The present epoch is justly known as the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism, and the historical experience of the past few decades provides irrefutable evidence of this. As a result of the joint struggle of the socialist states, the working class in the capitalist countries, the newlyfree and the oppressed peoples, there is a further weakening of imperialist positions in the political, economic, military and ideological spheres. The Main Document of the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties says that ``socialism, which has triumphed on one-third of the globe, has scored new successes in the world-wide struggle for the hearts and minds of the people".^^1^^
However, international imperialism has been counterattacking in an effort to change the overall balance of forces in its favour. In these conditions, there is need for even greater cohesion of all the anti-imperialist forces, above all, the Communist and Workers' Parties, the most progressive sections of modern society. ``The policy of joint anti-imperialist action demands that the ideological and political role of the Marxist-Leninist Parties in the world revolutionary process should be enhanced".^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, Documents, Prague 1969, p 12.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 38.
5This task can only be fulfilled through implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology, against Right and ``Left'' opportunism, against revisionism, dogmatism and Leftsectarian adventurism.
One of the pressing tasks before Marxism-Leninism today is to criticise the theoretical conceptions of Mao Tse-tung and his group. The Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the Party's 24th Congress stressed that the Chinese leaders ``have put forward an ideological-political platform of their own which is incompatible with Leninism on the key questions of international life and the world communist movement and have demanded that we should abandon the line of the 20th Congress and the Programme of the CPSU".^^1^^
A new front of ideological struggle has been opened in connection with the anti-Marxist, anti-socialist, chauvinistic and anti-Soviet line pursued by the present Chinese leadership. This line was officially formalised by the 9th Congress of the CPC in April 1969. The theoretical basis of this line is the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung'', or Maoism, which is an ideological trend hostile to Marxism. Maoism is deeply alien to internationalism and to the idea of the proletarian solidarity of nations; Great-Power chauvinism has become one of its main features.
The history of 20th century revolutions shows that Marxism is latent with vast attractive power not only for the working class, but also for other social groups, in particular, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. Apart from the Marxists, the communist and working-class movement is joined by men with various incorrect notions about the ways of restructuring society, among them revolutionary democrats, anarchists, bourgeois nationalists, etc. Some of them, once tempered in the flames of revolutionary struggle in the ranks of the Party, become Marxists, others fail to stand the test and break with the communist movement, while still others remain in the ranks of the Party, but never ultimately shed their old petty-bourgeois or bourgeois convictions.
This is of particular importance in any examination of the make-up of Communist and Workers' Parties in developing, _-_-_
~^^1^^ 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Documents, Moscow, 1971, p. 15.
6 peasant countries. Petty-bourgeois ideology necessarily has a negative effect on these Parties, because their ranks are formed mainly from the non-proletarian sections of society. This was a fact to which Comintern documents at one time strongly drew attention. In these conditions, the role of the leading nucleus of the Communist Party is considerably enhanced, for it has the duty to rally, on a common Marxist platform, all the members of the Party, regardless of their social origin, past activity and former views, and to prevent views hostile to Marxism from gaining the upper hand in the Party. When for various reasons leadership in a Communist Party falls into the hands of anti-Marxists, this creates the danger of the Party's degeneration and its conversion into a non-socialist, non-revolutionary organisation.Let us emphasise that from the outset the CPC brought together not only Marxists, but also non-Marxists, many of whom joined the Party mainly for tactical reasons. One of them was Mao Tse-tung.
Chinese Marxists-Leninists were aware of Mao Tse-tung's erroneous political line, and of the anti-Marxist essence of his views, and saw the artificial build-up of the myth of Mao Tse-tung as an outstanding theorist and infallible leader of the Chinese revolution. As best they could they resisted Mao's attempts to impose his own, specific line on the Party, to ``sinify'' Marxism, and to supplant Marxist-Leninist ideas with the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. It was their persistent resistance to Mao's political line that made the 8th Congress of the CPC in 1956 expunge from the Party Rules the provision, imposed on the Party at the 7th Congress in May 1945, according to which the Party was ``to be guided in all its activity" by the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung'', and laid down in the Rules that ``in all its activity the Communist Party of China shall be guided by Marxism-Leninism''.
Mao Tse-tung did not accept this ideological defeat at the 8th Congress of the CPC, and launched on a fresh round of struggle against the Marxists-Leninists and internationalists in the period of the so-called ``great proletarian cultural revolution" in China, one of whose purposes, it will be recalled, was massive terrorism in order to impose Mao's views on the whole Party and the Chinese people, as the ``most correct" and the ``greatest'' ideas.
The failure of the ``Three Red Banners" line and the 7 foreign-policy defeats were a blow at the myth of Mao's being a Marxist-Leninist and an infallible theorist of the Chinese revolution. In this context, a special role was played by the ``cultural revolution" which laid bare the real antiMarxist petty-bourgeois nature of the Maoists' views and political line, and provided fresh evidence that Mao and his followers pursued aims which were a far cry from scientific socialism, democracy and peace. What is more, it showed once again that the Maoists confronted the international revolutionary movement as a bourgeois-nationalistic trend seeking to occupy a commanding position in the world revolutionary process so as to impose Mao's anti-socialist views on the Communists and revolutionary democrats, to subordinate the revolutionary movement to their influence and to make it serve interests incompatible with Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.
The appearance of Maoism in China as a specific pettybourgeois, nationalistic trend is connected not only with the name of Mao Tse-tung, but also with definite objective conditions.
Because the Chinese proletariat emerged on the historical scene at a relatively late date, and because it was weak as a class, socialist concepts in China for a long time had the character of a social utopia coloured in the hues of traditional Chinese notions about the perfect society with its purely peasant ideals of social justice.
From the outset, the Communist Party of China had to work in a country where the peasantry made up 90 per cent of the population. The social make-up of the CPC was largely peasant and petty-bourgeois. That is why petty-bourgeois ideology of every shade was frequently reflected in the minds of CPC members. That was inevitable. As Mao himself admitted, men who came to the CPC from the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie were ``often liberals, reformists, anarchists, Blanquists, etc.'', who pretended to be MarxistsLeninists.^^1^^ Let us bear in mind that Mao himself comes from the petty bourgeoisie.
The survival of semi-feudal relations of production in China helped to conserve among various sections of the Chinese people Great-Power nationalistic attitudes, which _-_-_
~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. 4, London, 1956, p. 212.
8 the country's ruling elite had been implanting for many centuries, attitudes which at the turn of the century were sharpened to the extreme and assumed the urge of restoring China to her old grandeur. The ideology of Great-Han chauvinism had infected not only the conservative feudal, bureaucratic forces, but also China's petty-bourgeois democrats, who dreamed of seeing their country as the centre of the world and reigning supreme in the international arena. It was indeed Great-Han chauvinism, combined with pettybourgeois revolutionism, that created the atmosphere in which Mao's ideology developed.Mao's views were shaped in the conditions of the Chinese people's revolutionary struggle against imperialism and feudalism, in an atmosphere of growing popularity of MarxismLeninism in China, following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the internationalist assistance which the Soviet Union was rendering the Chinese people in their liberation struggle. It was quite natural therefore for Mao Tse-tung at one time also to turn to MarxismLeninism as a banner which rallied all the progressive forces of China. He sought to exploit the vast authority of Marxist-Leninist ideas for his own selfish ends. He clothed his petty-bourgeois, unscientific conceptions and views in Marxist-Leninist form, because the reputation of being a Marxist-Leninist opened up before him the possibility of taking over the leading position within the CPC.
Marxism-Leninism never became for Mao a world outlook which he understood, assimilated and accepted. He regarded Marxism-Leninism as a ``foreign teaching'', of which only some ``general truths" could be applied in China. Mao's approach to Marxism-Leninism was pragmatic, for he borrowed from it only that which met and served his purposes. Because before the Chinese people's victory in 1949 Mao's schemes were objectively in the main identical with the tasks of the Chinese bourgeois-democratic revolution, he made use in that period of that part of Marxism-Leninism which could be placed at the service of these tasks.
Mao's views never took shape as a full-fledged, systematic world outlook, or a more or less coherent theory. They are a conglomerate of diverse ideas borrowed, depending on the need of the moment, from the most diverse sources, ranging from the conversations of Confucius to the writings of 9 Kropotkin. That is why they are eclectic, fragmentary and superficial. The appearance of the Little Red Book in China was not at all accidental: it was a reflection of the mosaic nature of Mao's views. Mao's views and political line reveal elements which are akin to Narodism, anarchism, Blanquism, Trotskyism and other petty-bourgeois ideological trends. This is due not only to the concrete historical situation in which Mao's views were shaped, the conditions which in the past generated in Europe ideas of ``Left'' revolutionism, but also to the influence, direct and indirect, exerted on Mao by the tenets of Bakunin, Trotsky and petty-bourgeois theorists of similar stripe. However, it would be wrong to identify Mao's views with any of these ideological trends. Because Maoism is chiefly a Chinese phenomenon, it has deep socio-economic, historical, ideological and epistemological roots in Chinese soil, especially in view of the fact that Mao's political acts and views have far from always been in the nature of ``Left'' revolutionism, constituting in many instances a Rightopportunist and nationalistic line covered up with Leftist catchwords.
In claiming the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" to be the summit of modern Marxist-Leninist thinking, Chinese propaganda seeks to create the impression that Mao has formulated new ideas on all the basic problems of Marxist-Leninist theory. In actual fact, Mao has sought to exploit MarxismLeninism and to use its authority as camouflage, falsifying and distorting the essence of this great revolutionary teaching.
The failure of the attempts to apply the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" in practice shows best of all that this ``thought'' is subjectivist and unscientific. These failures, more than anything else, show that Maoism, whatever the mantle it dons, cannot serve the interests of a modern society building socialism. The objective laws of social development have overthrown, and will always continue to overthrow, similar ``thought'' and the political schemes it is used to justify or cover up. For all the efforts of the present Chinese leaders to maintain their ideological domination, Maoism is bound sooner or later to suffer a complete collapse. However, this will occur the earlier the sooner the working people of China realise the true nature of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. The ``cultural revolution" shows that the disillusionment in 10 this ``thought'' had spread in China to such an extent that it took a massive campaign of terrorism and intimidation to maintain the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" in a dominant position.
Mao's followers have been trying in various ways to make the Chinese people believe that his ``thought'' allegedly has a ``miraculous power" and that it is the ``embodiment of truth''. It is well known, however, that to establish the objectivity of a truth it has never been necessary to use force, abuse, idolatry and destruction of the most conscious and high-minded sections of society. Only obscurantism and barbarism were established in that manner. The light of truth has no need for the flames of bonfires lit to burn up books.
This question naturally arises: if Mao's views are unscientific, vulgar and schematic, is it at all proper to make any serious effort to expose them and to carry on a consistent ideological struggle against them? There is only one answer: it is not only proper, but necessary. It is necessary because the Maoists are seeking to present them as the highest achievement of Marxism-Leninism of the modern epoch. On the strength of their views, they have been pursuing a special, nationalistic line, discrediting the ideals of socialism and communism. Petty-bourgeois revolutionism, which permeates these views, exerts an influence on the petty-bourgeois section in China herself and elsewhere, especially in the developing countries.
It should also be borne in mind that Mao's views add up to an ideology of the personality cult in its ugliest form, and that they are marked by demagogy and an appeal to the basest instincts. The Maoists have used this demagogy to confuse the most backward section of the Chinese working class and the peasantry and to corrupt the young.
