This was something which he had no desire to do, as the city was in the hands of the revolutionists and his army was in the north. When he was pressed to take office, he engineered a military mutiny in the Peking area, which did enormous property damage and gave him an adequate excuse for remaining where he was. By thus forcing the government to establish itself at Peking, he followed out the spirit of the imperial abdication edict and brought the Republican regime to the very city in which the Emperor still lived, and in which the imperial bureaucracy awaited its new Republican garments--socially and ideologically the stronghold of resourceful reaction. There was thus no problem of creating a new modern administration. The old Peking mandarinate continued, and the revolutionary Republicans came into the government offices as strangers intruding into a closed system. For the initial months of the Republican experiment Peking"s novel status was merely the evidence of Yuan"s prestige; thereafter, Peking was to become the embodiment of archaism, blind pragmatism, and corruption.
On March 10, 1912, Yuan Shih-k"ai took a solemn oath to preserve and defend the Republic and a.s.sumed office as president. On the same day a Provisional Const.i.tution went into effect, whereby the National Convention placed the greater share of government power in the hands of a National Council, to serve until the promulgation of election laws for the choice of a national parliament. Republican mistrust of Yuan was evident in this action. Yet Sun Yat-sen was satisfied that his first principle, nationalism, had been realized in great part by the expulsion of the Manchus, and that his second, democracy, was in the process of fulfillment. He turned to the realization of the third, _min sheng_.[2]
Yuan placed him in charge of all railway development in China, and Sun cherished the freedom to carry out the practical aspect of the revolution. He had pa.s.sed beyond the stage of agitation and conspiracy, of wandering about in the world, his life in year-long daily jeopardy, seeking men and funds for a revolution which seemed Utopian to most. Now he could do his work quietly, without inducing simple merchants and workers to risk sudden death or the torture racks of the Board of Punishments. He had no way of realizing that his miraculous success was to be followed by defeat and that the revolution for which he had fought was not over but had only begun.
The presidency of Sun Yat-sen in Nanking, terminated by Yuan Shih-k"ai"s a.s.sumption of office, was little more than a military and revolutionary junta linking together the various provincial revolutionary groups. It had to face no serious problems of administration, and the collection of taxes was the last thing that a brand-new revolutionary government would dare to stress in China. Its principles were republican, but it inaugurated no formal inst.i.tutions and resorted to no elections, referenda, or plebiscites. The task of const.i.tuting democracy in China was placed under the stewardship of the most versatile military opportunist of the age: Yuan Shih-k"ai.
_The Parliamentary Republic_
After Sun Yat-sen relinquished the presidency to Yuan Shih-k"ai and the Republican regime settled down in the citadel of the old regime, a form of government was set up which did not immediately reveal itself as patently unworkable but which in retrospect seems a curiously ill-conceived experiment in transplanting inst.i.tutions. Sun and his followers a.s.sumed that democratic, parliamentary inst.i.tutions were adaptable, that the existing grouping would soon lend itself to the purpose of effective multi-party government, and that parties would arise organically from honest differences of opinion. They considered the republicanization of the provincial and local governments of less immediate importance than the establishment of a national democratic order. They expected to have a const.i.tutional government with the five "races" of China--Chinese, Mongol, Manchu, Tibetan, and Turkic (Mohammedan)--united under the new five-barred banner. At the time, these a.s.sumptions seemed practicable.
The Provisional Const.i.tution of March, 1912, established a relatively weak presidency though with somewhat greater powers than the French.
Article 45 required the countersignature of all presidential orders by the appropriate cabinet minister; the ministers were to be appointed by the president with the concurrence of the legislative. Unfortunately, the principle of ministerial responsibility to parliament was not explicitly stated, although it might have been expected that the far-reaching powers of the legislative body would have led to actual parliamentarism very shortly. It was obviously the intention of the Republicans to promote Yuan to a position of ineffectiveness. The premier and the cabinet selected by the president with legislative concurrence were to be subject to interpellation. On the other hand, they were granted the privilege of speaking in the legislative body (Articles 43-47). The unicameral National Council (_ts"an-i-yuan_)--to continue only until the election of the legislative body--was to be const.i.tuted in the following manner, under Article 18:
The Provinces, Inner and Outer Mongolia, and Tibet shall each elect and depute five members to the National Council, and Ch"inghai [Kokonor] shall elect one member.
