Remarks on Articles Including “A Discussion on the Identity and Struggle of Contradictions” Chuan
(November 12, 1960)
Please have Lin Ke121 locate these journals and newspapers (which carried those individuals’ articles) and send them to me for review.
Mao Zedong
November 12
Chuan


These remarks were written on Page 7 of the People’s Daily dated November 12, 1960. That page, under the “Academic Trends” section, published two commentaries: “A Discussion on the Identity and Struggle of Contradictions” and “Philosophical Workers in Henan Discuss the Driving Force Behind the Development of Things.” The first article stated that, recently, several philosophers had been debating whether erroneous thinking and existence possess identity; the relationship between identity and struggle; whether qualitative change involves identity; and the driving force behind the development of things. This debate was initiated by Xue Jing’s article “The Relationship Between Unity and Struggle,” published in the sixth issue of New Construction in 1960. Subsequently, Yan Li expressed dissenting views in the seventh issue of the same journal. Thereafter, articles responding to the debate appeared in Guangming Daily, Academic Monthly, and Wenhui Daily, authored by Zhou Shuwen, Wu Bingyuan, Tang Kailin, He Ji, and others. The discussion has now been preliminarily launched. The article also briefly outlined their differing perspectives. The second article reported, according to Issue 18 of Zhongzhou Review, that some philosophical scholars in Henan Province engaged in a discussion at the end of August and beginning of September concerning the driving force behind the development of things. Two views emerged: one held that not only the struggle of contradictions but also their unity serves as the driving force, while the majority disagreed, maintaining that it is the struggle between contradictory aspects rather than their unity that propels development.
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Lin Ke was, at the time, the secretary of Mao Zedong’s office.