WORKERS, OPPRESSED NATIONS AND PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
NEWSPAPER OF THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS
P.O. BOX 11942, CHICAGO, ILL. 60611
Vol. 7, No. 6, November 1, 1977 25 cents
[Front page:
Against Reversing the Verdict Condemning the Yugoslav Revisionist Tito Clique, Murderers and Spies for U.S. Imperialism;
UNDER A FALSE FLAG: How the OL Social-Chauvinists Present Support for U.S. Imperialist Aggression as "Internationalism"]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
RESOLUTIONS OF THE COMMUNIST INFORMATION BUREAU AGAINST TITOITE REVISIONISM |
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RESOLUTION ON THE SITUATION IN THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF YUGOSLAVIA......................................................................................................................... | 2 |
COMMUNIST PARTY OF YUGOSLAVIA IN THE POWER OF MURDERERS AND SPIES........................................................................................................................................ | 3 |
Excerpts From Comrade Enver Hoxha's Speech at the 1960 Moscow Meeting on the Cominform Resolutions............................................................................................................ | 3 |
1960 STATEMENT AGAINST TITOITE REVISIONISM................................................ | 3 |
AGAINST YUGOSLAV "SELF- ADMINISTRATIVE SOCIALISM" |
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An Opportunist Ideological Trend and an Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Political Practice...................................................................................................................................... | 4 |
The Anti-Marxist Content of Self-Administrative Socialism | 4 |
KHRUSHCHOV KNEELING BEFORE TITO by Enver Hoxha...................................... | 5 |
IS YUGOSLAVIA A SOCIALIST COUNTRY?................................................................... | 7 |
FLIMSY FRAUD, DESPERATE GAMBLE........................................................................ | 10 |
COMRADE MAO TSETUNG ON THE DEATH OF STALIN |
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"THE GREATEST FRIENDSHIP"........................................................................................... | 11 |
COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRAZIL DENOUNCES "THREE WORLDS" THEORY |
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"HOLD HIGH THE INVINCIBLE BANNER OF MARXISM-LENINISM!"........................ | 12 |
Resolutions of the Communist Information Bureau Condemning Titoite Revisionism
FROM THE 1960 MOSCOW STATEMENT OF 81 COMMUNIST AND WORKERS' PARTIES
KRUSHCHOV KNEELING BEFORE TITO
IS YUGOSLAVIA A SOCIALIST COUNTRY?
Flimsy Fraud, Desperate Gamble
From The Workers' Advocate:
Against the OL's Attempt to Turn Chairman Mao into a Titoite Revisionist
Hold High the Invincible Banner of Marxism-Leninism
[Photo: J.V. STALIN His whole life he fought for Leninism and against all sorts of deviations, Trotskyites, revisionists, Browderites, Titoites. Under Stalin's leadership the CPSU(B) wrote its historic letters denouncing Titoism to the Yugoslav Party and the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) collectively adopted the decisions of 1948 and 1949. While Comrade Stalin was alive, the Titoites were isolated and the unity of the socialist camp was safeguarded. The intense hatred born him by the imperialists and all revisionists is an inspiring testimony to his great achievements for the world revolution. Stalin's name and work will live throughout the ages!]
[Photo: MAO TSETUNG A great Leninist and fighter against revisionism. He triumphantly led the Chinese revolution through decades of protracted, complicated struggle. After Comrade Stalin's death, he led the international communist movement in the struggle against Khrushchovite and Titoite revisionism and he personally initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. He openly denounced the Titoite "third road" and bad utter contempt for the Titoites, calling them "flunkeys and accomplices of imperialism' and "renegades and scabs". Mao Tsetung Thought will shine forever!]
[Photo: ENVER HOXHA A great Leninist and close comrade-in-arms of Chairman Mao Tsetung. Under the leadership of Comrade Enver Hoxha the Party of Labor of Albania has always been a "thorn in the foot" for the Titoite revisionist clique. After the death of Comrade Mao Tsetung, Comrade Enver Hoxha took up the leadership of the international communist movement by upholding the purity of Marxism-Leninism against the anti-Leninist theories of "three worlds", against Titoite and Khrushchovite revisionism and all opportunism. The Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA is a Marxist-Leninist classic which electrified the entire international communist movement.]
