Mood:
downNow Playing: There's always hope
Topic: Cold Front Passing Hokkai
Mood is down because Phillies lost game three to Milwaukee, and because in the China story we come to the death of a man who's dream of leading China to a glorious future was only beginning. At the age of 59 Sun Yat-sen had accomplished much with the establishment of the Nationalist Kuomintang govenment, and the enthusiastic support of millions. His premature death provided academics fuel for the oft-debated hot question: how would Chinese history have developed if he had lived?
1924 - The fiercely capitalist Old Guard Canton Merchants Association and their British Govenment supporters are uneasy at the leftward tilt of Sun Yat-sen and his KMT government . The merchants are terrified of the Communists. They form a well-paid militia of fifty thousand men with the slogan "Save Canton from the Bolshevists". Sun Yat-sen, with urging from his Russian advisors declares martial law, but is surprised when Chiang Kai-shek moves boldly with his Whampoa Cadets and other units to put down the Canton Merchants. One contingent of Chiang's force is the Workers' Militia and Peasants' Corps trained by Mao Tse -tung. Chiang's attack is a stupendous success - the Merchants' Militia is routed and the KMT Army is established as the strongest force in the land.
And then, on March 12, 1925, Sun Yat-sen died of liver cancer. He wrote a farewell letter to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union which closed with a plea: "In bidding farewell to you, dear comrades, I wish to express the fervent hope that the day may soon dawn when the U.S.S.R. will greet, as a friend and ally, a strong and independent China and the two allies may together advance to victory in the great struggle for the liberation of the oppressed peoples of the world."
