Liu Hongchang: On the Cultural Subjectivity of the Communist Party of China
Cultural subjectivity is a signature concept of Xi Jinping Thought on Culture; it is the fundamental support upon which we create a new culture in the New Era and the source of our confidence in promoting cultural creation throughout historical development. Subjectivity is a philosophical category marking the essential power of human beings, while cultural subjectivity is the manifestation of this essential power within objective cultural activities. As an individual, “man” possesses cultural subjectivity; as a collective, “the people” also possess cultural subjectivity. The cultural subjectivity of a collective is not a simple summation, fusion, or combination of the cultural subjectivity of each individual; rather, it is manifested through the cultural practices of a specific class or organized group, reflecting the cultural values, aspirations, and interests of that group. The Chinese nation is the primary subject of both the creation and development of Chinese culture. The history of Chinese civilization over more than 5,000 years has fully proven that the Chinese nation, as a cultural subject, possesses a highly distinct cultural subjectivity. Into the modern era, as the Communist Party of China (CPC)—a proletarian party representing the fundamental interests of the Chinese people—stepped onto the political stage, the development of Chinese culture encountered new opportunities. The CPC is the inheritor and promoter of Chinese culture; as the advanced political party leading the forward direction of Chinese culture, the CPC is the party-subject that leads the broad masses of the people in promoting cultural development. Thus, it can be seen that within the context of the subjectivity of Chinese cultural development, cultural subjectivity specifically refers to cultural subjects at three levels: the Chinese nation as a subject, the Chinese people as a subject, and the CPC as a party-subject. These three levels of cultural subjects also present a logical pattern of inclusion and progression. The cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation, the Chinese people, and the CPC are unified within the beautiful vision of the prosperity and flourishing of Chinese culture. The cultural subjectivity of the CPC refers to the cultural subjective attributes possessed by the Party as the party-subject promoting the development of Chinese culture; it is the inherent cultural subjective consciousness and capacity of the CPC itself. The cultural subjectivity of the CPC has been generated, consolidated, and developed through more than a century of cultural practice carried out by the Party in leading the people. The cultural subjectivity of the Party is closely entwined and firmly linked with the future and destiny of Chinese culture.
I. The Cultural Consciousness of the Communist Party of China
Cultural consciousness [1] is the cultural awareness and awakening of a nation or a political party. The strength of a political party depends, to a large extent, on the degree of its cultural consciousness. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: “The Communist Party of China is a party with a high degree of cultural consciousness, and the Party’s century of struggle encapsulates the history of our country’s cultural advancement.” The CPC has always led the direction of progress and concentrated the strength of struggle through awareness and awakening in ideology and culture. The Party’s cultural consciousness stems from its strong aspiration for and unremitting pursuit of cultural prosperity and progress; it is the ideological basis and prerequisite for the Party’s cultural creation. Specifically, the cultural consciousness of the CPC is mainly manifested in three aspects: consciousness in undertaking cultural missions, in recognizing cultural status, and in grasping cultural laws.
The CPC’s consciousness in undertaking cultural missions
A mission is a type of responsibility, and responsibility stems from consciousness. Whether a party possesses a strong sense of cultural mission reflects its value pursuits and spiritual outlook. Since its founding, the CPC has held high the cultural banner of Marxism, established its cultural image, and earnestly assumed the mission and responsibility of promoting the prosperity and flourishing of Chinese culture.
First, the CPC consciously undertakes the mission of leading social progress with advanced culture. Modernization is the comprehensive progress of society. In the final analysis, modernization depends on people to advance it; the spiritual pursuits, state of mind, and spiritual strength of people play an important role in promoting modernization. Advanced culture can provide people with powerful spiritual strength and a continuous stream of spiritual kinetic energy for social development and progress. Since its founding, the CPC has always adhered to Marxism as its guide, leading social progress with advanced culture and profoundly demonstrating the Party’s advanced nature. Throughout the historical process of leading the people in revolution, construction, and reform, no matter how complex the cultural environment and conditions faced, the Party has firmly grasped the forward direction of advanced culture, consciously stood at the forefront of cultural development, acted as a vanguard for cultural development, and actively promoted advanced culture to drive the holistic progress of society through cultural progress.
Second, the CPC consciously undertakes the mission of inheriting and promoting fine traditional Chinese culture. General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: “Fine traditional Chinese culture is the crystallization of the wisdom and the essence of Chinese civilization; it is the root and soul of the Chinese nation and the foundation upon which we stand firm amidst the surges of global culture.” Fine traditional Chinese culture nurtured the CPC, and our Party has always been its inheritor and promoter. Facing the current great changes unseen in a century [2], the CPC—with a cultural spirit of high responsibility toward the nation, history, and future generations—regards the proper inheritance, development, and promotion of fine traditional Chinese culture as its unshakable responsibility. It consciously assumes the cultural mission of continuing the Chinese cultural lineage [3] and allowing fine traditional Chinese culture to radiate vigorous vitality.
