On July 9, 2019, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out in his speech at the party building work conference of the central and state organs: "We should closely follow the characteristics of the party building era and party member’s ideological and behavioral characteristics, actively explore new ways and methods that are conducive to solving problems, and actively explore new carriers and new ways to carry out work under the conditions of informationization." At present, with the rapid development of information technology, information technology represented by big data has profoundly changed people’s thinking, understanding and behavior. It is of great significance to make full use of the advantages of big data and strive to improve the breadth, depth and accuracy of party building work in the new situation.
The Significance of Big Data in Promoting Party Building in the New Era
In the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’s Opinions on Strengthening the Party’s Political Construction, it is proposed to actively use emerging technologies such as the Internet and big data, innovate the content and methods of party organization activities, and promote "smart party building". In the tide of informationization, we should explore the special role of big data in innovative party building.
Big data is an important thrust to fully implement the general requirements of party building in the new era. The Communist Party of China (CPC)’s leadership and organizational advantages are important guarantees for doing all the work well and overcoming all kinds of difficulties and risks. The world today is experiencing a great change that has never happened in a hundred years. The world has entered a period of turbulent change, and the difficulties and challenges faced by our party are different from those in the past. Facing the new situation and new challenges, how to fully implement the general requirements of Party building in the new era, so as to manage the Party well, effectively and effectively, and build our Party better and stronger. The application of big data in information resources, communication scope and work efficiency has provided favorable opportunities for grassroots party building work. Big data has become a powerful weapon for all countries in the world to achieve information development. The convenience, timeliness, extensibility and inclusiveness of big data determine its role in fully implementing the general requirements of party building in the new era today.
Big data is the proper meaning of improving the scientific, accurate and standardized party building. A very important feature of big data technology is to digitize objects. Party building work can make use of big data to network and intelligentize Party building and education management services in party member, and provide standardized and convenient party management, innovative and diverse organizational activities, one-stop party member service, multi-angle learning and publicity, etc. Wherever the network develops, Party building work will cover it. Big data can also make centralized learning and organizational life break through the limitations of time and space, provide real-time, high-quality and large-capacity materials for party member’s learning and education, and provide digital support for party member’s learning achievement detection. Through the research and analysis of the data, we can master all the information of party member’s ideological level, work performance, behavior habits, party spirit cultivation and so on, upgrade and optimize the team building mode, and make the team building change from extensive management to refined management mode. At the same time, the value of big data can be further explored in the management of mobile party member, the assessment of leading cadres, the evaluation of party representatives’ performance, and the construction of the party’s grassroots organizations.
Big data is an effective means to strengthen the daily supervision of leading cadres in party member. To uphold the party’s leadership, we must strictly manage the party. A very important aspect of "strictness" is to strengthen the supervision and management of cadres. Strengthen the daily management and supervision of leading cadres in party member, find the incipient problems as soon as possible, put the discipline ahead, and extend the comprehensive and strict management of the Party to the end and advance it to the depth. Judging from the current situation, there are still many shortcomings in accurately strengthening the daily supervision of cadres and power, and the extensive research and application of big data provides us with solutions and paths to improve the daily supervision and management of cadres. With the rapid development of the Internet, promoting the deep integration of traditional supervision means and modern information means, exploring the use of big data thinking and information means, strengthening comprehensive analysis and judgment, promoting the transformation of cadre supervision from simplification to three-dimensional, and making daily supervision more operational and effective are the "cages" for weaving power operation and effective means for strengthening daily supervision of leading cadres. Insisting on combining Party building with the application of information technology can help us fully, deeply and concretely understand the "hidden" problems existing in party member’s cadre information and Party building, and minor problems that are not easy to be found in the daily management of cadres are more likely to be exposed in data analysis, so that we can make an early warning response at the first time, "bite our ears" and "pull our sleeves" for cadres and move the cadre supervision barrier forward.Solve the problem at the beginning, in the bud.
Using Big Data to Promote the Party Building Work
Using big data to promote party building is a systematic project. Only by adhering to political guidance, making good use of technical means and strengthening team building can we better play the role of this emerging basic strategic resource and continuously improve the quality of party building.
Political guidance is the premise. Big data is a double-edged sword. While realizing the great value brought by data security integration and data transaction circulation, the large-scale use of data inevitably brings potential risks, such as the risk of public opinion caused by public content, and the risk of data leakage, loss and abuse. In the process of making full use of big data to promote party building, strengthening political guidance is a prerequisite. We should deepen our understanding of the application of big data in Party building, further clarify the fundamental requirements for big data to boost Party building, always adhere to the correct political stance, political direction and political principles, and start with innovative forms of Party building work to provide high-quality and efficient information and technical services for Party organizations and party member groups, so as to enhance the organizational strength, cohesion and combat effectiveness of Party organizations. It is necessary to use Marxist philosophical principles to dialectically treat the advantages and disadvantages of the combination of big data and party building, realize the mutual promotion of science and technology and party building, and turn the biggest variable of the Internet into the biggest increment to promote party building.
Technical means is the key. The data itself is meaningless, and the data is meaningful only after processing and interpretation. Starting from the massive data, after a series of technical processing such as collection, sorting, processing and analysis, effective information is deeply extracted and applied to specific goals, so as to reflect the value of the data itself. In this sense, the connotation of big data lies in the ability of thinking, tools and means to deal with these large-scale data. For the party building work in the new era, we should attach importance to the integration of advanced technology and ideas, break the conventional work mode, and promote the development of party work mode in the direction of informationization and intelligence. In particular, it is necessary to break the traditional thinking of "focusing on party building", take the big party building thinking as the guide, coordinate all functional departments, rely on advanced technical means such as big data, Internet of Things, VR and AR, cloud computing, take data and hardware as the basis, take the effective combination of traditional party building working methods and new smart party building models as the starting point, and aim at strengthening political functions, highlighting service functions and embodying innovative functions to build an efficient, smooth and safe party building information management platform.
Team building is the foundation. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader emphasized that being good at obtaining data, analyzing data and using data is the basic skill for leading cadres to do a good job. Emphasize the need to build a multi-level and multi-type team of big data talents. In the era of mobile intelligence, talents play an important role in promoting the transformation and innovation of party building work. They should not only have strong business ability of party building work, but also have high ability to use information technology, and can effectively use big data technology, Internet of Things technology and cloud computing technology to carry out party affairs and strengthen the ideological guidance of the party. At present, the talent team engaged in party building work is generally older, unskilled in the use of new technologies, and some even have exclusion psychology. This requires selecting young and middle-aged talents with good political quality, strong network technology and good at party building and ideological and political work, and enriching them into the party building work team. It is also possible to carry out the training of party affairs staff in the aspects of intelligent knowledge, information security maintenance and application ability, build a team of party building big data, uniformly deploy and guide the integration of party building big data in various regions, and give feedback and evaluation based on the implementation effect of the work to promote the steady progress of party building big data integration.
Safeguard measures to promote party building work by using big data
Using big data to promote party building is a highly innovative work, which needs support and guarantee from all sides. This requires us to establish the strategic thinking of planning Party building with Internet thinking and promoting Party building with information technology, clarify the leading institutions, introduce construction standards, and improve various mechanisms to ensure that the use of big data to promote Party building is effective.
Strengthen overall planning. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader clearly pointed out that Party committees at all levels should attach great importance to the influence of information development on Party building, ensure that the Party’s work will be covered wherever the network develops, make full use of information technology to improve education management in party member, raise the level of mass work, and strengthen the positive guidance of online public opinion. Using big data to promote the construction of party building work is a systematic project. Without the cooperation of all parties, it is difficult to carry it out. It is necessary to build a smart party building leadership system with unified leadership of party committees, division of responsibilities of functional departments and joint management. Party organizations at all levels must understand the importance and urgency of promoting "big data+party building" from a strategic and overall perspective, and constantly enhance the consciousness and firmness of online party building. Relevant functional departments are in charge of formulating relevant policy documents and platform design of "Party Building+Big Data", coordinating, supervising and inspecting the work as a whole, strengthening the responsibilities and tasks of member units and relevant institutions, and building a development pattern of "Big Data+Party Building" with unified leadership of the Party Committee and government and relevant departments performing their respective duties. Leading cadres in party member have a leading role in demonstrating. They need to consciously establish new ideas, learn new technologies and use new media, take the lead in participating in the practice of "Big Data+Party Building", actively learn, understand and use the Internet, and truly become the leader and guide of smart party building.
Introduce construction standards. At present, the use of big data to promote party building is in the exploratory stage. There is no unified construction standard, and all localities have their own characteristics and priorities, which is not conducive to standardized operation and high-quality development. We need to closely focus on the requirements and characteristics of Party building work in the new era, formulate a set of technical standards and protocols for "Big Data+Party Building" work including websites, software, APP, WeChat public platform and QR code application, clarify the interaction standards of various business data, define the data specifications for party organizations at all levels to exchange, and actively promote the rise to a unified standard. At the same time, from the three aspects of education, management and service in party member, a unified "Big Data+Party Building" business process is formulated, such as the development of party member workflow, the "three sessions and one lesson" process and the heart-to-heart conversation process.
Improve various mechanisms. We need to speed up the establishment of a management mechanism for data collection, analysis, classification and use, and solve the problems of using big data to promote multi-head leadership of party building projects, repeated design of platforms, and different data standards, so as to achieve unified command, clear responsibilities and rights, and application to people. It is necessary to establish and improve the laws and regulations on personal information security and the supervision mechanism for the use of data information in party member, and strengthen the legal protection of personal privacy and data security. It is necessary to establish and improve the communication mechanism, realize the sharing of knowledge resources between party organizations across regions and industries, and realize the learning and transmission of key technical elements through new technical means. It is necessary to establish and improve the funding guarantee system and promote the infrastructure construction of "big data+party building". It is necessary to formulate corresponding performance appraisal standards in a targeted manner, carefully deploy the platform construction of party organizations at all levels, and evaluate the construction effectiveness, so that the new model of "Big Data+Party Building" can be put into practice as soon as possible.
(Author: Linzi Unit: School of Marxism, Renmin University of China)