Sun Daozhuang and Zhao Fuke: Advancing the Party's Self-Revolution by Improving the System for Full and Rigorous Self-Governance

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that to deeply advance the Party’s self-revolution ^[1], we must take "improving the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party ^[2] as an effective path." The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is an organic whole composed of several subsystems, such as value concepts, content structures, and institutional arrangements; it adjusts its content structure based on value concepts and fits its institutional system according to the content structure. Currently, academic research on improving the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party focuses primarily on the practical paths of its holistic construction, but the understanding of fundamental questions—such as "why improving the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is an effective path for advancing the Party's self-revolution"—has not yet been fully resolved. Consequently, this article intends to conduct an in-depth exploration from the perspectives of "what constitutes effectiveness," "what constitutes a path," and "how it can advance the Party’s self-revolution," so as to provide a useful reference for a better understanding of this issue.

I. What Constitutes Effectiveness: Realizing the Organic Integration of Effects, Efficiency, Benefits, and Efficacy

Measuring whether a system is effective requires focusing on its final results as well as its operating speed; it requires valuing its cost-benefit ratio as well as its overall functionality. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is the great practice of the Party's self-revolution in the New Era." To advance the Party’s self-revolution by taking the improvement of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party as an effective path fundamentally requires that the system itself be effective. It must tangibly play a role in the great practice of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, providing a strong guarantee for advancing the Party’s self-revolution through new achievements.

(1) The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party must have effects. The value and significance of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party lie in using the relationship between power and law as a coordinate. Through the formation of the rule of law, it establishes the spirit of the rule of law, forms legal authority, and constitutes a constraint on the Party’s power. This ensures that the Party’s power is truly embedded within the Party’s regulations and systems, becoming the latent supporting force behind the legal system. Systematized regulations and rules then carry the Party’s power, protect the Party’s rights, and realize the Party’s will. This determines that the fundamental purpose of improving the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party lies in the ability to exert practical effects, and in constantly adjusting its own internal structure using practical effects as a yardstick. These practical effects mainly include: First, strengthening the Party’s overall leadership. The core function of the system is to strengthen the Party’s overall leadership; "strictly governing the Party in all respects has, at its core, the strengthening of the Party’s leadership." We must not only implement the Party’s will and ensure the implementation of the Party’s line, principles, and policies through the improvement of the system, but also manifest the inherent spirit of the rule of law through systematized operations. Second, consolidating the synergy for managing and governing the Party. It is necessary to clarify the powers, responsibilities, and boundaries of different functions across various subjects, fields, and links of Party management. This reduces mutual friction and conflict, allowing various systems of Party governance to mesh exquisitely and various fields to operate in an orderly manner. This accumulates synergy through functional complementarity and synchronized frequency, avoiding problems such as mutual buck-passing and "empty-wheeling" ^[3] of systems caused by unclear responsibilities. Third, ensuring the Party's long-term governance. The Party must remain seamless and leave no "blind spots" in its persistent process of "turning the blade inward" ^[4]. This achieves truly comprehensive and thorough strictness in managing the Party. By fully exercising the role of institutions, the Party can fundamentally and permanently solve the "unique challenges of a large party" ^[5]. Through practical action, the Party can "forcefully strike back against the 'hunting' ^[6] and corrosion by all interest groups, power blocs, and privileged strata," breaking the barriers of solidified interests and truly building the Party into a long-governing Marxist party.