Third, the CPC consciously undertakes the mission of safeguarding national cultural security and enhancing cultural soft power. As the governing party, the CPC emphasizes not only economic and social construction and the development of material civilization, but also cultural and social construction and the development of spiritual civilization [4], consciously and actively assuming the responsibility and mission of protecting China’s cultural strategic interests. The CPC consistently maintains the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological sphere, resolutely safeguards national ideological and cultural security, accelerates the enhancement of national cultural soft power, expands cultural boundaries and the cultural landscape, and promotes cultural self-reliance, cultural confidence, and cultural self-strengthening.
Fourth, the CPC consciously undertakes the mission of meeting the people’s spiritual and cultural needs. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: “The greatest difference between human society and the animal kingdom is that humans have spiritual needs; the people’s need for spiritual and cultural life exists at all times.” As a party that serves the people wholeheartedly and represents the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people, the CPC must regard meeting the people's spiritual and cultural needs and guaranteeing their basic cultural rights as its own responsibility and mission. In the process of promoting cultural construction, our Party has always focused on the people, adhering to the principle of “from the masses, to the masses” [5], vigorously developing cultural undertakings and cultural industries to satisfy the people’s ever-growing spiritual and cultural needs, responding to their earnest expectations for a better spiritual life, promoting the realization of common prosperity in the spiritual life of all people, and committing itself to allowing the masses to live more happily through cultural immersion.
The CPC’s consciousness in recognizing cultural status
Culture is present at all times and in all places, profoundly influencing both individuals and society. The century-plus history of the CPC is both a history of cultural struggle and a process in which the Party’s positioning of the status and role of culture has continuously deepened and gradually become clearer. Throughout its development based on the times and practice, the CPC has increasingly recognized the uniqueness and importance of culture, which fully demonstrates the Party’s consciousness in its understanding of culture.
First, culture is both an important support for social development and an important goal of social progress. Building a civilized and progressive socialist society “is a developmental process in which material civilization and spiritual civilization fly wing to wing”; “the lack of development in either of the ‘two civilizations’ prevents it from being socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In the past, the CPC’s understanding of the status of culture was often limited to viewing it as a form of support, emphasizing its instrumental attributes. For example, during the War of Liberation [6], our Party proposed that in order to achieve victory in the decisive battles, “we greatly need a broad and powerful revolutionary cultural cause to struggle for the common goal of defeating the enemy and overcoming difficulties,” indicating the Party’s profound understanding of culture’s supporting role. After the founding of New China, as economic construction progressed, our Party gradually recognized the important position of culture in the competition of comprehensive national strength and placed culture in a more prominent position. In the New Era, our Party has put forward major judgments such as culture being an “important content,” an “important fulcrum,” an “important factor,” and an “important source of strength,” marking a new leap in the Party’s understanding of culture.
Second, culture functions both in education and moral transformation, and in promoting common prosperity in the people’s spiritual life. Early leaders of the CPC, such as Li Dazhai, Chen Duxiu, and Qu Qiubai, were also initiators of the New Culture Movement [7]. From its inception, our Party placed considerable emphasis on the educational and transformative functions of culture, launching civilian education activities and movements for the popularization of literature and art in the early revolutionary period, though its understanding of the relationship between culture and people’s livelihoods was not yet deep. Engels pointed out: “Every step forward in culture was a step towards freedom.” Entering the New Era, the CPC has increasingly recognized the important role of culture regarding people’s spiritual worlds, spiritual lives, and spiritual needs. By strengthening socialist cultural construction, the Party has further leveraged the efficacy of culture in terms of humanistic care, stress relief, soothing the soul, and spiritual healing, better satisfying people’s diverse cultural needs and solidly promoting common prosperity in their spiritual lives. This reflects that the CPC has not only recognized culture as the spiritual force maintaining social solidarity and harmony but has also, through long-term practice, gradually formed a conscious recognition that culture is one of the important components of the people’s livelihood.
Third, culture can be transformed into direct productive forces and can also enhance the quality of productive forces. From the perspective of historical materialism, the production of culture is closely linked to the development of productive forces; the contradictory movement between productive forces and relations of production promotes the generation and development of culture, while culture, possessing relative independence, reacts back upon social productive forces. The development of the modern world economy shows that the higher the degree of development, the more obvious the skeletal role of the cultural industry becomes, and the greater its contribution to economic growth. Looking at China’s situation, cultural consumption demand has become increasingly robust in recent years; in 2024, the cultural industry achieved an operating income of 19.14 trillion yuan, an increase of 37.7% over 2020. It is evident that cultural productive forces have become an important force driving economic and social development. With the rapid development of technological progress and the knowledge economy, only when culture and the economy achieve a higher level of integration can the Chinese economy advance toward higher-level high-quality development and possess vigorous vitality. The CPC’s understanding of culture’s status and role in the economy—from focusing on the direct economic growth benefits it generates in the past to now placing greater emphasis on culture empowering high-quality economic development—reflects our Party’s profound consciousness regarding the economization of culture.
