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For a long period in
the history of our Party there were Wang Ming and renegades of his sort who
rejected applying the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism to the study of
practice in the Chinese revolution. Tearing words and phrases from Marxist
works, they overawed people with them. There were also people who for a long
time limited themselves to their own fragmentary experience and did not
understand the importance of theory in guiding revolutionary practice and thus
became captives of the sham Marxists. Using bourgeois idealism and metaphysics
as the ideological basis, Wang Ming and company wildly opposed Chairman Mao’s
revolutionary line and thereby caused enormous losses to the Chinese revolution.
Thirty-three years
ago our great leader Chairman Mao issued this brilliant work On Practice
to expose the anti-Marxist world outlook and methodology of these renegades. In
accordance with the principle of the Marxist theory of knowledge, Chairman Mao
systematically summed up the historical experiences of the struggle between the
two lines in the Party, penetratingly criticized the idealist apriorism
(doctrine that knowledge rests upon principles that are self-evident to reason
alone ..... Editor) of renegade Wang Ming and other sham Marxists, and
thus greatly raised the whole Party’s Marxist-Leninist theoretical level and
guided the Chinese revolution from victory to victory.
Using
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought as their weapon, the whole Party and the
people of the whole country are now sharply criticizing "apriorism," the "theory
of productive forces," the "theory of human nature," the "theory of the dying
out of class struggle" and other reactionary fallacies spread by Wang Ming, Liu
Shao-chi and other political swindlers. This is a most important task on the
political and ideological front. Conscientious study of Chairman Mao’s On
Practice in connection with this struggle is of great practical and
far-reaching historical significance in further determining what is materialism
and what is idealism, distinguishing between genuine and sham Marxism,
heightening our consciousness of implementing Chairman Mao’s proletarian
revolutionary line........
I
Social practice is
the foundation of knowledge and this is the fundamental viewpoint of Marxist
philosophy. Recognizing or not recognizing the dependence of knowledge on social
practice is an important hallmark distinguishing between the materialist theory
of reflection and idealist apriorism and the touchstone distinguishing genuine
Marxism from sham Marxism.
As far back as more
than 100 years ago, the great revolutionary teacher Marx explicitly pointed out:
"The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is
not a question of theory but is a practical question. In practice
man must prove the truth, that is, the reality and power, the this sidedness of
his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is
isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question." (Theses
on Feuerbach.) By introducing the viewpoint of practice to the theory of
knowledge, Marx correctly settled the question of the relation between thinking
and being and brought about a great revolution unprecedented in the history of
human knowledge.
In his On Practice,
Chairman Mao upheld and developed the Marxist theory of knowledge and incisively
expounded the primary place and decisive role of social practice in the course
of cognition. He emphatically pointed out: "The standpoint of practice is the
primary and basic standpoint in the dialectical-materialist theory of
knowledge." "There can be no knowledge apart from practice."
If one wants to know
anything, one must directly participate in the practical struggle to change
reality, for only thus can one come into contact with it as a phenomenon; only
through personal participation in the practical struggle to change reality can
one uncover the essence of what one wants to know and know the laws of things.
This is the path to knowledge which everyone actually travels. The fallacy of
"intuitive knowledge" runs counter to the materialist theory of reflection. This
is nothing but drivel which all exploiting classes as well as Wang Ming, Llu
Shao-chi and their kind used to deceive the masses of people. Chairman Mao
ridiculed the "know-all" who completely divorced himself from reality. Such a
person "picks up a smattering of hearsay knowledge and proclaims himself ‘the
world’s Number One authority’; this merely shows that he has not taken a proper
measure of himself."
Chairman Mao not only
affirmed in clear terms the Marxist viewpoint of practice but scientifically
summarized the practical contents as something applied "in the practice of
production, in the practice of revolutionary class struggle and revolutionary
national struggle and in the practice of scientific experiment." In his
famous essay Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? Chairman Mao further
pointed out: "They [correct ideas] come from social practice, and from
it alone; they come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for
production, the class struggle and scientific experiment." The prejudice of
the exploiting classes invariably blocks the road to, knowing the truth. Only by
constantly removing the brand of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting
classes stamped into our thinking, can we know the truth about objective things.
