Enver Hoxha
Imperialism and the Revolution
Marx showed with scientific argument the necessity for the destruction of capitalist society and the construction of a more advanced society, socialism and then communism. Developing Marx's thought, in his book "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", Lenin showed that the present epoch is the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions.
This is the epoch of the destruction of the old capitalist order, colonialism and imperialism, of the seizure of state power by the proletariat and the liberation of the oppressed peoples, the period of the triumph of socialism on a world scale.
This means that today we are living in the epoch of the replacement of the old exploiting society, which is intolerable for the majority of mankind, for the oppressed and exploited, with a new society in which the exploitation of man by man is done away with once and for all. It was precisely from these fundamental teachings and its Marxist-Leninist analysis of the process of world development today that our Party proceedecl when, at its 7th Congress, it put forward the thesis that the world is at a stage in which the question of the revolution and liberation of the peoples is a problem demanding solution.
The struggle of the proletariat against the. bourgeoisie is a stem, merciless struggle which goes on continuously. Confronting each other stand two great social forces. On the one side stands the capitalist-imperialist bourgeoisie, which is the most ferocious, deceitful and blood-thirsty class known to history. On the other side stands the proletariat, the class totally dispossessed of means of production, ruthlessly oppressed and exploited by the bourgeoisie, which is at the same time the most advanced class of society which thinks, creates, works and produces, but does not enjoythe fruits of its toil.
Each of these classes strives to rally forces around itself and prepare them for its own aimsthe proletariat, for social and national liberation, to carry out the revolution; the bourgeoisie, to preserve its domination and suppress the revolution. The bourgeoisie gathers around itself the most ominous, regressive and criminal forces, while the proletariat strives to win all the revolutionary, progressive forces over to its side.
Marxism-Leninism teaches us that the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie builds up continuously and will certainly be crowned with the victory of the proletariat and its allies. But for this struggle to be crowned with success, the proletariat must be organized, must have its own vanguard party, must make the broad masses of the people conscious of the necessity for revolution, and lead them in the fight to seize state power, to establish its own dictatorship, to build socialism and communism, the classless society.
There are many hot-heads in the world, with good or evil intentions, who think that the revolution can be carried out at any time, at any moment, at any place. But such people are mistaken. The revolution cannot be carried out at any time and at any place, according to one's wishes. The revolution breaks out and is carried through at that link of the capitalist chain which is the weakest. For the revolution to break out and triumph, the; appropriate objective and subjective conditions must exist, and the favourable moment must be found for launching into revolution. The main thing is that, when they start the revolution, the. broad masses of the people, with the proletariat at the head, must be determined and prepared to. carry it through to the end.
Lenin stresses that the revolution is carried Out by the people of each country, that it is not exported. This does not mean that the Marxist Leninists, wherever they are militating, should not feel themselves in solidarity, should not be linked with one another by the purest feelings of proletarian internationalism, and should not assist the struggle of the proletariat and peoples of other countries for their liberation. On the contrary, all communists, all proletarians, all the revolutionary forces in the various countries are duty bound to assist the revolution in each particular country and all over the world, through propaganda, agitation, material aid, the example of their determination and selflessness, and by faithful adherence to Marxism-Leninism. Of course, success in the utilization of this assistance depends, first of all, on the preparation of the proletariat and its party, on the development of the revolutionary struggle in this or that country.
In the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" Marx and Engels show that the interests of the proletariat and the people of one country are inseparable from the interests of the proletariat and peoples of the entire world.
As Lenin teaches us and life has confirmed, the revolution triumphs in each country individually. Therefore, this triumph depends, first Of all, on the working class and its revolutionary party of each country, on their ability to implement the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the revolution in the concrete conditions.
However, a great deal of confusion has been created around these teachings and especially around the Leninist theory on the revolutionp many mines have been laid. by the Titoite, Soviety, "Eurocommunist"., Chinese and other modern revisionists, who have taken it upon themselves to mislead people on the issue of the revolution and to prevent its outbreak.
Today, when this question is put forward for solution, it is an imperative duty for the Marxist-Leninists to dispel the fog the revisionists have spread about the revolution, to unmask their manoeuvres and deliberate misrepresentations about the revolution, to unmask their manoeuvres and deliberate misrepresentations about this problem, to expose their counterrevolutionary, chauvinist, hegemonic intentions, and to ensure that the teachings of Marxism-Leninism on the revolution are understood and applied correctly.
We Must Defend and Implement the Marxist-Leninist Teachings on the Revolution
Marxism-Leninism teaches us and the experience of all revolutions has confirmed that for the revolution to break out and triumph, the objective and subjective factors must exist.
Lenin formulated this teaching in his book "The Collapse of the Second International", and developed it further in his book "'Left Wing'" Communism, an Infantile Disorder. and other writings.
Dwelling on the revolutionary situation as the objective factor of the revolution, Lenin describes it as follows:
"1) When it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule in an unchanged form," due to the deep crisis, which has involved these classes, a crisis which causes discontent and indignation among the oppressed classes. "Usually, for the revolution to break out," he says ," it is not enough for 'the lower strata not to want' to live in the old way; it is necessary also that 'the upper strata should be unable' to live in the old way. 2) When the want and suffering of the oppressed classes have become acute... 3) When, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who... are drawn into... independent actions of historic importance."
"In other words, this truth can be expressed in this way: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters)". Lenin
"Without these objective changes," he emphasizes, "which are independent not only of the will of separate groups or parties, but even of separate classes, a revolution - as a general rule - is impossible". Lenin
But not every revolutionary situation gives rise to revolution, says Lenin. In many cases, he says revolutionary situations like those of the years 1860-1870 in Germany, or of the years 18591861 and 1879-1880 in Russia, were not trans formed into revolutions, because of the absence of the subjective factor, that is, the high level of consciousness and readiness of the masses for the revolution,
"...the ability of the revolutionary class," as Lenin puts it,."to carry out revolutionary mass actions strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which, never, not even in a period of crisis, 'falls' if it is not 'dropped'". Lenin
In preparing the subjective factor, as Lenin wrote in his early works, the revolutionary party of the working class, its leadership, education and Mobilization of the revolutionary masses play a decisive role. The party achieves this both by working out a correct political line, which responds to the concrete conditions and the revolutionary desires and demands of the masses, and through a colossal amount of work, involving intensive and politically well-pondered revolutionary actions, which make the proletariat and the working masses conscious of the situation in which they are living, of the oppression and exploitation, of the barbarous laws of the bourgeoisie, and the absolute necessity for the revolution as a means to overthrow the enslaving order.
In this way, the poor strata will react with such intensity that even the wealthy, the bourgeoisie in power, shaken also by other internal and external contradictions, will have difficulty in continuing to rule as before. When these conditions are fulfilled, when the objective and subjective factors, which are linked with each other, exist, then it is possible for the revolution not only to break out but also to triumph.
Revolutionaries always ponder deeply over these theses of genius of Lenin, and not only ponder over them but also make concrete and all-round analyses of the situations. They act to ensure that they will never be taken by surprise by the revolutionary situations, so they will not find themselves disarmed at these decisive moments, but be able to utilize them for the preparation and launching of the revolution.
What does the analysis of the current situation in the world show? Proceeding from the Leninist theory of the revolution, the Party of Labour of Albania draws the conclusion that the situation in the world today is revolutionary in general, that this situation has matured, or is rapidly maturing, in many countries, while in other countries this process is developing.
When we say that the situation today is revolutionary, we mean that the world today is moving towards great outbursts. In general the situation today is like a volcano in eruption, a scorching fire, a fire which will burn precisely the oppressing and exploiting ruling upper classes.
The capitalist and revisionist world is in the grip of a grave, economic and political, financial and military, ideological and moral crisis. The present crisis, which has shaken the entire structure and superstructure of the bourgeois and revisionist order, has made the general crisis of the capitalist system even deeper and more acute.
The consequences of the crisis are clearly very grave and devastating, especially in the field of the economy. The deepening of the most severe economic crisis following the Second World War has been going on since 1974. It has brought about a decline of considerable proportions in industrial production: 20 percent in Japan, 15 percent in Great Britain, 14 percent in the United States of America, 18 percent in France and Italy, 10 percent in the Federal German Republic, etc. The crisis has caused a very deep depression. In many capitalist countries unused productive capacites in some key branches of the economy have reached up to 25-40 percent and this situation is dragging on for years on end. That is why industrial production continues to stagnate. Colossal stocks of -surplus. goods remain unsold.
Yet, despite all these stocks of unsold goods and even though many productive capacities are not exploited, the monopolies' profits continue to increase because of rising prices. Prices are going up from day to day, while inflation has reached very high figures in certain countries.
Price rises and, in particular, inflation, have become a very convenient means in the hands of the monopolies and the capitalist and revisionist state to saddle the working class and other working people with the heavy burden of the crisis.
Under the pretext of checking inflation, the capitalist and bourgeois-revisionist states increase the taxes on the incomes of the working masses and freeze their wages, and at the same time reduce taxation on the profits of the monopolies, devalue the currency, etc. These measures are directed against the working class and all working people, step up their exploitation and reduce their standard of living.
The long drawn-out economic crisis has worsened the living conditions of the working class and peasant masses and made life very much harder for them. Unemployment has increased to proportions seldom seen before, and has become chronic, a major ulcer of bourgeois and revisionist society. In the capitalist-revisionist world, 110 million people have been thrown out in the streets. Only in the United States of America not less than 7-8 millions are unemployed. Today, hundreds of millions of people are living on the verge of starvation or actually starving. Hundreds of millions of people are tortured with the anxiety over insecurity for the morrow.
The poverty and insecurity for the broad masses of working people, as well as the reaction ary, anti-popular internal and external policies followed by the capitalist and bourgeois-revisionist regimes have added and are continuously adding to the discontent of broad strata of the population. This grave situation has aroused their incontainable anger, which is expressed in strikes, protests, demonstrations, in clashes with the re pressive organs of the bourgeois and revisionist order, and in many cases, even in real revolts. The popular masses are growing ever more hostile to the regimes ruling them.
Striving, even in this situation of crisis, to tafeguard their maximum profits, the governments of imperialist, capitalist and revisionist countries make all sorts of fraudulent promises and proposals to placate the discontent and anger of the masses and divert their minds from revolution. Meanwhile, the poor are becoming even poorer, the rich even richer, the gap between poor and rich even richer, the gap between poor and rich social strata, between the developed capitalist countries and the undeveloped countries is growing deeper and deeper.
The present crisis has also extended to political life, inciting contradictions among the ruling circles of the capitalist and revisionist states. Clear evidence of this is the great increase in government crises and the frequent replacement of teams in power.
The bourgeoisie and the ruling cliques are compelled to change the horses in their government teams more and more frequently, with the aim of deceiving the working people and bolstering their hopes that,the fresh team will be better than the old one,d convincing them that the latter are to blame for the crisis and for failing to get out of it, while the former will improve the situation, and so on. This whole fraud, which is continuously conducted on broad proportions, is camouflaged with false slogans about freedom, democracy, etc., especially during electoral campaigns. At the same time, the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries is reinforcing its savage weapons of violence, the army, the police, the secret services, the courts, the control by its dictatorship over every movement and effort of the proletariat. In the capitalist and revisionist countries today there is an obvious trend towards increased bourgeois violence and the limitation of democratic rights.
The tendency towards the development of fascism in the life of the country and preparations for the establishment of fascism, at the moment when the bourgeoisie considers it impossible to rule by "democratic" methods and means, is becoming ever more evident.
The economic-financial and political crisis has gripped not only the monopolies, the governments the political parties and forces inside each particular country, but also the international alliances, the economic, political and military blocs, like the European Common Market and Comecon, the European Community, NATO and the Warsaw Treaty. The contradictions, frictions, contests and quarrels between partners of these alliances and blocs, are manifesting themselves ever more openly and abrasively.
Another expression of the crisis and attempts to get out of it can be seen in the armaments race, the all-round preparations for war and the Instigation of local wars by the superpowers and the other imperialist powers, such as those in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, the Western Sahara, Indochina and elsewhere. This course serves the hegemonic and expansionist plans of one or the other imperialist power. It keeps alive and develops the war industry and the arms trade, which have assumed unparalleled proportions today.
But all these political and military means are only palliatives which do not and cannot cure the ills of the gravely ailing capitalist revisionist system.
To the present economic and political crisis of the capitalist and revisionist world must also be added the unprecedented ideological and moral crisis. At no other time has there been such ideological confusion and moral corruption as that which is being seen today.
At no other time have there been so many variants of bourgeois theories, right, middle or "left" decked out in every kind of secular and religious, classical and modern, openly anti-communist and allegedly communist and Marxist cloaks. At no other time has such moral corruption, such a degenerate way of life, or such great spiritual depression been witnessed. The bourgeois and revisionist theories, built up with so much effort and trumpeted so boastfully as guides to salvation from the evils of the old society., such as the theories of the "final stabilization of capitalism", "people's capitalism,", "the consumer society" "post-industrial society", "averting crises", "the technical-scientific revolution", Khrushchevit "paceful coexistence", "a world without armies, weapons and wars", "socialism with a human face", etc., etc., have now been shaken to their foundations.
All these aspects of the general crisis are to be found not only in Yugoslavia, where the consequences of the crisis are more obvious, but also in the social-imperialist Soviet Union and the other revisionist countries. Oppression and exploitatioon have been stepped up everywhere in these countries, all of them are suffering from the ills of capitalism, from the quarrels and conflicts over power and privileges in the ranks of the leaders and the upper strata; everywhere the popular masses are seething with dissatisfaction and anger. Thus, great possibilities for the revolution exist in these countries, too. The law of the revolution operates there the same as in every other bourgeois country.
