History often needs to go through the ups and downs of the years to see more clearly, and only by understanding the depth of history can we not be confused by the trend of the moment. If we go back to the historical situation in the first half of the 20 th century, we will have a strong feeling that China has embarked on the road of socialist economic construction with a profound historical basis and a broad mass base.
In the middle of the 20th century, in the face of the two world wars and economic and financial crises brought about by capitalist globalization, and in the face of the disasters brought about by capitalist expansion to developing countries, a global trend of rethinking liberal capitalism arose. At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States set off a "progressive movement", and after the "Great Depression", it implemented Keynesian economic policies, and the common characteristics of these practices were to strengthen government intervention in economic operations, promote social equity, improve social security, and solve the problems of insufficient demand, wealth gap, and ecological destruction brought about by the capitalist free market. After World War II, many newly independent developing countries also embraced structuralist economics, arguing that governments in less developed countries should organize resources for industrialization and economic catch-up. This round of intensified government intervention is a correction of the ills of globalization and marketization since the beginning of the 20 th century.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, not only the Communist Party of China, but also people of insight from all walks of life in China have also recognized the shortcomings of liberal capitalism. Dr. Sun Yat-sen traveled in Europe and the United States when he was young, at a time when monopoly capitalism was expanding around the world, and the class contradictions in Europe and the United States were acute. Sun Yat-sen believed that China had not yet achieved modernization, did not yet have big capitalists, and had not formed a gap between the rich and the poor, so it was easier to carry out a social revolution than in developed countries. Therefore, it is necessary to "precede the economic revolution in society" and to properly solve the problem of social fairness before carrying out economic construction. In fact, in his later years, Sun Yat-sen had become a socialist, and he himself had stated in many speeches that Minshengism was socialism. He said:
"Although China succeeded in the national and civil rights revolutions, the social revolution had to be left behind. The Anglo-American countries made it difficult to carry out social revolution because their civilization had advanced and their industry and commerce had developed...... China was a poor country, and Chinese homes were rare, let alone foreign capitalists, so it was painless to carry out social revolution[1].
Of course, after Sun Yat-sen's death, the Kuomintang did not realize his vision, which was realized by the Chinese Communist Party. It is in this sense that the Chinese Communists are the staunchest supporters, most loyal collaborators, and most faithful successors of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary cause.
Another representative figure is Liang Shuming, a representative figure of modern Confucianism. He was a close friend of Mao Zedong in his youth, and people today tend to focus on his disagreement with Mao Zedong in 1953 about the path to industrialization, but fail to see that Liang Shuming, as a well-known scholar of Confucianism and Buddhism, had a high degree of identification with socialism, and personally organized the rural cooperative movement during the Kuomintang government.
In his later years, Liang Shuming started from Buddhism in an interview with the American scholar Ai Kai, and talked about his views on socialism, believing that capitalist society has achieved great success in solving the relationship between man and the natural world, but it has also led to competition and conflict, and has not solved the problem of "people and people are at peace with each other", and "since China has come over the powerful forces of the West, China has no room to take the road of capitalism, and it cannot but take the road of socialism, and cannot let the welfare of the individual prevail over the welfare of the society." So the emergence of the Communist Party in China, and its success, is very reasonable, not special, not strange[2]."
These are not individual cases. In 1933, the Oriental Magazine in Shanghai solicited answers to two questions across the country: (1) What was the future China of his dreams? (2) What were his dreams in his personal life? The answers received could reflect the views of the Chinese intellectual elite at that time.
The writer Yu Dafu replied that "there is no class, no competition, and no material oppression", and Zhang Shenfu, a professor at Tsinghua University, believes that the ideal China "can realize the ideals of Confucius, Russell, and Lenin."
Wei Congwu, a professor at Tianjin Women's Normal University, "dreams of the future of China as a cooperative limited liability company, where all adults are members and shareholders, and the military, politics, and education are all subordinate to it, forming an economic unit, and moving towards the goal of the World Cooperative Co., Ltd."
Yang Xingfo, director general of the Academia Sinica, dreams of "a society of great harmony that attaches equal importance to material and spirituality." Li Quanshi, Dean of Fudan University Business School, said, "The ideal future of China is a journey that must conform to etiquette,...... It's a fact of the Great Harmony."
Zhou Yuying, an unemployed person, dreamed of "sponsoring a monthly journal named 'Socialism,' making ideological exchanges with young people across the country, and discussing all academic issues without any worries."
These speeches show that even intellectuals outside the Communist Party envisioned a new country free from exploitation, oppression, material freedom, and spiritual freedom based on the social environment of the time, and that these ideals were rooted in the ancient Chinese ideal of a Datong society and had a profound accumulation of Chinese culture[3].
In 1922, the British philosopher Russell published the book "The China Question" after his travels in China, proposing three medicines for China's development: first, orderly government, second, industrialization under China's domination, and third, universal education.
