Hou Huiqin: On the Integrity of Marxism
The discussion regarding the integrity of Marxism has already formed a preliminary consensus: it concerns the comprehensive and accurate grasp of Marxism as well as the adherence to and development of the basic tenets of Marxism, and is therefore highly necessary. However, the most critical issue in this discussion—how to summarize the integrity of Marxism—remains a matter of differing opinions with no consensus in sight. Lenin summarized the three constituent parts of Marxism, and our researchers all seem to want to base this "integrity" upon their own academic disciplines. Viewed objectively, there is a certain logic to grounding the integrity of Marxism in philosophy, political economy, or scientific socialism. For instance, it is attributed to philosophy because Marxist philosophy provides the worldview basis for all its theories; it is attributed to political economy because revealing the secrets of capitalism and the basis for transcending it can only rely on political economy; it is attributed to scientific socialism because the theme of Marxism is human liberation in the political form of the liberation of the working class, and it is often expressed as scientific socialism or communism. However, looking at the current lines of discussion, attributing it to any single disciplinary fulcrum reveals difficult-to-overcome weaknesses: As the most abstract form of ideology, furthest removed from the socio-economic base, can philosophy alone manifest the theoretical characteristics of Marxism in its entirety? If political economy loses the guidance of a scientific worldview, it becomes vulgar economics and inevitably leans toward positivist economics, thereby losing its soul. If scientific socialism does not highlight Marx's "two great discoveries"—the materialist conception of history and the theory of surplus value—can it still be "scientific"? As Engels pointed out, previous socialist doctrines were incompatible with materialism, whereas scientific socialism is the product of the materialist conception of history and the theory of surplus value. [1] From this perspective, the discussion on the problem of Marxist integrity has not yet truly reached the height of fusing the "three constituent parts" into a single whole. Where is the way out?
I. The Philosophical Worldview is the Key to Deciphering the Integrity of Marxism
I believe we should perhaps change our line of discussion. The original premise of the discussion was that Marxism has "three constituent parts," and因此 (yīncǐ; therefore) integrity is the unity of these three parts. This is based on the fact that Engels in Anti-Dühring and Lenin in The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism both summarized Marxist doctrine into the three parts of philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism; thus, the focus has been on the unity of these three parts. However, the summaries of the three constituent parts by Engels and Lenin were, to a large extent, intended to facilitate the popularization and dissemination of Marxism; they were not their models for a holistic interpretation of Marxism. In fact, they both emphasized that Marxism is a complete system of thought and that one must have an integrated understanding of it. Grasping the integrity of Marxism from the perspective of a philosophical worldview is a thread of thought that is not difficult to find in the writings of the classical authors.
Shortly after the publication of the first volume of Capital, Marx formulated a plan to write a work on "Dialectics." In a letter to Joseph Dietzgen, he wrote: "Once I have shed my economic burden, I shall write a 'Dialectics.' The true laws of dialectics are already present in Hegel, albeit in mystic form. It is necessary to strip it of this form." [2] Although this plan was never realized, as Lenin pointed out: "If Marx did not leave behind a 'Logic' (with a capital letter), he did leave the logic of Capital, and this ought to be utilized to the full in this question." [3] In Lenin’s view, Capital was by no means a work of economics in the general sense, but rather materialist dialectics in the form of economics—essentially a new worldview.
Lenin most explicitly reduced Marxism to a new worldview. Discussing The Communist Manifesto, the work that marked the birth of Marxism, he noted: "This work outlines, with the clarity and brilliance of genius, the new world-conception, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat—the creator of a new, communist society." [4] The judgments we are familiar with—Lenin’s description of Marxism as "a single block of steel" and that "it is complete and harmonious"—were actually summaries he made from the perspective of a philosophical worldview. "The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or any defense of bourgeois oppression." [4] "In this Marxism, cast from a single block of steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise, one essential part, without departing from objective truth, without falling into the arms of bourgeois-reactionary falsehood." [4] Without a doubt, Lenin believed that the scientific nature, integrity, and completeness of Marxism all stem from its philosophical worldview.
Mao Zedong fully inherited Lenin’s holistic analysis of Marxism. He repeatedly emphasized: "Marxism consists of several branches of learning: Marxist philosophy, Marxist economics, and Marxist socialism—the theory of class struggle; but the foundational thing is Marxist philosophy. If this thing is not thoroughly mastered, we will have no common language and no common method; we will argue back and forth over many things without ever clarifying them. Once you have the thought of dialectical materialism, it saves a lot of trouble and leads to fewer mistakes." [5] Mao Zedong always attached great importance to the foundational role of the philosophical worldview within the Marxist theoretical system, treating it as the soul of the Party’s political building, ideological building, and building of work style. The principle of "ideological Party building [N] and strengthening the Party through theory," which our Party has always adhered to, takes the priority of worldview as its premise.
It must be pointed out that when we cite the classical authors’ assertions that Marxism is essentially a new type of philosophical worldview, and emphasize that its integrity should be explored from this angle, the "philosophical worldview" we speak of is not the same as the current understanding of philosophy held by many people. One cannot conflate Marxist philosophy with traditional or other types of philosophy. The Marxist philosophical worldview is not a general phenomenon of the human spirit, let alone a variety of metaphysics or a display of free individuality; rather, it is a scientific elucidation of the initiative and creativity of human historical activity, and the scientific basis for an ideological line [N] that unifies theory and practice. Deng Xiaoping once made an assertion worth savoring. He noted: "The reason Lenin was a truly great Marxist was that he found the revolutionary path not from books, but from reality, logic, philosophical thought, and the communist ideal, and succeeded in the October Socialist Revolution in a backward country." [6] Please note that here, Deng Xiaoping differs greatly from our "common sense" regarding philosophy and communist ideals; he places the communist ideal and Marxist philosophical thought in the same category as "reality," distinguishing them from "books" that have not yet become reality. This indicates that, in his view, a scientific worldview—the logic and scientific ideals and beliefs that embody historical laws—is not a utopia suspended above reality, nor is it merely a conceptual notion; rather, it is an organic component of a constantly moving and developing reality, a part of "revolutionary reality." Therefore, he believed there was no chasm between the philosophical worldview and the Party's ideological line and program of action, and thus no strict boundary between Marxist philosophy and scientific socialism. "Marx and Engels created the ideological line of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, which Comrade Mao Zedong summarized using the Chinese language into the four great characters: 'seek truth from facts' [N]." [7] "To engage in socialism, one must follow Marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism, which is what Comrade Mao Zedong summarized as seeking truth from facts—or, in other words, starting from reality in all things." [6] With this unambiguous narrative, Deng Xiaoping broke through the barriers between worldview and ideological line, action guides, philosophy and revolutionary practice, providing a new way of thinking for the comprehensive and accurate grasp of Marxism.
Clearly, returning to the Marxist classical authors' understanding of the philosophical worldview is the prerequisite for solving the problem of Marxist integrity. It must be observed that for some years, misled by Western philosophical trends, there has been a serious tendency to "de-worldview-ize" Marxist philosophy. Modern Western philosophy starts from an erroneous philosophical judgment—namely, the assertion that the "epistemological philosophy" of the modern era, represented by Kant, subverted the "metaphysics" of traditional philosophy and declared that a holistic grasp of the world was an "illusion of natural human instinct." Subsequently, the so-called "post-metaphysical turn" was promoted, causing philosophy to turn toward the "individualist philosophy" of subjective idealism; the plural, the relative, the de-centered, the phenomenological, and the fragmented became the mainstream of Western philosophy. Thus, not only did mainstream Western philosophy reject the worldview, but "Western Marxism," deeply influenced by this turn, also abandoned the monist worldview via the "praxis-philosophy turn." Contrary to the original intention of Marx’s philosophical revolution, the "philosophy of praxis" that adheres to this contemporary Western "turn" has increasingly distanced itself from the mission of providing a worldview and methodology for the working class and its political party, contenting itself instead with wandering through campuses, study rooms, and the consolation of the individual soul. Taking such a philosophical stance to solve the problem of Marxist integrity is akin to "climbing a tree to catch a fish" [N]. Therefore, to decipher the integrity of Marxism with the Marxist philosophical worldview as the core, we must first restore the "new worldview" nature of Marxist philosophy.
II. The Integrity of Marxism Derives from the Material Unity of the World
Marxism has always emphasized that the era is the mother of thought, and practice is the source of theory. The reason why Marxism can be grasped as a whole lies, in the final analysis, in its reliance on the material unity of the world and on the "world history" that reveals the inevitable trend of the unity of human history. The most fundamental reason why Marxism must be grasped as a whole is that only a holistic worldview can perceive and master a holistic world and human history; this is the source of the truth and scientific nature of Marxism.
To grasp the world holistically, three major problems must be solved: first, the world unity of nature, human society, and mental phenomena; second, the historical unity of the past, present, and future; and third, the existential unity of phenomenon, essence, and ontology. Before Marx’s great philosophical revolution, idealism held a dominant position in this field. Although philosophy was continuously progressing, it remained at a loss before these three major problems until the early 19th century. As Engels pointed out, "The eighteenth century did not resolve the great antithesis, the antithesis of substance and subject, nature and spirit, necessity and liberty, which had been present from the beginning of history and whose development has permeated all of history." [8] Although Hegelian philosophy, the culmination of German Classical Philosophy, made a breakthrough and reached the highest point possible for an idealist philosophical stance, it did not truly solve these three problems after all. History has shown that there is no way to solve these three problems other than through the worldview of dialectical materialism. This also fundamentally proves that any effort to explore the integrity of Marxism while departing from a scientific worldview is destined to fail.
- On the problem of the world unity of nature, human society, and mental phenomena
Undoubtedly, nature, human society, and mental phenomena are things of different realms. The spontaneity of nature, the autonomy of human society, and the self-consciousness of mental phenomena are obvious heterogeneities in their respective domains. Therefore, the unity of the world is not a simple homogenization of these three realms, but rather a deep revelation of their common origin under a heterogeneous distribution—that is, the same origin and the possibility of their mutual transformation and organic unity.
Idealist philosophers always explain the unity of the world by taking spirit as the origin. However, because they fundamentally invert the real existence of the world, no matter how sophisticated their theories are, they are inevitably riddled with loopholes and eventually face bankruptcy. Hegel can be said to be an absolute master at interpreting the unity of the world through a spiritual origin. Through his idealist dialectical logic, he "for the first time represented the general form of the laws of movement of nature, society, and thought in a universally applicable form, which was, after all, an achievement of world-historical significance." 13 Hegel’s brilliance lay in grasping the essence of the "self-movement" of things. Using "Absolute Spirit"—a speculative, conceptual subjectification of real humanity—as his engine, he constructed a grand unified system of conceptual dialectics encompassing nature, human society, and spiritual phenomena. This speculative mode of narration enveloped the rich content of the movements and changes of the real world. Despite it being a case of the fundamental and the incidental being reversed and the world standing on its head, "when the false is taken for true, the true becomes false," and its influence is self-evident. "Hegel often gives a real description, grasping the thing itself, within the speculative description. This real exposition within the speculative exposition leads the reader to regard the speculative exposition as real and the real exposition as speculative." "This method, in speculative terms, consists in understanding substance as subject, as an internal process, as absolute person. This mode of understanding is the fundamental characteristic of the Hegelian method." 13 It can be said that Hegel’s logic regarding the unity of the world could not be fundamentally broken solely on the terrain of thought. Although the Young Hegelians [5] seized upon some of its flaws in various ways, they generally remained stuck within Hegel’s logical framework. Only Feuerbach took at least one step forward by "straightforwardly placing materialism back on the throne," 13 and although he failed to complete the transcendence, he heralded the fact that only materialism is the true way out for solving this problem.
Ultimately, objective logic determines subjective logic; if they are inverted, it is impossible to achieve true logical rigor. The world-view position of idealism dictated that Hegelian philosophy could not be a truly rigorous logic. It is easy for an idealist conceptual dialectic to reduce phenomena to a certain conceptual essence, as this abstract capacity of thought is not difficult to understand. However, it is a forced effort to explain that the rich and diverse real things are "internal moments" of the self-development of the concept. It is correct to say that pears, apples, almonds, and grapes all belong to "fruit," because they share the common attributes of fruit. But it is difficult to explain that the aforementioned fruits are "posited" moments of the self-development of "Fruit." How is the sequence of moments connected? How does one "necessarily" transform into another? If a new variety of fruit appears, how should it be ranked? Even the most imaginative philosopher cannot make such a story hold together. If this is true for simple natural phenomena, it is even more so for the incomparably complex world system. Nature, history, and human activity always "overflow" Hegel's logical system, and the tearing apart of his idealist dialectical system by ever-changing reality is unavoidable.
Traditional materialism also fails to solve the problem of the material unity of the world. First, it cannot solve the problem of the materialist basis of human social history; therefore, the realm of history has always remained the domain of idealism. Second, it cannot use materialist reflection theory to elucidate the fruits of human cognitive knowledge, especially regarding universal categories and absolute truths; thus, it is often exploited by skepticism and eclecticism. Third, it cannot solve the relationship between materialism and human spiritual agency [6], especially the problem of the materialist basis for lofty ideals, beliefs, and the spirit of self-sacrifice; thus, it is often stigmatized by "vulgar" materialism [7] and exhibitionist hedonism. Ultimately, because traditional materialism does not understand dialectics, the concept of matter that serves as the foundation of its philosophical edifice is characterized by intuitiveness, passivity, and stasis. A single, atomized concept of substantive matter cannot solve the problem of the material unity of the world.
New materialism, formed through the organic combination of materialism and dialectics—namely, dialectical materialism—successfully solved the aforementioned dilemmas. First, it took the law of the unity of opposites (contradiction) as the objective source of the "self-movement" of things. This not only solved the difficulty of the agency of matter, thereby laying the material foundation and internal basis for the unity of the three major realms (nature, society, and thought), but also solved the unity of qualitatively different things in the world, avoiding external fragmentation through the method of internal contradiction. Second, it expanded the forms of material existence from a single, static substantive form to the form of "relations" characterized by universal connection, movement, and change. This solved the mode of material existence in the field of social history—namely, the contradictory movement between productive forces and relations of production, and between the economic base and the superstructure—thereby founding a thoroughgoing materialism. Third, it treated nature, human society, and spiritual phenomena as different forms of material motion, establishing that subjective dialectics (the dialectics of categories) is a reflection of objective dialectics. This solved the problem of the diversity of the forms of material motion and the possibility of their mutual transformation, as well as the objective source of spiritual agency, connecting "historical nature" with "natural history" and founding a complete and comprehensive dialectic. The dialectical materialist world-view for the first time showed us a complete world of universal connection, interdependence, mutual transformation, and continuous development.
