The Central Eight-Point Regulations: The “Institutional Blade” of the Party’s Self-Revolution

The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC pointed out: “Through unremitting efforts, the Party has found a second answer to the question of how to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall—self-revolution. Its capacity for self-purification, self-improvement, self-reform, and self-enhancement has been notably strengthened. The lax and weak governance of the Party has been fundamentally reversed. A political environment within the Party that is upright and clean has been continuously fostered and developed, ensuring that the Party never changes its nature, its color, or its flavor.” [1]1 The “20th National Congress of the CPC” refers to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in October 2022. As the opening chapter of the Party’s self-revolution in the New Era, the Central Eight-Point Regulations use a “small incision” to drive “changes unseen in a century,” reshaping the intra-Party political ecology through institutional innovation. They provide a methodological model for comprehensive and strict governance of the Party, becoming an institutional benchmark for the Party’s self-revolution in the New Era, and exerting far-reaching significance for advancing the modernization of national governance.

党的二十大报告指出：“经过不懈努力，党找到了自我革命这一跳出治乱兴衰历史周期率的第二个答案，自我净化、自我完善、自我革新、自我提高能力显著增强，管党治党宽松软状况得到根本扭转，风清气正的党内政治生态不断形成和发展，确保党永远不变质、不变色、不变味。”作为新时代党的自我革命的开篇之作，中央八项规定以“小切口”推动“大变局”，通过制度创新重塑了党内政治生态，为全面从严治党提供了方法论典范，成为新时代党的自我革命的制度标杆，对推进国家治理现代化产生了深远意义。

An institutional response to the questions of the era. The report of the 18th National Congress of the CPC pointed out: “The tests of governance, reform and opening up, the market economy, and the external environment facing the Party are long-term, complex, and severe. The dangers of mental slackness, insufficient capability, disconnection from the masses, and passive corruption are more sharply placed before the entire Party.” [2]2 The “18th National Congress of the CPC” refers to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in November 2012. Under the conditions of the current era, the Communist Party of China faces unprecedented challenges and tests. Faced with the long-term nature of the “Four Tests” and the sharpening of the “Four Dangers,” we urgently need to advance the Party’s self-revolution to ensure the Party’s advanced nature and purity, and to enhance the Party’s cohesion and combat effectiveness. In December 2012, the Central Eight-Point Regulations, passed at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, incorporated eight aspects—including research, meetings, and writing style—into institutionalized norms, opening a new journey of the Party’s self-revolution with the political courage of “turning the blade inward.” [3]3 The “Central Eight-Point Regulations” were adopted by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on December 4, 2012, to improve Party conduct and curb bureaucracy, formalism, extravagance, and hedonism. This regulation not only inherits the Party’s fine tradition of work style but also, through institutional innovation and technological application, achieves an organic integration of power restriction and institutional governance of the Party. It demonstrates the spiritual outlook of Chinese Communists in the New Era who dare to engage in self-revolution, effectively extricating the Party from governance difficulties and greatly enhancing governance effectiveness.

应对时代之问的制度回应。党的十八大报告指出，“党面临的执政考验、改革开放考验、市场经济考验、外部环境考验是长期的、复杂的、严峻的，精神懈怠危险、能力不足危险、脱离群众危险、消极腐败危险更加尖锐地摆在全党面前”。当今时代背景下，中国共产党面临着前所未有的挑战和考验，面对“四大考验”长期化、“四种危险”尖锐化的现实挑战，我们迫切需要推进党的自我革命，确保党的先进性和纯洁性，增强党的凝聚力和战斗力。2012年12月，中央政治局会议通过的中央八项规定将调研、会议、文风等8个方面纳入制度化规范，以“刀刃向内”的政治勇气开启了党的自我革命新征程。这一规定不仅继承了党的优良作风传统，更通过制度创新和技术应用实现了权力制约与制度治党的有机结合，展现了新时代中国共产党人勇于自我革命的精神风貌，有效摆脱了治理困境，大幅提升了治理效能。

The combination of problem orientation and systematic thinking. On the one hand, the Central Eight-Point Regulations take opposing the “Four Forms of Decadence” as their targeted entry point, establishing a closed-loop working mechanism of “the masses raising issues—discipline inspection commissions supervising—departments rectifying.” [4]4 The “Four Forms of Decadence” (四风) refer to formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism, and extravagance, targets of the anti-corruption campaign. Over more than a decade, over 10,000 leads on issues have been collected through petition platforms, and special rectification campaigns have been carried out against chronic problems such as using public funds for eating and drinking. In rectifying “waste on the tip of the tongue,” the system of “four documents in one” for official hospitality was innovated, driving a significant decline in national official hospitality expenses. [5]5 “Four documents in one” (四单合一) refers to a system combining a receipt, an invoice, a menu, and a list of participants for official meals to prevent fraud. On the other hand, the Central Eight-Point Regulations incorporate work style construction into the overall layout of Party building, forming a synergistic mechanism of “preventing corruption, governing corruption, and rejecting corruption.” This achieves a deep integration of institutional innovation and ideological education, promoting the in-depth development of comprehensive and strict governance of the Party.

