Lu Pinyue: Whole-Process People's Democracy is Genuine and Substantial Democracy — Realization Forms, Conditions, and Practical Methods of the Concept of People's Democracy
General Secretary Xi Jinping first proposed the concept of "whole-process people's democracy" while inspecting community governance and services in Shanghai, noting: "People's democracy is a type of whole-process democracy. All major legislative decisions are made according to procedures, through democratic deliberation, and through scientific and democratic decision-making." This is a great innovation of Sinicized and modernized Marxism in the New Era; it is the product of Chinese Communists combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and fine traditional Chinese culture. It shatters the myth that "democracy equals Western multi-party competitive democracy," creates the realization form for people's democracy, and constitutes substantive, true democracy.
I. The Democratic Concept of the People as Masters of the Country and its Important Realization Form: Whole-Process People's Democracy
Social existence determines social consciousness; different social existences produce different democratic concepts. In the contemporary world, there are two major democratic concepts: first, the centuries-old concept of Western capitalist democracy which, supported by hegemonism, remains dominant globally today; second, the concept of socialist people's democracy which, though still under siege by Western capitalism, is substantive true democracy with lofty moral value and powerful vitality, increasingly attracting more countries and peoples. As the changes unseen in a century [1] unfold, the nascent concept of people's democracy will inevitably undergo continuous enrichment and development toward maturity, creating a new form of human political civilization.
1. The Western Democratic Concept and its Realization Form: The Collective Dictatorial Rule of Monopoly Capital over the People via the Multi-Party Electoral System
Capitalist social existence produced the Western democratic concept. Marx said, "Capital is the all-dominating economic power of bourgeois society," where "all-dominating" naturally includes dominating the government. To produce a government dominated by the power of capital, there must be a foundation in a specific political concept—the Western concept of democracy—the function of which is to provide a theoretical basis for transforming the economic power of capital into political power. For the nascent power of capital, then under the rule of Western theology, to transform into political power, it had to oppose the "divine right of kings," yet simultaneously lean upon the sacred status of God in Western culture. Thus, Enlightenment scholars representing nascent capital created the social contract theory—composed of "natural rights" [2] and the "transfer of power"—on the Western cultural tradition of "individualism plus Christianity," a concept that remains dominant to this day. Its "natural rights" inherited the Christian myth of creation, asserting that God endowed every person with innate liberal human rights which are sacred by virtue of their divine origin. However, the unrestrained exercise of these rights by everyone would inevitably lead to a "war of all against all" in a jungle society. Therefore, there was an urgent need to establish a government to restrain individual behavior. For the power of that government to be sacred, it had to originate from "natural rights." Thus, the fictional story of the "transfer of power" was fabricated: that every person's "natural rights" include two parts—one being inalienable private power (this is "individual liberty"), and the other being the remaining transferable powers. People transfer the latter to the government through a contract, pooling it into the government's power. Consequently, government power stems from the "natural rights" transferred by the people in a contract, making it a sacred "democratic polity." This is the social contract theory still generally practiced by Western society.
The realization form of this Western democratic concept—constructed from the fictional myths of "natural rights" and the "transfer of power"—is the multi-party electoral system. Each individual uses a ballot as a contract to transfer their "natural rights" to the ruler; whoever receives a majority of the cast votes is confirmed as having acquired one hundred percent of the power transferred by the entire people. Since voter turnout is generally around 60%, someone receiving more than 30% of the total electorate's votes can obtain this "transferred power" and become its possessor, thereby ruling over one hundred percent of the people "perfectly legitimately." Precisely for this reason, various monopoly capital groups controlling key social resources fund various political parties through political donations and various media tools. The sole responsibility of a political party is to transform the benefactor’s cash into voters’ ballots, thereby competing for political power. The people can only choose between the various agents put forward by monopoly capital; thus, regardless of which party or candidate is elected, they represent the fundamental interests of monopoly capital, while the people's ballots provide a "democratic" cloak. At the same time, the ballot becomes an arbitration tool for the gambles between the forces of capital vying for public power, temporarily pacifying the internecine struggle for authority. Therefore, the multi-party electoral system has become the optimal way for the power of capital to compete for and transform into political power. The rowdy electoral process is nothing more than a political farce of monopoly capital competing for political power. This is "democracy for capital," not "democracy for the people." For the people, this "democracy for capital" is exactly the collective despotic rule of the monopoly capital oligarchy over the people. The people can only vote for politicians favored by the monopoly capital oligarchy. Once these politicians are elected, they realize the collective dictatorial rule of the monopoly capital oligarchy (which, in the United States, is the military-industrial complex) over the people. These politicians bicker with one another to display "democracy," which is precisely the way monopoly capital restrains and utilizes its agents—making decisions most consistent with its will to rule through the infighting of politicians, thereby implementing despotic rule over the people. Hegemonic states not only implement dictatorial rule over their own people but also vainly attempt to implement dictatorial rule over the people of the world. Utilizing the armed forces in their hands which are capable of destroying the entire planet, they do not hesitate to deliberately manufacture disasters around the world, keeping the people of all nations under the terror of war so that they must accept their "protection"—submitting to the collective dictatorial rule of the hegemonic state's military-industrial complex. Therefore, the so-called democracy of contemporary hegemonism has completely degenerated into the collective despotism of monopoly capital groups over the people of the world. "An increasing number of Western scholars are reaching a consensus: the Western democratic system has become interest-group oriented and completely kidnapped by capital; democracy is becoming the rule of capital."
