First, the historical task of the modern Chinese nation and the Revolution of 1911
The Communist Party of China (CPC) was born in the 1920s, which was the inevitable result of the development of modern China society and people’s revolutionary struggle.
China is an ancient civilization with a history of thousands of years. The Chinese nation, with its diligence and wisdom, once created a splendid material civilization and spiritual civilization that dominated the world. However, when some countries in Europe and America started to establish advanced capitalist mode of production in the mid-17th century and started the industrial revolution in the 1960s, the rulers of the last feudal dynasty in China, the Qing Dynasty, blindly prided themselves on the "prosperous times" of the central empire, closed themselves off, refused to expand contacts with foreign countries, and were still intoxicated with the glory of the past. In fact, the European and American countries, whose original civilization was behind China, have already run far ahead of China.
Prosperity already contains decline, and backwardness will be beaten. By the middle of the 19th century, Britain, eager to expand outward, opened the door of the Qing Dynasty, a feudal autocratic empire, to the outside world with opium and gunboats. The development of China society was interrupted by sudden external factors.
Prior to this, the development of commodity economy in China feudal society had bred the seeds of capitalism. Without the influence of foreign capitalism, China would slowly develop into a capitalist society. After the Opium War in 1840, the invasion of foreign capitalism stimulated this development, which greatly decomposed the social economy of China. On the one hand, it destroyed the foundation of China’s self-sufficient natural economy; On the one hand, it promotes the development of urban and rural commodity economy in China and creates some objective conditions and possibilities for the development of capitalism.
This situation has brought two major changes to China society.
Due to the stimulation of foreign capitalism and the destruction of China’s feudal economic structure, in the second half of the 19th century, some businessmen, landlords and bureaucrats invested in new industries, and China’s capitalism grew and developed initially. Although the development of capitalism in China promoted the disintegration of feudal society, at the same time, the feudal exploitation system not only remained, but also combined with the exploitation of comprador capital and usury capital, which occupied obvious advantages in social and economic life. Therefore, the development of capitalism has not turned feudal China into capitalist China, but into a semi-feudal society. This is a change in one aspect.
Another change is that foreign capitalism colluded with feudal forces in China to oppress the development of capitalism in China. The purpose of foreign invaders is not to develop China’s national capital, but to seek a broader market, plunder more resources and grab more lucrative profits. To this end, foreign powers used military, political, economic and cultural oppression against China. Although China still maintains the form of an independent country in its foreign relations, it has actually been included in the unequal treaty system, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country have been seriously damaged, and the Qing government has become a "foreigner’s court". This situation has gradually turned China into a semi-colonial country.
The above-mentioned major changes have transformed China from an independent feudal country into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, and the Chinese nation has been reduced to a situation of deep suffering and extreme humiliation. The joint oppression of foreign capital-imperialism and domestic feudalism has seriously hindered China’s social development and political progress, and has become the source of national disaster and people’s suffering.
In this way, the Chinese nation faces two major historical tasks: one is to seek national independence and people’s liberation; One is to achieve national prosperity and the common prosperity of the people. Of these two tasks, the former clears the obstacles and creates the necessary premise for the latter. Therefore, how to oppose the invasion of foreign powers, get rid of feudal autocracy, change the poverty and backwardness of the country, and solve the problems of independence, freedom, democracy, unity and prosperity have become the main problems faced by semi-colonial and semi-feudal China.
The harsh reality has aroused the Chinese nation’s solidarity. The process of combining foreign capital-imperialism with feudalism in China and transforming China into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society is also the process of Chinese people resisting imperialism and its lackeys. Since the Opium War, the people’s resistance in China has never stopped. However, all previous wars against foreign aggression, the peasant war in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Reform Movement of 1898, which advocated patriotism and reform, and the Boxer Movement, which called for "helping the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreign countries", failed again and again.
Chinese entered the 20th century with the national humiliation that Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy and Austria occupied the capital Beijing. At that time, what was presented to the Chinese nation was a tragic prospect on the verge of destruction. After all kinds of unsuccessful resistance, the people of China revolted again.
The original revolutionary leader of China in the 20th century was a new national bourgeoisie. With the initial development of capitalist modern industry, the new social forces in China society-the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie-also grew up initially, thus causing new changes in class relations. However, because the proletariat did not realize its historical mission at this time, some struggles it participated in were still under the influence of the national bourgeoisie.
After the initial development of the national bourgeoisie and its entry into the political arena, China’s anti-imperialist and anti-feudal bourgeois national democratic revolution took on a new look. In 1905, Sun Yat-sen, the great forerunner of the democratic revolution, initiated the establishment of the League, put forward a political program aimed at establishing a bourgeois democratic republic in essence, and tried to realize this program by revolutionary means.
In October 1911, the Revolution of 1911 broke out. On New Year’s Day in 1912, the Republic of China was proclaimed. The Revolution of 1911 overthrew the Qing Dynasty and put an end to the feudal autocracy that ruled China for thousands of years. Since then, the concept of a democratic republic has been deeply rooted in people’s hearts. The Revolution of 1911 initiated a more complete modern national democratic revolution, opened the floodgates of social progress, promoted people’s ideological emancipation, and paved the way for the development of revolutionary struggle, especially for the new-democratic revolution led by the Communist Party of China (CPC). In this sense, the success of the Revolution of 1911 was enormous. It was the first great historical change that the people of China experienced on their way forward in the 20th century. Sun Yat-sen became a great figure who stood in the forefront of the times in the early 20th century because of leading this revolution.
However, the Revolution of 1911 did not have a complete and thorough anti-imperialist and anti-feudal political program, and did not form a strong revolutionary party that could lead the revolution successfully. The fundamental reason is that the national bourgeoisie in China, which led the revolution, has great weakness in politics and economy. It is inextricably linked with imperialist and feudal forces, but it is seriously divorced from the working people at the lower level, who account for the largest population in China, and is afraid to mobilize them. In this way, the bourgeois revolutionaries have no strength, let alone courage, to carry out the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and feudalism to the end.
The Revolution of 1911 ended in a compromise with the old reactionary forces, and the fruits of the revolution fell into the hands of Beiyang warlords headed by Yuan Shikai. The influence of imperialism in China has not been weakened, and the feudal forces are still intertwined in every corner of China. Neither of the two historical tasks facing the Chinese nation has been solved, and the people of China still live in the abyss of poverty, backwardness, division, turmoil and chaos. In this sense, the Revolution of 1911 failed again. Its failure has deeply inspired the advanced elements in China, and made them gradually realize that they must explore new ways to save the country and the people.
