Smash the Great China That Lacks a Foundation

Build Many Chinas—Begin with Hunan

(September 5, 1920)

The great China of four thousand years’ standing may well be said to have no China, because it lacks a foundation. To say there is a China is only a China of form, not an actual China, because it lacks a foundation. In my reply to Zeng Yi, written for the Hunan Reform Promotion Association, I said: “For four thousand years Chinese politics have all been grand frameworks, grand scales, grand methods, resulting in outward strength and inward weakness, solid at the top and hollow at the bottom, imposing in appearance, rotten and corrupt underneath. Since the founding of the Republic, famous scholars and great men have made a great clamor over constitutions, parliaments, presidential systems, cabinet systems, only to find that the more clamor they make, the worse things become. Why? They build a towering edifice on a sandbar—before the building is completed, it has already collapsed…” These are truly words spoken with deep feeling. Anything that lacks a foundation is bound to be unable to stand firm. Political organization is based on social organization; without social organization there can never be political organization—if there is any, it is only a sham. A great state is based on small localities; if small localities are not built first, a great state can never be built. To force its construction is only to make it unable to stand. The whole body of citizens is based on individual citizens; if individual citizens are not sound, the whole body of citizens naturally has no hope of being sound. To improve social organization through political organization, to promote localities through the state, to transform individuals through collective strength—these are indeed one line of argument. But this must be done under appropriate circumstances and appropriate conditions, as when Lenin, with a million party members, built the unprecedented great cause of the common people’s revolution, swept away the counterrevolutionary parties, cleansed the upper and middle classes, had an ideology (Bolshevism[1]), had an opportune moment (Russia’s defeat in war), had preparations, had a truly reliable party membership, and with one call

[1] Bu’ershiweikesimu, now translated as Bu’ershiweizhuyi (Bolshevism).

rose up, issuing orders as if to a flowing stream at its source, and before a full morning had passed, the laboring peasant class, which accounted for eight or nine-tenths of the nation’s population, responded like an echo. The success of the Russian revolution lay entirely in these factors. If China could have a thoroughgoing total revolution, I too would be in favor of it, but it won’t work (the reasons I shall not discuss for now). Therefore China’s affairs cannot be tackled from the general place; they can only be tackled from the particular places. My teacher Yang Huaizhong said: “Do not plan for the general, plan for the scattered; do not plan for the top, plan for the bottom; do not plan for oneself, plan for others.”[1] “Planning for the general, planning for the top, planning for oneself—this has been the old method in China for four thousand years right up to the present, and the result has been ‘no China.’” Therefore the only method now is to “smash the great China that lacks a foundation, and build many small Chinas.”

I advocate that China’s original twenty-two provinces, three special districts, and two dependencies, making a total of twenty-seven places, should each be built by the people into twenty-seven states. This is something the people of every province and every locality must become conscious of. Whether the people of every province and every locality will ultimately become conscious or not, we cannot be certain, so we can only take care of our own Hunan alone. People of Hunan! You must awaken! Great organizations are after all hopeless; small organizations hold infinite hope. If the people of Hunan are truly capable, dare to create a Hunan Republic shining with the brilliance of the rising sun! Smash the great China that lacks a foundation, build many small Chinas, “begin with Hunan.”