New Democracy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For different uses of the term, including political parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...

with the name "New Democracy", see New Democracy (disambiguation)
New Democracy (disambiguation)
As a concept, New Democracy refers to a Maoist stage of development.The term New Democracy is also the name of several political parties around the world:* Communist Party of India New Democracy* New Democracy...

.

New Democracy or the New Democratic Revolution is a Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...

's "Bloc of Four Social Classes" theory during post-revolutionary China which argues that democracy in China

Democracy in China

Democracy was a major concept introduced to China in the late nineteenth century. The debate over its form and definition as well as application was one of the major ideological battlegrounds in Chinese politics for well over a century. It is still a contentious subject...

will take a decisively distinct path from either the liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

capitalist and/or parliamentary democratic systems in the western world

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

, or Soviet-style

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

communism in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

and similar states.

The New Democracy concept still aims to overthrow feudalism

Feudalism

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

and/or achieve a country's national independence from colonialism

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

, but it bypasses the rule of the capitalist class that Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

and Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

predicted would usually follow such a struggle, claiming instead to seek to enter directly into socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

through a coalition

Coalition

A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...

of classes fighting the old ruling order. The coalition is subsumed under the leadership and guidance of the working class and its communist party

Communist party

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

, working with the communists irrespective of their competing ideologies, in order to achieve the more immediate goal of a "new democratic order" that the Chinese communists of course hoped would then lead to full-blown socialism

Socialism

and communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

, in spite of the competing class interests of the social classes of the "bloc".

The bloc of classes reflecting the principles of New Democracy is symbolized most readily by the stars on the Flag of China

Flag of China

Flag of China may refer to: Flag of the People's Republic of China, commonly known as "China" Flag of the Republic of China, commonly known as "Taiwan"-See also:*List of Chinese flags - includes a complete list of flags, including historical ones....

, with the largest star to symbolize the Communist Party of China

Communist Party of China

The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

's leadership and the surrounding four smaller stars symbolizing the Bloc of Four Classes: proletarian workers, peasants, the petty bourgeoisie (small business

Small business

A small business is a business that is privately owned and operated, with a small number of employees and relatively low volume of sales. Small businesses are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships...

owners), and the nationally-based capitalists. This is the coalition of classes for Mao's "New Democratic Revolution" as he described it in his works. Mao's New Democracy explains the Bloc of Four Classes as an unfortunate but necessary consequence of imperialism

Imperialism

Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

as described by Lenin.

The classical Marxist understanding of the stages of economic and historical development of the modes of production

Mode of production

In the writings of Karl Marx and the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production is a specific combination of:...

under which a socialist revolution can take place is that the socialist revolution occurs only after the capitalist bourgeois-democratic revolution happens first. According to this, the bourgeois-democratic revolution paves the way for the industrial proletarian class to emerge as the majority class in society, after which it then overthrows capitalism and begins constructing socialism. Mao argued that the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution could be combined into a single stage rather than two separate back-to-back stages. He called this stage New Democracy.

Once New Democracy has been established in the way Mao's theory outlines, the country is subsequently claimed to be ideologically socialist and working towards communism under the leadership of its leading communist party

Communist party

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

, and its people are actively involved in the construction of socialism—see the examples of the Great Leap Forward

Great Leap Forward

The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...

and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution for what Mao viewed as the participatory democracy

Participatory democracy

Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...

inherent in the New Democracy concept. According to the theory, this construction continues to happen even as the country itself may maintain and further many aspects of capitalism, such as a market economy

Market economy

A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...

(usually called a socialist market economy

Socialist market economy

The socialist market economy or socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics is the official term used to refer to the economic system of the People's Republic of China after the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. It is also referred to as socialism with Chinese characteristics...

), for purposes of rapid economic growth. However, it is usually these "lesser evil" aspects of New Democracy that prompts many non-Maoist communists to criticise it as precisely not the way to achieve communism.

Because of New Democracy's nature as an 'intermediate stage', it is considered a stepping-stone to socialism—an essentially two-stage theory of first New Democracy, then the dictatorship of the proletariat

Dictatorship of the proletariat

In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...

("socialism"). Given that the self-proclaimed ultimate goal of socialist construction is the creation of a stateless, classless and moneyless communist society, adding the New Democratic Revolution as a prerequisite stage arguably makes the whole process of the Revolution a three-stage theory: first New Democracy, then socialism, then communism.

Currently, the Shining Path

Shining Path

Shining Path is a Maoist guerrilla terrorist organization in Peru. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", and as several other Peruvian groups, prefers to be called the "Communist Party of Peru" or "PCP-SL" in short...

, the New People's Army

New People's Army

The New People's Army is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. It was formed on March 29, 1969. The Maoist NPA conducts its armed guerrilla struggle based on the strategical line of 'protracted people's war'.The NPA exacts so called "revolutionary taxes" from business owners...

of the Philippines and the Communist Party of India (Maoist)

Communist Party of India (Maoist)

The Communist Party of India is a Maoist political party in India which aims to overthrow the government of India through violent means. It was founded on 21 September 2004, through the merger of the People's War, and the Maoist Communist Centre . The merger was announced to the public on October...

pursue similar actions pursuant to similar ideas, conducting active guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

("people's war") with the intent of establishing New Democracy. In 2006, the Communist Party of Nepal

Communist Party of Nepal

The Communist Party of Nepal was founded in Calcutta, India, on April 29, 1949. CPN was formed to struggle against the autocratic Rana regime, feudalism and imperialism. The founding general secretary was Pushpa Lal Shrestha....

entered the government of Nepal

Government of Nepal

The Government of Nepal, or Nepal Government, is the executive body and the Central government of Nepal. Prior to the abolition of Monarchy in Nepal, was officially known as His Majesty's Government....

using similar "New Democratic" reasoning and methods. However, it was expelled from the coalition in 2009, and its leader (who had been elected Prime Minister

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

) was deposed, so since then the CPN(M) has oscillated between threatening to return to 'armed struggle' and leading general strike

General strike

A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...

s in Nepal using its still-considerable influence in the Nepalese labour movement

Labour movement

The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...

Further reading