(2) The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party should be more efficient. As a systematic innovation, a major difference between the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party and previous methods of Party management lies in the "linked integration" of the system. A very important purpose of realizing this integration is to improve the efficiency of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party. Only by improving efficiency can the creativity of systematic Party governance be truly demonstrated. Improving efficiency is mainly reflected in: First, the speed of producing results must be fast. It is necessary to discover problems promptly, grasp them accurately, and handle them properly. We must not only focus on solving the urgent problems that concern the masses most, but also dare to touch deep-seated, long-term, and historically left-over issues. Extraordinary measures must be taken against chronic maladies in the process of Party governance. We must deepen the approach of "treating both symptoms and root causes" ^[7] and taking a systemic approach to governance. We must "prescribe the right medicine, apply precise treatment, and take multiple measures simultaneously, so that recurring old problems gradually decrease and new problems find it difficult to spread," promoting the normalization, long-term effectiveness, and institutionalization of problem governance. Second, the quality of results must be high. Requirements for quality must be reflected in the accumulation of quantity, and the accumulation of quantity must take quality as its standard. Not only must the masses truly feel the existence and strength of Party organizations and find their sense of belonging through the resolution of real-life problems, but also, taking the resolution of real-life problems as the internal drive, we must constantly overcome the shortcomings of the system. This ensures that the political practice of using intra-Party democracy to promote people's democracy is both operable and possesses a clear sense of direction.

(3) The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party should possess benefits. From an economic perspective, the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party involves operational costs; there is a comparative relationship between cost input and benefit output. If the cost of governing the Party exceeds the benefits, it will cause a waste of resources and affect the legitimacy of the Party's governance. To improve the system, first, we must emphasize cost input. We must avoid ineffective, repetitive, and excessive investments in Party governance. In particular, we must avoid damage to the fundamental interests of the people caused by the Four Winds, and avoid the waste of the Party's economic and political resources caused by "vanity projects," "prestige projects," and "face-saving projects" that are carried out regardless of cost or consequence, or even through corruption. Second, we must emphasize performance output. The benefit of governing the Party is both an economic consideration and, more importantly, a watershed that distinguishes whether the Party is truly "founding the Party for the public and governing for the people" ^[8]. Historically, all regimes that were non-representative of the people wantonly plundered and exhausted the people's wealth without regard for their livelihoods. Therefore, only by truly achieving "honest and low-cost" governance ^[9] can the masses tangibly feel the effects of Party governance, ensuring these effects are truly seen by and used for the people.

(4) The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party must have efficacy. The system possesses an integration of efficacy; this integration, as a collective synergy, is built on the foundation of being effective, efficient, and beneficial. Only when all three are realized can the overall efficacy of the system be truly strengthened. Specifically, this is reflected in: First, fully exerting the role of institutions to unify Party management with national governance. On the one hand, under the goal of building a country under the rule of law, the Party must strengthen its own rule-of-law construction, realizing its own legalization through a complete institutional system and effective operational mechanisms. On the other hand, the direction and quality of the Party's own rule-of-law construction play a leading and exemplary role in the country's legal construction. The healthy development of a rule-of-law country also provides an important political environment and practical basis for the Party’s own legal construction. Second, fully exerting the role of culture to unify tangible constraints with the internal spirit. The value of the system lies not only in its tangible institutional regulations but also in the spirit and culture inherent within them. Tangible institutions are the skeleton, while the intangible spirit and culture are the soul and blood. It is precisely because of the intangible power of spirit and culture that the institutional provisions of the system can be activated into an external way of behavior. Third, fully exerting synergetic effects to unify means and ends. The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party possesses the connotation of value, the function of process, and the significance of a means. Its purpose is to truly "highly unify strict management and supervision with the encouragement of taking responsibility, thereby forging a stronger leading force and coalescing a broader force for struggle." Only by unifying its means and ends, functions and values, and fully exerting overall synergetic effects can its own efficacy be continuously enhanced.

II. What Constitutes a Path: The Dialectical Unity of History, Theory, and Practice in the Development of the Times

The formation of an effective path requires both the condensation of history and the elevation of theory; it must undergo continuous confirmation by current practice and remain open to the development of the times. Taking the improvement of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party as an effective path stems from the summation of historical experience and forms its own theoretical construction. It needs to be forged and tested in practice, and further improved and perfected amidst the development of the times.

