Beijing: China's new
Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has warned cadres of a Soviet-style
collapse if the party is confronted with ideological dissent, military
disloyalty and corruption, the deadly mix that led to the dramatic
disintegration of once mighty Soviet Union.
China must heed the still "deeply profound" lessons of the former Soviet
Union, where political rot, ideological heresy and military disloyalty
brought down the governing party, Xi, 59, reportedly told party leaders
during his tour of Guangdong province in December last year soon after
his election as the General Secretary of the ruling party a month
before.
"Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist
Party collapse? An important reason was that their ideals and
convictions wavered," the New York Times, which has obtained the summary
of his comments, quoted Xi as saying.
Official media, which covered his visit to China's richest province, did not publicise his remarks.
"Finally, all it took was
one quiet word from (the last Soviet leader) Mikhail Gorbachev to
declare the dissolution of the Soviet Communist Party, and a great party
was gone," he said about the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Communist
Party in 1991.
"In the end, nobody was a real man, nobody came out to resist," Xi said,
referring to the collapse of the mighty Soviet Union after the
74-year-long rule by the Soviet Communist Party.
About Chinese Communist Party whose iron-fisted rule of the country
entering 64th year, he said, "We're a major power, and we absolutely
cannot allow any subversive errors when it comes to the fundamental
issues."
In some ways, Xi's warnings were not new as the lessons of the Soviet
collapse are part of the curriculum of schools run by the CPC to
enlighten its cadre about hidden dangers and threats to the party's
rule.
"The Soviet Communist Party collapsed in 1991 after 74 years in power.
It is a wake-up call for the CPC and a very good lesson to be learnt,"
Zhou Jintang, the vice president of the China Executive Leadership
Academy at Jiangxi province, told visiting Foreign Journalists few
months ago.
The Academy, one of six established by the CPC, trains around 5,000
middle rung party leaders and officials from the military, government
business every year in various aspects of ideological education.
Ever since he took over as Party leader, Xi, currently the Vice
President, has been warning the party about rot setting in its ranks
reminding them about "cyclical fall of rulers" throughout Chinese
history.
In one of his meetings with the non-Communist parties, Xi also narrated
an ancient Chinese saying which stated "things must have gone rotten
before insects can grow" while asking his party-men to stay clean and
self-disciplined.
Vowing to carry forward reforms, he has also been cautioning about any
ideological confusion in the CPC in the backdrop of disgraced Party
leader, Bo Xilai, who, before his fall last year, tried to resurrect old
Maoist hardline ideology playing up on the growing rich-poor divide.
Since his election, Xi has also been insisting that the country's
2.3-million-strong PLA, the world's largest Army, should remain under
the leadership of the party and cannot have an independent command
structure.
After taking over as party chief, Xi also took over as the Chairman of
the Military Commission, which controlled the armed forces.
He is due to take over as President after the retirement of Hu Jintao,
making him the most powerful leader of the party in recent years.
Hu had to wait for two years to become head of the Military Commission after his election as party chief ten years ago.
In one of his addresses to the military last month, Xi called for absolute loyalty to the CPC.
PTI
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