One Divides Into Two

This speech on philosophy was an important event in the Sino-Soviet dispute of the 1960s. It was personally edited by Mao Zedong, and published very widely, including the book from which these excerpts are taken. The speech is notable for its attack on the dialectical theories of Soviet philosophers Mitin and Fedoseev, and for its use of Mao's "one divides into two" formulation of the law of the unity of opposites.

Already in Marx's and Engels' lifetime, attempts to tamper with or discard their dialectical materialism, historical materialism and theory of class struggle occurred among German Social-Democrats. Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme was shelved for sixteen years, and when Engels demanded its immediate publication and solemnly declared that any further delay would be a crime, the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party still placed many obstructions in the way. The criticism of Dühring also met with much opposition within the leading clique of the German Social-Democratic Party. In publishing "The Introduction to The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850" which Engels wrote late in life, Vorwarts, the organ of the German Social-Democratic Party, deliberately deleted some of the most important passages about the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat, so that Engels was presented as an unqualified supporter of the "tactics of peace" and an opponent of the use of "force." He strongly protested against this. When Kautsky and others compiled a history of the socialist movement, they did so behind Engels' back; thus Engels learned of the ulterior motives of the revisionists before his death. A revisionist, anti-Marxist faction had already cropped up within the Marxist ranks.

This phenomenon may seem strange. How can certain people who had previously been supporters of revolutionary scientific socialism degenerate into counter-revolutionary, anti-scientific revisionists? Yet it is not at all strange. Everything tends to divide itself in two.[1] Theories are no exception, and they also tend to divide. Wherever there is a revolutionary, scientific doctrine, its antithesis, a counter-revolutionary, anti-scientific doctrine, is bound to arise in the course of the development of that doctrine. As modern society is divided into classes and as the difference between progressive and backward groups will continue far into the future, the emergence of antitheses is inevitable. This has long been borne out by the history of Marxist philosophy and the social sciences and also by the history of natural science. Science and the history of science themselves reflect the unity and struggle of opposites, and science develops through such unity and struggle.[2]

What the opportunists and revisionists dread and hate most and have therefore tried in every way to revise is the Marxist theory of class struggle, and particularly that of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Engels said, "Hence, their fanatical hatred of Marx and all of us — because of the class struggle."[3] This is the heart of the matter. On this central issue Marx and Engels took the most determined and clear-cut stand.

In their circular letter to A. Bebel and others, they solemnly declared:

For almost forty years we have stressed the class struggle as the immediate driving power of history, and in particular the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat as the great lever of the modern social revolution. It is, therefore, impossible for us to cooperate with people who wish to expunge this class struggle from the movement.[4]

Later Engels emphatically pointed out:

The development of the proletariat proceeds everywhere amidst internal struggles.... Unity is quite a good thing so long as it is possible, but there are things which stand above unity. And when, like Marx and myself, one has fought harder all one's life against self-styled Socialists than against anyone else (for we regarded the bourgeoisie only as a class and hardly ever involved ourselves in conflicts with individual bourgeois), one cannot be greatly grieved that the inevitable struggle has broken out.[5]

Thus, that which is unified breaks into two — into two conflicting parts.[6]

Marxist-Leninist parties always treasure the unity of the ranks of the proletariat, but Marxist-Leninists must never co-operate with those who expunge the class struggle from the movement and must never surrender principle for the sake of unity. This is the most important and most precious behest the founders of Marxism have left us. Any betrayal of this behest is a betrayal of Marxism itself.

To persevere in or to abandon the class struggle of the proletariat, to persevere in or to renounce the dictatorship of the proletariat — here is the fundamental line of demarcation between Marxism and revisionism.

Looking back over the history of Marxism-Leninism, we can see that it gained ground and advanced step by step through "one battle after another". For more than a century, neither the enemy's attacks from without nor the enemy's "revisions" from within have been able to defeat it. On the contrary, it is precisely through repeated struggles against external and internal foes of all shades that the forces of Marxism-Leninism have grown strong.

In the beginning, Marxism was but one of many doctrines and schools in the socialist movement and this school consisted only of Marx and Engels. But because it is right and because it truly and scientifically represents the revolutionary pro­letariat's interests and needs, Marxism has finally vanquished all antagonistic ideological systems in struggle and won the world-wide support of the revolutionary working class and the revolutionary people.

The modern revisionists have wantonly distorted and revised the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the laws of contradiction, and spread their views about the merging and reconciliation of contradictions. On the pretext of what they call the characteristics of the transition from socialism to communism, they preach a "new way of putting the question", namely, "the overcoming of opposites through their uniting (merging),"[7] claiming that under socialist conditions "new phenomena" or "new processes" emerge in which "dialectical opposites, contradictions, turn into differences and differences merge into unity."[8] Some of their philosophers even claim that the law of the unity and struggle of opposites is outmoded under socialist conditions.

This theory of the merging or reconciliation of contradictions and the theory that the laws of contradiction are outmoded constitute a radical revision of materialist dialectics.

The Marxist-Leninist view is that the law of materialist dialectics, the law of the unity of opposites, is a universal law which governs nature, society and the development of thought, and which is applicable to the past, the present and the future. In other words, it is applicable to class society, to socialist society which is transitional between class and classless society, and also to the classless communist society of the future. Contradictions exist everywhere and at all times. They are differentiated into antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, but not into reconcilable and irreconcilable contradictions. Contradictions are all irreconcilable and have to be resolved through struggle. Contradictions and the struggles to resolve them are always the motive force that pushes human society forward.

Whether or not a person persists in Marxist-Leninist revolutionary dialectics is shown by whether or not he dares to face and acknowledge the contradiction between the imperialists headed by the United States and the people of the world, whether or not he dares to face and acknowledge the fact that class contradictions and class struggles exist in all countries, and whether or not he dares to face and acknowledge the two types of contradictions (antagonistic and non-antagonistic) within socialist society. All conservatives and opportunists, all those who do not desire but fear revolution, dread change and evade or deny contradictions. On the contrary, all revolutionaries who take upon themselves the transformation of the world desire change, courageously face contradictions and resolve them by revolutionary means.

As old contradictions are resolved, new ones arise and must be resolved by new methods. History thus advances with the endless resolution and emergence of contradictions. Only thoroughgoing revolutionaries can be thoroughgoing revolutionary dialecticians. Comrade Mao Zedong has shown outstanding theoretical courage and genius in developing dialectics. For the first time in the history of Marxism-Leninism he penetratingly and systematically revealed the contradictions within socialist society in his work, "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People," and set forth the necessity for differentiating the two types of contradictions and for using different methods in handling them. This is a great contribution of Comrade Mao Zedong's to the development of Marxist-Leninist theory.

On the basis of the laws of materialist dialectics, he is guiding the socialist revolution and socialist construction of our country from one victory to another. He is teaching us correctly to understand and handle the contradictions confronting us, to remain sober and alert in the face of the continued existence of classes and class struggle in socialist society and of the danger of a restoration of capitalism, and to take the correct and necessary measures to avert this danger. All this immensely fortifies the Chinese people's immunity to revisionism.

In the past, some comrades one-sidedly emphasized the "moral and political unity" of socialist society and failed to see that contradictions, classes and class struggle continue to exist in it, and that the struggle against bourgeois ideology within socialist society remains a main task of the dictatorship of the proletariat for a long period after the seizure of power. They only recognized solidarity and unity and denied the existence of internal contradictions in socialist society and the fact that contradictions are the motive force of social progress. They thus denied the universality of contradiction and did away with dialectics, and as a result the "theory of the absence of conflict" spread far and wide.

The mistakes in their understanding of contradictions in socialist society paved the way for the modern revisionists of today. The modern revisionists have formulated a theory about the merging or reconciliation of contradictions, in order to provide a philosophical basis for their fallacies concerning "a state of the whole people" and "a party of the entire people." Moreover, they have extended this theory of the merging or reconciliation of contradictions to the sphere of international struggle, so as to present a philosophical justification for their line of "peaceful coexistence," "peaceful competition," and "peaceful transition."

While engaged in the practice of class struggle and production, the masses of workers, peasants and cadres raise all kinds of theoretical questions for solution, and they advance many original views. But they lack the requisite book knowledge and theoretical equipment while many of the professional workers in philosophy and social science lack the steeling and experience acquired in practical struggles. In 1942 in his speech "Rectify the Party's Style of Work", Comrade Mao Zedong asked the people with book-learning to combine with those experienced in work:

Those with book-learning must develop in the direction of practice; only so will they not rest content with books, only so will they not commit dogmatist errors. Those experienced in work must take up the study of theory and must read seriously; only then will they be able to systematize and synthesize their experience and raise it to the level of theory, only then will they not mistake their partial experience for universal truth and not commit empiricist errors.

The combination of these two kinds of people, so that they can make up for each other's deficiencies and raise each other's level, will prove very helpful not only to theoretical work but to the revolutionary cause as a whole. Man's correct ideas come only from social practice. Man's social being determines his consciousness. Once grasped by the masses, the correct ideas which a progressive class represents become a material force capable of changing society and the world. The movement from the material to the mental and then back from the mental to the material, i.e., the move- ment from practice to knowledge and from knowledge back to practice, has to be repeated many times before correct knowledge takes shape. The dialectical process of the transformation of the material into the mental and the mental into the material in the course of social struggle will be more consciously grasped and will give rise to still greater achievements in the revolutionary cause as a result of the combination of professional theoretical workers with those engaged in practical work. Promising theorists will emerge from among the practical workers. A powerful contingent of theorists, with the professional theorists as its centre but comprising large numbers of practical workers too, will grow relatively rapidly.

In stressing the need for workers in philosophy and social science to link themselves with the workers and peasants and to keep in contact with and understand reality, we do not in the least minimize the importance of book knowledge. Workers in philosophy and science must be proficient in their own fields as well as being well versed in the Marxist-Leninist classics; they must acquire knowledge of a wide range of subjects and be come truly learned.

"The philosophy of the Communist Party is the philosophy of struggle." "Marxism can develop only through struggle, and not only is this true of the past and the present, it is necessarily true of the future as well."

Between 1949 and 1964, three major struggles of principle took place on China's philosophical front, centring around the question of China's economic base and superstructure, the question of whether there is identity between thinking and being, and the question of one divides into two or "combine two into one." These struggles were provoked one after another by Yang Xianzhen, agent of the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shaoqi in philosophical circles, at crucial junctures in the struggle between the two classes (the proletariat and the bourgeoisie), the two roads (socialism and capitalism) and the two lines (Chairman Mao Zedong's proletarian revolutionary line and Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line). They were fierce struggles between dialectical materialism and historical materialism on the one hand and idealism and metaphysics on the other, and were a reflection on the philosophical front of the acute class struggle at home and abroad.

I

The founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 marked the basic conclusion of the stage of China's new-democratic revolution and the beginning of the stage of its socialist revolution. In his Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in March 1949, our great leader Chairman Mao pointed out that after the countrywide victory of the Chinese revolution the basic contradiction in Chinese society was "the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie"; he urged the people to continue the revolution, strengthen the people's democratic dictatorship, i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat, and "build China into a great socialist state." At the end of 1952, Chairman Mao went further to formulate the general line for the period of transition: bringing about, step by step, the socialist industrialization of the country and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce.

Running counter to this, Liu Shaoqi openly opposed the spirit of the Second Plenary Session of the Party's Seventh Central Committee. As early as 1949, the year the session was held, he desperately preached the fallacy that "exploitation is a merit" and advocated the development of capitalism. Waving the tattered banner of the "theory of productive forces" after liberation, he dished up a sinister program for developing capitalism which called for "co-operation among the five sectors of the economy[1] to consolidate the new-democratic system." This showed that he blatantly opposed the Party's general line for the period of transition.

At that moment of acute struggle between Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line, Yang Xianzhen, at the bidding of Liu Shaoqi, churned out the so-called theory of "synthesized economic base," thereby provoking the first big struggle on the philosophical front.

Yang Xianzhen claimed that the economic base during the period of transition was of a "synthesized nature," "including both the socialist sector and the capitalist sector of the economy" which "can develop in a balanced and co-ordinated way." He babbled that the socialist superstructure should, without discrimination, "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist sector of the economy, and "also serve the bourgeoisie." This was the notorious theory of "synthesized economic base."

It is obvious that, in putting forward these reactionary absurdities, Yang Xianzhen obliterated the diametrical antagonism and struggle between the socialist economy and the capitalist economy, and denied the class nature of the superstructure, his aim being all-round class collaboration and class capitulation in all spheres, from the economic base to the superstructure. This was an attempt to change the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country, oppose the establishment of a socialist economic base and perpetuate capitalism in China.