Finally, Mao's views and political line have made it possible for anti-communism considerably to step up its activity. Imperialist propaganda has been making wide use of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" to fight the forces of socialism, democracy and peace. It has used, for its own ends, the fact that a part of progressive opinion abroad is inclined to regard Mao's ``misconceptions'' and ``mistakes'' as being the price of transplanting the Marxist doctrine to Chinese soil. The Marxists are known resolutely to be opposed to any mechanical application of general truths and the imposition of 11 abstract schemes without consideration of the specific conditions in each country. Back in 1919, Lenin required the Communists of the East to ``translate the true communist doctrine, which was intended for the Communists of the more advanced countries, into the language of every people...".^^1^^ However, this translation of Marxism into the idiom of each nation, including the Chinese, should not amount to a departure from or betrayal of the general principles of Marxism, or to a substitution of petty-bourgeois ideology for Marxism.
To expose the anti-Marxist essence of Maoist theoretical conceptions there is need, first, to clarify their origins; second, to compare them with the principles of MarxismLeninism; third, to show the political orientation of Maoist postulates; and fourth, to examine these postulates in the context of the Maoists' practical activity.
In analysing the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" there is need to start above all from the Marxist doctrine of the state and revolution. There is need to obtain a comprehensive and profound understanding of what Lenin said about the tremendous complexity of the socialist revolution in a pettybourgeois country. The events in China make it necessary to consider a number of other problems as well, such as the class struggle and social relations in the transition period, the ``cultural revolution" and the attitude to the cultural heritage, the correlation between the international and national aspects of the anti-imperialist liberation struggle, and finally, the problem of war and peace in the presence of mass destruction weapons, etc.
This work is an attempt to give a scientific analysis, a Marxist assessment of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung''. The authors have naturally not set themselves the task of considering every aspect of this ``thought'', let alone providing exhaustive and definitive answers to all the questions arising in the course of this consideration.
The authors have constantly turned to an analysis of the Maoists' political practices and have sought to show the true meaning of Mao's various propositions in the light of the facts provided by the Maoists' practical activity; they have tried to expose the unscientific, petty-bourgeois, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 162.
12 Great-Power essence of Maoism, and the depth of Mao's political, moral and theoretical degradation.This monograph has been prepared by the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of the Far East of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
The Introduction was written by V. G. Georgiyev, Cand. Sc. (Philos.), and V. A. Krivtsov, Cand. Sc. (Philos.); Chapter One by V. G. Georgiyev; Chapter Two by V. A. Krivtsov (Section 1), V. G. Georgiyev and V. A. Krivtsov (Section 2); Chapter Three by Y. G. Plimak, Cand. Sc. (Hist.), and Y. F. Karyakin (Sections 1, 2, 3), V. G. Georgiyev and Y. G. Plimak (Section 4); Chapter Four by Y. G. Plimak (Sections 1 and 2), V. G. Georgiyev, K. I. Ivanov, Y. G. Plimak, and V. Y. Sidikhmenov, Cand. Sc. (Econ.) (Section 3), G. S. Ostroumov, Cand. Sc. (Law) (Sections 4 and 5), V. G. Georgiyev and G. S. Ostroumov (Section 6); Chapter Five by V. N. Semyonov, Dr. Sc. (Philos.), and V. Y. Sidikhmenov; Chapter Six by A. S. Frish, Cand. Sc. (Philos.); Chapter Seven by Y. A. Bailer, Dr. Sc. (Philos.), and the Conclusion by V. G. Georgiyev and V. Y. Sidikhmenov.
[13] ~ [14] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter One __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE SUBSTANCE OF MAOIST PHILOSOPHY __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Ideological OriginsThe whole ``wealth'' of Maoist philosophy is contained in these publications: = 1. The pamphlet, Dialectical Materialism, written in Yenan at the end of the 1930s on the basis of a series of lectures given at a Party school. A small part of this book was subsequently rewritten and published in the form of two articles, ``On Practice" and ``On Contradictions" in the Selected Works in the 1950s; = 2. The article, ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', published in 1957; = 3. The article, ``Whence Does a Man Acquire Correct Ideas?" (1963); = 4. The articles, ``On New Democracy" and ``On the Democratic Dictatorship of the People''; = 5. Editorial articles in the newspaper Jenmin jihpao and the journal Hungchih (1963--1965)^^1^^; = 6. Statements on philosophical questions at various conferences and in connection with philosophical discussions.^^2^^
An analysis of all these philosophical articles and statements inevitably suggests the conclusion that Mao's theoretical scope is extremely circumscribed. The sources of Maoist philosophy are, first, the traditional Chinese (feudal) philosophy; and second, various bourgeois and pettybourgeois theories, both Chinese and European.
_-_-_~^^1^^ According to the Hungweiping press, all these articles were written with Mao's direct participation.
~^^2^^ These statements were reported in the Chinese press, mainly the Hungweiping press, which also gave the content of the statements and sometimes the verbatim text.
15Marxist philosophy is known to be a critical revolutionary generalisation of the whole of earlier philosophic thought. German classical philosophy, above all the writings of Hegel and Feuerbach, was an immediate theoretical source of Marxist philosophy. Among the important gains of world philosophic thought were Hegel's dialectical method and his coherent system of dialectical laws and categories, and Feuerbach's materialist thesis that nature and man are the only objective realities, and his statement that practice is the criterion of truth. These show that by the time Marx and Engels began their theoretical activity European philosophy had attained a sufficiently high level of development. If we take a look at the Chinese philosophy of the same period we shall find that it presents a different picture.
For a number of historical reasons, above all the long period dominated by the feudal mode of production ( expressed in the sphere of spiritual life in the deadening domination of neo-Confucian scholasticism), theoretical thinking in China by the mid-19th century markedly lagged behind theoretical thinking in other countries. At the dawn of world civilisation, Chinese philosophy had provided instances of profound (for the time of course) penetration into the substance of human nature and relations between men, of interesting dialectical conceptions covering a fairly wide range of problems of being, and in the early period of mankind's history Chinese philosophy developed parallel to philosophy in other countries and may perhaps have even been in advance of the latter on some points, which is why Confucius, Mo Tzu, Lao Tzu, Hsiin Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Yang Chu and Wang Chung all have a niche in history alongside Heraclitus, Democritus, Plato and Aristotle. However, in the Middle Ages, and especially in the period of modern history, there was a fundamental change in the situation.
Of course, even in these periods we find some original Chinese philosophers, among them the free thinker Fan Chen (5th century) and Han Yui (8-9th centuries), the materialists Chang Tsai (12th century), Wang Fu-chih (17th century), and Tai Chen (18th century), the objective idealist Chu Hsi (12th century), the intuitive idealist Wang Yang-ming (16--17th centuries), and the interesting social philosopher Huang Tsung-hsi (17th century). However, these features are characteristic of the overall tendency in the 16 development of Chinese philosophy: first, a somewhat narrow range of problems, with a prevailing interest in ethical values, which are considered mainly in the light of the relationship between man's duty and obligations to (feudal) society, and the subordination of personal freedom to the authority of the state; and second, a descriptive, sketchy and naive approach in explaining the phenomena of the external world, an approach deeply rooted in the ancient period.
Through the whole of the history of Chinese philosophy runs the idea of there being opposite principles in nature and society which are interconnected and pass into each other. However, no Chinese philosopher ever gave a clearcut formulation of the interconnection of the opposites of the objective world as a general ontological law. Their conception of opposites was extremely metaphysical. Indeed, these opposites appeared to be discrete in time and space. The transition from one opposite to another was not an internal process of transition and connection of opposites but their mere outward displacement, or changing of places. Moreover, development was seen to be cyclical. That was the view taken of the problem of opposites not only by Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, but also by Chang Tsai, Chu Hsi, Wei Yuan and Cheng Kuan-ying (19th century), among others.
Here, for instance, is what Chu Hsi wrote: ``East-West, top-bottom, winter-summer, day-night, birth-death: all these are opposites and constitute pairs. All natural phenomena are necessarily paired."^^1^^ Wei Yuan, who lived six centuries later, wrote in a similar vein: ``Heat reaching a limit gives way not to heat but to cold. Cold reaching a limit, gives way not to cold but to heat. Something excessively bent straightens out with greater force. Latent energy is revealed with greater force. . . . Decline and growth are indissoluble, happiness and misfortune have a common root."^^2^^
The same philosopher also said this: ``There are no isolated things in the Universe; everything must have a pair, that is, there can be no two high things, two big things, two costly things, there can be no two forces similar in magnitude. A struggle for primacy always takes place in _-_-_
~^^1^^ Yui Tung, Principal Problems of Chinese Philosophy, Peking, 1958, p. 139 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ Selected Writings of Progressive Chinese Thinkers of the Period of Modern History, Moscow, 1961, pp. 45--46 (in Russian).
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---1362 17 everything that is paired. Why? It is simply because in paired things one must be cardinal and the other subordinate, because only then does the pair not break up into separate things."^^1^^Both Chu Hsi and Wei Yuan confined themselves to stating the fact that opposites exist in nature and alternate with each other, but one will look in vain for an explanation in their writings of the cause and content of the process of alternation, or of any consideration, in particular, of the problem of the identity of opposites. That is why they were unable to explain the transformation of things into their opposites.
In the middle and even at the end of the 19th century, Chinese philosophers frequently retold what had been said and written not only by their immediate predecessors, but also by philosophers who had lived 2,000 years before them. They continued to reiterate their ideas, relying on the traditional categories of Yin, Yang, Tao, Tai Chi, etc. In 1893, Cheng Kuan-ying, an ideologist of the emergent Chinese bourgeoisie, published a book entitled Bold Talk in the Age of Florescence (Sheng-shi wei-yan), proposing a number of political reforms for the purpose of China's technical and economic modernisation.^^2^^ In his philosophical substantiation of the book---``Tap-Chi''---he wrote: ``It is said in Yi Ching, in the section 'Hsi Tzu Chuan'^^3^^: 'That which has no form is called Tao; that which has form is called Chi.' Tao sprang from non-existence; initially (it) produced primary matter (Chi) which thickened and became Tai Chi. Subsequently there occurred the division of Tai Chi into Yin and Yang."^^4^^
``The heavens were arranged around the earth, and the earth occupied its place in the midst of the heavens; Yin _-_-_
~^^1^^ Selected Writings..., p. 48.
~^^2^^ Edgar Snow tells us that Mao read this book in his youth and was highly impressed (Red Star Over China, London, 1968, p. 134).
~^^3^^ Yi Ching (Book of Changes) is one of the most ancient Chinese treatises, dating back to the 8th--7th centuries B.C. ``Hsi Tzu Chuan'', an appendix to Yi Ching, sets out the philosophical interpretation of the main text of the book; written in about the 5th-3rd centuries B.C.
~^^4^^ Tai Chi (Great Limit), signifying the initial stage and the cause behind the origination and development of all things and phenomena, first occurs in Yi Ching. Yin and Yang, the two opposite principles in nature whose struggle, according to the ancient Chinese, led to the origination and development of all things.
