Beijing, 4 Jan (China News Service) -- Title: Why has the idea of seeking truth from facts become an example of "two combinations"?
——Interview with Fang Ning, a researcher at the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
China News Service reporter An Yingzhao
Editor's Note:
The third historical resolution of the Communist Party of China, the "Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party's Century-Long Struggle," was recently released in full. The resolution points out that China's excellent traditional culture is the outstanding advantage of the Chinese nation and the foundation for us to stand firm in the turmoil of world culture, and it must be inherited and carried forward well in combination with the conditions of the new era.
The "East and West Questions" column of China News Service has launched a special plan today, exclusively interviewing a number of well-known scholars to deeply explore the civilizational roots of socialism with Chinese characteristics, in order to provide readers at home and abroad with a diversified perspective on the new form of human civilization.
The Sixth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China recently deliberated and adopted the "Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on the Major Achievements and Historical Experiences of the Party's Century-Long Struggle," which pointed out: "Persist in integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific reality and with China's excellent traditional culture." Looking back at the history of the CPC over the past hundred years, the ideological line of seeking truth from facts can be called a model of "two combinations."
Fang Ning, a researcher at the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out in a recent exclusive interview with the China News Agency's "East and West Questions" that the idea of seeking truth from facts is not only the product of the integration of Marxist theory with the reality of China's revolution and construction, but also the combination of Marx's practical materialism and China's excellent traditional culture. Today, when Chinese civilization is moving toward rejuvenation, Chinese once again stands at the forefront of the exploration of human civilization, and in the future, If China wants to solve unknown problems with the world, it is also necessary to continue to adhere to and carry forward the spiritual idea of seeking truth from facts.
The interview transcript is summarized below:
China News Service: From the earliest record of the "Hanshu Hejian Xianwang Biography", to the long hanging plaque of Yuelu Academy, to the prevalence of "practical learning" in the Ming and Qing dynasties, how did seeking truth from facts become an important ideological and cultural tradition in China?
Fang Ning: In China's history, especially in the contemporary era, seeking truth from facts, as an epistemological philosophical thought and a political philosophy, is indeed very unique, and it has played a major role in political practice and national development, which can be said to be a very unique "Chinese phenomenon."
Looking back at history, seeking truth from facts in China has probably gone through three stages.
Originally, seeking truth from facts belonged to an academic idea, a method proposed by the ancients in the study of evidence and exegesis. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, Liu De, the son of Emperor Jingdi of Han and the brother of Emperor Wu, devoted himself to the collation and examination of ancient documents, and the "Biography of the King of Hejian" evaluated his rigorous governance with "cultivating the ancient and seeking truth from facts", and the academic circles generally regarded it as the earliest source of the word "seeking truth from facts".
During the Southern Song Dynasty, state affairs were difficult, and the "Huxiang School" represented by Hu Anguo emphasized that scholarship should be "healthy and difficult", and this pragmatic style of study was later carried forward in The Yuelu Academy, the temple of Huxiang culture. In the late Qing Dynasty, the country was once again facing a huge crisis, and Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, and others inherited this style of study, combining seeking truth from facts with the "theory of poverty in things" advocated by Zhu Xi and the "theory of poverty in matters" put forward by Wang Fuzhi as a method and way to understand things through the world and things, so that seeking truth from facts rose from an academic method to the level of epistemological philosophical thought. In 1885, Bian Baodi, the Governor of Hunan, wrote in the preface to the "Hunan Tongzhi" that "the heart of seeking truth from facts does not dare not be encouraged.". Zeng Jize, the eldest son of Zeng Guofan and a modern diplomat, proposed to study "the study of people in the sea country of deeply pondering things and seeking truth from facts," which further enriched the connotation of seeking truth from facts at the methodological level.
In 2021, people visited Yuelu Academy in Changsha, Hunan Province. China News Service reporter Jia Tianyong photographed
After the Xinhai Revolution, Bin Bucheng, principal of Hunan Public Industrial College, inscribed "Seeking Truth from Facts" as the school motto. The school was built on the site of Yuelu Academy, where the young Mao Zedong taught yang Changji twice, and was deeply influenced by Huxiang culture. Later, in the practice of leading the Chinese revolution, Mao Zedong raised seeking truth from facts to the height of political philosophy, and set "seeking truth from facts" as the motto of the Party School of the CENTRAL Committee of the Communist Party of China. One idiom and two school mottos are also passed down as beautiful talk.
