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From Revolution to Restoration: the Transformation of Kuomintang Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Mary C. Wright
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Extract

The accession to power of the Kuomintang in 1927–1928 marked the end of the era in which revolutionary strains had been dominant in the party's program and the beginning of one of the most interesting and instructive of the many efforts in history to make a revolution the heir of ancient tradition. The Kuomintang effort was noteworthy for four reasons: (1) the rapidity with which its course was reversed; (2) the magnitude of the gulf between the Confucian political and social system which the Kuomintang sought to restore and the national and social revolution which the party had lately led to victory; (3) the full and uninhibited adherence of Chiang Kai-shek and other leaders not only to the values of the traditional society but to the specific institutions in which these had been embodied; and (4) a well-documented, persistent and selfconscious effort on the part of these leaders to win the competition with the Communists by detailed application in the mid-twentieth century of precisely the means which the Imperial Chinese Government had applied against the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-nineteenth.

Type
Special Number on Chinese History and Society
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , August 1955 , pp. 515 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1955

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References

1 For a full account see Wright, Mary C., The T'ung-chih Restoration, a Study in Modern Chinese Conservatism, typescript, 999 p. Publication arrangements to be announced.Google Scholar

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4 Wen-lan, Fan, Chung-kuo Chin-tai shih (History of modern China) (Hongkong, 1949), 1:203Google Scholar. Wen-lan, Fan, Han-chien k'uai-tzu shou Tseng Kuo-fan ti i-sheng (Traitor and Butcher Tseng Kuo-fan) (Hsin-hua shu-tien, 1944)Google Scholar. Author's notes on an interview with Ch'en Po-ta on this subject, Yenan, Oct. 27, 1946.

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6 In the interests of clarity, I have disregarded the various changes in the party's name.

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23 Letter of T'an Yen-k'ai (T'an Tsu-an) to T'ang Sheng-chih (T'ang Meng-hsiao) quoted in Hsu I-shih, “Tseng Hu t'an-wei,” Pt. 1, Kuo-wen chou-pao, 6.26 (1929)Google Scholar, ncp.

24 Chu Ch'i-hua (Chu Hsin-fan) I-chiu erh-ch'i nien ti hui-i (A Retrospect of 1927) (Shanghai, 1933), 63.Google Scholar

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33 Chi, Chang, Chung-kuo kuo-min-tang shih, 5–6Google Scholar (originally a 1943 lecture to Central Training Corps). Chang was chairman of the commission to compile the party history and chief of the bureau of national history.

34 T'ao's postface (ca. 1943) to Te-liang, Wang, Tseng Kuo-fan, 79.Google Scholar

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36 Shih, Hu, “Wu-shih nien-lai Chung-kuo chih wen-hsüeh”Google Scholar (Chinese literature in the last fifty years) in Shen-pao kuan ed., Tsui-chin chih wu-shih nien (The last fifty years), Vol. 2, Wu-shih nien-lai chih Chung-kuo (China in the last fifty years) (Shanghai, 1922)Google Scholar, ncp.

37 Hsü I-shih, “Tseng Hu t'an-wei,” Pt. 1, gives a number of examples. Note Chiang Kai-shek's emphasis in sLu-shan hsün-lien chi, 1933–1934, 1:356–57Google Scholar and passim and his speech at the Nan-yo Military Council in 1938, Te-liang, Wang, Tseng Kuo-fan, 76.Google Scholar

38 Li Hsü Ts'ai Sung-p'o, Models for Youth Series, compiled by order of the Generalissimo, (Nanking, 1946), 23, 27–29.Google Scholar

39 Note the elevation of the characters for Chiang's title, tsung-ts'ai, in Wang Teliang's eulogy of Tseng, Tseng Kuo-fan, 76.Google Scholar

40 Hu Che-fu Tseng kuo-fan (Chungking, 1944).Google Scholar

41 Chiang based the party code of behavior on Tseng's code of behavior. Teliang, Wang, Tseng Kuo-fanGoogle Scholar, preface and 76–77.

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43 Ch'en Ch'ing-ch'u ed., Tseng Ti-sheng chih tzu-wo chiao-yü (Tseng Kuo-fan's self-education) (Chungking, 1942)Google Scholar, preface.

44 Li-fu, Ch'en, in Tung-fang tsa-chih, 32.1 (1935), 25–29.Google Scholar

45 Text of Chiang's address quoting this passage, which he called China's supreme political theory and the goal of national reconstruction, in Tung-fang tsa-chih, 36.6 (1939), 56Google Scholar. For the text see Legge, James, trans., The Li Ki (Oxford, 1885), 364–366Google Scholar. The passage, made famous by K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and beloved by Sun Yat-sen, has become the subject of considerable controversy. To many who have read it casually, it has seemed to represent a liberal and democratic Utopia. It has been praised by the Kuomintang—portions of it were set up in neon lights in Nanking in 1946 to celebrate the convening of the National Assembly—and attacked by the Chinese Left. Leading Japanese scholarly opinion considers the doctrine highly authoritarian. (Chōhachi, Itano, “Kō Yū-i no daidō shisō” in Kindai Chūgoku kenkyū, [Tokyo, 1948], 167–204Google Scholar). There can be little doubt that Chiang himself regards it so.

46 Kai-shek, Chiang in Min-chung yün-tung fang-an fa-kuei hui-pien, (n.p., ca. 1936)Google Scholar, authorized by the Kuomintang as a guide to party workers in popular movements, Vol. 2, Appendix, 6.

