Strict discipline is the glorious tradition and unique advantage of the Communist Party of China, and discipline construction runs through the centennial history of the Party. When summing up the valuable experience of the victory of the new democratic revolution, Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that our Party has three "main weapons for defeating the enemy". The first is "a party with discipline, armed with Marxist Leninist theory, adopting self-criticism methods, and connecting with the people". As the "main weapon", "discipline" is the fundamental guarantee for our party to withstand the test of life and death, from small to large, from weak to strong, overcome difficulties, overcome difficulties, and finally win the victory of the new democratic revolution.
"Building the Party by Discipline" was identified as an important principle of Party building
At the beginning of the founding of the Communist Party of China, early Marxists began to explore the discipline construction of the Party. Cai Hesen, in a letter to Mao Zedong in September 1920, elaborated on the idea of establishing a Communist Party organization, and put forward for the first time the proposition that "Party discipline is iron discipline". Mao Zedong replied, "Your letter is very insightful, and I don't disapprove of a single word." In July 1921, the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China formulated the first program and resolution of the Communist Party of China, making requirements for the Party's organizational discipline, confidentiality discipline, financial discipline, etc. One year later, the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, the first party constitution in the history of the Party, passed at the Second National Congress of the Communist Party of China, made provisions on the Party's discipline in nearly one third of the space, emphasizing that "the resolutions of the National Congress and the Central Executive Committee must be absolutely obeyed by members of the Party; local party organizations must implement and publicize the policies set by the Central Committee, and must not make their own policies; No one is allowed to express his opinions on major national political issues; All meetings of the Party depend on the majority, and the minority is absolutely subordinate to the majority. At the same time, it also stipulates six cases of expulsion of Party members, including "statements and actions that violate the Party's Declaration and Constitution and the resolutions of the executive committees of the General Assembly". These regulations reflect the core content of political discipline and the principle of democratic centralism in building the Party.
In 1924, the first Kuomintang Communist cooperation was officially established. In the great revolutionary upsurge, the ranks of CPC members have grown rapidly. By November 1926, the number of Party members in China had increased from more than 3000 a year ago to more than 18000. With the growing ranks of Party members, there are inevitably some speculators in the Party, which has destroyed the progressiveness and purity of our Party. Discipline building is extremely urgent. The Second Enlarged Meeting of the Fourth Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of China soberly pointed out the problems of "the lack of theory and the determined revolutionary outlook on life", "the tendency to employ labor, the lack of the spirit of hard struggle and the spontaneous revolutionary mood", "corruption" and other problems in the ranks of Party members. In response to these problems, in August 1926, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the first document in the history of the Party against corruption, the "Notice of the Enlarged Central Conference - Resolutely Cleaning up Corruptors", which clearly pointed out that "the bad elements who speculate in corruption must be mercilessly cleaned out of the Party", so as to "consolidate our camp and establish the prestige of the Party among the masses". In April 1927, on the eve of the Fifth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the number of Party members had increased to more than 58000, bringing new challenges to discipline building. To this end, the meeting highlighted the issue of discipline. For the first time, the Central Supervisory Committee was established and the concept of "political discipline" was formally used. The Resolution on Organizational Issues adopted by the Central Supervisory Committee stressed the need to culture and standardize political discipline. From the founding of the Communist Party of China to the breakdown of the first Kuomintang Communist cooperation, from the first major program and resolution of the Communist Party of China to the revised articles of association, from the code of conduct to the procedural provisions, the Party has constantly deepened the exploration of discipline building in the process of establishing rules, regulations and institutions, and gradually laid the cornerstone of "discipline building the Party".
