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Sun Vat-sen’s Views on China’s Ways of Development

p Sun Yat-sen’s ideas had a powerful influence on the revolution of 1925-27. At the time, his ideas differed on many essential points from those he had advocated at the start of the century. Here are the concrete historical factors that had a strong impact on the evolution of the views of the great revolutionary democrat, who called himself a socialist throughout his entire socio-political career:

p a) the failure of the 1911-13 bourgeois-democratic revolution owing to the fact that his party had no social basis or links with the working masses, the peasantry and the emerging working class;

p b) the collapse of all illusions about the possibility of building a “prosperous democratic state" in China with the aid of the capitalist powers and without any social revolution at all; and 

p c) the revolutionary experience of Soviet Russia, of whose “methods, organisation and training of Party members" he urged a study, if there was to be any “hope of victory".^^1^^

p The programme for building a “republic of people’s sovereignty”, based on Sun Yat-sen’s “three people’s principles”, which he had constructed with due regard for the historical factors listed above, was set out in the Manifesto of the First National Congress of the Kuomintang (January 23, 1924). Its main provisions were: 

p a) “power shall belong to the masses instead of a select few; ... these rights should not be heedlessly granted to the Republic’s enemies; . .. none of those who betray their country and harm the people to suit the imperialists and militarists should be allowed the use of such rights and freedoms”; 

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p b) “equalisation of land and regulation of capital. ... The state should enact a land law, a law for the utilisation of land, a land expropriation law, a land taxation law”; 

p c) “private industries, whether belonging to Chinese or foreign nationals, which are either monopolistic in character or beyond the capacity of private individuals to develop, such as banking, railways, and navigation, shall be undertaken by the state, so that private-owned capital shall not control the economic life of the people."^^2^^

p That was a bourgeois-democratic programme, and it was well in line with that stage of the Chinese revolution. Besides providing for a partial elimination of feudal relations, it also sought to curb monopoly capital.

p A point to note, however, is that the Manifesto of the first Kuomintang congress, in which the Chinese Communists took an active part, laid down the task further to develop “popular sovereignty”, for which purpose the Kuomintang was to “promote the development of the peasants’ and workers’ movement ... and to enlist workers and peasants in its ranks, so as to take joint action to further the cause of the national revolution”. The Manifesto also emphasised that the Kuomintang was “engaged upon a determined struggle against imperialism and militarism, against the classes opposed to the interests of the peasants and labourers".^^3^^ These statements, however, did not immediately follow from the part of the programme which determined the future of political power in China without pledging to ensure the working people’s class interests or their participation in government. These contradictions in the Manifesto reflected the uneven political complexion of the first Kuomintang congress and the essential differences in the attitudes of the CPC, the Kuomintang’s Left wing (Liao Chung-kai) and its Right wing (Hu Han-ming and Tai Chitao).

p In his closing speech at the Congress, Sun Yat-sen admitted the weakness of the adopted programme. He said: “The programme we have worked out is bound to have its drawbacks. Those present here are subsequently sure to change their opinion on one matter or another. It would not do to say, therefore, that everything we have now outlined is absolutely perfect and flawless."^^4^^

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p In a subsequent speech dealing with the ways to carry out the “three people’s principles”, Sun Yat-sen said: “In Russia, the three people’s principles have won out completely. And China, what will it look like once the three people’s principles have won out here as well? This seems hard to imagine, but a closer look at present-day Russia will make everything clear."^^5^^

p Sun Yat-sen was also a strong advocate of the Russian workers’ revolutionary methods in attaining their goals. He said: “A few years ago, when the Russian workers, having set up a powerful organisation, overthrew the tsar, changed the political system and established their own dictatorship, they barred the capitalists from taking part in political government."^^6^^

p With the Russian revolution in mind, Sun Yat-sen wrote: “If the existing economic problems are to be solved, all economic oppression must be eliminated. The Chinese workers have stronger positions than the Chinese capitalists, so what is there to prevent them from throwing off the economic yoke?"^^7^^

Consequently, all of Sun Yat-sen’s theoretical and practical work in his later years shows that he thought it not only possible but necessary for China to make the greatest use of the USSR’s revolutionary experience.

