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        Lenin was the father of the Russian Revolution in the 20th Century. Mahatma Gandhi was the father of the Indian freedom struggle. In more ways than one, Sun Yat-Sen was the 'father of the Chinese Revolution' in 1912. In the West, he is considered as the most important figure in the 20th Century. His turbulent life as a revolutionary marked by great struggle and sacrifice finally ended in disappointment. After waging an underground war for twenty years, he succeeded in leading a nationalist and democratic revolution in China in 1912 and became its first President . Unfortunately, the Preseidentship was cruelly snatched from his hands by the dictatorial and ambitious Yuan Shih-kai. When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, China was in ruins. But he had succeeded in sowing the seeds of nationalism, democracy and equality in China.

        When SunYat-sen, commonly known in China as Sun Wen, was born in November 1866 in the village of Choy Hung, 'the town of Blue Valley', China was riddled with corruption and conspiracy. The fabulously tyrannical Ch'ing Dynasty was disintegrating. The foreigners were not only at the gates but had blown them apart. Annam was becoming a French Protectorate, Hong-Kong had been ceded to the British, and five other ports had opened to the Western traders, The Taiping rebels had been defeated, but they were still harassing the imperial troops.

        Sun Yat-sen's father was an illiterate rice farmer. His house was made of mud and crushed limestone; the floor of beaten earth. Sen was the youngest of the three sons. Besides his two sisters, nearly eight widowed aunts also shared the same house. Everyone had to work hard on the small farm. In spite of the hard work, his childhood was happy, filled with the universal pleasures which every boy manages to snatch between various household chores: fishing, kite-flying, playing leapfrog, setting off firecrackers to usher in the holidays. He differed from the other boys in the village in only one respect: he wanted something wild and strange, something prohibited by 'custom to plough-boys'; he wanted a bird, a bird that could sing of freedom and faraway places. He never asked for it, but his heart beat wildly whenever he heard one. He also dreamed of unknown distances as he listened to an old soldier, a village derelict, talk with passion about the battles of the strange Taipings who dared to oppose the war-lords and who believed in a fair distribution of land.

Sen went through the routine schooling. His elder brother Ah Mei, who had gone earlier to Hawaii, persuaded the members of the family to send Sun Yat-sen also to Hawaii. At the age of fourteen, Sen arrived in Honolulu in 1880 with a firm chin and sensitive mouth. His brother sent him to one of the Church of England Schools, where he learned mathematics, history and the Bible. The classes were conducted in English, and Sun Yat-sen was so adept that his brother complained that he was growing more Western than the Westerners.         In 1883, Sun Yat-sen was sent back to China to assume his place in the community. The young Sun Yat-sen brought trouble as well as learning home with him. He soon manifested his firm refusal to accept 'customs'. He rebelled against idolatry, ancestor worship and family fetishism. He stormed at the village superstitions, mocked the painted shrines and even tore off the finger of one of the wooden Gods. The village was horrified and as a result of his 'sacrilege', he was banished and sent to Hong Kong. A few months later he entered Queens College in Hong Kong, and applied himself to the Bible, and spoke so ardently about Christianity that he converted two younger students. At eighteen he was married and went back to Hong Kong with his young bride. First he wanted to become a missionary. But he gave up this quest in favour of his revolutionary fervour for national and social emancipation. He studied medicine and became an assistant at the Pok Tsai Hospital in Canton in 1886. In 1887 when Doctor James Cantlie opened a new hospital in Hong Kong, Sun Yat-sen was the first pupil to enroll. Five years later he graduated in medicine.

Sun Yat-Sen (1866 - 1925)

        During his years in the medical college, he was engaged in secret activities against the State until he became as proficient in propaganda as in surgery. He was 29 when he announced the maxim, a quotation from Confucius, which was to be his motto through his life: 'The earth, the universe, belongs to everyone'. While in Hong Kong, Sen organised a hard-core group known as the 'Dare-to-Dies' and planned his first revolutionary plot. It was discovered; his associates were arrested and executed; he was the only one to escape.

        Sun Yat-sen was already acquainted with Charlie (Yao-ju) Soong, American-educated, Methodist-trained industrialist, whose second daughter Chingling was to become Sun Yat-sen's second wife. Soong's other daughters were to marry similarly famous men. The eldest married H H Kung, the famous banker often called Chinese Morgan. The youngest became the wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-shek became Sun Yat-sen's secretary. Chang Kai-shek organised a publishing firm, ostensibly for the purpose of Biblical literature, but which soon began to turn out revolutionary and provocative books and documents.

        After the failure of his revolutionary coup, Sun Yat-sen was forced out of China. During the many of his fugitive periods from 1890 onwards till 1910 he travelled to Hawaii, the United States and England raising funds to carry on his campaign against the imperialists. The Chinese Government put a price of $ 50,000/- on his head, but he managed to escape capture everywhere by the narrowest of margins. In London he was kidnapped and imprisoned in the Chinese Legation. Before being sent back to China for execution, he succeeded in smuggling out a note to his old friend and medical colleague Sir James Cantlie, who made such a stir that the British Government effected Sun Yat-sen's release. This episode made the Chinese doctor Sun Yat-sen famous throughout the world and his name became synonymous with determination and fearlessness. 'No gun ever manufactured works fast enough to get Sun Yat-sen', said one of his followers, who amplified the metaphor by adding, 'his lightning-like adaptation to circumstance is quicker than the explosion of a shell'. For a while Sun took refuge in Japan. The price for apprehending him was increased by the Chinese Government. Undeterred, Sen kept in touch with military men as well as underground workers in China. With the secret aid of General Hwang he founded a Patriot's Association. In 1910 he was in the South Sea Islands, a hunted man, a failure as a prophet, a lost hope as a leader. He did not despair; the communications were delayed, the messages were often intercepted, but his crusade went on.

        Sun Yat-sen was in America when the word of his revolution became a deed. It began in September 1911, with a bomb explosion in Hanchow in China, spread through a dozen districts, and overwhelmed the government troupes. Although Chiang Kai-shek, who had come under Sun Yat-sen's influence, had just come out of military school, yet he was appointed chief of staff in Hanchow. The news reached Sun Yat-sen in Colarado. Sen started East and when he was at St Louis, he saw in the papers that a revolution had taken place in China and that he had been appointed as the first President of the new Chinese Republic. He reached China in January 1912 and took the oath as provisional President of the National Convention at Nanking.

        Sen's wife Chingling wrote an article in 'The Wesleyan' in April 1912 under the title 'The Greatest Event of the Twentieth Century'. She wrote: 'One of the greatest events of the twentieth century, the greatest event since Waterloo, in the opinion of many well-known educators and politicians, is the Chinese Revolution. It means the emancipation of 400 million souls from the thraldom of an absolute monarchy which has been in existence over 4000 years and under whose rule 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' have been denied. It also signifies the downfall of a dynasty whose cruel extortions and selfishness have reduced the once prosperous nation to a poverty-stricken country. The overthrowing of the Manchu Government means the destruction and expulsion of a court where the most barbaric customs and degrading morals were in existence. Napoleon Bonaparte said, 'when China moves, she will move the world'. The realisation of that statement does not seem far off. A race amounting to one-quarter of the world's population, inhabiting the largest empire of the globe, cannot help but be influential in the uplifting of mankind'.