In Section VIII-D, we begin the discussion of your method of denouncing our views as “peculiar.” We showed that you use the epithet “peculiar” as one way of trying to impose a “special relationship” upon our Party. Among the particular features of your use of the epithet “peculiar” are the following:
In this section, we shall examine a number of theses that you denounce as “peculiar.” We shall show that you are denouncing as “peculiar” the accepted theses of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement or even well-known orthodox theses of Marxism-Leninism. In considering what the accepted theories of present-day revolutionary Marxism-Leninism are, we do not take a consensus or general average of the views prevailing among the Marxist-Leninists, but instead refer to the highest and most profound achievements of contemporary revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. Therefore we shall use as a standard for the accepted theories of present-day revolutionary Marxism-Leninism various works by Comrade Enver Hoxha, such as Imperialism and the Revolution and the Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA. We shall also make extensive use of the book Problems of Current World Development, which consists of the reports submitted to the Scientic Session held in Tirana, Albania on October 2-4, 1978. (We shall refer to this book in this section with the abbreviation “Problems.”) As the classics of Marxism-Leninism and the arbiter of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, we take the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
In your letters of December 5 you deny the present-day activation of revisionism and opportunism. You accuse this of being a peculiar thesis and attack this thesis as a manifestation of “seige mentality.” You write:
As far as the International Marxist-Leninist Communist Movement being ’under tremendous attack from imperialism, revisionism and opportunism’, this is nothing new, because ’imperialism, revisionism and opportunism’ have always attacked the International Communist Movement right from the period of Lenin to date. (p. 2, emphasis added)
You are spreading pessimism, gloom and a siege mentality.... (p. 3, top)
8. Here is pontification of the basest kind: ’The “three-worlders” and the international opportunist trend of Chinese revisionism are occupying one of the advance posts in the ring of fire.’ What does this reactionary chauvinist lecturing mean? It means that we should also follow you down your reactionary freeway of American exceptionalism which you have lit up with these concoctions that ’Chinese revisionism ... (is) occupying one of the advance posts in this ring of fire.’ ...you are using scare-crow tactics to divide [divert? – ed.] the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties from taking up the historic task of proletarian revolution for solution in their own countries and vigorously and resolutely fighting hard against imperialism, social-imperialism and all reaction and against revisionism and opportunism of all hues. Your scare-crow does not scare anyone. It only makes you feel oh so clever that your head, without any respect whatsoever for the International Marxist-Leninist Communist Movement...is able to conjure up these peculiar theses and float them without any sense of shame.... (p. 3, bottom, emphasis added)
These quotations are revisionist trash to deny the struggle against opportunism. To give these utterly revisionist theses some revolutionary coloring, you cloak them in “official optimism” about opportunism. Oh yes, you are “for” the struggle against opportunism in general, as a part of a flowery platitude. But, you say, don’t worry about this struggle, there is “nothing new” to concern oneself about in the sinister work and machinations of the opportunists and revisionists, presumably everyone is an old hand at the struggle, everything is fine and under control, and it is “spreading pessimism, gloom and a siege mentality” to talk about the urgency and burning importance of the struggle against revisionism. All this is reminiscent of Khrushchov’s taunts against the PLA for their struggle against Yugoslav revisionism, the taunts that this struggle only inflates the importance of the Yugoslavs, reflects narrow nationalism, and so on and so forth.
Furthermore, we see that you do not only attack the struggle against the domestic American opportunists as “American exceptionalism,” you attack our talk of the importance of the struggle against Chinese revisionism in general as “reactionary chauvinist lecturing” and “your reactionary freeway of American exceptionalism.” This shows the curses you are throwing right and left at the struggle against opportunism. As well, it shows that you trifle with the terms “chauvinism” and “American exceptionalism” and use them simply to indicate that we disagree with you. You use these phrases as almost interchangeable with your use of the word “peculiar.” If we disagree with you, this is automatically in your eyes not only “peculiar” but “chauvinism” and a “reactionary freeway of American exceptionalism.”
These arguments of yours are diametrically opposed to the theses from the Scientific Sessions held in October of 1978 in Albania. There Fiqret Shehu gave a speech entitled “Broadening and Deepening of the Struggle Against All the Currents of Modern Revisionism – an Historical Necessity.” The point is not that there is “nothing new” in the struggle against opportunism, but that the Marxist-Leninist theory, including its teachings on the struggle against opportunism, retain their ever-new and ever-fresh quality. Comrade Fiqret Shehu pointed out the following:
...Lenin’s well-known thesis that without fighting opportunism, imperialism cannot be fought successfully, always retains its validity and relevance. Indeed, this thesis assumes special importance under the present circumstances when there is no essential difference between revisionism in power and imperialism, between the strategy of the one and that of the other.
Now, in particular, when the bourgeoisie is making extensive use of such agencies as social-democracy and revisionism in its struggle against the cause of the proletariat, the main condition to achieve success in the socialist revolution is the resolute struggle on the part of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary parties against any influence of revisionism and opportunism among the ranks of the proletariat and all working people. {Problems, p. 68; except for the first emphasis, all emphasis added)
The activation of present-day revisionism and opportunism is precisely one of these weapons which the bourgeoisie is using in the present situation of the general crisis of capitalism. (Ibid., p. 71, emphasis added)
In the present situation, all sorts of attacks are being directed against the revolutionary theory of the working class and the great teachers of the proletariat Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin....
What accounts for this unprecedented race between the enemies of Marxism-Leninism to attack and fulminate against the proletarian ideology and its founders and elaborators, to slander them in cynical fashion? (Ibid.. p. 75)
The onslaught which all the enemies of the proletariat have launched against Marxism-Leninism, and their efforts to ’bury’ it are not without precedent in history. More than 100 years ago, the Paris Commune was furiously attacked by world reaction. (Ibid., p. 76)
Two to three decades have gone by since the time when one of the first and most dangerous manifestations of modern revisionism, Tito-ite revisionism, emerged, and since, with the emergence of Khrushchevite revisionism, revisionism was transformed into a retrogressive trend of world-wide proportions. During this period, it has gone through a process of its formation and evolution until it reached the present stage, when more then ever before, it has become a favourite agency of the bourgeoisie.... (Ibid., p. 44)
As regards its extension revisionism has now reached a culmination stage. After this, its utter discredit, inevitable defeat and ruin are bound to follow. But these will not come about automatically or spontaneously.... (Ibid., p. 45, emphasis added)
Comrade Ramiz Alia in his “Closing Speech” pointed out:
“Nowadays it is more necessary than ever to enhance our vigilance on the ideological front.... It is our task to expose and ward off all these attempts of the enemies, either coming from the Khrushchevite, Titoite, or Eurocommunist revisionists, or when they are the off-spring of the so-called Mao Tsetung thought.” (Ibid., pp. 141-42) Comrade Enver Hoxha also speaks against the complacency that there is “nothing new” in Imperialism and the Revolution, He writes that:
The revolution has run into rocks and there are more ahead which must be blown up with explosives. Some must be blown up directly, some must be broken down piecemeal, while some others must be outflanked and then given the finishing blow. (Book form, p. 459; Proletarian Internationalism, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 124, col. 2)
You deny these theses on the present-day activation of> revisionism, social-democracy and opportunism in order to deny or downplay the struggle against opportunism. You write that there is “nothing new” in this struggle “right from the period of Lenin to date.” Thus you counterpose the validity of the Leninist teachings to the question of whether there is anything “new” in the world. This counter-position itself is a gross violation of the Leninist teachings and of Marxist-Leninist dialectics. But there is yet more to your phrase that there is “nothing new...right from the period of Lenin to date.” You do not mean by this that you accept the Leninist teachings, but the exact opposite. We shall see later on that you advocate that the last split that took place in the international communist movement was that between Leninism and social-democracy back in “the period of Lenin.” From this truly and genuinely “peculiar” theory, you go on to elaborate a whole theory of “official optimism” about opportunism. You hold that this question was settled at the time of Lenin and hence that the Leninist teachings concerning the struggle elaborated at the time of the split with social-democracy do not apply anymore. We shall deal with this question further in Sections X-F and X-G.
In your letters of December 5, you accuse us of “highlighting” the struggle against Chinese revisionism. Indeed, you yourself claim that “the crux of the matter,” that is, the deciding or essential issue, in the differences between our two Parties lies in our “highlighting” of the struggle against Chinese revisionism. (See the introduction to Section IX of our letter for the quotations from your letter on this.)
As well, in the quotations from your letter that we gave just above in Section X-A, in denying the present-day activation of revisionism and opportunism you particularly denied the importance of the struggle against Chinese revisionism. You call this one of our Party’s “peculiar” and “American exceptionalist” theses.
But the importance and urgency of the struggle against Chinese revisionism is, however, an accepted thesis of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. This was stressed at the Scientific Sessions in Albania at which the following was said:
At present, without overlooking the earlier revisionist trends, the struggle of the Marxist-Leninist parties against influences from Chinese revsionism and illusions about the pseudo-Marxist, anti-proletarian, petty-bourgeois, populist, electic and pragmatist ideo-theoretical, philosophical-social and political-strategic concepts that it is based on, assumes particular importance. (Problems, p. 81)
In opposition to, and in struggle against, the disruptive stands and actions of the Chinese revisionists, the Marxist-Leninist parties have stepped up their efforts to continuously strengthen the unity and collaboration among themselves and within the framework of the Marxist-Leninist movement as a whole. (Ibid., p. 107)
The present situations, and especially the emergence of Chinese revisionism call for a deeper Marxist-Leninist criticism of the bourgeois-revisionist theories and preachings. (Ibid., pp. 142-43)
Comrade Enver Hoxha also put this forward in his great book Imperialism and the Revolution, He wrote that:
Now for our Party, as well as for all the Marxist-Leninist parties in the world, the struggle against Chinese revisionism should be given the greatest attention. This is an important question, but this does not mean that while dealing with it, we are permitted to forget [the other trends of revisionism – ed.] (Book form, pp. 459-460; Proletarian Internationalism, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 125, col.l)
Furthermore, if one examines the great polemic waged by the Party of Labor of Albania, one sees the great importance placed on the struggle against Chinese revisionism. We have listed some of the works from this powerful and breathtaking polemic in Section IX-A.
You have repeatedly denounced the movement in the U.S. against social-chauvinism as an allegedly “peculiar” movement. For example, you condemned the struggle against social-chauvinism in the discussions of early September 1978, You said that:
It is not struggle against social-chauvinism, but defending the International Communist Movement which is correct. You are a contingent of the International Communist Movement and your obligation is to defend it in your country.