2. On the problem of the historical unity of the past, present, and future
The historical unity of the past, present, and future seems like a non-issue. Cieszkowski [8], a Young Hegelian, once argued that the "past" was once the "present" and "future," the "present" was once the "future" and is becoming the "past," and the "future" is becoming the "present" and will necessarily become the "past." However, the problem is by no means this simple. In reality, the past, present, and future differ vastly within the real historical process. The "past" that has become history is generally "singular," but for the "present," the "future" is undoubtedly "plural." The choice of "future" determines the gains or losses, successes or failures, of the "present." As a future of multiple possibilities, if it is not supported by historical objective necessity, it will be unknowable or merely an unreliable "historical prophecy," and its historical connection with the present and past will lack integrity. It is for this reason that Hegelian philosophy takes the "end point" of history as its starting point, merely reflecting on the logic of history while avoiding the "plural" difficulty of facing the future. Meanwhile, some so-called "philosophies of praxis" that look toward the future, ambitiously wanting to pioneer history, invariably fall into the mire of "subjective voluntarism."
Marxist philosophy provides the basic methodology for solving the problem of the objective necessity of the historical future. First, "finding the new world through the critique of the old world." This means identifying the incurable diseases of the old world through scientific analysis and critique, serving both as the objective basis for the inevitable demise of the old world and as an action guide for the direction of the construction of the new world. "Polarization" and the "reification of man" are the two chronic maladies of capitalist society exposed by Marx, while "common prosperity" and the "well-rounded development of the individual" [9] have thus become the direction for building socialist society. Second, the basis of objective analysis is to "grasp the sum total of facts," opposing the one-sided "playing with examples." Lenin believed that grasping the "sum total of facts" meant grasping the "thing-in-itself" (自在之物), which is not an accumulation of all phenomena (in fact, such an accumulation is impossible), but can only be the disclosure of the essence of life and the fundamental relations that determine the direction of history. Marx summarized the fundamental relations of capitalist society as "foundational relations" (commodity relations), "anomalous relations" (reified relations), and "transformative relations" (wage labor and capital), thereby laying the foundation for the objective trajectory of capitalist society. Third, identifying the dominant force for destroying the old world and building the new world: namely, socialized large-scale production and its representative, the modern proletariat. Marx’s thesis on the world-historical mission of the working class is not, as Western ideology repeatedly disparages, a kind of messianism similar to the religious "theory of the chosen people," but is rather a historical necessity determined by its objective position within the capitalist economic system. The modern proletariat is both the product and representative of socialized large-scale production, and a passive force at the mercy of the spontaneous economic laws of capitalism. The consciousness required by the further development of socialized productive forces must manifest as the autonomy of the working class within the system of socialized production. In this way, the demand for the liberation of the working class possesses a fundamental identity with the liberation of socialized productive forces and, therefore, with the liberation of humanity. As Engels pointed out in the 1888 English edition preface to the Manifesto of the Communist Party: "the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time forever freeing the whole of society from all exploitation, oppression, class-distinctions and class struggles." 14 This is an objective necessity that does not shift according to human will.
3. On the problem of the existential unity of phenomenon, essence, and ontology
Removing materialism and negating the opposition between materialist and idealist philosophies essentially means negating the "thing-in-itself" and negating materialist ontology. The "thing-in-itself" is the cornerstone of the material unity of the world, and all idealisms wish to eliminate it as quickly as possible. The entirety of their grounds for negating the "thing-in-itself" lies in asserting that it is impossible to cognize or demonstrate, and that talking about "existence" outside of humanity is purely a "metaphysical" issue. Lenin once quoted the materialist philosopher Diderot: "Those philosophers who recognize only their own existence and the existence of the sensations which succeed each other within themselves, and recognize nothing else, are called idealists." Idealism is "a system which, to the shame of the human mind and philosophy, is the most difficult to combat, though the most absurd of all." 8
Only by demonstrating the existence of the "thing-in-itself" and establishing the priority of the external natural world can we scientifically solve problems such as the agency and freedom of human historical activity, breaking the fundamental inversion of idealist philosophy on ontological issues. New materialism, formed by the organic combination of materialism and dialectics, thoroughly transformed the idealist view of practice based on voluntarism and formed a materialist scientific view of practice, fully demonstrating the following three propositions. First, the duality of practice, namely the unity of passivity and agency. The passivity of practice concretely proves that the external natural world is not the subject's "self-positing" but an objective existence; violating natural laws will inevitably lead to punishment. The agency of practice proves not only that the agency of human historical activity must be based on material constraints, but also that the foundation of historical agency is material productive activity, which determines that freedom in historical activity is a process of continuous transformation from necessity to freedom. Second, the infinity of history: that is, human history has only stages and no end point. The materialist view of practice proves that practice is essentially a process of "transforming the thing-in-itself into a thing-for-us." The end-less nature of practice indicates that human history is not a closed circle, but an infinite spiral constantly opening up the future, while also eloquently proving the objective existence of the external world, which cannot be artificially posited. Third, the knowability of the world: that is, fundamentally speaking, all "unsolved mysteries" we face are merely the unknown world, not the unknowable world. The world has not set insurmountable limits for human reason. The knowability of the world proves that there are no plural worlds in an ontological sense; the myriad differences and rich diversities are merely the "realm of phenomena." They are all different manifestations of material existence, rather than a "fragmented" existence of the world.
