dialectics

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 imposed by the material conditions;
within these 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 huge equipment. In the
past we carried loads of forty or fifty tons on a 20-ton
truck, and had even moved a piece of equipment weighing
almost a hundred tons on a 60-ton trailer. In fact, until
the Cultural Revolution we had no 150-ton trailer. When
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."
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