This theatrical "democracy for capital" that serves as a dictatorship over the people has at least three major harms. First, it legalizes the corruption involved in transforming the power of capital into political power. Once a candidate is elected, they obtain the "transferred power" of the people and become its possessor, enabling them to naturally use that power to serve themselves and the capital groups behind them. Through this kind of political investment, capital groups have generated a "lobbying industry" with an input-output ratio as high as 1:700 or more; monopoly capital groups have become the "God" that Marx described as "dominating everything in capitalist society." Second, through the electoral farce, the entire people (even if you did not vote or voted against the winner) are all deemed to have transferred a portion of their "natural rights" to the elected government; thus, the people's own political power is legitimately stripped away by this election. Any dissatisfaction can only be expressed through demonstrations and other forms of futile resistance that cannot change political reality. Third, the process by which capital competes for political power by vying for votes inevitably becomes a process of tearing society apart. The interests of the people—and even the state of people's dependence on government relief due to poverty—are kidnapped and utilized by different capital group interests as tools to attract voter ballots, leading to the people being fractured into different factions. This is the essence of the democratic chaos in the United States. Once such a democracy is transplanted into non-Western societies, it inevitably sparks social unrest and national division, leading into the quagmire of war and plunging the people into an abyss of disaster. The tragedy of "democratization" in the Middle East and the "color revolutions" [3] in Ukraine are ironclad evidence of this "democratic" catastrophe.
In summary, the Western democratic concept inevitably becomes the path for the power of monopoly capital, which holds key social resources, to transform into political power, thereby inevitably forming the despotic rule of capital groups over the people. Therefore, it manifest merely as an "election-day democracy" farce where different capital groups vie for the people's votes, stripping the people of their political power through the "transfer of power" via elections. Xi Jinping noted: "If the people are only awakened at the time of voting and then go into dormancy, if they only listen to high-sounding slogans during the campaign but have no say after the election, if they are favored only when soliciting votes but are neglected after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy." The result of this flashy, rowdy democratic farce can only be despotic rule over the people.
2. The Concept of Socialist People's Democracy and its Realization Form—Whole-Process People's Democracy
Viewed from the long river of human history, the Western democratic concept and its realization forms will sooner or later head toward decline, while the socialist people's democracy concept and its realization forms will certainly thrive. The democratic concept of "the people as masters of the country" will inevitably replace the social contract theory of Western democracy composed of "natural rights" and the "transfer of power." The "whole-process people's democracy" proposed by Xi Jinping elevates "people's democracy" to a new stage; it is the Marxist view of democracy for the 21st century and a great contribution to human political civilization. The core of the concept of people's democracy is that the people are masters of the country, and its essential content was born from the critique of Western democracy.
First, it critiques the creation myth of "natural rights" and confirms, based on historical facts, that the masses of the people are the creators of social power. All social power, in the final analysis, must become real power through the domination of the labor process and the fruits of labor by which the people create wealth. The masses of the people are the creators of all material and spiritual wealth in society, and while creating this wealth, they create the social relations—including power relations—of which this wealth is the carrier. Marx profoundly pointed out: people produce cloth, linen, and silk within certain relations of production; "these certain social relations are as much produced by men as linen, flax, etc." These "social relations" carried by material and cultural wealth have two functions. One is the relationship of mutual need between people: everyone produces wealth for others, and everyone needs the wealth produced by others to live. This social relationship of mutual need is called "value." The second is the power relationship of dominating this wealth and the labor of others: for example, through the power of owning and dominating the means of production (land, machinery, etc.) to dominate the labor of the workers. In short, while the people create wealth, they also create social relations, including power. Therefore, the source of all real power can only be the people who create material wealth and spiritual-cultural wealth, rather than a fictional God. If the creator is to be called God, then as Mao Zedong said, this God is the people. Therefore, government power comes from the labor of the people in creating wealth and making history, not from the "natural rights" of God.
Second, it critiques the fictional story of the "transfer of power" and asserts, based on the historical fact that the people are the creators of power, that in a true democratic system, the people are always the ultimate owners of inalienable social power. Marx said: "In democracy, no moment has any other meaning than that which belongs to it. Each is actually only a moment of the whole demos [people]." This means that in a true democratic system, the power held by the people runs through the entire process of democracy and possesses a "totality of the people"; thus, it is indivisible and inalienable. If this is so, where does government power come from? Restoring historical facts shows that government power is not obtained through a so-called "social contract," but through the following two ways.
One is the way of plunder: using means based on violence and deception to plunder the social power created by the people. In a society of exploiting classes, government power originates neither from the "divine right of kings" nor from the people’s voluntary "transfer" of "natural rights," but from the ruling class's plunder of power originally created by the people—taking the material wealth produced by the people and the social power for which it acts as a carrier into their own hands, and using it in turn to oppress the people. The way of plunder is essentially based on organized violence. In its manifestation, feudal society adopts the sanctified hereditary system; capitalist society adopts the multi-party competitive electoral system. The so-called "division and transfer" of power is, in substance, the plundering of power from the people. Government power produced by this method of plunder cannot be the democratic power of the people; at most, it can only be capital's scramble for votes—"democracy for capital"—and simultaneously despotism over the people.
