Revolutionary Spirit Research Articles

Romain Rolland and Ernest Bloch

ROMAIN ROLLAND, author, critic, essayist, musicologist, and teacher, was born on January 29, 1866, to a middle-class Catholic family in Clamecy, in the Burgundy region of France. His father, a lawyer, was a highly respected member of the community; his mother, an especially pious woman, devoted herself exclusively to her two children, Romain and his sister Madeleine, a situation that inevitably made it difficult for him to cut the umbilical cord. Such was the strength of her personality and the impact it made on her son that several sources insist that Rolland was raised by his widowed mother. Except for the fact that he was a sickly child (a condition that resulted in theperpetual fear that he would not live to see the completion of each work he undertook), his childhood was peaceful and uneventful. However, differences in the backgrounds of his parents communicated themselves to the son and remained irreconcilable. Rolland's father descended from sons of the Revolution. From him, Rolland inherited his love of freedom. From his mother's family, he acquired a piety and a deep and abiding faith that did not always blend with his revolutionary spirit. He studied the piano first with his mother and music soon became an all-consuming love. When the time arrived for Rolland to enter the Ecole Normale, his mother moved the entire family to Paris.'

What Should I Do If There Is No "1 + 1" Around?

I am a salesperson at a store. After the publication of Comrade Xu Chi's report on Goldbach's Conjecture, young people in our store studied the article and conducted a lively discussion. Comrade Chen Jingrun's revolutionary spirit of dedication, daring to scale heights in science, has touched off the youthful flame latent in everyone's heart. Many comrades expressed their desire to emulate Chen Jingrun in order to do their bit in helping the nation achieve the four modernizations. I, too, declared my determination, but I am not so sure whether it would work. As a salesperson, what I do is no more than stand behind a counter and sell things, taking in money on the one hand and handing over goods on the other. It is very simple and has nothing to do with + 1 at all. How can we talk about emulating Chen Jingrun and scaling new heights? Even though we are filled with soaring ambition, there is no room for us to display our prowess. I know that such thinking is not quite proper, but it is a clear f...

Locke's Second Treatise and “The Best Fence Against Rebellion”

Locke is at once a traditional and a subversive author for us. As an authority for the American Founders he stands at the source of our tradition. But he was an authority for those revolutionaries because his political teaching culminates in the last chapter of the Second Treatise, a defense of the right of resistance. Insofar as we remain a revolutionary or rebellious people (with a particular proclivity to tax rebellions), Locke's political teaching lives in us. But insofar as we have become traditional and taken our revolution for granted, even coming to look at our founding with “sanctimonious reverence” and ascribing to our founders “a wisdom more than human,” as Jefferson feared we would, Locke has lost his vitality for us. It is no wonder then that we do not read his defense of the right of resistance with the care it deserves, even as we sometimes see or feel its revolutionary spirit still around us. But careful attention to the structure of Locke's argument for the right of resistance shows that he was more consistent and more radical than is usually supposed.

Learn From Zhang Zhixin's Brilliant Revolutionary and Dialectical Thinking

In learning from the heroic deeds of martyr Zhang Zhixin, everyone who is determined to dedicate his life to the revolution will be deeply impressed by her earthshaking spirit of dedication. After the emotional storm calms down in one, one may naturally ask: As an ordinary Party member, how was she able to see through appearances to get at the essence under such intricate and complex circumstances? How could she dare to launch an uncompromising struggle against such huge monsters as Lin Biao and the Gang of Four? There can be different answers to this. But fundamentally she was a thorough materialist imbued with an invincible revolutionary spirit. Whether in the letters she wrote to her relatives and friends, in the materials she wrote in prison, or in the struggle she carried out against Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, there glittered everywhere the dazzling light of her revolutionary dialectics, dealing fatal blows to the most covert of the specious Marxists, and to idealism and metaphysics of all ...

