess value in contemporary politics.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 528, 529.

See below, for discussion of the influence that Henry George, Karl Marx, and Maurice William had upon the social interpretation of history so far as economic matters were concerned.

See “The Theory of the Confucian World Society,” above.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 341.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 199.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 194.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 194. The original quotation, in Chinese and in English, may be found in James Legge, translator, The Four Books, Shanghai, 1930, p. 313.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 194-195.

Judge Paul Linebarger, in Conversations with Sun Yat-sen (unpublished), states that Sun said to him: “China will go down in history as the greatest literary civilization the world has ever known, or ever will know, but what good does this deep literary knowledge do us if we cannot combine it with the modernity of Western science?” p. 64, Book Four.

Tai Chi-tao, cited, p. 62. The passage reads in full: “Sun Yat-sen umfasst vollkommen die wahren Gedanken Chinas, wie sie bei Yau und Schun und auch bei Kung Dsï und Mong Dsï wiederfinden. Dadurch wird uns klar, dass Sun Yat Sen der Erneuerer der seit 2000 Jahre ununterbrochenen chinesischen sittlichen Kultur ist. Im vergangenen Jahr hat ein russischer Revolutionär an Sun Yat Sen die folgende Frage gerichtet: ‘Welche Grundlage haben Ihre Revolutionsgedanken?’ Sun Yat Sen hat darauf geantwortet: ‘In China hat es ein sittlichen Gedanken gegeben, der von Yau, Schun, Yü, Tang, Wen Wang, Wu Wang, Dschou Gung his zu Kung Dsï getragen worden ist; seither ist er ununterbrochen, ich habe wieder an ihn angeknüpft und versacht, ihn weiter zu entwickeln.’ Der Fragende hat dies nicht verstehen können und sich weiter erkundigt; Sun Yat Sen hat noch mehrmals versucht, ihm seine Antwort zu erklären. Aus dieser Unterredung können wir ersehen, dass Sun Yat Sen von seine Gedanken überzeugt war, gleichzeitig können wir ersehen, dass seine Nationalrevolution auf dem Widererwachen der chinesischen Kultur beruht. Er hat die schöpferische Kraft Chinas wieder ins Leben rufen und den Wert der chinesischen Kultur fur die ganze Welt nutzbar machen wollen, um somit den Universalismus verwirklichen zu können.” Allowance will have to be made, as it should always in the case of Tai Chi-tao, for the author's deep appreciation of and consequent devotion to the virtues of Chinese culture. Other disciples of Sun Yat-sen wrote in a quite different vein. The present author inclines to the opinion, however, that Tai Chi-tao's summary is a just rendition of Sun Yat-sen's attitude. Sun Yat-sen loved and fought for the struggling masses of China, whose misery was always before his pitying eyes; he also fought for the accomplishments of Chinese civilization. In modern China, many leaders have fought for the culture, and forgotten the masses (men such as Ku Hung-ming were typical); others loved the populace and forgot the culture. It was one of the elements of Sun Yat-sen's greatness that he was able to remember both.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 199-202.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 259.

This idea, of wealth as national capacity to produce, is of course not a new one. It is found in the writings of Alexander Hamilton, among others.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 337.

Wei Yung, translator, The Cult of Dr. Sun, Sun Wên Hsüeh Shê, cited. See the discussion on dietetics, pp. 3-9.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 337.

Wei Yung's translation, cited, is an English version of The Outline of Psychological Reconstruction of Sun Yat-sen. This work is devoted to a refutation of the thesis, first propounded by Wang Yang-ming (ca. 1472-1528), that knowledge is easy and action difficult. In a society where the ideology had been stabilized for almost two millenia, this was undoubtedly quite true. In modern China, however, faced with the terrific problem of again settling the problem of an adequate ideology, the reverse was true: knowledge was difficult, and action easy. This was one of the favorite aphorisms of Sun Yat-sen, and he devoted much time, effort, and thought to making it plain to his countrymen. The comparative points of view of Wang Yang-ming and Sun Yat-sen afford a quite clear-cut example of the contrast between an established and unsettled ideology.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 336-345. This discussion occurs in the fifth lecture on democracy, incidental to Sun Yat-sen's explaining the failure of the parliamentary Republic in Peking, and the general inapplicability of Western ideas of democracy to China.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 344.

It might again be pointed out that Sun Yat-sen differed with Marxism which, while it, of course, does not hold that all knowledge is already found, certainly keeps its own first premises beyond all dispute, and its own interpretations sacrosanct. The dialectics of Marx and Hegel would certainly appear peculiar in the Chinese environment. Without going out of his way to point out the difference between Sun's Nationalism and Marxism-Leninism, the author cannot refrain—in view of the quite popular misconception that Sun Yat-sen was at one time almost a Marxist convert—from pointing out the extreme difference between the premises, the methods, and the conclusions of the two philosophies.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 344.

Hsü, Confucianism, cited, contains two chapters relevant to the consideration of this problem. Ch. III, “The Doctrine of Rectification” (pp. 43-61), and Ch. XI, “Social Evolution” (pp. 219-232), discuss rectification and ideological development within the Confucian ideology.

As an illustration of Dr. Sun's continued activity as a medical man, the author begs the reader's tolerance of a short anecdote. In 1920 or 1921, when both Judge Linebarger and Sun Yat-sen were in Shanghai, and were working together on the book that was to appear as Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Republic, the younger son of Judge Linebarger—the brother of the present author—fell ill with a rather obscure stomach disorder. The Western physicians having made little or no progress in the case, Sun Yat-sen intervened with an old Chinese herbal prescription, which he, a Western-trained physician, was willing to endorse. The remedy was relatively efficacious—more so than the suggestions of the European doctors. Even though Sun Yat-sen very early abandoned his career of professional medical man for that of revolutionist, he appears to have practised medicine intermittently throughout his life.

Sun Yat-sen wrote, in Wei Yung translation, cited, p. 115: “In our age of scientific progress the undertaker [sic!], seeks to know first before undertaking. This is due to the desire to forestall blunders and accidents so as to ensure efficiency and economy of labor. He who is able to develop ideas from knowledge, plans from ideas, and action from plans can be crowned with success in any undertaking irrespective of its profoundness or the magnitude of labor involved.”

Tai, cited, p. 66: “Wir sind Chinesen, und was wir zunächst zu ändern haben liegt in China. Aber wenn alle Dinge in China wertlos gewerden sind, wenn die chinesische Kultur in der Kulturgeschichte der Welt keine Bedeutung mehr hat, und wenn das chinesische Volk die Kraft, seine Kultur hochzuhalten, verloren hat, dann können wir gleich mit gebundenen Händen den Tod abwarten; zu welchem Zweck brauchen wir dann noch Revolution zu treiben!”

An interesting discussion of this attitude is to be found in Li Chi, The Formation of the Chinese People, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1928.

See Tsui Shu-chin, cited, pp. 96-146. The work of Tsui is good for the field covered; his discussion of the contrasting policy of the Communists and of Sun Yat-sen with respect to nationalities may be regarded as reliable.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 67 and following.

