Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts and Keep Pace with the Times

The essence of the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics After the “Cultural Revolution”, Deng Xiaoping proposed seeking truth from facts and emphasized that it is the essence of Mao Zedong Thought while guiding the work of bringing order out of chaos. In view of the reality featured with rigid thoughts and superstitions, Deng Xiaoping particularly emphasized the significance of emancipating the mind and stated that it is the prerequisite of seeking truth from facts. It redefined the ideological line of seeking truth from facts and added the new connotation of “emancipating the mind”. After the 4th Plenary Session of the 13th CPC Central Committee, the Party members continued to adhere to the ideological line of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts.

At the 14th CPC National Congress, Jiang Zemin stressed emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts was the essence of the theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics and the magic weapon to ensure our Party’s vitality. In the 21st century, Jiang Zemin put forward new requirements for emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts based on the new situation. He underscored that the most important theoretical quality of Marxism was to keep pace with the times, and whether it can always be achieved determined the future and destiny of the Party and the country. In the report of the 16th CPC National Congress, Jiang Zemin formally pointed out that adhering to the Party’s ideological line, that is, emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts and keeping pace with the times, was the decisive factor for our Party to persist in its advanced nature and enhance its creativity, which added new content with characteristics and spirit of the times to the ideological line.

After the 16th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Hu Jintao as General Secretary continued to emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and keep pace with the times, and stressed that facing the new situation, we must vigorously carry forward the spirit of seeking truth and being pragmatic, and created the corresponding atmosphere. In the report of the 17th CPC National Congress, Hu Jintao pointed out that emancipating the mind was a magic weapon for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and stressed that we must always persist in emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts, keeping pace with the times, being brave in change and innovation, and never becoming rigid or stagnant. Only in this way can the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics become increasingly broader.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has further stipulated from the political life norms within the Party under the new situation that: “The whole Party must adhere to the ideological line throughout the whole process of implementing the basic line, persist in emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts, advancing with the times, seeking truth and being pragmatic, integrating theory with practice, proceeding from reality in all, experiencing and developing truth in practice, opposing all kinds of wrong tendencies to deny Marxism, and breaking the dogmatic understanding of Marxism. The Party should constantly study new situations, summarize new experience and solve new problems so as to promote the sinicization of Marxism while adhering to the basic national condition that China is still and will be in the primary stage of socialism for a long time. Emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts and keeping pace with the times are a unified organic whole.

Emancipating the mind means that we should, under the guidance of Marxism, break the shackles of habits and subjective prejudice that bind people’s mind and those of outdated concepts, practice and systems, get liberated from the wrong and dogmatic understanding of Marxism and from subjectivism and metaphysics, and make the subjective consistent with the objective and thoughts consistent with the reality. Seeking truth from facts requires that we should start from the developing and changing reality, integrate theory with practice, analyze specific problems in specific ways, and regard Marxism as a science that develops along with the practice.

Keeping pace with the times means that the Party’s theories and work should reflect the characteristics of the times, conform to the laws and be creative. Emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts and keeping pace with the times are interconnected in that the first is the premise and condition of the latter two, the second is the scientific spirit and method, and the third is the final destination of the first two. Emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts and keeping pace with the times are essentially consistent and jointly unified in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

This theoretical essence not only permeates all aspects of the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, but also runs through the whole process of its emergence, formation and development. Under its guidance, the practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics has been continuously deepened, the theoretical system has been enriched and creatively developed, and a new realm of Marxist development has been constantly created.