 |
| 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 [] |
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.
目 录
要论
坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂 /杨明伟
如何认识新形势下投资工作 /董 煜
关注
怎样理解立良法与行善治 /丛 卉
深刻把握法治与德治的关系 /雷 磊
厘清改革和法治关系的认识误区 /张真理
圆桌访谈
何以“文明其精神，野蛮其体魄” /于素梅 汪晓赞 王富百慧 邹秀春
政治
奉法以求实绩 /王晓光
经济
加快推进内外贸一体化发展 /徐振宇
文化
从中国瓷器读懂中华文明 /金瑞国
红旗论坛
一碗烩饭的温度和力量 /思 力
坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂
来源：《红旗文稿》2026/16 作者：杨明伟 2026-08-26 15:10:20
作为马克思主义政党，中国共产党有着许多“突出特点和优势”，有着“其他政党和政治力量无可比拟的优秀特质”。习近平总书记在总结中国共产党的优秀特质即“为什么能的关键密码”时，首先强调的就是有“强大思想武器”和对真理的矢志追求。这个武器就是马克思主义科学理论，这个真理就是马克思主义科学真理。中国共产党坚持把马克思主义基本原理同中国具体实际相结合、同中华优秀传统文化相结合，同时“善于在实践中检验和发展真理，不断以新的理论指导新的实践”，使得中国化的马克思主义创新理论变成“强大思想武器”。坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，体现了习近平党建思想的精髓要义，对建设一个长期执政的马克思主义政党具有极为重要的理论意义和实践作用。
一、凝心铸魂就是要从根本上解决“总开关”问题
中国共产党作为百年大党，有着自身“大党的样子”。坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，是铸就“大党的样子”的一项基础性工程，核心是从根本上解决思想的“总开关”问题，也就是解决“思想过硬”、“信念过硬”问题。所谓“思想过硬”、“信念过硬”，最根本的要求就是“要用马克思主义科学理论武装头脑，把理想信念建立在对科学理论的理性认同上，建立在对历史规律的正确认识上，建立在对基本国情的准确把握上”。这是马克思主义政党区别于其他政党的一个显著标志。
中国共产党的“大的样子”有着丰富内涵和表现形式。其中最根本的一条，就是要有马克思主义的科学理论武装，从而实现思想统一的“大的样子”。正是在这个意义上，习近平总书记深刻指出，组织是“形”，思想是“魂”，用党的科学理论武装全党就是“铸魂”的工作。他在阐释我们这个党“大就要有大的样子”时明确提出，“始终坚持用马克思主义中国化最新成果武装全党，使全党始终保持统一的思想、坚定的意志、协调的行动、强大的战斗力”。同时，他也讲到“大也有大的难处”，并重点提到了理论武装的“不易”——“如何确保全党在共同思想理论基础上的高度集中统一尤其不易”。因而，要加强马克思主义特别是习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想的理论武装，使各级党组织和广大党员、干部特别是领导干部掌握马克思主义理论武器，提高马克思主义理论水平和运用能力，共同把党的创新理论转化为推进新时代中国特色社会主义伟大事业的实践力量。
一个政党有了科学的理论并用来凝心铸魂、实现理论武装，表明这个政党达到了思想觉醒、信仰坚定，从而能够以理论自觉推动行动自觉。毛泽东同志曾谈到，十月革命传来了马克思主义对“当时的人们有一个很大的觉醒”，“对世界的觉醒，对中国的觉醒，影响是很大的”。他多次指出“理论武装”对于全党“思想觉醒”的重要性，强调思想觉醒与行动自觉之间的关联性。所谓思想觉醒和理论自觉，就是头脑开窍，有了一个掌握根本方向和站稳根本立场的总开关。我们党历来强调把思想建设和理论武装上升到解决“总开关”问题的高度，认为“掌握思想领导是掌握一切领导的第一位”。毛泽东同志强调：“掌握思想教育，是团结全党进行伟大政治斗争的中心环节。如果这个任务不解决，党的一切政治任务是不能完成的。”自创建红军时期起，我们党就明确提出，要把清除党内非无产阶级思想作为首要任务，始终坚持以马克思主义基本原则为指针，甚至提出使党员干部的头脑“变成一个完全的共产主义者的头脑”；如果违反了马克思主义，就会“在革命运动中走入歧途”，“要避免与纠正这种缺点，只有自觉地研究与了解辩证法唯物论，把自己的头脑重新武装起来”。我们党一路走来，始终把马克思主义思想教育作为每一个时期党的建设的突出任务，把违反马克思主义认定为“党性不纯的一种表现”，从而逐步把一支曾经“存在着各种不纯正的思想”的队伍，锤炼成为思想纯正的中国工人阶级的先锋队、中国人民和中华民族的先锋队。
