Marxism Research Network
Unofficial English Translation

Hong Jun: The Cultural Dimension of the "Two Combinations" and the Development of Marxism in China

Academy News

Abstract: While the classic Marxist writers contemplated the indigenization of Marxism and the integration of Marxism with specific national cultural traditions, the early practice of the Sinicization of Marxism, spearheaded by the Chinese Communists represented by Mao Zedong, remained an arduous struggle against dogmatism both at home and abroad. Fine traditional Chinese culture played an important role in the formation of Mao Zedong Thought, and his advocacy for the Sinicization of Marxism contained two dimensions: the practical and the historical-cultural. However, restricted by specific historical conditions, the emphasis was primarily placed on the practical dimension. Regarding how to treat traditional Chinese culture and how to handle the relationship between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture, various erroneous understandings existed both within and outside the Communist Party of China (CPC). On one hand, these became excuses for various forces to oppose Marxism; on the other, they constrained the developmental level of the Sinicization of Marxism. The successful dissemination and development of Marxism in China benefited from its commonalities with fine traditional Chinese culture in many respects. The "Two Combinations" proposed in the report to the 20th CPC National Congress truly brought the cultural dimension of the Sinicization of Marxism to the fore, clearing up many erroneous and blurred understandings and advancing the Sinicization of Marxism to a new and higher stage.

Keywords: Sinicization of Marxism; View of traditional culture; Report to the 20th CPC National Congress; Cultural self-awareness.

In the speech delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, he proposed the advocacy to "persist in combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities and with fine traditional Chinese culture." This was the first time a top Party leader, when discussing the specific path of the Sinicization of Marxism in a major speech, mentioned the simultaneous combination of the basic tenets of Marxism with fine traditional Chinese culture alongside the classic formulation of "combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities." In the report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping again mentioned the "Two Combinations" of the Sinicization of Marxism, noting: "Chinese Communists have come to realize deeply that only by combining the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and with fine traditional Chinese culture, and only by persisting in the application of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, can we correctly answer the major questions posed by the times and practice, and consistently maintain the exuberant vitality and great vigor of Marxism." He emphasized particularly: "To persist in and develop Marxism, we must combine it with fine traditional Chinese culture. Only by taking root in the fertile soil of the history and culture of one’s own country and nation can the tree of Marxist truth have deep roots and luxuriant foliage." The proposal of combining Marxism with fine traditional Chinese culture is both an internal requirement for the further development of Marxism in China and a sum of the experience of the dissemination and development of Marxism in China over the past 100-plus years. The traditional cultural dimension within the Sinicization of Marxism has gradually come to the fore as the CPC led the processes of revolution and construction, through dialogue, competition, and even fierce struggle with various ideological trends at home and abroad, inside and outside the Party, and alongside the continuous development and increasing maturity of Sinicized Marxism. Reviewing the process of understanding the relationship between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture over the past century helps us better understand the profound significance of the thesis that "to persist in and develop Marxism, we must combine it with fine traditional Chinese culture."

I. The Thinking of Classic Writers on the Concretization of Marxism and the Early Explorations of Chinese Communists

When Marx and Engels established their theoretical doctrines, they took the entire past history and future destiny of humanity into their field of vision. Nevertheless, when later generations attempted to use the basic tenets of Marxism to guide specific social practices in a certain region or period, they still had to consider the special economic, political, historical, and cultural conditions of different eras and regions. Only by combining these factors with Marxist theory can the latter take root, fully release its theoretical potential, and continuously develop. Engels had preliminary thoughts on this. In his later years, in the article "The Working-Class Movement in America," reflecting on the fact that the Socialist Labor Party of America consisted almost entirely of German immigrants, he raised the issue of the "indigenization" of working-class parties. He believed that the members of this party possessed the experience gained from years of struggle in Europe and a general understanding of the conditions for the liberation of the working class, making them vanguard elements within the American workers' party—a fortunate thing for the American proletariat. Therefore, this party was "called upon to play a very important part in the movement." However, to exercise its vanguard role, "it will have to shed its foreign outfit. It will have to become out-and-out American." As for how to make the Socialist Labor Party "Americanized," besides proposing that members "should go to the Americans, who are the vast majority and the natives," Engels also raised the issue of learning the local language. The purpose of language study was to propagate one's progressive advocacy in a way acceptable to local Americans; this already touched upon the question of the national form of ideological expression.

