1The histories of Marxism and pragmatism in the twentieth century were such that it is difficult at the beginning of the twenty-first century to imagine that these two theoretical and political traditions could interact productively, let alone that they were intimately related at the time of the birth of pragmatism and among certain major Marxist figures. Among the majority of those who continue to draw on Marx, the idea of pragmatism remains associated with a philosophy of turning adaptation to what already exists into a standard for knowledge and action. Among others, Horkheimer’s thorough critique in Eclipse of Reason has clearly left a deeper impression than the judgment made by Adorno, who did not hesitate to call Dewey “unique and truly free.” [1] In parallel to this, Marxism is often used as a counterpoint by adherents of pragmatism.

2Yet Marxism and pragmatism have been intimately linked together. The birth of pragmatism as an identifiable current in the first decade of the twentieth century immediately provoked intense discussions in Europe, where the first great philosophical discussions of Marx were simultaneously developing. It is therefore not surprising that various authors referred to the pragmatist critique of dominant philosophical paradigms to elucidate the content and specific implications of Marx’s work. Sorel’s relationship with the Jamesian theory of belief [2] and Gramsci’s relationship with the critique of positivism developed in Italy by Papini??”then one of the major continental pragmatists??”offer two illustrations of this. [3] The mere mention of these two authors also allows us to gauge the diversity of possible links between Marxism and pragmatism, a diversity that itself stems from the heterogeneity of pragmatism. Used in 1907 by James to elucidate the convergence of his own fundamental philosophical orientations with those of Pierce, Dewey, and Schiller, [4] the notion of pragmatism in fact covers divergent theoretical projects, as Pierce and Dewey emphasized a little while later. [5]

3Among the various founding figures, it was Dewey who elicited the closest and most productive meetings between pragmatism and Marxism. Sidney Hook, his close friend and collaborator for a time, was also the first American Marxist philosopher. Surprisingly, Dewey also had a decisive influence on the history of Marxism in China, since his stay there between 1919 and 1921 had an effect on Mao that seems to have been profound and lasting. At first glance, the Marxism of Hook and that of his contemporary Mao seem to be entirely opposed. The first became a pragmatist when he was already a Marxist, while the second went from pragmatism to Marxism. One tried to acclimatize Marxism within American philosophy, while the other wanted to adapt it to the Chinese situation. One turned to the pragmatist paradigm to explain the philosophical content of Marxism, while the other used pragmatist schemata to elucidate the course of an ongoing revolutionary process. Obvious divergences such as these always tend to dominate our attention and to conceal what can result from a common theoretical matrix??”in this case, Deweyan philosophy. To bring this to light, we must begin by showing the affinities between Dewey and Marx, which made different pragmatist-Marxist amalgams possible.

The Hegel and Marx of American philosophy?

4Unlike Pierce or James, Dewey developed his pragmatism within a Hegelian philosophical framework and emphasized the existence of a “permanent Hegelian deposit” in his thought. [6] The way in which Dewey was linked to Hegel is reminiscent of Marx’s own relationship with Hegel, as was suggested by Cornel West when he wrote that Dewey was both the Hegel and the Marx of American philosophy. [7] From this point of view, the affinities are as much a question of what was retained from Hegel??”namely a theory of the primacy of history as a process of education and formation (Bildung) and of liberation (Befreiung) [8]??”as they are of how Hegelian idealism was revised–namely through a naturalist and sociological perspective. [9]

5To these structural analogies it is necessary to add a number of affinities between Dewey’s and Marx’s objectives, principles, and methods. On the political level, Dewey supported socialist positions, campaigning for a socialization and democratization of production; [10] he argued that political and social problems should be addressed through analysis of society’s economic base [11] and the historical dynamics that could resolve them. [12] On an anthropological level, he defined man as a “tool-making animal” and in terms of social theory, he supported the idea of an “economic determinism.” [13] Moreover, it is possible to detect a certain methodological proximity to Marx since he argued that philosophical positions should be critiqued not only from the point of view of their theoretical consistency but also based on the social processes that gave rise to them. Dewey also argued that philosophy should be deeply transformed so as to cease offering purely speculative solutions to problems that, in fact, can only be solved by transformative social practice. [14] More generally, the basic orientation involving raising practice to the level of foundations and conceiving of it as an interaction with the environment, by placing it in opposition to both subjectivist (or intellectualist) and objectivist (or behaviorist) conceptions of action, has obvious affinities with the fundamental themes of the Theses on Feuerbach. It is for this reason that Hans Joas speaks of an “extraordinary proximity between Marx’s philosophy of praxis and the fundamental principles of pragmatism.” [15]

6The question of the scope that should be afforded to these affinities is complex. Dewey always emphasized that his knowledge of Marx was only low level, but he had at least an indirect knowledge of his work because of his immersion in the debates within the socialist movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [16] Dewey’s close collaboration with Sidney Hook, his trip to the USSR [17] and his participation in the Trotsky Commission, as well as his readings and the texts he wrote at that time [18] were three more sources of information for him. Dewey did, however, point out what distinguished his political theory from Marxism. In opposition to the key role of class struggle and the need for a revolution to achieve socialism, he put forward a conception of socialism as class cooperation and a model of social transformation that was certainly radical but nevertheless gradual (he was criticized on these two points by Hook). Still, it is difficult to exclude the fact that Dewey was aware of veering close to Marxist territory when he argued that the cultural, political, and social problems of his time could basically be boiled down to the question of the conflict between capital and labor. This near-brush with Marxism came when he campaigned for the establishment of a new party that would take responsibility for the interests of workers and the unemployed (while denying, of course, a hegemonic role for the proletariat in this party), and when he asserted an economic determinism. [19] Ultimately, everything seems to indicate that Dewey had a considerable knowledge of Marx, as well as the diversity of interpretations available (between which he always refused to choose). It is equally possible that it is precisely because he was aware of the proximity of his thought with a number of Marxist themes that he was anxious to point out distances. Nevertheless, there is at least one text in which this proximity is accepted. In it Dewey presents his own undertaking as a way to extend the Marxian critique of philosophical idealism and the Marxian project of transforming philosophy into a philosophy of practice and social transformation.

7The 1909 article “Nature and Its Good: A Conversation” was reproduced a year later in the first volume of articles that was published by Dewey under his own name and that was the first comprehensive presentation of his philosophy: The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays. In second position, after “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” the article from which the book takes its title, this text occupies a strategic place. Following on from the presentation of pragmatism as a way to come to terms??”philosophically and in all its implications??”with the Darwinian revolution, this second chapter shows that pragmatism also offers an alternative to the dominant philosophical orientations. The chapter’s originality is due not only to its being in the form of a dialogue between five people, but also to the fact that the advocate for pragmatism (Eaton) is depicted as an ally of the defender of historical materialism (Grimes). It is also due to the fact that Eaton’s pragmatism appears as the only satisfactory way to meet the theoretical and political demands that Marx may put up against an absolute idealism inspired by Bradley (Moore), Spencer’s hybrid Aristotelianism (Arthur), and mysticism (Stair). The structure of the dialogue illustrates the central function that is afforded to the representative of historical materialism. Grimes is the one that speaks most often, doing so as often as Eaton (six times, compared to four contributions from Moore, two from Stairs, and one from Arthur). In his first contribution he explains the meaning of one of Eaton’s metaphors, with Eaton then confirming that this interpretation is correct. In his other contributions, Grimes argues that idealist, spiritualist, and religious positions are based on social prejudices that are every bit as untenable as their political implications. He also makes a Marxist critique of pragmatism by accusing it of reducing practice to a philosophical concept, leaving things virtually unchanged. In his concluding remarks Eaton takes up the Marxist critique of what constituted the dominant philosophical orientations. He also states that, “as for Grimes, it is indeed true that problems are solved only where they arise??”namely, in action.” [20]

8Through Grimes, four key ideas are attributed to historical materialism. 1/ Philosophy originally had an essentially political function that it subsequently lost and must now rediscover. 2/ To do this, it must go beyond all dualisms (mind/body, theory/practice, art/work, reason/experience, and so forth) whose origins are in class antagonism. Having appropriated political, intellectual, artistic, and religious activities for themselves since antiquity, and having delegated tasks related to material reproduction to the lower classes, the upper classes came to devalue anything related to the prosaic dimension of experience and practice. 3/ Philosophy must also reject setting the ideal against the real, which stems from a need for substitute satisfaction and (an ideologically maintained) renunciation of working towards achieving true satisfaction in the real world. 4/ If it is to fulfill its political function, philosophy must recognize that history has hitherto been that of class conflict for the control of economic resources, and that demands for a just and free society cannot be achieved without radical changes in economic structures.

