This article examines the Chinese Communist Party"s evolutive ideas on the republican state building from it"s foundation to present time. The keyword which the author uses for the analysis is "class". Though the Communists" pertinent ideas changed successively through various stages, the class perspective was consistent factor covering the entire changing revolutionary process, assumes the author.
The article divides the evolutionary process of the CCP"s conception on the republic into five stages. The first one ranges from around its creation to 1927, during which the CCP conducted the National Revolution with the Nationalist Party(KMT). The CCP conceived, at the time, the "genuine democratic republic" including the bourgeoisie. But the CCP, still under the ideological and organizational weakness, left the problems of class composition of the republic and proletarian leadership unsolved.
The second, the period of soviet regime from 1927 to 1935, during which Soviet Republic of China was established. The CCP set up workers" and peasants" republic under the proletarian leadership excluding all the bourgeoisie. The citizenship of the republic was confined to working class and peasant class, with the workers being given more proportional representation compared to the peasants.
The third, the period approximately from 1936 to 1938 during which the rising "national contradiction" against Japan made the CCP ease the strict class perspective. The name of Soviet Republic changed into Soviet People"s Republic, whose "people" included petite bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. This change led to, though temporarily, complete abandonment of class perspective with a new conception of Democratic Republic of China presented after the outbreak of Sino-Japanese War. Under the Democratic Republic of China, all people supporting anti-Japan war are to enjoy status citizenship "without distinction of class and political party".
The fourth stage corresponds to the period from 1939 to 1945, during which emphasis on class perspective was put again with Mao Zedong"s Theory of New Democracy. This reconversion was closely related to the strengthening of Communist forces and the struggle of political lines within the Party since the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War. Mao assumed that the Republic of New Democracy, as a republic of joint dictatorship of different classes, would be based on workers-peasants alliance under proletarian leadership. The focus of emphasis was put on unification of different classes including the bourgeoisie due to the need of Chinese unity against Japanese imperialism.
The final stage was the period of People"s Democratic Republic from 1948 on. This period saw a new term "People"s Democracy" which progressively replaced New Democracy" that had been used frequently from 1940. People"s Democratic Republic, renamed simply "People"s Republic" in October 1949, re-formulated "joint dictatorship of different classes" above mentioned into "people"s democratic dictatorship", whose emphasis was put on worker-peasant alliance under proletarian leadership rather than unification of different classes.
According to the author, the class perspective in the republican state building continued to be present even nowadays, which is clearly showed in the current Constitution of the CCP: The Four Cardinal Principles to keep to the socialist road and to uphold the people"s democratic dictatorship, leadership by the CCP, and Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought are the foundation on which to build the Republic.