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 The Nationalist Movement is a bigger thing than the Nationalist Party. The Party is at once one of the producers and one of the products of the movement. The Nationalist Government is a child of the Party. Within the Party and within the Government there are three factions, the Radicals, the Moderates, and the Conservatives. The Nationalist armies are still another thing. There is the Nationalist Army of Chiang Kai-shek, an instrument of the Nationalist Government (Hankow), and there is the People's National Army of Feng Yu-hsiang, allied with but not controlled by the Nationalist Government. Each of these is less than the Nationalist Movement.

There is warrant for optimism over the Nationalist Movement—which is nation-wide and which extends beyond the field of politics,—because national self-consciousness, expressed in a general awakening, is making toward progress, toward national unity, toward independence. There is even warrant for hopefulness with regard to the Nationalist Government. But the oligarchy which has created and which today is that Government (Hankow) has not yet made itself the de facto ruler of the major portion of China's territory; nor has it yet established an effective civil administration throughout the considerable area which its armies have occupied.

Events of the past few days (March 20–31), most conspicuously the attack upon and killing of foreigners at Nanking, suggest that there is within the Nationalist Army indiscipline and lack of authority and