The Soong Sisters

by Emily Hahn

  Obediently the General took up his post.

  The Doctor started off on his errand.

  “What’s this?” demanded Chingling. “General Cohen, you must go with Dr Sun.”

  The General hesitated. Madame Sun stood firm. He had to make up his mind quickly, and with her eye upon him he had only one choice. He hurried after his leader, catching up with him at a distance. The Doctor scolded him, but did not again send him back. And anyway the expedition was successful; the war lord decided to be tactful and to withdraw, so Chingling did not, after all, need any protection for that time.

  Though Sun was now working in close co-operation with Russia, he did make one last attempt at persuading the Western Powers to take a hand in China’s reconstruction program. He suggested to the American Minister at Peking a plan by which Western foreigners might train the Chinese in the technique of legislation, but nobody responded to this proposal. Sun thereupon decided once and for all that Russia was his only friend: the Powers, he said, in continuing to recognize the Northern government were hindering China’s development. Borodin was in Canton when the Doctor, on New Year’s Eve, 1923, stated in a public address,

  “We no longer look to the Western Powers. Our faces are turned toward Russia.”

  The Kuomintang was reorganized along the same lines as the Soviet party; this method is still in use in China. Under Chiang’s head the Whampoa Military Academy began to turn out a new type of officer, well trained in warfare methods and possessing a clear conception of the State and the soldier’s duty toward it. Until this time, a Chinese soldier had been a sort of legalized bandit, feared and detested by the people; Chiang with Borodin prompting him spoke to them of a united China and of their work in building it. The army improved enormously, and in record time.

  Dr Sun showed how his backbone had been stiffened when he took a firm stand against the Powers by demanding for the use of his government the receipts of the Customs in Canton. America and England had a nasty surprise. They had become accustomed to the smooth working of China’s Customs Service; nobody had made trouble about it for many years. For a while both countries resisted, landing men in Canton and putting up a show of force, but Sun did not back down and in the end they compromised, granting him a part of the Customs receipts. The Chinese became more enthusiastic than ever over Sun; this was a real victory against the world.

  Following the Russians’ advice, a Congress was called for the new Central Executive Committee at which all members were supposed to discuss their work as it had been done in the past and was to be done in the future. It was an opportunity for general helpful criticism, chiefly educational in intent. Even at this time, however, Sun did not declare outright for Communism in China, nor did Borodin try to hurry him to a decision. Sun never did commit himself. He took pains at the Congress to reassure the reactionaries as to his intentions. At one of the meetings. Party members entered the room to find Sun at his table with a large placard in front of him. He was working with a Chinese pen, drawing a large circle, which he labeled with characters at the top: “Kuomintang.” Within this circle he drew, with silent deliberation, a number of smaller circles and duly labeled them too — “Communism,” “Capitalism,” “Socialism,” “Marxism,” and all the other “isms” of current discussion. Then and not until then did he stand up and address the meeting. Pointing to his diagram, he said that China was not bound to accept any one of these philosophies in toto. China, he declared, had her own problems peculiar to her history, and she must make a careful selection from the methods of other governments and from their experience, without pledging adherence to any one of them. Out of their mistakes and their triumphs, China must build a new structure suitable to herself.

  Borodin showed no desire to hurry Sun or to force him to go more obviously to the Left. His own work progressed smoothly; as director of political education in China he realized that he could do, ultimately, as he thought best. Sun’s last days were devoted to public explanation of his policy, speechmaking about the new program and the Party principles. Some of these addresses were collected and published under the title San Min Chu I, which serves today as the Kuomintang’s Bible. As a good Bible should, it furnishes ideas, enough for anybody who refers to it, varied enough to suit almost any political argument. Dr Sun is quoted today by almost everyone in China, by Chiang Kai-shek, by Wang Ching-wei, by the Japanese themselves, who all dip into the San Min Chu I for some phrase or conception which they can interpret to suit themselves.

  Since the death of the Doctor, Madame Sun has naturally fallen heir to this confusion and the argument that used to swirl round her husband’s person. Did he mean this? Did he not mean that? Surely Wang ought to know; wasn’t he closest to the Doctor? What does Madame Sun say? Only Madame Sun can tell. Make Madame Sun tell . . . .

  Madame Sun, like her husband, has never accepted Communism publicly, nor has she declared a religious faith in all its precepts. She became a champion of all the principles that seemed to her best for the people, and that is as far as she will go. After Sun’s death she had the opportunity to see the working of the Russian plan; she visited Moscow and perhaps at that time she was almost convinced. Her experience, however, has been similar to that of young Left-wing radicals in many other parts of the world. Later developments in Russia may have destroyed some of her faith in their program, but she had made no public statements, and there was nothing to retract when she changed her mind. She is still strongly pro-Russian.

  The autumn of 1924 brought trouble to Peking. Wu Pei-fu could not continue to keep the peace, and in September another war broke out in the North, in Peking and the Yangtze Valley. Sun organized an expedition and himself set out with Chiang to take part in the struggle; he announced that he would even join forces with his old opponent Chang Tso-lin if it could mean a unified China in the end. Before he had got very far, however, the Christian General Feng Yu-hsiang double-crossed his friend Wu Pei-fu by occupying Peking while Wu was away at the wars. Feng tried to set up a President on his own, but the attempt was unsuccessful, and then he invited Sun Yat-sen to come to Peking in order to hold a conference with himself and the friends who were now in power.