18 included within itself Yang, and Yang included within itself Yin. That is why it is said that 'the interaction of Yin and Yang is Tao'. Hence: 'Two produced three, and three---all things.' Things and their names, primary matter and its laws existing in the world are embraced (by Tao). Because odd and even numbers exist, so, just as the multiplication of even and odd numbers produces a diversity of different numbers, the interaction of Yin and Yang in the aggregate produces the diversity of all things. Consequently, things emerge from primary matter, or in other words, concrete objects appear from Tao."^^1^^This primitive, naively dialectical scheme, which is based on ancient treatises (the author backs up his conception with references to the corresponding ideas of Lao Tzu and Confucius), was formulated in 1893 when the law of the conservation and transformation of energy, the cellular theory and Darwin's theory of evolution were already known in other countries.^^2^^
Without in any sense denying the importance of this view of cosmological problems for the establishment of the materialist world outlook, let us note that it is an obvious oversimplification. With rare exceptions, the whole of Chinese philosophy from the 17th to the 19th century was weak on ontological and epistemological problems. As a result, by the turn of the century Chinese philosophy markedly lagged behind the philosophy of other countries in the range and scope of its problems and the depth of their solution.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Selected Writings. .., pp. 98--99.
~^^2^^ Another prominent reformer, Kang Yu-wei, bases his explanation of the origin of the world on the concepts of Yuan Chi and Chi, which occur in the writings of Confucius.
^^3^^ In this connection it is strange, to say the least, to find the Chinese professor Chu Chien-chi asserting that Chinese (Confucian) philosophy has had an effect on the development of world philosophy and ultimately of Marxism as well. In an article in a Chinese philosophical journal he wrote: ``Marxism, dialectical materialism, is essentially connected with the European philosophy of the 18th century, and the European philosophy of the 18th century is essentially connected with Chinese philosophy. This means that as it penetrated Europe, Chinese philosophy exerted, on the one hand, a direct influence on French materialist philosophy, and on the other, a direct influence on the dialectics of German idealism. These materialism and dialectics were precisely the important source on which Marx and Engels drew in shaping their dialectical materialism. If these historical facts are true, we shall find __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 20. 19
Philosophical development is known to be directly connected with the development of the natural sciences, and there is no doubt at all that the gains of philosophy in the period of modern history were largely determined by the great advances in medicine, astronomy, biology, physiology, mathematics, mechanics, etc. Meanwhile, the natural sciences in China from the 17th to the 19th century were embryonic, a fact which necessarily had an effect on the development of Chinese philosophy in the period under consideration.
Neo-Confucianism, the official feudal ideology of China, was the main retarding factor in Chinese philosophy. Confucius was a great thinker who had considered a number of important problems, including man's social predestination, the causal nexus of his acts, the criteria for human acts, the relationship between various social groups, etc.
On the whole, however, the teaching of Confucius faced the past, an earlier period he called the ``golden age" in the history of China. Confucius justified and upheld conservative views and outdated traditions. He insisted that the traditions established by the ancients, the wise rulers of the earlier periods, embodied the ``behests of heaven'', and that these traditions, designated in the aggregate as Li ( ceremony, ``etiquette''), were sacrosanct.
One of the central categories of the Confucian teaching is Jen, which means ``love of mankind'', ``humaneness'', but it would be wrong to identify this concept with the concept of compassion, love and respect for men. Jen was a category with a clearly class tenor and a strictly defined sphere of application. ``Humaneness'' was proper only to noble men, the elite of society. ``A noble man can be inhumane, but a commoner cannot be humane."^^1^^ Since Li was a concrete embodiment of the Jen category, the requirement laid down by Confucius and his disciples, notably Meng Tzu, to follow Jen meant nothing more than the requirement unconditionally to observe the social graduation of men. The ideal of Confucius and his followers was that the father must be _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 19. it easy in the future to understand the connection between Marxism and Chinese philosophy, we shall cease to be unacquainted, as we once used to be, with dialectical materialism, and in general we shall find it much easier to apprehend Marxist philosophy.'' (Chieh-hsueh yan-chiu No. 4, 1957, p. 57).
~^^1^^ Lunyui, Ch. ``Hsian wen'', 6.
20 a father, the son a son, the emperor an emperor, the official an official. Everyone must occupy the station assigned to him by the heavens. Society, structured in accordance with this order, must consist of two categories of men: those who work with the ``heart'', that is, with their reason, and govern, and those whom the heavens assign to work by hand and feed those who govern.An important principle of the social order advocated by Confucianism is the requirement of unconditional subordination to one's seniors, whether by age or station in life. In this context, Confucius and his followers laid great emphasis on the concept Hsiao, which meant ``filial esteem''. They believed that ``those who honour their parents and respect their elders rarely fail to submit to their superiors".^^1^^ Consequently, Confucianism sought to use tribal, patriarchal traditions to educate men in a spirit of blind submission to the ruling elite. Confucius himself repeatedly said as much. He held that the common people had no business discoursing on the affairs of government, and had to ``be made to follow, but should not be allowed to be enlightened".^^2^^ Unquestioning obedience and submissiveness to the power of the ruler (the son of heaven), the law that ``everyone should know his place"---those are the fundamental principles of Confucian philosophy.
Although these ideas did have a negative influence on the development of Chinese theoretical thinking, their influence was at first limited, because Taoism and Buddhism existed as teachings on a par with Confucianism. However, in the llth and 12th centuries, mainly through the efforts of Chu Hsi, the teaching of neo-Confucianism was established as a blend of the ethical teaching of Confucius and the tenets of Taoism and Buddhism.
Neo-Confucianism became the official ideology of Chinese society. It secured a monopoly control over the people's spiritual life, requiring strict observance of the accepted forms of thinking and behaviour. Neo-Confucianism was a system of strictly defined canons and rigid rules, each of which was obligatory and had to be observed without fail. It was learned by rote, like dogma, in all the schools. Each _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Ch. ``Hsiuer'', 2.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Ch. ``Tai-po'', 9.
21 pupil and student had to memorise numerous sayings by Confucius and his followers as interpreted by Chu Hsi, without usually understanding what they meant. A mechanical knowledge of these sayings entitled a scholar to become an official.The memorising of Confucian dogmas from generation to generation was cultivated by the feudal elite and became a national tradition. Such methods of upbringing and education made every Chinese, in a sense, a Confucian. This did not mean, of course, that everyone was versed in all the Confucian dicta, but only that everyone accepted the Confucian prescriptions as something natural, as something to be taken for granted, as ancestral tradition.
In order to foster among the people a spirit of loyalty to the traditional ideology of neo-Confucianism every effort was made to cultivate the notion that the Chinese people's spiritual and cultural values were exclusive. This not only generated an attitude of conformism with respect to China's conservative traditions, but also helped to form the ideology of Sinocentrism, an essential element of which was contempt for all things non-Chinese, including non-Chinese sciences and philosophy.
The sway of neo-Confucian scholasticism necessarily left its mark on Chinese philosophy. Scholars were required to produce no more than commentaries on the writings of the Confucian fathers in the orthodox spirit; ideas contradicting neo-Confucianism were reviled. This naturally prevented Chinese thinkers from considering the pressing problems of China's social and spiritual development. Even progressive philosophers and socio-political thinkers were forced to fall back on the authority of Confucius to defend their ideas. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, bourgeois reformers (among them Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao) used some Confucian philosophical tenets to spread the idea of constitutional monarchy.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ It is not surprising that the cult of Confucius was once again enshrined and renovated in China under the Kuomintang reactionary clique, when it was underpinned by pseudo-Sun Yat-senism, the official doctrine of Kuomintang reaction, on the one hand, and reactionary bourgeois ideas from the West, on the other. This was the basis for Chen Li-fu's `` philosophy of life" and Chiang Kai-shek's ``philosophy of action'', both designed to vindicate the dictatorship of the Kuomintang clique. This ``phi-- __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 23. 22
Chinese society first got a knowledge of the culture and philosophy of other countries in the second half of the 19th century.^^1^^ Because the vehicle of this process was the intelligentsia, mainly its feudal section, it naturally assumed a definite character. A study was made mainly of the technical achievements in world science, some political and social institutions, and some ideas of the bourgeois philosophy of other countries, notably, positivism, but not, of course, Marxism. It should be borne in mind that Chinese society first got a knowledge of the accomplishments of world civilisation just as China was being colonised and that these ideas were brought in by agents of the imperialist powers, which naturally wanted a pro-imperialist ideology to be established in China.
The sway of traditionalism in philosophy and the embryonic state of the natural sciences resulted in a situation in which the borrowing of some elements of Western culture among the Chinese philosophers at the end of the 19th century produced a synthesis of traditional and European scientific concepts. Thus, Kang Yu-wei identified electricity with the spiritual principle called ``Jen'', which according to Confucianism was inherent in all things and phenomena. Among those who translated the writings of European thinkers was Yan Fu, a Right-wing bourgeois reformer. His translations contain commentaries in which he sought to show the similarity of various Western socio-philosophical conceptions with the traditional socio-political ideas of Chinese antiquity and the Middle Ages, mostly with Confucianism.
Consequently, the conclusion is well warranted that modern Chinese philosophy had not on the whole risen above the level of its medieval predecessor. The formation of modern philosophy, which began at the end of the 19th century, in the sense of its alignment in level with the latest _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 22. losophy'' used the cult of Confucius as a black banner to cover up the massacre of hundreds of thousands of patriots and the pursuit of chauvinistic policies. The ideologists of the Kuomintang clique declared his teaching to be the ``ideological basis" for mankind's progress and prosperity, and predicted that the peoples of the whole world would in one way or another ultimately travel the way indicated by Confucius.
~^^1^^ Up to then there was a limited knowledge of world culture and philosophy.
23 achievements in theoretical knowledge, naturally enough could not all at once yield any tangible results, especially considering that it proceeded, as we have said, under the sway of neo-Confucianism. The Chinese philosophy of the 17th-19th centuries was essentially a curious modification of the original form of materialism and naive dialectics. That was the theoretical foundation on which Maoist philosophy grew. Like all men of his generation, Mao Tse-tung received the traditional education, which consisted in the main in a Talmudic drumming into men's heads of Confucian tenets and other ancient texts.^^1^^Another source of Maoist philosophy is the Utopian, egalitarian ideas, running right through the history of the Chinese thought, which in the 19th century were most fully expressed in the policy statements of the Taipings---dispossessed Chinese peasants---and the writings of Kang Yu-wei. The Taiping ideal was a just society practising the following principles: ``The land would be tilled in common, meals would be taken together, clothes would be used jointly, and money spent collectively. Equality would be observed everywhere, and everyone would be provided with food and clothing."^^2^^
Kang Yu-wei's social utopia implied social ownership and the principle of popular rule and self-government. He believed such a society could be set up through the gradual elimination of the family and private property relations within it. Men and women would enter into free marital relations, and their children would be entirely in the public care. Kang Yu-wei believed that this would eliminate the family, with the result that no property, with the exception of ornaments and various knick-knacks, would be handed down, so that upon the death of their owners the land, factories and shops would pass into public use. Kang Yu-wei believed that this would result in universal equality. Actually, however, this amounted to no more than an anarchist rejection of the family.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung studied at a primary school in his native village of Shaoshan, at a school in the district centre of Hsiangtan, and at a secondary school and a teachers' training college of the provincial town of Changsha.
~^^2^^ Selected Writings..., p. 69.
~^^3^^ According to Liang Chi-chao, an associate of Kang Yu-wei's in the reform movement, the latter's social utopia boiled down to an ``elimination of the family''.
