[Editor's Note] This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. The CPC has led the people of all nationalities throughout the country to find a path of revolution, construction, and reform with Chinese characteristics through arduous exploration and tempering through storms and rains. Zhou Shangwen, a professor at East China Normal University, believes that the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a road to realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and it is also a road to the lofty ideal of communism. The 100 years of the Communist Party of China should be viewed in the context of the more than 500 years of socialist development history, which will help us better understand why we are taking such a "Chinese road" today. The following is his speech at East China Normal University.
Beginning with the advent of the Englishman Mohr's Utopia in 1516, it has produced socialist ideals in the modern sense, which have been around for more than 500 years. In the meantime, socialism changed from utopian to scientific, from theory to reality. Founded in 1921, the Communist Party of China led the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country through 100 years of struggle, and through arduous exploration and tempering by wind and rain, found a road of revolution, construction and reform with Chinese characteristics. Looking at 100 years from 500 years will help us better understand why we are taking such a "Chinese road" today.
From ancient times to the present, what are the ideal social views?
Since human beings broke away from the animal kingdom and formed a human society, they have formed social production methods, lifestyles and corresponding social consciousness. Socialism, fundamentally, is an ideal view of society.
Ideals are the short-term or long-term goals set by a person, a nation, and a country, the imagination and expectation of pursuing a better future, and the spiritual pillar and source of motivation for people to aspire to a better life. For thousands of years, in the real society in which people live, there have always been contradictions, defects and drawbacks of one kind or another: the low level of productivity, the embarrassment of economic life, the inequality of political status, class exploitation and the disparity between the rich and the poor. When people express dissatisfaction or resentment at these phenomena, their minds rise up with a vision and yearning for an ideal society and a better life. Therefore, there will always be some outstanding thinkers in different eras, who demand the elimination of the current social ills, the abandonment of old traditions and customs, and the creation of a new era, a new society. In ancient times, whether in foreign countries or in China, such social ideals appeared. The West has the legend of "Golden World" and "Happiness Island" and the idea of "Ideal State", while China has the sayings of "the world is the same" and "the home of moderate prosperity". However, the pursuit of an ideal society in ancient times was not yet a socialist ideal. Constrained by the conditions of the times and the mode of production, and without the guidance of scientific theories, the goals of this ancient ideal social outlook can only be hazy, and the content must be utopian.
The unremitting pursuit of an ideal society by successive generations of advanced thinkers has only given rise to socialist ideals in the modern sense in the modern sense, starting with the advent of the Englishman Mohr's "Utopia" in 1516, which has been around for more than 500 years. In the meantime, from Mohr and Campanella to Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, etc., generations of utopian socialist thinkers have been "groping in the dark" for the road to an ideal society for more than 300 years. Living in the early days of the primitive accumulation of capital and the development of capitalism, these utopians exposed and criticized the phenomena of disparity between the rich and the poor, moral degeneration, and the reversal of good and evil exposed by the society at that time, hoping to establish "a society in which labor and joy, wealth and goodness, virtue and happiness can be combined in the world." Of course, due to the limitations of history and the times, they have failed to reveal the objective laws of social development, have failed to find the strength and effective way to change the existing society, and can only stay in their rhetoric to floggle the capitalist system and conceive a picture of a future society in their minds.
It should be pointed out that the utopian socialists are by no means the kind of sorcerers who deceive the world and steal their names; in their personal qualities, they are all social reformers and thinkers who are brilliant, have a sense of justice, and have a deep sympathy for the toiling masses. Their ideals are noble, but they cannot be realized, because their systems of thought are utopian. Of course, there is also a spark of rational scientific thought, which has become a source of ideas for scientific socialism.
The first leap in the history of socialist thought
Through arduous theoretical research, Marx and Engels achieved the first leap in the history of socialist thought through the "two major discoveries" of the materialist view of history and the theory of surplus value, transforming socialism from a utopia into a science, placing ideals on the basis of reality.
The ideal is the product of the times, and unlike utopian socialism, the ideal of scientific socialism is formed on the basis of revealing the law of the development of human society, especially the law of the occurrence and development of capitalism. It does not simply morally condemn and attack the darkness and evil of the capitalist system, but demonstrates the historical inevitability of capitalism from its birth to its demise through a scientific analysis of the basic contradictions of capitalist society. The ideal concept of scientific socialism is to predict the general contours, processes and certain basic characteristics of the future society from the deduction of historical logic.
