Proletarian revolution is a long and difficult process, one which takes place under very complex and changing conditions. In order to be successful, it is essential to analyze and identify the friends and the enemies of the working class. We also have to define the methods, the forms of struggle and organization which allow us to both isolate and weaken the enemy, and unite and strengthen the revolutionary forces. In short, in order to smash the bourgeoisie, the revolutionary proletariat must always be guided by a correct political line to lead it in all situations.
This political line must, first and foremost, be based on the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought.
The writings of the great leaders of the proletariat – Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tsetung – sum up the experience of more than 100 years of struggle in the international workers’ and communist movement and define the laws of proletarian revolution. The revolutionary victories of the Russian, Chinese, Albanian, Korean and Vietnamese people, under the leadership of the proletarian party, have already confirmed the correctness of Marxist-Leninist theory.
Our political line will develop through the application of the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism to an analysis of the concrete conditions in our country (in the context of the present international situation).
This political line should define the strategic and tactical road for proletarian revolution. The correctness of our political line is tested in the practice of class struggle – its development is the result of the continual confrontation of theory and practice.
Dialectical and historical materialism, founded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, is the basis of the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism. Dialectical materialism establishes the primacy of matter over thought, of being over consciousness. Dialectical materialism shows that the world and the laws which govern its development are all knowable. As basic principles, it stipulates that all things and phenomena develop through the struggle of opposites (contradictions) which are inherent to them, that things and phenomena are inter-related and in a constant state of change and movement, and that they develop progressively and upward (following quantitative changes and qualitative leaps).
Historical materialism is dialectical materialism applied to the study of human society, in order to determine the objective laws which govern its historic evolution.
Communists must hold fast to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and protect them from all attempts to deform them and rob them of their revolutionary content.
The great teachers of the proletariat have all waged bitter struggles against the opportunists who sought to mislead the workers’ movement and cut it off from scientific socialism. Marx fought Bakunin in the First International, and against the Proudhonists and Lassallians; Lenin took on the economists and the revisionists – Bernstein and Kautsky; Lenin and Stalin fought the Mensheviks, the Trotskyists and the Bukharinists; and comrade Mao Tsetung has enriched Marxism-Leninism in the struggle against modern revisionism and the traitors Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao.
Towards the end of the 1950’s and the beginning of the 1960’s, a powerful revisionist current appeared in the very heart of the international communist movement, which subsequently split into two irreconcilable parts: On one side stood the Marxist-Leninists, headed by the Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Tsetung and the Party of Labour of Albania led by Enver Hoxha. On the other side, stood the Khrushchevite modern revisionists, headed by the “Communist” Party of the Soviet Union.
Modern revisionism, cloaking itself in Marxism-Leninism, is, in reality, nothing but the form bourgeois ideology assumes to infiltrate the Communist movement. Revisionism preaches “the peaceful road to socialism”, propagates the illusion that class struggle doesn’t exist under capitalism and socialism and liquidates the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Genuine communists must relentlessly struggle against this current that denies the fundamental teachings of Marxism-Leninism and betrays the interests of the working class.
In the Soviet Union, soon after the death of Stalin, the class struggle saw new developments. Khrushchev and his revisionist clique gained control of the party and the state through a coup d’etat, and proceeded to transform the land of the Soviets into a land of bourgeois dictatorship; a social fascist dictatorship of the Hitlerian type.
In order to accomplish this task, Khrushchev and his acolytes had first to change the revolutionary proletarian line of the glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union, revising the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. They then purged the majority of Marxist-Leninist militants from the party and opened the doors to new bourgeois elements.
In 1964, Khrushchev was replaced by Brezhnev and Company who increased internal repression and external expansion, turning the USSR into an extremely aggressive imperialist power. The 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia demonstrated that the Kremlin’s new tsars were prepared to do anything to satisfy their ambitions for world domination.
Thus the USSR became a social-imperialist super-power (that is, socialist in words and imperialist in deeds). Its contention with the other imperialist superpower, the United States, for world hegemony is the source of a new world war. The USSR also came to dominate most of the East European countries where revisionism has taken power.
The Chinese and Albanian Parties were able to analyze and apply the important lessons learned from the temporary setback suffered by the Soviet working class and the multinational Russian’ people, forced once more to suffer exploitation and the worst national oppression. In China, Mao Tsetung led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the Movement to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius, followed by the movement to study Marxist-Leninist theory and the dictatorship of the proletariat. These revolutionary movements destroyed the two headquarters of the bourgeoisie (those of Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao) and consolidated the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In some countries, the communist parties resolutely fought and defeated modern revisionism in their ranks, and remained faithful to Marxism-Leninism.
In most countries, however, the communist parties degenerated and became revisionist. This led to the need to form new Marxist-Leninist parties to lead the proletariat in revolutionary struggle.
The Canadian proletariat, which at one time had its communist party, has a great revolutionary and internationalist tradition. Heroic examples include the participation of Canadian volunteers in the struggle against fascism in Spain or Comrade Norman Bethune, a member of the Canadian Communist Party, who gave his life to the cause of the world proletariat.
But the Communist Party of Canada abandoned Marxism-Leninism and degenerated into a revisionist party, a traitor to the proletarian cause; today it is an agent of Soviet social-imperialism. It is now up to the genuine Marxist-Leninists in Canada to build a new communist party. This must be our central task.
We struggle against all those who would strip Marxism-Leninism of its revolutionary content, against all forms of opportunism – right and “left”. At the present time, the principal danger for the international communist movement is modern revisionism.
The struggle against all ideological deviations – especially modern revisionism – is an essential condition for the creation of a Marxist-Leninist party. In Canada, modern revisionism is represented not only in the form of the “Communist” Party of Canada, but also in some less open forms. Marxist-Leninists must fight against all the manifestations of revisionism and more generally against right opportunism within their ranks. In our country, right opportunism is the principal danger that the young communist movement in our country must watch out for. We must courageously defend the principles of Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought and use them as our greatest weapon in our struggle. Mao summed up the correct use of theory this way: “How is Marxist-Leninist theory to be linked with the practice of the Chinese revolution? To use a common expression, it is by “shooting the arrow at the target”. As the arrow is to the target, so is Marxism-Leninism to the Chinese revolution. Some comrades, however, are “shooting without a target”, shooting at random, and such people are liable to harm the revolution. Others merely stroke the arrow fondly, exclaiming “What a fine arrow!” but never want to shoot it. These people are only connoisseurs of curios and have virtually nothing to do with the revolution.” (Rectify the Party’s Style of work, Vol. III)