Liu Guangming: Adhering to the Party's Cultural Leadership is a Major Event Concerning the Future and Destiny of the Party and the Country
Upholding and strengthening the Party’s overall leadership, and consistently maintaining the Party’s cultural leadership, serves as the fundamental political guarantee for promoting cultural prosperity, building a leading cultural power, and developing a modern Chinese civilization. At the first national conference on propaganda and ideological work held after the 18th National Congress of the Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Whether we Chinese communists can uphold the Party’s leadership and uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics in an increasingly complex international and domestic environment is a question that generations of communists must continue to answer. We must understand the work of ideology, propaganda, and ideology within this broad context.” Since the advent of the New Era, General Secretary Xi Jinping has profoundly summarized the Party’s historical experience of a century of struggle, creatively proposed the principle of upholding the Party’s cultural leadership, and elevated the Party’s overall leadership over propaganda, ideology, and cultural work to a new historical height. We must deeply recognize the extreme importance of upholding the Party’s cultural leadership. From the perspective of the overall political and strategic situation, we must adhere to the principles of the Party managing propaganda, the Party managing ideology, and the Party managing the media, so that the leadership, management, and discourse power [1] over propaganda, ideology, and cultural work remain firmly in the hands of the Party.
1. Concerning the independence of sovereignty: Only by upholding the Party's cultural leadership can the will, propositions, and practical experiences of the Party and the people be infused and sublimated into the glorious banner of thought, pointing the way forward for our great historical cause.
Whether a country’s sovereignty is independent depends significantly on whether its regime possesses independent cultural sovereignty and cultural leadership. Our Party has always emphasized the mastery of cultural leadership; at its root, this means mastering the cultural sovereignty that a Marxist governing party ought to possess, thereby safeguarding the sovereign independence of socialist China from the perspective of thought, culture, and especially ideology. The primary manifestation of this is that our Party infuses the will and propositions that safeguard the fundamental interests of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation into the Party’s guiding ideology, sublimates the practical experience of the Party leading the people in advancing the great social revolution into the Party’s guiding ideology, and uses that guiding ideology to direct the course of our great cause.
On the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Comrade Mao Zedong proposed the policies of "starting anew" [2] and "cleaning the house before inviting guests" [3]. The "starting anew" policy made it clear that New China would not inherit the old diplomatic relations established between the Kuomintang government and other countries, but would instead establish new diplomatic relations on a fresh basis. The "cleaning the house before inviting guests" policy clarified that New China would first devote itself to eliminating the remnants of imperialist forces within the country and would not rush to establish diplomatic ties with imperialist nations. As it was stated: "We are willing to establish diplomatic relations with all countries according to the principle of equality, but the imperialists who have always been hostile to the Chinese people will certainly not treat us with equality very quickly. As long as they do not change their hostile attitude, we will not give imperialist countries legal status in China," so as to avoid affecting the newly won independence. The implementation of these two policies demonstrated China's adherence to an independent foreign policy of peace and ensured that our Party possessed comprehensive leadership over all fields of New China, including the fields of thought and culture.
Since the founding of New China, and especially since the launch of Reform and Opening-up, our Party has always focused on realizing the interests and aspirations of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. Based on China's own national conditions and practices, the Party has proposed theoretical viewpoints and policy propositions, promoted the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism, and guided great practice with the Party’s innovative theories. The Party’s innovative theories are not a "reprint" of the original works of Marxist classical writers, nor a "re-edition" of other countries' socialist doctrines, nor a "copy" of foreign modernization theories; rather, they are a "new edition" created independently by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people. Hoisting the banner of the Party’s innovative theories and using them to guide Chinese practice means that the Chinese people have truly become masters of their own house, independently grasping their future and destiny on their chosen path—neither following the old path of closed and rigid orthodoxy, nor taking the evil path of "changing the flags and colors" [4].
