NOTA ACLARATORIA DE RELATORIA DE 2009 SENADO NOTA ACLARATORIA AL ACTA 62 DE JUNIO DE
2.6. El cumplimiento de los requisitos constitucionales y legales en el trámite legislativo de la Ley 1189 de 2008.
One obvious effect of denying a direct and extensive political function to the body of the GMD, and concentrating power at its head, was a degeneration of the party machinery. Illustrative of this degeneration was the fact that party membership quickly became a mere symbolic gesture or a way of enhancing personal status and influence, rather than an act of active political commitment. A survey of GMD party membership in October 1929, had noted that as many as 45.37% of party members had never
1 ft
before participated in party work. By 1937, as much as 90% of the 19 total of two million party members were reported to be inactive. GMD
*6See the various proposals and resolutions in GMD-ZZW (mishu chu), ed. Zhongguo Gomindang djerjie n z h ^ ^ y a n g ^ h i ^ i n g ^ weiyuanhu^ diwu<^ cjuanti y i * ^ (Minutes of Meetings of the Fifth Plenum of the Second Central Central Executive Committee of the Guomindang) (N.p., Aug 1928), pp. 56-57, 78, and 159-163;
See also GW, Vol. 79, pp. 97-98.
*7Patrick Cavendish, "The 'New China' of the Kuomintang," in Jack Gray, ed. Modern China's Search for a Political Form (London, 1969), pp. 158-164.
*9Another 43.44% were reported to have involved themselves merely with propaganda work. The remaining small proportion of party members was spread over important party tasks like organization, training, and mass movements. See GMD-ZZW, ed. Dangyuan tongji (Statistics on Party Members) (N.p., May 1930), n.p.
*9Amerasia Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe of China, Vol. 1 (Washington D.C., 1970), p. 236. The estimate here has been attributed to Chen Lifu.
leaders themselves were concerned about the situation. On the eve of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek bluntly warned that the GMD "has already become virtually an empty shell, without any real substance; the form of the party persists, but the spirit of the party has almost
20
completely died out."
The sudden eruption of a full-scale war emphasized the need to improve the GMD party machinery. In order to mobilize the required human and material resources in support of the war, GMD leaders appeared to have reached a consensus that the party had to be reformed. It is most likely that the Three People's Principles Youth Corps was conceived out of this desire for a political reformation of the Party. Circumstantial evidence indicates that the Youth Corps was conceived with the intention of assisting in the political reformation of the GMD in two major ways: first, by the elimination of intra-party factionalism and, second, through the infusion of fresh blood into the Party.
Factionalism, based not so much on ideological grounds as on personal loyalty, was pervasive among the GMD leadership and was in consequence one of the major weaknesses of the Party. However, just before the official launching of the Youth Corps, intra-GMD factionalism took a surprising turn. In April 1938, Chen Guofu convened a gathering of about four to five hundred CC Clique followers in Wuhan to announce the dissolution of their clique's organizations. There were heated arguments and objections from some of the members in attendance, but Chen
20Zhu Zishuang ^ , Zhongguo Guomindang lici quanguo daibiao dahul yaolan
(5J § ft, % >%. IklEi
(Anthology on Successive Guomindang National Party Congresses) (Chongqing, 1945), p. 70. Quoted in Lloyd Eastman, Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution, 1937-1949 (Stanford, 1984), p. 89.reminded them that the decision made by the party leadership was final and not open to debate.21 Similarly, members of the Blue Shirts gathered in a Wuchang secondary school in June, and resolved to dissolve their
o p
faction's organizations.
Moreover, concurrently with the setting up of the Youth Corps, the party's deputy leader Wang Jingwei co-sponsored a party resolution prohibiting the establishment of sub-organizations within the GMD.23 Together with Chiang Kai-shek, Wang also pushed through a party resolution laying down six basic principles for the structure of the Youth Corps, one of which insisted that the Corps must be an "open" organization.24 The explicit rejection of secrecy can be partly interpreted as a safety measure designed to prevent the Corps from easily degenerating into behind-the-scenes factional politics. Within the constitution of the Corps, disciplinary rules against factionalism were also explicitly laid out. Corps members were constitutionally prohibited
21Hu Menghua ^0" ^ , "Guomindang CC pai de qianqian houhou" I) ft'I; C C yfo. g-J p-j *^7j (The Whole Story of the Guomindang CC Clique) in W Z, Tianjin, 6 (Dec 1979): 202-203, and "CC waiwei zuzhi Chengshe shimo" (The Whole Story of Chengshe, a Front Organization of the CC) in WZ 14 (Apr 1961): 163-165;
Chen Shaoxiao, op. cit., p. 296;
Interview with Chen Lifu on 6 Aug 1983.
22Chen Dunzheng , Dongluan de huiyi GO (Memoir of a Turbulent Era) (Taibei, 1979), p.61;
Deng Wenyi *51 f
JC
» Maoxian fannan ji7ÜT 'fC* ^
"TC* (A Record of Braving Dangers and Enduring Difficulties)(Taibei, 1973), pp. 109-110.23GMD-ZZW (mishu chu) e d ., Zhongguo guomindang diwujie zhongyang zhixing weiyuanhui disici quanti huiyi jilu tf7 (U [¥| ±t- cf7 ^ I T ^ ^ 3t (E7 4 ? f a i X ilj (Minutes of Meetings' of the Fourth Plenum of the Fifth Central Executive Committee of the Guomindang) (N.p., Apr 1938), p. 5.
