The Communist Party Must Accept Supervision

Excerpt from a report delivered at a meeting of cadres in Xi'an by Deng Xiaoping on April 8, 1957. It is included in Volume 1 of the Collected Works of Deng Xiaoping.

Deng Xiaoping stressed the importance of the Party's acceptance of supervision. It is pointed out that if the Party does not accept supervision or work to expand democracy within the Party and the state, it shall surely cut itself off from the masses and make big mistakes. Because if the Party cadres, especially the leaders, handle affairs behind closed doors, rest content with our long years of experience and refuse to listen with an open mind to opinions from the masses and non-Party people, they are most likely to become uninformed and consider problems in a one-sided way, thus inevitably making mistakes.

Deng Xiaoping proposed that the Party should accept supervision from three sources. The first is the supervision by the Party organizations; the second is the supervision by the masses; the third is the supervision by the democratic parties and democrats without party affiliation. With supervision from these sources, the Party cadres shall become more prudent and better informed, and they can prevent ossified thinking and avoid being one-sided in our approach to problems. Deng Xiaoping particularly emphasized that democracy should be expanded in all respects with regard to the masses. Hence, the People's Congress and the Political Consultative Conference should hold their sessions successfully. It is of great benefit to hold fruitful sessions of the people's congresses and political consultative conferences at all levels. Democracy should also be expanded in the management of factories, mines and other enterprises. For example, this was emphasized in the directive issued those days by the Central Committee on dealing with workers' and students' strikes. In order to institute the workers' congresses and strengthen their function, we are required to expand the supervision of the masses in factories, mines and other enterprises. Implementing supervision by the masses can help arouse their initiative and encourage them to contribute many good suggestions. In rural areas we should also expand democracy, running co-operatives democratically. The tendency of rural cadres towards authoritarianism stems from the undemocratic working style of leaders at higher levels.

This report inherits and develops the ideas of inner-Party supervision and extra-Party supervision put forward by the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. It has important theoretical reference value for the new exploration of democratic supervision in the new period of the Reform and Opening-up.