Hou Huiqin: The Foundations of Our Country's Confidence in the Ideological System
Upholding the guiding role of Marxism in the ideological sphere was established by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee as a fundamental system of socialism with Chinese characteristics [1]; this is an important institutional arrangement made in accordance with the laws governing Communist Party governance. Today, it is highly necessary to further enhance our ideological understanding of this fundamental system, strengthen confidence in our country’s ideological system, and allow it to be continuously consolidated and perfected.
I
Upholding the guiding role of Marxism in the ideological sphere is a requirement of the laws of Communist Party governance, and it also conforms to the general principles by which ruling parties in modern states govern. From a Marxist perspective, any ruling class must simultaneously control both the production of the society’s material means of production and the production of its mental means of production; otherwise, its political power will not be secure. This is because material productive activities are not merely the production and reproduction of the material means of life—providing material support and a "hard power" foundation for governance—but are also the production and reproduction of the relations of production and material social interaction. Consequently, they constitute the process of maintaining existing socio-economic relations and relations of dominance, building the social foundation of governance. Meanwhile, mental production is not merely the production and reproduction of social, spiritual, and cultural activities—providing cultural support and a "soft power" foundation—but is also the production and reproduction of social consensus on values and ideologico-moral norms. It constructs the moral foundation of governance and is thus the process of maintaining relations of ideological dominance.
This means that relations of dominance are comprehensive and must be implemented across all social spheres; the ideological sphere can be no exception. The ruling class must "rule as producers of ideas and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age," and thus "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas." [2] To regulate the production and distribution of ideas, one must control ideological positions such as the media, schools, churches, and social organizations, as well as their relevant practitioners, ensuring consensus forms around the fundamental relations of dominance and is established as "universal ideas." It is not difficult to see that despite formal differences, in substance, controlling the social process of mental production and establishing a strong mainstream ideology is a law of governance that all ruling parties in modern societies must follow. The West, on the one hand, brands itself with "freedom of the press," while on the other, it slanders our adherence to the guidance of Marxism as "brainwashing." These are two sides of the same lie, fully exposing their hypocrisy and arrogance.
For the ruling party of a socialist state, the particularity of mastering mental production lies in the fact that "mastering ideological leadership is the first priority of mastering all leadership" [3]. Since the cause of liberation for the modern proletariat is not merely the liberation of itself, but a highly conscious and self-directed [N1] effort to abolish classes and liberate all of humanity—and since the social revolution led by the working class is launched under the conditions of the capitalist wage-labor system—the working class has no say in the production activities of the existing material means of production. Facts prove that based in capitalist society, merely relying on "suffering" to denounce capitalism cannot shake its social foundations; pure moral criticism cannot even truly transcend the opponent in a moral sense. To obtain the moral strength and firm conviction for the proletarian revolution, one can only stand upon the historical high ground facing the future. Only then can the moral high ground of bourgeois rule be destroyed, "letting ideas break through the cage" [N2] and fully stimulating the historical creativity of the masses. To stand at this historical high ground that transcends capitalism, the only possibility is to rely on the scientific theory of Marxism. Therefore, persisting in ideological Party building and strengthening the Party through theory is not only the path to success for the Communist Party of China but also a principle of Party building that all Marxist parties attempting to guide revolution should universally follow.
Viewed from historical experience, the fundamental reason for the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe lay in the abolition of the Communist Party's leadership, while the denial of the scientific nature of the Marxist worldview and the erosion of Marxism's guiding role in ideology were the ideological prerequisites for abolishing that leadership. On the eve of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the most frantic anti-communist rhetoric concentrated on attacks against the Marxist philosophical worldview. The loss of the philosophical position opened the door to the collapse of the mainstream ideology. The January 1988 Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee released the following message: "Our country's theory concerning socialist society remains at the level of the 1930s and 40s and is now quite obsolete... this assessment also applies to dialectical materialism and historical materialism." [4] Liquidating the worldview and historical outlook guided by Marxist philosophy under the guise of being "obsolete" resulted in a flood of historical nihilism [N3] and the prevalence of "human liberation" that manifested the so-called freedom of the individual. Individualist philosophy is the anchor for Western so-called democratic and liberal values; accepting individualist philosophy inevitably leads to identifying with Western liberal-democratic political values. Once this door was opened, it became impossible to maintain the Communist Party's position as the leadership core within the national political system. What followed logically was that in June 1988, the 19th All-Union Conference of the CPSU openly proposed "humane, democratic socialism"; in early 1990, Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, which established that "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is the leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of its political system, of all state organizations and public organizations" [5], was effectively abolished; on December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved. The lesson of history is that upholding the guiding role of Marxism in the ideological sphere is the ideological foundation for upholding the leadership of the Communist Party. Whether or not this fundamental system is upheld concerns the political security of the state.
