与时偕行，必先揣度《揣篇》——读杨明伟《坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂》有感

 

 ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION

《红旗文稿》2026年第16期现已上线：《红旗文稿》2026年第16期。本期要目包括：关于坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂的评论文章；关于新形势下投资工作的认识；关于全面依法治国中三大关系的理解；关于"十五五"规划下加强体育事业发展的论述；以及关于坚持和遵循法治求实效的探讨。以下附中文目录。

笔者关注的是本期首篇文章——杨明伟，《坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂》（《红旗文稿》2026年第16期）。原文及英文翻译附于下文。

鬼谷子有言："古之善用天下者，必量天下之權，而揣諸侯之情。量權不審，不知強弱輕重之稱；揣情不審，不知隱匿變化之動靜。"（鬼谷子《揣篇》）此言于一个致力于复杂工程的先锋集体而言，尤为切要——该工程旨在高效地引领人民、生产力与生活条件沿着发展道路迈向未来理想状态。此项工程不仅要求发展群众，更要求先锋队自身的持续发展，使其始终走在其所引领之发展进程的前面至少一步。

 

Pix credit here (1964, "We Want to Become Red Revolutionary Successors)

 

杨明伟《坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂》

——学术摘要与评论（定稿）

编者注

本文系 Larry Catá Backer（白轲）教授对杨明伟发表于《红旗文稿》2026年第16期的文章《坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂》所作学术摘要、政策提要与批判性评论的中文定稿译本。原文以英语撰写，系从比较宪法学、现象学与符号学的多维视角，运用笔者已发表的理论框架——现代化生活世界论题、矛盾论·群众路线·民主集中制构成的宪法治理循环，以及人民民主专政作为皮尔斯第三性的符号学重构——对该文进行的学术解读。本译文采用学术中文语体，保持政治中立性与学术敏感性，适合政治学、法学及党建研究领域的学术期刊发表。

作者：Larry Catá Backer（白轲），宾夕法尼亚州立大学法学与国际事务教授

 

摘要

本文提供杨明伟《坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂》（发表于《红旗文稿》2026年第16期）的学术英文翻译、分析摘要与批判性评论。摘要与评论运用笔者已发表的理论框架——现代化生活世界（Lebenswelt）论题、矛盾论·群众路线·民主集中制构成的宪法治理循环，以及人民民主专政作为皮尔斯第三性（Peircean thirdness）的符号学重构——将杨文定位于中国马克思列宁主义宪法主义的整体架构之中。分析认定杨文是“中国共产党作为国家顶尖生产力（apex productive force）”这一命题的党内组织表达，阐述了党通过干部塑造机制维持运作递归治理循环之适格性的逻辑。评论追溯了杨文对延安整风模板的隐含依赖、自我革命与社会革命的辩证关系，以及从王阳明经孙中山到毛泽东《实践论》的中国实践谱系。在符号学层面，本文将杨文的结构识别为对《中国共产党章程》总纲的现象学执行——一条顺序区块链，其中每一理论贡献均由累积性链接与可证明的实践效果所验证。评论指出两项缺失：杨文未明确命名三个“主力机制”（矛盾论、群众路线、民主集中制），亦未论及人民民主专政作为循环门控的元机制。本文以宪法理论问题收束：该体制的内部自我纠正机制——自我革命——能否容纳一次“硬分叉”而不导致体制崩溃。

 

政策制定者与一般读者提要

杨明伟的文章发表于中国共产党的主要理论刊物，描述了党如何运用其当前指导思想——习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想——统一干部思想、强化政治承诺并提升实际治理能力。该文将此呈现为三步过程：第一，确保全体干部共享同一意识形态基础（“总开关”）；第二，将共同意识形态转化为政治纪律与斗争准备；第三，将前两者转化为实际执政能力。

本文的分析认定，杨文所表达的是一种更深层的结构逻辑：中国共产党不仅将自身理解为从外部指导现代化的政治组织，更将自身理解为驱动现代化的首要制度力量。党自身治理的质量——其作风、纪律与能力——被视为一种必须持续发展的生产力本身。因此，杨明伟的干部塑造方案不仅仅是意识形态教育，而是党维持其作为本文所称“现代化机器”之功能的内部机制。

对政策制定者而言，关键启示在于：以自由民主的预设（竞争性选举、权力分立、个人权利作为国家权力之限制）来分析这一体制将产生范畴错误（category error）。杨明伟的文章运作于一种自洽的宪法逻辑之内——在这一逻辑中，合法性源于在定向现代化工程中所展现的治理能力，而非选举授权。有效的接触需要首先在其自身条件上理解这一逻辑，然后规范性判断方能有益地加以运用。

 

专家提要

本文的主要贡献有三。第一，将杨明伟的文章识别为笔者此前研究所理论化的宪法治理循环的党内组织层面（O层）：“总开关”映射为矛盾论的O层，“政治坚定”映射为民主集中制的O层，“本领”映射为群众路线的O层。第二，论证杨文的符号学结构复制了《中国共产党章程》总纲的区块链逻辑——一条时序链，其中每一理论贡献（毛泽东思想→邓小平理论→“三个代表”重要思想→科学发展观→习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想）均由累积性顺序链接与可证明的实践效果所验证，而在延安所接受的马克思列宁主义充当创世区块。第三，将杨文置于二十届三中全会与四中全会的制度架构之中，将其解读为“十五五”规划之“时钟周期”（clock cycle）功能的干部塑造前提，以及三中全会通过动词“推进”将改革从属于现代化工程的组织表达。

本文识别出杨文中的两项重大缺失：（1）三个主力机制（矛盾论、群众路线、民主集中制）未被命名为具体运作机制，尽管杨文隐含地依赖了这三者；（2）人民民主专政未被论述为元机制——本文将其理论化为皮尔斯符号学第三性——正是这一机制在循环运作之前将“人民”构建为可治理的范畴。所提出的批判性问题是：自我革命机制能否产生真正的理论创新（区块链中“硬分叉”的能力），抑或该体制以统一为目的的预设排除了这一可能性。

 

分析摘要

杨明伟的文章是笔者在他处所描述的中国共产党通过党内规范体系（而非西方式宪法文本）将马克思列宁主义意识形态宪法化这一工程的典型样本。该文以相当的教义精确性阐述了党的意识形态纪律体制在习近平时代的架构。但仅将其作为教义来阅读会遗漏其实际功能：这是运动中的马克思列宁主义，必须从符号学（semiotics）角度——通过其运动所铭刻的痕迹与结构——以及现象学（phenomenology）角度来理解，将其视为一个前进式的、管理式的意识形态引导、领导与控制过程的文本残余。

第一，该文通过回溯延安整风的基础性模板，将意识形态统一呈现为治理合法性的结构性前提。“总开关”的隐喻并非新教义，而是毛泽东1942年所确立的整风逻辑的重新表述——即意识形态巩固是组织连贯性与革命有效性的前提条件。杨明伟的创新在于将这一遗产同时构建为面向未来的自我革命的基础及其外在表达——社会革命。自我革命与社会革命之间的关系——党通过自我纯洁以转变社会——是整篇文章的核心辩证法，尽管它更多地作为结构性语法而非显性论证来运作。

第二，杨明伟通过一个独特的中国实践（实践）谱系来发展理论正确性与政治可靠性之间的关系。知行合一的概念——起源于王阳明的新儒学哲学，被孙中山作为革命治理原则所吸收，随后融入毛泽东《实践论》作为马克思主义实践的中国化表达——这一概念并非杨明伟论证的辅助性元素，而是其构成性元素。关键在于：杨明伟所描述的并非仅仅是马克思列宁主义在其西方表达中对理论与实践统一的坚持，而是一种特定的中国概念架构，其中知行合一同时作为儒学伦理命令、孙中山的共和革命方法论以及毛泽东的认识论基础运作——这三者叠加并整合于新时代的中国化马克思列宁主义之中。该文将这一层叠谱系提升为一个因果链条：理论清晰（知）产生政治坚定，政治坚定产生正确行动（行），正确行动反馈为理论精进——一个自我强化的循环，杨明伟将其呈现为中国共产党特有的运作逻辑。

