"Everything That Concerns Unit Building Is Within Our Purview"
"Everything That Concerns Unit Building Is Within Our Purview"
■ Liu Xinding, Staff Officer of the Organization Section, PLA Navy Coastal Defense Missile Regiment
Not long ago, I went down to a company to inspect Party affairs work. When I arrived at the meeting room of one company, the company Party branch had already neatly arranged all kinds of ledgers and records on the table.
But instead of flipping through the meeting record books as I usually would, I sat down to one side of the meeting room: "You're planning to hold a Party small-group meeting—go ahead as normal."
Party small-group leader Sergeant Zhao presided over the meeting, working through the agenda item by item. When it came to the criticism and self-criticism segment, I sensed something was off.
"I suggest Sergeant Zhang take care of his health." "Sergeant Wang has a real knack for leading soldiers—I hope he keeps summarizing and refining his approach." This was supposed to be a criticism session—so why was there so little "bite" to it?
I was just about to raise the problem, but swallowed my words: would interrupting the proceedings arbitrarily make the grassroots feel that agency cadres were "sticking their noses in" and "nitpicking"?
During the deepening of political rectification training (深化政治整训), in collective study sessions, everyone had studied how during the Yan'an Rectification period the Party Central Committee called on leading cadres to take the lead in carrying out criticism and self-criticism, setting an example for the entire Party. Party members were not unfamiliar with this content, but in implementation, the phenomenon of everyone praising everyone else was still unavoidable.
Thinking this through, I felt I could not "turn a blind eye," so I spoke up: "Serious and standardized intra-Party life (党内生活) is the means by which we examine our ideological work style and make active and effective corrections. We must persist in making good use of it—we cannot go through the motions. You might try a different approach: have everyone start by 'identifying one shortcoming and offering one suggestion.'"
Once the problem was recognized, the company Party branch immediately moved to rectify it. A Party member backbone took the lead: "Sergeant Zhao, you've been keeping a tight grip on training lately, but housekeeping has gotten a bit lax, and your standards for yourself have slipped..." Seeing this, the other Party members also began putting problems on the table.
"In the past I always felt criticism was difficult. I never expected that simply changing the method and approach could produce real results," Sergeant Zhao reflected during his self-criticism. "Fearing that criticism will offend people comes down, in the end, to insufficient Party principle (党性原则)."
After the Party small-group meeting, the company Party branch once again made clear that, in conjunction with the deepening of political rectification training, it would use occasions such as organizational life meetings (组织生活会) and officer-and-enlisted heart-to-heart talks (官兵恳谈会) to make criticism routine and institutionalized, so that the weapon of criticism grows ever sharper and the atmosphere of unity grows ever stronger.
"If agency inspections focus only on ledgers, the grassroots will inevitably produce records specifically to cope with inspections, and organizational life meetings will become a formality." Seeing the results of the supervision, I felt more resolute in my own mind: when problems are discovered, one must uphold principles and dare to tackle hard issues head-on.
From that point on, while conducting inspections and guidance in accordance with regulations, I paid greater attention to looking at actual results and listening to what officers and soldiers had to say, shifting my gaze away from the notebooks and directing my energy toward guiding the resolution of problems.
On one occasion, I went to my old company to provide work guidance. While eating in the mess hall, I noticed a soldier sitting alone in a corner with his meal tray, who had taken only a couple of bites before setting down his chopsticks, his whole demeanor downcast.
At the time I hesitated: I was no longer serving in the company—would managing too much mean "overstepping my bounds"? But on reflection: if it needs managing, it must be managed. So I specifically reminded the company's political instructor to pay attention to this soldier.
Learning that the soldier had broken up with his girlfriend over the question of whether to stay in the military or leave, and was frequently suffering from insomnia, the political instructor proactively contacted the girlfriend to mediate, giving her a detailed account of the soldier's performance in the unit. Before long, the smile returned to the soldier's face, and his training results gradually improved.
"The matter itself was not major, but it reflects whether the agency truly cares about grassroots affairs." Learning of my work experience, the regiment Party committee, in conjunction with the deepening of political rectification training, organized agency personnel to carry out discussion and analysis around the question of "what going down to the grassroots (下基层) should actually look like," guiding everyone to reflect against their own conduct: sitting in the office waiting for problems to come to you, or going among the officers and soldiers to discover problems? Flipping through ledgers and reading records, or investigating actual conditions and solving real difficulties?
During the discussion, when it came to sharing work insights, I thought for a moment and said: "Before, I felt that inspecting work meant doing well the tasks the organization had assigned. Now I understand that the agency and the grassroots are one family. Everything that concerns unit building is within our purview. Some things, even if no one has assigned them to you, cannot be sidestepped—they must be actively taken care of."
(Compiled by PLA Daily special correspondent Feng Zhibin)