10.2 The New Democracy

That Mao’s natural politics and personal ambitions fitted him well for the Popular Front perspective, is testified to by Chen Po-ta in his pamphlet Mao Tse-tung on the Chinese Revolution, written in 1951 and published in a revised edition by FLPH, Peking, in 1963[3]:

After 1927, Mao Tse-tung repeatedly refuted the erroneous ‘Leftist’ ideological trend in relation to the question of the character of the revolution. He considered that the Chinese democratic revolution must be carried through to the end … Mao Tse-tung regarded the opinion then held by the Communist International that the character of the Chinese revolution remained bourgeois-democratic as completely correct. He said, ‘The struggle which we have gone through verifies the truth of the opinion of the Communist International’.

The action programme flowing from Mao’s New Democracy was contained in his report to the 7th National Congress: On Coalition Government.[4] This was a clear and systematic expression of class-collaboration. To preserve Mao’s omnipotence it was re-written subsequently to match actual events. The official version published in Peking in 1955 was significantly different from the original. We know this because the American Communist Party published Mao’s original speech as a pamphlet, The Fight for a New China, in 1945.[5]

It is a law of Marxism that socialism can be attained only via the stage of democracy. And in China the fight for democracy is a protracted one. It would be a sheer illusion to try to build a socialist society on the ruins of the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal order without a united new-democratic state, without the development of the state sector of the new-democratic economy and of the private capitalist and co-operative sectors.[6]

The phrase in italics was added in 1955 and liberally sprinkled throughout the document.

Liu Shaoqi elaborated:

The immediate policy of the Communist Party is to realise completely its minimum programme …. it is known that the Communist Party of China has in addition to its minimum programme, its maximum programme which is not included in the common programme …. In the course of consultation, some delegates proposed to write the future socialism of China into the common programme, but we deem this to be out of place, because the taking of serious socialist steps in China is a thing of the rather far future.[7]

Mao expected the bourgeois-democratic stage to last for generations. The original 1945 version of the report says: “In the entire bourgeois democratic revolution stage, over scores of years, our new democratic general program is unchanged”, and “The carrying out of (the CCP) program will not advance China to socialism. This is not a question of the subjective willingness or unwillingness of certain individuals to do the advancing; it is due to the fact that the objective political and social conditions in China do not permit the advance.” The 1955 version contains neither passage because the laws of Marxism contradicted Mao, the workers’ state was created rather rapidly, not after a protracted time, not after ‘scores of years’.

The theory of revolution in stages leads inevitably to coalition government and class collaboration. Thus, even after the overthrow of the Chiang regime, Mao persisted in maintaining unity with the section of the bourgeoisie which had separated from Chiang and the doomed KMT regime, as one step in realising his New Democracy. This unity was embodied in the Political Consultative Conference, composed of representatives of the CCP, various bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, leading figures from the KMT who had deserted Chiang at the last moment, trade unions and peasant organisations and numerous individuals who represented no-one but themselves. This People’s Government of four classes which defined the general policy of the state was appointed, there was no room in the New Democracy for direct elections by workers’ and peasants’ committees – that smacked too much of Soviets.[8]

In 1945, Mao had been supported by US imperialism when he attempted to achieve a modus vivendi with Chiang, and On Coalition Government reflected this:

We are also grateful to Britain and the United States, particularly the latter, for their immense contribution to the common cause – the defeat of the Japanese aggressors. We are grateful to the governments and the peoples of both countries for their sympathy with the Chinese people and their help. … Large amounts of capital will be needed for the development of our industries. … Enterprises profitable to both the Chinese people and foreigners are swiftly expanding large-scale light and heavy industries and modernizing agriculture, which can become a reality when there is a firm internal and international peace, and when political and agrarian reforms are thoroughly carried out. On this basis, we shall be able to absorb vast amounts of foreign investments. A politically retrogressive and economically impoverished China will be unprofitable not only to the Chinese people, but also to foreigners.

