Li Dingyi: Strengthening the Grassroots Foundation of Chinese Modernization through New Era Civilization Practice
New Era civilization practice is an important vehicle for propaganda, ideological, and cultural work to reach the grassroots, connect with the masses, and serve practice; it is also a key lever for ensuring that the development of spiritual civilization takes root and yields results at the grassroots level. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "on the new journey in the New Era, the development of spiritual civilization must show a new outlook and new accomplishments," and "we must coordinately promote civilization cultivation, civilization practice, and civilization creation, while advancing the integrated development of urban and rural spiritual civilization." The key to promoting the deep and substantial progress of New Era civilization practice lies in upholding the Party's leadership, maintaining a firm standing on the people's position, and strengthening a grassroots orientation. We must coordinately advance ideological guidance, organizational integration, the merging of field positions, volunteer services, and institutional construction. By unifying the tasks of mobilizing, educating, guiding, and serving the masses, we can continuously consolidate the grassroots foundation of Chinese-path modernization through the processes of coalescing the hearts and strength of the people, nurturing new trends in civilization, and serving national governance.
Fortifying the Spiritual Foundation through Ideological Guidance
The primary task of New Era civilization practice is to unswervingly use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to coalesce the soul and consolidate the spirit, ensuring the Party’s innovative theories take root at the grassroots. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to "strengthen innovation in dissemination methods and discourse styles, so that the Party's innovative theories 'fly into the homes of ordinary people.'" This important discourse indicates that theoretical propaganda is not a simple process of transmission from documents to meeting halls or from books to podiums. Rather, it must integrate the Party’s innovative theories with the lives of the masses, grassroots practice, and real-world concerns, making them an ideological guide for the masses to recognize the era, understand policies, and participate in practice. The more theoretical propaganda reaches the grassroots, the more it must uphold the unity of political character, ideological depth, and mass appeal. Grand themes should be explained within the perceptible life scenarios of the masses, using concrete facts to illustrate theory and using changes in one's surroundings to clarify principles. Only when the Party’s innovative theories are linked with the life experiences of the masses, local developmental changes, and grassroots public affairs can they be transformed into an ideological force that can be understood, identified with, and put into practice, thereby fortifying the spiritual foundation for Chinese-path modernization.
To enhance ideological guidance, the key is to explain theoretical propaganda accurately, deeply, thoroughly, and vividly. First, we must build strong grassroots relay teams, organizing forces such as grassroots cadres, theoretical presenters, civilization practice volunteers, advanced model figures, backbone members of the arts, and convergent media workers to improve their capacity for political grasp, theoretical explanation, and communication with the masses. Second, we must stay close to grassroots reality, focusing on mass concerns such as employment and income growth, rural revitalization, public services, and the transformation of established sights and customs [1]. We should explain policy logic within specific contexts and theoretical logic within real-world changes, allowing the masses to feel the practical power of theory through the things, people, and changes around them. Third, we must optimize discourse expression. Through "courtyard meetings" (院坝会), "bench meetings" (板凳会), civilization practice lecture halls, literary and artistic presentations, and micro-videos, we can transform abstract principles into expressions that the masses can understand, are willing to hear, and can remember. We should integrate theoretical presentations with grassroots cultural activities, public deliberations, and volunteer actions.
Coalescing Work Synergy through County-level Coordination
The county level is the critical tier for civilization practice to move from the construction of field positions toward systemic operation. Grassroots propaganda, ideological, and cultural work involve theoretical dissemination, cultural supply, field position construction, volunteer service, and grassroots governance. Without unified coordination, problems such as scattered resources and redundant activities easily arise. New Era civilization practice differs from general cultural service activities; its deep value lies in transforming the Party’s leadership advantages, organizational advantages, and mass work advantages into a sustained operational capacity for grassroots society. Through county-level coordination, resources scattered across different departments, platforms, and spaces are organized to form a grassroots work pattern that connects the upper and lower levels, links horizontal counterparts, and stays close to the masses, providing organizational support for Chinese-path modernization.
To strengthen county-level coordination, the key lies in the scientific and effective allocation of various resources. We must strengthen the unified leadership of county-level Party committees, improve the three-tier linkage mechanism of civilization practice centers, stations, and outposts, and clarify the chain of responsibility where the county coordinates, the township organizes, and the village or community implements. Departmental synergy must be strengthened, incorporating resources from propaganda, organization, civil affairs, education, culture, agriculture and rural affairs, trade unions, the Communist Youth League, and the Women’s Federation into the civilization practice framework. Project lists should be formed around theoretical presentations, cultural benefits for the people, care and assistance, rural cultural civility, and grassroots governance. We must promote the downward extension of resources, introducing high-quality cultural, educational, medical, and legal services, as well as social forces, into the grassroots, avoiding situations where resources stay on county-level platforms or activities are relegated to centralized displays. The project-based operation method should be refined, implementing list management, regular scheduling, and tracking feedback for matters where mass demand is concentrated, grassroots reflection is urgent, and actual effects are obvious.
