‘이중과제론’을 통한 마오쩌둥(毛澤東)의 ‘신민주주의’ 再考— ＜新民主主義論＞과 ＜論聯合政府＞을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines the various implications of Mao’s New Democracy from The Double Project of Modernity. Mao Zedong‘s New Democracy envisioned a new nation to overcome the crises that China had faced since the late 19th century. The discourse of ‘enlightenment and salvation’ put forward by modern intellectuals in China was intended to overcome the crisis caused by contact with Western civilization. Another way to put it is that it was about adapting to and overcoming modernity through self-renewal. The dual revolutionary nature of the New Democratic Revolution led by Mao Zedong is another name for the long-standing task of ‘enlightenment and salvation’. This is the purpose and motivation of this paper to examine the dual revolutionary nature of the New Democratic Revolution through The Double Project of Modernity. The New Democratic Revolution is a thoroughly democratic revolution with a new form of bourgeois character led by the Communist Party. The search for the identity and feasibility of the New Democratic Republic as a third state form, neither a capitalist nor a socialist republic, is a unique Maoist conception of the state and perception of reality. Mao‘s New Democracy is neither the capitalist state of the property class revolution nor the socialist state of the working class revolution. Rather, it seeks to overcome both models of the modern state in an ‘aufheben’ manner. From this perspective, it would not be too far-fetched to say that the historical and realistic origins of China‘s current ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ can be found in the New Democracy. The five conditions for building a socialist society (a united and unified new democratic state, new democratic national economic development, private capitalist and cooperative economy, national, scientific and popular culture, and the liberation and development of people’s individuality) embody the characteristics of China today. To dismiss this as simply an eclectic model of political, economic, and cultural development would be to ignore the message of the Chinese Revolution (whether positive or negative).