How Is Inner Party Democracy Possible?
From “Organization-Based” to “Party Member-Based” Approach in Party Building
May 2013
The author Liu Yifei is a professor at the Party School of the Chengdu Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China in Sichuan Province)
The report of the 17th CPC National Congress in 2007 has proposed that “the subject status of Party members should be respected”. This not only shows that the subject status of Party members has been increasingly valued by our Party, but also shows that the subject status of Party members, as an important theoretical innovation, will increasingly become an important theoretical guide for the practical activities of Party building. For many years, in the operation of the internal mechanism of the Party, in reality Party members actually existed mainly as objects to be educated and managed, which has caused Party building to fall into the misunderstanding of “leadership-based” to a certain extent;
Party members rarely appeared as the masters of the Party, that is, as the active subjects of Party building. Under the highly centralized system within the Party and a series of corresponding systems, it was difficult for Party members, especially ordinary Party members who are not leading cadres, to find and identify their subject status.
In terms of the relationship between the rights and obligations of party members, there has long been a tendency within the party to one-sidedly emphasize the “obligations” of party members and ignore their “due rights”.
And in terms of internal party supervision, it was often one-sidedly emphasized that party members are the objects of supervision, while ignoring that party members are the subjects of internal party supervision. In terms of internal party management, party members were often only regarded as the objects of management, while ignoring the right of party members to participate in party management equally.
In terms of party decision-making, it was often only emphasized that party members must unconditionally implement party decisions, while ignoring the right of party members to participate in party decision-making in a variety of direct or indirect ways.
In terms of party’s ideological construction, party members were often only regarded as the objects of education, lacking sufficient trust and respect for party members’ cognitive and creative abilities, and rarely encouraging party members to think independently.
In terms of party system construction, the formulation of party rules were still limited to the participation of a few people, and the majority of party members often only have the obligation to implement systems and regulations, but lacked effective ways to participate widely, etc. Under such circumstances, for a long time, party construction has, to a certain extent, fallen into the misunderstanding of “organization-based” and “leadership-based” approach, and had gradually drifted away from the fundamental requirements of “party members as the main actors” and “party members’ dominant position” was ignored.
Accompanying the lack of the main actors position of party members and the lack of party members’ main consciousness in party building practice for many years is that “organization-based” approach has occupied a dominant position in party building theoretical research, while the theoretical research on “party members’ main actor” status was absent.
In the past, the party building study system in Party schools and other academic institutions mainly focused on the construction of “organization”, that is, mainly studied the nature, program, line, structure, system, cadres, style, discipline and other contents of the party organization. These studies were of course necessary, but if the research on the main actor position of party members is neglected, it is easy to unilaterally strengthen the organization-based approach that ignores the rights of party members in practice.
● Developing inner-party democracy according to the path of “organization-based” approach was prone to the tendency of only emphasizing the authority of the organization and leads not paying attention to the main position that party members should have.
Inner-party democracy
Inner-party democracy is the life of the party, and developing inner-party democracy is the unswerving direction established by the party. The question is, under this direction, what specific path should be chosen?
From the history and reality of the Communist Party of China, the development of inner-party democracy had been implemented for many years in the “organization-based” (also known as “leadership-based”) approach.
This meant that the focus of developing inner-party democracy is to enhance the democratic quality and style of the party’s leading organs and leading cadres, including focusing on establishing and improving the corresponding democratic system in the party’s leading organs and leading groups at all levels, and emphasized that democracy is “democracy under centralized guidance”.
The value orientation and thinking logic contained in it were: the basic purpose of developing inner-party democracy is to give full play to the enthusiasm of the majority of party members, so who could “give full play” to the enthusiasm of party members?
Only and only the party organization, the party’s leading organs and leading cadres could be relied on. Therefore, by focusing on improving the democracy of the party’s leading organs and leading cadres themselves, and focusing on their democratic quality, democratic style, and democratic system, we could safely rely on them to “give full play” to the enthusiasm of the majority of party members, thereby achieving the purpose of developing inner-party democracy. This was our previous understanding.
