A Study On Party Cadres’ Leadership In The New Era

At present, the economic and social development in our country is at the critical transitional period. It is unprecedentedly difficult for the party to facilitate reform & opening up and the construction of modernization as well as realize the rejuvenization of the nation. It requires that the party cadres should possess leading intelligence, leading charisma and leading capability than ever before. In particular, it calls more for cadres’ promoting their leadership.Party cadres are the bridge and bond for the party and government to get connections with the masses. They are also the implementers and executors of the path, principles and policies guided by the party and government. Their leadership directly associates with the effective implementation of various policies, relates with the party’s and government’s images, and correlates to the success and failure of social modernization. The current overall leadership of the party cadres is basically accordant with the party’s administrative tasks and missions. However, it cannot be ignored that there are various realistic tests in the new era and that there are some major problems and gaps in some aspects. Specifically speaking, some party cadres lack the concept of planning and delving into problems. As a result, the mode of economic and social development cannot be changed fundamentally. Some party cadres are weak in guiding social construction. Consequently, the livelihood problems associated with the masses’ benefits cannot be satisfactorily solved. Few people can benefit from the achievements of development. Some party cadres are weak in coordinating various major relationships in the development. Thus, a number of problems occur frequently, such as imbalanced development, deteriorating contradictions of social benefit relationship and group conflicts. Some party cadres’ mental adaptability is poor. Some fail to deal with their own mental problems. Therefore, they may handle events emotionally. The occurrence of such problems indicates that it has become an urgent realistic problem to improve the leadership of party cadres at different levels. It is a very important issue to construct party cadre’s leadership. The studies on the issue are of theoretical and realistic significance to promote leaders’ quality, enhance the decision-making ability and administrative level of the party and governmental organizations, and facilitate social development.The study on the construction of leadership is a issue with dynamic development. It requires for considering the features of the new era and the new social period as well as the requirements on the new development, combining with the evolution of the party’s administrative governance, practices of deepening the facilitation of various reforms and patterns of scientific development of leadership in the new era, and summarizing the general pattern of current construction of leadership.The paper is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 states relevant explanations about leadership theories in Marxism. Chapter 2 analyzes three realistic tests that the construction of leadership is now confronting. Chapter 3 elaborates on the three urgent problems in the construction of party cadre’s leadership at present. Chapter 4 delves into the construction of party cadres’ capabilities in the new era. Chapter 5 clarfies the approach to realizing the promotion of leadership.Chapter 1 explores into how the classical writers and party leaders state leadership theories and leading capabilities in Marxism. Marxist leadership theory is an important part in Marxist theories. Classic writers’ and party leaders’ insightful elaboration of Marxist leadership theory is a key factor in Marxist leadership theory. The chapter first explains the formation of Marxist leadership theory, then lists multiple statements about leading capabilities proposed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, finally lists the statements about leading capabilities proposed by Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping. All these are specific demonstrations of Marxist viewpoints and notions in the area of scientific leadership. The guiding concepts of Marxism are the outcome of the combination of scientific socialism and workers’ movement. Marx and Engels directly took part in the political practices of workers’ movement when criticizing utopian socialism, thus providing a theoretical prerequisite and source of practice for Marxist leading ideas. The Communist Manifesto mainly states the basic principles of Marxist leading concepts from five aspects, i.e., leading the masses’ supreme goals, the issues of essence of proletariat’s leadership, leaders’ supporting strength and basis for leaders’ decision-making, the principle of seeking for truth in guiding national reforms. In general, Marxist leadership theories stated by Marx and Engels include the basic principles and philosophies from nine aspects, i.e., the occurrence of leadership activities is a necessity of mankind’s developing productivity and social practices; the proletariat’s leading authority is a newly emerging authority in the history; the guiding concepts of leadership theory are dialectical materialism and historical materialism; proletariat leaders are civil servants in essence; it clearly points out the leadership path that party members must adhere to and the fundamental goal of leading reforms; there is a need of clear leading strategies and tactics; proletariat’s reform must be carried out on the basis of possessing a group of leaders and a large batch of party cadres; what is important is to form the democratic leadership system; the proletariat must possess the right to lead reforms; the leaders should understand and master the pattern of reform leading rationally. Leninism enriches and expands Marxist leadership theory. Mao Zedong Thought is the sinocization of Leninism. It undoubtedly includes the leadership concepts in