Telling the Story of Whole-Process People’s Democracy in Practice

Telling the story of the Chinese Communist Party’s vivid democratic practice and innovation, concretely demonstrating the breadth and effectiveness of whole-process people’s democracy, and presenting a perceptible picture of political civilization not only helps break the Western monopoly on democratic discourse, but also helps strengthen China’s international discourse power on democracy, promotes the international dissemination of China’s democratic image, and at the same time contributes Chinese wisdom to developing countries exploring their own democratic paths.

讲好中国共产党生动的民主实践创新故事，具象化展现全过程人民民主的广泛性、实效性，展示可感知的政治文明图景，这不仅有助于打破西方在民主话语中的垄断，也有助于增强中国民主的国际话语权，促进中国民主形象国际传播，同时为发展中国家探索自主民主道路贡献中国智慧。

I. Whole-Process People’s Democracy Is the Most Extensive Democracy

一、全过程人民民主是最广泛的民主

“The masses are the creators of history and the subjects of social and historical development.” The extensiveness of whole-process people’s democracy is rooted in the essential attribute of “people-centeredness” in Marxism. It focuses on the subject dimension of democracy, answering the fundamental question of “whose democracy,” and clearly embodies the fundamental stance of the Chinese Communist Party of being “people-centered.” The Chinese Communist Party creatively combines the mass line with democratic politics, returning the essence of democracy to the process of the people’s extensive participation in public affairs. This both inherits the governance wisdom of “the people are the foundation of the state” [1]1 “The people are the foundation of the state” (民惟邦本) is a classical Chinese political maxim from the *Book of Documents* (《尚书》), emphasizing that the people are the root of the state. from traditional Chinese political culture and integrates the concept of rights protection from modern democratic politics, thereby constructing a new type of democracy with the characteristic of people-centeredness.

“人民群众是历史的创造者，是社会历史发展的主体。”全过程人民民主的广泛性，植根于马克思主义“人民性”这一本质属性。它聚焦于民主的主体维度，解答“谁的民主”这一根本问题，鲜明体现了中国共产党“以人民为中心”的根本立场。中国共产党创造性地将群众路线与民主政治相结合，将民主的本质回归于人民广泛参与公共事务的过程之中，既继承了中国传统政治文化中“民惟邦本”的治理智慧，又融合了现代民主政治的权利保障理念，构建起具有人民性特质的新型民主。

Whole-process people’s democracy breaks through the elite-dominated model of democracy, incorporating all socialist workers, socialist builders, and patriots who support socialism into the democratic political system, ensuring that more than 1.4 billion people, regardless of ethnicity, occupation, region, or class, enjoy equal democratic rights, and guaranteeing the substantive participation of multiple subjects. This extensiveness is reflected not only in the diversity of subject composition, but also in the innovative development of forms of participation and the broad coverage of participation content. It includes institutionalized channels to ensure regular participation and flexible mechanisms to adapt to differentiated needs. The rights protection system runs through all links of democratic elections, democratic consultations, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision, enabling all the people to manage state affairs through various channels and forms in accordance with the law.

全过程人民民主突破精英主导的民主模式，将全体社会主义劳动者、社会主义建设者及拥护社会主义的爱国者纳入民主政治体系，确保了14亿多人民不分民族、职业、地域、阶层均享有平等民主权利，保障了多元主体的实质性参与。这种广泛性不仅体现在主体构成的多元性上，更在于参与形式的创新发展，参与内容的广泛覆盖，既有制度化渠道保障常态化参与，又有灵活性机制适应差异化需求，权利保障体系贯穿民主选举、民主协商、民主决策、民主管理、民主监督各环节，使全体人民依法通过各种途径和形式管理国家事务。

On the new journey of the New Era, telling the democratic story of extensive participation in whole-process people’s democracy further stimulates the people’s enthusiasm for participation, clarifies the boundaries of rights and responsibilities for new forms of participation through the rule of law, deepens dynamic channels for people’s participation through digitalization, and optimizes the quality of participation through scientific evaluation, promoting the evolution of extensiveness from “quantitative coverage” to “deep activation.”

在新时代新征程上，讲好全过程人民民主广泛参与的民主故事，进一步激发人民的参与热情，通过法治化明确新型参与形式的权责边界，以数字化深化人民参与动态通道，用科学化评估优化参与质量，推动广泛性从“数量覆盖”向“深度激活”演进。

II. Whole-Process People’s Democracy Is the Most Genuine Democracy

二、全过程人民民主是最真实的民主

The genuineness of whole-process people’s democracy is grounded in solving problems related to the people’s vital interests, responding to the question of “what kind of democracy,” and its essence lies in realizing the organic integration of institutionalized procedural justice with the people’s will, focusing on the requirement that institutional design and implementation must reflect public opinion and embody popular wisdom.