Over the years, the construction of inner-party democracy had generally been moving along this trajectory: in terms of ideological construction, leading cadres have been constantly called upon and earnestly advised to let people speak, listen to both sides, correctly treat different opinions and opposing opinions within the party, respect the rights of party members, and be good at concentrating correct opinions, etc..
In terms of organizational and institutional construction, we have always emphasized with a strong voice and never slackened to establish and improve various systems of democratic centralism in the leadership team, including democratic deliberation, democratic voting, democratic supervision, democratic life meeting system, etc..
In terms of party style construction, we have strongly emphasized the construction of democratic style of leading organs and leading cadres, requiring them to play a role model in promoting inner-party democracy, oppose the style of patriarchy, one-man rule, deceiving superiors and concealing the truth from subordinates, oppose the style of covering up the essence of personal arbitrary in the name of collective leadership, and oppose the style of retaliating against party members with different opinions, etc.
These were of course correct and necessary. But there is another side to the problem, that is, in developing inner-party democracy, only the authority of the organization was emphasized, but the dominant position that party members should have was not emphasized.
For party members, we had emphasized that “obligations should be fulfilled” should greatly outweigh members’ “due rights”. In this way, we blindly required party members to obey but rarely respected their will. We have only emphasized that party members should play their roles but not paid attention to their real and comprehensive participation in party life and party management. This “organization-based” path had very prominent limitations in developing inner-party democracy.
“Party members as the main actors” is a new path choice for developing inner-party democracy
.Another path choice of our party in developing inner-party democracy is “party members as the main actors”. This is what the report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002 proposed, that the development of inner-party democracy “should be based on protecting the democratic rights of party members, with the improvement of the party congress system as the focus, starting from the reform mechanism, and establishing and improving the inner-party democratic system that fully reflects the will of party members and party organizations.”
Whether in the basis and focus of developing inner-party democracy, or in the way and goal of establishing the inner-party democratic system, the report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China for the first time highlighted the party members as the main actors. This can be said to be a major reform and breakthrough in the development of inner-party democracy at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. It was an adjustment and reform of the traditional organization-based and leadership-based to the party member-based basic approach on the issue of how to develop inner-party democracy. This was actually a new path choice for developing inner-party democracy, which is an adjustment from the traditional path dependence dominated by “organization-based” to two parallel paths .
The path of “party member-based” approach is more fundamental and more in line with the general laws and fundamental value orientation of democracy.
It can be said that the above two ideas on the path selection of developing inner-party democracy are both reasonable and necessary. The problem is that under the new era conditions of socialist political civilization and the deepening development of inner-party democracy, we cannot pin all our hopes for developing inner-party democracy on this.
Compared with the two paths, the path of “party member-based” is more fundamental and more in line with the general laws and fundamental value orientation of democracy. Although there is still a big gap in the recognition of party member-based and the construction of party member-based mechanism due to the party’s historical old habits, the living environment within the party, the imperfection of the party’s system and the quality of party member-based, it is our main hope for the real development of inner-party democracy.
In accordance with the path of developing inner-party democracy with “Party members as the main actors” as the leading factor, while continuing to attach importance to the democratic construction of leading organs and leading cadres themselves, the focus of developing inner-party democracy should be placed on vigorously enhancing the “Party members’ main actor” consciousness of the whole party. We should truly establish the main actor position of Party members within the Party, and fully guarantee the various rights of the main actor status of Party members. This includes establishing and improving a practical and effective mechanism for protecting the rights of Party members, a system mechanism for Party members to widely participate in the life of the Party, and a system mechanism for Party members to effectively supervise leading organs and leading cadres, including Party leaders, etc. We can say that when the main actor status of Party members is truly established within the Party, we can have sufficient reason to believe that inner-party democracy has reached the level it should be.