[9] Nevertheless, the rural cooperative movement must be counted in as having made some beginnings, despite the obstacles it has faced. More than seventy thousand credit and marketing cooperatives were in service last year. (The same, April 22, 1940.)
[10] Wu Yi-fang and Price, Frank W., editors; New York, 1940.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen
Chapter IX
SUN YAT-SEN AND CHIANG K'AI-SHEK
The two highest offices in the Kuomintang are Tsung-li (Leader) and Tsung-ts'ai (Chief). These are occupied by Sun Yat-sen as Leader and Chiang K'ai-shek as Chief. Sun Yat-sen, though he died on March 12, 1925, holds the higher office in perpetuity. So vast is his legacy to modern China that it exceeds full enumeration: founder of the effective revolutionary movement and Party, first practical republican, political organizer of the modern and overseas Chinese, first President of the Republic, and therefore officially acknowledged State Founder, a drafter of the national plan of modernization, author of the accepted ideology (San Min Chu I), initiator of the Nationalist-Communist entente and of the consequent Great Revolution, promulgator of the Outline of National Reconstruction, and posthumous patron of the National Government. Keenly and devotedly an advocate of democracy, Sun Yat-sen established by practical example the principle of charismatic leadership. He most certainly left a mantle. This is now, after years of struggle, draped about the shoulders of Chiang K'ai-shek, although Wang Ch'ing-wei retains a few threads torn from the hem.
Sun Yat-sen was a leader in the sense that the great religious and philosophical figures have been leaders. He is not to be compared to Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, or Hitler, but to Confucius, Gautama Buddha, or Mohammed. Like the spiritual leaders he blended profound humility and complete assurance. He knew that he was the savior of China, and knew it long before anyone else did. He did not rely on rising to power within a party, as did Lenin, or within a state, as did Hitler. He created his own Party and his own state. Had he not succeeded, he would have been labelled a maniac; so would most of the other major figures of human history, had they failed. His success, whatever its future fortune, is already so immense that it makes his sense of leadership seem modest. And within the limits of success, he was very modest; throughout life Sun remained more open-minded, ready to consult, deferential to the opinions of others, and more willing to yield power for the sake of harmony than the majority of his compeers. This duality has troubled some of his biographers. As late as 1939 an anonymous Englishman published an attack on Sun, which, missing the history of six decades, failed to note that Sun had lived, had succeeded, and had died objectively justified in his conception of himself.
Sun's example, unconsciously at variance with his teachings, has left a strong Caesarian strain in practical Chinese politics. Without Sun Yat-sen in the background, it is altogether impossible to understand the role played by Chiang, or to resolve the contradiction between a state pledged to democracy and a leader over-loaded with power. No group in China, except the officials of Manchoukuo, disavows Sun Yat-sen: the Japanophiles, the Nationalists, and the Communists all claim to execute his will.