近代史研究所集刊
第七十八期
Democratic Thought and Vanguardism:
Sun Yat-sen’s Political Views in the Republican Period
Peter Zarrow
*
Abstract
The mature political thought of Sun Yat-sen was simultaneously
committed to democratic principles and to a vanguardist vision of revolution
that influenced his vision of a future constitutional order. Although Sun’s
political writings and speeches were often ambiguous and self-contradictory,
this article focuses on the main issues of concern to Sun in the 1910s and
1920s. Sun believed in vanguardism before the Guomindang was
reorganized as a Leninist party, and he based his vanguardism on a coherent
epistemology. From the point of view of liberal democracy, it seems
popular sovereignty and vanguardism are in tension. However, illiberal
democracy—preserving popular sovereignty while emphasizing strong
leadership—was widely attractive to cosmopolitan intellectuals in the early
twentieth century, and it was logically based on an optimistic teleology that
postulated the world-historical development of democracy.
Keywords: Sun Yat-sen, vanguardism, revolution, democratic thought,
TAO
illiberal democracy
*
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Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica