CHINA: China's Communist Party celebrates its 85th birthday today with rallies and television specials. Aware of the challenges facing the party in the 21st century, however, President Hu Jintao renewed his call for the comrades to combat spreading corruption which was sapping the government's authority.
Great Chinese icons and achievements, such as the high-tech Pudong area of Shanghai, the Three Gorges dam, the Tibet railway, which is due to open today, as well as the space programme Shenzhou 6, have featured in the TV advertisements for the 85th birthday events, all emblazoned with the hammer and sickle.
The Communist Party had nearly 71 million paid-up members last year, and historians say its success is certainly one of the most politically significant events of the 20th century.
The organisation that celebrates its birthday today is a very different kind of Communist Party from the one founded by a gathering of some 50 radical intellectuals in Shanghai in 1921.
For one thing, the Marxist-Leninist party has taken capitalism to its bosom, though democracy is still not an option, and its doctrinaire roots showed in a speech by President Hu, who is also party leader and head of the army.
"The Communist Party always attaches great importance to maintaining and developing the progressive nature as a Marxist party," Mr Hu said in a speech broadcast live from party HQ.
"We must profoundly grasp the lengthiness, complexity and difficulty of fighting corruption and promoting clean government. If a ruling party cannot maintain flesh-and-blood ties with the people, if it loses the people's support, it will lose its vitality," he said.
This week, China sacked the deputy head of the navy, Wang Shouye, for "economic crimes" and having "loose morals" after he was denounced by his mistress. A vice-governor in the eastern province of Anhui was detained for taking bribes, and earlier this month, Beijing vice-mayor Liu Zhihua, who was responsible for allocating some Olympics projects ahead of the Beijing Games in 2008, was sacked because of corruption.
Reinforcing ideological loyalty and spreading wealth to China's poor could ensure that the party remains in power even as it deepens market reforms, Mr Hu said.
The slick, sophisticated and at times ferocious political machine that is today's Communist Party was initially organised by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, who set up communist cells in Shanghai in 1920. In July 1921, the party was officially formed and held its first congress on July 20th.
Among those attending was Mao Zedong, who became the party's dominant figure, its "Great Helmsman" and leader of the revolution. Under Mao's leadership, the party seized power in 1949 after a civil war which saw its bitter rivals, Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomingtang, banished to Taiwan.
The post-1949 period was characterised by enormous social change, including Stalinesque purges, famine resulting from the disastrous social experiment known as the "Great Leap Forward" in which millions died, and the Cultural Revolution, which began 40 years ago.
After Mao's death in 1976, the party began the process of reform, which led to astonishing economic growth and improved prosperity, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, all the while maintaining a tight grip on the country.
The party line has long been that China is not ready for democracy. The defeat of the Kuomingtang in democratic elections in Taiwan in 2000 further strengthened its resolve not to allow straight voting to take place.
However, since 1994 there have been some experiments with grassroots political reforms, including limited local elections.
In recent months, Mr Hu has overseen a re-education campaign to instil discipline, Confucian-style ethics and ideological loyalty among the rank and file.
There will be a special season of patriotic films to mark the event, and The Da Vinci Code movie has been withdrawn to make sure it does not detract from the wholesome home-produced fare.