问题导向与系统思维的结合。一方面，中央八项规定以反对“四风”问题为靶向切入点，建立起“群众点题—纪委督办—部门整改”的闭环工作机制，十余年间通过信访平台收集问题线索超万条，针对公款吃喝等顽疾开展了专项整治。在整治“舌尖上的浪费”中，创新公务接待“四单合一”制度，推动全国公务接待费用大幅下降。另一方面，中央八项规定将作风建设纳入党的建设总体布局，形成了“防腐、治腐、拒腐”的协同机制，实现了制度创新与思想教育的深度结合，促进了全面从严治党的深入发展。

Synergy between institutional governance of the Party and technological empowerment. At the level of institutional governance of the Party, through the revision of the *Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Disciplinary Action*, the Central Eight-Point Regulations were codified, perfecting the system of intra-Party regulations. [6]6 The *Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Disciplinary Action* is a key intra-Party regulation specifying penalties for violations of Party discipline. This “institutional supply” includes both foundational regulations such as the *Regulations on Practicing Frugality and Opposing Waste by Party and Government Organs* and operational details such as “per capita 80 yuan” for official hospitality, forming a complete chain of coverage that manifests the governance wisdom of a Marxist party’s institutional governance. [7]7 The “per capita 80 yuan” rule refers to a specific limit on the cost of official meals per person. At the level of institutional implementation, through technological empowerment, digital governance technologies are creatively applied to break through traditional supervision bottlenecks, highlighting the multiplier effect of technological governance on institutional implementation. For example, the official vehicle management platform uses “one vehicle, one code” for dynamic monitoring of over one million vehicles, and the fiscal budget disclosure platform covers 98% of county-level governments, constructing a digital supervision system of “full-process traceability and full-element monitoring.” This technological empowerment drives the transformation of the supervision model from “labor-intensive” to “technology-driven,” greatly enhancing supervision effectiveness.

制度治党与科技赋能的协同。在制度治党层面，通过修订《中国共产党纪律处分条例》，将中央八项规定法定化，完善了党内法规体系。这种“制度供给”既包括《党政机关厉行节约反对浪费条例》等基础性法规，也涵盖公务接待“人均80元”等操作性细则，全链条覆盖的完整体系彰显了马克思主义政党制度治党的治理智慧。在制度执行层面，通过科技赋能创造性地运用数字治理技术突破传统监督瓶颈，凸显了技术治理对制度执行的倍增效应。例如，公务用车管理平台通过“一车一码”动态监控100多万辆车，财政预算公开平台覆盖98%的县级政府，构建起“全流程留痕、全要素监控”的数字化监督体系。这种技术赋能推动了监督模式从“人力密集型”向“技术驱动型”转型，大幅提升了监督效能。

The connection between intra-Party governance and national governance. Intra-Party governance is the solid foundation of national governance, and the Central Eight-Point Regulations have powerfully promoted the integration of the two. First, through an institutional linkage mechanism, over 220 central intra-Party regulations are organically integrated with the national legal system. For instance, the *Regulations on Practicing Frugality and Opposing Waste by Party and Government Organs* reflects its core content in the *Anti-Food Waste Law of the People’s Republic of China* through relevant procedures, achieving synergy between intra-Party regulations and national laws. [8]8 The *Anti-Food Waste Law of the People’s Republic of China* was enacted in 2021 to combat food waste. Second, through a supervision coordination mechanism, a three-dimensional network of “intra-Party supervision + state supervision + mass supervision” is constructed, enabling the supervisory system reform to cover both Party members and public officials. The Central Eight-Point Regulations, with their concise, clear, strict, and rigorous requirements, standardize the code of conduct for Party cadres, prompting the vast majority of Party cadres to internalize the Party’s purpose in their hearts and externalize it in their actions, enhancing Party spirit and self-discipline awareness, and boosting the Party’s cohesion, combat effectiveness, and execution, thereby solidifying the foundation for the Party’s cause. The improvement in the intra-Party atmosphere has also produced a demonstration effect, leading a transformation in social atmosphere. The vast majority of Party cadres go deep into the grassroots, maintain close ties with the masses, and effectively solve practical problems for the people. This pragmatic work style has formed a positive orientation throughout society, promoting harmony in cadre-mass relations and providing strong spiritual motivation and a mass foundation for the modernization of national governance. At the same time, the concepts of clean governance, self-discipline, diligence, and frugality embodied in the Central Eight-Point Regulations are highly compatible with the value pursuits of fairness, justice, efficiency, and clean governance advocated in national governance. This injects positive energy into the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, promotes institutional improvement and the enhancement of governance effectiveness, and achieves a high degree of unity and synergistic progress between intra-Party governance and national governance in terms of goals, concepts, and actions.