The theory of "synthesized economic base," which advocated the development of capitalism, was nothing new. It was just a variant of the "theory of productive forces" which old and new revisionists in China and other countries have held sacred for scores of years. According to this "theory," China must not carry out the socialist transformation of the private ownership of the means of production, it cannot go in for socialism but can only allow capitalism to spread unchecked, because its productive forces are backward and capitalism is not developed.

As soon as Yang Xianzhen trotted out his reactionary fallacy, he was dealt a head-on blow by the proletariat. Not reconciled to defeat, he concocted in 1955 an article entitled "On the Question of the Base and the Superstructure During the Transition Period in the People's Republic of China," preaching his theory of "synthesized economic base" more systematically than ever. When he sent his sinister article to Liu Shaoqi for examination, the latter openly supported him and said: "You are right," adding that private capitalism "is a component of the base."

Chairman Mao sternly criticized Liu Shaoqi's reactionary program of "co-operation among the five sectors of the economy to consolidate the new-democratic system," pointing out that its reactionary nature lay in its advocating the development of capitalism. Under the guidance of Mao Zedong Thought, the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production was basically completed in 1956 and the Party's general line for the period of transition was successfully implemented. Yang Xianzhen's theory of "synthesized economic base" not only went bankrupt theoretically but was thoroughly smashed by revolutionary practice.

II

"Revolution means liberating the productive forces." The socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production has greatly promoted the growth of productive forces. In 1958, Chairman Mao put forward the general line of going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, once grasped by the masses, becomes a material force capable of changing the world, a force under whose impact the entire old superstructure and ideology crumble. "So inspired, so militant and so daring," the Chinese people brought their conscious dynamic role and revolutionary initiative into full play, creating the new situation of the great leap forward in socialist construction and establishing the people's communes which are of great historic significance.

The swift, forceful development of revolution and construction scared the handful of Right opportunists out of their wits. Liu Shaoqi et al. jumped out and frenziedly attacked the general line, the great leap forward and the people's commune and slandered the revolutionary mass movements. They accused the Party of "subjective idealism" which "exaggerated man's conscious dynamic role." Taking his cue from Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen seized the opportunity and provoked a new battle in the field of philosophy by dishing up the theory that "there is no identity between thinking and being."

Yang Xianzhen arbitrarily declared: "Identity between thinking and being is an idealist proposition." He raved that "identity between thinking and being" and "dialectical identity" did not mean the same thing, that they belonged to "two different categories." Viciously distorting Marxism-Leninism, he tried to set the identity between thinking and being against the materialist theory of reflection, alleging that, with regard to the question of the relationship between thinking and being, "materialism uses the theory of reflection to solve it, while idealism solves it by means of identity."

Materialist dialectics teaches us that the law of the unity of opposites is universal. The identity of opposites, that is, their mutual dependence for existence and their transformation into each other, is undoubtedly applicable to the relationship between thinking and being. By denying the identity between thinking and being, Yang Xianzhen was denying that the two opposite aspects of the contradiction, thinking and being, depended on each other for their existence and could transform themselves into each other in given conditions. If Yang Xianzhen's assertion were true, the law of the unity of opposites as taught by dialectics would not be universal.

Yang Xianzhen metaphysically negated the interconnection between thinking and being, regarding them as absolute opposites. Thus he sank into dualism and, from there, into subjective idealism. He denied the dynamic role of revolutionary theory and opposed the revolutionary mass movement. He exaggerated the non-essential and secondary aspects of the revolutionary mass movement to the point of absurdity. He concentrated his attack on one point to the complete disregard of the rest, closing his eyes completely to the essence and the main aspects of the revolutionary mass movement. He even had no scruples to palm off his counter-revolutionary subjective perceptions as the objective reality. He did all this in a vain attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism.

By denying the dialectical identity between thinking and being, Yang Xianzhen was, in the final analysis, opposed to arming the masses with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and using it to actively transform the world, that is to say, he was trying to hoodwink the masses with counter-revolutionary revisionist ideas and attempting to transform the world with the reactionary world outlook of the bourgeoisie. It was precisely this reactionary theory of Yang Xianzhen's that provided the "theoretical basis" for Liu Shaoqi's slavish comprador philosophy and his doctrine of trailing behind at a snail's pace.

Backed by Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen started preaching this reactionary theory in 1955. In 1957, he went so far as to flagrantly demand that those opposing his trash and consistently advocating the identity between thinking and being be labelled "Rightists." In 1958, he knocked together his sinister article "A Brief Discussion of Two Categories of 'Identity,'" branding as "subjective idealism" the scientific thesis that there is identity between thinking and being; then he ordered his men to write articles to propagate his reactionary theory. Chairman Mao sharply pointed out the reactionary essence of Yang Xianzhen's fallacy in October the same year, but the latter resisted for all he was worth. Also, when giving lectures in November 1958, Yang Xianzhen vilified the theory of the identity between thinking and being as "sheer nonsense and out-and-out reactionary theory." And between 1959 and 1964, in close co-ordination with Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary activities for capitalist restoration, he repeatedly waged counter-attacks against Mao Zedong Thought on this particular question. But all these schemes fell apart one after another under the crushing blows from the proletariat.

In 1963, Chairman Mao wrote the well-known article "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?" In it he penetratingly expounded the great truth that "matter can be transformed into consciousness and consciousness into matter," creatively developed the Marxist theory of knowledge and thoroughly criticized the bourgeois idealism and metaphysics of Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and company, and made a scientific summation of the struggle centering around the question of the identity between thinking and being.

III

Not resigned to their defeat, Liu Shaoqi and company put up a last-ditch struggle. In 1964, Liu Shaoqi directed Yang Xianzhen to concoct the reactionary theory "combine two into one" in open opposition to Chairman Mao's revolutionary dialectics one divides into two. This gave rise to a struggle on a still wider scale.

That year, class struggle was very acute and complex within the country and on the international scene. In concert with the class enemies abroad in their blatant anti-China activities, Liu Shaoqi and his sort lost no time in trying to effect a capitalist restoration in China. Guided by Chairman Mao's theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Chinese people waged a tit-for-tat struggle against the class enemies both within and outside the country. They launched a socialist education movement at home and conducted open polemics with modern revisionism. That the reactionary theory "combine two into one" should make its appearance at this juncture completely met the counter-revolutionary needs of the class enemies at home and abroad.

Chairman Mao's brilliant thesis that one divides into two is a penetrating and concise generalization of the law of the unity of opposites; it is a great development of materialist dialectics.

Acknowledging that one divides into two means acknowledging the existence, in socialist society, of classes, class contradictions and class struggle, the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, the danger of capitalist restoration, and the threat of aggression and subversion by imperialism and social-imperialism. To resolve these contradictions, it is essential to continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

However, the reactionary theory "combine two into one" advocated that "'combine two into one' applies to everything" and that the identity of opposites showed that the opposites had an "inseparable link," a "common ground" and a "common demand." This reactionary fallacy aimed at reconciling contradictions, liquidating struggle, negating transformation and opposing revolution. It was out-and-out bourgeois metaphysics and idealism. In essence, it wanted "combining" into one the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, revolution and counter-revolution; it opposed continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and tried to restore capitalism. It was the basis of Liu Shaoqi's theory of "the dying out of class struggle."

To peddle their reactionary wares, Yang Xianzhen et al. shouted that "too much has been said about 'one divides into two' and too little about 'combine two into one.'" They went out of their way to attack Chairman Mao's one divides into two, slandering it as "the philosophy of attacking people." But the ferociousness on the part of the reaction only hastened its total collapse. As soon as the theory "combine two into one" made its appearance, it met with crushing blows from the proletarian headquarters and the revolutionary masses. Chairman Mao personally led the struggle of criticizing this reactionary theory and pointed out in a clear-cut way that its core was revisionist class conciliation, thus sealing its doom.

IV

The three major struggles on the philosophical front showed that the confrontation of the two opposing sides in this field has always been a reflection of class struggle and the struggle between the two lines, that it serves these struggles, and that we must not take the struggle in philosophy to be merely an "academic controversy." In frenziedly attacking dialectical materialism and historical materialism, spreading reactionary idealism and metaphysics and provoking one struggle after another, Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and company were motivated by the vile attempt to shake the philosophical basis of Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and create a "theoretical basis" for the counter-revolutionary revisionist line aimed at restoring capitalism.

The three major struggles on the philosophical front also told us that the struggle between the two lines is, in the final analysis, the struggle between the two world outlooks, the proletarian and the bourgeois. One's world outlook decides which line he defends and implements. In terms of world outlook, the root cause of the fact that Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and their kind peddled the counter-revolutionary revisionist line was their bourgeois idealism and metaphysics. In order consciously to implement the proletarian revolutionary line, we must conscientiously study dialectical materialism and historical materialism in conjunction with the three great revolutionary movements of class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific experiment, overcome the idealism and metaphysics in our minds and earnestly remold our world outlook; we must learn to distinguish genuine Marxism from false Marxism, and tell the correct line from an erroneous line.

The three major struggles in the field of philosophy all ended with resounding victories for Chairman Mao's philosophical thinking. But class struggle has not ended. The struggle between materialism and idealism and between dialectics and metaphysics will always go on. We must carry on deep-going revolutionary mass criticism of the idealism and metaphysics spread by Liu Shaoqi and other political swindlers, and eradicate whatever remains of their poisonous influence.

The question of the identity between thinking and being was at one time turned into a serious struggle on China's philosophical front by Yang Xianzhen, Liu Shaoqi's agent in this field. Influenced by changes in international and domestic class struggle, it had its ups and downs three times and lasted eight or nine years, from the end of 1955 to 1964. Endeavoring to cover up the essence of this struggle, Yang Xianzhen and his kind spread lies, such as that the question was an "academic contention which has nothing to do with politics," and that they belonged to a "school of thought" engaging in "academic explorations," etc.

Was this true? Not at all.

Yang Xianzhen's shabby merchandise - "there is no identity between thinking and being" - was designed to oppose putting Mao Zedong Thought in command and launching revolutionary mass movements. It sought to provide the "theoretical basis" for Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line aimed at overthrowing the dictatorship of the proletariat and restoring capitalism.

The so-called "academic contention which has nothing to do with politics" was actually an expression of the sharp struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines.

As for the so-called "school of thought" for "academic explorations" it in fact consisted of a handful of counter-revolutionaries who committed numerous crimes under the wing of Liu Shaoqi's bourgeois headquarters.

I

The Marxist theory of knowledge has consistently affirmed the identity between thinking and being and that, though thinking and being are opposites, they are interconnected and can transform themselves into each other under certain conditions. Marx clearly pointed out: "Thinking and being are thus no doubt distinct, but at the same time they are in unity with each other" (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844). Lenin also said: "Not only is the transition from matter to consciousness dialectical, but also that from sensation to thought, etc." (Conspectus of Hegel's Book Lectures on the History of Philosophy). "The thought of the ideal passing into the real is profound: very important for history" (Conspectus of Hegel's Book The Science of Logic). Chairman Mao has inherited, defended and developed the dialectical-materialist theory of reflection and raised the Marxist theory of knowledge to a higher, completely new stage.

He penetratingly revealed the law of development of human knowledge, pointing out: "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 Practice). The dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge is an active and revolutionary theory of reflection. It not only recognizes that being is primary and thinking secondary and thinking is a reflection of being, but scientifically explains the primary importance of social practice to knowledge and stresses the great role of revolutionary theory in actively changing the world. It is a sharp weapon for the proletariat to know and change the world, and is the theoretical basis for putting Mao Zedong Thought in command and giving full play to the revolutionary mass movement in all our work.

At crucial junctures in China's socialist revolution and construction, Yang Xianzhen would come out with the reactionary statement that "there is no identity between thinking and being" to resist the active and revolutionary theory of reflection, and oppose putting Mao Zedong Thought in command and launching revolutionary mass movements.

Chairman Mao made public in 1955 his "On the Question of Agricultural Co-operation," thoroughly criticizing the Right opportunist line of Liu Shaoqi and his gang, which had slashed theco-operatives. This immediately gave rise to a high tide of socialist revolution in China. It was at that time that Yang Xianzhen, in a futile effort to resist the mighty current of socialist revolution, put forward his fallacious idea that "there is no identity between thinking and being" and attacked as "idealist" the thesis that there is identity between thinking and being.

In 1958, Chairman Mao formulated the general line of going all out, aiming high and achieving greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism. He issued the call to do away with all fetishes and superstitions, emancipate the mind and carry forward the communist style of daring to think, speak and act. Again and again he stressed that we must persevere in putting politics in command and give full play to the mass movement in all our work. The people's revolutionary enthusiasm and creativeness were enormously mobilized by Chairman Mao's revolutionary theory and revolutionary line. And the great leap forward emerged all over the nation and people's communes were set up throughout the rural areas. The great victory of Mao Zedong Thought aroused mad opposition by the class enemies at home and abroad. Answering their needs, Yang Xianzhen racked his brains to systematize his "there is no identity between thinking and being" rubbish and came up with his reactionary article "A Brief Discussion of Two Categories of 'Identity.'" In it he opposed the Marxist theory of knowledge and attempted to deny fundamentally the general line, the great leap forward and the people's commune.

