September 13,
2022
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
DEFENCE OF MAOISM
(III)
The marrow of the
conception of the proletariat is the contradiction
A historical leap of inexhaustable
transcendence
In Defence of Maoism, on the development of the three constituent parts of
Marxism by Chairman Mao Tsetung, we refer to the document ‘On
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism’, which should be studied with the masterly ‘Report on
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism’ from the Documents of the First Congress of the PCP,
February 1988, as a guide.
Why are we proceeding in this way? Based on the irrefutable historical fact
that at the 1st Congress of the PCP Maoism was defined, the
fundamentals of Maoism and its content were established. Therefore, the 1st
Congress of the PCP constitutes a transcendental milestone in the struggle for
Maoism.
For the needs of the present discussion we focus, in these first three
parts of Defence of Maoism, on Chairman Mao’s development of Marxist philosophy
or dialectical materialism. In this third part, more specifically, to the
Chairman’s fulfilment of the task left by Lenin of deepening
the understanding of the law of contradiction by taking into account the
development of social practice. In these first instalments, we have had to
refer briefly to the supreme problem of all philosophy, i.e., the relation
between thinking and being, between spirit and nature and the Marxist theory of
knowledge, which Chairman Mao understood and deepened like no one before him,
developing what Lenin said and building on Engels.
Chairman Mao, in ‘On Practice’, reaffirms the name given by the founders to
the new philosophy, its class character and its practical character, the
dependence of theory on practice as the fundamental viewpoint of the
dialectical materialist theory of knowledge, let us read:
“The Marxist
philosophy of dialectical materialism has two outstanding characteristics. One
is its class nature: it openly avows that dialectical materialism
is in the service of the proletariat. The other is its practicality:
it emphasizes the dependence of theory on practice, emphasizes that theory is
based on practice and in turn serves practice. The truth of any
knowledge or theory is determined not by subjective feelings, but by objective
results in social practice. Only social practice can be the
criterion of truth. The standpoint of practice is the primary and basic
standpoint in the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge.”
Chairman Mao, on the process of the development of knowledge and the role
of Marxism, in the above-mentioned document, wrote:
“In the
process of practice, man at first sees only the phenomenal
side, the separate aspects, the
external relations of things. […] This is called the perceptual stage of
cognition, namely, the stage of sense perceptions and impressions […] this is
the first stage of cognition. At this stage, man cannot as yet form
concepts, which are deeper, or draw logical conclusions.
As social practice continues,
things that give rise to man’s sense perceptions and impressions in the course
of his practice are repeated many times; then a sudden change (leap)
takes place in the brain in the process of cognition, and concepts are formed.
Concepts are no longer the phenomena, the separate aspects and the external
relations of things; they grasp the essence, the totality and the internal
relations of things. Between concepts and sense perceptions there is not only a
quantitative but also a qualitative difference. Proceeding further, by means of
judgement and inference one is able to draw logical conclusions.[…]
This is the second stage of cognition[…] the stage of rational
knowledge. The real task of knowing is, through perception, to arrive at
thought, […] to arrive at logical knowledge. To repeat, logical
knowledge differs from perceptual knowledge in that perceptual knowledge
pertains to the separate aspects, the phenomena and the external relations of
things, whereas logical knowledge takes a big stride forward to reach the
totality, the essence and the internal relations of things and discloses
the inner contradictions in the surrounding world. Therefore, logical
knowledge is capable of grasping the development of the surrounding world in
its totality, in the internal relations of all its aspects.
This
dialectical-materialist theory of the process of development of knowledge,
basing itself on practice and proceeding from the shallower to the deeper, was
never worked out by anybody before the rise of Marxism. Marxist materialism
solved this problem correctly for the first time, pointing out both
materialistically and dialectically the deepening movement of cognition, the
movement by which man in society progresses from perceptual knowledge to
logical knowledge in his complex, constantly recurring practice of production
and class struggle. Lenin said, “The abstraction of matter, of a law of nature,
the abstraction of value, etc., in short, all scientific (correct, serious, not
absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely.” […] The
perceptual and the rational are qualitatively different, but are not divorced
from each other; they are unified on the basis of practice. Our practice proves
that what is perceived cannot at once be comprehended and that only what is
comprehended can be more deeply perceived. Perception only solves the problem
of phenomena; theory alone can solve the problem of essence. The solving of
both these problems is not separable in the slightest degree from practice.
Whoever wants to know a thing has no way of doing so except by coming into
contact with it, that is, by living (practising) in its environment.”