See above, “The Nation and State in Chinese Antiquity.”

The present state of Western knowledge of the sociology of China is not sufficient to warrant reference to any authorities for the description of egalitarianism and mobility. These matters are still on that level of unspecialized knowledge where every visitor to China may observe for himself. The bibliography on the social life of the Chinese on pp. 240-242 of Kenneth Scott Latourette, The Chinese: Their History and Culture, New York, 1934, contains some of the leading titles that touch on the subject. Prof. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown of the University of Chicago informed the present author that he contemplates the planning of an extensive program of socio-anthropological field work in Chinese villages which will assist considerably in the understanding of the sociology of old China.

Hsü, Confucianism, cited, p. 49, states the function of the Confucian leaders quite succinctly: “... the Confucian school advocates political and social reorganization by changing the social mind through political action.”

Hsü, cited, p. 104.

Hsü, cited, pp. 195-196.

Mariano Ponce, Sun Yat Sen, El fundador de la Republica de China, Manila, 1912, p. 23.

“Y tampoco era posible sustituirla por otra dinastía nacional. Sólo existen al presente dos familias en China, de donde podían salir los soberanos: uno es la descendencia de la dinastía Ming, de que usurparon los mandchüs el trone, hace más de dos siglos y medio, y la otra es la del filósofo Confucio, cuyo descendiente lineal reconocido es el actual duque Kung. Ni en una, ni en otra existen vástagos acondicionados para regir un Estado conforme á los requerimientos de los tiempos actuales. Hubo de descartarse, pues, de la plataforma de la ‘Joven China’ el pensamiento de instalar en el trono á una dinastía nacional. Y sin dinastía holgaba el trono.

“No sabemos si aún habiendo en las dos familias mencionados miembros con condiciones suficientes para ser el Jefe supremo de un Estado moderno, hubiese prosperado el programa monarquico.

“Lo que sí pueda decir es que desde los primeros momentos evolucionayon las ideas de Sun Yat Sen hacia el republicanismo....”

Ponce then goes on to point out Sun Yat-sen's having said that the decentralized system of old government and the comparative autonomy of the vice-regencies presented a background of “a sort of aristocratic republic” (“une especie de república aristocrática”).

Ponce, cited, p. 24. “... la única garantía posible, el único medio por excelencia para obtener los mejores gobernantes....”

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 234.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 235.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 255.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 266, note 1. Father d'Elia discusses the reasons which made it seem more probable that Sun was transliterating the name Millar into Chinese rather than (John Stuart) Mill.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 256 and following.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 271.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 273.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 242-243.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 223 and following. Dr. Hsü (cited, p. 263 and following) translates these four epochs as following: hung fang, “the stage of the great wilderness”; shen ch'üan, “the state of theocracy”; chun ch'üan, “the stage of monarchy”; and min ch'üan, “the stage of democracy.”

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 241-242.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited, Book II, ch. 2.

It is of interest to note that the “New Life Movement” inaugurated by Chiang Chieh-shih is concerned with many such petty matters such as those enumerated above. Each of these small problems is in itself of little consequence; in the aggregate they loom large.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 331.

Hsü translation, cited, p. 352. It is interesting to note that the translation by Father d'Elia gives a more literal translation of the names that Sun Yat-sen applied to these categories. He translates the Chinese terms as pre-seeing, post-seeing, and non-seeing.

Hsü translation, cited, p. 352.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 348.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 352. Sun Yat-sen defined democracy thus: “... under a republican government, the people is sovereign.”

Tai Chi-tao, cited, p. 25, refers to this distinction as being between force (Gewalt) and power (Macht). To the people belonged, and rightfully, the force which could sanction or refuse to sanction the existence of the government and the confirmation of its policies. The government had the power (Macht), which the people did not have, of formulating intelligent policies and carrying them out in an organized manner.

Liang Chi-ch'ao, cited, pp. 50-52.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 279 and following.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 368.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 368-9. Dr. Wou Saofong, in his Sun Yat-sen (Paris, 1929), summarizes his thesis of Sun Yat-sen in somewhat different terms: “... Sun Yat-sen compare, le gouvernement à un appareil mécanique, dont le moteur est constitué par les lois ou les ministres, tandis que l'ingénieur que dirige la machine était autrefois le roi et aujourd'hui le peuple,” p. 124. (Italics mine.) This suggestion that the state-machine, in the theory of Sun Yat-sen, is composed of laws as well as men is quite interesting; Sun Yat-sen himself does not seem to have used this figure of speech and it may be Dr. Wou's applying the juristic interpretation on his own initiative. Sun Yat-sen, in his sixth lecture on democracy, says, “Statesmen and lawyers of Europe and America say that government is a machine of which law is a tool.” (d'Elia translation, cited, p. 368.)

It must always remain one of those conjectures upon which scholars may expend their fantasy what Sun Yat-sen would have thought of the necessity of the juristic state, which involved a quite radical change throughout the Chinese social organism, had he lived to see the ebb of juristic polity and, for all that, of voting democracy. It is not unlikely that his early impressions of the United States and his reading of Montesquieu would have led him to retain his belief in a juristic-democratic state in spite of the fact that such a state would no longer represent the acme of ultra-modernism.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 378 and following.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 369.

Reginald Johnston, Twilight in the Forbidden City, cited above, presents an apparently true account of the conspiracies of the various Northern generals which centered around the person of P'u Yi. According to Johnston Tsao Kun was defeated in his attempt to restore the Manchu Emperor only by the jealousies of his fellow-militarists.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 406.

Father d'Elia devotes the whole second chapter of his introduction to the consideration of a suitable rendition of San Min Chu I, which he calls the Triple Demism. (Work cited, pp. 36-49.) Again on p. 402, he explains that, while he had translated min shêng as socialism in the first French edition of his work, he now renders it as the economic Demism or sociology. The most current translation, that of Frank Price, cited, gives the principle of livelihood. Paul Linebarger gave it as socialism as far back as 1917 (The Chinese Nationalist Monthly, December, 1917, Chicago) in Chicago, at the time when Lin Shen, Frank C. Lee and he were all working for Sun in that city. Dr. H. H. Kung, a high government official related by marriage to Mme. Sun Yat-sen, speaks of the three principles of liberty, democracy, and economic well-being (preface to Hsü, Sun, cited, p. xvi). Dr. V. K. Wellington Koo, one of China's most eminent diplomats, speaks of social organization (Memoranda Presented to the Lytton Commission, New York City, n. d.). Citations could be presented almost indefinitely. Min means “people,” and shêng means “life; vitality, the living, birth, means of living” according to the dictionary (S. Wells Williams, A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, Tungchou, 1909). The mere terms are of very little help in solving the riddle of min shêng. Laborious examination is needed, and even this will not, perhaps, lead us to anything more than probability. Sun Yat-sen, in his lectures, called it by several different names, which seem at first sight to contradict each other.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 91-92.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited, Bk. IV, p. 62: “I must confess that the idea of using the sacred cult of ancestor worship as a political machine is very abhorrent to me. In fact, I think that even the rashest fool would never attempt to use this intimate cult with its exclusively domestic privacy as a revolutionary instrument.”

