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Revolution Out of Tradition: The Political Ideology of Tai Chi-t‘ao

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Herman Mast III  and
William G. Saywell
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Extract

All forms of nationalism profess belief in the uniqueness and value of their particular national quintessence. But not all nationalist sentiments germinate in the decay of a tradition convinced of the cultural superiority and universality of its values. Chinese nationalism did. It developed, moreover, in a context in which the bungling monopoly of power of the alien Manchus as well as foreign aggression constantly tempted its exponents to appeal to racial distinctiveness. And it matured amidst the frustrations of prolonged political and societal chaos surrounding the Republican period, which provoked many nationalists eventually to resurrect the old assumption that a country's greatness should be defined in cultural terms, and to reassert the conviction that Confucian values were cosmic. Tai Chi-t‘ao was such a pioneer nationalist, whose career in politics was spent trying to create national unity through revolution, and whose efforts as an ideologue were directed at defining national unity in terms of Confucian universals. This made him a “conservative revolutionary,” whose commitment to nation found expression alternatively in militant action and in rationalizations for action in the name of traditional values.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , November 1974 , pp. 73 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1974

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References

1 Out of considerations of space, wc have omitted all reference to biographical data on Tai and deemphasized documentation of his political involvements. The reader seeking evidence on Tai's life may consult our doctoral dissertations (Mast, University of Illinois, 1970; Saywell, University of Toronto, 1969). That research forms the basis of this essay and of our collaborative intellectual biography of Tai, currently in preparation.Google Scholar

2 The term is Sun's. For an analysis of how he caught the young nationalist mood, see Schiffrin, Harold, “The Enigma of Sun Yat-sen,” in Wright, Mary C., ed., China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900–1913 (New Haven, 1968), 466.Google Scholar

3 Bernal, Martin, “The Tzu-yu-tang and Tai Chi-t'ao, 1912–1913,” Modern Asian Studies, I. 2: 134 (April, 1967);Google Scholar quoting Min-kuo ming-jen t'u-chien (A guide to personalities of the Republic; Nanking, 1937), chüan 14, p. 75. Both Mr. Bernal and we have concluded, independendy, that Tai's role in the Tzu-yu-tang was not so pronounced as portrayed in his article.Google Scholar

4 Chi-t'ao, Tai, “Kung-ho cheng-chih yü chengtang nei-ko” (Republican government and the party cabinet),Google Scholar reprinted in Hsiang-hsiang, Wu, comp., Tai T'ien-ch'ou wen-chi (Collected writings of Tai, the “Enemy of Heaven”) (Taipei, 1962), sec. 2, pp. 109–117.Google Scholar

5 Tai Chi-t'ao, “Chin-jih chih kuo-shih” (Today's national status) and “Ch'an-ych fa-chan ts'c” (A policy for industrial development), ibid., p. 37 and pp. 197–205.

6 Tai Ch-M-'ao, “Ping-li chuan-chih chung cheng-hai-ch'ao” (Political currents in the military dictatorship), ibid., pp. 119–122.

7 Because many of those persons who discussed Tai's personality with us specifically asked not to be identified, and still others were vague on the matter, we have followed the principle of identifying none of our informants.

8 We are indebted to Edward Friedman for lett ing us read his important manuscript on the “Chinese Revolutionary Party,” which clarified our understanding of Sun's priorities after 1913. His study is scheduled for publication in the near future by the University of California Press.

9 Chi-t'ao, Tai, “Chung-kuo ko-ming lun” (On the Chinese revolution), Republic, July, 1914;Google Scholar reprinted in T'ien-hsi, Ch'en, ed., Tai Chi-t'ao hsiensheng wen-t;śun tsai-hsu-pien (Collected works of Tai Chi-t'ao—second supplement), 2 vols. (Taipei, 1968), II, 586.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., pp. 580–581.

11 Ibid., p. 587.

12 Ibid.

13 Chi-t'ao, Tai, “Tu-yü” (Soliloquy), Republic, August, 1914;Google Scholar reprinted in T'ien-hsi, Ch'cn, ed., Tai Chi-t'ao hsien-sheng tven-tśun hsu-pien (Collected works of Tai Chi-t'ao—supplement) (Taipei, 1967), pp. 255–256.Google Scholar

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15 Tai Chi-t'ao, “Soliloquy,” pp. 268–272.

16 For a detailed examination of Tai's major arguments and their contradictions, see Herman Mast III, “Tai Chi-t'ao, Marxism, and Sunism During the May Fourth Movement in Shanghai,” Modern Asian Studies, 5. 3: 227–249 (July, 1971).Google Scholar

17 Hsieh, Winston, “The Ideas and Ideals of a Warlord: Ch'en Chiung-ming (1878–1933),” Papers on China (Harvard University, East Asian Research Center), XVI, 198–252 (1962).Google Scholar

18 Chi-t'ao, Tai, “Chih Ch'en Ching-ts'un lun ko-ming ti hsin” (Letter on revolution to Ch'en Ching-ts'un [Chiung-ming]), Construction, II. I: 183–184 (February, 1920).Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 184.

