The Kuomintang, a Chinese political party, was formed by federation of old anti-Manchu secret societies, and has become the vehicle for the will of its Leader, Sun Yat-sen: constitutionally and legally it is the superior of the Chinese National Government; administratively, one of the three chief organs of policy execution for the regime; politically, the only legal political party in Free China. It has had undisputed primacy, but not monopoly, in domestic Chinese politics for fourteen years. Despite revolutionary purposes, and idealistic obligations, the Kuomintang is responsible for the welfare of the government which it created. Its interest is therefore superior to and identical with the government's; the party of a one-party state has no business criticizing the government, since the party at all times possesses the means of correction or change.

By its constitution and organization the Party is democratic. In practice it has been a loose oligarchy, similar to the machinery whereby American presidential candidates are nominated. In composition it is by its own statement a cross section of China, composed of persons who qualify as a political elite by their zeal in seeking and obtaining entrance to the Party. Administratively, the Kuomintang possesses a group of Ministries (pu), closely similar to the governmental ministries, and executing quasi-governmental policy, plus an additional group of separate or affiliated organizations having common purposes. In power politics, the Kuomintang claims supremacy in all unoccupied China and legitimate power over the occupied areas; in practice it yields frequently to the demands of dissidents. In function, its highest purpose—bequeathed by Sun Yat-sen—is to destroy its own monopoly of power when the time for democracy shall come; like medicine, it is committed to the eradication of the reason for its own existence.

The Party Constitutional System

The Kuomintang adopted a Party-Constitution after thirty-odd years of activity when, at the suggestion of Soviet advisers, it reorganized on January 28, 1924 as a formal party, with membership books, regular dues, etc. Up to then it had operated through techniques intermediate in formality between American major-party looseness and Chinese secret-society formality. In twelve chapters, the Constitution dealt with Membership, Organization, Special Areas, the Leader (Sun Yat-sen, Tsung-li), the Highest Party Organs, Provincial Party Organization, Hsien Organization, District (ch'Ü) Organization, and Sub-district (ch'Ü-fÊn, roughly equivalent to the pao in local government) Organization, Terms of Office, Discipline, and Finance.[1] The actual application of this Constitution is best described in the words of Wang Shih-chieh, who wrote before the current hostilities:[2]

The system of organization of the Chinese Kuomintang is based upon the Constitution and Bye-laws of the Chinese Kuomintang [Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang Hsien-chang] which was passed in the First Party Congress [Ch'Üan-kuo Tai-piao Ta-hui] on January 28, Year XIII [1924], and amended in the following two Party Congresses on January 16, Year XV [1926] and on March 27, Year XVIII [1929]. No amendment of any sort was made in the Fourth and Fifth Party Congresses held in the Years XX [1931] and XXIV [1935] respectively.

According to the above Constitution and Bye-Laws, the Kuomintang has five divisional organizations, viz.: one for the whole country, one for each province, one for each hsien (or governmental district), one for each district, and one for each district subdivision [ch'Ü-fÊn-pu]. The organ possessing the highest authority in the Kuomintang is the Party Congress of the Kuomintang. When this Congress is not in session, the Central Executive Committee is the highest authority. The organization of the Congress and the method of electing the Delegates are fixed by the Central Executive Committee, while the members of the Central Executive Committee are elected by the Party Congress. Moreover the number of these members is also fixed by the Congress. Article I of the "Outlines of the Organization of the Central Executive Committee," passed in the First Session of the Fifth Central Executive Committee Meeting, on December 6, Year XXIV [1935], provides: "The Central Executive Committee appoints nine standing members of the Committee, to form a Standing Committee which shall discharge the duties of the Central Executive Committee when the latter is not in Session. The Standing Committee is provided with a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman, elected from among the nine standing members." Hence it can be said that when the Central Executive Committee is not in session, this Standing Committee represents the highest authority of the Kuomintang. The offices of the Chairman [superseded by the Party Chief, Tsung-ts'ai] and the Vice-Chairman have been provided for since December, Year XXIV [1935]. Whether the Chairman can be the representative of the highest authority of the Kuomintang or not, under the tacit consent of the Standing Committee, still depends upon the changes in circumstances. The said "Outlines of the Organization" does not state clearly the rights and duties of the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman. Hence, the highest authorities of the Kuomintang as prescribed by various written laws are (1) the Party Congress, (2) the Central Executive Committee, and (3) the Standing Committee of the Central Executive Committee. When the larger organ is not in session, the next following organ represents the highest authority of the Kuomintang. But this only applies in theory. As a matter of fact, when the lower organs are exercising their power, they can not but be limited by certain restrictions. Whenever important questions arise which may cause fierce disputes among members or among the people, the lower organs which have the authority to decide when the upper organ is not in session usually reserve the questions for discussion in the meeting of the upper organ. The resolutions passed by the upper organs—the Party Congress down to the Central Executive Committee Meeting—are usually elastic so that the lower organs—the Standing Committee up to the Central Executive Committee—do not experience great difficulties or restrictions in facing various troublesome situations.

According to the Constitution and Bye-Laws of the Chinese Kuomintang, there is, besides the Central Executive Committee, a Central Control Committee for the Kuomintang. Its organization is similar to that of the Central Executive Committee, though with fewer members. It occupies the same rank as the Central Executive Committee, and its duty is to superintend and inspect the personnel of the Kuomintang.

The names and organizations of the various organs directly controlled by the Central Executive Committee have unavoidably undergone some changes, though in principle their structures have remained the same. According to the "Outlines of the Organization of the Central Executive Committee," the organs under it are divided along three lines: organization, publicity, and popular training, with various committees. These organs are to discharge all affairs of the Kuomintang. Besides these, there is a Political Committee [superseded by the Supreme National Defense Council], to "act as the highest directing organ in all governmental policies and to be responsible to the Central Executive Committee." Although these organs are authorized by the Central Executive Committee and formed in the Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee, the Standing Committee can still exercise authority over them when the Central Executive Committee is not in session, because in accordance with the Constitution and Bye-Laws, the Standing Committee takes the place of the Central Executive Committee. As a matter of fact, since the activities along the lines of organization, publicity, and popular training are the internal activities within the Kuomintang, these organs are usually under the rigid control of the Standing Committee. As the Political Committee discharges various political affairs, its position may be said to be independent. Any resolution passed by this Committee is sent to the government for execution, and the Standing Committee has no power to restrict its activities. Hence under the party government of the Chinese Kuomintang, the Political Committee is in reality the highest directing and supervisory authority in matters concerning governmental policies.