It is precisely this situation of the present general crisis of capitalism, the trend of which is to become steadily deeper, that makes us draw the conclusion that the revolutionary situation has already enveloped or is in the process of enveloping the majority of capitalist and revisionist countries, and hence, that this situation has placed the revolution on the order of the day.
Under the ever greater pressure of the crisis and the defeats they have suffered in their predictions and their manoeuvres to strangle the revolution, the bourgeoisie and the revisionists are trying to find new expedients and to fabricate other fraudulent theories.
Today, the modern revisionists have unfurled the banner of defence of the capitalist system, of oppression and exploitation of the peoples, of splitting the revolutionary and liberation movement, and in general, of the deception of the masses. But they, too, will suffer the same fate as the social-democrats and all other opportunists of the past, who have turned into simple lackeys of the bourgeoisie.
In the present situation of its grave economic, political and ideological crises, the bourgeoisie is demanding that its revisionist servants come out more openly in its support. This is forcing them more and more to drop their disguise, but also to become more thoroughly discredited. Lenin says:
"The opportunists are bourgeois enemies of the proletarian revolution, who in peaceful times carry on their bourgeois work in secret, concealing themselves within the workers' parties, while in times of crises they immediately prove to be open allies of the entire united bourgeoisie, from the conservative to the most radical and democratic part of the latter, from the freethinkers to the religious and clerical sections". Lenin
This scientific conclusion of Lenin's is proved to the hilt by the service the modern revisionists are rendering the crisis-stricken capitalist system today.
Take Italy, for instance, the typical country in which the decay of capitalism, in its base and superstructure, is reflected. From the end of the Second World War up till now the Christian Democrats, the party of the big bourgeoisie, the party of the Vatican which has gathered all the religious-reactionary bourgeoisie and elements of the right around itself, have been in power in Italy. Their government is ruling a country which is in a state of bankruptcy.
Right from 1945 to this day, the top strata of the bourgeoisie have been in the grip of such a grave crisis that, within that period there has been a succession of about 40 governments, "onocolour. Christian Democrat, socialist-Christian-Democrat, tripartite, Christian Democrat~socialist-socialdemocrat, "centro sinistra" governments, "centro destra" governments, etc.
The deep government crisis in Italy reflects that situation of the internal general crisis from which no way out can be found. The quarrels, conflicts, political murders and scandals, such as the removal of President Leone, the murder of the head of the Christian Democrat Party, Moro, etc., which are becoming more and more frequent, are consequences of the crisis.
Italy has become a bridgehead of the United States of America. Its bankrupt economy, which has fallen into the clutches of American imperialism, is also linked with the European Common Market, where it is the partner with the least weight.
As a result of this situation, the broad working masses in Italy have been impoverished and. are becoming more so. Italy has the highest level of unemployment among the countries of the European Common Market. Italy has the greatest emigration of the labour force and its imports are greater than its exports. By restricting their buying of food products from Italy, the member countries of the European Common Market, especially West Germany and France, have created a difficult situation in Italian agriculture. The export prices of Italian butter, milk, and fruit have fallen sharply while the cost of living in that country has become extremely high. Italy has become a country of big strikes in which workers from heavy and light industry and transport, down to postmen, airline crews and even the police take part.
In such a situation of seething discontent, when the interests of the masses and the revolution require that all this great discontent of the proletariat and the entire people should be channelled into the fight against the reactionary bourgeoisie, against its preparations for the fascist attack it is trying to launch, the Italian revisionists and the reformist trade-unions, the entire worker aristocracy, as well as the supporters of the Chinese theory of the "three worlds", are acting as firemen to extinguish the flames of the revolution and as defenders of the bourgeois order.
This rotten bourgeois order is being defended by all the parties, from the fascist party to the Berlinguer's revisionist party. The Italian revisionist party is united with the bourgeoisie precisely to keep this bourgeois order, shaken to its feundations, in power. It is trying to weaken and. suppress the revolutionary drive of the Italian proletariat by spreading the lie that it is following and applying a Marxism applicable to the conditions of its own country.
Not only did Berlinguer enter into negotiations with the Christian Democrats long ago, but he has even reached agreement with them, and indeed, without formally participating in the government, on many problems, he is governing together with them. The government supports this party, but at the same time, for the sake of appearances, makes believe that it disagrees with it. The Italian revisionist party, for its part, is playing the same game.
The Italian revisionists are raising a great clamour about a government program, agreed on by the five parties of the Italian parliamentary Majority, which they are boosting as an "important victory", as a "new political phase" in their country. But this political phase, that Berlinguer talks about, is the inclusion of the revisionist party in the plans of Italian capital. Berlinguer describes this as a serious, realistic, and undogmatic agreement. He claims that this agreement will bring about a real change, not only in the political relations among parties, but also in the entire economic, social and state life of the country.
Thus the Italian revisionists are going down precisely the road Lenin predicted for the different opportunists, who seek unity with capital in order to obstruct the revolutionary drive of the masses. With this unity, they think that they have come some way towards achieving their aim of going to socialism through pluralism. Obviously, this is nothing but a dream, and the President of the Italian Senate, Amintore Fanfani, is not at all mistaken when he describes this agreement among the five parties as a collection of dreams.
It is a collection of dreams on the part of the Italian revisionists, whereas on the part of the forces of capital, it is by no means a dream, but a wellpondered act designed to liquidate the ideas of communism in Italy, and to block the claims of the Italian people and proletariat and suppress their revolutionary struggle for the construction of a new society. The Italian revisionists are now receiving a few crumbs, but, claiming that the government needs the participation of the revisionist party, they are trying to have the party brought completely into the government, like a fish in its element. In a word, the Italian revisionist party is trying to become totally involved in the reactionary mess of Italian monopoly capital.
Berlinguer's party is an utterly degenerate party ideologically, with a completely reformist, parliamentarist, social-democratic program. It supports the order established by the pseudo~democratic Constitution in the formulation of which the Italian "communists" themselves, headed by Toglatti took part. It is precisely under this Constitution that the reactionary and clerical bourgeoisie has been making the law in Italy and oppressing the proletariat and the broad masses of the people for the past three decades. The socalled Italian communists find this oppression just and in conformity with the onstitution.
Inside or outside the Italian Parliament, through the press organs, television and radio, the Italian revisionist party together with the other parties of the bourgeoisie, with the Christian Democrat party at the head, is carrying out a policy accompanied with unrestrained demagogy which stupefy the Italian public, confuse and disorganize it day by day, in order to weaken the revolutionary will of the proletariat and the Political consciousness of the working masses.
Italian reaction and the Vatican are in great need of all this activity. The Italian revisionist party is trying to suppress the revolutionary movement of the masses of the people, headed by the proletariat, in order to hinder the revolution, to help the bourgeoisie out of its predicament and avert the overthrow of the existing order.
Take another example, Spain. After the death of Franco, King Juan Carlos came to power in Spain. He is the representative of the Spanish big bourgeoisie, which, seeing that during its long rule the fascist regime had plunged the country into a grave crisis, came to the conclusion that Spain could no longer be governed as in Franco's time. Therefore certain changes had to be made in the form of government and Franco's discredited Falange could no longer be kept in power. After a series of changes of heads of government, the people most trusted by the new king, the continuers of the reformed Francoism, took power.
Demonstrations and strikes broke out in Spain as never before. Through them the people demanded changes, naturally, not this "change" that took place, but deep-going and radical changes. The strikes, demonstrations and clashes there did not cease and are still going on. The masses are demanding freedoms and rights, and the different nationalities autonomy. In this situation, in order to mislead the masses in revolt, the government of Juan Carlos also legalized the revisionist party of Ibarruri-Carrillo. The heads of this party have become obedient flunkies of the Spanish monarchic regime, have turned into scabs to hold back the great revolutionary drive which has built up in the existing situation and, in conjunction with the bourgeoisie, to suppress all the elements with revolutionary ideas from the Spanish War and admirers of the Republic.
Here, too, we see the fire brigade role of the Spanish revisionist party, identical with the role played by the Italian revisionist party, although it. has less power than the latter.
The revisionist parties in France, Japan, the United States of America, Britain, Portugal and all the other capitalist countries are playing a similar role in defending the bourgeois order, enabling it to overcome the crises and revolutionary situations, to befuddle and paralyze the proletariat and the other oppressed and exploited masses,
who are understanding ever more clearly that it is no longer possible to live in the "consumer sciety" and other exploiting societies, and who are rising in revolt against the capitalist political and economic order.
The revisionist parties are particularly hostile to Leninism. This means that they are hostile to the revolution, because it was Lenin who elaborated the theory on the proletarian revolution to perfection and put it into practice in Russia. On the basis of this theory, the socialist revolution triumphed in Albania and other countries. The Leninist theory, which shows the way to the triuniph of revolution everywhere, reveals the worthlessness of the counterrevolutionary revisionist theories about peaceful transition to socialism through the parliamentary road, without destroying the bourgeois state apparatus, indeed, according to them, even utilizing it for peaceful socialist transformations, with no need for the leadership of the proletariat and its vanguard party or the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Precisely at these very revolutionary moments, when there are great possibilities for the revolution to break out at the weakest links of the capitalist chain, when there is extremely great need to raise the class consciousness of the proletariat, to prepare the subjective factor, to build up confidence in the correctness and universal character of the Marxist-Leninist theory, which shows the true road to the seizure of state power by the proletariat and other oppressed masses, the revisionists are rendering the bourgeoisie an invaluable service in its efforts to cope with and avert the revolution. That is why the bourgeoisie is striving in every way to involve the revisionist parties and the trade-unions under their influence in the fight against the revolution and communism. This is precisely the objective that the whole line of American imperialism, world capitalism and the bourgeoisie of every country is intended to achieve. The bourgeoisie wants the revisionist parties to place themselves openly and totally in the service of capital by operating under,"cornmunist" colours and allegedly fighting to change the situation, to create a new hybrid society in which not only the owning class and wealthy classes, but allegedly the poorer classes, too, will have their say, with the revisionist ,communist". parties and the socialist parties passing themselves off as their representatives and champions.
The revisionists in power, in particular, the Yugoslav, Soviet and Chinese revisionists, are rendering world capitalism a very great service in the struggle to hold back and stamp out the revolu ions.
The Yugoslav revisionists are declared enemies of Leninism. They are the most ardent propagandists of the negation of the universal character of the laws of the socialist revolution embodied in the October Revolution and reflected in the Leninist theory of the revolution. They preach that allegedly the world today is moving towards socialism spontaneously, therefore there is no need for revolution, for class struggle, etc. The Yugoslav revisionists present their capitalist system of "self-administration" as a model of true socialism, alleging that it is a panacea both against the "evils" of "Stalinist" socialism and against the evils of capitalism. According to them, the establishment of this system allegedly does not require violent revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, state socialist ownership, or democratic centralism. "Self-administration" can be established quietly and gently by agreement and collaboration between ruling circles, between employers and workers, between the government and property owners.
It is precisely because Yugoslav revisionism is an enemy of Leninism and sabotages the revolution that international capitalism, and especially American imperialism, is so "generous" in providing Titoite Yugoslavia with financial, material, political and ideological aid.
In words, the Soviet revisionists do not reject Leninism and the Leninist theory of the revolution, but they fight it in practice with their counterrevolutionary stands and activity. They are no less afraid of the proletarian revolution than the American imperialists or the bourgeoisie of any other country, because in their own country the revolution topples them from the thone, strips them of their power and class privileges, while in the other countries it ruins their strategic plans for world domination.
They try to present themselves as continuators of the October Revolution, as followers of Leninism, in order to deceive the proletariat and the working masses both in the Soviet Union and in other countries.
They talk about "developed socialism" and "transition to communism" in order to put out any discontent, revolt, and revolutionary movement of the working masses in their country against the revisionist rule, and to suppress them as "counterrevolutionary", "anti-socialist" acts. Outside their country, they use "Leninism" as a mask to conceal their anti-Marxist, anti-Leninistt theories and practices, to open the way for the expansionist and hegemonic plans of social-imperialism.
The Soviet revisionists present the violent revolution in the developed capitalist countries as very dangerous at the present time, when, according to them, any revolutionary outburst could be transformed into a thermo-nuclear world war which will exterminate mankind. Therefore, they recommend the revolution on the peaceful road, the transformation of Parliament "from an organ of bourgeois democracy into an organ of democracy for the working people" as the most suitable road today. They also present -"dètente" the socalled easing of tension, which serves the aims of Soviet foreign policy, as the general trend of world development today., which will allegedly lead to the peaceful triumph of the revolution on a world scale.
For demagogical purposes they do not deny the dictatorship of the proletariat, indeed, in theory they come out in defence of it, saying that, in specific instances, even violent revolution may be used. But they need these declarations especially to justify the plots and armed putsches which they organize in one country or another to establish pro-Soviet reactionary regimes and cliques there, to divert the national liberation movements from the right road, and to put them under their hegemony, etc. Now revisionist China, too, has become a zealous extinguisher of the revolution.
The entire internal and external policy of the Chinese revisionists is directed against the revolution, because the revolution upsets their strategy of making China an imperialist superpower.
Within China the revisionist leadership is savagely suppressing any revolutionary outburst of the working class and the other working masses against its bourgeois-counterrevolutionary stands and actions. It is striving in every way to cover up the contradictions of the present epoch, especially the contradiction between labour and capital, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The Chinese revisionists say that there is only one contradiction in the world today, the contradiction between the two superpowers, which they present as a contradiction between the United States of America and all other countries of the world, on the one hand, and Soviet social-imperialism, on the other. Basing themselves on this fabricated thesis, they call on the proletariat and the peoples of every country to unite with the bourgeoisie of their countries -to defend the homeland and national independence. against the danger which comes only from Soviet social-imperialism. With this the Chinese revisionists preach to the masses the idea of renouncing the revolution and the liberation struggle.
