What Party Is to Be Built? And How?

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 30, 2001

What Party Is to Be Built? And How?

The Communist Party of China (CPC) is the core leading the Chinese people of all nationalities, our Party is the key to having Chinese own affairs done well. Then what the Party is to be built and how?

Following are excerpts of the 8-part article written by Chen Qun, Miao Changfa and Sun Yeli on their gains from the study of Comrade Jiang Zemin's "On Party Building". The article is carried on the front page of People's Daily on 29 November. Published here is the first four parts, the remaining four parts will be published tomorrow.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) is the core leading the Chinese people of all nationalities. Our Party is the key to getting Chinese own affairs done well. Comrade Jiang Zemin has always paid great attention to strengthening and improving party building. In light of the major changes in internal and external environments facing the Party and the historical mission undertaken by the Party, he points to the need to comprehensively push forward the new great project of party building in compliance with the requirements of the "Three Represents" and around the two major historic subjects of raising the Party's level of leadership and capability of administration and enhancing its ability to combat corruption, prevent degeneration and resist risks, correctly answering the basic question of what kind of a Party is to be built and how to do this under new historical conditions, he has thus inherited, enriched and developed Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory on party construction.

This Collection of Special Essays on Party Building contains the entries of Comrade Jiang Zemin's important manuscripts on party building since the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Party Central Committee. It is a concentrated reflection of the in-depth thinking and important ideas he advanced in order to explore and solve the major theoretical and practical problems facing party construction in the new period by applying the basic principles of Marxism. This is of very important guiding significance to our Party to comprehensively strengthen and improve self-construction in the new century and unite and lead the people of all Chinese ethnic groups to seize still greater victories in our cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

New Great Project of Promoting Party Construction in Compliance with Requirements of the "Three Represents"

Party building is closely linked with the Party's historical tasks and with the Party's theories and lines established in order to accomplish these tasks. The first generation collective of central leadership with Comrade Mao Zedong at the core integrated the basic theory of Marxism with the reality of the Chinese revolution and, around the targets and tasks of party building, creatively solved a series of complicated problems concerning the establishment of a proletarian political party under the particular historical conditions of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and constructed a contingent of the working class vanguard that led the people of the whole country in seizing victory of the New Democratic Revolution and establishing a socialist system.

Faced with the new tasks of reform, opening and modernization drive, the second generation collective of central leadership with Comrade Deng Xiaoping at the core conducted exploration of ways to strengthen self-construction under the condition in which the Party was in power and stressed the need of efforts, centered around the Party's basic line, to build our Party into a Marxist political party with combat effectiveness and into a staunch core leading the cause of socialist modernization drive.

In June 1989 after the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Central Committee of the Party, the third generation collective of central leadership with Comrade Jiang Zemin at the core, centering around the basic problem of what kind of a political party is to be built and how to do this under new historical conditions, grasped party construction with concentrated attention and unremitting efforts. In December the same year, Comrade Jiang Zemin, at the theoretical study class on Party building, delivered a lengthy speech on building the Party into a stronger working class vanguard, comprehensively and systematically expounding some basic theoretical problems concerning Party building.

In 1994 at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee of the Party, Comrade Jiang Zemin made an important speech. The Plenum raised party building, under the conditions of reform, opening up and the socialist market economy, to the height of a new great project, and set clear targets and tasks. This is: "It is necessary to build our Party into a Marxist political party which is armed with the theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, serves the people wholeheartedly, is completely consolidated ideologically, politically and organizationally, capable of withstanding various risks and always advancing in the van of the times."

In February 2000, during his inspection tour of Guangdong Province, Comrade Jiang Zemin pointed out: In reviewing our Party's 70-odd-year history, we can come to an important conclusion, that is: The reason why our Party can win the people's support is that in various historical period of revolution, construction and reform, our Party invariably represents the requirement to develop advanced productive forces, an orientation towards advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people and, through formulating a correct line, principles and policies, has waged an unremitting struggle for realizing the fundamental interests of the State and the people. In May, at the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai Party building work forum, Comrade Jiang Zemin further pointed out: Grasping the work of party building in line with the requirement of the "Three Represents" is identical with the general goal and general requirement of the new great project of party construction in the new historical period. The requirements of the "Three Represents" should be carried out in promoting the Party's ideological, political, organizational and work-style construction. It is "necessary" to grasp the fundamental method of using Deng Xiaoping Theory to arm the mind of the whole Party. Centering around the two major historic subject of constantly raising the level of leadership and administration and enhancing the ability to combat corruption, prevent degeneration and resist risks, it is necessary to comprehensively push forward the work of party building."