The Emergency Party Congress of the Kuomintang, Hankow, March 29-April 1, 1938, provided for two further amendments to the Party Constitution. It abolished the system of reserve members, and, far more significantly, it created the post of Tsung-ts'ai, here translated Party Chief, which was indistinguishable except as a matter of terminology from the post of Tsung-li, held in perpetuity by Sun Yat-sen. Chiang K'ai-shek was elected Party Chief, and the powers of his office were stated to be duplicates of those given originally to the Tsung-li: a general provision that "all members shall follow the direction of" the Tsung-li, which was not implemented; chairmanship of the Party Congress and of the Central Executive Committee (a fortiori, of the Standing Committee of the C.E.C.); and a veto over the acts of the Congress and the C.E.C. Furthermore, the Political Committee (Central Political Council) was replaced by the Supreme National Defense Council, of which Chiang was also elected Chairman.

Since Chiang had been Chairman of the Standing Committee, it follows that the change of formal labels did not much alter the constitutional organization of the Kuomintang, nor materially change Chiang's position. Chiang does not help to create machinery of power in order to lurk behind it, thus proclaiming it a mere faÇade. He, as a public servant reared in the Confucian tradition, possesses sufficient respect for words to let them mean what they are publicly declared to mean. The post of Tsung-ts'ai is more than ample in providing Chiang with the power he feels necessary to accomplish national unification, mitigate social injustice, and promote serious representative government. He accepts the full measure of his power; doing so publicly, his subsequent actions appear relatively modest. By Western standards, Chiang is naive enough to be honest.

A point brought out in connection with the National Government (p. 46, above) is worth reiteration. Neither by Party action nor by governmental change has the Kuomintang monopoly of political power been modified by law. There is no United Front, Popular Front, or any other kind of front in the legal system; even in practical administration, the entrance of non-Party men has been at Party direction; and it is only in the Special Areas, the special war services, and the military organization that the Kuomintang has relaxed its control of power. Other groups are sharing in the work of the People's Political Council. The prudence of such a policy may appear open to question; its consistency is not.

Party Organization

Organizationally the Party is bipolar, with the power concentrated in the entire membership at the base, and in the Chief (Tsung-ts'ai) at the apex. The highest authority of the Kuomintang is the Party Congress (Ch'Üan-kuo Tai-piao Ta-hui), which could also be translated as All-Nation Convention of Party Delegates. Party Congresses have been held as follows: I, Canton, 1924; II, Canton, 1926; III, Nanking, 1929; IV, Nanking, 1931; V, Nanking, 1935; and the Emergency Party Congress, Hankow, 1938. Wang Ch'ing-wei organized a rump Kuomintang on the basis of a "Sixth Party Congress" held in 1939; the legitimate Sixth Congress has not yet been called.

The Party Congress is the highest agency of the Kuomintang, and thereby the highest legal authority in China—a position which it now shares with the Party Chief, ex officio its Chairman. The Kuomintang Party Constitution provides that the Congress should ordinarily meet every other year (Art. 27), but permits the C.E.C. to postpone a Congress for not more than one year. This provision has frequently been violated. In actual effect the Congress is neither an effective governing body, nor, at the other extreme, a completely helpless tool. No Party Congress has led to a drastic shift of actual political power.

The barometer of influence functions outside the Congress, and the Congress ratifies and establishes what has actually occurred. The high authority of the incumbent C.E.C. in matters of accrediting delegates, plus its power to appoint delegates from areas not represented (a feature taken from Soviet practice), gives the political Ins a formidable weapon with which to bludgeon down opposition, but since the value of the Party Congress is that of a legitimizing agency, overt interference with Party functions would destroy the utility of the Congress. Its level of freedom and efficacy may be compared with American party conventions. Unwieldy, improvised agencies are not able to meet the challenges of well-knit executive groups, but their very unmanageability preserves to them a freedom of incalculable action. The Party Congress could not in practice exercise its formal, legal power of overthrowing the entire Party leadership and starting the Party off on a new tack; it could, however, so humiliate the incumbents by subtle but obvious political gestures familiar to all Chinese, that the leadership would retire for reasons of health, or because of a yearning to contemplate the cosmos.

The elaborate structure of the Kuomintang is shown on the chart of organization (p. 331). Abstraction of the most essential features of this chart reveals the following:

The Central Executive Committee (Chung-yang Chih-hsing Wei-yÜan-hui) is a relatively large body with one hundred and twenty members. The Party Constitution requires that it meet every six months or less. These sessions, the Plenary Sessions of the C.E.C., are by far the best-established political processes in the Chinese state. Actual shifts in power are here fought out, since the C.E.C. possesses authority ample for almost any emergency. The expulsion of Wang Ch'ing-wei was effected through C.E.C. action, and did not require the work of any higher body.

The Central Control Committee (Chung-yang Chien-ch'a Wei-yÜan-hui) is an agency which the Chinese adapted from two sources, the Bolshevik pattern of an independent intra-party control system, and the native chien-ch'a power. Similar in function to the Commission of Party Control employed by the Communist Party in the Soviet Union rather than to the Organization Bureau, the Central Control Committee (also termed, in another common translation, Central Supervisory Committee) is in charge of an inspective system. Because of the relative laxness of Kuomintang organization, the work of this Committee is far less than one might expect. It has not been adequate to ensure rigidly strict Party efficiency, diligence, or honesty; neither has it become a terrorist agency inflicting an inviolable Party line. Few faults in politics fail to be virtues as well; inefficiency has its minor compensations. In times of secure power, rigid Party discipline might let the Kuomintang grow into a genuine and full-fledged tyranny; nevertheless, in times of stress, such as the present, the Party stands in need of stiffening and control.

