![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Scanned from Four Essays on Philosophy. 1968 Foreign Languages Press Edition. Please report errors to mim@mim.org.
Before Marx, materialism examined the problem of knowledge apart from the
social nature of man and apart from his historical development, and was
therefore incapable of understanding the dependence of knowledge on social
practice, that is, the dependence of knowledge on production and the class
struggle.
Above all, Marxists regard man's activity in production as the
most fundamental practical activity, the determinant of all his other activities
Man's knowledge depends mainly on his activity in material production, through
which he comes gradually to understand the phenomena, the properties and the
laws of nature, and the relations between himself and nature; and through his
activity in production he also gradually comes to understand, in varying
degrees, certain relations that exist between man and man. None of this
knowledge can be acquired apart from activity in production. In a classless
society every person, as a member of society, joins in common effort with the
other members, enters into definite relations of production with them and
engages in production to meet man's material needs. In all class societies, the
members of the different social classes also enter, in different ways, into
definite relations of production and engage in production to meet their material
needs. This is the primary source from which human knowledge develops.
Man's social practice is not confined to activity in production, but
takes many other forms-class struggle, political life, scientific and artistic
pursuits; in short, as a social being, man participates in all spheres of the
practical life of society Thus man, in varying degrees, comes to know the
different relations between man and man, not only through his material life but
also through his political and cultural life (both of which are intimately bound
up with material life). Of these other types of social practice, class struggle
in particular, in all its various forms, exerts a profound influence on the
development of man's knowledge. In class society everyone lives as a member of a
particular class. and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with
the brand of a class.
Marxists hold that in human society activity in
production develops step by step from a lower to a higher level and that
consequently man's knowledge, whether of nature or of society also develops step
by step from a lower to a higher level, that is, from the shallower to the
deeper, from the one sided to the many-sided. For a very long period in history,
men were necessarily confined to a one-sided understanding of the history of
society because, for one thing, the bias of the exploiting classes always
distorted history and, for another, the small scale of production limited man's
outlook. It was not until the modern proletariat emerged along with immense
forces of production (large-scale industry) that man was able to acquire a
comprehensive, historical understanding of the development of society and turn
this knowledge into a science, the science of Marxism.
Marxists hold
that man's social practice alone is the criterion of the truth of his knowledge
of the external world. What actually happens is that man's knowledge is verified
only when he achieves the anticipated results in the process of social practice
(material production, class struggle or scientific experiment). If a man wants
to succeed in his work. that is, to achieve the anticipated results, he must
bring his ideas into correspondence with the laws of the objective external
world; if they do not correspond, he will fail in his practice. After he fails,
he draws his lessons, corrects his ideas to make them correspond to the laws of
the external world, and can thus turn failure into success; this is what is
meant by "failure is the mother of success" and "a fall into the pit, a gain in
your wit". The dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge places practice in
the primary position, holding that human knowledge can in no way be separated
from practice and repudiating all the erroneous theories which deny the
importance of practice or separate knowledge from practice. Thus Lenin said,
"Practice is higher than (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the
dignity of universality, but also of immediate actuality."(1) 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.(2)
But how then does human knowledge arise from practice and
in turn serve practice? This will become clear if we look at the process of
development of knowledge.
In the process of practice, man at first sees
only the phenomenal side, the separate aspects, the external relations of
things. For instance, some people from outside come to Yenan on a tour of
observation. In the first day or two, they see its topography, streets and
houses; they meet many people, attend banquets, evening parties and mass
meetings, hear talk of various kinds and read various documents, all these being
the phenomena, the separate aspects and the external relations of things. This
is called the perceptual stage of cognition, namely, the stage of sense
perceptions and impressions. That is, these particular things in Yenan act on
the sense organs of the members of the observation group, evoke sense
perceptions and give rise in their brains to many impressions together with a
rough sketch of the external relations among these 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 judgment and
inference one is able to draw logical conclusions. The expression in San Kuo
Yen Yi,(3) "knit the brows and a stratagem comes to mind", or in everyday
language, "let me think it over", refers to man's use of concepts in the brain
to form judgments and inferences. This is the second stage of cognition. When
the members of the observation group have collected various data and, what is
more, have "thought them over", they are able to arrive at the judgment that
"the Communist Party's policy of the National United Front Against Japan is
thorough, sincere and genuine". Having made this judgment, they can, if they too
are genuine about uniting to save the nation, go a step further and draw the
following conclusion, "The National United Front Against Japan can succeed."
