Tongfang Academy
Micro Party Class · Issue 348
Cultivate a positive and healthy intra-party political culture.
“Theoretical cultivation is the core of the comprehensive quality of Party members and cadres. Theoretical maturity is the foundation for political maturity, and political steadfastness stems from theoretical clarity.” For Party members and cadres, fostering a fine academic ethos and strengthening theoretical training are both fundamental requirements for cultivating Party spirit and an inescapable political responsibility.
Tongfang Law Firm provides all its lawyers with learning opportunities in the form of micro-party classes, enhancing their ideological and political awareness as well as their spirit of learning and inquiry. By establishing a long-term educational mechanism, the firm has created a new platform for self-education and self-improvement.
The political culture within the Party is a spiritual hallmark deeply embedded in the blood and marrow of its members and cadres, reflecting their spiritual aspirations. This political culture within the Party operates subtly and naturally in daily life, imperceptibly influencing the healthy development of political life and the political ecosystem within the Party, and profoundly guiding the building of Party conduct, governmental style, and social ethos. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “We must always maintain a sense of urgency and risk awareness, adhere steadfastly to the mindset of staying on guard against danger, continuously strengthen our resolve and self-awareness to ‘turn the blade inward,’ replenish our ‘calcium’ and fortify our ‘bones,’ detoxify and sterilize ourselves, eliminate illness and heal wounds, remove decay and promote new growth—thus nurturing a positive and healthy political culture within the Party, continually purifying the Party’s political ecosystem, gathering powerful positive energy to sweep away the impurities and uphold integrity, ensuring that the Party will forever remain unchanged in its nature, color, and flavor.” To thoroughly implement the spirit of the Central Committee’s Eight-Point Regulation and advance comprehensive and strict governance over the Party, we must attach great importance to the construction of the Party’s political culture, fully harness the value-guiding role of this culture, and use a sound political culture to foster a clean and upright political ecosystem.
“Where the source is deep, the radiance will surely shine forth.” Our Party’s political culture is one that is guided by Marxism, rooted in China’s outstanding traditional culture, originating from revolutionary culture, and centered on advanced socialist culture— a culture that fully embodies the nature of the Communist Party of China. China’s outstanding traditional culture serves as the foundation and origin of a positive and healthy intra-Party political culture. On this solid basis of drawing rich nourishment from China’s outstanding traditional culture, our intra-Party political culture can creatively transform and innovatively develop the fine elements of Chinese traditional culture in directions such as reforming the old and embracing the new, keeping pace with the times, and being open and inclusive. Revolutionary culture is the living source of a positive and healthy intra-Party political culture, endowing it with a distinct “red” genetic imprint. As a result, the fine cultural traditions and revolutionary spirit consistently upheld by Chinese communists are deeply embedded in our intra-Party political culture, becoming its spiritual core. Advanced socialist culture is the essence of a positive and healthy intra-Party political culture, ensuring that it always possesses the quality of keeping pace with the times and continuously infusing itself with the spirit of the era as advanced socialist culture evolves.
To foster a positive and healthy intra-party political culture, we must take Marxism as our guiding principle and, in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, develop advanced socialist culture, promote revolutionary culture, and carry forward China’s outstanding traditional culture, thereby ensuring the continuous inheritance and revitalization of the roots of a positive and healthy intra-party political culture. First, we must get to the root of the issue and thoroughly excavate and activate the outstanding elements of China’s traditional culture, integrating them into our intra-party political culture. In doing so, we can continually enrich and expand the内涵 of our intra-party political culture through the unbroken transmission of China’s cultural heritage. We must distinguish clearly between the essence and the dross, consciously discarding the coarse and retaining the refined, rejecting the spurious while preserving the genuine, and always striving to strengthen and nurture the foundations of our positive and healthy intra-party political culture. Second, we must uphold orthodoxy while fostering innovation, accurately recognizing and properly handling the relationship between upholding orthodoxy and promoting innovation. On the one hand, we must firmly safeguard the fundamental principles of our positive and healthy intra-party political culture, consolidating its foundations and strengthening its roots through the integration of China’s outstanding traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture—thus enabling our intra-party political culture to embody the aspirations of ages past and reflect the wisdom accumulated over millennia. On the other hand, we must dare to explore, pioneer, and innovate, adapting dynamically to changing times and circumstances while staying true to our core values. In this way, our positive and healthy intra-party political culture can reach new heights of development through the interplay of upholding orthodoxy and embracing innovation. Third, we must keep pace with the times, grounding ourselves in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics and shouldering our cultural mission for the new era. By deepening our understanding of the regularities underlying the processes of getting to the root of our positive and healthy intra-party political culture, upholding orthodoxy, and fostering innovation, we can consolidate our cultural subjectivity, bolster our cultural confidence, enhance the cohesion and appeal of our positive and healthy intra-party political culture, embrace openness and inclusiveness, and highlight the power and influence of our positive and healthy intra-party political culture’s dissemination.