The third agency, the Supreme National Defense Council, is the Party's agent in charge of government. (See above, p. 46 ff.)

Immediately under the Central Executive Committee there are three agencies of vitality and importance. The first of these is the San Min Chu I Ch'ing-nien T'uan (usually translated San Min Chu I Youth Corps, or Kuomintang Youth Corps). A war-time addition to the Party, it became politically possible when the abandonment of appeasement re-aligned government and youth. The Communist Youth Corps (Kung-ch'an Ch'ing-nien T'uan) provided a model and rival. The Constitution of the Corps, together with an appraisal (from the official point of view) of its work, is given below in Appendices II (B) and II (C). In terms of practical political effect, the Corps is significant, although far less important than its organization scheme would indicate. It combines some of the functions of a military training system with social and propaganda work. Leftists have complained against it bitterly as an agency of espionage and repression within student groups; others have acclaimed it as a meeting of the Kuomintang and the youth, fruitful in terms of national unity. The importance of the Corps lies in its organization of a broad group of young men, one or more steps up from the bottom of the economic scale, and in the fact that the government and Kuomintang—after years of overriding youth opinion—now find it feasible to organize their own affiliate. Few charges of corruption have touched the Corps, which lies particularly within the purview of the Generalissimo. A minor but active element in the political scene, it stands for the Kuomintang's bid for permanence, and, in the event of internal dissension, would be a valuable prop to the status quo. The political indecision and laxness of China in general has kept the group from becoming either a Hitlerjugend or a frankly democratic C.C.C. (Civilian Conservation Corps) on the American plan; the Corps is at best a laggard bid to young men, and a belated competition with the Left and the Communists.[3]

The Party Affairs Committee (Tang-wu Wei-yÜan-hui) supplements the work of the Central Control Committee in investigating Party personnel and acting as a supplementary housekeeping agency for intra-Party organization.

The third of these agencies is the [Central] Training Committee (HsÜn-lien Wei-yÜan-hui). To this Committee has fallen the labor of invigorating the Kuomintang under conditions of strain, from war, from the Wang schism, and from new domestic competition. The Generalissimo has put the most vigorous efforts into the work of this agency, and has organized under it a Kuomintang Training Corps (HsÜn-lien T'uan) which is providing extensive new resources of leadership to the Party. Enterprising or promising young men are gathered together in training meetings, and given intensive work in Party doctrine, propaganda and organization methods, local administration, etc. The Corps has tended to accept youths and some men of middle age from positions of responsibility, and to equip them with the knowledge and the discipline necessary to continuation of pre-democratic government. In the constant race between government activity as a positive force and government apathy combined with outside anti-governmental revolution as negative forces, the training agencies are doing as much as any single enterprise to stabilize the regime.

The Central Political Institute (Chung-yang ChÊng-chih HsÜeh-hsiao) tops the entire program, as a training agency combining features of a university, a camp, and a Party office. Under the personal control and leadership of Dr. Ch'Ên Kuo-fu, one of the Generalissimo's intimates and the elder of the celebrated Ch'Ên brothers, the Institute stands high for its selection of students, the discipline and instruction it imparts, and its practical political effect. The Kuomintang, pronounced moribund by competent foreign observers ten years ago, today is in a better position for leadership and development than it has been for many years. (The author, who visited the Institute during the summer of 1940, found the student body as well disciplined as any he has seen outside of Germany, the staff highly competent [mostly American-trained], and the physical facilities unsurpassed.) Admission to the Institute is open to graduates of Middle Schools (secondary); students who are married may be admitted, but single students may not marry while in attendance. The courses of study are in general the equivalent of American undergraduate work, although some graduate study is offered. The curriculum includes such subjects as military training, Japanese language and politics, and Marxian thought (in connection with min shÊng chu-i). The general course is supplemented by two special courses—the Civil Service Training Corps and the Advanced Civil Service Training Corps—which are set up in collaboration with the Examination YÜan. Graduates are organized into alumni associations, to which the faculty are admitted as supervisory members. It is a matter of success and distinction to undergo the training of the Institute, which is the equivalent of a West Point for political and governmental work. The Generalissimo visits the Institute and speaks before it as much as possible, frequently as often as bi-weekly, but with occasional gaps of months.[4] In addition to the Central Political Institute, there is a [Kuomintang] Northwest Academy of Youth, which has been even more active in training young men for Party and government service. Proximity to the Red training center at Yenan makes its work urgent; training, according to report, is briefer, cruder, and more vigorous than in the central agency. The sub-surface possibility of renewed class war by the Communists makes the Academy peculiarly necessary.

Apart from the Youth Corps, the training agencies, and the Party Affairs Committee, but also directly underneath the Kuomintang C.E.C., come the coordinated and uncoordinated agencies of Party administration. Their organization is as follows:

C.E.C. OF THE KUOMINTANG STANDING COMMITTEE

The Party-Ministries[5] constitute a part of the governing machinery of China. The Organization Party-Ministry is important because of its intra-Party work; the Minister, Dr. Ch'u Chia-hua, a German-educated student, is one of the most active Party leaders, and deeply suspect by the Left. His work is the field of Kuomintang Party administration. The Party-Ministries of Social and Overseas Chinese Affairs combine the functions of government with those of the Party; the former is a bureau of protocol, and the latter acts as an extra-governmental colonial office. The Secretariats provide study agencies for the governmental system. They perform functions which are in the United States both governmental and private (e.g., the work of the Brookings Institution, the Public Administration Clearing House, the various Presidential research and advisory committees, and intra-departmental housekeeping agencies). The system of local government reform is sponsored by the Central Kuomintang Secretariat (Chung-yang Mi-shu-ch'u), even more than by the Ministry of the Interior in the government, under whose jurisdiction it falls. The Secretary-General is a benign revolutionary veteran, Yeh-Ch'u-tsang; the Deputy Secretary-General, Dr. K'an Nai-kuang, is a Party official of almost twenty years' standing, who studied in the United States and visited Europe in quest of data on administration. Boundlessly energetic, he is typical of the younger scholars who combine the academic and the political and impart to the Kuomintang a large share of its present energy.

