Democracy at Home and Tyranny Abroad

The United States and other Western countries are waging a large-scale international campaign against China under the banner of democracy and human rights. Although they have no privilege to judge other countries, nor even the right to overthrow those that do not follow their doctrines, countries such as Iraq, Libya and Syria have paid a heavy price for this in recent years. China, because of its rapid development, is regarded by the US-led Western camp as a dangerous competitor. In this economic, commercial and ideological conflict, the West acts as both plaintiff and judge. In fact, the West not only refuses to accept views contrary to its own gaining the upper hand, but also turns around and condemns the other side. For example, when UN agencies or international agreements displease the United States, the US withdraws from those agencies or agreements and condemns them. The situation is similar with the US dollar: in the American view, the international financial system should unquestioningly accept the supremacy of the US dollar.

以美国为首的西方国家正打着民主与人权的旗号发动一场针对中国的大规模国际运动。虽然它们并没有特权去评判他国，甚至也无权推翻那些不遵行它们主张的国家，但伊拉克、利比亚和叙利亚等国这些年都为此付出了沉重的代价。中国因其发展迅速而被美国主导的西方阵营视为危险的竞争对手，在这场经济、商业和意识形态冲突中，西方既当原告又当法官。事实上，西方不仅不接受与自己相左的观点占上风，还会反过来谴责对方。例如，当联合国的机构或国际协议让美国不高兴时，美国就会离开这些机构或协议，并谴责它们。美元的情形也类似：在美国看来，国际金融体系应该毫无疑问地接受美元至高无上的地位。

I. How Far Can Western Democracy Go?

一、西方民主能走多远?

So, under these circumstances, what is democracy? Why does it seem so important to the West?

那么，在这种情况下，民主是什么?为什么它看起来对西方如此重要?

The true meaning of democracy is the power of the people, the power of the majority. This requires defining power and the people in terms of time and space, as well as the different forms of democracy.

民主的真正含义是人民的权力，是大多数人的权力。这需要在时间和空间上以及在民主的不同形式上界定权力和人民。

To define the essence of power, one must first distinguish power from its external forms. Democracy takes many forms, some more or less restrictive, some flexible and respectful of diversity. However, there is a simple, confrontational way to know who truly holds power: when power is threatened, or appears to be threatened, and when power resorts to force to impose itself. This is how the other side of Western democracy operates: coups d'état, armed interventions. In principle, everything can be debated, discussed and revised, but all this can only take place within the limits of real power, within the framework of prior agreements, i.e., within formal or tacit compromises. The more such compromises there are, the more likely this Western democratic country is to indulge in multi-party systems, competitive elections and changes of government. As long as this "game" does not challenge the balance of society and the state, or any other fundamental compromise, then the "game" can do anything. But as soon as power is threatened, or even feels threatened, the issue is settled by a contest over the exercise of real power.

要界定权力的本质，首先要把权力同其外在形式区分开来。民主的形式多种多样，或多少有限制，或灵活和尊重多样性。但是，有一个简单的、对抗性的方法可以知道谁真正掌握了权力，那就是当权力受到或似乎受到威胁时，以及当权力诉诸武力强加于人时。这就是西方民主另一面的运作方式：政变、武装干预。原则上，所有一切都可以被辩论、讨论和修改，但这一切只能在真实权力的限制下、在事先的协议框架内，即在正式或默契的妥协中进行。这种妥协越多，那么这个西方民主国家就越可能沉溺于多党制、竞争性的选举和政府的更迭。只要这个“游戏”不对社会和国家的平衡、或任何其他基本妥协提出质疑，那么“游戏”干什么都可以。但只要权力受到威胁，甚至感到受到威胁，就会在争夺真正权力行使的问题上一决胜负。

This real power ultimately lies not in the universal suffrage or parliamentary systems of Western countries, but in the economic and social power of a class or class alliance, which is willing to share and negotiate on all issues except its own supremacy.