Linebarger, Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Republic, New York, 1925, pp. 68-9.

The same, pp. 135-139.

The same, pp. 104-105.

The same, pp. 122-123.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 472.

Karl A. Wittfogel, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Chinas, Leipzig, 1931. The author, the German Marxian who wrote the best Marxist critique of Sun Yat-sen, is the only scholar to seek a really complete picture of the old Chinese economy by the technique of modern Western economic analysis. Described by the author as an “attempt,” the first volume of this work runs to 737 pages. It is valuable for the large amount of statistical material which it contains, and for its systematic method; its Marxian bias narrows its interest considerably.

Both works of Wittfogel, cited above, are useful for the understanding of the transition from the old economy to the new. For a general view of the economic situation and potentialities of China, see George B. Cressey, China's Geographic Foundations, New York, 1934. The bibliography on Chinese economy to be found in Latourette, cited above, vol. II, pp. 116-119, is useful.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 97.

See below, section on the national economic revolution.

Hsü translation, cited, pp. 186-187. The d'Elia translation gives a more exact rendering of Sun Yat-sen's words (p. 97), but, by following Sun Yat-sen in calling China a hypo-colony, is less immediately plain to the Western reader than is the translation of Dr. Hsü, who in this instance uses “sub” and “hypo” interchangeably.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 443.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 452.

His International Development of China, New York, 1922 (republished 1929), is a colossal plan which could only be compared with the Piatiletka or with the New Deal in the United States, since Sun Yat-sen suggested that—in order to avoid the consequences of a post-war depression—the nations of the world might cooperate in the equal exploitation of Chinese national resources with the Chinese. He proposed the modernization of China by a vast international loan which could permit the Western nations to maintain their war-time peak production, supplying China (1929 ed., p. 8). He concludes the work: “In a nutshell, it is my idea to make capitalism create socialism in China so that these two economic forces of human civilization will work side by side in future civilization” (p. 237). The work is, however, generally regarded as a transportation plan, since Sun Yat-sen sketched out a railway map of China which would require decades to realize, and which overshadowed, by its very magnitude, the other aspects of his proposals.

At the risk of digression, one might comment on an interesting element of the Euramerican ideology which is in sharp contrast to the Chinese. The West has, apparently, always been devoted to dichotomies of morality. The Greeks had reason and unenlightenment, and whole series of ideals that could be fought for and against, but the real division of good and bad in the West came, of course, with Christianity, which accustomed Westerners to think for centuries in terms of holiness versus evil—they being, geographically, holy, and the outsiders (heathen), evil. Now that the supernatural foundations of Christianity have been shaken by the progress of scientific and intellectual uncertainty, many Westerners find an emotional and an intellectual satisfaction in dividing the world into pure and unclean along lines of sometimes rather abstruse economic questions. This new morality seems to be based on distributive economics rather than on deity. It is employed, of course, by the Marxians, but their adversaries, in opposing them with equal passion, fall into the same habit. It is shocking and unbelievable to such persons to discover that there is a society whose ideology does not center around the all-meaningful point of the ownership of the means of production. Their only reaction is a negation of the possibility of such thought, or, at least, of its realism. The intellectual position of Sun Yat-sen in the modern world would be more clearly appreciated if the intellectuals of the West were not adjusting their ideological and emotional habits from religion to economics, and meanwhile judging all men and events in economic terms. The present discussion of Sun Yat-sen's economic ideology is a quite subordinate one in comparison to the examination of his ideology as a whole, but some persons will regard it as the only really important point that could be raised concerning him.

Tsui, cited, p. 345, quotes Nathaniel Peffer: “... Peffer said that Dr. Sun never ‘attained intellectual maturity, and he was completely devoid of the faculty of reason. He functioned mentally in sporadic hunches. It was typical of him that he met Joffe, read the Communist Manifesto, and turned Communist, and then read one book by an American of whom he knew nothing, and rejected communism all in a few months.’ ” Sun Yat-sen knew Marxism, years before the Russian Revolution. The Communist Manifesto was not new to him. He was extraordinarily well read in Western political and economic thought. Sun Yat-sen never turned Communist, nor did he subsequently reject communism any more than he had done for years.

The author hopes, at some future time, to be able to fill in the intellectual background of Sun Yat-sen much more thoroughly than he is able to at the present, for lack of materials. One interesting method would involve the listing of every Western book with which Sun Yat-sen can be shown to have been acquainted. It might be a fairly accurate gauge of the breadth of his information.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 461-468. Father d'Elia's note on the relative positions of Henry George and Sun (p. 466) is interesting. For a discussion of the actual program proposed by Sun, see below, “The Program of Min Shêng” section on land policy.

Lyon Sharman, Sun Yat-sen, cited, p. 58.

The same, pp. 98-99. There is an inconsistency of wording here, which may or may not be the fault of the translator. The oath refers to the “equitable redistribution of the land” (p. 98); the platform speaks of “the nationalization of land” (p. 98); and one of the slogans is “Equalize land-ownership!”

See also the discussion in Tsui, Canton-Moscow Entente, cited, pp. 371-376; and in Li Ti-tsun, “The Sunyatsenian principle of Livelihood,” The Chinese Students' Monthly, XXIV (March 1929), pp. 230. Li declares that Sun envisioned immediate redistribution but ultimate socialization, but does not cite his source for this. Li's discussion of sources is good otherwise.

Sharman, p. 58; the same authority for the statement as to the 1905 manifesto.

Sharman, p. 94.

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, cited, p. 61.

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, cited, p. 66: “Dieses sehr unpräzise Programm, das die Frage der Klasseninteressen und des Klassenkampfes als des Mittels zur Brechung privilegierter Klasseninteressen nicht aufwirft, war objektiv gar nicht Sozialismus, sondern etwas durchaus anderes: Lenin hat die Formel ‘Subjektiver Sozialismus’ dafür geprägt.”

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, cited, p. 67: “So bedeutete denn Suns ‘Sozialismus’ im Munde der Chinesischen Bourgeoisie nichts als ein Art Bekenntness zu einer ‘sozialen,’ d.h. massenfreundlichen Wirtschaftspolitik.”

T'ang, cited, p. 46.

T'ang, cited, p. 172.

T'ang, cited, pp. 171-172.

Wittfogel, cited, pp. 117-118.

Wittfogel, cited, p. 140: “... Seine Drei Prinzipien verkörpern in ihrer Entwicklung den objektiven Wandel der ökonomisch-sozialen Situation Chinas, in ihren Widersprüchen die realen Widersprüche der chinesischen Revolution, in ihren jüngsten Tendenzen die Verlagerung des sozialen Schwerpunktes der Revolution, die Klassen in Aktion setzt, deren Ziel nicht mehr ein bürgerlich-kapitalistisches, sondern ein proletarisch-sozialistisches und ein bauerlich-agrar-revolutionäres ist.

