How Does Marxism Understand “Human Essence”?

The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC[1]1 The 20th National Congress of the CPC was held in October 2022. Its report outlined the Party’s guiding principles and goals for the next five years and beyond. emphasizes that “we must put the people first” and constantly respond to “the questions raised by the people.” The theoretical foundation of this fundamental stance lies in Marxism’s scientific revelation of human essence—that humans are real subjects engaged in material production within concrete social relations. In contrast to abstract theories of human nature divorced from reality, Marxism, guided by dialectical materialism and historical materialism, bases itself on material production practice and elucidates that human essence possesses a dialectical unity of social determinacy and historical generativity. So, how does Marxism achieve a true understanding of human essence through philosophical transformation?

党的二十大报告强调“必须坚持人民至上”，不断回答“人民之问”。这一根本立场的理论基础，在于马克思主义关于人的本质的科学揭示——人是在具体社会关系中从事物质生产的现实主体。相较于脱离现实的抽象人性论，马克思主义以辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义为根本遵循，立足物质生产实践，阐明人的本质具有社会规定性与历史生成性的辩证统一。那么，马克思主义如何通过哲学变革实现对人的本质的真理性认识？

Grasping Human Essence in Reality Through Practice

立足实践把握人的现实本质

Marxism’s scientific revelation of human essence begins with a thorough critique of the abstract theories of human nature in classical German philosophy. In his *Theses on Feuerbach*, Marx clearly states: “The essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.” This thesis overturns the previous idealist framework for understanding human nature, returning human essence from the realm of speculation to the foundation of reality.

马克思主义对人的本质的科学揭示，始于对德国古典哲学抽象人性论的彻底批判。马克思在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中明确指出：“人的本质不是单个人所固有的抽象物，在其现实性上，它是一切社会关系的总和。”这一论断颠覆了既往唯心主义的人性认知框架，将人的本质从思辨领域复归于现实根基。

Modern Western philosophy generally held a presupposition of abstract human nature. Engels criticized in *Anti-Dühring* that all modern philosophy, especially German philosophy, constructed human essence in abstract thought. Although Feuerbach defined humans as having a “species-essence” of “love” and “reason,” he suspended concrete social-historical circumstances, turning “man” into an abstract individual detached from the concrete lifeworld. The “natural rights” and “rational man” advocated by Enlightenment thinkers essentially universalized the particular demands of the bourgeoisie in a specific historical stage as eternal human nature. Ancient Chinese debates on human nature, such as “innate goodness” or “innate evil,” were also mostly confined to transcendental moral categories and failed to touch the real basis that determines moral concepts. These theories, like the German idealism Marx criticized, were trapped in speculative philosophy and indulged in conceptual deduction. Their fundamental defect lies in their detachment from concrete social relations and practice, constructing an illusory human essence on an abstract level. They cannot explain: why does the same “reason” lead to completely different behaviors in different eras and among different groups? Why does “human nature” exhibit such enormous variability throughout the long course of history?

近代西方哲学主流普遍持有抽象人性观预设。恩格斯曾在《反杜林论》中批判：整个近代哲学（特别是德国哲学）都在抽象思维中构建人的本质。费尔巴哈虽将人定义为具有“爱”与“理性”的“类本质”，却悬置了具体的社会历史情境，使“人”成为脱离了具体生活世界的抽象个体。启蒙思想家宣扬的“自然权利”与“理性人”，实质是将特定历史阶段资产阶级的特殊诉求普遍化为永恒人性。中国古代人性论争（如“性善”“性恶”），也多囿于先验道德范畴，未能触及决定道德观念的现实基础。这些理论，如同马克思批判的德国唯心主义，囿于思辨哲学，沉溺于概念演绎，其根本缺陷在于脱离具体的社会关系与实践，在抽象层面建构虚幻的人的本质。它们无法解释：为何同一“理性”在不同时代、不同群体中会导向截然不同的行为？为何“人性”在历史长河中呈现出如此巨大的差异性？

Taking practice as his theoretical starting point, Marx broke through the shackles of abstract theories of human nature. He pointed out: “All social life is essentially practical.” The mystery of human essence is deeply embedded in practical activities such as real productive labor, class struggle, and social interaction. It is in the practice of transforming the world that humans not only shape the external environment but also shape their own mode of existence and internal determinacy. Practicality is the key to understanding human essence. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasizes that “the people are the creators of history and the true heroes,” which is a contemporary echo of this practical stance, requiring us to grasp human essence from “real individuals” and their concrete practice of creating history.