(1) The historical evolution of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party Although the "system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party" was first proposed in the report to the 20th CPC National Congress, the practice of strictly managing and governing the Party has run through the century-long history of Party building. The Party has always been exploring what content and structures it should include to better fulfill the functions of Party governance. Over the past century, Party governance has evolved from "general strictness" to "comprehensive strictness," and then to "systemic strictness," reflecting the Party’s deepening understanding of the laws governing its own construction. During the New Democratic Revolution period, Mao Zedong proposed that Party building was a "great project." He pointed out the need to combine ideological Party building with organizational Party building, emphasized the strict observance of the Party's discipline and rules, forbade the existence of factions within the Party, placed education on Party spirit ^[10] at the top of all education, broadened channels for democratic supervision, maintained strict control over conduct, ensured leading cadres led by example, and severely punished corruption. A relatively mature supervision system and a series of regulations following the reality of the time were initially formed, maintaining a commitment to strict Party management. This shows that from its inception, our Party viewed Party building as a systemic project. During the period of socialist revolution and construction, Party governance became further tightened. Mao Zedong emphasized the need to guard against the "sugar-coated bullets" ^[11] of the bourgeoisie and launched the "Three-Antis" Campaign ^[12] to eliminate corrupt elements from the Party's cadre ranks. In the new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization, "strictly governing the Party" became the basic policy and fundamental principle for strengthening Party building. Deng Xiaoping integrated the idea of institutional Party governance into the overall layout of Party building and proposed new norms for intra-Party political life in the form of intra-Party regulations. Jiang Zemin summarized the historical experience of the Party exercising self-supervision and strict self-governance, formulated the important thesis of advancing the "new great project of Party building," and proposed the "Three Represents" ^[13] as the general goal and program for Party building. Hu Jintao’s discourses on strengthening the Party's governing capacity and maintaining the Party's advanced nature and purity further enriched the theory and practice of strictly governing the Party. In the New Era of Chinese-path modernization, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core proposed "comprehensively and strictly governing the Party" and achieved a series of historic accomplishments. While being incorporated into the "Four Comprehensives" strategic layout, comprehensively and strictly governing the Party gradually formed its own system. This system is the result of "abstraction" from the practical development of governing the Party; it is not that the practice must adapt to the system, but rather that the system can only be correctly revealed when it conforms to the practical requirements of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party.

(2) The theoretical construction of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Since the 18th National Congress, we have unswervingly advanced the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party, achieved a series of theoretical, practical, and institutional innovations, and built a system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, opening up a new realm of self-revolution for a century-old large party." This system possesses authority due to its formal completeness and sound content, exhibiting internal structural characteristics where the vertical and horizontal intersect, and the dynamic and static combine. Specifically, it is reflected in:

First, the vertical institutional framework is clearly layered. It takes the Party Constitution as the fundamental system, democratic centralism as the core system, intra-Party regulations as the basic system, and systems with specific functions as concrete systems. Second, the six horizontal fields are coordinated and integrated. The institutional system runs horizontally through the six fields of Party building. In the field of the Party's political building, it mainly includes the construction of the Party's leadership system, practicing...

the Two Upholds, and so forth; the field of the Party’s ideological building mainly includes strengthening the Party through theory, the innovation of the Party’s ideological theory and its systematization, etc.; the field of the Party’s organizational building mainly includes the selection, cultivation, and appraisal of Party members and cadres, and the strengthening of the Party’s organizational system; the field of the Party’s work style building mainly includes the cultivation of the Party’s fine work styles, and the cultivation of the personal work and lifestyle of leading cadres who are Party members; the field of the Party’s discipline building mainly includes the investigation and accountability for disciplinary violations and the construction of the Party’s disciplinary system; and the field of the anti-corruption struggle mainly includes improving the system for supervising power and the integrated advancement of the mechanisms for "not daring, not being able, and not wanting to be corrupt" ^[14]. Third is the static "point-line-plane" trinity. This takes institutional texts as the base point and carrier, uses the four levels of institutions as the connecting lines, and uses the six major fields as the covering surface, focusing the entire system on the realization of holistic efficacy. Fourth is the dynamic "enactment-implementation-revision" three-stage cycle. The enactment stage ensures the supply of institutions; the implementation stage ensures their effective operation; and the revision stage achieves institutional metabolism. This three-stage cycle forms a closed-loop chain for the system.