The second is the method of entrustment: according to specific legal procedures, the people entrust the power they themselves created and owned to the government for exercise. Leaders at all levels of government are not the owners of power, but merely the practitioners of power who accept the people's entrustment to carry out the responsibility and mission of serving the people. Therefore, strictly speaking, leaders are not "power-holders" but "administrators" [4]. Their public duty is to serve as the people's servants, exercising power that originally belongs to the people in order to serve the people, with the working people as the principal body. Leaders at all levels must maintain a sense of awe toward the power in their hands at all times, keeping firmly in mind that power always belongs to the people and never to themselves. They must constantly remind themselves that they are merely "handling" the exercise of power; its sole purpose is to serve the people and enhance their well-being. Thus, leaders at all levels should be public servants of the people. This is just like financial personnel who "handle" banknotes every day that by no means belong to them; they are merely operators fulfilling their duties under orders and cannot extract a single cent for private gain. So it is with leaders in the system of people's democracy: they must not gain a single penny of personal interest, directly or indirectly, from the power they "handle," nor can they use their power to bargain with the people. They can only receive reasonable distribution of personal benefits for their work and life through other channels, based on the will of the people and established regulations. Public servant status in work and treatment in personal interest are two separate paths, as clear as the Jing and Wei rivers [5], each following its own rules; this is what is meant by integrity.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party states that Communists "have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole." Xi Jinping has also profoundly noted: "The CPC has its roots in the people, its lifeblood in the people, and its strength in the people. The CPC has always represented the fundamental interests of the broadest possible masses of the people; it shares the same fate as the people and stands with them through thick and thin. It does not have any special interests of its own, and it has never represented the interests of any interest group, any power group, or any privileged stratum." Therefore, leading officials must always remember: the power in our hands belongs to the people; all we possess are the missions and tasks entrusted to us by the people. The entire process of exercising people's power must be a process of serving the people wholeheartedly, so as to reach the noble spiritual realm of "I shall be selfless" [6]. As servants, leaders must realize the people's status as masters of the country by executing the missions and responsibilities bestowed upon them.
From this, we can see that "Western-style democracy" and "people's democracy" adhere to completely different democratic concepts: the Western bourgeois democratic concept is to seize the people's power through "social contract theory," whereas the democratic concept of people's democracy is that the people are the masters of the country. Western democracy contains two major ideological elements: "natural rights" and "the transfer of power." Conversely, the democratic concept of people's democracy contains two functional elements: "the theory of people's sovereignty" (all power comes from and belongs to the people) and "the theory of leadership mission" (leaders undertake the mission of responsibility entrusted by the people to exercise power that belongs to the people). The overall goal is to realize the people as masters of the country. This is a new type of democratic concept built on the foundation of historical materialism; it is the inevitable result of the objective laws of human social and historical development.
A brand-new democratic concept necessarily requires brand-new forms of realization. As mentioned above, the realization form of the Western democratic concept of capital competing for power—social contract theory—is "Election Day democracy" under a "multi-party competitive electoral system." Meanwhile, the advanced form of realization for the socialist concept of people's democracy—"the people as masters of the country"—is precisely "whole-process people's democracy," which integrates people's power throughout the entire process of political life. Under this form of realization, as many of the masses as possible are allowed to participate in the entire process of government decision-making and policy implementation. Centralization is carried out on the basis of whole-process people's democracy, and democracy is further promoted on the basis of centralization. Furthermore, democratic evaluation is conducted on the results of decision-making and administrative behavior, realizing "democratic consultation, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision." "Democratic voting" (including voting for people and for specific issues) is neither the starting point nor the end point of democracy, nor is it the entirety of democracy's content; it is merely one link within whole-process people's democracy.
II. The Conditions for the Birth of Whole-Process People's Democracy: The Essential Requirements of Socialism
"Whole-process people's democracy" is not an empty slogan. It requires certain subjective and objective conditions to be born, and it can only gradually become a concrete reality through a specific system of institutions and practical methods. Marx said: "Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve... the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation." As an advanced form of people's democracy, whole-process people's democracy is the product of human historical development reaching a certain stage; it can only be born if it possesses certain objective conditions. China, having entered the New Era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, has initially met these objective conditions.
