[In-depth study and implementation of Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought of the Supreme Leader in the New Era]
Author: Qin Xuan (Dean of New Era Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought Research Institute, Supreme Leader of China Renmin University)
Realizing modernization is an important historical task shouldered by our party since its founding. After arduous exploration and unremitting struggle of revolution, construction and reform, the Party led all the people of China, and finally completed the industrialization process that developed countries have gone through for hundreds of years in decades, creating a modernization miracle that attracted worldwide attention, creating a Chinese-style modernization road and a new form of human civilization, thus expanding the way for developing countries to modernize, providing new choices for those countries and nations in the world who want to accelerate their development and maintain their independence, and contributing China wisdom and China’s plan to solving the world modernization problem.
Human civilization is an organism composed of "five civilizations"
Marxist historical materialism holds that human society is an organic whole with complex structure composed of basic elements such as productive forces, relations of production, economic base and superstructure, in which all factors are interrelated and interact with each other, promoting the movement, change and development of the whole social organism. Specifically, human society is a tight organic whole composed of economic, political, cultural, social and ecological factors. The social civilization of human beings is the progressive state and positive achievements of human beings in understanding and transforming the objective world and the subjective world, including five civilizations: material civilization, spiritual civilization, political civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization. Among them, material civilization refers to the state and achievements of development and progress in the economic field, and it is the progressive state and positive material achievements of human beings in transforming the objective material world, which is composed of production mode civilization and lifestyle civilization; Spiritual civilization is the progressive state and positive achievement of human understanding and transforming the subjective spiritual world, and refers to the state and achievement of development and progress in the cultural field, which includes ideological and moral construction and educational, scientific and cultural construction; Political civilization refers to the progressive state and achievements in the political field, and it is the progressive state and positive achievements of human beings in transforming political society, including political system civilization and political behavior civilization. Social civilization refers to the progress and achievements in the social field, and it is the progress and positive achievements of human beings in understanding and transforming society, including social life civilization, social relations civilization, social consciousness civilization, social environment civilization and social management civilization.Ecological civilization is a progressive state and positive achievement of human beings in understanding and coordinating the relationship between man and nature. It includes not only the practical achievements of human beings in protecting and improving the ecological environment in the process of developing material civilization, but also the improvement of the harmony between man and nature and the enhancement of people’s ecological concept.
In the process of the evolution of human civilization, the "five civilizations" complement each other and are dialectically unified. They are relatively independent and different, but also interdependent, interactive, interpenetrating and transforming. Among them, material civilization is the foundation and provides necessary material conditions for the development of other civilizations; Political civilization is the guarantee, which provides political guarantee, institutional support and legal guarantee for other civilizations. Spiritual civilization is the soul, providing ideological guarantee, spiritual motivation and intellectual support for the development of other civilizations; Social civilization is the condition, which provides social order foundation, social development guarantee and social organization support for the development of other civilizations; Ecological civilization is the premise, which provides ecological foundation, environmental conditions and rich resources for the development of other civilizations. The internal tension and contradictory movement formed by these five civilizations promote the progress of the whole civilization of human society. If the development of a certain civilization element lags behind, it will restrict other civilization elements, cause the disorder of organism operation and affect the healthy development of the whole society.
Marxist classical writers believe that social comprehensive production is a systematic and holistic production formed by the interaction of various social factors, which inevitably requires the coordinated development of the "five civilizations". Before the capitalist society, the degree of social civilization was not high because of the backward social productive forces and the low material civilization seriously restricted the progress of other civilizations. However, in capitalist society, due to the insurmountable antagonistic contradictions between productive forces and production relations, economic base and superstructure, people and nature, people and society, and people and people have formed sharp opposites. Due to the inherent contradictions that cannot be overcome by themselves, capitalist social organisms will eventually die out due to multiple accompanying crises such as economic crisis, political crisis, cultural crisis, social crisis and ecological crisis. Socialism will replace capitalism because socialist society is an all-round development society, which can coordinate the relationship between man and nature, man and society, and man and man, and promote the coordinated development of material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization.
The coordinated promotion of "five civilizations" is a distinctive feature of the Chinese modernization road.
Looking at the historical process of world modernization vertically and comparing the development level of modernization in other countries horizontally, we can easily find that Chinese modernization has both the universal characteristics of world modernization and the distinctive characteristics of China.
General Secretary of the Supreme Leader stressed that the modernization of our construction must have China characteristics and conform to the reality of China. China’s modernization is a modernization with a huge population, the common prosperity of all people, the coordination of material civilization and spiritual civilization, the harmonious coexistence of man and nature and the peaceful development path, which is the direction that China’s modernization must adhere to. At the celebration of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), General Secretary of the Supreme Leader clearly pointed out: "We adhere to and develop Socialism with Chinese characteristics, promote the coordinated development of material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization, and create a new road of Chinese modernization and a new form of human civilization." This shows that the coordinated promotion of the "five civilizations" is a very distinctive feature of the Chinese modernization road.
