To know the world is to transform it; human history is created by humanity itself. Yet one cannot transform the world without first knowing it. As the saying goes, “Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.” On this point, our so-called leaders have been utterly blind. The transition from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom necessarily involves two processes: cognition and transformation. European philosophers of old had already grasped the truth that “freedom is the recognition of necessity.” Marx’s contribution lay not in denying this truth, but rather in supplementing it after acknowledging it, by adding the principle that, based on such recognition of necessity, we must also “transform the world.” “Freedom is the recognition of necessity” was the formulation of the older philosophers; “Freedom consists in the recognition of necessity and in the transformation of the world” is the Marxist thesis. A Marxist who fails to understand that we come to know the world through its transformation and, conversely, transform it through our understanding of it, is no true Marxist. Similarly, a Chinese Marxist who does not grasp that we come to know China by transforming it and, in turn, transform China by coming to know it, is likewise not a genuine Chinese Marxist.

Marx pointed out that what distinguishes humans from bees is that, before building a house, people already possess in their minds a blueprint for it. If we are to construct the edifice of the Chinese revolution, we too must first have a blueprint—a comprehensive master plan, as well as numerous detailed sub-plans. These blueprints are none other than our active reflections, derived from the practice of the Chinese revolution, upon objective reality: upon domestic class relations, upon inter-ethnic relations within China, upon the mutual relations among nations on the international stage, and upon the relations between China and other countries, among other matters. The reason our leaders are subjectivists is that all their revolutionary plans—whether grand or minute, general or specific—are divorced from objective reality and fail to accord with it. They harbor only a subjective desire to transform the world, or China, or North China, or the cities—but no coherent plan. Their schemes are not scientific; they are arbitrary and chaotic. Since these leaders completely fail to understand the world yet presume to remake it, they not only bring ruin upon themselves but also lead others down the same destructive path. Being blind to the very nature of the Chinese revolution, they nonetheless presume to act as guides for the people; this is precisely what is meant by the proverb, “A blind man riding a blind horse at midnight approaches a deep pool.” A revolutionary cadre must be able both to read and to write and must possess a rich store of knowledge about society and about nature, for these constitute the foundation upon which effective work and serious theoretical study can be built. Without this foundation—if one is illiterate, unable to read or write, and if one’s knowledge of social and natural phenomena is confined to what one has directly observed—such a person may indeed perform certain tasks, but excellence will remain unattainable. Likewise, while he or she may absorb some revolutionary principles, true mastery will prove impossible.