National Calamity And National Day

The Double Tenth Day, the national anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising, is a way of continuing and reconstructing the memorial of the 1911 Revolution. When commemorating the Double Tenth Day, the 1911 Revolution is always the topmost issues to be talked about. However, in different era and places, the memory of the revolution is constantly reinterpreted and re-elucidated. This phenomenon is especially obvious during the Anti-Japanese War.The Anti-Japanese War was an era of national crisis for the Chinese people. The National Government in Chongqing worked in tandem with the Border Region Communist Government to lead the resistance against Japanese aggression. However, they still had varied political interests and goals. The Double Tenth Day, as a way of gathering the memory of the nation-state, became a festival of co-memorizing and gathering national support. And it was the resource of expressing each party's legitimacy as well. During the celebration, the National Government stressed the image of nationalism as ways to woo people's support. By celebrating the day with the Allies, they combined the nationalism of Double Tenth Day and cosmopolitism of constructing the Great Unity together. On the other hand, the National Government re-interpreted and reconstructed the 1911 Revolution, developing it in the tongue of Anti-Japanese War, making Sun Yat-sen a myth, connecting Chiang Kai-Shek with Sun, trying hard to prove Chiang's legitimacy of dictatorship. For the Border Region Government, they also positively commemorated the Double Tenth Day. They went through the rituals of sending tributes to the portrait of Sun Yat-sen, and read Sun's Wills with respect. Although they did it too for the purpose of stressing their own legitimacy, more public participation could be found in their ceremonies. By re-interpreting and reorganizing the 1911 Revolution, they stressed the "Three Major Policies" and the Unified Battle Line during the War of Resistance against Japan, and proposed the doctrine of New Democracy, so as to compete for the leadership of the Chinese revolution with the Nation Government.Likewise, Wang Ching-wei Puppet Government commemorated the Double Tenth Day too. Despite continuing the old rituals before the war, they stressed the notion of "the Sino-Japanese Peace" and "China, Japan as a whole". Through re-interpreting the 1911 Revolution, distorting the Revolution of 1911 history, twisting the Sun Yat-sen Wills, they made decoration for their "Peace Movement".Behind the different and sometimes alike celebrations of the three governments lied strong hints of political opinions. Their ceremonies and reinterpretation of the Double Tenth Day was obviously a competition for their own political legitimacy.From the research above, we can find that the memorial of Double Tenth Day during the Anti-Japanese War was not only the country's important events, but also important cultural resources and arenas where various parties express their political opinions and fought for their own interests. Through the celebration, these various forces activated the historical memory, so that the Revolution of 1911 could be "invented", and made it endure as a constantly renewed political symbol, which in all made this historic symbol more complicated.