Second, when there is no distinction between Party and government, the Party has no time or energy to attend to its own building. Only when the two are separated is it possible to see that "the Party handles Party.affairs." To build up our Party, Party committees should put their own construction on the agenda; they should be good at ridding themselves of the burden of daily chores. Non-Party affairs should be handled by the government, the National People's Congress, the various social, economic and cultural organizations - they should be allowed to function fully. The Party's work, ideological and organizational construction is wholly for the Party committees, and should not be done by others. Under the conditions of reform and opening up, the Party, as the ruling Party, faces a whole new set of challenges: how to be fully competent in undertaking the great task of exercising leadership over socialist modernization, how to stand up to the test of being a Party in power and the test of reform and opening China to the outside world; how to maintain a high prestige, strong cohesion and great appeal to the masses. The ideological and organizational construction of the Party and its mass work should be seriously undertaken by Party committees at various levels. They should never "cultivate the land of others while letting their own fields lay waste," (taking on the work of administration while neglecting the work of the Party).

Third, when there is no distinction between Party and government, the Party committees have to bear the burden of administrative work and may even become one opposite of a contradiction. Only when the two are separated is it possible for the Party to stand tall and be in a position to handle contradictions with ease and assume overall control of the situation, hence playing their part as the leader in "co-ordinating the work in all fields." The socialist society is not a monolith. In this society, people of all kinds, of course, share common interests, but their special interests should not be overlooked. The conflicting inferests should be receonciled. The government should work to coordinate various kinds of interests and contradictions; the Party committees must be even better at the co-ordinating work. One of the five functions of local Party committees is "co-ordinating the activities of the various local organizations." If the Party committees take on government work and that of the various economic and cultural organizations, and if the Party committees make decisions and implement them all themselves, the Party committees are behaving like an executive organ. By then they will find themselves not only with little room to manoeuvre, but actually deprived of the qualifications they need to co-ordinate contradictions.

Fourth, when there is no distinction between Party and government, the Party becomes the executive body; only when the two are separated is it possible for Party organizations truly to supervise. To raise work efficiency, the administrative system must be reinforced; to this end, supervision must be strengthened. One cannot supervise oneself. If you take on all the administrative work, you lose the qualification needed to supervise the administration. Overcoming bureaucracy is an extremely important task for all our leading organs. If the Party committees take on administrative work they themselves will become the hotbed for bureaucracy. Meanwhile, with the separation of Party and government, the Party committees, when free from routine administrative work, will truly be a force for fighting bureaucracy.

These four principles boil down to one point: there must be a clear orientation for separating Party from government. In order not to erode the Party's leading role, to enable the Party committees to coordinate work in all fields and supervise administration, and to boost Party construction under the new historical conditions, it is imperative to separate Party from government. Technical problems relating to the separation of the two, including forms and methods, should be studied in practice. The placement of cadres is a question of how to make appropriate arrangements in the light of the specific features of the Party and government work, and should not be an excuse for justifying the confusion of Party and government functions. If everybody from top to bottom realizes the importance of separating Party from government and can seriously and conscientiously work for it, it will proceed smoothly and steadily. This separation will facilitate the stable and gradual development of the political structural reform and the implementation of other measures. The question is therefore of paramount importance, and I hope you attend to it seriously.

Historical Analysis

Of course, the situation where Party and government are lumped together must be analysed from a historical angle and must not be oversimplified. The old system has its own historical conditions and background. Formed during the revolutionary war years, the old system was strengthened by repeated political movements and adapted to the highly centralized mandatory planning economic system. Now the situation is different. The modernization programme calls for motivating various organizations and social interests and requires the establishment of a normal order for them. The system which took shape during the war years cannot meet the needs of peace time; the system that was strengthened by mass movement cannot cope with the requirements of modernization; a highly centralized system has no way of promoting the development of a commodity economy. With this change in situation and task, we cannot stick to the former leadership system. This is determined by historical conditions, not by any individual. In separating Party from government, we must make this clear. We should never do anything that will demoralize our comrades who do Party work and make them feel as if they made mistakes. This we would never do! On the contrary, we will make everyone understand that separating Party from government is a new higher demand on our Party's work following the development of the situation and the cause of the Party; therefore, they will conscientiously, actively and happily commit themselves to reform and work for the historical change. (Renmin Rihao, Nov. 26, 1987. Subheads are ours.)

(NO. 50 DECEMBER 14, 1987)