Mao Zedong Thought—the First Historic Leap in the Sinicization of Marxism

Mao Zedong Thought is the theoretical achievement of the first historic leap in the application and development of Marxism-Leninism in China and the Sinicization of Marxism, and the correct theoretical principles and experience summary about Chinese revolution and construction proved by practice, and the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Communist Party of China.

As a working-class political party, the CPC was based on Marxist theory from the very beginning. However, mainly in the late 1920s and early 1930s, in the international communist movement and in the CPC, there was a prevalent wrong tendency to dogmatize Marxism, to sanctify the resolutions of the Communist International and the experience of the Soviet Union, which almost put the Chinese revolution in a desperate situation. Mao Zedong Thought was gradually formed and developed in the process of struggling against this wrong tendency and deeply summing up the historical experience in this respect. It was systematically summarized and developed in many aspects in the late period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the Anti-Japanese War and continued to develop during the War of Liberation and after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Mao Zedong Thought has manifold contents, and its main contents include: (1) On the New Democratic Revolution; (2) On Socialist Revolution and Socialist Construction; (3) On the Building of the Revolutionary Army and Military Strategy; (4) On Policy and Tactics; (5) On Ideological and Political Work and Cultural Work; (6) On Party Building.

Mao Zedong Thought systematically answered the question of how to realize the new democratic revolution and the socialist revolution in a vast semi-colonial and semi-feudal Eastern country, made arduous explorations on what kind of socialism to build and how to build socialism and accumulated important experience in building socialism in a large Eastern country like China, where the level of social productivity was very backward. These original theoretical achievements added new contributions to the treasury of Marxism. These original theoretical achievements have been an important source of ideas for the later theoretical achievements of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The living soul of Mao Zedong Thought is the standpoint, viewpoint and method of it that permeate into each of these components, including three basic aspects: to seek truth from facts, the mass line, and independence.

(1) Seeking truth from facts means proceeding from reality and combining theory with practice, that is, integrating the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution. Mao Zedong further elaborated the law of the unity of opposites, the nucleus of Marxist dialectics — He indicated that we should not only study the universality of contradiction in objective existence, but we should also study the particularity of contradiction. Dialectics should not be viewed as a formula to be learned by rote and applied mechanically, but it should be closely linked with practice and with investigation and study and should be applied flexibly.

(2) The mass line means everything for the masses, reliance on the masses in everything, and comes from the masses and goes to the masses. Mao Zedong united the Marxist theory of knowledge with the Party’s mass line, pointing out that the Party exists and fights for the interests of the people, so that isolation from the people will render all the Party’s struggles and ideals devoid of content as well as impossible of success.

(3) Independence and self-reliance are the inevitable corollary of the Chinese revolution and construction by proceeding from Chinese reality and relying on the masses. Mao Zedong stressed that our policy should base itself on Chinese realities, and in particular, we should rest on our own strength to promote the revolution and construction. China’s revolution and national construction are not and cannot be carried on in isolation from the rest of the world, but we must uphold our own national pride and self-confidence.

Mao Zedong's scientific works, including Volumes 1 to 4 of Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Volumes 1 to 8 of Collected Works of Mao Zedong and other thematic collections, include concentrated summarization of Mao Zedong Thought. Many outstanding leaders of the Party have made important contributions to the formation and development of Mao Zedong Thought, and their relevant representative works are also an important part of Mao Zedong Thought.

Mao Zedong is the main founder of Mao Zedong Thought and Mao Zedong Thought is a valuable spiritual treasure of the CPC and the Chinese people, as well as the scientific guiding ideology of the CPC. We must continue to adhere to Mao Zedong Thought, earnestly study and apply its positions, views and methods to study new situations that arise in practice and solve new problems, so as to ensure that our cause continues to advance along the scientific track of Marxism.