Main Features of the Socio-Economic System in Kuomintang China

p Once the Right-wingers headed by Chiang Kai-shek took over upon the failure of the 1925-27 Revolution, the Kuomintang dropped the revolutionary principles of Sun Yat-sen’s doctrine.

p The Kuomintang regime was a dictatorship of the big comprador bourgeoisie in alliance with the rural landowners. The alliance was made easier by the fact that many members of the big bourgeoisie were also landowners. At the time China’s political system was a dictatorship of the reactionary Kuomintang leaders. They usurped the people’s democratic rights, declaring that the people were not yet prepared to exercise these rights (the “tutelage” period). Under the Kuomintang’s “Organic Law" (provisional 11 constitution), the country’s President and State Council were not elected by the people but appointed by the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee. All power in the party itself centred in a small ruling group: under a decision of the Fourth Plenary Session of the CEC of the Kuomintang (January and February 1928), all its provincial and local committees were dissolved and local government was carried on by representatives of the central organs. The Right-wing Kuomintang Government followed a policy of brutal terrorism as regards the national-democratic forces and waged an armed struggle against the Soviet areas set up by the CPC in Southern China. All democratic public organisations not directly subordinate to the Kuomintang were banned.

p In industry, trade and finance, the Kuomintang Government aimed to establish a monopoly of state bureaucratic capital. The higher government officials were in charge of large state funds and foreign-currency loans. These were ostensibly used to set up new state monopolies, which were, in fact, run by the bureaucratic elite.

p This form of “state” capital, which has gone down in Chinese history as “bureaucratic capital”, hampered private enterprise, went against the interests of the national bourgeoisie and acted as a brake on the country’s economic development.

p A point to note is that a sizable part of the bureaucratic capital did not go into production, but was either channelled into the sphere of circulation or hoarded by bureaucrats mostly on their accounts in foreign banks abroad. The Kuomintang Government intended to industrialise the country with the aid of foreign, above all US, capital.

p Anti-Sovietism was one of the Kuomintang’s main foreign policy lines. Chiang Kai-shek maintained that “Red imperialism is more dangerous than White imperialism, because the former is harder to detect."^^8^^ On this principle his clique’s policy as regards the imperialist states was either one of outright alliance (the USA and Britain) or of compromise and “appeasement” (Japan). At the same time, having staged an anti-Soviet provocation on the Chinese-Eastern Railway (CER) and provoked clashes on the Chinese-Soviet border, it finally brought about a severing of ChineseSoviet diplomatic relations.

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p After the Second World War, US capital sought to replace the defeated Japanese . imperialists and so to keep China under foreign domination. The US-Chinese trade treaty of November 4, 1946 granted US monopoly capital in China equal rights with the weaker national capital, which gave it an overwhelming advantage over the latter. The Chinese historian, Chin Pen-li, wrote: “Under this treaty, the US imperialists got the power of unlimited control not only over the economy, but also over China’s politics and army."^^9^^

p Under the Kuomintang regime, both before Japan’s invasion of China and after its defeat, China, though proclaimed a sovereign state, was still fettered with external economic and political dependence. Its economic ties with other states were largely maintained through the monopoly agencies of bureaucratic capital, whom Kuomintang laws had given charge of the country’s export resources and control of its imports.

p As a result, bureaucratic capital became the economic mainstay of the dictatorship of the Kuomintang elite, while national private enterprise was being increasingly pushed into the background and was losing its positions in the country’s economic and political affairs.

In the 20 years of the Kuomintang regime, China did not have any constitution and its people were deprived of elementary democratic rights. The regime had no backing among the national bourgeoisie, to say nothing of the working people. It was rejected by the bulk of Chinese society and continued in power only through plentiful military and economic aid from US imperialism.

Mao Tse-tung’s Bourgeois-Nationalistic Doctrine of “New Democracy"

p By the 1940s, the Communist Party of China, now headed by Mao Tse-tung, had begun to give way to nationalistic tendencies and in its practical activity to drift away from Marxism-Leninism and co-operation with the Soviet Union and the international communist movement. In 1940, Mao Tse-tung sought to give theoretical backing to the idea that the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the state in the period of transition from capitalism to communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat was unacceptable for China. He 13 rejected Lenin’s proposition that “the transition from capitalism to communism is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat”^^10^^, and maintained that the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat was only fit for capitalist countries, but not for colonial or semi-colonial countries, China included.

