"Seek truth from facts" is a historically established

idiomatic Idiom, also called idiomaticness or idiomaticity, is the syntactical, grammatical, or structural form peculiar to a language. Idiom is the realized structure of a language, as opposed to possible but unrealized structures that could have develop ...

expression (''

chengyu ''Chengyu'' () are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expression, most of which consist of four characters. ''Chengyu'' were widely used in Classical Chinese and are still common in vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language ...

'') in the Chinese language that first appeared in the ''

Book of Han The ''Book of Han'' or ''History of the Former Han'' (Qián Hàn Shū,《前汉书》) is a history of China finished in 111AD, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. ...

''. Originally, it described an attitude toward study and research.

In modern Chinese culture

The slogan became a key element of

Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

, first quoted by

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also Romanization of Chinese, romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the List of national founde ...

during a speech at the Sixth National Congress of the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

in 1938, in reference to

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

. Mao had probably remembered it as being the inscription on his alma mater, Hunan's First Teachers Training School. Beginning in 1978, it was further promoted by

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. Aft ...

as a central ideology of

Socialism with Chinese characteristics Socialism with Chinese characteristics ( zh, s=中国特色社会主义, hp=Zhōngguó tèsè shèhuìzhǔyì) is a set of political theories and policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that are seen by their proponents as representing M ...

, and applied to economic and political reforms thereafter.

Use in political context

On 11 May 1978 journalist Hu Fuming published an article in ''

Guangming Daily The ''Guangming Daily'', also known as the ''Enlightenment Daily'', is a national Chinese-language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of China. It was established in 1949 as the official paper of the China Democratic League. St ...

'' entitled "Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing the Truth"（）directly contradicting then CCP general secretary

Hua Guofeng Hua Guofeng (; born Su Zhu; 16 February 1921 – 20 August 2008), alternatively spelled as Hua Kuo-feng, was a Chinese politician who served as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and Premier of the People's Republic of China. The desig ...

's line of the "

Two Whatevers The "Two Whatevers" () refers to the statement that "We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave" (). This statement was contained in a joint editorial, en ...

" () policy and thereby

's policy of class struggle in favour of economic reform championed by

. The title of the article is inspired by the saying and is widely seem as a seminal document in Chinese history marking the beginning of the

Reform and Opening Up The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up (), known in the West as the opening of China, is the program of economic reforms termed "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and " socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of C ...

era.

References

Chinese proverbs Economic history of the People's Republic of China Ideology of the Chinese Communist Party Maoism Slogans {{China-philo-stub