These questions may seem simple, but in fact, each step of the way is groundbreaking for China. One of the reasons why the Qing and Kuomintang governments did not achieve an "orderly government" was that the ruling class had its own special interests and was detached from the masses of the people, making it difficult to gain support. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has solved this problem by leading the social revolution and mobilizing the masses in depth. "Industrialization under Chinese domination" requires China to take the lead on the one hand, but China lacks the necessary capital and technical support on the other hand. Eastern Europe is the best example, so it can only rely on tightening its belts and taking the "high accumulation and low consumption", and hundreds of millions of people have completed the necessary accumulation process for industrialization by themselves, which requires a strong government that represents the long-term and fundamental interests of the people, and requires the ruling party and the people to share weal and woe, and the Communist Party of China has done it. The process of industrialization requires a large number of skilled workers and advanced knowledge, and education and medical care are particularly important, and it is precisely by relying on the fair social foundation and strong organizational capacity established after the social revolution that the popularization of basic education and medical care has been realized, and through the model of "learning by doing" (learning by doing) has achieved the education and medical achievements in the forefront of developing countries, laying the foundation for industrialization and later reform and opening up, and the establishment of the world's factories (see chapters 2 and 3 of this book). It can be said that in the first 30 years of the People's Republic of China, Russell solved all the three main points mentioned by Russell, so much so that in the 60s of the 20th century and the 60s of the 20th century, Russell was full of praise for his own views at that time when he revised "The Problem of China".
History shows that China's ability to start the process of modernization is inseparable from the greatest and most thorough transformation of production relations in China's history, and the construction of a new society. China's move toward socialism is "problem-oriented" and determined by the historical logic of China's social development.
It is precisely because of the social changes that China has established a strong and stable political power, put an end to the situation of old China with many mountains and warlords fighting each other, and for the first time in modern times, it has effectively governed the entire territory of the mainland, created conditions for the construction of a unified national market, and saved a broken China that was facing the crisis of partition and national destruction. Only then will we be able to, with the high support of the people, not rely on any external hegemonism, and accomplish the historical task of establishing an independent economy and protecting the domestic market.
It is precisely because of the social changes that China has broken the constraints of the small-scale peasant economy, allowing the country to concentrate resources on the development of heavy industry, building a leading infrastructure and industrial base among developing countries, while avoiding the expropriation of small-scale farmers by land annexation, usury and monopoly capital, and ensuring rural stability and improvement of people's livelihood while financing industrialization, and also transcending the historical cyclical law of land annexation. It is precisely because the Chinese system is able to concentrate scattered capital, resources, and economic forces that it can confront the monopoly capital with strong economic strength and advanced technology in the world and achieve independent industrialization.
It is precisely because of the social changes that China has carried out the historical hierarchical thinking and provided a strong cohesive force for modernization. Vigorously propagating the concepts of the people being the masters of the country, everyone being the masters of the country, and social justice is a mass ideological emancipation movement aimed at the prevalent elitist and hierarchical culture in class society. The concept of "the people create history and the laborers are the most glorious" has transformed the politics, society and culture of traditional China, made the laborers have the mentality of "working for themselves", and let the ordinary people who have been insulted and damaged for thousands of years have jobs, dignity, security, and hope, which is a powerful driving force for the modernization process. The founding of the People's Republic of China allowed the Chinese to truly stand up ideologically.
It is precisely because of the social changes that China has formed a new type of relationship between the state and the people. It is precisely because there is a fair society that the party and the state have a strong capacity for social mobilization. Relying on strong organization and democratic centralism, New China carried out large-scale collective cooperation, effectively gathered social forces in a disorderly and scattered state under the traditional social form, and thus promoted the economic, political, and cultural modernization movement relatively quickly and on a large scale. All this shows that the basic economic system and development path chosen by the People's Republic of China in the early days has a historical basis and conforms to the needs of reality.
However, the establishment of a new system is only the first step in the long march of 10,000 miles, and the growth of new things is always full of twists and turns, and there will be new risks and challenges on the way forward, and the new system itself is also facing the need to constantly consolidate and improve. Since 1956, with the completion of socialist transformation, China's road has to face more complex and arduous challenges.
Exegesis:
[1] Sun Yat-sen, Minshengism and Social Revolution (March 31, 1912), Collection of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province.
[2] Ai Kai, Liang Shuming.The world will be good[M].Beijing:Oriental Publishing Center.2006:23.
[3] For the content quoted in this paragraph, see Kan Heqing, ed., The Chinese Dream Eighty Years Ago: Selected Essays on the Theme of the Chinese Dream in 1933 Oriental Magazine, People's Publishing House, 1st edition, 2014.
(This article is excerpted from "The New Road of a Great Power: The History and Future of China's Road", by Jiang Yu, published by CITIC Press in January 2019)