Dr. Sun Yat-sen was the founder of the Republic of China and the Kuomintang of China, the pioneer of the modern national democratic revolution in China and the great forerunner of the democratic revolution in China. The Three People's Principles is the program of democratic revolution advocated by Sun Yat-sen and the essence and high generalization of his democratic thought.
The Three People's Principles highly summarized the theory of democratic revolution in modern China from three aspects: nationality, civil rights and people's livelihood, with profound meaning and profound thoughts. Through reading and understanding the Three People's Principles, I realized the basic social contradictions during the old democratic revolution in China and the revolutionary tasks of opposing imperialism and feudalism in that era. In these three aspects, democracy has a core position. It is advocated to overthrow the feudal monarchy by "national revolution" and replace it with "democratic constitutionalism" to end the autocratic system for thousands of years, which reflects the contradiction between feudalism and the people.
From the beginning, Mr. Sun introduced the source of civil rights. The development of human history has certain laws, that is, from theocracy to monarchical power to civil rights. In the wild times, human beings struggled with wild animals in order to survive, relying on strength. When almost all the poisonous snakes and beasts are killed by people, people will fight against the natural disasters of nature, but they can't fight against nature with their strength, so they have theocracy. Later generations struggled with others, which was a transition to a monarchy and developed to an extreme. The people were severely oppressed and resisted, resulting in civil rights. Therefore, even though the monarchy may have adapted to the development of human society in the past, civil rights are the general trend of the world at present.
Mr. Sun also mentioned that advocating civil rights in the South is in line with the world trend. Although the strength of the southern government is weak and the strength of the army is not as good as that of the north, as long as we follow the trend, even if we fail for a while, we will succeed in the future and always succeed. The northern resistance to civil rights is against the trend of the world and will inevitably fail in the future.
When Mr. Sun advocated civil rights, he also quoted Confucius and Mencius, pointing out that Confucius and Mencius advocated civil rights more than two thousand years ago. Such as Confucius said, "The trip to the Avenue is also for the public." Mencius said, "The people are the most important, the country is the second, and the monarch is the light." This shows that China people's concept of civil rights has a long history and a good ideological foundation. At the same time, it is more convincing to borrow the words of Confucius and Mencius, because Confucius and Mencius are Confucian saints and have high influence and prestige in history, just as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao advocated that Confucianism also agreed with the reform in the 1898 Reform Movement and used Confucianism to serve their own reform.
When it comes to civil rights, it is natural to talk about freedom and equality from western thoughts, because they are included in civil rights, and when civil rights are realized, freedom and equality will be realized.
Westerners often criticize China people for their slogans and ignorance of freedom and equality. In fact, this is also because the national conditions are different. The west was severely oppressed by absolutism and could not get full freedom and equality, so they rose up to fight and exchanged their blood and lives for precious freedom and equality. China, on the other hand, is different. Although China is also an authoritarian society, the government has not interfered excessively with the people's freedom, and the people have not suffered from the lack of freedom and equality. In fact, it is better to say that China people are too free and have become fragmented, unorganized and have no resistance. Therefore, they were invaded by foreign imperialism and oppressed by the economic and commercial wars of foreign powers. It can be seen that freedom is not a sacred thing, and freedom can also have disadvantages.
Therefore, the purpose of the China Revolution and the European Revolution is just the opposite. Individuals should not be too free, and the country should be completely free. Only by sacrificing part of individual freedom can we unite and generate strength, get rid of the oppression of foreign powers and get rid of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal social state.
Freedom and equality advocated by Mr. Sun's theory of civil rights are not absolute, but conditional. This is to avoid the abuse of freedom and equality and to avoid going astray.
An important part of civil rights is the five-power constitution, that is, the separation of political power and administrative power. The political power belongs to the National Assembly, while the executive power, legislative power, judicial power, supervision power and review power are independent. Although the five-power constitution evolved from the constitutional principle of separation of powers, it has its own characteristics, which is more suitable and perfect than the three powers in China. The examination right and supervision right refer to the ancient social and political system of China, which is convenient for selecting and distributing talents and building a clean government. However, putting the five powers under the unified leadership of the president conflicts with the principle of separation of powers and checks and balances.
Although there are some problems in some aspects, the Three People's Principles are not only the guiding ideology of the Revolution of 1911, but also have an epoch-making impact on China's modernization process and still play a very important role in China's democratic construction. Therefore, we should still study and develop the Three People's Principles to meet the requirements of the times.