The quotation is of concrete application to highlight the process of the
movement of deepening or development of Marxist philosophy, to understand more
deeply the role played by the continuators of Marx and Engel in the development
of Marxism, here, in particular, to understand better the task that Chairman
Mao assumed and fulfilled with regard to “contradiction as the essence or nucleus of dialectics” (Lenin). That is, to reflect in the most profound, truthful and complete
way the law of the self-movement of matter, making the deepest abstraction in
order to reflect in the most thorough, exact and complete way the law of its
movement, contradiction: As it is written there, the question to be solved is
the problem of the essence of dialectics, contradiction (the sole fundamental
law of the movement of eternal matter), its condensation into the clearest and
most precise form, required developing the theory by the proletariat, by its
highest peaks, in its complex and constantly repeated practice of production
and class struggle. In short, to develop in theory and practice the world
proletarian revolution.
This is because, as Chairman Mao, in his ‘Reading Notes on the Soviet Text
“Political Economy”’, a veritable manual on the application of contradiction to
politics, published by the Red Guards, pointed out:
“[…] the
contradictions between appearances and essences. Essences always lie behind
appearances and cannot be disclosed except through appearances.”
Lenin: “without
philosophy there is no party”. As we
reaffirmed in the previous part, Marxist philosophy is the foundation of our
conception and the core of our ideology. Therefore, we cannot neglect it and we
cannot fight revisionism if we do not take up Marxist philosophy.
Engels in his ‘Old Prologue to the Anti-Dühring’, on dialectics, says that
in the history of philosophy there are two singular manifestations of
dialectical philosophy, the first is Greek philosophy and the second is
classical German philosophy, about the latter he wrote:
“The second
form of dialectics, which is the one that comes closest to the German
naturalists, is classical German philosophy, from Kant to Hegel. […]
But to study dialectics in the works of Kant would be a uselessly laborious and
little-remunerative task, as there is now available, in Hegel’s works,
a comprehensive compendium of dialectics […]
First of all it must be
established that here it is not at all a question of defending Hegel’s
point of departure: that spirit, mind, the idea, is primary and
that the real world is only a copy of the idea. Already Feuerbach
abandoned that. […]
After allowance has been
made for all this, there still remains Hegelian dialectics. It is the
merit of Marx that, in contrast to the “peevish, arrogant, mediocre Eiri/yovoi
who now talk large in Germany”, he was the first to have brought to the fore
again the forgotten dialectical method, its connection with Hegelian
dialectics and its distinction from the latter, and at the same time to
have applied this method in Capital to the facts of an
empirical science, political economy. […]
In Hegel’s dialectics there
prevails the same inversion of all real inter-connection as in all other
ramifications of his system. But, as Marx says: “The mystification which
dialectics suffers in Hegel’s hands by no means prevents him from being the
first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious
manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right
side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical
shell. “
From the study of the above quotation, the connection of Marxist philosophy
with Hegel’s dialectics and the differences that separate them is clear. From
Marx and Engels, after they had set Hegel’s dialectic on its feet, the task was
clearly set and tackled: to develop its objective content or rational seed by
discarding all its mystical sheath. How to do this? By developing the practice
of production, class struggle and scientific research. Marx showed how to do
this by applying contradiction, in ‘Capital’, to a concrete field of science,
that of political economy. This example of how to develop materialist
dialectics was highlighted by Engels, Lenin and Chairman Mao. Meanwhile, the
comrades of the UOC and others, who deny the law of contradiction as the only
fundamental law of dialectics, close their eyes to all the evidence, opposing
their “theory of the three laws”, deny the process of development of
dialectical materialism. These comrades deny Marxist philosophy.
Chairman Gonzalo, in ‘Seminario de Filosofía’, 1987, said:
“The whole philosophy in its long
course had developed a theory on dialectics, as well as on materialism. They
(Marx and Engels) saw well the milestones of development. They affirm their
resounding materialist position. Accessing materialism demands as a moving
process derived from contradiction. Althusser denies that Marx and Engels have
taken Hegel’s dialectic. He argues that first the science develops and then the
leap takes place. That, the discovery of Marx and Engels is historical
materialism because for Althusser, first the materialist theory of history is
founded and then dialectical materialism. According to him the development of
Marxist philosophy was pending. It is a stupidity from beginning to end.”
In doing so, “Althuser
denies the scientific process that has been developing since the 17th century
… [during which] science breaks with metaphysics as
processes, developments. This cannot be denied. Thus science demanded a
dialectical explanation. Hegel had put the dialectical process in the head.
What Marx does is to put it into matter. This was never done before.
Dialectical materialism is able to enter into knowledge and transformation by
man acting in matter. The scientific character of Marxism is questioned, matter
is transformed derived from practice.