III. The Dialectical Materialist World-View and the Intellectual System of Marxism
A scientific world-view is the only possible way to grasp the world in its totality; therefore, only by starting from a scientific world-view can the problem of the integrity of Marxism be solved. This means that Marxism is a complete system of scientific thought, essentially a brand-new world-view. Its disciplinary classifications, knowledge boundaries, and specialized terminology are relative, while it is fundamentally consistent in its theoretical themes, modes of thinking, basic theories, and core concepts.
1. The general essence of Marxist integrity: Essential characteristics as a complete system of scientific thought
Proceeding from a scientific worldview dictates that grasping the integrity of Marxism requires, first and foremost, grasping the trends of the times and the laws of history. There are thousands of paths, but they all converge upon a destination, and that direction is the singular purpose of the path. This is the relationship between the path and the laws [of development]. In the development of human history, different civilizations have different evolutionary paths, but the evolution of human civilization follows a general direction; this is the human liberation pointed out by Marxism, manifested as the "free and well-rounded development of each individual." The reason capitalism no longer represents the direction of progress for today’s world is that it uses the wealth monopoly of a few to deprive the majority of their existence and development; it uses the capricious freedom of a few to deprive the majority of their free development. Because of this, Western countries today indeed dare not truly face the future and always strive to "maintain the status quo," and thus, as a whole, they inevitably act against the tide of history.
"Marxism—another word for it is communism." 15 Therefore, revealing and continuously deepening the understanding of the historical law that communism will inevitably replace capitalism—thereby laying a scientific foundation for communist ideals and beliefs—is the holistic theoretical pursuit of Marxism. Philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism are merely studies of this pursuit from different theoretical and academic perspectives: philosophy focuses on the general laws of the development of human history; political economy focuses on the laws of the operation of the capitalist economy; and scientific socialism focuses on the laws of the workers' movement and the development of socialism. These different perspectives on the study of laws continuously reveal and enrich the scientific basis of communism as the major trend of human history and civilizational progress. Consequently, political economy is not, in essence, a branch of positive economics, but rather the economic logic of capitalism; scientific socialism is not essentially empirical sociology, but rather the social logic of modern civilizational progress. To study historical laws—this is what Marx called integrity: "We know only a single science, the science of history." 17 If one fundamentally deviates from this theoretical direction, fails to focus on the study of objective laws, or fails to study or even acknowledge the historical law that communism must replace capitalism, then it cannot be called Marxism.
Proceeding from a worldview further dictates that to grasp the integrity of Marxism, one must view the concepts and categories of this theoretical system as reflections of real movement; they must change as reality changes. Therefore, one must abolish static and isolated methods of Marxist research. Marxism truly follows the principle of seeking truth from facts, but the true "facts" (reality) are not an immutable "existing state (das Bestehende)," but a constantly changing and developing "process." Grasping reality as a process places higher demands on conceptual categories. Peerless as a scientific system of thought and knowledge, the system of categories must possess relative stability and self-consistency, but this does not mean that concepts and categories can only form an enclosed system. Fundamentally, the Marxist system of concepts and categories is dialectical logic; it consists of contradictory concepts, which is the key to understanding how this system of thought can track historical lawfulness. A so-called "contradictory concept" is one that possesses duality and is capable of transformation and development: its basic categories are all grounded in experience while simultaneously transcending general empirical generalization; they are all concrete applications of the scientific worldview. Below, we will perform a concrete analysis of a set of interconnected yet differently emphasized concepts: the modern proletariat, the people, and real individuals.
