First Published: In Struggle! No. 219, September 23, 1980
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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Just a year ago, IN STRUGGLE! published the appeal from its Third Congress For the political and organizational unity of the international communist movement. Supporting the necessity of the unification of Marxist-Leninists on the basis of a communist programme and within the same international organization, the appeal invited Marxist-Leninists in other countries to adopt different means for intensifying the struggle for unity: public polemics, discussions between organizations, collaboration at different levels, international conferences, etc.
Since the summer of 1979, special efforts have been made to involve different parties and organizations in a project for an international conference.
The call published on this page which will be printed in Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic as well as English and French represents the collective implication of a certain number of organizations, including IN STRUGGLE!, in this project. Besides the organizations signing the call, another half dozen have indicated their agreement to participate in such a conference.
The call for the holding of a conference came out of a meeting aimed at assuring a more collective preparation of the conference project initially proposed by IN STRUGGLE!. At the preparatory meeting, the organizations present exchanged information on their knowledge of the situation in their countries, and on the history, line and practice of each organization. They also exchanged viewpoints and debated their analyses of the current international conjoncture and the situation in the communist movement.
As the call published here affirms, the international Marxist-Leninist movement is not currently playing its role of giving political leadership to class struggle. It can only play this leadership role to the extent that it becomes capable of offering a real alternative to reformist solutions and the programme and actions of the revisionists. In the past months alone, the “socialists” of the Second International and the pro-Russian and Cuban revisionists have been very active in several countries where the popular revolt has been strong. Their aim has been to sure that the revolts are not turned into struggles for socialism.
At IN STRUGGLE!, we call this alternative the communist programme, a programme on the basis of which we can achieve the unity of the international communist movement. This programme should, at the same time, serve as a strategic and tactical guide for the struggle of the proletariat and the other exploited classes in the different countries and on a world scale. The struggle to draw up such a programme will undoubtedly go through different phases which are impossible to predict in advance.
However, we do know that they will require a rigorous demarcation with different forms of reformism, as well as with sectarianism, and this as much in the practice of the Marxist-Leninists as in the debates and polemics.
That is why, in our opinion, an international conference can and must serve the struggle for the unification of the movement. By joining with other organizations to put out this call for the holding of an international conference, we are trying to assure greater clarification and a collective debate on the political and ideological differences which exist in the movement today.
IN STRUGGGLE!
September 1980