"Seek truth from facts"
About this Quote
Deng Xiaoping distilled an entire governing philosophy into four words: seek truth from facts. It is a crisp rejection of dogma in favor of results, a call to judge ideas by what they produce in the world rather than by how well they fit a theory. After the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, this principle became the lever for shifting China from ideological purity to pragmatic problem-solving.
The political context matters. In 1978, as Deng consolidated influence, a widely discussed essay declared that practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. The Third Plenum that year pivoted national priorities from class struggle to economic development. Seek truth from facts provided the intellectual permission to experiment: start small, measure outcomes, expand what works, abandon what fails. It linked directly to Dengs famous cat aphorism: it does not matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
On the ground, this maxim translated into pilot projects and local autonomy. The household responsibility system began with quiet trials in the countryside, dismantling rigid communes when higher yields and fuller grain stores became undeniable. Special Economic Zones like Shenzhen were carved out as laboratories for market mechanisms, foreign investment, and export-led growth. The yardstick was not ideological consistency but concrete improvements in output, incomes, and living standards.
The phrase also reaches back to a longer Chinese tradition that values empirical governance and echoes earlier communist writings about learning from practice. Deng, however, weaponized it against ossified orthodoxy, using facts as both shield and spear: shield against accusations of revisionism, spear for reform. The approach carries risks, since those in power often define which facts count and how they are measured. Even so, it reset the normative compass of Chinese policymaking toward evidence and adaptability.
As a governing principle and a political argument, seek truth from facts became the quiet engine of Chinas reform era, legitimizing a hybrid path of socialism with market features by the simplest test of all: does it work.
The political context matters. In 1978, as Deng consolidated influence, a widely discussed essay declared that practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. The Third Plenum that year pivoted national priorities from class struggle to economic development. Seek truth from facts provided the intellectual permission to experiment: start small, measure outcomes, expand what works, abandon what fails. It linked directly to Dengs famous cat aphorism: it does not matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
On the ground, this maxim translated into pilot projects and local autonomy. The household responsibility system began with quiet trials in the countryside, dismantling rigid communes when higher yields and fuller grain stores became undeniable. Special Economic Zones like Shenzhen were carved out as laboratories for market mechanisms, foreign investment, and export-led growth. The yardstick was not ideological consistency but concrete improvements in output, incomes, and living standards.
The phrase also reaches back to a longer Chinese tradition that values empirical governance and echoes earlier communist writings about learning from practice. Deng, however, weaponized it against ossified orthodoxy, using facts as both shield and spear: shield against accusations of revisionism, spear for reform. The approach carries risks, since those in power often define which facts count and how they are measured. Even so, it reset the normative compass of Chinese policymaking toward evidence and adaptability.
As a governing principle and a political argument, seek truth from facts became the quiet engine of Chinas reform era, legitimizing a hybrid path of socialism with market features by the simplest test of all: does it work.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
|---|---|
| Source | Deng Xiaoping — use of the slogan "Seek truth from facts" (Chinese: shi shi qiu shi); noted in his biographical entry. See Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Deng Xiaoping" (biography). |
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