Hong Kuo-shu

Hong Kuo-shu was a Laeralian politician and political theorist and member of the Gang of Five who held numerous government positions during the Republican Era, including serving as Prime Minister, Vice-President, and 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. After the party's liberal "scarlet" faction triumphed in the power struggles of 1951-2, Hong and his supporters in the military attempted a coup in summer 1952, known as the Bloody Summer. Defeated, Hong was brought to trial in 1953, where he was sentenced to death.

Early Life

Hong was born in rural Sendrasi in 1885, the second-eldest of five children. His father was a low-level civil servant, allowing Hong to pursue an education. With the financial assistance of a sympathetic provincial minister, Hong attended high school and pursued college study equivalent to an associate's degree. Briefly appointed as a railroad stationmaster in 1908, Hong subsequently taught history at a lycée in Jinyu, where he was known for his fascination with military affairs. In this time, Hong joined the 6th of May Society, a secret society dedicated to liberal values, before leaving the organization due to its early endorsement of Augustin Brienne's policies as prime minister. In addition to his work as a teacher, Hong served as editor and chief copywriter at an underground newspaper, Current of Today, where he criticized government policies and endorsed socialism, land reform, and racial equality. He was briefly imprisoned in 1912 after criticizing the First Fellsian War, and was later conscripted into the army as a private, serving from 1914 to 1916.

Laeralian Revolution

With the outbreak of street violence in 1918 at the start of the Laeralian Revolution, Hong was immediately arrested only to be freed from prison in Jinyu during a riot. Assuming leadership of rioters in Jinyu due to his role at Current of Today, Hong attended the Renfeng Convention, where he became a member of the Committee for Democracy and Progress, signed the Renfeng Platform as the delegate for Therese, and met fellow members of the Gang of Five, including René Gramont.

Hong's return to Jinyu was prevented due to the destruction of the uprising there. Returning home to Sendrasi in wineter 1918, Hong assumed command of local forces using his status as a Renfeng Platform signatory. Alongside his brothers, Hong led the Rose Army's forces in the "Peichen Triangle" of Sendrasi, Meilun, and Fuxing provinces. Hong proved an exceptional guerrilla commander and overran government outposts in many cases without a fight, occasionally clashing with rival revolutionary groups such as Chang "the Cripple" Shuo-bin's Zhao nationalists. In the Peichen Triangle as in much of Western Laeral, fighting during the Revolution was chaotic with few fixed battle lines and frequent violence against civilians on all sides. Hong's forces were responsible for torching Arrivée villages and executing Arrivée captives and Loyalist collaborators. Most infamous was the Shougouang Massacre in Jianguo, where guerrillas under Hong's authority executed over 100 civilians in the village of Shougouang.

The effectiveness of Hong's military leadership is widely respected, as Hong built up Rose Army forces in the region and pushed Loyalist forces out of the Peichen Triangle entirely by late 1919. In September 1919, the Committee for Democracy and Progress named Hong as commander of the Western Front with the rank of Major General, on an equal footing with Yang Ching-tsan and J.P. Salaun and subordinate only to Gramont himself. Operating largely autonomously, Hong successfully subdued or subordinated all rival military forces in western Laeral over the course of 1919 and 1920. Under Hong's orders, soldiers in western Laeral carried out land reform, redistributing agricultural land from Arrivée settlers to Rén farmers.

Republican Politics

1923-1927: Director of the National Rural Reconstruction Administration 1927-1929: Interior Minister 1929-1932: Chief of the General Staff 1932-1937: Prime Minister 1937-1942: Vice-President 1942: defeated in bid for presidency by Zhou Wei-lin 1942-1947: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense 1947: defeated in bid for presidency by Sun Jia-wei 1947-1952: Deputy Prime Minister and SDP Party Secretary 1952: defeated in bid for presidency by Sun Jia-wei; Bloody Summer coup attempt

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.