The Chinese Nation
Developing along the same lines as many other nations of the world, the Chinese nation (chiefly the Hans) first went through some tens of thousands of years of life in classless primitive communes. Up to now approximately four thousand years have passed since the collapse of the primitive communes and the transition to class society, first slave society and then feudalism. In the history of Chinese civilization, agriculture and handicraft have always been known as highly developed; many great thinkers, scientists, military experts, men of letters, and artists have flourished, and there is a rich store of classical works. The compass was invented in China very long ago. The art of papermaking was discovered as early as eighteen hundred years ago. Block printing was invented thirteen hundred years ago. In addition, movable type was invented eight hundred years ago. Gunpowder was used in China earlier than in Europe. China, with a recorded history of almost four thousand years, is therefore one of the oldest civilized countries in the world.
The Chinese nation is famous throughout the world not only for its stamina and industriousness but also as a freedom-loving people with a rich revolutionary tradition. . . . In thousands of years of the history of the Hans, there have been hundreds of peasant insurrections, great or small, against the regime of darkness imposed by the landlords and nobility. . . . So the Chinese nation is also a nation with a glorious revolutionary tradition and a splendid historical heritage. [pp. 73–74]
Ancient Feudal Society
Although China is a great nation with a vast territory, an immense population, a long history, a rich revolutionary tradition, and a splendid historical heritage, yet it remained sluggish in its economic, political, and cultural development after its transition from the slave system into the feudal system. This feudal system, beginning from the Zhou and Qin dynasties, lasted about 3,000 years. [p. 74]
The extreme poverty and backwardness of the peasants resulting from ruthless exploitation and oppression by the landlord class is the basic reason why China’s economy and social life has remained stagnant for thousands of years. . . . [Moreover], since neither new productive forces, nor new relations of production, nor a new class force, nor an advanced political party existed in those days, and consequently peasant uprisings and wars lacked correct leadership as is given by the proletariat and the Communist Party today, the peasant revolutions invariably failed. . . . Thus, although some social progress was made after each great peasant revolutionary struggle, the feudal economic relations and feudal political system remained basically unchanged.
Only in the last hundred years did fresh changes take place. [pp. 75–76]
Present-Day Colonial, Semi-Colonial, and Semi-Feudal Society
It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that great internal changes took place in China as a result of the penetration of foreign capitalism.
As China’s feudal society developed its commodity economy and so carried within itself the embryo of capitalism, China would of herself have developed slowly into capitalist society even if there had been no influence of foreign capitalism. The penetration of foreign capitalism accelerated this development. [pp. 76–77]
Yet this fresh change represented by the emergence and development of capitalism constitutes only one aspect of the change that has taken place since imperialistic penetration into China. There is another aspect that coexists with it as well as hampers it, namely, the collusion of foreign imperialism with China’s feudal forces to arrest the development of Chinese capitalism. [p. 78]
The contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation and the contradiction between feudalism and the great masses of the people are the principle contradictions in modern Chinese society. . . . [pp. 81–82]
The Chinese Revolution
The national revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people has a history of exactly one hundred years dating from the Opium War of 1840, and of thirty years dating from the revolution of 1911. As this revolution has not yet run its full course and there has not yet been any signal achievement with regard to the revolutionary tasks, it is still necessary for all the Chinese people, and above all the Chinese Communist Party, to assume the responsibility for a resolute fight. [pp. 82–83]
Since the character of present-day Chinese society is colonial, semi-colonial, and semi-feudal, then what after all are our chief targets or enemies at this stage of the Chinese revolution?
They are none other than imperialism and feudalism, namely, the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries and the landlord class at home. . . .
Since Japan’s armed invasion of China, the principal enemies of the Chinese revolution have been Japanese imperialism and all the collaborators and reactionaries who are in collusion with it, who have either openly capitulated or are prepared to capitulate.
The Chinese bourgeoisie, also actually oppressed by imperialism, once led revolutionary struggles; it played a principal leading role, for instance, in the revolution of 1911 and also joined such revolutionary struggles as the Northern Expedition and the present Anti-Japanese War. In the long period from 1927 to 1937, however, the upper stratum of the bourgeoisie, as represented by the reactionary bloc of the Nationalists, was in league with imperialism and formed a reactionary alliance with the landlord class, turning against the friends who had helped it—the Communist Party, the proletariat, the peasantry, and other sections of the petty bourgeoisie, betraying the Chinese revolution and thereby causing its defeat. [pp. 83–84]
Confronted with such enemies, the Chinese revolution must, so far as its principal means or the principal form is concerned, be an armed rather than a peaceful one. This is because our enemy makes it impossible for the Chinese people, deprived of all political freedoms and rights, to take any peaceful political action. Stalin said, “In China, armed revolution is fighting against armed counterrevolution. This is one of the peculiarities and one of the advantages of the Chinese revolution.”4 This statement is a perfectly correct formulation. The view that belittles armed struggle, revolutionary war, guerrilla war, and army work is therefore incorrect.
