On New Democracy is a 1940 essay by Mao Zedong in which he established the concept of New Democracy during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
On New Democracy is a 1940 essay by Mao Zedong in which he established the concept of New Democracy during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Mao wrote On New Democracy in early 1940 [1] : 36 while the Yan'an Soviet was developing and expanding during the Second Sino-Japanese War. [2] : 60–61 During this period, Mao was concerned about bureaucratization and sought to develop a culture of mass politics. [2] : 61 In his view, mass democracy was crucial, but could be guaranteed only to the revolutionary classes. [2] : 61–62
Mao later expanded on the principles discussed in On New Democracy in his April 1945 report On the Coalition Government, delivered during the Seventh Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. [3] : 29
These principles were then reflected in the Party's political views from 1949 to 1952, pursuant to which it was assumed that the initial new democracy would take ten years or more to transition to a socialist society. [3] : 86 Later, the Soviet model became increasingly adopted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and some of the ideas discussed in On New Democracy and On the Coalition Government were discarded. [3] : 140–141
On New Democracy discusses the new society to be formed immediately after a successful Chinese Communist Revolution. [3] : 37 It envisions a gradual transition to socialism under a coalition of classes led by the CCP joining the "patriotic classes" willing to resist Japan and develop the productive forces of China. [2] : 60–61 In the text, Mao states, "We shall never establish capitalism under the dictatorship of the Chinese bourgeoise, but a new democratic society under the joint dictatorship of all revolutionary classes in China led by the Chinese proletariat." [3] : 28 Mao describes the revolutionary classes as composed of all anti-imperialist and anti-feudal people. [3] : 28 In describing the new democratic republic as a "joint dictatorship of all revolutionary classes," Mao contrasts this proposed New Democracy from both the "old democratic republics" of the west and from the Soviet-style socialist republic. [3] : 27–28
With regard to economic matters, On New Democracy states that the "new democratic China" would "own the big banks and the big industrial and commercial enterprises." [1] : 36 Furthermore: [1] : 36
in the new democratic republic under the leadership of the proletariat, the state enterprises will be socialist and will constitute the leading force in the whole national economy ... China's economy must develop along the path of the 'regulation of capital' and 'equalization of landownership' and must never be 'privately owned by the few' ... We must never establish a capitalist society of the European-American type or allow the old semi-feudal society to survive.
In this framework, the private sector could not "dominate the livelihoods of the people," but the private sector need not be abolished. [4] : 211
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang. In 1949, Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Since then, the CCP has governed China and has had sole control over the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Successive leaders of the CCP have added their own theories to the party's constitution, which outlines the party's ideology, collectively referred to as socialism with Chinese characteristics. As of 2024, the CCP has more than 99 million members, making it the second largest political party by membership in the world after India's Bharatiya Janata Party.
Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. A difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that a united front of progressive forces in class society would lead the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than communist revolutionaries alone. This theory, in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. Later theoreticians expanded on the idea that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions, arguing that he had in fact updated it fundamentally and that Maoism could be applied universally throughout the world. This ideology is often referred to as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism to distinguish it from the original ideas of Mao.
Chen Duxiu was a Chinese revolutionary socialist, educator, philosopher and author, who co-founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with Li Dazhao in 1921. From 1921 to 1927, he served as the Communist Party's first general secretary. Chen was a leading figure in both the Xinhai Revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty and the May Fourth Movement for scientific and democratic developments in the early Republic of China. After his expulsion from the CCP in 1929, Chen was for a time the leader of China's Trotskyist movement.
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comintern after its Bolshevisation, and the communist states within the Comecon, the Eastern Bloc, and the Warsaw Pact. After the peak of Marxism–Leninism, when many communist states were established, the Revolutions of 1989 brought down most of the communist states; however, Communism remained the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and to a lesser extent, North Korea. During the later part of the 20th century, before the Revolutions of 1989, around one-third of the world's population lived in communist states.
The intensification of the class struggle along with the development of socialism is a component of the theory of Stalinism.
The Sino-Albanian split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the People's Republic of China in the period 1972–1978.
In political ideology, a deviationist is a person who expresses a deviation: an abnormality or departure. In Stalinist ideology and practice, deviationism is an expressed belief which does not accord with official party doctrine for the time and area. Accusations of deviationism often led to purges. Forms of deviationism included revisionism, dogmatism, and bourgeois nationalism.
In the People's Republic of China since 1967, the terms "ultra-left" and "left communist" refers to political theory and practice self-defined as further "left" than that of the central Maoist leaders at the height of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). The terms are also used retroactively to describe some early 20th century Chinese anarchist orientations. As a slur, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has used the term "ultra-left" more broadly to denounce any orientation it considers further "left" than the party line. According to the latter usage, the CCP Central Committee denounced in 1978 as "ultra-left" the line of Mao Zedong from 1956 until his death in 1976. This article refers only to 1) the self-defined ultra-left of the GPCR; and 2) more recent theoretical trends drawing inspiration from the GPCR ultra-left, China's anarchist legacy and international "left communist" traditions.
