In the following article, Salvatore Tinè makes a comparative analysis of the theory of the popular front against fascism, advanced by the Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimitrov at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1935, and China’s united front against Japanese aggression developed principally by Mao Zedong.
Arguing for a linkage between the two, he explains that this strategy laid the foundation for a new understanding of the nexus between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism, as well as that between the struggle against capitalism and the struggle against imperialism on the part of colonial and semi-colonial nations. It is Mao Zedong, with his theory of new democracy, who develops in the most organic, and also most original way, the united front strategy by adapting it to the special conditions of a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country like China. This new democracy, the state form of the joint dictatorship of all the anti-imperialist classes united in the anti-Japanese united front, corresponds to the bourgeois democratic stage of the Chinese revolution, distinct from but at the same time organically connected to the proletarian socialist revolution. It is a resumption of the united front tactic that had already characterised the Chinese revolution in the years 1924-1927, but on a much broader mass basis and under social and political conditions much more conducive to the development of the alliance among all anti-imperialist classes, not least, as Dimitrov argued in his report due to, “the creation of Soviet territories in a considerable part of the country and the organisation of a powerful Red Army… Only the Chinese Soviets can act as the unifying centre of the struggle against the subjugation and partition of China by the imperialists, as the centre that rallies all anti-imperialist forces for the national struggle of the Chinese people.”
The Chinese communists’ brilliant theoretical and strategic elaboration has acquired universal value and meaning – both within the international communist movement and in the broader global struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
Salvatore Tinè is a Researcher in Modern History at the Department of Humanities of the University of Catania, in Sicily, Italy. The article is the text of a paper he presented at two international symposia held in Beijing in early September marking the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.
The Chinese Communist Party’s adoption of the anti-Japanese united front strategy is closely connected to the development, in the mid-1930s, of the Communist International’s (Comintern’s) policy aimed at creating broad anti-fascist popular fronts in the more advanced capitalist countries. The link between the formation of a new anti-imperialist united front in China and the policy of anti-fascist unity in action in the European communist movement lies primarily in the fact that the revolutionary struggle of the international proletariat had, by then, assumed a genuinely global dimension, no longer merely Eurocentric. This was due to the rapid development of anti-colonial and national revolutions in Asia—particularly in China.
In his landmark report to the 7th Congress of the Comintern, Georgi Dimitrov emphasised that the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against the offensive of capital and the threat of war was unfolding within the broader framework of “international unity in action,” that is, a “world anti-imperialist front” made up of oppressed nationalities in colonies and semi-colonies fighting for national liberation. Not by chance, in the same report, the Bulgarian leader underlined that “in light of changes in both the domestic and international situation, in all colonial and semi-colonial countries, the issue of the anti-imperialist united front assumes exceptional importance.” Dimitrov praised the initiative of the Chinese communists to establish a broad national front against Japanese imperialism, founded on a solid and united popular and mass base, both politically and militarily.
Unlike the failed united front of 1927, the new united front could benefit from the already established bases of Soviet power built by the Chinese communists through the course of a protracted people’s war. These bases formed the backbone of the national and anti-imperialist struggle. In his report, Dimitrov noted how the “popular movement” in China had led to “the creation of Soviet territories in a considerable part of the country and the organisation of a powerful Red Army,” even as “the predatory offensive of Japanese imperialism and the betrayal of the Nanjing government threatened the national existence of the Chinese people.” Soviet power represented both the core and the principal source of strength and expansion of the anti-Japanese united front, capable of unifying the entire Chinese nation around it. “Only the Chinese Soviets,” stated Dimitrov, “can act as the unifying center of the struggle against the subjugation and partition of China by the imperialists, as the centre that rallies all anti-imperialist forces for the national struggle of the Chinese people.”
The critical importance of forming an anti-imperialist united front in China was also stressed by Chinese communist leader Wang Ming in his speech at the 7th Congress, titled The Revolutionary Movement in Colonial and Semi-Colonial Countries and the Tactics of the Communist Parties. Wang argued this importance stemmed from the unprecedented severity of the “national crisis” that China was undergoing, despite the victory of the “Soviet revolution” in a considerable part of the country. The crisis was due not only to the “growing military, political, and economic expansion of Japanese imperialism,” but also to the “shameful and equally unprecedented national betrayal by the Kuomintang.” Thus, Wang vigorously emphasised the need to fight “not only the Japanese, but also the Kuomintang traitors”—referring specifically to the collaborationist faction led by Chiang Kai-shek. He also identified the Red Army as “a powerful military force across all of China,” the most important factor “in the armed struggle against both Japan and Chiang Kai-shek.”
However, it was Mao Zedong who most rigorously and systematically developed the conception of the anti-imperialist popular united front as outlined by the Comintern at its 7th Congress.