This stage of conception, judgment and inference is the more important stage in
the entire process of knowing a thing; it is the stage of rational knowledge.
The real task of knowing is, through perception. to arrive at thought, to arrive
step by step at the comprehension of the internal contradictions of objective
things, of their laws and of the internal relations between one process and
another, that is, 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 ofmatter, of
alaw of nature, the abstraction ofvalue, etc., in short,all
scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more
deeply, truly andcompletely."(4)"Marxism-Leninism holds that each of the
two stages in the process of cognition has its own characteristics, with
knowledge manifesting itself as perceptual at the lower stage and logical at the
higher stage, but that both are stages in an integrated process of cognition.
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. In feudal society it was
impossible to know the laws of capitalist society in advance because capitalism
had not yet emerged, the relevant practice was lacking. Marxism could be the
product only of capitalist society. Marx, in the era of laissez-faire
capitalism, could not concretely know certain laws peculiar to the era of
imperialism be forehand, because imperialism, the last stage of capitalism, had
not yet emerged and the relevant practice was lacking; only Lenin and Stalin
could undertake this task. Leaving aside their genius, the reason why Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin could work out their theories was mainly that they
personally took part in the practice of the class struggle and the scientific
experimentation of their time; lacking this condition, no genius could have
succeeded. The saying, "without stepping outside his gate the scholar knows all
the wide world's affairs", was mere empty talk in past times when technology was
undeveloped. even though this saying can be valid in the present age of
developed technology, the people with real personal knowledge are those engaged
in practice the wide world over. And it is only when these people have come to
"know" through their practice and when their knowledge has reached him through
writing and technical media that the "scholar" can indirectly "know all the wide
world's affairs". If you want to know a certain thing or a certain class of
things directly, you must personally participate in the practical struggle to
change reality, to change that thing or class of things, for only thus can you
come into contact with them as phenomena; only through personal participation in
the practical struggle to change reality can you uncover the essence of that
thing or class of things and comprehend them. This is the path to knowledge
which every man actually travels, though some people, deliberately distorting
matters, argue to the contrary. The most ridiculous person in the world is the
"know-all" who picks up a smattering of hearsay knowledge and proclaims himself
"the world's Number One authority"; this merely shows that he has not taken a
proper measure of himself. Knowledge is a matter of science, and no dishonesty
or conceit whatsoever is permissible. What is required is definitely the
reverse-honesty and modesty. If you want knowledge, you must take part in the
practice of changing reality. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must
change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the structure and
properties of the atom, you must make physical and chemical experiments to
change the state of the atom. If you want to know the theory and methods of
revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates
in direct experience. But one cannot have direct experience of everything; as a
matter of fact, most of our knowledge comes from indirect experience for
example, all knowledge from past times and foreign lands. To our ancestors and
to foreigners, such knowledge was-or is-a matter of direct experience, and this
knowledge is reliable if in the course of their direct experience the
requirement of "scientific abstraction", spoken of by Lenin, was-or is-
fulfilled and objective reality scientifically reflected; otherwise it is not
reliable. Hence a man's knowledge consists only of two parts. that which comes
from direct experience and that which comes from indirect experience. Moreover,
what is indirect experience for me is direct experience for other people.
Consequently, considered as a whole, knowledge of any kind is inseparable from
direct experience. All knowledge originates in perception of the objective
external world through man's physical sense organs. Anyone who denies such
perception, denies direct experience, or denies personal participation in the
practice that changes reality, is not a materialist. That is why the "know-all"
is ridiculous. There is an old Chinese saying, "How can you catch tiger cubs
without entering the tiger's lair?" This saying holds true for man's practice
and it also holds true for the theory of knowledge. There can be no knowledge
apart from practice.
To make clear the dialectical-materialist movement
of cognition arising on the basis of the practice which changes reality-to make
clear the gradually deepening movement of cognition-a few additional concrete
examples are given below.