第三，该文论及其所称的“本领恐慌”——党对意识形态信念缺乏实际治理能力将导致革命停滞这一问题的制度性认知。在此，中国话语中的实践概念同样具有决定性作用。杨明伟所识别的问题并非韦伯意义上的卡里斯玛常规化，而是特定的马克思列宁主义（且特定为中国的）危险：脱离实践的理论成为经院哲学——毛泽东所称的本本主义——而脱离理论的实践则成为经验主义。杨明伟提出的解决方案不是平衡而是协调：通过学习、应用与整风的持续循环，实现理论武装与实践能力的管理式整合。这是群众路线方法论的新时代表达：从群众中来，到群众中去，经由理论加以提精。

该文的符号学结构本身具有重要意义。以中文原文阅读，它通过一个稠密的四字格网络（凝心铸魂、思想过硬、政治坚定、本领高强）运作，这些表述与其说是命题，不如说是压缩的符号学标记——党的话语交叉引用系统中的节点，通过重复和制度语境而非逻辑阐述来积累意义。这是作为文本实践的列宁主义现象学：意义不是通过论证而是通过教义引用的累积来“执行”的，从而创造出一种意识形态区块链——每个表述由其与先前权威话语的链接所验证，形成一条不可篡改的合法化话语链，其权威源于其不间断的顺序完整性而非对任何单一节点的独立验证。

 

评论

杨明伟的文章要求我们在其自身条件上进行回应——不是作为可以一笔抹杀的宣传，而是作为需要审视的宪法理论，更根本地是作为一个其意义既存在于其符号学操作也存在于其命题内容的执行性文本。通过笔者在中国共产党宪法主义和党的独特规范秩序研究中所发展的理论框架来阅读，可以得出几个关键的批判性观察——但它们必须从该文本身所居的概念宇宙内部开始。

该文的基础性姿态是向后的——指向延安——而这种向后的回溯同时是其对革命未来性的宣称。在笔者关于党的宪法主义的研究中（Party, People, Government and State: On Constitutional Values and the Legitimacy of the Chinese State-Party Rule of Law System《党、人民、政府与国家：论中国党国体制法治的宪法价值与合法性》, 2012; The Constitutional Foundations of the CCP as a Party-State《中国共产党作为党国体制的宪法基础》, 2014），笔者论证了中国共产党作为一个自足的宪法秩序运作，拥有其自身的规范等级、执行机制和合法性主张。杨明伟的文章证实了这一分析，但也深化了它：延安整风不是作为一个历史事件而是作为一个永久模板呈现的——自我革命的结构性语法，必须不断重演。这是新时代列宁主义的独特时间性：过去不是被超越而是作为前进运动的机制被重新激活。毛泽东1942年的整风逻辑是区块链的创世区块；每一次后续的意识形态巩固运动——包括本文所述的教义方案——都构成一个由其与起源的链接所验证的新区块。党的创新理论不仅仅被呈现为智识内容，而是作为宪法性最高法：所有其他党内规范由此获得效力的元规范。“总开关”是维持这条链完整性的机制。

使这一架构具有重要意义的是杨明伟文章将自我革命与社会革命的关系铭刻为公理。党在意识形态上纯洁自身（自我革命）以转变社会（社会革命）；但社会革命同时生成了需要进一步自我革命的条件。这一辩证法——深植于孙中山将革命党既视为社会教育者又视为社会改造者的概念，以及毛泽东通过群众路线对其的改造——是防止体制僵化为纯粹正统的引擎。杨明伟将其呈现为永动机：党的创新理论正是因为必须不断解决其自身实践应用所产生的矛盾而不断演进。自我革命是内燃；社会革命是前进运动；而凝心铸魂是将前者的能量转化为后者定向力量的机制。

该文对实践的处理揭示了其最深层的概念雄心——也是其最重要的智识贡献。“本领恐慌”的概念不仅仅是对官僚能力的制度性焦虑。它是自晚清危机以来一直困扰中国革命思想的问题的新时代表达：如何在革命转型条件下实现知行合一。王阳明的原初表述——真正的知识不可与行动分离——被孙中山所吸收（他将其颠倒为知难行易），随后被毛泽东在《实践论》（1937）中综合为一种以革命实践为基础的马克思主义认识论。杨明伟的文章同时继承了这三个层面：儒学伦理命令、孙中山的革命方法论和毛泽东的辩证认识论——叠加了特定的列宁主义要求，即理论必须指导实践并由实践所验证。

这一层叠的实践谱系是区别杨明伟文章与纯粹列宁主义文本的关键。他所描述的“本领恐慌”不是意识形态与技术官僚技能之间的差距（西方解读可能如此假设），而是特定的中国危险：本本主义——失去与转化性实践联系的理论——及其互补，经验主义——失去理论导向的实践。杨明伟提出的解决方案不是平衡或分离而是协调：新时代列宁主义的标志。这是笔者此前关于双轨治理的研究（Chinese Characteristics in Context: Governance Coherence and Norm Integrity in the Chinese Constitutional Order《中国特色的语境化：中国宪法秩序中的治理连贯性与规范完整性》, 2019）现在必须纳入的关键分析要点。新时代不是通过治理装置与治理理论的分离——允许意识形态正统之下的实用主义异端——来运作，而是通过其逐步协调。杨明伟的文章阐述了一个理论与实践不是通过将一方折叠入另一方而是通过建立持续反馈循环而被带入更紧密对齐的系统：学习——应用——整风——精进的学习。这些循环的管理式协调就是杨明伟所说的凝心铸魂。

该文的现象学维度或许是其最具创新性的元素，也是受过西方分析传统训练的读者最容易遗漏的。杨明伟的文本不仅仅是描述马克思列宁主义；它是在执行运动中的马克思列宁主义。文章的结构——从意识形态基础（第一部分：总开关）到政治激活（第二部分：坚定与斗争）再到实践能力（第三部分：本领）的渐进运动——复制了它所描述的过程本身：构成列宁主义领导的前进式、管理式现象学引导。读者不是被定位为静态教义的观察者，而是被引导经历一个意识形态巩固序列的参与者。这是列宁主义引导（引导）概念作为文本架构的呈现。

从符号学角度阅读，该文稠密的四字格网络（凝心铸魂、思想过硬、政治坚定、本领高强、知行合一）作为某种超越修辞装饰的东西运作。每个表述都是一个压缩的符号学节点，其意义不是源于内部命题逻辑，而是源于其在先前权威话语链中的位置——习近平的讲话、毛泽东的著作、历史决议。任何单一节点的意义都由其与前驱节点的链接所验证；系统通过顺序完整性而非独立验证来积累权威。这实际上是现象学转化为带有对象的区块链：每个教义表述都是一个带时间戳的、经过验证的区块，其合法性取决于连接到创世区块（延安）的不断链条，而其对象——与纯粹自指涉的链不同——是通过革命实践转变物质现实。这个“对象”是防止链条变得纯粹循环或自我验证的关键：它被锚定于对可证明的实践效果的要求，这就是为什么“本领恐慌”不是事后补充而是系统的内置自我纠正机制。

这对宪法理论提出的关键问题不是该体制能否容纳异议，而是其自我纠正机制是否能够满足其自身主张。杨明伟的框架提供了通过实践的纠正——理论经受结果检验并据此精进。但谁来确定什么构成成功的结果？正是阐述理论的同一个中心。杨明伟所描述的反馈循环是封闭的：理论生成实践，实践验证理论，而两者的权威解释都居于同一制度位置。自我革命辩证法意在防止这种封闭产生停滞——通过不断生成要求新理论回应的新矛盾——但这种内部动态能否替代多元主义所提供的外部挑战，仍然是根本性的开放问题。

但这一构架——“封闭循环”的反对意见——本身不够精确。该体制是有意递归的，且拥有精确的结构性路径，使外部信号进入治理循环。这些路径在系统论中被称为系统刺激因素（system irritants）——使被治理环境对治理中心“回话”的结构化渠道。主要机制是群众路线：从群众中来，到群众中去，在中心经由理论提精。但群众路线并非唯一的此类刺激因素。该体制还通过全过程人民民主结构运作——信访制度、全国人大协商渠道、政协结构化反馈机制、干部依据发展成效的考核评价，乃至12345政务服务热线作为毛细级信号收集器。党的先锋队结构必然是递归的（这是列宁主义先锋队理论的结构性意涵），但也在其自身治理宇宙内是系统辩证的——而这一宇宙由被安排于集体组织中的群众构成：各政党、政协、统一战线组织及多层协商体系。

自我革命辩证法意在防止封闭产生停滞——通过不断生成要求新理论回应的新矛盾。但更深层的结构性要点在于：人民民主专政不仅仅作为门控——确定谁参与循环——而且作为人民辩证法的框架性加权（framing weighting）发挥功能。它不仅确定谁参与，还确定各集体声音以何种相对权重进入反馈渠道。群众发言，但他们通过制度化结构渠道发言，这些渠道对不同集体构成赋予差异化权重。这不是体制的缺陷；这是其宪法架构。

因此，问题不在于该体制是否具有刺激因素——它确实具有，是出于有意的结构设计。问题在于这些刺激因素是否具有足够的独立性和力量，能够在中心的理论框架遭遇其现有参数无法解决的矛盾时迫使真正的重新校准。该体制确实拥有处理根本性挑战的机制：矛盾论可以重新表述主要矛盾；群众路线可以从被治理者向治理者传回不稳定信号；自我革命可以清除已丧失与实践联系的僵化制度安排。该体制不能容纳的——构成真正硬分叉的——是拒绝人民民主专政之框架性加权本身的挑战：一种要求在不同条件下重新构建被治理宇宙的诉求，或者要求声音以现有宪法架构未赋予的权重进入反馈循环的诉求。

凝心铸魂预设了统一为目的——但这是在人民民主专政所构建的人民被治理宇宙之内的统一。这一预设究竟是体制的最大优势还是其终极脆弱性，取决于递归路径——群众路线、全过程人民民主、结构化协商、干部问责机制——能否产生足够的刺激力量以促成真正的理论创新，抑或框架性加权逐步收窄可被听到的声音范围，直至反馈渠道仅承载中心已准备好处理的信号。答案，笔者猜想，不在杨明伟的文本中而在他所描述的体制的实践结果中——而这恰恰是一种实践理论所要求的。

To be in Accord With the Times One Must Probe《揣篇 》--Reflections on 坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂 /杨明伟 [Yang Mingwei, Persisting in Using the Party's Innovative Theory to Forge Unity of Mind and Soul ]

 

Pix credit here (1964, "We Want to Become Red Revolutionary Successors)

中文版本

The latest edition of Red Flag Journal, now online: 《红旗文稿》2026年第16期 , hghlights op-eds on upholding the Party's innovative theories; understand investment work under the new circumstances;understanding of the three major relationships in comprehensively governing China according to the rule of law; strengthening sports development under the 15th Five-Year Plan; and seeking practical results by upholding and adhering to the rule of law. The table of contents (Chinese language) follows below.

I am interested in the initial article Yang Mingwei, Persisting in Using the Party's Innovative Theory to Forge Unity of Mind and Soul [坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂 /杨明伟] (Red Flag Manuscript (红旗文稿) 2026/16). The original Chinese and an English translation of the essay follow below. 

Guiguzi reminds us that "古之善用天下者，必量天下之權，而揣諸侯之情。量權不審，不知強弱輕重之稱；揣情不審，不知隱匿變化之動靜。" [ Those who were good at governing the world in ancient times necessarily measured the power of the world and probed the sentiments of the feudal lords. If one does not carefully measure power, one cannot know the balance between strength and weakness, or lightness and weight; If one does not thoroughly probe sentiments, one cannot discern the stillness and movement of hidden and changing intentions. ] (Guiguzi 《揣篇 》[Probing)]. That is particularly true of a vanguard collective  dedicated to a complicated project of efficiently bringing people, production, and conditions of life along a developmental path toward a future idealized state. That project requires not merely developing the masses, but also developing the vanguard itself so that it is always at least one step ahead of the development to which it is dedicated.

Yang Mingwei's essay represents a paradigmatic specimen of what I have elsewhere described as the CCP's project of constitutionalizing Marxist-Leninist ideology through inner-Party normative systems rather than through Western-style constitutional texts. The article articulates—with considerable doctrinal precision—the architecture of the Party's ideological discipline regime as it has evolved under Xi Jinping. But to read it only as doctrine is to miss what it actually does: this is Marxism-Leninism in motion, and it must be understood semiotically—through the traces and structures its movement inscribes—and phenomenologically, as the textual residue of a forward-progressing process of managed ideological guidance, leadership, and control. Equally, to read it in isolation from the institutional architecture within which it operates—the governing loop of contradiction theory, the mass line, and democratic centralism, gated by people's democratic dictatorship—is to mistake a component for the machine.

First, the essay presents ideological unity as a structural prerequisite of governance legitimacy by reaching backward to the foundational template of Yan'an Rectification (延安整风). The metaphor of the "master switch" (总开关) is not new doctrine; it is the re-articulation of the rectification logic that Mao established in 1942—the proposition that ideological consolidation is the precondition for organizational coherence and revolutionary effectiveness. Yang's innovation is to frame this inheritance as simultaneously the basis for self-revolution (自我革命) looking forward and social revolution (社会革命) as its external expression. The relationship between self-revolution and social revolution—the Party purifying itself in order to transform society—is the animating dialectic of the entire essay, though it operates more as structural grammar than as explicit argument. What the essay implicitly but unmistakably conveys is the formula I have identified elsewhere: 中国式现代化 (Chinese-style modernization) + 党的领导 (the leadership of the Party) + 自我革命 (self-revolution) + 社会革命 (social revolution) = modernization driven through high-quality innovation in all spheres of collective activity (Backer, "Modernization as Lebenswelt," 2026). The 凝心铸魂 project is, in this light, the internal-organizational mechanism that keeps the Party fit to perform its role as the apex productive force of the nation—the collective vanguard whose governing capacity is itself the precondition for the modernizing project to advance.

Second, Yang develops the relationship between theoretical correctness and political reliability by drawing on a distinctly Chinese genealogy of praxis (实践). The concept of the unity of knowledge and action (知行合一)—originating in Wang Yangming's Neo-Confucian philosophy, appropriated by Sun Yat-sen as a principle of revolutionary governance, and subsequently absorbed into Mao's "On Practice" as the Sinified expression of Marxist praxis—is not ancillary to Yang's argument but constitutive of it. This is the crucial point: what Yang describes is not merely Marxist-Leninist insistence on the unity of theory and practice in its Western articulation, but a specifically Chinese conceptual architecture in which 知行合一 operates simultaneously as Confucian ethical imperative, Sun Yat-sen's republican-revolutionary methodology, and Mao's epistemological foundation—all overlaid and integrated within the New Era's Sinicized Marxism-Leninism. The essay elevates this layered genealogy into a causal chain: theoretical clarity (知) produces political firmness, which produces correct action (行), which feeds back into theoretical refinement—a self-reinforcing loop that Yang presents as the distinctive operational logic of the CCP.

Third, the essay addresses what it terms "competency panic" (本领恐慌)—the Party's institutional awareness that ideological conviction without practical governing capability produces revolutionary stagnation. Here again, the concept of praxis in its Chinese articulation is determinative. The problem Yang identifies is not the routinization of charisma in the Weberian sense, but the specifically Marxist-Leninist (and specifically Chinese) danger that theory detached from practice becomes scholasticism—what Mao called 本本主义 (book worship)—while practice detached from theory becomes empiricism (经验主义). The resolution Yang proposes is not balance but coordination: the managed integration of theoretical armament and practical capability through continuous cycles of study, application, and rectification. This is the New Era expression of the mass line methodology: from the masses, to the masses, refined through theory.