The CPC’s consciousness in grasping cultural laws
First, from a temporal dimension, cultural development is a long-term process with staged characteristics. Marxism holds that the economic base determines the superstructure, and culture is the reflection of the economy and politics of a given society. Marx pointed out: “The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.” The development of any culture always unfolds within a certain spatiotemporal context; it is a product of historical development and a product of the development of social productive forces. Cultural development can never transcend a certain stage of historical development, nor can it transcend the state of development of productive forces in a certain historical stage. The CPC was born in the old China of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society; during the period of revolutionary war, the Party created and developed a New Democratic culture. After the founding of New China, the CPC led the people in creating and forming a socialist cultural form compatible with the socialist economic base. As socialism with Chinese characteristics entered the New Era, although the principal contradiction in society “has evolved into the contradiction between the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development,” China remains in, and will long remain in, the primary stage of socialism. Therefore, the CPC must accurately identify the historical coordinates of cultural construction and development, profoundly grasp cultural laws, and formulate cultural development strategies that conform to the characteristics of the current stage—neither lagging behind the times nor transcending reality. Only in this way can the continuation, promotion, and development of Chinese culture be realized while persisting over the long term.
Second, from a spatial dimension, the culture of any given period is necessarily a pluralistic unity and a diverse symbiosis; spatially, culture manifests a state of existence where the dominant core coexists with plurality, the traditional is interwoven with the modern, and the advanced struggles against the backward. For example, during the period of the Revolutionary War, although the CPC created an advanced culture that was national, scientific, and for the masses, there simultaneously existed a large amount of backward feudal culture and a deluge of decadent capitalist culture within society. This posed immense challenges to our Party’s efforts to promote the development of advanced culture, enrich the spiritual world of the people, and foster a healthy social atmosphere. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the CPC swept away various forms of passive and backward culture that were incompatible with socialist culture, leading to a world-shaking transformation in the social and cultural atmosphere compared to Old China. During the period of reform and opening up, the massive influx of foreign culture exerted a certain impact on our country’s mainstream socialist culture. Faced with this new cultural landscape, the CPC has consistently persisted in strengthening the dominant and expanding the mainstream, advancing the development of culture with Chinese characteristics, and striving to establish dominance amidst plurality and seek consensus amidst diversity. This is a profound manifestation of the CPC's cultural subjectivity at the level of understanding cultural laws.
II. Cultural Autonomy of the Communist Party of China
For the Communist Party of China, cultural autonomy refers to the Party’s ability to maintain its own cultural identity while leading the people through the process of modernization, proactively shaking off the cultural dependency common to late-developing modernizing nations, and achieving independent and autonomous cultural development. The cultural autonomy of the CPC is the key to our Party’s transition from cultural self-awareness to cultural creation; such independent cultural judgment and autonomous cultural choice constitute an important part of the CPC's cultural subjectivity. Specifically, the CPC's cultural autonomy is manifested in the autonomous choice of a cultural path, the autonomous planning of cultural strategies, and the autonomous maintenance of cultural security.
The Autonomy of the CPC in Choosing Its Cultural Path
Direction determines the future, and the path determines destiny. Different cultural paths lead to different cultural fates. The cultural autonomy of the CPC is first reflected in the Party’s autonomous choice of its cultural path. The CPC has engaged in deep reflection on the trends of Chinese culture, and through over a century of struggle, has chosen the correct path of cultural development in light of national realities, leading China toward the bright future of national rejuvenation. This demonstrates our Party’s powerful consciousness and capacity for cultural autonomy.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of advanced Chinese intellectuals, at a time of national peril, explored various social trends to find a way to save the nation and the people. Around the time of the May Fourth Movement [8], different schools of "isms" with varying ideological tendencies engaged in a "debate between the ancient and the modern, the West and the East" regarding culture. Mao Zedong believed that while everyone was "clamoring for a New Culture" at the time, they did not understand what New Culture actually was: "There is as yet no New Culture in all of China. There is as yet no New Culture in the whole world. A small flower of New Culture has appeared in Russia, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean." In Mao Zedong's view, the New Culture that China should build was the new social culture that emerged after the Russian October Revolution under the guidance of Marxism. After careful analysis of the various "isms" and cultural trends of the time, China's early Marxists ultimately adopted Marxism as the guiding ideology for promoting social change, building a modern state, and reconstructing Chinese culture. With the great awakening of the Chinese nation and people, the spread of proletarian ideological culture, and the close integration of Marxism with the Chinese workers' movement, the Communist Party of China was born. The New Democratic Revolution, guided by Marxism and led by the CPC, opened up a correct path for the development of China’s modern New Culture. During the same period, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime was dependent on imperialism and feudal conservative forces; the cultural policies it pursued represented the interests of the big landlord and big bourgeoisie classes, deviating from the historical task of anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism in modern China. It could not represent the fundamental cultural aspirations of the broadest ranks of the people. Its path of cultural development was heavily constrained by the semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature of society, and the lack of a state power with complete national independence made it difficult to escape dependency on Western colonial culture in the cultural sphere. Therefore, the KMT was unable to truly achieve an autonomous choice in its path of cultural development. In sharp contrast, the New Democratic culture created under the leadership of the CPC truly represented the cultural self-awareness and cultural confidence of the Chinese people.