In its knowledge of capitalist society, the
proletariat was only in the perceptual stage of cognition in the first period of
its practice, the period of machine-smashing and spontaneous struggle; it knew
only some of the aspects and the external relations of the phenomena of
capitalism. The proletariat was then still a "class-in-itself". But when it
reached the second period of its practice, the period of conscious and organized
economic and political struggles, the proletariat was able to comprehend the
essence of capitalist society, the relations of exploitation between social
classes and its own historical task; and it was able to do so because of its own
practice and because of its experience of prolonged struggle, which Marx and
Engels scientifically summed up in all its variety to create the theory of
Marxism for the education of the proletariat. It was then that the proletariat
became a "class-for-itself".
Similarly with the Chinese people's
knowledge of imperialism. The first stage was one of superficial, perceptual
knowledge, as shown in the indiscriminate anti- foreign struggles of the
Movement of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,(5) the Yi Ho Tuan Movement,(6) and so
on. It was only in the second stage that the Chinese people reached the stage of
rational knowledge, saw the internal and external contradictions of imperialism
and saw the essential truth that imperialism had allied itself with China's
comprador and feudal classes to oppress and exploit the great masses of the
Chinese people This knowledge began about the time of the May 4th Movement of
1919.(7)
Next, let us consider war. If those who lead a war lack
experience of war, then at the initial stage they will not understand the
profound laws pertaining to the directing of a specific war (such as our
Agrarian Revolutionary War of the past decade). At the initial stage they will
merely experience a good deal of fighting and, what is more, suffer many
defeats. But this experience (the experience of battles won and especially of
battles lost) enables them to comprehend the inner thread of the whole war,
namely, the laws of that specific war, to understand its strategy and tactics,
and consequently to direct the war with confidence. If, at such a moment, the
command is turned over to an inexperienced person, then he too will have to
suffer a number of defeats (gain experience) before he can comprehend the true
laws of the war.
"I am not sure I can handle it." We often hear this
remark when a comrade hesitates to accept an assignment. Why is he unsure of
himself? Because he has no systematic understanding of the content and
circumstances of the assignment, or because he has had little or no contact with
such work, and so the laws governing it are beyond him. After a detailed
analysis of the nature and circumstances of the assignment, he will feel more
sure of himself and do it willingly. If he spends some time at the job and gains
experience and if he is a person who is willing to look into matters with an
open mind and not one who approaches problems subjectively, one-sidedly and
superficially, then he can draw conclusions for himself as to how to go about
the job and do it with much more courage. Only those who are subjective,
one-sided and superficial in their approach to problems will smugly issue orders
or directives the moment they arrive on the scene, without considering the
circumstances, without viewing things in their totality (their history and their
present state as a whole) and without getting to the essence of things (their
nature and the internal relations between one thing and another). Such people
are bound to trip and fall.
Thus it can be seen that the first step in
the process of cognition is contact with the objects of the external world; this
belongs to the stage of perception. The second step is to synthesize the data of
perception by arranging and reconstructing them; this belongs to the stage of
conception, judgment and inference. It is only when the data of perception are
very rich (not fragmentary) and correspond to reality (are not illusory) that
they can be the basis for forming correct concepts and theories.
Here
two important points must be emphasized. The first, which has been stated before
but should be repeated here, is the dependence of rational knowledge upon
perceptual knowledge. Anyone who thinks that rational knowledge need not be
derived from perceptual knowledge is an idealist. In the history of philosophy
there is the "rationalist" school that admits the reality only of reason and not
of experience, believing that reason alone is reliable while perceptual
experience is not; this school errs by turning things upside down. The rational
is reliable precisely because it has its source in sense perceptions, otherwise
it would be like water without a source, a tree without roots, subjective,
self-engendered and unreliable. As to the sequence in the process of cognition,
perceptual experience comes first; we stress the significance of social practice
in the process of cognition precisely because social practice alone can give
rise to human knowledge and it alone can start man on the acquisition of
perceptual experience from the objective world. For a person who shuts his eyes,
stops his ears and totally cuts himself off from the objective world there can
be no such thing as knowledge. Knowledge begins with experience-this is the
materialism of the theory of knowledge.
