1. I trace the roots of this optimism in “Einstein and Mao: Chinese scientific socialism and democracy,” in Ryan, Dennis et al. (eds.) Albert Einstein; Centennial Papers (New York: AMS Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

2. Typically, Zhou Enlai in 1922 legitimated his Marxism as scientific because it harmonized with Einsteinianism. He declared, “People who believe in the doctrine of Marx” do precisely as “people who believe in the doctrine of Einstein.” (Wu si qian hou Zhou Enlai tongzhishi wen xuan (Tianjin: Renmin Chubanshe, 1979), pp. 356–57Google Scholar.)

3. The leading historian of Einstein's impact on China is Dai Nianzu who has very generously helped me. Cf. Dai's essays, “The early transmission of relativity theory in China,” Guangming ribao, 2 03 1979, p. 4Google Scholar; and pp. 396–410 in Zhongli, Zhao and Liangying, Xu (eds.), Jinian Aiyinsitan yi wenji (Shanghai: Science and Technology Publishing House, 1979)Google Scholar; and esp. “Einstein in China,” Shehui kexue zhanxian (Jilin), No. 2 (1979), pp. 74–85Google Scholar. Also see, Peiyuan, Zhou, “Einstein and China,” China Reconstructs, 07 1979Google Scholar.

4. Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. 3 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1968), pp. 99 and 88Google Scholar; Vol. 2 (1965), pp. 182–83.

5. Selected Works, Vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), p. 118Google Scholar.

6. Mao's amanuensis, Chen Boda, in the 1943 book that made his reputation in the Party, mirrored what at that time was seen as Mao's Einsteinian metaphor. “Today's world is a world of science … science, democracy and national consciousness … would turn China into a strong, modern nation. … However, a historical movement is not a straight line … scientific Marxism-Leninism demands that the Communists of every nation work out their political program and decide their policies according to their own national conditions and rely on their own people for self-salvation.” (Pai-ta, Chen, Critique of Chiang Kai-shek's book: “China's Destiny,” The Communist (New York, 1944), pp. 8. 14, 16, 18Google Scholar.)

7. Sanjiang, Qian, “Cherishing memories of Chairman Mao,” Peking Review, No. 42 (15 10 1977), p. 22Google Scholar. The account of this event in Chu (Zhu) Hung-yuan, , “Reminiscences of the straton model,” pp. 9–10 (an unpublished paper delivered in 01 1980 to an international physics conference in Canton)Google Scholar is minimally different. The politics are omitted. I am deeply grateful to Professor Zhu for providing me with a copy of his invaluable paper.

8. On 22 June 1978, in Tokyo, Sakata Shōichi's widow, and his acknowledged philosophical mentor, Taketani Mitsuo, generously answered my inquiries about Sakata. These were translated by Dr Martha Caldwell and Dr Fujimoto Yōichi, to whom I am most grateful. Professor Taketani kindly presented me with Japanese and English works by Sakata ranging from memoirs to philosophy of science.

