孫中山成年以後的政治思想,既忠於民權的原則,同時也遵循革命先鋒隊的理念, 從而影響到他對未來憲政秩序的看法。儘管孫氏的政治性著作與演說通常含糊不清,而且自相矛盾,本文仍欲聚焦於他在1910-1920年代所關心的主要議題,籍以探討孫氏在民國成立後的政治主張。孫中山在國民黨改組為列寧式的政黨以前, 便已經信從先鋒主義,而且將其先鋒主義奠基於連貫一致的認識論。從自由民主主義的理路來看,民權思想與先鋒主義之間的確存在著緊張性。然而,「非自由」的民主主義,亦即保留民權理想,同時又強調強而有力的領導,對於二十世紀初期具世界主義觀的知識分子來說,普遍具有吸引力。此一視野在邏輯上也奠基於一種樂觀的目的論,並預設了民主制度的普世發展歷程。
The mature political thought of Sun Yat-sen was simultaneously committed to democratic principles and to a vanguardist vision of revolution that influenced his vision of a future constitutional order. Although Sun's political writings and speeches were often ambiguous and self-contradictory, this article focuses on the main issues of concern to Sun in the 1910s and 1920s. Sun believed in vanguardism before the Guomindang was reorganized as a Leninist party, and he based his vanguardism on a coherent epistemology. From the point of view of liberal democracy, it seems popular sovereignty and vanguardism are in tension. However, illiberal democracy-preserving popular sovereignty while emphasizing strong leadership-was widely attractive to cosmopolitan intellectuals in the early twentieth century, and it was logically based on an optimistic teleology that postulated the world-historical development of democracy.