The second point is that
knowledge needs to be deepened, that the perceptual stage of knowledge needs to
be developed to the rational stage-this is the dialectics of the theory of
knowledge.(8) To think that knowledge can stop at the lower, perceptual stage
and that perceptual knowledge alone is reliable while rational knowledge is not,
would be to repeat the historical error of "empiricism". This theory errs in
failing to understand that, although the data of perception reflect certain
realities in the objective world (I am not speaking here of idealist empiricism
which confines experience to so-called introspection), they are merely one-sided
and superficial, reflecting things incompletely and not reflecting their
essence. Fully to reflect a thing in its totality, to reflect its essence, to
reflect its inherent laws, it is necessary through the exercise of thought to
reconstruct the rich data of sense perception, discarding the dross and
selecting the essential, eliminating the false and retaining the true,
proceeding from the one to the other and from the outside to the inside, in
order to form a system of concepts and theories-it is necessary to make a leap
from perceptual to rational knowledge. Such reconstructed knowledge is not more
empty or more unreliable; on the contrary, whatever has been scientifically
reconstructed in the process of cognition, on the basis of practice, reflects
objective reality, as Lenin said, more deeply, more truly, more fully. As
against this, vulgar "practical men" respect experience but despise theory, and
therefore cannot have a comprehensive view of an entire objective process, lack
clear direction and long- range perspective, and are complacent over occasional
successes and glimpses of the truth. If such persons direct a revolution, they
will lead it up a blind alley.
Rational knowledge depends upon
perceptual knowledge and perceptual knowledge remains to be developed into
rational knowledge-this is the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge. In
philosophy, neither "rationalism" nor "empiricism" understands the historical or
the dialectical nature of knowledge, and although each of these schools contains
one aspect of the truth (here I am referring to materialist, not to idealist,
rationalism and empiricism), both are wrong on the theory of knowledge as a
whole. The dialectical-materialist movement of knowledge from the perceptual to
the rational holds true for a minor process of cognition (for instance, knowing
a single thing or task) as well as for a major process of cognition (for
instance, knowing a whole society or a revolution).
But the movement of
knowledge does not end here. If the dialectical-materialist movement of
knowledge were to stop at rational knowledge, only half the problem would be
dealt with. And as far as Marxist philosophy is concerned, only the less
important half at that. Marxist philosophy holds that the most important problem
does not lie in understanding the laws of the objective world and thus being
able to explain it, but in applying the knowledge of these laws actively to
change the world. From the Marxist viewpoint, theory is important, and its
importance is fully expressed in Lenin's statement, "Without revolutionary
theory there can be no revolutionary movement."(9) But Marxism emphasizes the
importance of theory precisely and only because it can guide action. If we have
a correct theory but merely prate about it, pigeonhole it and do not put it into
practice, then that theory, however good, is of no significance. Knowledge
begins with practice, and theoretical knowledge is acquired through practice and
must then return to practice. The active function of knowledge manifests itself
not only in the active leap from perceptual to rational knowledge, but-and this
is more important-it must manifest itself in the leap from rational knowledge to
revolutionary practice. The knowledge which grasps the laws of the world, must
be redirected to the practice of changing the world, must be applied anew in the
practice of production, in the practice of revolutionary class struggle and
revolutionary national struggle and in the practice of scientific experiment.
This is the process of testing and developing theory, the continuation of the
whole process of cognition. The problem of whether theory corresponds to
objective reality is not, and cannot be, completely solved in the movement of
knowledge from the perceptual to the rational, mentioned above. The only way to
solve this problem completely is to redirect rational knowledge to social
practice, apply theory to practice and see whether it can achieve the objectives
one has in mind. Many theories of natural science are held to be true not only
because they were so considered when natural scientists originated them, but
because they have been verified in subsequent scientific practice. Similarly,
Marxism-Leninism is held to be true not only because it was so considered when
it was scientifically formulated by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin but because
it has been verified in the subsequent practice of revolutionary class struggle
and revolutionary national struggle. Dialectical materialism is universally true
because it is impossible for, anyone to escape from its domain in his practice.
