Correct thought should not exclude the third factor, should not exclude the law of the negation of the negation…. The law of excluded middle in formal logic also supplements its law of identity, which only recognises the fixed condition of a concept, and which opposes its development, opposes revolutionary leaps, and opposes the principle of the negation of the negation…. Why do formal logicians advocate these things? Because they observe things separate from their continual mutual function and interconnection; that is, they observe things at rest rather than in movement, and as separate rather than in connection. Therefore, it is not possible for them to consider and acknowledge the importance of contradictoriness and the negation of the negation within things and concepts, and so advocate the rigid and inflexible law of identity.[1-72]
Although it is evident from this document that Mao was employing the concept of the “negation of the negation” in a positive way during the Yan’an period, it is also evident, as we have seen, that Mao had arrived at a position which perceived the unity of opposites as the most important of the philosophical categories; as Mao was to point out in the same section of the pre-Liberation text of
In the Mao texts of the 1950s and early 1960s, we find that Mao was still employing the concept of the “negation of the negation”, and not by any means in a dismissive way. By the same token, this concept appears far less frequently than does the unity of opposites, and references to it are sometimes rather enigmatic. For example, in January 1957, Mao employed the concept of the “negation of the negation” to indicate Stalin’s lack of ability as a dialectician; “Stalin made mistakes in dialectics. ‘Negation of the negation’. The October Revolution negated capitalism but he refused to admit that socialism may be negated too”.[1-74] In May 1958, Mao again employed the concept to explain and illustrate change and supercession in the historical process; “The dialectics of Greece, the metaphysics of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance…. It is the negation of the negation…. Lenin’s dialectics, Stalin’s partial metaphysics, and today’s dialectics are also the negation of the negation”.[1-75]Similarly, in his July 1957 criticism of
As late as September 1962, Mao continued to employ this concept. In his important speech at the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee, he referred to the “negation of the negation” as constituting an aspect of the transformation of opposites into one another: