Kerensky And Sun Yat Sen

[WorkingClassGuy]

What would Russia and China look like now if Aleksandr Kerensky ans Sun Yat Sen won their respective power struggles?

Would the two nations be more democratic?

[whistle]

1. Sun Yat Sen proposed an extension of the long corrupted Ming

...aristocracy corrupt and rotten to its core in a China that had been racked and raped by British Colonial Imperialism which saw the only answer to its balance of trade through the opium trade and a working peasant population which was nearly 98% illiterate and in bondage to their landlords. Sun Yat Sen himself may have been well meaning in the attempt to wake the sleeping giant from its five thousand year slumber, but that may have taken another thousand years and as he died in 1924 having only begun, his successors, Yüan Shih-kai and the son Yüan Shih-kai and later Chiang Kai-shek simply put on modern clothing to the old feudal system and continued the same Ming corrupt practices and thuggery. Communism was to be inevitable in China to to awaken the sleeping tiger. IMHO

The following is an interesting summary of Sun's role in the China Revolution:

<snip>
Sun Yat Sen
In Chinese history he is known as "The Father of the Revolution" or "The Father of the Republic." In the West he is considered the most important figure of Chinese history in the twentieth century. As a revolutionary, he lived most of his life in disappointment. For over twenty years he struggled to bring a nationalist and democratic revolution to China and when he finally triumphed with the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1912 with him as president, he had it cruelly snatched from him by the dictatorial and ambitious Yüan Shih-kai. He died in 1924, with China in ruins, torn by the anarchy and violence of competing warlords. His ideas, however, fueled the revolutionary fervor of the early twentieth century and became the basis of the Nationalist government established by Chiang Kai-shek in 1928.

Sun Yat-sen based his idea of revolution on three principles: nationalism, democracy, and equalization. These three principles, in fact, were elevated to the status of basic principles: the Three People's Principles. The first of these held that Chinese government should be in the hands of the Chinese rather than a foreign imperial house. Government should be republican and democratically elected. Finally, disparities in land ownership should be equalized among the people, wealth more evenly distributed, and the social effects of unbridled capitalism and commerce should be mitigated by government. The latter principle involved the nationalization of land; Sun believed that land ownership allows too much power to accrue to the hands of landlords. In his nationalization theory, people would be deprived of the right to own land, but they could still retain other rights over the land by permission of the state.

In Sun's theory of democracy, government would be divided into five separate branches: the executive, legislative, judicial, the censorate, and the civil service system. The latter two branches primarily functioned as a check on the first three, which are the more familiar branches of government to Westerners. The latter two were also traditional branches of the Chinese government and functioned independently. The civil service had been around since the Han period and the censorae had been created by the Hong Wu emperor at the beginning of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). This form of government, however, was never really instituted in Nationalist China.

In addition, his theory of democracy itself, that is, "rule by the people," was based on the "four powers of the people." These four powers were: a.) the right to vote; b.) the right to recall; c.) the power of initiative (the power to initiate legislation); d.) the power of referendum (the power to amend an old law).

It was evident to Sun that the people of China were not ready to exercise their power to vote, especially in matters of initiative and referendum. He believed that the people of China would require a period of time in which they were trained to exercise democracy. He called this period of training, the "Three Stages of Revolution." In the first stage, a period of military rule would be established in order to dismantle completely the old form of imperial government. This early stage would be nothing less than a dictatorship. After the dismantling of the old system, the revolution would enter its second stage, that of "political tutelage." The state would still be a military autocracy, but the people would be trained in democracy by allowing them a certain amount of regional autonomy. The third stage would see the abandonment of the military autocracy in favor of an all out democracy. Sun's stages of revolution were the first theories of "guided democracy" to emerge in Asia and became a powerful tool under the Communists.

Various aspects of Sun's thoughts were adopted by the Nationalists after their rise to power in 1928. His theory of political tutelage, however, remained the most hotly debated all throughout the Nationalist period. Chiang Kai-shek fervently believed in political tutelage and used it to justify what amounted to a military dictatorship first in China and then in Taiwan. The Kuomintang, however, was divided over political tutelage. Many in the party believed that China was ready for a democracy and that delay only threatened the integrity of the new republic. In many ways, this debate is what tore down Nationalist power, for the advocates of democracy were allowed to voice their criticisms just enough to impair Nationalist policies aimed at unification.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MODCHINA/SUN.HTM

As for Aleksandr Kerensky and Russian democratic efforts, I think he suffered from a major flaw in governing a revolution, he wanted to continue the Russian role in the war which for Russia had been lost through mismanagement, officer and command incompetence, delusion and corruption early in WWI. The losses to Russian soldiers on the front had been staggering and troop morale was low and desertions high. Why Kerensky was incapable of seeing the futility of continuing to fight, or just refused to acknowledge this fact is a mystery, but regardless of the reason, it was what cost him the leadership of the new Russian democracy. even if events had been different, I believe Kerensky would have failed to establish a long term republic and democracy for post Czarist Russia and communism or perhaps worse, fascism would have still eventually come to that region.

<snip>
Kerensky , Aleksandr Fyodorovich (1881 - 1970)

He was revolutionary leader , who headed the provisional Russian government before the Bolshevik takeover in November 1917 .

Kerensky was born on May 4, 1881 in Simbirsk and educated at the University of Sait Petersburg . In his youth he secretly joined the Socialist Revolutionary party , at that time officially banned as subversive . Publicly he declared himself a member of the Group of Toil , a moderate legal political party ; and in 1912 , as a representative of that group , he was elected a deputy to the emperor and the establishment of a provisional republican government , Kerensky was appointed minister of justice , and two months later he became minister of war . In June he attempted to rally troops for an offensive against the Germans , but large numbers of soldiers refused to obey their officers , left their pasts , and returned to their homes . In the reorganization of the government that followed , Kerensky became provisional prime minister of Russia .

One of Kerensky’s first acts as prime minister was the suppression of the Bolshevik party led by Lenin . Lenin went into hiding in Finland ; other Bolshevik leaders ; including Leon Trotsky , were arrested . Kerensky’s failure to counteract the steady deterioration in the economic and military situation of the country , however , enabled the Bolsheviks to undermine his government and to usurp power for the soviets , or councils , of workers , soldiers , and peasants , establishing a governmental structure parallel to that of the provisional government.

On the political right , Kerensky was beset by monarchists and other counterrevolutionaries , who sought to crush the revolution . In September , when the commander in chief of the Russian arms , Gen , Lavr Georgyevich Kornilov , attempted to march on the capital and establish himself as a military dictator , Kerensky failed to take decisive measures ; the attempted coup was aborted by the action of the Bolsheviks , who vitalized the aduant ages accruing to them from that initiative to seize power on Nov . 7 , 1917 . Kerensky , who in the meantime had gone to the front in an effort to win support among the troops , organized a military force and attempted to capture Petrograd , but the troops refused to fight . He fled to Paris , where he led several anti - Bolshevik organization and for some years edited the newspaper Dni . He eventually settled in the US where he lectured on political and social science . He died in New York City on June 11, 1970 .

http://www.guysboroughacademy.ednet.ns.ca/reds/alexander_kerensky.htm

[ConsAreLiars]

2. Great post!

Nothing like a simple reality check when some utterly speculative "what if" impossibility is postulated. "What if imperialism was benign?" or "What if Chimpy was really gawd's favored son?" or some such silliness.