Regarding this issue, Lenin conducted even deeper reflections during the process of leading the Russian Revolution. Long before the victory of the October Revolution, in an article written for Rabochaya Gazeta (The Workers' Gazette), Lenin emphasized on one hand that "we take our stand entirely on the sole foundation of Marx’s theory, for it was the first to transform socialism from a utopia into a science, to lay a firm foundation for this science, and to indicate the path that must be followed in further developing and elaborating it in all its parts." On the other hand, he emphasized that Marxist theory must be developed: "We do not regard Marx’s theory as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the foundation stone of the science which socialists must develop in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life." Furthermore, Lenin emphasized: "We think that an independent elaboration of Marx’s theory is especially essential for Russian socialists; for this theory provides only general guiding principles, which, in particular, are applied in England differently than in France, in France differently than in Germany, and in Germany differently than in Russia." This shows that Lenin had long been conscious of such issues as combining the basic theory of Marxism with the specific practice of one's own country and developing Marxism through practice.

How to treat the traditional culture of one's own nation is a question closely related to how one views the relationship between Marxism and that traditional culture. It is well known that on the issue of national culture, Lenin emphasized the need first to distinguish between "two national cultures," resolutely opposing the nationalist position of bourgeois scholars who conflated the "two national cultures," and advocating the internationalist position of the proletariat on cultural issues. However, he also realized that even when Marxists promote their internationalist cultural position, they must "‘adapt’ themselves to the peculiarities of each locality and each nation," and need "to agitate for the internationalism of the working class and against national culture using all languages." Inspired by this view, Stalin explicitly proposed in the 1920s the advocacy that the international character of the content of "proletarian culture" must be combined with the national character of its form, emphasizing: "Proletarian culture, which is socialist in content, assumes different forms and modes of expression among the various peoples that are drawn into the work of socialist construction, depending on differences in language, manner of life, and so forth," and clearly pointed out: "Its content is proletarian and its form is national—such is the universal human culture towards which socialism is moving." Not only that, in the same article Stalin further emphasized that "a universal human proletarian culture does not preclude, but presupposes and fosters national culture, just as national culture does not annul, but supplements and enriches universal human proletarian culture." This view advanced the relationship between proletarian culture and national culture from one of content and mode of expression to one of mutual supplementation, mutual fostering, and mutual promotion. Marxism is naturally included within proletarian culture, and traditional culture is an important component of national culture; therefore, this passage of Stalin’s is also applicable to understanding the relationship between Marxism and national traditional culture.

However, the reflections of Lenin and Stalin on the relationship between Marxism and national culture were directed at the reality of different nations and languages existing within the Soviet Union. Regarding how the proletarian parties of other countries should combine the basic tenets of Marxism with the specific realities of their own revolutions and their own national cultural traditions, Lenin did not explicitly address this. Moreover, the victory of Marxism in Russia led Stalin, Bukharin, and others after Lenin to believe that Leninism, as "Soviet Marxism," possessed universality, and that Russia should become the "homeland of the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution." This resulted in the Comintern, under Stalin's leadership, rarely considering specific cultural backgrounds when "exporting" Marxism-Leninism to Far Eastern countries and guiding the practices of various communist parties. The proposition of the "Sinicization of Marxism" put forward by the CPC was, in fact, precisely intended to correct the erroneous practice of people like Wang Ming [1], who copied the Soviet experience and mechanically executed the relevant resolutions of the Comintern and Stalin's instructions, thereby avoiding further losses to the Chinese revolution. Therefore, when the Chinese Communists independently explored Marxist theory to guide China's revolutionary practice—especially when they explicitly proposed the Sinicization of Marxism in the late 1930s—the Comintern leaders of the time, Stalin, and later leaders of the CPSU did not actually identify with it. Wang Ming, in his book 50 Years of the CPC published abroad in his later years, stated: "The slogan of the Sinicization of Marxism is wrong. To pose the question this way is inherently non-Marxist. There is no such thing as national Marxism, nor can there be. Marxism can only be now, and will forever be, an internationalist doctrine." This was precisely the attitude held by the theoretical circles of the Comintern and the CPSU toward the CPC's advocacy of Sinicizing Marxism. By the 1960s, when Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated, advocating the "Sinicization of Marxism" became a target for CPSU theorists to attack the CPC. Therefore, the CPC's practice of the Sinicization of Marxism, especially the practice of combining Marxism with its own fine traditional culture, was carried out under the suspicion and pressure of the Comintern and the CPSU; it was a courageous theoretical innovation.