It can be seen from this that in the political practice of China's history, seeking truth from facts has often been sublimated at critical moments of national crisis and social crisis, and has gradually become the essence of Chinese ideology and culture.
China News Service: In the different historical stages of the sinification of Marxism, how is the idea of seeking truth from facts embodied?
Fang Ning: The formation and establishment of the CPC's ideological line of seeking truth from facts is a long one. In 1930, Mao Zedong published "Against Originalism" in the Jiangxi Soviet District, putting forward the famous phrase "no investigation, no right to speak", and proposed, "Do not discuss and examine according to the actual situation, blindly implement", which is "not at all the ideological line of the Communists to create a new situation from the struggle". It can be seen that as early as that time, Mao Zedong had already linked "proceeding from reality" with the party's ideological line.
In 1938, Mao Zedong proposed in the report "On the New Stage" at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that "Communist Party members should be models of seeking truth from facts and models of farsightedness." It is generally believed that this is the first time that Mao Zedong has publicly proposed "seeking truth from facts." At that time, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression had been launched in an all-round way and had experienced setbacks and defeats, and the Chinese Communists represented by Mao Zedong understood this truth in blood and tears, and they must oppose and get rid of dogmatism, and proceed from China's reality in everything.
In 1941, when Mao Zedong made a report entitled "Transforming Our Study" at the Yan'an Cadre Conference, he made a theoretical summary of "seeking truth from facts": "'Facts' means all things that exist objectively, 'is' means the internal relations of objective things, that is, regularity, and 'seeking' means that we study them." Since then, the idea of seeking truth from facts has continued to develop and develop, and has become the ideological line that the CCP has adhered to for a long time.
In April 2014, many visitors visited the Yan'an Revolution Memorial Hall in Yan'an, Shaanxi Province. China News Service reporter Xiong Ran photographed
During the period of reform and opening up, the second-generation leadership collective of the CPC with Deng Xiaoping as the core resumed the establishment and further development of the ideological line of seeking truth from facts, and once again played a key role. In December 1978, Deng Xiaoping delivered a famous speech entitled "Emancipating the Mind, Seeking Truth from Facts, Uniting as One and Looking Forward" at the closing session of the Central Work Conference, stressing that "only by emancipating the mind, persisting in seeking truth from facts, proceeding from reality in everything, and integrating theory with practice can our socialist modernization drive proceed smoothly," thus making full ideological preparations for the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee.
Deng Xiaoping's emphasis on seeking truth from facts has two characteristics: one is to recognize backwardness, and the other is to uphold principles. At the beginning of reform and opening up, he pointed out that "the study of political science, law, sociology and world politics has been neglected by us for many years, and now we need to make up for it quickly." It took great courage to admit backwardness in the ideological environment at that time, but this was the essence of the idea of seeking truth from facts. More importantly, Deng Xiaoping also stressed that to realize the four modernizations, we must adhere to the four cardinal principles. These two characteristics are the embodiment of the combination of "seeking truth from facts" and "foresight", and are also the starting point of the political logic of China's reform and opening up.
Today, the CCP and the Chinese people have begun to move towards the second centenary goal. At the new historical starting point, General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly made profound expositions on why we should persist in seeking truth from facts and how to persist in seeking truth from facts. In his speech at the meeting to celebrate the 100 th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, he pointed out that "we must continue to promote the sinification of Marxism" and "persistently integrate the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific reality and with China's excellent traditional culture," thus once again opening up a new realm of the ideological line of seeking truth from facts. In the historical process of standing up and getting rich to becoming strong, seeking truth from facts will certainly continue to play an important role.
On July 1, 2021, the conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Photo by China News Service reporter Sheng Jiapeng
China News Service: In Western philosophical thought and political practice, is there a similar proposition of seeking truth from facts? Why did practical materialism become an integral part of Marxist philosophy?
