Democracy in the Old World-Society.
In describing a few of the characteristics of the old ideology and the old
society which may assist the clarification of the principle of democracy,
it may prove useful to enter into a brief examination of what the word may
mean in the West, to refer to some of the ideas and institutions of old
China that were or were not in accord with the Western notion of
democracy, and, finally, to see what connection Sun Yat-sen’s theory of
democracy may have either with the Western term or with elements in the
Chinese background. Did Sun Yat-sen propound an entirely new theory as the
foundation of his theory of democracy for the Chinese race-nation, or did
he associate several hitherto unrelated ideas and systems to make a new
whole?
The European word _democracy_ may, for the purposes of this examination,
be taken to have two parts to its meaning; first, with regard to the
status of individuals in society; second, with respect to the allocation
of political power in society. In the former sense, democracy may refer to
an equalitarianism of status, or to a social mobility so easy and so
general as to encourage the impression that position is a consequence of
the behavior of the individual, and a fair gauge to his merit. In the
latter part of the meaning, democracy may refer to the identification of
the governed and the governors, or to the coincidence of the actions of
the governors with the wishes of the governed. Each of these
ideas—equalitarianism, free mobility, popular government, and
representative government—has been referred to as the essence of
democracy. One of them may lead to the discovery of a significance for
democracy relevant to the scheme of things in the old Chinese society.
Egalitarianism and mobility were both present in old Chinese society. The
Chinese have had neither an hereditary aristocracy equivalent to the
Western, nor a caste-system resembling that of India or Japan, since the
breakdown of the feudal system twenty-three centuries ago.(109) The
extra-legal egalitarianism of the Chinese has been so generally remarked
upon by persons familiar with that nation, that further discussion of it
here is superfluous. Birth has probably counted less in China than it has
in any other country in the world.
The egalitarianism of intercourse was a powerful aid to social mobility.
The Chinese never pretended to economic, political, or intellectual
equality; the mere statement of such a doctrine would have been sufficient
refutation of it to the members of the old society. Yet there were no
gradations of weight beyond educational, political, and economic
distinctions, and the organization of the old society was such that
mobility in these was relatively free. Movement of an individual either
upwards or downwards in the economic, political, or academic scale was
retarded by the influence of the family, which acted as a drag either way.
Movement was nevertheless continuous and conspicuous; a proof of this
movement is to be found in the fact that there are really no supremely
great families in China, comparable to the great names of Japan or of the
Euramerican nations. (The closest approximation to this is the _K’ung_
family, the family of Confucius; since the family is large, its eminence
is scarcely more than nominal and it has no political power.).
Mobility in China was fostered by the political arrangements. The
educational-administrative system provided a channel upwards and
downwards. The government tended, for the most part, to be the way up,
while the economic system was the way down for prominent official
families. Few families managed to remain eminent for more than a few
generations, and—with the great size of families—there was always room at
the top. If a man were not advancing himself, there was always the
possibility that a kinsman might win preferment, to the economic and
political advantage of the whole family group.
Social relations—in the narrowest sense of the word—were characterized by
an extreme attention to form as such, and great contempt for it otherwise.
Ritualism never became a chivalry or a cult of honor. There was always the
emphasis upon propriety and courtesy but, once the formalities were done
with, there was little social distinction between members of different
economic, political, or academic classes.(110)
In connection with control and representation, a great deal more can be
said. In the first place, the relations between the governing ideologue in
the Confucian teachings,(111) and the governed accepters of the ideology
in the Confucian system were to be discovered through _yüeh_.
_Yüeh_, commonly translated “music” or “harmony,” plays a peculiar rôle in
the Confucian teachings. It is the mass and individual emotional pattern,
as _li_ is the behavior pattern. If the people follow the proper behavior
pattern, their emotional pattern must also be good. Consequently, the
function of a truly excellent ruler was the scrutiny of _yüeh_. If he were
a man of superior penetration, he should be able to feel the _yüeh_ about
him, and thus discover the temper of the populace, without reference to
electoral machinery or any other government instrumentality. _Yüeh_ is to
be seen in the tone of voices, in the rhythm of behavior. If it is good,
it will act with increasing effect upon itself. If bad, it serves as a
warning to the authorities. As Prof. Hsü says, “For rulers and
administrators _yüeh_ has two uses; first, it enables them to ascertain
the general sentiment of the people toward the government and political
life; and second, it cultivates a type of individual attitude that is most
harmonious with the environment. The joint work of _li_ and _yüeh_ would
produce social harmony and social happiness—which is the ultimate aim of
the State.”(112)
_Yüeh_ is, however, a peculiar phenomenon, which can scarcely be called
either representation or control. It is an idea rooted in the curiously
pragmatic-mystical world-view of the Confucians, that same world-view
which elevated virtue almost to the level of a physical substance, subject
to the same sort of laws of disruption or transmission. Nothing like
_yüeh_ can be found in Western political thought; however significant it
may have been in China, any attempt to deal with it in a Western language
would have more than a touch of futility, because of the great chasm of
strangeness that separates the two intellectual worlds at so many places.
A more concrete illustration of the old Chinese ideas of popular control
may be found in the implications of political Confucianism, as Hsü renders
them:
From the Confucian doctrine of stewardship, namely, that the king
is an ordinary person selected by God upon his merit to serve as
the steward of God in the control of the affairs of the people for
the welfare of the people, there are deduced five theories of
political democracy. In the first place, the government must
respect public opinion. The will of the people is the will of God,
and thus the king should obey both the will of the people and the
will of God....