The political background of strict discipline is becoming more distinct
After the failure of the Great Revolution, the focus of the Party's work shifted from cities to rural areas. In the face of new changes in the living environment, the Party has constantly expanded the connotation of discipline building, which has played an important role in the practice of creating the people's army, carrying out the agrarian revolution and building revolutionary bases. In September 1927, after Mao Zedong led the Autumn Harvest Uprising Army to attack Changsha and was defeated, he decided to change the original plan and march to Jinggang Mountain in the middle of the Luoxiao Mountains, where the enemy's ruling power was relatively weak. Due to the long march and frequent fighting, the number of troops dropped from more than 5000 to less than 1000, resulting in low morale and lax military discipline. Faced with the severe situation, Mao Zedong presided over the Front Committee meeting in Yongxin, Jiangxi, carried out the famous "Three Bay Reorganization", and made great efforts to strengthen the discipline construction of the army. In late October, the army was constantly attacked by the landlord's armed forces, and the army was temporarily broken up. The soldiers were tired and thirsty. When they saw a sweet potato field, everyone rushed forward, pulled out sweet potatoes with mud and seedlings, wiped the mud off carelessly, and bit them. When Mao Zedong caught up with him, he saw this scene and asked several cadres present: "Have you got the consent of the old watch?" When he heard that, Mao Zedong was very angry. Eating a sweet potato is a small matter, but it will do great harm to the interests of the masses. So before the troops set out in packs, Mao Zedong addressed the troops in front of the Jingzhu Mountain in Ciping, Jiangxi Province, "Thundering Stones", asking everyone to make good relations with the masses on the mountain, and solemnly announced three disciplines: first, obey the command in action; Second, do not take a single sweet potato from ordinary people; Third, fighting local tyrants should be returned to the public. This has also become the prototype of the "three disciplines" of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
In January 1928, after the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army occupied Suichuan County, it organized a propaganda team to carry out propaganda activities and sent people to the countryside to lead poor farmers to fight against local tyrants. In the meantime, some people confiscated the goods of merchants and peddlers without reason, and even took the medicine weighing scales in the drugstore. After entering the city, Mao Zedong kept talking to the masses to understand their opinions on the army and found many problems. In order to solve the problems of discipline and style of work in the army, Mao Zedong announced the first "six points of attention" to the army in Lijiaping, Suichuan on January 25: door plank; Bundle and pave grass; Speak kindly; Fair trading; Do not pull the husband, hire the husband to pay; Do not hit or swear. In March, in Shatian Village, Guidong County, Mao Zedong changed the first two items of the "Six Points for Attention" to "Repayment of borrowed things" and "Compensation for damaged things". Later, two items were added, namely, "bathing to avoid women" and "not searching the pockets of prisoners", which were the original "three disciplines and eight precautions". The strict implementation of the "three major disciplines and eight points of attention" has established a good image of the Red Army among the masses and played an important role in building the people's army and consolidating military civilian relations.
After tempering in the early stage of the Agrarian Revolution, strict discipline has initially become the political background of the Party and the Red Army. During the Long March, the Party's major achievement in strengthening political discipline construction was to smash Zhang Guotao's plot to split the Party. In June 1935, the Central Red Army and the Fourth Red Front Army met in Maogong, Sichuan. Relying on his strong troops, Zhang Guotao disagreed with the Central Committee on the question of "going north" or "going south", refused to implement the resolution of "going north" made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and forcibly led the troops across the grassland "going south". In order to maintain the authority of the Central Committee and the unity of the Party, in September 1935, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held an enlarged meeting and made the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Comrade Zhang Guotao's Mistake", which exposed Zhang Guotao's serious mistake in splitting the Party and the Red Army, and severely pointed out his opportunism and warlord leanings. In order to educate and win over Zhang Guotao, this decision was not announced to the whole Party. However, Zhang Guotao, blinded by his profit, went further and further on the road of betraying the Party, and even developed to the point of setting up another "central committee". In January 1936, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee passed the Decision on the Establishment of the Second "Central Committee" by Comrade Zhang Guotao; The telegram ordered Zhang Guotao to immediately cancel all his "Central Committee" and abandon all anti party tendencies. After the long-term struggle and persuasion and education of the CPC Central Committee and the commanders and fighters of the Fourth Front Army, Zhang Guotao was forced to cancel the second "Central Committee".
In this war, our party has always attached great importance to the construction of political discipline. While smashing Zhang Guotao's plot to split the party, it has further strengthened the ideological dam for all party members and soldiers to firm their revolutionary beliefs and obey organizational leadership, providing a strong political guarantee for the final victory of the Long March.
