Why must there be a revolutionary party? There must be a revolutionary party because the world contains enemies who oppress the people and the people want to throw off enemy oppression. In the era of capitalism and imperialism, just such a revolutionary party as the Communist Party is needed. – Mao Tse-Tung (Rectify the Party’s Style of Work)
When Mao was elected to the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), he developed the party on true Leninist lines by correcting earlier practices. Lenin’s idea of the ‘party of a new type’ was furthered by Mao according to China’s unique social, economic, and political conditions. In the process of the Chinese revolution and socialist construction, Mao also developed many theoretical and organisational concepts and tried to correct certain wrong trends growing in the international communist movement.
Class Analysis of Chinese Society
Russia was backward capitalist with a large urban working class, however China was semi-feudal and semi-colonial where the feudal mode of production was dominant and a large section of the population was landless or small peasants. Following Lenin, Mao started the class analysis of Chinese society to formulate the correct path for revolution. In his works “Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society” (1926) and “Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (1927), Mao addressed the most fundamental questions about the revolution in China. He identified the three main enemies of the Chinese people: the feudal lords, the imperialist, and the comprador bourgeoisie. He identified the allies of the proletariat to form a united front, including the landless or small peasants, middle peasants, and a small section of the rich peasants, the national bourgeoisie, and the petty bourgeoisie. Since the conditions in China were qualitatively different from Russia, Mao formulated the idea of agrarian revolution in semi-colonies under the leadership of a proletarian party. Mao formulated the strategy of protracted people’s war, building rural base areas, and encircling cities from the countryside. This was a qualitative leap in the theory of Marxism-Leninism.
Vanguard of the Chinese Working Class
Since China was semi-feudal and semi-colonial, where the larger section of the population was composed of the landless or small peasants, the vast majority of party members were peasants and petty-bourgeois, while only a small percentage were workers. Despite the CPC’s rural base, and the main force being peasants, CPC remained a proletarian party in essence:
- The ideological foundation of CPC was Marxism-Leninism, creatively adapted by Mao to suit China’s conditions.
- It had proletarian leadership focused on class struggle and led the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal new democratic revolution with a goal of socialism and communism.
- It led the peasant movement but it was not tailing the peasantry. Proletariats were the leading force with the peasantry as an ally.
- It transformed members of peasant, and petty-bourgeois origin through revolutionary theory and practice. The Party had mechanisms to correct the wrong tendencies through education and rectification.
- It was built on democratic centralism, and collective leadership.
Mao’s Contribution to Organisational Aspects of a Communist Party
To counter wrong class trends stemming from bourgeois/feudal ideologists within the party Mao developed Lenin’s ideas on organisation to correct these tendencies:
Democratic Centralism: Mao explained: “If there is no democracy, there won’t be any centralism,” and “centralism is centralism built on the foundation of democracy. Proletarian centralism with a broad democratic base.” It ensures that the party is going to act as one unified organization with centralised correct ideas. For this, it is necessary for all comrades to have the democracy to express their views and opinions. Mao showed that in the dialectical relationship between democracy and centralism, the correct method was ‘first democracy, then centralism’. He did not restrict democratic centralism only to party function, but broadened it to the question of running the proletarian state and building the socialist economy.
Mass-Line: The revolutionary vanguard party is the most conscious and organized section of the masses. The Party draws together activists to form a nucleus of leadership and links this nucleus of leadership closely with the masses. Mass-line means gathering the diverse ideas of the masses; processing these ideas in light of scientific analysis of the objective situation and the ultimate interests of the masses; returning these ideas in the form of a political line to the masses, and translating them into action to advance the mass struggle toward revolution, testing the correctness of these ideas in such action. These steps are iterated, making the ideas more correct each time. At the political and organisational levels, he showed that the mass-line is the correct political line, and it is the essential organisational line of inner-party relations. Without ideas coming from the masses, it is impossible to formulate correct lines, principles, policies, or methods. Mao points out that to ensure that the line really comes from the masses and in particular that it really goes back to the masses, there must be close ties not only between the class and the people, but above all between the cadres and the rank and file.
Two-Line Struggle: Drawing lessons from history, Mao developed the theory of the two-line struggle. Different opinions within the Party are reflections of different classes. Thus, as long as the class struggle continues in society, there will be its reflection in the ideological struggle within the Party. Mao saw these primarily as non-antagonistic contradictions, which can be rectified through ideological struggle within the Party before these contradictions become antagonistic. Mao developed the dialectical approach to preserve the proletarian revolutionary character of the party through waging a two-line struggle against opportunism and adventurism, and by ideological remoulding of party members through criticism, self-criticism, and rectification. This ideological struggle should be fought out openly according to the principles of democratic centralism. Two-line struggle is the dialectical way to resolve the contradictions and class struggles within the party to reach the correct ideas.
Vanguard of the Proletariat: A Communist Party Based on Mao’s Principles
For Mao, Marxism-Leninism was not a dogma, but a guide to action. The party is not a static monolithic entity, but a dynamic body developing through the unity and struggle of opposites. He wrote numerous articles comprising the principles for building a vanguard party. He actively promoted a dialectical relationship between leadership and cadres, and the collective leadership against individual domination over committees. The Chinese revolution set the path for revolutions in the backward nations- colonies, semi-colonies, and neo-colonies, and showed the path for socialist construction. Today, any communist party can act as the true vanguard of the proletariat by implementing not only the Leninist principles of party organisation, but by incorporating all of Mao’s principles into party functioning.
