First, people are the creators of social material wealth. People provide food, clothes and so on for the world.
The material means of social life created the material civilization of mankind.
Second, the people are the creators of social spiritual wealth. People not only provide an inexhaustible source of spiritual wealth with their own practical activities, but also provide countless spiritual wealth products for human society with the great strength and wisdom of hundreds of millions of creators.
Third, the people are the decisive force for social change. The evolution of human society from slave society to feudal society, capitalist society and socialist society must go through the people's conscious revolutionary struggle, and the working people are the main force in the revolutionary struggle.
In short, historical activities are the cause of the masses, and the masses are the subject and creator of history.
(1) The people are the creators of social material wealth, thus fundamentally promoting social development, which should be understood from the following three points.
First, people have to live to make history. However, in order to live, we need basic necessities such as food, clothing, housing and transportation. Therefore, people must engage in the production of creating material wealth. This is the foundation of the existence and development of human society. "Any nation will die if it stops working, not to mention a year, just a few weeks." Without the production of material materials, it is impossible to carry out all other activities, and there will be no human social life and human history. The material means of life on which human society depends are created by the people through their own labor, among which the working people are the main body of social production, and their activities create material wealth, which provides a material basis for human survival and social development.
Second, people's productive labor to create material wealth is not only the foundation of human society, but also the decisive force for social development. The development of any society is based on the development of productive forces, and the people are the embodiment of social productive forces and the direct undertaker of material production. The development of productive forces is inseparable from the people. The people have accumulated experience in productive labor, improved production skills and tools, and promoted the development of production, the transformation of production methods and the development and progress of the whole society from low to high. Therefore, people who engage in and promote production activities in different forms will inevitably play a decisive role in social development.
Third, the working people include manual workers and mental workers, but material wealth is jointly created by manual workers and mental workers. In modern mass production. Intellectuals are playing an increasingly important role.
(2) People are the creators of social spiritual wealth, thus promoting the all-round progress of society.
This is the key and difficult content of this box. We can grasp from the following three points.
First, if people want to engage in spiritual activities such as science, culture and art, they must obtain certain material means of subsistence, and at the same time, they must have material means such as instruments and equipment to engage in scientific and cultural activities. These material means of subsistence and material means are provided by working people through material production activities.
People's production practice not only creates the material basis of spiritual wealth, but also becomes the cognitive driving force for the formation of spiritual wealth. For example, natural science is produced and developed on the basis of working people's production practice. Production practice provides rich experience and research topics for natural science, and constantly promotes the development of natural science.
Second, people's practical activities are the source of all spiritual wealth.
The rich experience accumulated by people in practice constitutes the raw materials or semi-finished products of human spiritual wealth. Invention and creation are mainly creative activities of intellectuals such as scientists and engineers engaged in mental work. They can play a great role in creating spiritual wealth, not only because they participated in the social practice of working people to varying degrees, but also because they correctly concentrated and summarized the practical experience of working people. People's practical activities are the source of all spiritual wealth. The experience and wisdom of the masses are the treasure house of all scientific and cultural creations. Without the practical experience of the masses, any individual's "creation" activities are passive water and it is impossible to achieve valuable results.
Third, the working people directly created spiritual wealth.
First of all, the material achievements created by working people always condense people's wisdom. For example, movable type printing, one of four great inventions of ancient china, was invented by Bi Sheng, a craftsman in the Northern Song Dynasty. Huang Daopo, a textile innovator in Southern Song Dynasty, was an ordinary working woman. It can be seen that the working people have condensed a lot of wisdom in the process of creating material achievements, so these material achievements are themselves a kind of spiritual wealth.
Secondly, the working people have directly created spiritual wealth in practice.
Working people have created many sculptures and paintings in practice, which are an important part of the treasure house of human art. As for folk music and dance, it is the direct creation of working people. Folk musicians such as "the blind" and folk artists such as "clay figurine Zhang".
(3) People are the decisive force for social change.
First, the movement of basic social contradictions, that is, the contradiction between productive forces and production relations, economic base and superstructure, will inevitably lead to the replacement of social forms, the demise of the old system and the emergence of new systems. In class society, class struggle is the direct driving force to promote social development. Social change must be achieved through the struggle between the revolutionary class and the reactionary class, and through the revolution in which the broad masses of the people overthrow the reactionary ruling class. All real revolutionary movements are essentially the struggle of the working people themselves to eliminate the decadent social system. In class society, the great role of the people in creating history is particularly prominent during the period of social change and revolutionary storm. They have always stood at the forefront of the struggle and fully demonstrated their creativity with the spirit of social masters and historical creators.
Second, in the socialist period, the people's role in social change is realized by reforming, consolidating and perfecting the socialist system. For example, the reform of "unified contracting and unified distribution" in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang County, Anhui Province adapted to the productivity situation at that time. Later, a two-tier management system reform based on household contract and the combination of unification and separation was implemented throughout the country, which greatly consolidated and improved the rural collectivist economy in China and promoted the development of rural productive forces. China's economic system reform and political system reform are the common cause of hundreds of millions of people. At present, the people of China are devoting themselves to reform, deepening reform and accelerating the pace of reform with great enthusiasm, which will surely become a powerful driving force for the rapid development of our society.