24Jbid.
from participating in other political parties and factions, with the exception of the parent party, the GMD. They were also forbidden to form "sub-organizations" within the Corps. Any Corps members caught "discriminating, slandering or framing" fellow comrades or "engaging in o r internal strife" also were to face stern disciplinary measures. Although in reality things turned out differently, it is apparent from these various developments and measures that the Youth Corps was initially conceived as a new forum in which intra-party factions could henceforth work together.
While plans for the GMD Youth Corps were still being drawn up, there were also indications that an even bolder political manoeuvre was underway to transform the existing party system of China: an attempt was made at widening the scope of unification from intra-GMD to nation-wide. Overtures were made to opposition parties such as the Chinese Youth Party, the Democratic Socialist Party and even the Chinese Communist Party to form a single grand party for the purpose of countering Japanese aggression. For a while, GMD-related publications began to come out openly and strongly in support of the concept of total political
2
centralisation under a single party. In order to sell this idea of a "grand merger," the GMD was even willing to abandon the name it had borne
p Px
See the constitution of the Youth Corps first announced on 17 Jul 1938, in Ye Suzhong ^ , et. al., Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan
S- ^ 3L X_ lii ® (The Three People's Principles Youth Corps) (Chongqing, Feb 1939), pp. 47-54.
26For example, see the selection of reprinted articles in Duli chubanshe $ tfc 3^ ^ ed., Tongyi yu kangzhan ^ ^
^(Unification and the War of Resistance) (Chongqing, reprint Dec 1938) (1st in May 1938) and Jiandang yu j i a n g u o^ ^ 1357 (Party Strengthening and Nation Building) (Chongqing, reprint Dec 1938) (1st in Apr 1938).
for the past twenty years and adopt a new name so as to avoid giving the impression of other political groups having surrendered to, or being swallowed by, the GMD.27
From existing evidence, it is not clear whether the idea of a GMD Youth Corps was to be abandoned if a new grand party were to be successfully formed, or whether the Youth Corps would eventually become the umbrella organization to unify all political parties and factions within China. Accounts given by contemporary participants such as Chen Bulei, Chen Dunzhen, Chen Shaoxiao and Kang Ze are not clear on the exact connection between the Youth Corps proposal and the simultaneous manoeuvre for a single grand political party. But some writers, including Lloyd Eastman, have suggested that the Corps was instituted as a means of uniting not only the diverse political elements within the GMD
O Q
but also those of the whole nation during the war against Japan.
As events turned out, while the Chinese Youth Party and the Democratic Socialist Party were receptive to the GMD overtures, the CCP rejected the idea of a grand merger. The CCP insisted that cooperation
o n
was possible, but merger was out of question. Consequently, the GMD had no choice but to proceed with its own internal political reformation,
27Chen Bulei ^ , Chen Bulei huiyilu |gf" (Memoir of Chen Bulei) (Taibei, reprint 1981) (1st in Hong Kong, 1949), pp.
130-131.
28Chen Bulei, op. cit., pp. 130-131; Chen Dunzhen, op. cit., pp. 60-61; Chen Shaoxiao, op. cit, p p . 58-68; Kang Ze, op. cit., pp. 197-201.
29Lloyd Eastman, "Fascism in GMD China: The Blue Shirts," in China Quarterly 49 (Jan-Mar, 1972): 27.
starting with the launching of its Youth Corps. At the national level, cooperation amongst the various political parties would henceforth be confined merely to the new advisory body of the People's Political Council.
The induction of youth into the Party through the formation of a GMD youth corps was considered another means by which the GMD could be reformed. From the beginning to the end of its life, the Corps was perceived in varying degrees by many GMD leaders as a new driving force and a injection of fresh blood for the rejuvenation of the party
31
polity. In his book, China's Destiny, Chiang Kai-shek himself had claimed to have organized the Corps so as to "give a new life to the Guomindang," and had even likened the GMD to the nation's main artery,
32 and members of the Corps to fresh corpuscles within that artery.
An indication that this injection of fresh blood into the GMD through the Youth Corps was more than rhetorical was the amendment of the
31Liang Hancao yf' , radio speech on "The Bright Path for Chinese Youth," given at Hankou on 10 Sep 1938, in
ed., Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan lunwenji EL
(Collection of Essays on the Three People's Principles Youth Corps)
(N.p., Sep 1942), pp. 50-51; D
SZQ-ZT ed., Zhengqiu tuanyuan xuanchuan dagang jit. ^ ly ^ (Propaganda Outline for the Recruitment of Members) (N.p., [ca. Jul 1938]), pp. 5-12;
Zhang Zhizhong tp , Sanmin zhuyi qingniantuan zhi renwu ji
gongzuo shishi E- £-
W
^ ^ (The Missionand Work Implementation of the Three People's Principles Youth Corps) (N.p., Oct 1940), p. 1.
32Chiang Kai-shek, China's Destiny, pp. 214 and 220 in the English edition translated by Dr. Wang Chung-hui (New York, 1947), and pp. 216 and 223 in the English edition with notes and commentary by Philip Jaffe
(London, 1947);
Also see his speech on the "Youth Movement and the Three People's Principles Youth Corps," at the first national congress of the Youth Corps on 29 Mar 1943, in GW, Vol. 62, p p . 116-117.
Qingnian chubanshe