"The Chinese Communist Party and the Albanian Party of Labor reiterate that, while waging resolute and uncompromising struggle against the Khrushchov revisionist group which is the center of international modern revisionism, it is necessary to conduct a firm struggle against the traitorous revisionist Tito clique of Yugoslavia. The Tito clique of renegades is the first revisionist group to emerge in a socialist country. It has caused the Yugoslav Party and state to degenerate and brought about the complete restoration of capitalism. It is a special detachment of U.S. imperialism and plays the role of a saboteur against the national-democratic revolutionary movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America. " ("Joint Statement of China and Albania", May 11, 1966)
Titoite revisionism has been condemned by the international communist movement. On three separate occasions the entire international communist movement has unanimously exposed and denounced the traitor Tito clique. Under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) collectively expelled the Tito clique and denounced it as a gang of revisionist murderers and spies for U.S. imperialism in two forceful resolutions in 1948 and 1949. These resolutions were unanimously endorsed by all the Parties of the international communist movement. In this way the unity of the socialist camp was safeguarded. Again, in opposition to Khrushchov's revisionist road, the 1960 Moscow Meeting of 81 Communist and Worker's Parties issued the Moscow Statement, strongly condemning the Tito clique. The Moscow Statement pointed out that revisionism, right opportunism, was the main danger to the international communist movement, thus underlining the seriousness of the struggle against the Tito clique of class traitors. And again, in the struggle against Khrushchovite modern Soviet revisionism, an important part was played by the efforts to continue to unmask the Tito clique. The Khrushchovite revisionists had reconciled and allied with the Tito revisionists, since they were both following the same capitalist road, the same road of capitulation to U.S. imperialism. The polemics waged by the genuine Marxist-Leninists led by Chairman Mao Tsetung and Comrade Enver Hoxha against Khrushchovite revisionism constituted another unanimous condemnation of Titoite revisionism
Today international opportunism is trying to reverse the verdict against the Titoite revisionists, to rehabilitate Tito in order to sabotage the world revolution. There is an out-flowing of hugs and kisses for "Comrade Tito", who is being presented as a fighter against the hegemonism of the two superpowers. Titoite revisionist theories are being widely propagated. Once again the great Leninist Comrade Stalin is being attacked as a cover for attacking Marxism-Leninism. This reversal of the verdict against the Tito clique has the full support of the Brezhnev revisionist clique, the center of international revisionism, which rolled out the red carpet for Tito in a visit to Moscow in August. In the U.S., for some time the social-chauvinists, those fanatical ultra-rightists led by Klonsky's October League (now treacherously calling itself the "Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)"), have been preparing conditions for the rehabilitation of Tito. They have been circulating their Titoite version of the anti-Leninist theory of "Three Worlds". In a number of major articles they have continually downplayed the difference between the socialist Soviet Union of Stalin's time, which was the great bastion of world revolution, and the present social-imperialist Soviet superpower, alleging that the complete change in social system does not make any difference to the analysis of the "intermediate zone" between Russia and the U.S. (Class Struggle, no. 6, p. 45) or that the social-imperialist bloc of the east broke up, rather than being formed, with the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union (Class Struggle, no. 7, p. 34). These neo-revisionists are always excited to talk about Stalin's alleged "mistakes" and to malign that great Marxist-Leninist. In this way, they have been supporting Tito's anti-Stalin, anti-communist theory of "red imperialism".
These new efforts by international opportunism to rehabilitate the Tito clique are a matter of grave concern for all Marxist-Leninists, class-conscious workers and progressive people. They are a big promotion of revisionism, a big attack on Marxism-Leninism. There is no murderer too blood-stained, no revisionist too sold-out, no method of struggle too dirty, that international opportunism will not reach for it in its struggle against the world revolution. This issue of The Workers' Advocate centers around exposing the Tito clique. It includes a number of important documents of the international communist movement from the three verdicts against the Tito clique.
What are some of the crimes of the Titoite revisionists?
