On The Construction Of Political Legitimacy

On Coalition Government is the political report made by Mao Zedong at the SeventhNational Congress of the Communist Party of China on the eve of victory of theAnti-Japanese War. Its center issue is“whether China should establish a democratic coalitiongovernment”. In the report,the CPC used democracy to unite Democratic Forces,demandingthat the Kuomintang end the one-party dictatorship,release political power,and carry outdemocratic politics.This paper uses On Coalition Government as the object of analysis,holding the view that CPC incisively grasped the conversion of political themes in the lateperiod of the Anti-Japanese War,demanding the distribution of political power under the nameof constitutionalism. The report On Coalition Government had a detailed analysis of why weneeded “Coalition”, what the Jurisprudential Basis of “Coalition” was, which was thedemonstration process of political legitimacy. However, as the KMT adhered to the one-partydictatorship, the CPC broke the old political order only by revolution to build a new Chinawith the “Coalition Government” constitutional mode which would be finally established byThe Common Program of the Chinese People’s Plitical Consultative Conference. This was thebeginning of new China’s constitutional construction.This paper consists of three parts besides the introduction and conclusion:The first part introduces the era background of the “Coalition Government”.It is putforward separately from the four aspects of the KMT,the middle power,the United States andthe Soviet Union, and the CPC, which fully demonstrates the pre and post politicalenvironment of“Coalition Government”. On the eve of victory of the Anti-Japanese War,China’s political theme had transformed from the national revolution to the establishment ofthe nation, and“where China should go” became the focus of people’s attention. In this context,the KMT still tried to maintain the status of the one-party dictatorship in order to monopolizethe political power, while the CPC and other democratic personage hoped to break the oldpower system to redistribute the power structure and solve the problems related to theestablishment of the nation by the political consultations. The view of “CoalitionGovernment” widely reflected the political appeal of various Democratic Forces, whoseessence was the adjustment of the national power structure.The second part makes a detailed jurisprudential analysis of “Coalitiom Government”. Although the two democratic institutional government movements were dominated by theKMT, various political forces still made full use of the constitutional platform to express theirpolicies and educate people, which laid a theoretical foundation for the appearance of“Coalitiom Government”. While the “Three Thirds System” regime of the CPC put theoryinto reality, fully mobilizing public participation in regime construction, which provided apractical reference for achieving the national Coalitiom Government. To better illustrate theclaim of the CPC, Mao Zedong made the report of On Coalition Government at the SeventhNational Congress of the CPC, which pointed out that the CPC should firstly gather all partiesand no party representatives to form a temporary Coalition Government to end the KMT’sone-party dictatorship, then hold National Congress on the democratic basis and bulid aformal Coalition Government. From the content of On Coalition Government, MaoZedong’s demonstration keynote had always been around the democracy, utilizing democraticwords resources to fight for the political legitimacy for the CPC. In the battle for seizure ofthe legitimacy, the KMT had to firmly hold the one-party dictatorship, using its monopoly ofconstitutional resources to legalize its ruling mode. While the CPC had opened up ademocratic new path, hoping to change the political dictatorship with entering theconstitutional system,so as to realize the political democratization.The third part demonstrates the democracy and constitutionalism road of the CPC fromthe revolution to the legal system. The KMT had been taking a leading role in Chinese politics,emphasizing that it should be the KMT that held the National Congress to carry outconstitutionalism according to the legally constituted authority.The CPC and otherdemocratic forces used the democratic words to refute the KMT’s legally constituted authority,viewing that without the democratic participation,the constitutionalism was only with formbut no connotation, which was illegal. While questioning the KMT’s constitutionalism, theCPC depicted a blueprint of new democratic constitutionalism model,which represented theinterests of the majority, safeguarded the implementation of the people’s rights,and was thepolitical power of democratic dictatorship of all united classes.Although the KMT and theCPC respectively seized the constitutional and democratic words to attack each other’slegitimacy,it could not be ignored these two kinds of word focused on identity of the orderreconstruction of Chinese political power. As can be seen, the CPC and KMT were not aneither-or relationship when they used the constitutional and democratic words,but made aflexible selection based on the political reality, which run through the process of the CPC and the KMT from the negotiation to war.The conclusion of this paper is that the establishment of the new China confirms theCoalition Government’s constitutionalism model. The CPC broke the old order byrevolution,and set up a new political order, which was a process of transformation fromrevolution to legal system. The Common Program of the Chinese People’s PliticalConsultative Conference was in the name of interim constitution to maintain the order ofrevolution and establish Coalition Government’s constitutionalism model.However,in theexploration of the new China’s constitutionalism,the CPC inevitably bears the stamps ofconstitution instrumentalism. How to dispel instrumental tendency in the future constructionof constitutionalism and highlight the connotation that constitutionalism restricts public powerand safeguards the rights of citizens will depend on what we continue to explore on the wayof rule of law, so as to early build a socialist country ruled by law.