In a philosophy for intellectuals such attitudes need not, perhaps, be reckoned with; in an ideology for revolution and reconstitution, perhaps they should. Sun Yat-sen conceived of his own work and his ideology not only as political acts but as moral forces; min shêng was at once to invigorate the national economy, to industrialize the material civilization, and to institute distributive justice, and in addition to this, it was to open a new, humane epoch in economic relations. That is why the term, instead of being translated, is left in the Chinese: min shêng.
Chapter V. The Programs of Nationalism.
Kuomintang.
Sun Yat-sen was a political leader as well as a political philosopher. His growth as a thinker was intimately associated with the development of his political activities. It would be difficult to say which came first, either in time or in importance, in his life—his teachings or his work. At times the line between the two becomes vague. Sun made vital commitments concerning his ideology in furthering his revolutionary work. These have to be sifted out from other utterances bearing only upon the immediate situation. This is not easy, but neither is it impossible. Lyon Sharman wrote, “It might be cogently argued that, in dealing with an easily absorbent, propagandist mind like Sun Yat-sen's one should not look to the shifting ideas for his real opinions, but to those formulations which he clung to tenaciously all his life.”[208]
The ideology of the San Min Chu I provides a broad scheme of terms and values by means of which the Chinese of the twentieth century could orient themselves simultaneously in the modern world and in the continuing world of Confucian civilization. Between this philosophy and the necessity of immediate practical action there stands an intermediate step—that of the plans. The plans provide a theory of means leading to the establishment of the ends set up in the ideology. The ideology, left on paper by itself, could not bring about China's salvation; it had to be spread and implemented with political action. Sun Yat-sen planned the programs and activities of the Chinese revolutionaries in some detail; he proposed policies [pg 158] reaching far out into the future. While, since his death, these plans have been modified to a greater or less degree,[209] they have not lost all relevance to the course of affairs in China, and, in any case, possess an interest of their own in the history of political thought, as illustrating the political doctrines to which Sun Yat-sen's ideology led him. The first problem the plans had to include was that of providing a tool by which they could be set in motion.
What instrument could preach nationalism to the Chinese people and awaken them, and, having awakened them, lead them on to a victorious defense of their race and civilization? Sun's answer was: “The Kuomintang.” The nationalist revolutionary party was the designated heir to the leadership of the people, and even in his life-time Sun Yat-sen worked through the party that was almost entirely his own creation.
This party had begun as a small group of the personal followers of Sun Yat-sen in the days when he was struggling against the Manchu monarchy almost singlehanded. Gradually this group increased and became a federation of the great secret orders which had resisted the Manchus for centuries. It developed into a modern parliamentary party under the name Kuomintang—literally nation people party—with the inauguration of the first republic, but was soon driven underground by the would-be emperor Yüan Shih-k'ai. It emerged again in South China at the end of the World War, was reorganized after the Communist model (so far as intra-party organization was concerned) before the death of Sun Yat-sen, led the revolution to the North, and, now, though somewhat less united than before, rules the greater part of China in the name of the Three Principles.[210]