New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a type of democracy in Marxism, based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that was decisively distinct from that in any other country. He also said every colonial or semi-colonial country would have its own unique path to democracy, given that particular country's own social and material conditions. Mao labeled representative democracy in the Western nations as Old Democracy, characterizing parliamentarianism as just an instrument to promote the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie/land-owning class through manufacturing consent. He also found his concept of New Democracy not in contrast with the Soviet-style dictatorship of the proletariat which he assumed would be the dominant political structure of a post-capitalist world. Mao spoke about how he wanted to create a New China, a country freed from the feudal and semi-feudal aspects of its old culture as well as Japanese imperialism.
In Marxist theory, a new democratic society will arise through the organised actions of an international working class, enfranchising the entire population and freeing up humans to act without being bound by the labour market. There would be little, if any, need for a state, the goal of which was to enforce the alienation of labor; as such, the state would eventually wither away as its conditions of existence disappear. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels stated in The Communist Manifesto and later works that "the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy" and universal suffrage, being "one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat". As Marx wrote in his Critique of the Gotha Program, "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". He allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures, but suggested that in other countries in which workers can not "attain their goal by peaceful means" the "lever of our revolution must be force", stating that the working people had the right to revolt if they were denied political expression. In response to the question "What will be the course of this revolution?" in Principles of Communism, Friedrich Engels wrote:
Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat.
Socialist democracy is a political system that aligns with principles of both socialism and democracy. It includes ideologies such as council communism, democratic socialism, social democracy, and soviet democracy, as well as Marxist democracy like the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was embodied in the Soviet system (1922–1991). It can also denote a system of political party organization like democratic centralism, or a form of democracy espoused by Marxist–Leninist political parties or groups that support one-party states. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1992) styled itself a socialist democracy, as did the People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990) and the Socialist Republic of Romania (1947–1989).
The history of the Chinese Communist Party began with its establishment in July 1921. A study group led by Peking University professors Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao to discuss Marxism, led to intellectuals officially founding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in July 1921. In 1923, Sun Yat-sen invited the CCP to form a United Front, and to join his nationalist party, the Kuomintang (KMT), in Canton for training under representatives of the Communist International, the Soviet Union's international organization. The Soviet representatives reorganized both parties into Leninist parties. Rather than the loose organization that characterized the two parties until then, the Leninist party operated on the principle of democratic centralism, in which the collective leadership set standards for membership and an all-powerful Central Committee determined the party line, which all members must follow.
The Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art was a May 1942 forum held in the Yan'an Soviet and a significant event in the Yan'an Rectification Movement. It is most notable for the speeches given by Mao Zedong, later edited and published as Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art which dealt with the role of literature and art in the country. The two main points were that (1) all art should reflect the life of the working class and consider them as an audience, and (2) that art should serve politics, and specifically the advancement of socialism.
"On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" is a speech which was written by Mao Zedong. It was presented to the public on 30 June 1949, twenty-eight years after the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This speech is part of the fourth volume collection of his works, which was published by the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing. It is noteworthy for its tone, that it preceded the freeze in Sino-Soviet relations following the Sino-Soviet split and adoption of Maoism in China, and that it codifies and embraces people's democratic dictatorship.
Feudal fascism, also revolutionary-feudal totalitarianism, were official terms used by the post-Mao Zedong Chinese Communist Party to designate the ideology and rule of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution. In 1979, the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Ye Jianying, described Mao Zedong's reign as a “feudal-fascist dictatorship” due to his revolutionary terror-based cult of personality, nationalism, and authoritarianism despite superficially socialist policies.
People's democratic dictatorship is a phrase incorporated into the Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The premise of the "People's democratic dictatorship" is that the party and state represent and act on behalf of the people, but in the preservation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, possess and may use powers against reactionary forces. The term forms one of the CCP's Four Cardinal Principles. Implicit in the concept of the people's democratic dictatorship is the notion that dictatorial control by the party is necessary to prevent the government from collapsing into a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", a liberal democracy, which, it is feared, would mean politicians acting in the interest of the bourgeoisie. This would be in opposition to the socialist charter of the CCP.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) frames its ideology as Marxism–Leninism adapted to the historical context of China, often expressing it as socialism with Chinese characteristics. Major ideological contributions of the CCP's leadership are viewed as "Thought" or "Theory," with "Thought" carrying greater weight. Influential concepts include Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and Xi Jinping Thought. Other important concepts include the socialist market economy, Jiang Zemin's idea of the Three Represents, and Hu Jintao's Scientific Outlook on Development.
People's democracy is a theoretical concept within Marxism–Leninism that advocates the establishment of a multi-class and multi-party democracy during the transition from capitalism to socialism. People's democracy was developed after World War II and implemented in a number of European and Asian countries as a result of the people's democratic revolutions of the 1940s.
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat, or working class, holds control over state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the transitional phase from a capitalist to a communist economy, whereby the post-revolutionary state seizes the means of production, mandates the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership. During this phase, the organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution, and to facilitate the transition to a lasting communist society.
The Continuous Revolution Theory is an element of Maoism. This is often subsumed under the subject of the Cultural Revolution.