Red Reviews: “Five Essays on Philosophy”
Five Essays on Philosophy collects five important essays on dialectical materialism and Marxist epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, by Mao Zedong. It includes the articles “On Practice” and “On Contradiction” as well as “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” “Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work,” and “Where do Correct Ideas Come From?”
The extraordinary thing about these essays is that they are tremendously practical. This isn’t something often associated with philosophical works, but Mao demonstrates in simple and straightforward terms the way that philosophy can be used by the working class. As Marx said in his eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” Mao shows us how to do that.
On Practice
The first article in the collection is “On Practice: On the Relation Between Knowledge and Practice, Between Knowing and Doing,” from 1937. Together with “On Contradiction” this was originally delivered as a lecture to the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in the Yenan base area during the United Front against Japan. The aim of “On Practice” together with “On Contradiction” was to correct tendencies towards dogmatism and empiricism among cadres in the Communist Party of China at the time by giving a thorough explanation of the practical implications of Marxism-Leninism’s theoretical foundations.
What do we mean by dogmatism and empiricism? Put simply, both disregard the dialectical interconnectedness of theory and practice. Dogmatism ignores the lessons of practical experience, while empiricism ignores the need for theory to guide practice.
Practice is the source and aim of theory. This is the main point of “On Practice.“ The two must be understood as deeply interconnected.
“On Practice” explains the materialist premise that our ideas arise from our material reality, namely from our social practice in production, class struggle, and scientific experiment. Mao points out, “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.”
Mao explains it like this:
“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.”
Because knowledge is based on practice, our knowledge progresses from a lower to a higher level as we gain experience, building upon itself. Mao explains that knowledge proceeds through stages, from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge. Beginning with perception of the world around us, we then form theories and ideas. Mao sums all of this up like this:
“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-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.”
On Contradiction
Mao’s essay “On Contradiction” is an explanation of dialectical materialism and how it can be applied by revolutionaries as a method of analysis to guide practice. Here he explains how change occurs, so that we can transform society in accord with its laws of motion.
Mao gets straight to the point, saying “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.” He explains that Marxist philosophy is materialist, meaning that it sees material processes as being the driving force of social change. He explains that it is dialectical because it sees things as interconnected and driven forward mainly by its internal contradictions, and, secondarily, in its interrelations with other things.
Mao argues that reality is a process, and that any complex process is made up of a system of contradictions. Within this system of contradictions, while there are many different contradictions at work, one is always principal. In other words, the principal contradiction is the contradiction that is determining the overall motion of the process as a whole. At the same time, each contradiction is asymmetrical. One side – the principal aspect of the contradiction – is dominant. Finally, there are different types of contradictions that can be resolved in different ways, antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions.
The main way that change occurs is through the transformation of quantity into quality, where the buildup of quantity leads to a qualitative leap, and the two aspects of a contradiction exchange places. In capitalist society, an example would be the build-up of consciousness and organization by the working class, and the building of a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party. This would represent the quantitative accumulation of force by the secondary aspect of the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie that is fundamental to capitalism. The primary aspect of that contradiction is the bourgeoisie. It is the ruling class. It controls the means of production, the state, the media, the police and the army. But a revolution represents a qualitative leap, whereby the secondary aspect of the contradiction, the working class, has accumulated enough force that the two aspects can exchange places. Socialism puts the working class in charge. The proletariat becomes the principal aspect of the contradiction.
Mao emphasizes the importance of grasping the principal contradiction. This is the contradiction that is determining the overall motion of the process. He gives an example, saying,
“in capitalist society the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction. The other contradictions, such as those between the remnant feudal class and the bourgeoisie, between the peasant petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, between the proletariat and the peasant petty bourgeoisie, between the non-monopoly capitalists and the monopoly capitalists, between bourgeois democracy and bourgeois fascism, among the capitalist countries and between imperialism and the colonies, are all determined or influenced by this principal contradiction.”
