First Published:The Workers’ Advocate Vol. 7, No. 1, March 10, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In the latest issue of Class Struggle, theoretical journal of the October League, winter 1976-77, in an article entitled “The World is Being Turned Upside Down: An Outline of Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line on the International Situation”, Dan Burstein, editor of The Call, presents the October League leaders’ view that the theory of “Three Worlds” is the “great strategic concept” of world revolution and that this concept was formulated by Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the great teacher and leader of the international proletariat and oppressed nations and peoples. Without providing any evidence that Chairman Mao originated or even agreed with this theory, Bur stein elaborates the theory in the article and loudly condemns all who disagree with it as “revisionists, centrists and Trotskyists of all types”, implying that to oppose it is to be anti-Marxist, anti-China and anti-Chairman Mao.
The attitude of the COUSML to the loud shouting of Mr. Burstein is:
1) We will not bow down to political blackmail which claims that to oppose opportunism is to oppose Marxism and Chairman Mao; and
2) We are opposed to the theory of “Three Worlds” as the strategy of world revolution. We firmly believe that it opposes the struggles of the proletariat and all oppressed nations and peoples for freedom and socialism and that this strategy is in contradiction to Chairman Mao and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
The term “Third World” has recently been used as a popular, unscientific expression referring to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is not the term in itself that is the issue. Terms such as “Third World”, “Second World”, “non-aligned world” or “developing countries”, etc., can indicate certain secondary features of the world such as the extent of the influence and impact of world capital, international or national, on various states and areas of the world, the more or less powerful support points of imperialism, or the existence of the people’s aspirations to live free and independent of the superpowers. But these terms all cover up the fundamental questions of world politics. They cannot be the basis for the strategy of world revolution. Thus the issue being raised by the OL is the question of the “Three Worlds” theory as a worked-out conception of strategy of international and national politics.
“Three Worlds” is an opportunist strategic concept which diverts the proletariat and oppressed people on a world scale from their revolutionary struggle for national liberation and democracy, for socialism and communism. Today the world is undergoing a great revolutionary upsurge. The entire capitalist-revisionist world is gripped by a great all-round crisis. The national liberation struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the storm centers of the world proletarian revolution, are raging. The genuine socialist countries stand as the bastions of world revolution. The proletariat in the capitalist and revisionist countries is fighting great battles with the bourgeoisie. Revolution is the main trend in the world. But in a vain hope to reverse the revolutionary tide and get out of their crisis the two imperialist superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, together with their accomplices and lackeys, are preparing for a new world war to redivide the world between them. The U.S. imperialists are rapidly fa seizing their state machine in order to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the working class and oppressed nationalities and suppress their struggles and in order to prepare for war. They are increasing their neo-colonialist activities abroad to line up forces for their aggressive bloc to face the Soviet aggressive bloc. In this situation, the OL leaders have come forward to capitulate to U.S. imperialism and ally with it against its Russian rivals, to oppose revolution in the U.S. and abroad, to defend the reactionary activities of the U.S. state and to apologize for U.S. neo-colonialism. Openly declaring that revolution is no longer the main trend in the world, they are promoting to the skies the theory of “Three Worlds” as a strategy of world revolution. The “Three Worlds” concept advocated by the OL calls upon the international proletariat to:
1) Give up the national democratic revolution against imperialism and especially U.S. neo-colonialism in the colonies and semi-colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America and surrender to the reactionary bourgeoisie and the feudalists under the hoax that “the entire Third World is objectively progressive” and is “non-aligned” with both imperialism and socialism;
2) Give up the struggle against superpower domination and for proletarian revolution in the developed capitalist and revisionist countries outside of the superpowers and unite with the reactionary monopoly bourgeoisie under the hoax that the “Second World” governments have an “anti-hegemonist tendency” against Russia;
3) Give up the struggle of the socialist countries against imperialism and capitalist restoration under the hoax that they are members of the “Third World” or “Second World”;
4) Give up the proletarian revolution in the United States and unite with the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie against its rival Soviet social-imperialism under the hoax of directing the “main blow” at the Soviet Union; and
5) “Justify” this social-chauvinist class capitulation to U.S. imperialism by pointing fearfully to the growing danger of world war and hysterically propagating the hoax that the Soviet Union is “more aggressive”, the “main danger”, the “target of the main blow”, etc.
The heart of the “Three Worlds” strategy is the denial of revolution, of class struggle in all its forms leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism and communism. Our era is the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. In this era, the path of the October Revolution, of the Chinese People’s Democratic Revolution, of the socialist revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, of the socialist revolution in Albania, is the common path of all mankind. The people living under the colonial or semi-colonial rule of imperialism need to make new-democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat and march on to the socialist revolution. The people living under capitalist and revisionist rule need to make proletarian socialist revolution. The people of the socialist countries need to carry the revolution through to the end. Revolution is a practical problem being taken up for solution everywhere. But in this excellent situation, fearing the outbreak of war, the OL leaders have taken fright and run for cover at the feet of Uncle Sam and are promoting the “Three Worlds” theory. This theory covers up the fundamental world contradictions, hides the class character of the political forces and attempts to liquidate the revolutionary class and national struggles. It aims at turning the socialist countries and the proletariat and oppressed peoples into pawns of the U.S. imperialist rivalry with Russian social-imperialism for world domination. It is a strategy of giving up the lofty ideals of socialism and communism out of fear of war, of handing the world over to the bourgeoisie.
Burstein links OL’s “Three Worlds” theory with the way this concept arose as a strategy of counterrevolution after World War n. It then took the form of the “non-bloc”, “non-aligned” line of the Titoite revisionists, the special detachment of British and U.S. imperialism in the revolutionary movement. The Titoite revisionists slandered the socialist Soviet Union as “red imperialism”. They aimed at splitting the newly independent states in Asia, Africa and Latin America, fruits of the great postwar upsurge of the national liberation movement, away from the socialist camp and the world proletariat. This necessarily meant to unite with imperialism against socialism.
Using the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and nearly all of the eastern European People’s Democracies and the emergence of social-imperialism as an excuse, the OL has refurbished the Titoite theory. In his article, Burstein explicitly links the OL’s “Three Worlds” theory with the version promoted by the Titoites in the 1950’s and 60’s. The OL’s version still aims, just as viciously as Tito’s, to oppose socialism and the proletarian and national democratic revolutions. It still attempts viciously to split the national liberation movements from the proletariat and socialism. And now it attempts to mobilize the peoples to form a united front with U.S. imperialism and the reactionary bourgeoisie in the countries under its influence to fight Russian social-imperialism for world domination.
Today the OL social-chauvinists have become the main spokesmen for this opportunist strategy in the United States. Claiming that this reactionary strategy originated from Chairman Mao, they are using political blackmail to threaten anyone who opposes it.
1) THE OCTOBER LEAGUE’S DESPICABLE POLITICAL BLACKMAIL
Burstein presents OL’s political blackmail as follows:
“Like Lenin’s viewpoint, Chairman Mao’s conception of the three worlds is, in essence, a strategic view of the world revolution. Because each of its components is based thoroughly and deeply on Marxism-Leninism it is attacked today by revisionists, centrists and Trotskyists of all types, from Brezhnev on down.”
This statement closely resembles the political blackmail practiced by Khruschev against the Party of Labor of Albania in 1960, The arch-revisionist Khruschev waved his baton at the Albanian comrades and declared that if they opposed his slanders of the Communist Party of China and his attacks on Marxism-Leninism, they were “anti-Soviet”. Treacherously playing on the sincere love and respect of the world proletariat for the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin, the Khruschevite dogs thus tried to impose the revisionist theses of the 20th Congress of the CPSU onto the Communist and Workers’ Parties. But their plans ran afoul of the principled Marxist-Leninist stand of the Communist Party of China led by Chairman Mao and the Party of Labor of Albania led by Comrade Enver Hoxha.
In a similar way today the October League neo-revisionists and social-chauvinists are waving their feeble baton and are commanding the U.S. Marxist-Leninists to accept the “Three Worlds” thesis. They are despicably playing on the great prestige of Chairman Mao and Mao Tsetung Thought to impose this opportunist strategy on the U.S. Marxist-Leninist communist movement. However, the U.S. Marxist-Leninists stand on their own two feet and firmly defend Chairman Mao and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought against all distortions. We have especial contempt for political blackmail. Opposing the opportunism of the October League is not to be against Chairman Mao’s China and Mao Tsetung Thought but is to uphold Chairman Mao’s China and Mao Tsetung Thought.