The key to the CPC's ability to autonomously choose its path of cultural development lies in the Party’s persistence in using scientific Marxist theory as an ideological weapon for cultural critique, and its consistent placement of the people as the starting point and end goal of cultural development. By defending and realizing the basic cultural rights and interests of the people, the Party ensures it can aggregate the will and strength of the people to autonomously choose a cultural development path, free from the influence and interference of other forces, thereby ensuring the correctness and justice of that path. The correctness and justice of the cultural development path, in turn, encourage us to continue advancing along it. History has fully proven that, based on the path of New Democratic cultural development, the CPC led the people to expand into a path of socialist cultural development, conducted pioneering explorations in cultural construction, creatively put forward the theory of developing culture with Chinese characteristics, and promoted the strategy of building a socialist cultural power. This profoundly reflects our Party’s autonomous choice of its own cultural path. Thus, it can be seen that while leading the masses to achieve thorough political and economic transformation, the CPC also achieved cultural transformation, autonomously choosing and opening up a path of cultural development that accords with China’s national realities.
The Autonomy of the CPC in Planning Cultural Strategy
Cultural strategy consists of the plans and tactics that guide the overall situation of cultural construction. Only when a country and a nation have achieved independence and autonomy can they autonomously plan a cultural strategy and promote the development of their own national culture. The CPC leads cultural construction with cultural strategy and practices cultural strategy within cultural construction; the CPC's cultural autonomy is reflected in the autonomous planning of cultural strategy.
First, the CPC autonomously plans the strategy for socialist cultural construction. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic, Mao Zedong explicitly proposed the strategic vision of: "preparing, within the space of several five-year plans, to build our country—which is currently economically and culturally backward—into a great, industrialized country with a high degree of modern culture." The CPC elevated socialist cultural construction to the level of consolidating socialist state power, believing that "either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind, or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind" [9]; if the proletariat does not occupy the ideological and cultural positions, the bourgeoisie certainly will. The Party proposed that ideological and political work is the lifeblood of all work and that ideological and ethical progress must be strengthened; it put forward the cultural principle that culture must serve the people and serve socialism, along with the "Let a hundred flowers bloom, and a hundred schools of thought contend" [10] policy; and it proposed vigorously developing cultural and educational undertakings while adhering to socialist educational policies. These cultural strategies promoted the development of the socialist revolution and construction.
Second, the CPC autonomously plans the strategy for socialist spiritual civilization [11] construction. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping explicitly stated: "While building a high degree of material civilization, we must raise the scientific and cultural level of the whole nation, develop a noble and diverse cultural life, and build a high degree of socialist spiritual civilization." The CPC demonstrated the strategic importance of cultural construction from the perspective of the dialectical relationship between material civilization and spiritual civilization, elevating spiritual civilization—centered on ideological and cultural construction—to a strategic position of equal importance to material civilization. The 12th Party Congress identified "striving to build a high degree of socialist spiritual civilization" as a major strategic policy for China's socialist modernization.
Third, the CPC autonomously plans the strategy for building cultural soft power. With Comrade Jiang Zemin as their chief representative, CPC members, in the process of advancing the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, discussed the important role of culture in the competition of comprehensive national power from the height of national strength construction. In 1997, the 15th Party Congress devoted a special section to "Cultural Construction of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," noting that "the culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics is an important force for mobilizing and inspiring the people of all ethnic groups across the country, and an important hallmark of comprehensive national power." In 2007, "improving the country's cultural soft power" was written into the report of the 17th Party Congress, marking the official establishment of the cultural soft power strategy as a new focus of the CPC's cultural construction.
Fourth, the CPC autonomously plans the strategy for building a socialist cultural power. The report of the 18th Party Congress explicitly proposed "firmly promoting the building of a socialist cultural power," marking the official establishment of "cultural power" (文化强国) as a national strategy. The report of the 19th Party Congress stated that the goal of cultural construction in the New Era is to persist in the path of development of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics and build a socialist cultural power. In 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee proposed the strategic goal of becoming a cultural power by 2035, mapping out a "timetable" for its construction and clearly expressing the abundant confidence and firm resolve of the CPC in leading the people to promote cultural construction in the New Era. The 2023 Symposium on Cultural Inheritance and Development emphasized that "building a cultural power" should be one of the new cultural missions in the New Era. The reason the CPC has been able to achieve such remarkable cultural success lies in the Party's ability to autonomously plan cultural strategies and systematically promote cultural construction through them, reflecting the Party's high degree of cultural autonomy.
The Autonomy of the CPC in Maintaining Cultural Security
Cultural security refers to an objective state in which the cultural survival and development of a country or nation are free from threat or danger. The CPC attaches great importance to the issue of cultural security. From the day of its birth, it has always placed the maintenance of cultural security in an important position. Throughout the historical process of leading the people in revolution, construction, and reform, the Party has consistently maintained cultural leadership [12]. It has continuously deepened its autonomous and innovative exploration of cultural security work, persisted in the Party's comprehensive leadership over publicity, ideological, and cultural work, and maintained a firm grasp on the leadership, management, and discourse power over ideological work. The cultural autonomy of the CPC is reflected in the Party's autonomous maintenance of party-cultural security, socio-cultural security, and national-cultural security, thereby further consolidating its own cultural subjectivity through the maintenance of cultural security.