Fang Ning: What is closer to the idea of seeking truth from facts in Western philosophy is materialist epistemology. The West also has a tradition of naïve materialism, but before Marx, there was no theoretical generalization similar to "seeking truth from facts". Marx proposed in the "Theses on Feuerbach" that "whether human thinking has objective truth is not a theoretical question, but a practical question", it should be said that this sentence contains the idea of seeking truth from facts, and this sentence is also considered to be a starting point for the practice of materialist thought.
Marxism holds that matter is the primary, human thinking is secondary, and whether human thinking can reflect the objectively existing material world and objective truth needs to be practiced, which is obviously consistent with the meaning of "seeking truth from facts." Marx proposed that "philosophers only interpret the world in different ways, the problem is to change the world"; later in the German Ideology, Marx and Engels put forward the idea of "practical materialism". Unlike the old materialism of the West, Marx's practical materialism has the meaning of "practice" ontology, which can more actively guide people to change the world.
Statues of Marx and Engels in the Exhibition Hall of the History of the Communist Party of China. China News Service reporter Jia Tianyong photographed
China News Service: In the historical process of realizing the second centenary goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, how should we promote the integration of the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific reality and with China's excellent traditional culture? From the perspective of civilization, how to understand the world significance of the theory and practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics?
Fang Ning: Sorting out the ideas of Seeking Truth from Facts in Chinese Dynasties and passing on the context of the text is itself a practice of the "second combination".
The report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and the main contradiction in our society has been transformed into a contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development." This is also a major judgment drawn from seeking truth from facts. Why unbalanced and inadequate? This is not a problem that only exists in contemporary China. As early as 1935, the concept of "Yaohun-Tengchong Line" proposed by Mr. Hu Huanyong revealed the objective reality of the imbalance between Chinese and natural resources. In history, from qin shi huang's car on the same track, the same book and the same text, to the successive rulers digging canals and dredging water transport, and then to the "great unification" tradition of Chinese civilization, they have all responded to this imbalance. These historical traditions have become an important resource for China today to improve the modernization level of its national governance system and governance capabilities. Solving China's actual unbalanced and inadequate development problems through the "two combinations" methodology is the real significance of reality.
Heilongjiang Heihe Yaohun - Tengchong Chinese Geographical Demarcation Line Theme Park Square Hu Huanyong Sculpture. Courtesy of respondents
China is the only country among the four ancient civilizations that has continued to this day, rich in the excellent genes of human civilization, and the Chinese nation has experienced and witnessed various problems encountered in human history. More importantly, Chinese civilization has come out of history and has not been lost in history. Since the development of the Chinese nation so far, what she has solved is not individual problems, but complex problems at the institutional level and civilization level, so its reference value is universal.
In the process of Developing from an agricultural civilization to an industrial civilization, China still has the experience of Western industrialization to follow. Nowadays, China has come to the forefront of world civilization, especially after achieving industrialization and building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, many of the new situations and contradictions it faces are common in the world, and there are no successful cases to refer to. Today, when Chinese civilization is moving toward rejuvenation, Chinese once again stands at the forefront of the exploration of human civilization, and in the future, China will work with the world to solve unknown problems, so at such a historical juncture, it is even more necessary to continue to adhere to and carry forward the spirit and thinking of seeking truth from facts. (End)
On the evening of June 28, 2021, the theatrical performance "The Great Journey" celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China was held at the National Stadium. China News Service reporter Han Haidan photographed
Respondent Profiles:
Fang Ning, political scientist, leading talent of philosophy and social science of the national "Ten Thousand People Plan", former director of the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, former party secretary and researcher. He is currently the vice president of the China Policy Science Research Association and the vice president of the Beijing Walking Association. He has been engaged in the research of political theory and practice for a long time, and has participated in the important research and theoretical article writing of relevant state departments for many times. In September 2010, he gave a lecture on "Correctly Handling Contradictions Among the People in the New Era" for the 23rd collective study of the Political Bureau of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and in April 2013, he gave a lecture on "Anti-Corruption and Promoting Honesty in China's History" for the 5th collective study of the Politburo of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Fang Ning advocates "learning from reality" and using the soles of his feet to do learning. In 2017, he visited the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on foot, and in 2021, he began to investigate the "Yaohun Tengchong Line".
Source: China News Network