After the onset of the Korean War these paragraphs were removed. With American diplomats, Mao was less reserved:

China must industrialize. This can be done – in China – only by free enterprise and with the aid of foreign capital. Chinese and American interests are correlated and similar. They fit together, economically and politically … The United States would find us more cooperative than the Kuomintang. We will not be afraid of democratic American influence – we will welcome it.[9]

The New Democracy was to be a coalition, but the bourgeoisie in its great majority stuck with the KMT despite its being so decrepit and degenerate and so obviously losing the civil war. On 1 May 1948, the CCP issued an open appeal for allies in a broad united front against the Chiang regime:

Labouring people of the entire country, unite; ally with the intelligentsia, liberal bourgeoisie, all democratic parties and groups, social luminaries and other patriotic elements; consolidate and expand the united front against imperialist, feudal, and bureaucratic capitalist forces; fight together to destroy Kuomintang reactionaries and build a new China. All democratic parties and groups, people’s organizations, and social luminaries, speedily convene a Political Consultative Conference, discuss and carry out the convoking of a People’s Representative Assembly to establish a Democratic Coalition Government![10]

The response from mainland China was almost zero! But from Hong Kong came a cheer. Individuals who had once been leading figures in the KMT but were now refugees saw a chance to re-gain lost prestige and importance, and half a dozen grouplets (mostly no more than a few dozen strong) grasped at the offer. However, there were two small but significant organisations; the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee (led by Li Chi-sen, the KMT general who gained notoriety as the butcher of the Canton Commune in December, 1927 and which had Song Qingling [Mme Sun Yat-sen] as a member), and the Democratic League (representing the cultured middle classes of the cities with support from about 50,000 teachers, professionals and petty-bourgeois intellectuals). Within eighteen months these would provide the staff for many important positions in the New Democracy. The multi-millioned CCP was forming an alliance, not with the Chinese bourgeoisie but with its ghost. These opportunists represented little but themselves, their politics did not differ in any substantial way from Chiang’s; they were attempting to board the gravy train.[11]

Traditionally, the leaderships of Chinese peasant rebellions had compromised with the existing regime. Mao was no different. His call for a bourgeois democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry was an offer to collaborate with the Chinese bourgeoisie. This had been Mao’s stated aim almost from the day he joined the CCP, it was a clear thread through his actions and writings. Supporting the bloc of four classes, Mao was consistently reluctant to use class terms when analysing Chinese society. In March 1926 he classified society in terms of ‘our friends’ (which, naturally, included the left wing of the bourgeoisie), later he would talk in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad gentry’ and now the CCP attempted to divide the ruling bourgeoisie into two mutually antagonistic sections: ‘bureaucratic, feudal and reactionary’, and ‘national, democratic and progressive’.

After the surrender of Japanese imperialism, KMT tyranny and corruption reached a climax. Four families, the Chiang Kai-sheks, the Soongs, the Kungs, and the Chen brothers, who dominated the KMT, expropriated properties of those they designated enemies and traitors, and with low interest government loans soon came to dominate mining, heavy industry (metallurgical, machine tools, electrical, chemical), textiles, sugar, transportation and, of course, banking and overseas trade. Using their political positions they treated these nationalised enterprises as their private domains ensuring they were virtual monopolies, and amassed fabulous fortunes.[12]

The enterprises owned by these four families and their closest associates were designated bureaucratic capital. Bureaucratic capitalists were those who had acquired dominating positions in the economy by exploiting public office or purchased important posts in government using the enormous profits wrung from the economy. The so-called ‘national’ bourgeoisie were those relatively smaller capitalists who, despite their efforts, had been unable to gain a place in the big financial oligarchies. While the four families were certainly oligarchical and reactionary, to designate them as feudal meant concealing the true character of the ruling summit of the entire Chinese bourgeoisie.

Naturally, the four families were up to their ears in all aspects of usury, attracted by its astronomical profits. As finance-capitalists they had close ties with Wall Street and using the four Chinese government banks they gripped the economy by the throat and indulged in a mad orgy of speculation to extract the maximum from the masses in the time left before their inevitable downfall. These bureaucratic capitalists provided capital to the village heads and landlords to loan to the peasants at ruinous rates of interest.[13]

Yes, the national bourgeoisie were dissatisfied with the unbridled domination and corruption of the four families. Yes, they complained about the arbitrariness and unfairness of the government. Yes, they talked about democracy. But they were progressive only to the extent that they would support the New Democracy while it allowed them to retain their property and guaranteed them their profits. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, these democratic national capitalists would reveal their reactionary face and their essential class solidarity with world imperialism. On 1 October 1949, Mao formally proclaimed the Chinese People’s Democratic Republic. The new government was a People’s Front coalition in which the Stalinists joined hands with the national bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie. Part of the price Mao Zedong paid for securing the co-operation of these elements was to abandon the more radical elements of land reform in south China.