First, the CPC autonomously maintains party-cultural security. By party-cultural security, we mean a state in which a political party's guiding ideology, value system, organizational traditions, and patterns of behavior are free from internal or external threats and erosion. The Party has always attached great importance to party-cultural security; during the revolutionary war years, this focused more on ideological and cultural struggles within the Party, consciously critiquing all non-proletarian ideological culture within its ranks. During the Yan'an period [13], the CPC emphasized ideological Party building, independently using proletarian thought to arm the whole Party and overcoming and correcting subjectivism in ideology and culture. Through the Party's Rectification Movement and historical resolutions, it aggregated consensus, unified thinking, and united the whole Party, proactively maintaining internal cultural security and ensuring the purity of the CPC's internal ideological culture. During the period of peaceful construction, the CPC has viewed party-cultural security as the foundation of political and regime security. By proactively strengthening the Party’s ideological construction, firming up education on ideals and convictions, serious-minded intra-Party political life, and continuously advancing the anti-corruption struggle, the Party actively creates a clean and upright ideological and cultural atmosphere (风清气正) within its ranks to ensure that the Party’s spiritual world is healthy, stable, and cohesive.
Second, the CPC autonomously maintains socio-cultural security. Culture is pluralistic and diverse; the coexistence of mainstream and non-mainstream cultures in society is an objective reality. Maintaining socio-cultural security requires the CPC to effectively respond to the realistic challenges posed by the interplay between mainstream and non-mainstream cultures. Culture is enriched by exchange and mutual learning; maintaining socio-cultural security does not mean wanting only the mainstream culture to the exclusion of all others. Mao Zedong once proposed: "The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is a policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land." In the process of maintaining socio-cultural security, the CPC has fully exercised its cultural subjectivity. It does not view foreign culture as a "deluge or wild beasts" (洪水猛兽) [14] but rather subjects it to careful screening, making autonomous cultural choices and "absorbing the progressive culture of foreign countries as raw material for its own cultural nourishment." It maintains and consolidates the dominant position of the mainstream culture amidst the "blooming of a hundred flowers and the contention of a hundred schools," thereby promoting the flourishing development of our country's socialist culture.
Third, the CPC autonomously maintains national cultural security.
After the victory of the Revolutionary War, the Communist Party of China transitioned from local governance to national governance. As the scope of the Party's leadership expanded to the entire country, cultural security work subsequently rose to the level of ideological struggle between sovereign states. With the expansion of our country's opening up to the outside world, Western cultural and ideological intrusion has become more concealed. The influx and infiltration of Western bourgeois ideology and culture attempt to "Westernize" and "split" us from within the cultural sphere, posing impacts and challenges to our national cultural security. The Communist Party of China has consistently upheld and consolidated the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field, developed directed socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, prevented and defused various ideological risks, and resolutely defeated the "peaceful evolution" [15] and "color revolutions" [16] of Western hostile forces, firmly safeguarding national cultural security with ideological security at its core. Since the 18th National Congress, our Party has attached even greater importance to national cultural security, which has become a major issue that must be resolved in building a strong socialist culture. In short, the Communist Party of China firmly safeguards national cultural security with a high degree of cultural autonomy, and through its work on national cultural security, continuously consolidates and develops the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, strengthens and perfects the Party’s mass base and governing foundation, and promotes the great development and prosperity of socialist culture.
III. The Cultural Creativity of the Communist Party of China
Without creation, there is no culture; innovation and creativity are the lifeblood of culture. Cultural creativity is a profound reflection of the CPC’s cultural self-awareness and cultural autonomy, and it constitutes the core content of the Party’s cultural subjectivity. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that we must "work together to create a new culture that belongs to our era." The cultural creativity of the Communist Party of China is mainly reflected in the innovation and creation of cultural values, cultural content, and cultural methods.
The Creativity of the Communist Party of China in Cultural Values
The Party's creativity in the cultural field is first reflected in the creation of cultural values—that is, it scientifically answer the questions of for whom culture is developed and what the fundamental orientation of cultural value should be. The Communist Party of China is an advanced political party representing the working class and the broad masses of laboring people. The culture developed by the CPC is a culture that serves the people. Taking the people as the center is our Party’s distinct cultural value orientation and a manifestation of the Party’s cultural subjectivity at the level of creating cultural values.
Before the founding of the Communist Party of China, although the Chinese nation created a broad and splendid Chinese culture over more than 5,000 years of history, the ordinary masses had almost no status in cultural life, whether as subjects of creation or as subjects of enjoyment. In the long river of Chinese history, culture once served emperors, scholar-officials [17], and the wealthy, but it never truly served the people. It was the Communist Party of China that, for the first time in an epoch-making move, established the value orientation of culture serving the people. Mao Zedong pointed out: "Our literary and art workers must complete this task and shift their stand; they must gradually move their stand over to the side of the workers, peasants, and soldiers, to the side of the proletariat, through the process of going among the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers and into the practical struggle, and through the process of studying Marxism and society. Only in this way can we have a literature and art that are truly for the workers, peasants, and soldiers, a truly proletarian literature and art." The Communist Party of China not only advocates that culture should serve the people but also emphasizes viewing the masses as the source of strength for cultural development. Only in this way can the culture that is formed and developed be a true culture of the people.