The ideology generated by the
exploiting classes is inverted because it gives an idealistic explanation of
history. Our ideology is scientific because it is a true reflection of its
practice and its class character. Althusser’s theories lead to a new surrealism
and, he says, what is possible is to fuse Kantian theory and Spinoza’s theory.
It takes a bourgeois rationalism and a bourgeois idealism.
This process has a trajectory of
2500 years, it has a solid historical foundation in which the best has been
gathered and results in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The application of dialectical
materialism gives rise to historical materialism and scientific understanding
of society.” (our translation; ci-ic.org)
Next, Chairman Gonzalo refers to the moment of breaking with all previous
theoretical knowledge, establishing the unity of theory and practice, the dependence
of theory on practice, where the latter is the basis and, in turn, theory
serves practice, which is not only about knowing or interpreting the world but
about transforming it. To move from social criticism to the criticism of
weapons in order to make the first great revolution in the world. A leap made
in philosophy, the core of our ideology, today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly
Maoism:
“Marx and Engels are going to
develop the Marxist philosophical process. Marx developed and Engels
disseminated.
The theses on Feuerbach constitute
the basis.
1st Defect of all previous
materialism: not having taken practice into account.
Previous materialism had developed
into empiricism or seeing reality as something passive, not understanding how
matter acts and how man through his work changes reality (grasping reality).
All empiricism is a bourgeois position.
It postulates: to understand
reality and transform it.
2º Practice and truth, it is in
practice as proof of truth.
Marx criticizes Feuerbach, who
never conceived sensory grasping as a transforming capacity. He had diluted the
religious essence in the human essence, a Christianity without Christ, the
inability to understand the social world. Social relations.
3º Social life is essentially
practical.
The human mind is led astray by a
set of mysticisms. Only by understanding practice can mysticism be swept away.
As they do not understand the
practice, he calls it contemplative materialism. Civil society: the most he
advanced to was the study of institutions, which is the root that sustains it.
Transforming the world:
philosophers have done nothing more than contemplate the world, but the problem
is to transform it.
With this paper he demarcates the
fields.
Settling of accounts with his
previous thoughts in a new position. Marx and Engels, thus new criteria are
raised to form the new ideology.
The economic process of society is
raised.
Communism is proposed as the first
great revolution in the world, since all the previous ones were the
substitution of one class for another.
Although Marx was the one who
solved the problem of understanding the social world, he did so by applying
dialectical materialism; therefore, it is nothing more than the dialectical
materialist understanding of society, no matter how new it is (Historical
Materialism).
Dialectic: Engels is the one who
deals with this question: three laws. Unity and struggle of contradiction, the
leap and negation of negation. They understood that the 1st was the main one.
If they had not understood dialectics they would not have been able to develop
CAPITAL.
It is not a circle, Marxism is a
dialectical process that will continue to develop. It demarcates us from all
philosophical processes that are closed.
Hegel is inconsistently
dialectical and we are consistently dialectical. This is the greatest
revolution in the history of mankind. Marxist philosophy that lays the
foundations of development, knowledge can never be exhausted, it is a process
that goes closer and closer to the truth and discarding new errors.
Denials of Marxism: this phenomenon
has been constant. In Materialism and Empiriocriticism, Lenin defends Marxism
and develops it. Theory of reflex. Set of reflexes that generate consciousness.
The reflex, which is a characteristic of matter, action and reaction.
Consciousness becomes a long process of the characteristic of matter.”
DEVELOPMENT OF MARXIST
PHILOSOPHY, DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM, OR THE STUDY OF CONTRADICTION
The great Frederick Engels, in Dialectics of Nature, wrote:
“[…] the laws
of dialectics […] can be reduced in the main to three: the law of the
transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa; the law of the
interpénétration of opposites; the law of the negation of the negation.”
He made it clear that the principal of the three was the second, i.e. the
law of contradiction.
THE TASK BEQUEATHED BY
LENIN REGARDING DIALECTICS
Lenin: “without
philosophy there is no party”.