First, the basic socialist economic system provides the economic base for whole-process people's democracy. The economic base determines the superstructure. In feudal society, the whole of society consisted of the opposing classes of peasantry and landed aristocracy; therefore, its political power could only be a regime used by feudal rulers to oppress and exploit the people, making democracy fundamentally impossible. Capitalist society is hijacked by various monopoly capital groups and falls into a state of severe fragmentation. What arises from this can only be a game played between monopoly capital groups to vie for dominance over state power; thus, it can only produce "democracy of capital" rather than "people's democracy," let alone "whole-process people's democracy." China has established a basic socialist economic system, providing the economic base for whole-process people's democracy. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee pointed out: "The basic socialist economic systems—which include keeping public ownership as the mainstay while allowing diverse forms of ownership to develop together, the system of distribution according to work as the mainstay while allowing multiple forms of distribution to coexist, and the socialist market economy—both reflect the superiority of the socialist system and are compatible with the development level of social productive forces in the primary stage of socialism in China. They are a great creation of the Party and the people." This is precisely the economic base of Chinese society in the New Era, and it creates the fundamental conditions for whole-process people's democracy in the following three aspects:
Specifically, an ownership structure with public ownership as the mainstay and diverse forms of ownership developing together ensures the socialist nature of our economy. It establishes the overall unity of our economic and social structures, which is the material foundation for uniting our people into an integrated Chinese nation, and thus constitutes the material foundation for whole-process people's democracy. The dominant position of public ownership does not lie in its share of the total national economic output, but in the global, pivotal, and foundational status of the resources it controls. Land, natural resources, finance, and infrastructure such as transportation, communications, and energy are held in the hands of the whole people under the leadership of the Communist Party. This provides the best material foundation and business environment for various ownership forms, including private enterprises. Under this premise, the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation while the government plays a guiding role. This has created a world-class infrastructure system, ensuring the high degree of unity in our economic system and preventing it from being fractured by various oligarchic monopoly capital groups, while simultaneously providing vast development space for all types of market entities. This is the common material foundation for the whole society necessary for whole-process people's democracy.
Furthermore, this ownership structure determines that our distribution system implements "distribution according to work as the mainstay, with multiple forms of distribution coexisting." This allows for the mobilization of the enthusiasm of all strata and effectively coordinates internal contradictions among them, providing objective conditions for interest relations within whole-process people's democracy. Because of the mainstay status of public ownership and this distribution system, polarizations are eliminated through various channels to achieve common prosperity. This makes it impossible for capital owners in our country to form an open and complete class, ensuring that our society—unlike capitalist countries—cannot be split into two opposing classes of proletariat and bourgeoisie. This enables all strata of our country, under the leadership of the CPC, to coordinate their conflicting interests and form a common interest for the people as a whole, thereby allowing the formation of the common interest goals that whole-process people's democracy seeks to achieve.
Finally, on the cornerstone of public ownership as a unified national macroeconomic subject, the unified national socialist market economy has built the world's largest single market. This has become the bond connecting micro-market entities of various ownership forms, creating interdependence between state-owned and private enterprises. Particularly during digital transformation and high-quality development, various economic subjects are closely linked together, forming an organic unity with a shared future—the Chinese national economic community—and forming its common interests and common will. This lays a solid economic foundation for the establishment of "whole-process people's democracy" and provides the conditions for universal social connection.
Second, the fine traditional Chinese culture, which respects collectivist values, provides the socio-cultural environment for whole-process people's democracy. In the course of 5,000 years of history, the Chinese national community—created jointly by agrarian and nomadic peoples—has formed a common adherence to collectivist values. This collectivism manifests in multiple levels and aspects: in the relationship between the individual and the state, it honors the concept of "the unity of family and state" [7], admiring the noble sentiment of sacrificing the "small family" for the "great nation" and the subordination of the individual to the overall national interest. In social relations, it honors the culture of "harmony and convergence" (he he), advocating for a spirit of peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation between people and between nations to resolve contradictions. Simultaneously, when pressured by foreign hostile forces, it possesses a spirit of struggle, characterized by shared hatred for the enemy and resistance against hegemony. Therefore, Chinese citizens, as members of the Chinese national community, are able to use the supremacy of all people and the supremacy of the overall national interest as moral standards to form the common will of the people. This provides the social foundation and cultural environment for the collective will that whole-process people's democracy aims to form.
Third, China's advanced 21st-century information technology system provides the technical conditions for whole-process people's democracy. To realize whole-process people's democracy, it is necessary for as many people as possible to participate in democratic consultation, decision-making, management, and supervision. China's level of informatization is among the most advanced in the world, providing powerful technical support. Through the battle against poverty [8], advanced network systems cover the entire country; even remote mountain villages are connected to the internet. This creates not only the foundational conditions for industrial development and improved production levels but also excellent technical conditions for the masses to participate in various levels of political democracy.
Fourth, and most importantly: the CPC—which insists on the supremacy of the people, represents their fundamental interests, takes Marxism as its guiding ideology, implements the law-based governance of the country, and leads the people in being masters of the country—provides the fundamental guarantee and political prerequisite for whole-process people's democracy. Democracy is the people acting as masters of the country; it does not mean each of the 1.4 billion Chinese people acts as an individual master. If it were the latter, it would inevitably lead to extreme social disorder, and "democracy" would become empty talk. There must be a political party that adheres to the supremacy of the people and represents their fundamental interests to organize the Chinese people and lead them in being masters of the country, thereby forming a collective will. Such a party must grasp the general trend of historical development and make historically correct decisions. To do so, it must be guided by Marxism, adhere to the ideological line of seeking truth from facts, combine the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities, enhance its own governing capacity, and make scientific decisions that conform to the fundamental interests of the people.
