NEP and New Democracy

[GracchusBabeuf]

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[FSL]

NEP was a necessity and New Democracy is a theoretical error. So I'd say very.

[el_chavista]

A "disambiguation" is needed for the term "New Democracy" as even Mao used the term for his "block of 4 classes". Do you refer to the "non socialist, non Marxist" revolutionaries from newdemocracyworld.org web site?

[red cat]

A "disambiguation" is needed for the term "New Democracy" as even Mao used the term for his "block of 4 classes". Do you refer to the "non socialist, non Marxist" revolutionaries from newdemocracyworld.org web site?

I think Lex is referring to Maoist new democracy.

[scarletghoul]

NEP was a necessity and New Democracy is a theoretical error. So I'd say very.
Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha what. You dont even explain any differance, you just say one was good and one was bad, like that is the differance on its own.

Anyway I don't know a lot about the NEP or even New Democracy so I cant answer the question. Id guess that it would be something to do with the fact that China was further behind Russia in terms of development so New Democracy had to last longer than NEP. Aswell as the fact that peasants played the leading role rather than proletariat
but yeah id love to hear a answer from someone who actually knows

[FSL]

New Democracy is a theoretical addition of Mao to marxism according to which a transitional period must exist in cases where the proletariat finds itself too weak to gain power. In this period workers will ally themselves with small, "patriotic" owners, the peasantry etc.

This is rather dangerous because it underestimates the importance of the working class as the only genuine revolutionary force in society. It seeks to promote a state that is not a worker's state, where we won't have a DotP but a progressive regime.

Marxism considers workers to be the revolutionary class. They are able to gather other forces in society (for example the numerous russian peasants) around them and only their dictatorship can bring the development that's needed.

One could say that the policies of NEP and New Democracy look alike. But NEP was only accepted for a brief time as a necessity, in order to appease the mass of the peasants. Workers made such concessions only to better maintain their rule and defend the country to imperialist and czarist agression.

The differences between what NEP was and what New Democracy aimed to build are a very good reason why collectivization in the USSR, though with hardships, was able to go through, but on the other hand the "Great leap forward" was interrupted by petty-bourgeois oriented forces.

[FSL]

In the case of semi-feudal semi-colonies, such a transitional period under the leadership of the proletariat seems to be a rational approach. Of course, no Maoist claims that New Democracy is a necessity even in advanced imperialist countries.

In order to transition from a feudal colony to a bourgeois republic which is a necessary step in a socialist revolution, what better way is there apart from a worker-led New Democratic revolution?

I don't see how New Democracy contradicts that. From On New Democracy (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_26.htm):


I fail to see your objections. You're saying "In order to transition from a feudal colony to a bourgeois republic which is a necessary step in a socialist revolution". Well, this is wrong. Or at least the Bolshevicks regarded that as wrong. And this is how NEP and New Democracy differ. Marxism-Leninism recognises that states can only "belong" to one class. There was no joint dictatorship during the NEP. There was a dictatorship of the proletariat and there was no need for anything different.

[S. Zetor]

If anyone has recommendations for good books on what New Democracy meant in China in practice, I'd be very interested; Mao's On New Democracy is a quick read and wont' get you very far with these things. If no-one has read anything in lenght on it, it's hardly useful to discuss the issue based on "I don't know but I've been told" style contributions on the level of ideas.

[La Comédie Noire]

One was a justification for a united front, the other was a justification for capitalist development. Both have caused endless confusion to well meaning and otherwise intelligent people.