The year-long clean-up campaign of the Communist Party of China (CPC) launched by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, comes at a decisive turning point in Chinese and world affairs and is an important step to strengthen the Party's ties with the people .

In terms of the global situation, the long-term anaemic growth in the advanced capitalist countries of Europe and the United States undermines their claim that they represent models to which the rest of the world should aspire. As well as this, authoritarian capitalist states in North Africa and the Middle East are suffering implosion and mass rebellion and the recent unrest in Turkey and Brazil reveals deep-seated anger at the inequality and corruption in rapidly developing capitalist democracies. In the modern era there are also vast excluded social and political constituencies who combine and subsequently protest using the everyday tools of mass communication. Set against this backdrop, China is on the cusp of overtaking the United States economically and is launching a bold and revolutionary plan to modernize through urbanization. Chinese Communists need to reform their system of rule to take account of such contradictions, trends and developments.

China's economic miracle is based on the dominance of public ownership combined with the effective exploitation and guidance of private self-interest and foreign investment. These structural parameters produced colossal advances in the form of modernization, improvements in living standards, health, welfare and education. New lives produced new needs, wants and demands. Private capitalist investment in production is economically beneficial but also generates extremes in wealth, which, unless conscious action is taken, becomes an automatically self-reproducing source of capitalist accumulation. This can be controlled as long as the private sector remains subordinate to state planning and public ownership. The balance of forces may be verified by the relative weight of the private and public sectors, as defined by their capacity to shape, determine and implement overall planning objectives. If capitalists are able to corrupt communist party officials and get them to reorganize planning so that market interests take priority, -- then relations between the communist party and the masses will automatically be undermined.

Xi warned that "Winning or losing public support is an issue that concerns the CPC's survival or extinction". He also quoted the CPC constitution, which says "the Party has no special interests of its own apart from the interests of the working class and the broadest masses of the people." This reiterates what Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

The last major "rectification campaign" took place between 2005 and 2006 and it sought to "maintain the advanced nature of Chinese Communist Party members." Studying Marxist ideas and self-criticism were core components of this campaign, which drew lessons from the collapse of communist party rule in East Europe and the USSR.

Since this time, massive state expenditure and public works programs have greatly enhanced the scope of power administered by Chinese state and party officials. As private and international capital is often involved in fulfilling state contracts, administrative power becomes a bargaining chip which repeatedly reproduces corruption within the party and amongst state officials. Increased social mobility, and global geographical mobility, has fostered a layer of officials who came to believe in their invincibility. Such official often steal public wealth, siphoning it away through family members and close associates.

In recent years, membership of the All China Federation of Trade Unions has grown to more than 258 million. These union members can provide a vehicle -- directly associated with the communist party and workplaces -- through which mechanisms of supervision by the working class can find expression. However, many of the new pathways to corruption and enrichment also originate in the gigantesque planning of the urbanization process. Here, new forms of community supervision over the Party, local government and officials will be required to minimize abuses of power and reinforce the bonds between communists and the masses. Modern technology can also help to mobilize the workers as the main agents of supervision and control.

The growth of the working class and its rising aspirations should be the greatest source from which to revitalize party membership. The new balance of class forces, in which the urban working class is the decisive social class, must find reflection in the practical meaning of the "mass-line". In modern times "from the masses, to the masses" means from the workers to the workers, therefore workers should be the main target group for party recruitment. Tens of millions should be brought into the party, developing their political consciousness and Marxist understanding by studying the national and worldwide concerns and conditions of the working class. Their voices will often speak bitterly of their everyday struggles and abuse by officials. However, when these abuses are eradicated and the party responds to their complaints with remedies, these new proletarians will become the backbone of social support for the communist cause and the party.

The constitution of the CPC explains that the party "takes effective measures to protect the people's right to manage state and social affairs as well as economic and cultural programs. It respects and safeguards human rights. It encourages the free airing of views and works to establish sound systems and procedures of democratic election, decision-making, administration and oversight." If these bold and revolutionary policies and work practices become embedded in the everyday activity of communists, the pathway to a reinvigorated and strengthened communist party is assured.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

For the full text of the CPC constitution http://www.china.org.cn/china/18th_cpc_congress/2012-11/16/content_27138030.htm

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