Translation: Anti-Fascist Screed

Chiang Kai-shek, Fascist

On the Dual Nature of the Nationalism Advocated by the Nationalist Literary and Arts School

by Qian Zhengang (see my Google docs page for complete translation; the original Chinese has a Google doc as well)

In addition to some more work on the theory of autobiography, I did a bit more translating of this latest paper. The main ideas of the argument in the latter half are:

Chiang Kai-shek, the most important supporter of the Nationalist Literary Movement, was already by 1927 no longer faithful to the Three Principles of the People but rather a devoted follower of Fascism.

Since the Nationalist Literary School took its orders from the Nationalist Literary Movement, no matter what their own ideology was like, for any and all ideology they all could only proceed to propagate Fascism, accepting or further explicating the ideas of their instigator, Chiang Kai-shek.

Well then, why did the Nationalist Literary School also propagate the egalitarian nationalism of Sun Yat-sen in theory and in parts of their works? I believe this is a result of the influence of the authoritative power of Sun Yat-sen's ideology. Sun Yat-sen was once the public leader of each revolutionary class of China; his Three Principles of the People were once the theoretical manifestation of the public will of each revolutionary class of China.

In one area, that accepting the government of Chiang Kai-shek required disseminating Fascism formed the deep nature; in the other area the utter necessity to fulsomely praise the nationalism of Sun Yat-sen formed the surface nature.

This is of course vaguely disturbing to translate, but I like that it has me thinking more about the lives and personalities of people like the author of the paper. Unfortunately the word that comes to mind is 'warped.' Deep feelings of some sort seem to brim just under the surface of this piece, but I can't say exactly what those are. Meanwhile the logic of the argument has the tacky, tired feel of Chinese inner/outer and deep/surface idioms. One thinks of De Francis, Hannis and others who have argued that Chinese language stifles innovation:

As I have elucidated above, for Sun Yat-sen's egalitarianism we should express affirmation, while for ultranationalism wet must steadfastly offer rejection. Well then, how should we distinguish this nationalism possessing a dual nature? The key to the problem lies in making clear the structural relationship of the dual nature, which means we must make clear which nature resides in a deep layer of the structure, and which in a surface layer.

Notably, what "structure" would refer to in real life is left out of the picture, along with any apparent realization that the term "structure" here is an empty abstract, a simple rhetorical tool really meant for no more than to emphasize what is no doubt a very safe point: Fascism is bad, and so is the KMT.