Besides this you develop your ties with the working class. None of the Parties pay much attention to these struggles against the particular groups in their countries. ... We had the idea that you come up against the opportunists and you begin a fight and carry it through. Other Parties have asked us why we do this. It is not right. Today we only do this in certain [local – ed.] areas. This may not even be right.
Nobody is fighting against ’social-chauvinism’.
At the same time, you also wrote down on paper the typical opportunist sneer against the struggle against opportunism, writing that you had:
...views on certain lines, especially of writing articles on the theme that ’struggle against social-chauvinism’ is the end-all and be-all in the U.S.
However, as usual, you did not elaborate your views.
You repeated this opposition to the movement against social-chauvinism many times. For example, in the discussion of early August 1979 you again reiterated that:
You are promoting a peculiar movement [the movement against social-chauvinism – ed.] in the U.S. This should not be done.
Our only disagreement is with this peculiar movement in the U.S. Slogan [i.e., “Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists” – ed.] indicates this movement. Our view is that there is something quite suspicious to have a movement in a particular region separate from trials and tribulations of the International Communist Movement.
You claimed that this movement was no good as it was “not the preoccupation of the international communist movement.” Setting yourself up as the spokesman for the other parties, you argued that: “The Party of Labor of Albania never said that they are building the party against social-chauvinism.”
In a number of places parties have been reconstructed – CCC, DDD, etc. Is this the method that was used in these countries?
You repeat your denunciation of the struggle against social-chauvinism in your letters of December 5. Only you do it in a shamefaced way, not mentioning the phrase “movement” (or struggle) against social-chauvinism,“ but just repeating your previous denunciations of it without saying what it is that you are denouncing. This is in itself evidence that you are quite aware that there is nothing at all “peculiar” in the movement against social-chauvinism and that you will be subjecting yourself to the danger of appearing absolutely ridiculous or to the danger of too openly coming forward with your theories against the anti-revisionist struggle if you openly denounced the movement against social-chauvinism. You prefer, as usual, to leave certain things to the spoken word and keep them out of writing.
Be that as it may. The facts are that the struggle against social-chauvinism is an international issue. Naturally the form of the great struggle against Chinese revisionism differs in certain respects from one country to another. But not only is the movement against social-chauvinism a legitimate form, not only is the movement in the U.S. against social-chauvinism simply the American component of the great international struggle against Chinese revisionism, but all over the world, in fighting Chinese revisionism the Marxist-Leninists are also fighting the social-chauvinist theories of the Chinese revisionists. The Scientific Sessions in Albania pointed out:
At present the true communist parties have set themselves the task of refuting the opportunist thesis of the Chinese revisionists, who call on the proletariat to unite with ’its own’ bourgeoisie for the ’defence of the Fatherland’ and to make clear to the masses of the proletariat the lesson set out in the ’Manifesto of the Communist Party’...that ’the proletariat of each country must, of course, first settle accounts with its own bourgeoisie. (Problems, pp. 68-69, emphasis as in the original)
Hence the struggle against social-chauvinism is an important international task.
You have been repeatedly counterposing the struggle against the domestic opportunists to the struggle on the burning international issues. The purpose of this counterposition of yours has been to downplay or negate the struggle against the domestic opportunists. Thus you attack our struggle against “our own” domestic opportunists as “American exceptionalism,” “chauvinism,” as not “participating in the preoccupations of the International Communist Movement” and so forth.
But in denouncing the struggle against “one’s own” domestic opportunists, you are coming straight out against one of the cornerstones of Marxism-Leninism. For example, in the struggle against social-chauvinism. Comrade Lenin was rather abusive against those who don’t fight “their own” social-chauvinists, but only those of other countries. In one of his many statements on this subject, Comrade Lenin held this position up to biting ridicule and wrote of it in connection with the denunciation of Kautsky:
...Kautsky once again swears to be a Marxist in the coming epoch of ultra-imperialism, which may or may not arrive! In short, any number of promises to be a Marxist in another epoch, not now, not under present conditions, not in this epoch! Marxism on credit. Marxism in promises, Marxism tomorrow, a petty-bourgeois, opportunist theory – and not only a theory – of blunting contradictions today. This is something like the internationalism for export which is very popular today with ardent – oh, so ardent! – internationalists and Marxists who sympathise with every manifestation of internationalism – in the enemy camp, anywhere, but not at home, not among their allies; ... In a word, it is one of the 1,001 varieties of hypocrisy. (Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 107, emphasis, except for “internationalism for export,” as in the original)
Elaborating on the same theme, and linking this up with the need to judge parties and revolutionaries on the basis of their deeds, not merely their words, Comrade Stalin wrote:
Furthermore, history knows not a few Socialists who, foaming at the mouth, called upon the workers’ parties of other countries to perform the most revolutionary actions imaginable. But that does not mean that they did not in their own party, or in their own country, shrink from fighting their own opportunists, their own bourgeoisie. Is not this why Lenin taught us to test revolutionary parties, trends and leaders, not by their declarations and resolutions, but by their deeds. (“Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism,” Works, Vol. 13. p. 99, emphasis as in the original)
Comrade Lenin further elaborated on this question in his book “Left-Wing Communism,” An Infantile Disorder. Near the beginning of Chapter X. which is entitled “Some Conclusions,” Comrade Lenin stresses:
More. The history of the working-class movement now shows that in all countries it is about to experience (and has already begun to experience) a struggle between communism, which is growing, gaining strength and marching towards victory, and, first and foremost, its own (in each country) ’Menshevism,’ i.e., opportunism and social-chauvinism, and. secondly – as a supplement so to say – ’Left-wing’ Communism. (Emphasis as in the original)
Comrade Lenin goes on to point out that the struggle against each country’s own “’Menshevism.’ i.e.. opportunism and social-chauvinism” is proceeding “in all countries, apparently without a single exception, as a struggle between the Second International (already virtually killed) and the Third International” and that the struggle against “left-wing” communism can be observed in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, America and France. Comrade Lenin concludes from this that “the struggle is undoubtedly being waged not only on an international, but even on a world-wide scale.” How alien to Leninism is the counterposing of the struggle against “one’s own” domestic opportunism to the struggle against international opportunism! From the fact that the struggle is proceeding in each country against its own opportunism, Lenin concludes that it is an international, even a worldwide, struggle!