The law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law of the universe, a law applicable to everything including, of course, the relationship between thinking and being. But Yang Xianzhen fabricated the fallacy that "identity between thinking and being" and "dialectical identity" belonged to "two different categories," that "although the same in wording, they are different in meaning." He openly opposed applying revolutionary dialectics to the theory of knowledge.

The active and revolutionary theory of reflection not only recognizes thinking as the reflection of being but also the reaction of thinking on being. Hence it firmly holds that there is identity between thinking and being. Yang Xianzhen, however, tried to set the identity between thinking and being against the theory of reflection, alleging that, with regard to the question of the relationship between thinking and being, "materialism uses the theory of reflection to solve it, while idealism solves it by means of identity." In denying the identity between thinking and being he totally denied the great role of revolutionary theory, negated the conscious dynamic role of the masses, and twisted the active and revolutionary theory of reflection into the mechanical theory of reflection.

The dialectical-materialist conception of the identity between thinking and being holds that thinking and being are interconnected and can transform themselves into each other on the basis of practice. But Yang Xianzhen deliberately distorted the theory of the identity between thinking and being into the idealist nonsense of the sameness of thinking and being, raving that recognition of the identity between thinking and being meant upholding that "being is thinking, and thinking is being." He wantonly attacked the idea that there is identity between thinking and being as an "idealist proposition."

To defend his reactionary trash, Yang Xianzhen distorted Engels' meaning by vilely making use of an error in punctuation in the 1957 Chinese edition of Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Engels said: "The question of the relation of thinking and being has yet another side: in what relation do our thoughts about the world surrounding us stand to this world itself? Is our thinking capable of the cognition of the real world? Are we able in our ideas and notions of the real world to produce a correct reflection of reality? In philosophical language this question is called the question of the identity of thinking and being, and the overwhelming majority of philosophers give an affirmative answer to this question." The 1957 Chinese editions broke up the last sentence of this passage into two sentences by erroneously putting a period after "this question is called the question of the identity of thinking and being." Yang Xianzhen and his bunch quibbled and argued obstinately, alleging that what had been solved by "the overwhelming majority of philosophers," according to Engels, was not "the question of the identity of thinking and being." In fact, even with that inadvertent period in the Chinese edition, what Engels wanted to say is clear enough in the context. He definitely pointed out that the overwhelming majority of philosophers have affirmed the identity of thinking and being.

In his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Lenin thoroughly criticized the Machist theory of the sameness of social being, that is, the reactionary subjective idealist fallacies Ernst Mach & Co. advocated, such as "things are complexes of sensations," and the sameness of social being and social consciousness. Deliberately confusing the theory of the identity between thinking and being with the Machist fallacy that thinking and being are the same, Yang Xianzhen alleged that Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism "criticized the identity between thinking and being from beginning to end." Moreover, in order to attack the active and revolutionary theory of reflection, he was so mad as to fly in the face of logic to distort facts and change the relevant translation by whatever means he could.

Yang Xianzhen tried to publish his reactionary article "A Brief Discussion of Two Categories of 'Identity'" in October 1958 in order to openly oppose Mao Zedong Thought. The proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao discovered this and immediately exposed that the reactionary essence of "there is no identity between thinking and being" lay in the denial of the universality of the law of the unity of opposites, was dualism characterized by the separation of thinking and being. The proletarian headquarters solemnly pointed out that all such reactionary absurdities were opposed to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. Thus Yang Xianzhen's scheme was crushed.

Unwilling to give up, however, Yang Xianzhen made a frantic counter-attack. Supported by modern revisionism, a group of anti-Party elements in Liu Shaoqi's bourgeois headquarters came up in 1959 with a thoroughly sinister counter-revolutionary program the purpose of which was to overthrow the correct leadership of the Party Central Committee headed by Mao Zedong. In the first half of that year, Yang Xianzhen busied himself with shady activities in all places, hawking his poisonous ideas to pave the way for their plot to usurp Party leadership. Aping Khrushchev, he attacked our Party and our socialist system and opposed Mao Zedong Thought.

The Eighth Plenary Session of the Party's Eighth Central Committee held in August 1959 smashed the plot of these anti-Party elements and also dealt Yang Xianzhen a heavy blow. Unreconciled, he went further afield in opposing the theory of the identity between thinking and being. He collected a gang and did mant things with ulterior motives under the cloak of "academic explorations." In October of the same year, his henchmen finally came out with the rehashed version of his reactionary article "A Brief Discussion of Two Categories of 'Identity.'" This stirred up an open struggle on the question of the identity between thinking and being in order to oppose the Party Central Committee's Eighth Plenary Session mentioned above and reverse the correct verdict on that bunch of anti-Party elements.

The proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao exposed Yang Xianzhen's counter-revolutionary crimes and guided the criticism of him. The press responded with counter-attacks against Yang Xianzhen and his ilk, publishing articles criticizing their fallacy that "there is no identity between thinking and being."

II

In 1961-62, taking advantage of the temporary economic difficulties from which China suffered, Liu Shaoqi's bourgeois headquarters, in co-ordination with the anti-China chorus abroad, did its utmost to restore capitalism at home. Under these circumstances, Yang Xianzhen once again provoked an open struggle centered around the question of the identity between thinking and being.

As a matter of fact, Yang Xianzhen had long prepared the ground and his scheme for this open battle. In the first half of 1961, he turned up here, there and everywhere to collect material with which to flagrantly attack the general line, the great leap forward and the people's commune; he advocated individual farming for all he was worth and abetted the Right opportunists to demand reversal of the decisions justly passed on them. Using the pretext of "summing up historical experience and educating cadres," he gave a string of reports in a feverish attempt to prepare public opinion for counter-revolutionary purposes.

Now let us see how he went about his "summing up historical experience and educating cadres."

Yang Xianzhen totally denied the necessity of a process for man's cognition of objective phenomena. In his eyes, it was "idealism" when the subjective could not readily conform with the objective. Proceeding from this fallacy, he used the tactics of attacking one point to the total disregard of the rest and grossly exaggerated the temporary, isolated shortcomings which were difficult to avoid in our actual work, labelling them all "idealism." He wildly went for so-called "mistakes" in the great leap forward and ascribed the cause to "the identity between thinking and being," to "man's conscious dynamic role which makes a mess of things," etc. He made a big show of upholding materialism while actually using metaphysics and idealism to oppose the active and revolutionary theory of reflection.

Chairman Mao has taught us: "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" (Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?). A process is necessary for the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom in man's cognition of the objective world. Only after repeated practice can people advance from inexperience to experience, from ignorance to knowledge and from incomplete knowledge to relatively complete knowledge. Owing to various limitations, certain shortcomings and mistakes are hardly avoidable in the process of cognition and practice, and so is the failure for the subjective to fully accord with the objective. How can these be called "idealist"? Especially in such great revolutionary mass movements involving hundreds of millions of people as the great leap forward and the people's commune, we can only acquire experience step by step in the course of practice, gradually deepen our knowledge of the essence of things and expose and resolve the contradictions that arise as we go forward. In summing up our experience, we must use the Marxist theory of knowledge as our guide to affirm our achievements and overcome our shortcomings so that we can all the better advance along Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line unswervingly and bravely. It is crystal clear that Yang Xianzhen's so-called "summing up historical experience and educating cadres" was nothing but an attempt to totally negate the general line, the great leap forward and the people's commune and create confusion among the people so as to help Liu Shaoqi and his gang, representatives of the bourgeoisie, to usurp Party and state leadership.

The open struggle incited by Yang Xianzhen was a completely premeditated scheme to reverse correct decisions and restore capitalism. At a sinister meeting in November 1961, he complained bitterly on behalf of a gang of anti-Party elements and shouted that the criticism of him was "unjust." When he instructed his henchmen to "speak up with articles," they responded with the cry that Yang Xianzhen "should be rehabilitated and we should co-ordinate in this connection by writing articles in his favor." This handful also worked out an "operational plan": some would "write long articles to fight a major battle"; others would "write relatively short but timely articles to fight skirmishes"; still others would "write with regard to actual problems so as to fight a co-ordinated battle?" etc.

Yang Xianzhen and company watched for the opportunity they deemed most favorable to provoke the open struggle. Making use of the temporary difficulties facing China's national economy, Liu Shaoqi insidiously plotted, in 1961-62, to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism. Working madly to spread counter-revolutionary ideas, he again brought out his sinister book Self-Cultivation advertising idealism, stuff which opposed proletarian revolutionary practice and betrayed the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yang Xianzhen and company pitched in at once, raising an uproar and launching one vicious attack after another as though they really had a leg to stand on. They thus stirred up another open struggle concerning the question of the identity between thinking and being. Now Yang Xianzhen cast aside all disguises and came out into the open to vent his bitter hatred for the Party and the people, thus further exposing his savage renegade features.

Because they are decadent and moribund reactionaries and a handful of fools blinded by inordinate ambition, the enemies invariably miscalculate the situation. While they were in the midst of their wild counter-attacks, the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao sharply pointed out: Yang Xianzhen and company had for a long time deliberately distorted Engels' words to buttress up their reactionary fallacy and they had to be criticized. With the proletarian headquarters' guidance, Ai Siqi[1] and other comrades published articles exposing and criticizing theoretically and politically the fallacy that "there is no identity between thinking and being."

Chairman Mao issued the great call "Never forget class struggle" at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Party's Eighth Central Committee held in September 1962. He led the whole Party and nation in an all-out counter-attack against revisionism and the bourgeoisie. At this session, the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao also exposed and criticized the counter-revolutionary crimes of Yang Xianzhen and his cronies.

III

Instead of ceasing their counter-revolutionary activities after the Tenth Plenary Session of the Party's Eighth Central Committee, Yang Xianzhen and company used methods more clandestine than before in a last-ditch struggle, resorting to a series of plots to provoke the third open struggle.

In May 1963, Chairman Mao wrote "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?" This was aimed at Khrushchevian revisionism abroad and the plot by Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and their gang to oppose proletarian revolutionary practice and restore capitalism at home. This famous essay by Chairman Mao and his other brilliant writings thoroughly criticized their bourgeois idealism and metaphysics, and formulated the line and policies for unfolding the socialist education movement in both city and countryside. An advance on the Marxist theory of knowledge, Chairman Mao's "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?" is a new generalization and a new development of this theory. It is also the scientific summary of the struggle on the philosophical front centering around the question of the identity between thinking and being.

Chairman Mao's great theory that "matter can be transformed into consciousness and consciousness into matter" was a body blow to Liu Shaoqi and Yang Xianzhen. They resisted it frantically. Liu Shaoqi trotted out a bourgeois reactionary line which was "Left" in form but Right in essence; he suppressed the masses, shielded the capitalist roaders and undermined the socialist education movement. At the same time, he wildly opposed the Marxist theory of knowledge and openly attacked the scientific method of investigation and study advocated by Chairman Mao.

Denying the transformation of matter into consciousness as well as that of consciousness into matter, he shouted: "It is idealism if one holds that all man-made things are preceded by ideas." Taking his cue from Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen maintained that, regarding the transformation of matter into consciousness and consciousness into matter, "such transformation cannot be achieved haphazardly" and "it cannot be applied at random." Here, Yang Xianzhen was making malicious insinuations to vilify as "idealism" the Marxist theory of knowledge developed by Chairman Mao.

In claiming that it was "idealism" to hold that there is identity between thinking and being, Yang Xianzhen was hurling vicious slanders and dressing himself up as a confirmed adherent of materialism. His shamelessness knew no bounds! In denying the identity between thinking and being, Yang Xianzhen denied the interconnection of matter and consciousness and their mutual transformation into each other based on practice. Thus he carved out an unbridgeable gap between matter and consciousness, and cut asunder the relationship between matter and consciousness and between practice and knowledge, making them unrelated to each other. In this way, he denied that consciousness stems from matter and that knowledge originates in practice. According to his absurd theory, consciousness and knowledge were like rivers without sources and trees without roots; they could only be something innate in the mind or something that had dropped from the sky. This was Kant's dualism and idealist transcendentalism pure and simple.

Yang Xianzhen never tired of talking about "being is primary, thinking is secondary," as though he was adhering to materialism. But this was unmitigated hypocrisy. Marxists not only acknowledge the objective world but, more important, they actively change it in accordance with its laws. To Yang Xianzhen, however, merely acknowledging that "being is primary, thinking is secondary" meant everything, and as long as one "acknowledges objective reality" everything would be all right and he "is a conscious materialist." Accordingly, "acknowledging objective reality" meant that if there was a nail before you, you had just to "acknowledge" its existence but never do anything about it. But could this be called "conscious materialism"? Not at all: It was "conscious" capitulationism, renegade philosophy through and through. If Yang Xianzhen's preaching were to be followed, people could only remain helpless before the objective world, they could only leave everything to fate and be docile tools. In the past decades, Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and company had acted precisely in line with this kind of "materialism" and knuckled under time and again to the enemy.

