The state system—joint dictatorship of all revolutionary classes. The political structure—democratic centralism. This is new-democratic government; this is a republic of New Democracy, the republic of the anti-Japanese united front, the republic of the new Three People’s Principles with the three cardinal policies, and the Republic of China true to its name. [p. 121]
New-Democratic Economy
We must establish in China a republic that is politically new-democratic as well as economically new-democratic.
Big banks and big industrial and commercial enterprises shall be owned by this republic.
Enterprises, whether Chinese-owned or foreign-owned, that are monopolistic in character or that are on too large a scale for private management, such as banks, railways, and airlines, shall be operated by the state so that private capital cannot dominate the livelihood of the people. This is the main principle of the control of capital.
This was also a solemn statement contained in the Manifesto of the First National Congress of the Nationalists during the period of the Nationalist-Communist cooperation; this is the correct objective for the economic structure of the new-democratic republic under the leadership of the proletariat. The state-operated industries are socialist in character and constitute the leading force in the national economy as a whole; but this republic does not take over other forms of capitalist private property or forbid the development of capitalist production that “cannot dominate the livelihood of the people,” for China’s economy is still very backward.
This republic will adopt certain necessary measures to confiscate the land of landlords and distribute it to those peasants having no land or only a little land, carry out Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s slogan of “land to the tillers,” abolish the feudal relations in the rural areas, and turn the land into the private property of the peasants. In the rural areas, rich peasant economic activities will be tolerated. This is the line of “equalization of land ownership.” The correct slogan for this line is “land to the tillers.” In this stage, socialist agriculture is in general not yet to be established, though the various types of cooperative enterprises developed on the basis of “land to the tillers” will contain elements of socialism. [p. 122]
New-Democratic Culture
A given culture is the ideological reflection of the politics and economy of a given society. There is in China an imperialist culture, which is a reflection of the control of imperialism over China politically and economically. This part of culture is advocated not only by the cultural organizations run directly by the imperialists in China but also by a number of shameless Chinese. All culture that contains a slave ideology belongs to this category. There is also in China a semi-feudal culture, which is a reflection of semi-feudal politics and economy and has as its representatives all those who, while opposing the new culture and new ideologies, advocate the worship of Confucius, the study of the Confucian canon, the old ethical code, and the old ideologies. Imperialist culture and semi-feudal culture are affectionate brothers, who have formed a reactionary cultural alliance to oppose China’s new culture. This reactionary culture serves the imperialists and the feudal class and must be swept away. [p. 141]
Some Errors on the Question of the Nature of Culture
So far as national culture is concerned, the guiding role is fulfilled by Communist ideology, and efforts should be made to disseminate socialism and communism among the working class and to educate, properly and methodically, the peasantry and other sections of the masses in socialism. [p. 152]
A National, Scientific, and Mass Culture
New-democratic culture is national. It opposes imperialist oppression and upholds the dignity and independence of the Chinese nation. . . . China should absorb on a large scale the progressive cultures of foreign countries as an ingredient for her own culture; in the past we did not do enough work of this kind. We must absorb whatever we today find useful, not only from the present socialist or new-democratic cultures of other nations, but also from the older cultures of foreign countries, such as those of the various capitalist countries in the age of enlightenment. However, we must treat these foreign materials as we do our food, which should be chewed in the mouth, submitted to the working of the stomach and intestines, mixed with saliva, gastric juice, and intestinal secretions, and then separated into essence to be absorbed and waste matter to be discarded—only thus can food benefit our body; we should never swallow anything raw or absorb it uncritically. So-called wholesale Westernization7 is a mistaken viewpoint. China has suffered a great deal in the past from the formalist absorption of foreign things. Likewise, in applying Marxism to China, Chinese Communists must fully and properly unite the universal truth of Marxism with the specific practice of the Chinese revolution; that is to say, the truth of Marxism must be integrated with the characteristics of the nation and given a definite national form before it can be useful; it must not be applied subjectively as a mere formula. . . .
Communists may form an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal united front for political action with certain idealists and even with religious followers, but we can never approve of their idealism or religious doctrines. A splendid ancient culture was created during the long period of China’s feudal society. To clarify the process of development of this ancient culture, to throw away its feudal dross, and to absorb its democratic essence is a necessary condition for the development of our new national culture and for the increase of our national self-confidence; but we should never absorb anything and everything uncritically. . . . [pp. 153–155]
[Mao, Selected Works, 3: 109–155]
The Twofold Task of the Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party
To complete China’s bourgeois-democratic revolution (the new-democratic revolution) and to prepare to transform it into a socialist revolution when all the necessary conditions are present—that is the sum total of the great and glorious revolutionary task of the Communist Party of China. All members of the party should strive for its accomplishment and should never give up halfway. Some immature Communists think that we have only the task of the democratic revolution at the present stage but not that of the socialist revolution at the future stage; or that the present revolution or the agrarian revolution is in fact the socialist revolution. It must be emphatically pointed out that both views are erroneous. Every Communist must know that the whole Chinese revolutionary movement led by the Chinese Communist Party is a complete revolutionary movement embracing the two revolutionary stages, democratic and socialist, which are two revolutionary processes differing in character, and that the socialist stage can be reached only after the democratic stage is completed. The democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable trend of the democratic revolution. And the ultimate aim of all Communists is to strive for the final building of socialist society and communist society.