2) OL’S EVIDENCE THAT CHAIRMAN MAO ORIGINATED AND SUPPORTED THE “THREE WORLDS” THESIS IS A FRAUD
Burstein makes acrobatic efforts to prove that the “great strategic concept” of “Three Worlds” was created by Chairman Mao. But these efforts are a flop. Burstein claims that “Chairman Mao showed” this and “Chairman Mao boldly put forth” that. But no specific quotation is given, in the majority of cases, to prove this claim. Never once is Chairman Mao quoted presenting the “great strategic concept” of “Three Worlds”. And yet we are to believe the assurances of the editor of the social-chauvinist journal, The Call, that this is what Chairman Mao meant! And when a quotation is produced to “prove” that Chairman Mao held to this theory, then either the quotation itself proves the opposite of what Burstein asserts, or it is irrelevant to the controversy over the “Three Worlds” theory. As well, Burstein conceals other quotes which oppose OL’s theories.
This fraud reaches truly laughable proportions when, in order to claim that Chairman Mao has held this theory since 1946, Burstein declares: “Chairman Mao’s views on the third world, although not publicly articulated outside of China until the 1970’s, were developed consistently throughout his work in the period since World War II.” This is followed by a quotation from Chairman Mao’s 1946 talk with Anna Louise Strong. In it he analyzes the existence of an intermediate zone between the United States, the leading imperialist power in the world at the time, and the Soviet Union, then led by Stalin and representing the socialist fatherland of the workers and oppressed peoples of the whole world. The quotation reads:
“The United States and the Soviet Union are separated by a vast zone which includes many capitalist, colonial and semi-colonial countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.”
Well, Mr. Burstein, we don’t know what you and Mr. Klonsky have been reading, but no small number of people “outside of China” have been reading this statement by Chairman Mao since 1946. Either you believe that this quotation presents a theory of “Three Worlds”, in which case that theory has long been “publicly articulated outside of China”, or you agree with the genuine Marxist-Leninists that the quotation does not present such a theory but actually puts forth the line of the international communist movement at the time. This line held that the world was then divided into two camps, the anti-imperialist democratic camp headed by the Soviet Union and the anti-democratic imperialist camp headed by the U.S. It held that U.S. imperialism was attacking and trying to subjugate the non-socialist countries between it and the Soviet Union in preparation for a war with the socialist Soviet Union. And if you agree with your own statement that this quote does not “publicly articulate” the “Three Worlds” theory, then what are you using it for? To sow confusion! Not only that, but if we take the term “Third World” not as a strategy but simply to refer loosely to the national liberation movement of Asia, Africa and Latin America, then since the very beginning of his revolutionary activities Chairman Mao has “publicly articulated” his views on the matter with the greatest thoroughness. Everyone knows that Chairman Mao developed Marxism-Leninism profoundly on this very question. One needs only to study Chairman Mao’s works to see that he never supported any thesis of division of the world into “Three Worlds” as a revolutionary strategy.
Let us take another example of the OL’s fraudulent “evidence”.
In the section entitled “The First World”, Burstein claims that Chairman Mao held that the Soviet Union, of the two superpowers, is “on the rise”, “more aggressive”, etc. Therefore, he claims, while the two superpowers both constitute “the main enemy”, “between them the main blow had to be directed at the USSR”. This, of course, is part of the underpinning of the OL’s social-chauvinist line of liquidating the revolution in the U.S. by diverting the struggle of the U.S. proletariat away from the U.S. bourgeois state and against its main rival, the Russian imperialist state, to fight a war against the Russian workers to win world domination for the U.S. monopoly capitalists. “Proof” of Chairman Mao’s supposed support for OL’s analysis is allegedly a 1964 quotation from Chairman Mao, reproduced here by Burstein:
“The Soviet Union today is under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the German fascist type, a dictatorship of the Hitler type.”
According to Burstein, Chairman Mao held that the Hitlerite fascist character of the Soviet state justifies allying with U.S. imperialism to direct the “main blow” at Russia. (Is the OL implying that Chairman Mao considered the Soviet Union the target of the “main blow” as far back as 1964, when all Marxist-Leninists were condemning the Khruschev clique for collaborating with U.S. imperialism?) Here the OL is out to prettify the dictatorship of the U.S. big bourgeoisie as a “democratic” state organizing an “antifascist alliance” against the Soviet Union, which is allegedly playing the same role as Nazi Germany did in World War II. Such blatant attempts to prettify U.S. imperialism and mobilize support for its war preparations and for inter-imperialist war are the reason why the OL leaders are known to Marxist-Leninists as Browderite neo-revisionists and social-chauvinists
Let us see how Chairman Mao allegedly considered the U.S. a “democratic” power with which one should ally to oppose Russia. On May 20,1970, in his famous statement on the world revolution, “People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and all their Running Dogs!”, Chairman Mao wrote:
“I am convinced that the American people who are fighting valiantly will ultimately win victory and that the fascist rule in the United States will inevitably be defeated.”
As long ago as 1949, Chairman Mao wrote:
“As to what Acheson called a ’rightist totalitarian government’, the U.S. government has ranked first in the world among such governments since the downfall of the fascist governments of Germany, Italy and Japan.”
So, Mr. Burstein, once again you are defeated by your own logic! No matter how hard you try, you cannot turn Chairman Mao into a social-chauvinist lover of the dictatorship of the U.S. big bourgeoisie! We would like to ask you: has U.S. imperialism become less aggressive and more “democratic” since the days when, following World War II, it stepped into the shoes of the German, Japanese and Italian fascists and embarked on a fascist program of enslavement of the peoples in pursuit of world domination, leading to the barbarous wars of aggression against Korea and Indo-China? No, Mr. Burstein, Chairman Mao cannot be quoted to justify giving up revolution and relying on the U.S. superpower to “fight” the Russian superpower!
Throughout the article, Mr. Burstein’s methods are the same. But this political blackmail can find no support in the works of Chairman Mao.
3) THE OL’S “THREE WORLDS” THESIS HIDES THE KEY PROBLEM IN THE WORLD TODAY
The OL states that the strategy of world revolution must be based on the alleged division of the world into “Three Worlds”. According to Burstein, this division answers on a world scale the questions: “Who are our friends? Who are our enemies?” asked by Chairman Mao in his article “Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society” and quoted in Burstein’s article. World events are allegedly determined and world revolution advanced by the struggle between these “Three Worlds”.
We hold that the theory of “Three Worlds” is wrong from almost every aspect. But its most crucial failure is that it hides from the revolutionary masses the key problem which determines events on a national and international scale, the real way that the revolutionary class struggle is being fought. This key problem is the ruthless struggle between the forces of aggressive imperialism and slavery, the whole bourgeois-imperialist world, headed by the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, on the one hand, and, on the other, the forces of socialism and freedom, consisting of the socialist countries, the world proletarian movement and the liberation movement of the oppressed nations. The fundamental division in the world, the key struggle, is not between “Three Worlds” but is between these two forces, between counter-revolution and revolution.
This struggle is a class struggle. It leads, through different stages in different countries, to proletarian revolution and the proletarian dictatorship, to socialism and communism. In the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, this class struggle expresses itself in the national liberation movement against the international big bourgeoisie, a movement which gives rise to new-democratic revolution followed by the socialist revolution. Both of these two basic forces exist within each of the “Three Worlds” outlined by the October League, and within every country in the world. The theory of “Three Worlds” therefore hides the real nature of the two forces whose battle is determining the fate of mankind. It is the division of the world into these two basic forces which determines the “real friends” and “real enemies” of the proletariat, who is revolutionary and who is counter-revolutionary. Only this division of the world can be the basis of the strategy of the world revolution.
In fact, the OL leaders do not really believe that the fundamental division in the world is a division into “Three Worlds”. This is only a revolutionary-sounding smokescreen. This smokescreen provides them with the analysis of the Soviet Union as “more aggressive” than the U.S. and the target of the “main blow” of the world’s people, of the “Third World” as “independent” of U.S. neo-colonialism and of the “Second World” as a force against hegemonism of which, naturally, the Soviet Union is the real devil. These are perfect ingredients for an alliance with U.S. imperialism against Soviet social-imperialism. This is what the OL really believes to be the main division in the world today. Mobilizing support for inter-imperialist rivalry and war is the aim pursued by the social-chauvinist OL leaders in propagating the opportunist thesis of “Three Worlds”.