In the second place, government should be based upon the consent
of the governed....
In the third place, the people have a duty as well as a right to
carry on revolution as the last resort in stopping tyranny....
Revolution is regarded as a natural blessing; it guards against
tyranny and promotes the vitality of the people. It is in complete
harmony with natural law.
In the fourth place, the government exists for the welfare of the
people.
In the fifth place, liberty, equality and equity should be
preserved. The State belong equally to all; and so hereditary
nobility, hereditary monarchy, and despotism are deplored.
Confucius and his disciples seem to advocate a democracy under the
form of an elective monarchy or a constitutional monarchy....
Local self-government is recognized in the Confucian system of
government.... The Confucian theory of educational election
suggests the distinctly new idea of representation.(113)
This summary could scarcely be improved upon although it represents a
considerable latitude of interpretation in the subject-matter of the
classics. The voice of the people was the voice of God. From other
political writers of antiquity—Mêng Tzŭ, Mo Ti, Han Fei Tzŭ and the
Legalists, and others—the Chinese received a variety of political
interpretations, none of which fostered the development of autocracy as it
developed in Europe.
The reason for this is simple. In addition to the eventual popular control
of government, and the necessity for the close attention of the government
to the wishes of the people, the classical writers, for the most part, did
not emphasize the position of government. With the increasing ideological
solidarity of the Chinese world, the increasing antiquity and authority of
tradition, and the stability of the social system, the Chinese states
withered away—never completely, but definitely more so than their
analogues in the West. There appeared, consequently, in China a form of
laissez-faire that surpassed that of Europe completely in thoroughness.
Not only were the economic functions of the state reduced to a minimum—so
was its police activity. Old China operated with a government in reserve,
as it were; a government which was nowhere nearly so important to its
subjects as Western governments commonly are. The government system was
one democratic in that it was rooted in a society without intransigeant
class lines, with a considerable degree of social mobility for the
individual, with the total number of individuals exercising a terrific and
occasionally overwhelming pressure against the political system. And yet
it was not the governmental system upon which old China might have based
its claim to be a democracy. It could have, had it so wished, claimed that
name because of the weakness or the absence of government, and the
presence of other social organizations permitting the individual a
considerable amount of latent pressure to exercise upon his social
environment.
This arose from the nature of the large non-political organizations which
sustained Chinese civilization even more than did the
educational-administrative authorities. It is obvious that, in theory, a
free and unassociated individual in a laissez-faire polity would be
defenseless against extra-politically organized persons. The equities of
modern democracy lie largely in the development of a check and balance
system of pressure groups, affording each individual adequate means of
exercising pressure on behalf of his various interests. It was this
function—the development of a just statement of pressure-groups—which the
old Chinese world-society developed for the sufficient representation of
the individual.
There was no illusion of complete personal liberty. Such a notion was
scarcely thinkable. Every individual had his family, his village,
and—although this was by no means universally true—his _hui_, whether one
or, less commonly, several. He was never left solitary and defenseless
against powerfully organized interests. No more intimate community of
interests could be discovered than that of a family, since the community
of interests there would verge on the total. Ancient Chinese society
provided the individual with mechanisms to make his interests felt and
effective, through the family, the village, and the association.
In the West the line of influence runs from the individual, who feels a
want, to the group which assists him in expressing it, to the government,
upon which the group exercises pressure, in order that the government may
use its power to secure what the first group wants from some other group.
The line runs, as it were, in the following manner:
individual-group-government-group. In China the group exercised its
pressure for the most part directly. The individual need not incorporate
himself in a group to secure the recognition and fulfillment of his
interests; he was by birth a member of the group, and with the group was
mobile. In a sense old Chinese society was thoroughly democratic.
On the basis of such a background, Sun Yat-sen did not believe that the
Chinese had too much government, but, rather, too little. He did not cry
for liberty; he denounced its excess instead. On the basis of the old
social organization, which was fluid and yet stable, he sought to create a
democracy which would pertain to the interests of the nation as a whole,
not to the interests of individuals or groups. These could go on in the
traditional manner. The qualifications implicit in Sun Yat-sen’s
championship of democracy must be kept in mind, and his acquaintance with
the democratic techniques of the old society be allowed for. Otherwise his
advocacy of the recognition of nationalist rights and his neglect or
denunciation of individual liberties might be taken for the dogma of a
lover of tyranny or dictatorship.
Old China possessed a considerable degree of egalitarianism, of social
mobility, of popular control, and of popular participation, through the
civil service, in what little government there was. In addition,
ideological control ensured a minimum of conflicts of interests and
consequently a maximum facility for self-expression without conflict with
other individuals, groups, or society as a whole. Finally, the protection
and advancement of individuals’ rights and interests were fostered by a
system of group relationships which bound virtually every individual into
a group and left none to fall, solitary, at the mercy of others who were
organized.
Why then did Sun Yat-sen advocate democracy? What were his justifications
for it, in a society already so democratic?
Five Justifications of a Democratic Ideology.
Sun Yat-sen, realizing the inescapable necessity of nationalism, did not
immediately turn to democracy as a necessary instrument for its promotion.
He hated the Manchus on the Dragon Throne—human symbols of China’s
subjugation—but at first considered replacing them with a new Chinese
dynasty. It was only after he had found the heirs of the Ming dynasty and
the descendants of Confucius to be unworthy that he turned to
republicanism and found democracy, with its many virtues.(114) He early
became enamored of the elective system, as found in the United States, as
the only means of obtaining the best governors.(115) In the final stage he
had departed so far from his earlier way of thinking that he criticized
Dr. Goodnow severely for recommending the re-introduction of a monarchy in
China.