In sharp contrast to this, the collapse of the Party and the state in the Soviet Union began in the realm of ideology, particularly with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) relinquishing its cultural leadership. After Gorbachev came to power, he first focused reforms on ideology and the political system. Using the "New Thinking" that "the interests and values of all humanity are above everything else," he accepted and implemented a "humanistic, democratic socialist" program with distinct Westernizing characteristics. This led the CPSU to take erroneous positions of tolerance or even support toward the anti-socialist and separatist trends of thought, organizations, and factions that emerged during the reform process. He lost adherence to principles on fundamental issues concerning the Party, the socialist system, and the fate of the state, thereby losing ideological and cultural sovereignty, which ultimately led to the demise of the Party and the state.
General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "we must firmly grasp the leadership, management, and discourse power of ideological work in our hands; it must never be lost, or we will commit an irredeemable historical mistake." On the new journey of the New Era, we must take Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as our guide, resolutely prevent the infiltration and erosion of the fallacies of hostile forces, promote the further enrichment and development of contemporary Chinese Marxism and 21st-century Marxism, and lead the great cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation to constantly open new horizons.
2. Concerning cultural subjectivity: Only by upholding the Party's cultural leadership can we hold fast to the "soul-vein" of Marxism and the "root-vein" of the fine traditional Chinese culture, deeply planting the cultural foundations of Chinese-path modernization.
The more national it is, the more international it is. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that Chinese-path modernization "presents a new picture different from the Western modernization model and is a new form of human civilization." The reason Chinese-path modernization can become a new form of human civilization lies in the fact that its "Chinese-ness" stands unique in the garden of world civilizations. The cultural foundation of Chinese-path modernization is formed by the organic combination of the "soul-vein" (魂脉) of Marxism and the "root-vein" (根脉) of the fine traditional Chinese culture. Marxism and fine traditional Chinese culture are organically combined because they are mutually compatible, and they grow stronger through mutual achievement, making the cultural foundation of Chinese-path modernization more distinctive, profound, and solid. The Communist Party of China is both a firm believer and practitioner of Marxism and a faithful inheritor and promoter of the fine traditional Chinese culture. Only by upholding the Party's cultural leadership can we ensure that in the process of promoting Chinese-path modernization, we always hold fast to the soul-vein of Marxism and the root-vein of the fine traditional Chinese culture, safeguarding the spiritual lifeblood of the Chinese nation.
In the historical process of initiating, upholding, and expanding Chinese-path modernization, our Party has always firmly grasped cultural leadership, safeguarding the basis, origin, root, and soul of Chinese-path modernization. Faced with the occasional resurgence of the "Total Westernization" theory [5] and challenges to the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation, our Party has unswervingly maintained the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological sphere while steadfastly inheriting and promoting fine traditional Chinese culture. We have promoted the "Two Combinations" [6], using this "combination" to solidify our procedural foundation, open up space for innovation, and consolidate cultural subjectivity. On the one hand, we use the light of Marxist truth to activate the genes of Chinese civilization, promoting its renewal and modern transformation, and leading the construction of a modern Chinese civilization. On the other hand, we use the fine traditional Chinese culture to enrich the cultural life of Marxism, promoting new leaps in the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism, displaying an increasingly clear Chinese style and Chinese ethos. Sinicized and modernized Marxism has become the essence of the Times for Chinese culture and the Chinese spirit. It can be said that it is precisely because of our adherence to the Party’s cultural leadership that the root-vein of fine traditional Chinese culture has regained its brilliance, and Chinese-path modernization has been able to continuously draw nourishment and wisdom from it, showcasing the charm of the "Chinese path." It is also because of this leadership that the soul-vein of Marxism has remained vibrant, allowing Chinese-path modernization to use Marxism as a "telescope and microscope" to clear the fog of modernization, clarify its laws, and enable the Party and the people to grasp the historical initiative in advancing socialist modernization on Chinese soil.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, cultural self-confidence has become a powerful spiritual force for realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation has been manifested as never before. At the same time, we must clearly see that hostile forces have never abandoned their attempt to "pull up our roots and remove our soul" (拔根去魂). When the strategy of inducing change through "engagement" fails, they choose to use "extreme pressure" in a vain attempt to force change. We must consistently uphold the Party's cultural leadership, maintain the soulful and foundational status that the soul-vein of Marxism and the root-vein of fine traditional Chinese culture deserve, and take a clear-cut stand against and resist various erroneous viewpoints. We should further promote the "Two Combinations," making the dialectical unity of the soul-vein and root-vein reach the higher realm of "harmony generates new things" [7] (he shi sheng wu), ensuring that the "new, organically unified cultural entity" created by the "combination" has stronger cohesion and leadership. This will make the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation more prominent, the cultural foundation of Chinese-path modernization deeper and more stable, and the modern Chinese civilization shine with even greater splendor.
