Review On The Two Constitutional Democracy Movements Of The Middle Parties

In the later part of anti-Japnese war, the middle parties made use of the slogans of KMTconstitutionalism and worked together with the Chinese Communist Party to launch twoconstitutional democracy movements in KMT-ruled areas, promoted the political process ofdemocratization of the state and laid the political base of the long-term cooperations withthe CPC.After the outbreak of the war overall, Chiang Kai-shek confronted crisis-ridden politicalsituation of the serious national calamity, and established the National Defense PoliticalCouncil (August17,1937), the predecessor of the National Political Council and the NationalPolitical Council (July6,1938–March28,1948) as a wartime public institution. The actionsprovided a legitimate political platform for the middle parties and the Chinese CommunistParty to participate in political affairs and promote the political activities of constitutionalismmovements. In the middle and later periods of the anti-Japanese War, the middle parties tookthe National Political Council as the political platform, through drafting constitution, andproposed a motion to the National Political Council, suggesting hold constitutional forum, setup the constitutional research seminar, public opinion propaganda and other forms. In therear area, the middle parties initiated and promoted two constitutional movements climax, butfinally failed. The landmark historical events were that the Constitution Amendment of ChinaRepublic was shelved in the Fifth Plenary session of First National Political Council sessionby Chiang Kai-shek and on September18,1940the KMT157th Plenary session of5thCentral Standing Committee decided to delay the convening of the National Assembly till thetime after the war on the pretext that the war time was inconvenient to do that. In November1946, the KMT pseudo-single-handedly held the puppet KMT National Constituent Assembly,and passed the so-called Constitution of the Republic, and established a presidentialdictatorship. As the KMT insisted on dictatorship and suppressed the democraticconstitutional movement, it instead strengthened various democratic parties’ determination ofstruggling with the KMT and the belief of the long-term cooperation with the CPC. InJanuary1949,55representatives on behalf of the democratic parties and democraticpersonages published Views on the Current Situations to explicitly recognized the CPC’s leadership in the Chinese revolution,. Since then, under the CPC’s leadership, thedemocratic parties actively carried out the activities in order to fully complete the democraticrevolution cause and worked together with the CPC to create a new China.The article is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, it mainly describes a seriesof historical activities luanched by middle parties in the KMT-ruled areas during the middleand later of anti-Japanese War. After the outbreak of the anti-Japanese War, the middleparties took the National Political Council as the political platform to initiate the firstconstitutional democracy movement, and urged Chiang Kai-shek to complete the amendmentof the constitutional draft of the Republic of China, which was the most significantconstitutional achievements of the first democratic constitutional movement. In the secondchapter, it elaborates a series of historical activities during the process of the seconddemocratic constitutional movement carried out by middle parties, which including thereorganization of the Democratic League of China, the proposal of the establishment of acoalition government claims advocated by the Communist Party of China and12principles tomodify the Draft Constitution of CPPCC adopted in1946. In the third chapter, it analyzes thedifferences and similarities of the two democratic constitutional movements, the historicalinspiration and conciusion.The nature of two democratic constitutional movements during the anti-Japanese War isthe bourgeois democratic movement. They are all against the dictatorship of the KMT,fighting for the liberty of the democratic rights of the people and implementing the trueconstitutional politics, to ensure the victory of the war. History has proved that the middleparties must recognize and accept Chinese Communist Party’s new democratic constitutionalmodel, which is the only correct historic choice, while the nation-building program of thebourgeois democratic republic will not work in China. Chinese contemporary constitutionaldemocracy construction should focus on the construction of the rural community and theymust also rely on the leadership of the Communist Party of China.