Yang Xianzhen said he "acknowledges objective reality," but actually he and his like, because of their counter-revolutionary nature, turned a blind eye to the objective realities, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the infinite superiority of socialism, the inexhaustible strength of the masses armed with Mao Zedong Thought, and the tremendous successes in China's socialist revolution and construction. To put it bluntly, what Yang Xianzhen meant when he said he "acknowledges objective reality," etc. was sheer deception. Whether he "acknowledged" something or not was determined entirely by the bourgeoisie's counter-revolutionary needs, and by whether this was favorable or not to the restoration of capitalism. Materialism in words and idealism in deeds - such was the essence of Yang Xianzhen's theory that "there is no identity between thinking and being."

Yang Xianzhen slandered those advocating the identity between thinking and being as "propagating the theory of Bernstein" and "brandishing Bernstein's weapon to oppose Marxism." Here he was merely acting the thief crying "Stop thief!" In exposing Bernstein's revisionism, Lenin said: "In the sphere of philosophy revisionism followed in the wake of bourgeois professorial 'science.' The professors went 'back to Kant' - and revisionism dragged along after the neo-Kantians" (Marxism and Revisionism). Bernstein made "amendments" to the Marxist theory of knowledge by deliberately distorting the identity between thinking and being into an idealist theory that "thinking and being are the same." He raved that materialism and idealism were alike and, though they proceeded from different viewpoints, both simply presumed that thinking and being were the same. It was by such rotten methods that Bernstein completely denied the identity between thinking and being. What Yang Xianzhen tried to smuggle in was simply Bernstein's trash. The only difference was that while Bernstein openly declared that he firmly supported Kant's viewpoint in principle, Yang Xianzhen sought to cover this up and did not dare say so in so many words. Thus we see it is no one but Yang Xianzhen himself who was "propagating the theory of Bernstein" and "brandishing Bernstein's weapon to oppose Marxism."

The publication of Chairman Mao's work "Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?" thwarted the plot of Yang Xianzhen and his gang who stirred up the third open struggle. But they still refused to give up. In March 1964, they published several reactionary articles which in a roundabout way propagated the reactionary theory that "there is no identity between thinking and being" and opposed the great theory that "matter can be transformed into consciousness and consciousness into matter." At the same time, in a desperate struggle, they turned up with the counter-revolutionary theory "combine two into one" to oppose the revolutionary dialectics of "one divides into two" and oppose the socialist education movement and the struggle against revisionism.

As soon as Yang Xianzhen's counter-revolutionary theory "combine two into one" appeared, the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao hit the nail on the head and exposed its real nature and led the people in openly criticizing him. Following this, the mass movement of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution swept Yang Xianzhen, along with his sinister master Liu Shaoqi and their bourgeois headquarters, onto the garbage heap of history. Finally, no matter what trickery Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and their gang used or how desperately they resisted, their counter-revolutionary revisionist line and their metaphysics and idealism went bankrupt for good.

IV

Reviewing the struggle centering around the question of the identity between thinking and being, we can clearly see that the activities of Yang Xianzhen and his gang in this connection were an important component part of Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary plot to restore capitalism. Philosophy always serves politics. One's world outlook determines the kind of philosophical thought he advances to serve his political line. We must respond to the call issued by the Second Plenary Session of the Party's Ninth Central Committee held in the second half of 1970, conscientiously study Marxism-Leninism and Chairman Mao's philosophical works and heighten our consciousness of the struggle between the two lines and strive to further consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Liu Shaoqi instigated Yang Xianzhen, his agent in the philosophical circles, to put out a theory of "synthesized economic base," starting a major struggle on China's philosophical front. It was a struggle of principle concerning the road China was to take, the socialist or the capitalist, whether China was to have a dictatorship of the proletariat or a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

The theory of "synthesized economic base" was actually a variant of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" which is, in turn, an idealist conception of history serving as the common "theoretical basis" of the revisionist trend in China and abroad. Such pseudo-Marxist swindlers as Liu Shaoqi and Yang Xianzhen had all along used such reactionary theory to push their counter-revolutionary revisionist line and shape public opinion for their counter-revolutionary activities of opposing the proletarian revolution, overthrowing the proletarian dictatorship and restoring capitalism.

Product Of The Counter-Revolutionary Revisionist Line

The founding of the People's Republic heralded a new era in China, that of the socialist revolution and the proletarian dictatorship.

In his Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in March 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong made a penetrating analysis of the class relations and economic conditions prevailing in China at that time, clearly pointing out that following the countrywide seizure of power by the proletariat the principal internal contradiction was "the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie." The focus of the struggle remained the question of state power. Chairman Mao called upon the whole Party to continue the revolution, rely on and strengthen the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, the proletarian dictatorship, develop the socialist state economy and carry out step by step the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce and socialist industrialization so as to "build China into a great socialist state."

At this turning point of the revolution, Liu Shaoqi waved the tattered banner of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" in hysterically opposing the socialist revolution. To counteract the resolution of the Second Plenary Session of the Party's Seventh Central Committee, he flaunted his counter-revolutionary program calling for "co-operation among the five sectors of the economy to consolidate the new-democratic system." Liu Shaoqi and other such swindlers went about drumming up trade for the development of capitalism, babbling, "Our country's production is undeveloped and backward. Today it is not that there are too many factories run by private capital, but too few. Now, not only must private capitalism be allowed to exist, but it needs to be developed, needs to be expanded." "Socialism in China is a matter for two or three decades later." They advocated preserving the rich-peasant economy for a long time and developing it energetically, called for "consolidating the peasants' private property" and attacked agricultural co-operation as "a kind of wrong, dangerous and utopian agrarian socialism."

Chairman Mao waged a sharp, tit-for-tat struggle against Liu Shaoqi and his gang who mulishly plotted to take the capitalist road. In 1953, in a talk on the Party's general line for the period of transition, Chairman Mao thoroughly discredited their counter-revolutionary program of "consolidating the new-democratic system." He pointed out: "After the success of the democratic revolution, some people stand still. Failing to realize the change in the character of the revolution, they continue with their 'new democracy' instead of undertaking socialist transformation. Hence their Rightist errors." As for the so-called formulation of "consolidating the new-democratic system," Chairman Mao said that it was "harmful" and was "at variance with the realities of the struggle and hinders the development of the socialist cause."

Still these renegades did not give up. At a time when the whole Party was studying and applying the Party's general line for the transition period, Yang Xianzhen, given his cue by swindler Liu Shaoqi et al., refurbished the sinister program of "consolidating the new-democratic system" and came up with the theory of "synthesized economic base." This variety of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" he spread everywhere in his feverish effort to oppose the Party's general line.

However, guided by the Party's general line, the poor and lower-middle peasants' socialist initiative mounted as never before so that the movement for agricultural co-operation flourished; likewise, the socialist transformation of the capitalist industry and commerce accelerated. In their futile attempt to brake the wheel of history, Liu Shaoqi and his like drew up, in 1955, their vicious scheme of "opposing rashness" and set forth their counter-revolutionary policy of "holding up," "contraction" and "checking up" which drastically slashed the number of co-operatives. Yang Xianzhen stepped in at this point and, racking his brains, penned his reactionary screed "On the Question of the Base and the Superstructure During the Transition Period in the People's Republic of China," systematizing his theory of "synthesized economic base" to conjure up a "theoretical basis" for the plot of Liu Shaoqi et al. to oppose the socialist revolution. He sent his scribble posthaste to Liu Shaoqi with a covering letter in which he said, "I hope you will find time to examine it and give me your instructions." Yang Xianzhen himself admitted that concerning his theory of "synthesized economic base," he also had "consulted with" the big careerist swindler who referred to himself as a "humble little commoner." All this proves to the hilt that the struggle started by Yang Xianzhen was a counter-revolutionary political plot which he had worked out hand in glove with Liu Shaoqi and other swindlers.

At a critical point in the grave struggle between the two lines, Chairman Mao made his report "On the Question of Agricultural Co-operation," shattering in theory and practice the revisionist "theory of productive forces" and the counter-revolutionary plot of Liu Shaoqi & Co. An immediate upsurge in the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce swept the country, characterized by: Opportunism is falling, socialism is on the rise. China's socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production won a great victory, while the reactionary theory of "synthesized economic base" met with total bankruptcy.

Reactionary Fallacy For Overthrowing Proletarian Dictatorship

What, after all, was the theory of "synthesized economic base" made of?

Yang Xianzhen asserted: "In the period of transition the economic base of the state power of the socialist type" was of a "synthesized nature," "embracing both the socialist sector and the capitalist sector, and the sector of individual peasant economy as well"; they "can develop in a balanced and co-ordinated way"; the socialist superstructure should "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist economy, and "also serve the bourgeoisie." This was an altogether reactionary and fallacious theory for overthrowing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

According to Marxism-Leninism, "state power of the socialist type" can only be the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is the concentrated expression of the fundamental interests of the working class and other laboring people, and its economic base can only be "the socialist economic base, that is,... socialist relations of production" ("On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People"). The capitalist economy is a paradise where the bourgeois amass fortunes, while for the proletariat and other laboring people it is a hell on earth. It is the economic base of the bourgeois dictatorship. Capitalist economy and proletarian dictatorship are as incompatible with each other as fire with water. How is it conceivable that the proletarian dictatorship can rest on any so-called "synthesized economic base" which includes the capitalist economy?

Yang Xianzhen's fallacy becomes even more preposterous when viewed against the historical mission of the proletarian dictatorship, which aims at abolishing capitalism and all other systems of exploitation, at ending private ownership. Referring to the economy in the transition period, Lenin pointed out: "As long as private ownership of the means of production... and freedom to trade remain, so does the economic basis of capitalism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the only means of successfully fighting for the demolition of that basis, the only way to abolish classes...." (Collected Works, Vol. 31). In China, it is precisely by using this means of proletarian dictatorship that the struggle against capitalism is waged. We took a series of measures to confiscate bureaucrat-monopoly capital, carry out socialist transformation of medium-sized and small capitalist industry and commerce, and set up agricultural and handicraft co-operatives in order gradually to abolish capitalism and private ownership and establish a socialist economic base. Only thus can the victory of the revolution be consolidated, can we have the proletarian dictatorship. How can our proletarian state power take as its economic base the so-called "synthesized economic base" embracing the capitalist economy?

In fact, any so-called "synthesized economic base" simply doesn't exist, but is a mere fabrication by Yang Xianzhen and his like. For historical reasons, China's proletariat did face five sectors of the economy after seizing state power, and these boiled down to the socialist and the capitalist sectors. Diametrically opposed to each other, the socialist and the capitalist sectors do not and cannot exist peacefully side by side, as Yang Xianzhen claimed, or combine to form any so-called "synthesized economic base," still less can they "develop in a balanced and co-ordinated way." Lenin said: "This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism - or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble" (Collected Works, Vol. 30). And Chairman Mao pointed out: "The period of transition is full of contradiction and struggle. Our present revolutionary struggle is even more profound than the armed revolutionary struggles of the past. It is a revolution that will for ever bury the capitalist system and all other systems of exploitation."

Precisely so. Events in China's transition period testify to an intense, life-and-death struggle between the two sectors of the economy, socialist and capitalist. One swallows up the other. Either progress towards socialism or retrogress to capitalism: There is absolutely no room for compromise in the struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines. Yang Xianzhen's "synthesization" was a clear case of attempting to "combine two into one," to deny the contradiction and struggle between socialism and capitalism, and allow the latter to swallow up the former. So-called "balanced development" was, in essence, development of capitalism and reversion to semi-feudal, semi-colonial society. Did not Liu Shaoqi & Co., taking as the point of departure their reactionary "theory of productive forces," openly declare that they would work along with the capitalists for several decades and then go in for socialism "when China's industrial production shows a surplus"? The swindler that styled himself a "humble little commoner" but was actually a big careerist also shouted: "In contemporary China the capitalist system of exploitation is progressive," "it has a role to play in industrially backward China," etc., etc. This was what lay at the bottom of Yang Xianzhen's "synthesization" and "balanced development." His preaching of "synthesized economic base," when stripped of all its fancy wrappings, was nothing but an attempt to build China on a capitalist economic base.

Chairman Mao points out that if we do not build a socialist economy, our proletarian dictatorship will become a bourgeois dictatorship, a reactionary, fascist dictatorship. Clearly, Yang Xianzhen concocted and advertised his theory of "synthesized economic base" in order to abolish the socialist revolution, to pave the way for Liu Shaoqi & Co. to usurp state power and establish a reactionary, fascist dictatorship.

