THE MUNICIPAL PARTY COMMITTEE MUST FOCUS ON PARTY CONDUCT AND ON ESTABLISHING CLEAN GOVERNMENT1
MAY 5, 1990
This year, the Municipal Party Committee must focus its greatest determination and its main energies on Party conduct and on doing a good job of establishing clean government. Of course we still have to treat the head if the head hurts and treat the foot if the foot hurts.2 If product quality becomes a problem, we have to focus on quality; if the markets are weak, we have to focus on the markets. These are all things we must do, but the most fundamental concern is this: if we don’t focus properly on Party conduct and on establishing clean government, the people just won’t be able to summon any zeal, and they won’t find things to be acceptable.
How should we go about this? The Party Committee’s report described six measures that everyone considers practical and feasible but not specific enough. Therefore we must study and revise them to ensure they are more explicit.
Problems in Party Conduct
In working on Party conduct this year, which aspects should we focus on, and can we highlight some key points? After all, there still aren’t that many cases of bribery and lawbreaking. We’re still quite effective in investigating such cases—our public security agencies, procuratorate, courts, discipline commission, and Bureau of Supervision have done quite effective work, and the people still have confidence in us. They also have confidence in our system of reporting misdeeds, our reviews, investigations, and handling of cases. At present, most of the problems in our Party conduct occur in three areas.
Speaking at a rally organized by the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and municipal government on establishing clean government and correcting inappropriate business behaviors, October 17, 1990.
1. Using Power for Personal Gain. This includes people who, in spite of not having power themselves, use various relationships to achieve their personal aims. For example, they might use every conceivable means to get better housing and a higher income for themselves, or to make arrangements for their relatives. In the final analysis, this is serious self-serving. Ordinary people have no means of doing such things. This is improper Party conduct and merits our close attention—it’s a factor that could kill us.
2. Unseemly Bureaucratic and Liberal3 Behavior. This can be defined as always trying to be “the nice guy,” never daring to offend anyone, being unable to stick to principles. The current atmosphere at many enterprises and publicly funded units and agencies is deathly and management is chaotic primarily because Party members in leadership positions are unable to run the factory and the Party strictly; they are unable to manage strictly. Even after many serious problems occur, you never hear about any internal self-criticism within their leadership teams. You only learn about these issues after the people expose them and the problems have become very serious in that the leading cadres don’t exercise any mutual supervision. This is also a very serious problem in the present conduct of our Party.
3. Improper Tendencies within Industries and Enterprises. Every industry, unit, and enterprise is capable of using a bit of its power or authority to obtain benefits, perhaps by collecting various excessive fees or imposing mandatory charges that add to the burden of our people. Party members in leadership positions should teach their staff not to do such things. Such improper measures will create discontent among the people and affect our Party’s relations with them—we must take charge of this.
The telecommunications bureau, water company, gas company, and public transit company cannot keep allowing their employees to extort money from the people and become detached from them. All of the agencies, enterprises, and publicly funded institutions that directly touch on the people’s interests must rectify the conduct within their own sector. We’ve always advocated conducting business openly and we launched a campaign of integrity for the sake of the people—we must always remember the principle that all our units must serve the people with integrity. I hope that in the remaining eight months of this year, we will make a great effort to correct the current serious problems in our Party conduct.
Further Suggestions
Many of you have said that the six measures reported on aren’t very useful for inspections and supervision and should be made more specific. I think we should make further demands.
First, after this meeting, leaders at all levels of the Municipal Party Committee and government should, on the basis of actual conditions in their respective sectors, departments, or units, focus on issues that people have raised the most criticisms about. They should do so through their organizations and use a particular meeting format to address these issues one by one, to show some substantive results by working on them.
Second, in the spirit of rectifying Party conduct, we should engage in criticism and self-criticism in order to better build up leadership teams and supervise ourselves. This means studying the spirit of the Yan’an rectification movement and living up to our Party’s fine traditions. Guided by our study of documents and our raised awareness, we should consciously link thinking with practice, clean up our thoughts, and engage in criticism and self-criticism in order to achieve our goal of clarifying our thinking and uniting with our comrades, and in order to revive and play up our Party’s three important approaches to work.
In this area, the Municipal Party Committee must first take the lead. During the latter half of last year, it held an internal study meeting of Standing Committee members. Before that meeting, we members of the Standing Committee held discussions among ourselves and then engaged in criticism and self-criticism. At the meeting, we all seriously examined ourselves regarding criticisms directed at our Standing Committee and leaders of the city government, including complaints raised in the past. We also conveyed those criticisms to the individuals involved and asked them to take note. I ask you all to understand that we absolutely will not engage in liberal behavior, nor will officials shield one another—we will deal with problems truthfully.
But I should also say that we don’t engage in nearly enough criticism and self-criticism and we don’t hold enough internal study meetings—henceforth we will have to strengthen our work in this area. At the same time, we hope that the leadership teams at all levels of Party and government will hold regularly scheduled or non-regularly scheduled internal study meetings—and there should be more of them—to conduct criticism and self-criticism, tell others what is on our minds, and not indulge in liberal behavior. If there are flaws in the way someone in a leadership position thinks, it should be pointed out to him as soon as possible. This would be helpful to him and prevent him from sinking deeper and deeper [into inappropriate conduct]. The organization department of the Municipal Party Committee should also focus on this by holding meetings and urging regular self-criticism.
I’ve cited one of Yue Fei’s sayings: “When civil officials do not love money and military officials do not fear death, the land will be at peace.”4 The many difficulties we now face have been compounded by another real problem: low spirits and a lack of confidence. But provided that we Party members, and especially Party members in leadership positions, lift our spirits and do a good job of improving our personal conduct, I feel we can overcome these other difficulties. That is to say, if Party members do not seek personal gain and cadres do substantive work, Shanghai will be revitalized.
When I say “if Party members do not seek personal gain,” people ask, isn’t that setting expectations too low? My reply is that someone who manages to become selfless will then become fearless and serve the people wholeheartedly. Right now there are too many personal considerations—some Party members seek only personal gain and are seriously detached from the people. It doesn’t matter if you have power or not—if you seek personal gain, you’ll be detached from the people. Cadres must do substantive work—instead, many of them aren’t very concerned about the hardships of the people right now. We do have many fine cadres, of course—for example, many district heads take letters from the people very seriously. The day before yesterday, the newspapers praised He Quangang5 of the Putuo District. To the best of my knowledge, we have yet to find a district head who treats letters from the people bureaucratically and totally disregards the people’s hardships. I think the vast majority of district heads aren’t like that, but some of them do things a bit better and some not as well. Upon receiving letters from the people, some district heads immediately call upon them and look for ways to solve their problems—how wonderful of them! This way, people won’t get upset.
So in the final analysis, in order to implement this year’s overall goal of “first, stability; second, rousing enthusiasm,” we basically have to focus on Party conduct and do a good job of building clean government.
1. This is part of Zhu Rongji’s speech at the closing session of the 10th Plenary Session of the 5th Shanghai Municipal Party Committee.
2. Translator’s note: this is a metaphor for not fundamentally resolving a problem, or only dealing with it superficially or partially.
3. Translator’s note: “liberalism” is an incorrect way of thinking that manifests itself primarily in a lack of principles, organization, and discipline, and in an excessive emphasis on individual interests.
4. See the “Biography of Yue Fei” in the History of the Song Dynasty.
5. He Quangang was then head of the Putuo District in Shanghai.