On the basis of the outlines of the ideology and the social system that Sun Yat-sen proposed, viewed from the perspective of the old Confucian world-society, the reader will realize that this declaration of the industrial revolution is the boldest of Sun Yat-sen's acts, and that the meaning of min shêng as a program of complete modernization and reconstruction is superior to other possible meanings it may have, in regard to theoretical national or social revolution. There is nothing remote or philosophical about the significance of min shêng when so viewed; it is a plan to which a Lenin or a Henry Ford might subscribe with equal fervor—although a Tagore would deplore [pg 133] it. It is here that Sun Yat-sen appears as the champion of the West against the traditional technological stagnation of China. Yet just there, at the supreme point of his Westernism, we must remember what he was fighting for: the life of a race-nation and a civilization that was contradictory to the West. The stability of Confucianism could not serve as a cloak for reaction and stagnant thought. For its own good, nay, its own life, Chinese civilization had to modernize (i. e., Westernize economically) in order to compete in a West-ruled world. But what, more specifically, was the socio-economic position of Sun Yat-sen? Was he a Marxian? Was he a liberal? Was he neither?
Western Influences: Henry George, Marxism and Maurice William.
As previously stated there are three parts which may be distinguished in the ideology of the principle of min shêng. Min shêng is, first, the economic aspect of the national revolution—the creation of an active race-nation of China implementing its power by, second, technological revolution. Third, it connotes also the necessity of a social revolution of some kind. Western commentators have been prone to ignore the significance of min shêng in the first two of these meanings, and have concentrated on disputation concerning the third part. The question of the right system of distribution has become so prominent in much Western revolutionary thought that, to many, it sums up the whole moral issue concerning what is good and bad in society.[159] They are uninterested in or ignorant [pg 134] of the great importance that the first two aspects of min shêng possess for the Chinese mind. The third part, the application of min shêng to the problems that are in the West the cause of social revolution, and to the possible application of social revolution to China, is important, but is by no means the complete picture.
In attempting to state the definitive position of Sun Yat-sen on this question several points must be kept in mind. The first is that Sun Yat-sen, born a Chinese of the nineteenth century, had the intellectual orientation of a member of the world-society, and an accepter of the Confucian ideology. Enough has been shown of the background of his theories to demonstrate their harmony with and relevance to society which had endured in China for centuries before the coming of the West. The second point to be remembered is that Westerners are prone to overlook this background and see only the Western influences which they are in such a good position to detect. Sun Yat-sen's mind grew and changed. His preferences in [pg 135] Western beliefs changed frequently. A few Westerners, seeing only this, are apt to call Sun unstable and devoid of reason.[160]
It would, indeed, be strange to find any Western political or ideological leader who thought in precisely the same terms after the world war and the Russian revolution as before. Sun Yat-sen was, like many other receptive-minded leaders, sensitive to the new doctrines of Wilson and Lenin as they were shouted through the world. He was, perhaps, less affected by them than Western leaders, because his ideology was so largely rooted in the ideology of old China.
Apart from the winds of doctrine that blew through the world during Sun's life-period, and the generally known Western influences to which he was exposed,[161] there were three writers whose influence has been supposed to have been critical in the development of his thinking. These three were Henry George, Karl Marx, and Maurice William of New York. A much greater amount of material is needed for a detailed study of the influences of various individual theories on Sun Yat-sen than for a general exposition of his political doctrines as a whole. At the present [pg 136] time scarcely enough has been written to permit any really authoritative description of the relations between the ideology of Sun Yat-sen and the thought of these three men. It is possible, nevertheless, to trace certain general outlines which may serve to clarify the possible influence that was exercised on Sun, and to correct some current misapprehensions as to the nature and extent of that influence.
Sun Yat-sen's opposition to the “unearned increment” shows the influence of the thought of Henry George. Sun proposed an ingenious scheme for the government confiscation of unearned increment in an economy which would nevertheless permit private ownership of land. (Incidentally, he terms this, in his second lecture on min shêng, “communism,” which indicates a use of the word different, in this respect at least, from the conventional Western use.)[162] The land problem was of course a very old one in China, although accentuated in the disorders resulting from the impact of the West. There can be little question that Sun's particular method of solving the problem was influenced by the idea of unearned increment.
He knew of Henry George in 1897, the year the latter died,[163] and advocated redistribution of the land in the party oath, the platform, and the slogans of the Tung Meng Hui of 1905.[164] Since, even at the time of the Canton-Moscow Entente, his land policy never approached the Marxist-Leninist program of nationalization or collectivization of land, but remained one of redistribution [pg 137] and confiscation of unearned increment, it is safe to say that Sun kept the theory of George in mind, although he by no means followed George to the latter's ultimate conclusions.[165] It may thus be inferred that the influence of Henry George upon the nationalist ideology of Sun Yat-sen was slight, but permanent. An idea was borrowed; the scheme of things was not.
Sun Yat-sen encountered Marxism for the first recorded time in London in 1897, when he met a group of Russian revolutionaries and also read in the subject. The fact that Sun was exposed to Marxism proves little except that he had had the opportunity of taking up Marxism and did not do so.[166] Again, the Tung Meng Hui manifesto of 1905 may have been influenced by Marxism. It was not, however, until the development of his Three Principles that the question of Marxian influence was raised. Sun Yat-sen made his first speech on the Principles in Brussels in the spring of 1905.[167] By 1907 the three principles had taken on a clear form: nationalism, democracy, and min shêng, which the Chinese of that time seem to have translated socialism when referring to it in Western languages.[168]