Comrade Lenin then goes on to state: “But while the working-class movement is everywhere passing through what is actually the same kind of preparatory school for victory over the bourgeoisie, it is in each country achieving this development in its own way....
The whole point now is that the Communists of every country should quite consciously take into account both the main fundamental tasks of ’the struggle against opportunism and ’Left’ doctrinairism and the specific features which this struggle assumes and inevitably must assume in each separate country in conformity with the peculiar features of its economics, politics, culture, national composition (Ireland, etc.). its colonies, religious divisions, and so on and so forth.(emphasis as in the original)
From this Comrade Lenin even draws conclusions about the nature of a truly centralized international leading center. He continues, saying:
;Everywhere we can feel that dissatisfaction with the Second International is spreading and growing, both because of its opportunism and because of its inability, or incapacity, to create a really centralized, a really leading centre that would be capable of directing the international tactics of the revolutionary proletariat in its struggle for a world Soviet republic. We must clearly realize that such a leading centre cannot under any circumstances be built up on stereotyped, mechanically equalized and identical tactical rules of struggle....the unity of international tactics of the Communist working-class movement of all countries demands, not the elimination of variety, not the abolition of national differences... but such an application of the fundamental principles of Communism... as will correctly modify these principles in certain particulars, correctly adapt and apply them to national and nation-state differences. (emphasis as in the original)
Comrade Lenin then proceeds to wax enthusiastic over this task. He stressed:
Investigate, study, seek, divine, grasp that which is peculiarly national, specifically national in the concrete manner in which each country approaches the fulfilment of the single international task, in which it approaches the victory over opportunism and ’Left’ doctrinairism within the working-class movement, the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and the establishment of a Soviet republic and a proletarian dictatorship – such is the main task of the historical period through which all the advanced countries (and not only the advanced countries) are now passing. (emphasis as in the original)
Comrade Lenin identifies this task as “seeking the forms of transition or approach to the proletarian revolution.” How Comrade Lenin would have scorned and mocked the arguments of those who today use the epithet “peculiar” in place of thinking, or the advice to turn a blind eye to one’s own domestic opportunists allegedly for the sake of taking part in the single international struggle! No wonder Comrade Lenin bitterly mocked at “internationalism for export”
The Scientific Sessions dealt with this question also. Instead of counterposing the struggles against domestic and international opportunism, the Scientific Sessions followed the Marxist-Leninist path of defining the relationship between these struggles and calling for them to be waged simultaneously.
Comrade Fiqret Shehu pointed out:
For this reason the genuine Marxist-Leninist communist parties do not see the struggle of the proletariat against ’its own’ bourgeoisie and the struggle to expose revisionism and opportunism in its own country from a narrow angle, as a question confined within the national context, but as part of the struggle to cope with the attacks of the reactionary bourgeoisie in general and modern revisionism as a whole.... However, the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie is initially a national struggle, ’in form if not in substance.’ This is precisely why the Marxist-Leninists wage their struggle against all the enemies of the proletariat and the peoples, against modern revisionism, the bourgeoisie, imperialism and social imperialism, simultaneously, on a national and international scale. In their struggle against the international revisionism of the present day, too, they bear in mind that the same socio-political content manifests itself in one form or another, according to specific national features. (“Broadening and Deepening of the Struggle Against All the Currents of Modern Revisionism – An Historical Necessity,” Problems, p. 70, second emphasis added)
These are favourable factors which must be exploited in order to strengthen and intensify the struggle against the revisionism and opportunism of each individual country and against revisionism and opportunism as a whole. This, because without fighting revisionism, such historical tasks as proletarian revolution, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the organisation of socialism cannot be carried out, and there can be no genuine freedom and independence for the peoples. (Ibid., p. 72)
And Comrade Agim Popa pointed out:
However, they [the fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties – ed.] have devoted, and deem it essential to devote great attention to the fight against the revisionist parties within their own countries, too, as this is a fight not only over the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism, but also over the concrete problems of the revolutionary movement, over the revolutionary strategy and tactics in the concrete situations of their own countries. (“The Marxist-Leninist Parties – the Leading Force of the Revolutionary Movement Today,” Problems, p. 81)
As part of your downplaying or negating of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism, you deny that various Marxist-Leninist parties have been born in the struggle against revisionism. According to you, to say that a party is born in the struggle against opportunism means that the party does nothing else but issue polemics and does not have the various other attributes of a true Leninist party. This was one of your arguments against the slogan “Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists.”