Internationally, the most important Party-Ministry is that of Publicity (Chung-yang HsÜan-ch'uan Pu), which carries out most of the Chinese propaganda program. Headed by Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, a very outspoken man, its functions are distributed between Sections of General Affairs, Motion Pictures, Newspapers, Advisory, Consultation, and International Publicity, together with services such as China's leading semi-official news service (the Central News Agency), the Party newspapers, the Central Motion Picture Studios, and the official broadcasting system. Because of the difficulties of language, travel, and passports, the International Department supplies most of the news which reaches the world press from Free China. The function of the Western newspapermen consists largely in editing and supplementing this news from whatever independent source they can find, or, occasionally and at the cost of considerable hardship, to attempt to discover the facts for themselves.

In general, the Chinese follow the policy of giving the favorable side of the news, simply omitting anything that could conceivably be unfavorable. Their publicity services are no more guilty of positive suggestio falsi than the services of the British or Americans. Nevertheless, Chinese notions of dignity and public policy differ widely from Americans'; news would be hard to obtain or valueless when obtained, except for the fact that the staff of the International Section is almost entirely American-trained and well-acquainted with American notions of news. The very able and active Hollington Tong, one of China's most successful newspapermen, who was in press work long before he became a Party official, has led in the supply of ample news in the face of great difficulties. He is esteemed by Westerners to be, along with Mme. Chiang, one of the Generalissimo's most effective publicity advisers.

The Party-Ministry of Publicity also attends to the needs and interests of Western newspapermen and other visitors, arranging appointments, schedules, etc., and even boarding many of them at a Press Hostel. These attentions, while from time to time irritatingly restrictive, are in the end almost always appreciated as invaluable. Only the Leftists shun the Publicity Ministry; they do so unsuccessfully, and to their loss. No other Asiatic, and few Western, states can boast as alert and effective a system of propaganda. In the troubled shifts and crises of world politics, the Chinese have managed to retain the sympathy of the most diverse audiences—from American church people to Soviet agitation squads, and from British conservatives to Nazi clubs in Germany. The American traditions of frankness, zest, liveliness in news are transplanted; while they have suffered a sea-change, they still operate with telling effect.[6]

The Ministry of Women's Affairs, decreed in 1940, is in process of organizing women's work for the Party. Previously, most women's organizations had been knit together in the affiliated New Life Movement. The minor committees of the Party—historical, pensions, etc.—lie outside the scope of war activities. Although they continue, their functions are subordinate to the purposes of resistance and reconstruction.

Formal field organization follows seven patterns:

Much of this exists only on paper. After the break with the Communists in 1927, and the transformation of the Kuomintang from a government-destroying to a governing agency, the functional and agitational groups were allowed to slip into desuetude. Under the pressure of war, and the encouraging political situation, which puts a premium on action, the Kuomintang has adopted a variety of policies designed to maintain its position.

The Kuomintang Bid for Leadership

Chief among the new devices is the reintroduction of the Small Group, or Party Cell (hsiao-tsu). A comprehensive plan for small-unit organization has been proclaimed; the text is given below, Appendix II (D). This cell system, as explained by the Deputy Secretary-General of the Kuomintang, Dr. K'an Nai-kuang, will provide the roots of the Party with new vigor.[7] The small group provides for further diffusion of Party work, and introduces novel principles of political organization to the Party. Self-criticism, airing of opinion, mutual personal examination—these are expected to stimulate Party work. The war provides the Party with the opportunity to do with ease things which seemed insurmountably slow and difficult before Japanese bombers helped unification. Opium-suppression, bandit-eradication, and similar work of organization and improvement challenges the Party to further effort. The imminence of democracy requires more intensive preparation in discussion and in self-organization for small groups. The hsiao-tsu system is designed to bolster Party morale, improve the Party work, and spread the teaching of Sun Yat-sen.

The new governmental pattern of local government is to be reinforced by the corresponding development of Kuomintang agencies. In the government's plan, rural development operates on four levels: the militia; the school system; the agricultural and industrial cooperatives; and the political organization. The same person in each village or hamlet would be responsible for all four. If he is to be a Party man, he must be effective to be of service and a credit to the Party.

In order to eradicate undesirable personnel, the Kuomintang has increased its Party-purging facilities with what is known as the Party Supervisor's Net (Tang-jÊn Chien-ch'a Wang). By action of the C.E.C. on June 13, 1940, the sub-district Party organs are to elect one to three members each to serve, with a six months' term, as Control Members. With a power of report on Party discipline, and responsibility for Party conditions, this change was expected to drive undesirables more effectively out of the Party.

Three years from 1940 was set as the final date for the installation of the new system. While the fractionization of a Party may seem to be of minor importance, it actually is a major factor in the potential development of the Kuomintang. In the period of Party government, the more popular organs of Party members tended to slough off, leaving large Tangpu (Party Headquarters) in the hsien or cities. These quite often fell into the hands of local machines, with the consequence that they interfered with government, and promoted the usual evils of party machines. The diffusion of Party work, by letting individuals participate more freely as individuals, may help to break the monopoly of these bureaus, and restore the Party effectiveness with less reliance on supervision from above.

The Kuomintang, in addition to these reorganization devices, is meeting competition from the Left by increasing its membership. Membership figures are not available in war time; the total is probably over two million. In some instances the new members are no particular improvement on the pre-existing group, but in the majority of cases the Party broadens its base of popular support.

Intra-Kuomintang Politics

The years which saw the rise of the Kuomintang to power, and its subsequent period of authority, showed a diminution of the disparateness of Party fractions. For a long time the adherents of Wang Ch'ing-wei stood formally Left; those of Hu Han-min, formally Right; while various older Party alignments preserved their outlines more or less clearly (e.g., the Kuomintang Western Hills Group). With the consistent rise of Chiang K'ai-shek to Party and national leadership, and the steady influx of non-Party or merely nominal Party men into the government, Party distinctions lost their cogency in practical affairs.

