Introduction.
The Problem of the San Min Chu I.
The Materials.
Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world's attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara. With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the world's press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled. After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed, perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on the event.[3] More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun symbolized the entrance of China into [pg 002] world affairs, and the inevitable confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.
It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator, statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher. The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his flag was flown and his doctrines taught.
His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms, and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization struggling with its [pg 003] rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule the political life of a population greater than that of the United States or of the Soviet Union.
It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even if The Three Principles is judged by the extent of the population which its followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.
What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether coherent or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a definitive statement of his views.[4]