In the whole universe, in the present epoch of the development of nature and society, the responsibility of correctly knowing and changing the world[3-375] has been placed by history upon the shoulders of the proletariat and its party. This process, die practice of changing the world, which is determined in accordance with scientific knowledge, has already reached a historic moment in the world and in China, [p. 234] a great moment unprecedented in human history, that is, the moment for completely banishing darkness from the world and from China and for changing the world into a world of light such as never previously existed. The struggle of the proletariat and the revolutionary people to change the world comprises the fulfillment of the following tasks: to change the objective world, and at the same time, their own subjective world – to change their cognitive ability and change the relations between the subjective and the objective world. Such a change has already come about in one part of the globe, in the Soviet Union. There the people are pushing forward this process of change, for themselves and the world. The people of China and the rest of the world are either just beginning to go through, or will go through, such a process. And the objective world which is to be changed also includes all the opponents of change, who, in order to be changed, must go through a stage of compulsion before they can enter the stage of voluntary, conscious change. The epoch of world communism will be reached when all mankind voluntarily and consciously changes itself and the world.
Produce[3-376] the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary prctice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form develops[3-377] 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.
The Law of the Unity of Contradictions [On Contradiction]
Mao Zedong
Source: Takeuchi Minoru (ed.), Mao Zedong ji bujuan [Supplements to Collected Writings of Mao Zedong] (Tokyo: Sososha, 1983‒1986), Vol. 5, pp. 240‒278. In this translation, words shown in bold type are those incorporated into the official text of On Contradiction in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. I, pp. 311‒347. Translated and annotated by Nick Knight.
[p. 240] This law is the basic law of dialectics. Lenin said: “Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradictions in the very essence of objects.” Therefore, Lenin often called this law the essence of dialectics; he also called it the kernel of dialectics. Because of this, in our study of dialectics, discussion should commence from this problem, and moreover should receive somewhat closer attention than other problems.
This question includes many problems, and these are:
The two views of development;
the law of identity in formal logic and the law of contradiction in dialectics;
the universality of contradiction; the particularity of contradiction;
the principal contradiction and the principal aspect of a contradiction;
the identity and struggle of a contradiction;[4-378] the place of antagonism in contradiction.[4-379]
These problems will be explained in sequence below.
[p. 241] I. The Two Views of Development
Throughout the history of human thought (sixiang),[4-380] there have been two conceptions concerning the development of the world,[4-381] the metaphysical view[4-382]of development, and the dialectical view of development. What are the differences between these two views of development?[4-383]
(1) The Metaphysical View of Development[4-384]
Another name for metaphysics is xuan-xue, and this occupied a dominant position in the thought of former times. The content of this philosophy was an explanation of those things supposedly outside experience, that is, a theory which discussed absolutes and essences, etc. In modern philosophy, so-called metaphysics is a method of thought which employs a static viewpoint to observe things, and which holds that all the different things in the world and all their characteristics have been forever unchanged. This type of thought prevailed in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe.
With the arrival of the present era, namely the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because of the results of the class struggle and the development of science, dialectical thought rapidly strode onto the world stage. But metaphysics, in the form also of vulgar evolutionism (vulgar, that is superficial, simple), stubbornly opposed dialectics.
In summary, the view of development of so-called metaphysics and vulgar evolutionism is that development is a quantitative increase or decrease, that the motive force is external, involves a change in place in all things, and that the reflection of these things in man’s thought is eternally of this nature. The special characteristics of a thing are present in that thing from its beginning, and remain thus from its state of germination in inception right through to the zenith of its development. They ascribe social development to the growth and repetition of certain special characteristics, the nature of which remain forever unchanged. For example, capitalist exploitation and competition, individualism and so on, can all be found in ancient slave society or even in primitive savage society. They ascribe the causes of social development to factors external to society, such as geography and climate, [p. 242] This view of development searches[4-385] outside a thing for the causes of Its development, and opposes[4-386] the theory which holds that development arises from the contradictions inside a thing; it can thus explain neither the qualitative diversity of things, nor the phenomenon of one quality changing into another. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this mode of thinking existed as a theory of unchangeable natural absolutes[4-387] (mechanical materialism) – and in the twentieth century as vulgar evolutionism (the theory of equilibrium of Bukharin and others) and so on.[4-388]
4-378
Official text reads: “the identity and struggle of the aspects of a contradiction”.
4-379
Addition in official text: “The criticism to which the idealism of the Deborin school has been subjected in Soviet philosophical circles in recent years has aroused great interest among us. Deborin’s idealism has exerted a very bad influence in the Chinese Communist Party, and it cannot be said that the dogmatist thinking in our Party is unrelated to the approach of that school. Our present study of philosophy should therefore have the eradication of dogmatist thinking as its main objective”. SW I, p. 311; XJ I, p. 274.
4-383
Addition in official text:
“Lenin said:
The two basic (or two possible ? or two historically observable ?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition,
“Here Lenin was referring to these two different world outlooks.” SW I, p. 312; XJ I, p. 275.
4-384
Official text reads: “In China another name for metaphysics is
“The metaphysical or vulgar evolutionist world outlook sees things as isolated, static and one-sided. It regards all things in the universe, their forms and their species, as eternally isolated from one another and immutable. Such change as there is can only be an increase or decrease in quantity or a change of place. Moreover, the cause of such an increase or decrease or change of place is not inside things but outside them, that is, the motive force is external. Metaphysicians hold that all the different kinds of things in the universe and all their characteristics have been the same ever since they first came into being. All subsequent changes have simply been increases or decreases in quantity. They contend that a thing can only keep on repeating itself as the same kind of thing and cannot change into anything different. In their opinion, capitalist exploitation…”. SW I, p. 312; XJ I, p. 275‒276.
4-385
Official text reads: “…searches in an over-simplified way…”; SW I, p. 312; XJ I, p. 276.
4-388
Official text reads: “In Europe, this mode of thinking existed as mechanical materialism in the 17th and 18th centuries and as vulgar evolutionism at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. In China, there was the metaphysical thinking exemplified in the saying ‘Heaven changeth not, likewise the Dao changeth not’, and it was supported by the decadent feudal ruling classes for a long time. Mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism, which were imported from Europe in the last hundred years, are supported by the bourgeoisie”. SW I, p. 313; XJ I, p. 276.