Sun Yat-sen, as a good nationalist, made earnest efforts to associate his
doctrines with those of the sages and to avoid appearing as a proponent of
Western civilization. It is, consequently, not unusual to discover him
citing Confucius and Mencius on _vox populi vox dei_, and saying,
“The government of Yao and Shun was monarchical in name but democratic in
practice, and for that reason Confucius honored these men.”(116)
He considered that democracy was to the sages an “ideal that could not be
immediately realized,”(117) and therefore implied that modern China, in
realizing democracy, was attaining an ideal cherished by the past.
Democracy, other things apart, was a filial duty. This argument, while
persuasive in Chinese, can scarcely be considered Sun Yat-sen’s most
important one in favor of democracy.
His most cogent and perhaps most necessary argument was based on his
conception of national liberty as opposed to the liberty of the
individual. He delivered a spirited denunciation of those foreigners who
criticized the Chinese for being without liberty, and in the next breath
complained that the Chinese had no government, that they were “loose
sand.” (Another fashionable way of expressing this idea is by saying that
“China is a geographical expression.”) He said: “If, for instance, the
foreigners say that China is ‘loose sand,’ what do they finally mean by
that expression? They mean to say that each individual is free, that
everybody is free, that each one takes the maximum of liberty, and that,
as a result, they are ‘loose sand’.”(118) He pointed out that the Chinese
had not suffered from the loose autocracy in the Empire, and that they had
no historical justification for parroting the cry “Liberty!” simply
because the Westerners, who had really lacked it, had cried and fought for
it. He cited John Millar’s definition of liberty, given in _The Progress
of Science Relative to Law and Government_, 1787: “True liberty consists
in this: that the liberty of each individual is limited by the
non-infringement on the liberty of others; when it invades the liberty of
others, it is no longer liberty.”(119) Sun Yat-sen had himself defined
liberty as follows: “Liberty consists in being able to move, in having
freedom of action within an organized group.”(120) China, disorganized,
had no problem of individual liberty. There was, as a matter of fact, too
much liberty.(121) What the Chinese had to do was to sacrifice some of
their individual liberty for the sake of the organized nation. Here we
find a curious turn of thought of which several other examples may be
found in the _San Min Chu I_: Sun Yat-sen has taken a doctrine which in
the West applies to the individual, and has applied it to the nation. He
believes in liberty; but it is not the liberty of the individual which is
endangered in China. It is the liberty of the nation—which has been lost
before foreign oppression and exploitation. Consequently he preaches
national and not individual liberty. Individual liberty must be sacrificed
for the sake of a free nation.(122) Without discipline there is no order;
without order the nation is weak and oppressed. The first step to China’s
redemption is _min tsu_, the union (nationalism) of the people. Then comes
_min ch’üan_, the power of the people. The liberty of the nation is
expressed through the power of the people.
How is the power of the people to be exercised? It is to be exercised by
democratic means. To Sun Yat-sen, the liberty of the nation and the power
of the people were virtually identical. If the Chinese race gained its
freedom, that freedom, exercised in an orderly manner, could mean only
democracy. It is this close association of nationalism (_min tsu_) and
democracy (_min ch’üan_), this consideration of democracy as the
expression of nationalism, that forms, within the framework of the _San
Min Chu I_, what is probably the best nationalist argument for
democracy—best, that is, in being most coherent with the Three Principles
as a whole.
If the view of democracy just expressed be considered an exposition of the
fundamental necessity of democracy, the third argument may be termed the
dialectical or historical championship of democracy. Sun Yat-sen believed
in the existence of progress, and considered that there was an inevitable
tendency toward democracy: the overthrow of the Manchus was a result of
the “... world tide. That world current can be compared to the course of
the Yangtze or the Yellow River. The flow of the stream turns perhaps in
many directions, now toward the north, now toward the south, but in the
end flows toward the east in spite of all obstacles; nothing can stem it.
In the same way the world-tide passes ...; now it has arrived at
democracy, and there is no way to stem it.”(123) This belief in the
inevitability as well as the justice of his cause encouraged Sun, and has
lent to his movement—as his followers see it—something of the impressive
sweep that the Communists see in their movement.
Sun Yat-sen did not devise any elaborate scheme of dialectical materialism
or economic determinism to bolster his belief in the irreversibility of
the flow to democracy. With infinite simplicity, he presented an
exposition of democracy in space and time. In time, he saw a change from
the rule of force to theocracy, then to monarchy, and then to democracy;
this change was a part of the progress of mankind, which to him was
self-evident and inevitable.(124) In space he perceived that increasingly
great numbers of people threw off monarchical rule and turned to
democracy. He hailed the breakdown of the great empires, Germany and
Russia, as evidence of the power of democracy. “... if we observe (things)
from all angles, we see that the world progresses daily, and we realize
that the present tide has already swept into the age of democracy; and
that no matter how great drawbacks and failures may be, _democracy will
maintain itself in the world for a long time_ (_to come_). For that
reason, thirty years ago, we promoters of the revolution, _resolved that
it was impossible to speak of the greatness of China or to carry out the
revolution without advocating democracy_.”(125)
A fourth argument in favor of democracy, and one which cannot be expanded
here, since it involves reference to Sun Yat-sen’s practical plans for the
political regeneration of China, was his assertion that democracy was an
adjunct to appropriate and effective public administration. Sun Yat-sen’s
plans concerning the selection of officials in a democratic state showed
that he believed the merging of the Chinese academic-civil service
technique with Western democracy would produce a paragon among practicable
governments.