Fourth—and this is what the essay implies but curiously does not explicitly develop—the three-part structure maps onto the three great workhorses of the CCP's constitutional governing apparatus: contradiction theory (矛盾论), the mass line (群众路线), and democratic centralism (民主集中制). As I have argued in "From the Masses, to the Masses" (2026), these three are not discrete institutional tools but a single recursive governing loop: contradiction theory supplies the ontological diagnosis of social conditions; the mass line supplies the epistemological method for gathering that diagnosis from below; and democratic centralism supplies the organizational mechanism that concentrates those inputs into binding action. Yang's Part I (the "master switch") is the internal-organizational moment at which the cadre's consciousness is aligned with the Party's diagnostic capacity—the Party-internal strand of contradiction theory. Part II (political firmness and struggle) is the moment at which aligned consciousness becomes the condition for democratic centralism's concentration function—ensuring that the Party marches in step. Part III (competency) is the moment at which the mass line's requirement of practical adequacy is met—the Party's capacity to hear, process, and respond to the signals the masses return. The essay describes the internal face of the governing loop: how the loop's operators—cadres—are kept fit to operate it.

The essay's semiotic structure is itself significant. Read in the original Chinese, it operates through a dense network of four-character formulations (凝心铸魂, 思想过硬, 政治坚定, 本领高强 [Forge a united will and strengthen the soul; possess rock-solid ideological grounding, firm political conviction, and exceptional competence]) that function less as propositions than as compressed semiotic markers—nodes in a system of cross-referencing Party discourse that accumulates meaning through repetition and institutional context rather than through logical exposition. This is Leninist phenomenology rendered as textual practice: meaning is not argued but performed through the accretion of doctrinal reference, creating what amounts to an ideological blockchain—each formulation validated by its linkage to prior authoritative utterances, forming an immutable chain of legitimated discourse whose authority derives from its unbroken sequential integrity rather than from independent verification of any single node.

 

Pix credit here (1954)

Maintain a modest attitude, develop the spirit of criticism and self-criticism []

保持谦逊态度发扬批评自我批评精神

Yang Mingwei's essay demands engagement on its own terms—not as propaganda to be dismissed, but as constitutional theory to be interrogated, and more fundamentally as a performative text whose meaning inheres as much in its semiotic operations as in its propositional content. Reading it through the theoretical frameworks I have developed in my work on Chinese Communist Party constitutionalism and the Party's distinctive normative order, several critical observations emerge—but they must begin from within the conceptual universe the essay itself inhabits.

The essay's foundational gesture is backward—to Yan'an—and this backward reach is simultaneously its claim to revolutionary futurity. In my work on Party constitutionalism (Backer, 2012; Backer, 2014), I have argued that the CCP operates as a constitutional order unto itself, with its own normative hierarchy, enforcement mechanisms, and legitimacy claims. Yang's essay confirms this analysis but also deepens it: the Yan'an Rectification is presented not as a historical episode but as a permanent template—the structural grammar of self-revolution (自我革命) that must be continuously re-enacted. This is the distinctive temporality of New Era Leninism: the past is not superseded but re-activated as the mechanism of forward motion. Mao's 1942 rectification logic is the blockchain's genesis block; each subsequent campaign of ideological consolidation—including the present essay's doctrinal program—constitutes a new block validated by its linkage to this origin. The Party's innovative theory is presented not merely as intellectual content but as constitutional supreme law: the meta-norm from which all other Party norms derive validity. The "master switch" is the mechanism by which this chain maintains its integrity.

What makes this architecturally significant is the relationship between self-revolution and social revolution that Yang's essay inscribes as axiomatic. The Party purifies itself ideologically (self-revolution) in order to transform society (social revolution); but social revolution simultaneously generates the conditions requiring further self-revolution. This dialectic—which has deep roots in Sun Yat-sen's conception of the revolutionary party as both educator and transformer of society, and which Mao adapted through the mass line—is the engine that prevents the system from ossifying into mere orthodoxy. Yang presents it as perpetual motion: the Party's innovative theory evolves precisely because it must continuously resolve the contradictions generated by its own practical application. Self-revolution is the internal combustion; social revolution is the forward motion; and 凝心铸魂 (forging unity of mind and soul) is the mechanism that converts the energy of one into the directed force of the other.

What Yang's essay articulates—though without naming it—is one of the great underlying themes of the 3rd and 4th Plenums of the 20th Central Committee: the Communist Party as the apex productive force of the nation. In my analysis of the 3rd Plenum Decision ("Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization"), I identified a crucial structural relationship: reform is not positioned as an autonomous goal but is explicitly subordinated to the modernizing project—the verb 推进 (propel, advance) denotes instrumental subordination (Backer, "Modernization as Lebenswelt," 2026, Section VIII). The Party does not merely direct modernization from outside; it is itself the institutional apparatus through which modernization is driven—what I have described as the Leninist vanguard displacing the bourgeoisie as the agent of modernization, thereby reconceiving modernization itself from an organic process of social evolution into a directed project planned, organized, and implemented by a centralized authority. The party-state becomes "a modernization machine—an institutional apparatus specifically designed to mobilize social resources, coordinate collective action, and drive the development of productive forces at a pace and in a direction that exceeds what any spontaneous process of social evolution could achieve" (Backer, "Modernization as Lebenswelt," 2026, Section II.B).

Yang's essay is the internal-organizational expression of this thesis. If the Party is the apex productive force, then the quality of Party governance—visible through working style, institutional operation, and cadre competence—is itself a productive force that must be continuously developed. 凝心铸魂 is not merely ideological maintenance; it is high-quality production applied to the Party's own governing apparatus. This is why the 4th Plenum's adoption of the 15th Five-Year Plan Recommendations—what I have described as the "clock cycle" of the modernizing Lebenswelt, the mechanism that periodizes the project and translates abstract commitments into time-bound targets (Backer, "Modernization as Lebenswelt," 2026, Section VIII.C)—necessarily presupposes the cadre-formation project Yang describes. The Five-Year Plan can function as planning technology only if the cadres who implement it possess the theoretical and practical capabilities that Part III of Yang's essay demands. The Party leads by example: its own self-revolution is the template for the social revolution it leads, and its own high-quality institutional operation is the demonstration of the modernization it demands of society.

The essay's most significant gap is its failure to name the three great workhorses through which the Party's quality-production self-revolution and social revolution are actually operationalized: contradiction theory (矛盾论), the mass line (群众路线), and democratic centralism (民主集中制). In my work on the governing loop (Backer, "From the Masses, to the Masses," 2026), I have argued that these three are not discrete institutional tools but a single recursive system: contradiction theory supplies the ontological diagnosis of social conditions; the mass line supplies the epistemological method for gathering that diagnosis from below; and democratic centralism supplies the organizational mechanism that concentrates those inputs into binding action. The dual revolutions—self-revolution and social revolution—extend this triad by keeping the apparatus fit to keep running.

Yang's essay operates within this loop but describes only its internal-organizational strand (the O-strand in my four-strand matrix: normative, state-constitutional, Party-line, and Party-internal-organizational). The "master switch" is the O-strand of contradiction theory—the Party diagnosing its own internal condition. "Political firmness" is the O-strand of democratic centralism—ensuring the chain of subordination (individual to organization, minority to majority, lower level to higher level, entire membership to the Central Committee) functions as what I have called "continuous edge-reweighting" within the modernizing relational field. And "competency" is the O-strand of the mass line—the Party's capacity to hear, process, and return signals to the masses. The essay describes how the loop's operators are kept fit; it does not describe the loop itself.

This gap extends to the overarching framework within which the entire governing loop operates: people's democratic dictatorship (人民民主专政). In my reconstruction (Backer, "From the Masses, to the Masses," 2026, Section VIII), people's democratic dictatorship functions as the meta-mechanism—a Peircean semiotic thirdness—that constitutes the categories of "the people" and "the enemy" before the loop can operate on either. It is the law-like interpretive third that performs the prior classification determining whose developmental needs, whose grievances, and whose compliance the rest of the apparatus is meant to process. Without this prior sorting operation, the mass line has no defined population to probe, contradiction theory has no defined field to diagnose, and democratic centralism has no defined membership to concentrate. Yang's essay presupposes people's democratic dictatorship without naming it—its entire argument about "the people's position as the value source" (人民立场) depends on a prior determination of who constitutes "the people," but that determination is treated as given rather than as itself a constitutional operation requiring continuous reproduction.

