Author’s Introduction
Ai Siqi (March 1910 - March 1966), originally named Li Shengxuan, was born in Tengchong County, Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, China. He was an outstanding proletarian revolutionary, a renowned Marxist philosopher, educator, and a loyal warrior on the theoretical front of the Communist Party of China. He embarked on the revolutionary path in Shanghai in 1933 and joined the Communist Party of China in 1935. In 1937, he was assigned to Yan'an, where he successively served as a chief instructor at the Counter-Japanese Military and Political University, the secretary-general of the Culture Commission of the CPC Central Committee, the director of the Cultural Association of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, and the director and chief editor of the Supplement Department of the Jiefang Daily, while also serving as the deputy editor of the Xinhua News Agency and the chief editor of the major academic journal Chinese Culture in Yan'an. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, he held the post of the director of the Institute of Philosophy at the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC, and then was appointed as the vice president of the school. In addition, he was engaged as a professor at Peking University, as well as a member of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He dedicated his life to philosophical research and dissemination, achieving significant results and producing numerous works, making important contributions to the propagation and development of Marxist philosophy. His major works include Philosophy for the Masses, Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism (Chief Editor), Collected Works of Ai Siqi (2 volumes), and Complete Works of Ai Siqi (8 volumes).
