Where is China going? Where is the future of the Chinese nation? Many patriots are distressed, hesitant and anxious about this. It was at this time that the young Communist Party of China initially integrated the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism with the reality of the Chinese revolution and put forward the program of China's democratic revolution.
When the Chinese Communists, with the conviction of fighting for the overthrow of the dark rule of the reactionary classes and the realization of socialism, went deep into the actual struggle, they soon discovered that under semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions, what the Chinese people urgently needed was not an immediate socialist revolution. Since foreign capital controls most of China's modern industries, the rising strike struggles in Shanghai, Changsha, Hong Kong, and the workers' movement in other cities inevitably clashes with imperialism and has varying degrees of anti-imperialist significance.
Lenin
Even the economic struggle of workers for better living conditions can easily turn into a political struggle against imperialism and against the warlord government. The imperialist forces and the feudal warlords have always colluded with each other and tried in every possible way to sabotage and even suppress these mass struggles by force. In the course of actual struggle, the Chinese Communists have come to realize that unless the Chinese revolution first wages a struggle against imperialist aggression and against the rule of feudal warlords, the country cannot be independent, the people cannot be liberated, and the ideals of socialism and communism cannot be realized. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese bourgeois democrats have certain points of convergence in the objectives of the revolutionary struggle. This further understanding of the basic issues of the Chinese revolution arising from practice has pushed the CPC to set realistic goals and corresponding tactics of struggle for the realization of socialist ideals.
In the process of exploring and formulating a revolutionary program suited to China's national conditions, the Communist Party of China received help and guidance from Lenin and the Communist International. This has played an important role in the party's correct grasp of the direction of the Chinese revolution.
Lenin and the Comintern were very concerned about the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutionary struggle of the peoples of the East, especially the Chinese people. At the First Congress of the Communist International held in July and August 1920, Lenin put forward the "First Draft of the Theses on the National and Colonial Question", which systematically expounded the theory on the national and colonial question. He pointed out that after the First World War and the October Revolution in Russia, the national and colonial question had become part of the world proletarian revolution.
First Draft Theses on National and Colonial Issues
The Communist Parties must help the bourgeois national liberation movements in backward countries; Special assistance must be given to the peasant movements in backward countries that oppose landlords, large land tenure, all kinds of feudal phenomena or remnants of feudalism, and strive to make the peasant movement as revolutionary as possible. The "Supplementary Theses on the National and Colonial Question" adopted by the congress pointed out: "The colonial revolution was not a communist revolution in the early stage, but if it was led by the communist vanguard from the very beginning, the revolutionary masses would gradually gain revolutionary experience and embark on the correct road to the ultimate goal." The first stage of revolutionary development should be the overthrow of foreign capitalism and the fulfillment of bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks, such as the distribution of land.
Lenin's expositions and the documents of the Communist International very pertinently pointed out the basic path of revolution in the oppressed nations and colonies and semi-colonies, and pointed out the basic policy that the Communist Party should adopt in the national democratic revolution, which is of great guiding significance to the Chinese revolution.
In order to expose the features of the imperialist countries in using the Washington Conference for aggression and expansion, to widely disseminate Lenin's theory on the national and colonial question, and to call on the oppressed nations of the Far East to carry out anti-imperialist and anti-feudal national democratic revolutions, the Communist International held the First Congress of Communist Parties and National Revolutionary Groups of the Far East from 21 January to 2 February 1922. The Chinese delegation to the congress consisted of 44 people, including 14 members of the Communist Party, as well as representatives of the Socialist Youth League, representatives of the Kuomintang, and representatives of revolutionary organizations such as workers, peasants, students, and women. This is the first time since the founding of the Communist Party of China that it has officially sent representatives to participate in a large-scale international conference.
First Draft Theses on National and Colonial Issues
The congress exposed the essence of the Washington Conference and its plot to divide China, and summed up and exchanged the situation and experience of the peoples of the Far East in carrying out revolutionary struggles. Based on Lenin's theory of the national and colonial question, the meeting expounded the historical tasks of oppressed nations in oppression against imperialism and feudalism, discussed the position of the communists on the national and colonial issues and the issue of cooperation between the Communist Party and the national revolutionary party, and stressed the great significance of involving the peasant masses in the national democratic revolutionary movement.
The congress played a great role in helping the Chinese Communists clearly understand China's national conditions and formulate a program for China's democratic revolution. During the meeting, Lenin received Zhang Guotao, representative of the Communist Party of China, Zhang Qiubai, representative of the Kuomintang, and Deng Pei, representative of railway workers. He was very concerned about the issue of the Chinese revolution, hoped that the Kuomintang and the Communist Party would achieve cooperation, and encouraged the Chinese working class and the revolutionary masses to strengthen unity and promote the development of the Chinese revolution.
During this period, on the one hand, the Party explored the basic issues of the Chinese revolution through revolutionary practice, and on the other hand, accepted Lenin's theory on the national and colonial questions, and began to combine these two aspects, gradually brewing and forming a revolutionary program that generally conformed to China's national conditions.
Washington Conference
The First National Labor Congress and the First Congress of the Chinese Socialist Youth League held in May 1922 accepted the political slogans of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of "Down with Imperialism" and "Down with the Warlords."
On June 15, 1922, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Position of the Communist Party of China on the Current Situation". This document focuses on analyzing the history and current situation after the Xinhai Revolution in which international imperialism and Chinese feudal warlords colluded with each other to oppress the Chinese people, and pointed out that imperialist aggression and warlord politics are the root causes of China's internal and external troubles and the people's suffering.
The document criticizes the reactionary arguments spread by the feudal warlords and the erroneous ideas held by the bourgeois reformists on the issue of the current situation, and points out that the key to solving the problem of the current situation is to use revolutionary means to overthrow imperialism and feudal warlords and establish democratic politics. The document also points out that in order to accomplish the most urgent task of the proletariat at present, the Communist Party of China advocates the establishment of a democratic united front with revolutionary parties such as the Kuomintang and other revolutionary groups, opposing a common enemy, and liberating the Chinese people from the dual oppression of imperialism and feudal warlords.
"The Chinese Communist Party's Position on the Current Situation"
This is the first time that the Communist Party of China has disclosed its political stand to all sectors of society on the major issues of China's democratic revolution, and it is also a new starting point for the Party to use Marxism-Leninism to analyze the situation of social cooperation in China and solve the problems of the Chinese revolution. It laid the foundation for the Second National Congress of the Party to accomplish the historical task of formulating the Party's program for democratic revolution.