The history of human knowledge tells us that the truth of many theories is
incomplete and that this incompleteness is remedied through the test of
practice. Many theories are erroneous and it is through the test of practice
that their errors are corrected. That is why practice is the criterion of truth
and why "the standpoint of life, of practice, should be first and fundamental in
the theory of knowledge".(10) Stalin has well said, "Theory becomes purposeless
if it is not connected with revolutionary practice, just as practice gropes in
the dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory."(11)
When
we get to this point, is the movement of knowledge completed? Our answer is: it
is and yet it is not. When men in society throw themselves into the practice of
changing a certain objective process (whether natural or social) at a certain
stage of its development, they can, as a result of the reflection of the
objective process in their brains and the exercise of their conscious dynamic
role, advance their knowledge from the perceptual to the rational, and create
ideas, theories, plans or programmes which correspond in general to the laws of
that objective process. They then apply these ideas, theories, plans or
programmes in practice in the same objective process. And if they can realize
the aims they have in mind, that is, if in that same process of practice they
can translate, or on the whole translate, those previously formulated ideas,
theories, plans or programmes into fact, then the movement of knowledge may be
considered completed with regard to this particular process. In the process of
changing nature, take for example the fulfillment of an engineering plan, the
verification of a scientific hypothesis, the manufacture of an implement or the
reaping of a crop; or in the process of changing society, take for example the
victory of a strike, victory in a war or the fulfillment of an educational plan.
All these may be considered the realization of aims one has in mind. But
generally speaking, whether in the practice of changing nature or of changing
society men's original ideas, theories, plans or programmes are seldom realized
without any alteration. This is because people engaged in changing reality are
usually subject to numerous limitations; they are limited not only by existing
scientific and technological conditions but also by the development of the
objective process itself and the degree to which this process has become
manifest (the aspects and the essence of the objective process have not yet been
fully revealed). In such a situation, ideas, theories, plans or programmes are
usually altered partially and sometimes even wholly, because of the discovery of
unforeseen circumstances in the course of practice. That is to say, it does
happen that the original ideas, theories, plans or programmes fail to correspond
with reality either in whole or in part and are wholly or partially incorrect.
In many instances, failures have to be repeated many times before errors in
knowledge can be corrected and correspondence with the laws of the objective
process achieved, and consequently before the subjective can be transformed into
the objective, or in other words, before the anticipated results can be achieved
in practice. Nevertheless, when that point is reached, the movement of human
knowledge regarding a certain objective process at a certain stage of its
development may be considered completed.
However, so far as the
progression of the process is concerned, the movement of human knowledge is not
completed. Every process, whether in the realm of nature or of society,
progresses and develops by reason of its internal contradiction and struggle,
and the movement of human knowledge should also progress and develop along with
it. As far as social movements are concerned, true revolutionary leaders must
not only be good at correcting their ideas, theories, plans or programmes when
errors are discovered, as has been indicated above; but when a certain objective
process has already progressed and changed from one stage of development to
another, they must also be good at making themselves and all their
fellow-revolutionaries progress and change in their subjective knowledge along
with it, that is to say, they must ensure that the proposed new revolutionary
tasks and new working programmes correspond to the new changes in the situation.
In a revolutionary period the situation changes very rapidly; if the knowledge
of revolutionaries does not change rapidly in accordance with the changed
situation, they will be unable to lead the revolution
It often happens,
however, that thinking lags behind reality; this is because man's cognition is
limited by numerous social conditions. We are opposed to die-hards in the
revolutionary ranks whose thinking fails to advance with changing objective
circumstances and has manifested itself historically as Right opportunism. These
people fail to see that the struggle of opposites has already pushed the
objective process forward while their knowledge has stopped at the old stage.
This is characteristic of the thinking of all die-hards. Their thinking is
divorced from social practice and they cannot march ahead to guide the chariot
of society, they simply trail behind, grumbling that it goes too fast and trying
to drag it back or turn it in the opposite direction.
We are also
opposed to "Left" phrase-mongering. The thinking of "Leftists" outstrips a given
stage of development of the objective process; some regard their fantasies as
truth, while others strain to realize in the present an ideal which can only be
realized in the future. They alienate themselves from the current practice of
the majority of the people and from the realities of the day, and show
themselves adventurist in their actions.