4) THE MARXIST-LENINIST CONCEPT OF TWO WORLD FORCES AS PRESENTED BY LENIN, STALIN, CHAIRMAN MAO AND ENVER HOXHA
Since the October Revolution ushered in the era of world proletarian socialist revolution, Marxism-Leninism has held that the world has been fundamentally divided into the forces of proletarian socialist revolution, led by the international communist movement, and the forces of bourgeois counter-revolution, headed by the big bourgeoisie of the imperialist great powers. Chairman Mao, a great Leninist, has always adhered to this strategic line, despite OL’s claims to the contrary.
In 1919, Comrade Lenin, the great teacher and leader of the workers and oppressed people of the world, delineated these two forces in his “Preliminary Draft of Theses on the National and Colonial Questions” presented to the Second Congress of the Communist International. He said:
“The world political situation has now placed the dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day, and all events in world politics are inevitably revolving around one central point, viz., the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Soviet Russian Republic, around which are inevitably grouping, on the one hand, the movement for Soviets among the advanced workers of all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities, whom bitter experience is teaching that there can be no salvation for them except in the victory of the Soviet system over world imperialism.”
These forces are fundamentally the same today, although capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union and its place at the head of revolution has been taken by socialist China and Albania. Clearly Lenin regarded the national liberation movement as part of the world proletarian socialist revolution.
Comrade Stalin, Lenin’s disciple, defined the era in the same terms in his work summing up the basic principles of Leninism, The Foundations of Leninism. He pointed out:
Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution.
In 1925, Stalin wrote:
“... the world has split into two camps – the capitalist camp, headed by Anglo-American capital,and the socialist camp, headed by the Soviet Union.
“... the international situation will to an increasing degree be determined by the relations between these two camps.” (“The Results of the Work of the Fourteenth Conference of the R.C.P. (B)”
Regarding the revolutionary torrent of national liberation in Asia, Africa and Latin America which burst forth following World War I and the October Revolution, Stalin wrote in 1918 that the October Revolution had “created a new front of revolutions against world imperialism, extending from the proletarians of the West, through the Russian Revolution, to the oppressed peoples of the East.” (“The October Revolution and the National Question”) Thus Stalin also pointed out that the great current of the national liberation movement had become part of the forces of the world proletarian revolution facing the savage imperialist bourgeoisie.
This is how Comrades Lenin and Stalin defined the basic forces of our epoch and drew attention to the key problem of world politics, a problem which has remained fundamentally the same ever since. Thus they clearly divided the world into two basic forces, not into “Three Worlds”.
Chairman Mao was a great Leninist and closely followed the teachings of Lenin and Stalin on the nature of the two forces in struggle with each other in the epoch world proletarian socialist revolution. In 1926, in the exact same article from which the OL leaders have ,taken the quotation about “friends” and “enemies”, he wrote:
“... the present world situation is such that the two major forces, revolution and counter-revolution, are locked in final struggle. Each has hoisted a huge banner: one is the red banner of revolution held aloft by the Third International as the rallying cry for all the oppressed classes of the world, and the other is the white banner of counter-revolution held aloft by the League of Nations as the rallying point for all the counter-revolutionaries of the world.”
In 1939, in his great work “On New Democracy”, Chairman Mao developed the Leninist thesis that the national liberation movement had become part of the world proletarian revolution. He declared that anti-imperialist revolutions in the colonies and semi-colonies “can no longer be regarded as allies of the counterrevolutionary front of world capitalism; they have become allies of the revolutionary front of world socialism. This allows no room for a “Third World” or “third force”.
In 1957, eleven years after he made the statement about the intermediate zone (quoted in section 2 of this article) used by Burstein to claim that he recognized a “Third World”, Chairman Mao made his famous statement that the “East Wind” had prevailed over the “West Wind”:
“It is my opinion that the international situationhas reached a new turning point. There are twowinds in the world today. The East Wind and the West Wind. There is a Chinese saying, ’Either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind, or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind.’ I believe it is characteristic of the situation today that the East Wind is prevailing over the West Wind. That is to say, the forces of socialism have become overwhelmingly superior to the forces of imperialism.” (“Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist andWorkers’ Parties”)
This very clearly presented the existence of two basic forces, those of socialism and those of imperialism.
In 1960, in the heat of the struggle against Khruschevite revisionism, the international communist movement drew up the programmatic “Statement of 81 Communist and Workers Parties” at the historic Moscow Meeting. Its definition of the epoch sharply outlined the two basic forces. (This definition was explicitly endorsed by the Communist Party of China in its “Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement” drawn up under Chairman Mao’s personal leadership in 1963.) The Moscow statement reads:
“Our time, whose main content is the transition from capitalism to socialism initiated by the Great October Socialist Revolution, is a time of struggle between two opposing social systems, a time of socialist revolutions and national-liberation revolutions, a time of the breakdown of imperialism, of the abolition of the colonial system, a time of transition of more peoples to the socialist path, of the triumph of socialism and communism on a worldwide scale.”
At the two Congresses of the Communist Party of China held since then, the same basic line of the division of the world into two forces was adhered to. The Ninth Party Congress Report, drawn up under Chairman Mao’s guidance, allowed for the changes brought about by the emergence of social-imperialism and stated:
“The general trend of the world today is still as Chairman Mao described it: ’The enemy rots with every passing day, while for us things get better daily.’ On the one hand, the revolutionary movement of the proletariat of the world and of the people of various countries is surging forward.... On the other hand, U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionist social-imperialism are bogged down in political and economic crises and beset with difficulties both at home and abroad and find themselves in an impasse.”
The Tenth Congress Report said:
“On the international front, our Party must uphold proletarian internationalism, uphold the Party’s consistent policies, strengthen our unity with the proletariat and the oppressed people of the whole world and with all countries subjected to imperialist aggression, subversion, interference, control or bullying and form the broadest united front against imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism, and in particular, against the hegemonism of the two superpowers – the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.”
Thus the theory of “Three Worlds” as a “great strategic concept” of world revolution was never adopted by any congress of the Communist Party of China during Chairman Mao’s lifetime. There is no comfort for the OL falsifiers of history in these reports.
Chairman Mao condemned the Chinese capitalist-roader, Teng Hsiao-ping, on this very question:
“This person does not grasp class struggle; he has never referred to this key link. Still his theme of ’white cat, black cat’, making no distinction between imperialism and Marxism.” (Peking Review, April 2, 1976)
These words were among Chairman Mao’s final statements before his death. They pose the key question with the greatest sharpness and clarity: To lead revolution, one must grasp classes and class struggle, one must make the fundamental distinction between the two basic forces of imperialism and Marxism, that is, between the forces of counter-revolution led by the superpowers and the forces of revolution led by the Marxist-Leninist communist movement.
Comrade Enver Hoxha, First Secretary of the Party of Labor of Albania and continuer of the work of Lenin, Stalin and Chairman Mao, clearly described the two basic forces of today in his historic Report to the Seventh Congress of the PLA November 1, 1976:
“Facing imperialism, social-imperialism and their savage aggressive and expansionist activity, facing the bourgeoisie, the international monopolies and their barbarous exploitation, facing reaction and its violence and terror, with multiplied forces stand the world proletariat and the staunch revolutionaries, the peoples that are struggling for freedom and democracy, for socialism...
“It is this broadening and deepening of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, this great intensification of the liberation struggle of the peoples, the victories of socialism, all taken together, that have further weakened imperialism and social-imperialism, that have sharpened the contradictions of the capitalist system and shaken it to its foundations.”
Thus Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha all adhered to the Leninist theory of two basic world forces, the counter-revolutionary forces headed by the imperialist big powers and the revolutionary forces led by the Marxist-Leninist parties. This is the line of all the genuine Marxist-Leninists who battle against Titoite, Khruschevite and all other brands of revisionism and opportunism. One can see why the OL leaders must resort to blatant political blackmail to put across their fraud: any examination of the Marxist-Leninist classics would bring their house of cards tumbling down. “Three Worlds” was never a “great strategic concept” of Chairman Mao’s; instead, it is an opportunist concoction of revisionists like the leaders of the October League.
