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Scholar silhouette| Wang Yanan: Committed to passing on Marxism and Leninism, carefully breeding peach and plum

author:China Social Science Net

 Biography of scholars

  Wang Yanan (1901-1969), a native of Huanggang, Hubei Province. He is an outstanding Marxist economist, an outstanding people's educator, one of the first translators of Chinese the three volumes of Capital, the first president of Xiamen University after the founding of New China, a member and standing committee member of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a deputy to the First to Third National People's Congress, and a vice chairman of the First and Second Fujian Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Wang Yanan is knowledgeable and has published 41 works (translations) and more than 300 papers. His representative work "The Original Theory of Chinese Economy" (the revised edition was renamed "Research on the Economic Form of Semi-feudal and Semi-Colonial China"), is a "successful example of the sinification of Marxist political economy" and has been translated into Japanese and Russian for publication; "Studies on Chinese Bureaucratic Politics" has been called "a pioneering work in the study of Chinese bureaucratic politics"; "Outline of China's Landlord Economy and Feudal System" put forward the famous "Landlord Economy Theory", which has attracted the attention of international historians.

Scholar silhouette| Wang Yanan: Committed to passing on Marxism and Leninism, carefully breeding peach and plum

Wang Yanan Author/Courtesy photo

  October 14, 2021, is the 120th anniversary of Mr. Wang Yanan's birth. Looking back at Wang Yanan's magnificent life, walking into the campuses of Xizi Lake, northern Guangdong, western Fujian and Xiamen University where he lived and worked, and carefully editing and publishing the 20 volumes of "The Complete Works of Wang Yanan", we still more miss this academic giant who dared to pursue the truth all his life, was committed to spreading Marxism-Leninism, and devoted himself to the cause of scientific education, and remembered this famous master who made outstanding contributions to the development and growth of Xiamen University and the revolution of China's higher education.

Undaunted by difficulties, we are determined to spread Marxism

  Wang Yanan's life is a brilliant example of closely integrating Marxist theory with the concrete reality of China's revolution and construction.

  As we all know, Capital is a great work of economics to which Marx devoted his life. In Capital, Marx's materialist view of history and the theory of surplus value are explained in the most systematic and mature way. Therefore, Capital is hailed as the "Bible of the Working Class" in the world and has a wide and profound impact internationally.

Scholar silhouette| Wang Yanan: Committed to passing on Marxism and Leninism, carefully breeding peach and plum

Wang Yanan's manuscript Author/Courtesy photo

  In 1928, Wang Yanan and Guo Dali met at the Great Buddha Temple in Hangzhou, and the two talked about the common ideal of transforming society at first sight, and agreed on a huge translation plan: to translate 5 masterpieces of world economics in 6-8 years, including Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", Ricardo's "Principles of Economics and Taxation", Malthus's "Population Theory", John Müller's "Principles of Economics" and Marx's "Capital". Among them, the most important and most striking is Marx's Capital. The cooperative translation plan established at the Great Buddha Temple became an important turning point in Wang Yanan's life path, and it was also a key step in his search for marxist truth and dissemination of Marxism. This step was taken after the defeat of the Great Revolution and at a time when the Chinese revolution was at a low ebb, which is particularly valuable.

  In the years since, Wang Yanan and Guo Dali have been separated several times, and their translation work has also encountered various difficulties. Wang Yanan successively traveled east to Japan, taught in Jinan, participated in the "Fujian Revolution" and exiled to Europe, and Guo Dali also encountered various changes in Shanghai. However, they have never changed their original intentions, and have translated and published classical economic masterpieces such as "The Principles of Economics and Taxation" and "The Wealth of Nations", which have aroused great repercussions in the academic community.

  From 1936 onwards, with the support of the Reading Life Publishing House, Wang Yanan and Guo vigorously went all out to devote themselves to the huge project of translating Capital. They cooperate closely, both in terms of division of labor and cooperation. The ambitious goal of translating Capital inspired them to climb the rough road of science day after day, month after month. In the boring and arduous translation process, the two worked hand in hand, supported each other, and always lived a tense common spiritual life.

