He advocated the political philosophy of combining religious fraternity with bourgeois humanitarian truth, carried forward national culture, attached importance to national education, devoted himself to the unity of Hindus and Muslims, opposed discrimination, and fought for India's national independence and social progress. He combined the Hindu tradition with the means of non-violent resistance and fully mobilized the masses, especially the peasants. (Much like Mao Zedong in this respect) India held the second nationwide large-scale anti-British non-violent movement, but both failed.
This means of civil disobedience is completely different from violent revolution (proletarian revolution led by Lenin and Mao Zedong, American Civil War and Sun Yat-sen's Revolution of 1911 are all bourgeois revolutions) and upper-class bourgeois political reform activities divorced from the masses (the Reform Movement of 1898). Under the cloud of violence at the beginning of the 20th century, it is rare for this world to have a bright color of striving for peace through non-violence, which is too consistent with the concept of peace (if this concept of non-violence is put forward in today's peace-oriented environment, it is of course common, but at that time ...) Therefore, Sun Yat-sen is just a great man with the same nature as Mao Zedong, Lenin, Washington and other celebrities.
However, this kind of non-violence thought was absolutely in a weak position in the world dominated by violence at that time, which was also the reason why the non-violence movement in India failed.