Читать онлайн "Mao Zedong On Dialectical Materialism" - Knight Nick - RuLit

However, so far as the progression of the process is concerned, the movement of human knowledge is not completed. Every process, whether in the realm of nature or of society, progresses and develops by reasons of society’s[3-356]contradiction and struggle, and the movement of human knowledge should also progress and develop along with it. As far as social movements are concerned, valuable[3-357]revolutionary leaders must not only be good at correcting their theories, ideas,[3-358] plans, or programmes when errors are discovered, as has already been indicated above; but when a certain definite objective process has already developed from one definite stage of development to another, they must also be good at making themselves and[3-359] their fellow revolutionaries progress in their subjective knowledge along with it, that is to say, [p. 232] they must ensure that the proposed new revolutionary tasks and new working methods[3-360] correspond to the new changes in the situation. In a revolutionary period the situation changes very rapidly; if the knowledge of revolutionaries does not change rapidly in accordance with the changed situation, they will be unable to lead the revolution to victory.[3-361] It often happens, however, that thinking lags behind reality; this is because man’s cognition suffers from numerous limitations.[3-362] Many humans are limited by class conditions (the reactionary exploiting class has no knowledge with the capacity for truth, and which as a result has no capacity for transforming the universe; on the contrary, they have become the enemy which obstructs knowledge of the truth and the transformation of the world). Some humans are limited by the division of labour (the division between mental and manual labour, and the division between the various industries), while some are limited by originally erroneous ideas (idealism and mechanism and so on; many are exploiting elements, but there are also exploited elements, and this is due to the education of the exploiting elements). However, a general reason is the limitation which results from the historical condition of the level of technology and science. The proletariat and its political party should utilise their own naturally superior class conditions (which no other class possesses), utilise the new technology and science, and employ Marxism’s world view and methodology; and closely relying on revolutionary practice as its basis, ensure that their knowledge changes as does the objective situation change, ensure that the logical keeps abreast of the historical, so that they attain the goal of completely transforming the world.[3-363]

We are opposed to diehards in the revolutionary ranks whose thinking fails to advance with changing objective circumstances and has manifested itself historically as Right opportunism. In China, the Chen Duxiu-ism of 1927, and Bukharinism in the Soviet Union were of this type. These people fail to see that the struggle of opposites has already pushed the objective process forward while their knowledge has stopped at the old stage. This is characteristic of the thinking of all diehards. Their thinking is divorced from social practice, and they cannot march ahead to guide the chariot of society; they simply trail behind, grumbling that it goes too fast and trying to drag it back or turn it in the opposite direction.

We are opposed to “Left” phrase-mongering. China’s Li Lisan-ism of 1930, Trotskyism in the Soviet Union when it could still be regarded as a Communist faction [p. 233] (but which has now become a most reactionary faction), and ultra-left thought in all countries of the world, are all of this sort. The thinking of “Leftists” outstrips a given stage of development of the objective process; some regard their fantasies as truth, while others strain to realize in the present an ideal which can only be realized in the future. They alienate themselves from the current practice of the majority of the people and from the realities of the day, and show themselves adventurist in their actions.

Idealism and mechanistic thinking (jixielun),[3-364] opportunism and adventurism, none of these is based on the epistemology of dialectical materialism, and are all characterized by the breach between the subjective and the objective, by the separation of knowledge from practice. The Marxist[3-365] theory of knowledge, characterized as it is by scientific social practice, cannot but resolutely oppose these wrong ideologies. Marxists recognize that in the absolute and general process of development of the universe, the development of each particular process is relative, and that hence, in absolute truth,[3-366] man’s knowledge of a particular process at any given stage of development is only relative truth.[3-367] The development of an objective process is full of contradictions and struggles, and so is the development of the movement of human knowledge. All the dialectical movements of the objective world can sooner or later be reflected in knowledge.[3-368] In practice,[3-369] the process of[3-370] developing and passing away is infinite, and so is the process of coming into being, developing and passing away in human knowledge. As man’s practice which changes objective reality in accordance with given theories, ideas,[3-371] plans, or programmes, advances further and further, his knowledge of objective reality likewise becomes deeper and deeper. The movement of change in the world of objective reality is never-ending and so is man’s cognition of truth through practice.[3-372] Marxism[3-373] has in no way exhausted truth but ceaselessly opens up roads to the knowledge of truth in the course of practice. Our conclusion is the concrete, historical unity of the subjective and the objective, of theory and practice, of knowing and doing, and we are opposed to all erroneous ideologies, whether “Left” or “Right”,[3-374] which depart from concrete history.