The self-revolution on the eve of the Communist Party of China's entry into Beijing to catch up with the examination

【Essays on Party History】

Author: Song Yuzhong (Professor, School of Marxism, Guangdong Ocean University)

Since its founding, the Communist Party of China has always adhered to the self-revolutionary gene of Marxist political parties that "often criticize themselves", integrated the basic tenets of Marxism with China's reality, and constantly promoted the sinification of Marxism. In the great practice of leading China's revolution, construction and reform, our party has forged an unswerving self-revolutionary character, self-revolutionary spirit, and self-revolutionary advantages, just as General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The courage to self-revolution is the most distinctive character of our party and the greatest advantage of our party." On the morning of March 23, 1949, when the Party Central Committee left Xibaipo for Beijing, Comrade Mao Zedong solemnly declared: "Today is the day to enter Beijing to catch the examination." The Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held before this clearly demonstrated the party's self-revolutionary character and spirit, and achieved a self-leap forward in terms of the shift in the focus of the party's work, the change of the party's historical orientation, and the construction of the party committee system, making full preparations for the party to enter Beijing to catch up with the examination and achieve the victory of the Chinese revolution.

The shift in the focus of the Party's work from the countryside to the cities has shifted to self-revolution. The choice and establishment of the center of gravity of the Party's work is the strategic guarantee for the success of the Party's leadership of the revolution, construction, and reform, and its correctness directly determines the success or failure of the revolutionary cause. On the question of the focus of the Party's work, in the course of leading the Chinese revolution, the Party has taken a road of self-revolution from the city to the countryside and then from the countryside to the city. At the beginning of the revolution, on the basis of the experience of the "urban insurrection" of the October Revolution in Russia and the nature of the Marxist party as the vanguard of the proletariat, the party chose and established the position of the center of gravity of its work in the cities from the very beginning, and spared no effort to carry out revolutionary activities such as the workers' movement. However, after experiencing the bitter lessons of the defeat of the National Revolution and the serious setbacks in adhering to the "city center theory", the party has profoundly realized that China's world conditions and national conditions are different from the October Revolution in Russia, and it is necessary to promote the sinification of Marxism and explore the road of the Chinese revolution. As Mao Zedong pointed out at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China: Talking about Marxism apart from Chinese characteristics is only abstract and empty Marxism. Therefore, the sinicization of Marxism, so that it has Chinese characteristics in every manifestation, that is to say, applying it according to China's characteristics, has become an urgent problem for the whole party to understand and solve. As to whether the focus of the party's work is on the countryside or the cities, Mao Zedong pointed out: "The correct line is to first engage in the countryside and to study the rural situation. Everyone says that this is the correct line, marxism. Marxists walk, and wherever they can't get through, they have to turn a corner, because that place can't go. Of course, walking around the countryside for millions of years is not called Marxism, but anti-Marxism. True Marxism is: when it is necessary to go to the countryside, it is in the countryside; when it is necessary to move to the city, it is to the city. Therefore, since the Party's Eighty-Seventh Congress established the general policy of "agrarian revolution and armed struggle," along with the party's new road of the Chinese revolution of "encircling the cities from the countryside and seizing political power by force," the focus of the party's work has naturally shifted to the countryside, carrying out agrarian revolution, carrying out armed struggle, establishing revolutionary base areas, "dividing the workers and peasants by force," turning one backward countryside after another into the forefront of the revolution, and constantly accumulating and strengthening revolutionary forces. After more than 20 years of arduous struggle, before the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the revolutionary forces under the leadership of the Party underwent earth-shaking changes. In particular, after "the three major battles of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin, the main force of the Kuomintang army has been eliminated," the defeat of the Kuomintang reactionary government has been decided, and the establishment of a new China is just around the corner. At this major historical juncture, Mao Zedong pointed out at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China: "From 1927 to the present, the focus of our work has been on the countryside, gathering forces in the countryside, encircling the cities with the countryside, and then taking the cities. The period for adopting such a way of working is now over. From now on, a period began to move from the city to the countryside and the city to lead the countryside. The focus of the Party's work shifted from the countryside to the cities. "The Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has completed the self-revolution leap of the party's work focus from the countryside to the city, and entered Beijing to catch up with the examination and opened a new stage of development in which the city leads the rural areas.

