China is now suffering from poverty, not from unequal distribution of wealth. Where there are inequalities of wealth, the methods of Marx can, of course, be used; a class war can be advocated to destroy the inequalities. But in China, where industry is not yet developed, Marx’s class war and dictatorship of the proletariat are impracticable. [pp. 177–179]
[Zhongshan quanshu 1: 166, 175–179; adapted from Price, San min chu i, pp. 431–434, 437–441]
THE THREE STAGES OF REVOLUTION
The significance of Sun’s “Three Stages of Revolution” lies mainly in his doctrine of political tutelage, which represents perhaps the first conscious advocacy of “guided democracy” among the leaders of Asian nationalism. When first enunciated in 1905, it seems to have been Sun’s answer to those who argued that the Chinese people, long accustomed to political absolutism and unaccustomed to participation in government, were unprepared for democracy. Sun acknowledged that a period of adjustment or transition would be required, but his early confidence in the people’s ability to “learn” democracy is shown by the exact time schedule he had worked out for this process—political tutelage would last just six years.
The following explanation of the Three Stages is taken from A Program of National Reconstruction, prepared in 1918, and follows in the main his earlier ideas, though it stresses the difficulties of reconstruction encountered after the revolution. Sun’s awareness of these difficulties led to increasing emphasis on the importance of strong leadership in the period of tutelage, somewhat less on the readiness of the people for democracy. In his Outline of National Reconstruction, written in 1924 just before his death, he omitted reference to a definite time schedule, as if to concede that the period of tutelage might extend beyond his original expectations.
[The Three Phases of National Reconstruction]. As for the work of revolutionary reconstruction, I have based my ideas on the current of world progress and followed the precedents in other countries. I have studied their respective advantages and disadvantages, their accomplishments and failures. It is only after mature deliberation and thorough preparation that I have decided upon the Program of Revolution and defined the procedure of the revolution in three stages. The first is the period of military government; the second, the period of political tutelage; and the third, the period of constitutional government.
The first stage is the period of destruction. During this period martial law is to be enforced. The revolutionary army undertakes to overthrow the Manchu tyranny, to eradicate the corruption of officialdom, to eliminate depraved customs, to exterminate the system of slave girls, to wipe out the scourge of opium, superstitious beliefs, and geomancy, to abolish the obstructive likin trade tax and so forth.
The second stage is a transitional period. It is planned that the provisional constitution will be promulgated and local self-government promoted to encourage the exercise of political rights by the people. The xian, or district, will be made the basic unit of local self-government and is to be divided into villages and rural districts—all under the jurisdiction of the district government.
The moment the enemy forces have been cleared and military operations have ceased in a district, the provisional constitution will be promulgated in the district, defining the rights and duties of citizens and the governing powers of the revolutionary government. The constitution will be enforced for three years, after which period the people of the district will elect their district officers. . . .
In respect to such self-governing units the revolutionary government will exercise the right of political tutelage in accordance with the provisional constitution. When a period of six years expires after the attainment of political stability throughout the country, the districts that have become full-fledged self-governing units are each entitled to elect one representative to form the National Assembly. The task of the assembly will be to adopt a five-power constitution and to organize a central government consisting of five branches, namely, the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, the Judicial Branch, the Examination Branch, and the Control Branch [Censorate]. . . .
When the constitution is promulgated and the president and members of the National Assembly are elected, the revolutionary government will hand over its governing power to the president, and the period of political tutelage will come to an end.
The third phase is the period of the completion of reconstruction. During this period, constitutional government is to be introduced, and the self-governing body in a district will enable the people directly to exercise their political rights. In regard to the district government, the people are entitled to the rights of election, initiative, referendum, and recall. In regard to the national government, the people exercise the rights of suffrage, while the other rights are delegated to the representatives to the National Assembly. The period of constitutional government will mark the completion of reconstruction and the success of the revolution. This is the gist of the Revolutionary Program. [pp. 37–38]
[The Necessity of Political Tutelage]. What is meant by revolutionary reconstruction? It is extraordinary destruction and also rapid reconstruction. It differs from ordinary reconstruction, which follows the natural course of society and is affected by the trend of circumstances. In a revolution extraordinary destruction is involved, such as the extermination of the monarchical system and the overthrow of absolutism. Such destruction naturally calls for extraordinary reconstruction.
Revolutionary destruction and revolutionary reconstruction complement each other like the two legs of a man or the two wings of a bird. The republic after its inauguration weathered the storm of extraordinary destruction. This, however, was not followed by extraordinary reconstruction. A vicious circle of civil wars has consequently arisen. The nation is on the descendent, like a stream flowing downward. The tyranny of the warlords together with the sinister maneuvers of unscrupulous politicians is beyond control. In an extraordinary time, only extraordinary reconstruction can inspire the people with a new mind and make a new beginning of the nation. Hence the Program of Revolution is necessary. . . .