  Dr Sun when he had been invited by Wu Pei-fu had refused to accept. This time, however, his position was stronger, he had more self-confidence, which was justified by the support of the Soviet, and he trusted Feng more than he did Wu. He was very ill now, but the idea seemed good in relation to his own projects, and so he set out with Chingling on November thirteenth, 1924. It was a very leisurely journey, for he stopped at many places on the way to make speeches and grant interviews. They reached Peking on December thirty-first, but by that time the Doctor had collapsed. He was taken to the Union Medical College Hospital, where the doctors discovered that he was dying of cancer of the liver, and that it was too late to do anything for him.

  Dr Kung, who lived then in Peking, did all he could to comfort the Leader during the last days. His service was so devoted that Chingling has never forgotten it, and even at moments when she was most bitter, later on, against Chiang’s government, she never allowed a word of criticism of Dr Kung to escape her lips. He was her elder brother in those days when she needed help the most.

  Sun Wen died in Peking, in Dr Wellington Koo’s house, at the age of fifty-eight. It was March twelfth, 1925. His son Sun Fo, his daughter, and Chingling were with him at the end.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Chiang Breaks with Moscow

  Sun Yat-sen was dead; Charles Soong was dead; the work they had tried to do was unfinished. According to the Russians, it was still all to do from the very beginning. The second generation of revolutionaries was left with the heritage of his will, a rapidly growing hero worship for him and the friendship of the Soviet, for which the price was still pending.

  Of the present generation, Kung was Commissioner of Finance of Kwangtung and Minister of Industry for the government, besides being a member of the Kuomintang Political Council. He is today the only on
e of the Ministers associated with Sun who is still in the national government.

  T.V. remained in Canton, where Chiang Kai-shek, still President of the Whampoa Military Academy, was polishing and preparing the army, and reforming spoiled cadets. Mayling continued to live with her mother in the Seymour Road house in Shanghai.

  Chingling, whose shyness had since her marriage been at war with her position as Sun’s wife, was not permitted by her conscience to retire to Rue Molière, the house which with his library were all the private fortune her husband had left her. As his widow she must go on with the plan, particularly of political education, that he had started under Borodin’s advice; Borodin too remained, and Chingling worked at revolutionary schools and in the bureau of propaganda. In 1926 she was offered a place on the Central Executive Committee, which she accepted.

  Like her elder sister Eling she had always been shy and sensitive, more like the Chinese ladies of past dynasties than the Americanized Mayling. This trait was noticed even when she was a schoolgirl; the Dean at Wesleyan tells how Chingling was worried that her gown would not be ready for the graduation exercises, and when the older woman said that in any case there was always her own son’s gown, ready for use, the girl cried, “Oh, but I couldn’t use a man’s gown!” Seven years of an American school during that period of life we call “formative” had not cured her of a super-sensitivity; it is unlikely that her married life with all the attendant publicity did more than intensify her dislike for showing herself. But just then it was not only her own spirit of loyalty to Sun, it was the enthusiasm for him that was being fostered everywhere by the Soviets which made it imperative that his widow should do as much as possible in his plan, in his memory.

  As soon as Sun died, in fact even before his death, while he lingered in Peking, Chiang found that he had his hands full in quelling aspirants to the headship of the government. Hu Han-min was acting as generalissimo, but it was Chiang who defeated three war lords, one after another, who attacked the army. He too was given a place on the Central Executive Committee, and in a short time, by the end of the year, all of Kwangtung was quiet.

  The Russians in the meantime were pursuing their plan, unchanged by the death of Sun Yat-sen, of political education. Chiang saw that their influence was rising steadily. It was then that he began the policy he has followed ever since — tedious as it must at times have been — that of waiting and learning from foreign nations, of overlooking attempts, however patent, to usurp power until he can wait no longer, stretching his patience as far as possible so long as he can still receive the help that in his judgment the country needs. The propaganda of the Soviets affected the cities of Shanghai and Canton, so that a strike took place in Shanghai, beginning at some Japanese mills where there was labor trouble, and spreading through the ranks of the students. The now famous incident in which Municipal Police shot and killed some of these students during a demonstration of sympathy brought on the general strike. Then in Canton more trouble was brewed; French and British troops fired on a parade of strike sympathizers, killing many people, and the anti-British boycott began.

  Following the advice of the Russians, the revolutionaries in Canton now announced that their government, reshuffled and reorganized, was national and representative of the entire country. The Peking government had abandoned its attempt to restore the constitution, and the Canton government was ready to fight and to spread its doctrines wherever necessary. Wang Ching-wei was chairman, Chiang Kai-shek commander of the student corps, Hu Han-min foreign minister. Soon, however, Chiang found that Hu was trying to get rid of him, fearing his mounting influence. In August, on the twenty-fourth, Hu and his friends were rounded up in a general clean-up by the Whampoa cadets under Chiang’s direction. Hu was sent abroad. After that Chiang became general military commander and had now to deal only with enemies from outside and — the Russians.

