This exchange began with a discussion of LarrysTree’s self-introduction, mentioning that he was influenced by a professor who openly promoted Buddhist studies while also “publicly preaching Marxist principles.”
Here is part of his self-introduction:
“Discontent with education and self-doubt led me to reflect on the meaning of life. Under the encouragement of a university professor, I read the two major idealist doctrines of Wang Yangming’s Mind School and Zen Buddhism, which deeply affected me, leaving me unable to extricate myself for a time, even having thoughts of suicide. Therefore, I began to doubt whether idealism is truly the truth. After spending some time in nihilism, I gradually became attracted to the Marxist principles taught by Teacher Ma Yuan, shifting from skepticism to recognition, from disdain to attentive listening… I learned a lot from this teacher’s courses, and gained a clearer understanding of my own life practices over the past twenty years: the reflection of the oscillation between progressiveness and weakness of petty-bourgeois in my life under the capitalist education system. Subsequently, I developed a more fervent desire for Marxist knowledge, collecting some books, gaining a basic understanding of contemporary Chinese society, while also feeling anger and injustice—only by overthrowing the current system can people truly attain freedom.”
Below is an optimized and consolidated version of the chat records, combining scattered short sentences for easier reading. Content unrelated to the core discussion is omitted.
vvv
21:42
What year are you in now?LarrysTree
21:42
Currently a sophomore. That professor even openly promotes Buddhist studies, attracting quite a few followers (I was one of them before…Hubertus
21:45
How did you believe in it before?LarrysTree
21:46
Probably under the oppression of the education system, finding a reason to resist the status quo.Hubertus
21:46
Religion is like a flower on the chainchain.
LarrysTree
21:46
That metaphor is really apt.vvv
21:50
Decayed reactionary middle-school education systemLarrysTree
21:50
That professor’s main subject is Marxist philosophy. I’ve always wondered how religion and Marxism coexist in this teacher…Hubertus
21:51
This metaphor comes from Marx’s “Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.” “Critiquing religion strips away the illusory flowers on the chains, but it’s not about keeping people chained without joy or comfort, but about throwing away these chains and reaching for real flowers.” The writing of this book marked Marx’s worldview shifting from idealism to materialism. Looking at Marx’s earlier works, like his high school graduation thesis, you’ll find that his worldview then still contained some elements of objective idealism and belief in religion.LarrysTree
21:53
I am currently studying “Essays by Ai Siqi” and plan to read some original works later.vvv
21:55
The way of heaven, people just talk about Marxism in words, but in practice, they mostly pursue pragmatism.Hubertus
21:55
Religion responds to people’s need for spiritual comfort amid oppression in this world. Therefore, it’s necessary to oppose religion thoroughly, including its foundation, even if people are oppressed and enslaved. But this doesn’t mean religion is good; it merely reflects people’s suffering. Religion remains a tool of the ruling class, like today’s so-called “Confucianism as a religion that isn’t really a religion,” and other religions—aiming to numb the people, encourage women to believe in the three obediences and four virtues, and hope for an afterlife so they won’t resist in this life. As a professor, he’s also inevitably a mouthpiece of the current reactionary society, spreading revisionist ideas—revisionism is also called Marxism by some.LarrysTree
21:56
His introductory Marxist philosophy course costs only 1 yuan, while courses like Wang Yangming’s Mind School cost hundreds of yuan.Hubertus
21:56
That’s revealing what he considers important.vvv
21:56
No kidding, they charge for it too.Qun Diao Han Jiang Xue
03:21
Guo Jicheng, that old dog, is the same. It shows that the professors in the “Marxist Institute” of the reactionary middle school are basically charlatans. They are morally corrupt, with many news reports about university professors and secretaries from the “Deer Institute” committing rape and corruption—reactionary mouthpieces doing all kinds of evil.LarrysTree
13:30
There are still progressive people in the Marxist Institute, but some have become prisoners of power and money.Struggle11321
14:09
Also, I think relying solely on feelings isn’t enough; we need to analyze his class. Professors at the Marxist Institute are generally from the bourgeoisie, and they mostly distort and vulgarize Marxist theory. Even if some professors secretly have some sympathy for the working class and dissatisfaction with reality, their position as petty-bourgeois means they tend to follow the rightist legal struggle route or just sit in ivory towers and occasionally spout correct words. For example, the clown Meng Ke, who supports slavery, fabricates counter-revolutionary public opinion, and sometimes utters phrases like “The more help you get, the less help you lose,” which turn into inverted black and white—portraying the declining slave-owning class as righteous and the emerging landlord class as unjust. Khrushchev would say to uphold Leninism, and the high school politics textbooks would hypocritically claim “Capitalism will definitely perish, and communism will surely triumph.” They also praise Marx and Lenin as great mentors, but it’s all deception—just a way to cloak themselves in red. They’re just applying a layer of rouge over their “Three and Two” and state-monopoly capitalism schemes. Lenin said: “Judge a person not by their words or self-assessment, but by their actions.” Comrade Fenghuo wrote “The Road to Future Revolution in China,” which I wonder if Larrys has read. I think it’s an excellent theoretical work, also explaining how petty-bourgeois can transform themselves. Larrys, you should take a look.Fenghuo Flame