Both The Per Unit and Gross Outputs of Early Rice in our Country Have Attained the Highest Level in History

(NCNA, August 24, 1976) Spurred on by the struggle to criticize Teng Hsiao-p'ing and repulse the right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts, the broad masses of cadres and commune members in the rural areas in our country overcame severe natural calamities by fostering the revolutionary spirit that man's will can overpower natural disasters. Having wrested a good harvest of summer grain crops, they continued to win an abundant harvest of early rice this year; both per unit output and gross output attained the highest level in history.

The Ts'eng-Ch'eng Hsien Party Committee Runs its Cadre School in the Revolutionary Spirit of "Vigorous Work, Quick Success"

The Ts'eng-Ch'eng Hsien Party Committee Runs its Cadre School in the Revolutionary Spirit of "Vigorous Work, Quick Success"

The commune of Bonnières-sur-Seine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Acceptance of birth control increased greatly among the inhabitants of Bonnieres a French community situated on the left bank of the Seine immediately following the 1789-1799 French Revolution. Increased acceptance of birth control was attributed to the general questioning of traditional values and beliefs which occurred during and immediately following the revolution. The revolutionary spirit allowed individuals to feel a greater sense of control over their own destiny. Prior to the revolution Catholic teaching concerning sexual matters were followed by almost all of the inhabitants of Bonnieres. During the period 1736-1785 there was some increase in birth control acceptance but the changes were slight compared to those which occurred following the revolution. During 1736-1785 average completed family size decreased slight from 5.8-5.6; however during 1786-1815 average completed family size was 3.9 and during the period 1816-1845 it was 2.9. An examination of changes in birth intervals suggested that during the period 1756-1785 9.2-18.0% of the population practiced some form of birth control while 37.8-42.8% of the population practiced birth control during the period 1786-1815. An examination of age specific fertility rates further demonstrated that the major increase in birth control practice occurred immediately following the revolution. Birth control acceptance occurred despite a continuing infant mortality rate of 123-195/1000 throughout the 1700s and 1800s. Tables provided data on age specific fertility rates and on birth intervals for females in Bonnieres for 1736-1845.

The Canton Rising of 1902—1903: Reformers, Revolutionaries, and the Second Taiping

It has frequently been asserted that the Chinese revolutionaries and the 1898 reformers, after making several unsuccessful attempts at cooperation, divided into enemy camps after the failure of their respective risings in 1900. This would suggest that by 1901, the lines between reform and revolution were clearly drawn. It has further been assumed that the decision not to cooperate was a result of the reformers' permanent rejection of the principle of seizing power in China through means of an armed uprising, and that all vestiges of sympathy for republicanism had by 1900 or soon afterwards been replaced by a decisive commitment to constitutional monarchy on the part of even the most radical reformers. Furthermore, although some evidence to the contrary has been pointed out, it has often been said that the reformers, both before and after 1900, looked down on Sun Yat-sen's well-known contacts with Christians, and his close association with secret societies. This implies that the reformers, themselves, were not interested in actively soliciting the support of Chinese Christians, and that apart from T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang's 1900 involvement with the Ko-lao Hui, of which K'ang and Liang presumably either disapproved at the time, or came to oppose immediately after T'ang's failure, the reformers kept themselves free of secret society entanglements and operated on a higher plane. Finally, it has frequently been assumed that the secret societies themselves were practically devoid of any true, revolutionary spirit, and while at times anti-Manchu, were still ‘primitive rebels.’

Running A Plant By Proletarian Revolutionary Spirit

The Kirin Municipal Oil and Grease Plant is rated fairly good in Kirin Province in learning from the Tach'ing Oilfield, the national pacesetter in industry. Spurred on by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the workers and staff there have conscientiously studied works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and Chairman Mao's works, deepened their criticism of Liu Shao-ch'i and Lin Piao's revisionist line and consciously opposed influence and corrosion by bourgeois ideology. The revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle has been brought into play and the workers and staff's socialist enthusiasm has soared to an unprecedented height. Both revolution and production have advanced in big strides.