It is not to be denied that the Chinese people are deficient in knowledge. Moreover, they have been soaked in the poison of absolute monarchy for several thousand years. . . . What shall we do now? Men of the Yuan Shikai type argue that the Chinese people, deficient in knowledge, are unfit for republicanism. Crude scholars have also maintained that monarchy is necessary.
Alas! Even an ox can be trained to plow the field and a horse to carry man. Are men not capable of being trained? Suppose that when a youngster was entering school, his father was told that the boy did not know the written characters and therefore could not go to school. Is such reasoning logical? It is just because he does not know the characters that the boy must immediately set about learning them. The world has now come to an age of enlightenment. Hence the growing popularity of the idea of freedom and equality, which has become the main current of the world and cannot be stemmed by any means. China therefore needs a republican government just as a boy needs school. As a schoolboy must have good teachers and helpful friends, so the Chinese people, being for the first time under republican rule, must have a farsighted revolutionary government for their training. This calls for the period of political tutelage, which is a necessary transitional stage from monarchy to republicanism. Without this, disorder will be unavoidable. [p. 42]
[Zhongshan quanshu 2, Jianguo fanglue, part 1 (also titled Sun Wen xueshuo), ch. 6, pp. 37–42—CT]
DEMOCRACY AND ABSOLUTISM: THE DEBATE OVER POLITICAL TUTELAGE
Sun Yat-sen’s concept of political tutelage, a key doctrine of the Nationalists (Guomindang) after his death, also remained a continuing issue in Chinese politics. With all the talk about a constitution and preparation for the adoption of democratic institutions, party tutelage still provided the working basis of the new regime and the rationale for Chiang Kai-shek’s increasingly strong role as Sun’s heir to Nationalist leadership. The party itself, however, was by no means
unanimous in support of this idea. The middle-class and considerably Westernized Chinese whom it represented, especially in the commercial ports, included numerous individuals educated abroad or exposed to Western ideas of political democracy. Many of them were poorly reconciled to what seemed a reactionary and dictatorial system of party leadership. Others not identified with the party itself, but active in educational institutions or in journalism, did not hesitate to attack this fundamental premise of the Nanjing regime.
The debate that ensued on this issue in the 1930s illustrates a basic dilemma of Nationalist rule. Though the party was committed to a kind of limited democracy on the theory that the building of national unity must take priority over the extension of political freedom, the achieving of national unity was long postponed by civil war, the Japanese invasion and occupation of the 1930s and 1940s, and still more civil war thereafter.
LUO LONGJI: WHAT KIND OF POLITICAL SYSTEM DO WE WANT?
Luo Longji (1896–1965), a Western-trained educator and journalist, wrote this criticism of Sun Yat-sen’s doctrine of political tutelage shortly after his return to China after studying at the University of Wisconsin, at the London School of Economics under Harold Laski, and for the doctorate at Columbia University (1928). He later served as editor of influential newspapers in North China, became a leader of the left-wing Democratic League, and was active politically under the Communists. He suffered condemnation as a “rightist,” however, during the “Hundred Flowers” campaign in 1957. Luo’s objections to party tutelage would also have applied to Mao’s “party dictatorship.”
By the time Luo wrote this article, communism already offered an important political alternative to the Nationalists, and Marxist doctrines, such as the withering away of the state, had become a part of his intellectual frame of reference.
We may sincerely say that we do not advocate any high-sounding theory of eliminating the state. We recognize that “to abolish the state through the party” is a blind alley in the twentieth century. In the present world the only road we can take is to maintain the state. But in taking this road, we want to have the kind of state we cherish and the kind of governmental system we can support. . . .
Let us first discuss with those who talk of “saving” and “reconstructing” the state the following problems: (1) What is the nature of the state? (2) What is the purpose of the state? (3) What should be the strategy for the reconstruction of the state?
Frankly, in the entire Complete Works of Sun Yat-sen, no mention has ever been made about such fundamental problems of political philosophy as the nature of the state and the purpose of the state. What concerned Dr. Sun most was the strategy for “national salvation” and “national reconstruction.”4 His weakness—which at the same time was his strength—lay in the fact that in the selection of a strategy his main concern was the attainment of his objectives, not the evaluation of the means. Because he paid no attention to the purpose of the state, he often took “national salvation” or “national reconstruction” for that purpose. Because he was concerned with the end rather than the means, often in the matter of strategy he took a road that was opposed to the nature and purpose of the state. The strategy of “party above the state” is an illustration. . . .
The great trouble of China today is that, on the one hand, the Communists consider the state an instrument of class war and, on the other, those who cry for “national salvation” and “national reconstruction” regard the state as the ultimate purpose itself. For those who consider the state as an end, the people exist for the sake of the state rather than the state for the sake of the people. They do not ask what benefits the state offers the people but maintain that “national salvation” and “love for the state” are the unconditional duties of the people. And they do not hesitate to employ those weighty words of “national salvation” and “national reconstruction” to silence the people. Thus the people may not be aided in time of famine and calamity, but burdensome taxes must be collected; local peace may not be maintained, but civil war must be fought. Because the state is an end, people become the means for “national salvation” and “national reconstruction.” And so the state need not protect the life and property of the people, who become the slaves of the “principle of national salvation”; nor need it support freedom of thought, for schools should become propaganda agencies for the “principle of national salvation.” In short, as soon as the banner of “national salvation” and “national reconstruction” is hoisted, all burdensome taxes and levies and all fighting and wars receive new significance. The people can only surrender unconditionally. . . .
When the party is placed above the state, the state becomes the instrument of the party rather than the instrument of the entire people for the attainment of the common purpose. . . . Let us examine whether or not the system of “party above the state” can achieve the purpose of the state.
The political systems of other countries today are founded on two different principles: dictatorship and democracy. Dictatorship refers to the political system under which the political power of the state is held by one person, one party, or one class. Democracy refers to the political system under which political power resides in the people as a whole and all citizens of age can participate directly or indirectly in politics on an equal basis. The system of “party above the state” or “party authority above state authority” is certainly a dictatorship rather than a democracy.
We must emphatically declare here that we are absolutely opposed to dictatorship, whether it be dictatorship by one person, one party, or one class. Our reason is very simple: dictatorship is not the method whereby the purpose of the state can be achieved. Let us explain briefly as follows:
First, the state is the instrument of the people for the attainment of their common purpose through mutual constraint and cooperation. Its function is to protect the rights of the people. We believe that the rights of the people are secure only to the extent that the people themselves have the opportunity to protect them. In the present society, man’s public spirit has not developed to such a perfection that we can entrust entirely our political rights to a person, a group, or a class and depend upon him or it to be the guardian of our rights. In practical politics, he who loses political power will lose all protection of his rights. . . .
Second, . . . The function of the state is to tend and develop the people. In a dictatorship the function of tending and developing is lost. Take, for instance, the cultivation and development of the thought of the people. A dictatorship, whether enlightened or dark, will consider freedom of thought its greatest enemy. The first task it sets itself is to reshape the mind of the people in a single mold by a so-called thought-unification movement. . . . After oppression and persecution under a dictatorship, the people’s thought necessarily becomes timid, passive, dependent, senile, and the people themselves may even become pieces of thoughtless machinery.
Third, the state is the instrument of the entire people for the attainment of the common purpose of happiness for all through mutual restraint and cooperation. In order to achieve this purpose the state must furnish the people with an environment of peace, tranquillity, order, and justice. A dictator, be it an individual, a party, or a class, occupies a special position in national politics. This fundamentally rejects political equality as well as justice. The special position of the dictator inevitably incurs the indignation and hatred of the people for their governors, and indignation and hatred are the source of all revolutions. In a society of recurrent revolutions, peace, tranquillity, and order are naturally not to be found. . . .
The Nationalists themselves recognized the inherent evils of dictatorship, but they use such words as temporary and transitional to cover the system. The word temporary or transitional often designates the so-called period of political tutelage. . . .
We believe that the saying “The more you learn, the more there is to learn” applies equally to politics as to other callings. Man seeks experience and progress in politics unc
easingly because there is no limit to them. If the people must have reached a certain ideal stage before they can participate in political activities, then the British and the Americans should also be under political tutelage now. To obtain experience from trial and error, to effect progress from experience—this is the political method of the British and Americans, and this also is the reason why we are opposed to political tutelage. If political tutelage is ever necessary, we believe the rulers—the present tutors—are more urgently in need of training than the people.
[“Women yao shenmayang de zhengzhi zhidu?” in Xin yue 2, no. 12, pp. 4–13—CT]
JIANG TINGFU: “REVOLUTION AND ABSOLUTISM”
The Nationalist system of one-party rule under a strong leader found a defender rather than a critic in another Western-trained (Oberlin College and Columbia University) scholar, Jiang Tingfu (1895–1965). A college professor and an authority on political and diplomatic history at the time he wrote this essay, Jiang became increasingly active as a Nationalist official, as ambassador to the USSR, and later as the Nationalists’ permanent representative on the United Nations Security Council (known there as T. F. Tsiang).
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 50