The National Conference on Organizational Work held on June 28-29, 2023, summarized General Secretary Xi Jinping's important thoughts on Party construction with "thirteen insistence", the first of which is "insisting on and strengthening the overall leadership of the Party". The greatest advantage of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the CPC is the highest political leadership in contemporary China, and adherence to the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee is the Party's highest political principle. On the way forward, we must adhere to and strengthen the overall leadership of the CPC without wavering, implement the overall leadership of the CPC into all areas of the Party and state undertakings in all aspects and links, and ensure that the whole Party, the whole army and the whole nation of all ethnic groups are united and moving forward.

Adhering to and strengthening the overall leadership of the Party must improve the Party's leadership system. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "We must continue to promote the institutionalization of Party leadership and the rule of law, constantly improve the Party's leadership system and working mechanism, and implement Party leadership into the entire process and all aspects of the comprehensive rule of law." Since its founding, the CPC has always paid great attention to its own institutional construction. The 100-year history of the Party is the history of the continuous development and success of the Party and the people's cause, as well as the history of the continuous strengthening of the Party's leadership, and the history of the Party's institutional construction from its infancy to its gradual completion to the formation of an institutional system. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "one of the outstanding features of the superiority of China's socialist political system is the Party's central leadership role in overseeing the whole situation and coordinating all parties, which is imaginatively described as 'the stars holding the moon', and this 'moon' is the CPC." To improve the system of comprehensive leadership of the Party, we must ensure that under the unified leadership of the Party, all regions, departments and units take their positions, perform their duties, make their best efforts and work together in an orderly manner, so as to ensure that the decrees at the central and local levels are unified, smoothly operated, efficiently carried out and energized. We need to establish and improve the institutional mechanism for the Party's leadership of major work, strengthen the leadership of Party organizations at the same level, give better play to the role of the Party's functional departments, set up Party and government institutions in a coordinated manner, and push forward the reform of the Party's disciplinary and inspection system and the State supervision system. To improve the functional system of Party and state institutions, it is necessary to implement the adherence to and strengthening of the overall leadership of the Party into the entire process of the performance of duties by all institutions of the Party and the state, to promote coordinated action by all parties, to enhance synergy, to realize the leadership of the Party in the entire process of the performance of functions by all institutions of the state, and to ensure that the Party's guidelines, policies and decision-making and deployment are implemented and enforced.

[The author is a lecturer at the Marxism School of the Party School of the CPC East China Provincial Committee (Shandong Administrative College). For more Party lessons, see Party Lesson Reference].