Liang Fei: Advancing the Party's Self-Revolution Requires Systematic Guidance
General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important thought on the Party’s self-revolution serves as the fundamental guidance for advancing the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party in the New Era and for opening a new frontier in the self-revolution of a century-old major party. During the 21st collective study session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that self-revolution is the "second answer" for our Party to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall, and that advancing the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party by starting with the improvement of conduct is an important experience of the Party’s self-revolution in the New Era. To advance the Party’s self-revolution, we must ensure further implementation in areas such as raising awareness, strengthening Party spirit, standardizing the exercise of power, strictly supervising discipline, and fulfilling responsibilities for Party governance. These "five areas of further implementation" profoundly summarize the practical experience of governing the Party in the New Era and constitute the key practical levers for implementing the important thought on the Party’s self-revolution. From the strategic height of the Party's future and destiny, this important discourse provides systematic guidance for "how to govern the Party" in the New Era.
Stimulating the Original Aspiration and Driving Force of the Important Thought on the Party’s Self-Revolution
Ideology is the precursor to action; enhancing the effectiveness of Party governance primarily requires resolving deep-seated cognitive and motivational issues. Within the perspective of Marxist party-building, self-revolution is not merely a political gesture but an internal evolutionary process based on organizational consciousness.
Deepen strategic cognition and shift from "passive response" to "historical consciousness" [1]. The requirement that "awareness of the Party's self-revolution must be further implemented" precisely targets the cognitive biases currently existing among some Party members and officials. Against the backdrop of the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party entering a stage of greater depth, "fatigue syndrome" among certain officials and the view that pits self-revolution against development are essentially due to a failure to profoundly grasp the laws governing a major party. Self-revolution is not an interim measure of convenience but the "second answer" for the Party to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall [2]. The prerequisite for enhancing governance effectiveness must be an internal identification with the necessity of "turning the blade inward" [3], transforming the pressure of external supervision into an endogenous drive for proactive self-purification, and clearing systemic obstacles for high-quality development by "filtering the turbid and promoting the clear" [4]. Tempering Party spirit and building an "ideological immune system" against corruption. The requirement that "strengthening Party spirit among members and officials must be further implemented" reveals the decisive role of Party spirit as the cornerstone of Party governance. In a complex governance environment, the rigid execution of systems often depends on the political character of the executive subjects. Party spirit is not only a matter of moral cultivation but also the internal support for governance effectiveness. To improve the effectiveness of Party governance, we must guide members and officials to purify their moral character and deepen their feelings for the people through rigorous intra-Party political life, thereby forging an "invulnerable golden body" [5]. Only when every Party member possesses strong political resolve and moral strength can the ideological dam of "not wanting to be corrupt" be truly fortified, and the various measures of Party governance be transformed from "rules on paper" into "norms of behavior."
Perfecting the Rigid Constraint Mechanism of "Inability to be Corrupt"
If ideological education focuses on "soft guidance," then institutional building and disciplinary supervision are the "rigid constraints" for enhancing governance effectiveness. The key to improving effectiveness lies in achieving a shift from factor-based governance to systemic governance.
Standardizing the exercise of power hits the vital point of governance effectiveness. The requirement that "the standardization of power exercise must be further implemented" focuses on the core contradiction of governance. The essence of corruption is the irrational expansion or abuse of power. In a modern governance system, we must break through the institutional dilemma of "trying to corral a cat in a cattle pen" [6]. The logic of standardizing power lies in "governing power"; we must keep a close watch on "top leaders" [7] and key positions, focusing on high-risk links such as major decision-making and project approvals to establish a full-chain mechanism. Through list-based management and process control, we must squeeze the space for rent-seeking to the maximum extent and resolutely prevent power from being eroded by interest groups. Only by letting power operate in the sunshine can we eliminate the loss of governance effectiveness at its source and achieve a high degree of alignment between the exercise of power and the public interest. Strengthening supervision and discipline to ensure the "authority" of the system through "deterrence." The requirement that "strict supervision and discipline must be further implemented" demands that iron rules must grow "iron teeth." Given the new characteristics of the "integration of conduct and corruption" [8] and its invisible mutations, enhancing governance effectiveness requires achieving "interconnection and coordination" in supervision methods. This requires promoting the organic connection of intra-Party supervision with supervision by the National People’s Congress, the judiciary, the masses, and public opinion to eliminate blind spots. In terms of disciplinary strategy, we should increase the intensity of "simultaneous investigation and treatment of conduct and corruption," digging deep into the transfer of interests behind the Four Winds while also eradicating chronic corruption within specific industries. Only by maintaining a high-pressure stance and forming a powerful deterrent so that officials "dare not be corrupt" can ensure that the institutional advantages of Party governance are transformed into substantive governance effectiveness.
Achieving Functional Coupling of the Party Governance System
The responsibility system is the "ox's nose" [9] of Party governance. The requirement that "fulfilling the responsibility for Party governance must be further implemented" emphasizes not just simple task allocation, but how to achieve the overall optimization of the governance system through the embedding of responsibility. Strengthening political responsibility and giving play to the navigating role of the "key minority" [10]. As the core bearers of the governance system, leading officials must prevent the hollowing out of responsibility. Passing pressure down through the levels to correct the structural contradiction of "heat at the top, warmth in the middle, and cold at the bottom" [11] is the necessary path to enhancing effectiveness. Leading officials at all levels should embed the responsibility for Party governance into the entire process of their professional work, ensuring that the requirements for comprehensively and strictly governing the Party are implemented down to the grassroots. Constructing a responsibility closed-loop to drive the self-optimization of the governance system. The implementation of responsibility cannot remain at the level of document deployment; it must be embedded into the specific links of power exercise. To this end, we must build a logical closed-loop of "defining, fulfilling, supervising, and holding accountable for responsibility." Clearly define responsibility to transform responsibility boundaries into specific institutional rules; standardize the fulfillment of responsibility to internalize responsibility requirements into the daily operating mechanisms of the organization; strengthen the supervision of responsibility to ensure that institutional execution remains under control dynamically; and strictly hold others accountable to form a mechanism for correction and feedback within the system. Only by forming a closed-loop institutional chain can Party governance shift from "physical superposition" to "chemical fusion," achieving an overall leap in effectiveness.
In advancing the Party’s self-revolution, we must not only continuously accumulate experience in practice but also summarize laws from experience, thereby forming a principled understanding to deepen the Party’s self-revolution more effectively. From this, we can see that the "five areas of further implementation" are not five isolated dimensions but a logically rigorous and internally unified organic whole. Awareness is the precursor, resolving the strategic consciousness of "why we do it"; Party spirit is the foundation, resolving the subjective quality of "who does it"; the standardization of power is the focus, defining the behavioral boundaries of "what to do"; supervision and discipline are the guarantee, establishing the evaluation standard for "how it is done"; and the fulfillment of responsibility is the lever, providing the power source of "on whom we rely." To enhance the overall effectiveness of Party governance in the New Era, we must adhere to a systems perspective and promote the resonance of all elements. We must integrate elements and connect mechanisms to build a new pattern of Party governance characterized by full coverage of content, full coverage of subjects, a full chain of responsibility, and full interconnection of systems. On the new journey, risks and tests are becoming increasingly complex. The more severe the situation, the more we must take General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important thought on the Party’s self-revolution as our fundamental guidance and the "five areas of further implementation" as our powerful lever. By continuously improving the overall effectiveness of Party governance and constantly enhancing the Party’s creativity, cohesion, and combat effectiveness, we can ensure that the Party remains the strong leadership core of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, providing a firm political guarantee for the realization of national rejuvenation.