Mao Zedong On Dialectical Materialism полностью

During the early Yan’an Period, Mao Zedong wrote in draft form a number of philosophical essays which have had in their post-Liberation versions an enormous impact on Chinese Marxism. These essays, On Practice and On Contradiction, are rightly regarded, alongside a number of other documents by Mao, as the cornerstone of the variant of Marxism which has developed in China.[1-1] For those interested in the development of the thought of Mao, and the emergence and development of Chinese Marxism, these essays represent a crucial starting point.

However, another lengthy text on philosophy written at exactly the time (July, August 1937)[1-2] that Mao penned On Contradiction and On Practice has only ever been published in post-Liberation China in neibu form (that is, as a confidential, internal Party document and not for general circulation). This is a document entitled Dialectical Materialism (Lecture Notes)[1-3] While it is not true that this text has been left “to the gnawing criticism of the mice” by the Chinese as was once suspected in the West, and indeed has been published on several occasions as study material for cadres and academics,[1-4] it is certainly the case that the Chinese hold Dialectical Materialism in much lower regard than the “celebrated philosophical essays”[1-5] On Contradiction and On Practice. Indeed, when questioned on his authorship of Dialectical Materialism by Edgar Snow in 1965, Mao feigned ignorance of it, although his denial of authorship was not categorical.[1-6] The Chinese view of Dialectical Materialism, its origins and contribution to Chinese Marxism, has thus been an ambiguous one, and I will return subsequently to a more detailed analysis of the contemporary Chinese evaluation of this document.

While the Chinese perspective on Dialectical Materialism has been ambiguous, a very negative judgement has been rendered by Western scholars as fragments of the text have become available in the West from the early 1960s. Doolin and Goias, for example, declared Dialectical Materialism to be “a rambling, vague attempt at philosophical discourse”.[1-7]Similarly, Wittfogel argues that this essay indicates Mao’s “inability to expound comprehensively the concepts inherent in Hegelian-Marxist dialectics”, and that it can be regarded as a manifestation of Mao’s “peculiar conceptual limitations”.[1-8] A further example is Cohen’s view that Dialectical Materialism is “primitive and philosophically erroneous” and “sheds revealing light on his incompetence as a philosopher”.[1-9] Some years later and following Mao’s interview with Edgar Snow referred to above, John E. Rue rehearsed the known evidence (both conceptual and historical) relating to Dialectical Materialism and came to the conclusion that Mao “probably did not write it at all”, that it may have been a forgery “planted by Mao’s old enemies in the CCP” to discredit him.[1-10]