To return to the consideration of the parts played by ideology and popular government in social control: there was another point of great difference between the old ideology and the new. The old was the creation, largely, of a special class of scholars, who for that purpose ranked highest in the social hierarchy of old China. Now even though the three natural classes might continue to be recognized in China, the higher standard of living and the increased literacy of the populace was to enlarge the number of persons participating in the life of ideas. The people were to form the ideology in part, and in part control the government under whose control the revolutionary geniuses were to form the rest of the ideology, [pg 120] and propagate it through a national educational program. In all respects the eventual control was to rest with the people of the Chinese race-nation, united, self-ruling, and determined to survive.
How, then, does the pattern of min ch'üan fit into the larger scheme of the continuation of Confucian civilization and ideological control? First, the old was to continue undisturbed where it might. Second, those persons completely lost to the discipline of the old ideology must be controlled by the state. Third, those areas of behavior which were disturbed by the Western impact required state guidance. Fourth, the machine state was to control both these fields, of men, and of ideas, and within this limited field was to be authoritarian (“an all-powerful state”) and yet democratic (“nevertheless subject to the control of the people”). Fifth, the ideology was to arise in part from the general body of the people. Sixth, the other parts of it were to be developed by the intellectuals, assisted by the government, which was to be also under the control of the people. Seventh, since the world was generally in an unstable condition, and since many wrongs remained to be righted, it was not immediately probable that the Chinese would settle down to ideological serenity and certainty, and consequently State policy would still remain as a governmental question, to be decided by the will of the whole race-nation.
To recapitulate, then the people was to rule itself until the reappearance of perfect tranquility—ta t'ung—or its nearest mundane equivalent. The government was to serve as a canalization of the power of the Chinese race-nation in fighting against the oppressor-nations of the world for survival.
The last principle of the nationalist ideology remains to be studied. Min tsu, nationalism, was to provide an instrumentality for self-control and for external defense [pg 121] in a world of armed states. But these two would remain ineffectual in a starved and backward country, if they were not supplemented by a third principle designed to relieve the physical impotence of the nation, to promote the material happiness of its individual members and to guarantee the continued survival of the Chinese society as a whole. Union and self-rule could be frustrated by starvation. China needed not only to become united and free as a nation; it had also to become physically healthy and wealthy. This was to be effected through min shêng, the third of the three principles.
Chapter IV. The Theory of Min Shêng.
Min Shêng in the Ideology.
The principle of min shêng has been the one most disputed. Sun Yat-sen made his greatest break with the old ideology in promulgating this last element in his triune doctrine; the original Chinese term carried little meaning that could be used in an approach to the new meaning that Sun Yat-sen gave it. He himself stated that the two words had become rather meaningless in their old usage, and that he intended to use them with reference to special conditions in the modern world.[142] He then went on to state the principle in terms so broad, so seemingly contradictory, that at times it appears possible for each man to read in it what he will, as he may in the Bible. The Communists and the Catholics each approve of the third principle, but translate it differently; the liberals render it by a term which is not only innocuous but colorless.[143] Had [pg 123] Sun Yat-sen lived to finish the lectures on min shêng, he might have succeeded in rounding off his discussion of the principle.