Idealism and mechanical
materialism, opportunism and adventurism, are all characterized by the breach
between the subjective and the objective, by the separation of knowledge from
practice. The Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge, characterized as it is by
scientific social practice, cannot but resolutely oppose these wrong ideologies.
Marxists recognize that in the absolute and general process of development of
the universe, the development of each particular process is relative, and that
hence, in the endless flow of absolute truth, man's knowledge of a particular
process at any given stage of development is only relative truth. The sum total
of innumerable relative truths constitutes absolute truth.(12) The development
of an objective process is full of contradictions and struggles, and so is the
development of the movement of human knowledge. All the dialectical movements of
the objective world can sooner or later be reflected in human knowledge. In
social practice, the process of coming into being, developing and passing away
is infinite, and so is the process of coming into being, developing and passing
away in human knowledge. As man's practice which changes objective reality in
accordance with given ideas, theories, plans or programmes, advances further and
further, his knowledge of objective reality likewise becomes deeper and deeper.
The movement of change in the world of objective reality is never-ending and so
is man's cognition of truth through practice. Marxism-Leninism has in no way
exhausted truth but ceaselessly opens up roads to the knowledge of truth in the
course of practice. Our conclusion is the concrete, historical unity of the
subjective and the objective, of theory and practice, of knowing and doing, and
we are opposed to all erroneous ideologies, whether ' Left or Right, which
depart from concrete history.
In the present epoch of the development of
society, the responsibility of correctly knowing and changing the world has been
placed by history upon the shoulders of the proletariat and its party. This
process, the practice of changing the world, which is determined in accordance
with scientific knowledge, has already reached a historic moment in the world
and in China, a great moment unprecedented in human history, that is, the moment
for completely banishing darkness from the world and from China and for changing
the world into a world of light such as never previously existed. The struggle
of the proletariat and the revolutionary people to change the world comprises
the fulfillment of the following tasks: to change the objective world and, at
the same time, their own subjective world-to change their cognitive ability and
change the relations between the subjective and the objective world. Such a
change has already come about in one part of the globe, in the Soviet Union.
There the people are pushing forward this process of change. The people of China
and the rest of the world either are going through, or will go through, such a
process. And the objective world which is to be changed also includes all the
opponents of change, who, in order to be changed, must go through a stage of
compulsion before they can enter the stage of voluntary, conscious change. The
epoch of world communism will be reached when all mankind voluntarily and
consciously changes itself and the world.
Discover the truth through
practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from
perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start
from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both
the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and
again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle
the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole
of the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical
theory of the unity of knowing and doing.
NOTES
(l) From Lenin's
notes on "The Idea" in Hegel'sThe Science of Logic Book III, Section 3.
See V. 1. Lenin, "Conspectus of Hegel'sThe Science of Logic"
(September-December 1914),Collected Works, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1958, Vol.
XXXVIII, p. 205.
(2) See Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (spring of
1845), Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,Selected Works, in two volumes,
Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1958, Vol. II, p. 403, and V. I. Lenin,Materialism
and Empire-Criticism (second half of 1908), Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1952.
pp. 136-42.
(3)San Kuo Yen Yi (Tales of the Three Kingdoms) is a
famous Chinese historical novel by Lo Kuan-chung (late 14th and early 15th
century).
(4) From Lenin's notes on "Subjective Logic or the Doctrine of
the Notion" in Hegel'sThe Science of Logic, Book III. See V. I. Lenin,
Conspectus of Hegel'sThe Science of Logic,Collected Works, Russ.
ed., Moscow, 1958, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 161.
(5) The Movement of the Taiping
Heavenly Kingdom was the mid-19th century revolutionary peasant war against the
feudal rule and national oppression of the Ching Dynasty. In January 1851 Hung
Hsiu-chuan, Yang Hsiu-ching and other leaders launched an uprising in Chinden
Village in Kueiping Country, Kwangsi Province, and proclaimed the founding of
the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Proceeding northward from Kwangsi, their peasant
army attacked and occupied Hunan and Hupeh in 1852. In 1853 it marched through
Kiangsi and Anhwei and captured Nanking. A section of the forces then continued
the drive north and pushed on to the vicinity of Tientsin. However, the Taiping
army failed to build stable base areas in the places it occupied; moreover,
after establishing its capital in Nanking, its leading group committed many
political and military errors. Therefore it was unable to withstand the combined
onslaughts of the counter- revolutionary forces of the Ching government and the
British, U.S. and French aggressors, and was finally defeated in 1864.