Marxism and Leninism. The paper points out that Marxist leadership theory themed on reform includes seven basic principles. Leading capabilities are the effective carriers and fundamental basis of transforming leadership theory into leadership practices and reforms. Marxism attaches great importance to the construction of cadres’ leading capabilities at each stage, including the engagement in revolutions, construction and reforms. From this, it can be seen that the possession of leading capabilities are the key for the working-class party to win the victory of revolutions, construction and overall deepening reforms. Marx and Engels emphasized that proletariat’s possessing leading capabilities was the solid guarantee that they would achieve success of reforms. Lenin clarified when facing the situation that Russia was left behind after the victory of the October Revolution that the possession and improvement of the capability of leading Russia’s economic construction was the economic foundation and material guarantee for consolidating Russia’s proletariat political right. Mao Zedong peculiarly stressed to cultivate and foster the leaders needed in the new democratic revolution and construction of socialism and emphasized that the construction of socialism required for promoting leaders’ abilities and honing their overall competence. Facing the new situation after reform and opening up as well as the backwardness of the technological level in the country, Deng Xiaoping put great emphasis on learning foreign advanced technology and management methods beneficial to our own national construction as well as promoting our own economic construction and other abilities required by the construction of modernization through attaching importance to and enhancing learning. The important idea of “Three Representatives” and scientific outlook for development require enhancing the construction of abilities focusing on the enhancement of administrative ability, strengthening the exploration into and application of three major patterns, understanding the situation of domestic and overseas development, adhering to the socialism with China’s national characteristics, steering the direction of development, seizing the strategic opportunity period for development, and facilitating the great project of party construction. Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18 th CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping expressed his high concerns on enhancing the capability of handling various complex problems in multiple speeches, lectures and articles. “It is oneself that matters” is the concentrated demonstration and core content of Xi Jinping’s viewpoint of leading capabilities.Chapter 2 mainly points out the three major realistic challenges that the construction of party cadre’s leading capabilities is encountering now. In terms of the realistic domestic tests, the challenges mainly refer to the great changes of multiple social structures since the reform and opening up as well as the complexity of benefit patterns, diversity of values and informatization of technology. In the new era since the reform and opening up, population and social classes, regional development in urban and rural areas, choices of careers, reform of technology, culture, health and physical education as well as the ideological notions have all changed. All these altered the previous relatively closed environment and conditions for governance. The root of the changes is that the material productivity has been greatly emancipated and developed. The social groups, organizations and other new institutions that are founded based on social spontaneous application are increasing in numbers, so are online organizations. Undoubtedly, it proposes higher requirements on party leaders to enhance their management and leadership organizations. The complexity of benefit structures is demonstrated as that every social level has new benefit appeals. Sometimes, there are even contradictions and conflicts. The unreasonableness and unfairness of income allocation worsens social contradictions. The demarcation between the poor and the rich is quite obvious. In addition, people’s diverse values and changing characteristics are also quite outstanding. The independence, changeability, choosability and difference of people’s ideological activities are increasingly obvious. Noticeably, with the deepening of reform and opening up, capitalist culture’s hegemony and suppression of socialist culture still exists. In terms of technology, the positive and negative effects of macro data should be emphasized. In front of the realistic overseas tests, our nation is mainly affected by the new international political and economic pattern, military reforms in the world, technological revolution in the world and so on. Thus, we are now facing some problems about national security and strategies. In terms of the realistic governance tests, it is obvious that the number of party members and structure as well as the overall pattern of China’s distinctive socialism career have altered. In particular, our party has proposed “four tests and four dangers”. The excessively large scale of party members results in the difficulty of management. One outstanding change is that new social classes are absorbed when expanding party members, such as excellent owners and employees in private enterprises. The concentrated burst of group events highlights the “four tests and four dangers” that the construction of party’s governance ability is now facing. It is a problem that party members should attach great importance to. The overall pattern of “five in one” definitely puts heavier burdens on the working load and responsibilities that the leaders at different levels should undertake.Chapter 3 mainly points out the three urgent problems in the construction of party cadres’ leading capabilities, i.e., the incorrect working style among party members, wrong notions and the deficiencies of the mechanism of the construction