Furthermore, the Communist Party of China fully affirms the status and value of literary and art workers, regarding arts that were neglected in the past as truly the arts of the people. Zhou Enlai believed: "The old society loved art with old content and old forms, but looked down on the old performers and always insulted them. Now it is a new society and a New Era; we should respect all old performers who are loved by the masses. Only by respecting them can we transform them." At the first National Congress of Literary and Art Workers, Mao Zedong said to the participants: "You are the people's writers, the people's artists, or the organizers of the people's literary and art workers." From this, it can be seen that the Party's cultural creativity is first embodied in the creation of cultural values, and this cultural value system permeates the entire process of the CPC's cultural construction. History and practice have proven that only by consistently upholding the "people-attribute" of culture can the CPC further liberate and develop its own cultural subjectivity and truly provide a continuous stream of spiritual strength for the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The Chinese nation will also continuously enhance its cultural confidence and further straighten its "spiritual backbone" through the magnificent practice of cultural innovation and creation by hundreds of millions of people.
The Creativity of the Communist Party of China in Cultural Content
Mao Zedong believed that the purpose of the Chinese revolution led by the CPC "lies in building a new society and a new state for the Chinese nation. In this new society and new state, there will be not only a new politics and a new economy, but also a new culture." Establishing a new culture is a concentrated expression of the Party's cultural creativity. In the historical process of revolution, construction, and reform, the Party created revolutionary culture and socialist culture, and carried out the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture. The Party's cultural creativity manifests as the innovation and creation of cultural content.
First, the Communist Party of China created revolutionary culture. During the years of revolutionary war, faced with the national conditions of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, for the CPC to lead the people in overthrowing the autocratic rule of reactionary forces, it had to create a revolutionary atmosphere in terms of cultural concepts and launch a "heroic offensive" against "imperialist and feudal culture." The CPC led the people on the cultural front toward a new culture of the Chinese nation. This new culture inherited the democratic and scientific spirit of the New Culture Movement [18], was capable of uniting and inspiring the broad laboring masses to struggle against various reactionary forces, possessed a New Democratic nature, and reflected the brand-new spiritual outlook of the Chinese nation. The CPC promoted the spread of Marxism in China, combined Marxism with the Chinese workers' movement, and in the practice of leading the people's revolutionary struggle, created a cultural form with "revolution" as its spiritual core and value orientation. It created a "culture of the masses of the people, led by the proletariat, against imperialism and feudalism," which vividly reflects the powerful cultural creativity of the CPC.
Second, the Communist Party of China created socialist culture. Through socialist transformation and construction, the CPC led China into a socialist society and created a cultural superstructure compatible with the country's socialist economic base—namely, socialist culture. The Party's consciousness of cultural innovation and its capacity for cultural creation possess a quality of inheritance. The socialist culture created by the Party leading the people was not built out of thin air but was further developed on the basis of inheriting the achievements of cultural development from the New Democratic period. This culture absorbed the rational elements of New Democracy and, combined with the reality of China's socialist development, formed cultural content that meets the needs of a socialist society. After establishing socialist culture, the CPC continued to absorb new content from the times, constantly iterating the forms of socialist culture, eventually forming the socialist culture with Chinese characteristics for a New Era. This not only enriched our understanding of socialist cultural construction but also fully demonstrated the powerful cultural leadership and creative capacity possessed by the Party as a political entity engaged in cultural construction.
Third, the Communist Party of China promotes the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture. In addition to creating new culture, the CPC is adept at inheriting and innovating upon fine traditional Chinese culture. The Party fully promotes its own cultural subjectivity through innovation and creation. In its more than 100 years of cultural practice, the Party has adhered to the "Two Combinations," guided by the scientific theory of Marxism, carrying out a critical transformation of the nation's traditional culture. It has continuously promoted the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture, making it better suited to the practical development of Chinese-path modernization and the cultural needs of modern Chinese people. Thus, the innovation and creation regarding fine traditional Chinese culture also fully demonstrate the Party's cultural creativity.
The Creativity of the Communist Party of China in Cultural Methods
Cultural development is objective, but humans can guide and regulate its path through certain methods. Cultural methods here refer to the modes and means used to develop culture. The Communist Party of China possesses extremely strong cultural agency; in the process of cultural construction, the Party has created and formed a systematic and complete set of cultural methods. These methods crystallize the cultural wisdom of Chinese Communists and represent a concentrated display of the Party's cultural creativity in terms of cultural methodology.
First, the Communist Party of China created the cultural method of the "Two Combinations." For Marxism to take root in China and promote the development of Chinese social practice, it must achieve an organic combination with China's specific realities and indigenous culture. In its long-term struggle for cultural development, our Party explored the cultural method of the "Two Combinations"—combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and with fine traditional Chinese culture—continuously promoting the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism. The CPC combined Marxism with the characteristics of the Chinese nation, and through a certain degree of transformation into national forms, endowed Marxism with nationality. It also integrated the essence of Marxist thought with the cream of fine traditional Chinese culture, using Marxism as a guide to independently develop a socialist culture that is national, scientific, and for the masses, and which is oriented toward modernization, the world, and the future. Through the cultural method of the "Two Combinations," it has endowed culture with modernity, demonstrating our Party’s powerful cultural agency and vigorous cultural vitality.