这种真正的权力归根结底不在西方国家的普选权或议会制之中，而是一个阶级或阶级联盟的经济和社会权力，它愿意对一切问题进行分享和谈判，除了它至高无上的地位。

If Donald Trump could "play" at a coup on January 6, 2021 [1]1 Refers to the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. — although he boasted about a coup, he did not act rashly — it was because the differences between him and his opponents were not so great as to be demonstrable; he had to continue performing within the system, serving the system. Even if contradictions do exist, they are not completely antagonistic. The dominant world power remains the United States of America, which cannot afford to be weakened internally, so Trump would not really overthrow the system.

如果唐纳德·特朗普可以在2021年1月6日“玩”政变——尽管他自吹自擂要政变，却没有贸然行动，那是因为他与对方的差异没有达到可以被证明的程度，他不得不在制度内继续表演，为制度服务。即使矛盾确实存在，它们也不是完全对立的。占主导地位的世界大国仍然是美利坚合众国，它无法承受内部被削弱的危险，所以，特朗普不会真的去推翻这个制度。

II. International Balance of Power and Interventionism

二、国际均势与干涉主义

The state of democracy is not only a matter at the national level; the international context must also be considered. Examples of military and foreign interference abound. The most representative examples: Spain (1936), Chile (1973), and more recently Venezuela and Bolivia, while not forgetting dozens of other countries on other continents. Let us specifically recall the imperialist military interventions against the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution and the Cuban Revolution.

民主的状况不仅仅是国家层面的问题，还必须考虑国际背景。遭到军事和外国干涉的例子比比皆是。最具代表性的例子：西班牙(1936年)、智利(1973年),以及最近的委内瑞拉、玻利维亚，同时也不要忘记还有其他大洲的几十个国家。让我们具体回顾一下帝国主义对巴黎公社、俄国革命、越南革命和古巴革命的军事干涉。

For a long time, especially over the past 20 years, the huge offensive of imperialism has been carried out in the name of democracy, freedom and human rights, but the results have been exactly the opposite, namely the loss of sovereignty and the decline of well-being of the people in the intervened countries, consequences sometimes masked by electoral appearances that look very Western. The United States, in the name of democracy, strikes at the sovereignty of peoples and countries that do not submit. In other words, the United States and other Western countries are openly confronting the right of peoples to self-determination, i.e., democracy itself. Then there is simply an ultimatum to the disobedient country: either integrate and submit, or stay outside, become a potential hostile target, and suffer simple reprimands or sanctions or even complete military destruction.

长期以来，特别是在过去20年里，帝国主义的巨大攻势都是以民主、自由和人权的名义进行的，但产生的结果却恰恰相反，即被干涉国人民主权的丧失以及福祉的下降，这些后果有时被一些看起来非常西方式的选举表象所掩盖。美国以民主的名义，对不服从的人民和国家的主权进行打击。换句话说，美国等西方国家是在公开对抗人民的自决权，也就是民主本身。然后就是简单地对不服从的国家进行最后通牒：要么融入并服从，要么留在外面，成为潜在的敌对目标，遭受简单的训斥或制裁甚至彻底的军事毁灭。

When Western countries decide to destroy a country, causing disastrous social consequences, they carelessly call it "collateral damage"; when faced with waves of refugees fleeing war and famine, they immediately close their doors to the people of these countries. These people must silently bear the consequences and cannot disrupt the stability of the Western countries themselves. Western countries have destabilized other countries, using the excuse of "collateral" victims to welcome their own political-military actions, while refusing to bear the consequences.

当西方国家决定摧毁一个国家，引发灾难性的社会后果时，它们毫不在乎地称之为“附带损害”;当面对逃离战争和饥荒的难民潮时，它们立即向这些国家的民众关闭大门。这些民众必须默默承受后果，不能扰乱西方国家自己的稳定。西方国家破坏了其他国家的稳定，用“附带”受害者欢迎自己的政治军事行动作为借口，来拒绝承担后果。

It is this difference between internal and external that explains why a regime that calls itself democratic, such as the United States and other major Western powers, can destroy a country in the name of democracy, crush democracy — i.e., genuine people's power — with violence or covert action, as long as this people's power is seen by the self-proclaimed democratic regime as an obstacle to its own power. Whether targeting democratic countries or dictatorial regimes, imposing the appearance of democracy (in official US parlance, "regime change") remains a tyranny. In fact, the United States is imposing its system on other countries, and with it its political and cultural domination. This clearly evokes the precedent of colonialism, which sought to convert "natives" into a certain sect of Christianity of the occupying power.

