——A brief history and basic political and national conditions of New China. "It rises vigorously, and its demise is sudden. Many countries and political powers have not escaped from the control of this cyclical law." - In the prosperous and vibrant Yan'an, Mr. Huang Yanpei, who w

East: History has never favored

- A brief history of New China and the basic political and national conditions

"Its rise and fall are also sudden, and many countries and political powers have not escaped from the control of this cyclical law" - In the prosperous and vibrant Yan'an, Mr. Huang Yanpei, who was deeply inspired, felt a deep worry.

But Mao Zedong was very confident. He said that we have found a new way...

The People's Liberation Army who lived on the streets during the liberation of Shanghai

"When can we come back?" Faced with the inquiry from the elderly in his hometown, who was about to go to Taiwan Island Chiang Kai-shek replied sadly: "Three years."

However, on the day of the liberation of Shanghai, a man passed by A famous doctor who did not know the Communist Party saw the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army sleeping on the streets in order not to disturb the citizens. In order to protect people's lives and property, they would rather spill blood on the Suzhou River bridge than use heavy weapons. He was deeply moved and said: "The Kuomintang will never come back."

1. New China has gone through a bumpy and tortuous road, and has made great achievements in socialist revolution and construction.

History is full of accidents.

In 1945, in order to divide the areas where the United States and the Soviet Union would surrender to Japan, the Pentagon an unknown colonel drew a line on the Korean Peninsula without any historical or geographical basis - the 38th parallel . He never imagined that five years later, the world's most populous country and the world's largest military and industrial power would actually compete here for almost three years.

New China, which has just turned one year old, has impressed the whole world - "The Chinese people have stood up!" Since then, it has not only been the cry of the leaders on the Tiananmen Gate Tower, but has also become an unmovable fact in the international political struggle.

370,000 outstanding sons and daughters of the Chinese nation, including Mao Zedong's eldest son Mao Anying, were buried under the green pines and cypresses of a foreign country. The battle lines that were pushed back and forth finally returned to the 38th parallel.

In this regard, the comments of the commanders of both sides were dramatic -

General Clark said: "I am the first commander in the history of the United States to sign an armistice agreement without winning a war."

Peng Dehuai was full of pride: "The era when Western invaders can occupy a country as long as they set up a few cannons on the eastern coast is gone forever.

Almost at the same time, New China completed the restoration of the national economy, and the country was in full swing. The scope has gradually established the new democratic economy as a transitional form. In rural areas, land reform has been basically completed. Mao Zedong said: War and land reform are the "two hurdles" that the Chinese people have to pass. After the "two barriers" passed, the first Five-Year Plan (1953-1957) began, and a forest of tower cranes suddenly erected on the ancient land.

"156 projects" was almost a household name in that era. It meant that many emerging industries that were necessary for the national economy and people's livelihood but were almost blank in the past were rising in New China. It means that modern industry has begun to replace backward traditional industries and occupy a dominant position in the national economy. In four years, a total of 10,000 projects were completed across the country, and the total industrial output value increased by 1.29 times, exceeding the original plan by 20 percentage points. In 1957, the total grain output reached 195 million tons, an increase of nearly 1/3 compared with 1949.

That was the first golden age of New China, a boiling and exciting era.

Agricultural co-operation has been basically completed, urban handicrafts and capitalistThe transformation of industry and commerce is also reaching its climax amidst the blast of firecrackers. Although yesterday's capitalists may not all be willing to hand over their industries, and although the pace of socialist transformation seems to be faster today, in any case, allowing an exploiting class to "voluntarily disappear" in firecrackers rather than guns is probably unprecedented in the history of human class confrontation.

In 1958, a series of unprecedented victories caused our Politburo to seriously discuss: "When can China declare its entry into communism?"

Socialist is filled with unprecedented enthusiasm, but it is too late to learn how to stop fanaticism; and enthusiasm and fanaticism, like truth and falsehood, are often only one step away.