II. Mao Zedong’s Discourse on the "Sinicization of Marxism" Contains Two Dimensions but Emphasizes the Practical Dimension

In addition to international pressure, starting from the 1930s, Mao Zedong also engaged in a very difficult struggle with dogmatists within the Party. Use of the idea of the "Sinicization of Marxism" gradually formed during this process.

In the early history of the CPC, leaders such as Bo Gu, Li Lisan, and Wang Ming—who had experience studying in the Soviet Union and claimed to have mastered pure Marxist-Leninist theory—not only failed to identify with Mao Zedong's efforts to combine the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism with the reality of the Chinese revolution but also sought ways to obstruct and attack them. Many of Mao Zedong's beneficial explorations of rural work were labeled by them as "narrow empiricism," a "rich peasant line," and "right opportunism." Mao Zedong’s discourses—that the Chinese peasantry contained active and revolutionary forces, that the peasantry should become the most important primary force of the Chinese revolution, and his vision of establishing rural base areas and taking the revolutionary path of encircling the cities from the countryside—were all questioned and criticized because no direct basis for them could be found in the works of Marx and Lenin. Furthermore, the military theory regarding guerrilla warfare that Mao Zedong summarized by combining ancient Chinese military theory with Marxism was also constantly mocked and opposed by them because no basis for it could be found in Soviet military textbooks. They concluded that, based on local Chinese experience, it was impossible for Marxism-Leninism to emerge from the "remote mountain gullies." [2]

Precisely for this reason—when faced with the "Li-san Line" [3] of the early Agrarian Revolutionary war period, which dogmatized and sanctified the experiences of the Comintern and the Soviet Union by implementing radical policies like "eliminating the rich peasants," "collective farming," and "land nationalization"—Mao Zedong wrote the article Oppose Book Worship in 1930. He emphasized that "the victory of China's revolutionary struggle depends on Chinese comrades understanding Chinese conditions," calling on revolutionary workers to prioritize investigation and research and to integrate theory with practice. During the Yan'an period, when Wang Ming [4] returned from the Soviet Union posing as an authority on Marxism and caused a severe negative impact within the Party by acting in a bossy and overbearing manner despite his ignorance of the specific conditions of the Chinese revolution, Mao Zedong cautioned the whole Party: "Marxism translated into a Chinese vacuum is only an empty, abstract Marxism." Party theorists such as Chen Boda and Ai Siqi wrote numerous articles researching the history of ancient Chinese philosophy to find commonalities between Marxism and China's own ideological and cultural traditions, aiming to prove that "Communists must, and already do, inherit and develop the excellent traditions of the Chinese nation."

The years bridging the 1930s and 1940s were the most prolific period of writing in Mao Zedong's life. Many of his most important theoretical works were written during this time: in 1937, he completed On Contradiction and On Practice; in 1938, Strategic Problems in Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War, On Protracted War, and The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War; in 1939, The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party; in early 1940, On New Democracy; in 1941, Reform Our Study and Rectify the Party's Style of Work; and in 1942, Oppose Stereotyped Party Writing and Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art. Particularly around 1939, Mao conducted simultaneous, in-depth reflections and research on both Marxist and ancient Chinese philosophy. In 1938, under his advocacy, the "New Philosophy Society" was organized in Yan'an. It was presided over by Ai Siqi, with Chen Boda also participating. For Mao at that time, it was a joy to discuss philosophical issues with Party intellectuals like Chen and Ai. Mao primarily exchanged ideas on Marxist philosophy with Ai Siqi, while his exchanges with Chen Boda focused on ancient Chinese philosophy.

Mao Zedong’s letters, especially those to subordinates and colleagues, were often "as sparing with words as gold." Among his published letters are two long ones from early 1939. The first, addressed to Chen Boda regarding his essay The Philosophical Thought of Mozi, exceeds 1,000 characters; the second, a discussion with Zhang Wentian regarding Chen Boda’s essay The Philosophical Thought of Confucius, is over 2,000 characters. In the letter directly to Chen, Mao first suggested that the title of the essay "would be better changed to 'The Great Ancient Dialectical Materialist—The Philosophical Thought of Mozi' or 'Mozi’s Materialist Philosophy.'" Clearly, Mao agreed with viewing Mozi as a dialectical materialist philosopher. He then offered his views on the reality, essence, and attributes of things; the relationship between necessity and contingency; and the distinction between the Mohist proposition of "two sides without bias" [5] and the Confucian "holding the two ends and using the middle." [6] The second letter involved discussions on the Confucian saying "If names are not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things; if language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success" [7], the relationship between loyalty and filial piety, the doctrine of the mean, and moral theory. In these, he expressed both agreement with Chen’s views and points of dissent, always in a tone of equal inquiry. Methodologically, he adopted the same approach as Chen: using the Marxist philosophical standpoint as the guide, allowing Marxist philosophical concepts and ancient Chinese philosophical concepts to explicate one another. Mao linked the Confucian proposition of "going too far is as bad as falling short" [8] to the struggle against Left and Right deviations within the Party. He evaluated not only Chen Boda’s understanding of this issue but also the views of Zhu Xi [9], moving fluidly between the ancient and the modern. This demonstrated both Mao’s agile intellect and his profound grounding in classical scholarship. This classical scholarship became the national cultural foundation for the formation of Mao Zedong Thought.