9These four theses are taken up by Dewey in “Nature and Its Good: A Conversation,” and in his work as a whole. We have already mentioned that Dewey saw the conflict between labor and capital as the source of political and cultural problems, and that he criticized attempts to deal with cultural, political, or social problems without tracing them back to their economic sources. [21] It should be added that in both Democracy and Education (1916) and Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), he stresses on a number of occasions that the philosophical dualism of theory and practice, reason and experience, art and labor, and liberal education and professional education originate in the class structure of Greek society. In stressing that “many [philosophical theories] originated in. .. class interest and bias,” [22] Dewey is well aware of the iconoclastic nature of his remarks. [23] In Reconstruction in Philosophy he also argues that it was the political powerlessness of the era in which ancient philosophy was born that led to the ideal being set against the real, instead of it being seen as a tool for improving reality, and he suggests that philosophy has preserved this powerlessness in a quasi-ideological way: [24] “The idealist conspired with the materialist to keep actual life impoverished and inequitable.” [25] Nor does he hesitate to locate in social conflict the conditions for a form of social transformation that would be guided by ideals:

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“The task of future philosophy is to clarify men’s ideas as to the social and moral strifes of their own day. Its aim is to become. .. an organ for dealing with these conflicts.” [26]

A pragmatist philosophy of Marxism

11Sidney Hook was already a Marxist before he became a pragmatist, and he remained a pragmatist after ceasing to be a Marxist. The various articles and two books he devoted to Marx’s philosophy, Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx: A Revolutionary Interpretation (1933; the work was considered important enough to be published in French by Gallimard in 1936) and From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx (1936), belong to the period of his pragmatist Marxism. Over the course of this period, during which he was very close to??”if not a member of??”the Communist Party USA, he attended Korsch’s lectures in Germany, was invited by Riazanov to the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, engaged in discussions with Trotsky, and polemicized with Max Eastman on how Dewey could be related to Marx. [27]

12Even before his intellectual conversion to Deweyan instrumentalism, Hook had been struck by the affinities of Reconstruction in Philosophy (a work dating from Dewey’s Chinese period) with Marxism. Once his conversion was complete, he set about connecting Marxism and pragmatism. In a series of articles from the late 1920s, he began by oscillating between an approach that entailed describing Marx as a predecessor of Dewey, and presenting Deweyan instrumentalism as a way of correcting Marxism. In his articles from the 1930s, and in the two books mentioned above, he seems, by contrast, to connect Marxism and pragmatism in a relationship of complementarity and mutual fulfillment. On the one hand, the Deweyan wish to submit society to a reorganization that could make democratic promises come true could only be accomplished by a Marxist theory of revolution. On the other hand, pragmatism is the only theoretical framework capable of settling endless debates about the fundamental orientation of Marxist philosophy; settling in this case meant presenting this orientation as a “philosophy of social action; more specifically, a theory of social revolution.” [28] In Hook’s mind, pragmatism also seemed to be the philosophical paradigm best suited to demonstrating the philosophical contemporary relevance of Marxism, and thereby to introducing Marx into American philosophical discussion, in which he was yet to find either a place or legitimacy. [29]