"Comprehensively governing the country by law" creates the institutional prerequisite for realizing "whole-process people's democracy." The Party's leadership in the people being masters of the country must be institutionalized and carried out in an orderly manner according to the law. Otherwise, democracy could be distorted according to the preferences of leaders at various levels: it could either become a mere formality or fall into a state of leadership inaction or arbitrary action. Only through a system of laws—ensuring that the behavior of leaders and the administration, and the participation and supervision of the people, follow legal procedures—can whole-process people's democracy be realized in an orderly fashion. Xi Jinping has profoundly noted: "We must maintain the organic unity of Party leadership, the people being masters of the country, and law-based governance. Party leadership is the fundamental guarantee for the people to be masters of the country and for law-based governance; the people being masters of the country is the essential feature of socialist democracy; and law-based governance is the basic way the Party leads the people in governing the country. The three are unified in the great practice of China's socialist democracy." This visionary discourse reveals the essential characteristics and core operating mechanisms of our socialist democracy and is the secret to why we can achieve "whole-process people's democracy."
Among the aforementioned conditions, the leadership of the Party is the most fundamental. “The prerequisite for the freedom of the people is national independence; the prerequisite for the participation of the people is the establishment of a democratic system.” Without the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the basic socialist economic system could not exist, and our country's economy would degenerate into a dependency of the advanced Western capitalist economies. Such a dependent capitalist economic base would not even possess genuine national sovereignty, let alone the freedom and democracy of the people. Without the leadership of the CPC, China would become a heap of loose sand [9], the community for the Chinese nation would verge on collapse, and "democracy" would inevitably become a tool for hegemonic powers to disintegrate China. Consequently, the very possibility of "Chinese-path modernization" would be completely lost. Therefore, upholding the comprehensive and strict governance of the Party and adhering to the leadership of the Party are the fundamental conditions for realizing whole-process people's democracy. Only by doing so can we leverage the role of the basic socialist economic system as the economic base, utilize the role of the community for the Chinese nation as the social foundation, and explore the path for realizing China's whole-process people's democracy.
III. The Practical Methods of Whole-Process People's Democracy: Continuous Generation through the Resolution of Social Contradictions
The concept of democracy is the subjective goal to be achieved in the establishment of democratic politics. When putting this subjective goal into practice, it is inevitably constrained by objective reality, thereby giving rise to contradictions between subjective concepts and objective reality. Consequently, in the process of resolving these subjective-objective contradictions, corresponding practical methods are produced. Thus, practical methods become the dialectical unity of democratic concepts and objective laws.
As previously discussed, the essence of the Western concept of democracy is for capital to contend for state power by competing for the votes of the masses, thereby establishing a capitalist democratic polity that is ostensibly cloaked as an elected government but is essentially centered on capital. Putting this subjective aim into practice is constrained by the realities of capitalist society, such as the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the complex relationships of both collusion and competition between different capitals, as well as the status of socio-economic and cultural development and the laws of social psychology. Consequently, how to compete for winnable votes under the constraints of these objective conditions and their laws becomes a task that every political party acting as an agent of the will of capitalist groups must address. This has resulted in a collection of Western democratic practical methods, namely "electioneering." Different social environments have produced different forms of electioneering. No matter how diverse these techniques may be, they generally rely on deceptive means to compete for votes, achieving the despotic objective of capital seizing political power to rule over the people.
Whole-process people's democracy adheres to the democratic concept of "the people as masters of the country," with its fundamental purpose being to take the people's aspirations for a better life as the goal of our struggle. To this end, it necessarily adopts an organizational form characterized by the organic unity of Party leadership, the rule of law, and the people as masters of the country. This is achieved by "improving the Party’s way of leadership and governance to ensure that the Party leads the people in effectively governing the country; and expanding the people's orderly political participation to ensure that the people engage in democratic elections, democratic consultation, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic oversight in accordance with the law." In the process of realizing this goal, it will inevitably be constrained by complex objective realities and their laws. China has a population of over 1.4 billion; how to implement whole-process people's democracy in a country with such a massive population is a challenge unprecedented in human history. At the same time, our country is vast, with huge differences in natural and social environments, and the people consist of various strata and sectors [10]. Between them, there are both common interests and differences or conflicts regarding disparate interest claims. This inevitably creates a contradiction between the objective conditions and the goal set by our Party to be centered on the entire people, which requires coordination through democratic centralism. Simultaneously, state politics involves much classified content, and major events require timely government responses. Many issues are extremely intricate, making it difficult for ordinary citizens without specialized knowledge or strong capabilities to make judgments. Therefore, whole-process people's democracy will inevitably encounter various contradictions during its implementation. It is precisely in the process of discovering, analyzing, and resolving these contradictions that various practical methods of whole-process people's democracy are formed. These practical methods are not imagined out of thin air; rather, they are gradually generated and developed through the practice of striving to implement whole-process people's democracy and continuously resolving and overcoming these contradictions and problems. Their content is extremely rich and evolves with the times, primarily including the following three aspects.
1. Practical methods for realizing whole-process people's democracy regarding the establishment of a whole-process "flesh-and-blood" bond between the Party and the people
Establishing an all-encompassing flesh-and-blood bond between the Party and the people and overcoming the potential contradiction of alienation between Party leading officials and the masses is the root of whole-process people's democracy. To resolve the various contradictions faced in this area, the two most important practical methods are: first, comprehensively and strictly governing the Party, integrating the anti-corruption struggle throughout the entire process of Party building; second, vigorously promoting the practice of investigation and research, integrating close ties with the masses throughout the entire process of decision-making and administration.
Comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is the prerequisite for our Party to lead the people as masters of the country and realize whole-process people's democracy; it is an important practical method for resolving the potential alienation between officials and the masses. Once there is even a slight slackening, some leading officials may transform the power entrusted to them by the people for service into power for seeking personal gain, or even degenerate into power serving specific interest groups. This essentially strips the people of their power and runs counter to democracy. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, our Party has institutionalized and normalized the fight against corruption and the promotion of integrity, integrating it into the entire process of the Party's political life. Comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is not only an important prerequisite for whole-process people's democracy but also an important component of it, because it uses the will and desires of the people to regulate and demand standards for the Party's entire political life and the entire process of policy-making by leading officials.
Vigorously promoting the practice of investigation and research and institutionalizing it—integrating the fine style [11] of maintaining close ties with the masses into the entire process of decision-making and administration—is the most basic practical method for resolving the alienation between leading officials and the masses and realizing whole-process people's democracy. It is fundamentally different from the "opinion polls" in Western democracy used for the purpose of canvassing votes. Those "opinion polls" use statistical analysis to collect the public's stance on designated topics and candidates to determine election strategies. They even use "opinion polls" as a means to influence election results; the content of such surveys is confined to stances on designated topics, making them extremely limited and superficial, unable to solve any problems in the lives of the masses. In contrast, the vigorous promotion of investigation and research required by whole-process people's democracy takes serving the people as its fundamental purpose. it requires decision-makers to go comprehensively and deeply into the actual lives of the masses to accurately understand their living conditions, the difficulties and dilemmas they encounter, and their specific wishes and suggestions. This in itself is an important manifestation of whole-process people's democracy.
The author believes that high-quality investigation and research must achieve five qualities: "sincerity, truth, accuracy, importance, and depth." "Sincerity" (诚 chéng) means that investigation and research must have the masses at heart, humbly learning from them and treating it as a path to establish flesh-and-blood ties with them. "Truth" (真 zhēn) means that the captured public sentiment and opinion must be comprehensive and authentic; no fraud or intentional concealment is allowed, and information distortion caused by reporting through successive levels of bureaucracy must be prevented and corrected. "Accuracy" (准 zhǔn) means that the subjects and problems of the investigation must be precise, striking at the most significant issues in the real lives of the masses, without listening only to one side. "Importance" (重 zhòng) refers to adhering to the "two-point theory" and "key-point theory" [12], grasping the principal contradiction and the principal aspect of a contradiction rather than avoiding the difficult for the easy. "Depth" (深 shēn) means using materialist dialectics to conduct in-depth analysis of a large amount of investigative material to find the underlying causes, the crux of the problem, and the "bottlenecks" and difficulties, rather than merely staying at the level of statistical data analysis.
In 2023, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee issued the Work Plan for Vigorously Promoting the Practice of Investigation and Research Throughout the Party, which is an important method for constructing whole-process people's democracy. Various methods of investigation and research formed by our Party during long-term revolution and construction—such as the system of leading officials staying at selected grass-roots units (dūndiǎn), the system of information officers reporting, the system of leading officials dispatching staff to conduct grassroots research, and the irregular "Four Noes and Two Straights" [13] (sì bù èr zhí) investigation system by departments at all levels, etc.—constitute an institutional system for in-depth investigation and research. Modern information technology provides us with technical means for whole-process investigation and research, enabling leaders at all levels to directly understand the entire process of grassroots production and life.
Xi Jinping is a role model for the entire Party in vigorously promoting investigation and research. Particularly in his direct leadership of the battle against poverty, he set an example by going deep into the grassroots to conduct extensive, long-term investigation and research. During his tenure as a local leader, he went deep into the poorest villages and directly participated in grassroots production labor, accumulating rich experience for poverty alleviation. Since becoming General Secretary, his footprints have covered all 14 contiguous areas of extreme poverty across the country, where he deeply investigated the status and causes of people's poverty and proposed the strategy of "targeted poverty alleviation." These investigative results provided a profound foundation for the Central Committee to make precise decisions based on whole-process people's democracy, leading the people of the whole country to achieve the historic feat of eliminating absolute poverty on the land of China—a great achievement that will shine in the annals of history.
2. Practical methods of whole-process people's democracy in democratic decision-making and democratic administration
Only by establishing a whole-process people's democracy system for the decision-making and implementation processes can we realize substantial people's democracy. This requires leaders not only to integrate and coordinate various problems, opinions, and suggestions obtained from investigation and research to form decisions that represent the collective will and fundamental interests of the entire people, but also to solicit opinions and suggestions from the masses as much as possible during the implementation of these decisions, continuously improving them to realize whole-process people's democracy in both decision-making and administration.