In these circumstances, owing to the unevenness in China’s economic development (not a unified capitalist economy), to the immensity of China’s territory (which gives the revolutionary forces sufficient room to maneuver in), to the disunity inside China’s counterrevolutionary camp (which is fraught with contradictions), and to the fact that the struggle of the peasants, the main force in the Chinese revolution, is led by the party of the proletariat, the Communist Party, a situation arises in which, on the one hand, the Chinese revolution can triumph first in the rural districts and, on the other hand, a state of unevenness is created in the revolution and the task of winning complete victory in the revolution becomes a protracted and arduous one. It is thus clear that the protracted revolutionary struggle conducted in such revolutionary base areas is chiefly a peasant guerrilla war led by the Chinese Communist Party.
However, to emphasize armed struggle does not mean giving up other forms of struggle; on the contrary, armed struggle will not succeed unless coordinated with other forms of struggle. And to emphasize the work in rural base areas does not mean giving up our work in the cities and in the vast rural districts under the enemy’s rule; on the contrary, without the work in the cities and in other rural districts, the rural base areas will be isolated and the revolution will suffer defeat. Moreover, the capture of the cities now serving as the enemy’s main bases is the final objective of the revolution, an objective that cannot be achieved without adequate work in the cities.
This shows clearly that it is impossible for the revolution to triumph in both the cities and the countryside unless the enemy’s principal instrument for fighting the people—his armed forces—is destroyed. Thus besides annihilating enemy troops in war, it is important to work for their disintegration.
This shows clearly that in the Communist Party’s propaganda and organizational work in the cities and the countryside long occupied by the ene
my and dominated by the forces of reaction and darkness, we must adopt, instead of an impetuous and adventurist line, a line of hiding the crack forces, accumulating strength, and biding our time. In leading the people’s struggle against the enemy we must adopt the tactics of advancing slowly but surely . . . ; vociferous cries and rash actions can never lead to success. [pp. 84–86]
[Mao, Selected Works, 3: 73–86]
THE MASS LINE
This piece explains an important aspect of Chinese Communist Party governing technique known as the mass line. While maintaining the dominance of the Leninist party and eschewing democracy, the Chinese Communist Party nevertheless involved the people to some extent in the ruling of their base areas in places such as Jiangxi and Yan’an. The main emphasis is on the leadership group activating and mobilizing those who are indifferent or resistant, following Stalin’s policies for the Bolshevization of the revolution.
1. There are two methods that must be employed in whatever work we do. One is to combine the general with the particular; the other is to combine the leadership with the masses.
2. In any task, if no general and widespread call is issued, the broad masses cannot be mobilized for action. But if persons in leading positions confine themselves to a general call—if they do not personally, in some of the units, participate deeply and concretely in the application of this call, make a breakthrough at some single point, gain experience, and afterward use this experience for guiding other units—then they will have no way of testing the correctness or of enriching the content of their general call, and there is the danger that nothing may come of it. . . . This is the method by which the leaders combine leading and learning. No one in a leading position is competent to give general guidance to all the units unless he has studied concrete individuals and events in concrete subordinate units. This method must be promoted everywhere so that leading cadres at all levels learn to apply it.
3. . . . However active the leading group may be, its activity will be transformed into fruitless effort by a handful of people unless combined with the activity of the broad masses. On the other hand, if the broad masses alone are active without a strong leading group to organize their activity properly, such activity cannot be sustained for long, or carried forward in the right direction, or raised to a high level. The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts—the relatively active, the intermediate, and the relatively backward. If we compare these three groups of people, then in general the two extremes are small, while the middle group is large. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements to form a leading group and must rely on this leading group to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements. A leading group that is genuinely united and linked with the masses can be formed only gradually in the process of mass struggle, such as in rectification or study campaigns, and not in isolation from it. . . . In every organization, school, or army unit, whether large or small, we should give effect to the ninth of Stalin’s conditions for the Bolshevization of the party, namely that regarding the establishment of a nucleus of leadership. The criteria for such a leading group should be with the four that Dimitrov enumerated in his discussion of cadre policy—absolute devotion to the cause, contact with the masses, capacity for independent work, and observance of discipline. . . .
5. . . . Many comrades do not see the importance of, or are not good at, drawing together the activists to form a nucleus of leadership, and they do not see the importance of, or are not good at, linking this nucleus of leadership closely with the broad masses, and so their leadership becomes bureaucratic and divorced from the masses. . . . Many comrades rest content with making a general call with regard to a task and do not see the importance of, or are not good at, following it up immediately with particular and concrete guidance, and so their call remains on their lips, or on paper, or in the conference room, and their leadership becomes bureaucratic.
