A last suggestion may be made concerning the programs of Sun Yat-sen, before consideration of the Utopia [pg 261] which lay at the end of the road of min shêng. His plans may continue to go on in min shêng because they are so empirical. His nationalism may be deflected or altered by the new situation in world politics. His optimism concerning the rapidity of democratic developments may not be justified by actual developments. The programs of min shêng are so general that they can be followed to some degree by governments of almost any orientation along the Right-Left scale. The really important criterion in the programs of min shêng is this: the people must live. It is a simple one to understand, and may be a great force in the continued development of his programs, to the last stage of min shêng.
The Utopia of Min Shêng.
Sun Yat-sen differs from the empirical collectivists of the West in that he has an end to his program, which is to be achieved over a considerable period of time. The means are such that he can be classified with those Western thinkers; his goal is one which he took from the ideals in the old ideology and which he identified with those of the communists, although not necessarily with the Marxists. He said, at the end of his second lecture on min shêng:
Our way is community of industrial and social profits. We cannot say, then, that the doctrine of min shêng is different from communism. The San Min Chu I means a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people”—that is, the state is the common property of all the people, its politics are participated in by all, and its profits are shared by all. Then there will be not only communism in property, but communism in everything else. Such will be the ultimate end of min shêng, a state which Confucius calls ta t'ung or the age of “great similarity.”[327]
Perhaps no other passage from the works of Sun Yat-sen in relation to min shêng could illustrate his position so aptly. He describes his doctrine. He labels it “communism,” although, as we have seen, it is quite another thing than Marxism. He cites Lincoln. In the end he calls upon the authority of Confucius.
To a Westerner, the ideal commonwealth of Sun Yat-sen bears a remarkable resemblance to the world projected in the ideals of the ancient Chinese. Here again there is “great similarity,” complete ideological harmony, and the presumable disappearance of state and law. Property, the fount of war, has been set aside, and men—animated by a profound and sincere appreciation of jên—work together, all for the common good. The Chinese will, in this Utopia, have struck down might from the high places of the world, and inaugurated an era of the kingly way throughout the earth. Their ancient doctrines of benevolence and peace shall have succeeded in bringing about cosmospolitanism.
There are, however, differences from the old order of ideals. According to the Marxists, nationality, after it has served its purpose as an instrument in the long class struggle, may be set aside. Speculation of this sort is rare among them, however, and it is difficult to envision their final system. To Sun Yat-sen, however, there was the definite ideal that the Chinese live on forever. This was an obligation imposed upon him and his ideology by the teleological element in the old ideology which required that humanity be immortal in the flesh and that it be immortal through clearly traceable lines of descent. The individual was settled in a genealogical web, reaching through time and space, which gave him a sense of certainty that otherwise he might lack. This is inconsistent [pg 263] with the Marxian ideal, where the family system, a relic of brutal days, shall have vanished.
The physical immortality of the Chinese race was not the only sort of immortality Sun Yat-sen wished China to have. His stress on the peculiar virtues of the Chinese intellectual culture has been noted. The Chinese literati had sought an immortality of integrity and intellect, a continuity of civilization without which mere physical survival might seem brutish. In the teleology of Sun's ideal society, there would no doubt be these two factors: filial piety, emphasizing the survival of the flesh; and jên, emphasizing the continuity of wisdom and honor. Neither could aptly continue unless China remained Chinese, unless the particular virtues of the Chinese were brought once again to their full potency.[328]
The family system was to continue to the min shêng Utopia. So too were the three natural orders of men. Sun Yat-sen never advocated that the false inequality of the present world be thrown down for the purpose of putting in its place a false equality which made no distinction between the geniuses, the apostles, and the unthinking. The Chinese world was to be Chinese to the end of time. In this the narrowness of Sun Yat-sen's ideals is apparent; it is, perhaps, a narrowness which limits his aspirations and gives them strength.