正是这种对内和对外的差异，解释了为什么一个自称民主的政权，如美国以及其他西方大国，可以以民主的名义摧毁一个国家，用暴力或秘密行动粉碎民主即真正的人民权力，只要这种人民权力被自称民主的政权视为自己权力的障碍。无论是针对民主国家还是针对独裁政权国家，强加民主的表象(按照美国官方的说法是“政权改变”)仍然是一种暴政。事实上，美国正在向他国强加其制度，并随之强加其政治和文化统治。这显然让人联想到殖民主义的先例，即把“土著人”转化为占领国的某派基督教徒。

If a country's "dictator" is indeed the target of armed intervention by Western countries in the name of democracy, then in reality, they are not targeted because of the nature of their internal regime, but because they have not bowed to the world's dominant power. The benevolent attitude of the United States towards friendly, docile and subservient "dictatorships" is proof. What is driven out by the Western democratic system is not the dictator, but the independence of these countries; they are sentenced to death for "impolite disobedience."

如果一个国家的“独裁者”确实是西方国家以民主名义进行武装干涉的目标，那么实际上，他们并不是因为内部政权的性质而成为干涉目标，而是因为他们没有向世界主导力量低头。美国对友好、温顺的附属“独裁国家”的仁慈态度就是证明。被西方民主制度赶走的不是独裁者，而是这些国家的独立，他们因“无礼的不服从”而被判处死刑。

III. Capitalism and Democracy

三、资本主义与民主

However, this contradiction is only apparent. In fact, this dual character, internal and external, has existed since the historical origins of democracy. Democracy indeed has two levels: the internal level aims to coordinate contradictions through rules accepted by all, to make decisions on the basis of widely accepted choices, and to peacefully resolve disputes between equal or near-equal parties; the external level aims at exclusion, i.e., excluding non-beneficiaries, potential ruled and exploited victims, from the privileged circle.

然而，这种矛盾只是表面现象。实际上，这种对内和对外的双面性早在民主的历史起源中就已经存在。民主确实有两个层面：对内层面的目的是通过所有人都接受的规则来协调矛盾，在广泛认同的选择之上作出决定，和平解决平等各方或准平等各方之间的争端；对外层面的目的是排斥，即把非受益者、潜在的被统治被剥削的受害者排斥在特权圈子之外。

We can trace the historical trajectory of this concept: from ancient Greece and Rome, to Venice and the Netherlands (13th and 17th centuries), and then to England, where commercial and imperial rule relied on powerful naval forces, thus creating a system that served the interests of overseas domination while implementing democracy internally.

我们可以追溯这种概念的历史轨迹：从古希腊和罗马，到威尼斯和荷兰(13世纪和17世纪),再到英国，这些地方的商业和帝国统治都依赖于强大的海上力量，从而造就了一种为海外统治利益服务、对内实施民主的制度。

With the advent of the colonial empire era, this principle spread globally. With some exceptions, citizenship and democracy were not granted to the colonized, because by definition they were conquered, inferior people.

随着殖民帝国时代的到来，这一原则已传播至全球范围内。除了一些例外情况，公民权和民主是不给予被殖民者的，因为根据定义，他们是被征服的、低等的人。

Capitalism itself operates on the same principle, with a barrier between the inside (owners, shareholders) and the outside (non-owners, proletarians); what we call very unequal democracy is only an internal condition. As shown by the world's socialist and anti-colonial movements, capitalism a priori ignores the outside; for it, everything external is first of all discarded, even crushed, even if this principle can subsequently be turned back against the intentions and power of colonial rule by the colonies.

