Intra-Party Political Life

Intra-Party political life includes various political activities carried out by Party organizations and Party members at all levels in accordance with the Party constitution and according to various rules and regulations within the Party, including education campaign, organizational management, intra-Party supervision, democratic activities meeting, and organizational activities meeting. Serious intra-Party political life is an important weapon for upholding the Party's nature and purpose, maintaining its advance nature and purity, a "golden key" for solving contradictions and problems within the Party, a "melting pot" for tempering the Party spirit of Party officials and a "purifier" for purifying Party and government conduct.

Since its founding, the Party has attached great importance to intra-Party political life. In December 1929, Mao Zedong first proposed the concept of intra-Party political life in the “Resolution of the Gutian Conference”, making “political and scientific spirit pervade Party members’ thinking and their Party life”. It is a fine tradition of the Party to carry out serious intra-Party political life. In the long-term practice, the Party has gradually formed the basic code of conduct for intra-Party political life with the main contents of seeking truth from facts, integrating theory with practice, keeping close ties with the masses, criticizing and self-criticizing, implementing democratic centralism, and strictly enforcing Party discipline.

In February 1980, the 15th Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee adopted the “Code of Conduct for Intra-Party Political Life” and officially used the concept of “intra-Party political life”. On November 16, 2012, Xi Jinping published “On Seriously Studying and Strictly Abiding by the Party Constitution”, pointing out: “We must strictly implement the provisions of the Party constitution on intra-Party political life”. In June 2016, when Xi Jinping presided over the 33rd collective study of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, he emphasized that serious intra-Party political life and healthy and clean intra-Party political ecology are the soil for the formation of the Party's fine work style, the driving force for the Party's vigorous vitality, an important condition for maintaining the Party's advance nature and purity and improving the Party's creativity, cohesion and combat effectiveness, a powerful guarantee for the Party to unite and lead the people of all ethnic groups in the country to complete its historical mission and a prominent feature distinguishing us from other non-Marxist parties.

The well-regulated intra-Party political life is an important foundation for comprehensively strengthening Party discipline. In October 2016, the 6th Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee reviewed and adopted the “Several Norms of Intra-Party Political Life under New Conditions”. It should be fully admitted that most of Party officials are firm in their ideals and convictions, and are politically reliable; nevertheless, there are some Party officials who fail to meet these qualifications. Some are skeptical about communism, considering it a fantasy that will never come true; some do not believe in Marxism-Leninism but in ghosts and gods, and seek spiritual solace in feudal superstitions, showing intense interest in fortune-telling, worship of Buddha and “god’s advice” for solving their problems; some have little sense of principle, justice, and right and wrong, and perform their duties in a muddle-headed manner; some even yearn for Western social systems and values, losing their confidence in the future of socialism; and others adopt an equivocal attitude towards political provocations against the leadership of the CPC, the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and other matters of principle, passively avoid relevant arguments without the courage to express their opinions, or even deliberately deliver ambiguous messages.

“Several Norms of Intra-Party Political Life under New Conditions” clearly points out the phenomena of superficiality, formalization, randomness, dullness, entertainment and vulgarization in the intra-Party political life, as well as wrong thinking such as individualism, decentralism, liberalism, departmentalization, formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism, extravagant style, sectarianism, mountain-stronghold mentality, money worship, "nice guy" mentality and tailism. To improve the Party’s loose self-supervision and self-governance, it is urgent to comprehensively strengthen Party discipline. To solve these problems, we must strengthen and regulate the intra-Party political life. The “Several Norms of Intra-Party Political Life under New Conditions” adopted at the 16th Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward 12 guidelines for strengthening and standardizing intra-Party political life under new circumstances: (1) The primary task is to have full confidence in ideals; (2) The fundamental guarantee is to adhere to the Party's basic line; (3) The important purpose is to resolutely safeguard the authority of the CPC Central Committee; (4) The important content is to run the Party with strict discipline; (5) The fundamental requirement is to maintain the flesh-and-blood ties between the Party and people; (6) The important institutional guarantee is to adhere to the principle of democratic centralism; (7) The important foundation is to carry forward intra-Party democracy and guarantee the rights of Party members; (8) The organizational guarantee is to adhere to the correct talent selection and employment orientation; (9) The important carrier is strict organization activity system; (10) The important means is to carry out criticism and self-criticism; (11) The important measure is to strengthen the restriction and supervision of power operation; (12) The important task is to maintain the political nature of keeping honest and clean.

China’s success hinges on that the Party must supervise its own conduct and govern itself with strict discipline. To achieve this, we must begin by strictly regulating the intra-Party political life. To strengthen and regulate the intra-Party political life under new circumstances, we must take the Party constitution as the fundamental compliance, adhere to the Party's political, ideological, organizational and mass lines, and strive to make intra-Party political life more politically oriented, up-to-date, principled, and effective. We must also make efforts to enhance the Party's capabilities of self-purification, self-enhancement, self-innovation and self-improvement, improve the Party's leadership and governance and its capability to resist corruption and guard against degeneration, and strive to safeguard the authority of the CPC Central Committee, ensure the unity of the Party and maintain the Party's advance nature and purity.