5) “THREE WORLDS” OPPOSES THE LENINIST CONCEPT OF FOUR MAJOR WORLD CONTRADICTIONS IN OUR EPOCH
To further illustrate the consistent Marxist-Leninist line of two basic forces in contention in our epoch, let us look at the Leninist view of the four major world contradictions as presented by Stalin and Chairman Mao. This, too, will provide no comfort for the OL falsifiers. There is no contradiction between the existence of four major world contradictions and of two basic world forces; looking at the four contradictions shows you the composition of the two forces. Such a major event as the alleged division of the world into “Three Worlds” since 1945 could only be based on a change in the major world contradictions. But instead of expressing such a change, the “Three Worlds” theory is an opportunist concoction which covers up and negates the most important contradictions.
InThe Foundations of Leninism, Stalin described the existence of three “most important” contradictions in the old world: 1. “the contradiction between labour and capital”; 2. “the contradiction among the various financial groups and imperialist Powers in their struggle for sources of raw materials, for foreign territory”; and 3. “the contradiction between the handful of ruling ’civilized’ nations and the hundreds of millions of the colonial and dependent peoples of the world.” Besides these contradictions in the old world, there also existed the contradiction between socialist countries, at that time the Soviet Union, and imperialism. These constitute the four major world contradictions of our epoch. As we have seen, Stalin considered that socialism, the proletariat and the national liberation movement constituted a single “socialist camp” opposed to the “capitalist camp”.
In 1945 Chairman Mao wrote, confirming Stalin’s analysis:
“Today, there are still three major contradictions in the old world, as Stalin pointed out long ago: first, the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries; second, the contradiction between the various imperialist powers; and third, the contradiction between the colonial and semi-colonial countries and the imperialist metropolitan countries.”
And in the 1969 Ninth Congress Report, drawn up under Chairman Mao’s guidance, the same major contradictions were analyzed and their particular features brought up to date. Taking account of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and nearly all the European People’s Democracies and the emergence of Soviet social-imperialism, the Report analyzed the four major contradictions as follows:
“... there are four major contradiction in the world today: the contradiction between the oppressed nations on the one hand and imperialism and social-imperialism on the other; the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries; the contradiction between imperialist and social-imperialist countries and among the imperialist countries; and the contradiction between socialist countries on the one hand and imperialism and social- imperialism on the other.”
Thus, throughout our epoch, the major contradictions have not changed in any fundamental way.
A look at the four contradictions will show the existence of the two forces and their struggle against each other. The contradiction between the oppressed nations and imperialism and social-imperialism gives rise to national democratic revolutions. The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries gives rise to proletarian socialist revolutions. The contradiction between socialist countries and imperialism and social-imperialism gives rise to socialist countries standing forth as the bastions of world revolution. These three contradictions are contradictions between the people of the world and the enemy, imperialism, social-imperialism and their lackeys. The contradiction among the imperialist and social-imperialist countries, a contradiction in the enemy camp, gives rise to inter-imperialist rivalry and wars. Thus the major world contradictions, in their present form as in the past, give rise to the revolutionary forces and the counter-revolutionary forces according to the basic division of the world outlined by Lenin, Stalin, Chairman Mao and Enver Hoxha.
However, the Chinese revisionist Teng Hsiao-ping declared in his speech at the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly in 1974 that a “drastic division and realignment” of political forces had taken place in the world, creating a new division of the world into “Three Worlds”. He pointed to three developments to “prove” this analysis: 1. the achievement of formal political independence by scores of former colonies; 2. the alleged “disintegrating” of the western imperialist bloc in recent years; and 3. the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries leading to the alleged destruction of the socialist camp and the emergence of the Soviet Union as a social-imperialist superpower. Let us look at each of the four contradictions and see if this analysis justifies a fundamental division of the world into “Three Worlds” whose struggle against each other determines world events:
1. The contradiction between the oppressed nations and imperialism and social-imperialism. The smashing of the bulk of the colonial system of imperialism by the national liberation movement is indeed a magnificent victory for the national liberation movement and world revolution; but imperialism and social-imperialism have made massive efforts to keep their old connections intact via neo-colonialism. How, then, can it be asserted that these victories fundamentally change the major world contradiction between the oppressed nations and imperialism, creating a new “world” independent of imperialism?
2. The contradiction between imperialism and social-imperialism and among the imperialist powers. The fact that contradictions are sharpening within the western imperialist bloc has not eliminated it as an imperialist bloc, as the existence of the aggressive NATO alliance demonstrates. Furthermore, the sharpening of these contradictions can in no way be understood to mean that they have changed from contradictions in the enemy camp into contradictions between the people and the enemy, as the concept of “anti-hegemonist” European bourgeois states implies.
3. The contradiction between socialist countries and imperialism and social-imperialism. The restoration of capitalism in some socialist countries has not eliminated socialist countries as a force (over 800 million people, one-quarter of mankind, live under the socialist system), but this theory negates the existence of socialist China and Albania, placing China in the “Third World” and Albania in the “Second World” together with colonial, semi-colonial and imperialist countries.
4. The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries. Teng Hsiao-ping and the OL are so contemptuous of the proletariat that they pass over this major world contradiction in utter silence, negating proletarian revolution in the so-called “Second World” as well as in the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, using the pretext of the destruction by revisionism of the geographically coherent political, economic and military bloc of socialist countries spanning two continents, Teng Hsiao-ping attempts to negate the continued existence of the socialist camp in the sense Stalin gave it, which meant the socialist revolutionary forces including the socialist countries, the world proletariat and the national liberation movement.
Thus Teng Hsiao-ping’s analysis of a “drastic division and realignment” of the world does not indicate a single change in the major world contradictions. But under its banner, national liberation struggle is over, imperialist powers become “progressive”, socialism drops out of the picture, the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries including the superpowers is supposed to be forgotten altogether, and the contradictions between these “worlds” replace the class struggle between the two basic forces in determining world events and history. Thus the “Three Worlds” theory covers up and negates all the major world contradictions.
6) HOW THE OL LEADERS ATTEMPT TO TURN CHAIRMAN MAO INTO A TITOITE REVISIONIST AND FAIL MISERABLY
According to Burstein, Chairman Mao developed the theory of “Three Worlds” as far back as 1946. It was at this time that the revisionist Tito was propagating the anti-communist theory of “red imperialism” and beginning his campaign to split the national liberation movement from socialism and the world proletariat and bring it under the domination of Anglo-American imperialism. Tito called his concept “non-alignment” but it meant essentially the same as the “Third World” concept which Burstein puts into Chairman Mao’s mouth in 1946. Thus Burstein explicitly links the OL’s “Three Worlds” theory of today with the Titoite revisionist version of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. And to “justify” their adherence to the reactionary “Three Worlds” theory, the OL leaders are trying to turn Chairman Mao into a Titoite revisionist. Here is how Burstein attempts this feat:
“Chairman Mao’s views on the third world, although not publicly articulated outside of China until the 1970’s, were developed throughout his work in the period since World War II.
“In 1946, for example, Mao held his famous interview with Anna Louise Strong in which he pointed out: ’The United States and the Soviet Union are separated by a vast zone which includes many capitalist, colonial and semi-colonial countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.’
“Although at that time the Soviet Union was still the citadel of socialism, the conclusion Mao drew is still relevant today.”
Thus, to the OL, the change in the Soviet Union from socialism under Lenin and Stalin’s leadership to capitalism and social-imperialism under Khruschev and Brezhnev is irrelevant. How can one even discuss the role of the vast zone between the socialist countries and the biggest imperialist powers (presently the two superpowers), without being clear on whether a country is an imperialist superpower or the bastion of world revolution? The emergence of social-imperialism changed nothing as far as the OL is concerned, since they blithely equate the intermediate zone of 1946 to, not the intermediate zone of the present, but the area between the U.S. and Russia, who are presently two imperialist contenders for world hegemony. How is this any different, at heart, from the Titoite theory of “red imperialism”, which also negated the difference between socialism and capitalism? (We may remind the OL leaders of the definition of revisionism provided by Chairman Mao in his Red Book of Quotations: that the revisionists “deny the differences between socialism and capitalism”.)
It was on the basis of denying the differences between socialism and capitalism and regarding the Soviet Union as “red imperialism” that the Titoites founded their theory of the “non-aligned” “third force”. As early as 1949, Chairman Mao himself denounced the splittist line being promoted by the Titoites. Speaking of the “principal and fundamental experience the Chinese people have gained”, he said that the external policy of the Chinese people was to;
“... unite in a common struggle with those nations of the world which treat us as equals and unite with the peoples of all countries. That is, ally ourselves with the Soviet Union, with the People’s Democracies and with the proletariat and the broad masses of the people in all other countries, and form an international united front.
“’You are leaning to one side.’ Exactly. The forty years’ experience of Sun Yat-sen and the twenty-eight years’ experience of the Communist Party have taught us to lean to one side, and we are firmly convinced that in order to win victory and consolidate it we must lean to one side. In the light of the experiences accumulated in these forty years and these twenty-eight years, all Chinese without exception must lean either to the side of imperialism or to the side of socialism. Sitting on the fence will not do, nor is there a third road. We oppose the Chiang Kai-shek reactionaries who lean to the side of imperialism, and we also oppose the illusions about a third road.” (“On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship”)
And yet Burstein has the nerve to claim that Chairman Mao held the Titoite theory in 1946! Now we can see just what Chairman Mao did “publically articulate” since 1945! This fraud is typical of the OL leaders, who are not above tampering with the text and line of the “Report to the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of China” in order to turn Lin Piao from an “ultra-Rightist”, as the Congress condemned him, into an “ultra-leftist” to justify OL’s attacks on the U.S. Marxist-Leninists. (See The Call, Oct. 1973) What greater slander of Chairman Mao could there be than to put the words of the revisionist renegade Tito into his mouth?
Burstein carries his attempts to turn Chairman Mao into a Titoite revisionist a step further in the next paragraphs of his article:
“The term “Third World” came into popular usage by the Asian, African and Latin American peoples as the upsurge in their movement for both political and economic independence began to unfold in the 1950s and 1960s. It reflected a rejection of the domination by the big powers and a search for unity among each other.
“From the historic Bandung Conference of 1955, attended by Chou En-lai, to the present day, Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China firmly united with this great movement, pointing out that China, too, is a country of the third world. Chairman Mao’s definition of the third world and the role it is playing today provides a scientific class understanding of the third world movement.”
As a matter of fact, the term “Third World” was not popularized by the revolutionary forces; it was promoted surreptitiously by the Titoites and openly by British and U.S. imperialists from the early 1950’s to undermine the national liberation movement. One of its first public promotions was at a conference of Asian Socialist Parties (of the revisionist Second International) held in Burma in 1953 and attended by social-democratic parties of several former British colonies in Asia, by the Titoites and by the Israeli Zionists. Throughout this period, Tito himself was so well aware of the unpopularity of the term and concept of “Third World” or “third bloc” that he vociferously denied that he was organizing one, including in his speeches at the 1961 First Conference of Heads of State of Non-Aligned Countries. We have seen above how Chairman Mao in 1949 and the international communist movement in 1960 denounced the theory of a “third road” of “third force”. Thus what the OL means about “popular usage” of this term in the 50’s and 60’s is the attempt to popularize it by the imperialists and the Titoites, an attempt forcefully denounced by Chairman Mao himself as well as the international communist movement. This kind of “popular usage” did not “reflect a rejection of the domination by the big powers and a search for unity among each other”, as Burstein claims, but a capitulation to U.S. and British imperialism and a desire to split with the genuine national liberation movement, the proletariat and socialism.
At the Bandung Conference itself, cited by Burstein as an example of China’s “support” for the “Three Worlds” concept; it was necessary for the Chinese delegation to oppose the “third force” line of the Titoites as it manifested itself there in order to uphold the conference’s orientation of struggle against the colonial system of imperialism. There the Chinese delegation had to firmly oppose the attempts of some pro-imperialist elements to label the Soviet Union a colonial power and to isolate China in Asia. The attempt was defeated and the anti-imperialist orientation upheld as a result of the struggle of the Chinese delegation and the progressive forces. The attempt to isolate China in Asia was smashed.
As can be seen, it is quite impossible for the October League to turn Chairman Mao into a supporter of Titoite revisionism or of the Titoite “Three Worlds” theory. But in doing so, Burstein inseparably links the OL’s “Three Worlds” theory to its Titoite predecessor, revealing that it is the OL social-chauvinists who have degenerated to the level of Titoite revisionism.
7) HOW THE THEORY OF “THIRD FORCE” AROSE
Burstein links OL’s “Three Worlds” theory explicitly with the theory of “third force” as it was developed by Titoite revisionism after World War II. The Titoite clique, the special detachment of U.S. and British imperialism in the revolutionary movement at the time, advocated the theory of a “non-aligned”, “non-bloc” “third force”. During World War II the revisionist Tito, leader of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, developed the view that the socialist Soviet Union led by Stalin was an imperialist country, a theory promoted by Anglo-American imperialism under the notorious anti-communist slogan “red imperialism”. Making no distinction between Marxism and imperialism, Tito capitulated to U.S. and British imperialism and became their agent in the interntional communist movement. The Titoites were exposed and expelled from the international communist movement by the Communist Information Bureau led by Stalin in 1948, but they continued to spread their poison within the international workers’ movement and the national liberation movement.
The strengthening of the socialist Soviet Union and the victories of socialism in the eastern European Peoples Democracies, together with the victory of the Chinese Revolution created the socialist camp in the form it existed for a period between the end of the War and the restoration of capitalism in the U.S.S.R. by the Khrushchevite revisionists. The powerful socialist camp exerted a tremendous inspirational and attractive effect on the national liberation movement. The People’s Democracies were liberated from imperialism and, together with the Soviet Union, practiced socialist international relations of equality and mutual aid. At the same time, and encouraged by this influence, the revolutionary national liberation movement surged forward in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The colonial system of imperialism was disintegrating under the blows of the liberation struggles. The great Chinese Revolution, which continued right on to socialism, like a beacon lighted up the path of new-democratic revolution for the oppressed nations. Anti-imperialist unity developed on an unprecedented scale between the socialist countries, world proletariat and the national liberation movement, including the newly-independent states. To sabotage this developing unity, the Titoite revisionists put forth the slogans of “non-bloc” and “non-alignment” and portrayed the socialist camp as an aggressive military alliance identical in nature to the Anglo-American imperialist bloc.
This Titoite theory, aimed at diverting the national liberation movement away from its natural, allies and liquidating it by hitching its wagon to U.S. imperialism, undermining the world revolution. At this time “non-bloc” and “non-aligned” were the terms used by the Titoites, but the British and U.S. imperialists openly described the theory as a “third force” and a “third world”. Tito’s denials that he was creating an anti-socialist “third bloc” were unable to hide what the imperialists openly admitted creating. Under either name, the essence was the same. The “non-aligned” or “third force” concept was meant to indicate that the newly-independent states of Asia, Africa and Latin America constituted a new “world” that was neither capitalist nor socialist, a bloc of states “independent” of imperialism but also detached from the proletariat and the socialist camp. Under this “roof” the oppressed peoples were to be “protected” from western imperialism and so-called “red imperialism” alike. Thus the “non-aligned”, “third force” concept of the Titoites attempted to seize upon the winning of formal political independence by many former colonies to split the national liberation movement from socialism in order to liquidate the forward motion of the national liberation movement. The intention was to hold the oppressed nations under the control of U.S. and western neo-colonialism and undermine the world revolution.
In 1961 the First Conference of Heads of State of Non-Aligned Countries took place. The pro-imperialist Titoites hosted the conference while socialist China and other socialist countries were excluded. Under Tito’s influence, this conference condemned the two blocs in the same terms. This weakened the unity of the national liberation movement with socialism and the world proletariat. This activity of the Titoites served U.S. and British imperialism in a big way.
Tito’s activities were sharply denounced in the historic anti-revisionist speech given by Comrade Enver Hoxha at the 1960 Moscow Meeting of 81 Communist and Workers Parties:
“We are living at a time when we are witnessing the total destruction of colonialism, the elimination of this plague that wiped peoples from the face of the earth. New states are springing up in Africa and Asia. The states where capital, the scourge, and the bullet reigned supreme, are putting an end to the yoke of bondage, and the people are taking their destiny into their own hands. This has been achieved thanks to the struggle of these people and the moral support given them by the Soviet Union, People’s China, and the other countries of the socialist camp.
“Traitors to Marxism-Leninism, agents of imperialism and intriguers like Josif Broz Tito, try in a thousand ways, by hatching up diabolic schemes like the creation of a third force, to mislead these people and the newly-set up states, to detach them from their natural allies, to hitch them up to U.S. imperialism. We should exert all our efforts to defeat the schemes of these lackeys of imperialism.”