“Sun Yat-sen ist demnach nicht nur der bisher mächtigste Repräsentant der bürgerlich-nationalen, antiimperialistischen Revolutionen des erwach-enden Asiens überhaupt, er weist zugleich über die bürgerliche Klassen-schranke dieser ersten Etappe der asiatischen Befreiungsbewegung hinaus. Dies zu verkennen, wäre verhängnisvoll, gerade auch für die proletarisch-kommunistische Bewegung Ostasiens selbst.”

Statement of Judge Linebarger to the author. See also Linebarger, Conversations, references to Communism which occur throughout the whole book.

Tsui, cited, p. 144. It would involve a duplication of effort for the present author to repeat the material of Dr. Tsui's excellent monograph on Sun Yat-sen and the Bolsheviks. Since the purpose of the present work is to undertake an exposition of the Nationalist political ideology and programs against the background of the old Chinese ideology, such an emphasis upon one comparatively small point in Sun Yat-sen's doctrines would be entirely disproportionate as well as superfluous. The reader is referred to the work of Dr. Tsui for any details of these relations that he may wish to examine.

See Tsui, cited, and section below, on the class struggle of the nations.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 450. See also Tsui, cited, pp. 353-354; and Li, cited, pp. 229 and following.

Sun, Development of China, cited, p. 237.

Maurice William, Sun Yat-sen Versus Communism, Baltimore, 1932, p. 4.

William, in his Sun Yat-sen Versus Communism, cited, proves beyond doubt that Sun Yat-sen was strongly indebted to him for many anti-Marxian arguments.

See above, Chapter One, second, third, and fourth sections.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 423.

Tsui, cited, pp. 121-123, n. 72.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 472.

Hsü translation, cited, p. 422. The Hsü version will be cited from time to time, whenever Father d'Elia's interesting neologisms might make the citation too disharmonious, in wording, with the comment.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 294.

Francis W. Coker, Recent Political Thought, New York—London, 1934, pp. 545-562, Ch. XX, “Empirical Collectivism.”

Coker, cited, pp. 546-547.

Coker, cited, pp. 548-549. Throughout the discussion of empirical collectivism the present author will cite, by and large, the categories given by Coker. Any special exceptions will be noted, but otherwise the discussion will be based on Coker's chapter on “Empirical Collectivism,” cited above.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited, Book III, p. 31.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited, Book III, p. 30.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 475.

See, however, the d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 298-301, for a reference to labor unions and a statement for their need of competent and honest leadership.

See Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, cited, “Die Arbeiter,” pp. 97-99. T'ang, Hsü, and the various biographies of Sun almost all contain references from time to time to Sun's friendliness toward and approval of organized labor.

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, cited, pp. 325-329. The next speech of Sun Yat-sen given in Wittfogel's work is Sun's indignant attack on “the so-called Labor Government” of England, which permitted the old methods of British Far Eastern imperialism to continue.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited, Book III, p. 18. This work, while it cannot be given the weight of direct quotations from Sun's own writings or speeches, does contain a good deal about the policies of min shêng which does not appear elsewhere. The author has sought to avoid citation of it where direct sources are available, since the nature of the material makes it by no means so authoritative as others might be.

Coker, cited, p. 551.

E. D. Harvey, The Mind of China, New Haven, 1933, deals extensively with these supernatural elements. The reader who turns to it should keep in mind the fact that the supernatural plays a rôle in China distinctly less important than that which it did, say, in medieval Europe, and that a strong agnostic, rather than a skeptical, spirit among the Chinese has preserved them from the grossest errors of superstition.

Latourette, cited, p. 129. Dr. Latourette's sketch of Chinese religious thought is especially good, as indeed it might be, since he is one of the most celebrated American scholars in the field of Western religion in China.

H. G. Creel, work cited, p. 127.

The author cannot give a documentary citation for this observation. It was communicated to him many times by his father, Judge Paul Linebarger, who stated that Sun Yat-sen was most apt to talk in terms of morality and morale by preference. The fact that Sun Yat-sen came from a Chinese Confucian background into a Western Christian one cannot be ignored. He did not permit his Christianity to sway him from what he considered his necessary lines of behavior in politics; it did not, for example, prevent him from being extremely cordial to the Soviet Union at the time that that state was still more or less outcaste. And yet, speaking of the Christian God, he is reputably reported to have said: “God sent me to China to free her from bondage and oppression, and I have not been disobedient to the Heavenly mission”; and, again, to have said on the day before his death: “I am a Christian; God sent me to fight evil for my people. Jesus was a revolutionist; so am I.” (Both quotations from appendix to the d'Elia translation, p. 718.)

Sun Yat-sen authorized the biography, cited, which Judge Linebarger wrote of him. It was a propaganda work, and neither he nor the author had any particular expectation that it would ever be regarded as a source, or as an academically prepared document. The last chapter of this authorized biography bears the title, “Conclusion: Sun the Moral Force.” This, perhaps, is significant as to Sun's own attitude.

Note the contrast between the thought of Sun in this respect and that of Tagore or Gandhi. This has been pointed out by many Western writers on China.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited, Book III, p. 20.

Sharman, cited, p. 282.

The reader must bear in mind the fact that what is presented here is Sun Yat-sen's political program for China. In many instances the course of affairs has deviated quite definitely from that program, and it can be only a matter of conjecture as to what Sun Yat-sen would do were he to return and observe the Nationalist movement as it now is. It is manifestly impossible to trace all the changes in this program. The actual developments have conformed only in part with Sun Yat-sen's plans, although the leaders seek to have it appear as though they are following as close to Sun Yat-sen's democratic politics as they can. Many persons who were close to Sun Yat-sen, such as Mme. Sun Yat-sen, believe that the National Government has betrayed the theory of Sun Yat-sen, and that Generalissimo Chiang Chieh-shih has made himself the autocrat of the National Government. It is, of course, impossible within the scope of this thesis to enter into this dispute. Who rules the Soviet—Stalin, or the Communist Party? Who rules China—Chiang Chieh-shih, or the Kuomintang? In each case there is the question of whether the leader could get along without the party, and whether the party could get along without the leader, as well as the question of the leader's sincerity. These issues, however burning they might be in real life, could not be adequately treated in a work such as this. The author has sought to present Sun Yat-sen's theory of applied politics. Where events which Sun Yat-sen foresaw have come to pass, the author has referred to them. He does not wish to be understood as presenting a description of the whole course of events in China.

Here, again, one must remember that Mme. Sun Yat-sen, Eugene Chen, and others charge that the Party no longer rules, that it has been prostituted by Chiang Chieh-shih, and now serves only to cloak a military despotism. It may be noted, so far as the other side of the question is concerned, that a greater number of the persons who were eminent in the Party before Sun Yat-sen died have remained in it than have left it.

