Wu Haijiang | Grasping the Development of "New Cultural Missions" from the Perspective of Historical inevitability | Culture | Inevitability
The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that "contemporary CPC and the Chinese people should and must be able to shoulder the new cultural mission".It can be said that the assumption of the new cultural mission by the CPC in the new historical stage is a judgment of certainty and inevitability, and a major proposition related to the prosperity of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics and the sustainable development of Chinese civilization.
**The Realistic Expression of Human Spiritual Liberation in the materialist view of history
The inevitability of the CPC's new cultural mission lies in the regularity and historicity of culture and its development. On the one hand, as the soul element of the social organism, culture is a typical "superstructure" attached to the economic foundation. Marx and Engels pointed out in "German Ideology" that "consciousness can only be a conscious existence at any time, and people's existence is their real life process." Cultural development is not free and easy, and cultural activities cannot escape from the time and space conditions they are in, nor can they be separated from the social life form of "living history". On the other hand, cultural development changes with the movement of economic foundations, and cultural production is adapted to material activities and exchanges. However, this does not mean that the relative independence of spiritual culture on the socio-economic structure can be ignored. As Marx evaluated the productive value of culture, "All productive forces refer to both material and spiritual productive forces."
Communism is also a movement to achieve spiritual and individual autonomy and full development. Engels once said, "Every progress in culture is a step towards freedom." Lenin also pointed out that in an "illiterate country" filled with backward culture and erroneous ideas, it is impossible to build communism. It can be seen that the prosperity of the spiritual world is an indispensable prerequisite for the socialist cause to maintain its vitality and vigor, and also a prerequisite for the Marxist party to ensure its revolutionary and progressiveness nature. The constant updating and summing up of the cultural mission undertaken by the CPC is not only an understanding of the laws of historical materialism and the ability to improve the Party's governance, but also a practical requirement for self revolution, self-improvement and self innovation to carry out great struggle, build great projects, promote great undertakings and realize great dreams.
In a word, historical materialism constitutes the theoretical basis for the CPC to undertake a new cultural mission, while CPC's undertaking a new cultural mission highlights the positive nature of human liberation of historical materialism. This also means that the cultural mission undertaken by the CPC in the new era is by no means a break or termination of the previous cultural mission. On the contrary, it is precisely the ideal of sharing a rich and elegant cultural life in cultural creation. As a comprehensive literature, art, ideology, theory and other excellent human cultural elements, Marxism is not only the soul of the CPC leading the cultural cause, but also responds from the universal significance of the theory that the CPC must grasp the ruling law of the Communist Party of China, the law of socialist construction and the law of human society development, adapt to the new changes in major social contradictions, and develop a Chinese path to modernization cultural form that meets the growing needs of the people for a better life.
**The historical practice of nurturing and developing the revival of Chinese culture
From the nation to the world, from tradition to modern times, from the national context to the cultural context, the CPC, marked by "China" and "communism", has played a huge role in pulling the "cultural breakthrough". The CPC's ability to shoulder the new cultural mission is not only due to the theoretical infiltration of Marxism, but also rooted in China's 5000 year civilization development and the historical movement of socialist revolution, construction and reform in the past century. It is in the historical process of opening up a new realm of Chinese culture and communist civilization that the CPC interprets the historical inevitability of undertaking a new cultural mission.
The CPC has been able to establish its cultural mission in the historical theme of reviving the future of Chinese culture.As Mao Zedong commented, "Since the Chinese people learned Marxism Leninism, their spirit has shifted from passive to active. From then on, the era in modern world history that looked down upon Chinese people and Chinese culture should come to an end.".
The CPC enriches its cultural mission in the construction logic of standing up, getting rich and becoming strong. As a mission oriented party, the CPC undertakes the mission from "standing up", "getting rich" to "getting strong". Specifically, in the cultural field, it is a leap from "cultural turnaround", "cultural satisfaction" to "cultural power". The historical evolution of cultural development not only reflects the spirit of our party's victory in transforming the world, but also interprets the cultural mission that has been inherited and enriched in the theory and practice of socialist cultural construction in China with a sense of keeping up with the times. "To continue to promote cultural prosperity, build a cultural power, and build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation at a new starting point" is inseparable from the innovative development of traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture led by the CPC in the revolution, construction, and reform, and from the CPC's thinking and exploration of its new cultural mission.
**The inevitable requirement for building modern Chinese civilization
The CPC has forged a new mission of creating and developing socialist culture with Chinese characteristics in a new era by combining the Marxist party's ideal of human spiritual liberation with the fate of Chinese culture since modern times. Of course, it is not enough to explain the inevitability of the CPC's cultural mission in the new era from the theoretical direction and historical dimension. In fact, the CPC's new cultural mission has been closely linked with the current irreversible realistic movement of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
From "the journey of the great road, the world is the public" to "Marxism in the 21st century", it reflects that the socialist culture with Chinese characteristics is the unique inheritance and modernity transformation of the Chinese civilization by the CPC in the pluralistic and parallel world civilization pattern. The cultural self-confidence of the new era is innovative and developing. It is an interpretation of the Chinese form in which the CPC leads the people to open a new modern civilization, and the manifestation of the CPC's interpretation and transformation of the world in the wake of its subjective consciousness, based on the logical chain of "eliminating the old and establishing the new".
Since its establishment, the CPC has been an active leader and practitioner of China's advanced culture, as well as a faithful inheritor and promoter of China's excellent traditional culture. In the world civilization pattern of "western myth" and "powerful capital and weak society", the Chinese civilization has not made subversive mistakes. The important reason is that the CPC, in its dual interaction with the traditional and modern forms of civilization, "has allowed the Chinese civilization to glow with a new thriving opportunity in the process of modernization". To build a new socialist culture in the new era, it is necessary to properly handle the tension between tradition and modernity, nation and world, protection and development in the socialist cultural cause. To shoulder the new cultural mission, it is necessary to have a rational, open, and two-way world historical perspective, express cultural confidence in the new era through diverse, equal, and inclusive exchanges and mutual learning, convergence and differentiation, and build modern Chinese civilization by breaking the binary confrontation between the East and the West, nation and the world, and universality and diversity, contributing Chinese thought, Chinese spirit, and Chinese values to the ideal goal of "beauty and harmony, world harmony" of human civilization.
Author: Wu Haijiang
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