资本主义本身也按照同样的原则运作，在内部(所有者、股东)和外部(非所有者、无产者)之间有一道屏障，我们所说的非常不平等的民主只是内部的状况。正如世界上的社会主义和反殖民主义运动所显示的那样，资本主义先验地无视外部，对它来说，一切外来的东西首先是被抛弃的，甚至是被粉碎的，即使这个原则随后可以反过来用于殖民地反对殖民统治的意图和权力。

Western-style democracy is not the result of an ideological choice by the democratic factions within the wealthy and the rich class to generously grant freedom to others, but rather the outcome of struggles among themselves and between social classes, that is, the establishment of a minimal basis for consensus through compromise. It is precisely the search for this basis that has guaranteed the improvement of the quality of life for the people of Western countries and the development of civil rights. As soon as disagreements arise, this system is overturned. Similarly, international democracy can only be guaranteed on the basis of an international consensus founded on respect for sovereignty and diversity.

西式民主不是富国富人阶级中的民主派在意识形态上选择慷慨给予他者自由的结果，而是他们内部之间，以及社会各阶级之间斗争的结果，即通过妥协建立一个最低限度的协商一致的基础。正是对这一基础的寻求，保证了西方国家人民生活质量的提高和公民权的发展。只要出现分歧，这个系统就会被推翻。同样，只有以建立在尊重主权和多样性之上的国际共识为基础，才能保证国际的民主。

IV. Democracy and Civil War

四、民主与内战

Let us use an old and important example—the American Civil War (1861–1865)—to illustrate the nature of this Western democracy and its contradictions. The American Civil War took place on the soil of this much-vaunted but fragmented American-style democracy. The outcome of the American Civil War marked the victory of freedom over slavery, which Marx and the First International celebrated at the time, but this is not the whole story of the civil war. If this war was indeed initiated by the Southern slaveholders, it was because they feared losing their privileges; yet the war originally launched by the North was not aimed at abolishing slavery, but at re-establishing the Union. What was most intolerable to them was the division of the nation. The evidence is that weapons were respected, not the democratic opinions of the voters, who had undoubtedly cast their ballots for Lincoln.

让我们用一个古老而重要的例子——美国内战(1861年—1865年),来说明这种西方民主的本质及其矛盾。美国内战就发生在这个被大肆吹嘘但却支离破碎的美式民主的土地上。美国内战的结果标志着自由战胜了奴隶制，那时，马克思和第一国际还为之欢呼，但这并不是内战的全部。这场战争如果确实由南方奴隶主发起，那么是因为他们担心丧失自己的特权；然而最初由北方发起的这场战争并不是为了废除奴隶制，而是为了重新建立联邦。对他们来说，最不能容忍的是国家分裂。证据就是受到尊重的是武器，而不是选民的民主意见，他们毫无疑问把票投给了林肯。

Moreover, after the North was actually defeated, it was only when faced with the necessity of defeating the Southern slaveholders that this civil war dialectically transformed into a victory for the abolition of slavery, and not the other way around. In this war, full of slaughter and trauma for Americans, there were two intertwined aspects: first, the South's political decision to secede; second, the South's social motivation to maintain slavery, which was condemned in the North but faced no real threat. As for the war, it was launched by the North to prohibit secession. It was the course of the war that led the North to adopt a more direct stance against slavery, but this was done gradually and with difficulty.

而且，在北方实际被打败之后，只有在面对必须打败南方奴隶主的问题时，这场内战才辩证地转变为废除奴隶制的胜利，而不是相反。在这场对美国人来说充满杀戮和创伤的战争中，有两个相互交织的方面：一是南方在政治上决定分离；二是南方维护奴隶制的社会动机，奴隶制只在北方受到谴责而没有受到任何现实的威胁。至于战争，是由北方发动的，目的是禁止分裂主义。正是战争的进程使北方更加直接地采取了反对奴隶制的立场，但这是逐步进行的，且有一定难度。

It was precisely because the North did not respect the results of the democratic vote that the South seceded. And it was precisely because the South lost the war that it lost the slavery it cherished most. In short, the South decided to secede from the Union to avoid the risk of abolishing slavery, but the abolition of slavery was not actually on the agenda; it was through war, and above all through its own military defeat, that the South gave birth to the act of abolition. Just as a century later, the defeat of the Anti-Comintern Alliance of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy in World War II led to an unprecedented expansion of the socialist camp, especially the founding of the People's Republic of China.

