Comparative Study On Rousseau And Marx’s Theories Of Popular Sovereignty

The theory of popular sovereignty is a theoretical weapon, with which the modern people overcame the Feudal Despotism, established the Capitalist Democratic Republics, and the Chinese Communist Party led the Chinese people to overthrow "the three heavy mountains"(represents "The three oppressive forces"), and finally established the socialist democratic country. With the increasing of human’s democratic consciousness, every country is engaged in the social democratic construction, therefore, a further discussion on the democratic theory basis and conditions becomes more important. At present, the further academic study on the origin and development of democratic theory is not only conducive to the flourish of democratic theory under new historical conditions, but also more beneficial to the construction of the modern democratic system. As a master of the modern western popular sovereignty doctrine, Rousseau’s thoughts have far-reaching influences on the development of modern western society; and the researchers of contemporary democratic theory have never stopped their study on Rousseau’s thoughts. Rousseau’s theory of popular sovereignty is formed from the convention based on the "Popular Will", its purpose is to establish a nation; the people’s direct involvement in national politics is the fundamental condition to implement Rousseau’s democratic theory. Marx is a researcher of the theory of building democracy in socialist countries, and his doctrine of popular sovereignty is widely used as a scientific theory of the construction of socialist democracy. In China, the actual performance of the popular sovereignty is that people are the masters of the country. This is a continuation and development of the Marxist popular sovereignty theory, is the product of the combination of the Marxist popular sovereignty theory and the concrete practice in China, it is also the specific requirement of building a socialist democratic society in China.Although Marx was the person who inherited and flourished Rousseau’s theory of popular sovereignty, but due to the different historical status and the different angles to understand the world, there are some similarities as well as essential differences between them. By comparison of Rousseau and Marx’s theory of popular sovereignty, this thesis tries to understand the value of the two theories of the popular sovereignty to the building of socialist democracy in modern China. The study of the main thoughts of popular sovereignty not only has a great theoretical and practical significance, but also points out the direction of the construction of socialist democracy.