Yang Xianzhen said shamelessly that the socialist superstructure should "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist economy; that it should "also serve the bourgeoisie." What a statement - "it should also serve the bourgeoisie"!

Marxism tells us that superstructure has class character; that state power which is at the very center of the superstructure is an instrument of class struggle, an apparatus with which one class oppresses another. Every state power is a dictatorship by a certain class: either a proletarian dictatorship with which the proletariat and other laboring people oppress the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes, or a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes with which these classes oppress the proletariat and other laboring people. Yang Xianzhen went to the length of trying to make the socialist superstructure "serve the entire economic base," including the capitalist economy, and make our state of proletarian dictatorship "serve the bourgeoisie." What is this if not meeting the counter-revolutionary needs of overthrowing the proletarian dictatorship?

Of course, Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen et al. did not stop just at words. Hell-bent on "serving the bourgeoisie," they enforced nothing less than a reactionary, fascist dictatorship in the departments where they had usurped power. Politically, they plotted to usurp the Party, military and government power in a vain attempt to reduce China to a colony of imperialism and social-imperialism. Eco­nomically, they tried to restore capitalism by large-scale practice of the "four freedoms[1]," san zi yi bao[2], profit in command, material incentives, technique first, and exclusive reliance on specialists in running factories. Ideologically and culturally, they did their best to peddle the vicious feudal, capitalist and revisionist wares and glorify feudal emperors and princes, generals and ministers, scholars and beauties so as to mold public opinion in favor of their counter-revolutionary activities. Organizationally, they formed an underground bourgeois headquarters by recruiting deserters and renegades, protecting one another and working hand in glove. So their heinous activities certainly went beyond the formula "also serve the bourgeoisie." They are in fact faithful agents, steeped in crime, of the imperialists, modern revisionists and Guomindang reactionaries. As for the theory of "synthesized economic base" it was simply a manifestation, in theory, of the counter-revolutionary attempts at the overthrow of the proletarian dictatorship on the part of these anti-Communist Guomindang elements, renegades and enemy agents.

"Fitting The Character Of China's Productive Forces" Refuted

The principal argument fabricated by Yang Xianzhen to justify his theory of "synthesized economic base" was that the five kinds of production relations in the transition period "fit the character of China's productive forces." This was a gross exposure of Yang Xianzhen and his sort as peddlers of the reactionary "theory of productive forces."

The five kinds of production relations in question covered socialist economy and capitalist economy, and also individual economy. Was it possible that all these "fit the character of China's productive forces"? As early as 1940 Chairman Mao pointed out that the Great October Socialist Revolution changed the whole course of world history, and ushered in a new era. The ideological and social system of capitalism throughout the world resembled "'a dying person who is sinking fast, like the sun setting beyond the western hills,' and will soon be relegated to the museum" ("On New Democracy"). In the 1950s, especially when China had established the proletarian dictatorship and entered the stage of socialist revolution, how could it still be said that capitalist relations of production "fit the character of China's productive forces"? After seizing state power, we proceeded at once to confiscate bureaucrat-capital - the principal part of China's capitalism - and change it into state-owned. Towards the industry and commerce of the national bourgeoisie, we adopted the policy of using, restricting and transforming them, but this never implied that capitalism "fit the character of China's productive forces." On the contrary, it showed that capitalism did not suit the character of the productive forces and that it was necessary to transform it step by step into socialist ownership by the state. In fact, it was inevitable that the bourgeoisie's reactionary profit-seeking nature and the growing contradictions between capitalism and socialism seriously hamstrung the expansion of social productive forces. People still remember the frantic attack the bourgeoisie, aided and abetted by Liu Shaoqi & Co., made shortly after the founding of the People's Republic against the proletariat by spreading the five evils of bribery of government workers, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts and stealing economic information from government sources for private speculation, seriously undermining China's industrial and agricultural production. With all this, how could one say that capitalist relations of production "fit the character of China's productive forces"?

As to the individual economy, it was, as Chairman Mao described, scattered and backward, not much different from that of ancient times. It is true that our land reform had broken the bonds of the feudal system of exploitation and liberated the productive forces in Chinese agriculture, but individual economy afforded very little room for their expansion. In fact, the marketable grain and raw materials supplied by peasants farming individually had, to an ever increasing degree, fallen short of the growing needs of the people and of socialist industrialization. Moreover, individual economy is unstable but engenders capitalism daily and hourly. Such being the case, could individual economy "fit the character of China's productive forces"?

Yang Xianzhen's argument, "fitting the character of China's productive forces," boiled down to this: Because of its backward productive forces, China was destined to develop only capitalism and build a capitalist economic base; it should not, nor could it, carry out socialist revolution and build a socialist economic base. It must then set up a bourgeois dictatorship to serve a capitalist economic base; it should not, and could not, institute proletarian dictatorship. This is the thoroughly revisionist "theory of productive forces."

The "theory of productive forces" is an international revisionist trend that makes a fetish of spontaneity. It absurdly exaggerates the decisive role of productive forces, which it reduces to means of production plus techniques. It completely negates the factor of man and denies the effect of revolution on the development of production, of production relations on productive forces and of the superstructure on the economic base. Such a fallacy would make it appear as if social development were merely the natural outcome of the development of productive forces, that when the productive forces are highly developed a new society would naturally appear, that if the productive forces are not yet highly developed it would be futile for the proletariat consciously to carry out socialist revolution. This fallacy, substituting vulgar evolutionism for revolutionary dialectics, and class conciliation for class struggle, opposes the proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship. It is historical idealism unalloyed.

Chairman Mao says: "True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies this is not a materialist. But it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role" ("On Contradiction"). This highly important scientific thesis, enriching and developing the basic principles of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, clearly points out that in a period of change in the revolution the relations of production and the superstructure can play the principal and decisive role with regard to the productive forces and the economic base. Revolution means liberating the productive forces and promoting their growth. History shows that every revolution is brought about by the development of the productive forces to a certain extent, but this does not necessarily imply that the transformation of the backward relations of production must be preceded by the full development of the productive forces. Rather, the first thing is to prepare public opinion, seize state power, and then solve the question of ownership, after which comes the question of greatly developing the productive forces. Such is the general law of revolution. If, according to the fallacies of Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen & Co., instead of the backward relations of production being transformed after the seizure of state power, capitalism had been allowed to spread unchecked in the hope of developing the productive forces, China would have become a colony of imperialism and social-imperialism, and there would be no socialism at all.

The "theory of productive forces" trumpeted by Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen et al. is nothing new, but the same revisionist trash of the Second International which Lenin thoroughly discredited long ago.

Lenin refuted the revisionist "theory of productive forces," exposing the renegade features of Bernstein, Kautsky et al. In his article "Our Revolution," he pointed out that all the "heroes" of the Second International kept harping in a thousand different keys that "the development of the productive forces of Russia has not attained the level that makes socialism possible." This nonsense he repudiated by declaring: "You say that civilization is necessary for the building of socialism. Very good. But why could we not first create such prerequisites of civilization in our country as the expulsion of the landowners and the Russian capitalists, and then start moving towards socialism? Where, in what books, have you read that such variations of the customary historical sequence of events are impermissible or impossible?" (Collected Works, Vol. 33). Lenin mercilessly tore off the pseudo-Marxist mask of these "heroes" with these words: "They all call themselves Marxists, but their conception of Marxism is impossibly pedantic"; they "are afraid to deviate from the bourgeoisie, let alone break with it, and at the same time they disguise their cowardice with the wildest rhetoric and braggartry" (Ibid.).

Doesn't every word, every sentence of Lenin's hit such pseudo-Marxist swindlers as Liu Shaoqi and Yang Xianzhen where it hurts most? To oppose the socialist revolution in the ownership of the means of production, these swindlers had likewise been harping in a thousand different keys on their fallacy, that "due to backward productive forces, China can not go in for socialism."

Refuting The Fallacy: "Contradiction Between The Advanced Socialist System And The Backward Social Productive Forces"

In May 1956, when China had in the main completed the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production, and the theory of "synthesized economic base" had been exploded, Liu Shaoqi personally consoled and encouraged Yang Xianzhen, saying, "You're right," private capitalism "is part of the base," "but you needn't talk about this question any more now." Strange! If Yang was right why shouldn't he talk about it any more?

Before long the cat was let out of the bag: "needn't talk about this question any more" was a dodge; the real thing was to mount a feverish counter-attack. Their theory of "synthesized economic base" having gone up in smoke, Liu Shaoqi and other swindlers changed their tactics, now claiming that China's principal internal contradiction was "the contradiction between the advanced socialist system and the backward social productive forces." This so-called "contradiction" was only another expression of the reactionary "theory of productive forces" in the new circumstances. The fallacy of "synthesized economic base" and the invention of this "contradiction" were like two poison gourds on the same vine. Before socialist transformation, these swindlers tried by every means to protect the capitalist relations of production under the pretext that China's production level was low. After socialist transformation, using the same pretext, they insidiously plotted against the socialist system and against continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

How can there be such a thing as contradiction between an advanced social system and backward productive forces? Marxism tells us that the productive forces, first and foremost the laborers, are the most active and revolutionary factor in any mode of production, that social development invariably begins with the growth of productive forces. When the productive forces have advanced beyond the production relations, a situation will emerge where the production relations no longer correspond with the productive forces, the superstructure no longer corresponds with the production relations, and it becomes necessary to change the production relations and the superstructure so as to make them correspond. It is only in a relative sense when we say that the superstructure corresponds with the production relations and the production relations correspond with the productive forces, or when we say that there is balance between the two aspects respectively. What is absolute is that the productive forces keep advancing and consequently there is always imbalance, and contradiction will always arise.

Analyzing the basic contradictions in Chinese society, Chairman Mao pointed out: "Socialist relations of production have been established and are in harmony with the growth of the productive forces, but they are still far from perfect, and this imperfection stands in contradiction to the growth of the productive forces. Apart from harmony as well as contradiction between the relations of production and the developing productive forces, there is harmony as well as contradiction between the superstructure and the economic base" ("On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People"). China's socialist relations of production are unquestionably advanced; they are better suited to the development of the productive forces than were the old relations of production and permit the productive forces to develop at a rate impossible in the old society, so that production can expand steadily to meet gradually the ever growing needs of the people.

Of course, contradictions still exist between our socialist relations of production and the productive forces, and between the superstructure and the economic base. These contradictions inevitably find expression in the struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines. They arise because, on the one hand, the bourgeoisie still exists and, on the other, the socialist system has to undergo a continuous process of building up and consolidating. This shows precisely that in socialist society, too, the development of the productive forces runs ahead of the relations of production. Therefore, the "contradiction between the advanced socialist system and the backward social productive forces" does not exist.

One cannot help asking: Why, then, should Liu Shaoqi and other swindlers make up this so-called "contradiction" which is theoretically groundless and actually non-existent, and declare it as China's principal internal contradiction?

Their fabrication of this "principal contradiction" was to create a "basis" for their fallacy of "the dying out of class struggle" in order to negate Chairman Mao's Marxist-Leninist scientific thesis that the principal internal contradiction in China is "the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie," deny the existence of contradictions, classes and class struggle in socialist society, oppose continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, overthrow the proletarian dictatorship, and restore capitalism.

Chairman Mao exposed in good time and exploded thoroughly the reactionary fallacies of these swindlers. In 1957, in his brilliant essay On the Correct Handling of the Contra­dictions Among the People, he scientifically analyzed the class contradictions and class struggle in socialist society, laying a theoretical foundation for continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Again, at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Party's Eighth Central Committee held in September 1962, Chairman Mao further exposed Liu Shaoqi & Co.'s plot for restoring capitalism.

Still, these renegades did not and would not "lay down their butcher's knives and become Buddhas." During the Great Pro­letarian Cultural Revolution, when they reached a dead end and faced their doom, they again waved their ragged banner of the "theory of productive forces" and mouthed such nonsense as "production can promote revolution," etc., trying to make a last-ditch struggle. They desperately opposed Chair­man Mao's policy of "grasping revolution and promoting production," in an attempt to suppress revolution in the name of production and thus undermine the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

But, the dialectics of history is inexorable. No matter how hard Liu Shaoqi and other swindlers struggled and resorted to sophism, the storm of this great Cultural Revolution finally swept them, one after another, onto the garbage heap of history.