24We find that Hung Hsiu-chuan, the founder of the Taiping peasant movement, and Kang Yu-wei, who expressed the interests of the bourgeoisie, had the same idea of a return to a ``golden age'', and the establishment of an ideal and just society, called ``Tatung''.^^1^^
Characteristically, Mao's writings contain almost no mention of the development of the natural sciences and their latest discoveries. This is due not only to Mao's specifically traditional education, which did not provide for any serious study of the fundamentals of modern science, but also to Mao's own lack of interest in the natural sciences.^^2^^ Here are some of the ``references'' to the natural sciences that will be found in Mao's Little Red Book. = 1. ``The history of mankind is one of the continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. This process is neverending. In any society in which classes exist class struggle will never end. In classless society the struggle between the new and the old and between truth and falsehood will never end. In the course of the struggle for production and scientific experiment, mankind makes constant progress and nature undergoes constant change; they never remain on the same level. Therefore, man has constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing, creating and advancing. Ideas of stagnation, pessimism, inertia and complacency are all wrong. They are wrong because they agree neither with the historical facts of social development over the past million years, nor with the historical facts of nature so far (history of celestial bodies, the earth life, and other natural phenomena)."^^3^^ = 2. ``Natural science is one of man's weapons in his fight for freedom. For the purpose of attaining freedom in society, man must use social science to understand and change society and carry out social _-_-_
~^^1^^ The writings of both contain an extract from Chapter ``Liyun'' of the ancient Confucian treatise, Lichi, describing the Tatung society. Let us note, by the way, that the organisation and activity of the Chinese communes from 1958 to 1960 was highly reminiscent of the socio-economic experiments of the Taiping and Kang Yu-wei's social utopia.
~^^2^^ Recalling his school years, Mao said: ``For one thing, I was opposed to the required courses in natural science. I wanted to specialise in social sciences. Natural sciences did not especially interest me, and I did not study them, so I got poor marks in most of these courses" (Edgar Snow, 0p. cit., p. 145).
~^^3^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Peking, I960, pp. 203--04.
25 revolution. For the purpose of attaining freedom in the world of nature, man must use natural science to understand, conquer and change nature and thus attain freedom from nature."^^1^^Both these statements are a recapitulation of Engels' idea about the relation between freedom and necessity, while the references to natural science are extremely vague and abstract. What is more, these references are used by Mao to substantiate a ``truth'' which has been known since the days of Heraclitus, who said: ``All is flux, nothing is stationary.'' However, an editorial article in Hungchih in 1969 claimed that these statements of Mao's were the `` theoretical generalisation of the history of nature''.
Lenin said that ``there is nothing resembling ` sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation".^^2^^ By contrast, Maoist philosophy was developed mainly on a narrow, Chinese national basis, out of touch with the best achievements of philosophical thought in the rest of the world.
Mao read a number of works by foreign writers, among which he was most influenced by Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology, Thomas Henry Huxley's Evolution and Ethics, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and Montesquieu's L'Esprit des Lois. Mao did not take much interest in the natural science and politico-economic problems these writers dealt with. He was attracted in their writings by their socio-political conception which in the early 20th century swayed men in various sections of Chinese society, the conception of social-Darwinism, which in China was seen above all as an explanation, ``in the light of advanced science'', of the causes and laws of a struggle for existence between nations and races.
At the start of his revolutionary activity, Mao took a keen interest in anarchist ideas (above all those of Bakunin and Kropotkin), whose influence he has in fact never been able to overcome.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, pp. 204--05.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 23.
26 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Meaning of Marxist TerminologyAt the 9th Congress of the CPC it was declared that for 50 years (that is, from 1919) Mao had been combining the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution. In the light of the historical facts, this assertion is quite groundless. In his earliest works, Mao was already elaborating non-Marxist ideas: in his first work, ``An Essay on Physical Education" (1917), the 24-year-old Mao declared the physical health of the nation to be a means of China's national resurgence. In his second work, an article entitled ``The Great Alliance of the People" (1919), he said nothing about the working class as the vanguard and leader of the revolution, and made no mention of the proletarian dictatorship. In 1926, as one of the leaders of the CPC, Mao wrote an article, ``Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society'',^^1^^ which gave a petty-bourgeois view of China's social structure.
That is not at all surprising. Mao's traditional education naturally excluded the study of Marxist theory. As he set out to educate himself, Mao was unable to gain a correct idea of Marxism, because he obtained his information about it mainly from the writings of various petty-bourgeois socialists.
Moreover, Mao was able to obtain an idea about Marxism only in translation, because he knew no foreign languages and was unable to read the writings of the Marxist-Leninist classics in the original. What is more, by the early 1940s, and in fact even as late as 1949, a very insignificant part of these works had been translated into Chinese.^^2^^
His main source for the study of Marxism were popular writings, mainly textbooks by Soviet philosophers, which were made available to the CPC's active members through the translations of Ai Szu-chi and others.
_-_-_~^^1^^ A reference to the original version of the article, and not the one which is included in Mao Tse-tung's Selected Works (sec Voprosy [ilosofii. No. 6, 1969).
~^^2^^ Let us also emphasise that from the 1920s to the 1940s there were no Chinese translations of the world's classic philosophers: Bacon, Locke, Diderot, Holbach, Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, and so on. In that period, the Chinese public was only able to read the works of the founders of positivism and pragmatism: Comte, Spencer, Russell, Dewey and James.
27Although these Soviet philosophical textbooks did consider some of the important theoretical problems directly connected with the practice of socialist construction, specifically the problem of contradictions in exploitative and socialist societies, their authors' main purpose was to provide a popular aid on Marxist philosophy for a mass readership.
In the Soviet Union, these writings were of great importance in the struggle against the mechanistic and idealistic distortions of Marxism, and in educating Party members, government functionaries and scientists in the spirit of Marxist philosophy. In China, the Soviet textbooks on philosophy helped the Communists to obtain a knowledge of Marxism and raise the theoretical level of CPC cadres.
Mao thus had ample opportunity to acquire a correct understanding of the fundamentals of Marxist philosophy, but the content of his philosophical writings shows that he failed to master the whole body of knowledge in the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism contained in the Soviet textbooks.
As has been said, Mao's first philosophical work was the pamphlet, Dialectical Materialism, which he wrote in Yenan on the basis of a series of lectures he gave at a Party school. The contents of the pamphlet give an idea of the problems he dealt with.
Chapter I. Idealism and Materialism.
1) The war between two armies in philosophy.
2) The difference between idealism and materialism.
3) The source of the rise and development of idealism.
4) The source of the rise and development of materialism.
Chapter II. Dialectical Materialism.
1) Dialectical materialism---a revolutionary weapon of the proletariat.
2) The attitude of dialectical materialism to the legacy of the old philosophy.
3) The unity of world view and methodology in dialectical materialism.
4) The problem of the subject of materialist dialectics (what does materialist dialectics serve to study?).
5) On matter.
6) On motion (on development).
7) On space and time.
8) On consciousness.
9) On reflection.
2810) On truth.
11) On practice (on the connection between cognition and practice, theory and reality, knowledge and action).
Chapter III. Materialist Dialectics.
1) The law of the unity of opposites.
a) Two views of development.
b) The formal-logical law of identity and the dialectical law of contradiction.
c) The universality of contradiction.
d) The specific nature of contradiction.
e) The principal contradiction and the principal aspect of contradiction.
f) Identity and struggle of opposites.
g) The place of antagonism in the line of contradictions.
The pamphlet was published at Talien sometime between 1945 and 1949. Earlier, in 1940, the journal Minchu carried its first chapter, entitled ``Dialectical Materialism''.
Our detailed study of the text of the Dialectical Materialism pamphlet shows that it was written on the basis of two Soviet works: the textbook Dialectical Materialism (written under the direction of Academician M. Mitin), which was published in Moscow in 1933, and the article ``Dialectical Materialism'', in Volume 22 of the first edition of the Bolshaya Sovietskaya Entsiklopedia.
Mao's pamphlet is essentially a digest of these two works. Now and again, he simply ``borrows'' various propositions from Soviet writings and slightly modifies them. This applies especially to philosophical problems which were either not dealt with in traditional Chinese philosophy at all, or were treated on a low theoretical level, because their treatment required both a grounding in natural science and information about the world-wide historico-philosophical process. This applies to the problems of the material nature of the world, matter and the forms of its existence, notably space and time, consciousness, and the relationship between objective, relative and absolute truth.
But even while recapitulating in his Dialectical Materialism pamphlet the correct propositions taken from the abovementioned works, Mao oversimplifies and vulgarises them. Here are a few examples.
1. Characterising the class essence of the two main philosophical trends, the authors of the Soviet textbook 29 Dialectical Materialism quite rightly remarked on the possibility of idealist theories reflecting the social needs of the epoch. They said: ``In its historical development, idealism was the ideology of the exploiting classes and as a rule had a reactionary part to play. Materialism, whose development was an expression of the world outlook of the revolutionary classes, had to make its way in the class society in ceaseless struggle against idealism, the philosophy of reaction. Of course, no obligatory historical pattern can be established in this sphere. There are instances when immature social classes expressed their new revolutionary demands in the language of idealism (German idealism in the early 19th century, the theories of natural law, and, in part, Utopian socialism). On the other hand, the militant French materialism of the 18th century was the ideology of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie. The materialism of the 17th century, Engels said, had an aristocratic origin."^^1^^
Mao Tse-tung borrowed only the first two ideas: ``In the process of its historical development, idealism was the form of consciousness of the exploiting classes and had a reactionary role to play. By contrast, materialism is the world outlook of the revolutionary classes. It originates and develops in class society in ceaseless struggle against idealism, the reactionary philosophy.'' The result is a primitive and vulgarised scheme of the history of philosophical thought which rules out the possibility of recognising the achievements of the idealists in developing theoretical thinking.
2. According to Mao, the basic social cause behind the origination of idealism is the antithesis between mental and physical labour. He says: ``...Initially, idealism emerges as the product of the superstition and ignorance of a savage primitive man. But with the development of production the gap between physical and mental labour comes to be the main condition promoting the formation of idealism as a philosophical trend. The social division of labour is the result of the development of the productive forces of society; it subsequently results in the separation of men among whom mental labour becomes the main speciality. But so long as the productive forces remained weak, the gap between the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Part 1, Moscow, 1933, p. 37 (in Russian). (Emphasis added---V.G.)
30 two forms of labour was not yet complete. Only after classes and private property appear and exploitation becomes the basis for the existence of the ruling class, does a great change occur: mental labour becomes the privilege ol the ruling class, and physical labour, the lot of the oppressed classes. The ruling class begins to take a distorted view of its relations with the oppressed classes, claiming that it is not the working people who provide the means of subsistence for the members of the ruling class but that, on the contrary, it is the members of the ruling class who provide the means of subsistence for the working people. That is why they have contempt for physical labour, and that is the way idealistic views appear. The elimination of the distinctions between physical and mental labour is one of the conditions for eliminating idealistic philosophy."^^1^^Mao wrongly identifies the causes producing the illusion that ideology develops independently, and the social roots of idealism. Actually, the division into mental and physical labour does deform men and establishes definite social functions for some of them, but it also gives an impetus to the development of society's productive forces, science and the arts. Evidence of this comes from the history of the first society with antagonistic classes. Engels wrote: ``It was slavery that first made possible the division of labour between agriculture and industry on a larger scale, and thereby also Hellenism, the flowering of the ancient world. Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science...."^^2^^ As for the social roots of idealism, they lie in the division of society into classes and in the urge of the exploiting classes to maintain and consolidate their domination.
