The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu I — John Shaqi
The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu ILinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu I
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Sun, Yat-sen, 1866-1925. San min zhu yi
The other doctrines of Confucius, his practical teachings on
statesmanship, his discourses on the family—these cannot be entered into
here. Enough has, perhaps, been shown to demonstrate the thoroughness of
Confucius’ reaction against state and nation.(38) This reaction was to
continue, and to become so typical that the whole Chinese system of
subsequent centuries was called Confucian,(39) until the exigencies of a
newer, larger, and more perilous world led to Sun Yat-sen’s teaching of
modern Chinese nationalism. Before taking up the doctrine of _min tsu_, it
may be worthwhile to summarize the manner in which Chinese society,
deliberately and accidentally, each in part, followed out the doctrines of
Confucius in its practical organization.
The Chinese World-Society of Eastern Asia.
It would be, of course, absurd to pretend to analyze the social system of
China in a few paragraphs; and yet it is necessary to the study of Sun
Yat-sen that certain characteristics be at least mentioned. Several
problems appear which are quite outstanding. What was the social position
and function of each individual? How were refractory individuals to be
disciplined in accordance with the requirements that the general opinion
of society imposed? What were the ultimate ends which the organization of
Chinese society was to realize? How were the educational system and the
frontier defenses to be maintained? What was to be the position and power
of the political organization?
At the outset it is necessary that a working demarcation of the political
be established. Accepting, by definition, those coercive controls as
political which are operated for the preservation of society as a whole,
and are recognized within the society as so doing, we see immediately that
the range of the political must have been much less in old China than it
has been in the West. Western societies tend, at least in law, to
emphasize the relationship between the individual and the society as a
whole; free and unassociated individuals tend to become extraordinarily
unstable. In the old Chinese society the control of the individual was so
much an ideological one, that political control was infinitely narrower
than in the West. But, in order to effectuate ideological control, there
must be an organization which will permit pressure to be exercised on the
individual in such a compelling manner that the exercise of external
coercion becomes unnecessary. In a society in which the state has withered
away, after an enormous expansion in the subject-matter of its
control,(40) the totalitarian state is succeeded by the totalitarian
tradition, if—and the qualification is an important one—the indoctrination
has been so effective that the ideology can maintain itself in the minds
of men without the continuing coercive power of the state to uphold it. If
the ideology is secure, then control of the individual will devolve upon
those persons making up his immediate social environment, who—in view of
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