The Communist Party of China (CPC) had more than 100.27 million members as of late 2024, up by nearly 1.09 million from 2023, according to a report issued on June 30 ahead of the Party's 104th founding anniversary on July 1.

CPC membership has steadily expanded, with its structure continuing to improve and primary-level Party organizations growing stronger, said the report released by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

The CPC had 5.25 million primary-level organizations by the end of 2024, an increase of 74,000 compared with the previous year.

The CPC continues to exercise self-supervision and self-governance by upholding the spirit of reform and applying strict standards. It has focused on strengthening primary-level organizations, and nurturing a team of Party members who hold themselves to the highest standards, so as to provide an organizational guarantee for building China into a strong country and realizing national rejuvenation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization.

According to the report, 2.13 million people joined the CPC in 2024. Among them, 52.6 percent were frontline workers, and 83.7 percent of them were aged 35 or younger.

Party membership continued to see positive changes in terms of composition. The report revealed that about 57.79 million Party members, or 57.6 percent of overall membership, held at least a junior college degree by the end of 2024, 1.4 percentage points higher than the level recorded by the end of the previous year.

By the end of 2024, the CPC had nearly 31 million female members, accounting for 30.9 percent of total membership, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous year. The proportion of members from ethnic minority groups remained at 7.7 percent.

Workers and farmers accounted for about 33 percent of all CPC members. BR

This is an edited version of a Xinhua News Agency report

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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Primary-Level Party Organizations

A primary-level Party organization shall be formed in any enterprise, villagers' committee, government organ, school, hospital, research institute, subdistrict and community, social organization, company of the People's Liberation Army, and any other primary-level work unit where there are three or more full Party members, according to the CPC Constitution.

Primary-level Party organizations shall establish primary-level Party committees, general Party branch committees or Party branch committees, the CPC Constitution adds.

A primary-level Party committee can have under its leadership multiple general branches or branches. A general Party branch consists of several branches. Party branches, usually consisting of three to 50 members, are the basic organizations of the Party; they are responsible for directly guiding, managing and overseeing Party members. 

A Brief History

The First CPC National Congress, which opened in Shanghai on July 23, 1921, proclaimed the founding of the CPC. Thirteen delegates, including Mao Zedong (1893-1976), attended the congress, representing some 50 members across China.

The CPC was born at a time of drastic upheaval. Following defeat by British forces in the Opium War of 1840, China was in a period of national crisis resulting from domestic conflict and aggression by imperialist powers. This dire state of affairs prompted revolutionaries to explore a path to lift the nation out of crisis. After repeated setbacks in this quest, they began to see Marxism, a political theory that called for the overthrow of capitalism to establish the supremacy of the proletariat, or the working people, as a solution to China's problems.

The CPC has integrated the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and the best of traditional Chinese culture. After its birth, the Party waged a struggle that led to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. It has since spearheaded China's transformation from backwardness to prosperity as the governing party of this populous country.

(Compiled by Beijing Review)