The Political Authority And Historical Narration

As a historical event,the 1911 Revolution ended more than 100 years ago.But the narration of the 1911 Revolution is an important political and cultural phenomena which continues up to now.During the over 100 years,it has generated numerous narrative texts on the 1911 Revolution which are different in interpretative positions,narrative perspectives and historical views.Textbooks are an important and special kind of narrative texts.Focusing on textbooks of primary and secondary schools in the Republic of China era,this dissertation makes a microcosmic study of the narration of the 1911 Revolution,trying to show the rich connotations and different surfaces of the narration.It aims to reveal the complicated interaction between historical narration and real politics.Early Republican China involved the reigns of both the Nanjing Provisional Government and Beijing Government.It was a period of ideological enlightenment when the republican politics came into being.Simultaneously,various forces competed for the political authority with the frequent regime changes.As a result,the narration of the 1911 Revolution in textbooks was characterized as intersectionality and diversity at that time.The narrative emphasized three key points:the republican discourse,process and leaders of the 1911 Revolution.As the state ideology and social thought,republican discourse became the consistent interpretation system in the depiction on the 1911 Revolution.With political powers alternating one after another,the narration of the revolutionary process and leaders undergone great changes:At first,the narration is plain and fair.Editors narrated the whole process of the revolution and the achievements of Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai.Then,the Yuan Shikai Government constructed a system of revolutionary narrative with the core of Yuan Shikai and the Beijing government.Lastly,editors depicted the revolutionary history with Sun Yat-sen and revolutionaries as the protagonists of the narrative.The 1911 Revolution had an extremely important political meaning for KMT.It was not only the beginning of KMT party history,but also the origin of legality and authority of Nanjing National Government.The establishment of official narrative on the 1911 Revolution by KMT depended on the centralized political power and systematic party education.The National Government made party education as a guidance and strengthened the control of compilation and publishment of textbooks.For the depiction of the 1911 Revolution,the term "nationalism",taking the place of the term "republican",constituted the discourse system that accounted for the outbreak of the Revolution and defined the its nature.At the same time,by integrating and narrating the process of the Revolution,KMT and editors constructed an organized national revolution.They made Revive China society,Chinese Revolutionary League,as the leading core and made the revolutionary movement before the Xinhai as the focus.It aims to construct legality and authority of the KMT regime.In the narration of the 1911 Revolution in textbooks,editors confirmed and shaped the leader image of Sun Yat-sen,established an official revolutionary hero spectrum,which was an effective means for KMT to construct the legitimacy of the party-state system.Basing on Sun Yat-sen’self-statement on the 1911 Revolution and other political knowledge,KMT and editors repeatedly stressed Sun Yat-sen’s achievements and leadership role in the revolutionary narrative to create his unique and supreme leadership position.By constrast with Sun Yat-sen’s leader image,the other Xinhai veterans,such as Huang Xing and Li Yuanhong,were gradually forgotten and faded in the textbooks.And Yuan Shikai’s image turned negative.Corresponding with the narration on the revolutionary leader,editors constructed an authoritative revolutionary hero spectrum which underlined the revolutionary martyrs who were the members of Chinese Revolutionary League——Martyr Huanghuagang Seventy-two,Qiu Jin,Xu Xilin,Lu Haodong,Wen Shengcai etc,to stimulate the patriotism of students as well as the high acceptance of KMT.During 1937-1949,with the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation War,KMT’s authoritarian rule in the country was confronted with comprehensive challenges and crises.Japanese puppet regime,the political power of C.P.C,coexisted with it for a long time.In the KMT areas,the official narration on the 1911 Revolution acquired further development and diversification.Because of the different political stances of the internal powers of Japanese puppet regime,their narratives of the 1911 Revolution in textbooks were not identical,which changed from eliminating the 1911 Revolution,Sun Yat-sen and Three People’s Principles to the basically recognizing and advocating Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Revolution.Under the communist regime,the narritives tried to deprive Sun Yat-sen of the sacred title of"the Father of the country" and restored to the general political identity as a"revolutionist" in textbooks.As a space where power bursts the interaction with knowledge,textbooks fully show the complex relationship between the narration of the 1911 Revolution and real politics,so that it is an important way for us to understand the political culture of the ROC.