Culture of New Democracy

In the article "On New Democracy", Mao Zedong systematically analyzed characteristics of the struggle in China’s cultural front and said: that  the two periods preceding and following the May 4th Movement form two distinct historical periods.

Before the May 4th Movement, the struggle on China’s cultural front was the struggle between the new culture of the bourgeoisie and the old culture of the feudal class. But this old-bourgeois democratic culture of the old period became enervated and decayed in the era of imperialism, and its failure was inevitable. But since the May 4th Movement things became different. A brand-new cultural force came into being in China, that is, the communist culture and ideology guided by the Chinese Communists, or the communist world views and theory of social revolution.

Mao Zedong clearly pointed out the differences in nature between the two cultures before and after the May 4th Movement: Prior to the May 4th Movement, China's new culture was a culture of the old-democratic kind and part of the capitalist “Cultural Revolution” of the world bourgeoisie. Since the May 4th Movement, it has become new-democratic and part of the socialist “Cultural Revolution” of the world proletariat. Since the May 4th Movement, it has become new-democratic and part of the socialist “Cultural Revolution” of the world proletariat. On the basis of the above-mentioned cultural analysis and combining with the political and economic development of China since the May 4th Movement, Mao Zedong put forward the CPC's fundamental proposition and struggle goal of cultural construction and development in the period of the New-Democratic Revolution, namely the cultural program of New Democracy. He said: “The new-democratic culture is the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal culture of the broad masses; today it is the culture of the Anti-Japanese United Front. This culture can be led only by the culture and ideology of the proletariat, by the ideology of communism, and not by the culture and ideology of any other class. In a word, new-democratic culture is the proletarian-led, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal culture of the broad masses.” He added: China's new culture cannot do without the leadership of proletarian culture and ideology, of communist ideology. This is the fundamental difference between the culture of the new democratic nature and the culture of the old democratic nature.

During the period of the old democratic revolution, the new bourgeois culture played a positive role in the struggle against feudalism. At the time, the ideology of the new learning played a revolutionary role in fighting the Chinese feudal ideology… However, because the Chinese bourgeoisie lacked strength and the world had already entered the era of imperialism, this bourgeois ideology was only able to last out a few rounds and was beaten back by the reactionary alliance of the enslaving ideology of foreign imperialism and the "back to the ancients" ideology of Chinese feudalism; thus the old bourgeois-democratic culture failure was inevitable. As Mao Zedong revealed: "Before the May 4th Movement, China's new cultural movement and China's bourgeois-democratic revolution were led by the bourgeoisie, which still had a leading role to play. After the May 4th Movement, its culture and ideology became even more backward than its politics and were incapable of playing any leading role; at most, they could serve to a certain extent as an ally during revolutionary periods, while inevitably the responsibility for leading the alliance rested on proletarian culture and ideology. This is an undeniable fact”. The issue of proletarian revolutionary ideology's leadership over culture is the fundamental feature of the new democratic culture, and Mao Zedong's guiding principles and guidelines on the construction of new democratic culture played an important historical role in the development of China's new culture and still have positive practical enlightenment significance.