Lenin set about studying the whole process of philosophy from the Marxist
point of view. He studied Hegel’s science of logic. In ‘Philosophical Notebooks’,
‘On the Questions of Dialectics’, 1915, he leaves the task of deepening the
essence of dialectics, cited:
“The splitting
of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts (see the
quotation from Philo on Heraclitus at the beginning of Section III, “On
Cognition,” in Lasalle’s book on Heraclitus [1] ) is the ESSENCE (one of the
“essentials,” one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristics or
features) of dialectics. That is precisely how Hegel, too, puts the matter
(Aristotle in his Metaphysics continually GRAPPLES with it and combats
Heraclitus and Heraclitean ideas). The correctness of this aspect of
the content of dialectics must be tested by the history of science. This
aspect of dialectics (e.g. in Plekhanov) usually receives inadequate
attention: the identity of opposites is taken as the sum-total of
EXAMPLES [“for example, a seed, “for example, primitive communism.” The
same is true of Engels. But it is “in the interests of
popularisation…”] and not as a LAW OF COGNITION (and as a law of the objective
world). […]
The identity of opposites (it
would be more correct, perhaps, to say their “unity,”—although the difference
between the terms identity and unity is not particularly important here. In a
certain sense both are correct) is the recognition (discovery) of the
contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in a l l phenomena and
processes of nature (including mind and society). The condition for the
knowledge of all processes of the world in their “self-movement,” in their
spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a
unity of opposites. Development is the “struggle” of opposites. The two basic
(or two possible? Or two historically observable?) conceptions of development
(evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and
development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually
exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).
In the first conception of motion,
SELF- movement, its DRIVING force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade
(or this source is made external—God, subject, etc.). In the second conception
the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of “SELF”
– movement.”
Lenin wrote, in his “Philosophical Notebooks”, annotations to the chapter
‘Conspectus of Lassalle’s Book “The Philosophy of Heraclitus the Obscure of
Ephesus”’:
“The basic law
of the world, according to Heraclitus (λόγος, [11] sometimes είμαρ-μένη [12] ),
is “the law of transformation into the opposite” (p. 327) (= ένγντιοτροπή,
έναντιοδρομία). Lassalle expounded the meaning of the είμαρμένη as the “law of
development””
Lenin criticised Lassalle’s book for its philosophical idealism, its “pure
plagiarism, slavish repetition of Hegel”, but used it for the translation of
quotations expounding the dialectical ideas of Heraclitus.
Chairman Mao, in the midst of the class struggle, developing the people’s
war, and the two-line struggle against dogmatism, studies, armed with the
conception of the proletariat, at that time Marxism-Leninism, the development
of philosophy not only in the West, where by necessity and historical chance
Marxism and as the marrow of it Marxist philosophy made its appearance, but
also studies again the germs of materialism and dialectics in China and the
East, where also the development of philosophy had taken place since the early
days of civilisation and, as such, the struggle between materialism and
dialectics, but also revisits the germ of materialism and dialectics in China
and the East, where the development of philosophy had also been going on since
the early days of civilisation and, as such, the struggle between materialism
and idealism and between dialectics and metaphysics.
“The law of
contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the
basic law of materialist dialectics. Lenin said, “Dialectics in the proper
sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects.” [see
below 1.] Lenin often called this law the essence of dialectics; he also called
it the kernel of dialectics. [see below 2] In studying this law, therefore, we
cannot but touch upon a variety of questions, upon a number of philosophical
problems. If we can become clear on all these problems, we shall arrive
at a fundamental understanding of materialist dialectics. The problems
are: the two world outlooks, the universality of contradiction, the
particularity of contradiction, the principal contradiction and the principal
aspect of a contradiction, the identity and struggle of the aspects of a
contradiction, and the place of antagonism in contradiction.”
1. V. I. Lenin, “Conspectus of
Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy”
2. In his essay “On the Question
of Dialectics”, Lenin said, “The splitting in two of a single whole and the
cognition of its contradictory parts […] one of the ‘essentials’ […] of
dialectics.” In his “Conspectus of Hegel’s The Science of Logic”, he said, “In
brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites.
This grasps the kernel of dialectics, but it requires explanations and
development.”
It is clear from Chairman Mao’s quotation that dialectics is the study of
contradiction, of the law of contradiction and no other, and that in order to
understand this law (the essence of materialist dialectics) a series of
philosophical problems must be solved, which he solved like no other in the
above-mentioned work and established the following conclusions or syntheses:
“We may now
say a few words to sum up. The law of contradiction in things,
that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the
fundamental law of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law
of thought. It stands opposed to the metaphysical world outlook. It
represents a great revolution in the history of human knowledge. According to
dialectical materialism, contradiction is present in all processes of
objectively existing things and of subjective thought and permeates all these
processes from beginning to end; this is the universality and absoluteness of
contradiction. Each contradiction and each of its aspects have their respective
characteristics; this is the particularity and relativity of contradiction. In
given conditions, opposites possess identity, and consequently can coexist in a
single entity and can transform themselves into each other; this again is the
particularity and relativity of contradiction. But the struggle of opposites is
ceaseless, it goes on both when the opposites are coexisting and when they are
transforming themselves into each other, and becomes especially conspicuous
when they are transforming themselves into one another; this again is the
universality and absoluteness of contradiction. In studying the particularity
and relativity of contradiction, we must give attention to the distinction
between the principal contradiction and the non-principal contradictions and to
the distinction between the principal aspect and the non-principal aspect of a
contradiction; in studying the universality of contradiction and the struggle of
opposites in contradiction, we must give attention to the distinction between
the different forms of struggle. Otherwise we shall make mistakes. If, through
study, we achieve a real understanding of the essentials explained above, we
shall be able to demolish dogmatist ideas which are contrary to the basic
principles of Marxism-Leninism and detrimental to our revolutionary cause, and
our comrades with practical experience will be able to organize their
experience into principles and avoid repeating empiricist errors. These are a
few simple conclusions from our study of the law of contradiction.”