(3) Practical Tempering of the Comprehensively and Strictly Governing the Party System The construction of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party emphasizes the systemic nature but does not blindly fetishize it; it requires that it must face practice and undergo tempering and testing within practice. Specifically, first, the internal structure of the system must be tempered in practice by combining hierarchical and recursive structures. This shapes a composite structure that facilitates both the exercise of centralized advantages and the step-by-step decomposition and independent resolution of problems. In the course of practical development, new technical means such as AI, big data analysis, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) should be applied to empower it, building a digital and intelligent modern model of Party management and governance. This allows for the continuous adjustment of the overall structure and improves the system's capacity to discover and solve practical problems. Second, the institutional resilience of the system must be tempered in practice, using such resilience to enhance the system's adaptive function. On the one hand, the soft power advantages of culture must be fully utilized, using institutional culture to influence people and the institutional spirit to inspire them, transforming institutions from external coercive constraints into internal conscious compliance. On the other hand, the system’s mode of operation must be tempered by constructing a closed-loop chain system of whole-process responsibility. Based on responsibility lists, issues should be addressed early and while they are small ^[15], shifting the focus of supervision and accountability toward early warning and reminders. Third, the executive vitality of the system must be tempered in practice. In the process of execution, one must persist in combining result-orientation with process-orientation to achieve the coordinated operation and deep integration of horizontal mechanisms, while also persisting in combining accountability to superiors with accountability to subordinates to achieve the mutual restraint and coordinated promotion of vertical mechanisms. Only by undergoing tempering and testing in practice can the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party truly take root in practice, preventing it from gravitating toward alienation, where it loses its inner thought and human element due to excessive subservience to form.

(4) Epochal Requirements for Improving the System for Comprehensively and Strictly Governing the Party Only when history, theory, and practice are profoundly unified within the development of the times can they truly strike the pulse of the era, demonstrate its vitality, and grasp its trends. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "The prominent problems of impurity in ideology, organization, and work style within the Party have not yet been fundamentally resolved. The situation of the anti-corruption struggle remains grave and complex, and new situations and problems continue to emerge. The 'Four Tests' ^[16] and 'Four Dangers' ^[17] facing the Party will exist for a long time." Further advancing Party building requires using these problems as breakthrough points, fully applying systematic thinking and scientific methods to promote the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party. We must persist in taking the Party's political building as the overarching principle, ensuring that all aspects of Party building exert force in the same direction, using institutions as a key lever to continuously improve the system. This entails a systematic governance model of closely linked and interlocking parts to methodically lead the Party's self-revolution to a deeper level as a whole. Specifically, this includes:

First, perfecting the vertical institutional system. Primarily, we must improve a scientific, complete, and effective institutional system, strengthen institutional integration, and weave a "cage of institutions" ^[18] in an all-round way. Furthermore, we must continue to deepen the reform of the system of intra-Party regulations. While handling top-level design, we must also face practical needs, promptly elevating experienced practices recognized by the whole Party into institutions, and effectively strengthening the implementation mechanisms to drive the development of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party toward greater depth along the track of regulations and systems.

