——Cited in the "Speech at the First Batch of Summary and Second Batch of Deployment Meeting of the Party's Mass Line Education and Practice Activities" and other articles

■Interpretation

The people are often compared to the water carrying the boat, the land of seeds, and the root of the branches and leaves. The importance of the people to those in power cannot be overemphasized. It is precisely for this reason that the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China deployed the whole party to carry out the party's mass line education and practice activities, regain the party's fine traditions, and reaffirm the flesh-and-blood ties between the party and the masses. Comrade Xi Jinping has repeatedly demanded that "persist in opening the door to carry out activities" and repeatedly warned that "we must not talk to ourselves, play and sing by ourselves". The quote he quoted compares the people to water that can see and control chaos. In reality, whether it is educational practice activities or more other work, only by letting the masses participate, being supervised by the masses, inviting the masses to judge, and looking more in the mirror of the masses and comparing the ruler of the masses can we truly answer the question of "who to rely on and for whom".

■Original text

Tang Zheng princes. Ge Bo does not worship, and Tang begins to cut it. Tang said: "Yu has a saying: people see the water and see the form, and the people know whether to govern it." Yi Yin said: "Ming! Words can be heard, and the Tao is progressive. The people of the monarchy and the good are all in the king's office. Reluctantly, reluctantly! Tang said: "You can't respect your orders, and you will be punished greatly, and there will be no forgiveness." "Make a soup sign.

——(Western Han Dynasty) Sima Qian, "Historical Records: Yin Benji III"

■Definition

This passage is from Sima Qian's "Historical Records: Yin Benji". Yin, i.e. Shang – the second dynasty in Chinese history, whose founding monarch was Cheng Tang. In 1620 B.C., Chengtang conquered the princes who did not sacrifice to Ge Bo. He said to Yi Yin: "People see the water and see the form, and the people know whether to govern or not." 不 (fǒu): Same as "no". It means that people can see their own image from the water, and they can know the state of national governance from the spiritual outlook of the people. In short, it is "to take the people's feelings as a mirror". This is the earliest well-documented "mirror theory".

Cheng Tang's "mirror theory" shows that as early as the period of China's slave society, the state of the people was used as a criterion to measure the quality of rule. Since then, the concept of "taking man as a mirror" has been embraced by successive generations of enlightened rulers. In "The Book of Songs, Daya", there is "Yin Jian is not far away, in the world after the summer". "The Great Dai Li Ji Bao Fu" said: "The mirror is the one, so the shape is also examined; Those who have gone to the past, so they know the present. Tang Taizong Li Shimin further carried forward the "mirror theory". According to the "New Tang Dynasty Book: The Biography of Wei Zheng", after the death of Wei Zheng, who was outspoken and daring, Tang Taizong sighed: "Taking copper as a reference, you can be dressed properly; Taking the ancient as a mirror, we can know the rise and fall; Taking people as a lesson can see the gains and losses. I try to protect these three lessons and guard against my own mistakes. Now Wei Zheng is gone, and he is dead. ”