of leading capabilities. In terms of the three major incorrect working styles, first, the wrong attitude. The Communist Party proposed the hazards of “spiritual tiredness” in the First Plenary Session of the 7th CPC Central Committee in 2011. The remarkable demonstrations are the weak dedication into career and weak sense of responsibility, vulgar notions, and negative ideas of conservativeness. Furthermore, the emancipation of ideas is not in-depth enough. The awareness of innovation is not strong. They cannot even resist against the temptation of benefits. Finally, they are defeated in the battlefield. Second, the superficial attitude toward learning; the impetuousness is quite prevailing. Some officials do not learn the essence from Marxism and Leninism but take some bad practices. They do not take a down-to-earth attitude toward learning. In addition, they do not stick to Marxism carefully. The phenomenon that they do not learn socialist theories with China’s distinctive characteristics still exists. They even do not have an in-depth understanding and mastery of the spirits delivered from the important speeches given by the General Secretary, Xi Jinping. Third, the lack of a down-to-earth attitude toward working; The “four major problems”(formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance) are quite outstanding. Some officials are not enthusiastic about their work. They neither focus on the career, nor take the masses into consideration. They are indifferent to the masses’ reasonable demands on benefits. In a word, the masses are confronting “four difficulties” as known to all when handling matters. In terms of the four major wrong notions, some leaders demonstrate poor morality as well as illegal and regulation violating behaviors without any official ethics. In their work, there is a prevailing phenomenon that some have wrong viewpoints about their right. For example, they regard the right as the tool for pursuing their own benefits, such as spreading their own cognitions, taking on a dominating position, emphasizing on the scale and comfortableness, even neglecting their work and violating laws and regulations. A proportion of officials do not have a correct viewpoint of their political achievements. They may excessively pursue for GDP while ignoring the realization of other goals. They may overlook long-term benefits but focuses on the short-term benefits, and ignore the importance of human orientation but seek for benefits. In terms of the notion about development, some leaders lack the idea of scientific development on the basis of human orientation, scientific development and overall facilitation. In our nation, the construction of party cadres’ capabilities has four major problems about the mechanism, i.e., the incomplete and imperfect system of cadre education and training, the setting of contents of education and training, management on the learners’ education and training, promotion of cadres’ motives of accepting education and training, the wrong principle of selection and employment mechanism, etc. Besides, the appraisal mechanism has one-sided and faked evaluations. Moreover, there is a lack of forceful monitoring system for enhancing and improving the construction of cadres’ leading capabilities.Chapter 4 carries out in-depth analysis on the construction of party cadres’ leading capabilities from the perspectives of the fundamental direction, focus and breakthrough points of the construction of leading capabilities. First of all, for the purpose of constructing the leading capabilities with China’s distinctive characteristics, we must stick to the correct political direction, i.e., setting up the unswerving standing point of Marxism. As fas as Marxism is concerned, the essence of leadership is serving, serving the nation, differential social classes, party and the masses. This is the corrent viewpoint of Marxism. Scientific outlook for development is an idea of development that generates after the sinocization of Marxist development theory. It stressess adopting scientific world viewpoint and methodology to inspect and solve the problem of what the developent is for, who the development targets at and how to develop. This requires for the mastery of Marxist scientific methodology. Seeking for truth is the scientific spirit of dialectical materialism and historical materialism as well as the live soul of Marxism. Second, the construction of leading capabilities with China’s distinctive characteristics must clarify the focus of the construction of leading capabilities. In the speech given by Xi Jinping in 2009, he mentioned that official at different levels should spare no efforts to improve the ability of coordination, ability of innovation, ability of employing talents, ability of handling risks, ability of maintaining security, and ability of dealing with media. The paper expounds on them one by one in details and explains the meaning of every ability as well as the approach to promoting the ability. The paper puts forward that the above six types of abilities are to improve social handling capability in essence. In addition, it deepens into the social handling capability. The purpose of constructing the leading capabilities is to improve the ability of national and social governance. This is also one creative point in the paper. The chapter points out: to promote the ability of employing talents requires for establishing the consciousness of party orientation, sticking to the principle of “employing the talents”, honing the ability to discover elites and promoting the charisma of talent employment; to improve the ability of innovation requires for first emphasizing theoretical innovation, then enhancing practical abilities and perfecting the mechanism of selecting innovative talents; to improve the ability of coordination requires for setting up the notion of long-term development, handling the complex benefit relationship, and facilitating the positive interactions and balance; to improve the