Whole-Process People’s Democracy Is the Most Genuine Democracy

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that “people’s democracy is the lifeblood of socialism and an essential requirement of building a modern socialist country in all respects. Whole-process people’s democracy is the defining feature of socialist democratic politics and is the broadest, most genuine, and most effective form of democracy.” Democracy is a common value of all humanity, an important concept to which the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people have always steadfastly adhered, and also a significant aspect that the classical Marxist writers deeply pondered. Reviewing the relevant discussions of the classical Marxist writers on democracy is of great significance for us to profoundly grasp the essential connotation of democracy and to practice and develop whole-process people’s democracy on the new journey.

习近平总书记指出，“人民民主是社会主义的生命，是全面建设社会主义现代化国家的应有之义。全过程人民民主是社会主义民主政治的本质属性，是最广泛、最真实、最管用的民主”。民主是全人类的共同价值，是中国共产党和中国人民始终不渝坚持的重要理念，也是马克思主义经典作家深入思考的一个重要方面。回顾马克思主义经典作家关于民主的相关探讨，对于我们深刻把握民主的本质内涵，在新征程上实践和发展全过程人民民主具有重要意义。

Historical materialism holds that democracy, as a political system and value pursuit that has long existed in human society, has different epochal connotations at different historical stages. Marx greatly admired the classical democratic systems represented by ancient Greece and ancient Rome, but also offered profound critiques of their defects. Because private life and the public political life of the city-state highly overlapped, the classical democratic system could not guarantee that individuals enjoyed full freedom and rights. More critically, the classical democratic system was based on slavery; the “all citizens” it enfranchised constituted only a minority of the city-state’s and the country’s population, while the vast majority of the population—slaves and foreigners—were completely excluded. Marx sharply pointed out: “In ancient Rome, class struggle took place only within a privileged minority, between the free rich and the free poor, while the great productive mass of the population, the slaves, merely formed the passive pedestal for these combatants.” [1]1 This passage paraphrases and quotes from Marx’s critique of capitalist property relations, particularly as developed in *Capital* and the *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, where the “reestablishment of individual property” is understood as the socialized property of associated producers. It can be seen that the classical democratic system had serious defects in both the content and the representativeness of its democratic politics.

唯物史观认为，民主作为人类社会长期存在的政治制度和价值追求，在不同的历史阶段具有不同的时代内涵。马克思对以古希腊和古罗马为代表的古典民主制度大加赞赏，也对其缺陷有着深刻批判。由于私人生活与城邦公共政治生活高度重叠，古典民主制并不能保证个体享有充分的自由权利。更关键的是，古典民主制以奴隶制为基础，其所赋权的“全体公民”只占城邦和国家人口的少数，而占人口大多数的奴隶和外邦人被完全排斥在外。马克思尖锐指出：“在古罗马，阶级斗争只是在享有特权的少数人内部进行，只是在富有的自由民与贫穷的自由民之间进行，而从事生产的广大民众，即奴隶，则不过为这些斗士充当消极的舞台台柱。”可见，古典民主制在其民主政治的内容与代表性上都存在严重的缺陷。

Regarding modern bourgeois representative democracy, Marx pointed out that “representative government is a great advance because it is the open, unperverted, consistent expression of the modern state” and held that democracy is the actual essence of the modern state. Although Marx affirmed the historical progressiveness of bourgeois representative democracy relative to the classical democratic system and the medieval estate system, he also made a principled critique of the so-called “modern state system,” i.e., the capitalist political system: bourgeois political emancipation and capitalist representative democracy are premised on the separation of civil society and the political state, and this a priori premise determines the inherent contradictions it cannot overcome.

对于近代资产阶级代议制民主，马克思指出，“代议制是一大进步，因为它是现代国家状况的公开的、未被歪曲的、前后一贯的表现”，并认为民主制是现代国家的现实本质。马克思虽然肯定了资产阶级代议制民主相对于古典民主制和中世纪等级制的历史进步性，但也对所谓“现代国家制度”即资本主义的政治制度，作出了具有原则高度的前提性批判：资产阶级的政治解放以及资本主义的代议制民主是以资本主义社会与政治国家的分离为前提的，这个先验前提决定了它难以克服的内在矛盾。