In terms of influence, patronage, and effective policy-making, the Kuomintang is a conglomeration of innumerable personal leaderships knit together by a common outlook, a common interest in the maintenance of the National Government and formal Party power, and a common loyalty to the Party Chief. The clearest groups are those which are out of the current political stream; most notable among these is the Wang schism, and a few scattered irreconcilables of half-forgotten Party struggles. Within the regime, Kuomintang groups tend to coalesce as the leaders meet, negotiate, and govern together in the councils of state.

So completely in the ascendant that they have lost their general character as groups are the Erh Ch'Ên (literally "the two Ch'Êns"; also termed "C.C. group" by English-speaking Chinese), led by the brothers, Ch'Ên Li-fu, Minister of Education, and Ch'Ên Kuo-fu, head of the Central Political Institute, and the Huangpu (Whampoa Academy) groups, led by the Generalissimo himself. The Ch'Ên brothers have been close adherents of Chiang throughout his career. Brilliant, vigorous, sharp in the retention of power, they have made themselves anathema to the Left. They are effective reorganizers of the Kuomintang, keenly aware of its position as monopoly Party, and their protÉgÉs and trainees are omnipresent through government and Party. Their military counterpart is the Huangpu group. It includes officers either trained by Chiang himself or under his close supervision. With the passage of each year, the proportion of Whampoa (or daughter-institution) graduates in the national armies rises. The officers include a high proportion of technically qualified men, whose capabilities and interests are chiefly military. Builders of the new army, they look to the Generalissimo and the Party for dicta on social, economic, and political policy; they provide China with the unpolitical army which has been an American ideal, although rejected by Soviet and South American practice. The officers are not encouraged to assume decisive roles in local politics, but to refer such things back to Headquarters. In consequence, although the danger of a new tuchÜnism has almost disappeared, the army staff does not readily adapt itself to a levÉe en masse, or to the problems of a social-revolutionary army. The very factors which make of the army a tool and not a practice-ground of government also make it somewhat rigid in dealing with guerrilla situations.

Both the C. C. and Whampoa groups are instilled with notions of Party and military discipline which trace back in the first place to the instruction given by Russians from the Soviet Union. While they follow Sun and Chiang in accepting the promises of democracy, their notion of democracy is as different from that of the Left as Washington's was from the Jacobins'. They are interested in sound, disciplined, powerful national government, representative, republican, and stable; they see the revolution as largely complete in the power-destroying phase, and are beginning to think in the reconstruction phase. After ten years of strain and terror in fighting the Communists, they look with suspicion on political changes which would open the nation to opportunist Communist agitation, or make Chungking the helpless diplomatic dependency of the Narkomindel. The bitterness of internecine conflict has made them deeply suspicious of sudden or radical reform, although they themselves profess a genuine interest in social welfare. The actual reforms which have been accomplished are, in the scale of political reality, already stupendous: opium eradication, tax collection, diffusion of national authority, communications, industrialization, military advance, etc. To the Kuomintang center, a demand for sharp or shocking change is suspect. They desire to amplify what they have, and to let changes wait on the ability of trained personnel—not entrusting progress to the vagaries of mass movements with incalculable force and direction.

While the National Government was at Nanking, there was a Fu-hsing ShÊ (Regeneration Club), organized by a few hot-headed members of the Kuomintang center. Its activities in support of the Generalissimo and the government, under the further sobriquet of Bluejacket or Blue Shirt group, earned it the reputation of a Chinese Schutzstaffel. The comparison was at best fanciful, but any comparison at all was heartily desired by the Europocentric Chinese Left and by the world press. Magnified beyond recognition, the Club was identified with almost every agency in the government and Party, not excluding the New Life Movement. As applied, the name Blue Shirt covered a wide scattering of unrelated agencies which had the common features of a Kuomintang-center position, an inclination to effective action (including violence) and some secrecy. Effective political-police work is led by one T'ai Li, whose name is whispered by dissidents; but counter-espionage and supervision of suspects is also performed through Party agents, the regular military, and governmental agencies.

Around the Kuomintang center there are other groups, some closely related to Chiang, some remote. The Political Scientists (ChÊng-hsÜeh Hsi) owe their name to a society which once existed in Nanking. They include many of the administrators, men with American training who are interested in industrial and fiscal development. The clarity of this group has faded by its absorption into the governing center. The Cantonese are represented by two levels of politics: those who based their power on Canton province and those who remained within the government. President Sun K'Ê of the Legislative YÜan has been outstanding in his willingness to cooperate with the Communists and Left, and is on cordial terms with relatively independent progressives, such as Mme. Sun Yat-sen. Further groups within the Kuomintang are constituted by the loyalist followers of Wang Ch'ing-wei, who now attach themselves to other leaders, and by other personal or regional followings (e.g., the Tungpei followers of Chang HsÜeh-liang, ex-tuchÜn of Manchuria and ex-Vice-Commander-in-Chief, still "retired" as a result of the Sian kidnapping). Finally, a number of elder Party leaders remain because of their seniority or connection with Sun Yat-sen; they do not need to attach themselves to any particular clique in order to retain their position. These include such men as the venerable Secretary-General of the Party, Yeh Ch'u-tsang; the President of the National Government, Lin ShÊn; and the President of the Control YÜan, YÜ Yu-jÊn.

What has been said about the groups in the People's Political Council (see p. 76 ff.) applies to these. It is possible, as in American congressional or administrative circles, to distinguish blocs of leaders with differing interests or policy; but clarity fades upon scrutiny. The orientation, even by the participants, is subjective. Lacking continuous institutional form, clustering of leaders is transient, shifting with political events.

It is difficult to appraise the role of the Kuomintang without at the same time assessing the position of the government. The two are inescapably connected. Although the Communists profess recognition of the government, and pledge it loyalty, they offer only comradeship—on their own terms—to the Kuomintang. This arrangement may last for a considerable length of time, but the National Government is a Kuomintang creation; short of violent revolution, Party control will scarcely break in war time. Upon the Party, therefore, depends much of the efficacy of the Government.