II
Upholding the guiding role of Marxism in the ideological sphere is also a requirement for advancing contemporary human civilization; it thus possesses powerful vitality. The vitality of Marxism is exactly as Lenin pointed out: "It is by no means a doctrine that has arisen away from the high road of development of world civilization, a doctrine that is self-contained and rigid." [6] On the contrary, only Marxism truly points the way forward for the progress of contemporary human civilization. Therefore, upholding the guiding role of Marxism in the ideological sphere has another layer of significance for socialist countries: namely, promoting the healthy development of economic globalization and opening a new realm for contemporary human civilization to emerge from its predicament. Viewed from the long river of human history, "The history of mankind is a history of continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. This history will never end." [7] Viewed from human development, this process is the self-generation of humanity as it continuously breaks away from the animal kingdom and advances toward the direction of free and comprehensive development. Labor plays a decisive role in this. Labor not only played a decisive role in achieving the great transition from ape to man, but also plays a decisive role in driving the historical leap of man from a primitive, nomadic state to comprehensive development. Labor helps humanity develop from an instinctive state of existence dominated by physical needs toward a free state where production can be carried out according to the measure of any species and according to the laws of beauty. But this is by no means a poetic or romantic process; it is a climb forward through hardships and obstacles, a rebirth of humanity through self-transformation and self-transcendence, moving from the forced acceptance of natural laws to the conscious application of them.
The process of labor must not only continuously overcome the alien nature of the natural world to create a material environment suitable for human survival and development; it must also continuously overcome the class antagonism that inevitably arises in the historical stage where production has achieved a certain level of development but remains insufficient, and it must resolve the division of labor and cooperation required for social productive activities. It is precisely in the continuous struggle to resolve the contradictions between man and nature, and between man and man, that humanity continuously overcomes its own inertia and weaknesses and defeats its primitive animality. A class society based on private ownership, in essence, belongs to the "animal period" of human history. Private ownership continuously solidifies and even strengthens the primitive instincts of humanity, such as greed, possession, and the pursuit of gain while avoiding harm, all dominated by carnal desire. Without a doubt, opposing decadent private ownership is, in a certain sense, a civilized advance of humanity breaking away from the animal kingdom. The historical node through which humanity realizes free and comprehensive development is the transcendence and replacement of modern capitalist society through socialism and communism.
The "reification" [N4] of man caused by modern capitalist society is, in essence, the animalization of man dominated by instinct and desire. The abstract human nature held up as a standard by the bourgeoisie—the isolated individual seeking the maximization of self-interest—is actually animality wearing the cloak of "freedom." It can be seen that a society that abolishes private ownership and class antagonism is the foundation for the free and comprehensive development of man, and is also the new beginning for humanity as it leaves the animal kingdom to write its own history. Transcending the capitalist social system and its core values is an inevitable requirement for the progress of contemporary human civilization. As Marx pointed out: "In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production—antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence—but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation." [8] Class society is not an eternal human society because "the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production" [9]. However, it must be pointed out that humanity's entry into class society was a spontaneous process, whereas the abolition of classes and the entry into a classless communist society is a highly conscious process. It requires not only a high degree of ideological and theoretical consciousness and the understanding and mastery of objective laws, but also a large number of strivers who possess firm faith, the courage to sacrifice, and the will to advance successively. Even more, it requires humanity as a whole to break free from the shackles of individualism and egoism during this process.