p Mao Tse-tung classed the world’s republican regimes under three heads: 1) republics of bourgeois dictatorship; 2) republics of proletarian dictatorship, and 3) republics of joint dictatorship by several classes.^^11^^ Considering these types of statehood to be a product of historical development from the nationalist rather than the class stand, he failed to take account of the international nature either of imperialism or the revolutionary anti-imperialist forces. Both in theory and practice, he went against Lenin’s conclusion that “with the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage".^^12^^

p Making too much of the “specifics” of the Chinese national bourgeoisie, Mao Tse-tung said: “The Chinese democratic republic that is to be built can be nothing but a democratic republic of joint dictatorship of all the country’s anti-imperialist and anti-feudal elements. It will be a republic of new democracy... . The republic of new democracy also differs from socialist republics of the USSR type, the latest republics of the dictatorship of the proletariat."^^1^^^

p Mao Tse-tung’s statements show that he identified the new democracy period with the transition period, which, to quote Marx, lies “between capitalist and communist society".^^14^^ He believed that power in China at that period would take the form of a dictatorship of several “democratic classes”, rather than Marx’s revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.^^15^^

p According to Mao Tse-tung, the “democratic classes" that were to wield political power were the peasantry, the working class and the national bourgeoisie, the peasantry being “the main basis for a democratic regime in China".^^16^^ The role of the working class was only mentioned in general terms. He conceded that the working class was the “most conscious political class”, but refused to recognise its leading 14 role in any “new democratic state”. In his opinion, the national bourgeoisie, if “appropriately regulated”, could join the working class and the peasantry in “completing the establishment of a political system, economy and culture in a state of new democracy”.

p Mao Tse-tung refused to reckon with the mounting antagonistic class contradictions under capitalism and attributed the vices of capitalism to the reactionary ideology of the monopoly bourgeoisie rather than to private property in the means of production. Restrictions, he said, should only be imposed on the big bourgeoisie, which owned the banks, railways, airlines, and so on, but not on the capitalist mode of production itself. He said that the “foreign and feudal yoke in China fettered the initiative and development of private capital”, so that it was the task of the “new democratic system to remove these fetters, end this destruction and ensure the free development of the broad masses’ initiative, so as to create the conditions for the free development of private capital.... The new democratic system must also ensure the protection of legitimate private property”.

p In urging the development of private capitalist enterprise, he did not set before the Party any tasks for the social emancipation of the working class. In a new democratic state, he claimed, “the conditions will be such as to enable both parties—labour and capital—to work to develop industrial production”. Moreover, the workers’ demands were to be restricted, whereas the national bourgeoisie was to be guaranteed “its own profit from the rational use of state, private and co-operative enterprises”.

p The CPC’s historical record shows that far from striving to make use of international working-class experience, Mao Tse-tung did his best to prevent it from penetrating and spreading within the Party. His campaign against the Chinese internationalist-minded Communists and their cruel suppression during the Second World War (the chengfeng campaign to “correct the style of work”, started in Yenan in February 1942), and the complete severing of the CPC’s relations with the international communist movement are a case in point. Mao Tse-tung’s “ideas”, which impelled him to seek a special, “third” way for China’s development, stemmed from Sino-centrism, a doctrine proclaimed by Li 15 Li-san and Mao Tse-tung himself back in the early 1930s, and expressing the chauvinistic aspirations of China’s bourgeois nationalists.

Mao Tse-tung claimed that he had not only adopted but even developed the three people’s principles “reinterpreted by Sun Yat-sen in 1924".^^17^^ That was not so, however. He had, in fact, rejected Sun Yat-sen’s final conclusions drawn from Soviet experience. His “new democracy" doctrine was to some extent a revival of Sun Yat-sen’s earlier views, which the great democrat had mostly expressed before the October Socialist Revolution. But now that the Soviet system had stood the stern test of history and proved its viability, now that the Soviet Central Asian Republics had joined the other peoples of the Soviet Union in their successful socialist construction, while the Mongolian people, assisted by the Soviet Union, had bypassed the capitalist stage of development and were well launched upon the socialist road, disregard for international revolutionary experience turned “new democracy" into a bourgeois-nationalist doctrine, putting it at odds with the actual state of affairs in China after the defeat of Japanese imperialism.