Early Marxist Constitutional Thinking

Chinese people have been exploring constitutionalism for mote than one hundred years. While the exploration of socialist constitutionalism originated from early Marxist constitutional thought. On one hand, their exploration indicates that the development of constitutionalism in China is very complicated. On the other hand, the exploration is of important significance for the realization regarding the general plan of "run the country by the rule of law".We can divide Chinese constitutional development from the late 19th century to the 1920' s into four stages. During the first stage, there were the bourgeoisie reformists whom elaborated thought on the constitutional monarchy -Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao were of the center of this group. During the second stage, the most representative thought was the five - power constitution and right - power separation theory of Sun Zhongshan. During the third stage, the constitutional thought of radical democrats was the main trend (radical democrats inquired into system problems). Moreover, radical democrats advocated a series of constitutional ideals. During the last stage, a lot of radical democrats transformed into Marxist and opened a new explorative way of constitutionalism in China by the breaking - up of the October Revolution in Russia and the spread of Marxism.The constitutional thought of early Marxist is concentrated on certain problems: the state system, the system of government and the people's democratic right. Early Marxist proposed that we put proletarian dictatorship into practice, reform the election system, properly settle relationship between central and local authorities, and guarantee people' s equality and freedom of rights. Inpractice they carried out a great deal of significant constitutional exploration and reform; they actively joined the anti - imperialist and anti - feudal struggle; they led workers strike; and they organized labor union and fanners association; and they promoted the movement of the national congress.Early Marxist opened the door for socialist constitutionalism in China and they enormously affected the democracy process. For example, the state system theory of proletarian dictatorship, which laid the foundation for the of people' s democratic dictatorship, also the representative assembly of striking workers and farmers associations were the initial step towards the people' s congress system. This event led to the realization of China's modern election system. However, because of the limitation of early Marxist and Chinese national conditions there are still many deficiencies in their constitutional thought. For example , they put great stress on class struggle while overlooking the study of democracy; they attached much importance on the interests of the whole, while ignoring individual rights; and they devoted a lot of attention to the class character of democracy while ignoring certain inherent characteristics. Thus their thoughts towards constitutionalism were tools for rationalism which led to Chinese national salvation. In spite of that, early Marxist's exploration of socialist constitutionalism undoubtedly lays a solid foundation for the contemporary constitutional construction. It is also essential for further development of democratic construction and for the promotion of socialist constitutionalism.