To the Chinese revisionists the problem of the proletarian and national liberation revolution is simply not a current issue, also because, according to them, nowhere in the world is there a revolutionary situation. Therefore, they advise the proletariat to shut itself up in libraries and study theory>., because the time for revolutionary actions has not come. In this context, it is clear how hostile and counterrevolutionary is the policy of the Chinese revisionists, who are splitting the Marxist-Leninist movement and hindering the unity of the working class in the fight against capital.
The Chinese press and, as well as the speeches of the Chinese leaders, make no mention at all of the big demonstrations and strikes. which the entire proletariat is organizing in different capitalist countries today. This is because they do not want to encourage the revolt of the, masses, because they do not want the proletariat to utilize these situations in their fight against oppression and exploitation. How hypocritical sound their bombastic and empty slogans that .Kthe countries want independence, "the nations want liberation and the people want revolution"!
Not only is the claim of the Chinese revisionists that there is no revolutionary situation in the world today contrary to the reality, but they also, demand that the proletariat with its Marxist-Leninist party sit with its arms folded and refrain from undertaking any revolutionary action at all, from working to prepare the revolution. Long ago, at the 2nd Congress of the Communist International, Lenin had criticized such capitulationist views expressed by the Italian Serrati, according to whom no revolutionary actions should be carried out when there is no revolutionary situation.
"The difference between the socialists and Communists,. said Lenin, oconsists in the former refusing to act in the way we act in any situation, i.e., conduct revolutionary work" Lenin
This criticism by Lenin is a heavy slap in the face also for the Chinese modern revisionists, and all the other revisionists, who, like the socialdemocrats, are against revolutionary actions by the proletariat and the other working masses.
Lenin called Kautsky a renegade, because
"....he had completely distorted Marx' doctrine, tailoring it to suit opportunism, and that he had 'repudiated revolution in deeds, while accepting it in words". Lenin
The Chinese revisionist leaders go a little further than Kautsky. Theydo not admit the necessity of the revolution even in words.
This reactionary line explains the profoundly counterrevolutionary policy and attitudes of the Chinese revisionist leadership, which is seeking in every way to enter into alliances and collaborate with US imperialism and the other developed capitalist countries, supports the European Common Market and NATO.
By entering into alliance and seeking unity with the US imperialists, who, together with the Soviet social-imperialists, are the most ferocious oppressors and exploiters and the arch-enemies of the proletariat and the peoples, as well as with the other imperialist rulers, with the blackest world reaction, while demanding that the proletariat of the European countries and the other developed capitalist countries bend their backs and submit to oppression by the bourgeoisie, the Chinese revisionists themselves are also participating in this oppression and uniting with world capitalism in the fight against the revolution, against socialism, and against the peoples' liberation.
As can be seen, world capitalism, with modern revisionism and all its other tools, is waging a fierce and many-sided fight on all fronts to stop revolutions from breaking out.
They are striving with might and main to overcome the crises, to cool or defuse the revolutionary situations in order to prevent them from being transformed into revolution. However, the crises and revolutionary situations are objective phenomena, which do not depend on the will and desires of the capitalists, the revisionists or any one else. Only when the capitalist order of oppresion and exploitation, wich inevitably gives rise to them, has been wiped out, can they be avoided.
The imperialists, the other capitalists and the revisionists know well that the revolution does not break out spontaneously in periods of crises and revolutionary situations. Therefore they direct their attention and their main blows towards the subjective factor. On the one hand, they strive to stupefy and deceive the proletariat, the other working masses and the peoples, to hinder them from becoming conscious of the necessity for the revolution, and from uniting and organizing themselves; on the other hand, they fight to destroy the international Marxist-Leninist movement, to stop it from building up and gaining strength, so that it will not become a great leading political force of the revolution, so that the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties of each country will not gain the political and ideological capacity to be able to unite, organize, mobilize, and lead the masses in revolution and to victory.
But, however much the imperialists, the capitalists, the revisionists and reactionaries strive and struggle, they cannot stop the wheel of history from rolling onwards. Their strivings and struggle will come up against the revolutionary strivings and struggle of the proletariat and the freedom-loving peoples, while the modern revisionists will suffer the same fate as the socialdemocrats and all the opportunists of the past, all the lackeys of the bourgeoisie and imperialism.
When we speak of the revolution we do not mean only the socialist revolution. In the present epoch of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism, the peoples' liberation struggle, the national-democratic, anti-imperialist revolutions, the national liberation movements, also, are component parts of a single revolutionary process, the world proletarian revolution, as Lenin and Stalin explained.
"Leninism," says Stalin, "has proved... that the national problem can be solved only in connection with and on the basis of the proletarian revolution, and that the road to victory of the revolution in the West lies through the revolutionary alliance with the liberation movement of the colonies and dependent countries against imperialism. The national problem is a part of the general problem of the proletarian revolution, a part of the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat". Stalin
This connection has become even clearer and more natural today, when, with the collapse of the old colonial system, most of the peoples have taken a big step forward towards independence by creating their own national states, and when, following this step, they are aspiring to go further. They want the liquidation of the neo-colonialist system, of any imperialist dependence and any exploitation by foreign capital. They want their complete sovereignty and economic and political independence. It has now been proved that such aspirations can be realized, such objectives can be attained only through the elimination of any foreign domination by and dependence on foreigners and the liquidation of oppression and exploitation by local bourgeois and big land-owner rulers.
Hence, the linking and interlacing of the national-democratic, anti-imperialist, national liberation revolution with the socialist revolution, because, by striking at imperialism and reaction, which are common enemies of the proletariat and the peoples, these revolutions also pave the way for great social transformations, assist the victory of the socialist revolution. And vice-versa, by striking at the imperialist bourgeoisie, by destroying its economic and political positions, the socialist revolution creates favourable conditions for and facilitates the triumph of liberation movements.
This is how the Party of Labour of Albania sees the question of the revolution. It sees it from Marxist-Leninist positions, and that is whyit gives all-out support and backing to the just struggles of the freedom-loving peoples against US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and the other imperialist powers, against neo-colonialism, because these struggles assist the common cause of the destruction of imperialism, the capitalist system and the triumph of socialism in each country and on a world scale.
Therefore, when we draw the conclusion that the revolution is a question put forward for solution, that it is on the agenda, we have in mind notonly the socialist revolution, but also the democratic anti-imperialist revolution.
The level of maturity of the revolutionary situation, the character and the development of the revolution cannot be the same for all countries.
These things depend on the concrete historical conditions of each individual country, the stage of its economic and social development, the ratio of classes, the situation and the level of organization of the proletariat and the oppressed masses,. the scale of the interference of foreign powers in the different countries, etc. Each country and, people has many specific problems of the revolution, which are very complicated.
At present, there is a great deal of talk about the situation in Africa, Asia, Latin America, ,and the carrying out of the revolution there. The Chinese leaders the question of the revolution and the independence and national liberation of these countries in a global way, as if it can be solved by means of the unity of the entire "third world"., i.e., of states, classes, governments, etc., ignoring the concrete situations and problems of leach individual country and region. This metaphysical view shows that the Chinese leaders are, in fact, against the revolution and the liberation of the peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, that they are for the maintenance of the status quo, for the preservation of the imperialist and neo-colonialist domination in these countries.
We, too, speak about the question of the liberation the African, Asiatic, Latin-American, Arab and other peoples. These peoples have many common problems which they must solve, but each of them also has very complicated specific problems.
The general and common task of these peoples is the liquidation of any foreign yoke, imperialist, colonial and neo-colonial, and the oppression by the local bourgeoisie. These peoples in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere are 'seething with anger and hatred against the foreign yoke, as well as against the yoke of the local bourgeois or landowner-bourgeois ruling cliques, sold out to the US imperialists, the Soviet socialimperialists, or the other imperialists. These peoples have now awakened and can no longer tolerate the plunder of their riches, their sweat and blood, can no longer reconcile themselves to the economic, social and cultural backwardness in which they live.
Arising from the struggle against US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, the main enemies of the revolution and the national and social liberation of the peoples, the struggle against the bourgeoisie and reaction, the peoples have many common interests, many common problems, and on this basis they must unite with one another.
The fight against Israel - the most blood-thirsty tool of US imperialism - which has become a great stumbling block to the advance of the Arab peoples, is a common problem for all these peoples. In practice, however, not all the Arab states are of one mind about the struggle they should wage jointly against Israel and about the character this struggle against their common enemy should have. Frequently, some of them see this struggle from a narrow nationalist angle.
We cannot agree with such a stand. We stick to our stand that Israel must withdraw to its own lair and renounce its chauvinist, provocative, offensive and aggressive attitudes and actions against the Arab states. We demand that Israel give up the territories of the Arabs, that the Palestinians gain all their national rights, but we can never accept that the Israeli people should be wiped out.
The efforts of the peoples of the Arab countries for complete liberation from the clutches of imperialism and social-imperialism, for the strengthening of their freedom and sovereignty, are likewise the common problems of all these peoples.
However, each of the Arab peoples has its own characteristics, has specific problems, which are different from those of the others, and which arise from its socio-economic development, its cultural level, its state organization, the level of freedom and sovereignty achieved, the unification of clans and tribes in many of them, etc. To lump all these separate elements together and to demand that the question of freedom, independence, democracy and socialism must be solved for all these countries in the same manner and at the same time, is an impossibility.
In those Arab countries in which the interests of the bourgeoisie have been greatest, the various imperialists have invested considerable sums for the exploitation of natural assets and the peoples.
To achieve this, certain working conditions had to be created, both for the colonizers and the colonized. Wherever the natural assets have been most plentiful and the interests of the colonizers greatest, there the exploitation of the people and their wealth also have been more intensive. Naturally, the exploitation of assets has also brought about a certain development, but this cannot be considered as an overall, harmonious development of the economy of this or that country. The colonizers financed and assisted the chieftains of the principal tribes, who sold their souls an the riches of the peoples to the imperialist occupiers. In return they were given a small percentage from the colossal profits made by the colonizers.
Depending on the circumstances and the power of the state which had enslaved them, with these profits and the aid of their foreign patrons, the tribal chiefs created some sort of allegedly independent state, with the support and under the control of the colonizing country. In this way, with the aid of the colonizers, the tribal chiefs were turned into the wealthy bourgeois stratum of sheiks, who sold tjlelr, territories, together with their peoples, for next to nothing putting the peoples under a double bondage, that of the foreign colonizers and their own. Thus, the strata of the big bourgeoisie, the big landowners, mediaeval kings, on the one hand, and the slaves, the proletariat working on the foreign concessions, on the other, were created and confronted one another in the Arab countries. With the money and profits the foreign exploiters granted them, the upper strata adopted the mode of living of the European and American bourgeoisie. Their sons even attended the colonizers' schools, where they acquired some western culture. They passed themselves off as the representatives of their people's culture, but in fact, they were trained to keep the working masses in bondage and to allow the colonizers to continue the ruthless exploitation of the latter.
That Arab state which had greater wealth, developed more rapidly, another which was not so wealthy, developed more slowly, while the state which was poor, remained at a very low level of development.
Having an organization suitable for the imposition of radical oppression, and also having the armed forces in their hands, colonialism, the state power of feudal monarchs and the big land-owning bourgeoisie nipped in the bud any attempt at revolt, any claim, even for some very limited economic rights, let alone for political demands and the revolution.
In the development of the Arab states at the present day, they are not all faced with solving the same problems. The King of Saudi Arabia, for instance, has different problems and views the economic, political, organizational and military questions differently from the Emirs of the Persian Gulf who see these questions from quite another angle and over a different range. Similarly, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, etc., all see their own problems from different points of views.
Therefore, when we speak of the Arab peoples, we arrive at the conclusion that, though they have many common interests, their problems are not identical and cannot be solved in the same way in one country as in another. Similarly, we cannot say that an alliance and a single opinion about the solution of common problems exist among these countries. The problems are different for each Arab state not only because of the differing stands of the governments of one or the other country, but also because of the attitudes of the colonial and neo-colonial states which still continue to make the law in most of them.
What has been said about the Arab peoples also applies to the peoples of the African continent. Africa is a mosaic of peoples with an ancient culture. Each African people has its own culture, customs, way of life, which, with some variations, are at a very backward stage, for well-known reasons. The awakening of the bulk of these peoples has only recently begun. De jure, the African peoples, in general, have won their freedom and independence. But there can be no talk of genuine freedom- and independence, since most of them are still in a colonial or neo-colonial state.
Many of these countries are governed by the chieftains of the old tribes who have seized power and rely on the old colonialists, or the US imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists. The methods of government in these states at this stage are not and cannot be other than a marked survival of colonialism. The imperialists are ruling most of the African countries again through their concerns, their capital invested in industry, banks, etc. The overwhelming bulk of the wealth of these countries continues to flow to the metropolises.
Some of the African countries have fought for that f reedom and independence they enjoy today, while the others have had it granted without fighting. During their colonial rule in Africa, the British, French and other colonizers oppressed the peoples but they also created a local bourgeoisie, more or less educated in the Occidental manner. The leading f igures today, have also emerged from this bourgeoisie. Among them there are many anti-imperialist elements, fighters for the independence of their ovrn countries, but the majority either remain loyal to the old colonizers, in order to preserve the close relations with them even after the f ormal abolition of colonialism, or have entered into economic and political dependence on the US imperialists or the Soviet social imperialists.
The colonizers did not make large investments in the past. This was the case, for instance, with Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, etc. However, the colonizers drained the wealth of all these countries, seized large tracts of land, and developed a proletariat, by no means small in number, in some special branches of the industry, such as in the extraction and processing of raw materials. They also drew large numbers of workers to the metropolises, such as to France, for instance, but also to Britain, as a cheap labour force which worked in the colonizers mines and the factories.