9. Guo had attended Einstein's 1922 lectures in Japan.

10. Sakata was born 10 January 1911 in Tokyo. His father, a cabinet secretary, was well known in Japanese political circles. Sakata went to school with children of wealth but was disturbed by prevailing injustices. He befriended the Japanese scholar who translated Engels's Dialectics of Nature in 1929. Sakata increasingly identified with Marxism, opposition to Japanese militarism and sympathy with those in China resisting Japanese militarism. He was jailed twice for opposing Japan's military expansionism. Sakata read deeply in traditional Chinese literature, especially Tang Dynasty poetry. (Interview, Zhu Hongyuan, Beijing, 26 July, 1980.) Sakata worked with Yukawa Hideki who had been greatly influenced by the ideas of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi. Chaos was taken as a natural given. Yukawa later was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on meson theory in which Sakata had collaborated. During the U.S. occupation of Japan, U.S. military intelligence reported that Sataka “is considered to be one of the world authorities on the science of atomic energy, and some authorities claim that Subject is far superior to Dr Yukawa in the field of research.” (General Headquarters, Far East Command, Military Intelligence Section, General Staff, 18 May 1949, Subject: Sakata Shōichi.) I am grateful to John Dower for providing me with this file. There can be no doubt but that Sakata was a deservedly renowned, world-level physicist. Northwestern University physicist Loren Brown, found, “Especially noteworthy was the theory of Sakata and Inoue, which predicted in 1943 the pion-muon electron decay chain, observed in 1947, that signalled the discovery of the pion. Sakata's theory also distinguished the electron-neutrino from the muon-nutrino.” (“Meson Physics in Japan (1934–48),” report delivered to the Annual Meeting of the History of Science Society, Madison, 27 October 1978, p. 6.) Sakata's numerous contributions are recorded in Mehra, Jagdish, The Solvay Conference on Physics: Aspects of the Development of Physics Since 1911 (Boston: D. Reidel, 1975), pp. 242, 299, 320, 328CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and by Wentzel, Gregor and Tomonaga, Sin-Hiro in Mehra, J. (ed.), The Physicist's Conception of Nature (Boston: D. Reidel, 1973), pp. 398–99, 409Google Scholar. Sakata's discoveries were often made elsewhere too, from the United States to the Soviet Union. That these simultaneous discoverers received more fame, even the Nobel Prize, led to the belief in some circles in Japan that Sakata was a victim of discrimination.

11. Shōichi, Sakata, Kagakusha to Shakai (Scientists and Society) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1972), pp. 347, 348Google Scholar. I am deeply grateful to Yasuko Kurachi Dower for translating for me this and other Japanese works by Sakata.

12. Ruoshui, Wang “Bianzhengfa de mingyun,” Shehui kexue zhanxian (Jilin), No. 3 (1981), p. 6Google Scholar; Peishan, Li, “Firmly bear in mind historical experiences and lessons,” Ziran bianzhengfa tongxin. No. 1 (1981), in JPRS, Vol. 70, No. 194, p. 44Google Scholar. Lysenkoism, however, may not be dead in China. Cf. Butterfield, Fox, China: Alive in the Bitter Sea (New York: Times Books, 1982), pp. 376Google Scholaretseq.

13. Supplement of the Progress of Theoretical Physics, 1971, p. 108.

14. “Chairman Mao's concern for the affairs of astronomy,” Guangming ribao, 22 December 1978, p. 2.

15. Supplement of the Progress of Theoretical Physics, 1971, pp. 110, 125, 158.

16. Interview, Zhu Hongyuan, Beijing, 26 July 1980.

17. Zhou Peiyuan has informed me that after he studied physics at the University of Chicago and Cal. Tech., he travelled, a few years later, to Princeton to learn from Einstein. After returning to China, he passed on his experience to Yu Guangyuan and others in Mao's circle.

18. Hongyuan, Zhu, “Reminiscences of the straton model,“ pp. 6–7Google Scholar.

19. Guangming ribao, 7 September 1956, in SCMP, 1375, pp. 19, 20.

20. Shōichi, Sakata, Kagaku to Heiwa no Sozōi (Science and the Creation of Peace) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1963), pp. 142 and 333–65Google Scholar.

21. Mao Zedong sixiang wansui, 1969, p. 86.

22. Mao Zedong xuan ji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), Vol. V (Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1977), p. 498Google Scholar.

23. Shōichi, Sakata, Kagaku ni Atarashii Kazeo o (Fresh Breeze in Science) (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppan Sha, 1966), p. 19Google Scholar.

24. Interview, Zhu Hongyuan, Beijing, 23 July 1980.

25. Sakata, , Scientists and Society, pp. 348–49Google Scholar.

26. Supplement of the Progress of Theoretical Physics, 1971, p. 169.

27. Jiang, Wu, “Certain questions: a brief ideological discourse on Mao Zedong's theory of knowledge,” Renmin ribao, 10 11 1981, p. 5Google Scholar in FBIS, 24 November 1981, p.K13.

28. For a completely positive appreciation of Mao's Einsteinian approach (an appreciation in direct conflict with my views in this essay), see Regler, S., “The development of a Chinese approach to socialism,“ The Journal of Contemporary Asia, No. 10 (1980), pp. 191–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Mao Zedongsixiang wansui, 1969, pp. 149, 213.