1958-1977 was an exploration period full of hardships and regrets. The economic fanaticism of the "Great Leap Forward" and the political fanaticism of the "Cultural Revolution" made New China pay a huge price, and the gap with developed countries that had been narrowed was widened again.

"Looking at it horizontally, it looks like a ridge or a peak on the side, with different heights from near to far." People are far from fully understanding the true face of socialism.

Its blueprint was born in the wise brain of Marx; but he did not and could not forge a universal key to open the door to this ideal realm for different countries and nations.

The toddler New China inevitably stumbled. But only because of this, when she got up and continued moving forward, her steps were particularly steady and strong.

At the end of 1978, the Party's Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided decisively to stop using the slogan "class struggle as the key link" and shift the focus of the entire party's work to economic construction.

Almost at the same time, in the Xiaogang Production Team of Liyuan Commune, Fengyang County, Anhui Province, 18 unknown farmers also held a meeting. They printed their thick handprints on the large-scale contract agreement, which was connected with and echoed the epoch-making plenary session, and together they sounded the clarion call for reform.

China's national conditions once again show its unique pattern - almost repeating the trajectory of the revolutionary war, the wave of reform swept from the countryside into the city. China's urban and rural areas are once again in a state of excitement, and a new situation of great national economic development has emerged. In the three years from 1984 to 1986 alone, my country's five major economic indicators, including gross industrial and agricultural production, gross national product, national income, national fiscal revenue, and urban and rural residents' income, all doubled from 1978 (see table below).

During the reform period, main economic indicators doubling situation

In the 11 years to 1989, the gross national product (calculated at comparable prices) grew by an average of 9% per year, exceeding the average annual growth rate of 6.1% from 1953 to 1978, and much higher than the average growth rate of 2-4% for most countries in the world.

In this way, we have completed the first step of the "three-step" strategic goal of socialist modernization: to double the gross national product compared with 1980 and basically solve the people's food and clothing problem. The goal of doubling the GDP and reaching a moderately prosperous level by the end of the 20th century has been achieved with confidence based on 12 years of reform and opening up. History has fully proved that reform and opening up is the road to strengthening our nation.

2. Our country is a socialist country under the people's democratic dictatorship. Socialist democracy is the most complete and extensive democracy. The People's Congress system is the fundamental political system of our country

"The deepest roots of the power of war exist among the people." (Mao Zedong: " On Protracted War", "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" (Collected Edition), p. 478) The deepest roots of the power of political power also exist among the people.

As early as the Great Revolution, the Communist Party had enabled the people to initially exercise their due political rights through organizations such as the "Farmers Association", the "Revolutionary Workers' Strike Conference", and the "Citizens' Congress". Later, the "Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers" during the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the People's Congresses in various base areas during the War of Liberation became the prototype of the new Chinese People's Congress system. This system was first stipulated in the "Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference" in 1949, which had the nature of a provisional constitution. It was further affirmed in the first constitution in 1954. It is the fundamental political system of the People's Republic of China and the organizational form for the people to exercise their right to be the masters of the country.

In this way, Chinese workers and peasants who "lived a life of hunger and cold and without political rights" before liberation enjoyed the fullest right to vote and be elected. They could elect cadres to represent them in managing political power at all levels according to their own will, and they also had the right to be elected and directly participate in such management. That is to say, people who account for more than 95% of the population, regardless of class or property, regardless of ethnicity or gender, can make laws, decide on national affairs, and decide on the appointment and dismissal of personnel in the national leadership through the People's Congress and their representatives.

It was also the first constitution. The 1787 federal constitution of the United States also allowed the keeping of black slaves, allowed slave owners to hunt down black slaves, and even allowed the import of black slaves; state election laws also deprived black people, Indians , women and the majority of working people of the right to vote. Although these discriminatory provisions were gradually modified and canceled, it was the result of the struggle of the broad masses of the people, and it took a long time. For example, it took the UK 240 years for women to obtain equal voting rights with men, and the United States took 133 years. To this day, some capitalist countries still stipulate that voters must have a certain amount of property, thus still restricting the political rights of some poor people.