The essay's treatment of praxis reveals its deepest conceptual ambition—and its most significant intellectual contribution. The concept of "competency panic" (本领恐慌) is not merely an institutional anxiety about bureaucratic capacity. It is the New Era articulation of a problem that has occupied Chinese revolutionary thought since the late imperial crisis: how to unify knowledge and action (知行合一) in conditions of revolutionary transformation. Wang Yangming's original formulation—that true knowledge is inseparable from action—was appropriated by Sun Yat-sen (who reversed it: 知难行易, knowledge is difficult but action is easy) and subsequently by Mao, who in "On Practice" (1937) synthesized both into a Marxist epistemology grounded in revolutionary praxis. Yang Mingwei's essay inherits all three layers simultaneously: the Confucian ethical imperative, Sun's revolutionary methodology, and Mao's dialectical epistemology—overlaid with the specifically Leninist demand that theory must guide and be validated by practice.

This layered genealogy of praxis is what distinguishes Yang's essay from a merely Leninist text. The "competency panic" he describes is not the gap between ideology and technocratic skill (as a Western reading might suppose), but the specifically Chinese danger of 本本主义 (book worship)—theory that has lost its connection to transformative practice—and its complement, 经验主义 (empiricism)—practice that has lost its theoretical orientation. The resolution Yang proposes is not balance or separation but coordination: the hallmark of New Era Leninism. This is the crucial analytical point that my earlier work on dual-track governance (Backer, 2019) must now accommodate. The New Era does not operate through the separation of governance apparatus from governance theory—permitting pragmatic heterodoxy beneath ideological orthodoxy—but through their progressive coordination. Yang's essay articulates a system in which theory and practice are brought into ever-closer alignment not by collapsing one into the other but by establishing continuous feedback loops: study—application—rectification—refined study. The managed coordination of these cycles is what Yang means by 凝心铸魂. And this coordination operates through the animating dialectical force of contradiction—within the Party (non-antagonistic contradictions among the people, as Mao's 1957 essay classified internal Party disagreement), through the mass line (even inside the Party, through democratic life meetings, criticism and self-criticism, and grassroots party-branch reporting), and through democratic centralism (the organizational guarantee that a recalibrated priority propagates as binding practice).

The phenomenological dimension of the essay is perhaps its most innovative element, and the one most easily missed by readers trained in Western analytical traditions. Yang's text does not merely describe Marxism-Leninism; it performs Marxism-Leninism in motion. The essay's structure—its progressive movement from ideological foundation (Part I: the master switch) through political activation (Part II: firmness and struggle) to practical capability (Part III: competency)—replicates the very process it describes: the forward-progressing, managed phenomenological guidance that constitutes Leninist leadership. The reader is not positioned as an observer of a static doctrine but as a participant being led through a sequence of ideological consolidation. This is the Leninist concept of 引导 (guidance) rendered as textual architecture.

Read semiotically, the essay's dense network of four-character formulations (凝心铸魂, 思想过硬, 政治坚定, 本领高强, 知行合一) operates as something more than rhetorical ornamentation. Each formulation is a compressed semiotic node that derives its meaning not from internal propositional logic but from its position within a chain of prior authoritative utterances—Xi's speeches, Mao's writings, the historical resolutions. The meaning of any single node is validated by its linkage to preceding nodes; the system accumulates authority through sequential integrity rather than through independent verification.

What this describes is, in fact, the structural logic of the CPC Constitution's General Program itself—the sequential blockchain that is the fundamental opening element of the Party's constitutive document. The General Program proceeds as a temporal chain of validated blocks: Marxism-Leninism as genesis block ("reveals the laws governing the development of the history of human society"); then "With Comrade Mao Zedong as their chief representative, Chinese Communists developed Mao Zedong Thought by combining the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism with the actual practice of the Chinese revolution"—a second block validated by its linkage to the first and to demonstrated revolutionary practice (the founding of the People's Republic); then "After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee," Deng Xiaoping Theory as a third block—"the product of combining Marxism-Leninism's basic tenets with practice in contemporary China," validated as "a continuation and development of Mao Zedong Thought under new historical conditions"; then the Theory of Three Represents as "a continuation and development of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping Theory"; then the Scientific Outlook on Development as "a scientific theory that continues in congruence with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and the Theory of Three Represents"; and finally Xi Jinping Thought as "a continuation and development of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, and the Scientific Outlook on Development"—each new block explicitly validated by its cumulative linkage to every preceding block in the chain (CPC Constitution, General Program, as amended 2022).

The chain's validation mechanism is dual: each block claims both sequential integrity ("continuation and development") and demonstrated practical results (the founding of the PRC, the establishment of the basic socialist system, reform and opening, the new era). The General Program does not merely list these theoretical contributions; it sequences them as a temporal progression in which each stage resolves contradictions generated by the preceding stage and is itself validated by the historical achievements it produced. Yang Mingwei's essay operates within and reproduces this same blockchain logic: the essay's own sequential citations—from Mao through Deng to Xi—replicate the General Program's chain of legitimation. Every four-character formulation Yang deploys is a compressed pointer back to a validated block in this constitutional sequence.

This is, in effect, phenomenology transformed into blockchain with an object: each doctrinal formulation is a timestamped, validated block whose legitimacy depends on the unbroken chain connecting it to the genesis block (Marxism-Leninism, as received and Sinicized at Yan'an), and whose object—unlike a purely self-referential chain—is the transformation of material reality through revolutionary practice. The "object" is what prevents the chain from becoming merely circular or self-validating: it is anchored to the demand for demonstrated practical results (实践效果)—the founding of the PRC, socialist construction, reform and opening, the new era's achievements—which is why "competency panic" is not an afterthought but the system's built-in self-correction mechanism. The General Program's blockchain structure is the constitutional architecture; Yang's essay is its phenomenological performance in the domain of cadre formation.

The critical question this raises for constitutional theory is not whether the system can accommodate dissent—it is how the system's deliberately recursive structure incorporates challenge through precise structural pathways. Yang's framework is not a closed loop in the sense that liberal critique might suppose—a hermetic circle in which the center validates itself without irritants. The system is deliberately recursive, but with quite precise structural pathways through which external signals re-enter and destabilize complacency. Those pathways—the system irritants, in the language of systems theory—are integral to the basic mechanisms discussed above: principally the mass line, but also the structures and operations of whole-process people's democracy (全过程人民民主) as I have reconstructed them (Backer, "Whole Process People's Democracy," 2026). The petition system, the National People's Congress consultation channels, the CPPCC's structured feedback, cadre evaluation against developmental results, and the 12345 government hotline are not decorative; they are the institutionalized return through which the masses' signals re-enter the loop and force recalibration. Theory generates practice; practice returns a changed field; and the mass line's institutional channels ensure that the changed field is heard—not merely as confirmation but as potential challenge requiring new theoretical response.

It is in this sense that the Party's leadership and guidance structures are necessarily recursive—the essence of Leninist notions of vanguardism—but also quite systemically dialectical within their own governance universe. That universe is the universe of the masses arranged within collective bodies: the political parties, the CPPCC, the united front organizations, and the multi-layered system of consultation that I described in my work on Whole Process People's Democracy as the institutional mechanism through which each consultation cycle manifests, legitimates, and reaffirms the constitutional order. At the highest level, this universe is distinguished between patriots and others through people's democratic dictatorship—functioning not merely as a gate (who is in, who is out) but as the framing weighting of popular dialectics: it determines not only who participates but with what relative weight different collective voices enter the mass line's feedback channels. The question is therefore not whether the system has irritants—it does, by structural design—but whether those irritants have sufficient independence and force to compel genuine recalibration rather than merely confirming the center's prior categories.

This reframes the "hard fork" question. A hard fork—a fundamental disagreement about the validity of the chain itself—is not something the system lacks mechanisms to process. It processes such challenges through contradiction theory (which can reformulate the principal contradiction), through the mass line (which can return signals that destabilize an existing diagnosis), and through self-revolution (which can purge institutional arrangements that have hardened into obstacles). What the system cannot accommodate, by its own structural logic, is a challenge that refuses the framing weighting of people's democratic dictatorship itself—that refuses, in other words, to enter the dialectic on the terms the meta-mechanism has established. Yang's essay presupposes this framing as given. The very concept of 凝心铸魂 (forging unity of mind and soul) presupposes that unity is the telos and fragmentation is pathology—but this is unity within the governed universe of the people as constituted by people's democratic dictatorship. Whether this presupposition is the system's greatest strength or its structural limitation depends on whether the recursive pathways—mass line, whole-process democracy, self-revolution—can generate sufficient irritant force to compel genuine theoretical innovation, or whether the framing weighting progressively narrows what can be heard. The answer, I suspect, lies not in Yang's text but in the practical outcomes of the system he describes—which is, after all, precisely what a theory of praxis would demand.