In the other parts of Africa, especially in Black Africa, industrial development remained more backward. All the countries of this region were divided up, especially between France, Britain, Belgium and Portugal. Great underground riches, like diamonds, iron, copper, gold, tin, etc., were discovered there long ago, and industry to mine and process minerals has been set up there.
In many African countries, large, typically colonial cities, were built, where the colonizers; lived a fabulous life. Now, on the one hand, the local great bourgeoisie and its wealth is growing and developing there, while on the other hand, the impoverishment of the broad masses of working people is increasing still more. In these countries a certain degree of cultural development has been achieved, but it has more of a European character. The local culture has not developed. It has generally remained at the stage reached by the tribes and is not represented outside them, in the centres with towering sky-scrapers. This has come about because, outside the large centres, were the colonizers lived, stark misery and extreme poverty existed, hunger, disease, ignorance and ruthless exploitation of the people, in the full meaning of the term, reigned supreme.
The African population remained culturally and economically undeveloped and continuously diminished in numbers, declining because of colonial wars, the savage racial persecution, and the traffic in African negroes, who were sent to the metropolises, the United States of America, and other countries to work like animals in the plantations of cotton and other crops, as well as in the heaviest jobs in industry and construction.
For these reasons, the African peoples still have a great struggle ahead of them. This is and will be a very complicated struggle, differing from one country to another, because of the state of their economic, cultural and educational development, the degree of their political awakening, the great influence which the different religions, such as the Christian and Moslem religions, the old pagan beliefs, etc., exert on the masses of these peoples. This struggle becomes still more difficult since many of these countries are actually under the domination of neo-colonialism combined with that of local bourgeois-capitalist cliques. The law there is made by those powerful capitalist and imperialist states which subsidize or control the ruling cliques, which they Set up and remove whenever the interests of the neo-colonialists require or when the balance of these interests is upset.
The Policy Pursued by the big landowners, the reactionary bourgeoisie, the imperialists and the neo-colonialists is intended to keep the African peoples in permanent bondage, in ignorance, to hinder their social, political and ideological development, and to obstruct their struggle to gain these rights. At present we see that those same imperialists who used to lord it over these peoples in the past, as well as other new imperialists, are trying to penetrate into the African continent, by meddling in every way in the internal affairs of the peoples. As a result of this, the contradictions among imperialists, between the peoples and the bourgeois-capitalist leaderships of most of these countries, and between the peoples and the new colonizers, are becoming more and rnore severe every day.
These contradictions must be utilized by the peoples, both to deepen them and to benefit from them. But this can be achieved only through resolute struggle by the proletariat, the poor peasantry, by all the oppressed and the slaves, against imperialism and neo-colonialism, against the local big bourgeoisie, the big landowners and theirWhole establishment. A special role in this struggle devolves upon progressiveses and democrats, the revolutionary youth and patriotic intellectuals, who aspire to see their own countries advancing free and independent, on the path of development an progress. Only through continuous and organized struggle by them will life be made difficult for the local and foreign oppressors and exploiters and government impossible. This situation will be prepared in the specific circumstances of each African state.
British and US imperialism have not given to the peoples of Africa any freedom. Everybody can see what is happening in South Africa, for instance. The white racists, the British capitalists, the exploiters, are ruling there, savagely oppressing the coloured peoples of that state, where the law of jungle prevails. Many other countries of Africa are dominated by the concerns and capital of the United States of America, Britain, France, Belgium, and other old colonialists and imperialists, who have become somewhat weaker, but who still hold the keys to the economies of these countries.
The peoples of Asia, too, have traversed a road full of suffering and hardship, ruthless imperialist oppression and exploitation. On the eve of the Second Word War, nine tenths of the population of this continent, Soviet Asia excluded, was in a state of colonial and semi-colonial oppression and exploitation by the imperialist powers of Europe, Japan and the United States of America. Great Britain alone, had colonies totalling 5 million 635 thousand square kilometres of territory with more than 420 million inhabitants in Asia. The colonial oppression and exploitation of the overwhelming majority of the countries of Asia had left them in a state of marked socio-economic and cultural backwardness and utter poverty. They served only as sources to supply the imperialist metropolises with raw materials such as oil, coal, chromium, manganese, magnesium, tin, rubber, etc.
After the war, the colonial order was shattered in Asia, too. Separate national states were set up in the colonial countries. Most of these countries won this victory through bloody war waged by the popular masses against the colonialists and the Japanese invaders.
The liberation war of the Chinese people, which led to the liberation of China from Japanese imperialist rule, the routing of the reactionary forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the triumph of the democratic revolution, was of special importance for the collapse of colonialism in Asia. For a time, this victory, in such a large country as China, exerted an extensive influence on the liberation struggle of the Asian peoples and the peoples of other countries dominated by, or dependent on, the imperialist powers. But this influence gradually declined, because of the line followed by the Chinese leadership after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The Chinese leadership proclaimed that China had set out on the road of socialist development. The revolutionaries and the freedom-loving peoples of the world, who wanted and expected China to become a powerful bastion of socialism and world revolution, ardently welcomed this proclamation. But their desires and hopes were not being fulfilled. Hard though it was for people to believe, the facts and the very troubled and confused situation which prevailed in China showed that it was not marching on the socialist road.
Meanwhile, the struggle of the Asian peoples had not ended with the destruction of colonialism. While being obliged to recognize the independence of the former colonial countries, the British, French, Dutch and other colonialists wanted to preserve their economic and political positions in these countries in order to continue their domination and exploitation in other, neo-colonialist forms. The penetration of the United States of America into Asia, especially the Far East, Southeast Asia and the islands of the Pacific, made the situation particularly serious. This region had and still has great economic and military-strategic importance for American imperialism. It established big military bases and deployed powerful fleets there. Parallel with this, US capital got the economies of the countries of this area firmly into its blood-stained clutches. Meanwhile the US imperialists undertook large-scale military operations, diversionist and espionage activities to put down the national liberation movements of the Asian countries. They succeeded in dividing Korea and Vietnam in two, setting up reactionary, puppet regimes in the southern parts of both these countries. Pro-imperialist landowner-bourgeois regimes were established in many former colonial and semi-colonial countries of Asia. In this way, the mediaeval slavery, the savage rule of maharajas, kings, sheiks, samurais, and modernized. capitalist gentlemen was preserved there. These regimes sold their countries to the imperialists again, especially to US imperialism, thus immensely hindering the socio-economic and cultural development of these countries.
Under these conditions, the peoples of Asia, who were again languishing under the heavy imperialist and landowner-bourgeois yoke, could not lay down their arms, but had to continue their fight for liberation to get rid of this yoke. Generally, this struggle was led by the communist parties. Wherever these parties had succeeded in establishing sound links with the masses, making thern conscious of the liberation aims of the war, and mobilizing and organizing them in revolutionary armed struggle, positive results were reached. The historic victory which the peoples of Indochina, especially the Vietnamese people, won over the US imperialists and their local landowner-bourgeois stooges, showed the entire world that imperialism, even a superpower like the United States of America, with all its mighty economic and military potential, with all the modern means of war at its disposal, which it uses to put down the liberation movements, is unable to subjugate peoples and countries, whether big or small, when they are determined to make any sacrifice and fight selflessly to the finish for their freedom and independence.
Liberation armed struggles have been waged and are still going on in many other countries of Asia, like Burma, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere. Had it not been for the antiMarxist and chauvinist interference and stands of the Chinese leadership, which have brought about splits and disorientation among the revolutionary forces and the communist parties leading these forces, these struggles would certainly have scored greater successes and victories. On the one hand, the Chinese leaders proclaimed their support for the liberation wars in these countries, while on the other hand, they supported the reactionary regimes, welcomed and farewelled the chiefs of these regimes with paeans of praise and a thousand honours. They have always followed the strategy and tactic of subordinating the liberation movements of the Asian countries to their pragmatic policy and hegemonic interests.
They have always brought pressure to bear upon the revolutionary forces and their leadership in order to impose this policy on them. They have never been really concerned about the question of peoples' liberation and the revolution in the countries of Asia, but only about the realization of their chauvinist ambitions. They have not helped these peoples but have hindered them.
The question of the revolution and the liberation struggle in Asia has never demanded solution so forcibly and imperatively as it does now, it has never been more complicated and difficult to solve.
This complication and these difficulties have resulted mainly from the aims and activities of the American imperialists, as well as from the anti-Marxist, anti-popular, hegemonic and expansionist aims and activities of the Soviet and Chinese revisionists and social-imperialists. The United States of America is aiming and striving with might and main to preserve and strengthen its strategic, economic and military positions in Asia, for it considers these positions of vital importance to its imperialist interests.
The Soviet Union, too, is aiming and striving by all means and with all forces to expand the Positions it has already occupied in Asia.
China. on its part, has openly displayed its. Pretension to become the ruler of Asian countries, by forming alliances, to this end, with the United States of America, and especially with Japan, and directly opposing the Soviet Union.
Japan, also, has the ambition to dominate Asia, the old ambition of Japanese imperialism.
That is why the Soviet Union is so greatly afraid of the Sino-Japanese alliance and is opposing it so strongly. But neither does American imperialism want this alliance to become so solid that it goes beyond the limits which might infringe American interests, although it encouraged and gave its ,Kblessing- to the signing of the treaty between China and Japan, from the standpoint that this treaty might contain the Soviet expansion which is to the detriment of American domination.
India, which is a bige country, also, has ambitions of becoming a great power with the atomic bombs and great weight in Asia, of playing a special role, in particular concerning the strategic position it has at the nodal point of the expansionist interests of the two imperialist superpowers, American and Soviet, in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and on its northern and eastern borders.
British imperialism has not given up its aim of domination in the Asian countries, either. And certain other capitalist-imperialist states also have similar aims.
That is why Asia has become one of the areas of the fiercest inter-imperialist rivalries today, and consequently, many dangerous hotbeds of world conflagrations, for which the peoples will pay the price, have been created there.
In order to quell. the revolutions and the liberation struggle in thecountries of Asia and open the way to the realization of their hegemonic and expansionist plans, the Soviet and Chinese revisionists, in feverish competition with each other, have been and are engaged in a very filthy job of splitting and destroying the ranks of the communist parties and the revolutionary and freedom loving forces of these countries. This activity was one of the main causes of thecatastrophe suffered by the Communist Party of Indonesia, and of the splitting and destruction of the Communist Party of India, etc. They advocate the alliance and unity of the proletariat and the broad popular masses with the local reactionary bourgeoisie, while each of them is trying to Win the friendship of this ruling bourgeoisie, for its own ends
The interference of the Soviet and Chinese social-imperialists in the various countries of Asia from their hegemonic and expansionist positions and ambitions has faced the liberation movements of these peoples with great dangers and has even Put the victories of the liberation war in'Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos directly in jeopardy.
The revolutionary and freedom-loving forces Of the Asian countries, which are led by the Marxist-Leninist communist parties, have to face up to and eliminate both the danger from local reaction, which is armed by its imperialist patrons, and the dangers from the splitting and disruptive activities, and the hegemonic and expansionist plans of the Soviet and Chinese revisionists. They also have to free themselves from a series of old reactionary, mystical, Buddhist, Brahmanic and other religious ideas and concepts, which hold back the liberation movement. They also have to prevent "new" renctionary ideas and concepts from striking root, such as the revisionist ideas of Khrushchevism, Maoism, and other just as reactionary theories, which disorientate and deceive the masses, deprive them of their militant class spirit, and lead them into wrong and hopeless paths.
The liberation struggle ahead of the peoples of Asia is truly difficult and has many obstacles indeed, but there never has been, and never will be, an easy liberation struggle or revolution, without great difficulties and obstacles that must be overcome, which do not require bloodshed and many sacrifices to achieve ultimate victory.
The countries of Latin America, in general, have a higher level of capitalist development than the countries of Africa and Asia. But the degree of dependence of the Latin-American countries on foreign capital is not lower than that of the overwhelming majority of African and Asian countries.
Unlike the African and Asian countries, most of the countries in Latin America proclaimed themselves independent states much earlier, since the first half of the 19th century, as a result of the liberation struggles of the peoples of that continent against the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. Had these countries not fallen under another yoke, the semi-colonial yoke of British, French, German, American and other foreign capital, right after they shook off the Spanish or Portuguese colonial yoke, they would have made much greater progress. Up to the beginning of this century the British colonialists were the masters of the situation on this continent. They plundered colossal amounts of raw materials from these countries, built ports, railways, power stations in the exclusive service of their concessionary companies, and traded there industrial goods produced in Britain.
This situation changed, but not in favour of the Latin-American peoples, with the penetration of Latin America by the United States of America at the stage of its imperialist development. The imperialism of the United States of America used the slogan "America for Americans", embodied in the "Monroe doctrine", in order to establish its undivided domination over the whole Western hemisphere. The economic penetration of the United States of America into this hemisphere was carried out both by means of military force and political blackmail and by dollar diplomacy, by means of the stick and the carrot. Thus in 1930, investments of American and British capital in Latin America were equal, whereas after the Second World War, the United States of America became the real master of the economy of this region of the globe. Its big monopolies took control of the key branches of the economy in Latin America. The countries of that continent became part of the "invisible" empire of American imperialism, which began to make the law in all of them, to appoint and dismiss the heads of state and the governments, to dictate their internal and external economic and military policies.
The monopoly companies of the United States of America drew fabulous profits from the exploitation of the rich natural resources and the toil, sweat and blood of the Latin-American peoples: for each dollar invested in the various countries of this continent they took 4-5 dollars profit. This situation still prevails to this day.