This kind of "democracy" can only be the democracy of the rich. It costs US$4 million to elect a senator, US$7 million to elect the mayor of New York, and the cost of Reagan running for president was as high as US$800 million. Can ordinary people afford this money? Among the more than 500 members of both houses of Congress in the 95th U.S. Congress, 95 are entrepreneurs and financiers, and 277 are lawyers, but there is not a single representative of workers or agricultural workers. In the Seventh People's Congress of our country, workers and peasants representatives accounted for 23%, intellectuals accounted for 23.4%, cadres 24.7%, and the People's Liberation Army 9%, totaling about 80%.

It can be seen that democracy, in its original meaning, has never meant personal "democracy", but a national form and national system. The essence of democracy lies in its class nature. "Private property is sacred and inviolable" is a common principle written in the constitutions of almost all capitalist countries. Legally speaking, this seems to be "equal" for everyone, but don't forget: in the United States today, the rich, who account for 10% of the population, own 86% of the country's financial assets and 57% of all net assets, while 90% of the population's households only control the remaining 14% and 43%. So, who is the most important and therefore more essential protection provided by "sacrosanctity"? How can this completely unequal economic reality lead to workers and What about the real political equality and personality equality of capitalists? How can its Congress not be dominated by entrepreneurs, financiers and lawyers representing them?

China’s constitution also stipulates that “the state protects citizens’ lawful income, savings, houses and other legal property ownership” (Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Articles 11 and 12), but its premise is that “socialist public property is sacrosanct and inviolable.” That is to say, the economic foundation of socialist democracy is public ownership. It is precisely because it eliminates private ownership of the means of production and the class exploitation and oppression based on it, and eliminates the resulting polarization of wealth disparity, that all people can truly become equal masters of national wealth. This true economic equality is the basis for true political equality, making socialist democracy the broadest and most adequate democracy in history.

This is based on the essence of democracy, that is, "who" is in charge. In addition, democracy must also have a certain form, that is, it stipulates "how" the democratic subjects are the masters of the country. It is represented by a series of procedures, various laws that ensure the normal operation of these procedures and are not destroyed or abused, and the institutions for their execution and supervision.

It should be said that capitalist democracy, which has gone through a long process of development, has been quite perfect in this regard, and there are things worth learning from it. However, socialist democracy has a short history and is not perfect yet, and its improvement must be restricted by national conditions. For example, "direct election" is a relatively advanced form of democracy, but our country has a large population, 1/6 are illiterate and semi-illiterate, and the vast rural areas are still very backward, which makes it difficult to implement direct elections.

As the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said: If a citizen is busy all day long for his livelihood, he will not have enough leisure time to care about and participate in public political life. It can be seen that the most extensive democratic rights possessed by our people are restricted by the backward economic and cultural level and the democratic quality of citizens determined by it. Fundamentally speaking, it is on this basis that various shortcomings have emerged in which some people's representatives and officials violate the will of the people or scientific laws, such as the phenomena of bureaucracy, excessive concentration of power, patriarchy, phenomena, lifelong tenure of leadership positions and various privilege phenomena pointed out by Comrade Deng Xiaoping (see "Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping" (1975-1982), p. 287).

Therefore, democracy is a process, and it should and must be continuously improved and perfected with the development of economy and culture. In fact, it was precisely during the 10 years of reform and opening up when the national economy developed the fastest and the people benefited the most that my country's socialist democracy and legal system also developed fastest. We revised the election law and implemented differential elections, term elections and direct county-level elections for people's representatives; in 1987, 1,925 counties, accounting for 93% of the country's total counties, had implemented direct county-level elections. We implemented reforms that separated the party and government, decentralized power, and abolished the lifelong tenure of leading cadres. In the past 10 years, 146 new laws, 6,497 administrative and local regulations, and 1,220 have been enacted. The speed of progress is unmatched in any previous historical period.

