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New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a type of democracy in Marxism, based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that was decisively distinct from that in any other country. He also said every colonialism country would have its own unique path to democracy, given that particular country's own social and material conditions. Mao labeled representative democracy in the Western world as Old Democracy, characterizing parliamentarianism as just an instrument to promote the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the Landed gentry through manufacturing consent. He also found his concept of New Democracy not in contrast with the Soviet-style dictatorship of the proletariat which he assumed would be the dominant political structure of a post-capitalist world. Mao spoke about how he wanted to create a New China, a country freed from the feudal and semi-feudal aspects of its old culture as well as Japanese imperialism.
Mao wanted to eliminate reactionary and revisionist thought within the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through the Cultural Revolution, create a new economy free from the land owners and in order to protect these new institutions, a New Democracy of the four revolutionary classes, namely the , proletariat, petite bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie.
Regarding the political structure of New Democracy, Mao said in Section V of text On New Democracy, written in January 1940, as follows:
China may now adopt a system of people's congresses, from the national people's congress down to the provincial, county, district and township people's congresses, with all levels electing their respective governmental bodies. But if there is to be a proper representation for each revolutionary class according to its status in the state, a proper expression of the people's will, a proper direction for revolutionary struggles and a proper manifestation of the spirit of New Democracy, then a system of really universal and equal suffrage, irrespective of sex, creed, property or education, must be introduced. Such is the system of democratic centralism. Only a government based on democratic centralism can fully express the will of all the revolutionary people and fight the enemies of the revolution most effectively. There must be a spirit of refusal to be "privately owned by the few" in the government and the army; without a genuinely democratic system this cannot be attained and the system of government and the state system will be out of harmony.
As time passed, the New Democracy concept was adapted to other countries and regions with similar justifications.
The Chinese communists hoped that the working class in a similar fashion could then build full-blown socialism and communism in spite of the competing of the social classes of the bloc. In China, the application of the New Democracy concept resulted in the CCP's appeal to a coalition of the urban and rural poor, progressive intellectuals, and bourgeois "patriotic democrats," ultimately contributing to a successful revolution.
The bloc of classes reflecting the principles of New Democracy is symbolized most readily by the stars on the flag of China. The largest star symbolizes the Party's leadership and the surrounding four smaller stars symbolizing the Bloc of Four Classes, i.e. proletarian workers, peasants, the petty bourgeoisie (small business 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 as described by Lenin.
Marx himself is often misunderstood on this topic as he did not postulate that strictly only after a bourgeois society has formed, a socialist revolution would become possible. Instead, most notably in a letter to Vera Zasulich, Marx suggested a form of revolutionary change in Russia at the time that is very much akin to Mao's thesis of New Democracy: The class coalition of New Democracy is similar to the view of Vladimir Lenin, who had broken with the
Nonetheless, the Chinese experience contrasts with the Bolshevik Revolution because it included, rather than targeted, the Bourgeoisie (the bourgeois class of a semi-colonial country).
Once New Democracy has been established in the way Mao's theory outlines, the country is subsequently viewed in orthodox Maoist theory to be ideologically socialist and working towards communism under the leadership of its leading communist party and its people are actively involved in the construction of socialism. Examples are the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution for what Mao viewed as the participatory democracy inherent in the New Democracy concept.
Because of New Democracy's nature as an "intermediate stage", Maoists consider it a stepping-stone to socialism—an essentially two-stage theory of first New Democracy, then socialism, given that the self-proclaimed ultimate goal of socialist construction—the creation of a stateless, classless and moneyless communist society—has not yet been reached in the period of New Democracy.
The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was the primary government body through which the CCP sought to incorporate non-Party elements into the political system pursuant to principles of New Democracy. On September 29, 1949, the CPPCC unanimously adopted the Common Program as the basic political program for the country following the success of the Chinese revolution. The Common Program defined China as a new democratic country which would practice a people's democratic dictatorship led by the proletariat and based on an alliance of workers and peasants which would unite all of China's democratic classes (defined as those opposing imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism and favoring an independent China). Per the Common Program, Chinese students were required to participate in a nationwide study movement on political history and concepts, including new democracy.
As part of the New Democracy in the early PRC, the industrial economy included multiple forms of ownership, including private ownership and foreign private ownership, in addition to state ownership.
During the 1946-1951 Telengana uprising in India, communists in the movement used the model of New Democracy and envisioned a two-stage revolution.
Some have argued that the Fast Track Land Reform Program in Zimbabwe represents the culmination of New Democracy there and these same people usually also say that ZANU-PF remains a genuinely socialist party.
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