So, what are the implications of the ideal social outlook contained in scientific socialism? In my opinion, there are mainly the following aspects:
First, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels summed up the ideal of the future communist society as follows: "In place of the old bourgeois society, where there are classes and class antagonisms, there will be such a union, where the free development of each person is the condition for the free development of all." Since the advent of scientific socialism, people have often asked the question: What is the "union of free men" pursued by the ideals of the Communists? In Anti-Dühring, Engels made this description: When the productive forces are highly developed, society occupies the means of production, commodity production will be eliminated, the anarchy within social production will cease to exist, and the struggle for individual survival will cease, "so that man will finally break away from the animal kingdom in a certain sense, and enter the living conditions of real man" and "it is only from this time that man fully consciously creates his own history; only from this time on, The social causes that make people work are mostly and increasingly achieving the results they expect. This is the leap of mankind from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom." In 1894, a year before Engels's death, in a letter to Juju Canepa, he still considered the union of free men to be the most appropriate generalization for him and Marx of the future society. It is in this sense that communism becomes the supreme programme of the proletarian party and the lofty ideal of the Communists.
Second, the ideal can be realized, but it is not achieved overnight, and the ideal is realized through practice and struggle. The ideal of communists must first be based on the epochal node of real society, different historical stages have different ideals, the ideal of one stage has been realized, and new and higher ideal goals have emerged. People cannot go beyond a certain stage of social development to do what can only be done by the future society, and cannot use the concept of the future society to formulate strategies and policies to guide the real society. Therefore, the program of the Communist Party usually has the distinction between the highest program and the lowest program, which is expressed in the Communist Manifesto. Moreover, in the writings of Marx and Engels, it was predicted that the basic way to achieve the future society was that the proletariat would first win "political emancipation" and then "social emancipation", and that there would be a transitional period between capitalism and communism, which would be divided into "lower stages" and "higher stages", and so on. These ideas only generally describe certain characteristics of the future society and their basic paths, and they do not plan the details of the future society, because the more elaborately conceived the future social system, the more it will fall into pure fantasy. This is one of the fundamental differences between scientific socialism and utopian socialism.
Third, the Marxist theory on the future society shows the direction of development of human society and guides millions of people to establish lofty ideals and firm beliefs. On the one hand, we fully affirm the scientific nature of this idea, which is a scientific foresight based on the knowledge and grasp of the laws of social development, which is different from the inducement of religious theology to pursue the future "millennium kingdom" and from the various schemes of future societies designed by utopian socialists. On the other hand, after all, this ideal is a kind of scientific foresight and conception, and between the ideal and reality, there will inevitably be various gaps, and many new situations and new problems that were not previously expected will appear, which need to be supplemented, revised and innovated in practice. Engels said: "Socialism, since it became a science, has demanded that people treat it as a science. The scientific attitude is to explore, study, and solve various problems in the development of socialism today in practice. Generally speaking, socialism in the 19th century was still in the "ideal" stage, and the main task was to theoretically create and promote the workers' movement in the developed countries of Europe and the United States, and it did not yet have the historical conditions to overthrow the old world and establish a new system. As the founders of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels can only fulfill the historical mission entrusted by the times.
The second leap in the history of socialist thought
In the 20th century, times changed dramatically. Capitalism developed to the monopoly stage, and socialism entered the practical stage, changing from theory to reality, achieving the second leap in the history of socialist thought.
Marked by the victory of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the birth of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, socialism undertook a large-scale social experiment in both great powers. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, Russia and China have successively overthrown the old regime through revolutionary means, established a socialist social system and state system, carried out socialist construction and reform, and explored a road toward modernization in an economically and culturally backward country. However, due to the differences in the national conditions and historical and cultural backgrounds of the two countries, the differences in the concepts, strategies, lines, and policies of the ruling Communist Party, as well as changes in the external environment, the socialist cause of the two countries has a very different ending. After 74 years of collapse, the CPSU collapsed as a socialist power, while the Communist Party of China remained vigorous and led a large country of 1.4 billion people to adhere to the principles and beliefs of scientific socialism and march forward on the road of socialist modernization. Looking at the 100 years from 500 years, the historical experience of Russia and China deserves serious study, comparison and summary.
First, Both Russia and China are taking the revolutionary road of "armed seizure of power."
To be revolutionary, there must be a revolutionary party. Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin, Russia won the victory of the October Revolution, established the world's first socialist state, opened the first step on the road to ideals with a new system, and pointed out the direction and road for colonial and semi-colonial countries to strive for national independence and people's liberation. It should be noted that the Russian Revolution is of great particularity, and that theoretical and organizational preparations are manifestly insufficient, which has brought many serious difficulties to the building of new political power and the restoration of social order after the victory of the revolution.