Hung-Ch'i Brigade is Concerned About all Aspects of the Growth of Educated Youths who have Gone to the Countryside

Hung-ch'i Brigade of P'ing-kang Commune in Huo-chin hsien, Anhwei, is an advanced unit for doing good work with educated youths in the countryside. This brigade, since 1969, has welcomed fifty-three educated youths to the countryside. In more than four years since then these educated youths, under the tutelage of the Party organizations and the poor and lower-middle peasants, have been tempered in the Three Great Revolutionary Movements of the villages. They have become good aides when the cadres and masses read and study, daring little generals in class struggle, attackers in the production struggle, and red vanguard soldiers in scientific experimentation. In the process of mutually uniting with the poor and lower-middle peasants, their thinking and their emotions have deeply changed: those who in the past did not want to go to the villages now love the villages; those who in the past did not have deep feelings concerning the poor and lower-middle peasants now feel that the poor and lower-middle peasants are very close. The cadres and masses of Hung-ch'i Brigade educated the educated youths, but they also learned many things from the young people; they especially learned that the young people are vigorous and enthusiastic, are the most willing to learn, have the least conservative thinking, have a revolutionary spirit of daring to think and daring to do, enabling the cadres and masses to make very great progress. The cadres and masses of Hung-ch'i Brigade, whenever speaking of the educated youths, become exceedingly excited, praising ceaselessly.

Have the Revolutionary Spirit of Daring to Go Against the Tide

Chairman Mao points out that "Going against the tide is a Marxist-Leninist principle." The Party Constitution adopted at the Tenth National Congress of the Party explicitly stipulates that the comrades of the whole Party must have the revolutionary spirit of daring to go against the tide. This is a very important question in the struggle between the two lines within the Party. To bring into full play the revolutionary spirit of daring to go against the tide is a matter bearing on the line and on the general situation. This is an important component of our effort toward the penetrating study of the documents of the Tenth Congress and the serious implementation of the spirit of the Tenth Congress.

How a. Solzhenitsyn Glorified the Treason of the Vlasovites

A. Solzhenitsyn long ago became a renegade, completely isolated from the Soviet people and its glorious deeds, who placed his pen at the service of the blackest forces of imperialist reaction. This gentleman, who remains a Soviet citizen today only in the formal sense, has but one "literary device" in his arsenal: to defame everything Soviet, the revolutionary spirit and labor of Soviet people, without concealing his hostility.

La Société d'Auteuil et la Révolution

The ' Société d'Auteuil ' and the Revolution. The author analyses the political role played by a group of intellectuals gathered together in a country house near Paris belonging to Madame Helvetius, wife of the well-known French philosopher, following his death in 1771 . These men (Volney, Garat, Chamfort, Mirabeau, Sieyès, Condorcet etc.) constituted the intellectual and political group most directly connected with the per¬ petuation of Enlightenment. Their activity, during the revolution, revealed both the revolutionary spirit and the uncertainties and weaknesses of the group, following the rapid sequence of events. The study of this activity by means of the diversity of individual attitudes permits a comparison to be made of the relationship between enlightenment and revolution to that between theory and practice.

On Scientific Farming

This article sums up the experience in scientific farming. It stresses that in order to carry out scientific farming it is imperative to educate the peasants with socialist ideas, carry forward the revolutionary spirit of hard struggle and self-reliance, seriously carry out to the letter the eight-word constitution for agriculture as formulated by Chairman Mao, devote strenuous efforts to fully arousing the masses, and conduct experiments in everything. The article uses revolutionary dialectics to explain problems, and the language used is vivid and alive.