The electoral districts and methods of election shall be decided by the localities concerned.[3]
As a result of this procedural lat.i.tude, the delegates to the National Council were either elected by the provincial a.s.semblies or appointed by the military governors or came with no formal credentials whatever. All officials were ordered to continue in their posts. The revolutionists still exerted control over large military bodies in the South and held many of the provinces under their military leaders or juntas, so that Yuan proceeded cautiously in the creation of his first administration.
He chose personalities acceptable to the revolutionists, but appointed no outstanding men of Sun"s Tung Meng Hui.
The parliamentary system looked well enough on the surface, but the basis of government had disappeared and the problem of ma.s.s democracy was more fundamental than anyone then imagined. Many groups in the country began organizing as parties; Yuan himself appeared to further the new way. But he had his own thoughts. He ordered his followers to enter the revolutionary units to undermine them, and simultaneously pushed for the establishment of a party of his own. There was on all sides a pathetic eagerness to live up to the formal expectations of the Western world. Tragically, this government was comic opera. Yuan began having skirmishes with the Council within a few months. The Republicans allowed the actual power to slip away from them while seeking to exercise the authority derived from a const.i.tution which most citizens of the new Republic could not understand at all. In the summer of 1912 Sun Yat-sen"s followers began to face a definitely hostile executive.
The Council looked for redress but found that parliamentary tricks turned easily against it. The conservative members, supporting Yuan, walked out, and the Council lacked a quorum.
In August, 1912, the old revolutionary organization of Sun Yat-sen, founded by his coordination of earlier secret societies, was transformed into a regular party, the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang devoted themselves to the development of genuine party government; looking upon the Republic as their own creation, they were less ready for compromise than Chinese usage might have required. This did not improve the position of Sun"s adherents. Yuan countered by forming the Progressive Party (_Chinputang_). While both sides lost control over the people, the party system was not even important enough to amount to carpetbagging. The only power in the country, as doctrine and administration melted away, was the military.[4]
Under the terms of the Provisional Const.i.tution the Council was to yield to a bicameral National a.s.sembly, for which it should provide by law within ten months. It was to be the duty of the National a.s.sembly to prepare a permanent const.i.tution (Articles 53 and 54). In the summer of 1912 the Council pa.s.sed the required law, providing for the indirect election of a Senate and the direct election, by a limited electorate and under a very complicated electoral scheme,[5] of a House of Representatives. About 1/35 of 1 per cent of the total population voted.
The Kuomintang came out far ahead of any other party, with a definite plurality but one insufficient to give it absolute control of the a.s.sembly, which met early in 1913. Inexperienced even in the elementary requirements of parliamentary practice, let alone the conduct of government, the legislative branch was destined to be sheer ornament.
The Kuomintang had relegated themselves to the occupancy of the least important branch of the government. The new parliament met amid great theatricals and placed heavy emphasis on form but was unable to make its will felt. The quarrels with the President over foreign loans, democratic policy and party rule were not settled by a showdown, but by resort to technicalities on both sides.
Yuan, however, had his finger on the trigger. March, 1913, was marked by the murder of Sung Chiao-jen, one of the ablest of Sun"s followers. It was the first political act to indicate that Yuan was embarking upon a program of a.s.sa.s.sinations. Even upon this occasion, Sun Yat-sen held his hand, ready to let the new regime prove its character. Yuan used the waiting spell to replace Kuomintang men in the provincial armies and governments with his own adherents. In July, 1913, a second revolution broke out. It was a move of self-defense on the part of the Republicans, followers of Sun. The revolution was suppressed by Yuan.
