Speaking at the campaign's launch meeting, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, called for efforts to study the Party's history, understand its theories, do practical work and make new advances.

Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, spoke of the need to embark on a new journey in high spirit to fully build a modern socialist China and welcome the Party's centenary with outstanding achievements.

Founded in 1921, the CPC has grown into the world's biggest Marxist ruling party in a century. It has been in power for over 70 years in the world's largest socialist country with 1.4 billion population.

The Party has stood the test of time, reversing China's fate from the continuous decline since the Opium War in the 1840s to steady progress toward prosperity.

Xi stressed the vital necessity of launching the campaign as the CPC stands at a critical juncture where the timeframes of its two centenary goals converge.

Xi urged Party committees at all levels to attentively implement the arrangements made by the CPC Central Committee on the campaign.

Zhu Qingping, a 104-year-old from the old revolutionary base in east China's Jiangxi Province, voiced his support for the campaign.

"Only by reviewing the Party's history can people living in peacetime truly understand why we chose to join the Red Army and then followed the Party wholeheartedly," said Zhu, who joined the Red Army in 1931.