It must be noted that out of national security needs, some decision-making and implementation processes require confidentiality. Furthermore, some emergencies must be handled promptly; otherwise, huge losses may occur due to missed opportunities. Such decisions cannot involve the extensive participation of the masses throughout the entire process. However, this does not mean that "whole-process people's democracy" should be excluded from these government affairs. On the contrary, they should and must be built upon the foundation of whole-process people's democracy, otherwise they will violate the will of the people and fail the test of history. Whole-process people's democracy is manifested in these decisions in two ways: first, when making such decisions, leaders should base them on the will and suggestions of the people gathered through the process of whole-process people's democracy, and must not make decisions that run counter to the people's will; second, although the people are not physically present during the decision-making, the leaders hold the people in their hearts and deeply understand their aspirations, thereby making and implementing decisions on their behalf. Meanwhile, decision-making bodies use the requirements of "whole-process people's democracy" at every moment to conduct internal reviews of these decisions, making the people "present" even when "absent," thereby becoming an "invisible form" of whole-process people's democracy. Therefore, no matter the nature of the decision-making or administrative process, whole-process people's democracy must be realized. Its content includes the following two aspects.
First, democratic centralism and consultative democracy: Practical methods for whole-process people's democracy in the decision-making process.
How to integrate the complex and diverse wills of individuals into a unified collective will is an age-old challenge in political life and the greatest difficulty facing whole-process people's democracy. Without solving this problem, a society will either fall into a state of chaos like "a host of dragons without a head" [14] or fall into the personal autocracy of a leader, thereby losing democracy. Our Party's "magic weapon" [15] for solving this problem is "democratic centralism." Xi Jinping pointed out: "Democratic centralism is our Party’s fundamental organizational principle and leadership system; it is the fundamental guarantee for stimulating the Party's creative vitality and maintaining the Party's unity and solidarity." Its specific content is "the combination of centralism based on democracy and democracy under centralized guidance." "Centralism based on democracy" involves absorbing the demands and suggestions of grassroots Party members and the masses "from the bottom up" as much as possible to achieve the fullest democracy. "Democracy under centralized guidance" involves taking the preliminary opinions formed by higher levels and sending them "from the top down" to lower levels for full discussion and suggestions for revision. This cycle is repeated multiple times before a final vote is taken. This both fully promotes whole-process people's democracy—preventing the "top leader" (yī bǎ shǒu) of a Party organization from acting as a "one-man choir" [16] when making decisions—and avoids falling into endless squabbling and debate that would paralyze social organizations.
A concomitant practical method is "consultative democracy." To realize the people as masters of the country, it is necessary to form a unified will of the entire people regarding public affairs. Yet the people are composed of various strata, sectors [17], and groups, each with different interest demands and volitions regarding mutual relations and public affairs. How to unify these diverse wills to form a common will of the people is a massive challenge facing human democracy. In practice, our Party invented the practical method to resolve this difficulty—"consultative democracy": under the leadership of the Party, various strata, sectors, and groups among the people proceed from the overall interests of the nation to reach a consensus through mutual understanding via democratic consultation. Xi Jinping has pointed out: "We must integrate consultative democracy throughout the entire process of political consultation, democratic supervision, and participation in and deliberation of state affairs; improve the content and forms of consultation and deliberation; and focus on enhancing consensus and promoting unity." This consultative democracy is a great creation of Chinese Communists for whole-process people's democracy.
Second, the mass line: the practical method of whole-process people's democracy in the process of policy implementation.
Various contradictions may be encountered during the implementation of policies, such as discrepancies between the original intention of a decision and its practical effects, sudden unforeseen resistance during implementation, or policy loopholes. Resolving these contradictions still relies on the practical method of whole-process people's democracy—the mass line of "from the masses, to the masses." When answering questions from Chinese and foreign journalists, Premier Li Qiang noted: "Having worked at the local level for a long time, I have a deep feeling: sitting in the office, one encounters nothing but problems; descending into the grassroots, one sees nothing but solutions. The masters are among the people. We must encourage cadres at all levels to go to the front lines more often, asking the people about their needs and seeking their advice, learning from the masses, and truly helping the grassroots solve practical problems." Following the mass line and treating the entire process of administration as a process of implementing whole-process people's democracy is the cure for administrative difficulties. "From the masses" means that the formulation and implementation of various policies must fully listen to the voices of the masses, respect their actual needs, accept their criticism and suggestions, and extensively absorb their wisdom, constantly testing and improving the implemented policies and guidelines so that they represent the interests of the people with increasing precision. "To the masses" means first conducting pilot programs of policies within a certain scope, fully listening to the opinions of relevant professionals and the common people (especially stakeholders), and further improving and perfecting them based on feedback to achieve continuous "error-correction and optimization." On this basis, the policy is then promoted, while continuing to improve and adjust during promotion, so that it serves the people with increasing precision. As Zheng Yongnian has said: "China's political system possesses a powerful capacity for policy mobilization, thereby facilitating timely policy changes." This is only possible under whole-process people's democracy led by the Communist Party of China.
- Practical methods of whole-process people's democracy in the development of the contingent of leading cadres.
The formulation of policies through in-depth investigation and research and the aforementioned "democratic centralism" and "consultative democracy," as well as the implementation process of these policies, must be carried out through the contingent of cadres. Whether a high-quality cadre contingent can be successfully built is the key to whether whole-process people's democracy can be realized. Practical methods of whole-process people's democracy regarding the development of cadres mainly include two aspects: first, the selection and appointment of cadres; second, the whole-process democratic assessment and democratic supervision of cadres' conduct in office.
