(Question about East and West) The second series of comments on the roots of civilization: How did China create a political civilization where the people are supreme?
China News Service, Beijing, November 9th, title: How did China create a political civilization where the people are supreme?
China News Agency reporter An Yingzhao
"Book of Rites·Aigong Questions" recorded Confucius's famous saying: "The ancients are governing, and the love of others is the greatest." Two thousand years later, this political and golden law has been reflected in contemporary China.
The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people persisted in and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics, created a new path of Chinese-style modernization, and created a new form of human civilization.
Its political dimension is embodied in the ruling philosophy of "people first".
How does socialism with Chinese characteristics create a political civilization where the people are supreme?
Data map: Tiananmen Square.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jia Tianyong
Theoretically, it lies in combining the traditional Chinese concept of putting people first with the Marxist view of the people to form a people-centered development idea.
The traditional Chinese people-based thought was first seen in "Shangshu·Song of the Five Sons" in "The people are the roots of the state, and the roots are solid."
In the pre-Qin period, Confucius and Mencius advocated "the benevolent loves others" and "the people are noble and the king is light". Lao Tzu emphasized that "the saint is impermanent, and the people's heart is the heart". Guan Zhong believed that "the prosperity of politics is to obey the people's aspirations; the abolishment of politics is against the people's aspirations." .
Although the philosophers are contending on the epistemological and methodological level, they have reached the same goal in terms of the people's view.
In the Song and Ming dynasties, from Zhang Zai's "Heart for the world, life and life for the people" to Zhu Xi's "The country is based on the people, and the society also stands for the people" to Wang Yangming's "Knowledge for the people is unknown, and there is no good governance in the world". People-oriented thinking has a long history in Chinese society and is constantly developing and improving.
As the scholar Xie Fuya said, the Chinese political thought for five thousand years has a character "people" running through it, so all must be called "people's studies".
This idea has a natural affinity with Marxism that emphasizes the people's nature.
Marx believed that "historical activities are the activities of the masses" and that people's character is the most distinctive character of Marxism.
The CCP fully integrated the Marxist view of the people’s history and the masses’ view of history with the traditional Chinese people-oriented thinking, and created the party’s purpose of "serving the people wholeheartedly", "all for the masses, all rely on the masses, from the masses, The mass line of "going to the masses", the people-centered development thinking, and the pursuit of values of the people's supremacy.
In practice, it is to combine the governance standards of "what the people do well" with the historical materialism of the people to create history, and complete a series of major reforms and explorations that benefit the people.
Data map: Chinese Communist Party History Exhibition Hall.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Qiming
Marxism emphasizes that the masses of the people are both the creator of history and the subject of practice.
Over the past century, the fruitful results of the CCP and the Chinese people’s exploration and practice have not only eclipsed Fukuyama’s "historical conclusion," but also allowed the world to see a new path choice beyond the liberal democratic system of Western capitalism.
From the time when the new crown epidemic struck, “not to miss an infected person, not to abandon every patient”; to “let no one be left behind” on the road to get rid of poverty and get rich; To develop people’s democracy in the whole process", the CCP and the Chinese people have embodied the wisdom of good governance of "what the people do well and what the people hate" into the practice of seeking from above and below.
It is precisely under the combination of theory and practice that contemporary China has created a political civilization with "people first" as its core concept, and has shown the world the vision of an ancient civilization to achieve modernization.
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