Chairman Mao, on the only fundamental law of dialectics, does not say main
but only one, which means that there are no others. So it is a matter of
reading, studying and embodying the Chairman’s work on contradiction, where the
essentials of the study or doctrine of contradiction are developed. The
revisionist Avakian, the revisionist leader of the RCP (USA), who is opposed to
the definition of Maoism, questioned on which page Chairman Mao had written
such and such a thing, and was told that the problem was not one of reading but
of understanding, of comprehending the whole of Chairman Mao’s theoretical and
practical work. In the concrete problem of understanding the whole of what is
written in this fundamental work of Maoism On Contradiction as the only law of
dialectics.
The comrades of the UOC, in the style of Avakian, pretend to be masters of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in dialectics, after they changed the name of their
theoretical journal “Contradiction” to “Negation of Negation”, of course
because they consider this as a law of dialectics comparable to the law of
contradiction, wanting to give lessons on the subject.
Basically, they are against Lenin and Chairman Mao, for in reality they are
advocates of “two unify into one”, they blatantly deny what is in On
Contradiction, verbatim in Chairman Mao’s words, this law is the only
fundamental law of dialectics. They pretend not to know what Lenin warned about
the great Engels’ error in this respect.
Chairman Mao in particular, in the above-mentioned work, in addition to
what has already been quoted above, which must be borne in mind in order to
understand the decisive issue at hand, wrote:
“As opposed to
the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics
holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it
internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the
development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary
self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and
interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of
a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within
the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its
motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental
cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other
things are secondary causes. Thus materialist dialectics effectively combats
the theory of external causes, or of an external motive force, advanced by
metaphysical mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism. It is evident that
purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion, that is, to
changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differ
qualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another. As a
matter of fact, even mechanical motion under external force occurs through the
internal contradictoriness of things. Simple growth in plants and animals,
their quantitative development, is likewise chiefly the result of their
internal contradictions. Similarly, social development is due chiefly not to
external but to internal causes.
“What is meant
by the emergence of a new process? The old unity with its constituent opposites
yields to a new unity with its constituent opposites, whereupon a new process
emerges to replace the old. The old process ends and the new one begins. The
new process contains new contradictions and begins its own history of the
development of contradictions.
As Lenin pointed out, Marx in his
Capital gave a model analysis of this movement of opposites which runs through
the process of development of things from beginning to end. This is the method
that must be employed in studying the development of all things. Lenin, too,
employed this method correctly and adhered to it in all his writings.”
“The
relationship between the universality and the particularity of contradiction is
the relationship between the general character and the individual character of
contradiction. By the former we mean that contradiction exists in and runs
through all processes from beginning to end; motion, things, processes,
thinking — all are contradictions. To deny contradiction is to deny everything.
This is a universal truth for all times and all countries, which admits of no
exception. Hence the general character, the absoluteness of contradiction. But
this general character is contained in every individual character; without
individual character there can be no general character. If all individual
character were removed, what general character would remain? It is because each
contradiction is particular that individual character arises. All individual
character exists conditionally and temporarily and hence is relative. This
truth concerning general and individual character, concerning absoluteness and
relativity, is the quintessence of the problem of contradiction in things;
failure to understand it is tantamount to abandoning dialectics.”
Our comments, relativising contradiction by putting it on the level of
“other laws” of dialectics, is the particular form taken in this polemic by the
UOC’s attempts to deny the universal truth of contradiction and thus its
individual application.
Continuing with the Chairman:
“Every form of
motion contains within itself its own particular contradiction. This particular
contradiction constitutes the particular essence which distinguishes one thing
from another. It is the internal cause or, as it may be called, the basis for
the immense variety of things in the world. There are many forms of motion in
nature, mechanical motion, sound, light, heat, electricity, dissociation,
combination, and so on. All these forms are interdependent, but in its essence
each is different from the others. The particular essence of each form of
motion is determined by its own particular contradiction. This holds true not
only for nature but also for social and ideological phenomena. Every form of
society, every form of ideology, has its own particular contradiction and
particular essence.”
