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White paper on political democracy (full text)
(china.org.cn)
Updated: 2005-10-19 11:01 I. A Choice Suited to China's Conditions
The experience of political civilization of mankind over a history of several
millenniums is ample proof of the truth that the political system a country
adopts and the road to democracy it takes must be in conformity with the
conditions of that country. The socialist political democracy of China is rooted
in the vast land of fertile soil on which the Chinese nation has depended for
its subsistence and development over thousands of years. It grew out of the
experience of the CPC and the Chinese people in their great practice of striving
for national independence, liberation of the people and prosperity of the
country. It is the apt choice suited to China's conditions and meeting the
requirement of social progress.
China has a history of 5,000 years of civilization. Boasting a splendid
civilization in the same league as those of ancient Egypt, India and Babylon,
China has contributed greatly to the development and progress of mankind. The
Chinese people are industrious, courageous and full of wisdom. It is generally
acknowledged in the world that the Chinese nation has a long, uninterrupted
history and a rich cultural heritage.
China had a long history of feudal society, and when, from 1840 on, the
Western imperialist powers launched, time and again, aggressive wars against
China, the corrupt and weak feudal ruling class buckled, and China was reduced
to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society. For nearly 110 years after that, China
became a target of plunder for almost all the imperialist countries, big and
small. The Chinese nation was plunged into the most dangerous situation:
suffering from invasion by imperialism from the outside and oppression by
feudalism on the inside. The Chinese people had no democratic rights whatsoever.
To change the fate of the country and the nation, generation after generation of
Chinese people rose up and waged heroic struggles, one stepping into the breach
the moment another fell.
In this movement to save China from destruction, some of the elite turned
their eyes to the West for a road that would save the country and the people.
They started a bourgeois democratic revolution in China. The Revolution of 1911,
led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, forerunner of the democratic revolution in China,
brought to an end the autocratic monarchical system that had been in place for
more than 2,000 years. But the bourgeois republic, including the parliamentarism
and multi-party system that were subsequently established after the Revolution
of 1911 in imitation of the mode of Western democracy, did not fulfill the
fervent desire of the Chinese people for independence and democracy. The new
republic soon collapsed under the onslaught of domestic and foreign reactionary
forces. A contemporary said in anger and grief, "Many lives were lost and a lot
of blood was shed, but what we achieved was a counterfeit republic." The Chinese
people had still not shaken off oppression, slavery and exploitation. What was
the way out for China? The Chinese people were pondering, exploring and
struggling in the dark.
Through painstaking exploration and hard struggle, the Chinese people finally
came to realize that mechanically copying the Western bourgeois political system
and applying it to China would lead them nowhere. To accomplish the historic
task of saving China and triumphing over imperialism and feudalism, the Chinese
people needed new thought and new theories to open up a new road for the Chinese
revolution and establish a totally new political system. The important historic
task of leading the Chinese people to find this new road and establish a new
system landed on the shoulders of the Chinese communists. In 1921, some
progressive intellectuals who had studied the ideology of democracy and science
combined Marxism and Leninism with the Chinese workers' movement, and founded
the CPC. After that, under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese revolution
entered the period of New Democracy, characterized by thorough opposition to
imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism. After fighting bravely for
28 difficult years, China finally achieved national independence and the
people's liberation.
As the vanguard of the Chinese working class, the Chinese people and the
Chinese nation, the CPC has taken as its own task the realization and
development of a people's democracy right from the date of its founding. The
goal of the CPC's leadership of the people in revolutionary struggles is to
realize democracy for the overwhelming majority of people, and not just for a
minority of the people. The CPC creatively combines the general truth of
Marxism-Leninism with the actual situation of the Chinese revolution, setting
out such democratic concepts as "democracy for the workers and peasants,"
"people's democracy," and "new democracy," to enrich and develop Marxist
theories on political democracy. In its history, the CPC has adopted many
different organizational forms, such as the congress of workers on strike,
peasants' association, the Soviet of representatives of workers, peasants and
soldiers, the congress of councilors, and the congress of people from all walks
of life. These forms of political democracy were suited to the actual conditions
in China at various periods of time and were able to guarantee that the people
were the masters of the state. These forms of political democracy were a
striking contrast to the ruling system of the Kuomintang, and they reflected the
people's wishes and enjoyed popular support.
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