Let us add that when writing his pamphlet, Mao himself had a very modest opinion of it. He wrote: ``This lecture course of mine cannot likewise be considered a good one, because I myself have just started to study dialectics and am unable to write a good book."^^3^^
When preparing his Selected Works for the press in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mao included in them only a part of his Dialectical Materialism pamphlet, namely, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Dialectical Materialism, Talien, p. 5 (in Chinese).
~^^2^^ F. Kngcls, Anti-Diihring, Moscow, 1969, p. 210.
~^^3^^ Dialectical Materialism, p. 110.
31 last section of Chapter II, as an article, ``On Practice'', and Chapter III (with the exception of Section 2, ``The formallogical law of identity and the dialectical law of contradiction'') as an article ``On Contradiction".^^1^^ These articles also contain a number of borrowings from the above-mentioned textbook, Dialectical Materialism, and the article `` Dialectical Materialism" in the Bolshaya Soinetskaya Entsiklopcdia.Does the fact of Mao's borrowing and use of various propositions from popular Soviet works give ground to regard him as a rank-and-file Marxist philosopher, let alone an ``outstanding Marxist-Leninist"? Is it right to say that Marxist terminology ``mastered'' in this way is evidence that Soviet philosophers are to blame for the emergence of Maoism, as bourgeois propaganda and some scientists in the West have claimed? The answer to both questions is an emphatic no.
The fact is that the borrowing of Marxist propositions from Soviet writings goes hand in hand not only with oversimplification and vulgarisation in interpreting a number of problems but also with anti-Marxist propositions. This is especially evident in Mao's treatment of the principal law of dialectics. In fact, his digest gives way to downright distortion, to say nothing of the fact that in range and depth Mao's pamphlet does not bear any comparison with the works of Soviet philosophers.
The fact that the terminology in Mao's articles ``On Contradiction" and ``On Practice" is outwardly similar to those in Marxist writings, a fact which is due to Mao's borrowing of various propositions from Soviet textbooks, creates the wrong impression about their real content and true value.
We find a further distortion and vulgarisation of Marxism in Mao's articles and statements on philosophy in the 1950s and the 1960s (for instance, in his article ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', 1957, and in his ``Directions Concerning the Discussion on `Dichotomy of Unity'~'', 1964). The Maoists have tried to obscure the real essence of the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" by _-_-_
~^^1^^ Up until recently it was considered that Mao's articles ``On Practice" and ``On Contradiction" had been written in 1937. The latest works by Soviet scientists show that they were in fact written in the late 1940s and the c-:»V 1950s (see M. Altaisky and V. Georgiyev, The Philosophical fiVcrs of Mao Tse-tung. A Critical Analysis, Moscow, 1971, pp. 19--21).
32 playing up his use of Marxist phraseology, his extensive quotations from the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, and the formal similarity of some Maoist postulates with Marxist ideas. __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. On the Real MeaningMaoist propaganda claims that Mao has safeguarded and developed materialist dialectics, notably, the law of the unity and struggle of opposites.
Actually, Mao has said much on contradictions and the unity and struggle of opposites, but his view of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites is radically at variance with the Marxist view of it.
First of all, while recognising the struggle of opposites, Mao has failed to show the true essence of this process. Take his speech at a sitting of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee in Wuchang on December 1, 1958, which the Maoists like to quote. Here is what he said at the time: ``Just as duality is a feature of all things and phenomena in the world (this is the essence of the law of the unity of opposites), so duality is also a feature of imperialism and all reactionaries---they are both real and paper tigers. History shows that until taking power and for some time after their takeover, the slaveowners, the feudal landowners and the bourgeoisie were viable, revolutionary and advanced classes, and were real tigers. In the subsequent period, as the slaves, the peasantry and the proletariat---the classes which are their opposites---gradually grew, gained in strength and carried on an ever fiercer struggle against them, the slaveowners, the feudal landowners and the bourgeoisie underwent a reverse transformation: they became reactionary, backward classes, they were transformed into paper tigers and ultimately were or will be overthrown by the people.''
Leaving aside for the time being Mao's use of the terms ``real'' and ``paper'' tigers (which will be dealt with later) one finds that he does not in essence go beyond a formal recognition of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, and fails to show the mechanism of its operation. Indeed, in the process of historical development, the slaveowners, __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---1362 33 the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie do cease to be vehicles of social progress and are gradually supplanted by more advanced classes. But to say this is to say nothing, because a mere statement of the generally known historical facts does not yet add up to scientific dialectics. The Marxist theorist must show the dialectics of the process in which one class is supplanted by another, because a knowledge of the reasons, of the source of motion and the development of antagonistic societies provides the basis for men's conscious activity in the revolutionary transformation of the world.
The mutual admission and mutual exclusion of opposites is determined by their dialectical nature. Opposites are in a state of mutual interpenetration. That is why from the very beginning of their existence the slaveowners, the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie are burdened with their opposites ---the slaves, the peasants and the proletariat. The unity of these opposites consists in the fact that they mutually imply and mutually exclude each other. If this unity is to be eliminated there is need to destroy the basis which produces these opposites, that is, antagonistic society. Such unities are destroyed in the course of the class struggle and social revolution.
Mao frequently quotes Lenin about the unity of opposites being temporary and relative and their struggle being absolute. However, he has in fact no correct idea of the process in which contradictions unfold. Because Mao regards the unity of opposites as their mere coexistence in one thing or process, he regards their intertransition, their transformation into each other as no more than a mutual exchange of places.
Mao fails to understand that Lenin's formula about the unity of opposites being relative and their struggle being absolute means that the contradiction between opposites inevitably deepens and unfolds. This leads to a resolution of the given contradiction, its ``removal'' and the emergence of a new contradiction. In the process, there is a qualitative change, the emergence of a new phenomenon. For instance, the proletariat is not transformed into the bourgeoisie and does not change places with it, as one would assume on the strength of Mao's reasoning; there is here a qualitative transformation in the historical role of the bourgeoisie and of the proletariat as opposite classes of 34 capitalist society: at a definite stage in the unfolding of the contradictions, the bourgeoisie ceases to play a progressive role, and the latter passes to the proletariat. This determines the bourgeoisie's inevitable defeat and the proletariat's victory, the struggle between them ultimately results in a break of their intrinsic connections and the elimination of the given unity of opposites, as capitalism gives way to socialism. ``When the proletariat is victorious, it by no means becomes the absolute side of society, for it is victorious only by abolishing itself and its opposite. Then the proletariat disappears as well as the opposite which determines it, private property."^^1^^
Consequently, according to Mao, as a result of the victory of the socialist revolution the proletariat changes places with the bourgeoisie. According to Marx, however, the victory of the socialist revolution results in the elimination of the bourgeoisie (private property in Marx's terminology), and the elimination of the proletariat. Who is right, Mao or Marx? Of course it is Marx. Indeed, on the one hand, the victory of the socialist revolution results in the elimination of the bourgeoisie, because the expropriation of private capitalist property is the decisive condition for the elimination of this class. Of course, bourgeois ideology continues to exert an influence, but the bourgeoisie itself ceases to exist as a class. On the other hand, the victory of the socialist revolution also results in the elimination of the proletariat of the old bourgeois society, a class deprived of the means and implements of production, a class exploited by the bourgeoisie. The proletariat, or to be more precise, the working class of socialist society is a totally new class, directing society, in which the means and instruments of production belong to all the working people and where there is no exploitation of man by man. That is why it is wrong to say, as Mao does, that the victory of the socialist revolution results in the proletariat changing places with the bourgeoisie.
In contrast to Maoist dialectics, Marxist dialectics clearly shows that under socialism neither the bourgeoisie nor the proletariat exist in the old sense, because socialism is a qualitatively new social phenomenon, with a unity of opposites proper to it alone.
_-_-_~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Critique, Moscow, 1956, p. 52.
35Mao's approach to the law of the unity and struggle of opposites suggests that development is not viewed as a negation of the old by the new, but as a simple repetition of the past, as a circular movement or even as a movement in reverse. Suffice it to say that Mao's ``dialectics'' envisages the destruction of mankind and the globe: ``There are no things in the world which are not born, which do not develop and die. The monkey was transformed into man, men arose, but ultimately mankind as a whole is bound to perish. It will be transformed into something different, and at that time there will be no globe. The globe is ultimately bound to be destroyed.''
The content of the Maoist concept of contradiction itself is a mechanical antithesis of external opposites, with Mao using good and bad as the terms to designate these opposites. There are also other pairs like good and evil, hot and cold, etc. Such propositions were to some extent meaningful 20 centuries ago, when the idea that objective being and human thinking were contradictory was being established. But in the 20th century, with the present level of scientific knowledge, that is hardly enough. What is more, to declare these propositions today, under the scientific and technological revolution, as being the summit of scientific dialectics, is to hurl philosophy into the past, and amounts to insisting on the idea of a geocentric Universe.
Marxist philosophy is never stationary and constantly develops. But it does not develop by returning to ancient philosophical ideas, however true these were in the past, but by generalising the data provided by the latest scientific advances, and analysing the development of theoretical thinking itself. Similarly, Marxist dialectics is not, and cannot be, reduced to a simple mechanical juxtaposition of external and quite obvious opposites. Scientific dialectics must show the internal contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, and the real process of development of things and phenomena consisting of two opposites; in other words, scientific dialectics must analyse their self-movement.
The Maoist definition of opposites does not give a correct understanding of the complex and contradictory processes of development in nature and society. This is not only because it is meaningless. Mao has been using such opposites to vindicate his distorted interpretation of social processes 36 and to obscure the failures of his political line. He says that counter-revolutionary insurrections in the socialist countries are ``good'' because they help to strengthen the new social system; equally the death of great numbers of people in social revolutions is good because it brings on the victory of the people; another world war is good, because it will allegedly help to eliminate capitalism, and so on. Such ``dialectics'' have as much in common with Marxism as alchemy with chemistry.
In general, a purely mechanical combination of selfevident opposites does not amount to scientific dialectics. On the contrary, it is vulgarisation and distortion of dialectics. Moreover, self-evident opposites do not always constitute the two sides of a unity, whether thing or process. For instance, in some developing countries the bourgeoisie (commercial, compradore, bureaucratic) can exist without the proletariat; in socialist society the proletariat can exist without the bourgeoisie; under feudalism the landowners can exist without tenants, etc.
This also applies to war and peace. Of course, war and peace are two opposite concepts: when war starts, peace ends, and vice versa. This does not mean, however, that war and peace are phenomena which mutually determine each other. Mao takes the oversimplified, unscientific view of these two phenomena as being outwardly opposite to each other, and regards them as social opposites expressing the essence of social development. It may logically follow from this that the self-movement, the unfolding of the opposite sides of a social organism, inevitably leads to the alternation of war and peace. However, war and peace are not two sides of a unity, but distinct forms of political relations between states. War originates not from the development of a form of relations between states like peace, but from the intrinsically contradictory nature of capitalist society itself. Mao's ``theoretical substantiation" of the alternation of war and peace merely shows up the pathetic nature of his ``dialectics''.
We find him considering the law of the unity and struggle of opposites without analysing the interconnection between the categories of possibility and reality. It is quite obvious, however, that the resolution of any contradiction is closely connected with the transformation of possibility into reality, because the resolution of the contradiction and the point at 37 which possibility is transformed into reality constitute the two sides of one and the same process of development.