正因为北方不尊重民主投票产生的结果，南方才会分离。而且，正因为南方输掉了战争，才失去了它最珍视的奴隶制。简而言之，南方为了避免废除奴隶制的风险而决定从联邦中分离出去，但废除奴隶制其实并不在议程之内，南方实际上是通过战争，首先是通过自己的军事失败才催生了废除奴隶制的行动。正如一个世纪后，纳粹德国、日本帝国和意大利法西斯的反共产国际联盟在第二次世界大战的失败导致了社会主义阵营的空前扩大，特别是中华人民共和国的成立。

Let us return to the American Civil War, which caused 750,000 deaths and remains the war with the highest number of American citizen casualties to this day. Moreover, on the soil of American democracy, this was a true civil war. In those four years, the American people shed more blood on their own land than on any domestic or foreign battlefield (such as the World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) since the founding of the nation in 1776. If calculated based on the current population of the United States, such a civil war would be equivalent to 8 million deaths. In these four years of conflict, the death rate of nearly 3% is close to the total for France and Germany during the First World War.

让我们回到美国内战，这场战争造成了75万人死亡，至今仍是美国公民死亡人数最多的战争。而且，在美国民主的土地上，这是一场真正的内战。在那4年里，美国人民在自己土地上流的血远远超过1776年建国以来的任何国内或国外战场(如世界大战、越南、朝鲜等)。如果以美国目前的人口计算，这样一场内战相当于造成800万人死亡。在这4年的冲突中，近3%的死亡比例接近于法国和德国在第一次世界大战期间的总和。

V. The Limits and Ideal of Democracy

五、民主的限制与理想

The critique of Western democracy here deliberately does not emphasize the differences between its reality and its form (whether the working class has the right to vote, whether women, Blacks, and various minority groups have the right to vote, public freedoms and civil rights, communication methods and the unequal financial resources behind political forces, etc.). If these differences also follow some law of separation between internal and external, then they are first and foremost the result of the different national social, political, and cultural historical developments they follow. These social, political, and cultural historical limits do not in fact invalidate the model of internal-external separation itself, because these limits only indicate the incompleteness of the model in principle, an incompleteness that has become less and less in many countries. This is because within a country, due to struggle and natural development, the boundaries between external and internal (wealth, race, age, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.) have been constantly changing.

这里对西方民主的批评有意不强调其现实与形式上的差异(工人阶级是否有投票权，妇女、黑人和各种少数群体是否有投票权，公共自由与公民权、交流方式与政治力量背后不平等的财政资源，等等)。如果这些差异也遵从某种对内与对外分离的法则，那么它们首先是其所遵循的不同国家社会、政治和文化历史发展的结果。这些社会、政治和文化历史的限制事实上并没有使内外分离的模式本身失效，因为这些限制只表明该模式在原则方面的不完整，在许多国家，这种不完整已经变得越来越少。这是因为在一个国家内部，由于斗争和自然发展，外部与内部(财富、种族、年龄、性别、民族、宗教等)之间的界限一直在不断变化。

In these countries with long democratic traditions, progressive forces are legitimately attached to democratically produced political forms, mainly due to two factors: the results of their political and social struggles (sometimes bloody), and the maintenance of a certain balance between political factions and the freedom of political action. The limits of democracy are the consensus of the factions. Questioning the foundations of these achievements can easily turn into reactionary discontent, which will first benefit anti-representative, far-right, and fascist groups.

