Mao Zedong On Dialectical Materialism полностью

Second, Mao took propositions from traditional Chinese philosophy and transformed or developed them to provide them with a new significance. For example, xiangfan-xiangcheng (things that are in opposition are also complementary) did not in the Han Shu extend the concept of the unity of opposites universally. Mao, however, was to take this idea and employ it in On Contradiction to illustrate the message that there is both struggle and identity between the two opposing aspects of a contradiction, and that this was a universally occurring phenomenon.[1-139] A further example is Mao’s employment of Lao Zi’s maxim that things that are in opposition undergo a process of mutual transformation, each changing into its opposite; here again, Mao could absorb this dialectical conception while excluding its metaphysical and idealist aspects, basing it on a materialist conception of the universe.

Third, Mao used propositions or categories from traditional dialectics which were readily understandable and lively in form to express the principles of dialectical materialism. A particular example is the concept of “one divides into two” (yi fen wei er), which appears in a large number of traditional sources. While being incorporated within an idealist and mystical system, it contained the dialectical conception of the two aspects of a contradiction and was expressed in a form which could be readily appreciated by all.

Fourth, Mao employed examples of dialectics which appear in classical Chinese stories and proverbs. Of particular importance here were the Shui Hu Zhuan (Water Margin), Xi You Ji (Journey to the West), San Guo Yan Yi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), amongst others. These sources were well known amongst the masses of the people, and the use of material from them to illustrate his expositions of dialectical materialism would have the effect of making a rather abstruse and unfamiliar subject more accessible to ordinary Chinese people.

Fifth, Mao drew on the oral tradition of the Chinese people, a tradition replete with sayings with a dialectical flavour. Examples are “the east wind prevails over the west wind”, and “failure is the mother of success”.

It was the employment and incorporation of these aspects of traditional Chinese philosophy and culture which provided Mao’s philosophical thought and his Marxism generally with a distinctly Chinese flavour. While this perspective on the origins of Mao’s philosophical thought emphasises the influence of Chinese traditional concepts and categories on Mao’s thought, it is emphatic in its assertion that this influence was never to become the dominant aspect. His achievement was to draw critically on the dialectical and materialist themes already present in an often undeveloped and confused form within traditional Chinese philosophy. Nevertheless, the basic categories, concepts, and principles which characterised Mao’s philosophical thought were Marxist, and these formed the foundation which provided the standpoint and method from which the Chinese tradition could be evaluated. And of course, the foundation of Mao’s philosophy was dialectical materialism, which he elaborated and developed in a systematic way in his essays of 1937.

It is worth pausing at this point to make some comparisons with the views of Western Mao scholars on the origins of Mao’s thought. We notice at once that there is considerable overlap. At one pole of a continuum of interpretation, there are those scholars who approach Mao’s thought and philosophy as Marxist.[1-140] From this perspective, Mao’s writings are replete with the categories of Marxism – economic base/ideological superstructure, relations and forces of production, a teleological conception of history based on materialism, class and class struggle, revolution, etc. – and his sources of theoretical inspiration are taken to be those of the Marxist tradition. Scant if any attention is given to the Chinese cultural and philosophical tradition, for these were the product of a class-based society which Mao was determined to destroy and reconstruct on the basis of Marxist conceptions of a communist future. Further along the continuum of interpretation lies the bulk of Western views on the origins of Mao’s thought.