Comrades in Revolution! Resolve Anew!
I am well aware of the magnitude of our revolutionary task of Resistance and Reconstruction, and I have been no less impressed with recent manifestations of my comrades' will to action. I have felt impelled by the one and encouraged by the other to present you today this exposition of positive action and of what is requisite for its success, in the hope that you will all keep in mind these indispensable principles, gathering fresh knowledge with experience, acting with deliberation, perspicacity, and conscientiousness, spurning all things that tend to distract you from your fixed purpose and involve you in the wild and motiveless conduct of those who possess no such fixed purpose. In the Chung-Yung, or Doctrine of the Mean, there is a passage emphasizing the importance of "conscientiousness" in action, by which it means the refusal to be satisfied with half-measures, the pursuit of ends to their logical conclusion. If you give earnest thought to what I have said you will realize that very much of what has long passed with us for action has not been true action, that is, not positive action, and that therefore we have failed in much that we have undertaken. It is only because our action has not been really positive that we have allowed our minds to enlarge on the difficulties and dangers of the Revolution. In fact, these difficulties exist only for those whose minds lack resolution, enthusiasm and faith. The ancient adage says: "There's nothing difficult in the world if there's a man of spirit to be found" (where there's a will there's a way). This is a piece of the age-old proverbial wisdom of the people, and it may well serve us as a salutary warning against the slack thinking and evil habits concealed beneath the airy phrase: "It's easy enough to know what should be done; it's acting accordingly that's hard."
We need, therefore, in the revolutionary nation-building we have before us only to assert our wills, inflame our hearts with a fresh sincerity and faith, and give ourselves up to positive action. If everyone of us does so, I have no hesitation in pronouncing it will mean the certainty of our success.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Chiang K'ai-shek, A Philosophy of Action, or What I Mean by Action, Chungking, 1940; p. 7-20. The accompanying foreword and notes are here omitted. The translation is the work of Mr. Ma P'in-ho, a naturalized Chinese scholar but of European race and nativity.
C. DEFINITION OF THE PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE ORGANIZATION OF THE VARIOUS CLASSIFICATIONS OF HSIEN (CHIANG K'AI-SHEK)[1]
One of a series of lectures, each issued separately, entitled The Conclusions of the Party Chief, and originally delivered before the Party and Government Training Class of the Central Training Corps. Compare with Appendix I (G), p. [324].
The chart, opposite, is a translation of the chart appended to the original Chinese of the Generalissimo's booklet on Hsien. P.M.A.L.
ORGANIZATION OF THE VARIOUS CLASSIFICATIONS OF HSIEN