13The strength of Hook’s interpretation rested on his knowledge, which was considerable for the time, of Marx’s relationship with the Young Hegelians. It also rested on the way in which he reconstructed the overall coherence of Marxian philosophy based on the philosophy of practice developed in the Theses on Feuerbach and The German Ideology. Deweyan philosophy allowed the Marxian dialectic of action and its circumstances to be interpreted according to a schema of interaction with the environment (with the definition of effectiveness through “reciprocal action” being considered a key Hegelian legacy). [30] It also allowed the unity of theory and practice to be presented according to an instrumentalist schema. The epistemological significance of the Theses on Feuerbach could therefore be elucidated by way of a theory of sensibility as an instrument for reorganizing action [31] and with reference to the pragmatist conception of truth. [32] Detached from dogmatism, Marxism appears as a form of empiricism and experimentalism. [33] Hook also combines a pragmatist conception of social action and an instrumentalist conception of theory to emphasize, in opposition to scientism, that Marx is not concerned with the same kind of truth as the natural sciences since his theory is the reflexive expression of class interest:

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In Marx’s theories, assumptions are made about class tendency and goals. His theories do not only describe the phenomena of society’s division into classes and the struggles that result from it. They are also presented as a weapon to be used in this fight. [34]

15The result of this is a reformulation of the concept of ideology, with it referring not to the class content of a theory, but its lack of reflexive thematization. [35] The positive counterpart to this is a politicization of the Deweyan definition of thought through inquiry. Once philosophy has been reconstructed as a reflexive tool for a class’s practice-based efforts to transform society, it will become an inquiry into the best way to achieve basic social needs:

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Philosophy is in a sense normative inquiry.. .. This is why Marx talks about his philosophical method as a critique. It is a critique that reveals the values and the attitudes, the starting point and the secret wishes of our thought. It is a sociology of values that inquires about social roots and social conditions of the fulfillment of what men want. [36]

17Hook’s interpretation is positioned under a fourfold philosophical and political patronage. On the philosophical level, Lukács and Korsch are highlighted. The way in which they critiqued the scientism of the Second International and the way in which Lukács stressed the importance of class consciousness allow Marxist philosophy to be read based on the Deweyan primacy of practice and on the interpretation of consciousness as a moment of reflexive reorientation of practice. Dewey emphasizes that this reflexive moment is derived but is nonetheless of key importance. [37] On the political level, Hook adheres to Rosa Luxembourg and Lenin by presenting them as “the beginning of the Marxian reformation,” in the sense that they invite a reconnection with an authentic meaning: “The texts of Marx and Engels were to be read in the light of the original spirit behind them.” [38] Discussion of Rosa Luxembourg allows the primacy of social experience to be formulated, which is introduced within the framework of a critique of trade-union hierarchies that are cut off from “the living and effective experience of industrial struggle” and gradually acquire “the narrow and egocentric ideology of the typical bureaucrat.” [39] Just as political struggle must be based on social experience, so too will Marxist theories be judged by their effects “in the experience of social revolution.” [40] Lenin, meanwhile, is portrayed as a theoretician of the party, as an authority for reorganizing and reorienting action, an authority necessary for any intelligent and effective action. Just as Gramsci pointed out during the same period that the originality of Leninist theory of the party lies in the introduction of the problem of hegemony, Hook turns to Deweyan theory of the political centrality of education to formulate one of the philosophical implications of Leninist innovations: in addition to being an organizer, the party is an educator that allows the psychosocial and cultural factors that are barriers to class consciousness to be overcome. [41]

18Ultimately, Hook’s Marxism remains quite orthodox. Its intention is not to revise or adapt Marx’s work, but to contribute to the “Marxist Reformation.” In opposition to Eastman’s argument that Marxism as a theoretical framework is incompatible with Deweyan instrumentalism and offering to release it from its dialectical apparatus, Hook defends the project of a dialectic expurgated from its idealistic assumptions, while also reminding Eastman of the Hegelian origins and dialectic schemata of Deweyan philosophy. [42] Most of the time, what in Hook appears to be a substantial theoretical innovation is a pragmatist terminological reformulation. Thus the normative meaning given to the concept of experience allows him to assert that “no true social experiment is possible in class society.” [43] Likewise, the synthesis of the theory of interests and forms of class consciousness under the heading “social psychology” is a simple reformulation. [44] But on at least two points, Hook goes further, and reassesses what Marx had not considered to be of key importance. Firstly, historical action appears not only to be guided by needs, but also by ideals. Marx would equally criticize those who dismissed ideals, and who are thus condemned to be apologists of the existing order, and those who relate to ideals that are separated from historical tendencies and who therefore lapse into utopianism. [45] Secondly, Hook relativizes the centrality of work in Marxism, in order to better emphasize the interaction of different factors that make up a social formation and afford a decisive role to the cultural moment. For this reason there is a certain tension between the formulations drawing on the idea of the “economic base” of social life, on the one hand, and on the definition of society as “a cultural whole whose elements are bound together” [46] on the other. It is as though Hook forgot, in his reading of Marx, the centrality of labor to Dewey, retaining only the centrality of education and the plurality of the spheres of action and values. As a result of this the philosophical task of Marxism seems primarily to involve critiquing culture, elucidating the ideals immanent in social struggles, and reflecting on how these ideals can be put into practice:

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Historical materialism’s most important task is to examine and critique cultural and social doctrines in order to lay bare their roots and their social premises, in order to expose the contradiction between their avowed program and their class relationships, and in order to discover the social impact that their practical activity guided by their interest will have. [47]

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His hypothesis is that economic conditions (in the very broad sense already suggested) determine the ideals which must develop, and that the class struggle is the locus of all ideals. [48]

A Deweyan Maoism?

21The question of the link between Mao and Dewey is obviously more complex. Before becoming a Marxist, Mao played an active role in the “new culture” movement, which, during Dewey’s stay in China between 1919 and 1921, turned Dewey into its philosophical standard. More significant still was that, while he was a librarian at Peking University in the summer of 1918 and the spring of 1919, Mao attended Hu Shih’s courses. He was deeply influenced by Hu Shih, who was one of the major philosophers of the “new culture” movement and the main Chinese pragmatist of the time. [49] A former student of Dewey at Columbia, Hu Shih was his translator and was behind his coming to China. It is therefore not surprising that under these conditions Mao had a sufficiently broad knowledge of Dewey, whose lectures he also attended, to become an adherent of pragmatism in 1919, [50] the year prior to his shift to Marxism. Similar to the European Enlightenment, the “new culture” movement was a movement of modernization that adhered to the values of science and democracy (indeed, Dewey was received as “Mr. Science” and “Mr. Democracy,” two slogans of the time) [51] and backed education as the vehicle for social transformation. Mao’s political activities in 1919 and in 1920 were characterized by various attempts to develop an educational politics through teaching and newspapers, and this politics bears the traces of the influence of Dewey and Hu, the latter of whom also published praise-filled comments on his articles. [52] Integrated into the basic orientations of the “new culture,” Deweyan education principles would remain in force in both nationalist and Communist China. [53] It is true that in a letter dated December 1, 1920, in the period when he was becoming a Marxist, Mao said that the Deweyan method of education was not feasible because it assumed prior social transformations. Regardless, he did continue to seek to implement the project, for which he was indebted to Hu, for a “self-study university” (tzu-hsiu ta-hsueh). In his “Manifesto on the Founding of the Hunan Self- Study University” of August 1921, he drew on the fundamental themes of Deweyan educational theory: through his emphasis on the role of personal initiative and expression; through critiquing the separation that existed between education and day-to-day concerns; and through highlighting the importance of the relationship between work and education. [54] Just as thereafter, like Dewey, he never stopped according a decisive function to education, his educational doctrines retained traces of Deweyan problems related to the articulation of work and education and to self-study.

22If the idea of a Deweyan source to Mao’s thought is generally not taken seriously, this is partly the case due to a strained interpretation of the rupture between the intellectuals of the “new culture” who would become Marxists and the liberalism embodied by Hu. This rupture manifested itself in particular through a polemic between Hu and Li Ta-chao, one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, which arose from an article in which Hu put forward a pragmatist politics focusing on the study and resolution of “problems” against a dogmatic politics based on “isms,” that aimed at universal solutions to problems. Chinese historiography has long considered the victory of Marxism to be that of the “isms” against the “problems,” without acknowledging that Li had challenged this division and shared with Hu the same methodology while focusing on different problems and reflecting on the conditions for the formation of a collective will to solve them. [55] One could in fact argue that a genuinely Marxist politics must focus on the specific logic of problems and circumstances, at the same time as aiming for universal social transformations, as a result of which there is no reason for “isms” and “problems” to come into conflict. It seems that Mao defended this type of methodological position following the period of his proximity to Hu, since shortly after his return from Beijing he founded a “society for the study of problems” whose article 3 asserted: [56]

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The study of problems should be solidly founded on academic principles. Before studying the various problems, we should therefore study the various “isms” [57].

