Author: Lu Shaochen, a resident scholar in Guiyang Confucius Institute, School of Philosophy, Fudan University
Heine, a great poet, said in The Return of the Native that when we look back at our hometown, inquire about our initial heart and recall the starting point of life, our hearts are often exactly like the sea. "There are tides and storms, and there are many pearls in its depths." On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army’s Long March, it is not the case in our hearts to review and commemorate this great historical event. The purpose of commemoration is not simply to feel and remember, but to refine and explore the philosophical connotation and significance of the times that it contains many pearls, so as to take the long March of our generation well. Years are easy to get old, and the spirit will last forever. Once we accurately understand the philosophical connotation and spiritual essence of the Long March spirit, the Long March spirit will not grow old with the years, but will become more brilliant because it has become the big dipper of the new era.
Specifically, the spirit of the Long March is first of all the spirit of seeking truth from facts with distinctive historical and times characteristics, that is, the spirit of refusing to copy the experience and abstract theory of the Soviet Union and insisting on determining the general plan and road of the revolution according to the historical and social nature of China society at that time. Every era has its challenges, risks, contradictions, problems and tasks. Its fundamental principle and philosophical position are to combine Marxism–Leninism’s basic principles with the different concrete realities of China in each period, and independently solve China’s major problems of the times according to the problems and tasks of the times. As the Supreme Leader General Secretary pointed out when he visited Jiangtaibao in Xiji County, "The Long March is always on the road."
As early as the eve of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong pointed out that "winning national victory is only the first step after the Long March." In other words, the long March to seize power has been completed, but the long March to build and develop the country has just begun. "China’s revolution is great, but the journey after the revolution is longer, and the work is greater and harder." In the early days of reform and opening up, Deng Xiaoping pointed out the new task of the Long March, that is, to carry out the "four modernizations." With the development of the times, it has become a new long March task to achieve the goal of "two hundred years". "This is carried out in succession. Our generation should take the long March of our generation. " To successfully accomplish this goal, we need to innovate the development concept, from the resource-driven and unbalanced development model to the innovative, coordinated, shared, open and green development concept.
The spirit of the Long March is followed by the unity and community spirit of criticizing sectarianism. The victory of the Long March under the disparity between the enemy and ourselves and the harsh natural conditions lies in its constant criticism of sectarianism and separatism, and its emphasis on unity of mind, mutual support and close cooperation. In the process of criticizing Zhang Guotao’s separatism, he advocated the sacrifice spirit of "worrying about the world first, and enjoying the world later", and wrote the great strength of the community to live and die together and share weal and woe with blood and life. This spirit is a contemporary creative transformation of China’s excellent traditional culture. We can see the prototype of this community spirit in many discourses of Wang Yangming, an important sage of China’s traditional culture. For example, Wang Yangming pointed out, "A gentleman of the world can be fair to right and wrong, like likes and dislikes, treat people as they are, and treat the country as they are at home."
This spirit of "treating people as they are, treating the country as they are at home" was also explained wonderfully by Marx in many expositions. He sharply criticized the atomic individualism in national economics and capitalist civil society and the indifference between people, and pointed out that only "the free personality based on the all-round development of individuals and their common social production capacity becoming their social wealth" is the freedom that is really worth yearning for. "Only in the community can individuals obtain the means to develop their talents in an all-round way, that is to say, only in the community can there be personal freedom … … Under the conditions of a real community, each person obtains his freedom in his own union and through this union. " Today, carrying forward the spirit of national community centered and oriented on serving the people is the broad humanitarian feelings and the feelings of home-country community in the spirit of the Long March, and it is a consistent new Long March spirit. It is the ethos and spiritual strength of contemporary "enlightening thoughts, moistening the soul, edifying life, and being able to sweep away decadent and languid winds", and it is the formation of "five colors meet each other and complement each other; The key to the realization of the ultimate ideal of "eight-tone ensemble, final harmony and peace"
The spirit of the Long March is also the subjective practical spirit of criticizing negative slackness, which is the heroic spirit of "not afraid of sacrifice and overcoming all difficulties to win". "The hardships and hardships experienced by the Red Army’s Long March are rare in the world. Without revolutionary heroism and revolutionary optimism that swallowed mountains and rivers and went forward bravely, the victory of the Long March was unimaginable. " It can be said that the spirit of the Long March is a concentrated expression of the indomitable and self-improving cultural tradition of the Chinese nation. The spirit of "Heaven is strong, and a gentleman strives for self-improvement" is Do not forget your initiative mind’s main practice spirit of tidying up his spirit and taking the world as his duty. Lu Jiuyuan, a famous thinker in the Song Dynasty, once advocated the subjective practice spirit of "people take the universe and the world as their own responsibility" and advocated the integration of moral cognition and moral practice by promoting the consciousness of subjective responsibility.
China’s idea of focusing on economic construction and solving problems through development can never be simply understood as materialism and consumerism. Just as Marx’s ideas about communism and the kingdom of freedom can’t be understood as a kind of lax life. As Engels said, only mediocrity can "understand materialism as greed, alcoholism, entertainment, sensuality, vanity, love of money, meanness, greed, profit-making and speculation, in short, all the nasty behaviors that he secretly loves." Especially under the new normal of innovation and development, we should understand the practice of economic development, especially innovation and development, as not only the guarantee to improve the material living standard, but also the subjective practical activity to realize people’s essential strength. Only in this way, the connotation of building a well-off society in an all-round way is not only material abundance, but also a decent, dignified, fair and free life with rich spiritual connotation.
In a word, since the Long March, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has won great victories one after another, and its achievements have attracted worldwide attention, but it also faces many challenges and problems to be solved urgently. For example, it’s irrelevant, the indifferent spectator mentality, the lack of faith (even taking asking the ordinary people about ghosts and gods as a kind of faith), the habitual suspicion and impetuous mentality of lacking social trust, the fetishism and consumerism mentality of showing off wealth, etc. Historical experience and lessons tell us that only under the guidance of Marxism and at the same time with Do not forget your initiative mind, we can endow the Long March spirit with new connotation of the times, make the Long March spirit become the "cultural essence" and "the soul of rejuvenating the country" of contemporary China by critically applying China’s excellent historical and cultural traditions, and continue to write the moving stories of our predecessors by taking practical actions and extend the glorious chapter of Chinese national rejuvenation by creating the times. Only in this way can we truly connect the baton of the Long March spirit and avoid it becoming "a stripped pea pods", but truly become "an endless spiritual force" and "a powerful spiritual driving force for building a harmonious socialist society."