18:25
The basic view of historical materialism is: worldview determines a person’s social activity, and a person’s class practice determines their worldview. Professors who stay in the so-called Marxist college study room have long detached from labor and the people. Their activities mainly involve mental labor that’s free and leisurely, with little work and high pay. Their so-called research on Marxism is just academic paper work, done in a detached manner. In such activities, a disdain for labor and detachment from practice have already formed, along with a narrow scope of activity, leading to a focus only on their own interests and matters close to them. Their ideas are based on bourgeois individualism.True Marxists are produced in class struggle. Without participating in class struggle, revolutionary practice, contact, living, and exchanging with the working masses (not just factory surveys, but living and working with them), it’s impossible to develop revolutionary ideas.
Intellectuals are not a single class; they are a social group comprising different classes. Its upper layer is close to the bourgeoisie, and its lower layer is close to the proletariat. But most of them belong to the petty-bourgeoisie, with serious petty-bourgeois tendencies. In class society, the ruling class that controls material means of production also controls spiritual production. Intellectuals in capitalist society, if not engaged in revolutionary work, are inevitably influenced by bourgeois worldview; their mental labor is only for the bourgeoisie, spreading bourgeois ideas.
Marx and Engels did not emerge from a study room. Marx grew up in Trier, in the Rhine region of Germany, witnessing firsthand the poverty and suffering of workers. From a young age, he interacted with laborers, forming ideas of equality, and in his high school thesis, he wrote: “Experience praises those who bring happiness to others, and they are the happiest.” Marx’s transformation was completed in Paris and in the workers’ districts, where he lived among workers, often visiting their homes and talking with them overnight. After the textile workers’ uprising in Silesia, he felt the power capable of truly changing society, and he began to adopt a dialectical materialist worldview. From then on, Marx split from the Young Hegelians like Lug, who was similar to those studying “leftist” ideas in study rooms but condemned the low consciousness of workers’ uprisings, believing they caused chaos and social destruction. Marx, however, praised the Silesian textile workers’ uprising and highly valued its historical significance.
Likewise, Engels was born into a factory-owner family but hated his father’s business methods from a young age. He was born in Barmen, in northwest Germany, an industrial city with several other industrial towns nearby. Engels witnessed the suffering of the working class from childhood. His first article in the Marx-Engels collected works was “Letters from the Upe River Valley,” exposing the hardships of workers in Barmen and Bremen. Later, Engels was forced by his family to run a business, dropping out of middle school and only having primary education, but he studied independently and became a great revolutionary intellectual and a guide for the proletarian revolution. Due to family business, he arrived in London in 1842, during the British Chartist movement, and was deeply influenced by it, seeing the power of the working class. He lived closely with workers, abandoning the bourgeois life of drinking champagne and Portuguese red wine (“The Condition of the Working Class in Britain”). Engels, through close contact with workers and revolutionary practice, fully transformed into a communist.
Therefore, your belief that scholars in study rooms can master true Marxism and stand on a truly revolutionary stance is impossible. First, they are eating the meals of the reactionary government, living detached from the people, making it impossible for them to oppose the reactionary government.
The so-called leftist intellectuals do exist, but they are detached from the people. Besides some opposition to current social issues in public opinion, they cannot achieve much. Only through social practice, completely transforming their stance, abandoning their intellectualist position, and being led by the Communist Party can they truly follow the revolutionary path and be useful to the people. Ultimately, these so-called leftist intellectuals do not change their practice; their ideas are still based on bourgeois worldview. Even if they oppose the existing society, they do so from the perspective of the bourgeoisie, which cannot be correct opposition.
