Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 04:28:14 -0800
Subject: M-G: Dialectics:  Applying Philosophy in Transport





>From the book: "SERVING THE PEOPLE WITH DIALECTICS"
Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1972


APPLYING PHILOSOPHY IN TRANSPORT

by the crew of a 150-ton trailer truck, Shanghai

Our group was set-up during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Our job is transporting giant equipment all over the country in the
service of major projects.  To do this we use a 150-ton trailer made
by the Shanghai workers.  It is fourteen metres long and three metres
wide, and gives the impression of a railway flatcar.  Driving this
truck and huge trailer with giant machines and equipment gives us 
great pride, for we can see in our load the rapid development of the
socialist construction of our country.

The eight of us used to transport small pieces by light trucks on 
smooth city roads.  Now we're driving a heavy vehicle loaded with
equipment weighing from one to two hundred tons.  And we drive it 
over mountains, small bridges, and steep and narrow roads.  We are
faced with difficulties.  What do we do to overcome them?  On our
study of Chairman Mao's philosophic thinking, which gives us strength
and lights the road in our advance.

Transport workers must be familiar with road conditions.  But as we
are roving about the country, we often have to drive on unfamiliar 
roads.  How shall we tackle this problem?  Chairman Mao says:  
"Correct decisions stem from correct judgements, and correct judgements
stem from a thorough and necessary reconnaissance and from pondering
on and piecing together the data of various kinds gathered through
reconnaissance."  In transport as in fighting, without the necessary,
thorough inspection of the land and road surface, to work out a correct
transport plan is out of the question.  So wherever we go we first 
"reconoitre" five things: road surface, bridges, terrain, and the 
characteristics of the earth and gradients.

Once in moving a machine weighing more than a hundred tons in the 
Northwest, we had to pass the so-called "Hell's Cliff," where the road
is flanked by a gorge dozens of feet deep.  According to the local poor
and lower-middle peasants and drivers, the stretch of road had been cut
out midway across the mountain, the rocks were badly weathered and big
chunks broke off under strong vibration.  We relied on the local people
for help in finding places where there were comparatively more weathered
rocks that might fall.  After careful "reconaissance," we drove over the
dangerous road cautiously and steadily, passed "Hell's Cliff" and 
delivered the equipment.

But just knowing the road thoroughly is still not enough.  This is because
the contradictions in things do not reveal themselves fully in all 
circumstances.  Chairman Mao points out:  "This is because people engaged
in changing reality are usually subject to numerous limitations; they are
limited not only by existing scientific and technological conditions but
also by the development of the objective process itself and the degree to
which this process has become manifest (the aspects and the essence of the
objective process have not yet been fully revealed)."  Thus, we tried in 
the course of our "reconnaissance" to find those phenomena that gave clues
to the essence of the matter.  In fighting, it is easier to locate the
enemy's pillboxes than his bunkers, and "active reconnaissance" may reveal
the actual situation.  We generally do an empthy run on the most difficult
sections so as to learn what the problems are and be ready to meet them.

Another trip was transporting some urgently needed big equipment to a 
worksite in the Northeast.  It was midwinter, and everywhere was snow
and ice, so that road and ravine seemed one.  The 110 kilometres were
all up and down over four icy mountains.  Slipperiness was obviously
the main contradiction, but might there not be other problems?  We 
tried out the icy road first with the empty vehicle.  We found the road
was fairly safe, and adopted all possible anti-skid measures to ensure
safe passage over it.

"Reconnaissance" can only expose contradictions, enable us to recognize
them.  To resolve them, however, revolutionary spirit needs to be 
integrated with scientific approach.  Chairman Mao teaches:  "In given
conditions, each of the two contradictory aspects transforms itself
into it's opposite."  Our task is to "accelerate the transformation 
of things and achieve the goal of revolution" on the basis of sufficient
knowledge of the contradictions involved.  We shall tell something of
what we've learned about "accelerating the transformation of things"
>from studying and applying Chairman Mao's philosophic thinking.

The lifting apparatus on our truck is light, but we have to
lift equipment as heavy as one hundred tons, forming a contradiction.

Chairman Mao teaches us:  "In war, battles can only be fought one by
one and the enemy forces can only be destroyed one by one.  Factories
can only be built one by one.  The peasants can only plough the land
plot by plot.  The same is even true of eating a meal.  Stratedically,
we take the eating of a meal lightly -- we know we can finish it.  But
actually we eat it mouthful by mouthful.  It is impossible to swallow
an entire banquet in one gulp.  This is known as a piecemeal solution.
In military parlance, it is called wiping out the enemy forces one by
one."  Chairman Mao's words were the key to the solution.

When we were to load a 130-ton piece of equipment without a crane hoist,
we wondered how we were to do it until we applied Chairman Mao's concept
of "wiping out the enemy forces one by one."  We lifted up one corner at
a time and placed pieces of steel tubing under each.  Then, pulling it
with winches, we moved it these rollers till it went up a ramp onto the
trailer.  After we got to the construction site we unloaded it the same
way.  The total weight of big equipment is great, but it's distributed
over a large area.  By lifting one part at a time, we ended up lifting
the whole, while the rollers decreased the moving weight by reducing
friction.  Thus what was inferior in our loading apparatus on the whole
became superior in a part.  Such experience repeated helped us to 
understand many of the laws of loading, and enabled us to handle items
as if they were light.

