IV. Strive to Attain a High Level Of Socialist Democracy

THE steady development of socialist democracy provides the guarantee and support for the building of socialist material and spiritual civilization. To attain a high level of socialist democracy is therefore one of our fundamental goals and tasks.

Our state system is the people's democratic dictatorship. On the one hand, it ensures that the working people, the overwhelming majority of the population, are the masters of the state; on the other, it exercises dictatorship over a tiny minority of hostile elements who try to undermine socialism. Socialism is the common cause of the whole people. Only with a high level of socialist democracy will it be possible to develop all our undertakings in accordance with the will, interests and needs of the people, to enhance the people's sense of responsibility as masters and give full play to their initiative and enthusiasm, and to exercise effective dictatorship over the handful of hostile elements, in order to ensure the smooth progress of socialist construction.

Socialist democracy is incomparably superior to bourgeois democracy. Much time and work are needed to establish the system of socialist democracy and foster democratic ways. What we did in this respect was far from adequate and, moreover, was seriously undermined during the "cultural revolution." In recent years, socialist democracy has been restored and developed to some extent in our country. We must continue to reform and improve our political institutions and system of leadership in accordance with the principle of democratic centralism so that the people are better able to exercise state power and the state organs can lead and organize the work of socialist construction more effectively. Socialist democracy should be extended to all spheres of life, political, economic, cultural and social; and it is necessary to extend democratic management to all enterprises and institutions and encourage self-management of community affairs by the masses at the grass-roots level. Democracy should serve as a means by which the masses educate themselves. It is necessary to establish a relationship of equality between man and man and a correct relationship between the individual and society in accordance with the principles of socialist democracy. The state and society guarantee legitimate freedom and rights to the citizens, who should in turn perform their duties to the state and society. While exercising their freedom and rights, citizens must not impair the interests of the state, society and the collective, or the freedom and rights of others. While we strive to develop socialist democracy, all our measures must help to consolidate the socialist system and promote social production and work in other fields. On no account will hostile, anti-socialist elements be given any freedom to carry out sabotage.

We must closely link the building of socialist democracy with that of the socialist legal system so that socialist democracy is institutionalized and codified into laws. In the past few years, notable progress has been made in building our legal system. Under the Party's leadership, the state has enacted a series of important laws, including the Criminal Law, the Law of Criminal Procedure, the draft Law of Civil Procedure for trial implementation and the new Marriage Law. It is especially noteworthy that the draft Constitution, soon to be submitted to the National People's Congress for adoption, contains many new and very important stipulations formulated in the light of the achievements scored and the principles worked out in developing socialist democracy since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee. The adoption of this Constitution will mark a new stage in the development of China's socialist democracy and legal system. The problems facing us today are that not only a sizable number of non-Party people but also many Party members, including some leading cadres, do not have an adequate understanding of the importance of building the legal system and that laws already enacted are in some cases not fully observed or enforced. This situation must be resolutely corrected. The Party will continue to lead the people in making and improving various laws, strengthen its leadership over the work of public security, the procuratorate and the judiciary and ensure in every way that these departments enforce the laws strictly. Moreover, through our publicity work we should repeatedly educate the whole people in the importance of the legal system and include instructions in the laws in all the teaching programmes from primary schools to colleges, so that every citizen may know the laws and abide by them. In particular, Party members should be educated and urged to take the lead in observing the Constitution and laws. The stipulation in the new Party Constitution that "the Party must conduct its activities within the limits permitted by the Constitution and the laws of the state" embodies a most important principle. It is impermissible for any Party organization or member, from the Central Committee down to the grass roots, to act in contravention of the Constitution and laws. The Party is part of the people. It leads them in making the Constitution and laws which, once adopted by the supreme organ of state power, must be strictly observed by the whole Party.

Further promotion of the socialist relations of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all our nationalities constitutes an important aspect of the building of socialist democracy in our country. The Central Committee has in the past few years made a number of significant decisions on the nationalities question and achieved marked successes in correcting "Left" errors committed during and before the "cultural revolution" and in restoring good relations among China's nationalities. In the light of conditions in this new historical period and the specific circumstances of various nationalities, the Central Committee has adopted many policies helpful to economic and cultural development in the minority nationality areas, to the realization of their right to regional autonomy, and to the strengthening of unity among all our nationalities. These policies will have to be further improved and developed. Unity, equality and common prosperity among the nationalities are of vital importance to the destiny of China as a multi-national country. The whole Party must acquire a better understanding of the nationalities question, oppose great-nation chauvinism, primarily Han chauvinism, and at the same time oppose local-nationality chauvinism. We must educate all Party members to strive to fulfil the task of the Pa ty in regard to the nationalities.