The Statement of 81 Communist and Workers Parties issued by the meeting as the programmatic document of the international communist movement stated:
“The Yugoslav revisionists carry on subversive work against the socialist camp and the world Communist movement. Under the pretext of an extra-bloc policy, they engage in activities which prejudice the unity of all the peace-loving forces and countries.”
This is the origin of the Titoite theory of a “non-aligned” “third force”. And this is how it was condemned by the international communist movement.
As we have seen, Burstein explicitly links OL’s “Three Worlds” theory to the Titoite theory of the post-War period. This open confession of kinship is quite revealing. Using the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and nearly all the eastern European People’s Democracies and the emergence of social-imperialism as an excuse, the OL refurbished the Titoite theory, bringing it up to date while trying to make their version appear different from Titoism. In appearance, “red imperialism” is dropped and the OL’s theory seems to mean “non-aligned” or “independent” of either imperialist superpower. But, as before, no distinction is made between Marxism and imperialism. Using the pretext of the destruction of the socialist camp in its post-War form, this theory negates socialism altogether. Socialist China and Albania are converted into members of the “Third” or “Second World” as if they were bourgeois states. In the place of an alliance with socialism, the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, under the banner of “non-alignment”, are to be aligned with the reactionary monopoly bourgeoisie in Europe and are to be ruled by the reactionary bourgeoisie of the “Third World”. These elements are to be called “anti-hegemonist” and “anti-imperialist”, even though most of them are closely linked politically, economically and militarily with U.S. imperialism. The “fire” of the world’s people is to be aimed mainly at Russia, which is the “more aggressive” superpower.
Thus both the OL’s “Three Worlds” theory and Titoite revisionism’s “third force” theory advocate the detachment of the national liberation movement from its genuine natural allies and from the path of genuine liberation and socialism. They both paint a dream world of a “bloc” of states “non-aligned” or “independent” of both socialism and imperialism, an impossibility in our era, an era in which two basic forces, imperialism and the proletarian revolution, are in life-and-death struggle. In this way, the OL’s “Three Worlds” concept tries to split the national liberation movement from socialism and liquidate it by tying it to imperialism. In addition, as we have seen, it opposes socialism and the proletariat and advocates an alliance with U.S. imperialism against Soviet social-imperialism and thus hands the world over to the bourgeoisie. Truly, Messrs. Burstein, Klonsky and co. are worthy heirs to the revisionist renegade Tito!
8) THE OL’S “THREE WORLDS” THEORY OPPOSES CHAIRMAN MAO’S THEORY OF NEW-DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION
Burstein declares the OL to be supporters of Chairman Mao’s theory of new-democratic revolution. He praises the work “On New Democracy” in which Chairman Mao developed the Marxist-Leninist line on the nature and role of the national liberation movement in our epoch. Burstein even calls Chairman Mao’s theory on this subject “perhaps the most crucial factor in Chairman Mao’s concept of three worlds” and says that “his writings on this subject... have had a far-reaching impact on the development of the third world movement as well as the Marxist-Leninist forces throughout the world.” But here the October League is slapping itself in the face. Chairman Mao’s works have indeed had a most “far-reaching impact”, but not the sort of impact Burstein thinks. Chairman Mao’s theory of new-democratic revolution is the diametrical opposite of the “Three Worlds” theory. It, and not the opportunist “Three Worlds” concept, has laid out the common path for the national liberation movement of the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Chairman Mao based his theory firmly on Leninism. According to Chairman Mao, the national democratic revolutionary movement, or the national liberation movement,and the socialist revolutionary movement are the two great historical currents of our time. In our era the national liberation movement has become an integral part of the world proletarian socialist revolution. At present, the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America are the storm centers of the world revolution. They are pounding and undermining the rule of imperialism and social-imperialism and are a mighty force opposing the launching of a new world war by the superpowers. The national liberation movement cannot be detached from the proletarian revolution as Tito and other revisionists try to do. The genuine socialist countries and the world proletarian movement are the faithful and true allies of the national liberation movement, while imperialism and the world capitalist system cannot tolerate it. In order for the national democratic revolutionary movement to win thorough victory, it must ally itself externally with the lands of socialism and the world proletariat; internally, it must come under the leadership of a proletarian revolutionary party. This revolution is a democratic revolution of a new type, led by the proletariat and comprising part of the forces of the world proletarian socialist revolution; it must pass through the stage of new-democratic revolution led by the proletariat, in which imperialism, feudalism and the sell-out bourgeoisie are overthrown, and the stage of proletarian socialist revolution, in which the entire bourgeoisie is overthrown and the soil for its regeneration eliminated, in order to achieve communism.
But the “Three Worlds” concept denies Chairman Mao’s theory. It attempts to detach the national liberation movement from socialism and from proletarian leadership. It creates the illusion that thorough-going independence and democracy can be won (and largely has been won) without a new-democratic revolution. It detaches the liberation movement from socialism and the international proletariat. It spreads the illusion that independence and democracy are won on the basis of the creation of a group of states under bourgeois or feudal rule “non-aligned” with either imperialism or socialism, a “Third World” “independent” of the superpowers and socialism. Thus the “Three Worlds” theory attempts to split the two great historical currents, national liberation and socialist revolution, from each other in hopes of liquidating both and the world revolution. At the same time, it minimizes the danger of imperialism, which maintains its hold on its former colonies in a thousand ways. Thus the basic question posed by the “Three Worlds” theory for the revolutionary movement is: can there be a “Third World” independent of both imperialism and socialism, or is this a deception aimed at liquidating the revolutionary forces?
In the following three sections of this article we present: 1. Chairman Mao’s theory that the new-democratic revolution is part of the world proletarian socialist revolution; 2. how the October League concocts a “new stage” of the national liberation movement, a stage consisting solely of economic tasks, in an attempt to liquidate it completely; and 3. how the OL apologizes for the neo-colonial elements tied to imperialism under the banner that “the entire third world is objectively progressive”.
9) THE NEW-DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IS PART OF THE WORLD PROLETARIAN SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
Chairman Mao’s theory of new-democratic revolution categorically denies the possibility of a “Third World” or a “third road” independent of imperialism and socialism in the present era, the era of world proletarian socialist revolution. In 1939, in his classic work “On New Democracy” he wrote:
“In this era, any revolution in a colony or semi-colony that is directed against imperialism, i.e., against the international bourgeoisie or international capitalism, no longer comes within the old category of the bourgeois-democratic world revolution, but within the new category. It is no longer part of the old bourgeois, or capitalist, world revolution, but is part of the new world revolution, the proletarian- socialist world revolution. Such revolutionary colonies and semi-colonies can no longer be regarded as allies of the counter-revolutionary front of world capitalism; they have become allies of the revolutionary front of world socialism.
“Although such a revolution in a colonial and semi-colonial country is still fundamentally bourgeois- democratic in its social character during its first stage or first step, and although its objective mission is to clear the path for capitalism, it is no longer a revolution of the old type led by the bourgeoisie with the aim of establishing a capitalist society and a state under bourgeois dictatorship. It, belongs to the new type of revolution led by the proletariat with the aim, in the first stage, of establishing a new-democratic society and a state under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes. Thus this revolution actually serves the purpose of clearing a still wider path for the development of socialism....”
Explicitly pointing out that a “third”, independent capitalist, road is impossible, he added:
“What about the road to a capitalist society under bourgeois dictatorship?. ..
“Judging by the international situation, that road is blocked. In its fundamentals the present international situation is one of a struggle between capitalism and socialism, in which capitalism is on the downgrade and socialism on the upgrade....this is the period of the final struggle of dying imperialism – imperialism is “moribund capitalism”. But just because it is dying, it is all the more dependent on colonies and semi-colonies for survival and will certainly not allow any colony or semi-colony to establish anything like a capitalist society under the dictatorship of its own bourgeoisie.”
Further, in this work Chairman Mao quoted from Stalin’s article “The October Revolution and the National Question” written in 1918:
“The great world-wide significance of the October Revolution chiefly consists in the fact that:
“1) It has widened the scope of the national question and converted it from the particular question of combating national oppression in Europe into the general question of emancipating the oppressed peoples, colonies and semi-colonies from imperialism;
“2) It has opened up wide possibilities for their emancipation and the right paths towards it, has thereby greatly facilitated the cause of the emancipation of the oppressed peoples of the West and the East, and has drawn them into the common current of the victorious struggle against imperialism:
“3) It has thereby erected a bridge between the socialist West and the enslaved East; having created a new front of revolutions against world imperialism, extending from the proletarians of the West, through the Russian Revolution, to the oppressed peoples of the East.”
