Pan Chengwei: Connecting the Conference Room and the Field
The perspective on political achievements serves as the "navigation system" for getting things done and launching businesses. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized: "A correct perspective on political achievements requires us to persist in starting from reality and acting according to objective laws. Through scientific decision-making and hard, solid work, we must create achievements that can withstand the test of practice and history, truly benefit the people, and gain public recognition." Starting from reality, acting according to laws, scientific decision-making, and hard work are all closely related to two distinct arenas: the meeting hall and the field site. Regarding the grasp of laws and scientific decision-making alone, the meeting hall focuses on centralizing wisdom and deliberating on decisions, while the field site focuses on investigation and research, implementation, and verifying actual results. For Party members and cadres to establish and practice a correct perspective on political achievements, they must be adept at pooling collective wisdom and planning scientifically in the meeting hall, while also actively immersing themselves in the field site to observe the actual situation, propose practical measures, and seek tangible results, ensuring that work truly takes root among and benefits the masses.
In their work, a small number of Party members and cadres do not have a sufficiently clear understanding or accurate grasp of the relationship between the meeting hall and the field site. For example, some emphasize the meeting hall while neglecting the field site; they are accustomed to discussing matters behind closed doors and relying on the flow of documents [1]. Lacking a genuine perception of the situation on the ground, their decision-making becomes detached from reality, which may even spawn "image projects" or "vanity projects" [2] that waste both manpower and money. Others emphasize the field site while neglecting the meeting hall, one-sidedly stressing that they should "just get on with it." Consequently, they fail to thoroughly internalize the spirit of the Party Central Committee and the work deployments of higher authorities, leading to the distortion of policy implementation or even falling into a form of "routinism" [3]—being busy without order or utility. In reality, the meeting hall and the field site are not fragmented but are closely intertwined. The decisions and deployments made in the meeting hall must go to the field site to be tested, and the fresh experiences gained from the field site serve as an important reference for decision-making in the meeting hall. Connecting the meeting hall and the field site conforms to the law of the development of cognition—"practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge" [4]—and is an important method for improving work quality and efficiency and creating stellar achievements.
Going deep into the field site to master the actual situation is a fundamental skill for Party members and cadres to establish and practice a correct perspective on political achievements. If one does not touch "the soil" [5], it is difficult to produce "actual results." Sitting in a meeting hall listening to reports and reading materials cannot substitute for personal investigation and firsthand experience. To truly immerse oneself in the field site, one must put aside airs and "dive down" [6], going more often to places where difficulties are numerous, where public opinions are concentrated, and where work has reached a deadlock, to master first-hand materials and listen to the authentic voice of the people. In fact, many problems that remain unresolved in the meeting hall already have answers within the practice of the masses. Only by taking the people as one's teacher can one gain the "great wisdom" to solve difficult problems from the "indigenous methods" of the grassroots and find the "golden key" to creating actual achievements.
The perceptual materials obtained from the field site require "deep processing" in the meeting hall before they can be transformed into scientific decisions based on the present and eyeing the long term. From the "Fengqiao Experience" [7] to the "thousands of villages demonstration and ten thousand villages rectification" project [8], most of these governance wisdoms originating from the grassroots have undergone a process of exploration at the field site, followed by summarization in the meeting hall, and then promotion on a larger scale. In this process, Party members and cadres must be adept at reviewing and refining the conditions brought back from the field site while in the meeting hall, systematically organizing them, transforming "solutions" for specific points into methods for the whole area, and elevating grassroots initiatives into reproducible and promotable governance methodologies. At the same time, new ideas and measures formed in the meeting hall should be put back into the front lines of the field site for further testing and optimization to ensure that decisions are realistic and effective.
The vitality of the meeting hall stems from its deep integration with practice at the field site. In February 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping traveled along rugged mountain roads deep into the heart of the Liangshan Mountains in Sichuan for an inspection. Sitting by the fire pit in a villager’s home, he treated the field site as a meeting hall, sitting in a circle with villager representatives and members of the village-based poverty alleviation team. He held a unique small-scale symposium to prescribe "recipes" and plan "routes" for the local area to shake off poverty and become prosperous. This fully demonstrates that an effective meeting hall is never confined to form or pomp but is based on the real field site, conducting pragmatic discussions centered on actual problems. The "ridge meetings," "courtyard meetings," and "bench meetings" [9] that have emerged in grassroots practice may be simple in form, but they are close to reality and face problems head-on. Decisions planned in this way—possessing the "warmth" of practice and the "smell of the soil" from the grassroots—are often more feasible and effective.
At present, the whole Party is carrying out education on establishing and practicing a correct perspective on political achievements. Connecting the meeting hall and the field site is precisely an important lever for promoting the transformation of educational achievements into actual work results. To handle this lever well, the focus should be on building a closed-loop work cycle where "problems come from the field site, ideas are planned in the meeting hall, implementation goes back to the field site, and effects are evaluated by the masses." We must continuously enhance the scientific, predictive, proactive, and creative nature of our work, earnestly turning the "problem list" of the masses into a "happiness ledger," consciously producing political achievements for the people through solid work, and creating more actual results that can withstand the test of practice, the people, and history.