【赓续长征精神 奋进复兴征程】初心如磐 精神永续 书写新长征路上的崭新答卷

CCTV.com (Xinwen Lianbo): This year marks the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Long March. More than 90 years ago, under the Party's leadership, the Red Army created a stirring epic of warfare on its arduous journey and wrote a spiritual epic of boundless heroism. General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly pointed out that the most precious spiritual legacy left to us by the Long March, this great feat in human history, is the great Long March spirit forged with the lives and blood of Chinese Communists and Red Army officers and soldiers. Although the smoke of war has long since cleared, the great Long March spirit transcends time and space and remains ever fresh, inspiring hundreds of millions of Chinese people to strive with determination and advance with courage in the new era, writing a new chapter on the new Long March through concrete, dedicated action.

Through 90 years of wind and rain, the Long March spirit has been passed down from generation to generation.

Before a well at the Shazhouba revolutionary site in Ruijin, Jiangxi, the inscription, "When drinking water, never forget those who dug the well," reflects Communists' original aspiration of wholeheartedly serving the people and bears witness to the deep bond between the Party and the people. In the meeting room at the site of the Zunyi Conference, people seem still able to feel the discussion on which life and death depended, and the sincerity and commitment with which revolutionary predecessors held fast to their ideals and convictions in desperate circumstances, upheld independence and the principle of seeking truth from facts, and turned the tide. Before the tower commemorating the Red Army's victorious reunion on the Long March in Huining, Gansu, and inside the memorial hall, people stand before revolutionary artifacts, gaining a vivid sense of the great journey in which Chinese Communists, seeking to save the country and its people, feared no sacrifice, kept the overall situation in mind, maintained close unity, and advanced from victory to new victory.

The Long March was a great expedition of ideals and convictions. This earthshaking revolutionary feat is a magnificent epic written by the Communist Party of China and the Red Army, and a towering monument in the historical process of the Chinese nation's great rejuvenation.

Traveling ten thousand li without forgetting the original aspiration. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly visited revolutionary sites along the Long March route. From Yudu in Jiangxi to Rucheng in Hunan, from Quanzhou in Guangxi to Zunyi in Guizhou, from Jiangtaibao in Ningxia to Yan'an in Shaanxi… Each pause to gaze in reflection has been both an affectionate look back at the original aspiration and mission and a solemn declaration of determination to travel well on the new Long March.

In 2016, at the gathering commemorating the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that the great Long March spirit means placing the fundamental interests of the people of the whole country and the Chinese nation above all else, holding firm to revolutionary ideals and convictions, and firmly believing that the cause of justice will inevitably triumph; fearing no hardship or danger and being willing to make any sacrifice to save the country and its people; upholding independence, seeking truth from facts, and proceeding in all matters from reality; keeping the overall situation in mind, strictly observing discipline, and maintaining close unity; and relying closely on the people, sharing life and death, hardship and adversity with them, and struggling arduously together.

Every generation has its own Long March, and every generation must travel its own Long March well. On the new journey, the Long March spirit is becoming a driving force inspiring dedicated action across all sectors. Since the beginning of this year, the Pinglu Canal, the first canal project coordinated and built at the national level in the People's Republic of China to connect inland rivers with the sea, has officially been completed and opened to navigation; the world's largest offshore converter station, the "Heart of Offshore Wind," has completed offshore installation; and Unit 7 of the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant, with annual electricity generation of nearly 10 billion kilowatt-hours from a single unit, has been connected to the grid and begun generating power for the first time. This June, construction began on the new Three Gorges water transport channel, China's first major national landmark project to start construction during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The project underwent more than a decade of feasibility studies and design, backed by decades of technical preparation, and construction will take 100 months. It has now fully entered the main construction phase, with builders using their sweat and ingenuity to bring this project of the century into being.

Upholding independence and seeking truth from facts, they boldly venture into uncharted territory with an innovative spirit. Confronting the "snowy mountains and grasslands" of scientific research, scientists and engineers are working all out to overcome challenges in key and core technologies. From Long March 1 achieving the ability to "get up there" to today's new-generation Long March rockets achieving the ability to "come back," generations of space workers have continually explored technological paths never traveled by their predecessors. At present, at a depth of approximately 3,500 meters in China's South China Sea, a joint research team formed by several domestic universities and research institutions is conducting sea trials of China's first large deep-sea neutrino telescope. This basic research is equivalent to giving the universe an "eye" hidden on the seabed to explore frontier physics questions such as the origin of cosmic rays.

Relying on the people and working for the people form the fundamental character that makes the Long March spirit ever stronger over time.

Since the beginning of the new era, China has won the largest battle against poverty in human history, achieving a historic resolution of the absolute poverty that had afflicted the Chinese nation for thousands of years. This is the most vivid demonstration on the new Long March of putting everything in the service of the people. On the new journey toward the second centenary goal, countless young people are carrying forward rural revitalization from a new starting point. In Baini Village in Baise, Guangxi, where Huang Wenxiu once worked, Chen Hongren, a young man born in the 1990s, took up Huang Wenxiu's baton after graduating from university and became the resident first Party secretary. With successive groups of young people driving development, Baini Village has developed specialty industries including oil-tea camellia, Shatang tangerines, star anise, and Chinese fir. All 22 kilometers of roads serving these industries have been connected, and the small mountain village, having achieved moderate prosperity, has entered a new fast track of development.

The light of ideals and convictions illuminates the long journey, and the Long March spirit will surely be passed on from generation to generation. On the new journey of building a modern socialist country in all respects, more than 1.4 billion Chinese people are turning the Long March spirit into a driving force for dedicated action, integrating their individual endeavors into the current of the times, and continually writing new chapters and creating new achievements.