  In the turbulent years of old China, it was undoubtedly necessary to complete the huge academic project of translating Capital, which undoubtedly required extraordinary courage and perseverance. For this reason, they have suffered oppression by reactionary forces, endured the torment of poverty and disease, and endured the loss of burning the entire volume of translations in the fire of artillery fire, but they have never wavered, but with the spirit of perseverance, they have persevered in translation. In August and September 1938, with the full cooperation of the Reading Life Publishing House, the three-volume "Capital" Chinese full translation was published, and the long-cherished wish of Wang Yanan and Guo Dali for ten years finally became a reality. In the smoke-filled anti-Japanese flames, in the Land of China, which is in urgent need of Marxism, Capital, as the cornerstone of Marxist theory, is presented to Chinese readers for the first time in a complete form. Since then, Chinese people can comprehensively and systematically understand and study Marx's economic theory from the complete translation of Capital. After the publication of all three volumes of Capital, more than a dozen young people jointly wrote to the translators, calling them "fearless scholars and warriors" and "history will remember your exploits"! Xinhua Daily published a commentary praising them as "translating the world's first great work is a huge gain for the translation industry."

  In the stormy old China, Wang Yanan not only risked his danger to boldly translate Marx's economic masterpieces, but also widely disseminated the truth of Marxism on various occasions, and closely linked it with the social reality of China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and with the great struggle of the Chinese people against imperialism and feudalism led by the Communist Party of China, advocated "studying political economy with the qualifications of Chinese", and became a pioneer in the sinification of Marxist economic theory.

  In Wang Yanan's view, everything has its birth, development and demise, "water can carry a boat and can overturn a boat." In his lectures at Jinan University, he analyzed China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal economic forms in a penetrating way, and guided students to understand the problems of old China from a Marxist point of view. The students who listened to the lecture at that time recalled: "His lectures ignited the flame of revolution, promoted the university students at that time to take the initiative to study Capital privately, and nibbled on Capital under the tung oil lamp, and its impact was undoubtedly far-reaching. ”

  After Xiamen University moved to Xiamen from Changting, Wang Yanan became the head of the Department of Economics and the dean of the Law School. He not only took advantage of various opportunities to skillfully propagate Marxism, but also hired a number of progressive professors such as Guo Dali, Shi Zhaotang, and Wang Shouli to lead everyone to publicize Marxism together. Although he was repeatedly suppressed, he was not afraid, and always insisted on teaching Marx's economic theory in the course of economic history and spread Marxism in various ways.

  After the founding of New China, Wang Yanan more consciously and systematically propagated and studied Marxism. Whether it is in the lecture hall of Tsinghua University, or in the study of political current affairs at Xiamen University, or in the graduate students of the Institute of Economics, or to give lectures to students of the Chinese and History Departments, he explains Marxist economic theory in a simple and easy-to-understand manner in combination with reality and actual economic life.

  In the study of Capital, he is even more "unyielding". From 1960 to 1965, in just five or six years, he wrote more than 30 special articles on the study of Capital, which deeply explored the background of the era, historical tasks, practical significance, research objects, research methods, structural systems, and contents of Capital. The sheer number, the density, and the high level are second to none in the economics world. The "Popular Lectures on Capital" edited by Wang Yanan and Yuan Zhenyue explained the main contents of "Capital" chapter by chapter and section by section in the form of mass readings, and each article was personally reviewed and edited by Wang Yanan and published by "China's Economic Problems.", which not only set a precedent for popular interpretation of "Capital" in China, but also greatly enhanced the enthusiasm of the broad masses of cadres and the masses in studying "Capital."

  At the same time, Wang Yanan also spent a lot of time and energy, in cooperation with Guo Dali to carry out two comprehensive and systematic revisions of the translation of Capital, which is equivalent to retranslating most of the translations, so that the omissions and errors in the first edition are basically corrected, the economic terms and various allusions are translated more accurately and smoothly, and the translation better expresses the meaning of the original work.

Work tirelessly and diligently in the economic garden

  Wang Yanan's life has made outstanding contributions to the establishment of Chinese economics and the development and innovation of economic theory.