The "modern proletariat" is the core concept of Marxism, and its definition is a model for the application of the scientific worldview. Engels believed that the modern industrial revolution, as the hallmark of modern socialized large-scale production, had as its "most important product... the English proletariat." 20 Lenin believed that "The main point in the doctrine of Marx is that it brings out the world-historic role of the proletariat as the creator of socialist society." 21 Undoubtedly, the modern proletariat is inseparable from the social group of industrial workers; this is its empirical basis. However, the modern proletariat is not a vocational group, nor is it a description of the living conditions of a certain social stratum, but rather a scientific concept that reveals the inevitable dissolution of capitalist society. Marx argued repeatedly that this is not a subjective conjecture but an objective judgment, because "When the proletariat proclaims the dissolution of the existing world order, it does no more than reveal the secret of its own existence, for it is the factual dissolution of that world order." 17 This shows that the objective historical mission of the proletariat and the subjective state of the relevant existing social groups are not the same thing. For the proletariat to reach a conscious undertaking of its historical mission, it requires a process of being armed with Marxism and requires a party organization capable of centrally embodying the class will. As for the individual proletarian, whether they can become an advanced member of their class depends entirely on their own subjective efforts; having a worker background does not help much. It is clear that listing various cases of backwardness among real groups of workers to try to prove that Marx "deified the proletariat" is a sign of extreme ignorance; using the so-called "paradox" that "once the proletariat grasps state power, it is no longer proletarian" to negate the leading role of the proletariat is extremely shallow. The "proletariat" is not, in essence, a positivist category, which is something Western sociology is unwilling and unable to understand.
The "people" as discussed in Marxism are the subjects of history as identified by historical materialism—that is, "real humanity." In a general sense, they are the broad social forces led by the advanced class that push history forward; in a specific sense, they are the forces of human liberation led by the proletariat—that is, "human society, or social humanity" upon which the new materialism stands. Thus, although "the people" and the "advanced class" are not identical, they are inseparable; this is the basis for the unity of "Party spirit" and "people-centeredness" [10]. If it can be said that we once had a tendency to emphasize class character while neglecting the "people" character, then the main deviation today is a "people" character that de-emphasizes class. Those who like to bypass the class nature of the Chinese working class to talk about "people-centeredness" or "taking the people as the center" should consider a question: The Chinese nation has a rich tradition of patriotism, and patriotic people with lofty ideals have never been in short supply. However, why did the nation gradually fall into a state of being trampled upon after the Opium War, while patriots could only lament, "I have the heart to kill the thieves, but no power to turn the tide" [11]? Why were the patriots of past history solitary figures, while the revolutionary cause led by the Communist Party of China produced heroes in great numbers, spreading like a prairie fire? We often say that "only socialism can save China," the essence of which is the guidance of Marxism and the leadership of the working class. One must never forget that upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China is upholding the leadership of the Chinese working class; the superiority of the CPC lies first in its embodiment of the class will of the Chinese working class.
Marxism does not ignore the individual, but defines them scientifically as "real individuals." Unlike Western individualism, Marx does not regard the individual as an independent substance (ontology); he emphasizes that individuals always carry out historical activities through specific social relations in the form of subjects such as classes, nations (tribes, ethnic groups, families), and associations (economic, political, religious, social). Therefore, the essence of man "in its reality... is the ensemble of social relations." However, unlike Hegelianism, Marx does not believe that the total value of an individual is determined by social relations; on the contrary, every person has their own unique, internal, and irreplaceable value. Therefore, the problem lies in how to unify the social essence of man with their unique individuality. Marxism holds that individualism is undesirable precisely because the unique value of the individual cannot be truly realized if it is divorced from social nature. According to currently popular parlance, individuals have unique "ultimate questions," including death, loneliness, freedom, and meaninglessness. Facts have proven that if one attempts to solve these problems within the confines of the individual, one can only oscillate between the poles of romanticism/nihilism and hedonism/materialism, without ever finding a true "ultimate answer." Only by throwing oneself into the cause of real human liberation can an individual transcend loneliness and death, obtain the immortal value of life, and achieve free and well-rounded development. Thus, Marx asserted that communism "is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." 17 "Serving the people wholeheartedlly" is not only a sublime spiritual realm but also a realm of true freedom; it is a complete response to the "ultimate questions."
Proceeding from a worldview also dictates that to grasp the integrity of Marxism, one must correctly solve the problem of the objective premise of every branch of learning; there can be no dogmatic value presuppositions. The reason Western modern philosophy and social sciences are, as a whole, undesirable is that they take subjective assumptions about human nature as the self-evident premises of academic discourse in various disciplines that require no demonstration. The reason this premise is untenable is that it treats the animalistic side of humans—which is utilized by capitalism—as an immutable scientific principle, while relegating all beautiful visions of human nature to the "other shore" of reality as mere moral ideals. This is also the best footnote to the so-called "half angel, half beast" view of human nature that they trumpet. Marxism fundamentally demonstrates the fallacy of this theory of human nature. Human nature is neither inherently good nor inherently evil, nor is it a mixture of bestiality and divinity; rather, it is a process of continuously breaking away from animality and advancing toward a state of freedom and well-roundedness. The reason is that through productive activities, while transforming external nature to satisfy their own survival, humans must also transform themselves (including human nature) to adapt to the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. Facts prove that without a dialectical materialist worldview, there is no scientific theory of human nature.
