The primary source is titled On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, which in itself is already contradictory. A democratic government by classical liberal definition derives legitimacy from consent of the governed while a dictatorship implies absolute power by one party or person and the governed have no say in who governs them. Mao Zedong states in his first paragraph that the end goal of the communist regime is for classes, state power and political parties to cease to exist but in order for that to happen the Communist Party of China needs to have absolute power first. He states that the bourgeoisie do not want communism because they are afraid of being overthrown.
Mao further discusses how China started learning from the West after their defeat in the Opium War because they thought it was the only way to save China from collapsing. That did not fully work for China and the country continued struggling until, through the Russians, the Chinese found Marxism-Leninism. After World War II, the United States remained the only unharmed imperialist power and so they desired to conquer the rest of the world, starting with helping Chiang Kai-shek kill several million Chinese people but the CCP managed drive Japanese Imperialism out of the country by winning the People’s War of Liberation. He then states that China no longer had need for Western teachings of a bourgeois democracy and the only true republic is one led by the working class.
The two fundamental principles are as follows:
1. All the people must unite under the leadership of the working class.
2. Join with other countries sympathetic to the communist cause under a united front.
Mao believes that one is either imperialist or socialist and there is no middle ground one can take and there is no compromise. He also states that in order to achieve their goal, these revolutionaries must not have any hesitance in fighting for socialism. Mao embraces being dictatorial and he states that it is dictatorial to deprive anyone who does not support the communist regime of free speech but it is democratic to give freedom and rights to those he constitutes as “the people”. He states the CCP must be a dictatorship in order to ensure China’s transition to communism. He states that in order to reeducate those who oppose communism, the dictatorial leadership by the CCP is needed.
Mao’s version of communism is different from Marx’s version of communism through a few key points. Marx’s version of communism requires a society to already be a capitalist and industrial one as a society needs their means of production to be able to meet the demands of the society so that when the working class takes over the whole society would still be able to survive. China did not start fully industrialized and instead Mao wanted to force a revolution among the people by making the peasant classes from the rural areas also join in on the revolution. Marx also wanted the working class to rise to the position of the ruling class and Mao states that eventually that is the goal but for now he believes that the CCP should have absolute power over the country until the people are ready for revolution which we will see Mao was never ready to give up power.
Questions
- Are there any further differences in Marx’s version of communism we can see from Mao’s version of communism?
- How does this show us through history, those in power are willing to twist the concepts and words of those before them to fit their needs?
(Au: dangofan)