[Mao, Selected Works, 3: 100–101]
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY
The Dictatorship of the People’s Democracy was written for the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Communist Party, July 1, 1949, on the eve of the complete conquest of mainland China. In the main it conforms to the principles laid down in On New Democracy, affirming that the new government would continue to represent a coalition of classes under the proletarian leadership of the Communist Party. The present text is noteworthy, however, for its clear definition of what democracy and dictatorship were to represent under the new regime—a definition based on concepts set forth by Lenin much earlier.
After a historical resume demonstrating the indispensability of Marxism-Leninism and Communist leadership to the Chinese revolution, Mao takes up hypothetical objections to Communism and answers them in his typical catechetical fashion. The key question here concerns its dictatorial character, which Mao does not deny, and the key distinction he draws is a political one, subsuming economic class distinctions, between the “people” (those who accept Commu
nist leadership) and the “reactionaries” (those who do not).
People’s Democratic Dictatorship
“You are dictatorial.” Dear sirs, you are right; that is exactly what we are. The experience of several decades, amassed by the Chinese people, tells us to carry out the people’s democratic dictatorship. That is, the right of reactionaries to voice their opinions must be abolished and only the people are allowed to have the right of voicing their opinions.
Who are the “people"? At the present stage in China, they are the working class, the peasant class, the petty bourgeoisie, and national bourgeoisie. Under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party, these classes unite together to form their own state and elect their own government [so as to] carry out a dictatorship over the lackeys of imperialism—landlord class, the bureaucratic capitalist class, and the Nationalist reactionaries and their henchmen representing these classes—to suppress them, allowing them only to behave properly and not to talk and act wildly. If they talk and act wildly, their actions will be prohibited and punished immediately. The democratic system is to be carried out within the ranks of the people, giving them freedom of speech, assembly, and association. The right to vote is given only to the people and not to the reactionaries. These two aspects—namely, democracy among the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries—combine to form the people’s democratic dictatorship.
Why should it be done this way? Everybody clearly knows that otherwise the revolution would fail, and the people would meet with woe and the state would perish.
“Don’t you want to eliminate state authority?” Yes, but we do not want it at present, we cannot want it at present. Why? Because imperialism still exists, the domestic reactionaries still exist, and classes in the country still exist. Our present task is to strengthen the apparatus of the people’s state, which refers mainly to the people’s army, people’s police, and people’s courts, for the defense of the country and the protection of the people’s interests; and with this as a condition, to enable China to advance steadily, under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party, from an agricultural to an industrial country, and from a new democratic to a socialist and communist society, to eliminate classes and to realize the state of universal fraternity. The army, police, and courts of the state are instruments by which classes oppress classes. To the hostile classes the state apparatus is the instrument of oppression. It is violent and not “benevolent.” “You are not benevolent.” Just so. We decidedly will not exercise benevolence toward the reactionary acts of the reactionaries and reactionary classes. Our benevolence applies only to the people, and not to the reactionary acts of the reactionaries and reactionary classes outside the people.
Future of the Reactionaries
After their political regime is overthrown, the reactionary classes and the reactionary clique will also be given land and work and a means of living; they will be allowed to reeducate themselves into new persons through work, provided they do not rebel, disrupt, or sabotage. If they are unwilling to work, the people’s state will compel them to work. Propaganda and educational work will also be carried out among them and, moreover, with care and adequacy, as we did among captured officers. This can also be called “benevolent administration,” but we shall never forgive their reactionary acts and will never let their reactionary activity have the possibility of free development. . . .
The grave problem is that of educating the peasants. The peasants’ economy is scattered. Judging by the experience of the Soviet Union, it requires a very long time and careful work to attain the socialization of agriculture. Without the socialization of agriculture, there will be no complete and consolidated socialism. And to carry out the socialization of agriculture a powerful industry with state-owned enterprises as the main component must be developed. The state of the people’s democratic dictatorship must step by step solve this problem (of the industrialization of the country).
[Brandt, Schwartz, and Fairbank, Documentary History, pp. 456–458]
1. Cf. Mao on this point, in his Hunan report, pp. 408–409.
2. Hunan was then the storm center of the peasant movement in China. Unless otherwise noted, footnotes in these selections are from the official text. [Ed.]
