Communist Party must keep its strong ties with masses

09:11, June 30, 2011      

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Deepening the relations and always maintaining the flesh-and-blood ties between the Party and the masses are the essential requirements for the Communist Party of China to effectively serve the masses. The Party has formed the strong political advantage of attaching great importance to the masses, effectively serving the masses and deepening the relations between the Party and the masses during the Party's 90-year process of revolution, construction and reform. This has provided the Party a source of power and fundamental guarantee to lead the people to victory in revolution, construction and reform.

Seeking the interests of the majority is the foundation of building a political party of the public and the Communist Party of China.

"All previous historical movements were minority movements or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immerse majority and in the interest of the immerse majority," Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said in the "Communist Manifesto" in 1848.

The interests of the entire proletariat are the interests of communists. In other words, seeking the interests of the majority is the fundamental difference between a political party of the proletariat and all political parties that exploit class and the significant symbol of the vanguard nature of the political party of the proletariat.

History has proven that the political party of the proletariat cannot be divorced from the masses. This is the foundation for building the Party. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as the world's first Marxist ruling party, closely relied on the masses after the October Revolution and constructed an economically backward country into the world's second and Europe's first great power in 20 years. It made a great contribution to the victory of the world war against fascism. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union also quickly constructed the Soviet Union, which became a powerful socialist country after World War II. However, it destroyed the socialist cause that was constructed through 70 years of hardship in the 1990s. There are many reasons leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union, but losing the support of the people was the most fundamental reason. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, a Russian newspaper had launched a survey "Who the Communist Party of the Soviet Union represents?" The results showed that 85 percent of respondents believed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union represented the interests of party bureaucrats and cadres and only 7 percent of respondents believed that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union represented the interests of the working people. A political party will inevitably lose its power if it does not represent the interests of the masses. This is a thought-provoking lesson.

The Communist Party of China, under the guidance of Marxism, has always adhered to the tenet of serving the people wholeheartedly since its founding. The Party has served the people wholeheartedly, kept close ties with the people and never been isolated from the people during the periods of revolution, socialist construction and reform. This is why the Party has developed from small to big and from weak to strong. It could be said that the Party’s history is just the history of its persistence to serve the people as well as to unite and lead the people in the course of struggle.

Without the support, embrace and participation of the people, the Party would have perished, let alone achieved successive accomplishments. Therefore, the Party regards its relationship with the people as the relationship between fish and water, blood and flesh as well as seed and land.

Building a party for the people and by the people is the Party's basic experience of deepening the relationship between Party cadres and the people and serving the masses.

The farmer issue was the core issue of the Chinese revolution, and the key to the farmer issue was land. Therefore, Mao Zedong made enormous efforts to investigate and explore solutions to the rural land issue and then formulated the solutions after he established the Jinggangshan base area. Thus, the Party could protect the economic interests of farmers according to the law. The Party adopted the land rent reduction policy within various anti-Japanese base areas during the Anti-Japanese War. The Party implemented the "land to the tiller" system during the War for Liberation and put forward the guideline for the land reform advocating that the system of feudal exploitation should be destroyed so as to fundamentally solve the land issue for farmers.

The Party’s emphasis and effective efforts on the land issue enabled it to secure sufficient labors and materials to ensure its success in the War for Liberation. Why did the people support the Party and the People's Liberation Army? The answer is that the Party allocated the land to the people and the PLA defended the land of the people.

China encountered economic difficulties in the early 1960s. Although the Party made some mistakes in resolving the difficulties and damaged the interests of the people to a certain extent, they still made concerted efforts to carry out every order from the Party as they had done before.

Deng Xiaoping said in 1981, "The Party was then close in feeling to the masses and enjoyed high prestige among the public. The social climate was harmonious, and the cadres and the people were both in high spirits. Therefore, China was able to overcome the difficulties quite smoothly." When the national economy suffered difficulties, Mao Zedong and other top leaders set a good example of hard work and plain living to tide over the difficult times. The Party was able to withstand the severe test in the early 1960s primarily because its leading cadres were willing to share weal and woe with the masses.