Mao Zedong himself explicitly proposed "the Sinicization of Marxism" in his 1938 report to the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee. The Sinicization of Marxism described in this report actually contained two dimensions: on one hand, it required applying Marxist-Leninist theory to the concrete environment of China; on the other, it required using Marxism to criticize and summarize the thousands of years of the Chinese nation's historical and cultural tradition—from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen—and to inherit its precious legacy. The former is the practical dimension, the latter the historical and cultural dimension.

In the 1940 essay On New Democracy, Mao pointed out again: "China has suffered a great deal from the formalist absorption of foreign things. The same is true for the application of Marxism in China; we must fully and properly unify the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution—that is, it must be combined with national characteristics and acquire a definite national form before it can be useful; it must never be applied subjectively as a mere formula." When discussing the nature of the New Democratic culture guided by Marxist theory, Mao criticized the wholesale acceptance of traditional culture without discrimination, while also resolutely opposing national nihilism in cultural matters. He stressed that New Democratic culture should be "of our own nation and bear our national characteristics." Here, too, there were both practical and historical-cultural dimensions.

However, although China’s own excellent traditional culture had a profound impact on the formation of Mao Zedong Thought, and Mao himself touched upon the dimension of Chinese history and cultural tradition when contemplating the Sinicization of Marxism, he still emphasized the practical dimension more when he eventually formulated the Sinicization of Marxism as "combining Marxism with China’s reality." For many years thereafter, in the formal speeches and important resolutions of CPC leaders, the Sinicization of Marxism was basically equated with combining Marxism with China's concrete practice, while the use of Chinese traditional culture was emphasized only in a critical sense. As some scholars have noted: "In the historical process of the Sinicization of Marxism, although 'excellent traditional Chinese culture' was not absent, our understanding remained for a long time at the level of 'one combination' [10]." This was related to the specific historical conditions faced by the CPC, the developmental stage of Sinicized Marxism, the complexity of the relationship between Marxism and traditional culture itself, and the lack of consensus in understanding this issue.

III. Erroneous Understandings of the Relationship between Marxism and Traditional Chinese Culture and Their Harms

In the process of Marxism entering China and its continuous dissemination and development, its relationship with traditional Chinese culture has always been a rather controversial issue. During this time, some argued that Marxism and China’s own cultural tradition were heterogeneous and therefore incompatible. Those holding this view came from both outside and within the Marxist camp. Those outside the Marxist camp often used the opposition between Marxism and Chinese cultural tradition as a reason to claim it lacked the roots to exist and develop in China; or, standing on a "Chinese-culture-centric" [11] position, they opposed the spread of Marxism to protect China's own traditions. Those within the Marxist camp often argued, based on the universality of Marxist principles, that the influence of traditional Chinese culture was primarily negative—an element to be eliminated as much as possible. To maintain the truth and purity of Marxism, they believed the theory should be understood and accepted in its "original flavor" upon entering China. Regarding the relationship between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture, they held that one could only take the stance of using Marxism to criticize, transform, and convert traditional culture; there was no possibility of using traditional culture to integrate or develop Marxism.

Over 100 years ago, when Marxism first entered China, people debated whether this theory produced in Europe could solve China’s problems, and whether it could interface with and take root in China’s own cultural traditions. In 1921, New Youth published Li Da’s article "Discussing Socialism and Questioning Liang Rengong," which described the grand occasion of a "Socialism Study" column in the February issue of Reconstruction (Gaizao): "For a time, Liang Rengong [Liang Qichao], Lan Gongwu, Jiang Baili, Peng Yihu, Lan Gongyan, Fei Juetian, and Zhang Dongsun all wrote long articles stating their attitudes toward socialism." The "socialism" mentioned here was composed of various socialist trends, with Marxist doctrine being the most representative. At the time, Liang Qichao and others believed socialism was unsuitable for China's national conditions. Their reasons included the argument that China's most urgent problem was not the distribution of wealth but its creation, that China had not formed an industrial proletariat (rendering the Marxist theory of proletarian revolution baseless in China), and concerns that the spread of Marxism would threaten China's own cultural traditions.