LarrysTree
19:05
Indeed, due to the petty-bourgeois nature of intellectuals, they often cannot participate fully in revolution.Hubertus
19:50
Some so-called “amateur scientists” claim Marx wrote “Capital” in a study room, saying Marx spent all day at the British Museum writing and reading, with worn-out seats. But this is a denial that revolutionary intellectuals can only be forged in the storm of class struggle, where correct ideas are formed.LarrysTree
20:12
I have a question for everyone: if you are still students, how do you approach studying?
After reading Fenghuo’s “The Road to Future Revolution in China,” I’ve been thinking about this. If studying (mostly opportunistic) can lead to a stable job, wouldn’t that be more beneficial for the revolution?Fenghuo Flame
20:23
Approach learning with a revolutionary attitude—learn skills useful for the revolution. Learning foreign languages can help with translation, external propaganda, and some publishing work; studying computer science can contribute to network organization, maintenance, and security; studying arts can create rich revolutionary propaganda works.Fenghuo Flame
20:24
No, Lu Xun already said: “Life is too comfortable, and work (revolution) is burdened by life.” If you’re satisfied with “stable, easy, comfortable” work, you’ll indulge in personal pleasure and forget the revolution. Moreover, in capitalist society, where are such “stable, easy, comfortable” jobs? Only those that extract surplus value are like that. It’s essentially pursuing personal happiness—thinking “less work, more money, exploiting others.” This “drinking coffee and making revolution” mentality we encountered and criticized five years ago.The proletariat’s most revolutionary aspect is that it must abolish all oppression and exploitation to free itself. If someone pursues a comfortable life in capitalism, then capitalism is enough for him; what’s the point of revolution?
LarrysTree
20:28
I agree with your view, but a follow-up question: currently, the urgent task is to promote more, but I am studying engineering and technology. Wouldn’t that conflict? Also, since I hadn’t been exposed to Marxist ideas before last year, I entered my supervisor’s lab, which left me little time or opportunity to study Marxism. The dual pressure of school courses and supervisor tasks leaves me with almost no time. What should I do?Fenghuo Flame
20:28
This is really a matter of two opposing views of happiness—pursuing personal happiness or collective happiness. The former is the core of bourgeois thought—individualism; the latter is the core of proletarian thought—collectivism.LarrysTree
20:30
Enlightening, revolutionary intellectuals can only grow in storms.Fenghuo Flame
20:31
Whether propaganda work can be done well depends not primarily on technique but on whether the ideological line is correct. Our organization has many members from science and engineering, even graduates and postgraduates from prestigious universities, and it doesn’t prevent them from participating in revolution or integrating with the proletariat. The most important thing is whether you have the resolve to give up comfort. Based on our experience, some science and engineering graduates do related work, contributing more economically by handing over all income to the collective (though it’s insignificant compared to collective strength). But one must avoid careers in high positions within production activities, as they tend to corrupt one’s thoughts.Moreover, regardless of the job, light mental labor can lead to detachment from labor, practice, and the people. These individuals must be vigilant against bourgeois ideological corruption and must persist in ideological struggle under Party leadership.
For example, a small tea shop manager earning more than ordinary workers but not reaching bourgeois levels—say, over ten thousand yuan (of course, some earn less or more)—this position involves managing workers’ labor for the bourgeoisie, inevitably cultivating exploitative ideas. Such people are often cunning, capable of dividing and suppressing workers.LarrysTree
20:36
So, in other words, when it comes to professional matters, go with the flow, but always with a revolutionary attitude, and also seriously study theory and social practice. Is that correct?Fenghuo Flame
20:39
Going with the flow is passive; it’s better to systematically investigate your future prospects, see what jobs and positions are conducive to cultivating revolutionary thought, and then make a choice. If you are determined to revolutionize, you should carefully consider your career while studying theory and transforming yourself, and strive to join revolutionary organizations.LarrysTree
20:42
Also, since I have certain responsibilities in my supervisor’s lab, quitting suddenly might anger him, and objectively, I feel like I am deceiving him. So I think I need a transitional phase—during this winter vacation, I will find a stable part-time job, and next semester, I will gradually fade out of the teacher’s view (I am currently a main force in the lab).Fenghuo Flame
20:42
The factors influencing ideological struggle include five elements: labor reform, collective activities, theory study, material life, and spiritual life. Labor reform is the most important; purposeful labor reform can help understand the conditions of the working class and change one’s perspective, thus transforming worldview. But it’s not simple. Without leadership from revolutionary organizations, spontaneous labor reform often yields little. The other aspects are also absolutely necessary, and all require unified action under revolutionary leadership.Another important matter is fighting against the pursuit of luxury material enjoyment and activities that indulge in spiritual opium. These activities greatly corrupt the mind, especially the latter. To some extent, spiritual opium is a major cause of the moral decay of China’s petty-bourgeoisie. Today’s Chinese youth are heavily influenced by two-dimensional culture and prevalent色情文化 (pornographic culture)—which is essentially a bourgeois art genre centered on色情文化. This has a very harmful impact on Chinese youth.
