Speech at The Hangchow Conference: (SOURCE: Long Live Mao Tse-Tung Thought, A Red Guard Publication.)

Speech At The Hangchow Conference
Excerpt, May 1963
[SOURCE: Long Live Mao Tse-tung Thought, a Red Guard Publication.]
Philosophy must be discussed in the

(2) The problem of understanding course of practical work, it must be discussed at
After the Tenth Plenum1, [they] ran to 11 meetings. You must tell your comrade by your
provinces, and only Zu Hou and Yan Chuan side that philosophy is not at all difficult. Military
talked fluently and unceasingly about socialist studies are also not difficult. Among the
education while the others did not speak. After marshals and generals of our people’s
the February meeting the situation again Liberation Army only a few like Lin Biao and Liu
changed. For five months Henan had not Bocheng arose from military academies. 2
grasped class struggle, but after the February Turning the pages of a book on military studies
meeting it grasped it very well. There was a and reading the history of European wars are
change, but it was not an all-encompassing one. not relevant to the Chinese situation. It wasn’t
There were some regional committee the Whampoa Academy “foreigners” who
secretaries who after the February meeting did defeated the “locals,” but rather the “locals” who
not understand thoroughly, and only after going defeated the “foreigners.” Comrade Lin Biao was
down to conduct on the spot experiments did enrolled at the Whampoa Academy for half a
they understand thoroughly. year. . . when he was sent out to command a
I looked at Hunan’s second material. company he was basically unable to fight. He
Only now do I understand a little, and that is that had to listen to his squad leaders and fight
there is a two-road struggle between planning according to how they said to fight. Military
and production management. affairs are learned from practice. Therefore we
I have asked a good many people where must not look at Marxism as something so
thought comes from. All were unable to respond. mysterious, nor must we regard philosophy as
It is a common phenomenon of life that the so mysterious. I looked at a portion of Xue
material changes the mental and the mental Feng’s diary and this person understood little
changes the material. Illiterate peasants even philosophy.
understand this point. For example, you ask a If university students study for five years,
peasant if he knows that Zhang San is a can they learn philosophy well? I don’t believe it.
landlord who oppresses us. Once you have the A good many philosophers did not study in
concept of “Zhang San” and “landlord,” one can universities. Of China’s philosophers, including
reason out a landlord is a person who oppresses Wang Choung, Fan Zhen, Fu Xuan, Liu Zong
people. The peasants’ understanding is derived Yuan, Wang Chuan Shan, Li Zhi, Dai Dong
from life, and an illiterate can also understand Yuan, and Wei Yuan, none were specialists in
philosophy. Genghis Khan was an illiterate. philosophy. Hegel also was not a specialist in
A single word may rejuvenate a country, philosophy and his learning was very profound.
a single word may bring disaster to country. This Kant was an astronomer, and his theory of
is the mental changing the material. Marx is one heavenly bodies is still valuable today. Marx,
word which says there must be proletarian Engels, Lenin, and Stalin also were not
revolution and proletarian dictatorship; isn’t this specialists in philosophy.
a case of a single word rejuvenating? Philosophy comes out of the mounts and
Khrushchev is also one word, one which does valleys. A report as good as Ling Ling’s did not
not want class struggle and does not want emerge in Xiang Tan nor did it emerge in
revolution. Isn’t this a case of a single word
bringing disaster? 2
The academy referred to here is the Whampoa
[Huángpŭ] Military Academy. It was located at
Whampoa near Canton and was established by Dr.
Sun Yat-sen [Sūn Yìxiān] in 1924 after the
1
The tenth plenum of the CC of the CPC was held reorganization of the Guomindang with the help of
during June 1962 in Beijing. the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Union.
1
Chang De, it emerged in Ling Ling. Philosophy half hour, if we discuss more we become
is only able to emerge amidst adversity and muddled.
struggle. Philosophy arises from an adverse At the Moscow Conference I discussed
situation. Is philosophy able to arise from a philosophy and the Moscow Declaration 3
propitious situation? Huang Gai Xiong of the incorporated it but within the country no one
Three Kingdoms was a man of Ling Ling, Cheng discussed it.
Yi and Cheng Hao’s teacher Zhou Lianxi, a
great legalists of the Song Dynasty and of the
same school as Jiu Xi, were also men of Ling
Ling — from Dao Xian of the Ling Ling special
district Zhang Zai was from age 30 to age 40 in
Ling Ling. At that time it was named Yong Zhou.
His article on landscapes and his article on
debates with Han Yu were written there.
Therefore we must smash superstition.
However, we must pay attention so that we don’t
act as we did during the past few years,
smashing even that which shouldn’t be smashed.
A thing has both an appearance and an
essence; we must penetrate the superficial to
see the essence. The superficial and the
essence are the unity of opposites. The essence
cannot be seen so we must generate the
superficial and grasp the essence. For example,
if cadres do not participate in labor this will
certainly give rise to revisionism. To cite another
example, when we ordinarily walk along the road
we do not see the ants and when we take great
strides we see even less. We must squat down,
and only then can we see many things.
Otherwise it is not only the fresh sprouting things
which we cannot see, it is also the majority of
ordinary, existing things which we don’t see. For
example, class struggle and cadres not
participating in labor exist in large quantities, but
there are people who nonetheless cannot see
this. We must employ the scientific method and
advance investigation and study. Some people
subjectively and boldly hypothesize, subjectively
and cautiously seek evidence. In Hopeh various
regional party committees went down to
investigate and study; only the Bao Ding area
party committee was scientific; the others were
all subjective. At first the Bao Ding area party
committee did not go down to handle the four
clean-ups; it went down to handle distribution.
The masses did not agree and raised the
handling of the four clean-ups. When the Bao
Ding area party committee heard the opinion of
the masses, it changed its plan and handled the 3
four clean-ups. This then is genuine A reference to the meeting of Representatives of
investigation and study. the Communist and Workers Parties of the Socialist
In discussing philosophy we shouldn’t Countries held in Moscow, November 14-16, 1957.
exceed one hour. Finish discussing it within one- See Mao’s speech “A Dialectical Approach To Inner-
Party Unity”
2

Speech at The Hangchow Conference: (SOURCE: Long Live Mao Tse-Tung Thought, A Red Guard Publication.)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Speech at The Hangchow Conference: (SOURCE: Long Live Mao Tse-Tung Thought, A Red Guard Publication.)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Speech at The Hangchow Conference: (SOURCE: Long Live Mao Tse-Tung Thought, A Red Guard Publication.)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Speech At The Hangchow Conference

Excerpt, May 1963

[SOURCE: Long Live Mao Tse-tung Thought, a Red Guard Publication.]

Philosophy must be discussed in the

You might also like