You advocated these views repeatedly. For example, in the discussions of May 1979 you stated:
“You [COUSML – ed.] think that two-line struggle [your term for the polemical struggle or for the movement against social-chauvinism – ed.] will give rise to something, ’anti-social-chauvinist movement.’ In 2-3 months we will have views to present to you on this. Eventually, we will see where you end up with these views. We [CPC(M-L) – ed.] used to say to build the party against revisionism. This is wrong. It will take six months to write it, but on the 10th anniversary of the party we will publish a CPC(ML) history and debunk this.” [N.B.: the tenth anniversary of CPC(M-L) has come and gone and neither of the documents mentioned above has been either presented to us or published. – ed.]
You also reiterated this at the discussions in early August 1979. You stated:
“Our first main question, our objection is to the title [of the Call of the NC of the COUSML, i.e., to the slogan “Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists” – ed.]. What does it mean? It is our view that Party’s main characteristic is that it is a Leninist Party based on Leninist norms. But this concept is of two-line struggle in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement – it is (the idea that the neo-revisionist trend is in the Marxist-Leninist movement) and Party is based on struggle against this neo-revisionist trend.”
And you added later on in this discussion, in reference to the struggle against social-chauvinism, the following: “What struggles you are waging has nothing to do with what is Party. What the Party does, in waging various struggles, is a separate thing (than what the Party is).”
In the discussions of early November 1979 you reiterated this, stating: “This makes the line of demarcation ’pro-’ or ’anti-’ this or that. But the issue is defence of Marxism-Leninism. The genuine Marxist-Leninists are united.”
But the emergence of various Marxist-Leninist parties from the struggle against revisionism is an accepted thesis of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. It is also an obvious fact. This was expressed at the Scientific Sessions in Albania. Comrade Nexhmije Hoxha stated in the Opening Speech that:
With the Marxist-Leninist Parties, we have been and will be united by the struggle against modern revisionism, a struggle in the waves of which these parties were set up, grew and waxed strong.... (Problems, p. 8)
Comrade Agim Popa stated:
In the struggle against Chinese revisionism, too, just as in the struggle against Khrushchevite revisionism, new Marxist-Leninist revolutionary parties of the working class will emerge and grow where such parties do not yet exist, or where the existing parties have deviated from the road of Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.
The formation and tempering of proletarian parties as Leninist-Stalinist parties of the new type is a continuous and many-sided process which takes place in the fire of their ceaseless revolutionary activity. (“The Marxist-Leninist Parties – Leading Force of the Revolutionary Movement Today,” Problems, p. 79)
Here Comrade Agim Popa both declares that various parties have come from the struggle against revisionism and also immediately refers to the “continuous and many-sided process” of their formation and tempering in the fire of ceaseless revolutionary activity. Hence these two theses cannot be counter-posed. As well, it is notable that Comrade Agim Popa explicitly endorses the emergence of new Marxist-Leninist parties from the struggle against Chinese revisionism. Comrade Popa went on to say: “The new Marxist-Leninist parties were born and grew in the struggle in defence of Marx-ism-Leninism against the revisionist betrayal.” (Ibid., p. 80)
The same view is expressed in the History of the Party of Labor of Albania, which stated:
The creation of the new Marxist-Leninist parties and groups was the result of the process of differentiation which had begun and continued to develop without interruption between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism. This was a natural process of the struggle between two opposite ideologies which can never live together within a single Marxist-Leninist party, or within the world communist movement in general. Opportunism and revisionism have always been and remain the main splitters of the parties of the working class and of the world workers’ and communist movement. (pp. 604-605)
The Marxist-Leninist classics themselves also refer to the formation of various parties and even of Leninism itself in the course of the struggle against opportunism. Comrade Lenin, for example, wrote: “The Third International actually emerged in 1918, when the long years of struggle against opportunism and social-chauvinism, especially during the war, led to the formation of Communist Parties in a number of countries. ” (“The Third International and Its Place in History,” Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 306)
How utterly alien to Marxism-Leninism is all your scholastic and pettifogging word-chopping which counterposes what a party is to what it does, and counterposes the defense of Marxism-Leninism to the struggle against revisionism and opportunism, and so forth, all this word-chopping and obscurantism that is designed to negate the Leninist teachings on the struggle against opportunism!
Indeed, similar lessons apply to the birth and development of Leninism itself. Describing the development of Bolshevism, Comrade Lenin wrote a chapter in his famous work “Left-Wing” Communism, An Infantile Disorder entitled: “In the Struggle Against What Enemies Within the Working-Class Movement Did Bolshevism Grow Up and Become Strong and Steeled?”
Elaborating on the same subject, Comrade Stalin wrote:
Everyone knows that Leninism was born, grew up and became strong in relentless struggle against opportunism of every brand, including Centrism in the West (Kautsky) and Centrism in our country (Trotsky, etc.). This cannot he denied even by the downright enemies of Bolshevism. It is an axiom.(“Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism,” Works, Vol. 13, p. 87)
A further thesis that you have developed in order to deny the struggle against revisionism and opportunism is that the international communist movement has not been split since the time of Lenin. You apply this concept to the Marxist-Leninist movement of each country too. You hold that both nationally and internationally Marxist-Leninists are automatically united, by definition, and not as a result of the struggle against opportunist elements. This is one of the reasons you give for opposing the slogan “Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists,” for this slogan is the slogan that calls for the most resolute irreconcilable struggle against, or, to put it another way, for a split with, the social-chauvinists. But you hold that the last split was between social-democracy and Leninism, and that the “without and against” slogan is therefore no longer valid. You use the argument that the last split was between social-democracy and Leninism in order to negate the struggle against revisionism and opportunism.
