"I eat by summing up experience"-Learning Mao Zedong's ideological and working methods

 

Summing up experience is the work of understanding and re-understanding on the basis of practice and re-practice. It is the work of constantly raising perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, and constantly sublimating and developing knowledge. In addition to their superb theoretical level, Mao Zedong and other proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation have always attached importance to learning from war, from the masses, from history, and from mistakes, and regarded summing up experience as an important way of thinking and working.

 

"Learning war from war"

 

In his revolutionary career of more than half a century, Mao Zedong directly and participated in the command of the number and scale of wars, which are very rare in the history of war at all times and at home and abroad. On July 26, 1965, when Mao Zedong met Mr. and his wife Li Zongren, the former acting president of the Kuomintang government who had just returned from overseas in Zhongnanhai, he suddenly took the initiative to ask Cheng Siyuan, Li Zongren's confidential secretary, "Do you know what I depend on for a living?" Cheng was at a loss for a moment. Mao Zedong went on to say meaningfully:"I eat by summing up experience. In the past, when the people's Liberation Army fought wars, after each battle, we always summed up our experience, carried forward our advantages and overcome our shortcomings, and then went lightly, marched forward from victory to victory, and finally established a People's Republic of China."

 

This statement of Mao Zedong is fully in line with the actual situation of himself and the army led by the Communist Party of China. He has a famous saying: "Reading is learning, using is learning, and it is more important learning. Learning war from war-this is our main method. "He also said:" To be a truly capable senior commander is not something that can be done by just being a beginner or just being good at talking on paper, but only by learning in war. "As we all know, Mao Zedong's" sixteen-character formula "on guerrilla warfare was regarded as a classic of guerrilla warfare by third world countries in the 1960 s and 1970 s. In 1964, when he recalled the past together with Zhou Peiyuan and Yu Guangyuan, he mentioned the origin of this "16-character formula. He said he never thought he would go to the military, go to war. Later, he really brought up the troops to fight and went to Jinggang Mountain. There was a small victory in Jinggangshan, followed by two big victories, so after summing up experience, the "16-character formula" was produced ".

 

In response to the "Left" dogmatists in the party slandering him for not knowing war and mocking him for learning the tactics from "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Mao Zedong did not hide it. He said frankly: "Yes, I don't understand their stupid way of fighting. I have indeed read many books on ancient Chinese wars, studied works such as Sun Tzu's Art of War, and read many books on foreign wars, but my military knowledge came mainly from the practice of war."

Studying war in the war enabled Mao Zedong to develop a perfect and miraculous military command art. In the long years of revolutionary war, he directed scenes of war dramas that impressed future generations, creating miracles in the military history of China and foreign countries, and attracting the attention of the whole world. the british scholar michael elliot batman commented that "mao zedong was a man of the times who held a complete set of keys to unlock the military mysteries of this era" and "a political and military genius".

"The source of strength is the people"

Mao Zedong not only attached importance to summing up his own experience, but also attached importance to summing up the practical experience of the broad masses of the people. On August 29, 1964, Mao Zedong received the Nepalese education delegation. The member of the delegation asked, "Can you tell us what is your great secret? How can you be so great? What is the source of your strength?" Mao Zedong replied frankly, "I am not great, just learned a little knowledge from the common people","The source of strength is the people".

 

Mao Zedong believed that his thoughts were nothing but the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Communist Party of China and the people. He once said: "Any hero, his thoughts, opinions, plans, and methods can only be a reflection of the objective world. His raw materials or semi-finished products can only come from the practice of the people, or in his own scientific experiments. It can only be used as a processing factory to make finished products, otherwise it is useless. Whether this kind of finished product made of the human brain is suitable for use or not, whether it is correct or not, has to be tested by the people. "In his article" Against Bookism ", he clearly pointed out that the correct and unshakable struggle strategy of the Communist Party cannot be produced by a few people sitting in the house. It can only be produced in the course of the struggle of the masses. That is to say, it can only be produced in the actual experience of the people. He further stated that experience is the standard for testing policies. Policies must be in the practice of the people, that is, in experience, to prove their correctness and to determine the degree of correctness and error.

In the period of socialist construction, in the face of new tasks and challenges, Mao Zedong further asked the leaders of party committees at all levels to "not only hand in tasks and policies, but also hand in experience. To do a good job, we must sum up experience. We should not only sum up the experience of leaders, but also focus on summing up the various experiences of mass production ". Although he is a leader of a country, he still sets an example to maintain the style of in-depth investigation and research among the masses during the war, pays attention to the specific conditions of various places, and promptly discovers the experience worth promoting among the masses. In February 1953, Mao Zedong investigated and learned about the local experience of raising pigs, fattening, and growing crops in the countryside of Taixing, Jiangsu. Later, at the party cadre meeting, he repeatedly talked about the relationship between pig raising, fertilizer accumulation and agriculture, which shows His concern and attention to the experience of the masses.

