Quotes from book
On Contradiction

On Contradiction is a 1937 essay by the Chinese Communist revolutionary Mao Zedong. Along with On Practice it forms the philosophical underpinnings of the political ideology that would later become Maoism. It was written in August 1937, as an interpretation of the philosophy of dialectical materialism, while Mao was at his guerrilla base in Yanan. Mao suggests that all movement and life is a result of contradiction. Mao separates his paper into different sections: the two world outlooks, the universality of contradiction, the particularity of contradiction, the principal contradiction and principal aspect of contradiction, the identity and struggle of aspects of contradiction, the place of antagonism in contradiction, and finally the conclusion. Mao further develops the theme laid out in On Contradiction in his 1957 speech On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People.


Mao Zedong photo

“Opposition and struggle between ideas of different kinds constantly occur within the Party; this is a reflection within the Party of contradictions between classes and between the new and the old in society. If there were no contradictions in the Party and no ideological struggles to resolve them, the Party's life would come to an end.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 党内不同思想的对立和斗争是经常发生的,这是社会的阶级矛盾和新旧事物的矛盾在党内的反映。党内如果没有矛盾和解决矛盾的思想斗争,党的生命也就停止了。

Mao Zedong photo

“All contradictory things are interconnected; not only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full meaning of the identity of opposites. This is what Lenin meant when he discussed "how they happen to be (how they become) identical--under what conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another."”

Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung, pp. 121
On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 一切矛盾着的东西,互相联系着,不但在一定条件之下共处于一个统一体中,而且在一定条件之下互相转化,这就是矛盾的同一性的全部意义。列宁所谓“怎样成为同一的(怎样变成同一的),——在怎样的条件之下它们互相转化,成为同一的”,就是这个意思。

Mao Zedong photo

“Our agrarian revolution has been a process in which the landlord class owning the land is transformed into a class that has lost its land, while the peasants who once lost their land are transformed into small holders who have acquired land, and it will be such a process once again. In given conditions having and not having, acquiring and losing, are interconnected; there is identity of the two sides. Under socialism, private peasant ownership is transformed into the public ownership of socialist agriculture; this has already taken place in the Soviet Union, as it will take place everywhere else. There is a bridge leading from private property to public property, which in philosophy is called identity, or transformation into each other, or interpenetration.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 我们实行过的土地革命,已经是并且还将是这样的过程,拥有土地的地主阶级转化为失掉土地的阶级,而曾经是失掉土地的农民却转化为取得土地的小私有者。有无、得失之间,因一定条件而互相联结,二者具有同一性。在社会主义条件之下,农民的私有制又将转化为社会主义农业的公有制,苏联已经这样做了,全世界将来也会这样做。私产和公产之间有一条由此达彼的桥梁,哲学上名之曰同一性,或互相转化、互相渗透。

Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo

“As regards the sequence in the movement of man's knowledge, there is always a gradual growth from the knowledge of individual and particular things to the knowledge of things in general. Only after man knows the particular essence of many different things can he proceed to generalization and know the common essence of things.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 就人类认识运动的秩序说来,总是由认识个别的和特殊的事物,逐步地扩大到认识一般的事物。人们总是首先认识了许多不同事物的特殊的本质,然后才有可能更进一步地进行概括工作,认识诸种事物的共同的本质。

Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo

“As already mentioned, so long as classes exist, contradictions between correct and incorrect ideas in the Communist Party are reflections within the Party of class contradictions. At first, with regard to certain issues, such contradictions may not manifest themselves as antagonistic. But with the development of the class struggle, they may grow and become antagonistic. The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union shows us that the contradictions between the correct thinking of Lenin and Stalin and the fallacious thinking of Trotsky, Bukharin and others did not at first manifest themselves in an antagonistic form, but that later they did develop into antagonism.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 共产党内正确思想和错误思想的矛盾,如前所说,在阶级存在的时候,这是阶级矛盾对于党内的反映。这种矛盾,在开始的时候,或在个别的问题上,并不一定马上表现为对抗性的。但随着阶级斗争的发展,这种矛盾也就可能发展为对抗性的。苏联共产党的历史告诉我们:列宁、斯大林的正确思想和托洛茨基、布哈林等人的错误思想的矛盾,在开始的时候还没有表现为对抗的形式,但随后就发展为对抗的了。中国共产党的历史也有过这样的情形。我们党内许多同志的正确思想和陈独秀、张国焘等人的错误思想的矛盾,在开始的时候也没有表现为对抗的形式,但随后就发展为对抗的了。目前我们党内的正确思想和错误思想的矛盾,没有表现为对抗的形式,如果犯错误的同志能够改正自己的错误,那就不会发展为对抗性的东西。因此,党一方面必须对于错误思想进行严肃的斗争,另方面又必须充分地给犯错误的同志留有自己觉悟的机会。在这样的情况下,过火的斗争,显然是不适当的。但如果犯错误的人坚持错误,并扩大下去,这种矛盾也就存在着发展为对抗性的东西的可能性

Mao Zedong photo

“Every difference in men's concepts should be regarded as reflecting an objective contradiction. Objective contradictions are reflected in subjective thinking, and this process constitutes the contradictory movement of concepts, pushes forward the development of thought, and ceaselessly solves problems in man's thinking.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 人的概念的每一差异,都应把它看作是客观矛盾的反映。客观矛盾反映入主观的思想,组成了概念的矛盾运动,推动了思想的发展,不断地解决了人们的思想问题。

Mao Zedong photo

“Qualitatively different contradictions can only be resolved by qualitatively different methods.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 不同质的矛盾,只有用不同质的方法才能解决。

Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo
Mao Zedong photo

“Before it explodes, a bomb is a single entity in which opposites coexist in given conditions. The explosion takes place only when a new condition, ignition, is present. An analogous situation arises in all those natural phenomena which finally assume the form of open conflict to resolve old contradictions and produce new things.”

On Contradiction (1937)
Original: (zh-CN) 炸弹在未爆炸的时候,是矛盾物因一定条件共居于一个统一体中的时候。待至新的条件(发火)出现,才发生了爆炸。自然界中一切到了最后要采取外部冲突形式去解决旧矛盾产生新事物的现象,都有与此相仿佛的情形。

Mao Zedong photo

“Contradiction and struggle are universal and absolute”

On Contradiction (1937)
Context: Contradiction and struggle are universal and absolute, but the methods of resolving contradictions, that is, the forms of struggle, differ according to the differences in the nature of the contradictions. Some contradictions are characterized by open antagonism and others are not. In accordance with the concrete development of things, some contradictions, which were originally non-antagonistic, develop into antagonistic ones, while others which were originally antagonistic develop into non-antagonistic ones.

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