Since its establishment, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has been exploring the modernization road of all-round social development under the guidance of Marxism. In January 1940, Comrade Mao Zedong clearly pointed out in "On New Democracy": "We communist party people have struggled not only for the political revolution and economic revolution in China, but also for the cultural revolution in China for many years; The purpose of all this is to build a new society and country of the Chinese nation. In this new society and country, there are not only new politics and economy, but also new culture. " After the founding of New China, in the process of exploring Chinese-style modernization, the Party has constantly improved the overall layout of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, from putting forward the "four modernizations" to realizing material civilization, to grasping both material civilization and spiritual civilization, to coordinating and promoting the construction of material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization, and from grasping the all-round development of society to promoting the all-round development of people, the Party has always regarded modernization as an all-round modernization. Gradually formed the idea of coordinated development of "five civilizations", and organically combined economic, political, cultural, social and ecological system reforms under this guidance, forming the overall layout of coordinated promotion of "five civilizations". The formation of the coordinated modernization layout of the "five civilizations" shows that the Communist Party of China (CPC) people have a clearer understanding of the modernization laws of human society.We have a clearer idea of what kind of modern power to build and how to build a socialist modern power.
After more than 70 years since the founding of New China and more than 40 years of reform and opening-up, especially 10 years since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has always insisted on promoting the development of material civilization with economic construction as the center, political civilization with political construction as the guarantee, spiritual civilization with spiritual and cultural construction as the inner soul, social civilization with social construction as the necessary condition, and ecological civilization with ecological civilization as the solid cornerstone. It has achieved a historic leap from economic development to coordinating the development of socialist material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization, formed a development pattern of economic prosperity, political democracy, cultural prosperity, social equity and good ecology, created a Chinese-style modernization road and a new form of human civilization, solved many problems in the development of human society, and abandoned the old modernization road of western capital-centered modernization, polarization modernization, materialism expansion modernization and foreign expansion and plunder.
Coordinated promotion of "five civilizations" is the fundamental way to build a socialist modern power.
The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China drew a grand blueprint for the second century and put forward that "China should be built into a strong, prosperous, democratic, civilized, harmonious and beautiful socialist modernization power". By that time, China’s material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization and ecological civilization will be comprehensively improved, the national governance system and governance capacity will be modernized, and it will become a country with leading comprehensive national strength and international influence. The common prosperity of all people will be basically realized, and our people will enjoy a happier and healthier life. The Chinese nation will stand among the nations of the world with a more high-spirited attitude. " In order to build China into a prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious and beautiful socialist modernization power in the middle of the 21st century, we must continuously promote the coordinated development of the "five civilizations" and realize the comprehensive promotion of the "five civilizations".
In terms of material civilization construction, we should adhere to Socialism with Chinese characteristics’s basic economic system, always take economic construction as the center, achieve high-quality development with innovation as the first driving force, coordination as the endogenous feature, green as the universal form, opening up as the only way, and sharing as the fundamental purpose, promote quality change, efficiency change and dynamic change of economic development, focus on solving the outstanding problems of insufficient development imbalance on the basis of continuous development of productive forces, and ensure that all people have more sense of gain and happiness in economic construction.
In the construction of political civilization, we should adhere to the organic unity of the party’s leadership, the people being the masters of the country and governing the country according to law, strengthen the construction of socialist democratic politics, unswervingly follow the road of political development in Socialism with Chinese characteristics, promote the development of socialist deliberative democracy, promote people’s democracy in the whole process, promote a more sound democratic system, enrich democratic forms and broaden democratic channels, enable the people’s subjectivity to be implemented in the political and social life of the country, and enable all aspects of systems and state governance to better reflect the people’s will, protect people’s rights and interests, and inspire the people.
In the construction of spiritual civilization, we should adhere to the guidance of Marxism, firmly grasp the leadership of ideological work, build a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leading force, vigorously cultivate and practice socialist core values, strengthen the construction of advanced socialist culture, promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China’s excellent traditional culture, stimulate the creative vitality of the whole nation’s culture, better build China spirit, China values and China’s strength, and consolidate the common ideological foundation of the United struggle of the whole party and people of all nationalities.
In terms of social construction, we will persist in strengthening social construction with the focus on safeguarding and improving people’s livelihood, and continue to exert our efforts to provide education for young children, education for learning, income from labor, medical care for the sick, security for the old, housing and support for the weak, so as to make people’s sense of well-being, happiness and security more substantial, secure and sustainable. By promoting the modernization of social governance system and governance capacity, we will continuously improve the civilization of the whole society and promote a more harmonious and orderly society.
In terms of ecological civilization construction, we should adhere to Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets’s idea, adhere to the integrated protection and systematic management of mountains, rivers, fields, lakes, grass and sand, protect the ecological environment like eyes, treat the ecological environment like life, integrate ecological civilization construction into economic construction, political construction, cultural construction and social construction, and more consciously promote green development, circular development and low-carbon development, and adhere to the road of civilized development with production development, affluent life and good ecology.
In coordinating and coordinating the "five civilizations", we must always adhere to the Party’s overall leadership over modernization, adhere to the people-centered development idea, adhere to the systematic concept, coordinate the two overall situations at home and abroad, face the major social contradictions, conscientiously implement the new development concept, strengthen forward-looking thinking, overall planning, strategic layout and overall promotion, and unify the construction of "five civilizations" into the great practice of building a socialist modern country. It is reflected in the principles and policies, strategies and tactics, policy measures and work arrangements of China’s development, avoiding the abnormal development of sacrificing one or several civilizations in exchange for the development of other civilizations, and ensuring the overall promotion and coordinated development.
