Page 42 - SELECTED WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG Volume III.indd

40 MAO TSE-TUNG
knowledge in life and in practice. Therefore, I advise those who
have only book-learning but as yet no contact with reality, and also
those with little practical experience, to realize their own short-
comings and become a little more modest.
How can those who have only book-learning be turned into
intellectuals in the true sense? The only way is to get them to take
part in practical work and become practical workers, to get those
engaged in theoretical work to study important practical problems.
In this way our aim can be attained.
What I have said will probably make some people angry. They
will say, “According to your explanation, even Marx would not be
regarded as an intellectual.” I say they are wrong. Marx took part
in the practice of the revolutionary movement and also created revolu-
tionary theory. Beginning with the commodity, the simplest element
of capitalism, he made a thorough study of the economic structure
of capitalist society. Millions of people saw and handled commodities
every day but were so used to them that they took no notice. Marx
alone studied commodities scientifically. He carried out a tremendous
work of research into their actual development and derived a
thoroughly scientific theory from what existed universally. He studied
nature, history and proletarian revolution and created dialectical
materialism, historical materialism and the theory of proletarian
revolution. Thus Marx became a most completely developed intel-
lectual, representing the acme of human wisdom; he was fun-
damentally different from those who have only book-learning. Marx
undertook detailed investigations and studies in the course of practical
struggles, formed generalizations and then verified his conclusions
by testing them in practical struggles — this is what we call theoretical
work. Our Party needs a large number of comrades who will learn
how to do such work. In our Party there are many comrades who
can learn to do this kind of theoretical research; most of them are
intelligent and promising and we should value them. But they must
follow correct principles and not repeat the mistake of the past. They
must discard dogmatism and not confine themselves to ready-made
phrases in books.
There is only one kind of true theory in this world, theory that is
drawn from objective reality and then verified by objective reality;
nothing else is worthy of the name of theory in our sense. Stalin said
that theory becomes aimless when it is not connected with practice.
3
Aimless theory is useless and false and should be discarded. We should