Pix credit here (1995, Zhang side)

 Download the essay Here.

"I'm Going Home"-- RIP Tim Curry

Video and lyric here

[FRANK N' FURTER]
On the day I went away (goodbye)
Was all I had to say (now I)
I want to come again and stay (oh my, my)
Smile, and that will mean I may

'Cause I've seen, oh, blue skies
Through the tears in my eyes
And I realise
I'm going home
(I'm going home)

Everywhere it's been the same (feeling)
Like I'm outside in the rain (wheeling)
Free, to try and find a game (dealing)
Cards for sorrow, cards for pain

'Cause I've seen, oh, blue skies
Through the tears in my eyes
And I realise
I'm going home

I'm going home (I'm going home)
I'm going home (I'm going home)
I'm going home (I'm going home)

 

Tim Curry, who soared to fame in the ‘70s as the flamboyant star of the campy horror movie stage spoof “The Rocky Horror Show” and its screen version  (Variety). “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 80.“I’m Going Home” is a song sung by Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry). In the song Frank explains his actions and laments how misunderstood he is to Riff-Raff and Magenta. He tries to win them over by singing about how he wishes to return to and stay on his home planet of Transsexual forever. HERE

 

 

RIP Dolly Parton (1946-2026)

 

Pix credit here (1946-2026)

 “Òkú ń sunkún òkú; akáwọ́lérí ń sunkún ara wọn.” [The dead mourn the dead; those wailing with hands /shrouds on their heads mourn themselves.]

 "Little Bird"

album: "In The Good Old Days" (1969) 

Beauty is a rare perfume
Precious, yet doesn't last long
Youth is but a playful breeze
That blows our way once then moves on
Love is a hidden treasure
Some never find where it lies
And memory is a little bird
Flies through life, live or dies

Little bird
Take me aboard your beautiful wings and let me fly
Fly me away back to yesterday
And drop me off there awhile

Let me smell the rare perfume of the sweet flower of beauty again
Let me run in the playful breeze of youth long gone with the wind
Let me sit for awhile by the place where I found the treasure of love
Then sing me a song as you fly me along on our long last journey above

CfP Transformative Global Constitutionalism

 

Pix credit here

 Happy to pass this along: Eklavya Vasudev and Gemma Lligadas Gonzalez, are launching a call for abstracts on Transformative Global Constitutionalism. Here is the information they have shared:

At a time of profound international upheaval, identifying new sources of structural resilience for human rights has become increasingly urgent. One such source may lie in the multilayered character of contemporary legal systems, and in the capacity of legal actors—particularly courts and judicial actors—to drive, mediate, and sustain transformative change across domestic, regional, and international levels.

Against this backdrop, we ask what emerges when global constitutionalism’s concern with constitutional ordering beyond the state is brought into conversation with transformative constitutionalism’s emphasis on law as an instrument of social and political change. We invite theoretical and empirical contributions exploring this intersection and its potential for rethinking how human rights can be protected and transformed across different layers of the global legal order.

Selected contributors will be invited to participate in two workshops, first online and subsequently in person, with a selection of contributions then forming the basis of a special issue proposal to Global Constitutionalism.

📅 Abstract deadline: Monday, 7 September 2026
📝 Abstract: max. 400 words
👤 Short bio: max. 200 words

Please see the full Call for Abstracts below for further details.
Feel free share the call with colleagues and networks who may be interested!

 

Just Published: "Compliance as Governance: " [Cumplimiento como Gobernanza: Cognición Organizacional, Riesgo y la Transformación de la Toma de Decisiones Institucional; 合规即治理：组织认知、风险与制度决策的转型]— Larry Catá Backer in Revista Doctrina Distrital (bogotá) Vol. 6 Núm. 2 (2026)

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With great thanks to the brilliant Juan Pablo Sarmiento Erazo (University of La Sabana), and the marvelous editorial staff of Revista Doctrina Distrital, the official academic journal of the District Legal Secretariat (Secretaría Jurídica Distrital) of the Mayor's Office of Bogotá, Colombia (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá) I am delighted to announce the publication of  Cumplimiento como Gobernanza: Cognición Organizacional, Riesgo y la Transformación de la Toma de Decisiones Institucional: Entrevista a Larry Catá Backer; Compliance as Governance: Organizational Cognition, Risk, and the Transformation of Institutional Decision-Making, Revista Doctrina Distrital (bogotá) Vol. 6 Núm. 2 (2026).

What happens when compliance stops being a checklist and starts becoming the way an organization actually thinks?  That is the question that I explore with Professor Sarmiento Erazo across seven dimensions of modern governance—from anti-corruption and public procurement to artificial intelligence, ESG, and reputational due diligence. The conversation introduces the concept of "governance grammars": the idea that compliance, risk management, ESG, human rights due diligence, and RegTech are not competing bureaucratic functions but distinct languages through which organizations interpret the same complex reality. The challenge, Backer argues, is translation among them.

 

Among the key points of discussion: (1) Internalized compliance is visible when it shapes decisions before problems arise—not after regulators ask questions; (2) In public procurement, risk-based models can replace blanket procedural scrutiny with targeted, auditable attention; (3) AI and RegTech shift risk from a discrete event to a continuously evolving system property—demanding a temporal dimension in how organizations define risk appetite; (4) Due diligence that remains purely internal manages risk; due diligence made externally verifiable builds trust capital.

The full interview is available open-access at Revista Doctrina Distrital (Bogotá, Colombia) under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Here is the abstract in English and Spanish: 

creación elaborado por Gok

A través de la reflexión sobre la internalización de la cultura de cumplimiento, la gestión del riesgo en el sector público, la eficiencia operacional, la inteligencia artificial y la tecnología regulatoria (RegTech), la convergencia entre el cumplimiento y los criterios ESG, la integración de sistemas de gestión fragmentados y las dimensiones reputacionales de la debida diligencia, este análisis despliega el concepto de gramáticas de gobernanza: aquellos vocabularios interconectados pero diferenciados —cumplimiento, riesgo, ESG, debida diligencia en derechos humanos, RegTech— mediante los cuales las instituciones observan, interpretan y actúan sobre entornos normativos superpuestos y con frecuencia contradictorios. Sustentado en la teoría de sistemas, la semiótica jurídica y la práctica investigativa sobre gobernanza transnacional, el trabajo sostiene que el rasgo distintivo de un cumplimiento maduro no estriba en la densidad de las reglas ni en la sofisticación técnica del monitoreo, sino en la capacidad institucional para traducir la información en decisiones responsables a través de fronteras organizativas y computacionales. Se presta especial atención a la transformación introducida por la inteligencia artificial y la gobernanza guiada por datos, la cual desplaza el riesgo de ser una categoría discreta y transaccional para convertirlo en una propiedad emergente y en continua evolución de los sistemas organizacionales, exigiendo repensar de modo correlativo la apetencia al riesgo, el juicio institucional y la rendición de cuentas a medida que la gobernanza misma se torna crecientemente computacional.

These responses to seven questions posed by the editors of the Revista Doctrina Distrital (Journal of the District Legal Se-cretariat of the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá, Colombia) examines compliance not as a static regulatory obligation but as an evolving architecture of organizational cognition, communication, and decision-making. Addressing seven questions concerning the internalization of compliance culture, public-sector risk management, operational efficiency, artificial intelligence and RegTech, the convergence of compliance with ESG, the integration of fragmented management systems, and the reputational dimensions of due diligence, the discussion develops the concept of governance grammars: the interconnected but distinct vocabularies—compliance, risk, ESG, human rights due diligence, RegTech—through which organizations observe, interpret, and act upon overlapping and often conflicting normative environments. Drawing on systems theory, legal semiotics, and the practical experience of transnational governance scholarship, the chapter argues that the decisive marker of mature compliance is neither the density of rules nor the sophistication of monitoring technology, but the institutional capacity to translate information into responsible decisions across organizational and computational boundaries. Particular attention is given to the transformation introduced by artificial intelligence and data-driven governance, which shifts risk from a discrete, transactional category to an emergent, continuously evolving property of organizational systems, and to the corresponding need to rethink risk appetite, institutional judgment, and accountability as governance itself becomes increasingly computational.