Fifthly and finally, Sun regarded democracy as an essential modernizing
force.(126) In the introduction of Western material civilization, which
was always an important consideration to his mind, he felt that a certain
ideological and political change had to accompany the economic and
technological revolution that—in part natural and in part to be stimulated
by nationalist political interference—was to revolutionize the _min shêng_
of China, the economic and social welfare of the Chinese people. While
this argument in favor of democracy is similar to the historical argument,
it differs from the latter in that Sun Yat-sen saw the technique of
democracy influencing not only the political, but the economic and social,
life of the people as well. The growth of corporate responsibility, the
development of a more rigid ethical system in matters of finance, the
disappearance of too strict an emphasis upon the personal element in
politics (which has clouded Chinese politics with a fog of conspiracy and
intrigue for centuries), a trust in mathematics (as shown in reliance upon
the voting technique for ascertaining public opinion), and the development
of a new kind of individual aggressiveness and uprightness were among the
changes which, necessary if China was to compete in the modern world,
democracy might assist in effecting. While these desiderata do not seem
large when set down in the vast field of political philosophy, they are of
irritating importance in the inevitable trivalities upon which so much of
day-to-day life depends, and would undoubtedly improve the personal tone
of Sino-Western relations. Sun never divorced the theoretical aspects of
his thought from the practical, as has been done here for purposes of
exposition, and even the tiniest details of everyday existence were the
objects of his consideration and criticism. In itself, therefore, the
modernizing force of democracy, as seen in Sun’s theory, may not amount to
much; nevertheless, it must not be forgotten.(127)
Democracy, although secondary in point of time to his theory, is of great
importance in Sun’s plans for the political nature of the new China. He
justified democracy because it was (1) an obligation laid upon modern
China by the sages of antiquity; (2) a necessary consequence of
nationalism, since nationalism was the self-rule of a free people, and
democracy the effectuation of that self-rule, and democracy the
effectuation of that self-rule; (3) the government of the modern age;
China, along with the rest of the world, was drawn by the tide of progress
into the age of democratic achievement; (4) the political form best
calculated for the obtaining of good administration; and (5) a modernizing
force that would stir and change the Chinese people so as to equip them
for the competitions of the modern world.
In the lecture in which he criticized the inadequacies of democracy as
applied in the West, Sun Yat-sen made an interesting comment on the
proletarian dictatorship which had recently been established in Russia.
“Recently Russia invented another form of government. That government is
not representative; it is _absolute popular government_. In what does that
absolute popular government really consist? As we know very little about
it, we cannot judge it aright, but we believe that this (absolute popular
government) is _evidently much better than a representative
government_.”(128) He went on immediately to say that the Three Principles
were what China needed, and that the Chinese should not imitate the
political systems advocated in Europe and America, but should adapt
democracy in their own way. In view of his objection to a permanent class
dictatorship, as opposed to a provisional party dictatorship, and the very
enthusiastic advocacy of democracy represented by the arguments described
above, it appears unlikely in the extreme that Sun Yat-sen, had he lived
beyond 1925, would have abandoned his own plan of democracy for China in
favor of “absolute popular government.” The phrase was, at the time, since
Sun Yat-sen was seeking Russian assistance, expedient for a popular
lecture. Its importance might easily be exaggerated.
The Three Natural Classes of Men.
Having in mind the extreme peril in which the Chinese race-nation stood,
its importance in a world of Western or Western-type states, and seeing
nationalism as the sole means of defending and preserving China, Sun
Yat-sen demanded that the Chinese ideology be extended by the acquisition
of knowledge. If this modernizing and, if a neologism be permitted,
stateizing process were to succeed, it must needs be fostered by a
well-prepared group of persons within the society.
In the case of the Confucian social theory, it was the scholars who took
the ideology from the beliefs and traditions of the agrarian masses or
whole people, rectified it, and gave it back to them. This continuous
process of ideological maintenance by means of conformity (_li_) and, when
found necessary, rectification (_chêng ming_) was carried on by an
educational-political system based upon a non-hereditary caste of
academician-officials called _Mandarins_ by the early Western travellers.
In the case of those modern Western states which base their power upon
peculiar ideologies, the philosophy-imposing caste has been a more or less
permanent party- or class-dictatorship. Superficially, the
party-dictatorship planned by Sun Yat-sen would seem to resemble these.
His theory, however, presents two bases for a class of ideologues: one
theoretical, and presumably based upon the Chinese; and one applied, which
is either of his own invention or derived from Western sources. The class
of ideological reformers proposed in what may be called the applied aspect
of his theory was to be organized by means of the party-dictatorship of
the Kuomintang. His other basis for finding a class of persons whose
influence over the ideology was to be paramount was more theoretical, and
deserves consideration among the more abstract aspects of his doctrines.
He hypothecated a tripartite division of men:
Men may be divided into three classes according to their innate
ability or intelligence. The first class of men may be called
_hsien chih hsien cho_ or the “geniuses.” The geniuses are endowed
with unusual intelligence and ability. They are the creators of
new ideas, fathers of invention, and originators of new
achievements. They think in terms of group welfare and so they are
the promoters of progress. Next are the _hou chih hou cho_ or the
“followers.” Being less intelligent and capable than the _hsien
chih hsien cho_, they do not create or invent or originate, but
they are good imitators and followers of the first class of men.
