"Practice is the Standard of Truth" -- Revisiting Mao Zedong's Theory of Practice

In 1937, the all-out war of resistance rose sharply. The Chinese Communists, who have gone through the bloodshed and twists and turns of the Great Revolution and the Agrarian Revolutionary War, and suffered deeply from the mistakes of right opportunism and Wang Ming's "left" dogmatism, in the face of the rapid changes in the situation and tasks, there are still dogmatists who "confuse the broad masses of comrades in the cloak of Marxism-Leninism", and it is urgent to strengthen the party theoretically! In July of this year, in the simple cave dwelling of Fenghuang Mountain in Yan'an, Mao Zedong wrote the "theory of practice" in the 11th section of chapter 2 of dialectical materialism (teaching outline), with the purpose of "exposing the subjectivism of dogmatism that belies practice". With this as a lecture, Mao Zedong taught the "theory of practice" in the Kangda University, explaining the profound philosophical principles with vivid examples, "The old comrades who attended the lecture laughed, the new comrades laughed, the teachers laughed, and the cooks laughed. One key opened a thousand locks". After the founding of New China, it was revised and improved. On December 29, 1950, "On Practice" was published on the front page of "People's Daily.

As the philosophical basis of Mao Zedong Thought, "On Practice" provides an important theoretical basis for the formation of the ideological line and method of the Chinese Communists. It takes the dialectical relationship between cognition and practice as the core, comprehensively expounds the basic position and leading role of practice as the source, power and standard of cognition, discusses the development process of cognition based on practice, discusses the relationship between absolute truth and relative truth, analyzes the manifestations and characteristics of dogmatism and empiricism, and contains rich Marxist philosophical wisdom, today, 85 years after its advent, it is more worthy of profound experience.

Focusing on the source of understanding, "Practice Theory" pointed out: "Human production activities are the most basic practical activities, and they are the things that determine all other activities"

The subtitle of "On Practice" is "On the relationship between cognition and practice-the relationship between knowledge and action", which highlights that the focus of this article is to explain the relationship between cognition and practice, that is, the relationship between "knowledge" and "action" in traditional Chinese culture. In real social life, the basic characteristic of human behavior is to think first and then act, and to know and act in common, which is the so-called "think twice before acting". This makes it easy to mistakenly believe that knowledge precedes practice and that knowledge determines practice. In order to refute this erroneous view, the theory of practice states at the beginning: "Marx's materialism left human sociality and human historical development to observe and understand problems. Therefore, we can not understand the dependence of cognition on social practice, that is, the dependence of cognition on production and class struggle." It is further proposed that, according to the dialectical materialist epistemology, "human knowledge depends mainly on material production activities, and gradually understands natural phenomena, natural properties, natural laws, and the relationship between man and nature; and through production activities, To various degrees, a certain interrelationship between people is gradually recognized. All this knowledge cannot be obtained without production activities". It is revealed that in the relationship between cognition and practice, in the final analysis, practice determines cognition, not cognition determines practice.

Focusing on the essence of cognition, "On Practice" pointed out: "Only people's social practice is the truth standard of people's understanding of the outside world"

Before the emergence of Marxist philosophy, around the essence of cognition, idealism believed that human cognition was a subjective and self-generated thing; agnostic skepticism believed that whether human cognition correctly reflected objective things could not be proved; the intuition of old materialism believed that cognition was the reflection of human brain to the objective world, This reflection is a process in which the cognizant passively and passively accepts the stimulation of objective things. In response to these erroneous views, Marxist philosophy clearly points out that the essence of cognition is the active reflection of the subject to the object based on practice. As Lenin pointed out in his Philosophical Notes: "Human will not only reflects the objective world, but also creates the objective world." The Theory of Practice elaborates this in layman's terms: "If people want to win their work, that is, to get the desired results, they must make their thoughts conform to the laws of the objective world, and if they do not, they will fail in practice. After people have failed, they also learn from their failures and correct their thoughts to make them suitable for the laws of the outside world, and they can turn failure into victory." And profoundly concluded that "the judgment of the truth of knowledge or theory is not determined by how it is subjectively felt, but by how it is objectively the result of social practice", thus the final word "the criterion of truth can only be social practice. The point of view of practice is the first and basic point of view of dialectical materialism epistemology".

