Chapter 63 Study Marxist epistemology and dialectics [1]

(1963-1965) one We still have some comrades in leadership positions and many comrades engaged in general work who do not understand or do not understand the Marxist scientific and revolutionary epistemology. Their world outlook and methodology are still bourgeois, or they still have bourgeois Remnants of class thinking.They often consciously or unconsciously substitute subjectivism (idealism) for materialism, and metaphysics for dialectics.In this case, it is impossible for their investigation and research work to be done well.In order to do our work well, Party committees at all levels should vigorously promote the study of Marxist theory of knowledge, make it popular, and be mastered by the broad masses of cadres and the masses, so that philosophy can be liberated from philosophers’ classrooms and books, and become the masses. Sharp weapon in hand.

(May 1963) Published according to Mao Zedong's manuscript. two The source of strength is the masses of the people.If it does not reflect the demands of the people, no one will do.It is necessary to learn knowledge from the masses, formulate policies, and then educate the masses.Therefore, if you want to be a teacher, you must first be a student. There is no teacher who has not been a student first.And even after becoming a teacher, you still have to learn from the people and understand the situation of your own students. (August 29, 1964) Published based on the transcript of the conversation kept by the Central Archives.

three Among our cadres, there are quite a few self-righteous ones.One of the reasons is that they do not understand the epistemology of Marxism.Therefore, it is very necessary to tirelessly promote this kind of epistemology.Simply put, it means coming from the masses and going to the masses.If you make up your mind to stay for a long time, you will be able to hear the voice of the masses, and you will be able to gradually understand the objective truth from practice, turn it into subjective truth, and then go back to practice to see if it works.If it doesn't work, you must ask the masses for advice again.In this way, we can solve the problem of framing, that is, the problem of dogmatism, and we can stop believing in superstition.

(September 25, 1964) Four The so-called understanding of objective truth means that people in practice reflect the phenomena and essence of the objective outside world, undergo gradual changes and mutations, and become subjective truths that have not yet been tested.To know whether the subjective truth obtained in this process really reflects the objective truth (that is, regularity), we have to go back to practice to see if it works. (October 18, 1964) Published according to Mao Zedong's manuscript. Fives The history of mankind is a history of continuous development from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.This history will never end.In a society where there are classes, the class struggle will not end.In a classless society, the struggle between old and new, right and wrong is never complete.In the fields of the struggle for production and scientific experiments, mankind makes constant progress and nature also makes constant progress, they will never remain at the same level.Therefore, human beings have to constantly sum up experience, discover, invent, create, and advance.The arguments for stagnation, the arguments for pessimism, the arguments for inaction and complacency, are all wrong.It is wrong because these arguments do not conform to the historical facts of the development of human society in the past one million years [2], nor do they conform to the nature we know so far (such as the history of celestial bodies, the history of the earth, the history of organisms, and other various The historical facts of the natural world reflected in the history of natural science.

(December 13, 1964) According to "People's Daily" published on December 31, 1964. six What is Marxism? The central leaders[3] at that time really knew little or nothing, and it was a big joke for many years.But this is inevitable, human beings always have to make some mistakes to show their rightness.It is unavoidable to not know the objective and inevitable law but to be dominated by it, to make oneself a slave of the objective outside world, until now, in the future, and even infinity.The blindness and freedom of cognition will always alternate and expand its field constantly, and wrong and right will always coexist.Otherwise, development would stop and science would cease to exist.You know, error is often the forerunner of right, and blind necessity is often the ancestor of freedom.Man is both the slave and the master of nature and society.This is because human beings will never fully understand the objective material world, human society, and human beings themselves (that is, the human body).If one day the understanding is complete and the society is perfect and perfect (as theology says), it will lead to absolute subjective idealism and metaphysics, which is not a Marxist worldview.

(1965) seven The core of dialectics is the law of the unity of opposites, and other categories such as the mutual change of quality, negation of negation, connection, development, etc., can be explained in the core law.For the so-called connection means that the opposites are connected with each other in time and space, and the so-called development is the result of the struggle between the opposites.As for the interchanging of quality and the negation of negation, it should be explained under the guidance of the core laws along with the essence of phenomena, form and content, etc.The inappropriate method of juxtaposing several laws handed down from the old philosophy has been basically solved by Lenin, and our task is to explain and develop it.As for various categories (there can be more than a dozen kinds), they must be explained by the unity of contradictions and opposites of things.For example, what is essence? It can only be said that essence is the principal contradiction and the principal contradiction aspect of things.And so on.

(1965) Published according to Mao Zedong's manuscript. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] The first part of this article is a paragraph added to the tenth question when Mao Zedong reviewed the draft of the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Concerning Several Issues in Current Rural Work (Draft)" (ie, the first ten articles).The second part of this article is part of the conversation between Mao Zedong and the Nepalese education delegation.Part Three is the main part of a letter from Mao Zedong to Liu Shaoqi.On September 25, 1964, Liu Shaoqi submitted the letter to him from Jiang Weiqing, the first secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, and his reply letter on September 23 to Mao Zedong, and Mao Zedong wrote him the same day this letter.The fourth part of this article is an additional passage written by Mao Zedong on October 18, 1964 when he read the revised draft of Liu Shaoqi's reply to Jiang Weiqing.The fifth part of this article is a passage added by Mao Zedong when he reviewed Zhou Enlai's draft government work report at the first session of the third National People's Congress.Part 6 of this chapter is a commentary written by Mao Zedong when he reread his old work "Investigation of Changgang Township".Part 7 of this article is a comment written by Mao Zedong next to the first section of Chapter 3 of the "Outline of Marxist Philosophy" edited by Li Da.

[2] Archaeological discoveries so far have proved that the history of human beings is at least two million years old. [3] Refers to Wang Ming and others who made "Left" dogmatic mistakes from the beginning of 1931 to the end of 1934.