Historical Semiotics and an Application of Xi Jinping's Thought on Culture (习近平文化思想)--Seeking "Truth From Facts "(实事求是) in the "Mass Line" (群众路线) in a ReReading of 《漢書 ·河間獻王德傳》"The Biography of Wang De in Hejian" From the Book of Han

  

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Both the Mass Line  (群众路线) and the principle of seeking truth from facts (实事求是) occupy significant places within the core normative basis of contemporary Chinese Marxist-Leninism. The Mass Line traditionally has been attached to principles of governance at the heart of Leninist ideology, and more specifically on principles of connection between vanguard and masses first in a revolutionar environemnt and thereafter in the construction of a governance system in which the revolutionary party became the party in power.   "Seeking Truth from Facts" on the other hand has traditionally been attached to the development of productive forces and most recently with the principles around which the Era of Reform and Opening Up was constituted. Governance and development are  related  but not identical concepts.

Mao Zedong first referenced seeking truth from facts (实事求是) in writings from the 1930s. But it became tightly embedded within the core of Chinese Marxist Leninist theory in the course of its evolution at the start of te Era of Reform and Opening Up, for example when used by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 in his now famous keynote address to the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC (Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts and Unite As One In Looking to the Future).

Only if we emancipate our minds, seek truth from facts, proceed from reality in everything and integrate theory with practice, can we carry out our socialist modernization programme smoothly, and only then can our Party further develop Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. In this sense, the debate about the criterion for testing truth is really a debate about ideological line, about politics, about the future and the destiny of our Party and nation. (Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth From Facts and Unite As One In Looking to the Future).

The mass line (群众路线) emerged from out of the writings of Mao Zedong, especially in the period when the Chinese Communists were a revolutionary party.

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In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily "from the masses, to the masses". This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge. (Mao Zedong, "Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership" (June 1, 1943), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 119)

Both found their way into the General Program of the Communist Party of China's Constitution.  Seeking truth from facts as well as the mass line are included in the six fundamental requirements of the basic line. Each appears to stay in its own conceptual lane--the one focused on political organization, the other on economic/developmental organization. Though the concepts may leak into each other one would be surprised to think of them as identical.

And yet, the impulse behind each share a common parent--so much so that one might come to understand both not merely as conceptually aligned by as different expressions of the same impulse. To those ends, my purpose today is to look back in time a little more to better unpack the overtones and meanings of both, but more importantly, to better understand the semiotics that aligns the Mass Line and the "seek truth from facts" principle in an iterative dialectic which is hinted at in both quoted materials cited above. Both are, in a sense, iterative feedback loops based on an identity between truth and vanguard on the one hand, and people and facts on the other. The object, in part, to  read historical culture semiotically by applying Xi Jinping's Thought on Culture

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Xi Jinping's cultural thoughts were formed and continuously enriched in the great practice of cultural construction in the new era on the basis of inheriting and developing the exploration results and valuable experience of the Party's leadership in cultural construction since its founding. They are a theoretical summary of the Party's practical experience in leading cultural construction in the new era. 习近平文化思想是在继承发展党成立以来领导文化建设探索成果和宝贵经验的基础上，在新时代文化建设的伟大实践中形成并不断丰富发展的，是新时代党领导文化建设实践经验的理论总结。(习近平文化思想 [Xi Jinping's Cultural Thought] 2023; also here).

Let us see how a semiotic approach might help us apply this new cultural line of the "New Era." To that end it is worth considering 《漢書 ·河間獻王德傳》"The Biography of Wang De in Hejian" and what it may tell us about the mass line (群众路线), the principle of seeking truth from facts (实事求是). and their collective inter-relationship as it may deepen an understanding of contemporary Chinese Marxist Leninism. In this way, one might be able to reinvest the traditional original version of the story in which "truth from facts" emerged in its historical form, which is also the elaboration of the principle of the mass line. In the process one can better appreciate the phenomenology of both mass line and seeking truth from facts.  More importantly, one can see, through the elegant simplicity of the classic telling, that the tale of seeking truth from facts is simultaneously the mapping of the structure of the mass line in a way that can be applied to systems of social relations from the Chinese feudal period to the New Era of Chinese historical development. 

Pix Credit here (Ming Era Elegant Pursuits of the 18 Scholars)

The traditional accounting, found in the Book of Han, resonates perhaps even more than its repurposing by later thinkers, including Mao Zedong: 

“河間獻王德以孝景前二年立，修學好古，實事求是。從民得善書，必為好寫與之， 留其真，加金帛賜以招之。” [The Prince Xian of Hejian, Liu De, was made a prince in the second year of Emperor Jing the Filial; he enjoyed studying classics from earlier eras, and sought truth from facts. When he obtained a valuable book from the people, he always made a copy by transcribing it and returned the copy to them, keeping the original himself, and provided gold and silk to keep those guests coming] 漢書　卷五十三 【景十三王傳第二十三】 [The Book of Han vol 53; The 23rd Biography of Thirteen Kings] (Project Gutenberg 2007 [EBook #23841]. 

Notice the semiotic element that suggests both power relationships and control over the universe of knowledge that is worth knowing. The Prince Xian of Hejian draws truth from the study of the classics from earlier eras. He does not study the classics but understands them as objects from which truth can be extracted for the present. He understands as well that in the process he may himself be creating objects form which future eras may seek to extract truth from the facts of his own person and acts—including his extraction of truth from facts drawn from a farther back in time past. 

To that end judgment is necessary. The first judgment is to divide the past into objects (vessels) that contain something of value form those that do not. For that purpose he must rely on the conditions in the present to extract use and insight from the past. The second is that these book-objects with value are obtained from the people; they are not obtained from the literati, though the literati may also be in passion of some or all of them. And indeed, the books are unlikely to have been written and published (as that term was then understood) by the people—merely that the initial judgment of value was made by the people (the Leninist masses) from which the Prince can extract that which is valuable. The third is that the books be obtains from the people are not what he returns to them. Instead the Prince keeps the original for himself; he causes the work to be transcribed and returns the copy—transcribed, and perhaps with additional wisdom--to the people, along with objects of material value. 

And that is the point from the perspective of the people—it is for the leadership core to extract something of value (truth) from the facts (contained in the classic books), the value of which aids the Prince in his leadership role and produces material wealth for those who make available to the truth the facts in their possession. This produces not merely an expression of the semiosis of meaning making—it also provides a framework for the mass line (群众路线).The two are mimetic but not identical--each embodies the other but expressed as a reflection--but the reflections are inexact. Each is an object and a process--noun and verb. And each expresses the hierarchical nature of interactivity that is dialectical, each an iteration of what comes before but changing in the iteration; one which exists even if it  appears to go up in smoke. 

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