ABSTRACT
Traditional English grammar’s enforcement of the masculine third person singular in contriving such luminous declarations about humanity and its idiosyncratic habits is surely no coincidence, for persistent preoccupation with the issue of one’s future greatness does seem to be a peculiarly masculine psychological pursuit. There are no surviving contemporary teenage writings by Sun Yatsen, nor, to the author knowledge, more than a single photograph. This chapter explores the personal, behavioural and ideological formation of Sun Yatsen in the decade circumscribed, from circa 1895 to circa 1905 as a ‘professional revolutionist’. Theorists of Revolution often identify two key powerful dynamics that must necessarily come into play: the symbiotic forces of destruction and of construction, and usually in that order. The amalgamation of anarchism and assassination as a single subcategory of violence may well constitute a violent offense to properly or logically ordered categories of political means and ends.