Many well-known Leftist writers on China—such as Edgar Snow—make the comment that whereas the National Government is deserving as a government, and worthy of support, the Kuomintang is hopelessly corrupt, a creature of landlords and capitalists, or, of even worse, "feudal elements." Such a distinction, based on strong moral urges and a desire to achieve historical parallels, is untenable in practice. Kuomintang power has weathered more than a decade of adversities. The Generalissimo depends upon it. Analysis of the Kuomintang as the party of the Chinese national bourgeoisie, and ascription of a mass character to the Communists alone, is a fallacy, comparable to a consideration of Earl Browder as the real leader of the American working class.

In point of fact, neither the Kuomintang nor the Communist Party in China is a mass party. Neither ever has been, although each sought mass character in the Great Revolution. Still largely apolitical, the Chinese masses are organized socially, culturally, and economically into a village and guild system which functions through most of the country. The Kuomintang includes a very high proportion of shopkeepers, returned overseas-Chinese, Chinese still resident overseas, Christians, landlords, and Western-returned students. The class composition of the Kuomintang is largely incidental to its functional character. Since the Kuomintang was the party of Westernization, it gathered in revolutionary days Chinese of all classes who were sufficiently modernized to be interested. Naturally the poorest peasants and the coastal proletariat did not constitute a large proportion of such membership. The men who entered did so as Christians, as travellers, as temperamental rebels, rather than as representatives of the bourgeoisie. When the Communists, whom a recent writer[8] with unconscious humor calls the party of the Chinese proletariat, came on the scene, the same social elements contributed to its membership. Once the Communist Party abandoned the Trotskyist line of urban revolt for the leadership of endemic peasant rebellions, its composition changed somewhat, although the Communist leaders of today are socially much like their Kuomintang equivalents. The men who are class-conscious are, like Lenin, historically, philosophically, and morally so; it is a matter of literary necessity, not of fact.

The Kuomintang is in power; the Communist and Left parties are not. As the governing group, the Kuomintang naturally attracts those persons who would seek to enter any government. Since it has not and does not promote rural class warfare, pre-existing class relationships continue. The Party and the Government have sought, not always efficiently or faithfully to the nth degree, to carry out the programs of land reform, democratization, etc., to which they have been committed. The Kuomintang has tolerated widespread sharecropping, land destitution, usury, and rural despotism—because it found these in existence, and was preoccupied with building a national government, a modern army, adequate finance, and with eradicating some of the worst evils, such as opium, bandits, and Communists (who, whatever their ideals, nevertheless helped to impoverish a poor nation by merciless civil war).

If the Kuomintang were out, it too could point to existing evils. Whoever controls government bears the responsibility. A class element is to a certain degree inescapable in any government; illiterate, unqualified persons do not assume leadership even in the Soviet Union until they have escaped their handicaps through training. But to make of the Kuomintang the party of the Chinese landlords and merchants alone is as fallacious as to make the Republicans or Democrats solely the instruments of American capitalism. A comment such as this would be unnecessary in the case of the United States; but persons who are not Marxian with respect to the analysis of current American events often assume a Left approach to China because of impatience with evils which they see but cannot understand.

The final appraisal of the Kuomintang must be based on the practical work of the government and the Party. In 1940, their effective control was wider and deeper than ever before. The Chinese state was more nearly in existence. The armies were undefeated. The growth of China in the past ten years, and the stand made by China at war, has been made under the unrelaxed control of the Kuomintang monopoly of constitutional power, together with its clear primacy in more tangible power—schools, finance, armies, and police.

The New Life Movement and Other Affiliates

The important New Life Movement (Hsin ShÊng-huo YÜn-tung) is, strictly speaking, not a Party organization; but Chiang is its Chairman, and in purposes and personnel it interlocks with the Party. Convinced that institutional and economic reform required accompanying moral and ideological reform, the Generalissimo founded an Officers' Moral Endeavor Corps as early as 1927. This organization was placed, soon after its initiation, in the hands of Colonel (now Major-General) J. L. Huang, a graduate of Vanderbilt University and an experienced Y.M.C.A. secretary. The Corps' purposes were comparable to those of a Y.M.C.A. with American armies, but Chinese morality in general, not Christian sectarian teaching, was stressed. With Chiang's encouragement, the Corps came to include a high percentage of the officers. Teaching cleanliness, truthfulness, promptness, kindness, dignity, etc., it helped build morale.

In 1934, after seven years of war against the Communist-led agrarian insurrections in South Central China, the Generalissimo decided to extend to the whole people the type of work done by the Corps. On February 19, 1934, he made his first speech announcing the New Life Movement and on the following March 11, a mass meeting of about one hundred thousand people, representing five hundred organizations, signalized the formal inauguration of the movement.[9] From then on the Movement was continued as a regular phase of anti-Communist reconstruction. It elicited praise for its attempt to reach the roots of China's political demoralization, and its intent to remedy the everyday life of the people,[10] although there was skepticism as to its effectiveness in removing troubles deeply ingrained in the economic system.

The type of evil against which the New Life Movement struggles is well-illustrated by Mme. Chiang's enumeration of the seven deadly sins: self-seeking, "face," cliquism, defeatism (mei-yu fa-tzu, the Chinese nitchevo), inaccuracy (ch'a-pu-to), lack of self-discipline, and evasion of responsibility.[11] In addition to these sins of social and political behavior, there are others such as filthiness, carelessness of infection, indecent or sloppy dress, bad manners, unkindness, etc. The Movement, easily understood in view of the traditional Confucian emphasis on personal conduct, seeks to reach individual behavior. The West European and North American peoples have been disciplined by technology itself: timeliness, cleanliness, regularity, have come to be a part of daily life. Any nation which seeks to shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy discovers that amiable defects become ruinous flaws: machinery cannot wait; a machine society requires a discipline of its own. The New Life Movement is attacking the points of social behavior which strike the newcomer to China most immediately and most unfavorably.