Our country is a socialist country under the people's democratic dictatorship. Democracy and dictatorship have always been inseparable. They are mutually dependent and interdependent. Only by implementing democracy among the people and fully mobilizing the enthusiasm of the people can we implement effective dictatorship over the enemy and concentrate our efforts on socialist modernization; similarly, only by exercising dictatorship over the enemy can we defend and develop democracy, maintain a stable and united political situation, and ensure the smooth progress of socialist modernization.

Today, the "enemy" as the target of the dictatorship is no longer the reactionary class as a whole. The html bourgeoisie has been eliminated as a class, and the main domestic contradiction has been transformed from the contradiction between the html proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the period of socialist transformation into the contradiction between the people's growing material and cultural needs and backward social production. However, due to the influence of various domestic and international factors, class struggle will exist for a long time within a certain range and may intensify under certain conditions. Spies, secret agents, new and old counterrevolutionaries, and elements hostile to socialism are still active and emerging, and they are the targets of the people's democratic dictatorship. In addition, there are serious criminal activities such as corruption and bribery, smuggling, speculation, theft of public property, etc., which are all important manifestations of class struggle under new historical conditions. At the same time, the country must prevent the aggression of imperialism and hegemony. Therefore, we must uphold and consolidate the people's democratic dictatorship. It is an important content of the Four Basic Principles and is enshrined in the Constitution. Only with a strong people's democratic dictatorship can we have the stability and dignity of the constitution and laws, and only then can we have democracy, freedom and tranquility for the vast majority of the people.

3. The multi-party cooperation system led by the Communist Party of China is a completely new party system

We have already said that after the Revolution of 1911, many political parties and groups have sprung up on China's political soil. The road to parliamentary democracy under the multi-party system seems to be showing its light in the ancient country.

However, on March 20, 1913, Song Jiaoren, the leader of the Kuomintang, the largest opposition party at the time, was assassinated by assassins sent by the "President" Yuan Shikai at Shanghai Station. Poor, this ambitious politician who tried to become prime minister through congressional elections was still full of fantasies about Yuan Shikai before he died. He dictated a telegram saying: "Fuji is great. A president who sincerely delivers justice and strives to protect civil rights so that Congress can confirm an unbreakable constitution will live on even when he dies. "

Yuan Shikai didn't want a "Constitution" or a "Congress". With the support of the imperialist powers, he wanted dictatorship, autocracy, and the "Emperor Hongxian"! Just as the capitalist road was not working in China, the multi-party parliamentary system of Western capitalism had just begun to take shape in China, and was "shot" by Yuan Shikai.

Chiang Kai-shek completely inherited Yuan Shikai's mantle. He advocated the fascist idea of "one party, one doctrine, and one leader" and even dared to imprison and assassinate opposition leaders within the Kuomintang. How could there be any need for multi-party democracy?

At that time, there was a "third party" called the China Democratic League, which advocated "taking the economic democracy of the Soviet Union "Enriching British and American democratic politics" (political report of the First National Congress of the China Democratic League (October 1945)). Obviously, this is a third path between the new democracy advocated by the Communist Party and the reactionary bureaucratic comprador bourgeois dictatorship of the Kuomintang.

However, at the end of 1945, Wen Yiduo and Li Gongpu, members of the Central Executive Committee of the Democratic League, fell to the guns of Kuomintang agents one after another, and then hundreds of Democratic League members were imprisoned. When Chiang Kai-shek was confident that he had enough power to eliminate the Communist Party, he drowned the "third party" together with their imagined "third way" in a pool of blood in a full-scale civil war...

People's hearts once again made a choice between justice and evil. On May 5, 1948, all democratic parties, groups and social sages jointly called the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in response to the call to "quickly convene a political consultative meeting, discuss and implement the convening of the People's Congress, and establish a democratic coalition government" (this call was issued in the "Slogan to Commemorate the May Day Labor Day" issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on May 1, 1948), and made the historic choice to accept the leadership of the Communist Party of China and jointly build a new China.