However, the character of Mao Zedong and the lessons he learned from the defeats of 1925-27 and the Jiangxi Soviet are important. It is clear that Mao, while genuinely committed to an economy in which the national bourgeoisie had a more or less free hand and there was no monopoly of foreign trade, was even more determined to be the leading figure in the New Democracy. Mao balanced between the bourgeoisie and the workers and peasants during the New Democracy period while concentrating power into his hands, and to achieve this he crushed all signs of an independent workers’ movement.[14]

When the Mao team assumed government of China they had a huge advantage over the Bolsheviks of 1917, having accumulated some 20 years of invaluable experience of administering local government covering many millions of people (taxes, public works, police force, judiciary, armed forces, etc.) under the difficult conditions of a civil war. Thus, when the PLA arrived in south China the CCP had a good understanding of the implications of the decision to retain two million KMT officials in post to continue performing their functions.[15] However, the major difference with the Bolsheviks was not governmental experience nor the relatively large number of trained CCP cadres (Fairbank estimated over half a million) to do this kind of work; rather it was the political perspective of the two parties. The Bolsheviks understood that the personnel inherited from the previous regime were an alien class force that had to be overcome. The CCP saw the personnel they inherited as part of the New Democracy, as collaborators in creating a bourgeois democratic state. The membership of the CCP rose from 2.7 million in 1947 to 5.8 million in 1958, many of the recruits were existing officials, and as they were welcomed into the regime to positions of authority they brought their own methods and perspectives with them.

During this time the Party made a determined attempt to recruit students and intellectuals because their ability to read and write was needed for effective administration. Their skills put these people into relatively senior positions even though they had little or no experience and lacked any formal training in Party ideology. There was considerable tension between these so-called upstarts and their new ways and the domineering attitudes of old cadres, which was one factor motivating Mao to take such an interest in the activities of Chinese intellectuals.[16]

It must not be assumed that the coalition government was stage scenery used to hoodwink the public. Real power remained with the PLA but an important and substantial partner in the governmental coalition was the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang. Li Chi-sen had gathered around himself important elements representing the interests of a section of the Chinese bourgeoisie from south China, bourgeoisie who had deserted Chiang Kai-shek’s sinking ship of state at the last moment. The Revolutionary Committee was the gateway through which they hoped to make their way into the safe haven of the new People’s Republic, hoped to retain their fortunes and, in due time, get back into the political saddle. Li Chi-sen now sat alongside Mao Zedong as one of the six vice-chairmen of the People’s Government.[17]

The initial priority of the New Democracy (October 1949 to June 1950) was clearing away the military remnants of the KMT and suppressing independent activities of the workers and peasants. On the political plane, the CCP assiduously courted the bourgeoisie, landlords and rich peasants, military men and top Kuomintang bureaucrats in an attempt to create the bloc of four classes and reinforce its own power. But simultaneously it had to cover its costs and to do this the government extorted food and money from the only people who had them. They levied severe taxes on all of industry and commerce, forced the bourgeoisie, landlords and rich peasants to buy Victory Bonds, Patriotic Bonds, etc., and appropriated ‘voluntary contributions’ of foodstuffs from the countryside.[18] It has been claimed that even with rent lowered to 37.5% of the crop, the taxes levied by the CCP (and collected much more efficiently) were not much less than paid under the KMT, but were, of course, more evenly distributed.

The reality was that the CCP held the final decision-making power in its hands through complete control of the armed forces, despite having a majority of ministries headed by non-CCP personnel. The bourgeois democratic parties existed only so far as the CCP allowed them to, they were able to influence the policies of the People’s Government only because the CCP wished to maintain bourgeois property relations. Bourgeois representatives were given important positions in the People’s Government on a whole number of levels: vice-presidents, ministers and vice-ministers in the central government, presidents of provincial governments, etc. In contradiction, the working class and poor peasants had to be content with CCP-nominated delegates from trade unions and peasant associations. The number of such delegates was far fewer than those allocated to the so-called democratic parties. Soviets were, of course, not countenanced. Workers were further constrained by being deprived of the right to strike; indeed one of the first activities of the PRC was strike-breaking in the interests of the national bourgeoisie.[19]

As an aside it should be noted that as the PLA swept southward it was particularly rigorous in arresting all known revolutionaries, especially Trotskyists, together with their spouses, siblings, relatives and friends. These people simply disappeared. Many were killed immediately, the remainder imprisoned for decades without trial or public notification.

Formally, the elections to the People’s Congress were based on universal suffrage but the representatives were determined beforehand by the CCP in agreement with the various bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties or groups. In view of the composition of the new regime and its political line it was certainly no bourgeois dictatorship. But it could not be characterised as a proletarian dictatorship either. Rather, it was a distorted form in transition between bourgeois and proletarian dictatorships, but without any certainty that it would actually complete the transition. It has become common practice to designate such a contradictory and transitional form as a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government. This is used in the same sense as it was by the early Communist International – to indicate a regime that had taken anti-capitalist measures but had not broken definitively either politically or economically from the capitalist system.