24It also appears that this type of position is more in line with Dewey’s philosophy than that of Hu. The reduction of pragmatism to a simple method of solving problems is not particularly compatible with the principle of reciprocity of means and ends, which, moreover, plays no role in Hu’s work. The division between the resolution of specific problems and radical universal transformations is also contrary to Dewey’s thought, as we have seen here already. [58]

25The content of Dewey’s teaching in China and the ways in which his philosophy was received provide two other reasons to take seriously the hypothesis of a Deweyan Maoism. Dewey’s innumerable lectures allowed him to teach every aspect of his philosophy and make them all available as Chinese-language publications; [59] but they also provided him with the opportunity to demarcate a theoretical domain that he had not yet explored very fully. In a series of lectures on social philosophy (which are today still the only systematic expression of his social theory), he stressed that the economy is the basis of social and political life, and he presented society as a space of struggle between dominated and dominant social groups, referring particularly to the labor movement and the struggles of women. [60] It is unsurprising that, for example, Chen Duxiu, another of the future founders of the CPC, was strongly impressed by these social-philosophy lectures. The possibility cannot be excluded that, in drawing attention to the economic base of social and political problems, in the need for an economic democracy, and in defending the idea of a democracy based on a local and popular base, these lectures may have played a role in the conversion of a number of intellectuals to Marxism (although on the other hand in his lessons Dewey criticized Marxism in setting it against guild socialism). [61] Nor can the possibility be excluded that the Deweyan conception of democracy as a form of participation in social life rather than as an institutional regime was combined with themes from the Narodniki, in order to give Maoism the specific form of populism that characterized it. [62] Whatever the case may be, Chen Duxiu’s reaction proves that those on the left of “new culture” could sense that Hu’s liberalism was not representative of Dewey’s political orientations. [63]

26A final significant point is that Dewey’s success in the “new culture” movement was due in particular to the fact that he was presented by Hu as the proponent of a method which could potentially contribute to the modernization of China without assuming the validity of foreign social and cultural content. Although Hu saw in pragmatism a way of Westernizing Chinese culture, [64] Dewey was undoubtedly widely perceived as what he was, namely a philosopher who wanted to contribute to modernization via a “reconstruction” of Chinese culture rather than a Westernization of it. [65] This orientation relative to the past and its modernization was always present in Mao. Designed as a method, pragmatist philosophy could therefore be considered, even in the early 1920s, as open to potentially diverse applications and opposing??”liberal and also Marxist??”political uses. [66] Moreover, it seems appropriate to see pragmatism as having been absorbed by Marxism rather than replaced by it; [67] and it certainly was, in the sense that Mao was able to continue to rely on Deweyan elements as a definition of thought through inquiry and the instrumentalist conception of the links between theory and practice.

27Beyond this factual information, it is only possible to conjecture. After 1921, Mao never seems to have referred positively to Dewey. To examine the hypothesis of a lasting influence of the pragmatism of his youth on the specific form of Marxism he attempted to create, the only available method is therefore a new search for affinities, in this case between Maoist thought and Deweyan theory. As will be seen, such affinities are more significant than what might be explained by the general affinity between Dewey’s and Marx’s thoughts (which was examined in the first section), or by Dewey’s indirect influence on other sources of Maoist thought, such as that which Dewey had over Soviet education policy. [68] In its method of conceiving of the unity of theory and practice and from this creating a schema for a theory of the party, in its politicization of the idea of inquiry, and in its reevaluation of culture, Maoism is close to Hook’s pragmatist Marxism. However, it also gives new meanings and a broader scope to Deweyan themes within an overall project of adapting Marxism to Chinese conditions.