3. These were the virtues of Confucius, as described by one of his disciples.
4. J. V. Stalin, On the Perspective of the Revolution in China, as translated in Political Affairs (New York, December 1950), p. 29.
5. J. V. Stalin, Works, English ed. (Moscow, 1953), 4: 169–170.
6. According to an earlier definition of Mao’s, in his report “The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War,” democratic centralism in the party consists in the following principles: (1) that individuals must subordinate themselves to the organization; (2) that the minority must subordinate itself to the majority; (3) that the lower level must subordinate itself to the higher level; and (4) that the entire membership must subordinate itself to the Central Committee. “Whether in the army or in the local organizations, democracy within the party is meant to strengthen discipline and raise fighting capacity, not to weaken them” (Selected Works 2: 254–255). [Ed.]
7. A view advanced by a number of the Chinese bourgeois scholars completely enslaved by antiquated individualist bourgeois Western culture. They recommend so-called wholesale Westernization, which means “imitating the capitalist countries of Europe and America in everything.”
Chapter 35
CHINESE COMMUNIST PRAXIS
In addition to the clear projection of his revolutionary goals, Mao gave close attention to revolutionary education. Although the content of this education was mostly Leninist and Stalinist—and when he came to power a Stalinist curriculum largely replaced the so-called bourgeois education transplanted from the West in the first half of the century—the keynote of Mao’s educational program was training and indoctrination for revolutionary class struggle. In that Mao consciously rejected Confucianism—and saw it (along with Western liberalism) as his nemesis to the bitter end of the Cultural Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies—his program for the ideological remolding of the Chinese people explicitly rejected Confucian humanist universalism and moral self-cultivation in favor of intense class consciousness and class struggle. Nevertheless, Mao’s primary emphasis was on the training of leadership cadres, and even though this new elite was urged to keep in close touch with the masses, one can see how Mao’s vision was refracted by significant inherited assumptions from the past—the crucial importance of moral education and the key role of trained leaders—as well as by influences from the more recent past, e.g., the renewing of the people in Liang Qichao’s sense of their active participation in the political process (less prominent in traditional Confucianism).
Much of Mao’s early success is attributable to the methodical and systematic way he went about the training and indoctrination of party cadres throughout the thirties and forties. And after the failure of his grandiose economic programs of the fifties, it was to the renewal and intensification of this naked revolutionary morality, stripped of all traditional culture, that Mao turned in a bootstrap effort to salvage his situation. Indeed, one can say, in the last years of the twentieth century, that the loss of this early revolutionary élan and discipline remains a key problem for Mao’s successors in the Communist regime.
In this and the next chapter, along with the writings of Mao and his cohorts, we include certain counterpoints to their claims made by others who were skeptical of them, in order to show that all was not well at a time when much of the world was hearing only of Mao’s successes. In this light, the latter may be seen primarily as the successes of a master of propaganda and systematic indoctrination: the “Great Teacher,” as he was called.
LIU SHAOQI: HOW TO BE A GOOD COMMUNIST
Liu Shaoqi (1900–1969), a veteran Communist who had joined the Party in 1921, the year of its founding, was one of Mao’s closest coworkers and spoke with an auth
ority second only to Mao’s. When the People’s Republic was established in 1949, Liu became vice-chairman of the Central People’s Government, and after Mao relinquished the chairmanship in 1959, Liu succeeded to it. Subsequently, however, the two fell out, and Liu became a prime target of the Cultural Revolution.
How to Be a Good Communist was a basic text of indoctrination for party members, delivered first as a series of lectures in July 1939, at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Yan’an. It represents one aspect of the campaign for tightening party discipline and strengthening orthodoxy that was pressed in the late thirties and early forties in order to ensure the proper assimilation of new recruits, growing rapidly in number, and the maintenance of party unity along orthodox Leninist lines.
The original Chinese title of the work was literally translated as The Cultivation of Communist Party Members. Both the title and Liu’s frequent reference to earlier Chinese concepts of self-cultivation suggest a link with Chinese tradition, most specifically with Neo-Confucian praxis based on the Great Learning, the Mean, and self-examination through quiet-sitting. Plainly, Liu aims to tap the moral idealism and self-discipline fostered by the preexisting tradition, but he also warns against the subjective individualism and spiritual autonomy implicit in the Neo-Confucian cultivation of sagehood. Hence his insistence that Communist self-criticism remain subject to group discipline and party authority. From this, self-criticism became an instrument of widespread repression and persecution in Chinese Communist Party ideological campaigns and the Cultural Revolution. For Liu, however, the passage ends on a note of complete faith in the perfecting of human society through the victory of Communism.
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 64