The last are the _pu chih pu cho_, or the “unthinking,” whose
intelligence is inferior to that of the other two classes of men.
These people do what the others instruct them to do, but they do
not think about it. In every sphere of activity all three classes
of men are present. In politics, for example, there are the
creators or inventors of new ideas and movements, then the
propagators of these ideas and movements, and lastly the mass of
men who are taught to practice these ideas.(129)
The harmony of this conception with the views of Confucius is evident.
Presbyter is Priest writ large; genius is another name for scholar. Sun,
although bitterly opposed to the mandarinate of the Empire and the
pseudo-Republic, could not rid himself of the age-old Chinese idea of a
class organization on a basis of intellect rather than of property. He
could not champion a revolutionary creed based upon an economic class-war
which he did not think existed, and which he did not wish to foster, in
his own country. He continued instead the consistent theory of an
aristocracy of intellect, such as had controlled China before his coming.
The aristocracy of intellect is not to be judged, however, by the old
criteria. Under the old regime, a scholar-ruler was one who deferred to
the wisdom of the ancients, who was fit to perpetuate the mysteries of the
written language and culture for the benefit of future ages, and who was
meanwhile qualified by his training to assume the rôle of counsellor and
authority in society. In the theory of Sun Yat-sen, the genius leader is
not the perpetuator but the discoverer. He is the social engineer. His
work is similar to that of the architect who devises plans for a building
which is to be built by workers (the unthinking) under the guidance of
foremen (the followers).(130) In this guise, the new intellectual
aristocrat is a figure more akin to the romantic Western pioneers and
inventors than to the serene, conservative scholars of China in the past.
The break with Western thought comes in Sun’s distinguishing three
permanent, natural classes of men. Though in their aptitudes the _hsien
chih hsien cho_ are more like modern engineers than like archaic literary
historians, they form a class that is inevitably the ruling class. To
Marxism this is anathema; it would imply that the Communist party is
merely the successor of the bourgeoisie in leading the unthinking masses
about—a more benevolent successor, to be sure, but still a class distinct
from the led proletariat of the intellect. To Western democratic thought,
this distinction would seem at first glance to invalidate any future
advocacy of democracy. To the student interested in contrasting
ideological control and political government, the tripartite division of
Sun Yat-sen is significant of the redefinition in modern terms, and in an
even more clear-cut manner, of the Confucian theory of scholarly
leadership.
How were the geniuses of the Chinese resurgence to make their knowledge
useful to the race-nation? How could democracy be recognized with the
leadership and ideological control of an intellectual class? To what
degree would such a reconciliation, if effected, represent a continuation,
in different terms, of the traditions and institutions of the old Chinese
world? Questions such as these arise from the fusion of the old traditions
and new necessities.
Ch’üan and Nêng.
The contrast between _ch’üan_ and _nêng_ is one of the few aspects of Sun
Yat-sen’s theory of democracy which persons not interested in China may,
conceivably, regard as a contribution to political science. There is an
extraordinarily large number of possible translations for each of these
words.(131) A version which may prove convenient and not inaccurate, can
be obtained by translating each Chinese term according to its context.
Thus, a fairly clear idea of _ch’üan_ may be obtained if one says that,
applied to the individual, it means “power,” or “right,” and when applied
to the exercise of political functions, it means “sovereignty” or
“political proprietorship.” _Nêng_, applied to the individual, may mean
“competency” (in the everyday sense of the word), “capacity” or “ability
to administer.” Applied to the individual, the contrast is between the
ability to have political rights in a democracy, and the ability to
administer public affairs. Applied to the nation, the contrast is between
sovereignty and administration.(132)
Without this contrast, the doctrine of the tripartite classification of
men might destroy all possibilities of a practical democracy. If the
Unthinking are the majority, how can democracy be trusted? This contrast,
furthermore, serves to illuminate a further problem: the paradoxical
necessity of an all-powerful government which the people are able to
control.
If this distinction is accepted in the establishment of a democracy, what
will the consequences be?(133)
In the first place, the masses who rule will not necessarily govern.
Within the framework of a democratic constitution, they will be able to
express their wishes, and make those wishes effective; but it will be
impossible for them to interfere in the personnel of government, whether
merely administrative or in the highest positions. It will be forever
impossible that a “swine-representative” should be elected, or that one of
those transient epochs of carpet-baggery, which appear from time to time
in most Western democracies, should corrupt the government. By means of
the popular rights of initiative, referendum, election and recall, the
people will be able to control their government in the broad sweep of
policy. The government will be beyond their reach insofar as petty
political interference, leading to inferiority or corruption, is
concerned.
In the second place, the benefits of aristocracy will be obtained without
its cost. The government will be made up of men especially fit and trained
to govern. There will, hence, be no difficulty in permitting the
government to become extraordinarily powerful in contrast with Western
governments. Since the masses will be able to choose between a wide
selection of able leaders, the democracy will be safeguarded.
Sun Yat-sen regarded this as one of the cardinal points in his doctrines.
In retaining the old Chinese idea of a scholar class and simultaneously
admitting Western elective and other democratic techniques, he believed
that he had found a scheme which surpassed all others. He saw the people
as stockholders in a company, and the administrators as directors; he saw
the people as the owner of an automobile, and the administrators as the
chauffeur.
A further consequence of this difference between the right of voting and
the right of being voted for, but one to which Sun Yat-sen did not refer,
necessarily arises from his postulation of a class of geniuses leading
their followers, who control the unthinking masses. That is the continuity
which such a group of ideological controllers would impart to a democracy.