Why is the left circle in China so rotten? Why are they so unproductive? And why is their so-called “subculture” popular? It’s all caused by spiritual opium. Among these, the two-dimensional culture is the greatest poison. Someone once joked that the Chinese left circle and the two-dimensional circle overlap.
LarrysTree
20:46
I have similar thoughts, but based on my experience, my current technical path can move towards agriculture. However, I think it’s not very effective at the moment. So, as you said, I need to reconsider my study direction. I am an undergraduate. Even our supervisor admits that the level of master’s theses is like plain broth—insipid.Fenghuo Flame
20:47
I think you can engage in ideological struggle in these areas I mentioned, transform your worldview, and later expand the team. We can incorporate you into our organization.LarrysTree
20:47
Yes, I really haven’t systematically explored my future path. Long ago, I was also part of the 二次元 (two-dimensional) circle, but I later found that almost all narratives are individualistic, some even rise to nationalism, but that’s about it.Fenghuo Flame
20:50
Most young people today have been exposed to 二次元 culture; most members of our organization have also been involved and are very aware. As Lu Xun said, “It is precisely because we come from old fortresses, turn around and strike back, that we can easily defeat the enemy.” A few years ago, a member of our organization wrote an immature piece—“Outline of 二次元 Romanticism,” criticizing 二次元. Later, we plan to conduct a thorough systematic critique and eradicate this tumor. If you are an undergraduate, I suggest you stop pursuing graduate studies; the longer you stay a student, the worse your thinking becomes. Students live parasitically, developing bourgeois ideas.LarrysTree
20:57
Only by becoming proletariat can one truly consider issues from the proletariat’s perspective. Is this a form of mechanical class determinism?Fenghuo Flame
20:58
This is precisely against class determinism. It discusses the path of petty-bourgeois ideological transformation, showing that worldview can be transformed, and class stance can be shifted. But individuals who betray their class do so because they do not betray their own interests. Without proletarianization (Marxistization) of worldview, revolution is impossible.LarrysTree
20:59
I have read some books, but my theoretical understanding is still immature. Please forgive me.Fenghuo Flame
21:00
To become revolutionaries, not every intellectual needs to undergo labor reform, because revolutionary division of labor varies. Lenin, for example, had no time for physical labor. But the problem is, those who cannot endure even the hardships of physical labor for the sake of human liberation, after leaving their jobs, cannot truly participate in revolution. To revolutionize without being employed, one must have higher consciousness—something most intellectuals lack. The Chinese Communist Party’s central documents have long required members to persist in labor, maintaining close ties with workers, reforming worldview, and providing funds for the Party. Professional revolutionaries who are detached from employment are very few. Those who can become full-time revolutionaries are those who treat revolution as their work. Having this consciousness is very difficult.
I can be straightforward: most intellectuals, if they become detached, are thinking about enjoying comfort, not revolution. If you are an undergraduate, I suggest you stop pursuing graduate studies; the longer you stay a student, the worse your thinking becomes.LarrysTree
21:03
I share the same idea, but my family strongly opposes, fearing I won’t find a decent job. Since the collective happiness is the goal, personal development can be secondary.Fenghuo Flame
21:03
I said years ago: “For revolutionaries, revolution is their life.” To do revolution, you must have this consciousness. Dedicate your personal happiness and future entirely to the revolution—live and die with it—that’s the true revolutionary.