Contradictions also occur between the carrying capacity of our vehicle
and the much greater weight of the load.  When serving the No. 9424
construction project, we had a blast furnace 10.5 m. in diameter and 
34.5 m. high to transport.  It weighed 280 tons, twice the carrying
capacity of our truck.  It was 2.5 times its length and almost three
times its width.  It was like trying to make an elephant stand on a ball,
we thought, and wondered how our truck could support it, let alone carry
it.  Some said, "We'll have to make a 300-ton trailer, or else take the
furnace apart and move it section by section."

Most of us thought we could do it with what we had, without taking it 
apart.  Chairman Mao teaches us:  "In his endeavour to win a war, a 
military strategist cannot overstep the limitations, however, he can and
must strive for victory.  The stage of action for a military strategist
is built upon objective material conditions, but on that stage he can
direct the performance of many a drama, full of sound and colour, power
and grandeur."  The same is true in transporting heavy equipment.  In the
past we carried loads of forty or fifty tons on a 20-ton trailer.  In fact,
until we reviewed our experience in the light of Chairman Mao's philosophic
thinking, we realized that once we knew and mastered the objective laws
governing it, and brought our subjective initiative into play, we would be
able to make full use of the existing objective material conditions.

The contradiction between the load and the carrying capacity of our truck
was solved by adding another trailer onto a wide one with 32 wheels,
coupling it in a tandem arrangement between the truck and big trailer.  
We adjusted the length of the whole to the length of the furnace and added
some saddle-shaped supports in front and back to hold it steady.  The
"elephant standing on a ball" became an "elephant lying on flatcars."

Then came another contradiction, that between the load limit of an
ordinary bridge and the great weight of big equipment loaded on the 
big trailer truck.  Once when we were taking a 120-ton item to an 
engineering project, we had sixteen concrete bridges to cross.  Each
had a load limit of thirteen tons for trucks and sixty tons for
caterpillar tractors.  How were we to get our 120-ton load over them?
Some bridge engineers and technicians said it couldn't be done, that
the bridges would give way.  We decided to analyse this contradiction
before trying to find a solution.  Chairman Mao says:  "When we look
at a thing, we must examine its essence and treat its appearance merely
as an usher at the threshold, and once we cross the threshold, we must
grasp the essence of the thing; this is the only reliable and scientific
method of analysis."

We concluded that three factors were in our favour:  

First, a bridge with a load limit of thirteen tons for trucks could bear
the weight of a 60-ton caterpillar tractor because the tractor's large
treads distribute its weight over a greater area of the bridges surface
than do the truck's tyres.  This realization was for us the "usher at
the threshold."  Our rig is long and wide and has 56 tyres.  This gives
it three times as much contact with the bridge as the caterpillar tractor.
Thus, though the weight of our loaded truck is greater than that of the
tractor, it would have about the same weight per unit area.

Second, the weight per unit area is affected by the speed of the truck.
Driving slowly would reduce the vibration and strain on the bridge.

Third, investigation showed that all the bridges were in good condition,
and actually quite strong.  Our analysis led us to the conclusion that a
bridge that could take a 60-ton caterpillar tractor could stand the weight
of our 120-ton load.  But we also thought:  Chairman Mao and the Party
have given us the task of transporting for this important project; we can't
just be 80 or 90 per cent sure, we must be 100 per cent sure.  We asked
the local authorities to mobilize the people and strengthen the weaker
bridges and, on the day we passed through, the local comrades worked hard
alongside us to see that our truck and its huge load got across all the
bridges all right.

Sharp curves on the mountain roads add to our problems.  Just imagine
getting our giant truck and its loaded long tail around hairpin curves!
At a place called "Hell's Gate" there was a sharp turn on a downgrade
just before an upturn.  The turning radius was 10 m.; our trailer truck
with the added tractor needed at least 10.4 m.

Some suggested detaching the tractor, but would that leave enough pulling
power?  Suppose the truck got stuck at the turn, or fell over the cliff.
Chairman Mao points out in "On Contradiction" that "of the two contradictory
aspects, one must be principal and the other secondary.  The principal
aspect is the one playing the leading role in the contradiction."  We saw
that in the contradiction between the length of the truck-with-tractor
and the short radius of the turn, the former was the principal aspect.
This is because the radius of the turn is fixed, but the length of the
tractor-truck can be adjusted.  The contradiction could be solved if we
shortened the turning radius of our vehicle to 10 m. or less.  Therefore
we decided to keep the tractor close to the truck and run the truck at full
throttle so that it would take the curve mainly on its own power.

But another thing had to be taken into consideration in getting around a 
curve like "Hell's Gate," and that was that in taking the outer edge of 
the road one row of wheels (our trailer has seven axles with eight wheels
on each) would be over the edge for an instant.  Would this be dangerous?
We figured it wouldn't, that the truck's power forward would maintain
the centre of gravity and keep the remaining wheels steady even if the 
outer wheels hung over.

After a thorough study and full preparations, we started the truck.
The driver kept a firm grip on the steering wheel, the head or our crew
directed calmly and cooly, while the rest of us watched the wheels.  
Everything worked out as we planned and we passed successfully through
"Hell's Gate."

Transporting equipment over eighteen provinces, municipalities and 
autonomous regions of the country, we have seen great changes.  We've
seen industries grow up all over the place where there were none before,
and not just along the coast as in old China.  It makes us feel that
we've got a lot more work ahead for our trailer-truck and that we'll
need a lot more study of Chairman Mao's philosophic works to do it
better.

==============================================================="Applying Philosophy in Transport"  from "Serving the People with
Dialectics, Essays on the Study of Philosophy by Workers and Peasants"
Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1972




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