Sun Yat-sen, addressing Chinese, took the Chinese world for granted. A
Westerner, unmindful of the background, might well overlook some
comparatively simple points. The old system, under which the Empire was a
sort of educational system, was a familiar feature in the politics which
Sun Yat-sen criticized. In arguing for the political acceptance of
inequality and the guarantee of government by a select group, Sun was
continuing the old idea of leadership, modifying it only so far as to make
it consistent with democracy. Under the system he proposed, the two great
defects of democracy, untrustworthiness and lack of continuity of policy,
would be largely eliminated.
The Democratic Machine State.
Throughout pre-modern Chinese thought there runs the idea of personal
behavior and personal controls. The Chinese could not hypostatize in the
manner of the West. Looking at men they saw men and nothing more.
Considering the problems and difficulties which men encountered, they
sought solutions in terms of men and the conditioning intimacies of each
individual’s life. The Confucian Prince was not so much an administrator
as a moral leader; his influence, extending itself through imitation on
the part of others, was personal and social rather than political.(134) In
succeeding ages, the scholars thought of themselves as the leaven of
virtue in society. They stressed deportment and sought, only too
frequently by means of petty formalities, to impress their own excellence
and pre-eminence upon the people. Rarely, if ever, did the
scholar-official appeal to formal political law. He was more likely to
invoke propriety and proceed to exercise his authority theoretically in
accordance with it.
Sun Yat-sen did not feel that further appeal to the intellectual leaders
was necessary. In an environment still dominated by the past, an
exhortation for the traditional personal aspect of leadership would
probably have appeared as a centuries-old triteness. The far-seeing men,
the geniuses that Sun saw in all society, owed their superiority not to
artificial inequality but to natural inequality;(135) by their ability
they were outstanding. Laws and customs could outrage this natural
inequality, or conceal it behind a legal facade of artificial inequality
or equally artificial equality. Laws and customs do not change the facts.
The superior man was innately the superior man.
Nevertheless, the geniuses of the Chinese revolution could not rely upon
the loose and personal system of influence hitherto trusted. To organize
Chinese nationalism, to give it direction as well as force, the power of
the people must be run through a machine—the State.
A distinction must be made here. The term “machine,” applied to
government, was itself a neologism introduced from the Japanese.(136) Not
only was the word but the thing itself was alien to the Chinese, since the
same term (_ch’i_) meant machinery, tool, or instrument. The introduction
of the view of the state as a machine does not imply that Sun Yat-sen
wished to introduce a specific form of Western state-machine into China—as
will be later explained (in the pages which concern themselves with the
applied political science of Sun Yat-sen).
Sun was careful, moreover, to explain that his analogy between industrial
machinery and political machinery was merely an analogy. He said, “The
machinery of the government is entirely composed of human beings. All its
motions are brought about by men and not by material objects. Therefore,
there is a very great difference between the machinery of the government
and the manufacturing machine ... the machinery of the government is moved
by human agency whereas the manufacturing machine is set in motion by
material forces.”(137)
Even after allowance has been made for the fact that Sun Yat-sen did not
desire to import Western governmental machinery, nor even to stress the
machine and state analogy too far, it still remains extraordinarily
significant that he should have impressed upon his followers the necessity
of what may be called a mechanical rather than an organic type of
government. The administrative machine of the Ch’ing dynasty, insofar as
it was a machine at all, was a chaotic mass of political authorities
melting vaguely into the social system. Sun’s desire to have a clear-cut
machine of government, while not of supreme importance in his ideological
projects, was of great significance in his practical proposal. In his
theory the state machine bears the same resemblance to the old government
that the Chinese race-nation bears to the now somewhat ambiguous civilized
humanity of the Confucians. In both instances he was seeking sharper and
more distinct lines of demarcation.
In putting forth his proposals for the reconstitution of the Chinese
government he was thinking, in speaking of a state-machine, of the more or
less clearly understood juristic states of the West.(138) His concrete
proposals dealing with the minutiae of administrative organization, his
emphasis on constitution and law, and his interest in the exact allocation
of control all testify to his complete acceptance of a sharply delimited
state. On the other hand, he was extraordinary for his time in demanding
an unusual extent, both qualitative and quantitative, of power for the
state which he wished to hammer out on the forges of the nationalist
social and political revolution.
In summarizing this description of the instrument with which Sun Yat-sen
hoped to organize the intellectual leaders of China so as to implement the
force of the revolution, it may be said that it was to be a state-machine,
as opposed to a totalitarian state, based upon Western juristic theory in
general but organized out of the materials of old Chinese political
philosophy and the Imperial experience in government.(139) The state
machine was to be built along lines which Sun Yat-sen laid out in some
detail. Yet, even with his elaborate plans already prepared, and in the
midst of a revolution, he pointed out the difficulty of political
experimentation, in the following words:
... the progress of human machinery, as government organizations
and the like, has been very slow. What is the reason? It is that
once a manufacturing machine has been constructed, it can easily
be tested, and after it has been tried out, it can easily be put
aside if it is not good, and if it is not perfect, it can easily
be perfected. But it is very difficult to try out a human machine
and more difficult still to perfect it after it has been tried
out. It is impossible to perfect it without bringing about a
revolution. The only other way would be to regard it as a useless
material machine which can easily be turned into scrap iron. But
this is not workable.(140)
Democratic-Political Versus Ideological Control.