  He strongly advocated the establishment of "Chinese economics". An important contribution of Wang Yanan in the methodology of economic research is to vigorously advocate that "economics should be studied from the standpoint of Chinese". He believes that economic science is a practical science, and we should face China's reality and promote the sinicization of Marxist political economy. To this end, he proposed the establishment of "Chinese economics", the establishment of a kind of "economic theory course that is particularly conducive to Chinese reading, which will arouse the interest of Chinese, and can especially point out the way of China's social and economic transformation", and a kind of political economy that "has the nature and content of transforming China's social economy and ending the shackles of Chinese thought". He stressed that when we study political economy, we are not playing a trick on concepts, but in order to contribute to China's social and economic transformation, "I hope that you must not forget the current situation in China, and use theory to solve China's problems, that is, to study China's economics from a Chinese standpoint!" ”

  From 1941 to 1946, Wang Yanan published a number of articles on the importance, possibility and necessity of establishing Chinese economics, research objects and research methods, etc., and regarded them as the beginning of Chinese economic research. His masterpiece "The Origin of China's Economy" is a successful attempt to establish Chinese economics. Before the founding of New China, China's academic circles believed that Wang Yanan's treatises had "three major characteristics of China, practice, and criticism."This is an appropriate evaluation. After the founding of New China, he continued to persist in integrating Marxism with China's reality, conducted in-depth research on the new democratic economy and the laws of socialist economy, and made important contributions to the development of socialist economic theory.

Scholar silhouette| Wang Yanan: Committed to passing on Marxism and Leninism, carefully breeding peach and plum

Wang Yanan is partly written (translated) as author/courtesy of the author

  Pioneering research on China's socio-economic patterns. After completing the translation of the entire three volumes of Capital, Wang Yanan focused on using the principles and methods of Capital to conduct research on the semi-colonial and semi-feudal economic form of China, conducted in-depth analysis of the commodity form, capital form, currency form, profit interest form, and economic crisis form of old China, and exposed many contradictions within China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal economy under the domination of imperialism and the development law of its decline. In the long-term debate on the socio-economic nature of old China, in order to advocate the correct view that old China was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, Wang Yanan's many research results have provided a powerful argument, which is also of great significance to understanding the nature, object, and strategy and tactics of the new democratic revolution in China, and is an outstanding contribution to the theory of the new democratic revolution. Therefore, "The Origin of China's Economy" was called "Chinese-style Capital" at that time.

  Before and after the founding of New China, Wang Yanan successively published "Research on the Problems of China's Social and Economic Transformation" (July 1949) and "Research on the Ideology of China's Social and Economic Transformation" (November 1950), two works reflecting the problem of economic transformation, which put forward a complete theory on how to change the social production relations in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and how to realize the transformation of China's social economy in various aspects such as natural conditions, technology, capital, land, and productive forces and production relations, and put forward a complete theory on the composition and nature of the new economy. An in-depth discussion was held on the scale, speed and tendency of development of various economic sectors during the transition period, and important contributions were made to the party's theoretical construction and practical development during the transition period.

  Open up new horizons in Chinese economic historiography. Since the 1930s, Wang Yanan has explored the socio-economic problems of old China by starting from China's economic history, and achieved fruitful results. He boldly innovated and made a unique way, systematically put forward the famous "landlord economy theory", believing that China's feudal system is divided into two major stages: the lord economy and the landlord economy, and the landlord economy is its main feature, which is significantly different from the European feudal system and the lord economy. Therefore, Wang Yanan took the landlord's economic mode of production as a whole, and conducted a comprehensive and systematic study of the combination of macro and micro from the aspects of economic structure, political system and cultural ideology, so as to explain the problem of "long-term stagnation and development" of China's feudal society, which has been debated for a long time in China's social and economic history, and profoundly expounded the historical origin of China's feudal landlord economic form and semi-colonial and semi-feudal economic form, which is called "a summary of the discussion since the 1930s". This is a major theoretical contribution of the Chinese economic historians and has attracted the attention of the international historians. Wang Yanan thus became one of the pioneers of Chinese Marxist economic historiography.

  Open up new areas of bureaucratic capital and bureaucratic politics. After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the bureaucratic capital developed by relying on state power was expanding day by day, which had a tremendous squeezing effect on the development of national industry and commerce, and the harm to the national economy and the people's livelihood was also increasing. Wang Yanan conducted an in-depth discussion on bureaucratic capital and bureaucratic politics from a new perspective of combining the economic foundation with the superstructure. In October 1948, amid the rumbling of the liberation war, Wang Yanan's book "A Study of Chinese Bureaucratic Politics" was published by the Shanghai Times Culture Publishing House. The book combines history and logic, interlocking and deepening layer by layer, from abstract and concrete, from partial to complete, making a profound analysis of the bureaucratic political form of China from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Republic of China. Wang Yanan pointed out that the social structure of China's political, economic and cultural "trinity" is the fundamental reason for the long-term continuation and stubbornness of bureaucratic politics. The book's analysis of the economic levers that support the development of bureaucratic politics, the socio-economic life under bureaucratic politics, and the impact of bureaucratic politics on the long-term stagnation of Chinese society is refreshing and refreshing; the exposure of bureaucratic capital and the reactionary nature of bureaucratic politics has played a positive role in raising the awareness of the masses of the people and clarifying the targets of the revolution. As a result, the book has been called "the pioneering work of Chinese bureaucratic politics", and has become more and more theoretically brilliant over time.