The issue of the relationship between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture is, in fact, linked to the debate over "China vs. the West" and "Essence vs. Utility" (ti-yong) [12] that has continued for over a century. After the Opium War, when China was forced to draw on the achievements of Western civilization for its own survival and development, the cultural "Essence-Utility" question surfaced. The most influential and representative view was "Chinese learning for the essence, Western learning for utility" (Zhongxue wei ti, Xixue wei yong). Scholars holding this view admitted on one hand that "to make China strong and preserve Chinese learning, we must study Western learning," yet they simultaneously emphasized that if one did not first "strengthen the foundation with Chinese learning and rectify one's discernment, the strong will become leaders of chaos and the weak will become slaves; the disaster would be worse than if one knew nothing of Western learning at all." Therefore, they believed "scholars today must first master the Classics to understand the purpose of the teachings of our ancient sages and teachers, and study history to recognize the order and chaos of our dynasties and the customs of the nine provinces... only then choose Western learning to supplement our deficiencies and Western governance to remove our ailments. Thus, there will be benefit without harm."

Those who took the "Middle-Essence, Western-Utility" stance in choosing between Chinese and Western cultures, while acknowledging the possibility and necessity of learning from foreign civilizations, actually implied that the two civilizations could not truly integrate at a deep level—that is, at the level of cultural concepts. They believed foreign culture would erode and destroy the inner spirit of Chinese culture, thus adopting a conservative cultural position that only accepted the "utility" aspect.

Also based on cultural conservatism, if late Qing progressive thinkers like Zhang Zhidong emphasized "Chinese-Essence, Western-Utility" mainly to set a limit on learning from the West, then by the early 20th century, in the hands of Zhang Taiyan and Chen Yinke, the emphasis on the nation's inherent cultural tradition had become linked with more nationalistic and rallying slogans like "Oppose the Qing and expel the Manchus," "Preserve the country and the race," and "Save the nation from subjugation." This developed into a clear "Chinese-culture-centric" position. On January 10, 1935, ten professors including Wang Xinming, He Bingsong, and Tao Xisheng jointly published the "Manifesto for Cultural Construction on a Chinese Basis" in the monthly journal Cultural Construction. This presented the "Chinese-culture-centric" position in a very intense manner and sparked a major debate on Chinese-Western relations. Although the ten professors were primarily targeting the "Anglo-American style intellectuals" represented by Hu Shih and their advocacy of wholesale Westernization, the Manifesto also claimed: "Apart from those advocating the imitation of Britain and America, there are two other factions: one advocating the imitation of Soviet Russia, and another advocating the imitation of Italy and Germany. Their error is exactly the same as those imitating Britain and America; they all overlook the spatial and temporal specificity of China." This debate also forced some Chinese Marxists to begin seriously considering the relationship between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture. The subsequent proposal of the Sinicization of Marxism and the call for "national forms" in literature and art were both related to this historical background.

Starting from a position of Chinese cultural subjectivism, denying the potential links between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture has long been a strategy adopted by those attempting to negate the legitimacy of Marxism's existence and development in China. At times, this intent is manifested in a scholarly guise. For example, the coterie journal Modern Review (Xiandai Pinglun), run by Chinese liberal intellectuals, published an article titled "Mohism and Socialism" in 1926. The article argued that comparing Confucian thought to modern socialism based on "a few fragmented phrases" was a form of "forced interpretation" [13]. This amounted to denying the possibility of commonalities between Marxism and Confucian culture. The article further noted: "If we are to find a school of thought in Chinese intellectual history highly similar to modern socialism that originated over two thousand years ago, we must surely nominate the doctrines of Mohism." However, it then offered this categorical judgment: "Mozi's thought is only similar to the socialism of Saint-Simon, Kropotkin, and Tolstoy; in terms of methods, it is the polar opposite of Marxism." Consequently, this article—which ostensibly sought evidence for the existence of socialist thought in China through the study of ancient Chinese intellectual history—ultimately excluded the possibility of Marxism's affinity with ancient Chinese thought. Its intention to negate the legitimacy of Marxism's presence in China was quite obvious.