Mao considered the New Democracy as the Chinese version of Lenin’s Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry (RDDPP). However, the New Democracy was Lenin’s 1905 concept filtered through Stalinism and so the revolutionary content was removed. Indeed, three essential components of the RDDPP were actively suppressed by the CCP: Soviets as the free and democratic expression of the proletariat, peasants and soldiers; proletarian activities in support of the overthrow of the Chiang regime; and independent peasant activities to seize the land.

If a revolutionary Marxist party had gained governmental power in China under the impulse of a proletarian revolution, as happened with Lenin in Russia, then there would have been no doubt about the subsequent dynamics of the regime. Even though the Bolsheviks held power for a short initial period based on a capitalist economy and a capitalist state structure with a petty-bourgeois minority party in the government, it would be correct to say the state form was a dictatorship of the proletariat from October 1917. This was Lenin’s consistent view from 1917 until his death.[20]

But in China the party which had come to power was non-Leninist, class-collaborationist, bureaucratised, had betrayed the revolution in 1927, and had achieved power based on peasant armies with the declared aim of creating a bourgeois democratic state. It had no real base amongst the workers and had no intention of allowing them free trade unions or introducing any direct democracy, certainly not through Soviets. Ted Grant, an eminent Marxist, added three additional important points: a) Mao was a premeditated Stalinist who had consciously incorporated into his ideas and strategy many of the manoeuvres that Stalin had developed empirically in response to the needs of the bureaucracy; b) The “simple and austere life” of the leaders in Yenan (it has since become known that even there the bureaucracy had its privileges) would disappear and those with the power would soon surround themselves with pomp and honours; and c) The state machine developed and controlled by the CCP would be separate from the masses and tower over them as a means of repression, not least to protect the bureaucracy from criticism.[21]

It did not take long for the top bureaucrats to acquire the same trappings as their Russian mentors. A leading member of the Democratic League who was a delegate to the People’s Congress from 1949 to 1956 fled to Hong Kong where he published his memoirs and blew the whistle.[22] The top Party men took the best villas belonging to the richest capitalists, imported luxury furniture and carpets, hired servants and the best chefs, had luxury clothing for private use. There were exclusive cinemas, and dance parties. How the CCP provided cars to Party cadres is an excellent example of the hierarchical system that existed; at the top were a select few who used the same luxury limousines as the Russian Politburo, next came ministers who were supplied with less sumptuous vehicles, and so on down to the departmental bus and individual bicycles. Special residential complexes were built for provincial and municipal Party leaders from which middle and lower ranking Party members were excluded. Similarly with “kitchens”, the food supplied to party personnel; a number of the very top restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai, Tientsin, etc., were reserved for officials such as Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi and their immediate entourages, and then there was a descending order matching rank to restaurant. Extra rations (and the best at that) were sent to the residences of party officials. Naturally, the enormous cost for all this was met by the state – as were summer and seaside holidays.

In the same way that the CCP imported the privilege structure of the USSR so it also copied an ever-present police system. Thousands of Russian experts arrived in China to train agents to implement a network which kept records on all citizens, their work activities, their travel, their visitors, their views, their earnings, what letters and/or parcels they received, and so on.

The working class were hailed as the masters of society while the CCP used its new dominance in the trade unions to establish a general system of compulsory arbitration which enforced the policy that in private industry increased production came first, better conditions might come later. The Party recognised that there could be legitimate conflicts of interest between management and workers and they should be resolved amicably but the factory manager had the final say, whilst those elected by the workers had only a consultative voice. As in the Soviet Union, the Chinese Stalinists made the trade union “a school of production which encourages the productive and positive characteristics of the proletariat.” Defending the interests of the workers was dubbed “leftist adventurism.”[23]

A series of Labour and Capital Consultative Conferences was held to determine how to revive industry and commerce. With government support these consultations accepted the proposals of the industrialists and merchants and concluded that workers and employees in factories and shops should accept lower wages and undertake voluntary unpaid overtime or else return to work on the land in their native provinces. These decisions were then approved by the Political Consultative Conference in May 1950, rubber-stamped by the government, and passed into law.[24]

The bourgeoisie, were the main beneficiaries of this turn, whilst the working class, especially the workers in the private enterprises, were its victims. But all workers were subjected to methods used in the Soviet Union to extract maximum value from their labour: tight control of real wages, longer working hours, and increased exploitation through piece-work and Stakhanovism.

