Lessons of failure

The 1911 Revolution, however, only changed China's name from empire to republic and replaced the emperor with a president. China's semicolonial and semi-feudal social nature did not change. After the revolution, the government of the Northern warlords, representing the interests of the big landlords and capitalists and backed by the imperialists, ruled China. Western-style capitalist society and the bourgeois state as envisaged by Sun Yat-sen did not materialize in China. The revolution succeeded in terms of its overthrow of the Qing court, but it failed to achieve its democratic aims.

What was responsible for the failure of this democratic revolution? The targets of the democratic revolution in semicolonial and semi-feudal China were imperialism and feudalism, and though both were reactionary and decadent, they were powerful when they were united. National capitalism was not well developed in China at the time and the bourgeoisie was very weak. It could initiate a revolution and overthrow the tottering Qing government but, faced with the powerful combined force of imperialism and feudalism, it could only be the loser. The Nanjing provisional government's compromise with Yuan Shikai demonstrated the bourgeoisie's weakness.

Was there not a force that could defeat the powerful enemy? There was, and it was the peasantry. China's peasantry constituted a massive force in the democratic revolution which could succeed provided the peasants were mobilized. But again the weakness of China's bourgeoisie was reflected in its attitude towards the peasants. During the 1911 Revolution, the revolutionaries did not mobilize the peasants and satisfy their demand for land. Instead, the revolutionaries already in power in some places resorted to force to suppress peasants who rose against despots and withheld land rent. The bourgeoisie, who lacked strength but refused to mobibize the peasants, could only compromise when faced by the joint offensive of imperialism and feudalism, and this led to the failure of the 1911 Revolution.

This failure showed that democratic revolution led by the bourgeoisie was behind the times and impracticable in China, that the Chinese revolution had to find a new way out.

Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary spirit

Sun Yat-sen was a great revolutionary with strong revolutionary will and tenacious, thoroughgoing revolutionary spirit. He began his work for China's revolution in 1894 when he organized Xing Zhong Hui (Society for the Revival of China). By 1905 when he founded Tong Meng Hui he had discarded all illusions about the rulers, severed connections with the reformists, and become a staunch revolutionary enjoying popular confidence. He drew up Tong Meng Hui's revolutionary programme and formed his Three People's Principles (nationalism, democracy and people's livelihood) with the programme as basis. At that time the main content of the nationalism he proposed was against the Manchus, and this was reflected in the Tong Meng Hui's programme as "expulsion of the Tartars (Manchus) and the recovery of China." The democracy he advocated called for the 'establishment of a republic" (a bourgeois democratic republic). The people's livelihood he espoused meant equalizing land ownership. Though the programme had a socialist tinge, it was essentially aimed to develop capitalism.

Sun Yat-sen's Three People's Principles, though still carried the nature of old democracy, was the most revolutionary thinking in China at the time. Sun Yat-sen directed the revolutionary activities of Tong Meng Hui with this progressive thinking, exploded the fallacies of the reformists with his revolutionary theories and overthrew the rule of the Qing government by revolutionary armed force. Sun Yat-sen's Three People's Principles prevailed throughout the anti-Qing revolution, but were unable to cope with the powerful alliance of imperialism and feudalism. Failure to prevent Yuan Shikai from ascending the throne, and especially the failure of the struggles against warlord ambitions in Anhui and Hebei, showed the old Three People's Principles as inadequate to guide the Chinese revolution forward. A new revolutionary road was needed.

Sun Yat-sen, with his great revolutionary spirit of constantly forging ahead, finally found a workable, new revolutionary way - the way of new-democratic revolution in alliance with Russia, co-operation with the Communist Party, and assistance to the peasants and workers. With a revolutionary's bold vision he set about reorganizing the Kuomintang despite opposition by many of its members, and put the above three great policies into practice. He interpreted these policies as new Three People's Principles, which won the support of revolutionaries of all strata. During the anti-Qing revolution led by Tong Meng Hui, and particularly during the 1911 Revolution, Sun Yat-sen enjoyed very high prestige and became a leader recognized by all members of his revolutionary grouping. After the 1911 Revolution his prestige dropped. The Kuomintang which he led had a complicated membership, alienated itself from the people and accomplished nothing. Sun Yat-sen's prestige rose to its highest after he practised co-operation with the Communist Party and the three great policies formulated as the new Three People's Principles. When he died of illness in Beijing on March 12, 1925, the whole nation mourned his death and many Beijing citizens joined the funeral procession. Sun Yat-sen's name will go down in history and he will be honoured by the Chinese people through the generations. The 1911 Revolution had numerous adherents at one time, but many later dropped out. Only those like Sun Yat-sen, who could go with the tide of history and persist in progress, made new and great contributions to the people.

After experiencing the new-democratic revolution, New China has embarked on the socialist road under the leadership of the Communist Party. The national independence ardently wished by Sun Yat-sen has long since been realized; people's rights for the vast majority have been won and have developed into democracy for the broad masses; the idea of equal division of land among the peasants as he proposed in his early years and his proposal in his later years for "land to the tillers' have also been put into practice through land reform in the new-democratic revolution. All the demands put forward by Sun Yat-sen in his Three People's Principles have long been met and elaborated in many ways on the mainland of China. New China today is building socialism which is a long-cherished ideal of Sun Yat-sen as expressed in his Principle of People's Livelihood. At present, guided by scientific theories, the Chinese Communist Party is leading the people of all nationalities in their endeavour to accomplish the four modernizations and make China a powerful socialist country with highly developed prosperity, democracy and civilization. All Chinese who respect Sun Yat-sen, support socialism and love the motherland may well learn from the revolutionary spirit of Sun Yat-sen, continue to progress and contribute to China's socialist construction.