Second, systematically planning the horizontal layout. Regarding the Party's political building, we must improve the system of Party leadership that oversees the overall situation and coordinates all parties, improve the mechanism for implementing the major decisions and deployments of the CPC Central Committee, and strengthen the political responsibility for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, "always maintaining a strict keynote, strict measures, and a strict atmosphere." Regarding the Party’s ideological building, we must improve the educational system for "strengthening the foundation and soul" ^[19], "unswervingly arming the whole Party with the Party’s innovative theories, educating and guiding the broad masses of Party members and cadres to work hard on deepening and transforming [these theories], and drawing ideological nourishment such as firm ideals and beliefs, strengthening Party spirit, and enhancing spiritual realms and moral levels." Regarding the Party’s organizational building, we must improve an organizational system that connects the top and bottom and executes effectively, forming a work pattern based on the grassroots with orderly interaction between levels to ensure all Party organizations are robust. We must explore and innovate the setup and working methods of Party organizations in new economic organizations, new social organizations, and new employment groups, and enhance the use of the internet and new technical means to achieve full offline and online coverage. Regarding the Party’s work style and discipline building, we must improve the normalized mechanism for rectifying work styles and disciplining the Party, persisting in tackling Party spirit, work style, and discipline together. We must persist over the long term in upholding the Eight-Point Regulations—a move akin to "moving the wood to establish trust" ^[20] in the New Era—placing the rectification of the chronic maladies of formalism and bureaucratism in an even more prominent position. In the integrated advancement of the anti-corruption struggle, we must improve a regulatory system that applies precise force and treats both symptoms and root causes, and improve a supervision system under the Party’s unified leadership that is comprehensive, authoritative, and efficient. We must make political supervision more concrete, precise, and normalized, "effectively connecting intra-Party supervision with supervision by state organs, democratic supervision, judicial supervision, mass supervision, and public opinion supervision, achieving a benign interaction and mutual reinforcement between self-discipline and external discipline." At the same time, we must "deeply advance the simultaneous investigation and treatment of work style problems and corruption" to leave no room for privilege and corruption to hide.

Third, consolidating the multi-dimensional three-dimensional matrix. First, we must scientifically design institutional text norms. In terms of the intrinsic value of the text, we must adhere to the fundamental concept of putting the people first; in terms of symbolic presentation, it must be scientific and standardized, covering all fields, subjects, and links of Party management. Second, we must connect the points into lines, focusing closely on the "ox's nose" ^[21] of responsibility through the rigid characteristics of institutions. We must improve a responsibility system with clear subjects and requirements, "strengthening the primary responsibility and supervisory responsibility for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party," and "improving the system for implementing political responsibility for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party." This pushes the broad masses of Party members and leading cadres to know, shoulder, and fulfill their responsibilities. We must improve precise and scientific accountability mechanisms to ensure that the responsibility for Party governance is implemented, preventing both weak accountability and its over-generalization, and effectively reflecting responsibility, duty, and dedication in every post. Third, we must weave the lines into a plane, making various institutions closely interwoven throughout all fields and links of Party building. Finally, we must construct a holistic system, from institutional spirit to institutional rationality, from technical aspects to design, from operation to implementation, and from form to culture. This ensures the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is interlocking and systematic, forming a collective force.

Fourth, strengthening the dynamic operational system. First, we must strengthen the effective supply of institutions, truly carrying the principles of fairness, justice, and openness through the entire process of institutional establishment. By accurately responding to the expectations of the people, we must improve the mechanisms for institutional establishment to ensure they reflect the unity of the Party’s will and the people’s will, forming a closed loop. Second, we must strengthen the orderly operation of institutions, persisting in leading by example from the top and giving play to the exemplary role of the "key minority" ^[22]. We must continue to push the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party toward the grassroots, persisting in integrating requirements such as equality for all, fairness and justice, constraints on power, harmony and stability, and the principle that "law must not give way to lawlessness" into the healthy operation of the system. This achieves the synergistic promotion of Party building in all fields with the strict management of officials, the lawful use and governance of power, and the coordinated advancement of governing the Party according to regulations and governing the country according to law. The spirit of the rule of law, the order of regulations, and the principle of performance must be implemented in all aspects of activities inside and outside the Party. Finally, we must ensure the system advances with the times, persisting in deepening the reform of the Party building system. We must give full play to the important role of institutions in promoting the Party's rule of law and leading reform, development, and social progress. Institutions that are no longer suited to the Party's rule of law or the comprehensive deepening of reform must be replaced with new ones, truly demonstrating the characteristics of dynamic operation and coordinated development.