First, the practical method of whole-process people's democracy in the process of cadre selection and appointment.
To realize whole-process people's democracy, we must select talents who possess both the virtue of serving the people and the ability to perform meritorious service for the people, and build a cadre contingent that meets the needs of Chinese-path modernization. How do we select such cadres? We must fully respect public opinion, yet we cannot engage in Western-style democratic elections. For grassroots organizations, simple elections can lead to family-clan forces "covering the sky with one hand" [18] and obstructing democracy; for high-level officials, since the grassroots masses lack the objective conditions to accurately and deeply understand the virtue and ability of candidates, such elections would degenerate into a mere formality. Western-style democracy solicits votes through candidate speeches, but the public cannot comprehensively or objectively perceive their governing ability through speeches—those who engage in grandiloquence do not necessarily possess the experience and ability for substantive, practical work. This "information asymmetry" is a recognized fact. Therefore, using simple voting methods usually fails to select talents who truly meet the requirements and also creates many new contradictions. Furthermore, even in Western-style democracy, which claims "elections" are the sole hallmark of democracy, only a tiny minority of officials such as presidents, governors, and legislators are elected; the vast majority of members in government agencies, including high-ranking Secretaries of State, ministers, and Supreme Court justices who serve as final arbiters, are appointed through a tiered appointment system. As a major country with a population of over 1.4 billion, China, in realizing whole-process people's democracy, absolutely cannot adopt such unreliable and even social-fragmenting simple methods of universal suffrage.
Through long-term practice, especially since the 18th Party Congress, our Party has gradually found the practical method to resolve the complex contradictions in cadre selection and appointment. This is the integration of soliciting public opinion with review by organizational departments, using practice as the fundamental standard for testing and selecting cadres, and conducting comprehensive, whole-process inspections of a cadre's "virtue, competence, diligence, performance, and integrity" [19]. Finally, a decision is made that best conforms to the fundamental interests of the people. Through this, whole-process people's democracy is realized in the appointment process of cadres at all levels, rather than engaging in the formalistic "flower-stands" [20] of Western-style democracy. Using practice on the front line as the fundamental standard for testing and selecting cadres is the concrete manifestation of Marxist epistemology and methodology in the development of the cadre contingent. Xi Jinping pointed out: "'Prime ministers must have risen from local posts, and fierce generals must have emerged from the ranks.' [21] Since ancient times, great generals and capable ministers have mostly undergone tempering in harsh environments... whichever cadre can share weal and woe with the broad masses of cadres and people in these places, struggle in unity, achieve results, and not let down the heavy trust of the organization, should be praised; his ideological, political, and professional qualities will also continuously improve. Cadres who crave comfort and are unwilling to work in these places, or who go there but haggle over terms, harbor resentment, and cannot settle into their work, are not the cadres the Party and the people need." By applying such standards and integrating the will of the people with organizational review, we can select leading cadres at all levels who do substantive work for the people.
Second, the practical method for the democratic assessment and democratic supervision of leading cadres:
The institutionalization of people's supervision and the institutionalization of the Party's self-revolution. While the selection and appointment of cadres are important, the comprehensive, whole-process inspection of their performance in office is even more so. Western-style democracy supervises through parties exposing each other's shortcomings, which in substance has degenerated into a tool for partisan struggle—that is, a tool for monopoly capital to compete for political power. Precisely because of this, such mutual checks and balances become bargaining chips for reaching certain political deals (including mutual protection), thereby allowing political corruption to spread. The husband of Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was dubbed the "God of Stocks on Capitol Hill," with stock investment returns exceeding those of Buffett. The reason is self-evident: it is insider trading relying on information held by Capitol Hill. Yet, regardless of how public opinion seethes, members of Congress, who are keen on digging up each other's pasts, remain silent on this, because such corrupt behavior is so pervasive that it has become a political bargaining chip for mutual protection. This shows that the result of such "mutual supervision" is systemic corruption.
The practical method for managing leading cadres in China's system of whole-process people's democracy is the formation of a system for comprehensive and whole-process democratic assessment and supervision, as well as the institutionalization of the Party's self-revolution. Especially since the 18th Party Congress, we have established a system where supervisory power is parallel to executive power, a system to prevent "darkness under the lamp" [22] within the supervisory system, the inspection and disciplinary tour systems of Party committees at all levels, a system where mass reports must be investigated, a system for leading cadres to regularly report major personal matters to the organization, an audit system for leading cadres when leaving their posts, and the ironclad Eight-Point Regulations. These constitute an institutional system that addresses both symptoms and root causes—ensuring officials "dare not, cannot, and do not want to be corrupt"—effectively ensuring that the various powers of the Party and government are held by cadres at all levels who represent the interests of the people. This has established a strong line of defense for socialist democratic politics, allowing whole-process people's democracy to be more and more fully reflected in the democratic assessment and democratic supervision of leading cadres.
In conclusion, the concept of the "people as masters of the country" in whole-process people's democracy, through the three aforementioned practical methods, has formed a substantive institutional system of whole-process people's democracy. It is forming a substantive, true democracy and a new form of human political civilization. This is a historical contribution of profound significance made by the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China to humanity.