"The line is' kingcraft 'and discipline is' domineering'"
After the outbreak of the all-around war of resistance against Japan, facing the new situation, the Party continued to deepen its understanding of discipline construction, put forward important assertions such as "discipline is the guarantee of the implementation line", "line is' kingcraft ', and discipline is' hegemony'", and resolutely fought against disciplinary violations, maintaining the seriousness and authority of discipline. Just before and after Zhang Guotao rebelled against the revolution, Wang Ming put himself above the Central Committee and issued wrong political opinions without authorization. Both of them are senior cadres of the Party, but they do not have the party spirit cultivation and political awareness that senior cadres should have. They wantonly undermine the unity of the Party, seriously violate the Party's discipline, and affect the prestige of the Party. In order to avoid the recurrence of similar events, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Party held from September 29 to November 6, 1938, put forward the "four obedience" principles of democratic centralism for the first time: individuals obey organizations; The minority is subordinate to the majority; Subordinate to superior; The whole Party is subordinate to the Central Committee. The meeting passed the Decision on the Working Regulations and Discipline of the Central Committee, which stipulates that "all central committee members shall not express opinions to anyone outside the Central Committee that contravene the decisions of the Central Committee, and shall not take any actions that contravene them".
Zhang Guotao and Wang Ming's destruction of the Party's discipline was rooted in extreme individualism and liberalism. Liberal ideas exist not only among senior cadres, but also among ordinary Party members. Huang Kegong was an "old qualification" who had participated in the Jinggangshan struggle and the Long March. He was then the captain of the sixth team of the Anti Japanese Military and Political University. In daily contact with Liu Qian, a public school student in northern Shaanxi, I love him. One evening in October 1937, Huang Kegong repeatedly asked Liu Qian to marry him and announced publicly, but the other party refused. Huang Kegong was angry and lost his reason, so he shot him to death. After the crime, some people thought that Huang Kegong had done meritorious deeds in the battlefield, and they could consider a lighter punishment. He himself wrote to Mao Zedong and expressed his willingness to make contributions to the battlefield. Mao Zedong did not show partiality, agreed with the opinion of the Border Region High Court that sentenced him to death, and requested that the court verdict be read out on the spot, so as to educate all party members and soldiers to "take Huang Kegong as the ring of the front car". After the Huang Kegong case, Xiao Yubi was sentenced to death for embezzlement and misappropriation of 3050 yuan border currency; Liu Ligong was expelled from the Party because he did not obey the distribution of the Party organization and refused to implement the decision of the Party. After serious handling of these events and extensive discipline education, there was a phenomenon of "three more and three less" in Yan'an, that is, "less emphasis on personal requirements, more obedience to organizational distribution; less people seeking comfort than enjoying it, more people demanding to exercise in the front line and hard places; less liberalism, more strict discipline".
"Strengthen discipline and make revolution invincible"
In 1947, the War of Liberation shifted from strategic defense to strategic attack. The revolutionary situation developed rapidly, the balance of forces between the enemy and ourselves changed fundamentally, and victory was imminent nationwide. With the rapid growth of the number of Party members, some problems in the Party and the military have gradually exposed, and some Liberated Areas have successively violated policies and broken discipline. In order to ensure the centralized and unified leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the inner-party instruction on the establishment of the reporting system in January 1948, requiring all bureaus and sub bureaus of the Central Committee to make a comprehensive report to the Central Committee and the Chairman of the Central Committee every two months. In March, the Supplementary Instruction on the Establishment of a Reporting System was issued, which stipulates that in addition to regular comprehensive reports to the Central Committee, all central bureaus and sub bureaus of the Central Committee must send a copy of all instructions and replies on policies and strategies issued by them to the Central Committee at the same time; At the same time, the policy and strategic reports made by the lower level to the central bureaus and sub bureaus should also be reported to the central government. This further refined and improved the request for instructions and reporting system, and provided institutional guarantee for maintaining and strengthening the Party's discipline.
In September of the same year, when Mao Zedong presided over the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (known as the "September Meeting" in history) in Xibaipo, he pointed out that our strategic task is to advance the army, increase production by an inch, and strengthen discipline, highlighting the extreme importance of strengthening discipline. The slogan of "Strengthening discipline, revolution is invincible" was loud, catchy and popular, which effectively consolidated the consensus of the whole party and quickly turned into the action of party organizations at all levels and the army under the leadership of the party.
Practice has proved that the Party's discipline is an important guarantee for maintaining the Party's unity and accomplishing its tasks. Strengthening the Party's discipline construction is the key for the Party to adhere to revolution, win the masses, defeat the enemy and win victory.
(Source: The Banner, 2024, Issue 4; author unit: Central Institute of Party History and Literature)
(Editor: Jia Zejuan Signed by: Jia Zejuan Signed by: Zhao Pin)