In the period of the democratic revolution. the united front was an important "magic weapon" for winning victory in our revolution. In the period of socialist construction it still plays a major role. With regard to all China's democratic parties, non-party democrats, national minority personages and patriots in the religious circles, our Party will continue to adhere to the policy of "long-term coexistence and mutual supervision" and the principle of "treating each other with all sincerity and sharing weal or woe," and strengthen our co-operation with them. We must do everything possible to strengthen the broadest patriotic united front embracing all socialist working people and all patriots who support socialism or who support the reunification of the motherland, including our compatriots in Taiwan, Xianggang (Hong-kong) and Aomen (Macao) and Chinese nationals residing abroad.

Correct understanding and handling of the class struggle that still exists in China today is the key to guaranteeing the democratic rights of the overwhelming majority of the people and exercising effective dictatorship over the handful of hostile elements. Hostile elements of different shades are still attempting to undermine or overthrow our socialist system in the economic, political, ideological, cultural and other social spheres. The class struggle at the present stage chiefly takes the form of struggle by the people against these hostile elements. The Central Committee has repeatedly pointed out that following the elimination of the exploiting classes as such, most contradictions in our society do not have the nature of class struggle, and class struggle no longer constitutes the principal contradiction. It is wrong, in a socialist society where the system of exploitation has been abolished and the exploiting classes have been eliminated, to declare and act on the principle of "taking class struggle as the key link." We must be very careful in distinguishing and handling contradictions between the enemy and the people and those within the ranks of the people, so as to avoid repeating the past mistake of enlarging the scope of class struggle. However, within certain limits, class struggle will continue to exist for a long time and may even sharpen under certain conditions. This is not only because pernicious influences left over by the exploitative systems and classes cannot be eradicated within a short time, but also because we have not yet achieved our goal of reunifying our motherland and still live in a complicated international environment in which the capitalist forces and other forces hostile to our socialist cause will seek to corrupt us and harm our country. Our economy and culture are still quite backward and our young socialist system is imperfect in many ways, so that it is not yet possible to prevent in all cases the degeneration of some members of our society and Party or block the emergence of a few exploiting and hostile elements. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves mentally for a long-term struggle, see to it that the state of the people's democratic dictatorship exercises its function of dictatorship over enemies, and uphold the Marxist class viewpoint in handling the current social contradictions and other social phenomena that have the nature of class struggle. This is the basic principle of the Central Committee with regard to the question of the class struggle in China at the present stage.

Our struggle against grave criminal offences in the economic sphere is now being intensified. Among those guilty of such crimes, apart from law-breakers in society at large, are a tiny number of degenerates in Party and government organizations and in the armed forces who have been corrupted by capitalist ideology. They cause tremendous damage to economic construction, upset social stability, debase the standards of social conduct and corrupt people's minds and life. They are termites undermining the edifice of socialism. Similar destructive activities occur in the political and cultural spheres as well. We must on no account rank all these things with the common run of offences or anti-social acts, because they are important manifestations of class struggle under the new historical conditions in which we are pursuing a policy of opening to the outside and taking flexible measures to invigorate our economy domestically. Such destructive elements must be severely punished by law. We have won some initial successes in this struggle. The whole Party must enhance its understanding of this struggle, take a firm stand in it and unswervingly carry it through to the end. This will be an important guarantee for our adherence to the socialist road.

In the new period of the development of our socialist cause, we must attend, both in ideology and in action, to two aspects. On the one hand, we must persist in the policy of opening to the outside as well as in our policies for invigorating the economy domestically and, on the other, we must resolutely strike at the grave criminal activities in the economic, political and cultural spheres that endanger socialism. It would be wrong to attend only to the latter aspect and be skeptical about the former, and it would be dangerous to stress the former aspect to the neglect of the latter. All Party comrades must have a clear understanding of this principle without the slightest ambiguity.

Our socialist construction is taking place in a very unstable world in which our national security is under grave threat. In these circumstances, we must never relax our vigilance, but must strengthen our national defence on the basis of vigorous economic development. We must work hard to turn the People's Liberation Army into a regular, modern and powerful revolutionary armed force and enhance its defence capabilities in modern warfare. We must continue to maintain and carry forward the fine traditions of our people's armed forces, and strengthen and improve their ideological and political work, so that every member will have a lofty spirit of self-sacrifice, strong sense of discipline and revolutionary style of work and that our army will serve not only as a great wall of steel guarding our socialist motherland but also as an important force in building our socialist material and spiritual civilization. We must continue to strengthen the militia. The Chinese People's Liberation Army is a people's armed force created and led by the Chinese Communist Party. After the new draft Constitution is discussed and adopted by the forthcoming National People's Congress, the Central Committee will continue to exercise leadership over our armed forces through the state Central Military Commission which is due to be set up, We must stick to the successful practices which the Party has long followed in leading the armed forces. This conforms to the supreme interests of the whole nation. We are convinced that, under the leadership of the Central Committee and through the efforts of all the commanders and fighters and the people of all nationalities, our national defence will become still stronger, thus providing a surer guarantee that the whole nation will be able to devote its full energy to socialist construction.