On Chen's Later Democratic Ideas

Chen is the supreme leader of Chinese Communists from the first CPC National Congress to the fifth CPC National Congress. From the May Fourth Movement, Chen had raised the banner of democracy and science. He advocated and actively promoted democracy lifelong. Chen's ideas on democracy experienced three period and two changes. In 1929, he was expelled from the party. After this experience, his thinking and elaboration on democracy reached a new height. His views were not only profound and unique, but also thought-provoking. Chen's later thought on democracy can be called the miracle of modern Chinese intellectual history. This paper probes into Chen's later democratic ideas and analyzes the characteristics of his ideas, in order to explore the theoretical and practical value in the modern era.This paper includes four parts, the main contents are summarized as follows:The first part's main content is to define the time of Chen's later years. Now the academic circles mainly have four views on the time range of Chen's later years.1929, Chen was expelled from the party.1942, Chen died in Jiangjin. This thesis chose the time during the two events as Chen's later years. Then the paper analyzed the other three definitions and explained the reasons for the choice briefly.The second part interpreted Chen's later democratic ideas in detail. Chen introduced the basic understanding of democratic ideas, the introduction including four aspects:the meaning of democracy, the interpretation of the democracy phylogeny, the democratic values and the basis of democratic implementation. Based on this knowledge, Chen focused on the comparison of bourgeois democracy and Soviet democracy, he pointed the assets of bourgeois democracy and the transcendence of proletarian democracy. In addition, Chen described the importance and related claims on inner-party democracy and freedom of thought given to the opposition. The third part seeks unique features of Chen's later democratic ideas, summed up the characteristics of his later democratic ideas.The part have three aspects in the following:First, his later democratic ideas basis on critical thinking of the reality. The situation of Soviet Union and the Communist Party, the situation at home and abroad, all of them are the realistic basis of Chen's later democratic ideas. Second, Chen emphasized and pursued the authenticity and thoroughness of democracy in his later years. The publicity of the rulers and the social system itself was no longer the standard to judge democracy, he revealed only the popular democracy which power belonged to working class was the most thorough and true democracy. Third, in Chen's later years, the democracy he advocated featured with class nature and universality.The fourth part mainly discusses the evaluation on Chen's later democratic ideas. Firstly, Chen's later democratic ideas expand the democracy thoughts of Marxism. And his thoughts add theoretical evidence to the further development of Marxism in China. Secondly, we can gain much from Chen's later democratic ideas to further promote and deepen political restructuring. Chen's strong spiritual force in later years set a good example for modern youth. Finally, Chen's later democratic ideas have history limitations inevitably.