Although the capital investments by the imperialist states in Latin America led to the setting up of some modern industry, particularly the extracting industry as well as light and food processing industry, these investments have been a very great hindrance to the general economic development of the Latin-American countries. The foreign monopolies and the neo-colonialiss policy of the imperialist states have given the economic development of these countries a distorted, onesided form, a mono-cultural character, turning them simply into specialized suppliers of raw materials: Venezuela - oil, Bolivia - tin, Chile copper, Brazil and Colombia - coffee, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic - sugar, Uruguay and Argentina - livestock products, Equador bananas, and so on.
This one-sided character made the economy of these countries utterly unstable, utterly incapable of rapid and all-round development, completely at the mercy of the changes and fluctuation of prices on the capitalist world market, Any decline in production and any manifestation of economic crisis in the United States of America and the other capitalist countries was bound to be reflected negatively, indeed even more drastically, in the economies of the countries of Latin America, too.
After the Second World War, the imperialist Metropolises began to make direct large-scale investments in the various branches of industry, mining, farming, to buy up national enterprises, etc.
They extended their domination over whole sectors of production, and stepped up the plunder Of the countries of Latin America to the maxiMum. At the same time, they encouraged provision of loans and financing at high interest rates, thus binding these countries even more tightly to the foreign domination and to the domination of the United States of America, first of all. Brazil alone has debts to the foreign banks amounting to almost 40 billion dollars and Mexico nearly 30 billion dollars.
Capitalist development in Latin America has remained generally backward also because there are still many survivals of the latifundia which have not completely lost their feudal character, that is why in some of the Latin-American countries there is very marked backwardness, as in those of Asia and Africa. In the countries of Latin America an oligarchy, a very powerful monopoly big bourgeoisie dependent on imperialist economic policy and direct imperialist interference, has been created, which together with the big landowners has state power in its hands and, always with the support of American imperialism and together with it, ruthlessly oppresses and exploits the working class, the peasantry and the other strata of working people who live in abject poverty.
This development has also created quite a large industrial proletariat which, together with the agricultural proletariat and the building and services workers, makes up nearly half the population, unlike Africa and Asia where, in most countries, the working class is very small.
Besides this, in Latin America the peasantry and the working class, which has emerged from its ranks, have a rich militant revolutionary tradition gained in the ceaseless struggles for freedom, landy work and bread, a tradition which has been developed further in the battles against the local oligarchy and foreign monopolies, against American imperialism. The peoples of Latin America rank among the peoples who have fought and shed their blood the most against their internal and external oppressors and exploiters. In these battles they have had more than a few victories, and not minor ones either, but the complete victory of democratic freedoms, the wiping out of exploitation, securing national independence and sovereignty, has still not been won in any Latin-American country. The Latin-American peoples cherished many hopes, had many illusions, about the victory of the Cuban people, which became an inspiration and encouragement to them in their struggle to shake off the yoke of the local capitalist and landowner rulers and American imperialists. However, these hopes and this inspiration soon faded when they saw that Castroite Cuba was not developing on the road of socialism but on that of revisionist-type capitalism, and faded even rnore quickly when Cuba became the vassal and Mercenary of Soviet social-imperialism.
In Latin America today, as on all continents, the situation is complicated.
In most of these countries the situation, is revolutionary and puts the revolution for the overthrow of the bourgeois-landowner order and the liquidation of imperialist dependence on the order of the day. Of course, these revolutions cannot have the same character, the same process of development and the same solution everywhere, for the known reasons of the particular conditions and problems of each country or group of countries, the different levels of their socio-economic development, their dependence on imperialism or social-imperialism, the more or less moderate, or more or less fascist, bourgeois regimes, etc. But one thing is obviously essential - the interlinking, more closely than in many countries of Africa and Asia, of the anti-imperialist, democratic and socialist tasks of the revolution.
Latin America also has many advantages in regard to the preparation of the subjective factor of the revolution, because of the relatively high level of consciousness and readiness of the broad popular masses to fight against the internal and foreign oppression and exploitation, for freedom, democracy and socialism. However, it is not just the imperialists, especially the Americans, together with local reaction, but also the local revisionists and the other opportunist stooges of capitalism, as well as the Soviet and Chinese revisionists, who are obstructing, confusing, and fighting with all their strength against the full preparation of this factor.
Sticking to its policy of keeping Latin America as its exclusive domain, from which it extracts colossal superprofits, American imperialism is manoeuvring with all its means - military force, secret agents, demagogy and deception, to prevent any other imperialism from predominating there, toensure that the revolution will not break out and triumph in any of these countries. Thus it wants to preserve both the total dependence of the LatinAmerican countries on the United States of America and the bourgeois-landowner order in these countries.
An important weapon in the hands of the, United States of America to this end is the socalled Organization of American States, which is under the command of the president, the Pentagon and the State Department of the United States. The Constitution of this organization gives the United States the right to intervene in any way and with any means, even military means, to maintain the status quo, both internal and external, of the countries of Latin America.
Meanwhile, the big American monopolies have perfected their method of exploitation in these countries by organizing the multi-national monopoly companies which have their centres in, and are controlled by, the United States of America, and by making large use of state capitalism, by means of which they also secure their control over the local governments and state apparatus in general.
But these and many other means the United States of America employs do not solve the problems arising from the grave economic and political crisis which has the Latin-American countries also in its grip.
Now that the local capitalists and landowners cannot exist without being dependent on, or having the support of, American imperialism, the idea of the revolution, as the only and indispensable means to gain national and social liberation, is becoming ever more deeply and widely implanted in the consciousness of the proletariat, the working peasantry, the progressive intelligentsia, and the masses of the youth of these countries.
In order to avert the revolutions, the American imperialists and the local capitalists resort to two main methods. One is to establish militaryfascist regimes through a "pronunciamento militar" (military putsch) when they see that their positions are more immediately threatened. This is what they did in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia and elsewhere. The other method is to organize democratic-bourgeois regimes with marked limitations and large gaps in fundamental freedoms, as in Venezuela, Mexico, or as they are doing now in' Brazil, trying, in this manner, to ease the revolutionary tensions and give the impression that the bourgeoisie of these countries and, to an even greater extent, the administration of the United States of America and its president are allegedly concerned about human rights.
However, such means and manoeuvres cannot solve the problems of the crisis, cannot avert revolutionary situations, cannot wipe the revolution off the agenda.
The proletariat and all the revolutionary forces in the Latin-American countries are faced with very important revolutionary tasks. In order to perform such tasks, that is, to carry out the revolution, to win their complete national independence, to establish democratic freedoms and socialism, they have to fight in many directions, against the local bourgeois and latifundist oligarchy, against US imperialism, as well as against various lackeys of capital, imperialism and soial-imperialism, such as the pro-Soviet and Castroite revisionists, the pro-Chinese revisionists, the Trotskyites, etc. They must not only cope with the diversionist and splitting activity of various shades of opportunists and revisionists, but also free themselves from petty-bourgeois influences such as expressed by a number of putschist, foquist, adventurist concepts and practices which have become a kind of tradition, but which have nothing in common with the true revolution, and on the contrary, cause it great damage. However, this question requires careful handling.
In regard to the militant tradition of the peoples of Latin America the positive, revolutionary aspect is predominant. It constitutes a very important factor that must be used to the best advantage and as widely as possible in the preparation and development of the revolution while giving the tradition a new content, free from the negative pistolero and foquist elements.
The Marxist~Leninist parties of the working class will play a decisive role in carrying out these great tasks. Now, not only have such parties been created in almost everycountry of Latin America, but most of them have taken important steps forward in the work of preparing the proletariat and the masses of the people for revolution.
In irreconcilable struggle against the revisionists and other opportunists, against all the lackeys of the bourgeoisie and imperialism, against Castroite, Khrushchevite, Trotskyite, "three worlds", and other such views and practices, they have worked out a correct political line and accumulated sufficient experience in the struggle to put this line into practice, becoming the bearers of all the revolutionary tradition of the past, in order to use it and develop it further to the advantage of the workers' and liberation movement, the preparation and raising of the masses in revolution.
The revolutionary situations existing today make it essential for these parties to maintain the closest possible contacts and consult with one another as frequently as possible, to be able to gain the maximum benefits from one another's experience and co-ordinate their stands and actions on the common problems of the struggle against the reactionary bourgeoisie and imperialism, against Soviet, Chinese and other brands of modern revisionism, and on all the problems of the revolution.
Now that the peoples have awakened and refuse to live any longer under the imperialist and colonial yoke, now that they are demanding freedom, independence, development and progress, and are seething with anger against foreign and internal oppressors, now that Africa, Latin America and Asia have become a boiling cauldroni the old and new colonialists are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to dominate and exploit the peoples of these countries by means of the previous methods and forms. They are quite unable to do without their plunder and exploitation of the wealth, the toil and the blood of these peoples. That is why all these efforts are being made to find new methods and forms of deception, plunder and exploitation, to dispense some alms, which, again, do not benefit the masses, but the bourgeois-land owner ruling classes.
Meanwhile the question has been made even more complicated, because Soviet social-imperialism long ago began to penetrate and entrench itself more and more deeply in the former colonies and semi-colonies, and because social-imperialist China has begun to make feverish efforts to get in there, too.
The revisionist Soviet Union carries out its expansionist interference under the guise of its allegedly Leninist policy of aid for the peoples' liberation struggle, posing as the natural ally of these countries and peoples. As a means to penetrate into Africa and elsewhere, the Soviet revisionists employ and spread slogans of a socialist colour in order to deceive the peoples who aspire to liberate themselves, to liquidate oppression and exploitation, and who know that the only road to complete national and social liberation is socialism.
The Soviet Union also involves its allies, or better, its satellites in its interference. We are seeing this concretely in Africa, where the Soviet social - imperialist and their Cuban mercenaries are intervening on the pretext that they are assisting the revolution. This is a lie. Their intervention is nothing but a colonialist action aimed at capturing markets and subjugating peoples.
The intervention of the Soviet Union and its Cuban mercenaries in Angola is of this nature. They have never had the slightest intention of assisting the Angolan revolution, but their aim was and is. toget their claws into that African country which had won a certain independence after the expulsion of the Portuguese colonialists The Cuban mercenaries are the colonial army dispatched by the Soviet Union to capture markets and strategic positions in the countries of Black Africa, and to go on from Angola to other states, to enable the Soviet social-imperialists, too , to create a modern colonial empire.
Under the cloak of aid for peoples' liber the Soviet Union and its mercenary, Cubal are intervening in other countries with armies equipped with artillery and machine-guns, allegedly to build socialism, which does not exist in either the Soviet Union or Cuba. These two bourgeois-revisionist states intervened in Angola in order to help a capitalist clique seize power, contrary to the aims of the Angolan people who had fought to win their freedom from the Portuguese colonialists. Agostinho Neto is playing the game of the Soviets. In the struggle against the other faction, in order to seize power for himself, he called in the Soviets to help him. The struggle between the two opposing Angolan clans did not have anything of a people's revolutionary character.
The fight between them was a struggle of cliques for power. Each of them wassupported by different imperialist states. Agostinho Neto emerged the winner from this contest, while socialism did not triumph in Angola. On the contrary, following the intervention from abroad, Soviet neo-colonialisrn has been established there.
Social-imperialist China, too, is making great efforts to penetrate into the former colonial and serni-colonial countries.
An example of how China intervenes is provided by Zaire, a country ruled by the clique around Mobutu, the wealthiest and most bloodthirsty clique on the African continent. In the fighting which flared up in Zaire recently, the Moroccans of the Sherifian Kingdom of Morocco, the French air force, and China, too, all rushed to the aid of Mobutu, the murderer of Patrice Lumumba. The assistance given by the French is understandable, because with their intervention they were defending their concessions and concerns in Katanga, and at the same time, protecting their men, as well as Mobutu and his clique. But what do the Chinese revisionists want in Katanga? Whom are they assisting there? Are they helping the people of Zaire who are being suppressed by Mobutu and his clique and by the French, Belgian, US and other concession holders? Or are not they, too, assisting the blood-thirsty Mobutu clique? The fact is that the Chinese revisionist leadership is assisting this clique not indirectly, but quite openly. To make this assistance more concrete and more demonstrative, it sent its foreign minister, Huang Hua there, as well as military experts and military and economic aid. Thus, it acted in an anti-Marxist, anti-revolutionary way. China's interference has exactly the same features as that of King Hassan of Morocco and that of France.
The Chinese social-imperialists are interfering not only in the affairs of that country, but also in other affairs of the peoples and countries of Africa and other continents, especially in those countries into which they are striving to penetrate in every way, in order to establish economic, political and strategic bases there.
Even the United States of America dare not assist Pinochet, the fascist hangman of Chile, so openly as China is doing. Indeed, the Americans do not assist the reactionary rulers of other countries in this way, even although they have great interests at stake there. This does not mean that the US imperialists are renouncing their own interests. They do defend these interests, defend them very strongly, but in more subtle ways.
With the stand it is maintaining, the so-called socialist China is going against the interests and aspirations of the peoples, the communists, the revolutionary elements, against the aspirations of all the progressive people of Latin America.
China is taking under its protection the various dictators who are ruling the peoples and, with terror and any other means, are suppressing the efforts of revolutionaries, the proletariat and the Marxist-Leninist parties that are fighting for national and social liberation. With such stands, it has taken the road of counter-revolution. Under the guise of Marxism-Leninism it is trying to show that it is allegedly exporting the idea of the revolution to various countries, but in fact, China is exporting the idea of the counter-revolution. In this way it is helping US imperialism and the fascist cliques in power.
The imperialist or social-imperialist powers are striving to the same extent to prevent the African, Asian, or Latin-American peoples from developing their revolutionary struggle stage by stage, against the oppression and savage exploitation by their leaderships and the imperialists, who are ruling in aareement with them and sucking their blood.