28It is principally with regard to the instrumentalist conception of the unity of theory and practice that Maoism’s affinities with Dewey’s pragmatism are significant. Within the history of Marxism, Mao is almost certainly one of the figures who most strongly emphasized the unity of theory and practice as a theme which he gave a typically Deweyan form. In his 1937 article “On Practice” Mao remains close to Dewey in emphasizing that practical activity creates knowledge by it being confronted with problems that it must resolve. In accordance with Dewey’s own naturalist and instrumentalist vision of social activity, Mao argues that in any society men engage in “production to meet their material needs.” [69] Conceiving of thought as reflexively solving problems encountered through practice, he adds: “This is the primary source from which human knowledge develops.” [70] He then deduces, still in perfect agreement with Dewey, that as theory is a tool for practice, its value must be sought in its practical effects, namely its ability to solve practical problems. He thus asserts that “Marxist philosophy” has the “outstanding characteristic” that

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“theory is based on practice and in turn serves practice. The truth of any knowledge or theory is determined not by subjective feelings, but by objective results in social practice. Only social practice can be the criterion of truth.” [71]

30As with Dewey, theory is based on practice in two respects. Having the function of solving problems, it has its origins in the practice during which problems arise; and its truth is its verification or its capacity to resolve these problems through practice. In the article “Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?” (1963), Mao writes that truth is in the shift “from practice to knowledge and then back to practice” and that the second moment, which “is more important than the previous one,” is the only “way of testing truth.” [72] It should be added that, as with Dewey, truth is grounded in a plurality of practices and not just in scientific experimentation: “Correct ideas. .. come from three kinds of social practice, the struggle for production, the class struggle and scientific experiment.” [73]

31Although knowledge occupies a secondary position relative to practice, it still plays a key role, as it is a factor in improving the experience that makes new practice possible, which in turn raises new problems and new theoretical developments. Just as with Dewey, the emphasis on knowledge as a factor in reorienting practice is combined with the idea of a potentially infinite process of growth in experience:

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Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth.. .. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing. [74]

33This instrumentalist conception of the unity of theory and practice has numerous implications. In Dewey it is combined with setting truth as “copy”??”a copying of sensations or eternal models??”against truth “to cope with” problems. [75] We find echoes of this opposition in the way Mao endeavors to justify the specificity of the Chinese way relative to the Soviet model at the same time as fighting against “dogmatism” within the party. Dewey also combined this conception with the idea of a creativity of practice. However, this practice cannot, without recourse to the power of reorganization and guidance of reflexive knowledge, manage to overcome certain problematic situations in a valid fashion. These themes are present in the texts written by Mao during his pragmatist phase and his participation in the autonomist movement in Hunan in 1920. In these he took up the Deweyan critique of attempts to impose external goals on action by asserting that reformers and revolutionaries should not seek to direct the movement of the masses from the outside, but should instead seek to participate in this movement at grassroots level so as to give it suitable expression. Once he had become a Marxist, he continued to maintain both that it was necessary to act “from the masses, to the masses,” [76] and that “without revolutionary intellectuals the revolution cannot triumph.” [77] We find a similar schema, which was previously encountered in Hook, in the conception of the party, formulated through the idea that “we must have faith in the masses and we must have faith in the Party. These are two cardinal principles. If we doubt these principles, we shall accomplish nothing.” [78] From a Deweyan perspective, it is no more paradoxical to emphasize both the autonomous power of acting and the importance of intelligence than it is to criticize Soviet Marxism for having underestimated both the role of masses and that of politics.

34A second set of Deweyan themes is the importance given to investigation or inquiry. It is as though, against drifting toward intellectualism (designs of political rule based purely on a theoretical perspective) and dogma (prohibiting any adaptation of Marxist doctrine), Mao recapitulated the pragmatist division of “isms” and “problems”, guided by the Deweyan definition of thought as inquiry. It is in the 1930 article “Oppose Book Worship” that this approach finds its most striking illustration. In opposition to the idea that Marx’s and Lenin’s texts represented undeniable truths that simply needed to be put into practice, Mao put forward the need for inquiry, in relation to the specific problems faced by peasants and workers, to their aspirations, and to the resources and obstacles that characterize any given situation.

