One of the major reasons why the Homosapien were able to overtake other Homo species was the increased capability to form greater and stronger social bonds and thus, as a result, to form more cohesive societies (Harari 2011). The human struggle has not been any different from then to now, if we see history from this perspective i.e. of . In case of 20 th century China, the time between the abdication of Emperor (End of Imperial China) in 1911 and the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 was a period of turmoil as well as a war of ideas and ideologies. The question was simple; what should the country redefine itself as and what ideals should be the central tenants of it's being. At the core of this were two people and their answers to these questions. Both these men with their western learning of Marxism, Leninism, Capitalism and Western Democracies developed their ideas by assimilating these ideas with their own experiences and understanding of China. The road-map for a future Chinese state was put forth by these men as is visible in Mao's Hunan Report and Sun Yat- sen's series of lectures in 1924 on Nationalism, Democracy and Livelihood. The 3 principles of Sun Yat-sen and ideas it contained had by the time of compilation of Hunan Report saw an overarching acceptance among the peasants, capturing their minds and hearts. He propounded and explained these 3 principles in a series of lectures which he gave after the Kuomintang National Conference of 1924. These lectures are given such importance because these were the synthesis of his thoughts as he died a year later. On the other hand, Hunan Report is the personification of the experiences which Mao gathered firsthand from participating in the Peasant Department activities and observing the region of Hunan as well as its peasant movements. Being a member of the Peasant Movement Training Institute provided a practical insight towards the psychological and working patterns of the social classes at hand. All this, when combined with his understanding of industrial towns as well as his critique of capitalism (coming from his Marxist Ideology), provided a bedrock for the future development of Maoist Thought and the direction which the state took post-1949. Sun Yat-sen's 3 Principles After the Kuomintang National Conference, Dr Sun fully aware of the fact that he was suffering from chronic cancer embarked on undertaking a series of lectures so that he could reach out to the maximum number of people. The three principles were Nationalism, Democracy and Livelihood (in the same order of importance). If we consider the order of importance nationalism comes first, followed by Democracy and Livelihood respectively. In this very instance, he differentiates himself from the communists (who believed in internationalism) as he articulates that internationalism can only be perused if China becomes a stable nation state. Nationalism In his series of 6 lectures on Nationalism, he started with providing an overarching idea of Nationalism in Chinese context “States were usually molded by force but nations were formed through the royal or natural way of blood, livelihood, language, religion and customs. The Han people had shared these common factors other than livelihood. They were thus a single pure race ”(Wells 2001), in addition to