From this, we can draw two conclusions: First, upholding the guiding role of Marxism in the ideological sphere is not only a practical requirement of the ideological struggle in which "the West is strong and we are weak," but also a necessary condition for the progress and development of contemporary human civilization. The internal consistency of the two lies here. The movement of humanity from necessity to freedom is accompanied by the vast progress of social productive forces, while simultaneously allowing the human spirit to break free from the limits of material desire and continuously expand the space for free development. In summary, eliminating the reification of man and realizing the free and comprehensive development of man is completed through transcending the capitalist system and social relations; it is completed by upholding the leadership of the working class (and its party) and a people-centered value orientation that transcends the "abstract individual." Just as humanity’s move toward the liberation of labor must break the arbitrary dominance of capital, humanity’s move toward spiritual freedom is by no means a "spontaneous freedom" of the arbitrary expansion of individuality. Rather, it is the "return of labor" [N5] that breaks the aversion to labor under the wage-labor system and makes labor the first necessity of human life. Just as the liberation of the modern working class moved from the spontaneous to the self-directed, the "return of labor" is also a process of arming the mind with a scientific worldview, continuously transcending the self, overcoming spontaneity, and gradually moving toward conscious freedom.
The slogans raised by the bourgeois revolution were "human liberation" and "individual freedom," and individual liberalism thus became the dominant value of capitalist society. But Marx discovered that capitalism could not liberate man or individuality; on the contrary, the self-centered, selfish "abstract individual" became the "natural foundation" of capitalist society. To realize the free development of individuality, the capitalist system and social relations must be fundamentally changed, and this must rely on the "modern proletariat." In the Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Marx clarified that to transcend capitalism and abolish private ownership, it must be through the political form of "proletarian liberation." [10] The Communist Manifesto further points out: "The exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression, class differences and class struggles." [11] This fully demonstrates that the liberation of the proletariat and the liberation of humanity possess a fundamental consistency, showing that the progress of contemporary human civilization inevitably moves toward the trend of abolishing classes and entering a classless society. At the same time, it must be noted that the working class cannot spontaneously produce a scientific worldview and advanced ideas. Its becoming a "class-for-itself" [N1] requires two elements: first, establishing an advanced guiding ideology to form a conscious class consciousness and thus stand on its own; second, forming an organization to unify the will of the entire class and thus strengthen itself. This is both an internal requirement for the working class party to persist in ideological Party building and strengthening the Party through theory, and the only path for humanity to move toward freedom and consciousness.
Second, achieving the goal of free individuality is not a historical process of the spontaneous expansion of the self, but rather a transformation of the "abstract individual" of capitalist society, persisting in the historical guidance of centering on the people. Marx clearly pointed out: the future society that transcends the reified relations of capitalism is "founded on the free individuality of individuals, based on their universal development and on the subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth." [18] The essence of free individuality is the comprehensive development of the individual based on the socialization of the productive forces; its substance is "socialized humanity." Capitalist society is built upon atomized, isolated individuals, and thus assumes that individuality is the self-manifestation of this abstract individual. In reality, what it manifests is merely a spontaneous human nature. Spontaneity contains elements of animal instinct, but it is primarily the historical accumulation of private-ownership social relations. Through the continuous processing and reproduction of capitalist ideology, it settles within the human heart in the guise of inherent human nature and "individuality." Advocating and playing up spontaneity is a force upon which bourgeois ideology has always relied. Thus Lenin asserted: "any subservience to the spontaneity of the working-class movement, any belittling of the role of the 'conscious element,' of the role of Social-Democracy, means, quite irrespective of whether the belittler wants to or not, a strengthening of the influence of bourgeois ideology upon the workers." [19] However, capitalist society also nurtures the gradually growing "socialized humanity"—the individual requirements of the modern proletariat. These individual requirements are consistent with socialized large-scale production, transcending the narrow self and manifesting in the richness of world history, socialized interaction, and the spirit.
