Late Years Of Chen Duxiu's Democratic Thoughts

The"Late Years of Chen Duxiu"in the essay refers to the period from 1932 when he was put into prison to 1942 when he died of sickness in Jiangjin of Chongqing. He made deep thoughts on the political system of the Soviet Union and started rejecting Stalin's totalitarianism and affirming the bourgeoisie democratic values after he was put into prison in October of 1932 and especially after he understood the cleansing in the Soviet Union. After he was released from the prison in August, 1937, Chen Duxiu continued to reflect on"Lessons of the Soviet Union in Over 20 Years"and further complemented and perfected his democratic thoughts. His thoughts on democracy in his late years were mostly reflected in the 6 letters and 4 articles sent to his Trotskyite friends such as Xiliu (Pu Dezhi) after March 2, 1940. In summary, the souls and shining points of his democratic thoughts in his late years are as follows:1. The history of human beings is the development history of the democracy, and democracy is the momentum for the evolution of human beings.Chen Duxiu believed that the history of human beings was mainly the development history of democracy. Democracy was the most reliable index on whether the society went ahead or retrogressed. The modern democratic system, also called bourgeoisie democratic system, is realized through struggle by tens of millions of people in the past five to six hundred years. The democracy had developed into different contents and forms at various stages of history from the time when political organizations appeared in human society to the time when they would wither away. Democracy was is a kind of momentum for the evolution of human society. The progress of the human society would eventually march along with the general direction of the democratic movement on human rights though difficulties or retroversion may happen at times.2. Democracy is of universal value and popular democracy is the unity of different classes and universality.What's invaluable in Chen Duxiu's democratic thoughts in his late years is that he regarded civil liberty, legal system and general election as the legacy of modern democratic system shared by the bourgeoisie democracy and proletariatist democracy, and thereby affirmed the universality of the democracy, and discarded the ideology of opposition between the proletariatist democracy and the bourgeoisie democracy. He reckoned, that democracy was not only an abstract noun, but also had detailed content, while the content of the proletariatist democracy and the bourgeoisie democracy was almost the same and only with difference on their scope of implementation. Provided that the proletariatist political party opposed the bourgeoisie and capitalism, and thus opposed democracy, even if the so-called"proletarian revolution"occurred in various countries without the democratic system as the disinfectant to the bureaucratic system, only some kind of Stalin's bureaucratic regime would develop in the world and no socialism can be created.3. He pointed out the institutional aspects of Stalin's autocratic rule by criticizing and reflecting on the Soviet totalitarian system.In the"Letter to Xiliu", Chen Duxiu said,"The Soviet experience of 20 years, especially the hard experience of the last 10 years should make us meditate. If we didn't find out the defects on the system and learn lessons, we'd not realize what we lack in by only opposing Stalin blindly. Then even if one Stalin fell, countless Stalins would come into being in Russia and other countries."Chen also reckoned that all Stalin's evil was the development of the non-class autocratic rule and Stalin's evil was based upon the series of anti-democratic autocratic ruling since the October Revolution in Soviet such as the political policeman power, no party outside the Party, no group within the Party, no freedom of thoughts, publication, strike and election. No one can prevent himself/herself from being an"autocratic fiend"following Stalin if no effort was done to resume the democratic system.4. He inveighed against the fascist autocratic rule, put the totalitarian policy with the German fascist on a par and confirmed the Anglo-American democratic system.In his article"Why We Oppose Fascist"written in 1938, he cried for democracy and freedom, and flogged German and Italian fascist anti-democracy and anti-human atrocity. He said that Hitler flaunted himself and Mussolini as the"government supported by 99% German people"and in fact it was an autocratic government playing tricks and wiles. However, the democratic government can't do such which was right its very advantage because it can't do anything unruly just like the autocratic government. In his"Letter to Xiliu", he called Russia, Germany and Italy as retroactive forts and listed the differences between the Anglo-American democracy and Russia, and the German and Italian fascism.5. Airing freedom and democracy, he far-sightedly predicted the historic tendency of internationalization and globalization.Chen Duxiu believed that all the imperialistic ruling forms would transform from the colonial policy to the more centralized and organic international groups such as the so-called Atlantic Charter and Pacific Charter, etc. which were the start of such groups formation. No democratic hero can stop the new tendency of internationalization and the nations oppressed would have a bright future only by adapting to such new international tendency.He called the Chinese people to determine to march along the road of democracy and freedom firmly centered with democracy and freedom as the core thoughts. He opposed nationalism and publicized democracy. In addition, he criticized straight the wrong action of"taking the Chinese special so-called democracy and freedom to resist the basic principles of the democracy system popular with the world democratic countries".6. He specially emphasized the freedom of the opposing party and grasped the key of the democratic political system in his description of democracy.In"My Fundamental Opinions", Chen Duxiu said that proletarian democracy was not an empty word, and also it required for the freedom for any citizen in meeting, organizing tong, free press, publication and strike just as the bourgeoisie democracy. What was especially important was the freedom of the opposing party and the parliament or the Soviet would be nothing without it. The argument was highly appraised by Hu Shi who reckoned that Chen Duxiu grasped the jungle of the democratic political system. The basic differences of modern democracy from autocratic rule lay right here: only by admitting the freedom of the opposing party, there may come the modern democracy. The autocratic system had no space for the freedom of the opposing party.The democratic thoughts of Chen Duxiu in his late years demonstrated his deep historic insights. He discarded the ideology of opposition between the proletariatist democracy and the bourgeoisie democracy and affirmed the universality of the democracy. He meditated on the Soviet totalitarian system and put forward prospective opinions on the socialist democracy. All of these still have important guiding significance and value in establishing the socialist democracy in today's China.