It must be pointed out that during the bourgeoisie's ascendant period, the keynote of their understanding of man was positive and oriented toward the good. The mainstream was to revere human nature as divine, to distinguish between current empirical human nature and true human nature, and to emphasize the "return" of human nature as a pursuit; this expressed confidence in the future. Today, however, the main tendency is to reduce human nature to animality, to revere the "law of the jungle," and to regard the human nature of capitalist society as the eternal, true human nature. Under the "scientific" guise of the fact-value distinction, by categorizing animalized human nature into the realm of "facts" and instrumental rationality, they can unscrupulously allow the maximization of self-interest and its derivative social discriminations to run rampant. This not only shows that they have abandoned the pursuit of a beautiful human nature and are pessimistic and despondent about the prospects of humanity, but it also opens the gates for ethnic conflict, racial discrimination, class divides, and privileged bullying—manifesting a degradation of both theory and humanity. Therefore, the dogmatic premises of human nature in Western philosophy and social sciences manifest, as a whole, an arbitrary defense of the existing capitalist system; they are incompatible with the progress of human civilization and thus cannot serve as a basis.
Marxism holds that the premise of scientific research is the objectivity of the object; dogmatic value presuppositions are divorced from the objective object and violate the nature of science. Marx thus criticized the idealist conception of history for having "no premises"; the "man" it takes as its starting point is not man as he truly exists in history, but a subjectively imagined man. Historical materialism is the opposite: "It sets out from real premises and does not abandon them for a moment. Its premises are men, not in any fantastic isolation and rigidity, but in their actual, empirically perceptible process of development under definite conditions." 19 Only from the ensemble of social relations based on the relations of production, and from the contradictory movements of social history, can "man" be established as the objective object of knowledge. Therefore, the problem has never been—as the mainstream Western view claims—that they value man and the individual while Marxism ignores man, especially the individual. The problem is what kind of man can serve as the objective object of scientific knowledge; otherwise, taking "man" as the starting point is an empty phrase. It is precisely because the Western academic community has abandoned the monistic worldview of dialectical materialism that it has lost the possibility of taking man holistically as an object of scientific knowledge, and can only know man in fragments. However, Western liberals such as Karl Popper do not admit this is their own limitation; instead, by using the fallacy of opposing "grand narratives," they regard fragmentation as the true existence of man and the world, and limit scientific knowledge to "piecemeal engineering" and "small narratives." To implement the principle of grasping the integrity of Marxism, one must break through the limitations of the positivist study of man.
2. The Core Meaning of Marxist Integrity: The Theme of Human Liberation with the Political Form of Working-Class Liberation
The core of Marxist integrity lies in its consistent theme and the formation of a theoretical tradition that carries through in a single line. This theme is to solve the problem of social antagonism—which has existed since humanity entered class society—wherein one part of society oppresses and exploits another, so as to achieve the true liberation of humanity.
The theme of human liberation was first proposed by the bourgeois revolutions. The bourgeoisie rose alongside the development of large-scale industry; it created unprecedented and massive social productive forces that defy the imagination, demonstrating the formidable creative power of humanity. "It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades." 21 These powerful productive forces, created and dominated by man, laid the material foundation for human liberation.
Furthermore, as the first world-historical existence in human history, the bourgeoisie truly initiated the process of human world history. "In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature." 24 The opening of world history placed all of humanity within a single social community for the first time, establishing the subjective significance of human liberation.
Correspondingly, human understanding of liberation reached a new height: namely, that all activities of liberation are, in the final analysis, the liberation of man himself. If liberation is the modern "Riddle of the Sphinx," then German classical philosophy, which represents the height of bourgeois classical thought, provided this answer: "The question has always been asked till now: what is God? and German philosophy has answered the question: God is man. Man has only to understand himself, to take himself as the measure of all aspects of life, to judge them according to his being, to organise the world in a truly human manner according to the demands of his own nature, and he will have solved the riddle of our time." 25 The decoding of the riddle of liberation laid the ideological foundation for human liberation. Holding high the banner of human liberation and struggling to establish a "rational millennial kingdom" [12], the bourgeoisie achieved a vibrant revolution.