His most comprehensive formulation was delivered in December 1935, at the Wayaobu conference in northern Shaanxi, in the important report On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism. By the time of this meeting, Mao had already secured leadership of the Party, correcting the errors of the previous “leftist” leadership and clearly formulating a united front strategy suited to the new situation following Japan’s invasion.
In his speech, Mao precisely defined the social and class bases of the anti-Japanese united front. The Japanese invasion and the resulting danger of China’s transformation from a semi-colony under multiple imperialist powers to a full colony under a single imperialism – Japan – radically altered the class landscape. The principal contradiction shifted, due to Japan’s invasion and the comprador bourgeoisie’s collaborationism, which changed the national bourgeoisie’s stance, deepening its internal divisions and making it increasingly “oscillate” between revolution and counterrevolution. Even the landlord and comprador classes, due to their dependence on British and American imperialism, appeared less unified.
The intensifying workers’ struggle in Kuomintang-controlled areas, together with the ongoing peasant resistance through a protracted partisan war against the Japanese, gave the Chinese revolution an increasingly unified and national character. According to Mao, this constellation of class shifts imposed on the Communist Party the task of building a revolutionary national united front by “coordinating the activity of the Red Army with that of workers, peasants, students, the petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie throughout China.”
It is clear that the fundamental role of the peasantry and that of the national bourgeoisie itself in building a broad anti-imperialist revolutionary front in China differentiates the latter from the anti-fascist popular fronts in Western Europe characterised by the greater role of the working class and by a different relationship and balance of power between the latter and the anti-fascist sector of the bourgeoisie in some imperialists countries. However, it seems to us that in applying the frontist tactics in particular the guidelines of the 7th Congress to the conditions of China, Mao originally developed the theoretical foundations of Dimitrov’s report, particularly his conceptions of the struggle for the defence and expansion of democracy as a stage of the socialist revolution itself, founded on the dictatorship of all revolutionary classes. The unity of the front must be built, according to Dimitrov’s approach precisely by broadening its social and mass bases and at the same time through the strengthening of proletarian leadership and hegemony, that is, according to Mao, the military and political autonomy of the Communist Party and the Red Army.
Mao was to develop this approach even on a philosophical level with the two great works On Practice and On Contradiction, at the centre of which is the theory of displacement of the principal contradiction in the dialectical continuity of the process of transformation and revolutionisation of the balance of power between the classes within the united front. Therefore, as in Dimitrov’s elaboration at the 7th Congress, so also in Mao’s thought, the theme of the connection between democracy and socialism is closely intertwined with that of revolution as a transition, marked by different stages but in the continuity of the same revolutionary process.
Consequently, according to Mao, the political goal could no longer be the previously pursued “workers’ and peasants’ republic,” but rather a “people’s republic.” In On New Democracy (1940), Mao further defined the characteristics of the new phase of the bourgeois revolution, initiated with the anti-Japanese united front, and those of the new democratic state, which would be a joint dictatorship of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal classes. Despite the participation of the national bourgeoisie, the new democratic state would differ from the old type of democracy due to proletarian leadership and a broad mass base made up of both workers and peasants. This foundation would allow the joint dictatorship of all allied forces within the united front to open a broader path toward the still-distant goal of socialism.
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, Mao noted, “the united front of the four classes has re-emerged, but now it is much broader. Its upper stratum includes many representatives of the ruling classes, its middle stratum includes the national and petty bourgeoisie, and its lower stratum includes all proletarians. All layers of the nation have joined this alliance and are waging the strongest resistance against Japanese imperialism.” According to Mao, this was a “transitional form of state” appropriate to revolutions in colonial and semi-colonial countries. “Today in China,” he wrote, “this new democratic state takes the form of the anti-Japanese united front. It is anti-Japanese and anti-imperialist; it is a coalition of various revolutionary classes – a united front.” But its consolidation required a process of deep democratisation, a key condition for victory in the war against Japanese imperialism.
Indeed, the national unity of the anti-Japanese front rested on the mass foundation of the primary driving forces of the Chinese revolution: the workers and peasants. The workers were the leading force, and the peasants the decisive one. “The War of Resistance against Japan is essentially a peasant war,” Mao declared. And again: “The policy of new democracy essentially means giving power to the peasants.”
In conclusion, the anti-Japanese united front strategy of the Chinese communists represented one of the most fertile and original developments of the popular front strategy against fascism formulated at the 7th Congress. It was based on a new vision of the relationship between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism. The Chinese communists applied this vision to the conditions of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country like China, but their brilliant theoretical and strategic elaboration has acquired universal value and meaning – both within the international communist movement and in the broader global struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
