Xi calls for efforts to study Party history

Understanding theories, doing practical work, making new advances seen as vital

The Communist Party of China, the world’s biggest Marxist ruling party, with over 91 million members, launched a campaign on Party history education among all of its members on Saturday.

Speaking at the campaign’s launch meeting, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called for efforts to study the Party’s history, understand its theories, do practical work and make new advances.

Xi, who is also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, spoke of the need to embark on a new journey in high spirits to fully build a modern socialist China and welcome the Party’s centenary with outstanding achievements.

Since its founding in 1921, the CPC has grown into the world’s biggest Marxist ruling party. It has been in power for over 70 years in the world’s largest socialist country, which has 1.4 billion people.

The Party has stood the test of time, reversing China’s fate from the continuous decline since the first Opium War in the 1840s to steady progress toward prosperity.

Xi stressed the vital necessity of launching the campaign as the CPC stands at a critical juncture in which the time frames of its two centenary goals converge.

Xi urged Party committees at all levels to attentively implement the arrangements made by the CPC Central Committee for the campaign.

Zhu Qingping, 104, who is from an old revolutionary base in Jiangxi province, voiced his support for the campaign.

“Only by reviewing the Party’s history can people living in peacetime truly understand why we chose to join the Red Army and then followed the Party wholeheartedly,” said Zhu, who joined the Red Army in 1931.

“Our Party’s history is a history of continuously adapting Marxism to the Chinese context,” Xi said.

Xi called for educating and guiding the Party to learn from its “extraordinary” past so as to understand how Marxism has profoundly changed China and the world.

He also called for efforts to equip the whole Party with the latest achievements in its theoretical innovation, and to use the theories to guide its practice and advance its work.

Putting people first

Throughout its 100-year history, the CPC has been of one mind with the people, breathed the same breath as the people, and shared weal and woe with the people, said Xi.

With people’s trust and support, the CPC is invincible in the face of any obstacle, Xi said, adding that it is the duty of the Party to cement the unity of 1.4 billion Chinese people to create an unstoppable force to push forward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Xi stressed that the CPC must draw lessons from the past to tackle current challenges.

By urging CPC members to summarize past experience, the Party will improve its leadership and governance, and make itself more capable of fighting corruption, preventing degeneration and warding off risks, he said.

New journey

Xi called on all CPC members to carry forward traditions from revolutionary times, maintain the brave spirit of the revolutionaries, and march toward a new journey.

Taking a clear-cut political stand as well as safeguarding the Party’s unity and solidarity are the CPC’s lifelines, and the key to its endeavors of building a large political party with a 100-year history and producing historic achievements, Xi noted.

All CPC members should closely follow the CPC Central Committee in terms of the thinking, political stance and actions, and bring together the strength of the whole Party, he said.

Xi called on all Party members to attach great importance to the campaign, stressing the need to develop an accurate understanding of Party history, and he urged CPC members to unequivocally oppose historical nihilism.

Efforts should be made to deliver services to the people and resolve their difficulties, Xi added, calling for combining the learning of Party history with summing up experience and solving practical problems.

Highlighting the importance of innovation in methods and means, Xi underscored solid work on promoting learning and education among juveniles to pass on the traditions of revolution through generations.

A book by Xi on the history of the CPC has been published by the Central Party Literature Press. The book, compiled by the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee, contains 40 of Xi’s articles, some of which were published for the first time, according to a statement about the book’s publication on Sunday.