Editor's note: "To understand today's China, we must understand the Communist Party of China." To this end, it is necessary not only to tell the story of the Communist Party of China at the level of propaganda and interpretation, but also to construct a Chinese discourse system at the level of theoretical innovation. Professor Lin Shangli, a well-known scholar and president of Renmin University of Chinese, systematically explains the "national truth of the world" followed by the success of the Communist Party of China from the grand perspective of the history of the development of human civilization. On the occasion of the 103rd anniversary of the founding of the CPC, this newspaper published three book reviews to further reveal the truths, theories, and philosophies contained in them for the benefit of readers.
It is not easy to truly understand the success of the Chinese Communist Party from an academic point of view. Although there have been numerous research results on the Communist Party of China (CPC) at home and abroad in recent years, unfortunately, many of them are scratchy and unfocused, and the works of some foreign scholars are full of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and even prejudices and prejudices. Recently, I read Professor Lin Shangli's new work "The Truth of the World and the Country", and I felt a sense of enlightenment. Professor Lin has studied the history, theory and leadership system of the Communist Party of China for many years, and has profound academic accumulation.
Fundamentally understand the source of the Party's strength
Since its founding, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has led China's revolution, construction, reform and opening up, and socialist modernization, and has continuously marched from victory to victory, especially creating a miracle of long-term social stability and sustained and rapid economic development in China. Different from any kind of exploiting class ruling force in history that only represents the interests of a few people and safeguards the privileges of a small number of people, this new type of political force comes from the organic combination of Marxist scientific theory and China's specific practice and China's excellent traditional culture. It is a political force that governs for the people and wholeheartedly seeks happiness for the people, progress for mankind, and harmony for the world.
The people are the source of our party's strength. Our party has always adhered to the supremacy of the people, inherited the people-oriented concept and people-oriented thinking in the excellent traditional Chinese culture, established a people-centered people's republic under the guidance of Marxism, and established a socialist national political system in which the people are the masters of the country. Therefore, Mao Zedong once pointed out that the people, and only the people, are the driving force behind the creation of world history. General Secretary Xi Jinping also stressed that the people are the decisive force in building a great modern socialist country in an all-round way. The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that whole-process people's democracy is the essential attribute of socialist democratic politics, and it is the most extensive, true, and effective democracy. By fully developing whole-process people's democracy, we will be able to mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of the broad masses of the people to the greatest extent and gather majestic forces for comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-style modernization.
Grasp the party's ruling system as a whole
Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and upholding and strengthening the party's overall leadership as an important political principle has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and has been widely implemented. In fact, whether viewed from the Marxist theory of party building or the historical experience of the Communist Party of China, upholding the party's overall leadership is an inevitable requirement for the CPC's governance of the country. As the Chinese revolution marched towards its final victory, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to unify all possible and necessary powers of the whole country under the central government. After the Communist Party of China became the ruling party in 1949, the principle and system of the party's overall leadership were gradually established. In January 1962, Mao Zedong pointed out at the enlarged Central Work Conference that the party leads everything in seven aspects: industry, agriculture, commerce, education, military, politics, and the party. The party's vanguard nature and the party's historical mission require us to uphold and strengthen the party's overall leadership in all historical periods of China's revolution, construction, and reform. Therefore, Professor Lin Shangli believes that the success of the Communist Party of China lies in adhering to the party's overall leadership; The growth of socialism with Chinese characteristics lies in upholding the party's overall leadership; The fundamental guarantee for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation lies in upholding the party's overall leadership.
To uphold the party's overall leadership, it is not necessary to return to the principle of not separating the party from the government and replacing the government with the party, still less to do everything by the party, but to uphold the organic unity of the party's leadership, the people being the masters of the country, and governing the country according to law, and to correctly handle the dialectical relationship between the party, the state, and society. To comprehensively and accurately understand the scientific connotation of the party's comprehensive leadership, it is necessary to fully grasp its inheritance and continuity, and at the same time profoundly understand its innovative nature and the nature of the times. This requires us to correctly understand the overall layout of the party's overall leadership and grasp the ruling system of the party's overall leadership as a whole. To ensure that the party always has the overall situation in mind and coordinates all parties, it is necessary to strengthen the party's centralized and unified leadership, and at the same time support the people's congresses, governments, political consultative conferences, courts, procuratorates, and other state organs, enterprises, and institutions in performing their functions, carrying out their work, and playing their roles in accordance with the charter, so as to achieve the organic unity and coordinated operation of the two aspects. The overall leadership of the Party includes all aspects and fields of the CPC's governance of the country, not only within the Party, not only involving the Party's organizations, but also the overall layout of the Party's governance.
Understand the party's lofty pursuit from the perspective of achievements
Since its founding, the Communist Party of China has taken Marxism as its guiding ideology, and has continuously promoted theoretical innovation and the Sinicization of Marxism in the modern era, and at the same time has taken the realization of communism as its goal of struggle, and has established specific revolutionary programs and development strategies at different stages of revolution, construction, reform and opening up, and socialist modernization. On the basis of adhering to truth and seeking truth from facts, our party has combined the maximum program with the minimum program, unified long-term goals with short-term goals, linked macro strategy with micro planning, and led the Chinese people and the Chinese nation to usher in a great leap from standing up, getting rich, to becoming strong, and marching into the irreversible historical process of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
The Communist Party of China has led the Chinese people to comprehensively promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese-style modernization, promote the coordinated development of material, political, spiritual, social and ecological civilizations, and create a new form of human civilization. With China's rapid development and the enhancement of its international status, while adhering to independence and opening up a new path for the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics, our Party has the world in mind and the world, advocates and practices the common values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom for all mankind, adheres to peace and cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win results, promotes the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, and contributes to the democratization of international relations and the building of a new international political and economic order. Professor Lin Shangli believes that in order to deeply understand and comprehensively grasp the major contribution of the Communist Party of China to the development of human civilization, it is necessary to unify the ideological concept, institutional framework, strategic system, development form, practical process and historical achievements of the modernization and development of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and grasp it as a new form of the development of modern human civilization.
(The author is the dean of the Department of Political Science at the School of State Affairs, Fudan University, and the president of the Shanghai Political Science Society)