 这些针对《Distrito Doctrina Revista》（《地区法学评论》，哥伦比亚波哥大市市长办公室法律秘书处主办）编辑所提出的七个问题所作的回应，所考察的并非作为一种静态监管义务的合规，而是作为组织认知、沟通与决策不断演进的架构。围绕合规文化的内化、公共部门风险管理、运营效率、人工智能与监管科技（RegTech）、合规与ESG的趋同、碎片化管理体系的整合，以及尽职调查的声誉维度等七个问题，本文进一步提出“治理语法”（governance grammars）这一概念：即一组彼此关联但各自有别的词汇体系——合规、风险、ESG、人权尽职调查以及监管科技（RegTech）——组织正是通过这些词汇体系，对相互重叠且往往彼此冲突的规范环境进行观察、解释并采取行动。本文借鉴系统理论、法律符号学以及跨国治理研究的实践经验，主张，成熟合规的决定性标志既不在于规则的密集程度，也不在于监测技术的复杂程度，而在于一种制度性能力，即能够跨越组织边界与计算边界，将信息转化为负责任的决策。本文尤其关注人工智能与数据驱动治理所带来的转变：风险由一种离散的、交易性的范畴，转变为组织系统中一种涌现的、持续演化的属性。与此相应，当治理本身日益呈现计算化特征时，我们有必要重新思考风险偏好、制度判断以及问责机制。

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 English and Español versions HERE. 中文版本如下. Links to the articles in the entire issue also follow.

 

以下为您提供符合中国大陆学术规范（华东/沪派学术风格，严谨、典雅且注重现象学与马列术语精准度）的中文学术翻译： 讨论稿新发布：“从群众中来，到群众中去”：矛盾、群众路线与民主集中制作为宪法性治理循环——人民民主专政作为其守门人：中国马克思列宁主义政治理论与其宪制试论

 

Pix credit here

 

ENGLISH VERSION HERE 

笔者近期致力于符号学、现象学、中国传统思想以及深化理解政治意识形态体系的形态、本质、运行机制及其“认知笼屉”（cognitive cages）的研究。参见，例如：（1）《现代化作为中国宪政的生活世界》；（2）《法权运动中：白轲（Larry Catá Backer）的“现代化与中国宪制的生活世界”——通过童之伟的法权主义加以阅读》；（3）《作为生产力与意识形态机制的教育：中国现代化驱动型知识体系的辩证分析》；以及（4）《对张冠梓〈从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值〉的思考——论列宁主义的马克思主义变奏与现代化的构成/实现》。

这些研究促使笔者尝试从系统内部思考其运行机制，即将各个运行子系统视为重要的概念与操作预期集群，它们发展出自身的内部记号化过程（internal signification），并产生多层的辩证关系；系统借此获得或展现其“工作作风”，并巩固其核心驱动前提。为此，笔者重点关注群众路线、民主集中制、矛盾分析原则/学说，以及人民民主专政作为当代中国马克思列宁主义建构内部核心子系统的性质与相互关系——这一建构既在政治组织中显现，亦在其行政机制的宪制结构中得以表达。

中国的治理体系构建于一系列互锁的原则之上：矛盾论（诊断每个发展阶段的问题所在）、群众路线（从民众中收集信息与诉求）、民主集中制（将分散的输入集中为统一的政策），以及人民民主专政（确定谁属于有权参与的“人民”，谁不属于）。本文认为，这些要素并非孤立的行政工具，而是单一递归循环的组成部分——一个不断进行诊断、收集、集中、决策，进而返回检验其决策是否仍契合底层实际状况的系统。本文表明，唯有在中国共产党所界定的“现代化”框架内，这一循环才具有可理解性：现代化是一个历史性演进的项目，它设定了社会问题被识别以及政策回应被考量的方向、优先事项与衡量标准。

这一思考的成果即为此篇题为《“从群众中来，到群众中去”：矛盾、群众路线与民主集中制作为宪法性治理循环——人民民主专政作为其守门人：中国马克思列宁主义政治理论与其宪制试论》的讨论稿。摘要概括了本文的要旨：

摘要 本文引入李泽厚的“积淀”概念，阐明现代化范畴如何沿着社会主义道路获得深度、空间性与方向性运动；同时借用《鬼谷子》——特别是〈揣篇〉、〈抵巇〉、〈反應〉、〈养志〉与〈捭闔〉诸篇——作为前符号学的中国本土话语体系，用以表述马克思列宁主义循环所重新编码而非凭空发明的治理问题。本文的论证在进入规范性评价之前首先是重构性的：以系统自身的语汇对其进行精准识别，必须置于评估之前。本文最后指出，理论提供了让经验检验变得可理解的概念空间，而治理循环如同鬼谷子守门的圣人，正是为无边界的变易赋予方向的机制所在。

英文草稿附于下方，亦可在此下载。

 

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ACCESS ESSAY HERE: Governing_Loop_and_Horizon_v3_PDD_Meta_Mechanism(2)

点击此处访问中文版本: 从群众中来到群众中去_中文版

SSRN: HERE 

New Discussion Draft Posted: "从群众中来，到群众中去 [“From the Masses, to the Masses”]: Contradiction, Mass Line, and Democratic Centralism as a Constitutional Governing Loop — and People's Democratic Dictatorship as Its Gatekeeper An essay in Chinese Marxist-Leninist political theory and its constitutionalism" [从群众中来，到群众中去 矛盾、群众路线与民主集中制作为宪法性治理循环 ——人民民主专政作为其守门人 中国马克思列宁主义政治理论试论]

 

Pix credit here

 

中文版

I have been doing a bit of work on semiotics, phenomenology, Chinese classical thinking and the approaches to better understanding the form, nature, and workings, the cognitive cages, of political-ideological systems. See, e.g., (1) "Modernization (现代化) as the Lebenswelt of Chinese Constitutionalism" [现代化作为中国宪政的生活世界 ]); (2) Faquan-in-Motion: Larry Catá Backer’s (白轲) Modernization and the Lebenswelt of Chinese Constitutionalism Read Through Tong Zhiwei's Faquanism 法权运动中：(Larry Catá Backer中文名：白轲) 现代化与中国宪制的生活世界 ——通过童之伟的法权主义加以阅读; (3) "Education as Productive Force and Ideological Apparatus: A Dialectical Analysis of China's Modernization-Driven Knowledge System" [作为生产力与意识形态机制的教育：中国现代化驱动型知识体系的辩证分析]; and (4) Reflections on 张冠梓: 从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值 [Zhang Guanzi, Grasping the Contemporary Value of Chinese Modernization from the Depth of World History ]--The Marxist Variation on Leninism and the Constitution/Realization of Modernization.

This work have led to me try to consider the operation if the system from the inside, that is to think about the operational subsystems, each as significant clusters of conceptional and operational expectations that develop their own internal signification and produce layered dialectics through which the system acquires or presents its "working style" and reinforces its core animating premises. To that end I focused on the nature and inter-relation among the mass line,  democratic centralism, the principle of doctrine of contradiction analysis, and people's democratic dictatorship as key subsystems within a contemporary Chinese Marxist Leninist construction that finds expression in both political organization and in the constitution of its administrative apparatus.   

 China’s governing system is built on a set of interlocking principles: contradiction theory (diagnosing what is wrong at each stage of development), the mass line (gathering information and grievances from the population), democratic centralism (concentrating scattered input into unified policy), and people’s democratic dictatorship (determining who counts as “the people” entitled to participate and who does not). This essay argues that these are not separate administrative tools but parts of a single recursive loop — a system that repeatedly diagnoses, gathers, concentrates, decides, and then returns to check whether its decisions still fit the conditions on the ground. The essay shows that this loop only makes sense within the framework of “modernization” as China’s Communist Party defines it: a historically evolving project that sets the direction, the priorities, and the criteria by which social problems are identified and policy responses are judged.