If you think this is just a grudge between parties, you are wrong. We know that modern political parties are the product of social classes and interest groups; China's "third party" represents the interests of the Chinese national bourgeoisie and the Chinese petty bourgeoisie, and these classes are too weak; Chiang Kai-shek's butcher knife represents the will of international imperialism, announcing the death penalty of the independent capitalist road that has repeatedly failed. Faced with the three common enemies of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism, the democratic parties can only find a political basis for extensive cooperation with the Communist Party of China.

In this way, if the "multi-party system" with many small parties in the early years of the Republic of China soon died under the dictatorship of Yuan Shikai, then the victory of the people's democratic revolution that shattered the "one-party dictatorship" of the Kuomintang reactionaries gave birth to the third type of political power in modern Chinese history. , is also a completely new type of political party system - a multi-party cooperative political participation system led by the Communist Party of China. It is fundamentally different from the two-party or multi-party systems of Western capitalist countries, and is also different from the one-party systems of some socialist countries. It has the outstanding characteristics and advantages of the new China's political system.

The leadership of the Communist Party of China over the democratic parties is the leadership of political principles, political direction and major principles and policies, that is, political leadership, not organizational leadership. The democratic parties not only maintain organizational independence and "long-term coexistence" with the Communist Party, but also voluntarily accept the leadership of the Communist Party. In this way, they are not and cannot be opposition parties or opposition parties in the Western party system; they participate in the People's Political Consultative Conference as a political party, propose proposals and opinions, participate in consultations on national policies and national leadership selections, and also directly participate in national power and hold leadership positions. Therefore, they are indispensable participating parties in the political structure of New China, and are friendly parties that "mutually supervise" with the Communist Party; that is to say, the democratic parties have full rights to criticize and supervise the Communist Party, and accept the enthusiastic help of the Communist Party to walk the road of socialism together.This kind of close friend relationship of "treating each other with sincerity and sharing weal and woe" is a new type of party relationship in the contemporary world. It is completely different from the intrigue and ups and downs of party relationships in the West.

4. Socialist spiritual civilization is an important feature of socialism and is our political advantage.

The people are the masters of their own country and truly become the masters of their own destiny and the wealth they create. The great enthusiasm and creativity in creating history that have been suppressed when they act like cows and horses are fully unleashed. If the victory of the Liberation War was "pushed out" by the former army with small cars, then a large number of water conservancy and hydropower projects in the early years of the founding of the People's Republic of China were "knocked out" by thousands of builders using hammers, pickaxes and steel drills. The drilling towers of the Daqing Oilfield were also "erected" by ropes and levers...

History has never been partial. The reason why a small party with only 57 members at the beginning was able to become the ruling party of the world's largest country, and how it was able to call this impoverished hidden dragon to take off in the world in just forty years, relied on the people's high political consciousness and the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, hard work, and hard work.

This is our political advantage and an important part of socialist spiritual civilization. In the process of transforming the objective world, human beings have not only created various material achievements, that is, material civilization, but also created rich spiritual wealth; it is manifested in the development of education, science and technology, culture, and the improvement of the people's ideological and moral level. If we are still lagging behind the West in the former aspect, then Marxism , which is the guiding ideology of our country’s spiritual civilization, is the most scientific and advanced ideology in the world; Therefore, socialism should have people with the highest level of political consciousness and ideological and moral standards, and have a healthy and rich spiritual civilization that is essentially different from capitalism, making it a distinctive feature of a socialist society.

The Chinese Communist Party does exactly this. She not only vigorously develops scientific, cultural and educational undertakings, but also attaches great importance to political and ideological work, forming a political organizational structure and ideological education network that covers all aspects and levels of society, and constantly arming the people with advanced ideas and scientific and cultural knowledge. The most fundamental piece of the party's political and ideological work is to educate the masses to understand their own long-term interests and fundamental interests, and to unite and strive to realize their own interests, so that individual interests are subordinated to group interests, and they are not willing to sacrifice personal interests when necessary. In this way, the Chinese people, who were once "a piece of scattered sand", have formed a common ideal of building a powerful socialist country, thus condensing into a huge and irresistible force. The spirit of collectivism and communism is based on the unity of the fundamental interests of the people. is vastly different from the capitalist society in which "individuals take care of themselves and God takes care of everyone". It is the fundamental advantage of backward China's rapid rise.