In the discussions of early August 1979 you said: “Modern revisionism is not a trend which arose from within the movement. Khrushchov tried to smuggle Khrushchovism into the Marxist-Leninist movement. The movement was split at the time of Lenin and not since then.” You elaborated this further as follows: “With the rise of imperialism, there was created a definite stratum. This split the working class movement. It has been split since this time onwards.”
There are two movements. The international working class movement was split by imperialism. The working class movement has been split since that time. [N.B.: But for that matter, the working class movement did not come ’ to existence pure and united. Whatever unity it achieved prior to the rise of imperialism was also the result of fierce struggles by Marx and Engels and the Marxists against opportunism and pre-Marxian socialism and outright capitalist trends, etc. All this by way of aside. – ed.]... So the split takes place at World War I. You can take any time, but we will say 1919, the formation of the Third International, this consummated the split. The working class movement is split. But the international communist movement is united. The revisionists from Browder on tried to split the unity of the Leninists. The struggle against Browder is struggle against a split. This is why we say revisionists are splitters. It is not true that the Marxist-Leninists are split. It is Khrushchov that split.... Therefore unity exists and this unity is Leninism and is the communist international. That unity has to be defended.... The communist movement is always united and fighting all things which are thrown against them. The working class movement on the other hand is split.
This is so nonsensical that in the discussions of early November 1979 you had to defend it with this equivocating pair of statements: “But what I disagree with is this thesis that revisionism arises from the international movement.” “Of course you can say factually that the revisionists came out of the international movement, if you want to be formalistic.”
All this is just “official optimism” to deny the struggle against opportunism. When the call is given to fight the revisionists and opportunists, you moralistically condemn this call as implying that the revisionists and opportunists are Marxist-Lehinists, for if they weren’t, then why is a call given to clear them out of the Marxist-Leninist movement, for they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Thus you turn things on their head and denounce the struggle against revisionism and opportunism as allegedly a manifestation of the belief that the opportunists are Marxist-Leninists. What utter sophistry and demagogy! You back this up by saying that the last split was between Leninism and social-democracy. Hence you negate the Leninist teachings on the struggle against social-democracy and opportunism and deny their present relevance. You hold that prior to 1919, perhaps, there could be talk of struggle to build the proletarian parties without and against the opportunists. But for the present you replace the Leninist teachings on the struggle against opportunism with the new task of simply defending unity.
In a later section, Section XI-G, we shall deal further with your sophistry on this question and your “official optimism.” But for the time being, we simply note that this is an example of where, under the banner of opposing allegedly “peculiar theories,” such as the “without and against” slogan, you are seeking to impose on us a genuinely and truly “peculiar” theory. For it is closing one’s eyes to the well-known facts to argue that the international communist movement has always been united without any splits since the time of Lenin.
For example, at the Scientific Sessions, Comrade Agim Popa pointed out:
As in the case of the betrayal of Marxism-Leninism by the Second International and that by the Khrushchevite revisionists in the 50’s and 60’s, the emergence on the scene and crystalization of the present-day Chinese revisionism with its counterrevolutionary theory of ’three worlds’ has caused a split in the Marxist-Leninist movement today.” (“The Marxist-Leninist Parties – The Leading Force of the Revolutionary Movement Today,” Problems of Current World Development, p. 103)
You denounce our slogan “Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and A-gainst the Social-Chauvinists” as allegedly “peculiar.” The reasons you give for this are that this slogan stands for carrying out the movement against social-chauvinism, calls for struggle against “one’s own” domestic opportunists, is a call for an irreconcilable struggle, i.e., for a split, with the social-chauvinists, and so forth. We have already dealt with these issues separately in the previous parts of Section X. Your opposition to this slogan is an expression of your negation of the Leninist teachings on the struggle against opportunism and your replacement of them by “official optimism.”
For the rest, we will simply point out that this slogan is not at all “peculiar” to our Party. Various forms or variants of the “without and against” slogan were repeatedly put forward by Comrade Lenin as the path forward during the struggle against social-chauvinism in World War I. And the “without and against” slogan was also given by Comrade Enver Hoxha in the struggle against Khrushchovite revisionism. In 1966, at the 5th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, Comrade Hoxha stated:
...unity will be re-established in the communist movement and the socialist camp, but it will be re-established by the Marxist-Leninists without revisionists and traitors and in resolute struggle against them. (Report to the 5th Congress of the PLA as cited in History of the PLA, p. 605)
The “General Conclusions” at the end of the History of the PLA also contains the “without and against” slogan. It states:
The PLA has also performed a great internationalist duty by carrying on a consistent principled struggle against imperialism and modern revisionism. By means of this struggle it has tried to: ...to re-establish this unity following the split which the Khrushchevite revisionists caused, on a revolutionary basis, without revisionists and traitors and in struggle against them.” (pp. 675-76)
You have also denied the role of the polemical struggle against opportunism. You have floated thesis after thesis against the polemics; you have repeatedly crusaded against the “ideological struggle” under the pretext of opposing the factionalism of this or that opportunist group; and in practice you have sought to avoid the polemical struggle against revisionism and opportunism as far as possible and to downplay the theoretical and political content of the polemics and to reduce them to side issues and trivialities. You denounce the polemical struggle as “the Maoist theory of ’two-line struggle’” in order to try to present your denunciation of the polemical struggle as the stand of the international movement. But your theses against the ideological and polemical struggle are in fact your own theses directed against the struggle against opportunism, and these theses stand against the great international struggle of the Marxist-Leninists against the various trends of modern revisionism.
