The Class War of the Nations.
Now come to a consideration of the second part of the sub-principle of political nationalism. This is the theory held by Sun concerning the class war of the nations. It serves to illustrate three points in Sun Yat-sen's thought: first, that Sun never permitted a Western theory to disturb the fundamentals of Chinese ideology as he wished to re-orient it; second, that Sun frequently took Western political theories which had been developed in connection with the relations of individuals and applied them to the relations of nations; and third, that Sun was so much impressed with the cordiality and friendship proffered him by the Communists that he sought to coöperate with them so far as his Chinese ideology permitted him.[255]
One notes that the question of distributive justice is not as pressing in China as it is in the modern West. One also observes that the old Chinese ideology was an ideology of the totalitarian society, which rejected any higher allegiance of states or of classes. And one sees that Sun Yat-sen, in proposing a democracy, suggested an ideology which would continue the old Chinese thesis of eventual popular sovereignty as reconciled with administration by an intellectually disciplined elite. Each of these three points prevented Sun from endorsing the intra-national class struggle.
He regarded the class struggle, not—as do the Marxians—as a feature of every kind of economically unequal social organization, but as a pathological development to be found in disordered societies. He considered the Marxian teachings in this respect to be as different from really adequate social doctrines as pathology is from physiology in medical science. The mobility of the old Chinese society, combined with the drags imposed by family, village, and hui, had resulted in a social order which by and large was remarkably just. By presenting the principle of min shêng as a cardinal point in an ideology to be made up of old Chinese morality, old Chinese knowledge, and Western science, he hoped to avoid the evils of capitalism in the course of ethically sound enrichment, development and arrangement of China's economy.
At the same time Sun was faced with the spectre of imperialism, and had to recognize that this unjust but effective alliance of economic exploitation and political subjection was an irreconcilable enemy to Chinese national freedom. He saw in Russia an ally, and did not see it figuratively. Years of disappointment had taught him that altruism is rare in the international financial relations of the modern world. After seeking everywhere else, he found the Russians, as it were, on his door-step offering him help. This convinced him as no theory could have. He regarded Russia as a new kind of power, and ascribed the general hatred for the Soviet to their stand against capitalism and imperialism: “Then all the countries of the world grew afraid of Russia. This fear of Russia, which the different countries entertain at present, is more terrible than the fear they formerly held, because this policy of peace not only overthrew the Russian imperialism, but (purposed) to overthrow also imperialism in the (whole world).”[256] This fight against imperialism was a good work in the mind of Sun Yat-sen.
In considering the principles of Sun more than a decade after they were pronounced, one cannot permit one's own knowledge of the events of the last eleven years to make one demand of Sun Yat-sen a similar background. That would amount to requiring that he be a prophet. At the time when he spoke of the excellence of Russia he had no reason to question the good faith of the Communists who were helping him. It is conceivable that even the Bolsheviks who were aiding and advising the Nationalists did not realize how soon the parting of the ways would come, how much the two ideologies differed from one another, how much each of the two parties endangered the other's position. At the time Sun spoke, the Communists were his allies in the struggle against imperialism; [pg 195] they had agreed from the beginning that China was a country not suited to communism; and Sun Yat-sen, relying on them not to use him in some wider policy of theirs, had no cause to mistrust or fear them. What has happened since is history. Sun Yat-sen can scarcely be required to have predicted it. His comments on imperialism, therefore, must be accepted at face value in a consideration of the nationalist program in his theories.
The method by means of which Sun reconciled his denial of the superiority of class to nation is an interesting one, profoundly significant as a clue to the understanding of his thought. He estimates the population of the world at 1500 million. Now, of this total 400 million are members of the white race, who constitute the most powerful and prosperous people in the modern world. “This white race regards (its 400,000,000 representatives) as the unit which must swallow up the other, colored races. Thus the Red tribes of America have already been exterminated.... The Yellow Asiatic race is now oppressed by the Whites, and it is possible that it will be exterminated before long.”[257] Thus, as Sun viewed it, imperialism before the war was racial as well as economic. The White Peril was a reality. This emphasis on the doctrine of race shows the emphasis that Sun put upon race once he had narrowed down the old world-society to the Chinese race-nation. The most vigorous Rassenpolitiker, such as Homer Lea or Lothrop Stoddard,[258] would approve heartily of such a [pg 196] system of calculation in politics. Sun Yat-sen differed with them, as he differed with the Marxians, and with the race-theorists in general, by not following any one Western absolute to the bitter end, whether it was the class war or the race struggle.
Russia fitted into this picture of race struggle. One hundred and fifty million Russians left the camp of the 400 million white oppressors, and came over to the just side of the 1100 million members of oppressed nations. Consequently the figures came out somewhat more favorably for the oppressed, in spite of the fact that the imperialist powers were still economically and militarily supreme. Sun Yat-sen quoted an apocryphal remark of Lenin's: “There are in the world two categories of people; one is composed of 1,250,000,000 men and the other of 250,000,000 men. These 1,250,000,000 men are oppressed by the 250,000,000 men. The oppressors act against nature, and in defiance of her. We who oppose might are following her.”[259] Sun regarded the Russian Revolution as a shift in the race-struggle, in which Russia had come over to the side of the oppressed nations. (He did, of course, refer to Germany as an oppressed nation at another time, but did not include, so far as we can tell, the German population in the thesis under consideration.)
On this basis China was to join Russia in the class struggle of the nations. The struggle was to be between the oppressed and the oppressors among the nations, and not between the races, as it might have been had not Russia come over to the cause of international equality.[260] [pg 197] After the class struggle of the nations had been done with, the time for the consideration of cosmopolitanism would have arrived.
In taking class lines in a scheme of nations, Sun was reconciling the requirements of the old ideology and the international struggle against imperialism. It is characteristic of his deep adherence to what he believed to be the scheme of realities in political affairs that he did not violate his own well-knit ideology in adopting the Marxian ideology for the anti-imperialist struggle, but sought to preserve the marvellous unity of his own society—a society which he believed to have been the most nearly perfect of its time. The race-interpretation of the international class struggle is at one and the same time an assertion of the natural and indestructible unity of Chinese society, and the recognition of the fact that China and Russia, together with the smaller nations, had a common cause against the great advances of modern imperialism.