Qian Changming: Talking about "seeking truth from facts"

 

Qian Changming 2021-05-16

(Translator’s preface: Chairman Mao’s principle of “seeking truth from facts” was a red flag waved by Deng Xiaoping to oppose the red flag of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong Thought. It has remained the mantra of every Chinese leader since Deng. All have followed him further and further along the road of capitalist restoration, and in my opinion, from there onto the highway of social-imperialism.  Qian Changming must, under current circumstances, write with great care. He not only defends Chairman Mao against allegations that he was responsible for the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward and subsequent three years of difficulties, including famine, but also uses the story of Zhao Gao to represent the leadership of a Party that points to the deer of revived capitalism and insists on calling it a horse of socialism. It gets away with it because of the masses’ fear of its power, a power which cannot be sustainable since it only has that as its basis. In his own footnote, the squatting method refers to the need to investigate a phenomenon in-depth, to choose the most representative of the typical, and understand the effects of its emergence. It was seriously distorted by leaders competing with each other to claim the best results.)

The world is full of "falsehoods", despite all the talk of "truthfulness". From international politics to commercial fraud, it is everywhere.

"Seeking truth from facts" requires the search for true knowledge based on empirical evidence. This is the spirit of science and the only correct line of thought for people to understand the objective world: to start from the actual object of objective existence, to explore the internal connection of things and the laws of their development, and to understand the essence of things.

Chairman Mao explained in Reform Our Study: "Facts" are all the things that exist objectively, "truth" means their internal relations, that is, the laws governing them, and "to seek" means to study.

In other words, we should not rely on subjective imagination, enthusiasm or dogma, but on objective facts to explore, study and draw scientific conclusions; otherwise, subjectivity and objectivity will be separated from each other, and we will fall into absurdity.

It is easy to say "seek truth from facts", but what we encounter in actual life is often the opposite situation.

For example, during the First Revolutionary Civil War, as the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutionary movement took off, the peasant movement in Hunan rapidly rose to prominence. The peasants organised themselves into peasant unions, attacked the landed gentry and beat up the privileges of the feudal landlords who had been in power for thousands of years. It was such an event that everyone from the middle of Chinese society up to the right wing of the Guomindang at the time was clamouring, "It's terrible!" But Chairman Mao, after 32 days of field investigation, wrote the "Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" and concluded, "It is very good!"

This shows that different class positions can produce different perceptions of the same "factual matter", leading to diametrically opposed conclusions.

For example, during the Great Leap Forward period, some cadres deceived their superiors and engaged in "boasting". They lied about the "10,000 catties of grain" per acre, turning what was originally a "real thing" into a complete falsification. In order to claim credit and move up the ladder, they engaged in idealism and metaphysics, which in turn reflected wrong philosophical views and methods of thought.

Another example is the story of Zhao Gao, who refers to a deer as a horse. When Hu Hai, the second emperor of Qin, succeeded to the throne, Zhao Gao took power. In order to test his power, he brought a deer and showed it to Hu Hai and his ministers, deliberately pointing to it and saying that it was a horse. Qin Emperor II laughed and said, "This is obviously a deer, how can you say it is a horse?” Zhao Gao looked around and shouted at everyone present, "Is this a deer?" The ministers and eunuchs nodded their heads in fear of Zhao Gao's power, saying that it was a horse. It can be seen that power can make people identify deer as horses and black as white!

It can be seen that different class positions, views and ideological approaches, as well as the power that some people have in their hands, can affect people's correct perception of things; they can interfere with people's efforts to "seek truth from facts", and even make some people degenerate to the point of willingly going mad.

However, no matter what the reason is, as long as people depart from the line of thought of seeking truth from facts, it is impossible to correctly perceive the objective world, let alone grasp the objective laws of development of things, and the result is bound to be a bloodbath, unable to escape the fate of failure.

