Character of the New-Democratic Revolution

Mao Zedong elaborated on the nature of the new democratic revolution in his work “The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China”. He thought that the character of the Chinese revolution at the present stage was bourgeois democratic revolution, because China was still a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, the chief enemies of the Chinese revolution were imperialism and feudalism, the main tasks were to strike at these two enemies, to carry out a national revolution, to overthrow foreign imperialist oppression and made a democratic revolution to overthrow feudal landlord oppression; and the edge of the revolution was directed against imperialism and feudalism and not against capitalism and capitalist private property in general even if the big bourgeoisie would betray the revolution and become its enemy. Since all this was true, the character of the Chinese revolution at the present stage was not proletarian-socialist but bourgeois-democratic.

However, in that-day the bourgeois-democratic revolution in China was no longer of the old general type, which was now obsolete, but one of a new special type. This New-Democratic Revolution would be an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution of the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat.

The process, begun only after the World War I and the victory of Russian October Revolution, changed the direction of the whole world history and divided the era of the whole world history. In this new era of proletarian revolution, any revolution of the colonial and semi-colonial people against imperialism would be no longer an ally of the world capitalist counterrevolutionary front, but an ally of the world socialist revolutionary front and a part of the world proletarian socialist revolution.

After the May Fourth movement, the Chinese proletariat became an independent political force, and the political leader of China's bourgeois-democratic revolution was no longer the bourgeoisie but the proletariat.

Mao Zedong, accordingly, pointed out: "What is the character of the Chinese revolution at the present stage? Is it a bourgeois-democratic or a proletarian-socialist revolution?”

The character of the Chinese revolution at the present stage was bourgeois-democratic, and it could not exceed the scope of the bourgeois democratic revolution. It was not time to destroy the private property system of the bourgeoisie in general, but imperialism and feudalism, and this was called the bourgeois-democratic revolution. However, the bourgeoisie was no longer able to complete this revolution, and it could only be completed with the broad masses of the people under the leadership of the proletariat.

Why was the nature of the revolution in the present stage “bourgeois democratic” then? Mao explained: “The target of this revolution is not the bourgeoisie in general but national and feudal oppression, that the measures taken in this revolution are in general directed not at abolishing but at protecting private property, and that as a result of this revolution the working class will be able to build up the strength to lead China in the direction of socialism, though capitalism will still be enabled to grow to an appropriate extent for a fairly long period.”