Thus, in Marx’s vocabulary, the "real individual" is a concept fundamentally opposed to the "abstract individual" of capitalist society. The "abstract individual" is the core concept of capitalist ideology. It treats the reified (commodified) person—who is devoid of history, incapable of transcendence, secluded, and self-centered—as the "original man" (yuánrén), using this as the fundamental starting point for observing history and analyzing problems. It follows that deifying the "abstract individual" is synonymous with deifying capitalist society. Conversely, the "real individual" whom Marx takes as the starting point of the historical materialist perspective is manifested not only as a person within concrete socio-historical relations but, more importantly, as the subjective form within concrete historical activities—namely, "real humanity." History shows that the subjects of human historical activity to date have never been isolated individuals, but rather the people led by an advanced class—that is, "real humanity." The abstract individual is a person without individuality; a capitalist society based on abstract individuals lacks not only individual freedom but also a "true community" [20]. Individuality always remains latent in embryonic form within the historical subject centered on the people. Among the masses led by the modern proletariat, individuality is continuously gestating and growing. It is precisely based on the internal consistency between individuality, sociality, and the people-centered character that the proletariat was regarded by Marx as "socialized humanity" [16] and as "individuals with individuality." Marx even attributed alienation to "the contradiction between the individuality of each separate proletarian and labor, the condition of life imposed on him." [8] To speak of individual freedom apart from the cause of proletarian liberation is nothing but abstract humanitarianism.
Therefore, only by upholding the socialist value of putting the people above all else, continuously opposing individualism, and cultivating the "new socialist person" can we ultimately realize individual freedom and the comprehensive development of the person. Today, it is a distraction to direct focus toward whether personal freedom and individuality should have more or less "space." The crux of the matter lies in cultivating "new persons of the era" who possess a sense of "home-country sentiment" [7] and who closely link personal development with the development of the motherland and society. It lies in cultivating the "true community" where individual freedom can be continuously realized—that is, the socialist community.
III
Upholding the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field conforms to the laws governing the development of the philosophy and social sciences, laying the foundation for the prosperity of these fields in our country. Marxism and the academic traditions of the Western bourgeoisie follow two completely different paths. The dualism of knowledge and faith—restricting science to empirical knowledge while leaving faith to mysticism—is the basic posture of Western philosophy and social sciences. When manifested in specific disciplines, two opposite trends emerge: First, the positivization of knowledge, which continuously pursues a precision akin to that of the natural sciences—where mathematical modeling, reproducibility, and falsifiability become absolute criteria for judging scientificity. This acknowledges only scientific abstractions within the empirical scope, thereby increasingly detaching itself from socio-historical practice based on objective laws, making it impossible to obtain true historical knowledge. Second, the abstraction of human nature, which uses uncritical, dogmatic value presuppositions as the premise for the basic principles of various disciplines—such as the so-called "economic man," "moral man," or the "knave hypothesis." The carrier of this human nature is the "abstract individual" without history or social relations; consequently, it inevitably absolutizes the "existing" state of affairs. The overlap of these two points indicates that today’s Western philosophy and social sciences generally serve the existing social system and interest patterns. Summed up in one sentence: capitalism is eternal, and personal egoism cannot be transcended. Attempting to use such philosophy and social sciences to continuously produce worshippers who are superstitious about capitalism and who deify American and Western societies is, in reality, a very backward apologetic consciousness. Taken as a whole, contemporary Western philosophy and social sciences cannot truly be called "science"; their development, like the capitalist system itself, has entered a dead end.
Precisely for this reason, in developing a Chinese-path socialist philosophy and social sciences, we cannot simply copy Western disciplinary systems and academic discourse. Instead, we must transcend the horizons of abstract human nature theory and positivism. On the basis of critically absorbing their rational elements, we must build our own disciplinary, academic, and discourse systems through independent innovation. This is exactly the heavy responsibility bestowed upon the philosophical and social science circles of our country by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core.
The scientificity of philosophy and social sciences as discussed in Marxism covers but is not limited to the scientificity of empirical science. Regarding the object of study, philosophy and social sciences must study not only local, empirical matters (i.e., "small narratives") but also the totality of things—primarily the great historical trends and the world as a whole, which are the objective laws of human social development. In fact, if they do not study or even acknowledge objective laws, philosophy and social sciences cannot truly function as science. Unlike the natural world, society is an organism; research into its parts must be based on a holistic understanding, otherwise fundamental deviations will occur. As Hegel said, a "hand" possesses its value only when placed within the organism of the "body"; if detached from the body, it is merely a "severed limb" and not a "hand." [21] We must strive to clear away the harm caused over the years by Karl Popper’s opposition to so-called "essentialism" and "grand narratives." As the saying goes: "One who does not plan for ten thousand generations is insufficient to plan for a single moment; one who does not plan for the whole situation is insufficient to plan for a single region." [8] There is an urgency to strengthen research on major law-governed issues in the historical development of human society. It should be pointed out that equating philosophy and social sciences completely with natural sciences is due not only to cognitive reasons but also to the issue of standpoint being manipulated by interests. Historical laws always overturn vested interests and drive revolutionary change; therefore, they are bound to be rejected by special interest groups. The pursuit of the laws of social development has always belonged to the progressive forces of society.