See T'ang, work cited for an excellent description of the mutations of the revolutionary party. T'ang criticizes the present personnel of the Kuomintang severely, but the reader must keep in mind the fact that he has since become reconciled with the present leadership, and make allowances for the somewhat emphatic indignation voiced at the time of writing the book. The brilliance of the author guarantees that the story is well told, but it is not told for the last time. See also, Min-ch'ien T. Z. Tyau, Two Years of Nationalist China, Shanghai, 1930, for a summary that is as excellent as it is short. Various changes have occurred in party function, organization, and personnel since that time, but they have not—to the knowledge of the author—been completely and adequately covered by any one work.

For a history of this period, see T'ang, Sharman, or Tsui Shu-chin, all cited above. The Communist side of the story is told by Harold Isaacs (editor), Five Years of Kuomintang Reaction, Shanghai, 1932, and in the various works of the Stalinist and Trotskyist groups concerning the intervention of the Third Internationale in China. Two graphic personal accounts cast in semi-fictional form, are Oscar Erdberg, Tales of Modern China, Moscow, 1932, and Vincent Sheean, Personal History, New York, 1935; these present the Communist and the left-liberal viewpoints, respectively. The dramatic story of the Entente, the separation, and the ensuing conflict are not yet remote enough to have cooled into material ready for the historian.

The Kuomintang, in accepting the Communist administrative structure, was not violating traditional Chinese patterns altogether. It has been pointed out that the revised structure of the Kuomintang resembled older Chinese guild patterns as well as the new Russian style (Sharman, work cited, p. 262).

Here, again, one might refer to the disputes as to the orthodoxy and integrity of the present leadership. The preëminence of Generalissimo Chiang Chieh-shih, which cannot be doubted, is seen by persons friendly to him as a strong and beneficent influence upon the C. E. C. Persons hostile to him charge that he has packed the C. E. C. with his adherents, and controls it as he chooses.

An interesting piece of research could deal with the method of recruitment and registration in the Kuomintang before the coming of the Communist advisers. There was rarely any doubt as to who was, or was not, a member, but there was constant trouble as to the good standing of members. Recruitment seems to have been on a basis of oath-taking, initiation, etc.; what Party discipline there was seems to have been applied only in the most extreme cases, and then crudely.

It is interesting to note that the Kuomintang is to a certain degree democratic in representing the various occupational groups in China. Tyau, cited above, p. 25 and following, lists the percentages in the membership in the Kuomintang according to occupation, as they stood in 1930: Party work, 5.84%; government service, 6.61%; army and navy, 3.26%; police, 4.09%; labor (in general), 7.32%; agriculture, 10.43%; navigation, 1.20%; railway, 1.14%; commerce, 10.47%; students, 10.47%; teaching, 21.31%; independent professions, 1.66%; social work, 1.68%; unemployed, O.54%; unclassified, 3.13%; incomplete returns, 15.09%.

See above, pp. 59 and following.

Sun Yat-sen, Kidnapped in London, cited, passim.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 122-123.

The present instances are all taken from the third lecture on nationalism, d'Elia translation, cited pp. 127-128. The Hsü translation, in spite of its many merits, is not strong on geography. Thus, in the translation referring to Poland which has just been cited, the Hsü reading runs: “Although Persia was partitioned by foreigners over a century ago, Persian nationalism was not lost; consequently the Persians have been able to restore their country to independence; and now Persia has the status of a second or third class power in Europe” (p. 208), this in spite of the fact that Persia is translated correctly further on (p. 327). Another misreading is: “After the war, two new Slavic states were born, namely Czechoslovakia and Jugoslovakia” (p. 217). These minor errors are, however, among the very few which can be discovered in the whole book, and do not mar the text to any appreciable extent.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 132.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 63.

T'ang, cited, pp. 168 and following, gives the various documents of the First National Congress of the Kuomintang, which place the application of nationalism first in their programs. “The Manifesto On Going to Peking,” issued by Sun November 10, 1924, refers to various points to be achieved; the first is, “National freedom from external restriction will enable China to develop her national economy and to increase her productivity.” (Hsü translation, p. 148.) This might imply that the execution of min shêng was to be coincidental with or anterior to the fulfillment of nationalism; it probably does not.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 187.

Discussions of this are to be found in Sir Reginald Johnston's Twilight in the Forbidden City, cited.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 244.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 245-247.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 187. Numerals have been written out by the present author.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 365. Italics are omitted.

This is not due to any mystical veneration of numbers, or religious influence. In spreading doctrines which would have to be followed by the unlettered as well as by the scholars, Sun Yat-sen found it necessary to develop the general outline of his principles in such a way as to give them a considerable mnemonic appeal. Thus, the three principles—and the three French (liberty, equality, fraternity) and American (of, by, for the people) principles—and the triple foreign aggression, the four popular powers, the five governmental rights. The use of the number three permitted Sun Yat-sen to weave together the various strands of his teaching, and to attain a considerable degree of cross-reference. It cannot be shown to have induced any actual distortion of his theories.

Hsü translation, cited, p. 213. See also d'Elia translation, p. 134.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 114.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 101.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 113. The whole present discussion of economic oppression is drawn from the latter part of the second lecture. Except in the case of direct quotation, no further reference will be given to this section, which occurs at pp. 97-115 of the d'Elia translation.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 106.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 113.

In referring to a sub-principle, the author is following Sun Yat-sen's arrangement of his ideas, even though the exact term, “sub-principle,” is not to be found in Sun's works. Each of the three principles can be considered with respect to national unity, national autonomy, and national survival. The correlation of the three principles, each with itself and then the two others, logically leads to the appearance of nine sub-principles. The writer has not followed any artificial compulsion of numbers, merely for the sake of producing a pretty outline, but has followed Sun Yat-sen in seeking to make clear the specific relations of each of the three principles to the three cardinal points which they embody.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 179-180.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 180.

Tsui, cited, pp. 113-114.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited, pp. 21 and following, Book I.

Among the persons whom he entrusted with the task of seeking foreign capital for the just and honorable national development of China through international means were George Bronson Rea and Paul Linebarger. Mr. Rea was given a power of attorney by Sun to secure loans for railway purposes to an unlimited amount. Mr. Rea never used the document, but kept it among his papers. (Statement of Mr. Rea to the author in Washington, spring of 1934, at the time that the former was “Special Counsellor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Manchoukuo,” despite his former Chinese connections.) Judge Linebarger was also unsuccessful. Sun Yat-sen was more interested in having Judge Linebarger stop any assistance offered by the Consortium to the Northern “Republic of China” than in having him procure any actual funds.

It is obvious that a strong China would be a horrid nightmare to Japan. Not only would the Chinese thwart the use of their man-power and natural resources, as stepping stones to Asiatic or world hegemony; they might even equal the Japanese in audacity, and think of restoring the Japanese to the position of Chinese vassals which they had enjoyed in the time of Yoshemitsu, the third Ashikaga Shogun.

Tsui, cited, pp. 115-116.