[Chinese Communist Party Central Committee directive, June 1943 (attributed to Mao)]
ON NEW DEMOCRACY
According to the established Communist (Stalinist) view, China was following in the main the path of other societies from feudalism through a bourgeois-democratic revolution to a socialist revolution led by the proletariat. During the earlier period of the Nationalist-Communist collaboration, the latter acknowledged the “bourgeois” Nationalists as the main force of the so-called democratic revolution. In 1940, however, Mao was unwilling to grant such leadership to the Nationalists, even though he conceded that the “democratic” revolution had not yet been completed and the socialist revolution still waited upon it. His On New Democracy—based on Leninist and Stalinist doctrines concerning the nature of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in colonial and semi-colonial countries, and its relation to the anti-imperialist struggle led by the Soviet Union—was Mao’s way of ensuring Communist (“proletarian") leadership for a new type of democratic revolution.
Politically the New Democracy bore little resemblance to Western democracy but conformed rather to Leninist “democratic centralism,” which ensured Communist domination of a multi-class coalition. Economically it involved a moderate program of land reform and nationalization of key industries. It was this moderate program that led some Western observers to think of the Communists as simply “agrarian reformers.” Yet Mao’s writings make it abundantly clear that the Communists had no intention of sharing real power and every intention of pushing on to full socialism.
The Chinese Revolution Is Part of the World Revolution
The historical feature of the Chinese revolution consists in the two steps to be taken, democracy and socialism, and the first step is now no longer democracy in a general sense, but democracy of the Chinese type, a new and special type—New Democracy. How, then, is this historical feature formed? Has it been in existence for the past hundred years, or is it only of recent birth?
If we make only a brief study of the historical development of China and of the world, we shall understand that this historical feature did not emerge as a consequence of the Opium War but began to take shape only after the first imperialist world war and the Russian October Revolution. [pp. 109–110]
After these events, the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution changes its character and belongs to the category of the new bourgeois-democratic revolution and, so far as the revolutionary front is concerned, forms part of the proletarian-socialist world revolution. [pp. 110–111]
This “world revolution” refers no longer to the old world revolution—for the old bourgeois world revolution has long become a thing of the past—but to a new world revolution, the socialist world revolution. Similarly, to form “part” of the world revolution means to form no longer a part of the old bourgeois revolution but of the new socialist revolution. This is an exceedingly great change unparalleled in the history of China and of the world.
This correct thesis propounded by the Chinese Communists is based on Stalin’s theory.
As early as 1918, Stalin wrote in an article commemorating the first anniversary of the October Revolution:
The great worldwide significance of the October Revolution chiefly consists in the fact that:
1. It has widened the scope of the national question and converted it from the particular question of combating national oppression in Europe into the general question of emancipating the oppressed peoples, colonies, and semi-colonies from imperialism.
2. It has opened up wide possibilities for their emancipation and the right path toward it, has thereby greatly facilitated the cause of the emancipation of the oppressed peoples of the West and the East, and has drawn them into the common current of the victorious struggle against imperialism.
3. It has thereby erected a bridge between the socialist West and the enslaved East, having created a new front of revolutions against world imperialism, extending from the proletarians of the West, through the Russian revolution to the oppressed peoples of the Eas
t.5
Since writing this article, Stalin has again and again expounded the theoretical proposition that revolutions in colonies and semi-colonies have already departed from the old category and become part of the proletarian-socialist revolution. [pp. 112–13]
The first step in, or the stage of, this revolution is certainly not, and cannot be, the establishment of a capitalist society under the dictatorship of the Chinese bourgeoisie; on the contrary, the first stage is to end with the establishment of a new-democratic society under the joint dictatorship of all Chinese revolutionary classes headed by the Chinese proletariat. Then the revolution will develop into the second stage so that a socialist society can be established in China. [p. 115]
New-Democratic Politics
As to the question of “political structure” [in the New Democracy], it is the question of the form of structure of political power, the form adopted by certain social classes in establishing their organs of political power to oppose their enemy and protect themselves. Without an adequate form of political power there would be nothing to represent the state. . . . But a system of really universal and equal suffrage, irrespective of sex, creed, property, or education, must be put into practice so that the organs of government elected can properly represent each revolutionary class according to its status in the state, express the people’s will and direct revolutionary struggles, and embody the spirit of New Democracy. Such a system is democratic centralism.6 Only a government of democratic centralism can fully express the will of all the revolutionary people and most powerfully fight the enemies of the revolution.
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 63