Regarding research methodology, it is not about "value neutrality" or "de-ideologization," but rather about truly implementing the Marxist standpoint, viewpoints, and methods in disciplinary construction. The reason why a scientific worldview and methodology are important for philosophy and social sciences is that they are the prerequisites for our holistic grasp of society and for elevating research results to the level of understanding historical laws. Therefore, all disciplines in the philosophy and social sciences must strengthen the study of the Marxist worldview. From this, the first conclusion to be drawn is that our country’s research in philosophy and social sciences must implement the methodological principle of integrating theory with practice, changing the state of so-called "pure academic" research that is isolated and static. We must return to the most primordial question of "what constitutes scholarship and what constitutes knowledge," truly understanding that the "real scholarship" of philosophy and social sciences cannot be detached from the great practice of the masses. Furthermore, its highest achievement is to make rule-based generalizations from that practice and form forward-looking predictions. Compared to such achievements, all other results can only be periodic or individual in nature. The second conclusion is that we must implement materialist dialectics and historical dialectics into the construction of academic categories and discourse systems for our disciplines. We must distinguish between the different levels of categories formed by different realistic foundations, and even more importantly, grasp the flexibility of categories due to the historical nature of reality—the possibility of one category transforming into another—and not allow categories to become isolated or rigid. The third conclusion is that we must establish core discourses and basic problems for each discipline of philosophy and social sciences starting from the basic principles of Marxism, resolutely overcoming the phenomenon where basic Marxist principles are decoupled from a discipline's core discourse. That is to say, the basic problems and core discourse of philosophy must be consistent with dialectical materialism and historical materialism; those of jurisprudence and political science must be based on the Marxist view of history and the state; those of economics must be based on Marxist political economy, and so forth. In this process, we must clarify ideas, unify understanding, set things right, uphold the fundamentals and break new ground through scientific criticism and academic contention.
We must effectively change the subject of cognition from the "abstract individual" of Western philosophy and social sciences and take "people-centeredness" as the subject of cognition for philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics. Without the people as the subject, there is no subject for the cognition of objective laws. Mao Zedong pointed out: "A class is a subject of cognition. At first, the working class was a 'class-in-itself,' and at that time it had no understanding of capitalism. Later, it developed from a class-in-itself to a 'class-for-itself,' and then it had an understanding of capitalism. This is the development of cognition with a class as the subject." [13] Whether one takes the people as the subject or the individual as the basis determines different research orientations. First, it determines whether one looks through phenomena to see the essence, and whether one pursues objective truth and objective laws. A people-centered research orientation must study the essence of things, explore the objective laws of historical development, and promote social change and development. Conversely, an individual-based research orientation—because it views individual rationality as the limit of human intellect and denies the possibility of knowing objective laws—inevitably stays at the level of phenomena, stops at daily life, and becomes preoccupied with "small narratives." Methodologically, this results in a superstition toward empiricism and positivism. At the same time, because individual-based research cannot solve the problem of universal laws, to construct a self-consistent logical system for its disciplines, it inevitably becomes obsessed with the hypothesis of abstract human nature.
Second, it determines whether questions are raised and researched based on the needs and practices of the people. People-centered academic research must care for the needs of the people and go deep into their practices; it must raise real questions, refine real ideas, and improve real scholarship, unifying social benefits with academic pursuits. Philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics must always be grounded in the great social revolution carried out by the people under the leadership of our Party, using this as the source of academic research. In contrast, an individual-based research orientation inevitably regards the needs of the people and social benefits as hollow "grand narratives" or as non-academic ideology, thus despising or even rejecting them, remaining alienated from the great cause of Chinese-path socialism led by the Party. It inevitably regards only individual needs as real demands and self-interest as the most fundamental human nature, where the bargaining of personal interests becomes the sole motivation for its scholarship. Consequently, it inevitably starts from unchanging hypotheses of human nature; its research is not only narrow in vision but also bound to be mixed with a large amount of pseudo-problems that confuse right and wrong, pseudo-élan that moans without cause, and pseudo-scholarship that is merely self-entertaining and self-referential.