Why did the First Revolutionary Civil War fail? It was because of the right-leaning opportunist leadership of the Communist Party at the time, Chen Duxiu, who could not realistically admit that the peasant movement was "too good to be true" and abandoned the peasants as an ally, eventually losing the power to resist when the right wing of the Guomindang betrayed the revolution.

Why did the " boastful wind" emerge during the Great Leap Forward Movement in 1958? This was the result of the front-line leaders' rejection of Chairman Mao's warning of "humility" for half a year[1] and their deviation from the ideological line of "seeking truth from facts".

Why did Zhao Gao's "pointing to the deer as a horse" get through unhindered? Because people were afraid of power. However, power is not sustainable. Power is the key to success, and power is the key to failure. Zhao Gao was eventually destroyed by power and was "executed by three clans".

In fact, all the violations of truthfulness and falsification were for their own personal benefit. To put it plainly, the word "selfish" was used. However, the Communists believe in the word "public", and a true Communist should adhere to the ideological line of seeking truth from facts and break with the practice of falsification. As Chairman Mao said:

"Our Communist Party and the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies led by our Party are battalions of the revolution. These battalions of ours are wholly dedicated to the liberation of the people and work entirely in the people's interests." ("Serve the People") And again.

"Our duty is to hold ourselves responsible to the people. Every word, every act and every policy must conform to the people's interests, and if mistakes occur, they must be corrected -- that is what being responsible to the people means." ("The Current Situation and Our Policy after the Victory in the War Against Japan")

"Thoroughgoing materialists are fearless… "He who is not afraid of death by a thousand cuts dares to unhorse the emperor" -- this is the dauntless spirit needed in our struggle to build socialism and communism." ("Speech at the National Propaganda Work Conference of the Communist Party of China")

Looking around today, there are many falsehoods (I will not list them all here), but the spirit of seeking truth from facts is not open. Only by promoting Mao Zedong Thought, returning to the "original heart" of the Communists and carrying forward the spirit of struggle can we eliminate the "falsehood and ugliness" of falsification and revive the "truth and beauty" of seeking truth from facts. This is the only way to eliminate the "falsehoods" and to restore the "truth and beauty".

Note [1].

From 17 to 30 August 1958, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held an enlarged meeting in Beidaihe and proposed high targets such as 10.7 million tons of steel, which was the beginning of the Great Leap Forward campaign. After 62 days, Chairman Mao discovered the problem from his inspection and convened an expanded meeting of the Politburo in Zhengzhou on 2 November of the same year (the first Zhengzhou meeting) with the participation of some central and some local leaders to start "correcting the 'left'". Later, in February and March 1959, a second Zhengzhou meeting and a Shanghai meeting were convened to continue to correct the "left", propagate "humility" (as evidenced by Wu Lengxi's memoirs, "Remembering Chairman Mao") and suppress industrial and agricultural targets. However, the "leftist correction" was not effective and the " boastful wind" did not stop. For this reason, on 29 April 1959, Chairman Mao wrote an "Open Letter to the Six Levels of Cadres" - the "Correspondence within the Party" - in which he "stuck a rod in the ground" and directly criticised the unorthodox style of falsifying and not seeking truth from facts. It was pointed out that telling falsehoods was "harmful to the people and to oneself"; it was also said that "many falsehoods are made from above". It was only then that the "boastful wind" was finally stopped by Chairman Mao.

At that time, the " boastful wind " is typical of the front-line leadership squatting point - the most famous is Xushui County, Hebei, claimed to harvest 1.2 billion pounds of grain a year. There a cabbage could grow 500 pounds, an acre of cotton yielded 5,000 pounds of lint (minus the cotton seeds), an acre of wheat 120,000 pounds, and an acre of sweet potatoes 1.2 million pounds. The People's Daily gave publicity to this behaviour. The amount of grain levied by the state based on such reports seriously exceeded the actual yield. It was also the main cause of the subsequent calamity.