The separation of civil society and the political state causes a split in human identity between “private individual” and “citizen,” i.e., “political emancipation at one stroke turns man into a member of civil society, into an egoistic, independent individual, and at another stroke turns him into a citizen, into a juridical person.” Capitalist society first understands man as an egoistic private individual, which leads to the isolation of the individual from the community and the loss of public life. Because the “private” sphere of capitalist society is “the war of all against all,” its principle is separation, reification, and hierarchy, and its essence is fierce market competition centered on private property rights and the spirit of egoism. Since people in the life of capitalist society only live a particularistic, self-interested life, universal public affairs are forced to be abstracted into the isolated “political state” and monopolized by it. Therefore, Marx called the political life of the capitalist state the “scholasticism of the people’s life,” where the people only participate in the political state through representative elections that alienate political rights. The political state, abstracted by representation, monopolizes “universal affairs,” thereby alienating a false “universal estate,” i.e., “bureaucracy.” Marx pointed out: “Where the ‘state formalism’ constitutes itself as a real power and makes itself its own material content, it is self-evident that ‘bureaucracy’ is a web of practical illusions, or the ‘illusion of the state.’” And the people’s right to vote is in fact “treated as a plaything in the hands of the ruling class, allowing the people to exercise it only once every few years to approve the class rule of parliament (choosing the instrument of this rule).”

社会与政治国家的分离，使人产生“私人”与“公民”的身份分裂，即“政治解放一方面把人变成市民社会的成员，变成利己的、独立的个人，另一方面把人变成公民，变成法人”。资本主义社会首先把人理解为利己主义的私人，这导致人与共同体的隔离以及公共生活的缺失。因为资本主义社会的“私人”领域是“一切人反对一切人的战争”，其原则是分离、物役和等级，其实质是围绕私有制产权和利己主义精神展开的激烈的市场竞争。由于人们在资本主义社会的生活中只过着特殊性的自利生活，普遍性的公共事务被迫抽象到孤立的“政治国家”中并为其垄断，所以马克思将资本主义国家的政治生活称为“人民生活的经院哲学”，人民仅以让渡政治权利的代议制选举作为参与政治国家的方式。被代议制抽象化的政治国家独占了“普遍事务”，便异化出一个虚假的“普遍等级”即“官僚政治”。马克思指出：“‘国家形式主义’把自身建成为一种现实力量，并使自身成为自己的物质内容，那就显而易见，‘官僚政治’是各种实际的幻想的网状织物，或者说，它是‘国家的幻想’。”而人民的选举权其实“被当作统治阶级手中的玩物，只是让人民每隔几年行使一次，来批准议会制的阶级统治（选择这种统治的工具）”。

More importantly, the separation, reification, and hierarchy within capitalist society bring not only the loss of community life in a formal sense; their direct social result is the brutal rule and exploitation of labor by capital, the destitution and suffering of the proletariat. This also determines the essence of the “political state” erected upon it: behind the formal abstraction of capitalist representative democracy lies the class rule that realizes the interests of a particular class. Engels pointed out in *Principles of Communism*: “After the bourgeoisie had become the first class in society, it also declared itself the first class politically. It achieved this by introducing representative government.” The separated structure of capitalist society and the political state together constitute the ruling power of the bourgeoisie. On this, Marx sharply noted: “The opposition between the democratic representative state and civil society is the completion of the typical opposition between community and slavery.” Lenin also profoundly pointed out: “Under ‘democratic’ capitalism, economic differences are not diminished but are increasingly widened and deepened. The parliamentary system does not eliminate the essence of the most democratic bourgeois republic as an organ of class oppression; it constantly exposes this essence.” Capitalist representative democracy is merely “deciding once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and oppress the people in parliament.”

更为重要的是，资本主义社会内部的分离、物役和等级，带来的不仅仅是形式意义的共同体生活的丧失，其直接的社会结果是资本对劳动的残酷统治和剥削，是无产阶级的赤贫与苦难。这也决定了耸立其上的“政治国家”的本质：资本主义代议制民主的形式抽象性背后，是实现其特殊阶级利益的阶级统治。恩格斯在《共产主义原理》中指出：“资产阶级在社会上上升为第一阶级以后，它也就在政治上宣布自己是第一阶级。它是通过实行代议制而做到这一点的。”资本主义社会与政治国家的分离结构共同构成了资产阶级的统治权，对此，马克思尖锐指出：“民主代议制国家和市民社会的对立是社会共同体和奴隶制的典型对立的完成”。列宁也深刻指出，“在‘民主制的’资本主义的自由下，经济上的差别并没有缩小，而是日益扩大，日益加深。议会制度并没有消除最民主的资产阶级共和国作为阶级压迫机关的本质，而是不断暴露这种本质”。资本主义代议制民主只是“每隔几年决定一次究竟由统治阶级中的什么人在议会里镇压人民、压迫人民”。