Chairman Mao pointed
out: "The Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism has two outstanding
characteristics. One is its class nature: it openly avows that dialectical
materialism is in the service of the proletariat. The other is its practicality:
it emphasizes the dependence of theory on practice, emphasizes that theory is
based on practice and in turn serves practice." Grasping the essence of
dialectical materialism, this scientific thesis of Chairman Mao’s was an
effective criticism of Wang Ming, Liu Shao-chi and their like who denied the
Marxist viewpoints of classes and practice.
For a long period
Wang Ming, Liu Shao-chi and the rest had all along used reactionary idealist
apriorism to counter the materialist theory of reflection, preaching that man’s
knowledge preceded his experience and his ability preceded his practice.
Chairman Mao pointed out: "The lowly are most intelligent; the elite are most
ignorant." "The lowly" here refers to the broad masses of the working people
who stand opposed to the exploiting classes and "the elite" refers to the
reactionaries and intellectual aristocrats of the exploiting classes, including
Liu Shao-chi and his bunch who fancied themselves clever and vainly tried to
turn back the wheel of history.
In refuting the Right
opportunists during the agricultural collectivization movement, Chairman Mao
pointed out: "Both cadres and peasants will remould themselves in the course
of the struggles they themselves experience. Let them go into action and learn
while doing, and they will become more capable. In this way, fine people will
come forward in large numbers." (On the Question of Agricultural
Co-operation.) From the viewpoint of dialectical materialism, this
instruction of Chairman Mao’s points out the fundamental way for us to discover
and train outstanding people of the proletariat and the fundamental way for our
outstanding revolutionary cadres to mature. At the same time, it shows that
man’s knowledge (ability and capability belong to the category of knowledge) is
not inborn but is acquired after birth by summing up the experience in social
practice. In different historical periods, large numbers of outstanding
revolutionary persons, without exception, came forward in the storm of
revolutionary practice. Describing capability and ability as transcending
practice and as something endowed by nature is nothing but self-glorification
and fabrication by the arrogant idealists and such capability and ability, are
non-existent in social life.
Chairman Mao regards
Marx as "a most completely developed intellectual, representing the acme of
human wisdom" (Rectify the Party’s Style of Work) and, with the
viewpoint of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, gives a
scientific explanation of the historical conditions of the birth of
Marxism-Leninism.
In advertising the
reactionary fallacy that ability preceded practice, Wang Ming, Liu Shao-chi and
other renegades did not mean to acknowledge that others were capable but vainly
hoped that the people recognized counter-revolutionary revisionists like
themselves as born "supermen," and that the masses of the people were "backward"
and "reactionary."
Chairman Mao pointed
out: "Idealism and mechanical materialism, opportunism and adventurism, are
all characterized by the breach between the subjective and the objective, by the
separation of knowledge from practice. The Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge,
characterized as it is by scientific social practice, cannot but resolutely
oppose these wrong ideologies." The "Left" and Right opportunist lines
pushed by Wang Ming, Liu Shao-chi and their cronies took idealist apriorism as
their ideological basis. Proceeding from such a reactionary world outlook, they
tried to make everything dependent on their own subjective will and denied the
law of the development of objective things.
Chairman Mao’s
proletarian revolutionary line is based on the dialectical materialist theory of
knowledge. It comes from practice and stands higher than practice. It
scientifically sums up the historical experience of the proletarian revolution
and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and correctly reflects the objective
law of social development. It is the lifeline of our Party. Only by adhering to
the materialist theory of reflection and going deep into reality to investigate
and study can we master, the present state and history of the struggle between
the two classes, the two roads and the two lines, grasp the principal
contradictions and work out our plans, measures and methods conforming to
Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line and translate them into the masses’ conscious
revolutionary actions. The plans, measures and methods must be put into the test
of practice so that the correct things can be popularized and the erroneous ones
can be corrected. Through such repeated practice, our knowledge will become
deeper and more comprehensive and will all the more conform with objective law.
(To be concluded)
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