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No investigation, no right to speak. Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows. [79]

36In the question of investigation, we can see that Mao undertook a politicization of Deweyan epistemology (outlined by Hook at the same time) relating not only to the conditions for the practical effectiveness of revolutionary politics and to taking into account the needs and sufferings of the masses (through “pouring out grievances” [80]) at the most basic level of living conditions. [81] This politicization of inquiry is also a question of the fight against the establishment of a bureaucracy that is detached from social experience, and against all claims to superiority based on knowledge, within the party and with regard to the relationship of the party to the masses. [82] If everyone “must personally undertake investigation into the specific social and economic conditions” [83] this is so because it is a way to participate in the social experience of the masses while reducing the effects of epistemic inequality.

37The third Deweyan component of Maoism involves reevaluating the question of culture against Soviet Marxism, and the political centrality which is conferred on education through doing so. Mao’s basic ideas on education were forged at a time when he adhered to Deweyan pragmatism, and when the statutes of the “society for the study of problems” mentioned among the problems to be studied, “the problem of how to implement Dewey’s educational doctrine.” [84] Thereafter, he continued to highlight Deweyan principles of “self-study” (to which a chapter of Mao’s Little Red Book is dedicated), of overcoming the divorce between popular culture and learned culture (something that he considered to be one of the great achievements of the Hunan peasant movement [85]), and of linking education and work (which we find in the educational side of the “Great Leap Forward” [86]). Dewey argued that a revolution??”in the sense of a radical social transformation??”could never be reduced to a single event, but rather always entailed a process, [87] if only because of the inertia of habits and cultural lag. [88] This is one of the reasons why, according to him, social progress depended on education as a facilitator of forming and transforming habits; education being understood as the whole of the shaping effects of socialization and not only scholarly and family education. These different themes can be found in Mao. The question that he poses is certainly specific: How can habits from the former society be transformed, and how can a situation of the institutions of the new society??”including the party??”producing new barriers to progress towards Communism be avoided? This question is examined through the specifically Marxian problematic of “changing of oneself” that accompanies the “changing of circumstances.” [89] However, as with Dewey, this question is formulated based on an anthropology of the self as a set of habits and on a conception of education as the transformation of habits through participation in social life.

38The rich interactions between pragmatisms and Marxisms have been ignored, and some of them may well have been partially hidden or denied (as with Dewey and Mao). As a result, it is sometimes necessary to be content with signs of where to unearth them, as is the case with affinities. This concealment is due to the general processes that dominated the history of postwar pragmatism and Marxism. The factors that encouraged Marxism to clash with a typically American philosophy are as clear as those that would lead pragmatism to reconsider its initial hostility to an analytic philosophy that became a dominant paradigm. However, the weight of these factors should not obscure the role of contingency in these two divergent histories. If it is difficult to see affinities between Marx and Dewey nowadays, this is particularly because the latter came, during the First World War, to conceal the Hegelian origins of his thought in order to better contribute in his capacity as an intellectual to the war effort against Germany. [90] If the Chinese Communists ended up campaigning against Dewey, this was not so much due to his way of thinking about socialism as a form of liberalism as it was his participation in the Trotsky Commission. [91] If in the postwar era Deweyan thought lost virtually all currency in the United States, this was particularly because his political orientations were too far to the left to be acceptable. [92] If in the 1960s Maoism found a philosophical echo in Western Marxism, this was mainly within the Althusserian sphere, during a time that Althusser would later denounce as his “theoreticism” and which was likely one of the versions of Marxism that was furthest removed from the pragmatism of a figure such as Hook (the same could be said today of Badiou’s neo-Maoism). If, in the 1970s, the Francophone social sciences made a return to inquiry, after which Marx was seen as no longer having any place, this mainly came about through the influence of the importance that Mao afforded to investigation, and so forth. [93] Evaluating these contingencies and paradoxes can at least help us to detect the arbitrariness of certain divisions within the contemporary intellectual landscape.