Undisturbed, the work of const.i.tution drafting proceeded apace in the North. Again, the trend, paradoxically, was toward French precedent. The paradox became patent when Yuan forced the advance adoption of the provisions relating to the presidency; on October 10, 1913, the a.s.sembly elected him president of the Republic. This gave him full _de jure_ status as head of the Chinese state in the eyes of the foreign powers.
On November 4 Yuan suppressed the party which had created the Republic, the Kuomintang. This not only eliminated serious opposition to him but paralyzed the a.s.sembly as well. It was left without a quorum and without a const.i.tution under which a new a.s.sembly could be elected--one of the most surprising const.i.tutional cul-de-sacs in modern times. The dictatorship began.
_The Presidential Dictatorship of Yuan Shih-k"ai_
Not content with having immobilized the National a.s.sembly, Yuan proceeded to kill it. He called together an extraconst.i.tutional body of his supporters, known as the Political Council. It recommended two measures: the dissolution of the National a.s.sembly and the calling of a Const.i.tutional Council to frame a permanent const.i.tution. On January 10, 1914, Yuan suspended the a.s.sembly by presidential decree. With that day the Chinese Republic ceased to have a government consonant with its laws. Technically the whole Republic lapsed into unconst.i.tutionality and illegality, until it was swept out of existence by the National Government in 1928.[6] Nevertheless, the military leaders had sufficient belief in the political value of twentieth century formalities to preserve the appearance of const.i.tutional procedure. During the following months Yuan"s Const.i.tutional Council, which succeeded the Political Council and was, similarly, made up of persons favorable to his rule, labored over another const.i.tutional doc.u.ment. On May 1, 1914, the doc.u.ment was promulgated under the name _Const.i.tutional Compact_.
The Compact changed the style of Yuan"s rule from a nominal parliamentarism to presidential government, and legitimatized the dictatorship.
Two and a half years after the establishment of the Republic, the country had grown accustomed to the rule of Yuan. His government had the advantage of carrying on from the seat of the former imperial administration. Yuan"s peculiar faculties of old-school diplomacy and his grasp of modern militarism stood him in good stead. The Republic was generally admitted to be not much of a democracy, but even democratic Westerners applauded the hard-headed competence of the "strong man of China." Government was more efficient and more despotic than it had been in the last days of the Manchu dynasty; resistance and defiance did not take open forms, except for the activities of Sun Yat-sen and his followers, who had reverted to revolutionary tactics since the outlawry of their party. Their agitation was spreading with rapidity. Yuan made the same mistake the Republicans had made before: he failed to sink the roots of government into the minds of the people and to provide a coherent explanation for his own existence. Underestimating the change which had taken place, Yuan sustained the illusion that the Chinese society in which he was reared still existed. While he failed to evolve a symbolism emphasizing the rise of a new order with him as the head, the realization that the old Empire was gone was allowed to spread slowly across China. There was no more throne; the child Emperor dwelt quietly in his museum.
In 1915 Yuan embarked upon one of the strangest exploits in modern Chinese politics. After prost.i.tuting the democratic formulas in accordance with which he professed to govern, he began to use the same formulas for a cautious approach to the creation of a new monarchy. He was partly encouraged by a memorandum presented to him on August 9, 1915, by his const.i.tutional adviser, Professor Frank Goodnow. The memorandum suggested, as a sane political theorem, the desirability of establishing a const.i.tutional monarchy _if_ there was general demand for it rather than of maintaining the trappings of Republicanism without operative democracy. But Yuan"s scheming met with strong opposition.
Both sides to the ensuing monarchical controversy misconstrued Professor Goodnow"s memorandum; Yuan"s foes denounced it even as a recommendation for autocracy. Seen from a purely inst.i.tutional point of view, there was no harm in the proposal. A disadvantage might lie in the fact that other military leaders would be jealous of Yuan"s obtaining the throne on which so many of them speculated. If the state of mind of the Chinese and the new doctrines of the Republicans are considered, the proposal becomes less feasible. Having gone through the terrific mental and moral jolt of a fundamental shift of living forms, and having realized that the Empire was irrecoverable, substantial sections of the population were in no mood to allow an untried Republic to be superseded by an even less tried modern military monarchy.
