Modern Chinese History Draft (1976) is a theoretical book on the modern history of China, compiled by the Modern Chinese History Draft editorial team. The entire book comprehensively and detailedly discusses the history of China suffering from the invasion of capitalist powers, starting from the outbreak of the First Opium War, when China was turned into a colony and semi-colony, to the period before the October Socialist Revolution of Russia in 1917 and the New Culture Movement before the May Fourth Movement.
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Regarding the issue of modern Chinese history, there have always been two opposing viewpoints. One view holds that China’s suffering from invasion and national humiliation in modern times, facing the danger of national extinction, is mainly due to the barbarism of the Chinese people, their ignorance, and that the capitalist powers came to China to spread "civilization." Therefore, the only way for China to avoid foreign interference is complete Westernization—everything must be learned from the West, Western things are better than Chinese, even the moon in the West is rounder than in China. This view believes that only by Chinese adopting Western mannerisms and becoming "high-grade Chinese" can China truly "become rich" and "become strong." The other viewpoint counters that China’s status in modern times is entirely due to the incompetence, weakness, and compromise of the ruling class when facing foreign capitalist invasion. When the Chinese people rose up to resist the invaders, they not only failed to support them but also restricted and suppressed the people's rising anti-invasion enthusiasm, fearing the people more than the invaders, and even colluded with foreign capitalism, acting as "puppet emperors" for foreign capitalists, using the power of invaders to suppress the people's revolution. Compared to the Chinese ruling class, the Chinese people are the true national heroes. It is only through the heroic struggles of the Chinese people that each fight against foreign invaders has dealt heavy blows to them.
“From the Opium War, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Sino-French War, the Sino-Japanese War, the Hundred Days’ Reform, the Boxer Movement, the Xinhai Revolution, the May Fourth Movement, the May Thirty Movement, the Northern Expedition, the Land Revolution War, up to the current Anti-Japanese War, all demonstrate the resilient resistance of the Chinese people against imperialism and its running dogs.” “For over a hundred years, the indomitable and relentless heroic struggle of the Chinese people has prevented imperialism from destroying China and will never be able to destroy China.”
The three revolutionary peaks in modern Chinese history are the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution, the Boxer Anti-Imperialist Patriot Movement, and the Xinhai Revolution. It can be said that in two of these three revolutions, the peasantry led anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutions. This feature reflects China’s uniqueness in the history of bourgeois revolutions: China’s peasant class launched numerous peasant revolutions throughout feudal society’s long history, with unprecedented scale and intensity, accumulating rich revolutionary experience and greatly raising their ideological consciousness. Even before the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Revolution, there were ideas and practices of utopian socialism during the Ming Dynasty. The bourgeoisie was originally supposed to become the leading class of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution, but they were not only inherently reactionary and hostile to the people, but their emergence was not a natural development from internal contradictions of feudal society. Instead, they developed under the complex circumstances of semi-feudal, semi-colonial society after foreign capitalist invasion, between feudal forces and imperialist forces, and thus had inherent weakness. Moreover, the emergence of the national bourgeoisie was much later than the invasion of foreign capitalism, so their opportunity to lead revolutions and their revolutionary experience were far inferior to that of the peasantry. Therefore, although the national bourgeoisie should bear this responsibility, they shamefully missed the first two major revolutions in modern China, and it was the peasantry that twice helped them carry out their own anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks, clearing the way for the development of national capitalism. It can be said that the Chinese peasantry gained extraordinary historical honor, while the Chinese national bourgeoisie enjoyed the benefits based on peasant revolution.2.
When discussing modern Chinese history, the *Modern Chinese History Draft* pointed out, based on Marxism, that there were four waves of ideological liberation in modern China. The first three waves were preludes to the three revolutionary peaks. This fully demonstrates one point: without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement. It also shows that revolutionary theory only arises when the internal contradictions of society become so acute that a revolutionary theory is needed. "Any thought, if not connected with objective reality, if there is no need for it objectively, if it is not grasped by the masses, even the best thing, even Marxism-Leninism, will be ineffective."
The four waves of ideological liberation in modern times are: the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom anti-Confucian struggle, the debate between reformists and conservatives, the debate between bourgeois revolutionaries and monarchists, and the New Culture Movement before the May Fourth Movement. Among these, the Taiping anti-Confucian struggle was the ideological precursor and guiding ideology of the Taiping Revolution. The legalist ideas of bourgeois reformists and revolutionary bourgeoisie jointly formed the ideological precursor of the Xinhai Revolution, which later developed into its guiding ideology. The New Culture Movement, as a bourgeois ideological liberation movement promoting anti-Confucian ideas and bourgeois democratic ideas, should have become the ideological precursor of the next bourgeois revolution. However, due to the outbreak of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia and the political maturity of the Chinese proletariat, subsequent Chinese revolution was still bourgeois in nature but no longer guided by the bankrupt bourgeois theories. Instead, it was guided by advanced proletarian Marxism-Leninism, with the Chinese proletariat, who mastered this ideology, representing the Chinese bourgeois revolution, and the Chinese Communist Party, as the political representative of the Chinese proletariat, leading this revolution. Thus, China’s next revolution became a proletariat-led bourgeois revolution guided by Marxism-Leninism, different from the previous bourgeois-led, bourgeois-ideology-guided old democratic revolution, and was called the New Democratic Revolution. Therefore, the theoretical guidance for China’s next bourgeois revolution—the New Democratic Revolution—was imported from Soviet Russia’s Marxism-Leninism. It initially existed as a part of the end of the New Culture Movement but quickly developed into a new, independent proletarian ideological liberation movement—the May Fourth Movement.
“The October Revolution’s gunfire brought us Marxism-Leninism.” Therefore, the New Culture Movement was the last ideological liberation movement in modern China, but also the first ideological liberation and movement in modern China—the May Fourth Movement—although their natures had become completely different, playing a connecting role. As Chairman Mao said, “In the era of imperialism, no other class in any country can lead a genuine revolution to victory. The small bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie in China have led revolutions many times and failed, which is clear evidence.” “The only way is through a people’s republic led by the working class.” “Only socialism can save China.”
Modern Chinese History Draft (Vols. 1 & 2) 1976.pdf (90.5 MB)