Weaving a Dissemination Network through Integrated Linkage
For New Era civilization practice to form effective coverage and sustained influence at the grassroots, it requires a dissemination network that is extensive, smooth-running, and close to the masses. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to "solidly grasp the construction of county-level convergent media centers to better guide and serve the masses." Civilization practice centers are close to the scene, focusing on organizational mobilization, value guidance, and practical service; county-level convergent media centers connect platforms, focusing on content production, information release, and public opinion guidance. The two support each other through integrated linkage, ensuring that information transmission, service supply, and mass feedback are connected at the grassroots, thereby deepening the mass foundation for Chinese-path modernization.
In promoting the integration of field positions, the emphasis is on synergistic operation. We should promote synergy between civilization practice centers and county-level convergent media centers in agenda setting, jointly planning themes around the propaganda of the Party’s innovative theories, key grassroots tasks, the real needs of the masses, and local developmental achievements, so that online content dissemination and offline practice activities support one another. Synergy in content production involves transforming typical figures, vivid stories, and mass experiences from civilization practices into short videos, graphic reports, micro-presentations, and other content formats easily accepted at the grassroots. Synergy in activity organization means both relying on offline field positions like civilization practice stations, cultural squares, "farmhouse book rooms" (农家书屋), and rural broadcasts for face-to-face communication, while also using digital channels like apps, WeChat official accounts, short video platforms, and community groups to improve information delivery efficiency. Synergy in feedback and response involves timely summarizing mass comments, grassroots demands, and activity feedback, driving content dissemination, mass organization, cultural service, and governance response to form a closed loop.
Stimulating Subjective Power through Volunteer Service
New Era civilization practice takes volunteer service as its basic form, integrating theoretical presentations, care and assistance, cultural benefits for the people, environmental remediation, neighborhood mutual aid, and emergency services into the daily lives of the masses. This ensures that the core socialist values are fully reflected in public service and social participation. Volunteer service combines value guidance with concrete actions, helping to nurture civilized customs and enhance governance vitality in grassroots society, thereby gathering the power of civilization for Chinese-path modernization.
To make volunteer service substantive, we must connect mass demand with mass participation. First, we must persist in a demand-oriented approach, designing normalized, precise, and sustainable service projects around real needs such as "the elderly and the young," vulnerable groups, public culture, rural cultural civility, environmental governance, and emergency mutual aid. Second, we must expand the volunteer service ranks, giving play to the exemplary and leading role of Party members and cadres while also absorbing teachers, doctors, literary and artistic workers, veterans, and youth returning to their hometowns, forming a grassroots volunteer force that combines professionals and part-timers with complementary advantages. Third, we must improve service methods, avoiding the simple equation of volunteer service with centralized activities or temporary condolences; instead, it should be embedded into village and community public affairs, neighborhood mutual aid networks, and the daily lives of the masses. Fourth, we must respect the will of the masses, guiding them to participate in service design, activity organization, and effect feedback, and improving normalized channels for mass participation in civilization practice.
Perfecting Long-term Mechanisms through Practical Exploration
New Era civilization practice prizes constancy and emphasizes actual results. Perfecting long-term mechanisms requires embedding civilization practice into the daily operation of grassroots propaganda, ideological, and cultural work, as well as grassroots governance, ensuring it does not rise only for a temporary activity nor end with the completion of a phased task.
To perfect long-term mechanisms, we must summarize through practice and refine through operation. We must improve the demand-discovery mechanism, grasping mass concerns through home visits, demand solicitation, consultative deliberation, hotline platforms, and community group feedback, transforming mass demands into the content supply and work priorities of civilization practice. We must improve the dynamic response mechanism, configuring presentation teams, cultural resources, volunteer forces, and public services according to the actual conditions of different villages, groups, and stages, to avoid a mismatch between supply and demand. We must improve operational mechanisms, continuing to deepen mature projects, timely adjusting activities with mediocre effects, and codifying practices with high mass recognition that are replicable and promotable into the institutional level. Finally, we must improve the evaluation and feedback mechanism, not simply measuring effectiveness by the number of activities, the scale of the scene, or the volume of dissemination, but rather by whether ideological consensus is more unified, whether civilized customs are continuously nurtured, whether mass concerns are addressed, and whether grassroots governance has markedly improved.
On the new journey in the New Era, using Chinese-path modernization to comprehensively advance the great cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation finds its foundation in the grassroots and its strength in the people. Looking to the future, we must continue to deepen the construction of New Era civilization practice, ensuring the Party’s innovative theories take root at the grassroots, mainstream values are widely promoted at the grassroots, and civilized customs become common practice at the grassroots. With a solid, stable, and vital grassroots foundation, we will inject inexhaustible momentum into the construction of a strong country and national rejuvenation.