In the struggle between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC), the view that Marxism stands in opposition to traditional Chinese culture and lacks any common ground with it was, as a matter of course, exploited by right-wing elements within the KMT. It became a significant argument in their attacks on Marxism. As some scholars have noted: "The rise of the KMT and the process of the national revolution were linked to the anti-Qing and anti-Manchu movements. Therefore, from the beginning, the revolution possessed a very clear and intense nationalist orientation. Accompanied by radical, violent revolution was an extreme conservatism in cultural and literary concepts." Anti-communist elements in the KMT often presented themselves as the inheritors and defenders of traditional Chinese culture, accusing Marxism of failing to suit China's national conditions and destroying China’s own cultural traditions. The most typical case in this regard occurred in 1943, when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression reached a turning point. To declare the dictatorial stance that "the supreme guiding principle of the War of Resistance is solely the Three People's Principles, and the supreme guiding organization is solely the Chinese Kuomintang," the book China's Destiny was published in Chiang Kai-shek's name (ghostwritten by KMT theorist Tao Xisheng). Even after retreating to the Taiwan region, KMT theorists like Chen Lifu continued to regard themselves as the inheritors and spokespersons of Chinese culture. While researching and promoting traditional Chinese culture, they never forgot to claim that Marxism was unsuitable for China and its traditional culture.

Within the ranks of Chinese Marxists, some argued that since Marxism is a science and a universal truth applicable everywhere, it should be adopted unchanged to solve China's problems. They believed that attempting to understand and apply Marxism starting from China's specific socio-historical conditions and cultural traditions would only lead to a deviation from Marxism. Consequently, they maintained a skeptical and negative attitude toward any innovation or development of Marxist theory designed to adapt to China's unique national conditions and cultural traditions during its introduction to the country. This theoretical stance implicitly shared the premise that Marxism and indigenous Chinese experience—including traditional culture—were alienated from one another and impossible to integrate.

The cause of these perceptions actually lies in the influence of long-standing tendencies toward historical nihilism and national nihilism [14] regarding traditional Chinese culture among certain people within the CPC. Marxism was introduced to China alongside the New Culture Movement [15] around the time of the May Fourth Movement [16]. Many early CPC leaders and theorists were initiators and active participants in the New Culture Movement. Influenced by this movement, they often held a relatively radical and critical attitude toward traditional culture. Regarding the proposal by Hu Shi and others to "sort out the national heritage" [17], Chen Duxue argued that this was "seeking perfume in excrement; even if one exerts tremendous effort to find a small amount, its quality would at best be the same as any other perfume, nothing particularly miraculous, and one fears staining oneself with the stench while searching." Mao Dun also believed that those who "go to ancient Chinese books—especially the 'Classics'—to seek the meaning of literature" were "first-rate reactionaries with decayed minds and bigoted thoughts," whose views were "truly not worth refuting." Qu Qiubai made this judgment of traditional Chinese culture as a whole: "What is China's old society and old culture? It is the culture of a patriarchal society, stuffed with a great pile of ritual teachings and ethical codes [18], stubbornly clinging to countless essays and poetic rhapsodies. Ritual teachings and ethical codes are actually sharp tools for fettering human nature, and those essays and rhapsodies are actually the embellishments of aristocratic decadence."

During the War of Resistance, on the one hand, CPC leaders and theorists were actively exploring and promoting the path of the Sinicization of Marxism, conducting in-depth research and excavation of traditional Chinese culture. On the other hand, to expose the KMT’s practice of posing as the orthodox heir of Chinese culture and advocating for the veneration of Confucius and the restoration of the past, Chinese Marxists constantly reminded people to adopt a "one divides into two" [19] approach toward traditional culture. While inheriting traditional culture, they argued, one must discard the "feudal dross." This also led many later Chinese Marxists to adopt a simplistic critical and negative attitude toward traditional Chinese culture, showing little interest in deeply understanding its rich connotations, and thus failing to establish confidence in China's own traditional culture.

