Abstract

For a long time, Lin Biao and the "gang of four" completely annihilated the place and function of the identity of contradiction in the development of things. Above all, the special significance of the unity of contradiction under socialist conditions was looked upon as a deviant heresy and a taboo to be carefully avoided. Concealing their true intentions, they clamored for the so-called "struggle philosophy," saying that revolutionary unity and stable consolidation represented compromise and capitulationism, reducing contradiction to struggle, confusing chaos for struggle, and turning their philosophy of beating up counter-revolutionaries against the revolutionary dialectic. This severely damaged the tasks of socialist revolution and construction and created social stagnation and regression throughout China. Thus one of the urgent tasks of the present philosophical line is to reveal the place and function of the identity of contradiction inherent in the development of things, to restore identity to its proper place within the theory of contradiction, and to further clarify the special significance of the identity of contradiction under socialist conditions