The duty of revolutionaries, progressives, and patriots in the countries with a low level of socioeconomic development and dependent on the imperialist and social-imperialist powers is to make the peoples conscious of this oppression and exploitation, to educate, mobilize and organize them and hurl them into the liberation struggle, always bearing in mind that it is the broad masses, the peoples, that carry out the revolution. To this end it is necessary to make thorough analyses of the internal and external situation in each country, of its socio-economic development, the ratio of class forces, the antagonisms among classes, and the antagonisms between the people and the reactionary cliques in power, as well as between the people and the imperialist states.
On this basis correct conclusions-can be drawn about the step which must be taken and the tactics which must be employed. What is required from the revolutionary forces is intensive work, determination and wisdom, and first and foremost, thorough understanding of the fact that the liberation struggle in their countries can achieve true victory. only by linking this struggle with the cause of the proletariat, the cause of socialism.
Therefore, the proletariat in each country must create its own revolutionary party, which must be capable of applying the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin faithfully, linking them closely with the conditions of each country, with the situation of each individual people. It is absolutely essential that each of these parties has a profound knowledge of the mentality of the masses and the economic, political, ideological and cultural development of its country, and does not act in a capricious and adventurist way, in a Blanquist way, but fights persistently to rally round itself the allies of the proletariat, the broad masses of the people.
The revolutionaries and the masses of the people need to prepare themselves persistently, bearing in mind the activities of the reactionary bourgeoisie and the big landowners in power, and the foreign oppressors, as well as the intrigues of neo-colonialists. These are important factors, which the revolutionary elements and the peoples Must face up to with maturity, with sound organization and revolutionary tactics.
Naturally, not only are ties of co-operation, co-ordination and exchange of experience not excluded, but it is essential to establish them between the revolutionary forces and elements of various countries. This is made easier because they have many similar conditions, such as oppression and' exploitation by neo-colonialist and the reactionary bourgeoisie, and a common culture, as well as the common goal of liberation from this oppression and exploitation. The conditions and interests they have in common impel the revolutionary and progressive elements of all these countries to hold consultations, to develop cooperation and coordination in their activities, with which they counter the actions of the enemies who oppress them.
Viewing the situation of the peoples languishing under neo-colonialist domination from the Marxist-Leninist standpoint, the task facing all genuine revolutionaries is to give the revolutionary and liberation struggle of these peoples unreserved support and backing, so that it advances consistently and the revolution builds up ceaselessly, to its complete victory.
Genuine Revolutionaries Call on the Proletarians and Peoples to Rise up for the New World, the Socialist World
As we explained in the foregoing, the crisis of capitalism is growing ever deeper. As a result, the proletariat, the oppressed classes and peoples are refusing to endure the exploitation any longer, demanding a change in their lives, demanding the overthrow of the bourgeois order, the abolition of neo-colonialism and imperialism. But these aspirations can be realized only through the revolution. No victory can be achieved without clashing with, and attacking, the internal and external class enemies.
The genuine Marxist-Leninist parties of the working class, as the leaders of the revolution, make the proletariat, the toiling masses, and the peoples conscious and prepare them politically, ideologically and militarily for these clashes.
The Marxist-Leninist parties, all revolutionaries, however few in numbers, establish themselves among the people, organize the masses systematically, with great care and patience, convince them that they are a great force, that they are able to overthrow capital, to seize state power and wield it in the interest of the proletariat and the people. Such parties do not think that, being small, they cannot stand up to the coalition of the parties of the bourgeoisie and the opinion formed by them.
The task of the revolutionaries is to prove to the broad masses of the people that this opinion created by the bourgeoisie is wrong, that it must be demolished and that the true revolutionary opinion, which represents a great transforming force, must be formed.
To carry out their mission successfully, the Marxist-Leninist parties consider that, first of all, they must have a revolutionary strategy and tactics, a correct political line, which must respond to the interests and aspirations of the broad popular masses, and the revolutionary solution to the problems and tasks which the struggle to destroy the bourgeois order and the foreign imperialist domination presents.
Marxism-Leninism is the only science which gives the revolutionary party of the working class the possibility to work out a correct political line, to define the strategic aim and tasks clearly, and apply revolutionary tactics and methods for their realization.
Enlightened by Marxism-Leninism and in conformity with the concrete socio-economic and political conditions of the country and the international circumstances, the Marxist-Leninist party knows how to orientate itself and stand at the head of the masses at any time and at every stage of the revolution, be it a democratic, national liberation, or socialist revolution. A revolutionary strategy and a correct political line based on Marxism-Leninism, the revolutionary practice of the world proletariat and the class struggles of its own country, makes it possible to clearly define the strategic aim at the given stage, to determine who are the chief internal and external enemies against whom the main blow should be struck, who the internal and external allies of the proletariat are, etc.
The Marxist-Leninist parties have as their aim the overthrow of the capitalist order and the triumph of socialism, whereas, when the revolution in their country is confronted with tasks of a democratic and anti-imperialist character, they aim to develop it unceasingly, to raise it to a socialist revolution, to go over as quickly as possible to the fulfilment of socialist tasks.
Both the strategic aim of the MarxistLeninist parties and the roads to achieve it are totally different from those of the false communist and workers' parties. The former cannot conceive of achieving this aim except by overturning the capitalist relations of production and destroying the old state apparatus, the whole bourgeois superstructure, to its foundations. They adhere to the teachings of Lenin who says,
"The essence of the revolution is that the proletariat destroys the 'administrative apparatus' and the entire state apparatus, replacing it with a new apparatus comprised of the armed workers". Lenin
The latter preach the preservation of the old state apparatus, though in words they claim that they stand for socialism. According to them, socialism can be established through reforms, through the parliamentary road, even by using the old state machine.
A number of so-called communist parties are now proving to be even more zealous than the declared bourgeois parties in their defence of the existing capitalist order. For instance, the revisionist party of Ibarruri-Carillo brazenly defends the monarchic regime of Juan Carlos, at a time when some Spanish bourgeois parties are demanding its replacement with a republican regime. Likewise, the revisionist party of Berlinguer comes out as a fervent champion of the oppressive laws of the Italian capitalist state, which are aimed against democratic freedoms, at a time when various bourgeois parties are not doing this openly. The Chinese revisionists, for their part, instruct the parties which follow the Chinese line in the capitalist countries that they must fight together with the most militarist circles to strengthen the armies and the bourgeois apparatus of violence, allegedly to defend the homeland, but in reality to suppress the revolution, if it should break out.
In their aims to undermine the revolutionary and liberation movement and to perpetuate capitalism and imperialist domination, the bourgeoisie and its followers, especially the modern revisionists, are trying by all manner of means to confuse and split the revolutionary forces while erasing the distinction between the friends and the enemies of the revolution.
Typical of this are the preachings of the Chinese revisionists who present the big monopoly bourgeoisie, the reactionary and fascist regimes, NATO and the European Common Market, and even American imperialism, as allies of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples.
As for the Marxist-Leninist parties, they consider that an absolutely essential condition for building a genuinely revolutionary strategy is the establishment of a clear-cut dividing line between the motive forces of the revolution and its enemies and a clear definition of the main internal and external enemy against whom, as Stalin pointed out, the main blow must be aimed, without underrating and overlooking the fight against the other enemies.
In our time, in the conditions of imperialism, the main internal enemy of the revolution, not only in the developed capitalist countries, but also in the oppressed and dependent countries, is the local big bourgeoisie which stands at the head of the capitalist order and fights with all its means, with violence and oppression, demagogy and deceit, to preserve its domination and privileges, to smother and extinguish any movement of' the working people which jeopardizes its state power and class interests in the slightest degree. On the other hand, in the actual conditions, the
main external enemy of the revolution and the peoples is world imperialism, the imperialist superpowers, in particular. To advise and call on the proletariat and the oppressed peoples to rely on one superpower to fight the other, or to enter into alliance with the imperialist powers for the sake of allegedly defending national freedom and independence, as the Chinese revisionists advocate, is nothing but betrayal of the cause of the revolution.
The revisionists have made the hegemonic role of the working class in revolution, which ,constitutes one of the fundamental questions of the revolutionary strategy, their special target.
"The main thing in the doctrine of Marx," wrote Lenin, "is the explanation of the world historic role of the proletariat, as the creator of socialist society". Lenin
Lenin described the negation of the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolutionary ,movement as the most vulgar expression of reformism.
Among the modern revisionists, some strive to prove that the working class is allegedly being deproletarianized and transformed into "co-rnanager" of enterprises, hence there is no longer a place for the proletarian revolution, no need for a social order different from the existing one. Others claim that not only the workers, but everybody engaged in work and cultural activities, all wage and salary earners are now proletarians, and that not only the working class, but also other classes and strata of the society are interested in socialism. Therefore, they conclude, the hegemonic role of the working class in the revolutionary movement today has lost its meaning. The Soviet revisionists do not deny the leading role of the working class in words, while they have liquidated it in practice, because they have deprived this class of any possibility to lead. But even in theory they eliminate this role, in as much as they defend the ill-famed theory of "the party and state of the entire people". The Chinese revisionists, as the pragmatists they are, sometimes put the peasantry, sometimes the army, sometimes the pupils and students, etc., which ever suits the occasion, at the head of the revolution.
The Party of Labour of Albania resolutely defends the Marxist-Leninist thesis that the working class constitutes the decisive force in the development of society, the leading force for the revolutionary transformation of the world, for the construction of socialist and communist society.
The working class remains the main productive force of society, the most advanced class, the class more interested than any other in national and social liberation, in socialism, and is the bearer of the finest traditions of revolutionary organization and struggle. It has the only scientific theory for the revolutionary transformation of society and its own militant Marxist-Leninist party which guide it towards this goal. Objectively history has charged it with the mission of leading the entire struggle for the transition f rom capitalism to communism.
The hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution is decisive for the solution of the fundamental question of the revolution, the question of political power, in its own favour and that of the masses of the people.
The new power may pass through different phases and may be given various names, in keeping with the concrete conditions in which the revolution is carried out and the various stages it may go through, but there can be no development of the revolution towards the triumph of socialism without the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marxisrn-Leninisrn teaches us this, and the experience of all triumphant socialist revolutions also demonstrates it. Therefore, whatever the circumstances in which the revolution may be carried out, the Marxist-Leninist party never renounces its aim of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
All the revisionists of various hues and trends without exception, in one way or another, deny the need to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, because they are against the revolution, because they stand for the preservation and perpetuation of the capitalist order.
The proletariat with its Marxist-Leninist party goes into battle together with its allies. This, too, is one of the most important questions of the revolutionary strategy.
The natural and close ally of the proletariat is the poor peasantry, which is linked with it not just by the immediate strategic aim but also by the distant and ultimate strategic aim. Such allies are the poor strata of the urban working people too. The proletariat, together with the poor peasantry and the other oppressed and exploited working people, constitute the main motive forces of the revolution.
The urban petty-bourgeoisie also, which is constantly in the grip of big capital and under threat of total expropriation, can and should become an ally.
The proletariat also tries and struggles to make allies of other strata of the population, such as the progressive section of the intelligentsia, which is exploited by internal and foreign capital. The weight of the intelligentsia has increased in capitalist and revisionist countries. But despite all the changes its position, character and the role of its work have undergone, it does not and never, can constitute a class in itself, and neither is it nor can it be merged with the working class, as various revisionists claim. Therefore, as Lenin has shown and history has proved, the intelligentsia cannot be an independent socio-political force'. Its role and place in society are determined by its socio-economic position and ideological and political convictions. No matter how much this position and these convictions may change, the intelligentsia can never replace the working class in its role of leading the revolution. The task of the proletariat is to win the progressive section of the intelligentsia over to its side, to convince it of the inevitability of the collapse of the capitalist system and the triumph of socialism, and make it an ally in the revolution.
In the countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, etc., with little socio-economic development and more dependent on foreign capital, and where the democratic and anti-imperialist tasks of the revolution have special importance, , the middle peasantry and that section of the bourgeoisie. which is not linked with foreign capital and which aspires to an independent development of the country, can also be allies of the proletariat.
The uniting of this section of the bourgeoisie with the democratic and anti-imperialist revolution depends on the correct strategy and tactics of the proletariat, the skilful and intelligent manoeuvring of the revolutionary party of the working class. In this way, the proletariat with its party can convince not only the petty-bourgeoisie, but also this bourgeoisie, to place itself under the leadership of the proletariat and rise to abolish the foreign domination and liquidate the savage capitalist big bourgeoisie, a tool of imperialism which oppresses and exploits the people, demoralizes them and corrupts their pure feelings, and centuries-old culture.
To win over the other classes and strata which are interested in achieving the strategic aim at a given stage of the revolution as its allies, the proletariat has to do battle with the big bourgeoisie and the other reactionaries, as over every other issue.
Foreseeing their defeat, the reactionary bourgeoisie and the big landowners make a thousand attempts and manoeuvres to draw the petty-bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the progressive intelligentsia to their side, and to prevent them from becoming allies of the proletariat. They even try to deceive the working class itself, so that the revolution will not break out and, if it does, to ensure that it will not be carried through to the end, but will become bogged down or make an about-turn.
For their part, the proletariat and its Marxisst-Leninist party. work for and have all the possibilities to achieve unity of their allies around themselves against the common enemies, such as the big bourgeoisie, the big landowners, the imperialists and social-imperialists, and to prevent the strata of the peasantry and the petty~bourgeoisie from becoming a reserve of big capital or the fascist dictatorship, as occurred in the time of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, and Franco in the Spanish War.
