In February 1977, the
Two Newspapers and One Journal published an editorial entitled
Study the Documents and Grasp the Key Points, which put forward the
Two Whatevers: “We will resolutely uphold all decisions made by Chairman Mao and follow all instructions of Chairman Mao.”
Hu Fuming, who had just experienced the Cultural Revolution, believed that Mao Zedong’s remarks should not be understood in such a dogmatic way, so he decided to write an article to refute this view. However, he hesitated a lot before deciding to write this article. After thinking it over, he decided to write this article pointing out the idealism of the Two Whatevers. Finally, in the hospital where he was staying, he titled it “Practice is the Criterion for Testing Truth”. After the
Guangming Daily revised the article, the title was finally set as
Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth. The article was first published on 10 May 1978, in the 60th issue of
Theoretical Dynamics, an internal publication of the
Central Party School. The next day,
Guangming Daily published the full text on its front page under the name of "Special Commentator of this newspaper". At that time,
Hua Guofeng was visiting North Korea and was unaware of it. On the same day,
Xinhua News Agency forwarded the article. On 12 May, ''
People's Daily and People's Liberation Army Daily'' reprinted it at the same time. On 13 May, several provincial newspapers reprinted it at the same time. Within a few days, the article spread throughout the country. The article contains more than 7,000 words and advocates that truth can only be tested by social practice; one of the most basic principles of
Marxism is the unity of theory and practice; all the revolutionary leaders, including
Marx,
Engels,
Lenin,
Stalin, and Mao, insisted on testing truth through practice; any theory must be constantly tested by practice. Since the publication of this article, the great debate on the criterion of truth has swept the country and ultimately shook the theoretical foundation of Hua Guofeng’s rule—the Two Whatevers. With Hua Guofeng’s self-criticism at the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party’s working conference and the convening of the
third plenary Session of the 11th CCP Central Committee at the end of 1978,
Deng Xiaoping gradually replaced Hua Guofeng and took control of the highest power of the Party and the state. Hu Fuming later said in an interview: "The views in the article are not my original ideas. Every philosophy teacher in the university understands them. It was just that I wrote them out at a special 'time point'." In the article
Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth, Marx said that "people should prove the truth of their thinking in practice" and Mao Zedong said that "the criterion of truth can only be social practice." What was not mentioned in the article was that
Hu Shih said in 1921 that one of the core views of
John Dewey's experimentalism was that "experiment is the only touchstone of truth." This concept can be traced back to
Charles Sanders Peirce. In 1954, when the CCP criticized Hu Shi, it said that this was different from the view of Marxism. Hu Shih's experimentalism was criticized by the CCP as idealism. == Legacy ==