Reflections On Neo-democratic Theory And Practice

Neo-democratic theory is an important part of Mao Zedong Thought which is usually considered to be made up by two parts: the theory of 1 volution and the theory of society. We argue that the argument of Two Theory cannot reflect the whole neo-democratic theory; besides the theory of revolution and the theory of society, neo-democratic theory also should include the socialist theory and activity (mainly referring to socialist theory and activity of Soviet Union mode). The latter plays a vital role though mentioned not much in the neo-democratic works. It defines the mode of the whole theory—transitional mode. Even it can be said that the notion of neo-democracy would not emerge without socialist theory and activities.As for China's transition from neo-democracy to socialism, we mainly interpret from the combination of the choice of industrialization and our party's political goals. The socialist theory of neo-democracy in the pattern of socialist Soviet Union, though with the same ultimate goals, showed little influences of Soviet revolution on the designing of socialist system after Chinese revolution, especially on the designing of industrialization road; instead, the shadow of general industrial experience of European developed countries were found, more or less. For instance, the protection of private agriculture and hand-made industry, the protection of private business, the peaceful competition of various economic component in the market in order to promote the improvement of manufacturing condition and living quality and to provide accumulation for the development of heavy industry. This shows that Chinese party with Mao at its core, on the basis of right understanding China's condition, maintains high consciousness of theory. The nature of neo-democracy is the refusal of socialist empty talk. Then why did the later so-called "rush transition" and "excessive transition" emerge? There might exist such a logic, and it was the case at least 1950s: only if borrowing general experiences of European industrialization, choosing of "new-style capitalist" neo-democratic national system would be inevitable; only if imitating Soviet Union's industrial experiences, the socialist road of overall public ownership and planned economy would be an inevitable choice. In other words, once Soviet Union pattern of industrialization road has been chosen, the future of transition would be necessarily socialism, which is rightly the political goal our party had been pursuing. There are many reasons for the later expedite transition; however, the implement of developing heavy industry preferably was the basis. As time went by, when we reflect this period of history nowadays, there appear different views on it. We argue that the strategy of developing heavy industry preferably might be the best possibility and the most realistic choice. The severe home and abroad situation prompted Chinese Communist Party to choose the pursuing-and-overtaking strategy of developing heavy industry preferably. In the case of prescribed strategy and restricted ideology, the theory of neo-democracy receded out of the stage of China's history. This is the main line of understanding China's history of this period.