Focusing on the process of cognition, the "Theory of Practice" pointed out: "In the complex and often repeated practice of their production and class struggle, people in society have moved from perceptual recognition to theoretical knowledge"

After profoundly expounding the source and essence of cognition, Mao Zedong raised a question: "How does human cognition occur from practice and serve practice?" then they gave vivid answers through examples: some people from outside came to Yan'an to investigate. In the first day or two, they saw the topography, streets and houses of Yan'an, contacted many people, attended banquets, parties and mass meetings, heard all kinds of speeches and saw all kinds of documents. These are the phenomena of things. This is called the perceptual stage of cognition, which is the first stage of cognition; after gathering all kinds of materials and "thinking about it", the gentlemen of the foreign delegation were able to make a judgment and further conclude that "the Anti Japanese national united front can succeed." This stage of conception, judgment and reasoning is the more important stage, the stage of rational knowledge. Then it concludes that "knowledge begins with experience-this is the materialism of epistemology", "the perceptual stage of knowledge needs to be developed to the rational stage-this is the dialectics of epistemology", "rational knowledge depends on perceptual knowledge, and perceptual knowledge needs to be developed to rational knowledge, which is the epistemology of dialectical materialism". Twenty-six years after the publication of "On Practice", after further ideological precipitation, in May 1963, Mao Zedong wrote "Where does the correct thinking of people come from?" one article pointed out: "A correct understanding often needs to go through many repetitions from material to spirit, from spirit to material, that is, from practice to knowledge, from recognition to practice, before it can be completed. This is the epistemology of Marxism, the epistemology of dialectical materialism." It clearly shows the theoretical thread of Mao Zedong Thought, which is becoming more and more mature and perfect day by day.

Focusing on the purpose of understanding, the "Theory of Practice" pointed out: "Understanding begins with practice, and after practice, it has obtained theoretical understanding, and it must return to practice"

From perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, is the cognitive movement over? The answer given by Mao Zedong is no. "On Practice" pointed out that "the most important issue in Marxist philosophy is not to understand the regularity of the objective world and thus be able to explain the world, but to use this understanding of the objective regularity to actively transform the world", "Practice, understanding, re-practice, re-understanding, this form, the cycle is endless, and the content of each cycle of practice and understanding, all relatively advanced to a higher level. This is the whole epistemology of dialectical materialism, this is the dialectical materialist view of the unity of knowledge and action". On the basis of theoretical interpretation, in June 1943, Mao Zedong pointed out in his article "Some Questions on Leadership Methods" that "in all practical work of our party, all correct leadership must come from the masses and go to the masses", "Such an infinite cycle is more correct, more vivid and richer each time. This is the Marxist epistemology". Combining theory with practice and turning epistemology into the party's mass line has become an important achievement of the Sinicization of Marxism. As the finishing touch of the full text, "On Practice" makes a profound summary of the "two leaps", pointing out that "the dynamic role of cognition is not only manifested in the dynamic leap of cognition from perceptual to rational, but more importantly, it must be manifested." From the rational recognition of the revolutionary practice this leap ", and put forward the wonderful thesis that" practice is the standard of truth. More than 40 years later, "practice is the only criterion for testing truth" is the precursor of rectification, rectification, and reform and opening up. The party's guiding ideology comes down in one continuous line, and the brilliance of Marxist truth contained in it has always been shining.

Focusing on the interrelationship between absolute truth and relative truth, "On Practice" pointed out: "Marxism-Leninism does not end truth, but continuously opens up the road to understanding truth in practice"

"truth" is people's correct reflection of objective things and their laws. Starting from materialism, Marxism recognizes that "the existence of truth is unconditional". At the same time, adhering to the attitude of dialectics, it is believed that because "the boundary of our knowledge approaching objective and absolute truth is restricted by historical conditions", "the conditions for our approach to this truth are also unconditional". The Theory of Practice has a high degree of theoretical generalization of this, stating: "In the absolute total process of cosmic development, the development of each specific process is relative, so in the long river of absolute truth, people's understanding of the specific process at each certain stage of development has only relative truth. The sum of countless relative truths is absolute truth." And further explained that "the change movement of the objective real world is never over, and people's understanding of truth in practice is never over." Before writing "On Practice", Mao Zedong read the Chinese translation of "Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism" by the Soviet philosopher Mitin, and wrote in the annotation: "Practice is developing, and theory should also be developing." It is the early thinking and popular explanation of the relationship between absolute truth and relative truth that also provides a reliable basis for the party's theoretical innovation in the past century.

Learning philosophy and using philosophy is a good tradition of our party. Mao Zedong once pointed out, "There are quite a few of our cadres who are self-righteous. One of the reasons is that they do not understand Marxist epistemology". General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to the study of the basic principles of Marxism and the party's innovative theory of party members and leading cadres, and lists Mao Zedong's works that "need to be read repeatedly and intensively." the first one is "on practice." One of the important purposes is to hope that the majority of party members and leading cadres can master scientific leadership and working methods and follow the party's mass line in the new era. Today, 85 years after the publication of "On Practice", to welcome the victory of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, at the critical moment of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, revisiting the philosophical thoughts in "On Practice" will undoubtedly strengthen our beliefs, beliefs and confidence. Correct thinking, methods and attitudes, forge ahead in a new journey, and build a new era, which has important guiding significance.

Source: CPC Central Committee History and Literature Research Institute