Hu Han-min, cited in Tsui, work cited, p. 118, n. 63.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 152. For a full discussion of this curious relationship between China and her vassal states, see Djang Chu (Chang Tso), The Chinese Suzerainty, Johns Hopkins University doctoral dissertation, 1935. The submission to China was, among other things, a means by which the rulers of the peripheral states could get themselves recognized by an authority higher than themselves, thus legitimizing their position.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 153. Sun Yat-sen seems to have had a high opinion of the American administration of the Philippines, saying: The United States “... even allows the Filipinos to send delegations to Congress in Washington. Not only does the United States require no annual tribute in money from them, but, on the contrary, she gives the Filipinos considerable subsidies to build and maintain their roads and to promote education. It seems as though so humanitarian a treatment would be regarded as the utmost benevolence. Still, until the present day, the Filipinos do not boast of being ‘Americanized’; they are daily clamoring for independence” (d'Elia translation, p. 153). This statement is interesting in two connections. In the first place, although Sun Yat-sen had once thought of sending men, money, or munitions to help the Filipino nationalists in their struggles against the Americans, he seems to have conceived a warm admiration for the American administration in those islands. Secondly, the reader may consider that Sun Yat-sen, at the time that he made this comment, was in the course of attacking imperialism. If Sun Yat-sen could offer so enthusiastic an apology for the Americans in the Philippines, it shows that he must have let the abstract principle ride, and judged only on the basis of his own observation. To the orthodox Communist the American rule of the Philippines is peculiarly wicked because of the American denial of imperialist practises.

Some of the older books on China give interesting maps of that country divided up into spheres of influence between the various powers. It was quite fashionable among journalists to sketch the various Chinese possessions of the great powers; the powers never got around to the partition. The American declaration of the “Open Door” may have had something to do with this, and the British enunciation of the same doctrine probably carried weight. For a time, however, the Europeans seemed quite convinced of the almost immediate break-up of China into three or four big colonies. Lord Charles Beresford, a prominent English peer, wrote a work which was extremely popular; its title was The Break-Up of China (London, 1899).

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 93.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 165.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 165-170.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 170.

The Communists envision three types of conflict to be produced by the contradictions of imperialism: intra-national class war, international class war, and inter-imperialist war. The first is the struggle of the proletariat of the whole world against the various national bourgeois governments; the second, the struggle of the oppressed peoples, under revolutionary bourgeois or proletarian leadership, against the oppressions of Western imperialism; and the last, the conflict of the various imperialist powers with one another. Sun Yat-sen's theory agreed definitely with the second point, the international class war; he seems to have admitted the probability of class war within the nations of the West, and of inter-imperialist war, but he did not draw the three types of conflict together and because of them predicate an Armageddon and a millenium. His flexible, pragmatic thought never ran to extremes; although he agreed, more or less distinctly, with the Bolshevik premises of the three conflicts of the imperialist epoch, he did not follow them to their conclusion.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 75.

d'Elia translation, cited, pp. 148-149.

Such works as Lea's The Valor of Ignorance, New York, 1909, and Stoddard's The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, New York, 1920, make precisely the same sort of statements, although, of course, they regard the “Saxon” or “Teutonic” race as the logical master-race of the world. Since Lea was associated for some time with Sun Yat-sen, accompanying him from Europe to Nanking in 1911, and undoubtedly had plenty of time to talk with him, it may be that some of the particular terms used by Sun in this discussion are those which he may have developed in his probable conversations with Lea. Nothing more definite than this can be stated.

Quoted by Sun in d'Elia translation, cited, p. 138. The remark does not sound like Lenin. A Communist would not invoke nature, nor would he count the whole membership of an imperialist nation as imperialist. The world, to him, is misguided by a tiny handful of capitalists and traditional ideologues and their hangers-on, not by the masses of any nation.

Note, however, the reference in d'Elia translation, cited, p. 76, or the Price translation, p. 18. Sun Yat-sen speaks of international wars, within races, on the lines of social classes. He may have meant international wars within the races and across race lines on the basis of the oppressed nations of the world fighting the oppressing nations. He may, however, have meant intra-national class wars. Since he recognized the presence of the class conflict in the developed capitalistic states of the West, this would not necessarily imply his expectation of an intra-national class war in China.

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, pp. 331-337, gives the whole text of the speech. Sharman, Sun Yat-sen, p. 304, refers to it.

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, p. 335. “Es ist gegen Gerechtigkeit und Menschlichkeit, dass eine Minderheit von vierhundert Millionen eine Mehrheit von neunhundert Millionen unterdrückt....”

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, p. 333. “Die Europäer halten uns Asiaten durch die Macht ihrer materiellen Errungenschaften zu Boden.”

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, cited, p. 333. “Wenn wir zweitausendfünf-hundert Jahre zurückdenken, so war China damals das mächtigste Volk der Welt. Es nahm damals eine Stellung ein wie heute Grossbritannien und Amerika. Doch während Grossbritannien und die Vereinigten Staaten heute zur zwei unter einer Reihe von Weltmächten sind, war China damals die einzige grosse Macht.”

Ponce, work cited, p. xiv: “Conozcámonos y nos amaremos más—decía el gran Sun Yat-sen á sus amigos orientales.” This work is, by the way, the most extensive for its account of Sun's associations with Koreans, Filipinos, and Japanese. It has been completely overlooked by the various biographers of and commentators on Sun, with the exception of Judge Linebarger, to whom Sun Yat-sen presented a copy of the work.

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, p. 337: “In England und Amerika gibt es immerhin eine kleine Zahl von Menschen, die diese unsere Ideale im Einklang mit einer allgemeinen Weltbewegung verteidigen. Was die anderen Barbarennationen anbelangt, so dürfte es auch in ihren Reihen Menschen geben, die von der gleichen Überzeugung beseelt sind.”

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, p. 335: “Wenn wir Asiaten nach der Herstellung einer panasiatischen Einheitsfront streben, müssen wir selbst in unserer Zeit daran denken, auf welcher grundlegenden Auffassung wir diese Einheitsfront errichten wollen. Wir sollen dasjenige zugrunde legen, was die besondere Eigentümlichkeit unserer östlichen Kultur gewesen ist, wir sollten unseren Nachdruck legen auf die moralischen Werte, auf Güte und Gerechtigkeit. Sie sollen das Fundament der Einheit ganz Asiens werden.”

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 207. Italics omitted.

The article by Tsui, cited, p. 177 and following, goes into a quite detailed comparison of the Chinese Nationalist and the Marxian Communist theories of the three stages of revolution. He draws attention to the fact that, while the Communists do not speak of "three stages" and prefer to emphasize the transitional stage of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the two theories are similar almost to the point of being identical.

Tsui, cited, p. 181.

