INTRODUCTION CHANES On January 1,1912,the world's oldest,most populous empire bowed to the tide of history and became a republic.Since the American revolution,one nation after another had adopted a constitution,often with remarkable regene- rative results-Japan was the most impressive recent example."The future of China is like building a railroad,"Sun Yat-sen had pointed out."Should we use the first locomotive ever invented or today's improved and most efficient one?" Many Chinese expected the new China,with its up-to-date governmental machinery,to drive straight for national wealth and power. 1 Sixteen years later the dream was rubble.The republic had shrunk to a fig- ITEYA 3积Gtt时体 leaf marshal's government run by Chang Tso-lin.Years of warlord devastation NSTEIEI had ruined the agriculturc and disrupted the trade of North China,and a major famine was imminent.The Kuomintang was poised to complete national reunification under its own auspices,bringing a merciful end to an experiment that had dragged on too long. The republic's failure was a formative disappointment for twentieth-century Chinese politicians.In its matrix,the radical alteratives of authoritarianism and revolution were conceived.In 1923,Sun Yat-sen justified the Kuomintang's turn toward Leninist-style party organization by pointing out that persistent effort had"not enabled]us to attain the aim of the revolution.That is,although military force had succeeded [in overthrowing the Manchus,Yuan Shih-k'ai and,in 1922,Hsu Shih-ch'ang],the revolution still had not been accomplished, because our Party still lacked power."And Mao Tse-tung told Edgar Snow that warlord suppression of a student demonstration in Changsha in 1920 made 1.Cited in Michael Gasster,Chinese Intellectuals and the Revolution of 1911:The Birth of Modern Chinese Radicalis(Seattle,1969).p.138.Quotation slightly altered. 2.Ssu-yi Teng and John K.Fairbank,China's Response to the West:A Docmentary Sur- vey,1839-1923(Cambridge%,Mas8,1961).p.265. I