Second, the Communist Party of China created the cultural method of "dichotomous adoption and rejection" (取弃二分). This refers to the emphasis on "taking the essence and discarding the dross" in the process of cultural development. The development of culture is inseparable from inheriting a nation's own existing culture and from learning from the cultures created by other nations. In the process of building a new culture, the CPC has consciously and autonomously refined traditional culture, "stripping away its feudal dross and absorbing its democratic essence," and has actively "decomposed all foreign cultures into two parts, essence and dross, then excreted the dross and absorbed the essence." This cultural method has enabled the new culture established by the people under the leadership of the CPC to collect the crème de la crème of human culture as much as possible, making the new culture of the Chinese nation more advanced and an important part of world culture, profoundly reflecting the Party’s cultural creativity.
Third, the Communist Party of China created the cultural method of "ancient, modern, Chinese, and foreign" (古今中外). To develop culture, one must properly handle the cultural relations between the ancient and the modern, and between China and foreign countries. The Chinese Communists, with Comrade Mao Zedong as their chief representative, creatively proposed the cultural method of "making the past serve the present and foreign things serve China." This advocates drawing nourishment from historical culture to provide sustenance for the development of modern society, while also fully absorbing beneficial elements from excellent foreign cultures for our own use, while maintaining the characteristics of our own culture. Mao Zedong pointed out: "Learning from the ancients is for the sake of the living people of today; learning from foreigners is for the sake of the Chinese people of today." Through the method of "ancient, modern, Chinese, and foreign," the CPC has created a prosperous socialist culture. This method is precisely the product of innovation and creativity in the process of the CPC advancing cultural practice with cultural subjectivity.
IV. The Cultural Transcendence of the Communist Party of China
Cultural transcendence is an intrinsic attribute of culture and a profound manifestation of cultural subjectivity. Culture is constantly evolving and developing; it will inevitably transcend itself to achieve a leap in its own form, and it may, within certain historical periods, lead or even transcend the level of economic and political development. The cultural subjectivity of the Communist Party of China contains a subjective consciousness of cultural transcendence. Our Party faces reality, stands on reality, and adapts to reality, but it also faces the future, embraces the future, and creates the future. It actively handles the relationship between cultural adaptation and cultural transcendence, actively realizing transcendence in cultural goals, cultural development, and cultural institutions.
The Transcendence of the Communist Party of China in Cultural Goals
The Communist Party of China is a political party with clear goals of struggle and lines of action. In the cultural field, our Party has a clear-eyed and well-defined plan for cultural construction, and there is continuity between the cultural goals formulated in different periods. The cultural subjectivity of the CPC is reflected in the fact that the formulated cultural goals transcend previous goals and the realistic state of cultural development; this is the transcendence of the CPC in cultural goals.
The first program passed by the Communist Party of China in 1921 pointed out that "the fundamental political goal of the Party is to implement social revolution." This social revolution necessarily included a cultural transformation to overthrow the old culture and establish a new one; this was our Party’s initial cultural objective. As the revolution progressed in depth, the Chinese Communists, with Comrade Mao Zedong as their chief representative, formed the theory of the New Democratic Revolution [19]. The Seventh National Congress of the Party further expounded the basic program of the New Democratic Revolution. In terms of culture, the Party’s goal was to establish a culture of the masses led by the proletariat that was anti-imperialist and anti-feudal—namely, a national, scientific, and popular culture. After the founding of New China, the Party's cultural goal during the transitional period was to realize the transformation from New Democratic culture to socialist culture. When the socialist transformation was basically completed, our country established the basic socialist system, and cultural goals and policies fully reflected its socialist nature. From formulating the "Double Hundred" policy of "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend" [20] for literature, art, and science, to establishing the "Two Serves" direction of cultural work—"serving the people and serving socialism"—all of these fully embodied the cultural foresight and cultural transcendence consciousness of the CPC. Since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, following the shift in the focus of work for the Party and the state, cultural goals have centered closely on the theme of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Moving from building a high level of socialist spiritual civilization to building socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, and further to building a leading power in socialist culture, the cultural goals formulated by the Party possess a continuity that comes from the same lineage while also manifesting a cultural subjective consciousness of iterative transcendence. Since the 18th National Congress, the CPC has led the people in continuing to strengthen cultural construction, issuing a series of cultural policies such as the Opinions on the Implementation of the Project to Inherit and Develop Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture, the Outline of the National 13th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development and Reform, the 14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development, the Opinions on Promoting the Implementation of the National Cultural Digitization Strategy, and the Implementation Scheme for the Cultural Protection, Inheritance, and Utilization Project. Regarding cultural construction, four major systems—the modern public cultural service system, the modern cultural market system, the inheritance system for excellent Chinese culture, and the system for international cultural exchange—along with their corresponding institutional mechanisms, have gradually taken shape. A cultural objective system that contains inherent cultural transcendence and is committed to Chinese-path modernization has also been gradually constructed.
The Transcendence of the Communist Party of China in Cultural Development
Cultural development is closely linked to economic and political development. When the state of cultural development leads the economic base and is able to promote the development of the productive forces, the transcendence of culture is revealed. Regardless of the historical period, the CPC has fully exerted its historical initiative [21]. In circumstances where the socio-economic base was relatively backward, the Party led the masses with a spirit of historical initiative to achieve brilliant successes in the cultural field and guided the smooth development of the Party’s cause with an advanced culture, profoundly manifesting our Party's transcendence in cultural development.