党内治理与国家治理的贯通。党内治理是国家治理的坚实基础，中央八项规定有力推动了二者的融合。首先，通过制度衔接机制将220多部中央党内法规与国家法律体系有机融合，如《党政机关厉行节约反对浪费条例》通过相关流程将内容要义反映在《中华人民共和国反食品浪费法》中，实现了党内法规与国家法律的协同。其次，通过监督协同机制构建了“党内监督+国家监察+群众监督”的立体网络，使监察体制改革覆盖了党员和公职人员。中央八项规定以简洁明了且严肃严格的要求，规范了党员干部的行为准则，促使广大党员干部将党的宗旨内化于心、外化于行，增强了党性修养和自律意识，提升了党的凝聚力、战斗力和执行力，为党的事业发展筑牢了根基。党内风气的好转也带来了示范效应，引领了社会风气的转变。广大党员干部深入基层、密切联系群众，切实解决群众实际问题，这种务实作风在全社会形成了积极向上的导向，促进了干群关系的和谐，为国家治理现代化提供了强大的精神动力和群众基础。同时，中央八项规定所蕴含的廉洁自律、勤俭节约等理念与国家治理中倡导的公平正义、高效廉洁等价值追求高度契合，为国家治理体系和治理能力现代化注入了正能量，推动了制度完善和治理效能的提升，实现了党内治理与国家治理在目标、理念和行动上的高度统一与协同共进。

The practical sublimation of the Party’s self-revolution theory. First, in the practice of implementing the Central Eight-Point Regulations, the Communist Party of China established “work style construction is always on the way” as a basic law of Party building, writing it into the General Program of the *Constitution of the Communist Party of China*, achieving a systematic innovation in the theory of self-revolution. [9]9 The *Constitution of the Communist Party of China* is the Party’s fundamental document, revised periodically at National Congresses. Through the closed-loop mechanism of “problem orientation—institutional constraint—cultural cultivation” during the implementation of the Central Eight-Point Regulations, the limitations of traditional “campaign-style governance” in Party building were broken, transforming work style construction from “violent storms” to “moistening things silently.” Second, a new Party-building paradigm of the dialectical unity of “institutional governance of the Party” and “ideological Party building” was creatively proposed. Institutional governance of the Party is reflected in the construction of the “1+4” intra-Party regulation system, while ideological Party building is achieved through intra-Party centralized education campaigns such as the “Three Stricts and Three Honests” and the “Two Studies, One Action,” [10]10 The “Three Stricts and Three Honests” (三严三实) campaign (2015) calls for strict self-discipline, power use, and self-examination, and honest work, deeds, and words. The “Two Studies, One Action” (两学一做) campaign (2016) promotes studying Party regulations and speeches and being a qualified Party member. embedding the “Four Consciousnesses” and the “Four Confidences” deeply into the mind and heart. [11]11 The “Four Consciousnesses” (四个意识) are the consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment with the central Party leadership. The “Four Confidences” (四个自信) are confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The organic combination of the two forms the deterrence of “dare not be corrupt,” the constraint of “cannot be corrupt,” and the self-discipline of “do not want to be corrupt.” Furthermore, at the level of supervision theory, the three-dimensional pattern of “intra-Party supervision + state supervision + mass supervision” achieves a major breakthrough in Marxist party supervision theory. Intra-Party supervision establishes a mechanism of coordinated inspection tours at central and local levels; state supervision achieves full coverage of supervision over public power; mass supervision broadens platforms for supervision at all levels. This three-dimensional supervision system has significantly increased the rate of detecting disciplinary violations, and supervision effectiveness has shifted from “passive response” to “active early warning.”