Yuan used j.a.pan"s Twenty-one Demands of 1915, which might have made China a quasi protectorate of j.a.pan, as an argument for the immediate necessity of strengthening the central government. In sponsoring the movement for monarchy he virtually copied the procedure of Napoleon III in establishing the Second Empire. The whole technique of modern usurpation was brought into play, and no one stopped to consider who might be impressed by it. The only audience which might have taken at their face value Yuan"s carefully staged "popular demonstrations" and his recommendations for "representative" public bodies was the Western public outside. Chinese familiar enough with elections to understand their meaning were for a Republic; the Chinese who did not understand them were not impressed.
Had China possessed a man with the administrative and military talents of George Washington, a genuine republic might have developed from beneath the tutelage of a strong military ruler. Sun Yat-sen, because of his Southern birth, his thoroughly revolutionary tenets, and his impatience with the jobbery of petty politics, was not prepared for the presidential office in Peking. He might have headed a revolutionary government elsewhere in China but not a carry-over administration in Peking. Yuan misjudged his own opportunities and went back to the ritual of the Empire in an endeavor to place himself on a widely coveted throne. In December, 1915, after a circus of plebiscites and const.i.tutional councils had been provided, the const.i.tutional monarchy was proclaimed. In the same month Yuan performed the ancient ceremonials of the Imperial Sacrifice to Heaven, clad in the traditional gowns of the emperor. On Christmas Day, 1915, the province of Yunnan--in the extreme southwest of China--revolted against Yuan. The revolt spread, and in March, 1916, Yuan renounced the throne. His dream had come to a dismal end; he died on June 6, 1916. In the same month Vice-President Li Yuan-hung--the imperial officer whose political career began when he was dragged from beneath his bed in 1911--a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of president.
The National a.s.sembly was convoked. The Provisional Const.i.tution was put into effect again. And, as a sign of the times, the provincial military commanders took the new t.i.tle _tuchun_ in place of the older version _tutu_.
_The Phantom Republic in Peking_
When the Manchu Empire fell in 1911-1912, it left the military power to Yuan Shih-k"ai, who cloaked it with the Republic which he appropriated.
When Yuan died, control of the armies pa.s.sed to the provincial military commandants whom he had installed as a prime feature of his "strong man"
regime. With the pa.s.sing of the Empire, civilian bureaucracy fell into disuse yet retained just enough cohesion to serve the purposes of Yuan, so far as they were to be served by government. After Yuan"s death, the governments in the provinces followed the flow of power--to the provincial commanders. The Indian summer of the parliamentary Republic was founded upon its toleration of the army system which Yuan had left standing in its fragments. The weight of power was now to go into these fragments and not into the Republic, which fell heir merely to Yuan"s naive and almost contemptuously conceived "const.i.tutional" show.
Sun Yat-sen was favorable to the newly restored Republic but did not partic.i.p.ate in it, since it was made up largely of second-string revolutionists--men who had joined when the cause was winning in 1911--with a sprinkling of his own followers, together with a substantial cohort of the new-style military. Sun had been in exile in j.a.pan during Yuan"s regime, sounding out the possibility of j.a.panese a.s.sistance in furthering his movement. Without the partic.i.p.ation of any group competent to attract ideological support to civilian government, and without any one military leader able to serve or master its cause, the Republic had to rest upon the administrative structure. Its power was virtually nil. The legislative, as in the early days of the Republic, was dominated by Sun"s revolutionary Republicans, the executive by a conservative cabal of soldiers. The situation differed from the earlier one in that the military leader from the North, Tuan Chi-jui, occupied the post of premier instead of that of president.
Within a year the fundamental contradictions in the regime displayed themselves. Tuan quarreled with the President and the a.s.sembly, demanding dissolution of the latter. Not obtaining what he wished, he joined in 1917 other military chieftains in forming a provisional military junta in Tientsin. The President called in for his support the most reactionary army man of all, Chang Hsun. Chang forced the dissolution of the a.s.sembly, the very contingency he was supposed to prevent. He capped this act by restoring the Manchu dynasty and putting the boy ex-Emperor Hsuan T"ung back on the throne (July 1, 1917).
