On the afternoon of June 4, 2020, Professor Ding Xiaoqiang was invited to make a presentation of “Strengthen Party Building in New Era” in Meeting Room 301 of our school. Ding is a professor from Shanghai’s “Four Histories” Lecturers' Group, director of Two New Organizations Party Building Research Base of East China Normal University, and an adjunct professor of our school. The presentation was given both online and offline at the same time. Offline participants were Liu Daoping, Deputy Secretary of CPC committee of USST and Secretary-General of Discipline Inspection Commission of CPC Committee of USST, Peng Zongxiang, Secretary of Party branch of School of Marxism, Jin Yaomei, Dean of School of Marxism, and some graduates of School of Marxism. About 300 people attended the event online. They were all the teachers of School of Marxism and some students and teachers of Business School, College of Science, College of Basic Science, and College of Continuing Education. Jin Yaomei hosted the presentation.
He who was filled with Virtue is like a newborn child. So if a political party wanted to withstand all kinds of tests without forgetting why it started and stay true to itself after facing hardship, it should make Party building an eternal theme and firmly focus on it. At the beginning of the presentation, Ding Xiaoqiang introduced the main idea by describing “four services”. He said the Party building in the new era included building the leadership skills of the Party as well as the Party itself. The Party conducted social revolutions through its self-reform to stand the severe revolutionary test. Yet the Party building now still faced “four tests” and “four dangers”. Then after reviewing the founding mission of the Party, Ding Xiaoqiang carefully explained how the Party stayed true to its founding mission in the new era in terms of “one layout, one requirement, and eight aspects”.
We should start well, end well, and achieve intended goals as planned. As Ding Xiaoqiang pointed out, we should make the need to enforce strict Party discipline a vital part of the Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy in the new era, therefore it could play an integral role. Then Ding interpreted the meaning of the general requirements for Party building set at 19th CPC National Congress by introducing “basic principles, guidelines, a thread that went through them, the overall layout, basic requirements, and goals to achieve. Ding then talked about how to continue to adopt the Party’s self-reform and forever maintain the Party's advanced nature and purity from the following eight aspects: the political Party building, building the Party through theory, training a contingent of competent and professional officials, strengthening primary-level Party organizations, enforcing Party discipline, the fight against corruption, improving Party and state oversight systems, and strengthening the Party’s ability for governance.
At last, Jin Yaomei concluded the presentation with a short summary. She asked students to put the theories they had learned into practice to solve real-world problems. The presentation was deeply significant, as students would better understand the Party building in the new era, remain true to the Party's original aspiration, keep its mission firmly in mind, and continue to forge ahead.
Contributed by the Graduate Student Association of
the Communist Youth League Branch of the School of Marxism