During the communist era in East Germany, the ruling elite adopted a song with the uncompromising line Die Partei, die Partei, die hat immer recht (“The Party, the Party, which is always right”). Today’s Chinese Communist Party is not quite so blunt. A resolution on China’s history issued by the CCP in November strikes a more nuanced note: “The Party is great not because it never makes mistakes, but because it always owns up to its errors, actively engages in criticism and self-criticism, and has the courage to confront problems and reform itself.”
The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party Over the Past Century is only the third statement of its kind. The CCP issued similar documents in 1945 and 1981 under Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, respectively, intended to forge an official narrative of the party’s past—and define its orientation and trajectory in the present. Leaders within the party debate at length about the draft, which CCP researchers must revise repeatedly before it emerges as an official proclamation. The verdicts of these resolutions are regarded as definitive and reappear widely, including in media articles, school textbooks, and speeches by lower-level officials.
