Democratic Centralism

A mechanism of combining centralism on the basis of democracy and democracy under the guidance of centralism. It is not only the fundamental organizational principle of the Party, but it is also the means of applying the mass line in the Party’s political activities; the fundamental organizational principle of proletarian Party, socialist state organs and people's organizations, it is also an important guarantee for advancing the cause of revolution and construction.

Adhering to democratic centralism requires a correct understanding and correct handling of the relationship between democracy and centralism. Within the ranks of the people, democracy is correlative with centralism and freedom with discipline. They are the two opposites of a single entity, contradictory as well as united, and we should not one-sidedly emphasize one to the denial of the other. This unity of democracy and centralism, of freedom and discipline, constitutes our democratic centralism. The purpose of implementing democratic centralism is to ensure the consistency between Party’s ideology and organization of the Party; therefore, in the work of the Party and the State, we must adhere to both democracy and centralism. At the Seventh Congress of the Party, Mao Zedong summed up the relationship between "democracy" and "centralism" in the mechanism of democratic centralism as follows: "centralization on the basis of democracy and democracy under the guidance of centralism". Without democracy, there cannot be any correct centralization; centralism based on democracy is an important condition for guaranteeing the realization of people's democracy.

In order to adhere to democratic centralism, we must adhere to collective leadership and take the overall situation into consideration. Mao Zedong, proceeding from the advancement of the cause of the Party and the people, emphasized that when adhering to democratic centralism we must guarantee that partial and local interests should be subordinated to the overall interests, and must rely on the realization of the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people. To this end, Mao Zedong put forward the important thought of "four subordinates " in adhering to democratic centralism: (1) The individual is subordinate to the organization; (2) Minority is subordinate to the majority; (3) The lower level is subordinate to the higher level; (4) The entire membership is subordinate to the Central Committee. The Party Constitution adopted by the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly formulated and elaborated the democratic centralism principle of the Party. It stipulated: "The Party's organizational structure is built in accordance with democratic centralism.

Democratic centralism refers to centralism on the basis of democracy and democracy under centralized leadership has the following basic conditions: (1) Leading organs at all levels of the Party are elected by electoral system. (2) Leading organs at all levels of the Party shall give regular reports on their work to the Party organizations that elect them. (3) Individual Party members are subordinate to the Party organizations to which they belong, the minority is subordinate to the majority, the lower level is subordinate to the higher level organizations, and Party organizations are subordinate to the Central Committee in a unified way. (4) Strictly comply with by Party discipline and unconditionally implement the Party resolutions.” According to the conception of the CPC. democratic centralism should be implemented as the organizational principle of the political life of the both Party and the State. In 1945, Mao Zedong clearly put forward in his article "On Coalition Government": "The organizational principle of the new-democratic state should be democratic centralism, this is the only system that can give full expression to democracy and, at the same time, guarantee centralized administration. ”

To uphold democratic centralism, we must correctly handle the relationship between collective leadership and responsibility of the individual leaders in Party and state organs, and adhere to the principle of combining collective leadership with the individual responsibility of leaders.