Marx and Engels revealed the inherent contradictions and hypocritical essence of capitalist democracy and, with communism as their goal, pursued genuine democracy and emancipation. As Engels pointed out in *Progress of Social Reform on the Continent*: “The French Revolution was the rise of democracy in Europe. In my opinion, democracy, like every other form of government, is ultimately self-contradictory… the hidden contradiction must come to light: either genuine slavery, i.e., naked despotism, or genuine freedom and genuine equality, i.e., communism.” Marx and Engels pointed out that communism pursues the democracy of the proletariat: “The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” But communism is not merely about establishing the democracy of the proletariat; it is about establishing a genuine community that replaces class rule itself and realizes the free and comprehensive development of all individuals. It achieves “the universal emancipation of man,” because the proletariat can only finally liberate itself by liberating all of humanity.

马克思恩格斯揭示了资本主义民主的内在矛盾和虚伪本质，并以共产主义为目标，追求真正的民主和解放。正如恩格斯在《大陆上社会改革的进展》中指出的：“法国大革命是民主制在欧洲的兴起。依我看来，民主制和其他任何政体一样，归根结底是自相矛盾的……其中隐藏的矛盾必定暴露出来；要么是真正的奴隶制，即赤裸裸的专制制度，要么是真正的自由和真正的平等，即共产主义。”马克思恩格斯指出，共产主义追求的是无产阶级的民主，“工人革命的第一步就是使无产阶级上升为统治阶级，争得民主”。但共产主义不仅仅是建立无产阶级的民主，而是建立取代了阶级统治本身、实现一切人自由全面发展的真实共同体。它实现的是“普遍的人的解放”，因为无产阶级只有解放全人类，才能最后解放自己。

To realize the “universal emancipation of man,” it is necessary to overthrow the rule of capitalist society and the political state and to achieve people’s democracy. Communism must first overthrow the internal hierarchy of capitalist society to achieve “social emancipation,” i.e., “the emancipation of labor,” “to free labor from the usurped power (enslavement) of that clique which monopolizes the means of labor, whether created by the workers themselves or bestowed by nature,” and “to turn land and capital completely into the instruments of free and associated labor, thereby making individual ownership a reality.” [1]1 This passage paraphrases and quotes from Marx’s critique of capitalist property relations, particularly as developed in *Capital* and the *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, where the “reestablishment of individual property” is understood as the socialized property of associated producers. Overthrowing the economic autocracy of capital’s unlimited domination and exploitation of labor and realizing the free associated production of laborers under public ownership of the means of production is the social foundation of the “universal emancipation of man.” On this basis, what replaces the bourgeois political state is a “new and truly democratic state power,” [2]2 The phrase “new and truly democratic state power” is drawn from Marx’s analysis of the Paris Commune in *The Civil War in France*. where the broad masses of the people achieve self-governance as masters of the house by electing people’s representatives. People’s democracy is genuine democracy: “universal suffrage has been applied to its true purpose: the election by the communes of their administrative and law-making public officials.” [3]3 This is a paraphrase of Marx’s description of the Commune’s use of universal suffrage in *The Civil War in France*. The nature of public affairs is transformed from rule over the people into service for the people: “the reasonable functions that the government ought to perform are not carried out by an institution standing above society, but by the accountable servants of society itself.” [4]4 This is a paraphrase of Marx’s description of the transformed functions of public service in the Commune, from *The Civil War in France*. People’s democracy breaks the monopoly of the bourgeois political state over public affairs and guarantees the people’s right to participate in public affairs: “to turn all public offices—military, administrative, and political—into truly workers’ posts, so that they no longer belong to a specially trained privileged stratum as private property.” [5]5 This is a paraphrase of Marx’s description of the Commune’s transformation of public offices into workers’ posts, from *The Civil War in France*. People’s democracy is a comprehensive transcendence of the rule of capitalist society and the political state; it is the “universal emancipation of man” that unifies political democracy, social democracy, economic democracy, and liberal democracy.