The Tito clique long ago capitulated to U.S. and British imperialism. In World War II, the peoples of Yugoslavia, alongside the other fighting peoples in the Balkans and around the world, waged a bloody and heroic struggle for liberation against the Nazis. The Tito clique seized leading positions inside the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in order to sabotage the struggle of the Yugoslav peoples from within. The British imperialists, realizing that they could not rely on the Yugoslav domestic fascist "Chetniks" of Mihailovic to deceive and suppress the Yugoslav people, aimed more and more to reliance on the Tito clique. In alliance with the British and the Americans, he Tito group tried to set up a "Balkan Staff" to place ill the Balkan liberation armies under the strict control of the Anglo-American imperialists. Even back then, Tito was a great-power chauvinist and made repeated attempts to take control of the Albanian partisans and other Balkan fighters in order to bring them under his hegemony and to secure the Balkans for the Anglo-American imperialists. He wished to set up a Balkan Federation" under imperialist control with himself as the puppet ruler.
After World War II, the Tito clique continued to repeal its treacherous features. The Titoite betrayal as strongly resisted by the Yugoslav Marxist-Leninist communists. In order to suppress resistance and consolidate its position in the Party the Tito clique thought nothing of murdering large numbers of these comrades. Seeking to destroy the Party, the Titoites put it under the surveillance of the Yugoslav Ministry cf the Interior, that is, under the direction of the police. In the period from 1948 to 1952 alone, the Titoites purged large numbers of Marxist-Leninists, whom it accused of being "Cominform elements", from the Party, expelling more than 200,000 Party members, or half the original membership of the party. Finally, in 1952, they abolished the Party altogether and replaced it with the "League of Communists of Yugoslavia", which was to play only an "ideological role" in Yugoslavia (just as the American revisionist Browder liquidated the Communist Party ISA in 1944 and turned it into an "educational association"). Thus the Titoites deprived the Yugoslav proletariat of its vanguard party.
The Titoites overthrew the dictatorship of the proletariat, for which the Yugoslav people had shed so much blood. The Titoites restored capitalism both in the countryside and the cities. Today all the laws of capitalist production operate in Yugoslavia. Unemployment and all the other running sores of capitalism "are epidemic. Millions of Yugoslav workers and peasants have been forced by poverty and unemployment to emigrate abroad to such countries as West Germany aid the U.S. to find work, where they toil as wage-slaves for monopoly capital and are viciously discriminated against as immigrants. All the political consequences of capitalism are also present in Yugoslavia. The Titoite revisionists, chauvinists that they are, have whipped up national antagonisms among the Yugoslav nationalities and set them at each other's throats. The struggle inside the Tito clique between the Tito-Kardelj-Bakarich group, representing Croat-Slovenian capitalist chauvinism, and the rival group of Rankovich, that represented great Serb capitalist chauvinism, was a vivid example of this. The Titoites have especial hatred for the Albanian minority inside Yugoslavia and have committed many acts of genocide against it. Mass jailings of Albanians in the Kosova region are common. Albanians have even been deported en masse to Turkey, a thing which was unknown even under the old regime prior to World War II!
The Titoites continued to sell out their country to world imperialism. As U.S. imperialism became the chief imperialist power following World War II, the Titoites became a special detachment of U.S. imperialism. The Titoites betrayed the national sovereignty of Yugoslavia. They sold Yugoslavia and the land and labor of its peoples lock, stock and barrel to foreign imperialism. They have permitted huge investments of foreign capital in the country. The imperialists highly value their Titoite slaves and have both propped them up and exploited them with literally billions of dollars of "aid" and investments. For example, from World War II up to 1963 the U.S. -led western imperialists gave Yugoslavia some 5 1/2 billion dollars of "aid", $3 1/2 billion of which came from the U.S., most of that being extended after 1950. In 1961 loans from the imperialists amounted to a sum equal to 2/3 of the federal budget of Yugoslavia. Since 1951 more than 50 treaties have been signed binding Yugoslavia militarily to the U.S. imperialists' aggressive bloc. This treacherous sell-out and betrayal has never stopped, but has only gone further and further. The U.S. Sixth Fleet, notorious for its interventionist activities against the Arab and Mediterranean peoples, is provided with a haven at Yugoslav ports.
