The Evolution of Republican Government* Julia C.Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49)has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period.Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,'several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican,particularly KMT,government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not,this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors:the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with,the lack of research access in China itself,and,perhaps most important,what might be called"the prismatic event of 1949,"when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war,driven into exile on a small island,and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society.It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China.At best,the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst,the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up"revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern- ment emerged,it was a mostly critical one.The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R.Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1.K.S.Lieuw,Struggle for Democracy:Sung Chiao-ien and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley:University of California Press,1971),esp.pp.127-201,and Ernest Young,The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press,1977)are the best examples. 2.For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts(as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts),see Arthur Young. China's Nation Building Effort:The Financial and Economic Record.1927-37(Stanford: Hoover Institution Press,1971),Arthur Young,China and the Helping Hand.1937-45, (Cambridge,MA:Harvard University Press,1963).Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang."'Facism'and Modern China,"The China Quarterly, No.79 (September 1979). 3.For critical views,see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng.The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge,MA:Harvard University Press,1950),Lloyd Eastman,The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule.1927-37(Cambridge,MA:Harvard University Press,1974). and Tien Hung-mao,Government and Politics in Kuomintang China,1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press,1972). The China Quarterly,1997The Evolution of Republican Government* Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997 Julia C. Strauss The topic of government and administration in the Republican period (1911-49) has attracted periodic bursts of scholarly attention in the first three decades of the post-1950 period. Some of these works focused on the weakness of political institutions in the early Republic,l several were sympathetic to the state-building efforts of the Kuomintang (KMT),2 and the remainder were overtly or covertly negative in their assessment of Republican, particularly KMT, government.3 Whether sympathetic to Republican-era government or not, this scholarship was largely informed by a constellation of three factors: the deep Cold War era divisions between left and right in the United States as to how the spread of Communism in Asia should be accounted for and dealt with, the lack of research access in China itself, and, perhaps most important, what might be called "the prismatic event of 1949," when the Republican government was militarily defeated in the civil war, driven into exile on a small island, and replaced with a self-consciously revolutionary government which vigorously attempted to recreate and transform state and society. It is little wonder that this abrupt terminus of the Republican period slanted many of the questions implicitly posed in post-1949 scholarship towards explaining the Republic's demise on mainland China. At best, the efforts and strategies of the Kuomintang were considered to have long-term promise until seriously undercut by the Japanese invasion in July 1937; at worst, the entire Republican period was relegated to the status of a transitional period that gave way before the inevitable primacy of "bottom-up" revolution. Insofar as a commonly accepted view of Republican era govern￾ment emerged, it was a mostly critical one. The two most influential and *I would like to extend special thanks to William Kirby and R. Bin Wong for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. 1. K. S. Lieuw, Struggle for Democracy: Sung Chiao-jen and the 1911 Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-201, and Ernest Young, The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977) are the best examples. 2. For a relatively sympathetic view of the KMT's state-building efforts (as well as the role of Western financial and technical knowledge in aiding those efforts), see Arthur Young, China's Nation Building Effort: The Financial and Economic Record, 1927-37 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1971), Arthur Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-45, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963). Another somewhat later sympathetic view is expressed in Maria Hsia Chang," 'Facism' and Moder China," The China Quarterly, No. 79 (September 1979). 3. For critical views, see Ch'ien Tuan-sheng, The Government and Politics of China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), Lloyd Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927-37 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), and Tien Hung-mao, Government and Politics in Kuomintang China, 1927-37 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972). ? The China Quarterly, 1997