The positive virtues of the New Life Movement were formulated by the Generalissimo. Four in number, they are li, i, lien, and ch'ih. Li is the fundamental Confucian virtue, and is based upon jÊn. JÊn being humane self-awareness, or consciousness of membership in society, li is the application of this awareness to conduct; it thereby signifies proper behavior, not in the superficial sense of empty formality, but in the sense of behavior which is human: the full expression of man's moral and ethical stature. The traditional translation of li is rites, ceremonies, or etiquette—terms which, because of their connotations of an empty ceremonialism, are inadequate as a rendition of the original. The Generalissimo writes of li: "It becomes natural law, when applied to nature; it becomes a rule, when applied to social affairs; and signifies discipline, when applied to national affairs. These three phases of one's life are all regulated by reason. Therefore, 'li' can be interpreted as regulated attitude of mind and heart."[12] Chiang thus reconciled, for his own thought, the naturalistic ethics of Confucius, wherein man and nature were parts of an inseparable ethical structure, and the pragmatism of Sun Yat-sen.

I is the element in man which makes him observe li: ethics or justice. Lien is "clear discrimination (honesty in personal, public, and official life): Integrity." According to the lexicographer,[13] it is "pure, incorrupt, not avaricious." The fourth principle is ch'ih, given by the dictionary as "to feel shame,"[14] and rendered by the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang as "real self-consciousness (self-respect): Honor."[15] From this the Generalissimo evolved his formulation of a theory of action.[16] That he is not unaware of criticisms directed against him for talking about morality when people are fighting and starving is shown by his spirited counter-attack:

There are two kinds of skeptics:

First, some hold the view that the four virtues are simply rules of good conduct. No matter how good they may be, no benefit to the nation can be derived from them if the knowledge and technique used by that nation are inferior to others.

Those who hold this view do not seem to understand the difference between matters of primary and secondary importance. From the social and national point of view, only those who are virtuous can best use their knowledge and technique for the salvation of the country. Otherwise, ability may be abused for dishonorable purposes. "Li," "i," "lien," and "ch'ih" are the principal rules alike for a community, a group, or the entire nation. Those who do not observe these rules will probably utilize their knowledge and ability to the disadvantage of society. Therefore, these virtues may be considered as matters of primary importance upon which the foundation of a nation can be solidly built.

Secondly, there is another group of people who argue that these virtues are merely refined formalities, which have nothing to do with the actual necessities of daily life. For instance, if one is hungry, can these formalities feed him? This is probably due to some misunderstanding of the famous teachings of Kuan-Tze, who said: "When one does not have to worry about his food and clothing, then he cares for personal honor; when the granary is full, then people learn good manners." The sceptic fails to realize that the four virtues teach one how to be a man. If one does not know these, what is the use of having abundance of food and clothing? Moreover, Kuan-Tze did not intend to make a general statement, merely referring to a particular subject at a particular time. When he was making broad statements, he said: "'li,' 'i,' 'lien,' and 'ch'ih' are the four pillars of the nation." When these virtues prevail, even if food and clothing are temporarily insufficient, they can be produced by man power: or, if the granary is empty, it can be filled through human effort. On the other hand, when these virtues are not observed, there will be robbery and beggary in time of need: and from a social point of view robbery and beggary can never achieve anything. Social order is based on these virtues. When there is order, then everything can be done properly: but when everything is in confusion, very little can be achieved. Today robbers are usually most numerous in the wealthiest cities of the world. This is an obvious illustration of confusion caused by non-observance of virtues. The fact that our country has traitors as well as corrupt officials shows that we, too, have neglected the cultivation of virtues, and if we are to recover, these virtues must be adopted as the principles of a new life.[17]

Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang both work actively in the Movement, inspecting its branches and enterprises, speaking at its meetings, and supervising its functions. The Movement possesses a small but very active central staff, with Major-General Huang as Secretary-General and Dr. Chu Djang, a Johns Hopkins political scientist, as his assistant. Efforts are made to improve the daily life of the people. Shops are encouraged to join the Movement, on conditions requiring cleanliness, uniform prices, etc. Thus in addition to the work of a Y.M.C.A. for all ages and classes, the Movement attempts the role of a municipal health campaign agency, a better business bureau, and a civic service club. Marriages have traditionally depleted family budgets; many a Chinese farmer or worker has fallen into usurious debt because of the social necessity of extravagant feasting and celebration. The Movement accordingly organized inexpensive mass marriages, collectively celebrated under official auspices; the purpose is not to increase the population, but to circumvent a wasteful custom. Peep-show operators have been given displays which are patriotic instead of mythical, chivalric, or licentious. Story-tellers are taught new, public-spirited stories to tell. The New Life Movement seeks to reinvigorate Chinese society by adapting existing institutions or businesses to new needs.

In addition to attempting change in traditional life, the Movement has introduced innovations. The only cafeteria in Chungking serving cheap but dietetically sound meals is operated by the New Life Headquarters. Chinese foods were hard to preserve and unpleasant to eat in the darkness of air raid shelters; China has had no sandwiches, crackers, or equivalent preparations; the New Life Movement concocted a cheap but tasty and nutritious wheat and soy biscuit, and scattered the recipe broadcast. News is distributed to the illiterates through lantern-slide lectures in market-places. Mass singing, virtually unknown in China until now, is making enormous strides with the war; the New Life Movement is diffusing this, along with calisthenics.[18]

A group of minor New Life agencies are clustered about the Headquarters. These, like the Movement, are not financed by popular subscription, membership fees, or collection drives. All administrative expenses are borne by the Generalissimo and his closest associates, who contribute from their private funds or from available contingent funds of their offices, and from contributions by local governments. Since part of the program is distribution of cash gifts to all wounded soldiers, the budget runs into fairly high figures, but the Generalissimo realizes that in China there is no better way to create mistrust of an enterprise than to collect money for it. The leading agencies affiliated with the New Life are:

