Hong Kuo-shu

Hong Kuo-shu was a Laeralian politician and political theorist who held numerous government positions during the Republican Era, including serving as Party Secretary of the Social Democratic Party from 1947 to 1952. A Gramontist theorist known for his theoretical work, Hong served in the Rose Army during the Laeralian Revolution and was appointed as leader of the National Rural Reconstruction Administration. A leading light in the Republican government's rural programs, Hong was named as the leading Social Democratic Party candidate in the 1932 Laeralian legislative election. Serving as prime minister for five years, Hong next became vice-president of Laeral during President J.P. Salaun's second term. It was during this period that Hong authored the Scientific Program for Virtue and Self-Strengthening, his crowning contribution to the Gramontist literature.

As a skilled political actor who had gained influence within the party and respect for his service as Vice-President, Hong became the leader of a powerful "vermilion" or "countryside" faction within the SDP, which opposed the liberalization programs of President Zhou Wei-lin. With influential followers such as Fai Chao-ming, whom Hong engineered as leader of the powerful Social Democratic Internal Investigations Office, Hong's power in office grew to rival that of President Zhou. Former president René Gramont, meanwhile, had at this time distanced himself from internal party politics, instead concerning himself with cultural endeavors and his theoretical texts. In 1947, at the Sixth Social Democratic Party Congress, Hong's influence in the party meant that Zhou's renomination as president was blocked, yet, unable to engineer his own elevation to the presidency, Hong instead secured the position of Party Secretary. Coining the maxim "the conductor is the train's helmsman and the wheels only its base," Hong argued for the Party's reassertion of control over Laeralian public life.