立憲與革命：李大釗早期政治思想的內在張力

Constitutionalism and Revolution: The Inner Tension in Li Dazhao’s Early Political Thought

「立憲」意謂了什麼？「立憲」如何得以構建名符其實的「民國」？經由立憲以構建民國的想像與論述，在1910 年代如何生成與演進？以這些問題為始點，本文選擇聚焦於中國共產黨創建人之一李大釗，藉以審視立憲以構建民國的願景所涉歷史情境、思想條件與現實挑戰。本文探討李氏的立憲主義論述，側重考掘其中內蘊的革命問題及理法二元思維框架，以見1917 下半年以降其激進轉向的所以然。本文指出，革命問題自始即構成此一論述內部的張力來源，而理法二元思維框架又內建了溫和與激進的兩歧性。通過重構1912-1918 年間李氏的政治思想發展，本文嘗試說明其民權主張如何從惟民主義轉向民治主義，而其理想訴求又如何同步從以立憲政治為內涵的「良政治」，轉向以民意為依歸的「自由政治」，最終導致革命問題的出場。這樣的思想轉折不僅反映民初立憲建國之路的困境，亦透露了1920年代以社會運動為基礎的新型政黨及政治崛起的歷史邏輯。

In the Chinese context, what could “constitutionalism” possibly mean? In what ways was it able to substantiate “the people’s state” (minguo)? During the 1910s, how did the imagination and discourse of building the people’s state through constitutionalism evolve and change? Starting from these questions, this article explores the historical situations and intellectual conditions from which visions of such state-building project emerged, as well as the challenges confronting the project, by focusing on Li Dazhao (1889-1927), one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party. The article examines Li’s constitutionalist discourse by probing into the problematique of revolution and the dualistic “li-fa” (principle-law) frame of thinking inherent in it, so as to attain a better understanding of Li’s radical turn that began in the second half of 1917. The article argues that the tension created by the implicit problematique of revolution remained a defining feature of Li’s discourse—a feature which was reinforced by the polarity of gradualism and radicalism integral to Li’s dualistic thinking. By reconstructing the development of Li’s political thought in the period from 1912-1918, the article will show how his view on popular rights changed from a people-centered stance into a radical democratic one, and how at the same time his political ideal evolved from “good government” defined by constitutionalism into “free government” grounded in the people’s will, with the result that the problematique of revolution began to dominate his political thinking. Li’s radical turn not only indicates the difficulties faced by the constitutionalist project of statebuilding; in retrospect, it also sheds light on the historic logic behind the rise of new types of party and politics based on social movements in the 1920s.