Abstract: According to some western left-wing intellectuals， the working class should be excluded from the core of socialist scheme and capitalist democracy could be regarded as a historical driving force for substituting class struggle and a “panacea” for realizing socialism. With anger， Wood refuted it by exploring the conceptual changes of democracy from the perspective of historical materialism and questioning the utopian fantasy of achieving socialism through expanding capitalist democracy. She then claimed that capitalist democracy and capitalist society were homogeneous and it was only socialist democracy that could work as a powerful weapon against capitalist society. Furthermore， Wood clarified the relationship between socialism and democracy while revealing the hypocrisy of capitalist democracy， which provides beneficial inspirations for us to uphold the right views of democracy.

Key words: Ellen Wood, ancient democracy, capitalist democracy, socialist democracy