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48 Chiang Kai-shek, broadcast to the nation, text in Tung-fang tsa-chih, 38.6 (1941), 41–44.Google Scholar

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51 Tung-fang tsa-chih, 36.6(1939), 55–56.Google Scholar

52 Chiang's exact words on this point were: “The disastrous military reverses on the mainland were not due to the overwhelming strength of the Communists but due to the organizational collapse, loose discipline and low spirits of (Kuomintang) Party members.” Chiang Kai-shek, “Reform of the Kuomintang,” speech of July 22, 1950, authorized English translation in Selected Speeches and Messages of President Chiang Kai-shek, 1949–1952 (Taipeh: Office of the Government Spokesman, 1952), 45–54.Google Scholar

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54 Kai-shek, Chiang, Lu-shan hsün-lien chi, 2:84Google Scholar. Chiang's nationalistic Confucianism marked the culmination of a process which had alarmed Liang Ch'i-ch'ao as early as 1902 (Liang, “Lun pao-chiao chih shuo,” Chinese text and French translation in Chine Moderne, 1:161–171.Google Scholar

55 According to Chiang, Hu had been the author of the plan which Tseng and all the other Restoration leaders used, but he had died too young to achieve the fame he deserved. Lu-shan hsün-lien chi, 2:241–245.Google Scholar

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57 Quoted in Chiang's preface to Hu Lin-i chün-cheng lu.

58 Min-chung yün-tung, 2Google Scholar, Appendix, 6. Chiang here attributes this “error” to Kuantzu, but it is Mencius who is most often quoted on the necessity of meeting economic needs before the virtues are taught. (Legge, Mencius, [Oxford, 1895], 148–149Google Scholar, par. 22–24). It was presumably impolitic to attack Mencius by name.

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60 Wei-chou, Lai, Tseng Kuo-fan chih-t'ao yao-lüehGoogle Scholar. For an account of the steps taken by the Kuomintang to strengthen the upper classes and re-establish local control in Kiangsi, see Taylor, George, “Reconstruction after Revolution: Kiangsi Province and the Chinese Nation,” Pacific Affairs, 8:3 (09 1953), 302–311.Google Scholar

61 Kai-shek, Chiang, “The cause and cure of rural decadence.”Google Scholar

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63 The compilation Ch'ien-tai yü-k'ou liang-kuei (Kuomintang publication, ca. 1930)Google Scholar, ncp., opens with this plan which was originated by Kung Ching-han.

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70 Ts'ai's preface to Tseng-Hu chih-ping yü-lu, all editions.

71 See Chiang Kai-shek's preface to the combined edition of Ch'i Chi-Kuang , Chi-hsiao hsin-shu and Lien-ping shih-chi (n.p., n.d.). In his preface of Jan. 1929 Chiang wrote that these Ming works were the most practical military manuals since Sun-tzu. Tseng and Hu had studied them, and Chiang now instructed the “junior and senior officers of my whole army to do the same.”

72 Lu Ti-p'ing , compiler's preface to Tseng Kuo-fan cbiao-Nien shih-lu (Record of Tseng's extermination of the Nienfei) (n.p., n.d. [preface, 12 10, 1930]).Google Scholar

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77 E.g., Tu-li p'ing-lun, 138 (1935), 18–21.Google Scholar

78 Hu's account, Tu-li p'ing-lun, 142 (1935), 17–24.Google Scholar

79 Chien, Ho, The true spirit of China today (Changsha, 1936), 2–3Google Scholar describes a recent campaign by the “people” of Hunan to overcome disorder by reprinting ethical texts.

80 Chiao-yü tsa-chih, 23.4 (1931), 129–130.Google Scholar

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83 For example, the leader of Shansi, Marshal Yen Hsi-shan, had his own personal Restoration model: Hsü Chi-yü, who in addition to his well-known career as a geographer and statesman had also been prominent in organizing Shansi's resistance to the Taiping Rebellion. In 1915, as Shansi tu-tu. Yen published Hsü's works with a preface by himself. (Sung-k'an hsien-sheng ch'üan-chi [preface Nov. 1915]). Subsequently Yen organized what was called the “Confucian administration” of Shansi. (See texts sympathetically collected and translated in Chine Moderne, 4:335–358.) Phrases reminiscent of the Restoration have characterized the public statements of most of the other regional military leaders, e.g., Wu P'ei-fu, Ch'i Yao-lin , Ch'en Chi-t'ang, et al. Even Feng Yü-hsiang considered that Tseng Kuo-fan's methods of troop training, his personal austerity, his love of study, and his diligent attention to duty were worthy of admiration and emulation. And he used Tseng's army songs about love of the people in his own army. See Feng's memoirs. Wo ti tu-shu sheng-buo (n.p., 1947), 1:45, 153–154.Google Scholar

84 Associated Press version of Li's statement, New York, Mar. 11, 1950, as printed in the San Francisco Chronicle, 03 12, 1950, p. 1.Google Scholar

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86 Shih, Hu, Tu-li p'ing-lun, 145:4–7Google Scholar. Reprinted from Ta-kung-pao.

87 Shih, Hu, Tu-li p'ing-lun, 145:4–7Google Scholar. Reprinted from Ta-kung-pao.

88 Yu-lan, Fung, in Northrop, F. S. C., ed., Ideological Differences and World Order (New Haven, 1949), 21.Google Scholar