One of the hot words these days in the mouth of CPC members is “不忘初心”。 Directly translated, it means Do not forget about the Initial Heart., which makes no sense in English because most people will always be with their original hearts the whole life. The official translation is Remain true to our original aspiration. Since 2017, this four Chinese characters were given more and more emphasis. They form the first phrase in the slogan (and the theme) of the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017 (as is shown in the header picture) and became the theme of the several rounds of nation-wide CPC member education programs.
In this short (hopefully) piece, I attempt to discuss what is “初心” and speculate a reason for top leadership’s mindset bringing it up in the current situation.
Three Keywords
The Aim
As is explained in the official translation, 初心 is not about the HEART, but the MINDSET (or DREAM). I would translate “不忘初心” into Do not forget about what you came for. However, what the CPC came for is a complicated question.
As is shown in its name, CPC aims to achieve for Communism. In the First National Congress of the CPC in 1921, which marks the founding of the Party, a document called The First Program of the Communist Party of China 1921 was passed. It says the program (in Chinese 纲领) of the Party was to overthrow the capitalist classes, to adopt the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to overthrow the private ownership. Although many of these policies are anti-capitalism, it never explicitly mentioned the aim of achieving Communism in China.
The Second National Congress of the CPC in 1922 adjusted the Program, but the tone was interestingly shifted. The Program of the CPC was divided into the Highest Program and the Lowest Program. The Highest Program was to achieve Communism, while the Lowest Program was to end the dictatorship of the Warlords, to end oppression of Imperialism, and to build a independent republic.
From the previous narratives the split of Communism and Nationalism emerged. For traditional Communist parties in Europe in the early 20th century, achieving Communism is the ultimate aim and the rest are tools or measures. For these European parties, their countries are strong (most of them are Empires) facing the conflict of domestic inequalities. Compared to them, China faces 2 sets of conflicts. Besides the inequality among classes, China at that time also faced the conflict of invasion and oppression, the latter being more severe for most of the time. Since the Opium War in the 1840s, both reformist and the revolutionists in China had printed Nationalism on their banners. The first of Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles was actually Nationalism.
For the young CPC in the 1920s, it had to weigh the balance of Communism and Nationalism carefully. Communism is what distinguished the CPC from the other political units, such as the KMT. However, without Nationalism it would be hard to gain the majority’s support. 国民党 used to be translated into the Nationalist Party, For whom Nationalism is the aim and the rest are measures. For example, Chang Kai-shek practiced state-capitalism in 1920s quite successfully, but he justified the state control of industries in the name of building a stronger country instead of class-struggles.
What is aim and what is measure, Communism VS Nationalism, has become the question for the CPC since its early days. Therefore, Do not forget what you came for is hard, for what CPC came for is hard to be defined.
Historical Shifts
The tone of Party regarding this issue experienced several shifts in the 90 years of its history. In the early 1920s, Communist policies such as Land Reforms and Labor Strikes were given more weight. Some historians regard these policies potentially contributed to the split of the first cooperation of the KMT-CPC because it was the wealthy landlords and capitalist entrepreneurs helped financed KMT’s Northern Expeditions against warlords.
In the 1930s, the tone shifted towards Nationalism. Multiple reasons were behind the curtains. First, the invasion of Japanese made country independence an urgent conflict. Second, the military tensions made the help of capitalist entrepreneurs, either cash or medical supplies, more vital. Third, the attitude of the Soviet towards Chang Kai-shek changed because they regard him as one of the few national leaders who would be able to fight and stall the Japanese army in the east.
It was in this background that Chairman Mao put forward the theory of the New Democracy in 1940. In the New Democracy regime, all classes would participate in the political dictatorship and manage the country together. The anti-capitalism sentiment was redefined as anti-state-capitalism. Mao explicitly said that National Capitalists (民族资本家, referring to the patriotic capitalist entrepreneurs who were not affiliated to the KMT government) would be able to continue their business in the New Democracy. These statements formed the foundation of a united-government in 1949 when the People’s Republic was founded.
From late 1950s till 1970s, the tone shifted back towards Communism/Socialism, partly because the independent of the country was almost achieved. Although in this period economic development was emphasized many times, Socialist principles such as anti-private-ownership would always win when economic targets and political targets were in conflict. There is a famous saying called “宁要社会主义的草，不要资本主义的苗”, roughly translated into We would rather stick with socialist weed instead of capitalist seedling growing on the farm.
After Reform and Opening Up, Deng Xiaoping made many efforts to adjust the balance. Besides achieving independence and end Imperialism, he added to Nationalism a new task of “国家富强” (making the country wealthy and strong, but Deng put much more effort to wealthy compared to strong). His theory of the Primary Stage of Socialism made it clear that economic development is the unavoidable task on the path of achieving Communism. Based on this line of thinking, Jiang Zemin put forward his theory of Three Represents, which states that the CPC represents the fundamental interests of the majority of people, implicitly putting an end to the Marxism Fundamentalists’ criticism of the reemerge of capitalist entrepreneurs after Reform and Opening Up (clearly turning back to the 1960s does not make the majority of the people better off).
Current Narratives
So what does “初心” represents in the current political narratives? In the speech of the 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2017, Xi Jinping explicitly announced that The original aspiration and mission of the Communist Party of China is to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, and restated the exact sentence in many other speeches. I believe with all the introductions in the previous sections, it is very obvious what he has in mind. Though he subsequently in other essays emphasized that the aim of achieving Communism and the rejuvenation of the country is united rather than in conflict, the majority of the people, who seldom pay attention to these theoretical essays, would forget about the dual aims of the party given time. From now, Nationalism in the sense of building a strong (and wealthy) country would be the aim, the rest would be the measures.
Why now? A potential explanation lies in the mindset of the Chinese people. Any political parties or forces need to put forward some creeds to unite the supporters. With the past 40 years of development, Communism in the form of 1960s are scary, and is serving as a less efficient tools to unite the people, especially for the young generations. Therefore, nationalism, which is closely associated the principle of being loyal to your country in the traditional Confucius mindset, became a natural choice.
For domestic reasons, I would say this is not a bad choice. However, how will this shift being perceived by the west is a much more complicated issue, for which I look forward to your opinions.