在这些具有长期民主传统的国家中，进步力量合法依附于由民主产生的政治形式，主要因为两个因素：他们进行政治和社会斗争的成果(有时很血腥)、确保各政治派别之间保持某种平衡和政治行动的自由。民主的限制就是各派的共识。质疑这些成就的基础很容易变成反动的不满情绪，会首先有利于反代议制、极右翼和法西斯主义群体。

However, the democratic forms of Western countries were obtained through the struggles of the people, often with revolutionary origins, yet these countries use military force to impose these democratic forms on other countries, causing famine, death, and the disruption of social relations. Far from expanding these democratic forms, Western countries have discredited them, made them despised, and stripped them of the legitimate reputation they should have earned from people around the world. Because these democratic forms are not intended to be imposed on any country, but rather the ruling class believes it has the right to do so for its own interests. This is what the French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre foresaw on January 2, 1792: the most extravagant idea that can be born in the mind of a politician is to believe that a people, armed with one hand, entering the home of a foreign people, can make the latter adopt the former's laws and constitution. No one likes armed missionaries; people's natural and cautious reaction is to drive them away as enemies.

然而，西方国家的民主形式是通过人民斗争获得的，往往有革命的起源，而这些国家却利用军事力量把这些民主形式强加给其他国家，造成了饥荒、死亡和社会关系的混乱。西方国家不但没有扩大这些民主形式，反而使它们失去了信誉，遭到鄙视，并使它们失去了全世界人民应该给予它们的合法声誉。因为这些民主形式并没有强加于任何国家的意图，而是统治阶级认为自己有权为了自己的利益这样做。这就是法国革命领袖罗伯斯庇尔(Maximilien Robespierre)在1792年1月2日已经预见到的情况：一个政治家头脑中可能诞生的最奢侈的想法，就是相信一个民族武装一只手进入一个外国民族的家园，就可以让后者采纳前者的法律和宪法。没有人喜欢武装的传教士，人们自然而谨慎的反应就是把他们当作敌人赶走。

VI. Democratic Struggle and Socialism

六、民主斗争与社会主义

For the oppressed, fighting for democracy, that is, fighting for their people's power, first requires organizing themselves and training themselves. Then, the legacy of the democratic forms produced by these old revolutions is transformed into various continuously developing forms of people's democracy, forms of socialist democracy, but the oppressed have never escaped the fate of foreign intervention and armed intervention aimed at restoring the old regime.

对于被压迫者来说，为民主而战，也就是为他们的人民权力而战，首先要组织起来，训练自己。然后，这些旧革命所产生的民主形式的遗产被转化为各种不断发展的人民民主形式、社会主义民主形式，但被压迫者从未摆脱被外国干涉和旨在恢复旧政权的武装干涉的命运。

In a world full of conflict, where people's independence and national sovereignty are threatened, it does not matter whether these destabilizing political-military threats and actions come from countries with some form of democratic republic; what matters is that these countries attempt to perpetuate a violent dictatorial rule over the globe, usurping rights for themselves that have no democratic mandate.

在一个冲突不断、人民独立和国家主权受到威胁的世界里，这些破坏稳定的政治军事威胁和行动是否来自具有某种民主共和形式的国家并不重要，重要的是这些国家试图延续对全球的暴力独裁统治，把没有经过民主委托的权利篡为己有。

On January 5, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out: "The historical materialist view that capitalism will inevitably perish and socialism will inevitably triumph has not become outdated. This is an irreversible general trend in the development of social history, but the path is tortuous. The final demise of capitalism and the final victory of socialism will inevitably be a very long historical process." We are still in this stage, and we may remain so for a considerable period of time. The transitional period is full of threats to peace, and the United States and its allies are seeking to recreate the atmosphere of the Cold War. Having won the last round, they now feel that their time of hegemony is running out. But international democracy can only be imposed by this hegemony.

2013年1月5日，中国国家主席习近平指出：“关于资本主义必然消亡、社会主义必然胜利的历史唯物主义观点也没有过时。这是社会历史发展不可逆转的总趋势，但道路是曲折的。资本主义最终消亡、社会主义最终胜利，必然是一个很长的历史过程。”我们仍然处于这个阶段，可能在相当长的一段时间内都会如此。过渡时期充满了对和平的威胁，美国及其盟友正在寻求重塑冷战氛围。在赢得了上一场比赛之后，他们现在感到，属于他们的霸权时间已经不多了。但是，国际民主只能被强加这种霸权。

President Xi Jinping added: "We must deeply understand the self-adjustment capacity of capitalist society and fully estimate the objective reality that Western developed countries will maintain long-term superiority in the economic, technological, and military fields."

