The great Lenin taught us that “a struggle against imperialism that is not closely linked up with the struggle against opportunism is an idle phrase, or a fraud".7
In endeavouring to bolster up the tottering edifice of imperialism, in addition to the direct use of violence, the monopoly capitalists of the imperialist countries invariably rely upon the labour aristocracy as a social prop and life-saver to sap the revolutionary will of the proletariat, to fool and divide the revolutionary people and to resist the proletarian revolutionary storm.
Before World War II, monopoly capital, with its superprofits exacted from the people of the colonies and semi-colonies, pursued a policy of bribery and corruption with regard to the working class in its own country, nurturing the labour aristocracy and making social democracy its social prop. Since World War II, with the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, monopoly capital needs such a social prop more than ever in order to maintain its rule. It is aware that it is not enough merely to use the Right-wing social-democratic parties as its tool for undermining the working-class movement. While continuing its policy of bribery and corruption with regard to the working class in the capitalist countries, fostering new labour aristocracy and causing the Communist Parties of some capitalist countries to degenerate into new bourgeois labour parties and new social-democratic parties, it is practicing the policy of "peaceful evolution" towards the socialist countries and is causing the leadership of the Communist Parties in some socialist countries to degenerate into its flunkeys and agents.
In the postwar years, U.S. imperialism has spent thousands of millions of dollars in fostering the Tito clique, the “bellwether” that betrays socialism and the proletariat. But the Tito clique can play only a limited role. Therefore U.S. imperialism has looked around for something new and employed the counterrevolutionary dual tactics of threats and blandishments, using the stick and the carrot. Khrushchov revisionism is the product of this U.S. imperialist policy.
Khrushchov first put forward his counterrevolutionary revisionist line at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. It was systematized and officially embodied in the Programme of the CPSU, which was adopted at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU with Khrushchov’s hallmark.
The Khrushchov revisionists have made a wholesale revision of the fundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism and emasculated its revolutionary soul. They have replaced dialectical materialism by subjective idealism, revolutionary dialectics by the philistine theory of evolution, and they have become faithful followers of bourgeois pragmatism. They have substituted the theories of class conciliation, class collaboration and class capitulation for the teachings of class struggle, proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They spread the view that the nature of imperialism has changed, and they try to cover up the contradictions inherent in the imperialist system, openly proclaiming that the Leninist thesis on imperialism is outmoded.
The Khrushchov revisionists serve the counter-revolutionary global strategy of U.S. imperialism by advancing the general line of “peaceful coexistence”, “peaceful competition” and “peaceful transition” and practicing policies of appeasement towards imperialism, which are in effect capitulationism. In advancing the fallacies of “the state of the whole people" and “the Party of the entire people”, they have abandoned the dictatorship of the proletariat and changed the character of the Communist Party as the vanguard of the proletariat. They have replaced proletarian internationalism with great-power chauvinism and national egoism, and worked to split the socialist camp and the international communist movement and undermine the great unity of the revolutionary people of the world.
Khrushchov revisionism is disintegrating the socialist camp, splitting the international communist movement, sabotaging the national-liberation movement and the people’s revolutionary movement in all countries, lulling the vigilance of the people of the world and playing the role of a special detachment of the U.S. imperialists and all reactionaries; it is doing all these things which the U.S. imperialists, all reactionaries and the old-line revisionist renegades are not in the position to do. By all this, the Khrushchov revisionists have set themselves against the masses of the people who comprise more than 90 per cent of the world’s population, and cannot but arouse the resolute opposition of all genuine Marxist-Leninists and all revolutionary people. Khrushchov revisionism is doomed to failure, and in fact has rapidly been discredited.
Khrushchov, the founder of Khrushchov revisionism, has already been driven off the stage of world history. This is a major event. It marks a victory for the Marxist-Leninist line and a failure for Khrushchov revisionism. It testifies to the necessity and correctness of the struggle waged by the Chinese Communist Party, the Indonesian Communist Party and the other Marxist-Leninist parties and Marxist-Leninists against Khrushchov revisionism.
All Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary people understand that the rise and growth of Khrushchov revisionism is by no means a matter involving a few individuals, or an accidental phenomenon. It has deep social and historical roots. As the 1957 Declaration has pointed out, “The existence of bourgeois influence is an internal source of revisionism, while surrender to imperialist pressure is its external source. ”
Khrushchov revisionism is the creation of the capitalist forces in the Soviet Union. With Khrushchov’s coming to power, a bourgeois privileged stratum gradually came into being in the Soviet Union as a result of his erroneous policies. This stratum has completely divorced itself from the Soviet people and thoroughly betrayed the cause of proletarian world revolution. It is the main social base of Khrushchov revisionism. Khrushchov and his like are the political representatives of this bourgeois privileged stratum whose interests all their lines and policies seek to serve. They have usurped the leadership of the CPSU and the Soviet state. Catering to the needs of imperialism, they have led the CPSU founded by Lenin on to the dangerous road of degeneration and have led the first socialist country, the Soviet Union, on to the dangerous road of capitalist restoration. This in itself is the greatest betrayal of the Soviet people and the revolutionary people of the world.
The facts are crystal clear. What Lenin said about the old-line revisionists applies equally to Khrushchov and his like: “. . . objectively, they are a political detachment of the bourgeoisie, . . . transmitters of its influence, its agents in the labour movement.” 8
Is it conceivable that opposing imperialism alone without opposing revisionism is enough ?
Lenin repeatedly taught us that “it is useless talking about the struggle against imperialism, about Marxism, or about the socialist labour movement”,9 unless a determined and ruthless struggle all along the line is conducted against the bourgeois labour parties. There can be no doubt that Lenin’s teaching remains the guide to action for Marxist-Leninists. For the victory of the struggle against imperialism, for the liberation of all oppressed people and nations and for the realization of a new world without imperialism, without capitalism and without the exploitation of man by man, we must resolutely go on thoroughly exposing the true features of Khrushchov revisionism and carry the struggle against it through to the end.
7. V. I. Lenin, “The War Program of the Proletarian Revolution”, Selected Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1952, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 577.
8. V. I. Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International”, Collected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York, 1930 Vol. XVIII, p. 310.
9. V. I. Lenin, “Imperialism and the Split in the Socialist Movement”, Collected Works Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York 1942, Vol. XIX, pp. 349-50.
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