Thus the OL’s little trick of equating the opportunist “Three Worlds” concept with Chairman Mao’s theory of new-democratic revolution is a fraud. Nothing can erase the fact that Chairman Mao held that in the present era the national liberation movement is an inseparable part of the world proletarian socialist revolution. Thus the OL leaders are not supporters of Chairman Mao’s line on the national liberation movement, the line which guides this movement on a world scale, but are its opponents and, consequently, are opponents of the national liberation movement.
10) THE OL LIQUIDATES THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT BY HOLDING THAT ITS POLITICAL TASKS ARE FINISHED AND ONLY ECONOMIC TASKS REMAIN
In accordance with their opposition to Chairman Mao’s theory of new-democratic revolution, to the general nature of the national liberation movement and its role in the world revolution, the OL leaders have concocted a “new stage” for that movement, a “stage” which denies that the movement still faces political tasks and thus, again, negates the movement altogether. This “new stage” is an important part of the theory of “Three Worlds”. Burstein writes;
“Although most of the third world countries have now won formal independence through brave armed struggle and dedication to the cause of liberation, today they all still face the task of winning their economic independence by combating the continued neo-colonial influence and domination of imperialism.
“Chairman Mao paid the closest attention to the great armed liberation struggles of Indochina, Africa and the Mideast. China gave these struggles every possible support. He also took a keen interest in the attempts by the already independent countries to unite and throw off the shackles of imperialist domination in their economies, such as the movement of the OPEC countries or the demand for the 200-mile fishing limit off coastal waters.”
Thus, with the exception of some openly colonial questions like Israeli Zionism, southern Africa and formerly Indochina, the OL leaders believe that throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America complete political independence has been won, the political tasks of the national liberation movement (and the armed struggle) are finished, and all that remains is the task of establishing economic independence and carrying out economic development. “Neo-colonial influence” is restricted to an economic question. For example, the movement for economic, decolonization is now surging forward in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But the OL creates the illusion that this movement can go on without facing the frenzied political, military, economic and cultural aggression from the superpowers and without struggle against it.
This is an eclectic revisionist theory, an apology for neo-colonialism. In fact, politics is the concentrated expression of economics. Imperialism continues to control the economic lifelines of nearly all the newly-independent states. This necessarily means that their state is either wholly or partially controlled by imperialism. Hence the national liberation struggle in the political sphere is not finished in the majority of these countries. It can only be finished when the country has completed the new-democratic revolution led by the proletariat, overthrown imperialism and feudalism, and is embarking on the socialist revolution. And even then the question of carrying through the revolution to the end is primarily political. In the later 50’s and early 60’s, the Khruschevite revisionists came up with the same theory as the OL is presenting today. The Communist Party of China denounced it as follows:
“The leaders of the CPSU have also created the theory that the national liberation movement has entered upon a ’new stage’ having economic tasks as its core. Their argument is that, whereas ’formerly, the struggle was carried on mainly in the political sphere’, today the economic question had become the “central task” and “the basic link in the further development of the revolution.
“The national liberation movement has entered a new stage. But this is by no means the kind of ’new stage’ described by the leadership of the CPSU. In the new stage, the level of political consciousness of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples has risen;higher than ever and the revolutionary movement is surging forward with unprecedented intensity. They urgently demand the thorough elimination of the forces of imperialism and its lackeys in their own countries and strive for complete political and economic independence. The primary and most urgent task facing these countries is still the further development of the struggle against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys. This struggle is still being waged fiercely in the political, economic, military, cultural, ideological and other spheres. And the struggles in all these spheres still find their most concentrated expression in political struggle, which often unavoidably develop s into armed struggle, when the imperialists resort to direct or indirect armed suppression. It is important for the newly independent countries to develop their independent economy. But this task must never be separated from the struggle against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys. Like ’the disappearance of colonialism’, this theory of a ’new stage’ advocated by the leaders of the CPSU is clearly intended to whitewash the aggression against and plunder of Asia, Africa and Latin America by neo-colonialism as represented by the United States, to cover up the sharp contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations and to paralyse the revolutionary struggle of the people of these continents.
“According to this theory of theirs, the fight against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys is, of course, no longer necessary, for colonialism is disappearing and economic development has become the central task of the national liberation movement. Does it not follow that the national liberation movement can be done away with altogether? Therefore, the kind of ’new stage’ described by the leaders of the CPSU, in which economic tasks are in the centre of the picture, is clearly nothing but one of no opposition to imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys, a stage in which the national liberation movement is no longer desired.” (“Apologists of Neo-Colonialism”, Peking, 1963)
With the “Three Worlds” thesis, the OL, thus, has concocted a similar “new stage” with economic tasks as its core, hardly different from the Khruschevite “new stage”. With this thesis, the OL, too, is trying to undermine the struggle of the people of the newly independent states by white-washing the neo-colonialism of U.S. imperialism, the biggest neo-colonial power in the world. To the OL leaders, like the Khruschevite revisionists, the national liberation movement really “is no longer desired”. They are the new apologists of neo-colonialism in the U.S., a role befitting their great-power chauvinist nature since the national liberation movement is directed, in large part, against “their own” bourgeoisie.
The OL’s “new stage” is nothing but a re-hash of Liu Shao-chi’s theory of productive forces, and is utopian to boot. We have seen how Chairman Mao showed that the path of developing an independent ’ capitalist state under a bourgeois dictatorship is blocked by imperialism, which will sooner or later turn a country attempting it into a neo-colony. To claim that this path is open is to advocate a path which leads to capitulation to neo-colonialism and imperialism and liquidation of the national liberation movement. Lenin warned against such deception at the Second Congress of the Communist International, speaking of:
“... the need constantly to explain and expose among the broadest masses of the toilers of all countries, and particularly of the backward countries, the deception systematically practiced by the imperialist powers in creating, under the guise of politically independent states, states which are wholly dependent upon them economically, financially and militarily; under modern international conditions there is no salvation for dependent and weak nations except in a union of Soviet republics.” (“Preliminary Draft of Theses on the National and Colonial Questions”)
To ignore this question, to detach politics from economics as the OL leaders do, is to apologize for neo-colonialism. This is a further exposure of how the OL’s “Three Worlds” theory opposes the national liberation movement against imperialism, social-imperialism and their lackeys.
11. THE OL APOLOGIZES FOR NEO-COLONIALISM BY MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE PROGRESSTVE FORCES AND NEO-COLONIALIST FORCES IN ASIA, AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA
The theory of“Three Worlds” also opposes Chairman Mao’s theory of new-democratic revolution by mystifying the question of the “real friends” and “real enemies” of the oppressed nations, the very question the OL claimed that it solved. It does this by ignoring the class criterion in assessing political forces. Consequently it includes within the camp of the people the reactionary bourgeoisie and feudal landlords of these countries, who are tied to imperialism. This runs directly counter to the desires of the millions of oppressed and exploited workers and peasants and other patriotic, anti-feudal sections of the population, against the sincere aspirations for liberation of all who stand for unity against imperialism and particularly the superpowers.
According to Burstein, the “Third World” countries have taken “consistent steps” against the superpowers and “the movement of the entire third world was (is) objectively progressive. ” He says:
“Although class and national differences still exist throughout the third world, the main trend is to- wards unity against the superpowers. Even though most third world countries are ruled by their national bourgeoisie or even feudal elements, the thrust of the third world struggle is profoundly revolutionary and deserving of the support of the communists in every country.”
Here we can see that with its “Three Worlds” theory the OL is playing upon the sincere desire of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America to unite against imperialism and social-imperialism, and upon the sincere desire of the proletariat and oppressed people of the U.S. to support the national liberation struggles, in order to promote a theory which hides the existence of neo-colonialism, the mobilization by imperialism of elements in the former colonies who oppose unity and the struggle for liberation. According to the OL, if you want to support the great present-day upsurge of the liberation movement you must also support the reactionary elements in these countries who do the dirty work of imperialism and split and wreck the revolution. Thus the OL’s protestations that it is for “unity” are contrary to the truth. That is the meaning of the OL’s words about the “entire third world” being “objectively progressive”. As for its words “the third world struggle is profoundly revolutionary”, the OL wants to substitute the concept “third world struggle” for the concept of the national liberation movement, a movement which includes all the just struggles in these regions against imperialism but which fights against the elements of compromise and betrayal. The purpose of this statement is the same as the first: to hide the internal enemies of the liberation movement under a glowing picture in which everyone, no matter who, is painted in liberation colors, a picture which hides the reactionary splitters behind the false cloak of “unity”.