习近平主席补充说：“我们要深刻认识资本主义社会的自我调节能力，充分估计到西方发达国家在经济科技军事方面长期占据优势的客观现实。”

One can add some democratic forms, rights, and rules of freedom to a comprehensive assessment of the achievements of capitalist society, but this must first of all deprive these great powers of the right to use democratic rules in violation of their declared goals, because the sole purpose of these great powers is to conquer and destroy other countries.

人们可以在对资本主义社会成就的全面评估中增加一些民主形式、权利和自由规则的内容，但这首先要剥夺这些大国违背其宣称的目标而使用民主规则的权利，因为这些大国唯一的目的是征服和摧毁其他国家。

VII. The Well-being of the People

七、人民的福祉

Seeking a balance of well-being, development, and harmony is the natural aspiration of all peoples. Democracy is a means to achieve this goal; it must serve these ends, not the hegemony of a minority. The Chinese ambassador to the United States and the Russian ambassador to the United States clearly emphasized this view in their joint signed article on November 26, 2021: “A basic standard of democracy must be about the people, i.e., the people must have the right to govern their country, their needs must be met, and the people must have a sense of achievement and happiness… Seeking a position of supremacy, always putting oneself first, is an act of hegemonism and unilateralism, and is clearly anti-democratic.”

寻求福祉、发展与和谐平衡是各国人民的自然愿望。民主是实现这一目标的手段，它必须为这些目标服务，而不是为少数人的霸权服务。中国驻美大使及俄罗斯驻美大使在2021年11月26日的联合署名文章中明确强调了这一观点：“民主的一个基本标准必须是关于人民，即人民必须有权治理他们的国家，他们的需求必须得到满足，人民必须有成就感和幸福感……追求至高无上的地位，总是把自己放在第一位，是霸权主义和单边主义的行径，显然是反民主的。”

The West’s purpose in seeking to impose its political system on other countries is not to spread well-being and happiness across the earth, but to proclaim its own dominant position, to prove its own intellectual and moral correctness, and to impose its economic and social system based on exploitation and inequality. If the West truly wished for the well-being and free and vigorous development of the world’s peoples, it would first of all avoid becoming a permanent supreme judge, and avoid becoming an international coercive force that interferes in and undermines the sovereignty of other countries.

西方寻求向他国强加其政治制度的目的不是为了在地球上传播福祉和幸福，而是为了宣扬其统治地位，证明自己在智力和道德上的正确性，并强加其基于剥削和不平等的经济和社会制度。如果西方真的希望世界人民获得福祉和自由蓬勃的发展，那么它们首先要避免自己成为永久的最高法官，以及成为干涉和破坏他国主权的国际强制力。

The principal contradiction in today’s world is the contradiction between the ruling minority on earth, which seeks to impose its system on the ruled majority, and the latter, which seeks to exercise its popular sovereignty and national sovereignty. Only a harmonious world that sets aside domination and threats can reasonably and fairly manage the major issues of all humanity: food, health, ecological balance, access to water and energy, and population, social, and cultural development. This harmonious world will open a new chapter in international and national democracy, where different forms of democracy will be able to fully blossom in various forms, and can draw on different experiences and systems currently in struggle on earth to innovate. (Notes omitted.)

当今世界的主要矛盾是地球上占统治地位的少数人寻求强加其制度给被统治的多数人与后者寻求实施其人民主权和国家主权之间的矛盾。只有抛开统治和威胁的和谐世界才能合理、公平地管理全人类的重大问题：食物、健康、生态平衡、水和能源的获取，人口、社会和文化发展。这个和谐世界将翻开国际和国家民主的新篇章，不同民主形式将能够充分地以各种形式开花结果，并可以借鉴目前地球上斗争中的不同经验和制度以进行创新。（注释略）

(The author is former editor-in-chief of the French journal *International Correspondence*; the translator’s affiliation: Institute of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

（作者系法国《国际通讯》前主编;译者单位：中国社会科学院马克思主义研究院）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