  Chiang Kai-shek led an expedition against the North, with the intention of unifying the country once and for all, in June 1926. The Central Executive Committee placed him in command of the Nationalist army and left the entire enterprise to him. The ground had already been prepared, and with the propaganda methods taught the Nationalists by the Russians, many of the petty war lords in the intervening territory were ready and waiting to welcome the Southerners. In Shanghai, Dr Kung received word of this plan by way of a request that he take on double jobs as Minister of Industry and Acting Minister of Finance. T.V., the actual Minister of Finance, was to travel with the army. They would need him in Hankow.

  The Kungs made preparations to leave, and their children watched anxiously, begging to be allowed to come along. Their parents said, as parents often do,

  “Not this time. Next time you can come.”

  After a few weeks in Canton, Dr Kung and his wife returned to Shanghai to wind up matters there in preparation for a long stay in the South. The children hung about again, trying to make up their minds who should be first to remind the elders of their promise. Finally they disappeared for a space and produced a petition which went like this:

  Dear Parents:

  Last time we wanted to go with you to Canton you said we could come next time you went. Now you are going. Please let us come with you.

  This document was signed by a circle within which the four children had written their names along the circumference. Thus no one of them had run the risk of offending his parents by being the first to sign . . . . They went to Canton, too.

  On the way down, the first night out, Madame Kung was studying the evening’s menu card. The usual “musical programme” was listed; she read it aloud, and suddenly called to Louis, the youngest.

  “Look at this, Louis,” she said. “This must be a telegram from Uncle (the Generalissimo). It’s about you, and what do you think it says? ‘don’t — bring — Lulu.’ What do you know about that?”

  “It’s a mistake,” said the five-year-old Louis anxiously. “It must be a mistake. He meant to say ‘don’t bring David.’”

  By the middle of July, Chiang’s troops occupied Changsha. There the army was split into three parts; one went into Hunan, one into Kiangsi en route for Nanking, and the third to Chekiang by way of Fukien. By September eighth they had occupied Hankow.

  David Kung, the second of Madame Kung’s children, had accompanied the army all the way as mascot. He had his uniform all complete, but to make himself look more terrifying he drew enormous black brows over his eyes, like the villain on the stage.

  While Wu Pei-fu lost ground even in his own domain, the Nationalists went on rapidly from one victory to another. The campaign had been carefully planned beforehand and it proceeded smoothly. In many cities it was not necessary to strike a blow, for the leaders had already been given the opportunity to understand what was afoot, and had been persuaded in one way or another to join the conquerors. Kiukiang fell to them, and Chiang occupied Nanchang after a siege of two months. Chang Tso-lin, the Old Marshal, was now virtually in power in Peking.

  The Nationalist government moved from Canton to Hankow and began to function there, with Borodin as much in evidence as ever. In January 1927 a Chinese mob overran the British Concession; the foreigners escaped in the gunboats that always guarded their interests, and shortly afterwards England gave up her concessions both in Hankow and Kiukiang to the Nationalist government. In February, Chiang met and defeated the army of the North at Hangchow. The Northerners then occupied Nanking, whither Chiang’s army followed and besieged them. Soon afterwards the Nationalists took control of the Chinese cities around Shanghai, and two days later, on March twenty-fourth, they marched into Nanking. Some of the troops got out of hand and began to loot and riot, attacking foreigners and their possessions. Some foreign nationals were killed, more were wounded, and much property was destroyed before British and American boats could come to their rescue. This was done by shelling the city and then evacuating all foreigners.

  Chiang, in Shanghai, heard of this incident, which might well have been disastrous to his c
ause. He hurried to Nanking and started an investigation. He himself made no hasty claims of innocence for his men, but the Hankow government, which was by this time very much under the influence of the Soviets, announced quickly that the Nanking trouble had been caused by Northerners to put the Nationalists into the bad graces of the Powers. It was a thin story, and as diplomacy it was bad. Chiang perceived that the time had come to call a halt with the Russians, and the first step in this program was to break with Hankow. He prepared to set up another government, with the many other people who feared that China might become completely Communistic. He had the backing of most of the banking set in Shanghai, among whom was numbered Dr H. H. Kung.

  In the meantime, both Chingling and T.V. Soong were on the other side, with the Hankow government. T.V. later came down to Shanghai, but Chingling remained with the radicals, feeling that the Hankow group was carrying out the intentions of Dr Sun, and that to be disloyal to these people would be to desert his precepts.

  Madame Kung’s views were directly opposite. From what she saw in Canton, she decided that the Communists and those who worked with them were far too apt to take the intention for the result. It is a failing common to the Chinese anyway, she reflected, and though Communism may have had a chance in Russia, it was bad rather than good for China. What her country needed and still needs, she believes, is less theory and more practical action than the Russians offered. The business sense she inherited from her mother caused her to interest herself in the question of China’s industries rather than her politics, and she could see little hope for these in the near future of Communism.