The existence of possibility depends on the intrinsically contradictory nature of phenomena. For instance, in the present conditions there is a possibility of another world war breaking out. However, the existence of such a possibility does not yet mean that it is bound to develop into reality. Possibility is transformed into reality only through the struggle of opposites and the victory of one of them. The victory of one and the defeat of the other depend on the quantitative and qualitative distinctions of the possibilities which contain within themselves the given opposites. For instance, whereas in the past the forces of war possessed much greater possibilities for winning out than the forces of peace, today the situation is fundamentally different.
In our day, the united might of the socialist community, the international working-class and the national liberation movement can force the imperialists to abandon war as a means of settling international disputes. Today, mankind can do away with war as a form of political relations between states. Thus, war and peace are two different phenomena in social life. That is why Mao's assertion that war must follow upon peace and vice versa, because they alternate, does not show the true essence of these social phenomena. Moreover, the Maoists' practical activity in the world arena, especially in the recent period, shows very well that Mao's theoretical exercises over the problem of war and peace are patently political.
One of the fundamental flaws of Maoist ``dialectics'' is that it is eclectic and incoherent, and that its separate elements are not logically connected. This is evident, in particular, in Mao's incorrect view of the peculiar operation of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites under socialism, the substance and historical role of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. On the one hand, he says that the opposites of an antagonistic contradiction are identical, that they penetrate and are transformed into each other, so that antagonistic opposites develop into non-antagonistic ones and back again. On the other hand, he regards the struggle of the opposites of a non-antagonistic contradiction as being the antagonism of two forces running in opposite directions.
38On the strength of such methodological principles, Mao in his article ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', revises the Marxist doctrine on the different types of social contradictions. He substitutes the concepts of ``contradictions between ourselves and our enemies, and contradictions within the ranks of the people" for ``antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions''. This does not amount to a mere terminological specification or innovation. The point is that the contradiction between the working class and the peasantry, on the one hand, and the national bourgeoisie, on the other, is included among the contradictions within the ranks of the people. Mao writes: ``The contradictions between ourselves and our enemies are antagonistic ones. Within the ranks of the people, contradictions among the working people are non-antagonistic, while those between the exploiters and the exploited classes have, apart from their antagonistic aspect, a non-antagonistic aspect. ... In our country, the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie is a contradiction among the people. The class struggle waged between the two is, by and large, a class struggle within the ranks of the people. This is because of the dual character of the national bourgeoisie in our country."^^1^^
The assertion that the contradictions between the working class and the (big) national bourgeoisie in China is nonantagonistic (the reservation that these contradictions also have an antagonistic aspect is immaterial) is Right-- opportunist and revisionist, although Mao himself claims to be a fighter against ``modern revisionism''. The vital interests of the working class and of the national bourgeoisie in China are irreconcilable, because the latter, like the bourgeoisie of any other country, does not want socialism on any terms, and this is backed up by the whole history of the Chinese People's Republic. Mao substitutes for the question of class relations the question of the possibility of political agreements and blocs with the bourgeoisie which is fundamentally hostile to the working class. The antagonistic contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie can be resolved only through the elimination of the latter.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Mao Tse-tung, ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People''. Supplement to People's China No. 13, July 1, 1957, p. 4 (emphasis added---V.G.).
39But perhaps Mao's idea that the contradictions between the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie fall under the head of contradictions within the ranks of the people is evidence of his creative and unconventional approach to the complex and diverse phenomena of reality itself, of his urge to involve the broadest sections of the population of China in building a new society, and, finally, of a creative solution of the theoretical problems and of a contribution to Marxist philosophy, as Maoist propaganda has claimed?^^1^^
Let us recall that it was Lenin who showed the correct and scientific methods for resolving the different contradictions after the triumph of the socialist revolution. On the strength of his dialectical view of contradictions, he required that any possible internal connections even between antagonisms at a definite stage in the development of this or that process should be discovered. Being aware that in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism a fierce class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was inevitable, he believed it possible to use state capitalism, controlled by proletarian dictatorship, to use the bourgeoisie under the New Economic Policy to boost and develop the country's productive forces, provided the bourgeoisie fully abided by the laws of the state, and provided it was simultaneously being restricted and displaced. Lenin always said that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was an antagonistic one.
Mao's assertion that the contradictions between the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie are contradictions within the ranks of the people clashes with his own statements at the 2nd Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee in 1949, when he said that once the proletariat took power _-_-_
~^^1^^ The report to the 9th Congress of the CPC said the article ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" was a ``great work''. It said that ``in this work . . . Chairman Mao Tse-tung gave an all-round formulation of the doctrine of contradictions, of classes and class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the doctrine o\ the two types of dissimilar contradictions existing within socialist society ---the contradictions between ourselves and our enemies, and contradictions within the ranks of the people, a great theory on the continuation of the revolution under proletarian dictatorship. Like a radiant beacon, this great work has shed light on the way of the socialist revolution and socialist construction in our country and has at the same time laid the theoretical foundations for the current great proletarian cultural revolution" (emphasis added---V.G.).
40 in the whole of China the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie would become the main one within the country. Maoist dialectics has mutually exclusive propositions because it has a social function. On the whole, Mao has converted philosophy into a handmaid of politics, in the worst sense of the word. His approach to philosophy is purely utilitarian, pragmatic. He has use for philosophy only to the extent it can be applied as an instrument for his ambitious, Great-Power interests.A utilitarian, pragmatic approach to dialectics means that it is used to justify any political action. In that case, dialectics must contain a set of propositions which could be used for such purposes, regardless of whether or not these square with one another. That is precisely what we find in Maoist ``dialectics''.^^1^^ Naturally enough, at every given moment the propositions of Maoist ``dialectics'' which best serve the current tactical aims of Mao's group are brought to the fore.
The social function of Maoist ``dialectics'' is most clearly revealed in Mao's interpretation of the concept of people. He writes: ``On this stage of building socialism, all classes, strata and social groups which approve, support and work for the cause of socialist construction belong to the category of the people, while those social forces and groups which resist the socialist revolution, and arc hostile to and try to wreck socialist construction, are enemies of the people."^^2^^ ``That is to say, democracy operates within the ranks of the people, while the working class, uniting with all those enjoying civil rights, the peasantry in the first place, enforces dictatorship over the reactionary classes and elements and all those who resist socialist transformation and oppose socialist construction."^^3^^ It may appear at first sight that this is a correct Marxist definition of the concept of people. The people are all those who stand for socialism and build it; _-_-_
~^^1^^ Let us note in this context that the same report at the 9th Congress of the CPC extolled Mao's thesis that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was the main contradiction in present-day China, as well as the thesis that this contradiction was among the contradictions within the ranks of the people (sic!).
~^^2^^ Mao Tse-tung, ``On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People'', p. 4 (emphasis added---V.G.).
~^^3^^ Ibid.
41 those who hamper the socialist reconstruction of society are classed among the enemies of the people. However, a closer examination of the Maoist concept of people shows that class principles are forgotten and that subjectivism takes over.In defining the concept of people Marxist sociology starts primarily from the decisive role of material production in social development, and from the economic status of various classes, sections and groups within a given system of social production, because that is exactly what determines the extent to which the various classes, sections and groups have an objective interest and capacity for tackling the concrete tasks facing society in progressive social development. The point is, however, that the Maoist definition of the concept of people lacks the first and basic criterion by which social classes, sections and groups are included in this concept, and this leaves room for subjectivism in defining its framework. All a social group, even an exploiting one (in this case the bourgeoisie), needs to do to be included in the concept of people is to announce its desire to build socialism and take a formal part in its construction.
In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism the concept of people may include the petty and even the middle urban and rural bourgeoisie, but there is no ground at all for putting a broad interpretation on the concept by including the big capitalists as well. However, according to Mao's view, the people include, and have included, ``all those enjoying civil rights'', which means therefore men like one-time Vice-President of Kuomintang China, the diehard reactionary Li Tsung-jen, the economic dictator of Macao Huo Ying, who was a member of the People's Political Consultative Council of China, and many other leaders of this stripe.
Mao also takes an anti-Marxist approach to the definition of the proletariat's class enemies. His main criterion here is attitude to the political line of the present Chinese leadership. According to the Maoist interpretation, ``enemy of the people" ceases to be a sociological characteristic and becomes a political phenomenon, which may not be---and as developments in China in the last few years indicate, is not in fact ---connected with membership of an exploiting class. On the contrary, a man's membership of a class is derived from his political stand. Those who are classified as ``enemies of the 42 people" are not members of exploiting classes, but all those who ``resist the socialist revolution, and are hostile to socialist construction (meaning, refuse to approve the distortion of the principles of socialist construction by the Maoists) and try to wreck socialist construction (meaning, fight against the Mao group)''.
This approach makes it possible to declare anyone an enemy if, for instance, he happens to express his dissatisfaction or disagreement with the Maoist foreign-policy line. No account is taken of a man's social origin or social status, or the motives of his discontent. All he needs do to be automatically classed with the ``enemies of the people" is to express his disagreement with Mao's political propositions. It is not surprising, therefore, that in China internationalist Communists are now being branded as ``enemies of the people''.
Thus, according to Mao's views, present-day Chinese society is divided into ``us'' and the ``enemies'', the former meaning Mao himself and his followers, and the latter not only, and not so much, the bourgeoisie, as all those who think differently and disagree with Mao's theory and practices. On June 23, 1966, the newspaper Chungkuo chingnien pao wrote: ``Those who oppose the thought of Mao Tse-tung are counter-revolutionaries.'' Consequently, all one needs do to be branded as an ``enemy'' is to doubt some Maoist proposition or express his own views. That is why Mao and his followers have been using the ``enemy of the people" concept to cover up any arbitrary treatment of their ideological opponents, even those who have never belonged to the exploiting classes and have honestly served the Chinese people and the Chinese revolution.
The anti-Marxist essence of Maoist exercises on the subject of ``people'' and ``enemies of the people" has been further laid bare by the practices of the ``cultural revolution''. The Mao group claims that the aim of this ``revolution'' is to prevent China's return to the bourgeois order, and that they are fighting the ``enemies of the people" (the word ``enemy'' has now been enriched with such synonyms as ``scum'', ``bandit'', ``scoundrel'', etc.) and against the ``agents of the bourgeoisie who have infiltrated the Party'', ``against those who are in power and take the capitalist way''.
Of course, it is quite possible for bourgeois degenerates and even downright agents of the class enemy to exist in the 43 Communist Party, and there is need for a resolute struggle against them. However, it is the real and not imaginary enemies that must be resolutely fought. Meanwhile, the facts show that during the ``cultural revolution" thousands upon thousands of Communists were branded as ``enemies of China" because, according to the Maoists, they were agents of the bourgeoisie, which seeks to undermine the cause of socialist construction in China. On the other hand, the real representatives of the bourgeoisie have been spared any criticism.
Mao seeks to back up his subjectivist interpretation of contradictions under socialism, an interpretation which has nothing in common with Marxism, by references to MarxistLeninist philosophy.
As has been said, Mao turned to Marxism in the 1920s because he felt that it was the best means of helping to return China to her old grandeur. In the 1930s and 1940s, he used Marxist terminology to assert his leadership in the CPC. Evidence of this comes from the ``Decision on Some Questions of the Party's History'', which he himself drew up, and which abounds with reminders of the need to fight dogmatism and the dogmatists (meaning the internationalist Communists). Mao's references to Marxist propositions in the 1950s and 1960s were used to cover up his betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, of the principles of socialist construction, to prop up his shaken power in the Party and the country, and to justify the splitting activity in the socialist community and the international communist, working-class and national liberation movement.
In the first few years after the people's revolution in China, when Mao and his followers did not yet dare openly to revise the principles of socialist construction and break with the world socialist system and the international communist movement, and when they were forced in the world arena to support the Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence, they still referred to the existence of non-antagonistic contradictions. Once the Maoists executed their radical turn about in domestic and foreign policy and laid their claims to hegemony in the world socialist system, and the international communist, working-class and national liberation movement, they began to speak mainly of antagonistic contradictions, which they sought to use to justify the need to 44 draw a ``line of demarcation" from the Marxists-Leninists both in China and elsewhere. That was the very purpose of the broad discussion on the law of the unity and struggle of opposites which was started in China in 1964. To make their approach appear Marxist, the Maoists used the authority of Lenin, and put their own gloss on Lenin's well-known idea of the ``dichotomy of unity''.
Marxist dialectics requires a concrete historical approach to social phenomena. It cannot serve as an abstract scheme from which answers to all the concrete questions of practice are spun out in a purely logical manner. Apart from the general features inherent in the development of social phenomena this dialectics takes into account the contradictory nature of social phenomena at their specific stage of development. In addition to the general features the development in each socialist country, in the socialist community as a whole, in each Communist Party, in the world workingclass movement as a whole, has its own specific features, with the unity of opposites having a specific role to play, because the contradictions are non-antagonistic. For instance, the Communist and Workers' Parties have to work in different conditions, and this produces different approaches to practical matters and even differences between the Parties. However, their common vital interests provide a basis for overcoming the difficulties and differences between the various contingents of the world army of Communists. The participants in the international communist forum in 1969 expressed their firm conviction that the differences between the Communist and Workers' Parties would be successfully overcome. They declared: ``This belief is based on the fact that the international working class has common long-term objectives and interests, on the striving of each Party to find a solution to existing problems which would meet both national and international interests and the Communists' revolutionary mission; it is based on the will of Communists for cohesion on an international scale."^^1^^
The Maoists apply to all social phenomena, including socialist society, the concrete instances in which the `` dichotomy of unity" appears in the form of a division of society _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 38.
45 into hostile classes. They say that to deny the existence of social antagonisms in socialist society is, in particular, to deny the struggle of opposites as a source of development.However, this approach is fundamentally wrong because it does not accord with the propositions of Marxist dialectics and is not warranted by socialist reality itself.
Obviously, the law of the unity and struggle of opposites is universal, which is why the struggle of opposites is a source of development even under socialism, but this struggle of opposites proceeds within the framework of nonantagonistic contradictions and not social antagonisms. Lenin said that antagonism and contradiction are not the same thing, that under socialism antagonism disappears but contradictions remain. The new system has no struggle of antagonistic classes which leads to a substitution of one socioeconomic formation by another. Socialist society develops on the basis of a resolution of the contradictions which spring from the nature of socialism, otherwise it would be impossible to advance. But these contradictions are not antagonistic.
What kind of contradictions are they? Some of them are class distinctions between workers and peasants, essential distinctions between town and country, between workers by brain and workers by hand, etc., which are inherited from the earlier formations. After all, according to the founders of Marxism-Leninism, socialism has just emerged ``into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism" and therefore ``is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society".^^1^^ Characterising the social gains of socialism, Lenin wrote: ``The first phase of communism ... cannot yet provide justice and equality: differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production---the factories, machines, land, etc.---and make them private property."^^2^^
In addition, as socialism develops it produces other contradictions, which are different from those inherent in capitalism. Among these are, for instance, the following: disparity between the rapidly growing material requirements of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 465.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 466.
46 population and the inadequate level of development of production, between the interests of citizens and separate collectives, between the collective and society as a whole, between science and production, when production either lags behind scientific achievements, or when science fails to satisfy the needs of production. Among the contradictions which arise as socialism develops are also a certain unevenness in the territorial location of industry, the lag of agriculture behind industry, and bureaucratic practices in some institutions and among some officials.All these contradictions in socialist society are of a specific, non-antagonistic character, but they still continue to be contradictions which determine the advance of society.
Such is the Marxist view of the question of the specific operation of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites under socialism. It is on the basis of this view that the Communist Parties have been scoring their successes in practical activity.
It would be wrong to assume that the Maoists' approach to contradictions under socialism is due to their theoretical mistakes or misconceptions. This may be so for rank-- andfile Maoists, but for Mao himself it is a deliberate retreat from the ideas of Marxist philosophy. The thesis concerning the ``dichotomy'' of socialist society serves as the theoretical justification for the slander and lies directed against the Soviet Union. The Maoists have been shouting about the class stratification of Soviet society, claiming that there are irreconcilable contradictions between the broad masses of the working people and some kind of privileged section, which has allegedly usurped power and is appropriating the fruits of the Soviet people's labour. The struggle against some anti-social elements, like thieves, embezzlers of socialist property, hooligans and idlers is also set up as a social antagonism.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ It is a curious fact that in their view of contradictions under socialism the Maoists are at one with the anti-Communists. Thus, the well-known critic of Marxism and a rabid West German anti-- Communist, G. Wetter, says in his book Soviet Ideology Today: ``How can dialectical development go on under socialism if the class struggle is no longer there? How can such dialectics continue to exist if the proletarian revolution is the last revolution, and socialism and communism, the last social formations?''
47Evidence of Mao's utilitarian approach to dialectics also comes from the fact that the ``dichotomy of .unity" is proclaimed only with respect to some handpicked social phenomena. The ``dichotomy'' of the socialist community is declared to be progressive and inevitable, but the ``dichotomy'' of China into the CPR and Taiwan, which is occupied by the Chiang Kai-shek clique, happens to be a ``unification of two in a unity''.
The ``dichotomy'' of the Communist Party of China is declared to be progressive and inevitable. But when it comes to the Chinese bourgeoisie, then this is said to be `` unification of two in a unity''. The ``dichotomy'' of the international working-class movement is declared to be progressive and inevitable. Simultaneously, the principle of ``unification of two in a unity" is proclaimed with respect to the renegades expelled from the Communist Parties and patent agents of the bourgeoisie.
The nihilistic attitude to the cultural legacy practised in the course of the ``cultural revolution" offers another example of the use of theory to justify practical political expedients.
This will be dealt with in detail in Chapter Seven. Let us merely stress at this point that the attacks on Chinese and world culture are justified by the Maoists on the plea that there is need to eradicate the old (feudal and bourgeois) views, traditions, morals, customs and habits, which hamper the assimilation of Marxist (meaning Maoist) ideology. But it would be wrong to draw the conclusion on the strength of this that Mao is opposed to any cultural legacy as such. The destruction of the Chinese people's cultural values, carried out on his initiative, is, we believe, determined by tactical considerations. The ``great helmsman" has attacked the cultural heritage in recent years, first, because this heritage is an obstacle in the way of duping the millions of Chinese; second, because it is being used by the political and ideological opponents of Maoism; and third, because in the light of the world's cultural and philosophic values the ``thought of Mao Tse-tung" stands out in its mediocrity.
However, it is quite possible that, as conditions change, Mao may well take a stand for some elements of the old culture. The thing to bear in mind is his traditional education, his great love of calligraphy and versification in the 48 old Chinese manner, and his interest in Confucianism and Buddhism.^^1^^
The Maoists seek to substantiate their political acts with quotations from the Marxist-Leninist classics: the ``Great Leap Forward"---with quotations on the transformation of an idea into a material force when it takes hold of the masses; their splitting policies---with quotations on Lenin's idea concerning the dichotomy of unity; the lawlessness of the Hungweipings---with references to the Marxist proposition on the need for resolute struggle against revisionism, etc. The result is a vulgarisation and gross distortion of Marxist dialectics. Apart from some outward terminological similarity, Maoist ``dialectics'' has nothing in common with the Marxist dialectical method, and when put to the test turns out to be a peculiar modification of traditional Chinese dialectics as described above.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Subjective Idealism InsteadWhat are the starting principles of Mao's outlook? Although his works contain statements that being is primary and consciousness is secondary, and that objective reality is the source of sensation, he takes an essentially metaphysical and idealistic view of the whole complex interconnection of matter and consciousness, of the whole contradictory process of reflection by man's consciousness of objective things and phenomena.
Mao quite obviously needed the proposition on the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness in order to appear to be a consistent materialist, for it cannot in any way be squared with Mao's own ``original'' view of many philosophical problems reflecting his ideological stand, such as the relationship between the objective laws of social development and men's conscious activity, society's economic basis and its political superstructure, social being and social ideas, and so on.
Viewed from this angle, Maoism is seen to start from the _-_-_
~^^1^^ In a private conversation in I960, Mao stressed the importance of studying Buddhist philosophy.
__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---1362 49 primacy of the subjective factor, ``subjective activity'', politics, ideas. This is expressed in such postulates as: the main role in the socialist mode of production belongs to the relations of production and not to the productive forces; politics and not economics is the command force in socialist society; moral and not material incentives are the principal ones in socialist construction.All these postulates ultimately boil down to the thesis that under socialism men's ``subjective activity" has the decisive role to play, which essentially means an urge to subordinate the objective laws of socialist construction to the subjective activity of leaders, and to provide a theoretical substantiation for subjectivism, voluntarism and adventurism in domestic and foreign policy.
A discussion on the relationship between objective laws and subjective activity was started in China in 1958 and 1959, and extensive propaganda of the notorious ``theory of subjective activity" was launched at about the same time, with Mao's role in developing this theory being extolled in every possible way. Here are two pertinent statements from a textbook, Dialectical Materialism, published in Peking in 1961: = 1. ``Carrying on a resolute struggle against all manner of opportunist elements denying or minimising the role of the subjective activity of the masses, he [Mao---Ed.] made not only a theoretical but also a great practical contribution to the development of the theory of subjective activity. He not only gave a precise scientific definition of subjective activity in the Marxist view, and clearly and concretely showed that in certain conditions subjective activity plays a decisive role, but also made a comprehensive and profound study, on the basis of a close unity of materialism and dialectics, of the existence of dialectical connections between the subjective and the objective, between subjective activity and objective regularities, between revolutionary spirit and scientific approach.''
2. ``Comrade Mao Tse-tung's fresh contribution to Marxist philosophy consists not only in the fact that, starting from the contradiction between the subjective and the objective, he gives a clear and positive answer to the question concerning the definitive role of subjective activity in certain conditions, but also in the fact that basing himself on the main spheres of social life and the Party's practical activity, he 50 gives our Party an even more powerful theoretical instrument for directing the people in the struggle for the grand transformation of the world [emphasis added---V.G.]."
What leaps to the eye in these quotations is the emphasis on Mao's services to Marxism in bringing out the `` definitive, decisive role of subjective activity''.
Marxism does not, of course, deny the importance of the subjective factor in social development under socialism. On the contrary, it stresses its growing role with the successful advance of socialist construction. This is due to the fact that the Communist Party, relying on the knowledge of the objective laws of social development, is able to use them in the interest of society as a whole. This makes men's activity purposeful and conscious. However, the laws of social development in socialist society are just as determined materially and are as objective as the laws of social development in all other socio-economic formations. Their inadequate consideration---to say nothing of their neglect---of men's socio-economic activity inevitably has a negative effect on the development of socialist society.