III. Why It Can Advance the Party’s Self-Revolution: The Integration of Holism, Connectivity, Emergence, and Adaptability The reason a system becomes a system lies not only in its advantage of being greater than the sum of its parts but also in the coupling and connectivity between its internal elements. It lies in its "emergence" of self-optimization and its adaptability in dynamic coordination with the external environment. In deeply advancing the Party's self-revolution, nine aspects must be grasped in practice, one of the most important being to use the improvement of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party as an effective path. The reason this system can advance the Party’s self-revolution is that its characteristics are closely related to the inherent demands of self-revolution. This allows the great practice of comprehensively and strictly governing the Party to repeatedly question at a deep level—through the improvement of its own system—why the Party needs self-revolution, why it can achieve it, and how to advance it. This practical improvement makes the ideas and measures for self-revolution more rigorous and makes the self-revolution of various elements, links, and even fronts more concrete and profound.

(1) Clarifying the Great Mission of the Party’s Self-Revolution through Systemic Holism The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is not for the sake of governance alone, but is vital to the lifeblood of the Party and the state. "The holism of modern state construction... determines that the building of a strong political party must be a comprehensive and systematic 'Great Project.'" The Party’s self-revolution is not for the sake of revolution alone, but to lead a great social revolution and to ensure that self-revolution better serves the Party's central tasks. The system's holistic feature allows it to integrate with the Party's governance of the country and the integrated construction of a rule-of-law state, government, and society. It also ensures that the promotion of social revolution is consciously included in the process of self-revolution. Aiming for the comprehensive building of a modern socialist country and pursuing the ultimate liberation of humanity is the fundamental historical mission of a Marxist party. This determines that the revolutionary movement led by a Marxist party—with ideological revolution as the precursor, political revolution as the key, economic revolution as the foundation, and social revolution as the goal—must be the most extensive and profound social transformation. Such a great social transformation is a historical process consisting of the gradual achievement of many stage-specific goals. Unifying this fundamental transformation with the Party’s practice of comprehensive and strict governance, and with the goals of Chinese-path modernization, is an inevitable requirement for the Party to fulfill its mission and the core driver of its self-revolution. It is precisely by clarifying the great mission of self-revolution through its holistic characteristics that the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party can continuously advance the Party's self-revolution, making the process a practical carrier for the Party to fulfill its fundamental mission and organically unifying self-revolution with the great mission of social revolution.

(2) Perceiving the Core Essence of the Party’s Self-Revolution through Systemic Connectivity The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party possesses the feature of connectivity, which in fact allows us to perceive the core essence contained within the Party’s self-revolution...

The core connotation of "self-negation" ^[23]. "Self-negation" is the essential characteristic of dialectics. A core issue of the "self-negation" inherent in the Party's self-revolution is the need to resolve corruption—the greatest threat the Party faces in its historical development—through self-sublation ^[24], self-unfolding, and self-transcendence. The essence of corruption is the alienation of power ^[25]. The basic requirement of the Party's self-revolution is for the Party to be conscious of this danger of power alienation and to historically negate and sublate this danger through the historical process of self-organization and self-manifestation. This ensures adherence to the public nature of power to prevent it from becoming private; adherence to the instrumental nature of power to prevent it from becoming a personal right; adherence to the scientific nature of power to prevent it from becoming political maneuvering ^[26]; and adherence to the democratic nature of power to prevent it from becoming autocracy.

The interconnected nature of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party does more than just organically link the internal structures of Party building through the thread of institutions—ensuring full coverage with no blind spots or "forbidden zones" in every field and link of Party building, and advancing the integrated mechanisms to ensure that officials do not dare, are not able, and have no desire to be corrupt. It also organically links the life principles and historical meaning of the Party from its birth to its growth, and further to the realization of its own values and the fulfillment of its great mission. Consequently, the consciousness of "self-negation" becomes an internal self-awareness, preventing corruption and degeneration in all aspects of its current sphere of activity while overcoming corruption and degeneration at every stage of its historical development. This truly allows the Party’s self-revolution to manifest as an organic, dynamic process of practice.

(3) Promoting the substantive and profound advancement of the Party's self-revolution through systemic emergence.