Marx and Engels possessed a profound insight into the laws of cultural development. They recognized and grasped the transcendence of culture by examining the contradictory movement between productive forces and relations of production, as well as the relationship and interaction between the economic base and the superstructure. Marx and Engels believed that with the development of productive forces, original relations of production become obsolete and no longer adapt to new levels of productive forces, thereby producing new relations of production and triggering social change. Therefore, when a new mode of production replaces an original one, the entire social structure changes accordingly; the superstructure, including culture, is profoundly affected. However, the relationship between the development of productive forces and cultural development is not a simple unidirectional causal relationship; rather, a phenomenon of "asynchronicity" exists. Cultural development possesses relative independence; the flourishing of culture does not necessarily coincide perfectly with economic and social development. In a highly developed society, culture does not necessarily exhibit corresponding prosperity. Taking Greek art and epics as examples, Marx emphasized that the prosperity of culture and art is not always proportional to the degree of development of the overall society or its material basis. He argued that Greek art and epics "still afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain respect they count as a norm and as an unattainable model," and that "the charm their art exerts on us is not in contradiction to the undeveloped stage of society on which it grew." Engels also believed that "economically backward countries can still play first fiddle in philosophy."
The Chinese Communists are well aware of this basic law of cultural development—that culture possesses relative independence—and they fully exert their subjective initiative in cultural construction. Despite facing the difficult situation of "waiting for all neglected tasks to be undertaken" [22], our Party, while leading the people in recovering the national economy and carrying out socialist transformation and construction, still attached great importance to innovation and creation in the cultural field. It established the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological sphere and formulated the "Double Hundred" policy and "Two Serves" direction to guide the development of science and art. This greatly stimulated the creative vitality of the cultural and artistic circles, leading to the emergence of a group of excellent novels, poems, plays, films, songs, and paintings that reflected the magnificent process and brilliant achievements of socialist construction. A large-scale literacy campaign was carried out, the socialist education system was gradually improved, and "new socialist people" were cultivated. The public cultural service system was basically completed, the cultural life of the masses was further enriched, and socialist culture showed vigorous vitality. From this, it can be seen that the CPC possesses a high degree of cultural transcendence in the process of advancing cultural construction. With immense enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and a spirit of historical initiative, it enabled China’s state of cultural development to transcend its corresponding economic base. Under conditions of relative material scarcity, it created immense spiritual and cultural wealth. This advanced socialist culture, in turn, acted back upon socialist political and economic construction, greatly promoting the development of our country's social productive forces. This is a profound manifestation of the CPC’s cultural transcendence.
The Transcendence of the Communist Party of China in Cultural Institutions
The cultural transcendence of the CPC is reflected in the formulation of cultural institutions; these institutions themselves highlight the Party’s cultural transcendence.
Cultural institutions must rely on the power of law for their realization. As the fundamental law of the state, the Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates the country’s fundamental political system, basic political systems, and basic economic system from a legal level, thereby forming a corresponding ideological and cultural system. The Preamble of the Constitution points out in no uncertain terms: "The Chinese people of all ethnic groups will continue, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, to uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship, stay on the socialist road, carry out reform and opening up, steadily improve socialist institutions, develop the socialist market economy, develop socialist democracy, improve the socialist rule of law, apply a new development philosophy, and work hard and self-reliantly to gradually realize the modernization of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology, to promote the coordinated development of material, political, spiritual, social, and ecological civilizations, and to turn China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful, and to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." This proclaims our country’s guiding ideology and reflects the qualitative stipulations of the socialist system at the cultural level. The Constitution stipulates the content of socialist cultural forms at the institutional level, including the guiding ideology and theory, the system of cultural leadership, the rights of cultural subjects, the goals of cultural construction, and cultural management mechanisms. Regarding the cultural legal system, Article 19 of the Constitution, for instance, stipulates that "the state shall develop socialist education to raise the scientific and cultural level of the whole nation," setting our basic cultural goals with the power of law. Furthermore, Article 24 stipulates: "The state shall strengthen the building of socialist spiritual civilization by promoting education in high ideals, ethics, culture, discipline, and the rule of law, and by formulating and enforcing various rules and conventions among different sections of the people in both urban and rural areas." In addition, there are cultural laws, regulations, and ordinances formulated by the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee and the State Council, as well as local cultural regulations formulated by local governments at all levels, such as the Public Cultural Service Guarantee Law of the People's Republic of China, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Jin-tangible Cultural Heritage, and the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics. Regarding the system of cultural leadership, we must uphold the Party's overall leadership over the cultural field, "uphold and improve the systems and mechanisms for the Party's leadership over cultural development, and implement the principles of the Party managing publicity, ideology, and the media, ensuring that the Party's leadership is implemented in every aspect of publicity, ideological, and cultural work," thereby providing a fundamental guarantee for the realization of the flourishing and development of socialist culture. This content collectively constitutes the future direction of our cultural construction and development, highlighting the profound cultural transcendence of the Communist Party of China.
Source: World Socialism Studies (Issue 1, 2026) Editor: Huihui