At the 7th Congress of the PLA, Comrade Enver Hoxha stressed the role of the great polemic against modern revisionism. He stated:
Our Party holds that the continuation and extension of the ideological struggle against revisionism in general, and of Soviet revisionism in particular, the deepening of that great polemic which began after the 1960 Moscow Meeting, constitutes an important and imperative duty for all the Marxist-Leninists, for all true revolutionaries. (Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 226, emphasis as in the original)
Comrade Enver Hoxha thus called for the continuation and extension of the ideological struggle and regarded this ideological struggle as indissolubly linked with the great polemic against the modern revisionists. Later in the same paragraph he states that ”The defence of Marxism-Leninism is a question of principle.“ It is quite clear that Comrade Hoxha does not counterpose the ideological and polemical struggle to “the defence of Marxism-Leninism,” but instead wages the ideological and polemical struggle for the defence of Marxism-Leninism.
The History of the Party of Labor of Albania also stresses the importance of the ideological and polemical struggle against the modern revisionists. In the passage below it points out the importance of the ideological struggle in ensuring that the struggle against modern revisionism is not diverted into trivialities. It states:
The open attack launched by the Soviet revisionist leadership against the PLA was not a principled polemic about the fundamental problems of the times over which profound differences had arisen in the international communist movement. On the contrary, the Khrushchevite group used every method to avoid any discussion on problems of principle, because it was aware of its own weakness in such a discussion. It resorted to slanders and lies continually reported by the revisionist propaganda, to intrigues and plots, diversions and other acts of the most vile sort against the PLA. ... The aim of the revisionists was to isolate and expel the PLA from the international communist movement, to give ’a good lesson’ to all who would dare oppose their anti-Marxist course.
The PLA did not adopt the revisionist position. It was not caught up in trivialities and banalities. It continued its struggle against Khrushchevite revisionism in the ideological sphere, exposing all its anti-Marxist points of view, its inconsistencies, its eclecticism, its swinging from opportunism to adventurism, and its diversionist activity. The articles of Zeri i Popullit against revisionism, translated into several languages and reprinted in pamphlets and broadcast by the radio, served as a powerful and keen-edged weapon in the hands of the Party in its principled struggle in defense of the purity of Marxism-Leninism.(pp. 534-35)
The ideological and polemical struggle is closely connected with the raising of the political consciousness of the masses, with the revolutionary education and training of the masses. The struggle against revisionism and opportunism must be brought to the masses and the polemical struggle is a crucial weapon in this. The next quotations we refer to on the importance of the ideological and polemical struggle also point to the necessity to wage this struggle among the masses.
Thus, at the Scientific Sessions, Comrade Fiqret Shehu pointed out:
The historical experience of the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism over the last decades too, fully confirms Lenin’s teaching that the only correct Marxist line in the world communist movement is to explain to the proletariat and all the working people the absolute need to break with revisionism and opportunism, to educate the masses through a consistent struggle against those trends, to expose their betrayal of the cause of the proletariat and the peoples and all the infamy of the policy they pursue. (“Broadening and Deepening of the Struggle Against All Currents of Modern Revisionism – An Historical Necessity,” Problems, p. 68, emphasis added)
Similarly, in the passage from Comrade Fiqret Shehu that we have already quoted in Section X-C on fighting social-chauvinism, she talks of making this question clear “to the masses of the proletariat.”
Indeed in opposing the ideological and polemical struggle you are going against the orthodox theses from the Marxist-Leninist classics. In Section IX-A we quoted a vivid passage from Comrade Lenin on the polemical struggle. He pointed out that the struggle against the opportunists could not be avoided, and that “the real choice” was either “concealed forms” of this struggle with their “demoralizing effect on the masses ” or an open struggle “...on matters of principle, allowing the mass of party comrades, and not merely the leaders to settle fundamental issues – such a struggle is both necessary and useful, for it trains in the masses independence and ability to carry out their epoch-making revolutionary mission.”
Here we have the Leninist conception of the struggle against opportunism. How alien to Leninism are sniveling complaints against “ideological struggle” and the denunciation of the struggle against opportunism as a diversion from real work among the masses. The Leninist conception regards the ideological and polemical struggle against the opportunists as both necessary and useful, for it trains in the masses independence and ability to carry out their epoch-making revolutionary mission.
You counterpose the struggle against Chinese revisionism to the question of building the “unity” of the Marxist-Leninists. We showed this in the introduction to Section IX and we shall deal with it further later on. In particular, as part of your denial of the role of the ideological and polemical struggle, you counterpose polemics against revisionism and opportunism to the struggle for “unity.” This goes to the extent that you even oppose “hidden attacks” on the conciliators of social-chauvinism, i.e., you even oppose the raising of burning ideological issues without explicitly attacking any particular organization. You defend a policy of pragmatic maneuvers with the conciliators under the signboard of “unity” and simultaneously denounce the movement against social-chauvinism as a “peculiar” movement. Such a policy is a policy of seeking “unity,” of engaging in pragmatic maneuvers, on the basis of blunting or liquidating altogether the cutting edge of the polemic against Chinese revisionism.
