How does the Chinese Communist Party govern the country?

Chapter 25

Former US President Carter and experts from the Carter Center named after him have visited China many times to understand village elections.They highly praised the creations of Chinese farmers and the Chinese government's efforts to promote democracy, and promoted them to the world through international seminars and other forms. On June 1998, 6, the then US President Bill Clinton also affirmed the villagers' election after visiting Xiahe Village in Xi'an.In recent years, China's grassroots democracy has made great progress. Through the grassroots self-government system, the broad masses of urban and rural areas directly exercise their democratic rights of democratic elections, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision in accordance with the law, manage grassroots public affairs and public welfare undertakings, and practice self-management, Self-serving, self-educating, self-monitoring.Self-government at the grassroots level has become an important part of the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics. Beginning in the spring of 26, the household contract responsibility system, with the main content of contracting production to households, emerged widely in rural areas across the country.Household production contracting has greatly mobilized the production enthusiasm of the majority of farmers, and the output of grain and other agricultural products and farmers' income have increased significantly.However, for a period of time after the contracting of production to the households, the original production brigades and production team organizations in some places have actually been disintegrated, and the new rural grassroots organizations have not yet been established, resulting in a state of unmanaged public affairs in some rural areas.During the period of the People’s Commune, production brigades and production teams played a decisive role in village management. After contracting production to households, except for a few places with a relatively high level of collective economic development, most rural agricultural production has returned to individual production. , The quality of life has nothing to do with the production team and the brigade, which largely frees farmers from their personal attachment to the brigade and the production team.As a result, brigades and production teams lost their ability to restrain farmers, and their organization and management authority ceased to exist.

Before the implementation of contracting production to households, apart from houses, small plots of private plots, a small amount of household sidelines and personal property, the main means of production such as land and farm animals were all collectively owned by the commune members. The distribution of disposal rights is basically an egalitarian "big pot of rice" in which good and bad are the same, and the economic relationship among members is relatively simple.After contracting production to each household, although land ownership is still collective, the right to use it belongs to each household, farm animals are distributed to each household for private rearing, and most of the other collective properties are also distributed to members of the commune.Under such circumstances, on the one hand, the possibility of conflicts and disputes between farmers increases over issues such as how to adjust the land according to population changes, and how to use the original indivisible means of production and public facilities of the collective.On the other hand, household production contracting allowed farmers to gain freedom in production and expanded their space for activities.During the period of the People’s Commune, the source of income for members was basically work points earned from labor. Deduction of work points was an important means for the production teams and brigades to manage members. Increased the difficulty of rural public management.

It is against this background that a new type of mass self-government organization sprouted in the countryside.

The Guozuo Village of the Hezhai Brigade of Sancha Commune in Yishan County, Guangxi (many places in Guangxi refer to natural villages as villages) used to have 6 production teams.At the same time, the production team has become empty, without management, and there are more social conflicts: the cattle are stolen, the trees in the forest farm are cut down, the villagers compete for water and land, openly gather to gamble, and the social order is chaotic. In February 1980, the six former production team captains in Guozuotun decided to set up an organization to manage the village's public affairs in view of the fact that no one was in charge of the village's affairs after contracting production to households.Since the production team does not actually exist anymore, and the title of captain is gone, it is inconvenient for them to take the lead as captains. Thinking that people in the city are called residents, the organization of the brigade was originally called the management committee, so this organization is called the village committee. .So, they called six members of the production team and sent a representative from each family to the meeting.There are 2 households in the village, and representatives from 6 households actually came to vote for 6 members of the village committee, and elected the director and deputy director of the village committee according to the number of votes received.The democratically elected village committee is another creation of Chinese peasants after the household production contract, and Guozuotun became the first village of village self-government.

After December 1980, every village in the Hezhai brigade established village committees and formulated village rules and regulations. Indiscriminate felling of collective forests, no random release of chickens and ducks to spoil the crops, all tasks handed in are completed, the cadres and the masses are united, and good people and good deeds continue to emerge.” At the same time, Yishan’s Aishan, Shibie, Luodong, Desheng, and rivers There are also several village committees organized by the masses spontaneously in the communes.By October 12, about 1981 villages in Yishan County had established village committees.When some villages in Yishan spontaneously organized village committees, some villages in neighboring Luocheng County also established similar self-government organizations for villagers.