30. Ibid. p. 192.

31. Ibid. p. 155.

32. Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Vol. V, pp. 332–33. The economy cannot “go up all the time” since production “comes in waves with ups and downs” I was told spontaneously by a Hebei peasant leader (on 11 June 1978) who had learned his Maoist lessons well.

33. Ibid. p. 382, cf. p. 383.

34. Mao Zedong sixiang wansui, 1967, p. 51, cf. p. 59.

35. Ibid. pp. 149–50, cf. pp. 266, 206–209, 213.

36. Hebeiribao, editorial, 22 September 1959.

37. A 1961 essay by Ruoshui, Wang in Renmin ribao, 27 06 1979, p. 3Google Scholar and Fuqun, Bo Yibo on Li in Beijing ribao, 9 01 1980, p. 2Google Scholar.

38. Stuart Schram noted in his essay, “Mao Tse-tung and the theory of permanent revolution,” how Mao's view “that the path of revolution must continually be reassessed as it is affected by events might be called Mao's uncertainty principle … ” (CQ, January-March 1971, p. 231.) Notice here how Heisenberg's idea of indeterminacy changes in Mao's metaphor to be not a limit on knowledge but a prod to revolutionary action.

39. This short section on metaphor borrows from the essays by Boyd, Richard, Kuhn, Thomas and Pylyshyn, Zenon on metaphor and science in Ortony, Andrew (ed.) Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

40. Interview, Zhu Hongyuan, Beijing, 26 July 1980.

41. Original manuscript in Beijing City Library. My thanks to the librarians who permitted me to read this in June 1980. The visits to that library were made possible by a grant from N.E.H. for which I am most grateful.

42. Mao Zedong sixiang wansui, 1969, p. 476.

43. Ibid. p. 560.

44. Sakata had had more of his work translated by the Russians than by the Chinese. The difference was that Mao was interested in Sakata's philosophy, Moscow in his science. Dimitri D. Ivanenko of Moscow State University in commenting on “The Problems of Unifying Cosmology with Microphysics,” wrote, “ I believe that the fundamental results of the recent nonlinear spinor unified theory, namely the value of masses, magnetic moments, and coupling constants, are already close to quantitative agreement with experiment and are so impressive as to justify some degree of optimism in this respect. This theory can be considered as a most consistent development of the fusion theory of deBroglie, of the phenomonological schemes of Fermi-Yang and Sakata …” (Youryrau, Wolfgang (ed.), Physics, Logic and History (New York: Plenum Press, 1970), pp. 110–11)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On 27 September 1970 Sakata's Japanese colleagues formally protested the award of the Nobel Prize to Gell-Mann for work they believed Sakata had done first (Taketani interview, 22 June 1978). Chinese physicists in like manner seem to believe that in 1965 and 1966 Dalitz and Morpurgo monopolized credit that should have been shared with the Chinese (Zhu Hongyuan, “Reminiscences of the straton model,” p. 15). That is, Chinese physicists received the papers of Dalitz and Murpurgo only after the Chinese scientists on their own had come up with similar results.

45. Sakata, , Fresh Breeze in Science, pp. 10–73Google Scholar.

46. Mao Zedong sixiang wansui, 1967, pp. 561–67. The item is, according to Yu, his notes of the meeting. He vouches for the accuracy of this item in the wansui edition.

47. Wakeman's, FredericHistory and Will (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973)Google Scholar makes this important point a major theme of his book on Mao's philosophy.

48. Mao, 1969, p. 566.

49. Ibid. p. 565.

50. Ibid. p. 562.

51. Ibid. p. 504.

52. Hongyuan, Zhu, “Reminiscences of the straton model,” pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

53. Zhu Hongyuan wrote (in “Reminiscences of the straton model”) “The history of science reminded us that the notion of ‘fundamental constituents of matter’ remains an illusion… It might very well be that even the constituents of the hadrons are not the fundamental constituents of matter either. They might be just one of many strata of the structure of matter which remain to be discovered. The same ‘straton’ was proposed to express such an idea” (p. 9).