ability of handling risks requires for enhancing scientific warning and prevention, making rapid response and decisive decision-making, paying attention to coordinating and controlling the evolution of events, as well as accelerating posttreatment and recovering re-construction; to improve the ability of dealing with the media requires for setting up the notion of “affecting the media first for the purpose of affecting society”, understanding the media fully, making effective use of the media and serving the media enthusiastically; to improve the ability of maintaining stability requires for planning in advance, completing the implementation of responsibilities and depending on the masses to facilitate stable construction while sticking to the six major principles; to improve the ability of social governance is proposed on the party cadres in the new era. They should improve their abilities by encouraging citizens’ participation, sticking to law-based governance and emphasizing the application of new technology, etc. Finally, we must stick to the guidance of Marxist leadership theory and clarify the breakthrough point and key point in the construction of leading capabilities in order to enhance party cadres’ leading capabilities. In other words, it is improving leaders’ own competence and quality. Their concepts, visions, standing points and methods should all be improved. In terms of specific practices, they should improve their quality by relying on reforms, forge the political atmosphere by relying on self-discipline, solving contradictions by relaying on mechanisms and systems, and enhance the ability of innovation by relying on technology.Chapter 5 provides the approach to realizing the construction of party cadres’ leading capabilities in the new era. To enhance the construction of party cadres’ leading capabilities, we should base on Marxism as the guidance, facilitate the internal cultivation of cadres’ leading capabilities from the aspect of improving political quality, scientific and cultural quality, psychological quality and so on. Besides, we should also push forward the external cultivation of cadres’ leading capabilities from the perspective of cadre education & training, perfecting appraisal mechanism, enhancing practices, etc. At the same time, we should plan the construction of cadres’ leading capabilities from enhancing the consciousness, cultivating learning-typed cadres, improving their charism and so on. In terms of the internal cultivation of party cadres’ leading capabilities, they must possess a solid foundation of Marxist theory in order to enhance their political quality of Marxism. Specifically speaking, the party officials should have a mastery of Marxism and Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. In particular, about the socialism theory with China’s distinctive characteristics, the cadres must stick to the polictical orientation of scientific socialism and possess solid ideas unswervingly. For the purpose of improving scientific and cultural quality, cadres must enhance Marxism theory and ideological quality, make full use of the great power of Marxist scientific theory to guide us toward victory, and possess a wide range of knowledge as well as competent affair-handling skills. The officials at different levels should keep pace with the times, follow the tempo of the times, update their knowledge structures, and keep learning and accepting new knowledge. The enhancement of healthy psychological quality requires that party cadres should possess strong wills and stable emotions as well as a broad mind. Furthermore, they should be patient and perseverant. In terms of the external cultivation of party cadres’ leading capability, it is an important method to educate and train cadres to improve their abilities. During the chaotic revolution period, our party launches cadre education and training through constructing various schools. After the establishment of new China, cadre education and training is increasingly perfected, systemized and normalized. Scientific appraisal is an important orientation to improve leaders’ abilities. The 18 th Party Conference proposed to perfect cadre appraisal mechanism, promote cadres to establish correct viewpoint of political achievements, restrict the power possessed by cadres, and evaluate their viewpoint of political achievements. Practices are the fundamental approach to improving cadres’ capabilities. It is as what Xi Jinping mentioned, i.e., “We should not cultivate cadres in the greenhouse”. The cadres at different levels should take part in specific practices, such as encouraging them to hone their qualities, improve their working styles and enhance their abilities in complex environment, at key positions and in tough areas. Only through this can outstanding cadres be fostered. The chapter carries out a systematic construction of the cadres’ leading capabilities from three aspects: First of all, enhance the awareness of serving the masses, which requires for establishing the basic principle of “leadership equals to service” proposed by Deng Xiaoping. As leaders, they should set themselves as examples and models in serving people in their actual work. Besides, they should form the awareness of serving the masses, take the initiatives in learning, be bold to make sacrifices, and resist various temptations and corruptions. Second, the Communist Party should call on the whole party members to enhance learning at each historical turning point. Xi Jinping also pointed out that China should become “a learning nation” not long ago. It requires that party cadres should be clear about what to learn and how to learn. In particular, they should set up the idea of life-long learning and becoming a learned and wise scholar-typed official in the new era. Third, charisma is an intangible influence. It may even refer to the leadership. Leaders should give play to their powers and influence. Moreover, they should emphasize the prominent effects of non-power influences.