In contrast to Marxism, the Maoists advocate men's subjective activity, virtually ignoring the dialectic unity of the objective laws of social development and men's conscious activity. They call the Marxists mechanicists because, they say, ``refusing to recognise man as the decisive factor in the relations between man and things, they lay one-sided stress on the fact that man's actions are determined by the lifeless schemes of objective laws, and that man can do no more than passively submit to these laws''. Referring to the fact that under socialism the role of the subjective factor is immensely increased, the Maoists metaphysically contrast objective laws and men's activity, and separate the two.
However, the main thing is that the Maoists do not regard ``subjective activity" as conscious, purposeful activity of the masses, based on a knowledge of the laws of social development, but action in realising any subjectivist propositions of the leaders. That is why the references to Mao's services in developing the ``theory of subjective activity" mean his apology of men's activity which is not limited by any objective laws, that is, essentially an apology of voluntarism and subjectivism. This is a subjective, idealist standpoint.
__PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51One important point needs to be borne in mind in analysing Maoist philosophy. Very frequently the Maoists resort to the following trick to cover up their departure from Marxism. They take a correct Marxist proposition but give it their own interpretation, by variously accentuating one of its aspects, which they happen to need most at the time, and by taking a part out of the context of the whole and turning it into an absolute. But to cover up the sleight of hand they make sure to quote the doctored Marxist proposition in full.
That is exactly what they have done in this instance. In order to cover up their revision of the Marxist philosophical postulate concerning the dialectical interconnection between the objective laws of social development and men's conscious activity under socialism, they centre attention on men's activity while speaking of the need to give consideration to objective laws.
That is why the Maoists' distortion of the correct propositions of Marxist philosophy can be discovered not only in a careful study of their theoretical views and a thorough analysis and comparison of all the statements on a given question, but also by establishing when, in which circumstances and on what occasion this or that theoretical proposition is being accentuated. In particular, Mao's subjective, idealist approach to the use of the objective laws of social development becomes even more obvious when we find that his apology of subjective activity occurred in the period of the ``Great Leap Forward" and the people's communes.
Maoism also takes an essentially subjective, idealist view of man's role in material production. Take an article which appeared in 1965 in the journal Hsin Chianshe, organ of the Philosophical and Social Sciences Department of the Academy of Sciences of China. The authors said: ``Although the instruments of labour in production, the objects of labour, weapons in war, etc., are indeed of great importance, although they are a considerable factor in production and in war, they occupy a secondary place in comparison to man. Regardless of the area---production struggle or class struggle, it is men and not things that are the factor with the decisive role to play."^^1^^ The point is, the authors add, that man has an active and things a passive place. Man ``can think, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Hsin Chianshe No. 7, 1965, p. 23.
52 can work, he possesses subjective activity, he can know and change the world, whereas things do not possess such features. . ."^^1^^. ``Among all things, the instruments of labour in production and weapons in war are the most important. . .. However, detached from human activity, nature cannot supply man with the necessary instruments of labour and weapons. In detachment from human activity the implements and weapons already created are turned into rubbish."^^2^^ Here, as on the question of the relationship between subjective activity and objective laws, the role of the subjective factor is hypertrophied.But perhaps this is a stand for man's active substance, for his activity? If we recall that the abovementioned reasoning appeared just when China's industrialisation rate had slowed down after the fiasco of the ``Great Leap Forward" and the people's communes, in a period when the role of technical devices and technological progress was being variously played down and ignored, in a period when Mao's idea of the atomic bomb being a ``paper tiger" was being plugged, it will become obvious that it has a patently antiMarxist ring. We find a deliberate exaggeration of man's role in material production and a playing down of the role of material production itself.
Marxism has always emphasised man's decisive role in production. One need merely recall what Lenin said about the working man being the primary productive force of all mankind. But Marxism has never separated man from the other component elements of the productive forces or contrasted him with them. Man is the chief but not the only component of the productive forces. Any neglect of this principle, whether deliberate or otherwise, tends to obliterate the fundamental distinctions between the various modes of production, because every society is characterised by a definite level in the development of the productive forces.
As man exerts an influence on nature he not only changes it but also changes himself. He becomes more adept in the mode of creating the means of labour, but this depends on the level in the development of the productive forces _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 24.
53 attained at any given moment. It should be borne in mind that at every given historical epoch man's power and potentialities are limited by the existing level in the development of material production, the means of labour above all. Hardly anyone will deny that the means of labour are nothing without man. But this does not warrant their reduction to nothing. Man's power is expressed precisely in the level to which his means of production have been developed. The Maoists preach nihilism with respect to science and technology, and this is reflected in one of their slogans: ``Topple the scientific authorities.'' Under the current scientific and technological revolution, with science being a direct productive force in society, this attitude is bound to lead to stagnation in scientific research.There again we find the characteristic feature of Maoism: the narrowly utilitarian approach to theory, resulting in a divergence between theory and practice. Mao himself cannot but be aware of the ever growing role of the natural sciences in modern society, because the use of their achievements helps man to enhance his power over nature. Evidence of this comes also from the fact that most of the research institutions and scientists engaged in the fabrication of nuclear missiles were spared any criticism during the ``cultural revolution''. The blows fell mainly on those working in the social sciences. Mao apparently needed the bogey of `` pseudo-science" and ``admiration for scientific authorities" in order to defeat his political opponents. The Maoists have not cast doubt on the importance of the applied natural sciences, and are hardly likely to do so in the future.
Mao's exaggeration of man's role in production is closely connected with his erroneous view of the relationship between the productive forces and the relations of production, between the basis and the superstructure.
The Marxist view of this question was expressed by the founder of the scientific philosophy in these words: ``In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely, relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which 54 correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or---this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms ---with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. . .. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production."^^1^^ Lenin said that these words of Marx expressed the materialist view of history.
By contrast Mao, first, essentially assigns the main role within the productive forces/relations of production system to the latter component and, second, holds that the establishment of new relations of production does not spring from objective necessity, which is rooted in the process of material production, but from men's subjective will.^^2^^
The Maoists believe it to be possible artificially to `` improve" the relations of production regardless of the development of the productive forces, in order to tackle the tasks of China's socio-economic development. That was the purpose of the ``Great Leap Forward" and the establishment of the people's communes. With socialist construction in China at its initial stage, they issued a call for the earliest transition to communism. The people's communes were advertised as the primary cells of the future communist society. The lamentable results of this ``experiment'' are well known.
The artificial ``improvement'' of the relations of _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Moscow, 1970, pp. 20--21.
~^^2^^ The Maoists' reservations, like those examined above, are purely tactical and are designed to cover up their revision of the materialist view of history.
55 production, which boils down to all manner of organisational and political restructuring in agriculture and industry, is designed to sharpen the class struggle, and this has been expressed in the endless succession of political campaigns and mass movements. Let us recall the movement against the ``three'' and ``five'' evils (1952 and 1953), the struggle against the ``Rightist elements" (1957--1958), the movement for ordering the style of work (1958), the ``give the Party your heart" campaign (1958--1959), the movement for socialist education in the countryside (1962--1963) and, finally, the ``cultural revolution" (1966--1969).This anti-Marxist conception is given a logical capstone in the following formula: ``The thought of Mao Tse-tung is an almighty force.'' The newspaper Jenmin jihpao wrote: ``When the thought of Mao Tse-tung spreads across the whole world, when the revolutionary peoples of the whole world gradually master it, it will be able to change the spiritual face of the revolutionary peoples of the world and to transform spiritual force into a great material force. Having mastered the thought of Mao Tse-tung, the revolutionary peoples of the world will destroy the old world in a powerful, inexorable attack, completely bury imperialism, modern revisionism and reaction in all countries, and build on earth an immensely radiant, unprecedentedly beautiful, great new communist world, a world without oppression and exploitation."^^1^^
We find here an unscientific interpretation of the Marxist proposition concerning the relative independence of ideology, and a vulgarisation of Marx's thesis that ideas become a material force when they take hold of the masses.
Marxists have always attached much importance to the role of ideas in social development, believing that ideas can help to accelerate its pace, provided only that these ideas reflect real life, the relationship between classes, the advance of science and economic progress. Marxist ideas are viable and invincible and exert an accelerating effect on the social process because they are scientific and accord with the laws of social development. That is why they become a material force transforming the world. The ``thought of Mao Tsetung" is deprived of any life-giving power because it is not _-_-_
^^1^^ Jenmin jihpao, June 20, 1966.
56 based on science, and does not accord with the objective laws of social development, which is why its translation into practice has brought defeats for China's domestic and foreign policies.Maoism revises the Marxist proposition concerning the role of the masses and the individual in history: the role of the individual is exaggerated, the cult of heroes is revived, and the masses are treated as a faceless mob bent to the will of the leaders.
The unscientific and subjectivist view of the role of the individual in history is clearly expressed in the build-up of Mao's personality cult, and in the exaggeration of his role, with a simultaneous playing down of the role of the people and the Communist Party in the history of the Chinese revolution. The whole activity of the CPC at every period of its history is identified with the activity of one man---Mao Tsetung---``a personality of the highest order'', ``a genius'', according to Maoist propaganda, who is born into the midst of men once in a few centuries, which is why unquestioning obedience to him is a guarantee of China's successes. `` Always think of Chairman Mao, obey Chairman Mao in everything, consistently follow Chairman Mao, do everything for the sake of Chairman Mao."^^1^^
We have here something that goes beyond the mere revival or rehearsal of the Narodist theory of the ``heroes'' and the ``crowd''. The Narodniks held up more than one hero, and enshrined the hero as an ideal. In Mao's case we have one ``hero'' who has the capacity, at will, to change or even abolish the laws of social development.
The official press helps to deify Mao and praise the Maoists who are obedient to him. The official press is not interested in the people as such, as the maker of history, as a participant in the revolutionary transformation of society. In the theory and practice of Maoism, the people is assigned the role of extra, who walks on the stage when bidden ta do so and blindly carries out the orders of Mao Tse-tung. According to the logic of Maoist philosophy, the masses are incapable of taking conscious and organised action, and can merely submit to and blindly follow the ``hero''. This is substantiated by ``Mao's thought" that the Chinese people is a _-_-_
^^1^^ China Pictorial No. 7, 1968.
57 clean sheet of paper on which there is nothing, but on which one is able to write ``the newest, the most beautiful characters, on which one can produce the newest, the most beautiful drawings".^^1^^ This view of the role of the individual and the masses in history has nothing in common with Marxism. It adds up to a pernicious cult of the personality of a leader who stands over and above the people. It amounts to mistrust of the people and abuse of them.The sway of Mao's personality cult fosters in the Chinese people a spirit of slavish adulation of the leader. Ordinary Chinese are quoted as saying: ``Chairman Mao's concern is vaster than the heavens and the earth, Chairman Mao is dearer than father and mother. But for Chairman Mao, I would not have existed."^^2^^ All of Mao's writings are regarded as sacred; therefore ``Mao Tse-tung's works must be studied every day. If you fail to study the leader's works for one day, a host of questions will arise; if you fail to study them for two days, you will begin to slide down; and it is altogether impossible to live without the leader's works for three days."^^3^^
Subjectivism is a feature of Mao's view of history. The Maoists regard Mao's political and theoretical activity as being the only cause behind social development. Action by s