“Not only does
the whole process of the movement of opposites in the development of a thing,
both in their interconnections and in each of the aspects, have particular
features to which we must give attention, but each stage in the process has its
particular features to which we must give attention too. The fundamental
contradiction in the process of development of a thing and the essence of the process
determined by this fundamental contradiction will not disappear until the
process is completed; but in a lengthy process the conditions usually differ at
each stage.”
Chairman Mao, leading the Chinese Revolution with people’s war, twenty
years later, on the development of Marxist philosophy or dialectical
materialism, of its nucleus or law of contradiction as unity and struggle of
opposites, in his Speech of 27 January 1957, ‘Talks at a Conference Of
Secretaries Of Provincial, Municipal And Autonomous Region Party Committees’,
said:
“Concerning
dialectics Lenin said, “In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of
the unity of opposites. This grasps the kernel of dialectics, but it requires
explanations and development.”[2] It is our job to explain and develop the
doctrine. It needs to be explained, and so far we have done too little. And it
needs to be developed; with our rich experience in revolution, we ought to
develop this doctrine.
Lenin also said, “The unity
(coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary,
transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute,
just as development and motion are absolute.” [3] Proceeding from this concept,
we have advanced the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred
schools of thought contend. […]
Stalin had a fair amount of
metaphysics in him and he taught many people to follow metaphysics. In the
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, Stalin
says that Marxist dialectics has four principal features. As the first feature
he talks of the interconnection of things, as if all things happened to be
interconnected for no reason at all. What then are the things that are
interconnected? It is the two contradictory aspects of a thing that are
interconnected. Everything has two contradictory aspects. As the fourth feature
he talks of the internal contradiction in all things, but then he deals only
with the struggle of opposites, without mentioning their unity. According to
the basic law of dialectics, the unity of opposites, there is at once struggle
and unity between the opposites, which are both mutually exclusive and
interconnected and which under given conditions transform themselves into each
other.
Stalin’s viewpoint is reflected in
the entry on “identity” in the Shorter Dictionary of Philosophy, fourth
edition, compiled in the Soviet Union. It is said there: “There can be
no identity between war and peace, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
between life and death and other such phenomena, because they are fundamentally
opposed to each other and mutually exclusive.” In other words, between these
fundamentally opposed phenomena there is no identity in the Marxist sense;
rather, they are solely mutually exclusive, not interconnected, and incapable
of transforming themselves into each other under given conditions. This
interpretation is utterly wrong. […]
Stalin failed to see the
connection between the struggle of opposites and the unity of opposites. Some
people in the Soviet Union are so metaphysical and rigid in their thinking that
they think a thing has to be either one or the other, refusing to recognize the
unity of opposites. Hence, political mistakes are made. We adhere to the
concept of the unity of opposites and adopt the policy of letting a hundred
flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.[…]”
Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism has contradiction at its
core, it is the doctrine of the one fundamental law of dialectics, which is to
be expressed or concretised in the various contradictions that govern the
different phenomena or processes in the universe (particular or specific
contradictions, which give rise to general, particular and specific laws of the
different particular sciences), i.e. it is the study of the law of
contradiction in nature, society and thought. It does not say as Marx and
Engels did, i.e. as the study of general laws in nature, society and thought,
but as it is in the quotation from their work ‘Correct Handling of
Contradictions Among the People’, where he says:
“Marxist
philosophy holds that the law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law
of the universe. This law operates universally, whether in the natural world,
in human society, or in man’s thinking. Between the opposites in a contradiction
there is at once unity and struggle, and it is this that impels things
to move and change. Contradictions exist everywhere, but their nature
differs in accordance with the different nature of different things. In any
given thing, the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary and transitory,
and hence relative, whereas the struggle of opposites is absolute. Lenin gave a
very clear exposition of this law. It has come to be understood by a growing number
of people in our country. But for many people it is one thing to accept this
law and quite another to apply it in examining and dealing with problems. Many
dare not openly admit that contradictions still exist among the people of our
country, while it is precisely these contradictions that are pushing our
society forward. Many do not admit that contradictions still exist in socialist
society, with the result that they become irresolute and passive when
confronted with social contradictions; they do not understand that socialist
society grows more united and consolidated through the ceaseless process of
correctly handling and resolving contradictions. For this reason, we need to
explain things to our people, and to our cadres in the first place, in order to
help them understand the contradictions in socialist society and learn to use
correct methods for handling them.”