党的自我革命理论的实践升华。首先，中国共产党在落实中央八项规定的实践中，将“作风建设永远在路上”确立为党的建设基本规律写入《中国共产党章程》总纲，实现了自我革命理论的系统性创新。中央八项规定实施过程中通过“问题导向—制度约束—文化养成”的闭环机制，突破了传统党建“运动式治理”的局限，使作风建设从“疾风暴雨”转向“润物无声”。其次，创造性地提出“制度治党”与“思想建党”辩证统一的党建新范式。制度治党体现在“1+4”党内法规体系的构建上，思想建党则通过“三严三实”“两学一做”等党内集中教育，实现“四个意识”“四个自信”入脑入心。二者有机结合形成“不敢腐”的震慑、“不能腐”的约束和“不想腐”的自觉。此外，在监督理论层面，“党内监督+国家监察+群众监督”的三维格局实现了马克思主义政党监督理论的重大突破。党内监督建立了巡视巡察上下联动的机制，国家监察实现了对公权力监督的全覆盖，群众监督拓宽了各级监督的平台，这种立体化监督体系使违纪问题的发现率明显提升，监督效能也由“被动响应”转向“主动预警”。

Contributing Chinese wisdom to global party governance. As an important strategic measure for the construction of a Marxist party, the Central Eight-Point Regulations have not only played a huge role in Party building but have also contributed unique Chinese wisdom to global party governance, enriching and developing Marxist party-building theory. Its anti-corruption model of “institutions + technology” has been listed by the United Nations as a best practice in global governance and has been promoted and applied in 56 countries. The Central Eight-Point Regulations have explored a successful path for relying on the Party’s self-revolution to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall, opening up a new realm of self-revolution for a century-old major party, and providing a strong political guarantee for the historic achievements and historic transformations in the cause of the Party and the state. The Central Eight-Point Regulations are the concrete practice of the theory of “the Party’s self-revolution.” They enrich Marxist party-building theory. This breakthrough not only solves the historical question of the “cave dwelling query” but also provides a Chinese solution for global governance, offering new possibilities for the progress of human political civilization. [12]12 The “cave dwelling query” (窑洞之问) refers to a 1945 conversation between Mao Zedong and Huang Yanpei, where Huang asked how the CPC could avoid the historical cycle of rise and fall; Mao answered that the people’s supervision was the key.

为全球政党治理贡献了中国智慧。作为马克思主义政党建设的重要战略举措，中央八项规定不仅对党的建设发挥了巨大作用，更为全球政党治理贡献了独特的中国智慧，丰富和发展了马克思主义建党学说。其“制度+科技”的反腐模式被联合国列为全球治理最佳实践，在56个国家推广应用。中央八项规定探索出依靠党的自我革命跳出历史周期率的成功路径，开辟了百年大党自我革命的新境界，为党和国家事业取得历史性成就、发生历史性变革提供了坚强政治保障。中央八项规定是“党的自我革命”理论的具体实践，它丰富了马克思主义建党学说，这种突破既解决了“窑洞之问”的历史课题，又为全球治理提供了中国方案，为人类政治文明进步提供了新的可能性。

As a landmark achievement of the Party’s self-revolution in the New Era, the Central Eight-Point Regulations[13]13 The Eight-Point Regulations: A set of rules issued by the CPC Central Committee in December 2012 to curb extravagance, bureaucracy, and formalism among Party officials, widely seen as a key early move in Xi have demonstrated formidable vitality in the dialectical unity of historical logic and practical imperatives. They have not only established an institutional system for improving work style but also reshaped the political ecology of Party-mass relations. On the new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, we must unswervingly uphold institutional governance of the Party and governance of the Party according to regulations, transform the spirit of the Central Eight-Point Regulations into the deep logic of state governance, advance the Party’s self-revolution with the courage to turn the blade inward, and ensure that the Party remains the strong leading core of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

作为新时代党的自我革命的标志性成果，中央八项规定在历史逻辑与现实需求的辩证统一中彰显了强大生命力。它不仅构建了作风建设的制度体系，更重塑了党群关系的政治生态。在全面建设社会主义现代化国家的新征程中，我们必须始终坚持制度治党、依规治党，将中央八项规定精神转化为治国理政的深层逻辑，以刀刃向内的勇气推进党的自我革命，确保党始终成为中国特色社会主义事业的坚强领导核心。

(The author is a professor at the School of Marxism, Chang’an University)

（作者系长安大学马克思主义学院教授）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