Tung-Meng Hui

(Combined League Society), a Chinese revolutionary organization founded by Sun Yat-sen in Japan in 1905, based on the Hsing-chung Hui and other anti-Manchu organizations.

The T’ung-meng Hui drew its support from the urban middle and petite bourgeoisie, Chinese landowners who had opposed the Manchu government, and the peasantry. Its program, based on principles of nationalism, democracy, and prosperity worked out by Sun Yat-sen, included demands for the overthrow of the Manchus, restoration of the sovereignty of China, establishment of a republic, and establishment of equal right to the land. The last demand derived from the Utopian idea of the American bourgeois economist H. George, who proposed that land prices be fixed and that differential rent go to the state. The program, however, lacked precise and consistent antifeudal demands and ignored the question of a struggle with imperialism.

The T’ung-meng Hui was the first all-Chinese bourgeois revolutionary party. Branches were established in all Chinese provinces and among Chinese émigrés in many foreign countries. The group published its own organ, the journal Min pao. From 1906 to 1911, the T’ung-meng Hui prepared and conducted a number of armed uprisings in southern and central China. It was the leading political force in the Hsinhai Revolution, as a result of which the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty was overthrown and a republic was proclaimed. After the Wuch’ang uprising, rightist elements of the organization sought a compromise with the leader of the Chinese counterrevolution, Yuan Shih-k’ai, to whom it eventually handed over power.

After the abdication of the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty in February 1912, the T’ung-meng Hui adopted a new program in which the slogan “equalization of land rights” was replaced by the abstract, diffuse demand “to carry out a policy of state socialism.” The program also provided for the introduction of universal education, equalization of political rights of men and women, and equality of China in international relations. In August 1912, the T’ung-meng Hui united with several liberal bourgeois political organizations, which resulted in the establishment of the Kuomintang.