The Overall Layout of Party Building

In 2007, the 17th CPC National Congress has put forward the overall layout of Party building,namely “five-in-one” principle of Party building which includes guiding ideology construction, organization construction, work style construction, system construction, and anti-corruption construction; the important content of the theory and practice of the Party building, the actual strategic deployment of achieving overall goal of the Party building and the action steps of the overall task of the Party building.

Hu Jintao pointed out in the Report to the 17th CPC National Congress: “ To achieve the main objectives of strengthening the Party's governance capability and vanguard nature, we must ensure that the Party exercises self-discipline and is strict with its members, and work to fulfill the requirement for serving the people and being pragmatic and incorruptible. We must strengthen Party building in all respects. Ideologically, we will focus on fortifying the convictions of Party members. Organizationally, we will put emphasis on bringing up Party members and cadres of quality. In improving the Party's style of work, we will stress the maintenance of its close ties with the people. Institutionally, we will emphasize improving democratic centralism. In enhancing the Party's capacity to fight corruption and uphold integrity, we will focus on improving the institutions for punishing and preventing corruption. All this will enable the Party to remain a ruling Marxist Party that is built for public interests and exercises governance for the people; a Party that is realistic, pragmatic and committed to reform and innovation; a Party that is hardworking and clean; and a Party that is full of vigor and enjoys solidarity and harmony.”

In the overall layout of the “five-in-one” Party building, ideological construction is the fundamental construction of the Party, providing the ideological foundation for the Party’s organizational construction, work style construction, system construction and anti-corruption construction; organizational construction provides organizational guarantee for the Party's ideological construction, work style construction, system construction and anti-corruption construction; work style construction and anti-corruption construction are related to the Party's image and physical health, which not only provide discipline and style guarantee for Party building, but also reflect the achievements of the ideological construction, organizational construction and system construction of the Party; system construction provides an operational mechanism for the intra-Party activities, and provides an institutional guarantee for the the Party's ideological construction, organizational construction, work style construction, and anti-corruption construction. The implementation of this overall layout requires to deploy the Party building work with focus on the overall situation and overall plans, so that all aspects of Party building complement and promote each other, highlight key points and advance holistically to improve Party building work as a whole.

As an overall cause, Party building should have general goal, general task and overall layout. The layout of Party building is a practical link to realize the goals and tasks of Party building, and is given new connotations with the development of practice. During the New-Democratic Revolution, Mao Zedong determined the Party building as a “great program”, which not only put ideological construction at the top of the Party building, but also emphasized the Party's organizational construction and style construction. For a long time, Party building generally refers to three major constructions, namely ideological construction, organizational construction and work style construction. After entering the new period of Reform and Opening-up, Deng Xiaoping summed up historic experience and proposed to focus on system construction according to the new practical requirements; Jiang Zemin emphasized theoretical innovation, promoted system construction, and developed the Party's ideological construction, organizational construction and work style construction into four major constructions, namely ideological construction, organizational construction, work style construction and system construction, thus enriching the connotation of the overall layout of Party building.

The 17th CPC National Congress clearly put forward the scientific concept of anti-corruption construction and juxtaposed it with the Party's ideological construction, organizational construction, work style construction and system construction, thus constituting the “five-in-one” overall layout of Party building and once again enriching the connotation of the overall layout of Party building.

The 18th CPC National Congress put anti-corruption construction before system construction and put system construction at the end of Party building, further improving and developing the connotation of the overall layout of Party building. The connotation development of the overall layout of Party building reflects the deepening of the Party's understanding of the self-building law. In the systematic program of Party building, the reason why we attach importance to ideological construction, organizational construction and work style construction from the beginning is that ideological construction is the primary fundamental construction. Only by strengthening ideological and theoretical construction can we maintain clear understanding of theory, ideological unity and political firmness; organizational construction is the most basic construction. Grass-roots organizations at all levels of the Party are the foundation for all the work and combat effectiveness of the Party; work style construction is the key, and is a matter of life and death for a long-term governing big Party.

In the new period of Reform and Opening-up, the reason why the Party emphasizes system construction is that the system is of fundamental, wholistic, stable and long-term; the reason why anti-corruption is singled out from the work style construction is the judgment of the severe and complicated situation of the Party style and clean government construction and the anti-corruption struggle. Anti-corruption construction is an important means to purify thoughts, organizations and work styles. It is the inevitable requirement for the Party to supervise its own conduct and run itself with strict discipline, and should be placed in a more important position; the reason why system construction is put at the end of Party building is that system construction is comprehensive construction, which is not only the experience summary of other constructions, but also the common requirement of other constructions. Putting it at the end conforms to the internal logic of the overall layout of Party building, which runs through all the work of Party building and provides comprehensive guarantee.

The connotation development of the general layout of Party building is consistent with that of the general layout of Chinese revolution, construction and reform. During the period of China's revolution and construction, grasping the overall layout of Party building from thoughts, organization and work style became an important part of the theory and practice of Party building at that time. The Party promoted the three-in-one Party building layout as a whole, and finally developed into a Marxist Party “completely consolidated ideologically, politically and organizationally”. It united and led the people of the whole country to win the victory of the New-Democratic Revolution and socialist transformation, providing valuable experience for socialism with Chinese characteristics. During the period of China's reform and socialist modernization, the connotation of the overall layout of Party building has underwent a transformation from “three-in-one” to “four-in-one” and finally to “five-in-one”. The Party’s advancement is not accomplished in an action, and dose not remain unchanged once acquired.

The Party firmly grasps the overall layout of Party building and promotes ideological construction, organizational construction, style construction, anti-corruption construction and system construction, so as to make its theories, lines, principles and policies conform to the trend of the times and the requirements of China's social development and progress, reflect the interests and aspirations of the people of all ethnic groups in China, and enable Party organizations at all levels to continuously improve their creativity, cohesion and combat effectiveness, and always play the core role of leadership and the role of fighting fortress, promotes the majority of Party members to constantly improve their own quality and always play a vanguard and exemplary role. In this way, the Party always maintains its advancement and purity, stays in the forefront of the times, constantly improves its governing capacity, consolidate its governing status and complete its governing mission. It is the conscious grasp of the law of Party building, the strategic deployment for realizing the general goal of Party building, and the arrangement for realizing the general task of Party building, providing overall compliance for promoting the great new Party-building program.