Sun Yat-sen accepted an organization of society based upon intellectual
differences, despite his belief in the justifiability and necessity of
formal democracy, and his reconciliation of the two at first contradictory
theses in a plan for a machine state to be based upon a distinction
between _ch’üan_ and _nêng_. It may now be asked, why did Sun Yat-sen,
familiar with the old method of ideological control, and himself proposing
a new ideology which would not only restore internal harmony but also put
China into harmony with the actual political condition of the world,
desire to add formal popular control to ideological control?
The answer is not difficult, although it must be based for the most part
on inference rather than on direct citation of Sun Yat-sen’s own words. In
the consideration of the system of ideological control fostered by the
Confucians, ideological control presented two distinct aspects: the
formation of the ideology by men, and control of men by the ideology. The
ideology controlled men; some men sought to control the ideology; the
whole ideological control system was based upon the continuous interaction
of cause and effect, wherein tradition influenced the men who sought to
use the system as a means of mastery, while the same men succeeded in a
greater or less degree in directing the development of the ideology.
In the old Chinese world-society the control of the ideology was normally
vested in the _literati_ who were either government officials or hoped to
become such. The populace, however, acting in conformity with the
ideology, could overthrow the government, and, to that extent, consciously
control the content and the development of the ideology. Moreover, as the
efficacy of an ideology depends upon its greater acceptance, the populace
had the last word in control of the ideology both consciously and
unconsciously. Politics, however, rarely comes to the last word. In the
normal and ordinary conduct of social affairs, the populace was willing to
let the _literati_ uphold the classics and modify their teachings in
accordance with the development of the ideology—in the name of _chêng
ming_. The old ideology was so skilfully put together out of traditional
elements that are indissociable from the main traits of Chinese culture,
together with the revisions made by Confucius and his successors, that it
was well-nigh unchallengeable. The whole Confucian method of government
was based, as previously stated, on the control of men through the control
of their ideas by men—and these latter men, the ideologues, were the
scholar administrators of successive dynasties. The identification of the
_literati_ and officials, the respect in which learning was held, the
general distribution of a leaven of scholars through all the families of
the Empire, and the completeness—almost incredible to a Westerner—of
traditional orthodoxy, permitted the interpreters of the tradition also to
mould and transform it to a considerable degree. As a means of adjusting
the mores through the course of centuries, interpretation succeeded in
gradually changing popular ideas, where open and revolutionary heterodoxy
would have failed.
Now, in modern times, even though men might still remain largely under the
control of the ideology (learn to behave rightly instead of being
governed), the ideology was necessarily weakened in two ways: by the
appearance of men who were recalcitrant to the ideology, and by the
emergence of conceptions and ideas which could not find a place in the
ideology, and which consequently opened up extra-ideological fields of
individual behavior. In other words, _li_ was no longer all-inclusive,
either as to men or as to realms of thought. Its control had never, of
course, been complete, for in that case all institutions of government
would have become superfluous in China and would have vanished; but its
deficiencies in past ages had never been so great; either with reference
to insubordinate individuals or in regard to unassimilable ideas, as they
were in modern times.
Hence the province of government had to be greatly extended. The control
of men by the ideology was incomplete wherever the foreign culture had
really struck the Chinese—as, for instance, in the case of the
newly-developed Chinese proletariat, which could not follow the Confucian
precepts in the slums of twentieth-century industry. The family system,
the village, and the guild were to the Chinese proletarians mere shadows
of a past; they were faced individually with the problems of a foreign
social life suddenly interjected into that of the Chinese. True instances
of the interpenetration of opposites, they were Chinese from the still
existing old society of China suddenly transposed into an industrial world
in which the old ideology was of little relevance. If they were to remain
Chinese they had to be brought again into the fold of the Chinese
ideology; and, meanwhile, instead of being controlled ideologically, they
must be controlled by the sharp, clear action of government possessing a
monopoly of the power of coercion. The proletarians were not, indeed, the
only group of Chinese over whom the old ideology had lost control. There
were the overseas Chinese, the new Chinese finance-capitalists, and others
who had adjusted their personal lives to the Western world. These had done
so incompletely, and needed the action of government to shield them not
only from themselves and from one another, but from their precarious
position in their relations with the Westerners.
Other groups had not completely fallen away from the ideology, but had
found major sections of it to be unsuitable to the regulation of their own
lives. Virtue could not be found in a family system which was slowly
losing its polygynous character and also slowly giving place to a sort of
social atomism; the intervention of the machine state was required to
serve as a substitute for ideological regulation until such a time as the
new ideology should have developed sufficiently to restore relevance to
traditions.
Indeed, throughout all China, there were few people who were not touched
to a greater or less degree by the consequences of the collision of the
two intellectual worlds, the nationalistic West and the old Chinese
world-society. However much Chinese might desire to continue in their
traditional modes of behavior, it was impossible for them to live happy
and progressive lives by virtue of having memorized the classics and paid
respect to the precepts of tradition, as had their forefathers. In all
cases where the old ideas failed, state and law suddenly acquired a new
importance—almost overwhelming to some Chinese—as the establishers of the
new order of life. Even etiquette was established by decree, in the days
of the parliamentary Republic at Peking; the age-old assurance of Chinese
dress and manners was suddenly swept away, and the government found itself
forced to decree frock-coats.