Our great leader Chairman Mao points out: "Everything divides into two." "The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics" ("On Contradiction"). This scientific thesis of Chairman Mao's profoundly expresses the objective law of things and penetratingly expounds the core of materialist dialectics. It is a sharp weapon for the Chinese people in carrying out the three great revolutionary movements — class struggle, the struggle for production, and scientific experiment, and is a sharp weapon for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat and steadfastly continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The wide dissemination of the brilliant concept "one divides into two" among the people met with the extreme fear and hatred of a handful of class enemies at home and abroad. In 1964, Liu Shaoqi instigated Yang Xianzhen, his agent in philosophical circles, to set off a heated debate centering around the question of "one divides into two" or "combine two into one." The proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao directly led this struggle on China's philosophical front, a struggle involving a matter of cardinal principle. With Mao Zedong Thought as their weapon, workers, peasants and soldiers, cadres and intellectuals criticized the reactionary theory of "combine two into one" and demolished it by the revolutionary dialectics of one divides into two.

As the "theoretical basis" of Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line, the theory of "combine two into one" once permeated the political, economic, ideological, cultural, art and other fields. To eliminate the remaining poisonous influence of Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line in all spheres, we must further criticize the bourgeois idealism and metaphysics of Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and other such swindlers, as well as the reactionary theory of "combine two into one."

A Reaction To Continuing Revolution Under Proletarian Dictatorship

On the orders of Liu Shaoqi, the renegade Yang Xianzhen, who long ago had prostrated himself before the Kuomintang reactionaries, came out at every crucial juncture in the socialist revolution to launch attacks on the Party in the field of philosophy. He frenziedly opposed Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and tried to use the reactionary world outlook of "combine two into one" to remold our Party and country.

In 1958, Yang Xianzhen, with ulterior motives, advocated "using identity of contradiction" and by insinuation attacked our Party because it "talked only about the struggle between the opposites, but not their unity." His aim was to provide philosophical ground for Liu Shaoqi's theory of "the dying out of class struggle" in direct opposition to Chairman Mao's great work "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People."

In 1961-62, Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary clique, in close co-ordination with the anti-China adverse current abroad, plotted counter-revolutionary restoration all along the line from the top down. At that time Yang Xianzhen ran hither and thither to spread his reactionary philosophy, opposing more frantically than ever Chairman Mao's philosophical thinking. He babbled that the unity of opposites meant "common points," that we had "common points" with U.S. imperialism and that we and modern revisionism had "common points with some differences." Here he was openly calling for "combining" the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, socialism and imperialism, Marxism and revisionism, into one.

Chairman Mao was the first to perceive the danger of the counter-revolutionary plots of Liu Shaoqi and his gang, and time and again warned the whole Party and the people of the whole country to guard against revisionism. At the Tenth Plenary Session of the Party's Eighth Central Committee held in 1962, Chairman Mao put forward more comprehensively the basic line of the Chinese Communist Party for the entire historical period of socialism and issued the great call: "Never forget class struggle." Under Chairman Mao's wise leadership, the Party intensified propaganda and education in the revolutionary dialectics of "one divides into two", launched the socialist education movement on a broad scale, conducted open polemics against modern revisionism and dealt the class enemies at home and abroad hard blows. However, all these warnings and struggles did not and could not change the counter-revolutionary nature of Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and company, who were impatient to restore capitalism. Yang Xianzhen first openly peddled the theory of "combine two into one" in the former Higher Party School under the C.P.C. Central Committee. After careful planning, this reactionary philosophy was launched for the public in 1964.

Lenin has said that the struggle in philosophy "in the last analysis reflects the tendencies and ideology of the antagonistic classes in modern society" (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism). The concocting of the theory of "combine two into one" was intended externally to meet the needs of imperialism and social-imperialism in subverting great socialist China, and internally to meet the needs of the counter-revolutionary restoration by the bourgeoisie. It was a hack philosophy serving Liu Shaoqi's efforts to restore capitalism, and ran counter to continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Out-And-Out Bourgeois Idealism And Metaphysics

To oppose Marxist philosophy, all opportunists and revisionists do their best to negate the boundary between materialism and idealism as well as between dialectics and metaphysics. In peddling the reactionary theory of "combine two into one," Yang Xianzhen, too, resorted to this kind of base counter-revolutionary tactics. He dressed this reactionary theory up as dialectics and prated that "combine two into one" and "one divides into two" had "the same meaning," deliberately trying to negate the fundamental antagonism between one divides into two and "combine two into one."

Lenin pointed out: "The splitting in two of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts... is the essence... of dialectics" ("On the Question of Dialectics"). "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" ("Conspectus of Hegel's Book The Science of Logic").

Chairman Mao developed this great idea of Lenin's further in his "On Contradiction," "On the Correct Handling of Contra­dictions Among the People" and other important philosophical works. Chairman Mao says: "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" ("On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People"). The concept of "one divides into two" that Chairman Mao put forward profoundly and concisely summarizes the law of the unity of opposites and grasps the heart of materialist dialectics.

According to the concept of "one divides into two", there are contradictions in everything. The two aspects of a contradiction depend on and struggle with each other, and this determines the life of all things. The natural world, society and man's thinking, far from "combining two into one," are full of contradictions and struggles. Without contradiction, there would not be the natural world, society, and man's thinking; nothing would exist. Contradictions are present in all processes of things and permeate all processes from beginning to end, and it is this that promotes the development of things. The constant emerging and resolving of contradictions — this is the universal law of the development of things.

Applying the concept of "one divides into two" in examining socialist society, we have to recognize that throughout the entire historical period of socialism there are classes, class contradictions and class struggle, there is the struggle between the two roads of socialism and capitalism, there is the danger of capitalist restoration, and there is the threat of subversion and aggression by imperialism and social-imperialism. To resolve these contradictions, we must strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat and steadfastly continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Even in a communist society, there will be contradictions and struggles between the new and the old, the advanced and the backward, and right and wrong. Just as Chairman Mao has pointed out, "Wherever there are groups of people — that is, everywhere apart from uninhabited deserts — they are invariably divided into left, center and right. Ten thousand years from now this will still be so." Only by adhering to this concept and applying it to guide revolutionary practice can we be thorough-going dialectical materialists. To deny the concept of "one divides into two" means to deny the universality of contradiction and to betray materialist dialectics and, politically, this inevitably leads to betrayal of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The core of the theory "combine two into one" lies in merging contradictions, liquidating struggle, opposing revolution, "combining" the proletariat with the bourgeoisie, "combining" Marxism with revisionism, "combining" socialism with imperialism and social-imperialism. This out-and-out reactionary bourgeois idealist and metaphysical world outlook is diametrically opposed to the world outlook of "one divides into two".

Theory Of "Common Needs" Refuted

Yang Xianzhen repeatedly said that the identity of a contradiction consisted of "common points" and "common things." He distorted Lenin's thesis on the identity of contradiction, alleging that "the identity in the sphere of dialectics" meant "seeking common needs." Let us read what the great Lenin wrote on the subject. Lenin pointed out: "Dialectics is the teaching which shows how opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical — under what conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another — why the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another" ("Conspectus of Hegel's Book The Science of Logic"). Lenin here was talking about the identity of contradiction. Is there any trace of "common points" and "common needs" in this? Yang Xianzhen was blatantly lying and slandering Lenin when he alleged that what Lenin meant by the identity of contradiction was "common needs."

In "On Contradiction," Chairman Mao incisively explains Lenin's thinking on the identity of contradiction. Chairman Mao clearly points out: "All contradictory things are interconnected; not only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full meaning of the identity of opposites."

Chairman Mao's teaching clearly tells us: The first meaning of the identity of contradiction is that, in given conditions, the two contradictory aspects are interdependent for their existence. For instance, during the period of China's new-democratic revolution, the contradictory aspects, the masses of the people on the one hand and imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism on the other, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, did not exist in isolation from each other. Each aspect had the other as the condition for its existence and they coexisted in a single entity. We should interpret the first meaning of the identity of contradiction only in this way and should never allow Yang Xianzhen to distort it into having "common needs." Were there any "common needs" in the interdependence between the masses of the oppressed people and imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism? Certainly not. Even though the national bourgeoisie joined the united front in the national democratic revolution for a period and had certain common needs with the proletariat against imperialism and feudalism, this absolutely did not mean the identity of the two contradictory aspects, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. When we speak of these common needs, we take the proletariat, the peasantry, the petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie as one aspect of the contradiction and the three enemies, imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, as the other. In the contradiction in which the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are the two opposite aspects, the relation between them is that of the exploited and the exploiter, and the needs of one are fundamentally opposed to the needs of the other.

Chairman Mao also stresses that the matter does not end with the interdependence of the two contradictory aspects on each other for their existence; what is more important is that, in given conditions, each of them transforms itself into its opposite, changes its position to that of its opposite. This is the second meaning of the identity of contradiction. Our Party led the Chinese people in decades of heroic struggle aimed precisely at creating conditions for the promotion of the transformation of things so as to achieve the goal of the revolution. For instance, after the new-democratic revolution, the masses of the people who had long been oppressed and exploited transformed themselves into masters of the country, and imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, the three enemies that oppressed and exploited the people, were completely overthrown. Through the socialist revolution in the ownership of the means of production, individual ownership in agriculture and handicrafts was transformed into socialist collective ownership by the working masses, and capitalist ownership in industry and commerce was transformed into socialist ownership by the state. Yang Xianzhen used every means to oppose these revolutionary transformations. To call a spade a spade, his reactionary theory of "common needs" was nothing but an attempt to make the proletariat and other working people submit for ever to the misery of exploitation and enslavement, and to permit imperialism, the landlords and the bourgeoisie to sit on their backs forever.

Basing himself on the reactionary theory of "common needs," Yang Xianzhen tried his utmost to negate the fundamental antagonism between the two lines in the Chinese Communist Party. He alleged that the two lines in the Party were "both for socialism," and so they did not mean any struggle between the two roads.

Chairman Mao penetratingly pointed out: "The revisionists deny the differences between socialism and capitalism, between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. What they advocate is in fact not the socialist line but the capitalist line" ("Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work"). This scientific thesis of Chairman Mao's exposed point-blank the counter-revolutionary features of Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and their ilk and hit at the heart of their so-called theory of "common needs."

Theory Of "Inseparability" Refuted

Yang Xianzhen endlessly preached that the opposite aspects were "links that cannot be separated." He raved that learning dialectics meant "learning how to link the two opposing ideologies." This was a clumsy attempt to tamper with materialist dialectics.

Materialist dialectics holds that the nature of a thing is the contradictoriness within the thing and its separability. Engels pointed out: "Dialectics has proved from the results of our experience of nature so far that all polar opposites in general are determined by the mutual action af the two opposite poles on each other, that the separation and opposition of these poles exist only within their mutual connection and union, and, conversely, that their union exists only in their separation and their mutual connection only in their opposition" (Dialectics of Nature). That is to say, we cannot talk about the links between the two opposite aspects apart from their struggle and separability. The struggle of the opposite aspects inevitably leads to the breaking up of their interconnection, to the disintegration of the entity, and to change in the nature of the thing. Therefore, the interconnection between the opposite aspects is conditional and relative while their separability is unconditional and absolute.

As Chairman Mao points out: "In society as in nature, very entity invariably breaks up into its different parts, only there are differences in content and form under different concrete conditions" ("Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work"). There is nothing in the world that cannot be separated. The development of objective things has time and again exposed the rotten metaphysical idea that a thing cannot be separated. Have there not emerged various old and new anti-Marxist revisionist factions in the course of the development of the international communist movement? In the course of the development of our Party, there emerged the "Left" and Right opportunist lines of the renegades Chen Duxiu and Wang Ming, and Liu Shaoqi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line. Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line has won great victories precisely through struggles against these erroneous lines. Therefore, revolutionary "separation" is not a bad but a good thing. It helps raise the people's ideological consciousness, enhances the unity of the revolutionary people, promotes the development of the proletarian revolutionary cause, and impels society forward. Yang Xianzhen did not say a word about the struggle of opposites and their transformation into each other. He completely denied the separability of a thing, describing the interdependence of the two opposite aspects on each other for their existence as "links that cannot be separated." But in fact such dead and rigid links free from contradictions and transformation are non-existent.

Yang Xianzhen had vicious political motives for advocating the theory of "inseparability." When the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production reached a high tide in China in 1956, he came out sermonizing that the proletariat and the bourgeoisie "will both benefit if they come together, and will both suffer if they separate." This was of the same mold as the fallacies advocated by Liu Shaoqi, such as that the bourgeoisie's "exploitation is a merit." This fully shows that they are a gang of faithful agents of the bourgeoisie.