At the beginning of the 20th century, China, which was suffering heavily and was poor and weak, was facing a turning point in history, a group of advanced elements who were struggling to find a way to save the country and save the people saw hope from the October Revolution, socialist ideas began to spread widely on the land of Shenzhou, and with the help and guidance of the Russian Republic and the Communist International, the founding of the Communist Party of China became a "major event that broke new ground." Overthrowing the old world, establishing a new system, and striving for communism have become the lofty ideals of the Chinese Communists. The first step in realizing this ideal is to win national independence and the liberation of the people. At that time, however, the erroneous tendency to sanctify the resolutions of the Communist International and the Soviet experience began to pervade the international communist movement, and under such historical conditions, taking the Russian Communist Party as an example and "following the path of the Russians" became the inevitable choice of the Communist Party of China in its infancy. The defeat of the Great Revolution and the indiscriminate pursuit of the erroneous line of "Left leaning" within the Party three times have dealt an almost devastating blow to the revolutionary cause. It should be said that the general direction of the armed seizure of power is correct, but simply imitating and dogmatically applying the experience and practices of the Russian Revolution and adopting the policy of a big-city uprising in semi-colonial and semi-feudal China is doomed to failure. The Chinese Communists represented by Mao Zedong inherited and adhered to Lenin's idea of the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution, opened up a revolutionary road of establishing rural revolutionary base areas, encircling the cities with the countryside and finally seizing national power, and on the basis of analyzing the basic national conditions of China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, summed up the positive and negative experiences of revolutionary practice, formed a complete theory of the new-democratic revolution, sinicized Marxism, and used it to guide and win the great victory of the new-democratic revolution.
The victory of the Chinese revolution has proved that the principles of scientific socialism are equally applicable in economically and culturally backward countries, and the key is to find a revolutionary road suited to the national conditions of the country. Mao Zedong said that the integration of the basic tenets of Marxism with the concrete reality of the Chinese revolution is the basic experience of the victory of the Chinese revolution. It can be said that the new-democratic revolution led by the Communist Party of China has successfully embarked on a revolutionary road with Chinese characteristics and taken an important step toward an ideal society.
Second, Russia and China have experienced many hardships, twists and turns and tribulations in the process of exploring the road of socialist modernization.
After the victory of the October Revolution, the new Soviet Republic was faced with an extremely severe situation at home and abroad. Under extremely difficult conditions, the Soviet government pursued a harsh policy of military communism. In the eyes of some Communists, this is a "shortcut" to a "direct transition" to the communist ideal society. They thought that in a small peasant state, they could reach the ideal state of communism by bypassing commodity production and commodity exchange and abolishing commodities, markets and money by means directly ordered by the state. This idealistic idea of rushing to transition cannot but fall into "utopianism", as Lenin later said, "real life shows that we are wrong".
After the implementation of the New Economic Policy, Lenin began to explore a road of socialist construction suited to Russia's national conditions. However, Lenin's early death soon led to the abandonment of the New Economic Policy, and Stalin, in accordance with the principles of traditional socialism, practiced "super-industrialization" and total collectivization of agriculture, and in a short period of time eliminated the kulaks and all kinds of private ownership in urban and rural areas, and established a highly centralized planned economic system. After the initial industrialization in 1936, Stalin hastily announced that the Soviet Union had established a socialist society and began the transition to communism. The socialist conception of rushing to transition and transcending stages has seriously deviated from the principles of scientific socialism. The solidification of the system, the rigidity of ideas, and the spread of the cult of personality of Stalin made the Soviet model incapable of self-renewal. After Stalin's death, although the CPSU made some repairs to the original system, it did not fundamentally touch this system. All this laid the foundation for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Let's look at China. After the founding of New China, the mission entrusted by history to the Chinese Communists was to build a prosperous, strong, democratic, and civilized modern socialist country. However, the Communist Party, which has just come to power throughout the country, has taken over a poor and devastated mess, facing a very grim and complicated situation at home and abroad, and lacking experience in governing the country in a big country. Under such circumstances, "one-sidedness" became the direction of choice for the CCP's domestic and foreign policies in the early days of its administration, and at that time it played a role in resisting the pressure of Western imperialism, restoring the national economy, and laying the foundation for industrialization. However, it must be noted that after the victory of the Second World War, the Soviet Union's highly centralized and rigid planned economic system has revealed many drawbacks, and Stalin's thinking and governing strategy in his later years have fallen into serious arrogance and rigidity, so "Sovietization" is bound to bring about various negative impacts on China's socialist cause. In this regard, in 1956, Mao Zedong proposed in his article "On the Ten Great Relations" that it is necessary to "take the Soviet Union as a warning" and not blindly apply the Soviet Union's construction experience. The Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in the same year, also made a scientific judgment on the situation at home and abroad and the main contradictions in society. However, due to the continuous fermentation of "Left" ideas in the future, the Soviet economic system that was moved in as a whole did not change much, and the many political movements that appeared under the guideline of "taking class struggle as the program" caused great achievements in our socialist cause to suffer major setbacks at the same time.