中国特色社会主义进入新时代，以习近平同志为核心的党中央更加注重把思想建设作为党的基础性建设。把坚定理想信念作为党的思想建设的首要任务，就是要从根本上解决好世界观、人生观、价值观这个“总开关”问题，进一步解决我们党的精神支柱和政治灵魂问题，厚植新时代党的团结统一的思想基础。习近平总书记深刻指出：“党内政治生活出现这样那样的问题，根子还是一些党员、干部理想信念这个‘压舱石’发生了动摇，世界观、人生观、价值观这个‘总开关’出现了松动。”为此，加强理论武装和思想教育，就是为了筑牢信仰之基、补足精神之钙、把稳思想之舵，就是为了从根本上做到坚守真理、坚守正道、坚守原则、坚守规矩，形成立在思想深处的信仰。
思想建党、理论强党，也是为了强固党的初心使命。解决了“总开关”问题，才能真正做到不忘初心、牢记使命。作为加强党的建设的永恒课题和全体党员干部的终身课题，不忘初心、牢记使命的核心要求是遵循共产党人的性质宗旨、理想信念和奋斗目标。如果思想不纯，定会带来政治不纯、组织不纯、作风不纯，就会忘记初心。习近平总书记强调：“只有坚持思想建党、理论强党，不忘初心才能更加自觉，担当使命才能更加坚定。”新时代解决好“总开关”问题，从根本上建党强党，就必须用习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想武装全党、凝心铸魂，始终坚持党的全面领导这一根本保证，牢牢站稳人民立场这一价值本源，践行好初心使命。
二、凝心铸魂就是要从根本上铸就“政治坚定”和“斗争坚决”
思想是行动的先导，理论是实践的指南。理论上清醒，政治上才能坚定，行动上才能坚决。凝心铸魂的前置基础是理论淬炼，核心落脚点是锤炼过硬政治品格。党员干部既要以科学理论为指引，筑牢思想根基，也要在常学常新中淬炼、在对标看齐中笃行，把党的创新理论内化为信念、外化为担当。中国共产党作为百年大党，有着大党的坚定即“战略定力”、“政治定力”。坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，就是要不断铸就大党政治上的坚定和斗争上的坚决，也就是要解决“政治上的定力”和“政治过硬”问题。政治过硬最根本的基础建立在思想上的坚定和党性原则上的坚定，是在思想政治上讲政治立场、政治方向、政治原则、政治道路，在行动实践上讲维护党中央权威、执行党的政治路线、严格遵守党的政治纪律和政治规矩，特别是在任何情况下都必须保证全党服从中央，坚持党中央权威和集中统一领导，绝不能有丝毫含糊和动摇。
政治立场和政治定力，源自思想立场和思想定力。“欲事立，须是心立。”坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，是中国共产党一项根本性的“立心”工程，也是党内政治生活的首要任务和保证全党步调一致的根本前提。政治上的坚定和斗争上的坚决都不是凭空而来的，最根本的还是要从理论上的坚定而来。习近平总书记深刻指出，“无数事实证明，对共产党人来说，只有理论上清醒才能有政治上清醒，只有理论上坚定才能有政治上坚定”，“政治上的坚定、党性上的坚定都离不开理论上的坚定”。
加强全党的马克思主义理论学习教育，提升全党同志的马克思主义理论素养，不断增强全党的政治坚定性，是我们党始终坚持的优良传统。毛泽东同志指出：“我们办党校，就是要使我们同志的政治水平和理论水平提高一步，使我们党更加统一。”习近平总书记引用这句话时明确表示，毛泽东同志“这句话在当前和今后都适用”。新时代以来，国内外形势发生深刻变化，我们面临的复杂严峻的风险挑战世所罕见。习近平总书记反复强调，“干部要成长起来，必须加强马克思主义理论武装”，“如果缺乏理论思维，是难以战胜各种风险和困难的，也是难以不断前进的”，“在这样的复杂环境中，保持理论上的清醒、增强政治上的定力是很要紧的”。他特别指出，“要重点抓好用马克思主义中国化时代化最新成果统一思想、统一意志、统一行动，坚持不懈用新时代中国特色社会主义思想凝心铸魂”，“以理论上的清醒筑牢政治上的坚定，以思想自觉引领行动自觉”。历史和现实充分说明，要从根本上解决“政治上的定力”问题，就必须全面提高马克思主义理论素养，掌握辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义思想武器，特别是学懂弄通做实党的创新理论即马克思主义中国化时代化的最新理论成果，筑牢思想之基、补足精神之钙，做到对党绝对忠诚、对人民全心全意，在思想上政治上行动上坚如磐石、不会动摇。
坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，既是铸思想和信仰之魂，也是铸马克思主义政党的政治之魂。马克思主义政党要把牢政治方向、增强政治定力，首先需要筑牢思想基础，牢固树立理想信念。思想基础牢固了，才能有坚定的理想信念，才能够在政治上有定力，才能真正心中有党、对党忠诚。正如习近平总书记指出的：“理论修养是领导干部综合素质的核心，理论上的成熟是政治上成熟的基础，政治上的坚定源于理论上的清醒。”对领导干部来说，马克思主义这个看家本领掌握得越牢靠，政治站位就越高，政治判断力、政治领悟力、政治执行力就越强，观察时势、谋划发展、防范化解风险就越主动。
党的第一个历史决议在总结马克思主义中国化的第一个创新理论成果——毛泽东思想所发挥的巨大凝心铸魂力量时指出，“以毛泽东同志为代表的马克思列宁主义的思想更普遍地更深入地掌握干部、党员和人民群众的结果，必将给党和中国革命带来伟大的进步和不可战胜的力量”。这充分说明，用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，是我们具备强大斗争武器、斗争精神、斗争底气的来源。习近平总书记指出：“斗争精神、斗争本领，不是与生俱来的。领导干部要经受严格的思想淬炼、政治历练、实践锻炼，在复杂严峻的斗争中经风雨、见世面、壮筋骨，真正锻造成为烈火真金。要学懂弄通做实党的创新理论，掌握马克思主义立场观点方法，夯实敢于斗争、善于斗争的思想根基，理论上清醒，政治上才能坚定，斗争起来才有底气、才有力量。”这就清晰地告诉我们，坚持用马克思主义中国化时代化的创新理论凝心铸魂，既是铸就中国共产党人的远大理想和崇高追求，也是铸就中国共产党人的斗争底气和斗争力量，这样我们党“就会坚强有力，无坚不摧，无往不胜，就能经受一次次挫折而又一次次奋起”。有了思想理论之魂的中国共产党及其领导的队伍，就能够形成政治上的坚定和斗争上的坚决，就有了与一切错误思想作斗争的强大武器，也就有了战胜一切敌人的根本力量来源。
三、凝心铸魂就是要从根本上“克服本领恐慌”练就“本领高强”
中国共产党作为百年大党，要在十四亿多人口的大国长期执政，必须不断解决“本领恐慌”的问题。坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，就是要从“看家本领”上“克服本领恐慌”。这就是习近平总书记强调的“不仅需要政治过硬，也需要本领高强”问题。所谓“本领高强”，从根本上说就是“始终具备强大的执政能力和领导水平”，这也是百年大党长期执政过程中特别是在新时代新征程上面临的独有难题之一。针对党员领导干部“本领恐慌”和能力不足问题，习近平总书记提出，“干事创业，既要政治过硬，又要本领高强”，“领导干部必须全面增强各方面本领，努力成为本职工作的行家里手”。这就需要思想过硬、政治过硬、作风过硬，以及不断“推动基层党组织全面进步、全面过硬”，不断提升复杂环境下的执政能力和领导水平。而在所有的本领中，最根本的是“真正把马克思主义看家本领学到手”。
走过百余年历程的中国共产党，始终有着“本领恐慌”的忧患意识，特别强调“不断学习，逐步克服自己的缺点，永远也不能停止”。不断地加强学习和能力培养包括方方面面，关键在于能不能全面深刻系统地掌握马克思主义理论特别是马克思主义中国化时代化的创新理论，并娴熟地将其运用到具体实践中去。在我们遇到的各种“本领恐慌”中，最大的“恐慌”就是理论武装上的恐慌。毛泽东同志在革命战争年代就明确提出：“如果我们党有一百个至二百个系统地而不是零碎地、实际地而不是空洞地学会了马克思列宁主义的同志，就会大大地提高我们党的战斗力量。”新时代以来，习近平总书记进一步强调，全党要“依靠学习走向未来”，“克服本领不足、本领恐慌、本领落后的问题”，并特别提出“首先要认真学习马克思主义理论，这是我们做好一切工作的看家本领，也是领导干部必须普遍掌握的工作制胜的看家本领”。
坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，就是要铸就党员干部的看家本领。这是从根本上解决“本领恐慌”问题。看家本领强不强，是决定其他一切本领的关键。正因为理论修养是领导干部综合素质的核心，理论上的成熟是政治上成熟的基础，理论本领是马克思主义政党的看家本领，所以不断提升马克思主义理论水平和运用能力，就成为我们党的一个核心能力和党员干部的基础性本领。具备了这样的能力，我们才能在新时代新征程上，在以中国式现代化全面推进中华民族伟大复兴进程中，奋力跑好历史的接力赛。对这个问题，习近平总书记以宽广的视野高屋建瓴地提出，“要自觉做党的创新理论的笃信笃行者，坚持不懈用新时代中国特色社会主义思想凝心铸魂，不断筑牢信仰之基、补足精神之钙、把稳思想之舵，切实提升马克思主义理论水平和运用能力”。作为当代中国马克思主义、二十一世纪马克思主义，习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想实现了马克思主义中国化时代化新的飞跃，是中华文化和中国精神的时代精华。要全面系统掌握这一思想的基本观点、科学体系，把握好这一思想的世界观、方法论，坚持好、运用好贯穿其中的立场观点方法，不断增进对党的创新理论的政治认同、思想认同、理论认同、情感认同，真正把马克思主义看家本领学到手。
坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，就是要铸就党员干部把党的创新理论内化于心、外化于行的能力，把思想自觉变成行动自觉。这是从自觉能动性上解决“本领恐慌”问题。有正确的思想才有正确的行动，思想自觉方能引领行动自觉。党员干部只有学深悟透习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想，真正领会这一思想的精髓要义，转化为自己的思想武器，才能做到内化于心、外化于行，才能产生自觉的行动，全面提升干事创业的主动性和积极性。理论创新每前进一步，理论武装就要跟进一步，自觉行动也随之跟进一步。习近平总书记反复强调思想自觉转化为行动自觉的重要性，“必须抓好思想建设这个基础，坚持不懈推进党的创新理论武装，持之以恒加强党性教育，引导党员、干部把全面从严治党战略方针转化为自觉行动”；“要从党的创新理论中汲取党性滋养”，把其中的一些要求“真正牢记于心、见之于行，转化为净化心灵、提高觉悟、提升境界的自觉行动，不断夯实坚定信仰信念、保持政治本色的理论基础”。这些重要论述充分反映了党的创新理论中包含的真理力量和实践伟力的辩证关系、思想自觉和行动自觉的高度统一。
坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂，就是要铸就党员干部运用党的创新理论推动发展的实际能力。这是从理论与实践的结合上解决“本领恐慌”问题。习近平总书记深刻指出：“道不可坐论，理不能空谈。学习党的创新理论的目的全在于运用。”他要求党员干部要“当好中国式现代化建设的坚定行动派、实干家”。坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂的最终目的，就是要提升全党特别是领导干部在实际工作中认识问题、分析矛盾、解决难题、推动发展等方面的干事创业能力水平，做到学思用贯通、知信行统一，从而形成指导实践、推动工作的实际能力和强大力量。当前，坚持用党的创新理论凝心铸魂、推动发展，最重要的就是培养党员干部以中国式现代化全面推进中华民族伟大复兴的实际能力，也就是“全面提升与推进中国式现代化相适应的政治能力、领导能力、工作能力”。在这方面，运用好党的创新理论，可以帮助党员干部全面提升战略思维、历史思维、辩证思维、系统思维、创新思维、法治思维、底线思维能力，增强科学分析、科学研判、科学决策和科学执行能力，最终推动高质量发展。这也是习近平党建思想中特别强调的“重实践”的要求。发扬理论联系实际的马克思主义学风，自觉掌握运用好党的创新理论这一强大思想武器，切实解决经济社会发展和党的建设中存在的各种矛盾问题，方能切实推动党和国家事业发展，推动中国式现代化取得新进展新突破。
（作者：中共中央党史和文献研究院研究员）
责任编辑：张少义
No comments:
Post a Comment