The product of this thinking is this discussion draft entitled:  从群众中来，到群众中去 [“From the Masses, to the Masses”]: Contradiction, Mass Line, and Democratic Centralism as a Constitutional Governing Loop — and People's Democratic Dictatorship as Its Gatekeeper: An essay in Chinese Marxist-Leninist political theory and its constitutionalism [从群众中来，到群众中去  矛盾、群众路线与民主集中制作为宪法性治理循环 ——人民民主专政作为其守门人 : 中国马克思列宁主义政治理论试论 . The abstract gives a sense of the essay:

This essay reconstructs the governing loop of Chinese Marxist-Leninist constitutionalism — contradiction theory, the mass line, and democratic centralism — not as discrete institutional tools but as a single recursive system whose intelligibility depends on the modernizing Lebenswelt within which it operates. Building on the author’s prior work theorizing modernization (现代化) as the metasignifier and historically sedimented horizon of Chinese constitutionalism, the essay traces each governing principle across four simultaneously operative strands: normative, state-constitutional, Party-line, and Party-internal-organizational. It extends the triad through the dual revolutions (self-revolution and social revolution) and identifies people’s democratic dictatorship (人民民主专政) as the meta-mechanism — a Peircean semiotic thirdness — that constitutes the categories of “the people” and “the enemy” before the loop can operate on either. The essay deploys Li Zehou’s concept of jidian (积淀, sedimentation) to show how modernizing categories acquire depth, spatiality, and directional motion along the Socialist Path, and draws on Guiguzi (鬼谷子) — particularly the chapters on probing (揣篇), exploiting fissures (抵巇), response and reflection (反應), cultivating aspirations (养志), and opening and closing (捭闔) — as a pre-semiotic Chinese vocabulary for the governance problems the Marxist-Leninist loop recodes rather than invents. The argument is reconstructive before it is normative: accurate identification of the system in its own vocabulary must precede evaluation. The essay closes by arguing that theory provides the conceptual space within which empirical testing becomes intelligible, and that the governing loop, like Guiguzi’s sage guarding the gates, is the mechanism by which change without limit is given direction.

[摘要本文将中国宪法主义的治理循环——矛盾论（矛盾论）、群众路线（群众路线）与民主集中制（民主集中制）——重构为一个单一的递归系统，其可理解性依赖于现代化（现代化）作为历史性积淀的生活世界（Lebenswelt）。矛盾论提供社会状况的本体论诊断；群众路线提供自下而上获取该诊断的认识论方法；民主集中制提供将这些输入集中为具有约束力的国家行动的组织机制。本文通过双重革命（自我革命/社会革命）延伸这一三元结构，并将人民民主专政（人民民主专政）识别为皮尔士符号学（Peircean semiotics）意义上的第三性（thirdness）——即确定整个治理循环运行域的元机制。本文运用李泽厚的“积淀”概念和《鬼谷子》作为前符号学框架，论证这一循环不是从外部施加的制度图式，而是被居住的——即被干部、上访者和规划者作为生活经验所内在化的递归系统。]

The draft ENGLISH follows below and may be downloaded HERE

 

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ACCESS ESSAY HERE: Governing_Loop_and_Horizon_v3_PDD_Meta_Mechanism(2)

点击此处访问中文版本: 从群众中来到群众中去_中文版

Reflections on 薛澜 人工智能技术的社会应用——治理挑战 [Xue Lan, The Social Application of Artificial Intelligence: Governance Challenges]

 

Pix credit here (1954)

 

Everyone has something to say about AI and AI governance (see my eight lectures on commemorate comparative approaches to AI governance , June 2026). That, at least says something as bout the importance of the topic to those who are in a position to govern, and to manage the expectations and conceptual universe of the masses. But it says far less about the conceptual cages from out of which all of this "conversation" emerges, and which they reflect within the confines of the topic of AI governance. 

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This essay, Xue Lan's (薛澜) "Social Application of Artificial Intelligence" Read Within Its Own Cognitive Cage: A New Era Signification Matrix, a Two-Line Critique, and a Comparative-Regulatory Analysis, considers a July 2026 Tsinghua keynote by Xue Lan (薛澜) — chair of China's National Expert Committee on AI Governance — as a case study in how Chinese AI-governance discourse is produced, exported, and received. It builds a matrix linking Xue's key terms to specific New Era Marxist-Leninist doctrinal referents, then pursues two lines of critique: first, an assessment, grounded in a theory of modernization as the organizing horizon of Chinese constitutionalism (drawing on my essay,  "Modernization (现代化) as the Lebenswelt of Chinese Constitutionalism" [现代化作为中国宪政的生活世界 ]) the fundamental political line of which Xue's speech is faithful, elaborates, or deploys (finding fidelity nearly everywhere); ; second, a semiotic reading, grounded in using a five-stage interpretive protocol drawn from the Gerasene demoniac narrative (Mark 5), that places Xue among a corpus of AI-governance "oracles" — Palantir, Anthropic, OpenAI, Aschenbrenner, DeepSeek, and Meta — and argues his position is structurally distinct: custodial rather than supplicatory, addressed to the international order rather than a domestic sovereign. A comparative-regulatory section sets the institutional apparatus Xue's speech legitimates against the EU AI Act and the fragmented U.S. landscape. A final section, prompted by Xue's real-world engagement with Senator Bernie Sanders, identifies a deeper structure common to every framework examined — Chinese, American, and European alike — distinguishing "Left" and "Right" variants of a Leninist impulse toward concentrated, expert- or vanguard-directed control of productive and cognitive life, and argues that Xue's framework functions as a bridge between them, which is what gives the Xue-Sanders convergence its logic. The essay concludes that no framework canvassed — Chinese or Western — contemplates AI's development without some apex authority to direct it; the only contested question is who occupies that position.

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The "Closing Synthesis" of the essay weaves the analytic strands into something that may approach coherence but not conclusion. Read together, the four parts of this analysis converge on a single finding, approached from four directions. The matrix shows that Xue's speech is deeply embedded in New Era doctrinal content beneath an STS-inflected surface vocabulary. The two-line critique shows, first, that the saturation is faithful almost to the point of orthodoxy, elaborated chiefly through a choice of borrowed vocabulary whose home discourse sits in mild tension with the recentered political project it has been recruited to serve; and second, that Xue's oracular position is structurally unlike every other voice in the comparative corpus, because he speaks from inside, rather than in supplication to, the sovereign authority the other oracles are all still negotiating with — his true request is addressed not downward to a domestic regulator but outward to the international order, for recognition as its rule-maker. The comparative-regulatory analysis shows that this same custodial, civilizational ambition is not confined to rhetoric: it is already instantiated in an operating apparatus whose closest functional analogue, the EU's AI Act, shares its structural comprehensiveness but not its legitimating grammar. And Part V shows that beneath even these three findings lies a still deeper structure common to every framework this analysis has examined — Chinese, American, and European alike — in which the only live question is who or what should occupy the apex position directing AI's development, never whether such a position should exist at all.

What remains most exposed, across all four readings, is the wager the speech stakes everything on: that AI's power is entirely a function of the adequacy of the body built to house it, and that the Party-state's capacity to build a more comprehensive body than any market-fragmented rival constitutes China's decisive advantage. It is a wager made with unusual theoretical sophistication, and one that finds unexpected company — in a Brussels regulator's risk-tiered technocracy, in a Left-Leninist senator's call for expert-negotiated redlines, in a market oracle's founder-controlled safety board — among interlocutors who share almost nothing else with Xue Lan except the conviction that some apex must hold the reins. It is also, on the terms of the corpus this analysis has now placed Xue within, the wager most vulnerable to the one question none of the seven oracles — Chinese, American, Left-Leninist, or Right-Leninist — has yet allowed itself to ask.
 

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The text of Xue Lan's remarks in Chinese and an English translation follows below along with the Introduction to my essay. The FULL TEXT of the essay, Xue Lan's (薛澜) "Social Application of Artificial Intelligence" Read Within Its Own Cognitive Cage: A New Era Signification Matrix, a Two-Line Critique, and a Comparative-Regulatory Analysis; MAY BE ACCESSED HERE  and on SSRN HERE.