“Nurture the fertile soil, and distill the essence.” The generation and development of culture are inseparable from the nourishment of a specific environment. As a subjective reflection shaped by organizational elements—including the Communist Party of China’s standardized and efficient institutional framework, its lofty and noble spiritual beliefs, and its exemplary conduct embodying responsibility and commitment—party political culture takes root and flourishes in the rich, fertile soil formed jointly by party institutional culture, party spiritual culture, and party behavioral culture. Party institutional culture lays the “institutional foundation” for party political culture; it not only establishes a cognitive framework for the entire Party regarding the system of internal party regulations and rules but also cultivates in all Party members a conscious awareness of respecting, studying, abiding by, and applying these regulations, thereby enhancing the authority and enforceability of the party’s regulatory system. Party spiritual culture serves as the “spiritual source” of party political culture; originating from the great spirit of founding the Party, it forms a spiritual genealogy of Chinese Communists, vividly embodying their spiritual character and cultural ethos. It guides and builds the spiritual home of contemporary Chinese Communists, enabling the entire Party to continuously gather powerful spiritual strength. Party behavioral culture provides the “behavioral rudder” for party political culture; it embodies the behavioral orientations and approaches adopted by Party organizations at all levels and by all Party members and cadres in participating in political life. Internally, it regulates the Party’s conscious political behavior; externally, it showcases the Party’s excellent image. Thus, the entire Party consistently upholds strict self-cultivation, strict exercise of power, and strict self-discipline. Party institutional culture, party spiritual culture, and party behavioral culture are both relatively independent and mutually complementary, unified within party political culture. Leveraging their respective strengths—institutional power, spiritual strength, and practical action—they continuously foster a vibrant cultural entity characterized by positive and healthy political life within the Party. This enables the Party to act with agility and precision, scrutinizing and directly confronting its own contradictions and problems, and addressing them effectively and powerfully. In doing so, it not only enhances the resilience of a positive and healthy party political culture but also continually injects new vitality into the Party’s cultural landscape, thus strengthening and revitalizing the Party through a positive and healthy party political culture.
To foster a positive and healthy intra-party political culture, we must take sound laws and good governance, the consolidation of shared ideals and spiritual strength, and integrity and responsibility as the core values, thereby developing intra-party institutional culture, spiritual culture, and behavioral culture. Through the synergistic resonance among these three components, we can cultivate fertile ground for nurturing a positive and healthy intra-party political culture. “We must simultaneously focus on both formulating and perfecting rules and regulations, and on ensuring their thorough implementation.” In developing intra-party institutional culture, we should adhere to a dual-drive approach—establishing sound laws and promoting good governance—so as to comprehensively enhance the systematic completeness, scientific rigor, and operational effectiveness of the Party’s regulatory framework, and to refine and improve the practical platforms for implementing intra-party institutional culture. At the same time, we must strictly enforce the requirements of governing the Party according to rules: compliance with rules is mandatory, enforcement of rules must be rigorous, and violations must be held accountable. This will help the entire Party develop a strong awareness of rules and discipline, and enable us to fully strengthen Party members’ identification with the institutional culture guided by sound laws and good governance. “We must ensure that the ideals, beliefs, value orientations, and fine traditions advocated by the Party deeply permeate the thoughts and hearts of Party members and cadres.” In developing intra-party spiritual culture, we should pay particular attention to properly balancing the dialectical unity of “destruction” and “construction,” building an intra-party spiritual culture imbued with upright ethos, and guiding Party members and cadres to firmly establish correct ideals, beliefs, value orientations, and political convictions. At the same time, we must unequivocally oppose all erroneous value orientations that erode the Party’s political culture, taking the consolidation of shared ideals and spiritual strength as our guiding principle to help the entire Party solidify its ideological foundation, replenish its spiritual calcium, and keep its ideological compass steady. All Party members and cadres should bear in mind that “only by maintaining integrity in governance can we win the trust of the people; only by exercising power impartially can we win the hearts of the people,” and “we must strive to become pillars of strength capable of shouldering great responsibilities.” In developing intra-party behavioral culture, we should implement specific measures tailored to different actors, encouraging Party members and cadres to hone their political character marked by integrity, honesty, and a sense of responsibility, and to firmly uphold the value orientation of putting the people first, thus creating a rich cultural environment characterized by integrity and responsibility within the Party. While leveraging the unique strengths of intra-party institutional culture, spiritual culture, and behavioral culture, we must also keep in mind the overarching goal of fostering a “positive and healthy” intra-party political culture, organically integrating and mutually reinforcing these three components to continuously inject new momentum into the cultivation of such a culture and sustain its vibrant vitality.