5. Socialism creates true ethnic equality, and safeguarding ethnic unity and national unity is the common aspiration of all ethnic groups.

There are 55 ethnic minorities in our country, accounting for 8.0% of the total population. (This is according to the Fourth Census (1990) Numerical Computing. The other main figures in this section, unless otherwise noted, are statistics from 1982 to 1985, quoted from "Contemporary Chinese Population"). Their representatives accounted for 13.5% of the total number of representatives in the Sixth National People's Congress, and 15% in the Seventh National People's Congress. Even small ethnic groups with only a few thousand people have their own representatives in people's congresses at all levels.

If racial discrimination and apartheid in one form or another still exist seriously in the capitalist world, then Well, the first ethnic autonomous region that fully embodies ethnic equality was born in Inner Mongolia even two years before the founding of New China. There are now 159 ethnic autonomous administrative regions in the country, including 5 provincial autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures, and 115 autonomous counties (banners). The total area accounts for 63.8% of the country's land. (This is a 1988 statistical figure, see "China's National Conditions", published by the Party School Press of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, page 18) The ethnic minority population that exercises autonomy accounts for 87% of the country's ethnic minority population.Regional ethnic autonomy is a concrete embodiment of the socialist principle of equality among ethnic groups and is the country's basic political system suitable for my country's national conditions.

The Chinese nation is a big ethnic family composed of all ethnic groups living in China. All ethnic minorities are an inseparable part of this big family, and all ethnic regional autonomous areas are an inseparable part of the motherland. In the history of our country, various ethnic groups have always lived together. Today, various ethnic minorities are still distributed in the vast land accounting for 62.5% of the total land area, forming a pattern of "large dispersion and small settlement". They live together for a long time, allowing all ethnic groups to communicate with each other and develop together, and jointly create a unified country and historical culture.

50% of my country's ethnic minority population lives in the border areas, and various ethnic minorities have made historic contributions to defending and developing the borders. Today, ethnic regional autonomous regions contain 52.3% of the country's water resources, 89.6% of the grassland area, 37.8% of the forest area, and 46% of the forest stock volume, and most of them have not yet been developed. The prospects and stamina of China's economic development largely depend on the resource development and economic and cultural development here.

However, due to historical reasons, the economy and culture of ethnic minority areas are generally relatively backward. It was New China that liberated the Yi slaves in the Liangshan Mountains and millions of serfs in the Kangzang Plateau, enabling some ethnic minorities who were stuck at the end of primitive society to cross several social forms and enter advanced socialism.

Over the past 40 years, earth-shaking changes have taken place in minority areas, and the economy and culture have developed greatly. By 1983, the number of students enrolled in ethnic minority colleges, middle schools, and primary schools had increased by 19.6, 19.8, and 4.5 times respectively compared with 1952. In terms of high school education or above per 10,000 people, the number of ethnic minorities exceeding the national (721.8) and Han (739.8) averages had reached 14, including 3 ethnic groups with a population of more than one million.

Compared with 1949, medical and health institutions in minority areas have increased by 50.1 times, medical beds have increased by 86.1 times, and professional health technicians have increased by 115.2 times. The per capita number is close to the national level. These facts fully demonstrate that socialist ethnic equality is true ethnic equality; that the development of ethnic minorities cannot be separated from socialism and the help of the Han nationality, and the development of the Han nationality cannot be separated from the ethnic minorities. We must resolutely oppose Han chauvinism and ethnic separatism, respect the cultural customs and religious beliefs of ethnic minorities, cherish national unity as much as we cherish our own eyes, and cherish the political situation of national unity and stability and unity.

This article is selected from the book "National Conditions Education Reader"

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