Sun yat-sen, minsheng, marxism, and the question of labour
The chief political philosophy of Sun Yat-sen(1866-1925), the famed San Min doctrine (lit. the Three Principles of the People), has over the years been subject to ample academic speculation on its true connotations. Sun's views on the question of labour, communism, Marxism, Leninism, etc., disseminated through the minsheng constituent of his ideology, is particularly notorious for its ambiguity. Strikingly, even the term "minsheng" per se has been translated and interpreted in many ways, sometimes as "socialism," other times as a much more Confucian-imbued "people's livelihood."Three periods deemed crucial in de development of Sun's minsheng doctrine are singled out in this article for further investigation: 1905, the year Sun Yat-sen initially elaborated on the San Min doctrine (incl. minsheng); 1921, the year Sun published his The International Development of China (Shiye jihua) after two years of isolated self-reflection in Shanghai; and 1924, when Sun systemized his ideas to some extent during the First United Front (di yi ci Guo Gong hezuo, 1923-1927) between his KMT and the CPC under Soviet auspices. Special attention will be given to the last period, where Sun's ideas vis-à-vis Marxism allegedly underwent a noteworthy transformation during the summer of 1924. The argument will be made that an ideological evolution in Sun's discourse is indeed present during this summer, but not at all unanticipated when one takes Sun's citations of 1905 and 1921 in mind and considers his inspirators.
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