全过程人民民主的真实性特质落脚于人民切身利益相关问题的解决，回应了“何种民主”问题，本质在于实现制度化的程序正义与人民意志的有机结合，着重于制度设计与实施必须能反映民意，体现民智。

The Chinese Communist Party, by constructing a full-cycle democratic mechanism, ensures that democracy runs through the entire process of decision-making formation, implementation supervision, and effect feedback, forming a closed-loop governance system from the expression of demands, to policy transformation, and then to effectiveness testing. This genuineness is manifested at the institutional level as transparency in the exercise of power, connectivity in the expression of interests, and agility in policy adjustment. Specifically, a sound legislative consultation mechanism ensures that the rational demands of diverse groups are incorporated into the decision-making agenda; a performance evaluation system quantifies public satisfaction into governance parameters; and a dynamic feedback mechanism promotes continuous policy optimization. This both avoids governance failures such as “procedural formalism” and transcends the limitations of one-way policy output, deepening “popular consent” from a momentary authorization during the election cycle into a continuous political driving force throughout the entire governance process.

中国共产党通过构建全周期民主机制，使民主贯穿于决策形成、执行监督、效果反馈的全过程，形成从诉求表达到政策转化，再到效能检验的闭环治理系统。这种真实性在制度层面表现为权力运行的透明性、利益表达的贯通性与政策调适的敏捷性。具体而言，健全的立法协商机制确保多元群体的理性诉求纳入决策议程，绩效评估体系将民意满意度量化为治理参数，动态反馈机制则推动政策持续优化。既规避了“程序空转”式的治理失灵，又超越了单向度政策输出的局限，使“人民同意”从选举周期的瞬时授权，深化为贯穿治理全过程的持续性政治动能。

Facing the governance transformation of the digital age, telling the genuine and effective democratic story of whole-process people’s democracy seeks a balance between technological ethics and institutional resilience. On the one hand, it uses blockchain technology to strengthen credible evidence storage and traceability across the entire policy chain, utilizes big data analysis to improve the accuracy of public opinion identification and aggregation, and simultaneously builds a digital democratic infrastructure that balances procedural transparency with privacy protection. On the other hand, it continuously improves the constitutional guarantee mechanism for institutional operation, transforming the requirements for substantive justice in democratic procedures into a rights protection system that can be subject to judicial review, providing solid rigid institutional support for the principle of genuineness.

面向数字化时代的治理变革，讲好全过程人民民主真实有效的民主故事，在技术伦理与制度韧性间寻求平衡。一方面，运用区块链技术强化政策全链条的可信存证与追溯，利用大数据分析提升民意识别与聚合的精准度，同步构建程序透明与隐私保护并重的数字民主基础设施。另一方面，持续完善制度运行的宪法保障机制，将民主程序的实质正义要求转化为可诉诸司法审查的权利保障体系，为真实性原则提供坚实的刚性制度支撑。

III. Whole-Process People’s Democracy Is the Most Effective Democracy

三、全过程人民民主是最管用的民主

“Democracy is not an ornament, not for display, but to be used to solve the problems the people need to solve.” [2]2 This is a direct quotation from Xi Jinping, from his speech at the Central Conference on Work Related to People’s Congresses in 2014. This assertion profoundly reveals the value orientation of whole-process people’s democracy. The effectiveness of whole-process people’s democracy is deeply rooted in the Marxist theoretical insight into democracy as a mechanism of historical progress. A genuine democratic system should become “the political form of human emancipation,” [3]3 This phrase alludes to Karl Marx’s concept of democracy as a form of political emancipation in his early writings, such as “On the Jewish Question.” whose value lies not only in the formal justice of rights distribution, but also in the practical efficacy of promoting social development. Whole-process people’s democracy is based on the practical effectiveness of democracy, answering the question “what is democracy for.” Its core logic is to transform the advantages of the democratic system into a driving force for sustainable development, and its fundamental characteristic lies in emphasizing the practical efficacy of solving practical problems and promoting social progress.

