Taiwan and the opium war - part 11
Dr. Sun’s THREE Principles
Part 11 - Dr. Sun’s THREE Principles
The First National Congress of the Kuomintang was held from January 20th to 30th 1924, to begin to put together the framework and structure of the party – establishing the Central Executive Committee, and the eight Bureaus - for Organization, Propaganda, Youth, Labor, Farmers, Women, Overseas Chinese, Military Affairs and Investigation. This would lay the basis for organizing a national revolutionary movement among farmer organizations, labor unions, and also the workers and peasants.
But the news of Lenin’s death reached Guangdong, and the Congress sent a telegram of condolence to Soviet Russia and they adjourned for three days of mourning.
While that Congress was still ongoing, Dr. Sun began a lecture series starting on January 27th at the Guangdong Higher Normal School to educate the party cadre in his political philosophy the ‘San Min Zhuyi’ – the Three Principles of the People, that would form the basis of his revolution.
The first six lectures that he gave were on the first principle of ‘Nationalism’. After his lectures, the transcripts would be rushed into print to be distributed throughout China. Then, Dr. Sun began the next six lectures on March 9th on the second principle of ‘Democracy’.
After delivering the last lecture on principle of Democracy on April 26th, Dr. Sun became seriously ill, with some newspapers (like the New York Times) even reporting that he had died. But news of his death was perhaps just wishful thinking on their part, or as Mark Twain would have said, rumors of his death were grossly exaggerated. After recuperating for a month at Baiyunshan (White Cloud Mountain), Dr. Sun returned to Canton.
But during that time, a conflict was begun (by some people in Shanghai). One side demanded that the communists should be kicked out of the Kuomintang, and the other side then demanded that the communists should resign from the Kuomintang. Dr. Sun was able to keep his United Front together, when the Central Executive Committee decided that:
“… all who have entered the party and who display revolutionary determination and sincerely respect the real ideas of the Three Principles of the People shall be treated as party members, no matter what faction they belonged to previously … Comrades of the party should not be suspicious but should continue the former struggle.”
Dr. Sun’s revolution was to be based on his lectures of his Three Principles, and not on party factions and party standing, but upon ideas!
On August 3rd, to answer these attacks, Dr. Sun again began his lectures, this time on the third principle, the ‘Doctrine of Livelihood’, that an understanding of the old Chinese phrase ‘min sheng’ [people’s livelihood] would encompass ‘the problems of socialism, communism and cosmopolitanism’.
And he took up the problem of the ‘anti-communism’ of some of the members (and Chiang too) – that only following the doctrine of ‘nationalism’ and that somehow the principles of ‘democracy’ and ‘livelihood’ would follow along, is not enough.
“Our old comrades in the Kuomintang have often misunderstood the communist party. They believe that communism is contradictory to the San Min Doctrine. Twenty years ago, we organized ourselves together as supporters of the San Min Doctrine, although many among us were convinced that only the doctrine of nationalism was necessary to bring about the salvation of China.
For instance, the members of the Tung Ming Hui aimed only at the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty. Most of them would have been content after the overthrow of the Manchus if a Chinese had been made emperor. As a matter of fact, their nationalistic feeling fundamentally contradicted the doctrine of democracy, even though I had required them to take an oath adhering to the San Min Doctrine.
Some of the most thoughtful of our fellow-revolutionists were of the opinion that a realization of the meaning of the doctrines of democracy and livelihood would grow along with the realization of the meaning of nationalism. Consequently the doctrines of democracy and livelihood were not seriously studied, and were little understood ...
The troubles have been due to lack of a clear understanding of the meaning of the doctrine of democracy on the part of the members of the Tung Ming Hui, and a greater lack of understanding of the doctrine of livelihood.”
Dr. Sun was only able to give four lectures on the doctrine of People’s Livelihood, even though he had more lectures planned, because he had to deal with an attack from the British Empire.
[next week - part 12 - The British Opium Banksters’ Rebellion]