Page 183 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume III

REFORM OF THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE 181
ists and diplomats. Similarly, we hope there will be a contingent of fine
30-to-40-year-old scientists, educationists, writers and specialists in other
fields. It is essential to introduce measures in various areas, including
education and the management of cadres, to encourage young people. Strictly
speaking, we are only taking our first steps in this regard. There are many
problems to be studied and many measures to be taken, but we must act
carefully.
The second objective of political structural reform is to eliminate
bureaucratism and increase efficiency. One reason for low efficiency is that
organizations are overstaffed, and their work proceeds at a snail’s pace. But
the main reason is that we have not separated the functions of the Party from
those of the government, so that the Party often takes over the work of the
government, and the two have many overlapping organs. We must uphold
leadership by the Party and never abandon it, but the Party should exercise
its leadership effectively. It’s several years already since we first raised this
problem of efficiency, but we still have no clear idea as to how to solve it.
Unless we increase efficiency, we shall not succeed in our drive for moder-
nization. In the world today, mankind is progressing at a tremendous pace.
Especially in science and technology, if we lag only one year behind, it will
be very hard to catch up. So we have to increase our efficiency. Of course
this is not just a question of separating the Party from the government; there
are many other problems to be solved too.
The third objective of political reform is to stimulate the initiative of
grass-roots units and of workers, peasants and intellectuals. One thing we
have learned from our experience in economic reform over the last few years
is that the first step is to release the peasants’ initiative by delegating to them
powers of decision in production. That is what we did in the countryside.
We should do the same in the cities, delegating powers to the enterprises and
grass-roots units and thereby motivating workers and intellectuals and demo-
cratizing management by letting them participate in it. The same applies to
every other field of endeavour.
Only with a vigorous leadership that has eliminated bureaucratism,
raised efficiency and mobilized the grass-roots units and the rank and file
can we have real hope of success in our modernization drive.
(From a talk with Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone of Japan on
November 9, 1986.)