54. While for the most part Sakata's theory and the standard language of physics were translatable, Chinese scientists must have worried about the distorting impact of politics on their work. An American physicist with Chinese collaborators told me that his Chinese friends joked that maybe the politics would go away if they could discover a particle and name it a Mao-on. Zhu Hongyuan, however, credits the Maon to Harvard's 1979 Nobel Prize winner, S. L. Glashow who wrote, “Is there another layer of the onion? Is there a common fundamental constituent of both quarks and leptons? Such a notion has been championed by some Chinese physicists. I would propose that these hypothetical building blocks of all matter be called ‘MAON’ to honour the late Chairman Mao who insisted upon the underlying unity of nature” (Proceedings of the Hawaii Topical Conference in Particle Physics, 1977, p. 161). Glashow is also wrong about what Mao insisted upon.

55. Supplement of the Progress of Theoretical Physics, 1971, pp. 185–98. In that article Sakata cites, as he often had earlier, from a 16 June 1867 letter of Engels to Marx. In a paragraph on expected, new, revolutionary upheavals in chemistry, Sakata has Engels write, “The atom – formerly represented as the limit of possible division – is now nothing more than a node which gives rise to qualitative differences when making divisions” (p. 187). But if the Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House edition of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Selected Correspondence is accurate, Sakata, probably in transcribing, has got Engels wrong. Engels wrote, “The atom – formerly represented as the limit of divisibility – is now nothing more than a relation…” (p. 227). For Marx and Engels, the focus is always on the relational reflexive whole, not on the issue of infinite divisibility. It was Hegel, Engels wrote, who discussed an “infinite series of divisions.”

“The molecule as the smallest part of matter capable of independent existence is a perfectly rational category, a ‘node’ as Hegel put it, in the infinite series of division….” That notion of a molecule makes no sense today. However, Engels accepted it. But in contrast to Mao and Sakata, his stress – and this is the philosophical nub of the matter was on the issue of reality as relation, not as infinite division.

It is doubtful if Einstein would have been sympathetic to Sakata's effort to build his philosophy of science on Engels, especially Engels's The Dialectics of Nature. Einstein told Bernstein that that book was “of no importance either for contemporary physics or for the history of physics.” Einstein also stated, “I am firmly convinced that Engels would find it laughable if he could see how great importance is being attached after such a length of time to his modest attempt” (cited in Hook, Sidney, “My running debate with Einstein,” Commentary, Vol. 74, No. 1 (07 1982, p. 40)Google Scholar.

56. Hongqi, 1965, No. 6.

57. Ibid. 1965, No. 9.

58. Ibid. pp. 45, 46.

59. Ibid. p. 60.

60. Taketani interview, loc. cit. Sakata never again visited China. His real contributions were never presented to the Chinese people. Politically, Sakata worked hard and long against militarism and the spread of nuclear weapons in Japan. Scientifically, he was a genius at using meagre resources to devise brilliant experiments. He was a physicist of international renown with major contributions in meson theory. Socially, in the academy, he tried to break the feudal relations of master and servant which too often characterized the link between higher and lower faculty, between faculty and student. Sakata won fame in Japanese science circles for these democratic reforms. But for Mao – and through Mao, for the people of China – Sakata was simply a philosopher of eternal splits.

61. Peiyuan, Zhou, “A milestone in the history of science,” China Reconstructs (10 1966), p. 41Google Scholar.

62. Hu Qu, translated in CMP–SPRCP–77–31 (August 1977), pp. 99–100, from Guangming ribao, 20 July 1977.

63. Beijing Review, 14 January 1980, p. 25. Mao is presented in 1980 as having opposed Lin Biao's theory of China's already reaching “the acme” of knowledge. Perhaps that is part of what Mao said. But in 1980 China's ruling groups were still blaming Lin Biao and company for the Cultural Revolution and excusing Mao. This 1980 claim buttresses that explanation for 1966. But since the issue is so weighted with political justification and Mao's speech is still secret, it seems best to remain agnostic about what Mao actually said.