But your thesis that polemics against revisionism and opportunism are a disruption of “unity” are your own theses and not the accepted views of the international Marxist-Leninist movement. At the Scientific Sessions Comrade Agim Popa pointed out:
Experience shows that only on the basis of a merciless struggle against opportunism and revisionism of all hues is it possible to preserve, strengthen and continuously temper sound Marxist-Leninist unity. From this point of view, the ’arguments’ of those who want to smother and extinguish the struggle against opportunism and revisionism under the pretext of ’avoiding polemics’ and preserving ’unity,’ are without foundation; indeed they are centrist, anti-Marxist and fraudulent. The Party of Labour of Albania and the other fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties firmly reject such attempts. They have waged and are waging an uncompromising principled struggle against all those who betray Marxism-Leninism and thus split the revolutionary unity, be they Soviet, Yugoslav, Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese or others. (“The Marxist-Leninist Parties – The Leading Force of the Revolutionary Movement Today,” Problems, p. 104, emphasis as in the original)
The whole attitude manifested by your theses towards the movement against social-chauvinism, the struggle against Chinese revisionism, the struggle against “one’s own” domestic opportunists, and so forth, in short, your whole attitude towards the struggle against revisionism and opportunism, is wrong. The question is not the way you present it, that the struggle against revisionism is at best a sad necessity, something like taking castor oil, something that is forced on one and prevents one from dealing with the real issues of revolutionary work and from seeking “unity.” The struggle against revisionism and opportunism should not be presented as an unfortunate diversion, something to be hurried through as rapidly as possible, with the opportunists and revisionists simply presented as criminals and police and with the political and ideological questions shoved aside.
On the contrary, the struggle against revisionism and opportunism, when it is a real struggle and not a concoction, when it is based firmly on principles, is a powerful invigorating force. It lends tremendous moral authority to the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties. It sweeps away rust. It helps light the path forward. It helps train and prepare the masses for revolution. It is no accident that the movement against social-chauvinism has had a powerful invigorating effect and led to the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA. And it is not for nothing that Comrade Agim Popa pointed out at the Scientific Sessions, as we quoted earlier in Section X-E, that:
In the struggle against Chinese revisionism, too, just as in the struggle against Khrushchevite revisionism, new Marxist-Leninist revolutionary parties of the working class will emerge and grow.... (Ibid., p. 79)
The struggle against revisionism and opportunism is not a “diversion” that will go away to leave us to carry on our revolutionary work in peace and quiet. On the contrary, it is an integral part of revolutionary work. Comrade Lenin stressed:
It is in the struggle between these two tendencies [“of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists” and “of the masses” – ed.] that the history of the labour movement will now inevitably develop.
The fact is that bourgeois labour parties,’ as a political phenomenon, have already been formed in all the foremost capitalist countries, and that unless a determined and relentless struggle is waged all along the line against these parties – or groups, trends, etc., it is all the same – there can be no question of a struggle against imperialism, or of Marxism, or of a socialist labour movement. ... There is not the slightest reason for thinking that these parties will disappear before the social revolution. On the contrary, the nearer the revolution approaches, the more strongly it flares up and the more sudden and violent the transitions and leaps in its progress, the greater will be the part the struggle of the revolutionary mass stream against the opportunist petty-bourgeois stream will play in the labour movement. (“Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 116, 118-19, emphasis as in the original)
This struggle is not a diversion, but it is essential both for the revolution in general and for the strengthening of the party in particular. It is not for nothing that Comrade Stalin taught that: “Everyone knows that Leninism was born, grew up and became strong in relentless struggle against opportunism of every brand.” (“Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism,” Works, Vol. 13, p. 87)
“The R.C.P.(B) (Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) – ed.] always developed through contradictions, i.e.. in the struggle against non-communist trends, and only in that struggle did it gain strength and forge real cadres.” (“A Letter to Comrade Mert,” Works, Vol. 7, p. 46)
Indeed the Leninist conception of the struggle against opportunism is that it is a great regenerating force. Speaking of the struggle against the social-chauvinists in World War I, Lenin held that:
No matter how hard, in individual instances, the struggle may be against the opportunists, who predominate in many organisations, whatever the specific nature of the purging of the workers’ parties of opportunists in individual countries, this process is inevitable and fruitful. Reformist socialism is dying; regenerated socialism ’will be revolutionary, uncompromising and insurrectionary.’ (“Socialism and War,” Collected Works, Vol. 21, Ch. I, p. 311)
Hence, it is not for nothing that Comrade Lenin eulogized this struggle and pointed out in his article “Marxism and Revisionism” in 1908 that: “The fight against the revisionists on these questions resulted in as fruitful a revival of the theoretical thought in international socialism as did Engels controversy with Duhring twenty years earlier.” (Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 34)
And Comrade Lenin added further on in this article the following magnificent perspective:
The ideological struggle waged by revolutionary Marxism against revisionism at the end of the nineteenth century is but the prelude to the great revolutionary battles of the proletariat, which is marching forward to the complete victory of its cause despite all the waverings and weaknesses of the petty bourgeoisie.” (Ibid., p. 39)
And it was Comrade Lenin who enthusiastically raised this same perspective in his great book What Is to Be Done?, namely that: “Perhaps in this first really international battle with socialist opportunism, international revolutionary Social-Democracy will become sufficiently strengthened to put an end to the political reaction that has long reigned in Europe?” (Note at the beginning of Chapter I)