马克思以实践为理论基点，突破了抽象人性论的桎梏。他指出：“全部社会生活在本质上是实践的。”人的本质奥秘深嵌于现实的生产劳动、阶级斗争与社会交往等实践活动之中。正是在改造世界的实践中，人不仅塑造了外部环境，也塑造了自身的存在方式和内在规定性。实践性是理解人的本质的关键。习近平总书记强调，“人民是历史的创造者，是真正的英雄”，正是对这一实践立场的时代呼应，要求我们从“现实的人”及其创造历史的具体实践中把握人的本质。

Revealing Humans’ Class Character in the Historical Process

在历史进程中揭示人的阶级属性

Historical materialism lays a scientific theoretical foundation for understanding human essence, with its theoretical core being that social being determines social consciousness. This profoundly reveals that human essence is by no means a fixed, unchanging abstraction but is historically generated and evolves with the transformation of the mode of material production. Marx and Engels explain in *The German Ideology*: “As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with *what* they produce and with *how* they produce.” The mode of production in a specific era constitutes the basis of social relations, profoundly shaping the characteristics of human essence in that era. In primitive communes, human essence was manifested as a strong dependence on blood clans, with a high degree of unity between the individual and the community. In slave and feudal societies, it was expressed as rigid hierarchical relations of personal dependence, with human essence embedded in fixed hierarchical structures. In capitalist society, the universalization of the commodity economy plunges human essence into a state of “dependence on things”—individuals formally gain “independence” and “freedom,” but in reality, they are more subjugated to the rule of the logic of capital. Human relations are reified into commodity exchange relations, what Marx reveals in *Capital* as the “fetishism of commodities.” Under these conditions, human essence manifests as the pursuit of the accumulation of abstract wealth (money and capital), and human value is measured and obscured by the value of things. This historical characteristic shows that human essence is dynamically evolving, negating any assumption of an eternal, unchanging human nature.

历史唯物主义为理解人的本质奠定了科学的理论基石，其理论核心在于社会存在决定社会意识。这深刻揭示了人的本质绝非凝固不变的抽象物，而是随着物质生产方式的变革而历史地生成与演进。马克思和恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中阐释：“个人怎样表现自己的生命，他们自己就是怎样。因此，他们是什么样的，这同他们的生产是一致的——既和他们生产什么一致，又和他们怎样生产一致。”特定时代的生产方式构成社会关系的基础，深刻形塑着该时代人的本质特征。原始共同体中，人的本质体现为对血缘氏族的强烈依赖，个体与共同体高度统一；奴隶制与封建制社会，则表现为等级森严的人身依附关系，人的本质被嵌入固定的等级结构中；到资本主义社会，商品经济的普遍化使人的本质陷入“物的依赖性”状态——个体在形式上获得“独立”和“自由”，实则更屈从于资本逻辑的统治。人际关系被物化为商品交换关系，即马克思在《资本论》中揭示的“商品拜物教”。在此条件下，人的本质表现为追求抽象财富（货币与资本）的积累，人的价值被物的价值所衡量和遮蔽。这一历史性特征表明，人的本质是动态演进的，否定了任何永恒不变的人性设定。

In class society, human essence is inevitably stamped with the brand of class. The opposing positions of different classes in the relations of production profoundly determine the needs, consciousness, values, and behavioral modes of their members. Lenin provides a incisive exposition: “There is not a living person who can avoid taking the side of one class or another.” The essence of the ruling class is determined by its position of owning the means of production and controlling social production and distribution, while the essence of the ruled class is shaped by its exploited and oppressed state of existence. Therefore, in class society, there is no trans-class, universally identical “human essence”; the social attribute of humans is primarily expressed as their class attribute. Ignoring this makes it impossible to understand the real contradictions and conflicts of humans in a specific historical stage.

在阶级社会中，人的本质不可避免地铭刻阶级烙印。不同阶级在生产关系中的对立地位，深刻规定着其成员的需求、意识、价值观念与行为方式。列宁对此有精辟论述，“没有一个活着的人能够不站到这个或那个阶级方面来”。统治阶级的本质由其占有生产资料、支配社会生产与分配的地位所决定，被统治阶级的本质则受其被剥削、被压迫的生存状态所塑造。因此，在阶级社会里，不存在超阶级的、普遍同一的“人的本质”，人的社会属性首先表现为其阶级属性。忽视这一点，就无法理解特定历史阶段中人的现实矛盾和冲突。

Taking the Promotion of Humans’ Free and Comprehensive Development as the Value Goal

以促进人的自由全面发展为价值旨归

The fundamental value goal of Marxism’s exploration of human essence is to promote the liberation and free and comprehensive development of “real individuals.” Communist society is precisely the social form that expresses this lofty social ideal. Marx points out in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*: “Communism is the positive transcendence of private property, as human self-estrangement... it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man... it is the true appropriation of the human essence through and for man.” The *Communist Manifesto* proclaims: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” This profoundly clarifies that human essence will return from a state of class division and alienation, such as the alienation of labor and the alienation of human relations, to a free, comprehensive, and rich authentic form. This return is not a simple regression but, on the basis of highly developed productive forces and the abolition of private property and classes, achieves the true richness and harmony of human social relations, the comprehensive development of individual capacities, and a high degree of unity between humans and nature, society, and themselves. Free and comprehensive development means that humans completely shake off the shackles of the old division of labor, the oppression of material scarcity, and the fetters of class antagonism, achieving fully coordinated development in material, spiritual, capacity, social relations, and other aspects.