  Strive to build a new system of economic theory and history. Wang Yanan has long been engaged in the teaching and research of the history of economic theory, not only leaving considerable academic achievements, but also committed to building a new system of scientific and systematic history of economic theory. In the preparation of the Outline of the History of Political Economy and the History of Economic Theory, he used the materialist view of history as the guide to clarify the historical origin and development context of various schools of economic theory, so that its source, trunk and branches were clearly presented to the reader, and a building of economic theory history with rigorous internal logic and unique style was constructed. After the founding of New China, he continued to devote himself to building a new system of scientific political economy history, which further highlighted the guiding position and role of Marxist political economy in the history of economic theory.

  In addition, in the study of the world economy, international relations and world history, Wang Yanan has also published many treatises, such as "Introduction to Modern World Economy", "Modern Diplomacy and International Relations", "Germany's Past Present and Future", "Economic Policy", "World War and World Economy", etc., from different aspects and different angles, the characteristics, status, structure, system and future development prospects of the world economy, the significance, nature, function, economic foundation and evolution of modern diplomacy. A systematic account of the evolution of German history since the 19th century. The theory of history is unified, the content is concise, and the thinking is profound, showing Wang Yanan's broad analytical vision and profound historical insight.

He was in charge of Xiamen University to create a new type of university for the people

  Wang Yanan's life is closely linked to the development and growth of Xiamen University, and he has made outstanding contributions to the creation of a new type of university for the people and the development of higher education in China.

  As the first president of Xiamen University after the founding of New China, Wang Yanan personally participated in the educational reform and practice of China's colleges and universities. Whether in school management or in teaching and scientific research activities, he always insists on starting from the reality of the school and the characteristics of education itself, and explores the laws of education and teaching development.

  Proceeding from the essence and function of education, he advocated that the structure of university education (including disciplines and professional settings) must take the initiative to adapt to the changes in the development of productive forces and the economic foundation, and should not emphasize light literature and destroy the development law of higher education; starting from the nature and function of comprehensive universities, he believes that multidisciplinary comprehensive universities and single-discipline colleges and universities are different, and they should pay more attention to theoretical education and cultivate people who can independently carry out creative research work; starting from the characteristics of comprehensive universities, he advocates that comprehensive universities are both educational institutions. It is also a research institution, which should adhere to the unity of teaching and scientific research, focus on teaching, take into account scientific research, improve the quality of teaching through high-level scientific research, and transform scientific research advantages into teaching advantages, so as to form talent training advantages.

  Starting from the nature and function of scientific research, he advocated that universities should create an academic atmosphere of free research and encourage students to study and research independently. He stressed that we advocate a hundred schools of thought in order to discover the truth, and that a hundred schools of thought not only do not contradict Marxism, but are also the way to realize Marxism, because Marxism opens its doors to all truths.

  Proceeding from the principle of the universality and particularity of contradictions, he advocated that schools should have a clear understanding of the school's conditions, give full play to their strong points and avoid their weaknesses, and give play to their strong points; they should adapt measures to local conditions and develop their own characteristics. On the basis of fully understanding the geographical location advantages and traditional discipline advantages of Xiamen University, he clearly put forward the development direction of "facing the ocean, facing Southeast Asia and overseas Chinese" and the development ideas of focusing on the construction of economic and chemical and other advantageous disciplines, strengthened the research of Southeast Asian studies, Taiwan studies, marine studies and regional economic issues, established the Economic Research Institute, the Chemical Research Institute and the Nanyang Research Institute; took the lead in restoring the Journal of Xiamen University and founding the magazine "Chinese Economic Issues" as a platform for promoting scientific research. It has greatly promoted the improvement of teaching and scientific research level, and laid a good foundation for xiamen university to be built into a distinctive research-oriented comprehensive university.

