The Nationalist Revolution unfolded over a relatively short period, yet it carried the potential to reshape power structures and representative mechanisms within the educational sphere, thereby opening possibilities for long-term social transformation. One manifestation of this process was the campaign to overthrow academic warlordism (xuefa, 學閥). Students, primary and middle school staff, and educators aligned with the Nationalist Revolution targeted influential figures in the educational world, denouncing them as embodiments of academic warlordism that monopolized educational authority, colluded with military strongmen and imperialist powers, and served the interests of a privileged minority. Within this critique, the Jiaoyu Hui (敎育會, Educational Association) was identified as the institutional stronghold of academic warlordism. In response, students, school staff, and pro-Kuomintang educators mobilized against this system and established new organizations intended to accommodate their demands and secure their position within the revolutionary movement.
The Nationalist Revolution thus provided discontented actors in the educational sphere with opportunities to articulate political claims and to form collective organizations. As the campaign against academic warlordism unfolded, the scope of student political activity expanded, revolutionary educational organizations emerged, and struggles over organizational leadership and influence intensified among competing groups. However, as the revolution shifted from mass mobilization to the consolidation of political power, its complex and plural dynamics were gradually reorganized along lines determined by the Kuomintang. Through the purging of communists and those suspected of communist sympathies, the party narrowed the field of legitimate participation to forces aligned with its political objectives.
At the same time, tensions emerged between the Kuomintang as a political party and the Nationalist government over the direction of reform. Whereas the party emphasized the revolutionary character of the movement, the government prioritized institutional reorganization in the interests of development and administrative stability. This divergence ultimately produced a settlement that enabled the government to pursue educational policy in a more stable and systematic manner, most notably through the revival and reorganization of the Educational Association. This outcome also reflected broader tendencies within the educational community, which increasingly sought to distance itself from overt political struggle and revolutionary activism. Although the campaign to overthrow academic warlordism began with the mass mobilization of educational actors, it concluded with the supervision and control of educational organizations by the state. As revolution was transformed into governance, the Nationalist government reorganized society by maximizing the use of existing social resources in the name of efficient state-building, a process that effectively marked the resurgence of preexisting social elites.
This article demonstrates how revolutions mobilize latent social discontent and political demands to construct supportive constituencies, and how, following revolutionary success, society is reorganized according to specific criteria and governing logics in the course of consolidating political power.