The abnormal and contradictory conditions in which the PRC found itself after the civil war were the product of exceptional historical circumstances. It was not possible to find a previous regime in history analogous to it. To Marxists, right from the start, it was clear that the New Democracy contained huge contradictions and would be short-lived. It was a highly precarious regime and at the time only the most farsighted were convinced it could move forward to a clean sweep of capitalism’s remnants and not find itself, willy-nilly on the path of capitulation to imperialism.