Bureau of Retired Personnel of CASS Conducts 2025 Annual Assessment of Work for Retired Cadres at the Academy of Marxism
On the afternoon of February 2, 2026, Guo Jianhong, Director of the Bureau for Retired Cadres [1] of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), led a team to the Institute of Marxism Studies (IMS) to evaluate the work concerning retired cadres for the year 2025. Luo Wendong, Secretary of the IMS Party Committee, presided over the evaluation symposium. During the symposium, Chen Zhigang, Secretary of the IMS Discipline Inspection Committee and Vice President of the Institute, reported on the implementation of work regarding feedback from relevant units concerning ideological [2] issues involving elderly comrades. Luan Wenlian, Secretary of the IMS Party Branch for Retired Cadres, reported on the activities carried out by the retired cadres’ Party branch. Lyu Zhicheng, Deputy Director of the IMS General Office, reported on the progress of work related to retired cadres. The evaluation team from the Bureau for Retired Cadres provided comments on the work, offered policy clarifications, inquired about specific situations, and issued work reminders. Guo Jianhong, Director of the Bureau for Retired Cadres, delivered a speech outlining work requirements, and Luo Wendong delivered the concluding remarks.
The comrades of the IMS earnestly reviewed the work performed in recent years, particularly in 2025, regarding the ideology and security [3] of elderly comrades. This included organizing collective study sessions for veteran Party members and cadres, conducting national condition surveys [4], and facilitating online study and discussion activities. They highlighted their efforts to care for elderly comrades, maintain close contact with them, and transmit the care and affection of the CASS Party Group to every retired cadre.
The participating comrades from the Bureau for Retired Cadres affirmed the results achieved in the IMS’s work with retired cadres and proposed further work requirements. Comrade Guo Jianhong pointed out that the IMS has conducted highly effective work; the Party Committee attaches great importance to it, and the work of the retired cadres and the Party branch is solid and concrete. He emphasized a new pattern and new requirements for retired cadre work, namely a "four-in-one" approach: Party building [5] is the fundamental, service provision is the basis, playing an active role is the key, and self-construction is the guarantee.
Carrying out Party building among retired cadres is the fundamental requirement for doing retired cadre work well; it is necessary to raise the guidance of ideological and political work to a new height. CASS attaches great importance to retired cadre work and has proposed a new requirement for a work pattern that emphasizes both management and service, as well as both management and profound care, ensuring that both aspects are robust. The construction of the Party branch must be handled well to give full play to its role; work should center on the core task of scientific research, utilizing the "mentorship" [6] role of retired comrades in research.
Director Li Di stated that from the leadership of the IMS to the retired cadre branch and its staff, work has been done with heart and emotion, employing a combination of "facilitation and obstruction" [7]. He also issued work reminders, emphasizing that the highest priority is political discipline and the responsibility for ideological security. He noted the need to strengthen the construction of the information management platform for retired cadres to achieve "one-ization leading two-izations"—that is, using informatization to drive refinement and standardization. Furthermore, it is necessary to strengthen work with elderly care institutions associated with CASS, combining efforts to jointly promote the socialization of elderly care.
In his concluding remarks, Secretary Luo Wendong expressed his heartfelt thanks to Director Guo Jianhong and the delegation from the Bureau for Retired Cadres for coming to the IMS to evaluate and provide guidance, noting that this serves as both encouragement and a spur to further improve the IMS’s retired cadre work. He also offered relevant suggestions regarding the institutional construction of retired cadre work, the guarantee of human and material resources, maintaining close contact with elderly comrades, and the self-organization, service, and management of the elderly comrades themselves.
(Text and photos contributed by Luan Wenlian, Institute of Marxism Studies)