实现“普遍的人的解放”，就要推翻资本主义社会与政治国家的统治，实现人民民主。共产主义首先要推翻资本主义社会的内在等级实现“社会解放”即“劳动解放”，“把劳动从垄断着劳动者自己所创造的或是自然所赐予的劳动资料的那批人僭取的权力（奴役）下解放出来”，“土地和资本完全变成自由的和联合的劳动的工具，从而使个人所有制成为现实”。推翻资本对劳动无限统治和剥削的经济极权，实现生产资料公有制下劳动者的自由联合生产是“普遍的人的解放”的社会基础。在此基础上替代资产阶级政治国家的是“新的真正民主的国家政权”，广大人民通过选举人民代表实现当家作主的自我管理。人民民主是真正的民主，“普选权已被应用于它的真正目的：由各公社选举它们的行政的和创制法律的公职人员”。公共事务的性质由对人民的统治变成了为人民服务：“政府应执行的合理职能，则不是由凌驾于社会之上的机构，而是由社会本身的承担责任的勤务员来执行。”人民民主打破了资产阶级政治国家对公共事务的垄断，保证人民对公共事务的参与权利：“把所有的公职——军事、行政、政治的职务变成真正工人的职务，使它们不再归一个受过训练的特殊阶层所私有。”人民民主是对资本主义社会和政治国家统治的全面超越，是政治民主、社会民主、经济民主和自由民主相统一的“普遍的人的解放”。

Whole-process people’s democracy is a development of the Marxist theory of democracy and an innovative achievement of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. The essence and core of people’s democracy is to ensure that the people are the masters of the house. Whole-process people’s democracy is the institutional guarantee for realizing that the people are the masters of the house, reflecting the essential attribute of socialist democratic politics; it upholds the organic unity of Party leadership, the people being the masters of the house, and law-based governance, reflecting the unique advantages of the political development path of socialism with Chinese characteristics; it upholds the principal position of the people, reflecting the historical materialist view that the people are the creators of history, taking root in the masses, basing itself on the masses, and embedding itself among the masses, fully mobilizing the initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity of the broad masses of the people. Whole-process people’s democracy is a democracy of the entire chain, all-encompassing, and covering all aspects. It expands democratic channels, enriches democratic forms, and ensures that the people lawfully carry out democratic elections, democratic consultations, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision, guaranteeing that the people lawfully manage state affairs, economic and cultural undertakings, and social affairs through various channels and forms. Therefore, it is the broadest, most genuine, and most effective socialist democracy. Whole-process people’s democracy not only has a complete institutional procedure but also a complete participatory practice, achieving the unity of procedural democracy and outcome democracy, procedural democracy and substantive democracy, direct democracy and indirect democracy, and people’s democracy and the will of the state. It fully reflects the common will of the people of all ethnic groups and the common aspirations of the whole society, concretely and realistically embodying the people being the masters of the house in the Party’s policies and measures for governing the country, in the work of all aspects and at all levels of the Party and state organs, and in the work of realizing the people’s aspirations for a better life. We must unswervingly deepen and enrich the practice of whole-process people’s democracy, consolidate and develop a lively, stable, and united political situation, and form a powerful force jointly dedicated to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

全过程人民民主是对马克思主义民主理论的发展，是习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的创新成果。人民民主的本质和核心是要保证人民当家作主。全过程人民民主是实现人民当家作主的制度保障，体现了社会主义民主政治的本质属性；坚持党的领导、人民当家作主、依法治国的有机统一，体现了中国特色社会主义政治发展道路的独特优势；坚持人民主体地位，体现了人民是历史创造者的唯物史观，根植人民群众、立足人民群众、扎根人民群众，充分发挥广大人民群众积极性、主动性、创造性。全过程人民民主是全链条、全方位、全覆盖的民主，其拓展民主渠道，丰富民主形式，保证人民依法实行民主选举、民主协商、民主决策、民主管理、民主监督，确保人民依法通过各种途径和形式管理国家事务，管理经济和文化事业，管理社会事务，因此是最广泛、最真实、最管用的社会主义民主。全过程人民民主不仅有完整的制度程序，而且有完整的参与实践，实现了过程民主和成果民主、程序民主和实质民主、直接民主和间接民主、人民民主和国家意志相统一，全面反映了各族人民共同意志和全社会共同意愿，把人民当家作主具体地、现实地体现到党治国理政的政策措施上，体现到党和国家机关各个方面各个层级工作上，体现到实现人民对美好生活向往的工作上。我们要坚定不移深化和丰富全过程人民民主实践，巩固和发展生动活泼、安定团结的政治局面，形成共同致力民族复兴的强大力量。

Online editor: Zhang Fujun

网络编辑：张福军