It should also be noted that he speaks of fundamental contradictions: “In socialist society the basic
contradictions are still those between the relations of production and the
productive forces and between the superstructure and the economic base.
However, they are fundamentally different in character and have different
features from the contradictions between the relations of production and the
productive forces and between the superstructure and the economic base in the
old societies.”
And in his speech at the Conference of Representatives of Communist and
Workers’ Parties in Moscow (18 November 1957), he clarified the fundamental law
of materialist dialectics or Marxist philosophy as the study of contradiction
or the kernel of dialectics:
“In dealing
with comrades, we must adopt the dialectical method and not the metaphysical
method. What does the dialectical method mean here? It means to treat all
things analytically, to recognize that every man can make mistakes and not to
disqualify someone completely because he has made them. Lenin said that there
is no person in the world who does not make mistakes…So, what attitude should
we take towards comrades who make mistakes? To make analysis and adopt the
dialectical method and not the metaphysical one. There was a time when our
Party was plunged into metaphysics – dogmatism – which completely annulled all
those who did not please the dogmatists. Later, we criticized dogmatism and
gradually learned more and more about dialectics. The fundamental
concept of dialectics is the unity of opposites…In other words, on
condition that we do not undermine Marxist-Leninist principles, we accept the
acceptable opinions of others and discard those of our own that can be
discarded. Thus, we act with two hands: one for struggle with erring comrades
and the other for unity with them. The purpose of the struggle is to persevere
in Marxist principles, which presupposes fidelity to principles. This is one
hand; the other is to see to unity. The purpose of unity is to provide an
outlet for those comrades, making compromises with them, which means
flexibility. The integration of fidelity to principles with flexibility
is a Marxist-Leninist principle and is a unity of opposites.
The world,
whatever its typification, is full of contradictions, and this, of course, is
particularly true for class societies. Some say that contradictions can be “found” in socialist
society. This way of putting things seems to me to be incorrect. What is at
issue is not whether or not contradictions can be found, but that this
society is full of contradictions. There is no place where there are no
contradictions, nor is there anyone who escapes analysis. It is metaphysical to
admit the existence of a person who is not susceptible to analysis. Notice,
the atom itself contains a whole complex of units of opposites. It is a unit of
two opposites: atomic nucleus and electrons. The atomic nucleus, in turn, is a
unit of opposites: protons and neutrons. Since there are protons, there are
also antiprotons, and since there are neutrons, there are also
antineutrons. In a word, the unity of opposites is omnipresent.
Regarding the concept of the unity of opposites, regarding dialectics, it is
necessary to make a wide propaganda. I would say that dialectics must leave the
cenacle of philosophers to reach the broad masses of the people. I propose
that this problem be taken up at the meetings of the political bureaus of the
various Parties and at the plenary sessions of their central committees, as
well as at the meetings of their local committees at all levels. In reality,
our cell secretaries really understand dialectics. When they prepare to make a
report at a cell meeting, they are accustomed to write down in their notebooks
the two aspects of things: first, the successes and, second, the
deficiencies. One is divided in two: this is a universal phenomenon,
this is dialectics.”
Here, too, it is quite clear that Chairman Mao reaffirms the task left by
Marx to the communists of the world to take philosophy to the masses and take
it out of the books and make it a practical philosophy, a weapon for the
transformation of the world, of matter. Chairman Mao fulfilled this task
throughout his theoretical and practical work and elevated it in the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China, the greatest mass movement ever seen
so far by humanity. And the bourgeois academics, petty-bourgeois theorists and
the whole bunch of intellectuals in the service of reaction mocked the news of
the practical application of Marxist philosophy and contradiction by the masses
under the leadership of the CPCh.
And to conclude our text, we quote once again from Chairman Mao, Critical
Notes on the Manual of Political Economy of the Soviet Union (1960-1961), not
only to reinforce what we have been arguing about the Chairman’s development of
Marxist Philosophy or Dialectical Materialism or Doctrine of Contradiction, but
also to show how since 1937 he has further developed his understanding and
deepening of contradiction, he wrote:
“Page 443,
paragraph 5, admits that in a socialist society contradictions between the
productive forces and the production relations exist and speaks of overcoming such
contradictions. But by no means does the text recognize that contradictions are
the motive force.
The succeeding paragraph is
acceptable; however, under socialism it is not only certain aspects of human
relations and certain forms of leading the economy, but also problems of the
ownership system itself (e.g., the two types of ownership) that may hinder the
development of the productive forces.
