| Democracy is both a problem of Politics and of Political Philosophy. The establishment of modern democratic legitimacy is not a result of the political science arguing but a production of the modern political philosophy discussing. Western political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, Locke and Rousseaus had gradually established the legal status of democracy in modern society and finished the theoretical evidence of shifting from the pattern of "rule by god" to "rule by man" via writing a series of classics. However, after the opening of modern democracy age, the task of constructing democratic theory has been long occupied by politics, which has monopolized the "theory power" constructed by the foundation of democratic practice and became a kind of exclusive "ideology". This condition has long stifled the democratic researches and discussions related to political philosophy, and either has lead to the analysis of democratic structure and function beyond the discussion of democratic value and principles. Influenced by the above factors, the current researches on the democratic thought of Mao Zedong have always got into two kinds of troubles:one is under the manipulation of traditional research methodology which puts ideology in supreme status highlights the definitions of democratic value and principles in the democratic discourse of Mao Zedong; the other one is to start from modern research methodology dominated by scientism take the democratic structure and model constructed by Mao Zedong as "pseudo-democracy". It is no doubt that both the two ideas are biased and both the production of the thoughts of politics as the supreme. The thesis, based on the scope of political philosophy, makes a study on the democratic thought of Mao Zedong. Political philosophy differs from ideology and politics. The attempts of the discussions made by political philosophy are neither pursue the absolute truth nor provide substantive answers to the practical problems in society, but to explore the reasons why some answers are properly.The first four chapters of this thesis analyzes the democratic discourse of Mao Zedong from the four perspectives of theoretical origin, historical development, system structure and essential features, with the philosophical reflection of Mao Zedong’s democratic thoughts followed by (chapter five). The main content of each chapter is as follows:Chapter one, as the starting point of the thesis, concludes the theoretical origin of Mao Zedong’s democratic discourse, which mainly stems from three aspects:Marxist democratic theory, western liberal democratic theory and traditional people-centered theory. Marxist theoreticians grasp the essence of human from the perspectives of social relations and social practice thus establish the democratic theory whose core is "class". While in the view of the western liberal democratic theory, human in his essence is the interest subject with rationality. Based on this cognition, some ideologists establish the democratic theory whose core is "right" with the intention of preserving personal freedom and realizing personal interests. The traditional people-centered theory is one of the main and most influential theoretical origin of Mao Zedong’s democratic discourse. Taking "virtue" as the essence of human, the traditional people-centered theory emphasizes the moral contract between rulers and the ruled and hence refines a set of political theory "for the people".Chapter two reveals the historical development of Mao Zedong’s democratic thoughts. Youth Mao Zedong before the acceptation of Marxism inclined to the western liberal democratic theory, focused on personal rights and hoped to realize democracy though a ideal way of "citizens united". During the great revolution period, on the issue of democracy, Mao Zedong prefered to learn from Russia comprehensively and establish a set of pure democracy of Soviet-style. In the period of new-democratic revolution, the democratic thoughts of Mao Zedong was the production of Marxist democratic theory combining with western liberal democratic theory and the mix of class and right. The early stage of socialism. was the important transition period of Mao Zedong’s democratic thought."On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" was a significant mark of the development of Mao Zedong’s democratic thought during that period and also a major literature related to Mao Zedong’s democratic discourse. While Mao Zedong’s democratic thought in the Great Cultural Revolution was the combination of Marxist democratic theory and traditional people-centered theory.Chapter three analyses the conception of basic composition of Mao Zedong words. First is the conception of "person", which in Mao Zedong words refers to "people" instead of "citizen"."People", under various historical conditions, has different value standard and judgment criterion. These standards mainly includes class standard, political standard and thinking standard, all of them has different importance under different periods. Second is the conception of "nature of country" and "political system". Political democracy belongs to superstructure. Without economical democracy, political democracy is pseudo-democracy. The essence of democracy lies in which class rules, which is the "nature of country". To ensure ruling, the ruling class must take certain forms of organization, which performed as’"political system". Through the narration of "nature of country" and "political system", Mao Zedong intends to explore a theory of people ruling themselves.Chapter four, on the basis of previous two chapters, conducts comparative research of Mao Zedong Thoughts and western liberal democratic research, and summarizes their basic features. The prominent feature of Mao Zedong Thoughts lies in its class analysis method i.e. emphasizes class nature of democracy. Unlike the western liberal democracy, which emphasizes on individual and rights, Mao Zedong Thoughts emphasizes on group and power. Western liberal democracy theory in practice, based on individual interests, runs democracy and seeks consensus through quantitative method such as ballot. While Mao Zedong Thoughts in practice, bases on people’s interests to run democracy and seek consensus through consultancy. The key of democracy operation lies in how to resolve social conflicts, especially resolve conflicts of different preference. On this issue, western liberal democracy theory advocates the resolution through law and procedure. While Mao Zedong hope to resolve through ideological transformation.Chapter five is to seek the possibility of democracy, upon the comprehensive study of Mao Zedong Thoughts and extending rational talks between Mao Zedong Thoughts and western liberal democracy. This chapter extends this rational talk in four aspects of thought of relation between moral character and democracy, thought of relation between power and democracy, thought of thought of relation between people and democracy, and thought of relation between equality and democracy and puts forward that to deal with the four relations dialectically. This article wants to point out, the weakness of modern democracy lies in lack of morality, recklessly worship of equal rights and emphasis on individual importance, while Mao Zedong values morality, equal social relation and emphasizes on the social attribute of people. The meaning of Mao Zedong thoughts lies in rescue democracy from technical level, reinitiates its caring value, and seeks the way of realizing democracy under the premise of holding caring values. |
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