However, the development of history continuously shattered the dreams of the bourgeoisie. New class antagonisms arrived mercilessly within bourgeois society, reaching an unprecedented level of breadth and sharpness. Facts proved that the bourgeoisie did not solve the riddle of human liberation. The fundamental reason is that socialized large-scale production dominated by capital does not manifest the power of humanity, but rather the power of reified capital. Therefore, the soul of capitalist society is not the awakening of man and free individuality, but the reification [13] of man and commodity fetishism. Thus, the basic problem of capitalism is to return the productive forces—this "essential power of man"—to man himself.
Marxism does not reveal the human nature of socialized productive forces in a moral sense; rather, through a scientific analysis of the contradictory and inverted nature of capital, it demonstrates the developmental direction of socialized large-scale production. The contradictory nature of capital lies in the irreconcilability between its momentum for endless innovation and development and the developmental limits it sets for itself. On one hand, "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society." 21 On the other hand, the way of survival for capital—the pursuit of surplus profit—inevitably leads to the impoverishment of the working class, along with a corresponding contraction of markets and the destruction of talent, making infinite innovative development a mere illusion. Marx thus asserted: "The universality towards which capital unceasingly strives experiences limits in its very nature which will, at a certain stage of its development, allow it to be recognised that capital itself is the greatest barrier to this tendency, and will therefore drive towards the transcendence of capital through capital itself." 26 Furthermore, the inverted nature of capital lies in the inversion of the exchange value and use value of commodities, and the inversion of living labor and dead labor in commodity production. Value becomes the goal of socialized commodity production, and reified dead labor becomes the dominant force of socialized large-scale production. This double inversion determines that capitalist society is essentially a reified, inverted society. Although it is a world-historical existence, it writes world history in a barbaric manner that tears society and the world apart; thus, no actual possibility for human liberation exists within it.
The Marxist reconstruction of the theme of human liberation is based on the necessity of breaking through the two bottlenecks of capital-led socialized large-scale production: namely, "polarization" and the reification of man. The key is the discovery that human liberation must be expressed "through the political form of the liberation of the workers," because "the emancipation of the workers contains universal human emancipation." 19 From the perspective of human liberation, Marx demonstrated that the working class possesses three major characteristics that make it the undisputed leading force. First, the modern proletariat is another world-historical force forged by capitalism and capital that stands in opposition to capital, meaning it is perfectly aligned with the globalization of productive forces and the direction of world integration. Humanity’s entry into world history signifies the end of the history of national estrangement and closed-off development. Only by standing at the height of all human development can the riddle of human liberation be solved; only as a world-historical force can the proletariat shoulder the great task of human liberation. Although capitalism is objectively a world-historical existence, its standpoint of development remains rooted in the nation-state and self-interest; therefore, it will ultimately be discarded by world history. By contrast, "the proletariat can thus only exist world-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a 'world-historical' existence." 21 The modern proletariat is the true representative of socialized large-scale production and the realistic basis for "socialized humanity," and is therefore the political form of human liberation.
Second, the liberation of the modern proletariat is highly consistent with human liberation: it can only truly liberate itself by liberating humanity; conversely, it can only truly liberate humanity by starting from its own liberation. The abolition of classes and private property are the fundamental demands of the proletariat and the realistic path for human liberation. However, this demand is both an objective necessity and a profound self-consciousness. Regarding objective necessity, the liberation struggle of the proletariat can be called the "final struggle": "this struggle has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie) without at the same time forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression, and class struggles." 24 Regarding self-consciousness, the demand of the proletariat is to take the principle that capitalist society has imposed upon it—the deprivation of individual direct possession of the means of production—and elevate it into the social principle of "common possession of the means of production by united individuals": "When the proletariat proclaims the dissolution of the hitherto existing world order, it does no more than reveal the secret of its own existence, for it is the factual dissolution of this order. When the proletariat desires the negation of private property, it is only elevating to a principle of society what society has already made the principle of the proletariat, what is embodied in it without its choice as the negative result of society." 19 That is to say, public ownership is not a subjective imagination of the working class, but a conscious ideological transcendence of capitalist private property.
Third, the modern proletariat is capable of becoming the leading force for the realization of human liberation. We must respond to the claim in Western public opinion that proletarians existing in "alienated labor" cannot form self-consciousness. Simply put, Marxism demonstrates on one hand that the proletariat is the negative side of alienated labor and that its resistance to alienated labor is thorough; on the other hand, Marxism, which provided the most penetrating analysis of modern capitalism, is primarily directed toward the working class: "it gave a great instrument of knowledge to mankind, and to the working class in particular." 23 Lenin believed that the simplest summary of the achievements of Marx and Engels is that "they taught the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself, and they substituted science for dreams." 23
The theme of human liberation, taking the liberation of the working class as its political form, not only makes the Marxist theoretical system a consistent and unified whole, but also ensures the lineage from the founders of Marxism to their successors. This is the key not only to understanding why the basic principles of Marxism are not outdated and remain applicable today, but also to grasping the basic thread of contemporary Chinese Marxism and 21st-century Marxism.