Most dubious
is the viewpoint in the next paragraph. It says, “The contradictions
under socialism are not irreconcilable.” This does not agree with
the laws of dialectics, which hold that all contradictions are irreconcilable. Where
has there ever been a reconcilable contradiction? Some are
antagonistic, some are non-antagonistic, but it must not be thought
that there are irreconcilable and reconcilable contradictions.
Under socialism [The
transcriber of the 1967 text comments that Comrade Mao may have meant “under
communism”.] there may be no war but there is still struggle, struggle
among sections of the people; there may be no revolution of one class
overthrowing another, but there is still revolution. The transition from
socialism to communism is revolutionary. The transition from one stage of
communism to another is also. Then there is technological revolution and
cultural revolution. Communism will surely have to pass through many stages and
many revolutions.”
”[…] No
line of development is straight; it is wave or spiral shaped. Even our studying
has this pattern. Before studying we do something else. Afterward we have to
rest for a few hours. We cannot continue studying as if there were neither day
nor night. We study more one day, less the next. Moreover in our daily study
sometimes we find more to comment upon, sometimes less. These are all wavelike
patterns, rising and falling. Balance is relative to imbalance. Without
imbalance there is no balance. The development of all things is characterized
by imbalance. That is why there is a demand for balance. Contradiction between
balance and imbalance exists in all parts of the various areas and departments,
forever arising, forever being resolved. When there is a plan for the first
year there has to be one for the next year as well. An annual plan requires a
quarterly plan, which in turn requires a monthly plan. In every one of the
twelve months contradictions between balance and imbalance have to be resolved.
Plans constantly have to be revised precisely because new imbalances recur.”
”Balance and
imbalance are two sides of a contradiction within which imbalance is absolute
and balance relative. If this were not so, neither the superstructure nor the
production relations, nor the productive forces, could further develop; they would
become petrified. Balance is relative, imbalance absolute. This is a universal
law which I am convinced applies to socialist society. Contradiction and
struggle are absolutes; unity, unanimity, and solidarity are transitional,
hence relative. The various balances attained in planning are temporary,
transitional, and conditional, hence relative. Who can imagine a state of
equilibrium that is unconditional, eternal?
We need to use balance and
imbalance among the productive forces, the production relations, and the
superstructure as a guideline for researching the economic problems of
socialism.”
”There is
nothing in the world that cannot be analyzed. But circumstances differ and so
do essences. Many fundamental categories and laws — e.g., unity of contradiction
— are applicable. If we study problems in this way, if we observe problems in
this way, we will then have a solid, integral worldview and methodology.”
Finally, by way of conclusion we insert the following:
Pay attention to analysis and synthesis, they are two parts of a
contradiction and of both, the synthesis is the main one. Analysis allows us to
break down, to separate elements to achieve a better understanding, but this is
only one part, it is not and cannot be the whole process to know, it requires
the second part, the synthesis, this is what allows us to understand the
essence of knowledge; if it is not synthesised there is no leap, it is the part
that resolves, the main part, it is the one that makes it possible to extract
the law.
This is a problem of ideology; it is part of the application of the Marxist
theory of knowledge, of dialectical materialism. It is opposed to the idealist
bourgeois ideology which separates analysis from synthesis. For the ideology of
the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism are two parts of a unity and the
synthesis is principal because it generates a higher knowledge, a qualitative
change, a leap.
There are two classic examples. One is that of the watch, in order to know
its mechanism, it is first disassembled, this disassembly allows us to know its
parts and the functions of each one of them; but if it is not reassembled,
there is no watch, only its parts, and even if they are grouped together, they
will be nothing but a pile of parts, but not a watch.
The other example is the development of the natural sciences since the 15th
century; historically it shows, in this respect, where the lack of synthesis
leads. The grandiose development of the sciences made us understand various
facets of nature such as mathematics, astronomy, physics, etc.; but this
process, which involved an analytical breaking down of science and a
differentiation of fields, led to metaphysical approaches; even the 18th
century, with its great materialistic scientific advances, gave us metaphysical
knowledge. However, this dismantling and separation of fields prepared the
jump, created the conditions for the emergence of Hegel’s idealist dialectics
first and Marx’s materialist dialectics later. Thus, this dismantling demanded
synthesis, great condensation, it thus prepared fertile conditions for the
dialectical materialism that Marx and Engels, mainly Marx, would achieve. To
arrive at this milestone, at the conception of the proletariat, at Marxist
philosophy, at dialectical materialism is linked to a powerful process of
synthesis; and this is also how the core of the conception of the proletariat
was reached: contradiction, a historical leap of inexhaustible transcendence.
Both examples show the need for synthesis, for the leap. So give special
attention to analysis and synthesis, especially synthesis.
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