20 Chi-t'ao, Tai, “Chih Chiang Chieh-shih hsien-sheng shu” (Letter to Chiang Kai-shek), December 12, 1925, in T'ien-hsi, Ch'en, ed., Tai Chi-t'ao hs'un-sheng wen-ts'un (Collected works of Tai Chi-t'ao), 4 vols. (Taipei, 1959), III, 981.Google Scholar

21 The details of uSe episode that follows were reported by Liu, Lu-yin, one of Tai's protégés, in “CP ti fan-Kung yü fan-Kung ti CP” (Revolution and counterrevolution), Chung-yang pan-yueh-k'an (Central biweekly [magazine] Nanking), Nos. 5'6 (issued jointly, September, 1927), pp. 50–51;Google Scholar quoted in Yun-han, Li, Ts'ung jung-Kung too ch'ing-Tang (Kuomintang-Chinese Communist Party relations from collaboration to the purge), 2 vols. (Taipei, 1966), I, 364–265.Google Scholar The “Manifesto of the Kuomintang First National Congress” is reprinted in Chia-Iun, Lo, ed., Ko-ming wen-hsien (Documerits on the revolution), 53 vols, to date (Taipei, 1953-) VHI, 1125–1136.Google Scholar

22 Tai Chi-t‘ao's scheme was reported in the Shanghai Min-kuo jih-pao (Republic daily), July 31 and September 2, 1925; quoted Ibid., I, 242–244.

23 Chi-t'ao, Tai, “Tung-fang wen-t'i yü shih-chieh wen-t'i” (The Eastern problem and world problems), Collected Works, IV, 1730.Google Scholar

24 Chi-t'ao, Tai, “KuomintaDg ti chi-wang k'ailai” (The Kuomintang carries on past traditions and opens the way for the future), reprinted in Documents on the Revolution, VIII, 1175.Google Scholar

25 In his famous anti-Communist polemics during the summer, 1925, which will be analyzed below, Tai never revealed exactly why he became chary of May Thirtieih. His pamphlet The Nalional Revolution and the Chinese Kuomintang (Kuo-min ko-ming yu Chung-kuo Kuomintang), which, according to its preface was published in Shanghai in late July 1925, leads us to speculate that class contradictions in the movement disquieted him. The following account of May Thirtieth from the perspective of those antagonisms is modeled generally after Chesneaux, Jean, The Chinese Labor Movement, 1910–1927, tr. Wright, Hope (Stanford, 1968).Google Scholar

26 Cli-t'ao, Tai, National Revolution, pp. 79–80.Google Scholar

27 Chi-t'ao, Tai, Philosophical Foundations (Shanghai, 1915). Bibliographical data for National Revolution, n. 25 above. Both tracts have been reissued many limes by the party; most recently 1950 and 1951 respectively in Taiwan.Google Scholar

28 The manual, Chun-jen ching-shen chiao-yü (Spiritual education of soldiers), docs not appear in Wen, Sun, Kuo-ju ch'uan-chi (Complete works of Sun Yat-sen), ed. Historical Materials Compilation Committee of the party Central Committee, 6 vols. (Taipei, 1950, 1957, 1961), or elsewhere in KMT sources.Google Scholar

29 Tai Chi-t'ao, Philosophical Foundations, p. 44.

30 Ibid., p. 45.

31 Ibid., pp. 46–47.

32 Brandt, Conrad, Stalin's Failure in China (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), p. 55.Google Scholar

33 This term appears to have been first applied to Sun's though) by William, Maurice, Sun Yat-sen and Communism (Baltimore, 1933), p. 4.Google Scholar

34 Tai Chi-t‘;ao, Philosophical Foundations, p. 15.

35 Ibid., p. 37 et passim.

36 Ibid., p.

37 Ibid., pp. 18–19.

38 Ibid., p. 19.

39 Ibid., p. 18.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid. p. 20.

42 Tai Chi-t'ao, National Revolution, p. 69.

43 Ibid., p. 79.

44 Ibid., pp. 57–58.

45 Ibid., pp. 70 and 51.

46 Ibid., pp. 43–45.

47 Ibid., p. 36.

48 Ibid., pp. 39–41.

49 We are paraphrasing Martin Malia's critical insight on utopianism in Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812–1855 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. 419.Google Scholar

50 Tai Chi-t'ao, Philosophical Foundations, p. 27

51 Mannheim, Karl, “Conservative Thought” Chapter II of Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology, ed. Kecskemeti, Paul (New York, 1953), pp. 74–164.Google Scholar

52 Tien-wei, Wu, “Chiang Kai-shek's Match Twentieth Coup d'D; Etat of 1926,” journal of Asian Studies, XXVII. 3: 586–587 (May, 1968).Google Scholar

53 Chi-Iu, Huang, “Tai Chi-t'ao hsien-shcng yü tsao-chi fan-Kung yun-iung” (Tai Chi-t'Cao and the early anti-Communist movement) in Sun Yat-sen University Alumni Association, ed., Tai Chi-t'ao ksien-sheng shih-shih-shih-chou-nien chi-nien t'-k'an (A collection of commemorative essays printed on the tenth anniversary of Tai Chi-t'ao's death) (Taipei, 1959), p. 7.Google Scholar