James Jackson Putnam and Psychoanalysis: Letters Between Putnam and Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, William James, Sandor Ferenczi, and Morton Prince, 1877-1917

James Jackson Putnam, when he became fully aware of psychoanalysis, was a 63-year-old Boston physician, well established, and a professor of neurology at Harvard. It is fascinating to read in this correspondence with Freud how Putnam's Yankee fairness, grown out of a religious background, tried to deal with Freud's realism, scientific orientation, and daring revolutionary spirit. Freud was at all times aware that Putnam was important for psychoanalysis in America. The letters show little or nothing of Freud's antagonism or ambivalence towards America. Letters of philosophy and religion form much of this correspondence, extending from 1906 to a last communication during the war in 1917. Putnam always wrote in English, Freud always in German. As the correspondence progressed, Freud's deepening disillusion and stoicism contrasts more and more with Putnam's New England optimism. It also becomes clear how much Putnam encouraged Freud's interest in the analysis of conscience, religion, and philosophy.

Industry Must Energetically Support Agriculture

Guided by Chairman Mao's great policy oftaking agriculture as the foundation and industry as the leading sector, great achievements have been made in the support of agriculture by industry in the past few years, especially since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, thus greatly facilitating the development of socialist agricultural production and providing an enormous driving force for the all-round fulfillment of theOutline for National Agricultural Development in the vast countryside. Because China is a large country with a rural population several hundred millions strong, there is still imbalance in the development of this work. In order to transform completely the aspects of agricultural production, it is imperative that the revolutionary spirit ofself-reliance andhard struggle be brought energetically into play and that the support of agriculture by industry be carried out to the letter. At present, however, there are still some comrades who lack adequate understanding with respect to t...

Four New Kinds of Schools

Following Chairman Mao's great strategic policy and great directive for the educational revolution to "prepare for war, prepare for natural calamities, and serve the people," all the hsien (shih) of Kwangtung Province, during the high tide of socialist revolution and socialist construction, exhibited a revolutionary spirit of self-reliance; they established 298 short-term industrial, agricultural, health, and normal schools, which break down into 59 industrial schools, 60 agricultural schools, 72 health schools, and 107 normal schools. More than 26,000 students were selected from among workers with practical experience, poor and lower-middle peasants, and teachers in active service.

A Carbon Copy of the "Theory of Ultra -Imperialism"'

Throughout the history of the international communist movement, revisionists of all breeds and brands have tried to revise Marxism and emasculate its revolutionary spirit by such pretexts as new stage, new features and new data.

A survey of events surrounding “Manikebu”. The struggle for cultural and intellectual freedom in Indonesian literature

The revolutionary spirit in art and literature which appeared to characterise Chairil Anwar and his generation was in no way a unified rejection of the old and a common belief for the future. Indeed, when Chairil died in 1949, and the dynamic influence of his personality was removed from literary circles, the cohesion of the so-called Angkatan 45 fell apart. Writing as an expression of life and individuality, which Chairil had been able to inspire through his own example, gave way to the need to devise theories of art and creativity. An attempt was made by those who had followed Chairil, known collectively as the Gelenggcmg artists,1 to formulate his ideals into a declaration of belief, the Surat Kepertjajaan Gelenggcmg, which was issued on 18th February, 1950. It was a proclamation of Chainl's concept of man as. the only universal reality (though not incorporating his belief in the vitality of the life force). Its formulators declared themselves the rightful heirs to world culture, and open to its influences in all national forms. As

A Female General in the Three Great Revolutionary Movements

Nurtured by Mao Tse-tung's thought, broad laboring masses of minority nationality women have shown a new attitude of struggle in the three great revolutionary movements. Moreover, they have brought forth many, many revolutionary generals. These generals, as reported in the following essays, have one outstanding point in common: they dared to struggle against feudal superstitions and against the forces of the old society that are hindering socialist progress. They dared to break completely with all the old customs and old conceptions, to do things people had never done before. This kind of martial spirit is precisely the kind of "bravely destroy the old and build the new" revolutionary spirit that is worthy of our study.