While the country was startled to learn of the restoration of the dynasty, and to receive edicts by telegraph issued in the name of Hsuan T"ung, forces of opposition began to gather. The restoration lasted until the Northern military leaders could catch their breaths; on July 12 Tuan Chi-jui marched back into Peking to prevent Chang Hsun from stealing a march on him. The unfortunate ex-Emperor was promptly deposed for the second time. He was not to be put on a throne again until he became the Emperor of Manchoukuo in 1934.
At this juncture the arena was to broaden. In October, 1917, Sun Yat-sen was elected Generalissimo of the South by the remnants of the parliament which had gathered in Canton. Their action was provoked largely by China"s declaration of war on Germany--a step which Sun bitterly opposed as serving no Chinese interest. From now on there were to be _two_ Republican traditions in China, each one of them with theoretical claims to the legitimate succession from the 1912-1913 Republic. The government established by Sun Yat-sen in the South did not secure any international recognition, nor did it contain remnants of the imperial bureaucracy, or win the respect of the soldiery. But it did fall heir to the ideological revolution. The people were still skeptically indulgent toward Sun the idealist and his ramshackle governments, although they conceived of government in China largely as the problem of fattening the Peking phantom and raising it to husky manhood. The Northern Republic survived until 1928, increasingly a puzzle and an illusion.[7]
The details of its slow death are intricate. The military did not ignore the Republic altogether. They requested its sanction for their manipulation of the balance of power. The Republic legitimized the gradations of military strength which grew out of conspiracy, tax exploitation, opium farming, and ineffectual war. The Republic and its presidency were the chief p.a.w.ns in the pointless game of Chinese militarism. The Republic lent a color of unity to the country and preserved those proprieties dominant in the Chinese mind. Even banditry becomes respectable if it observes "political" formalities, and at times the line between banditry and generalship became a matter of day-to-day intentions or of the size of the armed forces at hand. The government in Peking struggled to provide a suitable organizational form for the status quo, though never quite catching up with the new _faits accomplis_ of each week.
In three connections the Republic of China at Peking is worthy of consideration: in its const.i.tutional development, which in a dreamlike and ineffectual way mirrored the political ideals of the nonrevolutionary elite;[8] in its international role, which was of genuine importance and value to China; and in its administrative accomplishments, which--for a government--were negligible to the point of absurdity, but admirable indeed for bureaucracy working in chaos.
The Peking government was technically based on the Provisional Const.i.tution of 1912. At the earliest period of the restored Republic (1917) it fell into the hands of the Anfu clique, which administered to China a dose of Reconstruction on the American model. The treasury was literally looted, and the politicos who attached themselves to the government and to the military dominating it fell over each other in their haste to sell the nation out to j.a.pan. A peace conference with the representatives of the South met in 1919 but accomplished nothing. A new parliament was chosen from the areas claimed by Peking; when this pa.s.sed out of existence another parliament stemming from the National a.s.sembly dissolved by Yuan in 1913 a.s.sembled in 1922--a rare modern instance of a legislative body succeeding its successors. This so-called Old Parliament returned to the task which had been interrupted ten years before and in 1923 gave birth to a const.i.tution.
The 1923 const.i.tution--China"s third Republican const.i.tution, after the Provisional Const.i.tution of 1912 and the Const.i.tutional Compact of 1914--was adopted by a body revoltingly corrupt. The const.i.tution itself was the work of political scientists; it was as admirable a doc.u.ment as John Locke"s const.i.tution for the colony of Carolina, although the parliament elected Ts"ao Kun president under conditions which set a record for indefensible practices. The const.i.tution itself was federalist, but with many adaptations of French inst.i.tutions in so far as the central government was concerned. As a theoretical device for government, it would stand high among the const.i.tutions of the world, but if not stillborn it was never brought to life. Within a year it was set aside, and another provisional system of government was established.