 

"If you want to look at the future, you must look at history"

 

The more important the historical juncture, the more Mao Zedong attached importance to reading and appraising history. He once said: "If you want to look at the future, you must look at history. "As soon as the War of Resistance against Japan entered the stage of strategic stalemate, Mao Zedong issued a call to the whole Party:" All Communist Party members with considerable research capabilities "must study the history of our nation". In March 1944, Guo Moruo's "Jiashen Three Hundred Years Ceremony" was published, which aroused Mao Zedong's high enthusiasm. He regarded this article as an important document of the Yan'an rectification movement; in November of the same year, he specially wrote to Guo Moruo: "Your" Jiashen Three Hundred Years Ceremony ", we treat it as a rectification document. A small victory is pride, and a big victory is even more proud. It is worth noting how to avoid this problem."

Mao Zedong raised the importance of summing up historical experience to the height of Marxist epistemology. He said: "The history of mankind is a history of continuous development from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom ...... Therefore, mankind must constantly sum up experience, discover, invent, create, and move forward."

Most of Mao Zedong's works are written on the basis of summing up the historical experience of ancient and modern China and foreign countries, especially the historical experience of revolution and socialist construction led by the Communist Party of China, such as the analysis of various classes in Chinese society, the strategic issues of China's revolutionary war, the theory of practice, the theory of contradiction, the theory of protracted war, the theory of new democracy, etc. In his article "How to Study the History of the Communist Party of China", he put forward more clearly: "Now everyone is studying the history of the party, and this research is necessary. If we do not make clear the history of the party and the path taken in the history of the party, we cannot do things better."

 

"Error is often the precursor of right"

 

Mao Zedong's excellence lies not only in his ability to sum up successful experiences, but also in his ability to learn lessons and find opportunities for success. He said: "The blindness and freedom of understanding, always alternating and expanding its field, is always the coexistence of error and right... error is often the precursor of right."

At the end of January 1935, Mao Zedong, who took command of the Red Army after the Zunyi Conference, lost the battle of Tucheng, and the Red Army suffered heavy losses. At the Tashi meeting, Mao Zedong summed up three lessons: first, the enemy's situation was not accurate, second, the enemy was underestimated, and third, the troops were dispersed. It was precisely because of the lessons learned from this battle that Mao Zedong left behind a "proud work" in the history of war with his masterpiece of "crossing Chishui four".

Because of the importance of using mistakes and lessons, Mao Zedong always grasped both positive and negative aspects when summing up experience. In his article "The Struggle in Jinggangshan" written in November 1928, he not only talked about the successful experience of the Hunan-Jiangxi border separation, but also talked about the lessons of the two failures in April and August; in the "Chinese Revolution" published in December 1936 In the "Strategic Issues of the War", it also summarized the successful experience of the first three anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaigns in the central revolutionary base areas, it also summed up the lessons of the failure of the fifth counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression. He has repeatedly pointed out that "mistakes are inevitable for any political party or individual" and that "mistakes have a dual nature. On the one hand, mistakes harm the party and the people; on the other hand, they are good teachers, who educate the party and the people well, which is good for the revolution. Failure is the mother of success ".

Summing up lessons not only refers to summing up the lessons of one's own failure, but also includes summing up the lessons of the failure of others and even the enemy for my own use. Mao Zedong has a famous saying: "If you turn other people's experience into your own, he will have great skills. "He once used Wang Ming's dogmatic mistakes as an example to illustrate the significance of wrong experience in guiding the Chinese revolution. From this point of view, he believed that he himself was Wang Ming's" student ". Mao Zedong believed that the teachers of the Chinese revolution should not only include Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, but also imperialism, Chiang Kai-shek, and comrades who made mistakes. Without them, we can't learn to do things.

 

Mao Zedong attached importance to experience, but firmly opposed empiricism, which he believed was as harmful as dogmatism. In order not to make the mistake of empiricism, people with work experience should not give up theoretical study, but should read carefully and constantly upgrade their perceptual experience to a more organized and comprehensive theory. At the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong called on all party members to have an in-depth understanding of China's revolutionary movement, including military, political, cultural, and economic, all aspects of the entire revolutionary work and its internal connections, and to sum up experience and improve it. Systematic and systematic.

Mao Zedong's ideological and working methods, which attach importance to summing up experience, are the precious spiritual wealth of our party. In the new journey of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, only when leading cadres at all levels have the courage to practice, dare to explore, and constantly sum up experience, can they innovate, make continuous progress, and do a good job in all kinds of work.

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Zhang Shanzhen

February 28, 2017 Source: Learning Times