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Early Socialist Currents in the Chinese Revolutionary Movement: Sun Yat-sen Versus Liang Chʽi-chʽao

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

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After a decade in power, the Chinese Communists have had enough time to change the past as well as the present. Voluminous documentary collections, monographs, and general treatises on modern Chinese history have been published. Many of these works are designed to tell how socialism was victorious over evil and oppression, why the Communists deserved to inherit the mantle of heaven. Modern Chinese history is being reconstructed, with one eye always focussed upon those impersonal and inexorable forces of dialectical materialism and economic determinism, while the other is fixed upon the very personal if enormously heroic qualities of Chairman Mao. In the opening stages of a Communist revolution (and perhaps of most revolutions), a cult of personality comes so naturally and serves so many strategi c purposes, it is difficult to avoid, whatever the logic in second generation criticisms.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1959

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References

1 For an evaluation of current mainland historiography, see Fairbank, John K. and Wright, Mary C., eds., “Documentary Collections on Modern Chinese History,” JAS, XVII (Nov. 1957), 5560CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The Dictatorship of the People's Democracy (New Haven, 1951), p. 5Google Scholar.

3 Min pao was published monthly in Tokyo from 1905 to 1908. Two final issues were secretly published by Wang Ching-wei in 1910. All 26 issues are now available in four book-size volumes printed in Peking in 1957. Hsin-min ts'ung-pao (hereafter referred to as HMTP) was published in Yokohama from 190a to 1907.

4 For two different records of this speech, see Kuo-fu ch'üan-chi [Collected Works of die Father of the Country] (Taipei, 1957, rev. ed.), III, 16Google Scholar and 6–8.

5 Ko-ming i-shih (Shanghai, 1947), III, 216Google Scholar.

6 Min pao, No. 12 (March 6, 1907), p. 126. This article, “Replying to the Critics of min-sheng chu-i” was credited to “Min-i,” a pen name used jointly by Hu Han-min and Wang Ching-wei. For a key to pen names used in Min pao, see Hsin-hai ko-ming (Peking, 1957) II, 447452Google Scholar.

7 Kuo-fu ch'üan-chi, III, 11.

8 Kuo-fu ch'üan-chi, III, 12.

9 For a fuller discussion of Sun's land policy and its relation to George's theories, see Schiffrin, Harold, “Sun Yat-sen's Early Land Policy: The Origin and Meaning of Equalization of Land Rights,” JAS, XVI (August 1957), 549564CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 “Min Pao chih liu ta chu-i,” Min pao, No. 3 (April 5, 1906), pp. 1–22. The six points were: (1) overthrow of the Manchu government; (2) establishment of a republic; (3) land nationalization; (4) the support of genuine international peace; (5) alliance between China and Japan; (6) the demand that the world powers assist in China's reform. Tsou Lu remarks that the first three points comprised the Three Principles of the People, while the latter three represented the party's foreign policy at that time. See his Chung-kuo kuo-min-tang shih-kao (Chungking, 1944), II, 446Google Scholar. In an English translation of Min pao's program in the final page of this same issue, however, points 5 and 6 were omitted.

11 Min pao, No. 3, pp. 11–14.

12 “Min-sheng chu-i yü chung-kuo cheng-chih ko-ming chih ch'ien-t'u,” No. 4, Min pao (May 1, 1906), pp. 97–122.

13 Min pao, No. 5 (June 26, 1906), pp. 43–66.

14 See Schiffrin (n. 9), pp. 560–561.

15 See Kuo-fu ch'üan-chi, III, 355.

16 “Short Biographies of German Social Revolutionaries,” Min pao, No. 2 (Jan. 22, 1906 is the correct date according to Tsou Lu [n. 10], p. 436), pp. 7–10. This article is concluded in Min pao, No. 3. On the final page there appears the French (Communard?) slogan, “Vivre en travaillent on mourir en Combattent” (sic), together with a Chinese translation.

17 Min pao, No. 3, pp. 3–4. Chu felt that China could learn more from the German Socialist movement than any other.

18 See Kuo-fu ch'üan-chi, III, 8–16.

19 Kuo-fu ch'üan-chi, III, 14.

20 See Jansen, Marius B., The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen (Cambridge, Mass., 1954)Google Scholar.

21 HMTP, No. 14 (86) (Sept. 3, 1906), pp. 5–52. This issue was apparently predated since it refers to Sun's speech of October.

22 Both the Sun and Liang factions were heavily influenced by Richard T. Ely's Outlines of Economics, rev. ed. (New York, 1904), which had been translated into Japanese a few years earlier. In these polemics, Ely would serve as an indisputable source of Western economic history. Each side would accuse the other of misunderstanding or misusing Ely's text.

23 HMTP, No. 14, p. 9.

24 HMTP, No. 17 (89) (Oct. 18, 1906), pp. 35–56.

25 This article, “A Further Refutation of a Certain Paper's Land Nationalization Doctrine,” appeared in No. 18, 19, and 20. Although dated 1906, this long essay was in answer to Min pao. No. 12, dated March 6, 1907.

26 HMTP, No. 19 (91) (Nov. 16, 1906), pp. 20–21.

27 HMTP, No. 20 (92) (Nov. 30, 1906), p. 2.

28 See Levenson, Joseph R., Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China (Cambridge, Mass., 1953)Google Scholar.

29 Min pao, No. 12 (March 6, 1906), pp. 69–77.

30 Heimin shimbun [The Commoner Newspaper] (Tokyo, Jan. 20, 1907) (English section), p. 1. (We have corrected only obvious typographical errors.)