The Marxist-Leninist party maintains a cautious and flexible attitude, especially towards its wavering, possible, or temporary allies, including the various strata of the middle bourgeoisie, which are linked by numerous threads, various interests, traditions and prejudices with the world of capital and imperialism. The proletariat and its vanguard, the Marxist-Leninist party, without ever budging from their principled positions, are interested in attracting such forces, too, in spite of their waverings and instability, to the side of the revolution or the liberation struggle, or at least in neutralizing them, so that they do not become a reserve of the enemy.
The laws of the revolution operate in the countries where the revisionists are in power also, as everywhere else. What is the position of the new bourgeoisie that is developing in the revisionist countries of Europe? It aspires to free itself from the all-round, savage oppression of the Soviet bourgeoisie, from Soviet social-imperialism, but the two sides have fundamental interests in common. The bourgeoisie of these countries could not exist apart from the Soviet bourgeoisie. And even if it were to detach itself from this savage social-imperialist big bourgeoisie, there is no doubt that it would soon come under the domination of the bourgeoisie of the developed capitalist states of Western Europe and US imperialism.
As well as this, in the revisionist countries which are being economically, politically and militarily integrated into the great Soviet socialimperialist state, other strata of the population, besides the proletariat, are discontented because of the exploitation they are subjected to by the new bourgeoisie and the domination by Soviet social-imperialism. For this reason they hate both their own ruling bourgeoisie and Russian hegemonism and neo-colonialism. The proletariat of these countries needs to be awakened and made conscious of the historical necessity of coming out once again on the battlefield, of hurling itself into the fight to overthrow and rout the traitors in order to carry out the proletarian revolution again, to re-establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. It must create its new Marxist-Leninist parties and unite all the popular masses around itself.
While adhering consistently to the principle that the decisive factor for the triumph of the revolution is the internal one, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and the people of the country themselves, whereas the external factor is of an auxiliary and secondary nature, the Marxist-Leninist parties do not ignore or underrate in the least the external allies of the revolution. At the same time, they take a principled and flexible stand towards the external allies, just as they do towards the internal allies.
In accordance with the teachings of Lenin and Stalin and basing themselves on the existing conditions, they see the proletariat and its revolutionary movement in other countries, the revolutionary anti-imperialist movement of the oppressed peoples of the world and the genuinely socialist countries as the natural and reliable external allies of the revolutionary movement in each country.
In particular cases, circumstances can also be created in which a socialist country, or a people fighting imperialist or social-imperialist aggression, may find themselves on a common front even. with various' countries of the capitalist world which also are fighting the same enemy, as occurred in the period of the Second World War.
In such cases, it is of first-rate importance to ensure that the interests of the revolution are always kept in mind, are never forgotten, obscured or; sacrificed for the sake of the common front or alliance with these temporary allies, to ensure that this front or alliance is not transformed into an aim in itself. It is especially important not to allow such allies to intervene to sabotage the revolution and to wrest the victory from it. The experience of the Cominist Party of Albania in its stand towards the American and British allies in the years of the Anti-fascist National-Liberation War is significant. This stand was salutary for, the fate of the revolution in Albania.
The revolutionary strategy is indivisible from the revolutionary tactics employed by the Marxist-Leninist parties to achieve the aim and to fulfil the tasks of the revolution. While being part of strategy and in its service, tactics may change according to the ebb and flow of the revolutionary tide, the concrete ciricumstances and conditions, but always within'the limits of the revolutionary strategy and Marxist-Leninist principles.
"The task of tactical leadership," says Stalin, "is to master all forms of struggle and organization of the proletariat and to ensulre that they are used properly so as to achieve with the given relation of forces the maximum result necessary to prepare for strategic success". Stalin
While adopting skilful tactics and forms of struggle to d'arry forward the cause of the revolution, the true Marxist-Leninist parties always loyally uphold revolutionary principles. They reject and combat any tendency to abandon principles for the sake of tactics, they are the most resolute opponents of any unprincipled pragmatic policy based on passing circumstances, which characterizes the entire activity of revisionists of all trends.
The revolution is always the deed of the masses led by the revolutionary vanguard. Therefore, the Marxist-Leninist party cannot fall to devote great attention to the revolutionary organization of the masses in appropriate forms, proceeding from the concrete conditions and circumstances, the traditions existing in each country, etc. Without organized links of the party wi ' th the masses it is idle even to talk of raising, preparing and mobilizing them in revolutionary struggle.
Precisely for this reason the Marxist-Leninisst party attaches great importance to the creation of organizations of the masses under its leadership. Certainly, this is not a question which is solved easily, especially today, when many kinds of tradeunion, co-operativist, cultural, scientific, youth, women's and other organizations exist in all the capitalist and revisionist countries. Most of these organizations are under the leadership and influence of the bourgeoisie, revisionists and the church.
However, as Lenin teaches us, the cornmunists must get in and work wherever the masses are. Therefore they cannot fail to work also in the mass organizations led or influenced by the bourgeoisie, social-democrats, revisionists, etc. The Marxist-Leninists work in them to undermine the influence and leadership of the bourgeois and reformist parties, to spread the influence of the revolutionary party of the working class among the masses, to expose the fraudulent character of the programs and activity of the chiefs of these organizations, and to give the activities of the masses an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, antirevisionist political character. Through the revolutionary work they carry out in the ranks of the masses, revolutionary factions can also be formed within these organizations, indeed the possibilities may be created to take over the leadership of these organizations and to set them on a correct course.
But in any case the Marxist-Leninist party never gives up the aim of setting up revolutionary organizations of the masses under its leadership.
The most important organizations of the masses are the trade-unions. Generally speaking, in the capitalist and revisionist countries today, these organizations serve the bourgeoisie, revisionism, to keep the proletariat and all the working masses in bondage. In his time, Engels said that the tradeunions in Britain had been transformed f rom organizations which terrified the bourgeoisie into
organizations which served capital. The tradeunion organizations have bound the worker with a thousand threads, with a thousand coils of the chain of enslavement, so that when the isolated worker revolts, he can easily be suppressed. The opportunist trade-union leaders work so that the revolts of the workers of one or more enterprises, who go on strike or hold demonstrations, are kept under control and assume only an economic character. The worker aristocracy works very hard to manipulate things in this direction. In the capitalist countries, this aristocracy plays a major role in eroding, suppressing, and misleading the revolt of the masses and has long become a fire brigade to quell the flames of the revolution.
In all the capitalist countries today, the main and revisionist parties have their own trade-unions. These trade-unions, are now acting in unity and have established close collaboration in order to hold back the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, and corrupt the working class politically and morally.
In France and Italy, for instance, the tradeunions of the revisionist parties are large and powerful unions. But what do they do? They try to keep the proletariat in bondage, to lull it to sleep and, when it grows angry and rebellious, to set it on the course of negotiations with the boss class and to shut the mouths of the workers with some very small crumbs from the capitalist suerprofits. And what they give them is then taken back by raising prices.
Therefore, to free itself from capitalism, it is essential for the proletariat of every country to shake off the yoke of the trade-unions dominated by the bourgeoisie and opportunists, as well as that of any kind of social-democratic and revisionist organization or party. All these organisms support the owning class in various ways and try to create the illusion that "they are a great force", that they are a brake., that -they can impose themselves on the big capitalists- allegedly in favour of the proletariat. This is nothing but a big fraud. The proletariat has to smash these organisms. But how? It must destroy them by fighting the leadership of these trade-unions, by rising against their treacherous connections with the bourgeoisie, by breaking up the "calm", the "social peace" which they want to establish, a "peace" which is disguised with the alleged revolts against the owning class which the unions engage in from time to time.
It is possible to work to destroy these tradeunions by getting into them in order to fight and erode them from within and oppose their unjust decisions and actions. This activity must involve the biggest and most powerful groups possible of workers in the factories. In every case the aim must be to achieve a steel unity of the proletariat in the fight not only against the employers but also against their agents, the trade-union bosses. The forceful exposure of all the traitor elements at the head of trade-unions, of the bourgeois degeneration of the trade-union leadership and the reformist trade-unions in general, frees the workers from many illusions they still have about this leadership and these trade-unions.
While infiltrating the existing trade-unions, the Marxist-Leninists never descend to the tradeunionist, reformist, anarcho-syndicalist, revisionist positions, which characterize the leadership of these trade-unions. They never become partners with the revisionists and the other bourgeois and opportunist parties in the leadership of tradeunions. Their aim is to expose the bourgeois character and reactionary role which the tradeunions, in general, have today in the capitalist and revisionist countries, to undermine these organizations in order to open the way to the setting up of genuine proletarian trade-unions.
The organization of the masses of the youth is of special importance to the Marxist-Leninist parties. The role of the youth in the revolutionary movements has always been great. From its very nature the youth is for the new and against the old, and shows itself ready to fight for the triumph of everything progressive, revolutionary. However, on its own, it is incapable of finding the right road. Only the party of the working class can show it this road. When the inexhaustible revolutionary energies of the youth are united with the energies of the working class and the other working masses to wipe out oppression and exploitation, for national and social liberation, there is no force which can stop the triumph of the revolution.
However, in the capitalist and revisionist countries today, the majority of the youth expend their energies in wrong directions. They are misled by the bourgeoisie and revisionism and often turn to adventurism and anarchism or fall into utopia and despair, because they have been disorientated and bemused and take a gloomy view of the future, the prospects for the fulfilment of their political, material and spiritual demands.
The Marxist-Leninists always pay very great attention to the youth, try to enlighten them and convince them that the aspirations and desires of the youth can be fulfilled only on the road Marxism-Leninism shows them, and under the leadership of the working class and its party. They are working to free the youth from the influence of the bourgeoisie and revisionists, from the "leftist", Trotskyite, or anarchist movements, and to mobilize them in revolutionary organizations, to draw them on to the road of the revolution.
The genuine Marxist-Leninist party and the revolutionary communists take part actively in the workers' strikes and demonstrations and fight to turn, them into political strikes and demonstrations, so as to make life impossible for capitalism, the employers, cartels, monopolies and the trade-union chiefs. In the course ofthis broad activity the proletarit come to grips more often and more openly with the armed forces of the bourgeois order, but from these clashes it will learn to fight better. In the course of the struggle it also finds what forms of organization and revolutionary struggle are possible, correct, and appropriate. "You cannot learn to swim without getting into the water," goes a popular saying. Without fighting by means of strikes, demonstrations, without active involvement in actions against capitalism in general, the struggle for the final victory cannot be organized and intensified, the bourgeois order cannot be overthrown.
The revolution is not prepared by merely talking, like the various revisionists, or by theorizing about the."three worlds", like the Chinese revisionists. It cannot triumph on the peaceful road. Lenin did speak of this possibility, in specific instances, but he always put the main stress on revolutionary violence, because the bourgeoisie never surrenders its power voluntarily. The history of the international workers' and communist movement, of the development of revolutions and the victories of the working class in a number of former socialist countries, and in our socialist country, shows that up till now revolutions have triumphed only through armed insurrection.
Revolutionary armed insurrection has nothing in common with military putsches. The former has as its aim the radical political overthrow of the old regime, smashing it to its very foundations. The latter do not, and cannot, lead to the overthrow of the order of oppression and exploitation, or the liquidation of imperialist domination. The armed insurrection is based on the support of the broad masses of the people, whereas the putsch is an expression of mistrust of the masses, of isolation from the masses. Putschist tendencies in the policy and activity of a party which calls itself a party of the working class are a deviation from Marxism-Leninism.
In accord with the concrete conditions of a country and the situations in general, the armed uprising may be a sudden outburst or a more protracted revolutionary process, but not, an endless one without perspective, as advocated by Mao Tsetung's ,"theory of protracted people's war". If you , compare the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the revolutionary armed insurrection with Mao's theory on -people's war-, the anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist, anti-scientific character of this theory becomes clearly apparent. The Marxist-Leninist teachings on the armed insurrection are based on the close combination of the struggle in the city with that in the countryside under the leadership of the working class and its revolutionary party.
Being opposed to the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution, the Maoist theory considers the countryside as the only base of the armed insurrection and neglects the armed struggle of the working masses in the town.
It preaches that the countryside must keep the city, which is considered as the stronghold of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, besieged. This is an expression of distrust in the working class, the negation of its hegemonic role.
While adhering unwaveringly to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism on the violent revolution as a universal law, the revolutionary party of the working class is resolutely opposed to adventurism and never plays with armed insurrection. In all conditions and circumstances, it carries out an unceasing revolutionary struggle and activity in various forms, in order to prepare itself and the masses for the decisive battles in the revolution, for the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie with revolutionary violence. But only when the revolutionary situation has fully matured does it put armed insurrection directly on the order of the day and take all the political, ideological, organizational and military measures to carry it through to victory.
Propaganda is a powerful means in the hands of a Marxist-Leninist party for the preparation of the masses for the revolution, but it must be fiery, clear and convincing. Revolutionary propaganda is worthless if it is only phrase-mongering. Only an incisive propaganda, closely linked with the problems of life, with the general problems and local questions, a propaganda which creates and encourages the spirit of initiative among the broad masses, can educate the proletariat and the other working masses politically and ideologically, can get them into action and prepare them for revolution.
Apart from the great means of force it has at its disposal, like the army, the police, etc., the capitalist bourgeoisie in all countries also has wide experience of the struggle against the proletariat and its activity. Likewise, it possesses an entire propaganda network, including the press, radio, television, films, theatres, music, etc. All this propaganda has such power to corrupt that it is capable of temporarily disorientating, perverting and weakening the efforts of the proletariat and its struggle for liberation.
In the states of so-called bourgeois democracy, where a measure of democratic freedom. also exists, it is not enough to carry on only the norrnal journalistic propaganda against capitalism in general. The newspapers of various bourgeois and
revisionist parties are constantly raising a hue and cry, not against the bourgeois order, of course, but against individuals, those who try to grab more than their share of the cake at the big table where they all sit down together to gorge themselves at the expense of the people.
