Living Revolution | Communes and Factories
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Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Study Marxist Philosophy Considerable space in newspapers and magazines today is being devoted to the philosophical writings of workers, peasants and soldiers. In vivid language that only people closely linked with practice can use, these writers impress the reader with their clear thinking, scientific analysis and direct approach. From the way this trend is developing it can be said that philosophy in China is entering a new historic stage. |
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Mastering the Laws Governing Every Sphere of Work
The working masses are not interested in study "for
the sake of study." They study the works of Mao Tse-tung for the
explicit purpose of learning from Chairman Mao -- his Marxist-Leninist
stand, viewpoint and method -- to acquire the outlook of working for the
revolution and to learn to do a better job in their revolutionary work.
In China, Mao Tse-tung's thinking is compared to a telescope and a microscope
which help to see things that are far off and things that are normally
unobservable. People seek out Chairman Mao's works for answers to specific
questions. They use the basic theories they learn from these writings
to analyze and solve these problems. Thus, they find their jobs -- such
as operating a machine, ploughing or waiting on customers behind a sales-counter
-- full of meaning and they do them enthusiastically and creatively.
Among workers, peasants and soldiers there is great zeal to apply consciously
what they learn from On Practice, On Contradiction and
other philosophical writings by Chairman Mao in summing up their experience
in practice, analyzing the contradictions in objective reality, and in
discussing the laws governing their own sphere of work so that they can
put their everyday work on the basis of making full use of objective laws.
This is popularly called "riding on the back of the objective laws,"
and is capable of producing tremendous strength.
A Great Motivating Force
Marx has said: "Theory too becomes a material force as soon as it
grips the masses." This truth has been borne out most vividly by
what is taking place in China today. With Mao Tse-tung's thinking as their
guide, many workers, peasants and soldiers go about their work with a
scientific attitude backed up by great enthusiasm. This helps bring about
an increase in the output of grain or industrial goods, successes in technical
innovations and good results in political work. It enables workers to
play their role as the leading class in the country better, and it enables
the former poor and lower-middle peasants to assume leadership in their
own villages.
It can be predicted that with the spreading and deepening of this movement,
it will give rise to more and greater strength and material wealth. This
is a great motivating force for transforming China from poverty to abundance,
from technically backward to technically advanced. It is a powerful impetus
for propelling the socialist revolution and construction.
Fostering a New Communist Generation
The present study movement also serves as a big school in which a new
communist generation is being trained.
While using Mao Tse-tung's thinking to transform the objective world,
the working masses find that a fundamental change has taken place in their
own minds, in their subjective world.
In the course of exploring the possibilities for introducing technical
innovations in the light of Mao Tse-tung's thinking, for instance, many
workers and peasants have learnt to use materialist dialectics to analyze
questions and have acquired the working style of following the mass line.
This also provides a good opportunity for tempering the revolutionary
will for wholehearted service to the people and strengthening tenacity
in surmounting difficulties.
Many cadres at the grass-roots level -- leaders of factory work groups
and commune production teams, Party branch secretaries, and others --
admit that by creatively applying Mao Tse-tung's thinking they have learnt
to do a satisfactory job of ideological and organizational work, to view
people and things on the basis of the concept of the unity of opposites
which is popularly called "the concept of dividing one into two,"
and to discover the laws in their own field of work so that they are able
to transform the backward into the advanced and the advanced into the
even more advanced.
In short, with Mao Tse-tung's thinking in command, all kinds of daily
work are treated as a science whose laws can be discovered and mastered.
This in turn helps to raise the ideological level of people in all kinds
of work.
In studying Chairman Mao's works, workers, peasants and soldiers have
further enhanced their communist consciousness, knowing that all work
is for the revolution and that at their places of duty, no matter what
they are, they are doing their share for China's socialist revolution
and construction and for the proletarian revolution throughout the world.
This is a process in which the working masses are gradually acquiring
a communist world outlook, to become a new generation of communist fighters.
This is more important than anything, because the fostering of a new communist
generation is essential to guarding against revisionism and to carrying
the revolution through to the end.
They Also Write Philosophical Articles
In the course of the study movement, thousands and thousands of workers,
peasants and soldiers have taken up their pens and written philosophical
articles. Applying the Marxist theory of knowledge and the methodology
of Marxism learnt through their study of Chairman Mao's works, they deal
with their problems in production and work and write in their own everyday
language. Many of their writings are down-to-earth, lively and highly
original, and stand out in sharp contrast to philosophical theses written
by intellectuals divorced from practice. Principles that seem abstruse
in many books on philosophy become easy to understand in these writings.
Thus, under the impact of the study movement, philosophy, which was long
considered a subject for the classroom, academic circles and research
institutes only, is taking root in factories, mines, villages, shops and
army units in every corner of the country. Workers, peasants and soldiers
have set foot in the domain of philosophy which for thousands of years
was the monopoly of intellectuals. Their study and application of Marxist
philosophy and their writings on it have proved that philosophy is no
mystery and clearly show that as the philosophy of the proletariat, Marxist
philosophy can and should be mastered by the masses of workers and peasants.
The movement among the workers, peasants and soldiers for the study of
Chairman Mao's works is also proving to be a rich source of development
of Marxist philosophy. Their writing in this respect is a spur to philosophical
research. An additional important factor is that people specializing in
philosophy are put on the mettle and challenged to improve their work.
Describing this as "giving a good shove" to our workers philosophy,
a recent editorial in the magazine Zhexu Yanjiu (Philosophical Research)
called on all such workers to learn modestly from the workers, peasants
and soldiers, from their attitude and method in the study of the philosophical
writings of Chairman Mao and from their experience in applying his philosophical
thinking. It urged them to break away from "form of habit,"
thoroughly emancipate themselves from the bookish atmosphere of libraries
and studies, and make an earnest effort to integrate their research work
more closely with reality.
"Renmin Ribao's" Call to Workers in Philosophy
In a similar vein, Renmin Ribao pointed out in a recent editorial:
"The practice of class struggle and the struggle for production by
the masses of the people is the greatest and richest source of philosophical
ideas, indeed the only source. Anyone who cuts himself off from it and
secludes himself in the library will never master Marxism however many
books he reads. The only possible outcome will be dogmatism and revisionism."
By recalling Chairman Mao's injunction about the need to be a student
if one is to be a teacher, the editorial said that this is "the only
way to solve the contradiction confronting workers in philosophy, the
problem of theory divorced from practice." It also said, "In
order that philosophy can better serve workers, peasants and soldiers,
workers in philosophy must go into the villages, factories, shops and
army units to take part in the class struggle and the struggle for production
and earnestly learn from the masses."
Seeing the way ahead, our workers in philosophy are ready to answer the
call of the times. They are determined to go to factories, farms and army
units and stay there for a number of years, study living philosophy in
the course of actual struggle, learn to write in the language of the laboring
masses and produce philosophical articles that will be easily understood
by the working people. They know that only by doing so will they be able
to steel themselves into genuine Marxist philosophical workers. They are
confident that by traveling on the right road they be able to turn philosophy
into a sharper ideological weapon in the hands of the people and make
their contributions to the enrichment and development of Marxist philosophy.