In his speech delivered at the Meeting marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of the CPC in July 2001, Comrade Jiang Zemin again emphasized, "We must strengthen and improve party construction in a comprehensive and deep-going way, so that our Party, in the historical process of profound change in the world situation, always advances in the van of the times and, in the historical process of coping with the tests of various internal and external risks, our Party always becomes the mainstay of the entire Chinese people and will always be the core of strong leadership in the historical process of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

To Be Armed with Deng Xiaoping Theory

The maturity of theoretical thinking is an important indication of the maturity of the Party. Since the introduction of reform and opening up, our Party has gained the greatest achievements in theory, that is the second historic leap in the integration of the basic principles of Marxism and the reality of China. Comrade Deng Xiaoping created the theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. This theory gives systematic and preliminary answers for the first time to a series of basic questions concerning how to build, consolidate and develop socialism in China, a country with a relatively backward economy and culture. In October 1992, at the 14th National Congress of the Party, Comrade Jiang Zemin called for using Deng Xiaoping's theory on building socialism with Chinese characteristics to arm the whole Party and emphasized that this was a fundamental work for strengthening and improving party construction and was a long-term, strategic task in party construction. Later, when mentioning the question concerning party building, Comrade Jiang Zemin invariably placed this task in the first place. Comrade Jiang Zemin pointed out that building socialism with Chinese characteristics is a great cause that is forging ahead incessantly. Deng Xiaoping pointed out the way ahead for us, thus laying the foundation for development. But regarding the question of what's the concrete way to take in the future, we should, under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory, rely on ourselves to engage in constant exploration, sum up new experiences and form new understanding. He called on the whole Party to persistently use Deng Xiaoping Theory to observe today's world and modern China, constantly sum up practical experiences, constantly draw up new theoretical summaries, and advance unceasingly in a pioneering spirit.

In tackling party building, it is, first of all, necessary to properly grasp the Party's ideological and political construction, because solving ideological and political problems is the prerequisite and foundation for doing other items of work well.

Unswervingly Adhering to the Party's Basic Line, Upholding Unity of the Party's Maximum and Minimum Programs

Comrade Jiang Zemin maintains that the whole Party should unswervingly adhere to the Party's basic line for the primary stage of socialism, place economic construction as the central task, adhere to the four cardinal principles - the socialist road, the people's democratic dictatorship, Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought; and the leadership of the CPC -, the two basic points of reforming and opening up into the great practice of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, this is the most valuable experience gained by our Party since the introduction of reform and opening up and the most reliable guarantee for the victorious advance of our cause.

The program of a political party means a banner. In the various historical stages of revolution, construction and reform, our Party has both the basic program, i.e., the minimum program, for each stage, and the established long-term goal of struggle, i.e., the maximum program. Comrade Jiang requires that the whole Party be an exponent of the theory of unity between the minimum program and the maximum program. He emphatically pointed out: "Our present endeavor is advancing toward the goal of ultimately realizing our maximum program of communism. One who forgets this long-term goal is not qualified as a Communist Party member; one who does not work hard for the realization of the Party's program for the primary stage of socialism is likewise not qualified as a Communist Party member."

Upholding Democratic Centralism, Guaranteeing Party Solidarity and Unity

Democratic centralism is the fundamental system of organization and leadership of our Party, a basic norm which must be observed in inner-party life and is an indispensable institutional guarantee for making scientific and democratic policy decisions. The system of dialectical unity of high democracy and high centralism is an expression of dialectical materialism and historical materialism in the Party's organizational and institutional construction. It is also a creative application of our Party's mass line in organizational and institutional construction.

Comrade Jiang Zemin requires that in line with the principles of collective leadership, democratic centralism, individual deliberation and decisions made at conference, further efforts be made to improve the mechanism of discussion of official business and decision-making within the Party committee, give play to the role of the plenary session of the Party committee, perfect the decision-making procedures of the standing committee of the Party committee, further improve the system of division of work and personal responsibility under collective leadership and raise work efficiency.

Unity is the Party's life. Comrade Jiang Zemin stressed that the most fundamental thing in strengthening unity is to safeguard the authority of the Central Committee of the Party and consciously keep in line with the Central Committee of the Party in ideology and in action.

(To Be Continued)

By People's Daily Online

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