The authors of the “open letter” identify themselves with the Party of the great Lenin, with the first socialist country, with the Great October Socialist Revolution and with the Soviet people.
Our complaint against the Khrushchov group is precisely that they fight against the teachings of Lenin, deny the deep significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution and want the C.P.S.U. to abandon its role as the vanguard of the international communist movement.
We cannot agree that the Khrushchov group should put the first socialist country in such danger or that they should bring to ruin the achievements gained by the Soviet people at the cost of so much heroism and self-denial.
We accuse the Khrushchov group of practising collaboration with imperialism instead of socialist internationalism between the fraternal countries and proletarian internationalism with regard to the revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries and the national-liberation movement. We accuse it of dividing the international communist movement.
The Khrushchov group is betraying the Party of Lenin, the October Revolution and the Soviet people. It has no right at all to lay claim to that which it has betrayed.
* * *
The existence of the Soviet Union and the formation of the world socialist camp are the principal achievements of the world’s working class.
The victory of the October Revolution played an outstanding role at the time of the formation of our Belgian Communist Party, which was born in the flames of the struggle against imperialist war, against capitalism and against the opportunism and reformism of the leaders of the Belgian Workers’ Party (P.O.B.).
The October Socialist Revolution showed the road to be followed. In return, the Belgian Communists have never spared their efforts in defending the Soviet Union against the attacks of the bourgeoisie of our country and of imperialism in general.
The working class of our country has frequently shown such active solidarity despite the manoeuvres of the agents of the bourgeoisie.
In 1920 the dockers of Anvers opposed the dispatch of arms against the Soviet Union.
From Munich to the beginning of the great war against Hitlerism Communists made a stand against the anti-Soviet outburst in which the bourgeois politicians, from the Right-wing of the Belgian Workers’ Party to the fascists, took part.
During the occupation the resistance fighters made the greatest sacrifices.
Proletarian internationalism, and especially solidarity with the Soviet Union, which was bearing the brunt of the struggle against Hitlerism, inspired most of them, the Communists at their head. It strengthened their fighting spirit with the knowledge of the greatness of the cause they were defending: that of everyone oppressed or menaced by the fascist dictatorship of finance capital.
Some Soviet prisoners, freed by our armed partisans, fought in our ranks.
The victory of the glorious fighters of Stalingrad, led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with Comrade Stalin at its head, was greeted with enthusiasm by our resistance fighters as the beginning of the end of Hitlerism.
Many times after World War II, despite the opportunist errors of the Right and the “Left” in the Party’s leadership and then its unbridled revisionism, Belgian Communists defended the Soviet Union, a socialist country, against the intrigues and aggressive threats of American imperialism.
This contribution, however modest, of the Communists and of the working class to active solidarity with the Soviet Union, was great-hearted and selfless: it was an elementary duty.
If we recall this, we do so in order to illustrate what that proletarian internationalism so despised by the revisionists really is: it is mutual aid in which each gives according to his abilities.
The class struggle is international. Our brothers’ successes are our successes and vice versa. We share their difficulties.
This is why no Communist can be indifferent when faced with an attempt to split the international communist movement and with liquidationist revisionism.
The C.P.S.U. is the Party of Lenin. The Soviet Union was the first socialist country. That explains how much the serious events of the last few years resulting from Khrushchov’s policy, affect us.
”Every Party is responsible to the working class, to the working people of its country, to the international working-class and communist movement as a whole.” (Statement of the 81 Parties.)
To give our opinion today on certain aspects of the policy of the Khrushchov group does not mean that we are meddling in the affairs of another Party.
The attitude of Khrushchov and of the other revisionists has already done considerable harm to the working class of all countries, and to the international communist movement. Their actions and their public attacks on Marxist-Leninists warrant a reply from us.
This is our duty to the workers of our country, to the international communist movement and also to the Soviet people, victims of the consequences of revisionist policy, and to the Marxist-Leninists of the U.S.S.R. who are exposed to the manoeuvres of the Khrushchov group, and its threats and persecutions.
Resolute defence of the whole socialist camp and of all the countries forming this camp and safeguarding the Marxist-Leninist unity of the socialist camp, are today the touch-stone of the proletarian internationalism of each Communist Party.