Tyau, cited, p. 439 and following. It is also available in Hsü, Sun Yat-sen, cited above, p. 85 and following. The Tyau translation was preferred since it was written by an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and may be regarded as the work of a Government spokesman. It is interesting, by way of contrast, to quote a passage from the Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic, so-called: “The Chinese Soviet Government is building up a state of the democratic dictatorship [sic!] of the workers and peasants. All power shall be vested in the Soviets of Workers, Peasants, and Red Army men.” Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Republic, New York, 1934, p. 18. The absence of an acknowledged period of tutelage, in view of the unfamiliarity of the Chinese people with democratic forms, is significant. The constitutional jurisprudence of the Chinese Communists is, however, primarily a matter of academic interest, since the Soviets, where they have existed, have existed in a state of perpetual emergency, shielded by the Red Terror and other devices of revolutionary control. The contrast between a pronouncement of Sun Yat-sen and a constitution is a fair one, since the writings of Sun Yat-sen form the final authority in the Nationalist movement and government; in a dispute as to the higher validity of a governmental provision or a flat contrary statement of Sun Yat-sen, there can be little question as to which would—or, in the eyes of the Nationalists, should—prevail.

It is interesting to note that the institution which most Western writers would incline to regard as the very key-stone of democracy, parliament, has a quite inferior place in the Sun Yat-sen system. In the National Government of China, the Legislative Yuan is more like a department than like a chamber. This question, however, will be discussed under the heading of the Five Rights.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 341.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 342.

A discussion of the four powers and the five rights is to be found in Li Chao-wei, La Souveraineté Nationale d'après la Doctrine Politique de Sun-Yet-Sin, Dijon, 1934. This work, a doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Dijon, treats the Western theory of democracy and Sun's theory comparatively. It is excellent in portraying the legal outline of the Chinese governmental structure, and points out many significant analogies between the two theories.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 391.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 395.

The unfavorable view of the Five Powers is taken by Dr. Jermyn Chi-hung Lynn in his excellent little book, Political Parties in China, Peiping, 1930. Since Dr. Lynn speaks kindly and hopefully of the plans of Wu Pei-fu, one of the war-lords hostile to Sun Yat-sen and the whole Nationalist movement, his criticism of Sun Yat-sen need not be taken as completely impartial. It represents a point that has been made time and time again by persons antagonistic to the San Min Chu I.

“The Wu Chuan Hsien Fa is also no discovery of Dr. Sun's. As is known, the three power constitution, consisting of the legislative, judiciary [sic!] and executive functions, was originally developed, more or less unconsciously, by the English, whose constitution was critically examined by Montesquieu, and its working elaborately described by him for the benefit of his fellow-countrymen. And the unwritten constitution of Old China contained the civil service examination and an independent Board of Censors. Now the much-advertised Wu Chuan Hsien Fa or Five-Power constitution only added the systems of state examination and public censure to the traditional form of constitution first advocated by the French jurist.” P. 66, work cited.

Hsü translation, cited, p. 104.

For an intensively vivid description of this government, which Sun Yat-sen's planned democracy was to relegate to limbo, see B. L. Putnam Weale, The Vanished Empire, London, 1926. Putnam Weale was the pseudonym of Bertram Lennox Simpson, an Englishman born and reared in China, who understood and participated in Chinese life and policies as have few since the days of Marco Polo; he was an advisor to the insurrectionary Peking “Nationalist” Government of 1931 when he was shot to death in his home at Tientsin. Few other Westerners have left such a wealth of accurate and sympathetic material about modern China.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 399.

Harold Monk Vinacke, Modern Constitutional Development in China, Princeton, 1920, p. 100.

Vinacke, cited, p. 141 and following. While Dr. Vinacke's book is now out of date, it contains excellent material for the period covered, roughly 1898 to 1919. He quotes Morse's comment on the provinces with approval: “The Provinces are satrapies to the extent that so long as the tribute and matriculations are duly paid, and the general policy of the central administration followed, they are free to administer their own affairs in detail as may seem best to their own provincial authorities.” (Hosea Ballou Morse, The Trade and Administration of China, London, 1913, p. 46, quoted in Vinacke, work cited, p. 5.)

Paul M. W. Linebarger, Conversations with Sun Yat-sen, mss., 1934; Book two, Chapter Five, “Democratic Provincial Home Rule.”

Hsü, cited, p. 124.

Tyau, cited, p. 441. From “The Outline of National Reconstruction.”

Tyau, cited, p. 450.

V. I. Lenin, State and Revolution, New York, 1932. Lenin's discussion of Marx's point, p. 39 and following, is stimulating although inclining to the ingenious.

The number of the villages is taken from Tawney, Richard Henry, Land and Labor in China, London, 1932; and the number of hsien from Tyau, cited, p. 85.

Linebarger, Conversations, cited above; throughout this volume, Judge Linebarger recalls references made by Sun Yat-sen to him concerning the hsien.

It is but fair to state, at the beginning, that this point of the family system as one of the institutions of the democratic nation has been very largely neglected by the Kuomintang and the National Government. To the knowledge of the author, no plan has ever been drafted either by Party or by Government which would erect the system that Sun Yat-sen proposed. It is not beyond all conjecture that Sun's suggestion may at a later date seem more practicable to the leaders than now appears, and be put into operation in some manner.

Hsü, cited, p. 164.

Hsü, cited, p. 243.

The material concerning the clans has been taken from the fifth lecture on Nationalism (Hsü, cited, p. 240 and following; d'Elia, cited, p. 174 and following). Judge Linebarger recorded Sun Yat-sen's mention of a convention of the clans in Conversations, cited above, Book One, Chapter Eight, “The Clans in the Nation.”

There are three excellent discussions of the min shêng programs. Wou, cited, gives a clear precis of the doctrine. Hung Jair, Les idées économiques de Sun Yat Sen, Toulouse, 1934, and Tsiang Kuen, Les origines économiques et politiques du socialisme de Sun Yat Sen, Paris, 1933, cover essentially the same ground, although they are both doctoral dissertations submitted to French universities. The former deals primarily with the theory of Sun's economic ideas, contrasting them with the economic thought of Adam Smith and of the Marxians. The latter gives a rather extensive historical and statistical background to Sun's min shêng, and traces the Chinese economic system, whence min shêng was derived in part, quite fully. These authors have covered the field so widely that the present work need not enter into the discussion of the precise immediate policies to be advocated under min shêng. Enough will be given to describe the relations of min shêng with the more formally political principles of nationalism and democracy, and to afford the reader an opportunity to assess its scope and significance for himself. The works of Hung Jair, Tsiang Kuen, Wou Saofong, and Li Ti-tsun all measure min shêng in terms of classical Western laissez-faire economics and then in terms of Marxism; they all proceed in considerable detail to recapitulate the various concrete plans that Sun projected. The present author will not enter into the minutiae of the problems of clothing, of transport, of communications, etc., inasmuch as they have already been dealt with and because they are not directly relevant to the political or ideological features of Sun's thought.

Tsui, cited, p. 378, n. 125.

The International Development of China was welcomed as an interesting fantasy in a world which had not yet heard of the Five Year Plans and the programs of the New Deal. The fact that Sun Yat-sen was a few years ahead of his contemporaries gave him the air of a dreamer, which was scarcely deserved.