The twists and turns that have taken place in our country in the period of socialist construction can be regarded as a bumpy and tortuous road of exploration in the process of historical development. From the epistemological point of view, the main reason is that it has not clearly understood the basic theoretical question of "what is socialism and how to build socialism", and believes that with revolutionary enthusiasm and administrative strength, we can transcend the stage and find the road to the communist ideal, thus falling into the quagmire of "utopian theory".
Why China's reforms have been successful
In the 1980s, China and Russia embarked on a new journey of reform, but the two countries had completely different endings, which contained many important lessons.
After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union missed several opportunities for reform. Later, social development has revealed a scene of decay, economic stagnation, ideological rigidity, and internal and external difficulties, which have reached the point where reform is indispensable. After Gorbachev came to power, he raised the banner of reform, but in the complicated internal and external environment, Gorbachev did not grasp the correct direction in reform, the steps and paths of reform were not orderly, but also lacked courage and wisdom, and were unable to dispel all kinds of obstacles and difficulties encountered in reform.
In Contrast, in China, being brave and good at summing up the historical experience of victories, setbacks, and even mistakes made on the road of revolution and construction is the secret of the CPC's eternal vitality, and advancing with the times is the theoretical character of the CPC. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China resolutely abandoned the erroneous policy of "taking class struggle as the program", shifted the focus of the work of the whole party to economic construction, and vigorously advocated reform and opening up under the guidance of the principle of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts. Since then, China's socialist cause has ushered in a turning point and opened up a new road toward socialist modernization.
From the tortuous course of building socialism in Soviet Russia and China, people ask a question: Why are the "Left" mistakes of rushing to transition and transcending stages after the establishment of the socialist system in the economically and culturally backward countries? The key lies in the lack of a sober understanding and accurate grasp of the stage of socialist development in which the country is located. The Chinese Communists have seriously pondered and studied this issue and, on the basis of summing up the historical experience at home and abroad and the practice of reform and opening up, have gradually formed the theory of the primary stage of socialism. This stage is different from what the classic writers call the "transitional period" and the "lower stage of communism", but is a relatively independent stage of social development. Due to china's large population, weak foundation, unbalanced development, and various problems and challenges that are bound to be encountered in the development of a big country, it is decided that China will be in the primary stage of socialism for a long historical period. The establishment of the theory of the primary stage of socialism has built a theoretical bridge connecting classical socialism and realistic socialism, not only following the Marxist theory on the stage of social development, but also making theoretical innovations based on the reality of building socialism in an economically and culturally backward country like China, thus becoming the theoretical cornerstone of the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which is a creative development of scientific socialism.
To clearly understand the historical orientation of the primary stage of socialism requires us to adhere to the basic principles of scientific socialism, not forget our original intentions, keep firmly in mind our mission, and make unremitting efforts to realize the lofty ideals of communism, but also to be down-to-earth, correctly understand and grasp the stage of historical development of China's socialist cause, and do a good job in all current work. The primary stage of socialism is a dynamic historical process, a progressive process of continuous development from low to high, and through the realization of one stage after another, socialism in our country will advance from the primary stage to a higher stage.
The Communist Party of China has led the people of all nationalities throughout the country through 100 years of struggle, and through arduous exploration and tempering by wind and rain, they have found a road of revolution, construction, and reform with Chinese characteristics. Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and we have made historic achievements and achieved a great leap forward. Today's China has embarked on a new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country. The road of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a road to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and it is also a road to the lofty ideal of communism.
【Thinker Biography】
Zhou Shangwen is a professor at East China Normal University. He has long been engaged in the teaching and research of scientific socialism, the international communist movement and the history of the Soviet Union. He once served as the honorary director of the Research Center for Contemporary Chinese Marxism of East China Normal University, the vice president of the Shanghai Society of Scientific Socialism, and the vice president of the Shanghai Marxism Research Association. He is the author of "150 Years of Socialism", "History of the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union", "Research on the Ruling Model of the CPSU" and so on. (Photo of the author provided by me)
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Column Editor-in-Chief: Wang Zhen Text Editor: Wang Zhen Title Map Source: Shangguan Title Map Photo Editor: Yong Kai
Source: Author: Zhou Shangwen
![Analects of History: Xia Shangzhong, Shang Shang ghost, Zhou Shangwen[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)