Chapter VII · The Programs of Min Shêng. The Three Programs of Min Shêng.

The new ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as has been shown, demanded three fulfilments of the doctrine of min shêng: a nationalistic economic revolution, a deliberate industrial revolution, and a social revolution. The last was to be accomplished negatively rather than positively. It was to aim at the reconstruction of the Chinese economy in such a manner as to avoid the necessity of class war. Since Chinese society was to be revolutionized by the development of a nation and a state, with all that that implied, and was to be changed by a transition from a handicraft economy to an industrial one, Sun Yat-sen hoped that these changes would permit the social revolution to develop at the same time as the others, and did not plan for it separately and distinctly. The three revolutions, all of them economic, were to develop simultaneously, and all together were to form a third of the process of readjustment.

In considering the actual plans for carrying out the min shêng principle, the student encounters difficulties. The general philosophical position of the min shêng ideology in relation to the ideologies of nationalism and democracy, and in connection with such foreign philosophies as capitalism and Marxism, has already been set forth. The direct plans that Sun Yat-sen had for the industrial revolution in China are also clear, since he outlined them, laboriously although tentatively, in The International Development of China;295 but whereas the ideology and [pg 237] the actual physical blueprints can be understood clearly enough, the general lines of practical governmental policy with regard to economic matters have not been formulated in such a way as to make them indisputable.

Sun Yat-sen was averse to tying the hands of his followers and successors with respect to economic policy. He said: “While there are many undertakings which can be conducted by the State with advantage, others cannot be conducted effectively except under competition. I have no hard-and-fast dogma. Much must be left to the lessons of experience.”296

It would be inexpedient to go into details about railway lines and other modern industrial enterprises by means of which Sun sought to modernize China. On the other hand, it would be a waste of time merely to repeat the main economic theses of the new ideology. Accordingly, the examination of the program of min shêng will be restricted to the consideration of those features that affected [pg 238] the state, either directly or indirectly, or which had an important bearing upon the proposed future social organization of the Chinese. Among the topics to be discussed are the political nature of the national economic revolution, the political effect of the industrial revolution upon the Chinese, and the expediency of Sun's plans for that revolution; the nature of the social revolution which was to accompany these two first, especially with reference to the problem of land, the problem of capital, and the problem of the class struggle; the sphere of state action in the new economy; and the nature of that ideal economy which would be realized when the Chinese should have carried to completion the programs of min shêng. Railway maps and other designs of Sun, which have proved such an inspiration in the modernization of China and which represent a pioneer attempt in state planning, will have to be left to the consideration of the economists and the geographers.297

The program of min shêng was vitally important to the realization of the Nationalist revolution as a whole, so important, indeed, that Sun Yat-sen put it first in one of his plans:

The first step in reconstruction is to promote the economic well-being of the people by providing for their four necessities of life, namely, food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. For this purpose, the Government will, with the people's co-operation, develop agriculture to give the people an adequate food supply, promote textile industries to solve their clothing problem, institute gigantic housing schemes to provide for them decent living quarters, and build roads and canals so that they may have convenient means of travel.

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Next is the promotion of democracy....

The third step is the development of nationalism....298

The plans for realizing min shêng were to be the most necessary and the most difficult. In the change from a world-society to a race-nation, the Chinese had their own social solidarity and the experience of the Western nations to guide them. There was little in the development of a nation that had not already been tried elsewhere. The only real obstacles were the ignorance of the people, in relation to the new social environment in which their whole society was involved, and the possibility of opposition from the politically oppressing powers.

In the development of democracy the Chinese could rely in part upon the experience of the West. The Kuomintang could observe the machinery of democratic states in regular operation abroad. Although the new democracy of the five powers and the four rights was differed from the democratic methods of the West, still, as in mechanics, certain fundamental rules of political organization in its technical details could be relied upon. The Chinese people had a democratic background in the autonomy of the various extra-political units.

In min shêng neither the experience of the West nor the old Chinese background would be of much value. More than the other two principles and programs, min shêng sought to alter the constitution and nature of Chinese society. Yet in min shêng the Chinese were to be [pg 240] guided only negatively by Western experience. Into their society, passing through a great economic upheaval, they must introduce, by a trial-and-error method, the requirements for economic unity, efficiency, and justice.