A Culvert Early Political Thought,

Gao Yi Han was a political scholar during the period of the May 4th Movement as well as an active advocator of new ideas and new culture. As a conscious intellectual of modern China, he paid close attention to the change of the situation and devoted himself to democratic activities, and made great efforts to the development of democracy of China. This article studies the main political ideas of Gao Yi Han in the early twentieth century to reveal the origins, main characters and historical influences of them.Dissatisfied with the darkness of practical politics, Gao Yi Han had strong consciousness of social animadversion and had the audacity to expose the Northern Warlords and the government' s essence opposed to the people. He actively propagandized the ideas of democracy and enlightenment, including the theory of human rights, view of the federation and the state and the party government and so on. He advocated democracy and liberty, appealed social equality, independent personality and tried to arouse the civil' s consciousness of democracy and their taking part in politics, which would lay the foundation to realize the political goal of building a democratic republic. He advocated distributing power within the union and wanted to change the society of China through political reforms. Apart from being engaged in putting forward "good governmental ism", he also designed the future of China ideally and claimed to build a republic in which everyone could enjoy full liberty and rights. Completely disappointed at the rule of the warlords, he turned to thorough reforms and thought that it was the only way to solve all the problems of China by overthrowing it.Gao Yi Han' s early political ideas and practice which reflected not only his concern for the future of China, his opposition to the rule of warlords, his pursuit of democracy, but also the efforts of liberal intellectuals in the process of pursing political modernization of China, played a progressive role in enlightening and advancing the social ideas of China. But, owing to the limitation of the time and his own ideas, he failed to find the final way to solve the political problems of China.Gao Yi Han' s political ideas about "separation of powers within the union" and "good governmental ism" , view of the state and the party government had complicated origins and realistic backgrounds. This article uses historical and logical methods to analyze the social characters and historical influences of his ideas by expatiating on the early ones of him.