A committee was set to work on a fourth const.i.tution more strongly federal.[9] The provisional government lasted from 1924 to 1926. In 1926 Chang Tso-lin, the _tuchun_ of Manchuria, took over the city of Peking and the government. In doing so he did not bother to appoint a const.i.tutional committee or to bribe a parliament. He appointed himself dictator (_ta yuan shuai_) and let the legalistic logicians construe it as they might. On June 5, 1928, Sun Yat-sen"s armies from the South occupied Peking, and the Peking Republic was at an end. A ghost of a ghost, it was to reappear as a j.a.panese device in 1937, at a time when const.i.tutional debate was at a minimum.
From the metamorphoses of the Peking Republic the Chinese learned most bitterly the lessons of political reality. It dawned upon them that government would have to rest upon foundations reaching deep into society and could not be superimposed upon the existing disorder. Their const.i.tutional experience also satiated the Chinese with Western formalism. Yet the phantom governments at Peking enjoyed the full recognition of the Great Powers, and the Waichiaopu (Foreign Office) maintained an impeccable diplomatic front. Although the Chinese scored no triumph at the Paris peace conference, they came off much better than they would have done without any representation. Three years later, at the Washington Conference, the Chinese, favored by the jealousies prevailing between the other powers, won a notable diplomatic victory.
Representing a government whose authority scarcely reached beyond its own capital and whose limited financial resources threw its diplomatic corps largely on their own, the members of the Chinese delegation secured advantages for China greater than any won at the time by the Soviet Union.[10]
In the international field the Chinese owed their strength to the same factors that weakened them at home: careful attention to form, the anxious cherishing of prestige and appearance, and a limitless patience which did not predispose the diplomats to violent action. Since the Peking regime, in point of military forces available for world-wide action, was on about the same level as Liberia, the fact that China remained a second-rate power instead of becoming a plain victim suggests the degree of her international prestige. The Peking government provided a background, however shadowy, for the Chinese Foreign Office, and the Foreign Office carefully nursed the fictions of China"s international status. Moreover, some domestic machinery remained. Around the Peking government there cl.u.s.tered a group of administrations which were so purely bureaucratic and non-policy-making in character that they were tolerated even by the military, or else were under the protection of international agreements. The Maritime Customs in Shanghai was staffed in its key positions with Westerners. This feature arose out of conditions during the T"ai-p"ing rebellion; it was later given international status by Chinese a.s.surances that under certain stipulations the customs were to retain their foreign personnel. The autonomy of the customs became a striking characteristic of the international legal and financial position of China, since most of the Chinese debts were secured by a mortgage on customs receipts.[11] The Salt Revenue Administration was similarly separated from the rest of the Chinese bureaucracy by international agreement, since loans had been secured upon this revenue. The surpluses from both services were paid for the greater part to the central government at Peking and provided a definite fiscal incentive for the maintenance of the Republic. The Chinese Post Office was also manned in part by Westerners, and it managed to preserve reasonably good postal service throughout the country despite the governmental anarchy which otherwise prevailed.
These administrations were largely autonomous; they made up the deficiencies of the Peking government so far as it was within their power. Thus the regime could boast of an excellent written const.i.tution, a first-cla.s.s Foreign Office, several good revenue agencies, a good postal service, and almost nothing else.
In the age of the _tuchuns_ the Peking regime had no domestic power to speak of; most of the time government was by courtesy only.
_The Governments of Sun Yat-sen in Canton_
In 1917, when the National a.s.sembly was dissolved for the second time by the intervention of the _tuchun_ Chang Hsun, a group of its members met first in Shanghai and then adjourned to Canton. a.s.sembling as an Extraordinary Parliament, it elected Sun Yat-sen Generalissimo of the South. He was not given the t.i.tle of president because he did not wish to create the appearance of national disunity. Sun was in the peculiar position of being placed in military command at the sufferance of regional military leaders. He even had to fight for support in the rump parliament which had elected him.