马克思主义对人的本质的探索，其根本价值旨归在于推动“现实的人”的解放与自由全面发展。共产主义社会正是这一崇高社会理想的社会形态表达。马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中指出：“共产主义是私有财产即人的自我异化的积极的扬弃……是通过人并且为了人而对人的本质的真正占有。”《共产党宣言》宣告：“代替那存在着阶级和阶级对立的资产阶级旧社会的，将是这样一个联合体，在那里，每个人的自由发展是一切人的自由发展的条件。”这深刻阐明，人的本质将从阶级分裂与异化状态（如劳动的异化、人与人关系的异化），回归自由、全面、丰富的本真形态。这种回归并非简单回溯，而是在生产力高度发达、私有制和阶级消亡的基础上，实现人的社会关系的真正丰富和谐，个人能力得到全面发展，人与自然、社会及自身达成高度统一。自由全面发展意味着人彻底摆脱了旧式分工的束缚、物质匮乏的压迫和阶级对立的桎梏，在物质、精神、能力、社会关系等各方面获得充分协调的发展。

Since its founding, the Communist Party of China has taken “seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation” as its original aspiration and founding mission, with the goal of promoting humans’ free and comprehensive development. From establishing the fundamental purpose of “serving the people wholeheartedly” and placing the people at the center of revolution and construction, to initiating reform and opening up to liberate and develop productive forces and lay a solid material foundation for human development, and then to socialism with Chinese characteristics entering the New Era, Chinese Communists adhere to the people-centered development thought, emphasizing that “the country is the people, and the people are the country.” This thesis profoundly reveals the flesh-and-blood connection between the Party and the people, and is a contemporary development and vivid interpretation of the Marxist idea of the people’s subject position.

中国共产党自诞生之日起，便将“为中国人民谋幸福、为中华民族谋复兴”作为初心使命，以促进人的自由全面发展为奋斗目标。从确立“全心全意为人民服务”的根本宗旨，将人民置于革命和建设的中心地位；到开启改革开放，解放和发展生产力，为人的发展奠定坚实的物质基础；再到中国特色社会主义进入新时代，中国共产党人坚持以人民为中心的发展思想，强调“江山就是人民，人民就是江山”。这一论述深刻揭示了党与人民的血肉联系，是对马克思主义人民主体地位思想的当代发展与生动诠释。

From Marx’s critique of Feuerbach’s abstract “species-essence” to the Chinese Communist Party’s promotion of common prosperity and the free and comprehensive development of the individual in the New Era, Marxist thought on human essence has achieved a historic leap from theoretical critique to practical innovation. Human essence is deeply rooted in actual social relations and develops dynamically in historical practice. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC [2]2 The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC, held in July 2024, focused on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese-path modernization. emphasized adhering to a people-centered approach in advancing reform, systematically charting the path for the free and comprehensive development of the individual, and highlighting the core logic of Chinese-path modernization, which takes human development as its center, values people, and invests in people. In the course of advancing Chinese-path modernization, deeply understanding and putting into practice the scientific theory of Marxism on human essence requires us to always adhere to the principle of putting the people first, to take the promotion of the free and comprehensive development of all people as the highest value pursuit, to constantly respond to the “questions of the people” in the New Era, and, in the practice of creating a new form of human civilization, to write a new chapter on human essence.

从马克思对费尔巴哈抽象“类本质”的批判，到新时代中国共产党推动共同富裕与人的自由全面发展，马克思主义关于人的本质思想实现了从理论批判到实践创新的历史性跨越。人的本质深植于现实社会关系并在历史实践中动态发展。党的二十届三中全会强调坚持以人民为中心推进改革，系统擘画人的自由全面发展路径，彰显了中国式现代化以人的发展为中心，重视人、投资于人的核心逻辑。在推进中国式现代化的征程中，深刻理解并践行马克思主义关于人的本质的科学理论，要求我们始终恪守人民至上的原则，将促进全体人民的自由全面发展作为最高价值追求，不断回应新时代的“人民之问”，在创造人类文明新形态的实践中，书写人的本质的新篇章。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心