Now, the Central Committee is happy to report to the congress that, thanks to efforts made since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, political life in the Party, and first of all in the Central Committee. after being seriously abnormal for so many years, has now gradually returned to the correct path, the path of Marxism. Generally speaking, the Central Committee, its Political Bureau, the Bureau's Standing Committee and the Secretariat have proved able to follow principles of democratic centralism and collective leadership. The practices of "what one person says goes" and of each going his own way are no longer allowed. When important differences of opinion arise, unity in thinking and action can be achieved through full reasoning and criticism and self-criticism. The present Central Committee is a united and harmonious leading body and a strong core able to cope with complicated situations. There has also been marked improvement in the political life of many local Party organizations.

While affirming this major progress, we must also realize that in the Party as a whole, undemocratic practices and patriarchal ways have still not been eradicated in many organizations, and cases of decentralism and liberalism exist to a serious extent. All this hinders the implementation of the Party's line, principles and policies and weakens its fighting capacity. In order to carry forward the normalization of political life throughout the Party, we must resolutely get rid of such unhealthy phenomena. All Party members, and especially the leading cadres at various levels, must bear the principle of democratic centralism firmly in mind, see to it that collective leadership is established and strengthened first of all in the Party committees at various levels, and strive to develop inner-Party democracy while ensuring centralism and unity on the basis of democracy.

Party discipline must be strengthened in order to improve the functioning of democratic centralism. A grave problem at present is that in quite a number of organizations Party discipline has slackened, right and wrong are confounded, rewards and punishments are misused and there is failure to criticize or punish when necessary. This is a problem of long standing, which has become exacerbated after the decade of domestic turmoil, and no marked improvement has yet occurred in some places. In the last few years the Central Committee, local Party committees and Party commissions for discipline inspection at all levels have attained notable results in their major efforts to uphold Party discipline and correct the style of the Party. But they have met considerable, and in some cases shocking, obstruction in their work. If such things are allowed to spread, what will remain of the Party's fighting capacity? Party organizations at all levels and all Party members must be mobilized to fight resolutely to uphold Party discipline. We are confident that after this congress, through concerted efforts by all Party organizations and members, we shall certainly be able to fully restore the inviolability of discipline throughout the Party before too long and thus win the full trust of the people throughout the country.

Second, reform the leading bodies and the cadre system and ensure that the ranks of the cadres become more revolutionary, younger in average age, better educated and more professionally competent.

The main aim of reforming the system of leadership and the leading organs of the Party and state is to eliminate such defects as over-concentration of power, proliferation of concurrent and deputy posts, organizational overlapping, lack of clear-cut job responsibility, overstaffing and failure to separate Party work from government work, and in these ways overcome bureaucracy and increase work efficiency. The first stage of reform of the Party and government organs at the central level has been basically completed, and the reform in the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions is scheduled to start in the second half of this year or in the coming year. This reform is of far-reaching significance, being an important political guarantee for the success of China's modernization and adherence to the socialist road.

To solve correctly the question of the Party leadership over government organs and over enterprises and institutions is a highly important task in the organizational reform. It is necessary to achieve a proper division of labour between the Party and the government and between Party work and administrative and production work in enterprises and institutions. The Party is not an organ of power which issues orders to the people, nor is it an administrative or production organization. The Party should, of course, exercise leadership over production, construction and work in all other fields, and for this leadership to be fully effective it must be exercised in close connection with professional work by cadres who are professionally competent in such work. But Party leadership is mainly political and ideological leadership in matters of principle and policy and in the selection, allocation, assessment and supervision of cadres. It should not be equated with administrative work and the direction of production by government organizations and enterprises. The Party organizations should not take everything into their own hands. Only in this way can the Party ensure that the government organs and enterprises do their work independently and effectively, and can the Party itself concentrate its efforts on the study and formulation of major policies, the inspection of their implementation and the strengthening of ideological and political work among cadres and the rank and file both inside and outside the Party. For long-standing historical reasons, some members of our Party committees think that there will be nothing for them to do if they don't handle concrete administrative work - this is an erroneous idea that impairs Party building and weakens the Party's leading role. From now on, Party committees at all levels should frequently study and discuss the Party's major policies and principles regarding socialist construction, matters involving the ideology and education of cadres, Party members and the masses, the ideological tendencies of cadres and their observance of discipline, the improvement of the Party organization and the recruitment of new members, and so on. Of course, while the division of labour between Party and government is emphasized, major policy decisions concerning government and economic work must still be made by the Party, and all Party members working in government organizations, enterprises and institutions must resolutely submit themselves to Party leadership and carry out the Party's policies.