Basic Experience of the New-Democratic Revolution

That is, the united front, armed struggle and Party building. This is Mao Zedong's scientific summary of the CPC's basic experience in leading China's democratic revolution.

In October 1939, Mao Zedong pointed out in the “Introducing The Communist” that: “The united front, armed struggle and Party building are the Communist Party of China's three magic weapons, its three principal magic weapons for defeating the enemy in the Chinese revolution. This is a great achievement of the Communist Party of China and of the Chinese revolution.” The idea of United Front was part of the political line of the CPC, and it was one of the main magic weapons for the victory of the democratic revolution led by the Party.

In December 1939, in "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China", Mao Zedong pointed out: "The Chinese proletariat should understand that although it is the class with the highest political consciousness and sense of organization, it cannot win victory by its own strength alone. In order to win, it must unite, according to varying circumstances, with all classes and strata that can take part in the revolution and must organize a revolutionary united front. Among all the classes in Chinese society, the peasantry is a firm ally of the working class, the urban petty bourgeoisie is a reliable ally, and the national bourgeoisie is an ally in certain periods and to a certain extent, which is one of the fundamental laws established by China's modern revolutionary history.”

Since Chinese society was a society with two small ends and a large middle, both the proletariat and the landlords and the big bourgeoisie accounted for only a few of the population, and the overwhelming majority of the people were the peasants, the urban petty bourgeoisie and other middle strata. If the proletariat does not strive for and unite these vast strata, the Chinese revolution would not succeed.

China's national revolution and democratic revolution, especially the national revolution, were in line with the interests of the people of all classes. Foreign imperialism oppressed China through its running dogs in China, which made China's national crisis serious, and in a period of time, the direct armed aggression of Japanese imperialism made the people of all classes in the whole country face the desperate situation of national subjugation, which made it possible to establish a broad united front. However, the powerful forces of the enemies of revolution and the struggle between the big bourgeoisie and the proletariat against these middle classes made it necessary for the establishment and development of the United Front to go through a long and arduous struggle. In this process, the Party always adhered to the principle of taking the proletariat as the leader and the alliance of workers and peasants as the foundation.

The Party's leadership over the peasant revolutionary war provided a fundamental guarantee for upholding the leadership of the proletariat. Only on the basis of the strong alliance of workers and peasants formed by armed struggle could it unite with other revolutionary forces and consolidate and expand the United Front.

Handling relations with the bourgeoisie was another important issue in the United Front. According to the national conditions, the Party divided the Chinese bourgeoisie into two parts: the reactionary big bourgeoisie which directly served the capitalists of the imperialist countries, and the national bourgeoisie which could be both revolutionary and flabby. When the national bourgeoisie, or even a certain part of the big bourgeoisie, was likely to come to the revolutionary side in a certain period of time and to a certain extent, the Party would strive for their participation in the United Front, pay attention to maintaining the independence of the proletariat, and implement a revolutionary policy of unity and struggle for unity. And when the Party was forced to split with the bourgeoisie, mainly the big bourgeoisie, they dared to wage a resolute armed struggle against it, and at the same time continued to strive for the sympathy, support or neutrality of the national bourgeoisie.

In accordance with the different characteristics of various social forces in the united front and their different situations at a certain stage of revolutionary development, the Party had stipulated and implemented different policies of developing progressive forces, striving for middle forces and isolating die-hard forces. Thus, the main enemies were isolated and attacked to the greatest extent, all possible allies were united to the greatest extent, the complete victory of the revolution in the whole country was guaranteed, and the revolution was guaranteed to move towards socialism through new democracy.

Armed struggle was also an important part of the political line of the CPC and another important magic weapon of the Chinese revolution. Since the absence of national independence and democratic system in semi-colonial and semi-feudal China, China's reactionary ruling forces always occupied China’s key cities for a long time and exercised autocratic and terrorist rule over the people by means of powerful force. Many cities were then used as the base of foreign imperialism invading China. These special conditions determined that the Chinese revolution could only take the long-term armed struggle as the principal form.

In October 1939, Mao Zedong pointed out in his “Introducing The Communist”: “The principal form of struggle in the Chinese revolution is armed struggle. The history of our Party may be called a history of armed struggle.” Because “in China, without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and that it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph.”

In December 1939, in "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China", Mao Zedong pointed out: "In the face of such enemies, the principal means or form of the Chinese revolution must be armed struggle, not peaceful struggle. For our enemies have made peaceful activity impossible for the Chinese people and have deprived them of all political freedom and democratic rights. … Therefore, it is wrong to belittle armed struggle, revolutionary war, guerrilla war and army work.” And China's armed struggle was a revolutionary war under the leadership of the proletariat with peasants as the main force.

After the independent leadership of the Chinese revolutionary war, the Party used armed struggle to open up revolutionary base areas in rural areas and carried out a thorough anti-feudal land revolution, forming a situation of the existence and development of a number of small Red Regimes surrounded by White Regimes around. The Party gradually shifted the focus of its work to the rural regions and relying on the rural base areas for a long time, it built a new type of people's army with high political awareness, strict discipline and close ties with the masses with the proletarian army building ideology. Under the command of the Party, the army carried out a series of strategies and tactics of the People's War, and in the repeated fighting against the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" and "sweeping away", the Party accumulated and developed victories step by step, transformed the backward countryside into a great and advanced revolutionary position, and finally won the victory of encircling the cities from the countryside and seizing the national power with arms.

Party building was another main magic weapon of Chinese revolution. Since its establishment, the CPC was being guided by Marxist theory for its own actions. In the long and complicated revolutionary struggle, the Chinese Communists represented by Mao Zedong summed up the rich and original revolutionary experience of China with Marxist theory, overcame the mistakes of “Left” and “Right”, and formed the scientific guiding ideology, which is suitable for China's national conditions — Mao Zedong Thought.

The Party closely combined the tasks of the national revolution with those of the democratic revolution, and according to the process of revolutionary development, the Party put forward specific goals and programs of action at each stage, pointing out the direction of victory for the Chinese people, and always strived to maintain close ties with the masses, get the support of the masses, so that the revolutionary enthusiasm and creativity of the masses continue to play and improve.

The Party also paid attention to the ideological construction, the organization construction and the style construction, and the proletarian ideology to overcome various non-proletarian thoughts. It also paid attention to sum up experience, overcome subjectivism, sectarianism and political “Left” and right errors, draw lessons from mistakes and failures, made progress, and finally became the most advanced and powerful leading force in the history of Chinese revolution.

Mao Zedong summed up the historical experience since the founding of the CPC in his "Introducing The Communist", put forward and expounded the relationship among the three magic weapons, pointing out that "the united front and armed struggle are the two basic weapons for defeating the enemy. The united front is a united front for carrying on armed struggle. And the Party is the heroic warrior wielding the two weapons, the united front and the armed struggle, to storm and shatter the enemy's positions. That is how the three are related to each other.”

A correct understanding of the "three magic weapons" and their mutual relations was tantamount to correctly leading the whole Chinese revolution.