In this first Cantonese government, Sun"s military objectives overshadowed all others. Attempts were made to promote a frontal a.s.sault on the army plague, and various expeditions were launched against the North. Sun Yat-sen had his experiences in the years of revolt before 1911 to hearten him. The Republican Revolution of 1911-1912 was not so much a carefully timed universal conspiracy as it was the seizure of a few pivotal points by small bands of revolutionists, backed by provincial support. Sun did not think in terms of nationalism as yet, for he felt that with the expulsion of the Manchus the Chinese had solved the major problem of foreign oppression. His course of action in the first Cantonese government was therefore that of a man fighting on a const.i.tutional and democratic issue while leaning on a temporary military government. His new regime had acquired at one time an enormous reach of territory by bringing under its fold, through a process of negotiation and intrigue, the leading military figures of Southern China.
Sun was, however, working too much outside his own party. He had both the parliament and the Southern militarists to contend with. The task of maintaining a revolutionary movement with troops who were no more interested in it than the troops opposing them, transcended even Sun"s optimism and courage. Despite demonstrations of his personal capacity and bravery, he felt that his work lacked momentum. In May, 1918, after his office as generalissimo had been abolished and he had been made one of a Supreme Committee of Seven, Sun left for Shanghai.
In Shanghai Sun had time to ponder organizational strategy, to conduct the world-wide operations of the Kuomintang officially now _Chung-hua Ke-ming Tang_, or Chinese Revolutionary Party, and to consider types of government and methods of propaganda. He worked with Judge Paul Linebarger, his sympathizer and supporter since 1906, on a biography similar to the campaign biographies of American presidential candidates.[12] At this time he was still devoting himself to the organization of the existing groups in Chinese society for revolutionary purposes. He saw himself as the moral leader of the revolution and simultaneously as the necessary advocate of const.i.tutionalism. He was anxious to implement the ideological revolution but thought that the parliamentary democratic techniques had been designed in the West to accomplish just that end. While he was in Shanghai, the Canton regime carried on a fragmentary existence. In November, 1920, he returned to Canton after his military friends had cleared the way for him. On this occasion the Canton government came forth as a fully civilian regime.
Sun was elected Extraordinary President of the Republic of China by the Southern parliament in April, 1921. Using the city of Canton as his base, Sun continued the long series of military expeditions he had led for years, trying to whip the _tuchuns_ at their own game without becoming one himself. He personally went with forces into the field again. In 1922 treason on the part of his chief war-lord supporter drove him out of Canton. Back in Shanghai, he established contact with the representative of the Soviets, Adolf Joffe; both men stipulated the terms of the alliance between the Kuomintang and the Communists.[13]
In 1923 Sun laid new emphasis on one part of his program hitherto neglected: the doctrine of the three stages of revolution. The revolution had failed in fact because it had not provided adequate measures for democratic training. The revolutionists had a.s.sumed an organic political change, and militarists had profited by their mistake in taking over the Republic and using its forms to subvert what were the merest beginnings of democracy. Henceforth, the revolutionary group would have to emphasize a sequential process in democratic state construction: (1) the acquisition of political power by the missionaries of the revolution; (2) the teaching of the new ideology of democracy and the training of the people in the techniques of self-government; (3) the establishment of const.i.tutional democracy.[14] When offered the opportunity of forming his third Canton government, he took no chances and himself a.s.sumed the t.i.tle generalissimo and the command of the armies. In October, 1923, a plan was drawn up for the reorganization of the Kuomintang, with the advice of Borodin. Next January the First Congress of the Party opened. Sun Yat-sen, delighted with the new instrument for promoting the ideological revolution, allowed government problems to recede. The Party came to the front, and with the Party organization were to be solved the problems of a universe in revolution.
During the fifteen months of life which remained to Sun Yat-sen, his third government at Canton was not to undergo any transformation. The strictly political purposes of the revolution had become mere adjuncts to the ideological and military features. The government continued to possess the now familiar parliamentary-democratic formulas which, misused and deformed as they were throughout China, had come to be the embroidery of might.
_The Nationalist Government, Soviet in Form_