64. Peiyuan, Zhou, “A milestone in the history of science,” p. 43Google Scholar.

65. Zhu Hongyuan, p. 1.

66. Interview, Zhu Hongyuan, Beijing, 26 July 1980.

67. Zhu Hongyuan, p. 2.

68. The Political Struggle Surrounding the Problem of Basic Theory in the Natural Sciences (in Chinese) (Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1977), p. 15Google Scholar.

69. Ibid. p.2.

70. It is discussed on p. 164 of Goldman, Merle, China's Intellectuals (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

71. Interview with Sakata's widow, 22 June 1978.

72. Guangming ribao, 22 December 1978, p. 2.

73. Zhenning, Yang, “A thinker, a leader, an extremely practical man,” New China (Spring 1977), p. 16Google Scholar.

74. Guangming ribao, 10 September 1978, p. 2, translated in FBIS, 18 September 1978, pp. E17–19, Zhou Peiyuan, “Chairman Mao's great banner is a banner of science.” Professor Yang, with whom I talked on 5 December 1979, has an entirely different approach to philosophy of science than Mao. Yang is a scion of the rationalist tradition of Einstein. That is, Yang marvels at those few crucial places where “something miraculous” occurs and the abstract beauties of mathematics give life to decisive physical data. So it was, for Yang, with four dimensional space and special relativity, Reimann's geometry and general relativity, Hilbert space and quantum mechanics and fibre bundles with topological complexities and gauge field mechanics.

75. Hsin, Chi, The Case of the Gang of Four (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1977), p. 228Google Scholar.

76. Ibid. p. 287.

77. Ibid. p. 293. Deng's struggle with China's no-nothing nativists is discussed in Chap. 7 of Goldman's, Chinese Intellectuals.

78. “Criticize Yao Wenyuan's view of natural science,” Hongqi, No. 4 (1978) p. 66Google Scholar. Lu Dingyi later described Yao's position as one where all answers were found in “Marxism-Leninism” and “class struggle” such that “Einstein had to be overthrown” because “natural science belonged to the capitalists” (Renmin ribao, 6 March 1980, p. 3). This dogmatic Marxist approach also had no room for Mao's remnant humanism, his belief that wisdom also existed with the ancients, in the case of infinite divisibility of matter, the insights of the ancient Chinese philosopher Xun Zi (interview with Yang Zhenning, 6 December 1979).

79. “Marxism and natural science,“ Hongqi, No. 4 (1976), pp. 56 and 58Google Scholar.

80. Reqiang, Zhai, Kexue yu zhexue luncong (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 1980), pp. 30–34Google Scholar.

81. The Political Struggle, p. 29. The no-nothings demanded that scientists involved in international work be sent to the countryside to use their foreign language to criticize landlords (Peiyuan, Zhou in Renmin ribao, 20 11 1977, p. 1)Google Scholar.

82. The Political Struggle, p. 33.

83. Ibid. p. 39.

84. He Zuoxiu, and Hanying, Guo, Guangming ribao, 18 01y 1978, p. 3Google Scholar. (Guo is Guo Moruo's son.)

85. In Beijing, by 1974, Zhi Zhun, the Shanghai Group's leading activist in education, got the Beijing writing group known as Liang Xiao to convoke similar seminars. But before the Beijing group had completed its work, its energies were directed to other struggles.

86. At one seminar, I was told in a 14 July 1980 interview at Fudan University, ignorant Wang is supposed to have glanced at the first page of material and then proudly blurted out, on noticing the sign for infinity (∞), that he had spotted an error that had to be corrected. The number 8 should be written vertically.

87. He and Guo, loc. cit.

88. I have only obtained two of the four anti-Einstein polemics.

89. The Li Ke group were simply baffled at things such as Einstein's attempt to give meaning to the notion that the sun can be conceived of as going around the earth.

90. Ke, Li, “Criticize Einstein's world view,” Natural Dialectics Journal (1974), p. 72Google Scholar.

91. “Einstein and the Copenhagen School,” Zhexue yanjiu, No. 5 (1979), p. 59Google Scholar.

