The State System of People’s Democratic Dictatorship

The people's democratic dictatorship is a state power led by the working class (through the Communist Party), based on the alliance of workers and peasants, which rallies other revolutionary classes, all the people, practices democracy among the people and dictatorship over the enemy. This is the state system of the People's Republic of China. The so-called state system refers to the class nature of the political regime. On May 4, 1939, Mao Zedong put forward the slogan "People's Democratic Republic" and made it the goal of China's New-Democratic Revolution. Then, Mao Zedong further discussed this issue in his works "The Chinese Revolution and the Communist Party of China ", "On New Democracy" and "On Coalition Government". On September 1948, Mao Zedong fully and definitely expressed the people's democratic dictatorship at the Xibaipo meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

Probably, the term "people's democratic dictatorship" first appeared in “The Preface to the Chapter II of the Reprint of Left-wing Communism—An Infantile Disorder” which was published by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee on June 1, 1948.

At the September meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held in 1948, Mao Zedong pointed out: "This is the class nature of our regime: it is led by the proletariat and based on the alliance of workers and peasants, but it is not only workers and peasants, but also the people's democratic dictatorship with the participation of bourgeois democrats.” Here, Mao Zedong formally put forward the concept of "people's democratic dictatorship" at the meeting of the Party Central Committee.

In June 1949, Mao Zedong made a comprehensive and systematic argument on this issue in his article “On People's Democratic Dictatorship”. He pointed out that the people's democratic dictatorship needs the leadership of the working class, since it is only the working class that is most farsighted, most selfless, and most thoroughly revolutionary.

The people's democratic dictatorship in China was then based on the alliance of the working class, the peasantry, and the urban petty bourgeoisie, and mainly on the alliance of the workers and the peasants, because these two classes comprised 80 to 90% of China's population. These two classes were the main force in overthrowing imperialism and the KMT reactionaries. The transition from New Democracy to socialism also depended mainly upon the alliance of these two classes.

Mao Zedong also pointed out: “we must unite with the national bourgeoisie, by utilizing all the factors of urban and rural capitalism that are beneficial and not harmful to the national economy and the people's livelihood. But the national bourgeoisie cannot be the leader of the revolution, nor should it have had the chief role in state power.”

The resolution of the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party and Mao Zedong’s “On People’s Democratic Dictatorship” constituted the basis of the “Common Programme of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference”. The “Common Program” stipulated that the People's Republic of China shall carry out the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class, based on the alliance of workers and peasants, uniting all democratic classes and all nationalities in China.

In China people's democratic dictatorship has gone through two historical periods: firstly, the New Democratic Revolution period and secondly, the socialist revolution and the socialist construction. During the period of the New-Democratic Revolution, the people's democratic dictatorship belonged to the new democratic type of regime. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, it began to carry out the task of socialist revolution and construction, and at the present stage in essence, people's democratic dictatorship is already the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., a realization form of the dictatorship of the proletariat in China.

Both concepts of people and the enemy are historical categories. Mao Zedong pointed out: "At the present stage, the period of building socialism, the classes, strata and social groups which favor, support and work for the cause of socialist construction all come within the category of the people, while the social forces and groups which resist the socialist revolution and are hostile to or sabotage socialist construction are all enemies of the people.”

The “Constitution of the People's Republic of China” stipulates: "The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants." “The socialist system is the fundamental system of the People's Republic of China. Leadership by the Communist Party of China is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. It is prohibited for any organization or individual to damage the socialist system.”