The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is, in essence, antagonistic and irreconcilable, and can be resolved only by socialist revolution. As Chairman Mao pointed out in 1959, in the period of socialist revolution the life-and-death struggle between the two big opposing classes — the proletariat and the bourgeoisie — "will continue... for at least twenty years and possibly half a century. In short, the struggle will not cease until classes die out completely." In a sense, by steadfastly continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletariat separates completely from the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes. In the life-and-death struggle between these two classes, how can we "combine two into one"? If we should "combine two into one" with regard to the bourgeoisie, forget classes and class struggle and forget the dictatorship of the proletariat, "then it would not be long, perhaps only several years or a decade, or several decades at most, before a counter-revolutionary restoration on a national scale would inevitably occur, the Marxist-Leninist party would undoubtedly become a revisionist party, a fascist party, and the whole of China would change its color. Comrades, please think it over. What a dangerous situation this would be!" That Yang Xianzhen spared no effort to preach that the proletariat and the bourgeoisie should "combine" and not "separate" was precisely for the purpose of realizing the counter-revolutionary plot of restoring capitalism.

Theory of "Synthesis Means 'Combine Two Into One'" Refuted

Yang Xianzhen and company also alleged that "analysis means 'one divides into two' while synthesis means 'combine two into one.' This is not merely a question of their ignorance of Marxist philosophy; their real purpose was to cut asunder the dialectical relation between analysis and synthesis and to substitute reactionary metaphysics for materialist dialectics.

Marxist philosophy tells us that analysis and synthesis are an objective law of things and at the same time a method for people to understand things. Analysis shows how an entity divides into two different parts and how they are locked in struggle; synthesis shows how, through the struggle between the two opposite aspects, one prevails, defeats and eliminates the other, how an old contradiction is resolved and a new one emerges, and how an old thing is eliminated and a new thing triumphs. In plain words, synthesis means one "eats up" the other. The course of historical development is: What is revolutionary always "eats up" what is reactionary, and what is correct always "eats up" what is wrong. But this has to go through many complex and tortuous struggles. As Chairman Mao points out: "Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history, such is the history of civilization for thousands of years. To interpret history from this viewpoint is historical materialism; standing in opposition to this viewpoint is historical idealism" ("Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle"). The history of mankind's civilization is one of class struggle, one in which the revolutionary classes defeat and "eat up" the reactionary classes. Imperialism headed by the United States, social-imperialism and all other systems of exploitation will eventually be "eaten up" by socialism and communism. This is an objective law independent of man's will. When reflected in men's minds, such objective analysis and synthesis require that we make a concrete analysis of the movement of opposites in all things and, on the basis of such analysis, synthesize and point out the nature of the questions involved and determine the methods to resolve them. Different types of contradictions are resolved by different methods. It is quite clear that objective or subjective analysis and synthesis can only be one divides into two and not "combine two into one."

Analysis and synthesis are closely connected. There is synthesis in analysis and analysis in synthesis. As Engels said in reference to the science of chemistry: "Chemistry, in which analysis is the predominant form of investigation, is nothing without its opposite pole — synthesis" (Dialectics of Nature). Yang Xianzhen and company denied the connection between analysis and synthesis and said that "analysis means 'one divides into two' while synthesis means 'combine two into one.'" This was the same stuff as the bourgeois dualism preached by Trotsky: "Politics — Marxist, art — bourgeois."

Chairman Mao points out in "On Contradiction:" "It was not until Marx and Engels, the great protagonists of the proletarian movement, had synthesized the positive achievements in the history of human knowledge and, in particular, critically absorbed the rational elements of Hegelian dialectics and created the great theory of dialectical and historical materialism that an unprecedented revolution occurred in the history of human knowledge." Chairman Mao has most profoundly explained how the founders of Marxism analyzed and synthesized the achievements in the history of human knowledge. Marx and Engels neither affirmed nor negated Hegelian dialectics in its entirety, but, dividing one into two, criticized its idealist shell and absorbed its rational kernel. Such analysis and synthesis fully demonstrated the thorough-going proletarian revolutionary spirit and scientific attitude which they consistently advocated. This is a brilliant example for us to follow.

The process of summing up our experience is also one of analysis and synthesis. By undertaking various kinds of struggles in social practice, men have accumulated rich experiences, some successful and some not. In summing up experience, it is necessary to distinguish the right from the wrong, affirm what is correct and negate what is wrong. This means, under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, reconstructing the rich data of perception obtained from practice, "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," raising perceptual knowledge to the level of rational knowledge and grasping the inherent laws of a thing. The movement of opposites — one divides into two — runs throughout this process. With the experience summed up in this way, we are able to uphold the truth and correct our mistakes, "popularize our successful experience and draw the lessons from our mistakes."

Reactionary Trend of International Revisionism

Was the reactionary philosophy "combine two into one" a creation by the renegades Liu Shaoqi, Yang Xianzhen and their ilk? No! It was nothing but a variant, under new historical conditions, of the theory of "conciliation of contradictions" of the old-line opportunists and revisionists.

Since the emergence of Marxism, the mortal enemies of scientific socialism have openly advertised the reactionary theory of "conciliation of contradictions." Proudhon declared that he wanted to "seek the principle of accommodation" so as to conciliate the contradictions of capitalist society. Dühring uttered such nonsense as that the world was "indivisible" and "there are no contradictions in things." The reactionary chieftains of the Second International vainly attempted to replace revolutionary dialectics with vulgar evolutionism and replace the Marxist theories of class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat with the theory of "class collaboration." Kautsky trumpeted that "there are no two classes in a society that do not have common interests. There were common interests even between the slaveowner and his slaves." "There are indeed common interests between the capitalists and the workers." One and all, they were only fleeting intruders in history. Relentless criticism and exposure by Marx, Engels and Lenin showed these types up in their true colors.

When, after the victory of the October Revolution, the Soviet people, under the leadership of Stalin, embarked upon socialist industrialization and agricultural collectivization, Deborin and company jumped forth to frenziedly oppose Lenin's theory of the unity of opposites. They maintained that contradictions appeared not at the inception of a process but only when it had developed to a certain stage and that the resolution of contradictions was the "conciliation of opposites." This theory of "conciliation of contradictions" of Deborin's was a reflection in philosophy of Bukharin's theory of "the dying out of class struggle" which alleged that "capitalism will peaceably grow into socialism." This reactionary philosophy for the restoration of capitalism was sternly criticized by Stalin. Modern revisionism, however, blatantly revived and developed Deborin's reactionary philosophy. Posing as a savior, Khrushchev clamored: "The world is whole and indivisible in face of the threat of nuclear disaster. That is where we all are the human race." In response, his academic title-holding servants clamored that the law of the unity of opposites was "outmoded," that unity had "become the source and motive force playing a constant role in social progress," etc. They shamelessly described this renegade revisionist philosophy as "creatively developing Marxism-Leninism."

In face of this revisionist adverse current against Marxist philosophy, Chairman Mao, with great proletarian strength of mind, repeatedly stressed the great importance of disseminating materialist dialectics. He pointed out: "We want gradually to disseminate dialectics, and to ask everyone gradually to learn the use of the scientific dialectical method" ("Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work"). In his speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in 1957, Chairman Mao once again expounded in a deep-going way the revolutionary dialectics of "one divides into two", giving a head-on blow to the revisionist adverse current.

The historical experience of the international communist movement has repeatedly proved that if a Marxist-Leninist political party does not observe, analyze and handle problems from the viewpoint of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, it will commit mistakes and degenerate politically. Since modern revisionism has thoroughly betrayed dialectical materialism and historical materialism and thoroughly betrayed the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, it has inevitably gone further and further down the road of revisionism and degenerated into social-imperialism.

The reactionary theory of "conciliation of contradictions" has become a tool today for social-imperialism in intensifying its fascist dictatorship, pushing an aggressive policy and in collaborating with U.S. imperialism and contending with it for world hegemony. Social-imperialism vehemently clamors for the creation of a "socialist community" and "giving first place to common interests." This is a vain attempt on its part to obliterate the differences between the aggressor and the victim of aggression, the exploiter and the exploited, the controlling and the controlled. It wants the working people of the countries in the "community" to sacrifice their own interests, give up their independence and sovereignty and "merge" completely into the "entity" of colonial rule by social-imperialism. But the reactionary theory of "conciliation of contradictions" can in no way save it from its doom The inherent laws of dialectics are independent of the will of the revisionists. It has become an irresistible historical trend today for the people of the whole world, and many medium-sized and small countries, to unite and oppose hegemony by the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and social-imperialism, and draw a clear line of demarcation between themselves and these superpowers. Revolutionary dialectics is striking firm root in the hearts of the people, is being grasped by more and more Marxist-Leninist political parties and revolutionary people. It has become their sharp weapon in making revolution. So long as they integrate the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice in the revolutionary movement of their respective countries, the revolutionary people of all lands will overthrow the entire old world and win final victory in the proletarian world revolution.

The philosophy classes taught by Comrade Yang Hsien-chen "have been "characterized by his basic thought of setting aside revolutionary dialectics, revolutionary class struggle, men's subjective initiative, people's revolutionary practice, and the reform of the objective world in practical struggle, thus basically negating the partisan character of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.

When he lectured on dialectics, he [Yang] stressed the "inseparable relationship" between two opposite sides, "the indivisible nature of things," and asserted that the sole mission of our study of unity of opposites was the search for "common demands" and "looking for similarities and tolerating dissimilarities." Thus he basically negated the materialistic dialectics of Marxism-Leninism.

Comrade Yang's lectures on materialism were the same as those on dialectics. He was never tired of lecturing on the first importance of existence, the second importance of thinking, the "recombination of concept" and the "recombination of feeling," both as the processes from spirit to matter, and idealism as the result of discrepancies between the subjective and the objective. In these lectures, there was no trace of active and revolutionary theory of reflection, no men's subjective initiative, no reform of the world as the main purpose for our understanding of the objective world, thus basically negating the dialectical materialism of Marxism-Leninism.

Now, let us see how Comrade Yang has twisted dialectical materialism.

I

In his "Introduction of Philosophy" delivered at the 1959 class of the Higher Party School in November 1961, he said the following:

"What is materialism? It is [the process] frou matter to idea. In it existence comes first and thinking second. Idea is the reflection of existence. What is idealism? It is [the process] from idea to matter. In it idea comes first and matter later. Berkley and Mach considered matter as a recombination of concept as well as recombination of feeling."

Comrade Yang's materialism is one hundred percent old materialism. It is entirely wrong. In the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, materialism and dialectics are inseparable. Any lecture on materialism must be dialectical materialism. If we follow Comrade Yang's lectures, we will find that dialectics and materialism are completely separated so that there is no dialectics in materialism, and no contradiction and struggle in dialectics, and no transformation of things. It is evidently a serious twisting of the dialectical materialism of Marxism-Leninism. Existence comes first and thinking second. Thinking depends on existence and consciousness depends on matter. Men's thinking and consciousness come from transformations of existence and matter. The above are naturally the basic prerequisites any materialist will recognize. However, merely insisting on these prerequisites does not make one hundred percent materialists. In addition to recognizing the above basic prerequisites, a thorough dialectical materialist must recognize that the reform of existence also depends on consciousness and consciousness can transform into existence. In other words, matter can be transformed into spirit and spirit to matter. Comrade Mao says: "Men's social existence decides men's thinking. Once the correct thinking of the progressive class is mastered by the masses, it will become a material force for the reform of society and the world." (Where Did Men's Correct Thinking Come From?) . On the other. hand, Comrade Yang's lecture on materialism covers only the following: "Men's social existence decides men's thinking. In other words, existence comes first and thinking secfnd." He completely ignores the thought that once the correct thinking of the progressive class is mastered by the masses, it will play the great role of reforming society and the world, He insist on Lenin's statement in "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" that "without those who are being reflected, there will be no reflection, but the former depend on the reflections for their existence." Thus he cries aloud: "From idea to matter, or the transformation of correct idea into matter is idealism and the 'recombination concept' of Berkley and Mach." It is very stupid for Comrade Yang to use Lenin's above statement in refuting the dialectical materialism of Marxism-Leninism, He means to convince people that Lenin's materialism includes nothing but the theory that existence comes first, ideas came second, and thinking is the reflection of existence. This is a great insult to Lenin. As we all know, Lenin pointed out clearly in his "Philosophical Notes": "Men's consciousness not only reflects the objective world but also creates it," and "the world cannot satisfy men and men have decided to reform the world with their own action." (Collected Works of Lenin, Vol. 318, pp. 228-229) Lenin also pointed out that dialectics is Marx's theory of knowledge. One of the basic weaknesses of the old school of materialism was its failure to apply dialectics to the theory of reflection. Marxism has completely corrected this weakness and for the first time in human history of knowledge solved the problem of relationship between thinking and existence. Therefore, it is outrageous aud a lie for Comrade Yang to say that Lenin distinguished between materialism and idealism but failed to distinguish between dialectical materialism and metaphysical materialism.

The Marxist-Leninist theory of reflection is an active and revolutionary theory of reflection, which is not a pessimistic or passive theory of reflection. One of the characteristics of thinking and consciousness is that they are not simply a mirror passively reflecting objective things but on the basis of such reflection suggest in advance a certain objective and plan for man's action in order to guide men's practical struggles and to reform society and the world. This positive function as well as the active and revolutionary function of thinking and consciousness can be fulfilled only through the practices of reforming nature and society.