In other words, Marxists should strive to understand which contradiction is principal and which contradictions are secondary. Understanding this tells us where to focus our attention and where and how to aim our blows as we fight to change society. While the fundamental class conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is principal within the imperialist countries themselves, that contradiction is heavily influenced by the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations, which is driving imperialism’s decline on a global scale. This analysis has to guide our strategy, meaning that the multinational working class must lead a united front against monopoly capitalism, with the strategic alliance between the working class and the movements of oppressed nationalities at its core.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
“On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” was written by Mao in 1957 and delivered as a speech to the Eleventh Session of the Supreme State Conference. It helped guide the Communist Party through the “Hundred Flowers” campaign and the Anti-Rightist campaign that followed.
The main point of the essay is to explain the difference between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions within the context of the situation in China at the time, during socialist construction, and to give some guidance on how the contradictions in socialist society ought to be approached and resolved.
Antagonistic contradictions are essentially a zero-sum game. One side’s gain is the other side’s loss. For example, the bourgeoisie gets its wealth at the expense of the working class, so this contradiction is antagonistic. Everything good for the capitalists is bad for the workers, and vice versa. Because this contradiction is fundamentally antagonistic, it can only be resolved antagonistically, through the revolutionary change of which class is in power. But other contradictions are non-antagonistic, meaning there is room to come to agreement, unity and compromise. The contradictions within the united front are like this, and can be resolved through discussion, debate and persuasion, in the course of our united practical struggle.
Mao sums this idea up like this. “This democratic method of resolving contradictions among the people was epitomized in 1942 in the formula ‘unity – criticism – unity’. To elaborate, that means starting from the desire for unity, resolving contradictions through criticism or struggle, and arriving at a new unity on a new basis. In our experience this is the correct method of resolving contradictions among the people.”
If we use this method of “unity – criticism – unity” to resolve contradictions among the people, contradictions within our organizations and within the masses in the united front work that we do, we can prevent the real contradictions that exist from becoming antagonistic. This is essential if we are to unite all who can be united against the enemy, the monopoly capitalist class.
Five Essays on Philosophy today
Five Essays on Philosophy wraps up with Mao’s “Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work” from 1957 and a short article from 1963 entitled “Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?”
In the speech on propaganda work, Mao argues that “While we have won basic victory in transforming the ownership of the means of production, we are even farther from complete victory on the political and ideological fronts. In the ideological field, the question of who will win out, the proletariat or the bourgeoisie, has not yet been really settled. We still have to wage a protracted struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology.” It emphasizes the importance of waging ideological struggle against both dogmatism and revisionism. Therefore, Mao says, “Both dogmatism and revisionism run counter to Marxism. Marxism must necessarily advance; it must develop along with practice and cannot stand still. It would become lifeless if it were stagnant and stereotyped. However, the basic principles of Marxism must never be violated, otherwise mistakes will be made. It is dogmatism to approach Marxism from a metaphysical point of view and to regard it as something rigid. It is revisionism to negate the basic principles of Marxism and to negate its universal truth.”
“Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?” is largely a concise reiteration of the ideas explained in greater length in “On Practice.” Mao writes, “the one and only purpose of the proletariat in knowing the world is to change it. Often, correct knowledge can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge and then back to practice. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge, the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge.”
Today it is essential that we use Marxist-Leninist philosophy to analyze our conditions and guide our practice as we work to advance the struggle. The lessons of “On Practice,” that practice is the source and aim of theory, is essential to all that we do. The lessons of “On Contradiction,” that we must grasp the principal contradiction in order to formulate strategy for revolution, is likewise essential if we are to accomplish anything. And we must understand that antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions both require their own methods of resolution. We have to struggle for proletarian ideology against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideological trends like dogmatism and revisionism. And we must always do this in a way that allows us to unite all who can be united against our common enemy. Studying Five Essays on Philosophy by Mao Zedong can help tremendously as we seek to apply Marxist-Leninist theories to the tasks before us.