Research On Sun Yat-sen's Thought Of Party Governance

In modern society of China,confronting with invasion of Western powers,the central government of the Qing dynasty increasingly lost its political authority and failed to effectively integrate various domestic political forces for resisting foreign aggression and maintaining rule.China lost its integrity of territory and sovereignty and huge indemnities made people live in an abyss of misery.In order to survive the national crisis and realize independence and prosperity of China,a leading political authority generally honored by the national people must be built.A highly legal modern unified central government was needed to end the political situation of falling apart.The society must form a dominant power to solve the crisis of authority.With powerful function of mobilization and organization,the political party emerged as the times required.The political party is an effective means of solving a crisis of political authority in the course of political modernization and a product of political modernization.In ancient China,there was no political party of modern significance,but generally,there were cliques that usually referred to factions destroying affairs of state and intending to conspire against the state.Therefore,all feudal rulers cracked down cliques jeopardizing the regime of feudal autocracy.The concept of the political party was introduced in China from the West when the intellectual learned from the West in modem times.Unlike the political parties originating from parliaments in western countries,Chinese political parties were formed under the stimulation of the modern national crisis as revolutionary political parties which were leading forces guiding Chinese people to the independence and prosperity.In 1905,The United League of China was established in China and was the first bourgeois revolutionary party in China.After the First Opium War,the Qing dynasty only showed corruption and incompetence during a series of wars against foreign powers so that the national crisis became increasingly severe.Moreover,its new policies further aggravated contradictions.As a result,Chinese people acknowledged its legitimacy less,so it lost its due political authority and was unable to shoulder the task of modernization of China.People were long for a new political authority.The United League of China led by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the feudal autocratic governance of the decadent Qing dynasty.The foundation of the Republic of China provided an important basis for the nation-building of China.The development of political parties became smooth and the two-party system was carried out preliminarily.However,due to China's status,loss of democratic cultural tradition and powerful despotism,party politics finally failed in China and didn't establish a new political authority.Anomie and disorder of political orders and lack of faith brought about long-term political unrest and volatility.China fell into dark times with confused fighting between the warlords who each did things in their own way like a sheet of loose sand.Hence,it provided an opportunity for foreign powers to invade China.In order to rebuild the central political authority and unify China,with constant failure during the revolution,Sun Yat-sen summed up experience and lessons.With the help of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China,in 1924,he finally reorganized the Kuomintang of China and executed policies of one-party rule and state-founding.He implemented policies of governing country by the Three People's Principles,controlling politics and army by the party,ruling people by the party and handing state power back to the people,symbolizing the formal formation of Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought.After his death,both the Guangzhou National Government and the Nanjing National Government built by the Kuomintang reflected a characteristic of party ruling and his party governing thought played an important role for the Kuomintang government in practice.Chinese politics entered into a new era of party governing.The generation of Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought was caused by both the need of the reality of Chinese revolution and influences of the political system of former Soviet Union.The generation of Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought underwent a process of development and change from differentiation of concepts of revolutionary parties and political parties,steps of theory of revolutionary procedure,transition from the two-party system to the one-party system to reorganization of the Kuomintang.The policy of governing country by the Three People's Principles is the core of his thought,controlling politics and army by the party,ruling people by the party are concrete embodiment of his thought and handing state power back to the people is the final purpose of his thought.This paper tried to analyzed Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought under an analytical framework of political authority.Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought included there aspects,namely the authority of the party's core leader,the legitimacy of the revolutionary party in China and people's roles in a political party.Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought had important influences on China's political development in the twentieth century.According to China‘s national condition,consolidating and perfecting of the construction of a revolutionary party with a one-party system is the only choice of promoting national construction.The special background of the modern Chinese society determines that the one-party system on the basis of centralized means is a right choice to rebuild the political authority of the central government and realize modernization.However,due to the historical background,Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought was only a theory and the design of the theory was ideal.Party governing is only a means and its final goal remains to be party politics and handing state power back to the people in China.In practice of the Kuomintang,the Guangzhou National Government determined a party-governing system to establish an authoritative party.Party governing made the Kuomintang really vital,allowed people's extensive participation and achieved the victory of the National Revolution.However,in the later Nanjing National Government,the alienation of Sun Yat-sen's party governing thought resulted in situations of one-party dictatorship,lack of distinction between the functions of the Party and those of the government and military suppression against rights of the party in the end.Chiang Kai-shek established his dictatorial rule in the name of party governing and finally led to loss of political authority of the Nanjing National Government and failure of rule in Mainland China.