92. Yu, Ruo, “It is impossible to tamper with Marxism,” Hongqi, No. 7 (4 07 1977)Google Scholar; translated in CMP–SPRCM–77–72, pp. 69 and 71.

93. “Marxism and natural science,” Hongqi, No. 4 (1976), pp. 53–58Google Scholar.

94. Renmin ribao, 7 January 1980, p. 1.

95. Zhu, , “Reminiscences” pp. 2, 10, 19–21, 29–30Google Scholar. This position is presented in elegant mathematic-physical detail in Ruoying, Yi, Gaoneng wuli rumen (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1979), pp. 217–20Google Scholar, “The Sakata model.”

96. E.g. Mingxian, Shen, “On the specific characteristics of Einstein's philosophical thought,” Guangming ribao, 8 05 1979, p. 4Google Scholar; Cunrang, Qu, “Correctly evaluate Einstein's philosophical thought,” Guangming ribao, 17 05 1979, p. 4Google Scholar; Bishu, Chen, “Let's discuss Einstein's philosophical thought,” Sichuan Studies Journal (1979), pp. 26–33Google Scholar.

97. “Einstein and the Copenhagen School,” Zhexue yanjiu, No. 5 (1979), pp. 59–65Google Scholar.

98. Fuming, Hu, “On the mutual utility of practice and theory,” Baike zhishi (Encyclopaedic Knowledge), 05 1979, pp. 44–49Google Scholar.

99. Zhengheng, Liao, Hongqi, No. 5 (1980), pp. 37–41Google Scholar.

100. Peiyuan, Zhou, Renmin ribao, 21 02 1979, p. 3Google Scholar. In 1962 Chinese scholars began a multi-volume translation of Einstein's works. It was discontinued when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, although the work was basically complete. The scholars then were attacked and condemned, starting in 1969. By September 1974 the translations again were readied for publication. Two volumes finally appeared in January 1976 in Beijing under Zhou Peiyuan's patronage, but all politico-philosophical essays had to be excluded and Einstein's political thought was described in the preface as “confused and shaky” (Aiyinsitan wenji, II, Beijing: Commercial Publishers, 1976, p. 3)Google Scholar. A third volume was published in 1979 including a defence of Einstein, his political writings and a March 1978 preface with the history of the painful evolution of the volumes. The editors were Xu Liangying, Zhao Zhongli, Zhang Xuansan, Li Baoheng and Fan Dainian. In the English original, the italicized terms are “far-reaching centralization,” “bureaucracy” and “and the power of bureaucracy.”

101. Guangyuan, Yu, “Talking about a science of sciences,”; and “A dialogue on the concept o f ‘matter,’” “Ziran bianzheng fa (11 1979), pp. 12–14 and 24–30Google Scholar.

102. Guangming ribao, 25 July 1980, p. 1.

103. Guangming ribao, 2 08 1980, p. 2Google Scholar, Sanjiang, Qian et al. , “An introduction to the development of science and technology,“ Pt. 1Google Scholar.

104. Guangming ribao, 3 August 1980, p. 2, Ibid. Pt. 2.

105. Sanjiang, Qian, “Cherishing memories of Chairman Mao,” Peking Review, No. 42 (14 10 1977), p. 22Google Scholar.

106. The best the Deng Xiaoping people could do was point out that Mao himself had made scientific experiment “one of the three social experiences of humankind and one of the three sources of correct thought,” that Mao had argued that in “building a strong socialist state, it [scientific experiment] was one of the three great revolutionary movements” (Reqiang, Zhai, Kexue yu zhexue luncong, pp. 29 and 31)Google Scholar.

107. Zhiying, Cao, “A critique of The Struggle in Modern Physics and the Two Lines in Philosophy,” Dushu, No. 2 (1980), pp. 39–47Google Scholar.

108. Jiang, Wu, “Certain questions: a brief ideological discourse on Mao Zedong's theory of knowledge,” Renmin ribao, 10 11 1981, p. 5Google Scholar in FBIS, 24 November 1981, P.K13.

109. “Central Committee circular on learning from Daqing,” in FBIS, 28 December 1981, pp.K3–K5.