Politics of China
China practices a form of democracy that it calls socialist consultative democracy. Socialist Consultative Democracy is the form of democracy that exists in the People's Republic of China, though at least one source says that this form of democracy was created by the Communist Party of China. According to an article on Qiushi Journal, "Consultative democracy was created by the CPC and the Chinese people as a form of socialist democracy. In this sense, consultative democracy represents the grand product of our efforts to enrich and develop Marxist theories on democracy. Socialist consultative democracy exhibits distinctive features as well as unique advantages. Not only representing a commitment to socialism, it carries forward China’s fine political and cultural traditions. Not only representing a commitment to the organizational principles and leadership mode of democratic centralism, it also affirms the role of the general public in democracy. Not only representing a commitment to the leadership of the CPC, it also gives play to the role of all political parties and organizations as well as people of all ethnic groups and all sectors of society".
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
Socialist patriotism is a concept invented by Vladimir Lenin, the informal leader of the Russian Bolshevik Party. It commits people to a non-nationalistic form of devotion to one's country. According to the standard Soviet definition, it means "boundless love for the socialist homeland, a commitment to the revolutionary transformation of society [and] the cause of communism". To ensure that socialist patriotism did not evolve into a form of nationalism (criticized as a bourgeois ideology), the people had to be committed to proletarian internationalism. The CCP, shortly after seizing power, defined three levels of socialist patriotism. "At the first level, individuals should subordinate their personal interests to the interests of the state. At the second level, individuals should subordinate their personal destiny to the destiny of our socialist system. At the third level, individuals should subordinate their personal future to the future of our communist cause." Mao's nationalism was not inclusivist, and people from certain classes were deemed unpatriotic from the outset. Chinese nationalism under Mao was defined as "anti-imperialist" and "anti-feudal" in principle. However, Mao believed that nationalism was of secondary importance, and his main aim was to further expand the reach of the world revolution.