After Mao Zedong Thought—the theoretical achievement of the Sinicization of Marxism—was established as the guiding ideology of the CPC, the concept of the Sinicization of Marxism gained widespread recognition. However, in specific theoretical research, some scholars still harbored misunderstandings regarding the relationship between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture. For instance, some scholars argued that Marxism is a scientific theoretical system based on scientific methodology, and thus both its theoretical viewpoints and methods are completely alienated from traditional Chinese culture. They argued that ancient Chinese thinkers, including Confucian scholars, merely expressed attitudes toward life and moral ideals, and many issues were never raised to the level of philosophy; concepts like "Yin-Yang and the Five Elements" or the "Unity of Heaven and Humanity," they claimed, were full of metaphysical coloring and were anti-scientific. Other scholars argued that traditional Chinese culture was a feudal culture built on the foundation of an agricultural civilization, whereas Marxism is a modern culture arising from modern industrial civilization; thus, two cultures of inherently different natures could never be integrated. When discussing the value of ancient Chinese "people-oriented" thought (minben), some scholars insisted that it was fundamentally intended to maintain the position of the rulers. Consequently, they refused to acknowledge that some of the progressive ideas contained therein could still play a positive role in modern society. They were even less willing to admit that many concepts of ancient minben thought could be compatible with the "view of the people" [20] upheld by Chinese Marxists, or that the formation of the "view of the people" held by Mao Zedong and other Chinese Marxists was once deeply inspired and influenced by ancient Chinese minben thought. These conceptual confusions constrained people's confidence in China's own historical and cultural traditions and limited the depth of the integration between Marxism and fine traditional Chinese culture.

IV. The Prominence of the Cultural Dimension in the "Two Combinations" Advances the Sinicization of Marxism to a Higher Stage

In reality, the historical process of Chinese society has largely refuted the view that Marxist theory is "unsuited to the local soil" of China. Around the time of the May Fourth Movement, many "isms" entered China, and many schemes for social transformation were presented to the Chinese people. Various political forces conducted all sorts of social transformation experiments. In the fierce competition among various "isms" and schemes, Marxism ultimately emerged victorious, and ancient China eventually chose the socialist path with Marxism as its guiding ideology. One important reason why Marxism was able to take root, flourish, and demonstrate strong vitality in China is that there is a certain "affinity" between Marxism and traditional Chinese culture. It was precisely this "affinity" that provided Marxism with a favorable "horizon of reception" among the intelligentsia when it first entered China. As Marxism spread and developed further, this "affinity" laid a broad grassroots foundation for it. The process of forming Sinicized Marxism has been a process of mutual stimulation and gradual integration between the two.

The foreign Sinologist Jacques Gernet once compared the theory of social development stages in Marx's historical materialism with the Confucian theory of social evolution. He argued that the five-stage theory, which holds that humanity develops from primitive communism to future socialism due to a socio-economic dialectic, reminds one of the eschatological views of the Gongyang School regarding "Great Unity" (Datong). Among all Western philosophies, Marxism is undoubtedly closest to the fundamental direction of Chinese thought. There are indeed many commonalities between the "World of Great Unity" described by Confucian scholars and the communist and socialist societies advocated by Marxism. The Book of Rites (Chapter "The Conveyance of Rites") contains descriptions of the ideal of Great Unity, such as: "When the Great Way prevails, the world is shared by all" (Dà dào zhī xíng yě, tiān xià wéi gōng). In another Confucian classic, the Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, the "Three Ages" theory of human society—namely, the "Age of Disorder," the "Age of Ascending Peace" (Xiaokang), and the "Age of Great Peace" (Datong)—was proposed. It viewed the World of Great Unity as an inevitable stage of human history, with the "Small Prosperity" (Xiaokang) stage as a transitional phase toward Great Unity. The Confucian ideals of Xiaokang and Datong exerted a tremendous influence throughout Chinese history. The "Three Ages" theory was even utilized and expanded upon by Kang Youwei and others in the late Qing Dynasty as the most important theoretical support for their constitutional reforms. By the early 20th century, when Marxist theory entered China, many Chinese people's initial understanding of "communism" and "socialism" was built upon the Great Unity ideals of "the world shared by all," "land to the tiller," and "the elderly are provided for until their end, the able-bodied are employed, the young are brought up, and the widowed, orphaned, childless, and disabled are all supported." Initially, when Li Dazhai spoke of his social ideals, he used the term "Great Unity." He said: "Individual liberation and Great Unity solidarity are both indispensable for the new life and the new order. We expect that humanity will eventually break down national borders and realize the World of Great Unity for which all mankind prays." When Li Da discussed "socialism," he also believed that socialism meant "opposing individual competition and advocating cooperation among ten thousand people. Socialism has two brightest banners: one is to remedy economic inequality, and the other is to restore the true state of human equality." Shadows of the World of Great Unity are faintly visible here. In his article "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship," Mao Zedong explicitly stated: "Kang Youwei wrote The Book of Great Unity (Datong Shu), but he did not, and could not, find a way to reach Great Unity." Mao believed that only "passing through the People's Republic to reach socialism and communism" could lead to "the elimination of classes and the Great Unity of the world." In the "New Period" [21], Deng Xiaoping creatively proposed "Small Prosperity" (Xiaokang) as a goal for the primary stage of socialism, which greatly inspired the people’s enthusiasm for socialist construction. That Chinese Marxists linked the ideals of communism and socialism with the ancient Chinese concepts of "Great Unity" and "Small Prosperity" represented an initial level of understanding of Marxism in the beginning, but later became a discourse strategy: using social ideals familiar to the Chinese people to explain their own political propositions. Regardless of the case, it was built on a foundation: there are indeed commonalities between the social ideals they advocated and those of ancient Chinese Confucianism.

