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Self-criticism is the evaluation of past mistakes in order to learn from them. According to Lenin:
A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people. Frankly acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analyzing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing out the means of its rectification—that is the hallmark of a serious party; that is how it should perform its duties, and how it should educate and train its class, and then the masses.
— Vladimir Lenin, "Left-wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder, 1920
History of the term
Lenin first used the phrase "self-criticism" (in Russian: самокритики) in the preface to his 1904 work "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back". In this work he wrote about the possibility of a party's opponents using their self-criticism against them, but went on to dismiss it as a serious reason to not engage in self-criticism.[1]
Stalin used the term in his work "The Foundations of Leninism" written in 1924. In the second lecture, Stalin discusses the methodology that Lenin used to construct his theory. Stalin finds four requirements to Lenin's methodology, with self-criticism representing the fourth requirement. Later in the same lecture Stalin quotes Lenin's "Left-wing" Communism (the same quote from above), as well as Lenin's "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back" as examples of self-criticism within Lenin's thought.[2]
In China
Mao dedicated chapter 27 of his "Quotations from Mao Zedong" to self-criticism titling the chapter "Criticism and self-criticism".
Xi Jinping has spoken on self-criticism such as in his speech at a democratic life meeting at the provincial party headquarters of Hebei province in September 2013.
See also
References
- ↑ “One more word to the opponents of Social-Democracy. They gloat and grimace over our disputes; they will, of course, try to pick isolated passages from my pamphlet, which deals with the failings and shortcomings of our Party, and to use them for their own ends. The Russian Social-Democrats are already steeled enough in battle not to be perturbed by these pinpricks and to continue, in spite of them, their work of self-criticism and ruthless exposure of their own shortcomings, which will unquestionably and inevitably be overcome as the working-class movement grows. As for our opponents, let them try to give us a picture of the true state of affairs in their own “parties” even remotely approximating that given by the minutes of our Second Congress!”
Vladimir Lenin (1904). One step forward, two steps back: 'Preface'. - ↑ Joseph Stalin (1924). The Foundations of Leninism: 'Chapter 2, method'.