The American Secret Services appraised these CCP policies as having gained wide support amongst Shanghai and Nanjing businessmen who were won over by promises that taxes would not be confiscatory, that governmental enterprises harmful to private enterprises would not be permitted, that workers would not demand excessively high wages, and generally that all means would be used to encourage private industrial production. Among the middle classes, the CCP gained support by paying technical and managerial specialists twice the salary of government officials and giving them more authority within the workplace than they had enjoyed under the KMT.[25]

In early 1950, the Party was forced to recognise serious unrest amongst the peasants in south China. The limits placed on land reform meant the broad mass of peasants believed they were being forced to contribute endless taxes and food for no gain. The situation was made worse because the peasants were well aware of the land re-distribution that had occurred in the north and liberated areas. There was general confusion and sabotage of production, social order was becoming increasingly unsettled. So-called ‘lawless’ landlords were exploiting the uncertainty in the situation to unload their taxes onto their tenants who were being rendered so destitute of food and seed that they could hardly proceed with the spring sowing. Some became so desperate they plundered public stores of foodstuffs. The outbreak of the Korean War gave a boost to the confidence of reactionary elements and KMT agents were able to successfully exploit the situation to kill unpopular CCP cadres.[26]

The regime was failing to meet its agricultural targets and was obliged to change the emphasis of its policy beginning with the Land Reform Law of June 1950. The Act strictly forbade all violence – arrest, beating and/or killing of landlords and rich peasants – but so explosive were conditions in the south that a safety valve had to be introduced to defuse the situation. Under strict Party control, peasants were permitted to struggle against individual ‘vicious autocrats’ whose land could be expropriated.[27] To further appease the peasants the regime did relax its food appropriation measures, and reduced the overall tax burden, but the main policy emphasis remained firmly on the enforcement of reductions in rents and interest rates.

Prior to the Korean War, and despite the increasingly hostile atmosphere, most landlords and rich peasants survived with at least some of their holdings intact and many with most of their land and holdings intact.[28]

1. collections.mun.ca/PDFs/radical/MaoTseTungontheChineseRevolution.pdf

   ↩

2. Mao Zedong, On Coalition Government, April 1945, w.m.org.

   ↩

3. Mao Zedong, The Fight for a New China, New Century Publishers, 1945.

   ↩

4. Mao Zedong, On Coalition Government, 1945, w.m.org.

   ↩

5. Liu Shaoqi, Strengthen the Great Revolutionary Unity of the Chinese People, Sept. 1949, w.m.org.

   ↩

6. Kerry, T. The Mao Myth Pathfinder Press, 1977, p129.

   ↩

7. Service, J. Lost Chance in China, Random House, 1975, p306-07.

   ↩

8. Groot, G. The CCP and United Front Work, 2004, Routledge, p48.

   ↩

9. Woods, A. The Chinese Revolution of 1949, 1 October 2009, w.m.com.

   ↩

10. Moorad, G. Lost Peace in China, E.P. Dutton & Co., 1949, p197-98.

    ↩

11. Mandel, E. The Third Chinese Revolution, 1950, w.m.org.

    ↩

12. Woods, Op. cit.

    ↩

13. Fairbank, J. The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985, Harper Perennial, 1987, p278.

    ↩

14. Twitchett, D. and Fairbank, J. (eds) Cambridge History of China, CUP, 1987, Vol.14, p74.

    ↩

15. Mandel, The Third … Op. cit.

    ↩

16. Peng Shuzi, Report on the Chinese Situation, Education for Socialists, SWP, 1952, p43-47.

    ↩

17. Kerry, The Mao Myth, …Op. cit.

    ↩

18. Roberts, Op. cit. p172-192.

    ↩

19. Grant, T. The Unbroken Thread, Wellred Books, 1989, p301-303.

    ↩

20. Chow Ching-wen, Ten Years of Storm, https://archive.org/details/tenyearsofstormt013586mbp.

    ↩

21. Hsieh Yueh, Mao Tse-tung’s “Revolution”, Report on Chinese Stalinism, 1949, w.m.org.

    ↩

22. Peng Shuzi, Report on … Op. cit.

    ↩

23. CIA Report on Developments in China 1949, ORE 44-49.

    ↩

24. Mandel, The Third… Op. cit.

    ↩

25. Ladejinsky, W. Carrot and Stick in Rural China, Foreign Affairs, 1957, 36(1)91-104.

    ↩

26. Tomlinson, B. The Chinese Revolution and the Peasantry, School of Oriental & African Studies, Univ. of London.

    ↩