Leftist Reading: On Practice and Contradiction Part 12

Episode 87:This week we’re finishing On Practice and Contradiction by Mao ZedongThe two halves of the book are available online here:https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_16.htmhttps://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htmThe previous episode that already covered chapter 2 of this book can be found here:https://www.abnormalmapping.com/leftist-reading-rss/2020/8/31/guest-leftist-reading-oppose-book-worship[Part 1]1. A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire[Bonus 1, from the archives]2. Oppose Book Worship[Part 2]3. On Practice: On the Relation between Knowledge and Practice, between Knowing and Doing[Part 3 - 6]4. On Contradiction [Part 6]5. Combat Liberalism6. The Chinese People Cannot Be Cowed by the Atom Bomb7. US Imperialism Is a Paper Tiger[Part 7]8. Concerning Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR9. Critique of Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR[Part 8]10. On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the PeopleSection 1-2[Part 9]Section 3-8[Part 10]Section 9-1211. Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?[Part 11]12. Talk on Questions of Philosophy[Part 12 - This Week]12. Talk on Questions of PhilosophySecond Reading - 00:22Discussion - 24:55Footnotes:27) 00:34Ai Ssu-chti (c. 1910–66) was, at the time of his death, Vice-President of the Higher Party School. He was one of the Party’s leading philosophical spokesmen, who had translated works on dialectical materialism from the Russian, and written many books and articles which aimed to make Marxism accessible to the masses. On 1 November 1964 he published an article in People’s Daily attacking Yang Hsien-chen, the ‘bourgeois’ philosopher Mao refers to earlier in this talk in connection with the principle of ‘two combining into one’.28) 03:54The metaphor of ‘dissecting a sparrow’ is an applied theory and a work method to acquire knowledge and sum up experiences. Instead of attempting to generalize about a vast number of repetitions of a phenomenon, this work method advocates the in-depth analysis, thorough study and investigation of a prototype, and a summing-up experience through such analysis. The slogan is derived from the common saying, ‘while a sparrow is small, it contains all the vital organs’. Here, Mao makes the point that, in the broader international context, China as a whole is a microcosm of the problems of revolution in the world today.29) 05:27Leng Tzu-hsing discourses on the mansion of the Duke of Jung-kuo in chapter 2 of The Story of the Stone. The ‘Talisman for Officials’ was a list of the rich and influential families in the area which the former novice from the Bottle-Gourd Temple said every official should carry in order to avoid offending them and thereby wrecking his career.30) 06:33For Comrade Mao’s criticisms on this matter see ‘Letter Concerning the Dream of the Red Chamber’ (Selected Works, vol. V, pp. 150–51), ‘On Criticising Longloumeng yuanjia’ (Selected Works, vol. V, pp. 293–94). For Mao’s criticism of Yü P’ing-po see ‘Letter Concerning the Study of the Dream of the Red Chamber’, 16 October 1954, Selected Works, vol. V. Wang K’un-lun was Vice-Mayor of Peking in the 1950s.31) 06:36Ho Ch’i-fang (1911—), a lyric poet and powerful figure in the literary world, had defended Yü P’ing-po up to a point at the time of the campaign against him in 1954, saying that Yü was wrong in his interpretation of the Dream of the Red Chamber, but politically loyal. He himself came under attack at the time of the Great Leap Forward.32) 06:41Wu Shih-ch’ang’s work on this subject has been translated into English: On ‘The Red Chamber Dream’, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961.33) 07:01Mao’s statement here concords with the views of Lu Hsün.34) 07:55The figures Mao gives here, as he shifts to the present and calls to mind the final showdown with the Kuomintang, are those at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War rather than those at the beginning of the renewed civil war in 1946, when the People’s Liberation Army had grown to at least half a million men.35) 09:28In January 1949, General Fu Tso-i, commanding the nationalist garrison in Peiping (as it was then called), surrendered the city without a fight to avoid useless destruction. He subsequently became Minister of Water Conservancy in the Peking government.36) 11:05The legendary Emperor Shen Nung is said to have taught the art of agriculture in the third millennium BC, and in particular to have discovered the medicinal properties of plants.37) 14:30The Lung Shan and Yang Shao cultures, located respectively in northeastern and north-western China, were the two most remarkable cultures of the neolithic period. As Mao indicates, they are particularly noted for their pottery.38) 16:18The book called the Chuang-tzu, which was probably composed only in part by the man of the same name who lived in the second half of the fourth century BC, is not only one of the classic texts of Taoism (with the Lao-tzu and the Book of Changes), but one of the greatest literary masterpieces in the history of China.39) 22:23Sakata Shiyouchi, a Japanese physicist from the University of Nagoya, holds that ‘elementary particles are a single, material, differentiated and limitless category which make up the natural order’. An article by him expounding these views was published in Red Flag in June 1965.40) 22:55Mao is apparently referring to a collection of essays published by Jen Chi-yü in 1963, and reprinted in 1973: Han Tang fo-chiao ssu-hsiang lun chi (Collected Essays on Buddhist Thought in the Han and T’ang Dynasties). In these studies, he quotes from Lenin at considerable length regarding dialectics.41) 23:06T’ang Yung-t’ung (1892–1964), whom Jen Chi-yü acknowledges as his teacher, was the leading historian of Buddhism, who had written on Chinese Buddhism under the Han, Wei, Chin, and Northern and Southern dynasties, on the history of Indian thought, etc. He was Dean of the Humanities at Peking University from 1948 until he fell ill in 1954.42) 23:24Under the influence of Ch’an Buddhism (better known under its Japanese name of Zen), Chinese philosophers of the Sung and Ming dynasties, of whom Chu Hsi (1130–1200) is the most famous, developed a synthesis between Confucianism and Buddhism in which a central role is played by the concept li (principle or reason), commonly known as Neo-Confucianism. For a Chinese view of the relations between these schools basically similar to Mao’s, see Hou Wai-lu, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1959, pp. 33–51. For an interpretation by a Western specialist, see H. G. Creel, Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Zedong, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, and London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953, Ch. 10.43) 24:06Han Yü and Liu Tsung-yüan. Han Yü sought to recreate the simplicity of the classical period, while avoiding excessive archaism. The slogan about ‘learning from their ideas’ quoted by Mao refers to this aim of seeking inspiration from the ancient Confucian sages, while avoiding outmoded forms of expression. He adopted a critical attitude towards Buddhism, but nonetheless borrowed some ideas from it. Liu Tsung-yüan, whom Mao calls here by his literary name of Liu Tzu-hou, was a close friend of Han Yü.44) 24:17Liu Tsung-yüan’s essay T’ien Tui (Heaven Answers) undertook to answer the questions about the origin and nature of the universe raised by Ch’ü Yüan in his poem T’ien Wen (Heaven Asks). The latter is translated under the title ‘The Riddles’ in Li Sao and Other Poems of Chu Yuan. It is, as Mao says, suggestive but extremely obscure.