“民主不是装饰品，不是用来做摆设的，而是要用来解决人民需要解决的问题的”，这一论断深刻揭示了全过程人民民主的价值导向。全过程人民民主的管用性特质深植于马克思主义关于民主作为历史进步机制的理论洞见。真正的民主制度应当成为“人的解放的政治形式”，其价值不仅在于权利分配的形式正义，更在于推动社会发展的实践效能。全过程人民民主立足于民主的实际效能，解答“民主何用”的问题，核心逻辑是将民主制度优势转化为可持续发展的动能，根本特征在于强调解决实践问题、推动社会进步的实践效能。

The Chinese Communist Party adheres to taking the people’s aspiration for a better life as its goal, upholds the people-centered development philosophy, strives to ensure and improve people’s livelihoods, focuses on solving the people’s urgent, difficult, and anxious problems, and transforms the institutional advantages of democratic centralism into governance effectiveness. This both fully guarantees the rational expression of diverse interest demands and achieves efficient integration of governance resources, making it a core mechanism for solving livelihood problems and achieving good social governance. For example, major decisions form scientific plans through multi-level consultation and multi-party argumentation; crisis response relies on an institutionalized social mobilization network to quickly build consensus and allocate resources; grassroots governance, through the deep extension of democratic practice, transforms the wisdom of the masses into a source of innovation for governance. This mechanism of effectiveness transformation enables the democratic system to transcend the single dimension of rights protection and develop into a composite governance system capable of optimizing resource allocation, improving governance efficiency, and enhancing collective action capacity.

中国共产党坚持把人民对美好生活的向往作为奋斗目标，坚持以人民为中心的发展思想，着力保障和改善民生，着力解决人民急难愁盼问题，把民主集中制的制度优势转化为治理效能，既充分保障多元利益诉求的理性表达，又实现治理资源的高效整合，使其真正成为破解民生难题、实现社会善治的核心机制。例如，重大决策通过多层协商、多方论证形成科学化方案；危机应对依托制度化的社会动员网络，迅速凝聚共识、调配资源；基层治理借助民主实践的深度延伸，将群众智慧转化为治理创新的源头活水。这种效能转化机制使民主制度超越单一的权利保障维度，发展成为能优化资源配置、提升治理效率、增强集体行动能力的复合型治理体系。

Based on the strategic needs of modernizing national governance, telling the democratic story of whole-process people’s democracy that works and is truly effective deepens continuously under the dual drive of institutional optimization and technological empowerment. It optimizes the operational mechanism of democratic centralism, enhancing the efficiency of information integration “from the masses” and the effectiveness of policy transformation “to the masses”; it improves the evaluation and feedback system for governance effectiveness, constructing a digital governance closed loop covering problem identification, policy adjustment, and effect tracking; it strengthens the theoretical consciousness of institutional innovation, distilling and elevating the methodological advantages accumulated in governance practice into a theoretical system of democratic effectiveness with universal explanatory power.

立足国家治理现代化的战略需求，讲好全过程人民民主行得通、真管用的民主故事，在制度优化与技术赋能的双重驱动下持续深化。优化民主集中制的运行机制，提升“从群众中来”的信息整合效率与“到群众中去”的政策转化效能；健全完善治理效能的评估反馈体系，构建涵盖问题识别、政策调整、效果追踪的数字化治理闭环；强化制度创新的理论自觉，将治理实践中积累的方法论优势，凝练升华为具有普遍解释力的民主效能理论体系。

Whole-process people’s democracy always places the people’s subjectivity at its core, profoundly practicing the fundamental requirement of “firmly taking the people’s stand, grasping the people’s aspirations, respecting the people’s creativity, and concentrating the people’s wisdom.” From extensiveness to consolidate the subject foundation, to genuineness to enhance institutional advantages, and then to effectiveness to demonstrate practical value, it organically unifies subject participation, procedural justice, and governance effectiveness. This both reflects the inherent theoretical logic of socialist democratic politics and demonstrates the practical wisdom of modernizing national governance. On the new journey, the key to telling the story of whole-process people’s democracy lies in synergistically promoting institutional innovation, technological empowerment, and cultural cultivation, continuously driving democratic politics from institutional advantages to a deeper leap toward a higher form of civilization, and contributing more Chinese wisdom to the progress of human political civilization.

全过程人民民主始终将人民的主体性置于核心地位，深刻践行“站稳人民立场、把握人民愿望、尊重人民创造、集中人民智慧”的根本要求，从广泛性筑牢主体根基，到真实性提升制度优势，再到管用性彰显实践价值，将主体参与、程序正义与治理效能有机统一，既体现了社会主义民主政治的内在理论逻辑，也彰显了国家治理现代化的实践智慧。新征程上，讲好全过程人民民主故事关键在于协同推进制度创新、技术赋能与文化涵育，持续推动民主政治从制度优势向更高层次文明形态的深层跃迁，为人类政治文明进步贡献更多中国智慧。

Online Editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心