  Wang Yanan attaches great importance to the combination of theoretical disciplines and applied disciplines. In 1952, when the national faculties were adjusted, he painstakingly retained a number of applied economics majors such as accounting, finance, statistics, and trade at Xiamen University, so that the outstanding teachers of these majors had a "place to play". The mutual integration and mutual promotion of theoretical economic disciplines and applied economic disciplines, and the cultivation and transportation of a large number of economic talents, have strengthened the overall strength of the economic disciplines of Xiamen University and doubled its influence in the country.

  Wang Yanan has been teaching in university pulpits for a long time and has accumulated rich teaching experience, and many of the principled opinions he has expressed on learning methods and academic experience not only contain rich teaching ideas, but are also very practical. He advocates teaching and learning, opposes behind closed doors, and advocates teaching with a research attitude, so that students can deeply understand the teaching content, inspire students to think positively, and cultivate students' ability to analyze and solve problems. He encouraged everyone to ask more questions and express more different opinions, so that educators can be "continuously educated" in the students' questions, so that students can become an important factor in promoting the improvement of teachers, so as to "teach each other". He emphasized "applying what he has learned" and asked teachers to clearly explain the practical basis and application of theory in practice, so that students can thoroughly grasp the essence and connotation of the theory and avoid detours; he set an example by persisting in proceeding from the actual problems of Chinese society to carry out research, including the discussion of China's finance, finance, prices, and industry issues during the war, the analysis of bureaucratic capital and bureaucratic politics, and the study of China's social and economic transformation.

  In his decades of education, Wang Yanan has consistently loved and cherished talents and used talents in an eclectic manner wherever he went. This is one of the reasons why he is praised by people and is still remembered by people.

  People have not forgotten his care and help for Tao Dayong when he was teaching at Sun Yat-sen University. At that time, Tao Dayong fled from Hong Kong to northern Guangdong and visited Wang Yanan in Pingshi, who warmly recommended him to work at a publishing house in Jiangxi and personally helped him to write. Half a year later, Tao Dayong returned to Pingshi for some reason, and Wang Yanan tried to keep him in the Department of Economics to teach. Later, Tao Dayong recalled: "This is a turning point in my life, drinking water and thinking about the source, if it were not for Mr. Yanan's support, I am afraid that I would not be able to step forward so smoothly on the Science Avenue." "People more clearly remember Wang Yanan's knowledge and support for Chen Jingrun when he was the president of Xiamen University. After learning that Chen Jingrun was returned to his hometown by the school for various reasons after graduation and set up a book stall on the street, Wang Yanan extended a helping hand in time and let him return to the Department of Mathematics of Xiamen University, giving him the opportunity to understand the latest theoretical progress in the frontiers of mathematics and contact Chinese and foreign libraries and materials, and concentrate on the research of number theory. Chen Jingrun did not live up to expectations, and soon wrote a paper on the "Ta Li problem" and improved Hua Luogeng's research results. Later, the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed to transfer Chen Jingrun to Beijing, and Wang Yanan and a group of people from the school's party committee gave active support, enabling Chen Jingrun to take a very crucial step on the road to science.

  In the popular article "Goldbach Conjecture", the writer Xu Chi praised Wang Yanan as a "person who understands the value of man". It is precisely out of the general concern for people and the love for students, out of the importance of talents and not seeking full blame, that Wang Yanan helped Chen Jingrun, otherwise more "Chen Jingrun" would be buried. "Only those who understand the value of human beings will care about people", Wang Yanan is such an economist and educator who understands the value of human beings and knows how to care about people.

Down-to-earth inherit the scientific spirit of Wang Yanan

  In his lifetime, Wang Yanan devoted a lot of painstaking efforts to the dissemination, study and propagation of Marxism, leaving behind fruitful academic achievements and valuable spiritual wealth. Today, when we commemorate Wang Yanan, we should be down-to-earth, study and inherit his scientific spirit, and open up a new situation and create a new realm for the development of China's economic theory and for the reform and innovation of higher education.