The Hechi Prefectural Committee of the Communist Party of China paid great attention to the emergence of villagers' self-government organizations such as village committees in Yishan and Luocheng counties.Relevant leaders of the prefectural committee visited Lengshui Village, Beiya Commune, Yishan County, and Chongwan Village, Siba Commune, Luocheng County, where village committees were established earlier. The enthusiasm of the masses cannot be allowed to flow. It is emphasized that leaders at all levels should do a good job of investigation and research, and summarize and improve in a timely manner.

On October 1981, 10, the Hechi District Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Hechi District Administrative Office forwarded the "Investigation on the Establishment of Village Committees in Some Rural Areas" by the Yishan County Poor Association (that is, the Association of Poor and Lower Middle Peasants), affirming that these villages spontaneously established village committees. "It has played a good role" and believes that it is "a kind of mass organization" and "a good form for the masses to educate themselves and manage themselves", and requires party and government organizations at all levels, especially the party branch and management committee of the brigade to strengthen The leadership of the village committee, and the public security department is specifically responsible for this work.On the 21st of the same month, the Hechi Prefectural Committee forwarded the report on the situation of the Village Committee of the Hezhai Brigade from the Sancha Commune of Yishan County and the report from the Luocheng County Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Niubi Brigade of the Little Chang’an Commune in the form of "Difa [31] No. 1981 Document". According to the survey conducted by Xinhui village committees, village committees are "a kind of mass organization in the countryside", and all counties and communes are required to "actively promote and gradually and universally establish village committees."

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China attached great importance to grassroots democracy and regarded it as an important content of building socialist democratic politics. In June 1981, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted the "Resolution Concerning Certain Issues Concerning the Party's History Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China," which included gradually building a highly democratic socialist political system as one of the fundamental tasks of socialist construction, emphasizing: "We must strengthen the construction of state organs at all levels in accordance with the principle of democratic centralism, so that the people's congresses at all levels and their permanent institutions become authoritative organs of people's power, and gradually realize the people's direct democracy in grassroots political power and social life at the grassroots level. Efforts should be focused on developing the democratic management of business affairs by the working people in various urban and rural enterprises."

In 1982, the Twelfth National Congress of the Communist Party of China reaffirmed: "Building a high degree of socialist democracy is one of our fundamental goals and tasks." It also pointed out that "socialist democracy should be extended to political life, economic life, cultural life and social life. development of democratic management of various enterprises and institutions, and the development of mass autonomy in social life at the grassroots level. Democracy should become a method of self-education for the masses of the people.”

Although neither of these two important documents mentions the issue of villager self-government, the two arguments of "gradually realizing people's direct democracy in grassroots social life" and "mass self-government in grassroots social life" are important to include villager self-government. The exploration of various grassroots democratic practice methods, including social media, provides an opportunity.

In June 1981, the "Research Newsletter" sponsored by the Policy Research Office of the Guangxi District Party Committee of the Communist Party of China published a research report "Establishment of a Village Management Committee in Lengshui Village, Yishan County to Manage the Village's Affairs" by a cadre of the District Agriculture Committee. Peng Zhen, vice chairman of the Standing Committee, director of the Legislative Affairs Committee, and deputy director of the Constitution Revision Committee, took this very seriously and instructed relevant departments to send people to Guangxi to investigate. In the summer of 6, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and the Ministry of Civil Affairs sent an investigation team to investigate the village committees in Yishan and Luocheng, and affirmed the establishment of village committees in the Hechi area.

Article 1982 of the 110 Constitution stipulates: "The residents' committees or villagers' committees established in urban and rural areas according to the areas where residents live are grass-roots mass autonomous organizations. The directors, deputy directors and members of the residents' committees and villagers' committees are elected by residents. Residents' committees, villagers' committees The relationship between the committee and the grassroots political power shall be stipulated by law." "Resident committees and villagers' committees set up committees for people's mediation, public security and public health, etc., to handle public affairs and public welfare undertakings in their living areas, mediate civil disputes, and assist in maintaining social order. And feed back the opinions, demands and suggestions of the people to the people's government."

At that time, village self-government in China was still in its infancy, and most rural areas still retained brigades, an administrative and economic organization.This provision of the Constitution cannot but be said to be very advanced.This also reflects the foresight of the framers of the Constitution on this issue.

到1983年年底，全国共建立村民委员会171000多个。到1984年2月，全国已有536个县（市、市辖区）和天津市完成了建乡和建立村民委员会的工作。

(End of this chapter)