On The Core Category Of Mao Zedong’s Political Philosophy

Political philosophy which is one of the most important parts in Mao’s theory system, is not fully attention in the study of the past time. In Mao’s theory, philosophy is always related to a certain political request. In other words, Mao’s philosophy is aiming at certain political goals. Tracking back the historical development of Mao’s theory, it is clear that every progress in his philosophy theory was shaped by political attempts in real world. Considering the complex of Mao’s political philosophy,I will try to construct its logical frame and find the significances for contemporary China by analyzing the key concepts and connecting them to the real world.There are five parts in this paper. First, I select "revolution" as the core concept in Mao’s political theory because of its fundamental role in the understanding of Marxism and the revolution. After Mao inherited The Class Struggle theory of Marxism, putting revolution struggle into practice became Mao’s routine regarding the real world. Therefore,I also select the concept of "revolution" and related theory to analyze. Mao’s revolution theory was shaped by classic Marxism, situation of China and October Revolution in Russia. From the historical perspective, Mao’s revolution theory lasts through different periods:from the new-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution. From the logical level, Mao’s theory of revolution contains classic explanation of figurative content, such as motivation, object, routine, etc. One thing needs to pointed out is that the victory of Chinese revolution on the one hand, and his dependency of experience from the revolution also led the tragedy later in his life on the other hand.Second, I select "masses" as the object of Mao’s political philosophy. Mao’s emphasizing of The Class Struggle makes people the most important object in the logical structure of Mao’s theory and practice of revolution in real world. Theories about people and people’s history represent his inheriting of Marxism, as well as a scientific overview of China’s revolution. That is to say, Mao’s theory about people can be considered as ontology and epistemology. In addition, Mao’s theory of masses can still guide "Following the Mass Line educational practice of CCP".Third, what ensures Mao’s success of signification of Marxism is his accurate understanding of "class" and emphasizing that The Class Struggle is the motive force of modern Chinese history. In addition, it also shaped the mean character of signification of Marxism. However, Mao’s explanation of class is different from classic Marxism:Marx and Engels classify the people in economic perspective by their status in productive relationships. Lenin considers classes as a political concept, referring the relationship between certain dominate group and other groups. Mao inherited both:he thinks that class should be identified by people’s political behavior, which on the other hand led the mistake in his aged life.Fourth, "doctrine" is another important scope in Mao’s political philosophy. The main difference between Mao and other politicians or theorists is that Mao emphasizes theory’s role in practice, especially his insistence in Marxism. From the argument of "Problems and Doctrines" in Mao’s early life, to his insistence and develop of Marxism Mao’s political philosophy system is constituted of these following questions:what Marxism is, how to insist and develop Marxism, what socialism is and how to build socialism society.Finally, I select "culture" as the ending concept of Mao’s political philosophy. It’s not only because of Mao’s literati characteristics and his large number of literary works, but also his emphasis on culture’s role in pushing the development of Chinese society. Even though it caused Cultural Revolution, we should admit first that Mao’s understanding of culture and the related theories has its scientific content, such as "new-democratic culture" and "double-hundreds principle". It certainly needs to be analyzed that this theoretical mistake of culture during the end of his life.