Emergence is a distinct characteristic of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party. So-called emergence refers to the phenomenon where, when a large number of individual elements aggregate, interactions occur between them such that the whole possesses new properties or patterns entirely different from the individuals, achieving a "1+1>2" effect. A system possessing emergence is capable of self-optimization. In such a system, the single action of an individual can provide effective feedback for the next action, and when a vast number of actions are directed toward the same clear goal over a sufficient period of time, it produces a qualitative transformation akin to constant dripping wearing away a stone. In other words, individual actions are accumulative and can form "compound interest." As long as the direction of the whole is clear and every individual acts toward that direction, the effects can accumulate and continuously form positive feedback, leading to a qualitative leap in the effectiveness of the entire system.

The Party's self-revolution is not a momentary impulse or a temporary expedient; it is a process of unremitting exploration characterized by perseverance, persisting over the long term, and accumulating small victories into major successes. The emergence inherent in the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party uses systematic operations to ensure that the results of the Party's self-revolution are continuously accumulated and superimposed. This cumulative effect not only potentially influences the structure, form, and mode of the system itself, but also further drives the Party's self-revolution to move deeper and more substantively through this "compounded" process. This "promotes the Party's self-revolution to be closely linked and progressed layer by layer, continuously achieving self-transcendence while weeding out the old to bring forth the new and upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground." Thus, the Party can truly escape the shackles of the "historical cycle" ^[27] of rise and fall, and fulfill its historical mission.

(4) Safeguarding the steady progress of the Party's self-revolution through systemic adaptability.

The system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party also possesses the characteristic of adaptability, which stems both from its consciousness in theoretical construction and its openness toward practice. Adaptability refers to the system’s ability to respond to changes in practical settings when facing different environments and resources. Only a system with strong adaptability can maintain its own equilibrium and stability. Since the start of the New Era, the changes in the world, the times, and history have continued to unfold in new ways amidst the accelerating evolution of "changes unseen in a century." The Party, which carries the triple tasks of revolution, leadership, and governance, faces not only the "Four Tests" and "Four Dangers" ^[28] but also many unknown challenges. Carrying out the Party’s self-revolution and implementing the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party are important measures for our Party to build a strong political party; they are also the prerequisite and foundation for our Party to strengthen its core through self-construction to calmly respond to various external tests, dangers, and challenges.

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that the situation regarding corruption remains grave and complex, and that we must "strengthen the rapid disposal of new and hidden forms of corruption." Based on its fundamental mission and core requirements, the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party provides crucial support for the Party to react quickly to the influence of various complex factors. It provides for continuous institutional adjustment and supply based on agency and adaptability, ensuring that the rhythm of the Party’s self-revolution is not disrupted by external factors or obstructed by internal privileges, thereby possessing the institutional foundation for steady progress. In a certain sense, this adaptability of the system also reflects that the Party's self-revolution is a process of dynamic balance and adjustment, involving continuous self-correction to prevent the Party from making "subversive errors" ^[29].

Conclusion

Perfecting the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is an important manifestation of promoting Chinese-path modernization through modernized party governance; it is also a vital means of advancing social revolution through the Party's self-revolution. To advance the Party’s self-revolution through the effective path of perfecting the system of comprehensive and strict governance, the most fundamental task is to resolve the question of how to better exercise the Party's power during the process of translating theory into practice. By strengthening the supervision and restraint of governing power—ensuring that this power operates within the tracks of the rule of law to become the capacity to lead, unite, and inspire the people of the whole country in their endeavors—we provide a firm response and powerful practice for building the world's strongest Marxist party, based on the historical experience of Communist Party governance in socialist states.

"It is not easy for a Marxist party to seize power, and it is even more difficult to consolidate it." The CPC's governance is the choice of both history and the people, as well as the result of the Party’s own efforts. Only by advancing the Party’s self-revolution through the perfection of the system for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party can we truly bring questions—such as for whom to govern, by whom to govern, and how to govern, as well as the derivative issues of how to prevent power belonging to the people from escaping their control and how to prevent the power entrusted by the people from corroding the Party's body—into the orbit of the rule of law. By using the constraints and standardized operations of the rule of law to continuously interrogate these issues, the Party moves the development of the people's cause forward with a practical self-awareness of fulfilling its promises, truly demonstrating the people-centered essence of our Party’s governance.