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The Yang Hsien-chen Affair

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Donald J. Munro
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Extract

An exposure to Chinese Communist discussions of the nature of “struggle” leaves a curious visual image. The portrait is not of two poles with a middle ground between, but of a situation in which the middle ground has moved to one of the two sides, leaving combat of one against two. For the middle ground or compromise between opposites has become an equal if not greater menace to progress (which emerges from struggle) than the obvious enemy itself. The “either-or” polarity is nothing new in Marxism, but it has taken on new significance in Chinese philosophical discourse.

Type
Recent Developments
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 22 , June 1965 , pp. 75 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1965

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References

1 Abram Moiseyevich Deborin (real name Joffe) joined the Mensheviks in 1907, did not join the Communist Party until 1928. Between 1926–30 he was editor of the major Marxist philosophical journal Under the Banner and then became associated with the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The interpretation of Marxism which he advanced in opposition to mechanical materialism was condemned by Stalin in 1930 as “men-shevikising idealism.”Google Scholar

2Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily), 08 14 and 31, 1964.Google Scholar

3 Wang Ming (Ch'en Shao-yü) was leader of the “Returned Student Clique,” a group of young men who had studied in Moscow at the Sun Yatsen Academy from 1926–30. Unpopular among party veterans in China, they rapidly rose high in the party due to their association with the Comintern delegate, Pavel Mif. Charging the party leadership under Li Li-san with “adventurism,” Wang Ming assumed short-lived control in 1931. Returning to Moscow in 1932 as power was shifting to Mao Tse-tung, he helped formulate the United Front policy at the Seventh Comintern Congress.Google Scholar

4.August 31, 1964.Google Scholar

5Kuan, Feng and Lin, Yu-shih, “Lun K'ung-tzu” (“On Confucius”), K'ung-tzu Chehsueh T'ao-lun Chi (Collected Discussions on the Philosophy of Confucius) (Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1963), pp. 244–245.Google Scholar See also Hou, Wai-lou, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1959), p. 6.Google Scholar

6Kuan, Feng and Lin, Yu-shih, “Lun Lao-tzu Che-hsueh T'i-hsi ti Wei-hsin-chu-i Pen-chih” (“On the Idealistic Essence of Lao-tzu's Philosophy”), Lao-tzu Che-hsueh T'ao-lun Chi (Collected Discussions on Lao-tzu's Philosophy) (Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1959), pp. 206–208.Google Scholar Also see Fung, Ching-yuan, “Lao-tzu ti Che-hsueh,” (“Lao Tzu's Philosophy”), Lao-tzu Che-hsuehGoogle Scholar …, Ibid., p. 11 and Lu, Chen-yu, Chung kuo Cheng-chih Szu-hsiang Shih (History of Chinese Political Thought) (Peking: Jen-min Ch'u-pan-she, 1961), pp. 57–59.Google Scholar For a different view of opposites in Lao Tzu, see Lau, D. C., “The Treatment of Opposites in Lao Tzu,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 344–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7Jen, Chi-yü, “Chuang-tzu ti Wei-wu-chu-i Shih-chieh-kuan”) (“Chuang Tzu's Materialistic World View”), Chuang-tzu Che-hsueh T'ao-lun Chi (Collected Discussions on Chuang-tzu's Philosophy) (Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1962)Google Scholar, p. 171. Fung, Yu-lan, “Lun Chuang-tzu” (“On Chuang-tzu”), Chuang-tzu Che-hsuehGoogle Scholar …, Ibid., p. 126. Kuan, Feng, “Chuang-tzu Che-hsueh P'i-p'an,” (“Critique of Chuang-tzu's Philosophy”), Chuang-tzu Che-hsueh …Google Scholar, ibid, p. 21.

8 Ibid. pp. 4–5.

9Fung, Yu-lan, “Lun Chuang-tzu,” Chuang-tzu Che-hsuehGoogle Scholar …, Ibid., p. 126.

10Liao, W. K. (trans.), The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu (London: Arthur Probisthan, 1959), II, 287.Google Scholar

11Symposium 186d. Translation is from Edith, Hamilton and Huntington, Cairns (ed.), The Collected Dialogues of Plato (New York: Bollingen, 1961), p. 540.Google Scholar

12People's Daily, 07 19, 1964 and August 31, 1964.Google Scholar

13People's Daily, 08 14, 1964.Google Scholar

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid. August 31, 1964.

16 Ibid. August 14, 1964.

17Lenin, V. I., Marx-Engels-Marxism (Moscow: 1953)Google Scholar, p. 333, quoted in Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), p. 95. The statement appears, for example, in People's Daily, 07 19, 1964 and August 14, 1964.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. July 17, 1964.

19 Ibid. July 19, 1964.

20 Ibid. August 31, 1964.

21 From China News Analysis (Hong Kong), No. 535.Google Scholar

22People's Daily, 07 17, 1964.Google Scholar

23 The criticism of Yang was still continuing in November 1964. The focus seems to have shifted from philosophy to economics. Views Yang presented in the early 1950s were dredged up for critique. They centre around his theory of the “comprehensive economic base,” five socio-economic groups interwoven to form a unified economic base. Critics point to the incompatibility of some of the groups. However the basic issues seem little different from those raised when the controversy was stated in philosophical terms. See especially People's Daily, 11 1 and 9, 1964.Google Scholar

24People's Daily, 08 14 and 31, 1964.Google Scholar

25Jen, Chih-ko, “Yang Hsien-chen Shih-chen Hung-Ta-lu” (“The Yang Hsien-chen Incident Jolts the Mainland”), Chan Wang (Outlook), 10 1, 1964, p. 9.Google Scholar

26People's Daily, 12 31, 1964.Google Scholar

27Jen, Chih-ko, Outlook, 10 1, 1964, p. 9.Google Scholar