The Marxist-Leninist theory of reflection has become an active and revolutionary theory of reflection mainly because of its recognition of the important reform function of thinking on existence. For example, the revolutionary theories which came from practice also offered important guidance and promotive function to practice. Lenin said: "Without revolutionary theory, there will be no revolutionary action." Marx said: "Once theory dominates the masses, it immediately becomes a material force." The above statements show clearly that revolutionary theories could be transformed into revolutionary practice of the masses in their changes and reforms of the world. Of course, revolutionary theories are products of experiences gained in revolutionary struggles, which correctly reflect the objective laws of social development and the actual demands of the masses. The existence of these theories will become a great power mobilizing and organizing the masses. With them, the masses will be able to promote the development of revolutionary movement and to guide revolution to victory. Thus, the success or failure of a revolutionary movement depends on the existence of revolutionary theory. A revolutionary theory is the major and decisive factor of revolutionary development.

Under the prerequisite of recognizing the priority of matter over thinking, Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism has affirmed the active function of consciousness, which will not prove the correctness of idealism, will thoroughly reject the idealism which reverses the correct relationship of matter and consciousness, and will thoroughly uphold dialectical materialism. Ideas, under a certain condition, can be transformed into matter. Is this contrary to the materialistic principle which advocates the priority of matter over consciousness? No, because the ideas we talk here are produced on the basis of recognizing and reflecting objective laws, and based upon the evaluation of accumulated experiences. Comrade Yang's definition of idealism as the precedence of idea over matter is directly related to his negation of dialectics and his metaphysical view rejecting the transformation of things. Comrade Mao says: "Marxian philosophy considers the law of unity of opposites a basic law of the universe, which exists universally in nature, society and man's thinking." In accordance with this law, "the result of struggles between opposites of a contradiction is that they are always transformed into each other under certain conditions." (On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People) In the relationship between politics and economics and in the relationship between ideas and production, they are transformed in the forms of cause and effect under certain conditions. Of course, economics should have precedence over politics but when politics and ideology exist as results of economic development, they will be reversed to form causes of further economic development. In his article: "Where Did Man's Correct Thinking Come From?" Comrade Mao says: "Many people cannot understand the daily happenings of matter being transformed into spirit and spirit being transformed into matter." From Comrade Yang's metaphysical point of view, it is no wonder that he cannot understand these daily crossing-over happenings. In his opinion, there has been no transformation or leaping across between politics and economics or between ideology and production. Since politics comes from economics, it is the result of economic development and remains as the reflection of economics and only & passive reflection. Politics can never be transformed into cause for the reform and development of economics. Superficially, this view of Comrade Yang is a metaphysical mechanical theory used in refuting dialectical materialism, but actually the content of his theory reflects that he is a hundred percent subjective idealist.

II

Since Comrade Yang denies the active and revolutionary theory of reflection, the effects of the subjective on the objective and the transformation of spirit into matter, he very seldom speaks about in his lectures the subjective initiative and the great effect of revolutionary spirit. Nor does he touch on the importance of class struggle practices and production struggle practice. In short, he only lectures on the passive theory of reflection, not on the revolutionary theory of practice. He lectures on passive understanding of the world, but not active reform of the world. On January 14, 1964, in his lecture to the special course on Party history and Party construction at the Higher Party Cadres School he said: "How can we develop the function of subjective initiative? Only through our recognition and understanding of necessity can we fully and correctly develop the function of our subjective initiative. Revolutionary spirit alone without proper understanding of the necessary nature of objective things will not help us to develop subjective initiative.... Is revolutionary spirit alone freedom? Revolutionary spirit alone cannot help us to be free. In addition to having revolutionary spirit, we must also understand the necessity of things" and "To unite the subjective and the objective and to make our ideas conform to laws of objective environment, although revolutionary spirit is necessary, it alone is not enough, because we shall not know the underground situation (meaning the Ta-ch'ing Oilfield)."

According to Comrade Yang's theory, the understanding of objective necessity is indispensable to the development of our subjective initiative. Then, how can we understand objective necessity? In terms of his passive theory of refIection, it means the correct reflection of the objective world. How should we reflect the objective world? Through what do we reflect it? Since Comrade Yong has denied the effect on the objective by the subjective, the correct reflection of the objective world can be only "the God" or "our crazy subjective imaginations" at home. Does it not prove he is a subjective idealist?

According to Comrade Yang's theory our Comrades of Ta-ching Oilfield understood the underground situation, united the subjective and the objective, and made their ideas conform to the laws of objective environment, not because they succeeded in developing the revolutionary spirit of masses for hard work and industrious experimentations. It sounds as if the success of our comrades at Ta-ching had come from the sky. Here Comrade Yang again exposed his subjective idealism.

May I ask how, without people's revolutionary spirit and without studies in experiments, can the subjective and the objective be united? Without the practice of struggles by the masses, how can their ideas conform to the laws of their objective environment? Where did men acquire correct thinking which conforms to their objective environment? Just like what Comrade Mao says: "Where did men's correct thinking come from? From the sky? No! Did it come from his own brain? No! Only from social practice as well as from the three practices of production struggle of the society, class struggle, and scientific experiment." (Where Did Man's Correct Ideas Come From?) It is clear that revolutionary practice and revolutionary spirit are indispensable to the unity of the subjective and the objective and to the conformity of ideas to objective environment. If our understanding and our control of objective laws were separated from our practice of struggle and our revolutionary spirit, would our control of objective laws become "water without source" and "wood without roots"? What Comrade Yang talks about is this type of philosophy - philosophy without source and roots. He intentionally sets apart the development of revolutionary spirit and understanding of the masses from the control of objective laws in order to show the former and the latter are not related.

Why did Comrade Yang try so hard to eliminate the function of revolutionary spirit, practice, and struggle? He means to squeeze revolutionary spirit out of dialectical materialism, thus making the latter a dogma for the restraining of ideas and serving the capitalistic idealism and metaphysics. His intention is both evil and tricky because we know very well the central problem of dialectical materialism is the problem of revolutionary practice, of the development of men's subjective initiative, and of guiding men's correct action.

We are learning the theory of dialectical materialism because we want to understand the dialectical relationship between thinking and existence so that we can not only understand and interpret the world but also change and reform the world. Of course, the material world can only be reformed by material forces, in other words, through the development of men's revolutionary spirit and practice of struggle. Therefore, the full development of men's subjective initiative in order to reform the world is the nucleus of dialectical materialism and the idea of revolutionary practice is the basic idea of dialectical materialism. No matter whether we want to understand or to reform the world, men's revolutionary spirit and practice of struggles are indispensable. Consequently, a thorough materialist must have revolutionary spirit and join revolutionary practice.

The Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism is a powerful weapon for the liberation of human ideas because it has given us the basis for courageous practices well as the basis for engaging in struggles, for conquering difficulties, and for reforming the objective world. Comrade Yang talks about materialism. but omits the great functions of subjective initiative and revolutionary spirit and the significance of practice in struggles. He means to eliminate the soul of materialism and his technique is really a fraud. Why was he so enthusiastic in downgrading revolutionary spirit and practice of struggles? Because he himself is not a revolutionist and he does not want others to become revolutionists. Anyone who is opposed to other's revolution is an anti-revolutionist.

III

Since Comrade Yang is opposed to the active theory of reflection, to the great role of the revolutionary spirit, and to practice serving as a standard of truth, he logically refuses to apply dialectics to the process of knowledge. For a number of times he has advocated the theory that whenever the subjective and the objective do not conform, it is idealism. He also claims that any mistake in practical work is subjectivism. In his lecture on "Introduction of Philosophy" to the 1959 class of the Higher Party School in 1961, he said: "How did our mistakes in work happen? It was because of our departure from materialism, because of the existence of idealis in our work, which is also subjectivism." In his lecture on "rectification movement" in the course in Party history and Party reconstruction at the Higher Party School in January 1961 he said: "Many of our comrades made mistakes in their work. Actually, their mistakes were due to idealism."

Comrade Yang's above theory is entirely wrong in theory and extremely harmful in practice. Of course, many political mistakes in political and Party policies as well as some mistakes on matters of principle were related to metaphysical idealism. They may be considered as subjectivism and idealism. However, to classify all mistakes in our practical work as idealism without proper analysis is entirely contrary to the dialectics of knowledge and practice and absolutely outrageous.

First of all, men's initial knowledge of the objective world usually covers the phenomena, the different aspects, and the external relationship of things. This sensory knowledge is a necessary process of knowledge. However in nature or society, men's knowledge usually improves from a low level to a high level, from the simple to the profound, and from one side to many sides. Only through accumulation of data in the process of knowing the objective world just as what Comrade Mao said of "the processing work of getting rid of the crude and retaining the useful, eliminating the false and retaining the true, learning from one another, and reading the inside from the outside" can we control nature and the laws of things. When some comrades have not mastered the laws of a certain thing because of his own subjective feelings about that thing, naturally he does not have a profound and correct knowledge of it. When he searches it and experiments on it, he must have weaknesses and must make many mistakes. If we follow Comrade Yang's logic all these mistakes and weaknesses would be subjectivism and idealism. Then, the burning of fingers by a child who does not know what fire can do, the breaking of a glass jar in a physics laboratory, and the chopping down of one sprout by a young farmer should all be considered as subjectivism and idealism. Is it not outrageous? When a technician of Shanghai Machinery Factory, Hsia Chen-te, made 263 experiments in making a part for an automatic plasmatic cutting machine, he would be criticized as an idealist. Then how could he be successful in making this machine? This kind of viewpoint is entirely the viewpoint of nobles and the lords, blocking people from courageous practice and from learning in class struggle, production struggle, and scientific experiment. It is contrary to the dialectical process of knowledge. No exposure of nature of things is possible without practice because the inner nature of things was often hidden and twisted by its outside appearance. Man's process of knowledge is a process of exposing the nature of things, in which mistakes are bound to be made. We cannot under any circumstance call them idealism or subjectivism.

Next, after man's knowledge has advanced from sensory to rational knowledge, is the process of knowledge concluded then? No more mistakes would be made? We cannot say that either, because correct knowledge gained through practice must be checked again in practice. Your rational knowledge might be almost correct. However, due to the incomplete exposure of the nature of the objective process, due to the limitations in scientific techniques, your knowledge might not have reflected the entire nature of objective things. Then you need to return to practice for checking, supplementing and revising. Only by doing these can man's knowledge conform to the laws of the objective process.

However, it is not easy to know the laws of the objective process. It is necessary to go through many times from matter to spirit and then from spirit to matter, and from practice to knowledge and then from knowledge to practice. If we follow Comrade Yang's theory that original idea, theory, and plan would be changed during the process of "from matter to spirit and from spirit to matter", then this idea, theory, and plan would become subjectivism and idealism - this kind of philosophy is a mystical capitalistic philosophy blocking the struggle for truth of our revolutionary masses.

Comrade Yang's theory that any mistake and weakness in practical work is idealism is meant to block the masses from courageous practice and to accuse the mass movement, as well as to discourage them. The great Lenin once gave a merciless scolding to those capitalists who accused the Bolsheviks of having committed too many mistakes. He said: "Capitalists and their lackeys (including Mensheviks and right socialists) shouted that we have made mistakes. Behind 100 mistakes, there were 100 great and heroic actions which were common, inconspicuous, and hidden in the daily lives of a factory or a village. These actions were done by those who were not accustomed to showing off their achievements, thus making them greater and more heroic. Even if all things turned out entirely wrong (although we know it can't be) and 100 correct actions turned out to be 100 mistakes, our revolution will still be the greatest in world history and unconquerable because instead of the minority, the rich and the cultured, this is the first time that the masses and the vast number of toilers have tried to build up a new life with their experiences in solving the most difficult problems on the organization of socialism." (Complete Works of Lenin, Vol. 28, p. 53)

When millions of people are participating in a socialist revolutionary movement, it is impossible to not create mistakes in practical work. How can we call such mistakes idealism? Comrade Yang actually puts himself into the disagreeable position of those whom Lenin scolded.

Comrade Yang's metaphysical "theory of complete understanding at once" is entirely wrong and absolutely outrageous. In his lectures on materialism within the last decade, he never touched the dialectic theory of knowledge, how sensory knowledge actively leaped into rational knowledge and how rational knowledge actively leaped into revolutionary practice. He acts like a mouse scared of the sun when he tried to avoid the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism which preaches practice - understanding - again practice - again understanding. This actually exposes Comrade Yang's secret intention - the intentional opposition of revolutionary dialectics and genuinc materialism, and his intention to use the capitalistic world outlook in reforming and negating the world outlook of Marxism-Leninism.