Successive governments in the new China had fallen, not because they did
too much, but because they did too little. The sphere of state activity
had become enormous in contrast to what it had been under more than a
score of dynasties, and the state had perforce to intervene in almost
every walk of life, and every detail of behavior. Yet this intervention,
although imperative, was met by the age-old Chinese contempt for
government, by the determined adherence to traditional methods of control
in the face of situations to which now they were no longer relevant. It
was this paradox, the ever-broadening necessity of state activity in the
face of traditional and unrealistic opposition to state activity, which
caused a great part of the turmoil in the new China. Officials made
concessions to the necessity for state action by drafting elaborate codes
on almost every subject, and then, turning about, also made concessions to
the traditional non-political habits of their countrymen by failing to
enforce the codes which they had just promulgated. The leaders of the
Republic, and their followers in the provinces, found themselves with laws
which could not possibly be introduced in a nation unaccustomed to law and
especially unaccustomed to law dealing with life in a Western way; thus
baffled, but perhaps not disappointed, the pseudo-republican government
officials were content with developing a shadow state, a shadow body of
law, and then ignoring it except as a tool in the vast pandemonium of the
tuchunates—where state and law were valued only in so far as they served
to aggrandize or enrich military rulers and their hangers-on.
This tragic dilemma led Sun Yat-sen to call for a new kind of state, a
state which was to be democratic and yet to lead back to ideological
control. The emergency of imperialism and internal impotence made it
imperative that the state limit its activities to those provinces of human
behavior in which it could actually effectuate its decrees, and that,
after having so limited the field of its action, it be well-nigh
authoritarian within that field. Yet throughout the whole scheme, Sun
Yat-sen’s deep faith in the common people required him to demand that the
state be democratic in principle and practice.
It may begin to be apparent that, at least for Sun Yat-sen, the control of
the race-nation by the ideology was not inconsistent with the political
control of the race-nation by itself. In the interval between the old
certainty and the new, political authority had to prevail. This authority
was to be directed by the people but actually wielded by the geniuses of
the revolution. The new ideology was to emerge from the progress of
knowledge not, as before, among a special class of literary persons, but
through all the people. It was to be an ideology based on practical
experience and on the experimental method, and consequently, perhaps, less
certain then the old Confucian ideology, which was in its foundations
religious. To fill in the gaps where uniformity of thought and behavior,
on the basis of truth, had not been established, the state was to act, and
the state had to be responsible to the people.
At this point it may be remembered that Sun Yat-sen was among the very few
Chinese leaders of his day who could give the historians of the future any
valid reasons for supposing that they believed in republican principles.
Too many of the militarists and scholar-politicians of the North and South
paid a half-contemptuous lip-service to the republic, primarily because
they could not agree as to which one of them should have the Dragon
Throne, or, at the least, the honor of restoring the Manchu Emperor—who
stayed on in the Forbidden City until 1924.(141) Sun Yat-sen had a deep
faith in the judgment and trustworthiness of the uncounted swarms of
coolies and farmers whom most Chinese leaders ignored. He was perhaps the
only man of his day really loved by the illiterate classes that knew of
him, and was always faithful to their love. Other leaders, both Chinese
and Western, have praised the masses but refused to trust them for their
own good. Sun’s implicit belief in the political abilities of the common
people in all matters which their knowledge equipped them to judge, was
little short of ludicrous to many of his contemporaries, and positively
irritating to some persons who wished him well personally but did not—at
least privately—follow all of his ideas.
To return to the consideration of the parts played by ideology and popular
government in social control: there was another point of great difference
between the old ideology and the new. The old was the creation, largely,
of a special class of scholars, who for that purpose ranked highest in the
social hierarchy of old China. Now even though the three natural classes
might continue to be recognized in China, the higher standard of living
and the increased literacy of the populace was to enlarge the number of
persons participating in the life of ideas. The people were to form the
ideology in part, and in part control the government under whose control
the revolutionary geniuses were to form the rest of the ideology, and
propagate it through a national educational program. In all respects the
eventual control was to rest with the people of the Chinese race-nation,
united, self-ruling, and determined to survive.
How, then, does the pattern of _min ch’üan_ fit into the larger scheme of
the continuation of Confucian civilization and ideological control? First,
the old was to continue undisturbed where it might. Second, those persons
completely lost to the discipline of the old ideology must be controlled
by the state. Third, those areas of behavior which were disturbed by the
Western impact required state guidance. Fourth, the machine state was to
control both these fields, of men, and of ideas, and within this limited
field was to be authoritarian (“an all-powerful state”) and yet democratic
(“nevertheless subject to the control of the people”). Fifth, the ideology
was to arise in part from the general body of the people. Sixth, the other
parts of it were to be developed by the intellectuals, assisted by the
government, which was to be also under the control of the people. Seventh,
since the world was generally in an unstable condition, and since many
wrongs remained to be righted, it was not immediately probable that the
Chinese would settle down to ideological serenity and certainty, and
consequently State policy would still remain as a governmental question,
to be decided by the will of the whole race-nation.
To recapitulate, then the people was to rule itself until the reappearance
of perfect tranquility—_ta t’ung_—or its nearest mundane equivalent. The
government was to serve as a canalization of the power of the Chinese
race-nation in fighting against the oppressor-nations of the world for
survival.
The last principle of the nationalist ideology remains to be studied. _Min
tsu_, nationalism, was to provide an instrumentality for self-control and
for external defense in a world of armed states. But these two would
remain ineffectual in a starved and backward country, if they were not
supplemented by a third principle designed to relieve the physical
impotence of the nation, to promote the material happiness of its
individual members and to guarantee the continued survival of the Chinese
society as a whole. Union and self-rule could be frustrated by starvation.
China needed not only to become united and free as a nation; it had also
to become physically healthy and wealthy. This was to be effected through
_min shêng_, the third of the three principles.