CPC's roots run deep in Yan'an

In the weeks before July 1, when the Communist Party of China marked the 105th anniversary of its founding, visitors streamed through the Yan'an Revolutionary Memorial Hall in Northwest China's Shaanxi province for a closer look at the formative years of the Party.

Among them was Peter Wilson, the United Kingdom's ambassador to China, who visited Yan'an in June.

At the museum, Wilson stopped before a life-size reconstruction of the Great Production Campaign launched by the CPC in the 1940s to overcome economic blockades and achieve greater self-sufficiency. Two soldiers of the Eighth Route Army were depicted bending over a rough stretch of earth, hoes in hand, breaking ground in what had once been barren wasteland outside Yan'an.

On the wall were four Chinese characters: mai tou ku gan.

Wilson read them out in Chinese. The phrase can be rendered as "put one's head down and work hard".

The moment reflected the larger purpose of his visit. Wilson had come to learn about the 13 years when the CPC Central Committee was based in Yan'an and Mao Zedong and other veteran revolutionaries lived and worked there. It was during this period that China's revolutionary cause moved from a low point into an upsurge and reached a historic turning point.

Later, standing outside Mao's former cave dwelling at the Yangjialing revolutionary site, Wilson said that he had not expected that the CPC would grow in strength under such austere conditions.

"Foreigners also need to understand your history," he said. "I think it is very important to come here and visit the sites where history unfolded."

Understanding how China views its own history, he added, helps outsiders understand its future.

From 1935 to 1948, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, with Yan'an at its center, was the seat of the CPC Central Committee, and was where the CPC endured military encirclement, economic blockade and severe material shortages.

Those years helped shape the Yan'an spirit, characterized by firm and correct political direction, emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, serving the people wholeheartedly, and self-reliance through hard work.

In the museum, those ideas take tangible form in photographs, documents and objects preserved from an era of war and scarcity.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and Chinese president, has visited Yan'an several times since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012.

During a fact-finding trip to Shaanxi in February 2015, he described the fine traditions and conduct that were developed during the Yan'an period, together with the Yan'an spirit, as "an invaluable asset of our Party".

The connection was also personal.

About an hour-and-a-half drive from downtown Yan'an lies Liangjiahe, a village in the hills of northern Shaanxi. Xi arrived there in early 1969, before turning 16, and spent seven years living and working alongside local farmers. He later became the village Party secretary.

Xi led villagers in building silt dams, digging wells, constructing a biogas digester, opening a supply store and setting up an iron workshop to improve agricultural production and address difficulties in daily life.

After visiting the cave dwelling where Xi had lived, Wilson said he was struck by the number and variety of books that Xi had read there, including works by Soviet writers and Henry Kissinger's doctoral dissertation.

"The range of his reading was really extraordinary," Wilson said, adding that it must have been very difficult to read without electric light.

Shi Chunyang, who worked alongside Xi and later became the village Party secretary, told Wilson that Liangjiahe had struggled with shortages of coal and firewood.

After reading a newspaper report about the use of biogas in Sichuan province, Xi traveled there as part of a six-member team to study the technology. Upon returning, he led villagers in building a digester that could provide fuel for cooking and gas for lighting.

After a series of technical problems were resolved, the digester began producing gas. In July 1974, it lit what was described as the first biogas lamp on the northern Shaanxi plateau.

Reflecting on his Liangjiahe years in a memoir published in 2002, Xi wrote that he had "roots deep in the northern Shaanxi plateau" because the experience had cultivated his enduring commitment "to do practical things for the people".

Li Shufeng, vice-president of the China Executive Leadership Academy Yan'an, said Xi's years there marked the beginning of his experience as a public servant.

More than five decades after the biogas lamp was lit, Liangjiahe presents a different picture.

Wilson pointed to solar panels on rooftops, improved crops and agricultural products reaching wider markets as examples of how life has changed. "The countryside is much more prosperous than it used to be, and living conditions have clearly improved," he said.

'Dream of the people'

Xi drew the same contrast during a speech in the United States city of Seattle in September 2015. He recalled that Liangjiahe once had no paved roads, and villagers had lived in cave dwellings.

He said that when he returned in early 2015, the village had blacktop roads, families lived in brick-and-tile houses and had internet access, elderly residents received basic old-age care, villagers had healthcare coverage and children attended school.

The changes had made him keenly aware that "the Chinese dream is, after all, the dream of the people" and could only be fulfilled when closely connected with the people's aspiration for a better life, Xi said.

Li said that Xi's grassroots experience had also made Liangjiahe a window through which foreign visitors could seek to understand the CPC's approach to governance.

In January 2020, Thongloun Sisoulith, then prime minister of Laos, visited the village museum and the cave dwelling where Xi had lived.

Thongloun later told People's Daily that he was most impressed by how Xi had eaten, lived and worked alongside villagers and helped them develop production.

A leader should "share the people's joys and hardships, and learn from them", he said.

Other political leaders and delegations from Asia, Africa and elsewhere have also visited Liangjiahe to learn about Xi's years there and the village's development.

Li said that books, documents and news reports are still important ways to study China, but they offer limited information compared with visiting historical sites in person.

Entering the cave dwellings where Mao once worked or where Xi lived as a young man allows visitors to place the hardships of the past beside changes they can observe for themselves, he said.

The contrast gives them a more concrete understanding of how the CPC connects its revolutionary history with its present approach to governance and modernization.

Li also pointed to the contemporary relevance of self-reliance. As the world undergoes changes unseen in a century, he said, countries are seeking development paths suited to their own circumstances.

The CPC's decision to pursue self-reliance and hard work under the difficult conditions of the Yan'an period could offer inspiration to countries trying to chart their own course, he added.

In October 2022, less than a week after the conclusion of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, Xi led members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee back to Yan'an.

Xi said the spirit of self-reliance and hard work must never be repudiated, no matter how prosperous the country becomes. He called for down-to-earth, practical efforts, a sustained focus on managing China's own affairs well, and reliance on the country's own strength to support national development.

The Yan'an spirit is a precious asset of the Party and "should be passed down from generation to generation", Xi said.