Third, it determines whether there is a true spirit of scientific exploration and the courage for academic contention. A people-centered research orientation seeks to promote the free and comprehensive development of the person; therefore, its internal requirements include criticizing erroneous trends of thought, leading social trends, elevating the spiritual realm, and promoting human consciousness and freedom. This kind of academic criticism, born out of public-spiritedness, is highly necessary for purifying the academic environment, vitalizing academic thought, and promoting academic development. An individual-based research orientation, however, worships spontaneity and flaunts "freedom," which in substance is self-centeredness or even the abandonment of righteousness for the sake of profit. Choosing based on personal likes and dislikes inevitably leads to mocking the sublime, evading responsibility, and feigning "aloofness." Two deviations of this research are: blindly following Western trends on one hand, and, on the other, working behind closed doors to nominally oppose so-called "dependent personality" while actually denying the Party’s leadership over academia and the guidance of a scientific worldview and methodology.
Persisting in the fundamental system of the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field not only promotes the smooth development of the great cause of Chinese-path socialism in the New Era but also ensures the continuous integration of Chinese experience with world development and progress, demonstrating a vigorous and powerful vitality.
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Fourth, China possesses the strategic resolve to "uphold the fundamentals and break new ground" [12] in maintaining the dominance of Marxist ideology. Confidence in the ideological system is ultimately demonstrated through the organic unity of maintaining strategic focus and adapting to situational changes. If one loses the "fundamentals," they will inevitably lose their way or even undergo a "qualitative change" [13] toward a different nature; if one fails to "break new ground," they will succumb to rigidity and lose the vitality required for development. The fundamental reason why China’s ideological system remains rock-solid is that we have correctly handled the relationship between "upholding the fundamentals" and "breaking new ground."
Upholding the fundamentals means unswervingly maintaining the guiding position of Marxism, the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and the socialist path with Chinese characteristics. Historically, the collapse of some socialist countries began with the relinquishing of ideological "fundamentals." In the New Era, the CPC Central Committee has emphasized that "the core of ideological work is the struggle for the hearts and minds of the people," and that we must "persist over the long term" in strengthening the Party's centralized and unified leadership over ideological work. This is not "closed-mindedness" or "conservatism," but rather a high degree of sobriety regarding the laws of class struggle in the ideological sphere.
Breaking new ground means that, under the premise of "upholding the fundamentals," we must courageously promote theoretical and institutional innovation based on changes in the times. Marxism is not a dogma, but a guide to action. Since the 18th National Congress, the CPC has initialized a series of major theoretical innovations, forming Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. In the ideological sphere, we have implemented the "Eight-Point Regulations," resolutely opposed the "Four Winds," and promoted the normalization and institutionalization of "ideological Party building" and "institutional Party governance." These innovations have solved many difficult problems that had long remained unresolved and accomplished many major tasks that had long been on the agenda, thereby revitalizing the ideological system.
A solid confidence in the ideological system also stems from our "political ecosystem" and our ability for "self-revolution." By "comprehensively and strictly governing the Party" and waging an uncompromising "anti-corruption struggle," the Party has purified its own ranks and strengthened the "Two Upholds." This ensures that the ideological system is not a hollow shell, but is backed by a disciplined and loyal vanguard. As we persevere with the spirit of "dripping water wearing away stone" [14] and "persisting over the long term," the advantages of our ideological system will increasingly transform into governing efficacy.
In summary, our confidence in the ideological system is not "blind optimism" or "arrogance," but is rooted in the scientific truth of Marxism, the historical success of the Chinese path, the institutional advantages of "Chinese-path modernization," and the subjective initiative of the Party's "self-revolution." In the face of the "profound changes unseen in a century" [15], as long as we maintain our strategic resolve and continue to promote "high-quality development," our ideological system will surely manifest even stronger vitality and appeal.