3. Concerning historical initiative: Only by upholding the Party's cultural leadership can we maximize the cohesion of the Party, the military, and the people, and gather the monumental force for building a strong country and national rejuvenation.
Our Party's mastery of cultural leadership is based on both the fundamental consideration of safeguarding cultural sovereignty and the spiritual lifeblood of the Chinese nation, and the mission-driven pursuit of concentrating efforts to complete central tasks and great historical undertakings. Engels believed that the final result of history "always arises from the conflict of many individual wills," much like "innumerable parallelograms of forces, which give rise to one resultant—the historical event." Unquestionably, the people are the subjects who create history, but under historical conditions lacking the guidance of advanced culture, the enthusiasm of the masses for creating history is often spontaneous and disordered. Since every individual has a "subjective self," the collision and agitation of countless "subjective selves" can lead to the dissipation of force. Only when an advanced political party masters and utilizes cultural leadership can the spontaneous and disordered power of the masses be transformed into conscious and ordered power, which then aggregates into a synergistic force moving in the same direction. This requires our Party to use cultural leadership effectively to fully gather strength from all sectors and fields, drawing the "largest possible concentric circles" [8] and forming the greatest aggregate force.
Throughout the historical process of leading the task of national rejuvenation, our Party has always focused on the guiding and cohesive role of cultural leadership—establishing the dominant among the multiple, seeking consensus among the diverse, and leading the Chinese people to gather a monumental force to advance the historical cause with one heart and one mind. For example, at the turn of the century, when various thoughts and cultures were agitated and the cultural needs of the masses were growing, our Party vigorously advocated all thoughts and spirits conducive to fostering patriotism, collectivism, and socialism; all those conducive to reform, opening-up, and modernization; all those conducive to national unity, social progress, and the people's happiness; and all those conducive to seeking a better life through honest labor. In doing so, we leveraged the role of advanced culture in uniting and educating the people, providing spiritual impetus for social progress. Similarly, in the new stage of the new century, when diverse social trends of thought threatened to impact the mainstream socialist ideology and the ideological and political foundation of the Party and the people’s united struggle, our Party clearly proposed "upholding the use of the socialist core value system to guide social trends," maximizing social consensus. Furthermore, in the New Era, with the rapid development of information networks and new media, our Party profoundly recognized that "wherever the people are, that is where the focus of propaganda and ideological work must be." Cyberspace has become a new space for people's production and life, and it should also become a new space for our Party to build consensus. We adhere to accelerating the integrated development of media, strengthening positive online propaganda, governing cyberspace according to law, strengthening online content construction, and building online and offline concentric circles to better build social consensus and consolidate the common ideological foundation of the entire Party and the people of the whole country.
On the journey of the New Era, negative factors detrimental to united struggle still exist, particularly as hostile forces attempt "precision strikes" in a vain effort to turn China from "a solid piece of steel" into "a heap of loose sand." This places new and higher demands on our adherence to the Party's cultural leadership. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to adhere to guiding the people with correct public opinion, ensuring that all work is conducive to upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China and our country’s socialist system, conducive to promoting reform and development, conducive to increasing the unity of all ethnic groups, and conducive to maintaining social harmony and stability. We must persist in using Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as our guide, deeply study and implement Xi Jinping’s cultural thought, and improve the communication, guidance, influence, and credibility of news and public opinion. We must keep the ideological and public opinion positions firmly in our own hands, transform the "variable" of the Internet into an "increment" for the development of our cause, unite all forces that can be united, mobilize all positive factors that can be mobilized, and continuously consolidate and strengthen the mainstream ideological and public opinion of striving in the New Era, gathering a monumental force of millions of people moving forward with one heart.