Continuing the Historical Context to Compose a Contemporary Chapter: The Integration of Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture and Scientific Socialism Marxism | China | Culture
Recently, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China opened up a new realm of Marxism with Chinese characteristics and modernization for collective learning."Theoretical innovation must speak new words, but we cannot lose our ancestors. Counting the classics and forgetting our ancestors is equivalent to cutting off the soul and root meridians, and ultimately making a subversive mistake of losing the soul and root meridians."
"Without national identity and world"
Chinese civilization has a long and enduring history, and the subjectivity of Chinese culture has a profound foundation of civilization. On the profound foundation of Chinese civilization, we have opened up and developed socialism with Chinese characteristics, consolidated the subjectivity of Chinese culture, and promoted the sinicization and modernization of Marxism.
Our party has shown a strong sense of responsibility towards Chinese culture in the process of exploring truth, accepting and disseminating Marxism. Li Dazhao believed that "Eastern and Western civilizations have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it is not advisable to be inferior to each other."; Mao Zedong pointed out that "world civilization is divided into two streams: east and west, and the Eastern civilization should occupy a half wall position within the world civilization."; Qu Qiubai emphasized that "there is no national identity and no world.".
At the same time, they also acknowledge that civilizations have temporal differences. While criticizing the backwardness of traditional culture, it advocates absorbing the spirit of democracy and science to further develop Chinese civilization. Li Dazhao pointed out, "Gu Wuren firmly believes that our nation can be revived and make a second great contribution to world civilization."
Furthermore, the excellent traditional Chinese culture is an important cultural foundation for the dissemination of Marxism.
Zhu Zhi, an early Marxist propagandist, believed in the Great Harmony ideology of "putting the world under heaven and the world under heaven" and explained the communist ideals; Li Dazhao summarized the traditional Chinese people-oriented ideology with the concept of "people and Yi", guiding the people to create history.
Mao Zedong gradually moved towards materialism through Wang Yangming's "unity of knowledge and action" and Wang Fuzhi's "prophetic action"; Zhou Enlai created conditions for himself to move towards a materialist view of history based on Laozi's theory of balanced evolution of Taoism and nature; Cai Hesen understands Lenin's theory of proletarian dictatorship from Mozi's organization and practice.
It can be seen that excellent traditional Chinese culture, as an important ideological resource, has a high degree of compatibility with the values of scientific socialism. This greatly promoted the dissemination and application of Marxism in China.
"More possessing the spirit of subject creation"
The dissemination and application of Marxism in China also face a problem of cultural integration and innovation. Advocating the integration and innovation of Chinese and Western cultures is an important prerequisite for the sinicization and modernization of Marxism.
Marxism, based on the realistic criticism of European capitalism, absorbs the achievements of European culture since ancient Greece, classical philosophy, political economy, and utopian socialism, which can be said to be the essence of European culture and spirit of the times.
The birth of Leninism, especially the victory of the October Revolution in Russia, accelerated the spread of Marxism in China. Li Dazhao regarded the October Revolution in Russia as the rise of the "Third New Civilization," while Mao Zedong likened it to "a small flower of a new culture discovered on the Arctic coast of Russia.".
Our party's understanding and practice of the sinicization and modernization of Marxism has gone through a tortuous process. In Mao Zedong's words, subjectivism, especially dogmatism, does not focus on studying the current situation, history, and the application of Marxism Leninism, which is an extremely bad style. Here, he criticized the attitude of not understanding Chinese history, forgetting his ancestors, and always calling himself Greece.
In 1938, Mao Zedong further proposed the important proposition of sinicizing Marxism. On the one hand, Marxism must be combined with the characteristics of China; On the other hand, Marxism can only be achieved through certain ethnic forms. Mao Zedong believed that "from Confucius to Sun Yat sen, we should summarize and inherit this precious legacy. This is of great help in guiding the current great movement.".
Mao Zedong, in applying Marxism to guide the practice of the Chinese revolution, not only emphasized the combination with China's specific characteristics, but also elaborated on new concepts such as "seeking truth from facts", "mass line", and "new democracy" with Chinese characteristics, giving Marxism a Chinese form and style. "From this point on, the era in modern world history that looked down upon Chinese people and Chinese culture should come to an end."
In the new era and new journey, cultural creation should be carried out through practical creation, and cultural progress should be achieved through historical progress. Based on the guidance of Marxism, a new cultural system of "national, scientific, and mass" should be constructed, breaking the traditional model of Chinese culture mainly relying on elite promotion, and making the people the masters of culture; It is necessary to draw on excellent ideological and cultural resources from the sum of human knowledge to innovate and develop the Party's theories, thereby constructing the Chinese spirit and values, and contributing the Chinese plan and wisdom to world civilization.
This effectively reveals the fundamental driving force and source of the spirit of the Chinese nation, indicating that the development of Chinese culture has stepped out of the historical stage of "stimulus response" to Western culture since modern times, and has a more subjective creative spirit, a more global perspective, and a more global mindset.