Hsü translation, “The Outline of National Reconstruction,” p. 85. Two points of detail may be noted here. In the first place, min shêng has been emphasized by being placed first, although Sun Yat-sen generally arranged his principles in their logical order: nationalism, democracy, min shêng. Secondly, min shêng, although emphasized, is dealt with in one single paragraph in this vitally important document. The question of the hsien is given eight paragraphs to the one on min shêng. This is indicative of the point stressed above, namely, that Sun Yat-sen, while he was sure of the importance of min shêng, did not believe in hard and fast rules concerning its development.

Work cited, p. 232.

See above, p. 180 ff.

The author uses the term “national economic revolution” to distinguish those parts of the ming shêng chu i which treat the transformation of the Chinese economy in relation to the development of a nation-state. Obviously, there is a great difference between the economy of a society regarding itself as ecumenical, and one faced with the problem of dealing with other equal societies. The presence of a state implies a certain minimum of state interference with economic matters; the national economic revolution of Sun Yat-sen was to give the Chinese economy a national character, coordinating the economic with the other programs of nationalism. Hence, the significant stress in the phrase “national economic revolution” should rest upon the word “national.”

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, cited, p. 329. “Genossen, die hier Versammelten sind alle Arbeiter und stellen eine Teil der Nation dar. Auf den chinesischen Arbeitern lastet eine grosse Verantwortung und wenn ihr dieser Aufgabe entsprechen werdet, so wird China eine grosse Nation und ihr eine mächtige Arbeiterklasse.”

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, p. 329. “Ausser dem wirtschaftlichen Kampf für die Kürzung des Arbeitstages und die Erhöhung der Löhne stehen vor Euch noch viel wichtigere Fragen von politischem Charakter. Für die politischen Ziele müsst ihr meine Drei Prinzipien befolgen und die Revolution unterstützen.”

Putnam Weale, The Vanished Empire, London, 1926, pp. 145-147. The same observation had been made to the Russian ambassador, Vladislavich, sent by Catherine I to Peking in 1727. The Chinese said at that time, “ ... that foreign trade had no attraction for the people, who were amply supplied with all the necessaries of life from the products of their own country.” Sir Robert K. Douglas, Europe and the Far East 1506-1912, New York, 1913, pp. 28-29.

See above, p. 47 ff.

International Development, cited, p. 237.

International Development, p. 12.

International Development, p. 21.

Wou Saofong, cited, gives an excellent summary of the plan, pp. 184-202. There is no particular reason, however, why the work by Sun, which he wrote in fluent and simple English, should not be consulted. The American edition is so well put together with maps and outlines that a layman will find it comprehensible and stimulating.

International Development, pp. 220-221.

International Development, pp. 6-8.

International Development, p. 198.

International Development, p. 199. Sun Yat-sen discussed only two of these essentials (food, clothing) in his lectures on the San Min Chu I. According to Tai Chi-tao, he was to have continued to speak on the topics of “Housing,” “Health,” “Death,” “Conclusions on Livelihood,” and “Conclusions on the San Min Doctrine,” but the only person who may know what he intended to say on these subjects is Mme. Sun Yat-sen. (See Hsü translation, “The Basic Literature of Sunyatsenism,” pp. 39-40.)

This is based upon statements made by Judge Linebarger to the author. According to him, Sun Yat-sen had few of the prejudices of class, one way or the other, that affect the outlook of so many Western leaders. He did not believe that the only possible solution to the problem of livelihood was the Marxian one, and was confident that the Chinese Nationalists would be able to solve the problem. This question was to him paramount above all others; the life of the masses of Chinese citizens was the life of China itself.

International Development, p. 11.

The same, p. 11.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 326. The discussion of Bismarck runs from p. 322 to 326; the length of the discussion shows what Sun thinks of Bismarck's acuteness, although he disapproved of Bismarck's anti-democratic stand.

International Development, p. 4.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 426.

Price translation, pp. 434-435. In the d'Elia translation, pp. 465-466. The Price translation has been quoted in this instance because Father d'Elia translates min shêng as “the economic Demism,” which—although interesting when used consistently—might not be clear in its present context. Sun Yat-sen's courteous use of the word “communism,” in view of the Canton-Moscow entente then existing, has caused a great deal of confusion. The reader may judge for himself how much Sun's policy constitutes communism.

One or two further points concerning the land policy may be mentioned. In the first place, it is the land which is to be taxed. A tax will be applied, according to this theory, on the land, and the increment will also be confiscated. These are two separate forms of revenue. Furthermore, lest all land-holders simply surrender their land to the government, Sun makes clear that his taxation program applies only to land. It would consequently be quite advantageous for the owner to keep the land; the buildings on it would not be affected by the increment-seizure program, and the land would be worth keeping. “The value of the land as declared at present by the landowner will still remain the property of each individual landowner.” (d'Elia translation, p. 466; Father d'Elia's note on this page is informing.) The landowner might conceivably put a mortgage on the land to pay the government the amount of the unearned increment, and still make a handsome enough profit from the use of the land to amortize the mortgage.

Linebarger, Conversations, Book III, p. 25.

Wittfogel, Sun Yat-sen, p. 328. “Die chinesischen Kapitalisten sind nicht so stark, dass sie die chinesischen Arbeiter unterdrücken könnten.”

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 469. Italics omitted. For the discussion of the relation of the program of min shêng to capitalism, see d'Elia's various footnotes and appendices dealing with the subject. Father d'Elia, as a devout Catholic, does a thorough piece of work in demonstrating that Sun Yat-sen was not a Bolshevik and not hostile to the Roman Catholic Church, and had a warm although infrequently expressed admiration for that organization. Li Ti-tsun, in “The Sunyatsenian Principle of Livelihood,” cited, tries to find the exact shade of left orientation in min shêng, and digests the main policies. Wou and Tsui, both cited, also discuss this point.

International Development, pp. 36-39.

By an irony of fate, the most conspicuous example of the realization of any one of these plans was the beginning of the port of Hulutao, which was to be “The Great Northern Port” of Sun's vision. The National Government had already started work on this port when the Japanese, invading Manchuria, took it. There is so much pathos in Sun's own life that this frustation of his plans after his death seems disappointing beyond words to his followers. In his own trust in mankind, in the eagerness and the sincerity of his enthusiasms, in the grandeur of his vision—here are to be found the most vital clues to the tragedy of Sun Yat-sen. Like the other great founders of the earth's ideals, he charted worlds within the vision but, perhaps, beyond the accomplishment of ordinary men.

Hsü translation, cited, p. 440; Price translation, p. 444; d'Elia translation, cited, p. 476. The first has been preferred purely as a matter of style. The Chinese words min shêng and San Min Chu I have been used instead of the English renderings which Hsü gives, again as a pure matter of form and consistency with the text.

The author is indebted to Mr. Jên Tai for the clarification of this ideal of dual continuity—of the family system, preserving the flesh, and the intellectual tradition, preserving the cultural heritages.

d'Elia translation, cited, p. 538.

Footnotes