Comrade Enver Hoxha, in his Report to the Seventh Congress of the PLA, denounced this deception as follows:
“The slogan of ’non-aligned countries’ gives the false impression that a group of states which have the possibility of “opposing” the superpower blocs is being created. It gives the impression that these countries, all of them, without exception, are anti-imperialist, opposed to war, opposed to the dictate of others, that they are ’democratic’, and even ’socialist’. This helps to strengthen the pseudo- democratic and anti-popular positions of the leading groups of some states which participate among the “non-aligned”..and creates the impression among the peoples of these countries that when their chiefs establish or dissolve relations, of any kind and nature, with the imperialists and the social-imperialists, openly or in secret, they do this not only in the capacity of ’popular governments’, but also in the capacity of a group of states ’with which even the superpowers must reckon’.”
Thus the “Three Worlds” theory not only covers up the neo-colonialist elements but also disarms the peoples by creating the impression that the “consistent steps” of the “objectively progressive” “entire third world” can curb or eliminate the aggressive activities of imperialism and social-imperialism. But according to Leninism, according to Chairman Mao’s theory of new democratic revolution, colonial and semi-colonial society is not “objectively progressive” in its entirety but contains reactionary as well as progressive elements. The “Three Worlds” theory denies the fact that imperialism creates a base for itself inside colonial and semi-colonial countries. This base generally includes such classes as the comprador-bureacrat bourgeoisie and the feudal landlords. For example, the landlord class is part of the internal basis in Indian society for the domination of imperialism and social-imperialism. But the OL’s “Three Worlds” theory lumps together these elements with the genuinely progressive elements and calls them all “objectively progressive” in order to shelter the reactionaries. This theory even negates the vacillating character of the national bourgeoisie, which is at best a temporary and unstable ally of the proletariat, as well as painting all sorts of big bourgeois as national bourgeois. Any revolutionary in such a country who makes the mistake of relying on the OL’s “Three Worlds” analysis will sooner or later have his own head served to him on a platter. Relying on the exploited masses of workers and peasants, the revolutionaries of each country must make a concrete class analysis of the stands of the different forces towards imperialism and towards their own people in order to determine who are the real friends and who are the real enemies of the revolution. Lumping together friend and traitor as “objectively progressive” simply will not do. Further, according to Chairman Mao, the struggle against imperialism only becomes truly “consistent” and resolute and only leads to victory when led by the proletariat and in alliance with the world proletariat and socialism. The OL’s “Three Worlds” theory opposes these conditions and thereby betrays the aspirations and undermines the struggles of the oppressed nations for full independence and democracy.
OL Chairman Mike Klonsky expressed the OL’s apology for neo-colonialist elements and imperialism more explicitly than Burstein in an interview published in The Call June 7, 1976. Speaking of the relationship between the class struggle inside the “Third World” and “Second World” countries and the struggle against the superpowers, he said:
“On this complex question we should always keep in mind who the principal enemies of the world’s people are – the two superpowers – and not raise the contradictions with lesser enemies to the level of the principal contradiction.”
This is a formula of straight-forward surrender of the national democratic revolution in Asia, Africa and Latin America to its internal enemies and thereby to imperialism. In the majority of the countries in these regions, since the smashing of the bulk of the old colonial system, imperialism and social-imperialism have been compelled to carry on their aggression and plunder not by war and direct domination most of the time, but by indirect means, by neo-colonialism. Here the instruments of imperialism are the reactionary bourgeoisie and landlords. Hence the revolution is directed against them. But according to Klonsky, the masses should not struggle against the internal enemies and should certainly not resort to civil war as they are doing in India, Thailand, the Philippines, Colombia, the Congo (Kinshasa) and elsewhere because that would be to commit the sin of “rais(ing) the contradictions with lesser enemies to the level of the principal contradiction”.... Chairman Mao, whom the OL leaders so feebly try to claim as their authority, is the author do this best exposure of Klonsky’s class-capitulationist thesis on how to wage a “profoundly revolutionary” “third world struggle”. He wrote in “On Contradiction”:
“When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position...
“But in another situation, the contradictions change position. When imperialism carries on its oppression not by war, but by milder means – political, economic and cultural – the ruling classes in semi-colonial countries capitulate to imperialism, and the two form an alliance for the joint oppression of the masses of the people. At such a time, the masses often resort to civil war against the alliance of imperialism and the feudal classes, while imperialism often employs indirect methods rather than direct action in helping the reactionaries in the semi-colonial countries to oppress the people, and thus the internal contradictions become particularly sharp.
“When a revolutionary civil war develops to the point of threatening the very existence of imperialism and its running dogs, the domestic reactionaries, imperialism often adopts other methods in order to maintain its rule; it either tries to split the revolutionary front from within or sends armed forces to help the domestic reactionaries directly. At such a time, foreign imperialism and domestic reaction stand quite openly at one pole while the masses of the people stand at the other pole, thus forming the principal contradiction,which determines or influences the development of the other contradictions.”
If the Chinese people had followed Klonsky’s line between 1927 and 1937, for example, they would have capitulated to Chiang Kai-shek and failed to wage the Second Revolutionary Civil War. And if they had followed this line between 1945 and 1949, they would never have liberated China!
The OL, in Burstein’s article, even claims that the way to support the Marxist-Leninist communists of Asia, Africa and Latin America is to support the reactionary bourgeoisie under the “Third World” banner:
As a result, in supporting the general struggle of the third world, we are lending support, first of all, to these revolutionary fighters.
Thus, for example, the way to support the Communist Party of the Philippines is to applaud the enemy of the Filipino people, the U.S. puppet Marcos!
In order to hide the tracks of their apology for neo-colonialism, the OL leaders employ still more political blackmail, in a most despicable way. Burstein writes:
The conception of the third world and China’s actions in support of its struggles were also telling blows to the social-imperialists and modern revisionists. Throughout the world, the social-imperialists call themselves the “natural ally” of the third world but, in fact, seek to weaken and destroy its developing unity, carrying out the old imperialist policy of divide-and-conquer. One of their chief methods for doing this is to split the third world countries into two “camps”, pinning the “progressive” label on those more favorable to the USSR, and “reactionary” on those less favorable or opposed to the USSR. The revisionists, Trotskyists and other opportunists in the U.S. communist movement have served the same purpose with their attacks on the third world.
So, if you criticize the “Three Worlds” theory, if you support unity of the liberation movement on a revolutionary anti-imperialist basis and oppose the attempts of imperialism, social-imperialism and their lackeys to split and liquidate the movement, you are painted with the same brush as the Soviet social-imperialists, as splitters and enemies of the liberation movement! This is really turning truth on its head. How ironic! The OL is really for the genuine unity of the liberation movement – the OL which promotes the elements who capitulate to U.S. imperialism, who oppose resolute national liberation struggle, oppose the proletariat and socialism. How “different” this OL is from the Soviet social-imperialists who promote those cliques who do the same thing while tying themselves to the Soviet Union The real question here is: what is the basis of unity between the U.S. proletariat and the peoples of the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America? Is it to support U.S. imperialism and its neo-colonial lackeys in “opposition” to the Russian devils, as the OL believes? Is it to’ support Russia and its lackeys in “opposition” to the American devils, as the New Tsars and their revisionist agents claim? The Marxist-Leninists and all revolutionary people will not fall into either trap; we hold that the basis of unity is revolution against the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie, the Soviet social-imperialist bourgeoisie, and the reactionaries who are in league with them. For real unity, the American proletariat must fight and overthrow the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, “its own” bourgeoisie, the hangman of the oppressed nations and peoples. The OL’s apology for neo-colonialism liquidates this task, the proletarian internationalist task of the U.S. proletariat by calling for the U.S. proletariat to support the aggressive activities of “its own” imperialist government against the people of the world. The despicable political blackmail of the OL social-chauvinists cannot hide this fact. We of the COUSML are positive that the U.S. working class and all revolutionary people will not fall prey to the October League’s social- chauvinist trap but will fulfill their proletarian internationalist duty to the world’s people with honor. And, in turn, the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America will not tolerate the insult of OL’s support for U.S. imperialism and the neo-colonial traitors to their peoples, but will fight on gloriously to victory.