p M. I. Sladkovsky (USSR)

p The victory of the People’s Revolution in 1949 ended a long stage in the Chinese people’s national and social struggle. The many years of China’s dependence on the imperialist powers had had their effect: a large section of the top national bourgeoisie had either fallen under the strong influence of foreign capital or was acting as its comprador, siding with the imperialist states against the Chinese people’s national liberation and democratic movement. Since China’s industry was most backward and its bourgeoisie generally weak as a class, its other section, mostly the small and middle bourgeoisie, though favouring an independent, bourgeois-democratic road of development, proved incapable of giving a lead in an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution. Those were the specific conditions which produced the objective need for a united national-democratic front with the working class as the leading force of social development at the very first stage of the revolution. The proletariat, however, was very small, whereas the revolutionary movement had to face the joint forces of foreign imperialism and domestic reaction. So, if the Chinese revolution was to win out, support from the international working class and the world’s progressive forces was another essential: the united revolutionary forces of China and the world proletariat had to confront the combined international forces of counter-revolution in China.

The revolution’s success or failure and the nature of any subsequent socio-economic and political changes depended 8 on whether or not these objective conditions were met. This had a direct and decisive effect on the formation of China’s economic and political structure once the people’s revolution won out.