Economic Programme of the New-Democratic Revolution

The three major economic policies of the New-Democratic Revolution, namely, confiscating the land of the feudal class, confiscating monopoly (bureaucratic) capital, and protecting national industry and commerce, were important components of the New-Democratic Revolution theory as a part of Mao Zedong Thought. The New-Democratic Economic Program was formulated on the basis of the fundamental nature and characteristics of China's New-Democratic Revolution.

Mao Zedong systematically explained the economic tasks and objectives of the CPC in the New-Democratic Revolution in his articles "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China", "On New Democracy", "On Coalition Government" and "The Present Situation and Our Tasks."

In his “On New Democracy” in January 1940, Mao Zedong summarized the Party's economic program of New Democracy as follows: “Big banks and the big industrial and commercial enterprises will be owned by the state of this (New-Democratic) Republic.” Mao said that “In the new-democratic republic under the leadership of the proletariat, the state enterprises will be of a socialist character and will constitute the leading force in the whole national economy”; “The republic will take certain necessary steps to confiscate the land of the landlords and distribute it to those peasants having little or no land, carry out Dr. Sun Yat-sen's slogan of ‘land to the tiller’, abolish feudal relations in the rural areas, and turn the land over to the private ownership of the peasants.”

In December 1947, in "The Present Situation and Our Tasks", Mao further summarized this issue considering the development of the situation, pointing out: “Confiscate the land of the feudal class and turn it over to the peasants. Confiscate monopoly capital, headed by Chiang Kai-shek, T. V. Soong, H. H. Kung and Chen Li-fu, and turn it over to the new-democratic state. Protect the industry and commerce of the national bourgeoisie. These are the three major economic policies of the New-Democratic Revolution.” Here the monopoly capital is “popularly known in China as bureaucrat-capital”.

Mao Zedong argued that the new democratic revolution developed on the basis of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society was a democratic republic under the joint dictatorship of all anti-imperialist and anti-feudal people led by the proletariat. The task of the New-Democratic Revolution was then to abolish exploitation and oppression by the landlord class and bureaucratic bourgeois class at home and by the imperialism abroad. Since the four families headed by Chiang Kai-shek formed a bureaucratic capital monopoly group, the task of revolution was to step up the opposition to bureaucratic capitalism but not to destroy the capitalist elements that could still participate in anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism. Therefore, economically, on the one hand, it was required to eliminate the feudal land ownership and implement the peasant land ownership; on the other hand, it was necessary to strictly distinguish the two parts of the Chinese bourgeoisie, namely, the bureaucrat comprador bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

The comprador, feudal and monopolistic bureaucrat capitalism, which was fostered by imperialism and attached to and served imperialism, was subject to the policy of compulsory confiscation, that is, elimination.

For the national bourgeoisie, which had no ties, or comparatively few, with imperialism, i.e., was oppressed by the landlords and big bourgeoisie and their state power, the policy of uniting and protecting its development was adopted to benefit the national economy and the people's livelihood. The reason for adopting such a policy was that the bureaucratic bourgeoisie was not only a reactionary ruler in politics, but also a serious obstacle to the development of China's social productive forces in economy, so that the national bourgeoisie was the object of oppression and exclusion, and it was an important factor in promoting the development of social productive forces in connection with the advanced mode of production and one of the driving forces of China's new democratic revolution.