历史场景与言外之意:也说“民主与独裁”论战

A Historical Account of the Democracy and Dictatorship Controversy

"民主与独裁"的论争,是研究1930年代中国知识分子思想状态的重要个案。对其相关史事的梳理表明:"民主与独裁"的论争,本是《独立评论》有关"建国问题"讨论的一个组成部分,其主旨反映了"九一八"事变后所谓自由知识分子上层积极与国民党政府合作以推进内政改革、抵御外侮的基本思想立场;这一论争由"福建事变"引出,公开的话题集中于南京中央政府统一方式的辩论(个人专制的武力统一抑或民主政治的制度统一),暗中却寓有是维护"蒋汪合作"抑或赋予蒋介石以独裁权力的有关国民党现实权力格局的分歧;"民主与独裁"论争的这一"言外之意",由论争中的一段插曲——"建设与无为"的讨论而渐露真意,并在随后的几次论争"余波"中愈益得到彰显。

The Democracy or Dictatorship controversy is an important case in the field of the studies in the climate of opinions of the Chi-nese intellectuals in the 1930s. It can be showed by a close and meticulous survey that the Democracy and Dictatorship controversy was a component part of the debates of The Question of State-building in the journal Independent Review,which,in the wake of the Sep. 18,can be said to be an expression of the positions of the upper class of the liberal intellectuals who actively pushed their col-laboration with the Nationalist Government,with their intentions to reform the civil governance and resist the foreign invasion. This controversy was stimulated by the Fujian event,and the viable mode of unification——literally,the unification by the force of an individual dictatorship,or the unification by institutional arrangements of a democratic government——that Nanking Central Gov-ernment should choose was rendered as its explicit topic. But implicitly,these different views reflected the then existing political power framework of the Nationalist Party,which can be oriented to the Dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek,or the collaboration between Chiang and Jingwei Wang. This implicit meaning of the Democracy or Dictatorship controversy was disclosed by an episode of this controversy,namely the debate on construction or non-action. The above connotation of this controversy can be seen clearly in relevant discussions in the wake of that debate.