(1) the War Area Service Corps, designed for propaganda, instruction, spreading of cooperatives, relief, etc., in the occupied and combat zones;

(2) the Rural Service Corps, designed to perform the same functions behind the lines, and to aid in rural reconstruction;

(3) the New Life Students Rural Summer Service Corps, an organization which organizes students from the colleges during their summer vacations, and sends them out on the land for service work, along with new agricultural information, hygienic teaching, literacy drives, etc.;

(4) the Wounded Soldiers' League, a self-help organization for disabled veterans, who are assisted and encouraged to set up their own cooperatives; they have done so with particular success in cigarette-making, printing, and shoe-weaving;

(5) the Friends of the Wounded Society, wherein volunteers become friends to veterans who are in hospitals, or who return to civil life as cripples (each Friend contributing money, transmitted direct to the veteran; Friends are also encouraged to write or visit the veterans);

(6) the New Life Secretaries' Camp, virtually a summer undergraduate college, with an academic curriculum, strict discipline, and ample organized recreation; and

(7) the Women's Advisory Council, which in turn tops another pyramid of war-time activity in the hands of women's organizations.[19]

In addition to these major activities, there are innumerable further enterprises, including another industrial cooperative system, a really extensive chain of orphanages for war orphans, schools for girls, training camps for young women, etc. It is no uncommon sight to stand on a city street in West China and see three-fourths of the young people wearing the uniforms of various war activities, most of which—outside the army—are affiliates of the Party or the Movement.

These activities have not received much praise from Leftists or foreign visitors. They begin at a level so far below American requirements of social service that they seem ineffectual. The author once saw, in China's tuchÜn years, old people dying in the streets while pedestrians walked by, uncomfortable but aloof; he saw children with burnt-out eyes whining for alms, to the profit of a beggars' syndicate; he watched soldiers rotting alive on the flagstones of temple courtyards. The Kuomintang, the New Life, and their affiliates cannot relieve the general poverty of China, nor alter the fundamental economic faults and continuing maladjustments of class functions. These agencies do, however, eliminate evils so bad that the ordinary American would not remember them for his schedule of social reform. In the vast reaches of Free China, these organizations—like many others—almost disappear in the perpetual routines of ancient, enduring institutions: the market-place, the hucksters' streets, the tea-house. But their influence is felt. In contrast with the entire American New Deal, they are nothing at all; in contrast with the Y.M.C.A., Komsomol, or similar organizations, they are agents of one of the greatest practical social reforms ever undertaken in Asia, and a step bound to have political repercussions.

Popular non-participation still stultifies them. The leadership of the agencies parallels government personnel. Women leaders are in many instances the wives of officials; an exceptional person, such as Mme. Chiang or her celebrated sisters, may be a leader in her own right, but this is no usual rule. In many agencies, such as intended mass organizations for reform, instruction, health, etc., the mass character is entirely lacking. The masses are the beneficiaries of Kuomintang action, but not often participants in that action. The Communists and the independent Left hold an enormous leverage in popular interest; ignoring class lines, illiteracy, or lack of preparation, they draw the common people into a real share in government and social reconstruction. The Kuomintang has ignored this opportunity—in part because of the Confucian cleavage between scholars and the untutored which made the scholar, however benevolent or philanthropic, a being apart from the commonalty.

Two further organs—the National Spiritual Mobilization (Kuo-min Ching-shÊn Tsung-tung-yÜan) and the Mass Mobilization—are Kuomintang devices for mass participation. The former, developed as an antidote to defeatism engendered by protraction of the war, rising prices, and the treason of Wang, actually consists in a propaganda machine, which holds torchlight vigils, national fealty ceremonies, and similar festivals in the larger cities; it has adapted some of the stagecraft of the German National Socialists, but lacks a broadly popular character. The Mass Mobilization is under the Training Department of the Military Affairs Commission; useful as a military device, its political character is slight in Free China. In the guerrilla and occupied zones, a genuine levÉe en masse has been accomplished; in the free areas, safeguards which hedge Mobilization have robbed it of utility save that which is strictly military. As an adjunct to the army, this is useful; otherwise it has been ineffectual, despite the competitive success obtained by the guerrilla zones in equivalent organizations.

The over-all picture of the Kuomintang and its activities is hard to bring into focus. One general contrast will point some of its strength and weakness clearly: as a governing agency, which created and maintained the government, the Kuomintang has been more effective than any other group in China. The Party has met and overcome obstacles in practical politics, international relations, working administration, internal unification, and national defense. The Party has succeeded well enough to remain in power, which none of its predecessors or competitors have managed to do. As a social and political force, its governing character colors its work. More has been done by the government for the people than in any comparable situation in East Asia. But Kuomintang rule, however excellent when measured by the standards of authoritary or colonial government, still falls far short of even elementary application of democratic techniques. The flexibility of the Party, and a continued ability to yield power in order to retain power, are the most hopeful factors in the view of the Kuomintang future.

The Kuomintang could not be overthrown by any force—mere force—on earth, unless the Party betrayed itself. Attacked by a major power, it has emerged unscathed. But the Communists or other opponents may find their most useful weapons in the weaknesses of the Kuomintang itself: in the slowness of its change, or in its unadaptability to rapidly changing conditions; or in an extra-Party resentment arising from severe economic dislocation which, though consequent to war rather than to governmental policies, was not swiftly enough controlled by a slowly-moving Kuomintang. By contrast with 1935, however, the Kuomintang has gained much power; the Communists have lost some. Regional and half-separatist regimes, often corrupt, have almost altogether disappeared. Along with the Kuomintang, the independent Leftists have also profited.

No prediction, to be plausible, can assume the early demise or collapse of the Kuomintang. The Party has obtained power; its organization is one of the three policy-executing branches of the new national organization. Ruin of the Kuomintang implies ruin of the emergent Chinese state, so laboriously constructed; though a successor might arise, too much of the work would have to be done over again. Many Chinese, of all classes, realize this. Kuomintang rule is the status quo; despite demerits, it is the first stable government modern China has had, and China's chief tool of defense today.