Comments on an Article from the Soviet Union Criticizing the Formulation of "Unity of Opposites" [1]
(July 1953)

Comrade Chen Boda[2], please read and return to Qiaomu.
I believe this criticism[3] is erroneous.

Mao Zedong

[1] This comment by Mao Zedong was written on a letter from Hu Qiaomu, Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, dated July 6, 1953. The letter stated: "The final article in this issue of *Study Translation Series*, pages 100–101, mentions criticism of 'unity of opposites.' Please refer to it."

[2] Chen Boda was then Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee.

[3] The sixth issue of *Study Translation Series* in 1953 carried an article by Soviet author D. Bazhenov titled *Review of Rosenthal’s "Marxist Dialectics"*. The article stated: "We believe that Professor Rosenthal’s use of terms such as 'unity of opposites' and 'the law of unity and struggle of opposites' is inappropriate. In his classic work *Dialectical and Historical Materialism*, Stalin has already defined development as the struggle of opposites. Terms such as 'identity' of opposites or 'unity' of opposites found in our philosophical writings are remnants of Hegelian modes of expression. In philosophical works, the term 'struggle of opposites' should be used, as it most precisely expresses the essence of this law. In Stalin’s *Dialectical and Historical Materialism*, this law is explicitly referred to as the law of the struggle of opposites. Authors should elucidate the fourth characteristic of Marxist dialectics based on Stalin’s precise formulation, as such a formulation represents the latest achievement of Marxist science."