The concept of "the people" appeared in the works of Marx and Engels, and their related discourses laid the theoretical foundation for the Marxist view of the people. This concept, along with related ideas such as "centered on the people" and "governing for the people," has always occupied a core position in the CPC's ideological system. "Serving the people" was further emphasized as the fundamental purpose of the CPC. In terms of theoretical resources, the CPC's emphasis on the position of the people is not only influenced by the Marxist view of the people but also echoes the ancient Chinese minben (people-oriented) thought represented by Confucianism. The widespread acceptance of the concept of "the people" in China is also related to China's rich ancient minben tradition.

Furthermore, ancient Chinese naive atheism and dialectical concepts functioned as a form of "pre-understanding" [22] when interpreting Marxist historical materialism and materialist dialectics. It can be said that although Chinese traditional culture and Marxism are separated by great distance in time and space and belong to different ideological systems, the two are by no means incompatible. In the process of the Sinicization of Marxism, fine traditional culture has played an extremely important and active role. Li Zehou [23] long ago provided a brilliant exposition on this point. He argued, "Why was Marxism-Leninism accepted and believed so rapidly and sincerely, first by Chinese intellectuals and then by the broad masses of the people?" On one hand, this was because Marxism-Leninism provided a grand ideal and a practical program for a China mired in national crisis. On the other hand, it was because "if one compares Marxism with many other modern philosophical theories such as neo-realism, analytic philosophy, or existentialism, Marxism is perhaps more congenial to the Chinese people." The Chinese "value action while being rich in historical consciousness; they lack religious faith yet possess the ideal of governing the state and bringing peace to the world; they possess sober reason yet are full of interpersonal passion... this traditional spirit and cultural-psychological structure," in terms of "temperament, habits of thought, and patterns of behavior, made it relatively easy for the Chinese people to accept Marxism."

The reason why fine traditional Chinese culture and Marxism can be fused is twofold. On one hand, Marxism, as produced in the West, is a theory that carries out a comprehensive reflection upon and critique of Western modern capitalist economy, politics, and culture. Its idealistic coloring in setting ultimate social goals, its attitude of practical rationality regarding social transformation, and its humanistic spirit that emphasizes human affairs while opposing religious theocracy are indeed consonant with many elements of fine traditional Chinese culture. On the other hand, as an important achievement of human civilization with 5,000 years of history, Chinese traditional culture inevitably contains many philosophical concepts, social ideals, wisdoms of life, and moral principles of universal value. These factors have provided rich ideological resources for the further development of Marxism in China.

The process of the dissemination and development of Marxism in China over the past century has been both a process of transforming China under the guidance of Marxism and a process wherein Marxism itself has achieved innovation and development within China. The context of this innovation and development is China's own national conditions and national cultural traditions. Regarding the relationship between Marxism and Chinese traditional culture, the influence is bidirectional: on one hand, Chinese traditional culture has been deeply influenced by Marxism, completing its modern transformation through the process of combining with Marxism; on the other hand, when encountering Chinese cultural traditions, foreign Marxism was not only branded with "nationalization" in terms of form, but its inner substance was also nourished by fine traditional Chinese culture. In the report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping explicitly made the assertion that "to uphold and develop Marxism, we must combine it with fine traditional Chinese culture." The most important significance of this statement lies in its full affirmation of the status and role of fine traditional Chinese culture in the development of Sinicized Marxism. It clarifies various blurred understandings on this issue that have persisted for a century, demonstrating that Chinese Marxists have achieved a high degree of cultural self-awareness and cultural confidence. This marks the entry of Sinicized Marxism into a new and higher stage, providing theoretical support for the continued development of Marxism in China, for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and for the Chinese nation's contribution to the world through its own pioneered form of modern civilization.