(6) The Yi Ho Tuan Movement was the and-imperialist armed struggle which
took place in northern China in 1900. The broad masses of peasants,
handicraftsmen and other people took part in this movement. Getting in touch
with one another through religious and other channels, they organized themselves
on the basis of secret societies and waged a heroic struggle against the joint
forces of aggression of the eight imperialist powers-the United States, Britain,
Japan, Germany, Russia, France, Italy and Austria. The movement was put down
with indescribable savagery after the joint forces of aggression occupied
Tientsin and Peking.
(7) The May 4th Movement was an anti-imperialist
and and- feudal revolutionary movement which began on May 4, 19l9. In the first
half of that year, the victors of World War I,i.e., Britain, France, the
United States, Japan, Italy and other imperialist countries, met in Paris to
divide the spoils and decided that Japan should take over ail the privileges
previously enjoyed by Germany in Shantung Province, China. The students of
Peking were the first to show determined opposition to this scheme, holding
rallies and demonstrations on May 4. The Northern warlord government arrested
more than thirty students in an effort to suppress this opposition. In protest,
the students of Peking went on strike and large numbers of students in other
parts of the country responded. On June 3 the Northern warlord government
started arresting students in Peking en masse, and within two days about a
thousand were taken into custody. This aroused still greater indignation
throughout the country. From June 5 onwards, the workers of Shanghai and many
other cities went on strike and the merchants in these places shut their shops.
Thus, what was at first a patriotic movement consisting mainly of intellectuals
rapidly developed into a national patriotic movement embracing the proletariat,
the urban petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie. And along with the growth of
this patriotic movement, the new cultural movement which had begun before May 4
as a movement against feudalism and for the promotion of science and democracy,
grew into a vigorous and powerful revolutionary cultural movement whose main
current was the propagation of Marxism- Leninism
(8) See Lenin's notes
on "The Idea' in Hegel'sThe Science of Logic Book III, Section 3, in
which he said: "In order to understand, it is necessary empirically to begin
understanding, study, to rise from empiricism to the universe." (V. I. Lenin,
"Conspectus of Hegel'sThe Science of Logic,Collected Works, Russ.
ed., Moscow, 1958, Vol.
(9) V. I. Lenin, "What Is to Be Done?" (autumn
1901-February 1902)Collected Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1961, Vol. V,
p. 369.
(10) V. I. Lenin,Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Eng.
ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1952, p. 141.
(11) J. V. Stalin, "The Foundations of
Leninism" (April-May 1924).Problems of Leninism, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow,
1954, p. 31.
(12) See V. I. Lenin,Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism, Eng. ed., FLPH Moscow, 1952, pp. 129-36.
There
used to be a number of comrades in our Party who were dogmatists and who for a
long period rejected the experience of the Chinese revolution, denying the truth
that "Marxism is not a dogma but a guide to action" and overawing people with
words and phrases from Marxist works, torn out of context. There were also a
number of comrades who were empiricists and who for a long period restricted
themselves to their own fragmentary experience and did not understand the
importance of theory for revolutionary practice or see the revolution as a whole
but worked blindly though industriously. The erroneous ideas of these two types
of comrades, and particularly of the dogmatists caused enormous losses to de
Chinese revolution during 1931-34, and yet the dogmatists, cloaking themselves
as Marxists, confused a great many comrades. "On Practice" was written in order
to expose the subjectivist errors of dogmatism and empiricism in the Party, and
especially the error of dogmatism, from the standpoint of the Marxist theory of
knowledge. It was entitled "On Practice" because its stress was on exposing the
dogmatist kind of subjectivism, which belittles practice. The ideas contained in
this essay were presented by Comrade Mao Tse-Tung in a lecture at the
Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in Yenan.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |