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p The 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)  [15•1 ; 6. Statements on philosophical questions at various conferences and in connection with philosophical discussions.  [15•2 

p 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.

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p Marxist 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.

p 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.

p 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 17 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.

p 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.

p 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."  [17•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."  [17•2 

p 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 18 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."  [18•1 

p 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.

p 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.  [18•2  In his philosophical substantiation of the book—“Tap-Chi”—he wrote: “It is said in Yi Ching, in the section ’Hsi Tzu Chuan’  [18•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."  [18•4 

p “The heavens were arranged around the earth, and the earth occupied its place in the midst of the heavens; Yin 19 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."  [19•1 

p 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.  [19•2 

p 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.  [19•3 

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p 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.

p 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.

p 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.

p 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."  [20•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 21 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.

p 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".  [21•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".  [21•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.

p 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.

p 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 22 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.

p 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.

p 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.

p 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.  [22•1 

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p Chinese society first got a knowledge of the culture and philosophy of other countries in the second half of the 19th century.  [23•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.

p 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.

p 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 24 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.  [24•1 

p 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."  [24•2 

p 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.  [24•3 

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p We 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”.  [25•1 

p 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.  [25•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)."  [25•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 26 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."  [26•1 

p 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”.

p 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".  [26•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.

p 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.