How does the Chinese Communist Party govern the country?

Chapter 29

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, there have been endless doubts about the ability of the Communist Party of China to govern the country. There have even been arguments that the CCP will lead to the collapse of the country due to its lack of ability to effectively govern the country.For example, in 2006, the famous American scholar Roderick McFarquhar predicted that China would "collapse within a few years rather than decades."Facts are the best testimony. With economic and social development and prosperity, China has responded to all kinds of sensational and false predictions.One of the important reasons why China was able to achieve "unbelievable" achievements that the Western world felt, and why the "China collapse theory" collapsed is that the Chinese Communist Party has found and followed a scientific basic strategy of governing the country through hardships, that is, governing the country by law and building socialism A country ruled by law, bringing state and social management into the track of rule of law.

With the victory of the Chinese revolution across the country, a severe and important task was placed before the newborn Chinese Communists, that is how to create a new type of economic and political system to ensure economic and social recovery and development.

In fact, in the process of leading the revolution, the Chinese Communist Party carried out difficult explorations of local governance in the liberated areas and base areas, combined the Marxist concept of state and law with the specific reality of the Chinese revolution, established a new democratic political organization, created The legal system of New Democracy has accumulated experience for how to govern the country after seizing the national power.

Accordingly, on the eve of the founding of New China, Mao Zedong published the article "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship" on June 1949, 6, which discussed in depth the dialectical relationship between people's democracy and dictatorship, and clarified the tasks that the legal system should undertake after the founding of New China.

The first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held in September 1949 passed the "Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference", which played the role of a temporary constitution in the early days of the founding of New China. The "Common Program" stipulates: In terms of politics, "state power belongs to the people"; in terms of economy, "all kinds of social and economic components, under the leadership of the state-owned economy, divide labor and cooperate, and each has its own place, so as to promote the development of the entire social economy"; in terms of culture and education, Carry out "ethnic, scientific and mass cultural education".It also stipulates: "The organs for the people to exercise state power are the people's congresses at all levels and the people's governments at all levels. The people's congresses at all levels are elected by the people through universal suffrage." "The highest organ of state power is the National People's Congress. The National People's Congress When the Congress is not in session, the Central People's Government is the highest organ for exercising state power." "Before the National People's Congress is convened by universal elections, the plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference shall perform the functions and powers of the National People's Congress." Established in the Common Program Under the guidance of the principles and spirit of the People's Republic of China, the state governance followed the road of the rule of law in the early days of the founding of New China and carried out smoothly.

At the beginning of the founding of New China, with the establishment and stability of the political power, the party's understanding of the legal road to governing the country gradually deepened.Liu Shaoqi pointed out in the political report of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China: "Now, the stormy period of revolution has passed, new production relations have been established, and the task of struggle has become to protect the smooth development of social productive forces. The method must also be changed accordingly", "One of the urgent tasks in the country's work at present is to systematically formulate relatively complete laws and improve the legal system of our country." Dong Biwu, president of the Supreme People's Court, summed up the people's The basic experience of the work of democracy and the legal system, talked about the problems existing in the work of the legal system, and analyzed the deep-seated reasons for not paying attention to and not observing the legal system of the country from the historical and social roots, and proposed that the central link to further strengthen the people's democratic legal system is "Acting in accordance with the law".To this end, it is necessary to achieve "there are laws to follow" and "there are laws that must be followed".He also proposed some specific measures for the party to lead the legal work, such as emphasizing legal education, appropriately strengthening the organization of the judiciary, formulating a series of laws such as criminal law, civil law, procedural law, labor law, and land use law as soon as possible, and accelerating the implementation of the lawyer system and law. The notarization system should gradually establish an arbitral system.

However, the good momentum of the development of the legal system in the early days of the founding of New China was soon replaced by artificially exaggerated class struggles and political movements, until a serious overall error like the "Cultural Revolution" occurred. During the "Cultural Revolution", legal nihilism prevailed, and the Party and government agencies at all levels were paralyzed or abnormal for a long time. The National People's Congress was suspended for nine years, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was not held for ten years.During the most violent period of turmoil, public security, procuratorate, courts and other organs were "thoroughly smashed", brutal criticism, private courts, torture to extract confessions, arbitrary arrests, illegal detention, arbitrary house raids and other violations of law and discipline were extremely common.When the party organization, state power, and democratic legal system have been greatly weakened, laws and regulations, discipline constraints, and rules and regulations are ineffective, and the entire society is plunged into continuous turmoil.

In view of the painful lessons of "lawlessness" during the "Cultural Revolution", strengthening socialist democracy and the construction of the legal system and taking the road of ruling the country according to the law have become the common aspirations of the entire party and the people of the whole country.

As Peng Zhen, who was by-elected as vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress at the Second Session of the Fifth National People's Congress, said: "To develop socialist democracy, we must gradually improve the socialist legal system so that [-] million people can handle affairs. There are rules to follow, and there are constraints and sanctions for bad people to do bad things. Therefore, the people of the whole country urgently demand a sound legal system."

The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in 1978 profoundly summed up the positive and negative historical experience since the founding of New China, and made a decision to shift the focus of the work of the party and the country to economic construction and implement reform and opening up, and proposed " In order to protect the people's democracy, it is necessary to strengthen the socialist legal system, make democracy institutionalized and legalized, and make this system and laws stable, continuous and extremely authoritative, so that there are laws to follow, laws must be followed, and law enforcement It must be strictly enforced, and violations must be prosecuted."This meeting opened a new chapter in the construction of socialist democracy and the legal system.

Since entering the new era, in the process of exploring the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the construction of democracy and the legal system has received unprecedented attention and strengthening both in theory and in practice, and ruling the country by law has gradually become a basic strategy for governing the country.At the 1997th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in September 9, the basic strategy and goal of "governing the country according to the law and building a socialist country ruled by law" were clearly put forward, marking that China's socialist rule of law has entered a new stage of development. The 1999 Constitutional Amendment added "The People's Republic of China implements the rule of law and builds a socialist country ruled by law" as the first paragraph in Article [-].So far, the basic strategy of ruling the country by law has been confirmed by the Constitution.

Since the beginning of the new century, according to the goal set by the No.16 and No.17 National Congresses of the Communist Party of China in the first 20 years of this century to comprehensively build a higher level of well-off society that will benefit more than one billion people, the strategy of ruling the country by law has been comprehensively implemented. Implemented, socialist democracy is more perfect, the socialist legal system is more complete, the people's rights and interests and social fairness and justice are better protected, and a socialist country ruled by law with a complete legal system and strong law enforcement is initially established.

(End of this chapter)