The propaganda, especially the press of the new Marxist-Leninist parties, is faced with a very great task: to expose the falsity of bourgeois "democracy", to tear the mask from all its manoeuvres, as well as from the demagogy of the revisionists and other lackeys of capital..The Marxist-Leninist propaganda and press tell the naked truth, show the road to social and national liberation through revolution, while the bourgeois and revisionist propaganda and press deceive people, lull them to sleep and disorientate them, in order to divert the masses from the revolution, to lead them up blind alleys, to keep them enslaved.
But in order to enlighten the masses, to convince them of the correctness of the political line of the party of the working class, to prepare theni for the revolution, propaganda alone is not sufficient. Lenin says that to prepare the revolution,
"...the political experience of these masses themselves is necessary". Lenin
Propaganda becomes effective, hits the target, only when it is carried on together with revolutionary action. Without action, thought withers away. This activity is not and must not be an adventure, but a stern struggle, a fierce clash with the class enemies, which passes from a simpler to. a higher form, which overcomes numerous difficulties and accepts all the sacrifices the revolution demands.
The genuine Marxist-Leninists parties stand in the vanguard and not at the tail-end of revolutionary action. The temporarily limited possibilities of the struggle and efforts by means of which they must and do oppose the great force of capitalist reaction, do not discourage them.
They teach, their members to be courageous and to bear in mind that a correct, well-considered, mature, and determined action on their part has; profound repercussions among the masses who see it and hear about it. When the communists act in this. way., the masses realize that the aims of this or, that revolutionary action are in the interest of the proletariat and the exploited. Courage and maturity in actions are of great importance, because in, this way, little by little, ground is gained and progress made in building up the surge of the revolution. Revolutionary action links the parties of the working class with the masses, brings. them to the head of the masses, and enables them to triumph over the reformist, revisionist parties.
"Every step taken by a genuine movement," says Marx, "is worth more than a dozen programs"
Apart from the revolutionary forces led by the Marxist-Leninist party, in the capitalist countries there are also other forces which fight and clash with the police, the gendarmerie, etc. Many of the actions and attacks by these forces have a terrorist, adventurist, and anarchist character. They are presented under all sorts of colours and labels and are guided by various ideologies. Such actions are often organized at the instigation and with the funds of the secret services of capita ist countries and, among other things, are aimed at discrediting the Marxist-Leninist parties by attributing such actions to these parties. The fascist elements or the secret agents of the bourgeoisie, who frequently organize and lead these actions, try to take advantage of the discontent, the anger and the courage of the proletariat, school pupils and students, the youth in general, in order to involve the various groups and movements emerging from these masses in actions which not only have nothing in common with the genuine revolutionary movements, but also seriously jeopardize them. create the impression that the proletariat is degenerating and has become a lumpen proletariat.
Paying the proper attention to this question, the Marxist-Leninist parties, on the one hand, must convince the masses, from their own experience, that revolutionary actions have a completely different character from terrorist and anarchist actions, and on the other hand, must fight to win the revolutionary elements, who have been deceived, away from the ranks of terrorist and anarchist groups and the fascist elements and secret agents of the bourgeoisie operating in these groups.
The Marxist-Leninist parties are parties of revolution. Contrary to the theories and practices the revisionist parties, which are totally imersed in bourgeois legality and, "parliamentary cretinism", they do not reduce their struggle ly to legal work, nor do they see this as their main activity. In the context of efforts to master all forms of struggle, they attach special importance to the combination of legal with illegal work, giving priority to the latter, as decisive for the rthrow of the bourgeoisie and the real guaratee of victory. They educate and teach their cadres, their members and sympathizers to know how to act intelligently, skilfully, and couragesly under both legal and illegal conditions. But even when operating in the conditions of profound clandestinity, while trying to avoid exposing their
forces to the enemy and to safeguard the revolutionary organization from the enemy's blows, the Marxist-Leninist parties do not shut themselves away, do not weaken, or break their links with the masses, never for a moment interrupt their live activity among the masses, and never fail to utilize all the legal possibilities, which the conditions and circumstances permit, to the advantage of the cause of the revolution.
While entertaining no illusions about the possibility of seizing power on the parliamentary road, the Marxist-Leninist party may also consider it in order, in particularly favourable instances, to take part in such legal activities as elections to municipal councils, parliament, etc., with the sole aim of propagating its line among the masses and exposing the bourgeois political order. However, the party does not transform this participation into a general line of its struggle, as the revisionists do, does not make these the main, or even worse, the only forms of its struggle.
While utilizing the legal possibilities, the party seeks, finds and applies forms and methods of a revolutionary character, from the simplest to the most complicated, regardless of the sacrifices, while trying to make these forms and methods as popular and as acceptable as possible to the masses.
In their activity, the Marxist-Leninists are not worried about breaking and violating the bourgeois Constitution, laws, rules, norms, and order with their revolutionary actions. They are fighting to undermine this order, to prepare the revolution. Therefore, the Marxist-Leninist partV prepares itself and the masses to cope with the counterblows the bourgeoisie may strike in response to the revolutionary actions of the proletariat and the popular masses.
In the present conditions of development of the revolutionary and liberation movement, as a complicated process with a broad social basis, in which numerous class and political forces take part, the revolutionary party of the proletariat not infrequently comes up against the problem of collaboration and common fronts with other parties and political organizations at this or that stage of the revolution, on these or those problems of common interest. A correct, principled and at the same time flexible stand, far from any opportunism and sectarianism, on this problem is of major importance for drawing in, preparing and mobilizing the masses for the revolution and the liberation struggle. The Marxist-Leninist party is not and in principle cannot be against collaboration or common fronts with other political parties and forces, when the interests of the cause of the revolution require this and the situation makes it necessary. However, the Marxist-Leninist party never sees this as a coalition of chieftains and as an aim in itself, but as a means to unite and arouse the masses in struggle. The important thing is that in these common fronts the proletarian party must never for a moment lose sight of the class interests of the proletariat and the final aim of its struggle, must not merge itself in the front, but must preserve its ideological individuality and its political, organizational, and military independence there, must fight to secure the leading role in the front and to implement a revolutionary policy there.
For the Marxist-Leninist party to be able to work out and apply a revolutionary strategy and tactics, a correct political line to, know how to find its bearings in difficult situations, with the enemies and overcome the obstacles, it is absolutely essential that it carry out great, wide-ranging work for the study and assimilation of the Marxist-Leninist theory.
One of the reasons why the former communist parties in the capitalist countries turned into revisionist parties was precisely because they had utterly neglected the study and assimilation of Marxism-Leninism. The Marxist-Leninist doctrine was used only as an adornment, was turned into empty words and slogans, had not been implanted deeply in the consciousness of the party members, had not become part of their flesh and blood, and had not become a weapon for action. That small amount of work which was done for the study of Marxism-Leninism was aimed only at acquainting the party member with some cut-and-dried formulas, just enough to enable him to call himself a communist, to love communism in a sentimental way, while about how and in what manner this would be achieved he knew nothing, because he was not taught this.
The leaders of those parties, who were not lacking in words but were short on deeds, lived in bourgeois environment and infected the proletariat of their countries with liberal and reformist ideas.
Thus, the turn of the revisionist parties towards the bourgeoisie is a social-democratic opportunist evolution which had long been prepared by their leaders who are in fact social-democrats, the worker aristocracy, which led these so-called communist parties.
The Marxist-Leninist parties cannot fail to remember this negative experience and draw from it the lesson that they must organize the study and assimilation of Marxism-Leninism on a sound basis, always linking this study with revolutionary action.
The unity and co-operation of the Marxist-Leninist parties of different countries on the basis of the principles of proletarian internationalism is of special importance for the preparation of the revolution.
This unity will be strengthened and this cooperation will be extended in struggle against imperialism and social-imperialism, against the bourgeoisie and modern revisionism of every description, Khrushchevite, Titoite, "Eurocommunist", Chinese, etc.
The revisionists, as enemies of the revolution, fight proletarian internationalism with all their strength and means, in order to wrest this powerful weapon in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and imperialism from the hands of the world proletariat and the proletariat of every country.
It is the duty of the Marxist-Leninist parties to expose the manoeuvres of the Titoite revisionists and the---Euro communists,>. who call proletarian internationalism obsolete and outdated today, as well as those of the Soviet revisionists and Chinese revisionists who have distorted proletarian internationalism and are trying to use it as a weapon to realize their hegemonic, social-imperialist aims.
The Communist Party of China, which does not follow the principles of proletarian internationalism and does not support the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the peoples, has set out on the road of rapprochement and friendship witil the social-democratic and bourgeois parties, including the ultra-right and reactionary ones. At the same time, it is trying to create various groups dependent on and directed by it. It needs such groupings precisely in order to sabotage the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties and the progressive elements who have set to work to awaken the people, to rouse them to revolution against the ruling cliques which are linked with the superpowers. The small groups, which call themselves parties and toe the Chinese line, as the opportunists they are, do nothing but defend and propagate the revisionist theories of the group of Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping and its counterrevolutionary actions. These groups are devoid of any individuality of their own or any determination to fight according to the Marxist-Leninist theory.
The main slogan of these parties, which is also the basic slogan of the Chinese policy, is that, in the present situation, the sole and fundamental task of the proletariat is to defend national independence, which is allegedly threatened only by Soviet social-imperialism. They are repeating, almost word by word, the slogans of the chiefs of the Second International who abandoned the cause of the revolution and replaced it with the thesis Of defence of the capitalist homeland. Lenin exposed this false and anti-Marxist slogan, which does not serve the defence of true independence but serves the instigation of inter-imperialist Wars. He clearly defined what the stand of the true revolutionary should be towards the conflicts between imperialist groupings. He wrote:
"If the war is a reactionary imperialist war that is, if it is being waged by two world coalitions of the imperialist, violent, predatory, reactionary bourgeoisie then every bourgeoisie (even of the smallest country) becomes a participant in the plunder, and my duty as a representative of the revolutionary proletariat is to prepare for the world proletarian revolution as the only escape from the horrors of a world slaughter...
That is what internationalism means, and that is the duty of the internationalist, the revolutionary worker, the genuine socialist". Lenin
The parties following the Chinese line have become apologists for the growth and strengtheing of bourgeois armies, using the excuse that this is supposedly necessary for the defence of independence. They call on the working people to become obedient soldiers and to come out, together with the bourgeoisie, against all those who are fighting to weaken this main weapon of capitalist rule and exploitation. In a word, they want the proletariat and the working masses to serve as cannon fodder in the predatory wars which imperialism and social-imperialism prepare.
At the same time these hangers-on of the Chinese have become ardent defenders of the bourgeois capitalist state institutions, especially of NATO, the European Common Market, etc.' which they consider as the main factors for the "defence of independence". Like the Chinese leaders, they whitewash and prettify these pillars of capitalist domination and expansion. They are assisting precisely those organisms which, in reality, have seriously violated the independence andsovereignty of their countries.
For these pseudo-Marxists, alliance with the big bourgeoisie, defence of the bourgeois army, support for NATO, the European Common Market, etc., is a troublefree road because it not only does not lead them to clashes with the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, ensures its favours.
These positions of these groupist elements without a future are leading them towards unification with the parties of Eurocommunism. and the bourgeoisie, and this is bound to happen, because China itself is calling on the proletariat to unite with the bourgeoisie. Already, there is no difference whatsoever between these pseudoMarxist-Leninists and Marchais.
The Marxist-Leninists must be very much on guard against the empty phrases which the modern revisionists, the social democrats and the pseudo-Marxist-Leninists use about proletarian internationalism, the unity of proletarians in the defence of peace, etc. Proletarian internationalism is genuine when people work self-sacrificingly to assist and carry out revolutionary actions, to create a real situation of revolutionary struggle, in their own country in the first place. At the same time, .as Lenin says, they must support, with propaganda, sympathy and material aid, this struggle and line in all countries without exception. Anything else, he teaches us, is a fraud and Manilovism.
Therefore, we must be very much on our guard against such pseudo-Marxist, pseudo-revolutionary, pseudo-internationalist elements, whether individuals or small groups, or parties which call themselves Marxist-Leninist, but which, in fact, are not so, but are social-chauvinist, centrist and petty-bourgeois. All these parties which are beating their breasts about their proletarian internationalism, about the defence of peace, about reforms, etc., serve capital.
The Chinese revisionists, also, talk about proletarian internationalism at times, but they stand on nationalist and chauvinist positions. The Chinese leaders are among those who beat their breasts and swear "to god" that they are f or proletarian internationalism, for peace, for the struggles of the proletariat and its claims, but in practice they stand aside and do nothing but issue deceptive phrases to split the revolutionary forces.
The important task the Marxist-Leninist parties are faced with is to strengthen proletarian internationalism, which must be developed amongst all parties, big or small, old or new. All of them must strengthen the unity between them and co-ordinate their political, ideological and fighting actions.
By stressing this important line, which is a primary task of the Marxist-Leninist parties in order to be able to launch a frontal attack on world capitalism, its enslaving policy, as well as on its intrigues, trickery and alliances with Soviet, Titoite, Chinese, Italian, French, Spanish and other modern revisionisms, these parties will create a powerful front which will become ever more unbreakable day by day. If they act in unity and all strike at the forces of reaction together, if they expose all the intrigues which capitalism and modern revisionism concoct in various ways in order to put down the revolution and quell the class struggle, their triumph is assured.
We Marxist-Leninists must fight and call on the workers, wherever they are, to rise up against their age-old enemies and break their chains, to carry out the revolution, and not submit to monopolies and capitalists, as the modern revisionists advocate. The task of the Marxist-Leninists, of the true revolutionaries is to call on the proletarians and the peoples to rise for the new world, for their world, for the socialist world.