With great trust in the people and deep respect for their pioneering spirit, the Party has led the Chinese people to actively promote the socialist modernization drive for a better life since the introduction of the reform and opening-up policy over 30 years ago. The Party has made unremitting efforts to achieve its fundamental goal of developing the productive forces, increasing the country's comprehensive national strength, and improving the people's living standards.
Under the leadership of the Party, remarkable development achievements have been made, and the people's lives have improved significantly. Since the 16th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee led by General Secretary Hu Jintao has introduced a series of people-oriented policies and measures in order to improve the people's livelihood and provide them with access to the fruit of social progress. T

hese policies and measures have brought great benefits to the people, improved the relations between the Party and the masses under new circumstances and increased the public support for the Party. Therefore, the Party has been able to effectively deal with various challenges, including the global financial crisis, and it has achieve one major breakthrough after another in the socialist modernization drive.

All this fully demonstrated that the Communist Party of China always keeps in mind the security and well-being of the people and takes concrete efforts to safeguard the people's interests. The Party is a mature Marxist ruling party that is good at mobilizing the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of the public.

Lessons from the Party's mass work over 90 years

The rich experience that the Party has gained from its close relations with the public and effective mass work over the past 90 years offers a series of important lessons to achieve the goals of social and economic development during the 12th Five-Year Plan period and continuously promotes the great cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Firmly establish a Marxist mass viewpoint and adhere to the Party's mass line. Practice has proven that when the Party has a strong mass viewpoint and can firmly adhere to the mass line, it can carry on the mass work well and establish sound relations with the public. Otherwise, problems concerning mass work and ties between the Party and the public may emerge.

Always support the standpoint of the overwhelming majority, and voluntarily prevent and overcome the bureaucracy and formalism above the people. Mass standpoint is a fundamental political issue concerning the Party's nature. By firmly supporting the mass standpoint, the Party can formulate correct line, principles and policies, and Party members and cadres can correctly view power, cause, the people and themselves in order to make concrete achievements that can withstand the test of practice, the people and the history.

Carry on mass work and go to the grassroots with deep feelings. The deep feelings towards the people are the basis for maintaining close ties with the masses, and the bond for carrying on mass work. Practice has proven that if Party members and cadres express real concerns for the people, the masses will be moved and will treat them as their relatives and people that they can trust most. Thus, the CPC can win the understanding, trust and support of the people and related problems can also be solved easily.

Party members must insist on the consistency of being responsible for both the Party and the people. They must rely on, educate and guide the people. Practices have proven that if Party members want to maintain a good relationship with the people and successfully carry out their work, they must insist on the consistency of being responsible for both the Party and the people. Comrade Liu Shaoqi once said, "If a Party member is responsible for the people, it means he is responsible for the Party. If a Party member is not responsible for the people, it means he is not responsible for the Party."

Regarding this issue, two tendencies must be prevented and overcome. The first one means emphasizing only being responsible for subordinates, fully disregarding the political lines, guidelines and policies of the Party, doing "you have your policies, I have my countermeasures to deal with them" and carrying out "regional and departmental protectionism." The second one means emphasizing only being responsible for upper authorities, disregarding practical conditions and interests of the people, never considering the people, totally ignoring the real desires and practical situations of the people, and even cheating, making false reports and boasting.

Party members should always do the mass work deeply, carefully and practically and keep improving mechanisms and methods of the mass work. Practices have proved that the method is very important while doing the mass work. In order to successfully accomplish the mass work in the current complex and ever-changing situation, it is especially important to adopt scientific ways and methods.

It must be seen that China is in the primary stage of socialism and will be in this stage for a long period. Since the economic system is deeply transforming, the social structure is deeply altering, the benefit structure is being deeply adjusted, ideas and concepts are deeply changing and the issues of unbalanced, inconsonant and unsustainable development will not be fundamentally solved in a short period, various contradictions and conflicts of interests among the people will frequently appear in large quantities. Under this condition, if our Party wants to obtain the people's acclamations and supports, it must regard correctly solving the contradictions among the people as the core of its mass work.

By Li Jingtian, executive vice president of the Party School under the CPC Central Committee, translated by People's Daily Online


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