The party has leapt from a revolutionary party to a ruling party's self-revolution. The Communist Party of China was born in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal modern China, and in line with the requirements of the development of the modern Chinese revolution and the long-cherished expectations of the Chinese nation and the Chinese people to be liberated and seek development, the COMMUNIST Party of China resolutely shouldered the heavy responsibility of the times of the modern Chinese revolution. "If you want to be revolutionary, you must have a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary party, without a revolutionary party established in accordance with the revolutionary theory and style of Marxism-Leninism, it will be impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people to victory over imperialism and its lackeys." It can be seen from this that during the period of the democratic revolution the Party was in the historical position of the Revolutionary Party. This is not to say, however, that during the period of the democratic revolution the Party did not consider the question of becoming a future ruling party. In fact, as early as July 1945, when the famous democrat Huang Yanpei proposed to Mao Zedong the historical cyclical law of "its rise and fall, its demise is also abrupt", Mao Zedong replied: "We have found a new way, we can jump out of this cyclical law." This new path is democracy. Only by allowing the people to supervise the government can the government dare not slacken off. Only when everyone rises up and takes responsibility will no one die in politics. Especially at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in the face of the excellent situation that "we will soon be victorious in the whole country" and the party is about to become the ruling party, Mao Zedong profoundly summed up the lessons of the failure of Li Zicheng's peasant uprising, scientifically analyzed the position of imperialism and bourgeoisie outside the party, accurately benchmarked the "pride sentiment, the sentiment of being a hero, the mood of pausing and not seeking progress, the mood of coveting pleasure and not wanting to live a hard life", and solemnly pointed out that "winning victory in the whole country is only the first step in the long march." The Chinese revolution is great, but the road after the revolution is longer, and the work is greater and more arduous. This must now be made clear to the Party, and it is imperative that comrades continue to maintain a modest, cautious, non-arrogant, and non-impetuous style of work, and that comrades continue to maintain a style of arduous struggle. "To this end, the General Assembly has also made 6 provisions. The "two musts" put forward by Mao Zedong have concentrated on answering major historical issues such as how the party should correctly handle victory and the test of ruling the country, how to guard against arrogance and extravagance and be prepared for danger in times of peace, and how to always maintain flesh-and-blood ties with the masses of the people, which has had an enduring and profound impact on the party's transformation from a revolutionary party to a ruling party and on strengthening the party's building of the ruling party.

The party committee system has jumped from a decentralized to centralized self-revolution. The construction of our party committee system has gone through a long process, and at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party, it finally realized the self-revolutionary leap in the construction of the party committee system. As early as the founding of the party, the party implemented the party committee system in the leading organs at all levels in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist principle of party building. A major rule of the Communist Party of China stipulates that "where there are more than five Party members, a committee shall be established." For the first time, the Constitution of the Second Party Congress clearly stipulates the term of office and powers of the Central Executive Committee, district and local committees. The three major party constitutions stipulate that each committee shall elect a chairman of the committee to do party affairs, and the remaining members shall cooperate with the chairman of the committee to share their duties. For the first time, the amendment to the Party Constitution of the Four Congresses made it clear that more than three Party members may establish branches, and more than three branches may organize the establishment of local executive committees. The Fifth National Congress of the Communist Party of China formally proposed that party committees should establish a collective leadership system. In order to enable the collective leadership system to truly implement and give full play to the role of the party committee, in May 1937, the party's congress of soviet deputies held in Yan'an stipulated that the party committees must meet on schedule, and all important issues must be discussed and decided by the plenary; the standing committee should be collective work, on the basis of strict division of labor and individual responsibility, all work should be discussed and decided by the standing committee; the freedom of discussion should be guaranteed at the meeting; the leadership of commandism and arrangement should be replaced by democratic and collective leadership, and so on. However, due to the complexity and arduousness of the Chinese revolution, the Party has been in a decentralized and warlike environment for a long time, and some bad practices have been formed in the development of political life within the Party committees in various localities, such as not asking the Central Committee and higher-level organizations for instructions in advance and not reporting afterwards, revising the policies and tactics of the Central Committee or higher-level Party committees without authorization, and still existing localism and guerrillaism. Mao Zedong pointed out: "The party committee system is an important system for the party to ensure collective leadership and prevent individuals from doing everything. Recent investigations have some (of course not everything) leading organs, and the habit of individual arrangements and individual solutions to important problems is very strong. The resolution of important issues is not decided by the party committee meeting, but by the individual, and the party committee members are equivalent to fictitious. There is no reason to resolve the differences of opinion among the members, and they are allowed to remain unresolved for a long time. Party committee members maintain only formal agreement, not substantive agreement. This situation must be changed. To this end, in September 1948, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China convened an enlarged meeting of the Politburo (the "September Conference"). The meeting adopted the "On Improving the Party Committee System" drafted by Mao Zedong, and stressed that party committees must establish a system of meetings, a system of decision-making of party committees, and a system of collective leadership. Less than half a year later, at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, centering on shifting the focus of the party's work and strengthening the building of the ruling party, the "Working Methods of Party Committees" was put forward, which was linked to the previous "On Improving the Party Committee System.", from the party committee secretary to be good at being a "squad leader", to put problems on the table, to exchange information, to ask subordinates what they do not understand and do not understand, not to easily express approval or opposition, to learn to "play the piano", to "grasp it tightly", to have "numbers" in their chests, "to make peace with the people", and to "simplify the administration of the elite army". Paying attention to uniting those comrades who disagree with them to work together, guarding against pride, and drawing a clear line between the two kinds of boundaries, we have further answered specific questions such as how to open party committees, how party committees should make decisions, and how party committees should achieve collective leadership, thus systematically and institutionalizingly completing the self-revolutionary leap in the construction of the party committee work system and having a profound impact on strengthening the party system building.

(This article is a special project for the study of the spirit of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China [c18053])

Guangming Daily (2019.05.29. 11th edition)