  Inherit his revolutionary spirit of not fearing hardships and dangers and bravely climbing the peak of science. Capital is an immortal work that Marx painstakingly completed, representing the peak of Marxist scientific theory. In 1928, when Wang Yanan and Guo Dali decided on a grand plan to translate Capital at the Great Buddha Temple in Hangzhou, both had just graduated from university. However, they "newborn calves are not afraid of tigers", and after ten years, they have worked hard, slept and forgotten to eat, overcome the difficulties of the Road, and finally completed the translation of the Chinese full translation of Capital. To this day, Capital is still a monument in the history of the development of Marxism. Wang Yanan cooperated with Guo Dali in translating "Capital", which made outstanding contributions to the spread of Marxism in China and carved a shining imprint on this monument!

  Inherit his scientific method of seeking truth from facts and exploring objective laws. Seeking truth from facts is the basic principle of Marxism and is also the living soul of Marxism. By persisting in seeking truth from facts, the cause of revolution and construction will advance; on the contrary, it will suffer setbacks or even retrogressions. Wang Yanan has a deep understanding of this, whether in the management of schools, or in teaching and scientific research activities, he has consistently adhered to seeking truth from facts, adhered to the principle of proceeding from reality in everything and combining theory with practice, and strived to explore the objective law of social and economic development and the development of higher education.

  In scientific research and academic discussion, Wang Yanan often uses the term "re-understanding". In his view, things in the world are complex and diverse, and the process of things changes in a thousand ways, and there is always a process of understanding, that is, from one-sided to comprehensive, from falsehood to correctness, from relative truth to absolute truth, only through the cycle of practice, understanding, re-practice, and re-understanding, can we continuously open up the way forward of truth." Wang Yanan not only attaches importance to scientific research, but also attaches importance to the environment of scientific growth and the atmosphere of academic development. After the Party Central Committee put forward the "double hundred" policy in 1956, he published a number of articles to explain, stressing that "we advocate a hundred schools of thought to contend in order to discover the truth" and that "the truth is by no means discovered by any great figure with all wisdom and omnipotence" and stressed that "Marxism-Leninism is opening the door to all truths", so we should adopt an open-ended research attitude. His active advocacy has enabled the school to gradually form a good academic atmosphere, which has had a great impact on cultivating the correct scientific attitude and rigorous spirit of teachers and students.

  Inherit his firm stance of open-mindedness and adherence to scientific conscience. Throughout his life, Wang Yanan was an upright and open-minded man; he adhered to principles and was not afraid of power. Before the founding of New China, in the articles or works he wrote, there were often money written in a certain place "Wild Horse Xuan". The self-metaphor of "wild horses" shows his personality as an upright scholar and a dignified intellectual. After the founding of New China, Wang Yanan no longer called himself a "wild horse", but described himself as an "old farmer", working diligently and diligently in the socialist education garden. In dealing with scientific research, he still adheres to a serious and meticulous scientific attitude and adheres to the scientific conscience of intellectuals. In the course of his studies, he consistently opposed the frivolous attitude of doing great deeds and exaggerating, opposed the flashy and unrealistic style of sensationalism, catching up with the fashion, and making a fuss, and opposed irresponsible big talk, empty talk, and false talk; advocated being down-to-earth, rigorous and realistic, and neither credulous nor superstitious, nor blindly following or recklessly; advocating conducting research and doing research, "we must have certain views, but we must not have prejudices."

  Inherit his scientific attitude of adhering to the truth and having the courage to correct mistakes. In the study of scientific theories, Wang Yanan is only truthful, and once he finds that he has made mistakes in his understanding and views, he will resolutely correct or abandon them. In his 1936 book Outline of China's Socio-Economic History, he understood what Marx called the "Asian mode of production" as the mode of production of primitive society. Later, he found that his reasoning was wrong, so he made a "self-examination" and corrected the original formulation. Sometimes in order to clarify a problem, he often talks with people, listens to opinions, and even argues, but as long as other people's opinions are reasonable, he accepts them. Wang Yanan's scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts, having the courage to uphold the truth, and correcting mistakes has not only been praised by the majority of teachers and students, but also admired by scholars at home and abroad.

  In the preface to the French edition of the first volume of Capital, Marx pointed out: "There is no smooth road in science, and only those who climb along the steep mountain road without fear of toil can hope to reach the peak of glory." Wang Yanan has practiced this famous saying of Marx with a hard life, set a brilliant example for us, and forged the soul of the "scientific spirit" of Xiamen University.

  (Author Affilications:Editorial Department of The Complete Works of Wang Yanan, Xiamen University)

Source: China Social Science Network - China Social Science Daily Author: Zhuang Zongming Lin Jian

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