“LEAPS” IN THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
p Mao Tse-tung and the ideologues of his cult make staggering claims for Mao’s contribution as a theoretician to methodology no less than to dialectics.
p The authors of "Three Great Milestones" declare: "In ’On Practice’ Chairman Mao has creatively developed Lenin’s ideas, pointing out that the transition from perceptual to rational knowledge represents a leap and that the subsequent return to practice is another leap. Moreover, he says: ’Correct knowledge is acquired after repeated transition from matter to spirit and spirit to matter, that is, from practice to knowledge and knowledge to practice. Such is the Marxist epistemology of dialectical materialism.’ (Mao Tse-tung, "Whence Does a Man Acquire Correct Ideas?”) Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin said nothing about all this, but Chairman Mao generalised numerous new empirical facts and advanced a new theory and new explanations."
p What primaeval ignorance of philosophy this panegyric to the "thoughts of Mao" reveals! But perhaps this is the extreme ignorance of a few isolated champions of Maoism who have failed to make a correct assessment of Mao’s “ contribution”?
p Let us take a look at what the diploma’d Maoists have to say, the professional philosophers of the Chinese People’s University. They also declare Mao Tse-tung to have carried Lenin’s doctrine forward and raised it to a new level. "In new historical conditions, Lenin, struggling against idealism, metaphysics, and especially revisionism, in philosophy, 132 defended and developed the all-embracing view that practice is the origin of all knowledge and the criterion of truth. Comrade Mao Tse-tung has always laid special emphasis on practice. Regarding practice as the most outstanding feature of Marxist philosophy and making it a point of departure, he has exhaustively developed the active revolutionary theory of reflection, developed the Marxist view of practice, and developed the thesis of the role of social practice in the entire process of cognition." [132•1
p The authors maintain that Mao Tse-tung "developed allsidedly and profoundly the epistemology of dialectical materialism". [132•2 "Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s view of the division of human knowledge into perceptual and rational, his exposition of the features of perceptual and rational knowledge and the qualitative difference and unity of perceptual and rational knowledge on the basis of practice—this is a major contribution to Marxist-Leninist epistemology.” [132•3
p The further we read in the creations of the Maoist theoreticians, the more great “contributions” we find ascribed to Mao’s two articles referred to above. Apparently, Mao not only developed the theory of knowledge, but managed to put it into practice, "embodies this theory in a number of concrete tasks: raising the awareness of the worker and peasant masses to the level of the intellectuals, bringing the intellectuals closer to manual labour, the combination of studies with work in production, the connection between engineers and technicians and the worker and peasant masses... .” [132•4 Even the question of "contacts between Chinese and foreign specialists" was "given a theoretical explanation" by Chairman Mao.
p We must give the authors due credit, however, for drawing attention to the following “precept” of Mao Tse-tung. "In studying a problem, we must guard against subjectivism, one-sidedness and superficiality.” [132•5 Having quoted this incontrovertible premise, the authors rightly remark: " Subjectivism, one-sidedness and superficiality are the roots of 133 erroneous modes of thinking.” [133•1 They regard this thesis, which is a rehash of an idea expressed by Lenin in "On Dialectics" as yet another “contribution” of Mao Tse-tung. The most remarkable thing here is that Mao Tse-tung and his champions, while claiming to be the originators of this idea, completely ignore it in their own theory and practice.
p But we have yet to examine the most important of all Mao’s “contributions”. The above-mentioned authors write that "Mao was the first to advance on the basis of all-round development of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism a perfect and consistent method of work called ’the mass line’.” [133•2 At first sight, this principle looks most attractive: "To draw from the masses and take to the masses.” This brand-new theory is resumed in the formula: "Practice— knowledge—practice,” which is reflected in politics in the principle: "Masses—leadership—masses.” [133•3
p If we are to believe all the authors have to say in its favour, we can hardly refrain from exclaiming after them: "How many great discoveries are to be found in the works of Chairman Mao!”
p It appears that all Lenin’s wealth of ideas on the theory of knowledge can be summed up as the "all-embracing view that practice is the basis of knowledge and the criterion of truth”. Naturally, against the background of this abstract premise even Mao’s banal reflections on perceptual and rational knowledge and his mental acrobatics with the formula “practice—knowledge—practice” appear to ill-informed Chinese readers who have never read a word of Marx, Engels and Lenin (“foreign” and “irrelevant” to the Chinese situation) to be the height of wisdom and sagacity.
p We have deliberately quoted extensively from Chinese sources for the purpose of showing how both the young supporters of Mao and the old “specialists” are united in attaching importance to the “contribution” of Mao Tse-tung. As they see it, Mao’s contribution consists in the following: 1) the idea of the division of knowledge into perceptual and rational, the transition from one to the other and then to practice, called a “leap”; 2) the view that practice is the source and criterion of truth; 3) the definition of the features 134 of perceptual and rational knowledge; 4) the generalisation of the doctrine of absolute and relative truth; 5) "the theory of knowledge is embodied in a number of concrete tasks”, "a perfect and consistent method of work called "the mass line’ ”, "draw from the masses and take to the masses”.
p As the Maoists themselves emphasise, the whole “wealth” of Mao Tse-tung’s ideas in the field of epistemology is contained in "On Practice”, "On Contradiction”, and "Whence Does a Man Acquire Correct Ideas?”
p As for the first two, the Maoists claim that they are "the best text-book which teaches the people to think correctly, act correctly and learn correctly. They have not only determined the Marxist-Leninist basis in the education of the Chinese Communist Party, but are a brilliant contribution to the world Marxist-Leninist philosophical treasury.” [134•1 Let us for the moment take these claims at their face value and examine briefly Mao’s “contributions” by collating them with the theories of Marxism-Leninism.
Before we do so, however, one further remark is in order, something that must always be borne in mind when examining the works of Mao Tse-tung and his supporters. Developments in China and other countries provided ample evidence to convince Mao of the tremendous influence of MarxismLeninism. Having failed in his attempts to compete with Marxism-Leninism, he now tries to graft Marxist-Leninist teaching to his own conceited hegemonistic pretentions and aspirations for national resurgence, for restoration of the former greatness of the Celestial Empire. Maoism is a parasite living off Marxism-Leninism. The Marxist terms employed are like a code which must be deciphered in order to read the anti-Marxist message his ideas contain, and this adds to the difficulty of exposing them for what they really are. This being so, the only effective method of combating Maoist theory is to decipher the code, thereby revealing the true content. At times it is difficult to find the key to the code in the works themselves, in which case it is necessary to seek it in Maoist practice.
Notes
[132•1] Dialectical Materialism, p. 182 (emphasis added.—M.A., V.G.).
[132•2] Ibid., p. 198.
[132•3] Ibid., p. 202.
[132•4] Ibid., p. 204.
[132•5] Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Volume Two, p. 20.
[133•1] Dialectical Materialism, p. 222.
[133•2] Ibid., p. 236.
[133•3] Ibid., pp. 236-37.
[134•1] Wang Shih and others, S/tort History of the Chinese Communist Party, Shanghai, 1961 (in Chinese), pp. 169-70.
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