“Growing among hemp, it stands straight without being propped up.” The political culture within the Party stems from the Communist Party of China’s century-long practice of leading the revolution, construction, and reform, while also being shaped by the political, economic, and social environment. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, “Political life, political ecology, and political culture within the Party are mutually reinforcing. Political culture is the soul of political life and exerts a subtle yet profound influence on the political ecology.” “To govern the Party effectively, we must first start with regulating political life within the Party; to enforce strict governance over the Party, we must first enforce strictness in its political life.” “To do well in all aspects of work, we must have a sound political ecology.” The Party’s style of conduct, government conduct, social ethos, and public customs are closely interconnected, profoundly influencing and shaping one another. Social ethos develops over time and reflects the overall spiritual outlook of society. A positive social ethos embodies the noble values that the Chinese nation has long cherished, subtly promoting goodness and rectitude, cultivating virtue and transforming people. It, in turn, nourishes and strengthens the Party’s and government’s good conduct. At the same time, we must be mindful that certain unhealthy social trends can seep into Party members and cadres, eroding their integrity and undermining the healthy development of the Party’s political culture. We must therefore pay close attention to the “double-edged sword” nature of social ethos.
To foster a positive and healthy political culture within the Party, we must promote and uphold values such as loyalty and honesty, integrity and openness, fairness and impartiality, seeking truth from facts, hard work and perseverance, and incorruptibility and廉洁. We should strive to cultivate a sound ethos throughout the Party and society, and persistently create and nurture an excellent environment for fostering the Party’s political culture. Purifying and safeguarding the political ecosystem is not an overnight achievement; rather, it requires comprehensive strategies and coordinated efforts. We must remain problem-oriented, focus our efforts precisely, directly confront and eliminate the “sources of pollution” in the political ecosystem, and, through purging the impure and promoting the pure, address both symptoms and root causes simultaneously. This will help create a political ecosystem that is cleaner and more upright. At the same time, we must adopt a preventive approach, remain vigilant and persistent, and treat the purification of the political ecosystem as a fundamental and ongoing task. Through sustained and painstaking efforts, we can achieve continuous improvement and long-term protection, thus continuously purifying the political ecosystem. We must firmly uphold the fundamental system of Marxism’s guiding role in the ideological sphere, build a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leadership, resolutely resist and combat all kinds of erroneous social trends, and always maintain the Party’s leadership over ideological work, ensuring that the Party’s political culture follows the correct path of development. We must cultivate a new atmosphere of integrity and righteousness, and staunchly resist unhealthy tendencies and evil forces. We must firmly prevent and oppose individualism, fragmentation, liberalism, parochialism, and the “good-person” mentality. We must also firmly oppose sectarianism, clique culture, and “dockyard culture.” With a high degree of historical awareness, profound sense of crisis, tenacious determination to administer strong medicine to cure deep-seated ills, and tremendous courage to scrape away the rot and heal the wounds, we must wage an unrelenting struggle against all kinds of decadent, vulgar, and negative cultural factors. We must treat the cultivation of a sound social ethos as a systematic and strategic undertaking, comprehensively planning and deploying it. Guided by a clean and upright political ecosystem, we will foster a social ecosystem brimming with integrity and positive energy, thereby gathering powerful positive energy to advance Chinese-style modernization.
Source | People's Daily Online, Official Website for Party History Study and Education
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