In early October this year, the Yugoslav president Kardelj and "defense" secretary Ljubcic came to Washington. Guidelines were then set for "military-to-military" cooperation involving expanded U.S. military sales to Yugoslavia, increased training of Yugoslav officers by the U.S., port calls to the U.S. by Yugoslav ships and mutual visits by military officials of the two countries. It was announced that the U.S. is expected to supply Yugoslavia with antitank missiles and anti-aircraft radar. Following this visit, Kardelj declared that U.S.-Yugoslav relations are "better than ever". The only new development in this outright betrayal is that after capitalism was restored in the Soviet Union, the Titoites also began to sell out their national sovereignty to, and make military deals with, Soviet social-imperialism as well. The Tito clique is buying increasing amounts of arms.from the New Tsars of the Kremlin. Soviet warships are permitted to use Yugoslav ports. During the Soviet invasion of Angola, the Titoites permitted the New Tsars to airlift aggressor troops and supplies over Yugoslavia. This exposes the fact that Tito hated the Soviet Union and Stalin only for their socialism and he is quite willing to play footsy with the social- imperialist New Tsars. Far from fighting against the hegemony of the two superpowers, Tito is an abject lackey of the whole world system of imperialism. There is no hint of "non-alignment" with imperialism in the sordid tale of Titoite revisionism.
All those billions of U.S. dollars were not sent to Yugoslavia to buy roses for the Yugoslav children.
The U.S. does not pay countries to build socialism. Every single dollar required payment of an act of treason to the revolution. One of Tito's first big tasks for international imperialism was to penetrate and subvert the socialist camp. In the later 1940's and early 1950's groups of Titoite spies and agents were uncovered and wiped out in Albania, Hungary and Bulgaria. Due to Comrade Stalin's timely leadership of the international communist movement in denouncing Titoism, the socialist camp was preserved. But Khrushchov collaborated with Titoite revisionism and tried to rehabilitate it in order to undermine socialism. Acting in close collaboration with Khrushchov, Tito was the main organizer of the 1956 counter-revolution in Hungary and created weaknesses in a number of other Eastern European People's Democracies which were later exploited by the Khrushchovite revisionists to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism in all of them except Albania. Albania was only saved by the heroic struggle of the Albanian people led by Comrade Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor of Albania. The Titoite revisionists were especially active in taking up the banner of "de-Stalinization" and "liberalism", of denouncing everyone who remained a Marxist-Leninist as a "Stalinist", and of promoting a specific "Yugoslav road to socialism" in opposition to the common path of the October Revolution. The Titoites continually denounced the socialist system in the harshest words, as in the attack on Albania by Rankovich, a leading Titoite, in which he called it "a hell where barbed wire and the boots of the frontier guards reign supreme. " One leading Titoite declared in 1956 that "the socialist state robs the workers". In this U.S.- financed betrayal of socialism, of course, the Titoites were the forerunners and teachers of Khrushchov, who viciously slandered Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU to open the way for the biggest onslaught of modern revisionism against Marxism-Leninism.
The Yugoslav revisionists not only attacked the socialist countries, but also the national liberation movement. The Tito clique developed the theory of the "non-bloc" and of the "non-aligned movement" in order to detach the newly independent countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America from the socialist countries and lead them into a new slavery to imperialism.
After World War II, the camp of socialist countries in Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia exerted a strong attraction to the national liberation movement and the newly independent countries. Tito sought to smash this influence and attraction by describing the socialist camp as an imperialist bloc on the same level as the western imperialists and, in fact, worse than the western imperialists. Tito put forward the hoax that these countries should be "non-aligned" with both western imperialism and the socialist Soviet Union, which he attacked in harsher terms than imperialism itself. In reality, this actually meant openly splitting with socialism while covertly allying with imperialism. Thus Tito sought to sabotage the national liberation movement by breaking up any alliance between it and the most resolute force supporting revolution and national liberation, the proletariat and socialism.
The real nature of Tito's so-called "non-alignment" "struggle against imperialism" can be seen by examining the political stands taken by Yugoslavia internationally, stands bought and paid for by the western imperialists. Tito sabotaged the armed struggle of the Greek people against the monarcho-fascist regime imposed upon them by Anglo-American imperialism.
On July 10, 1949 Tito closed the border between Yugoslavia and Greece so that the Greek people's democratic guerrilla forces could not cross it. But at the same time he allowed the Greek fascist royalist forces to pass through Yugoslav territory in order to attack the people's guerillas from the rear. What a perfect example of "non-alignment"! During the Korean War, the Tito clique defended U.S. imperialism in the Korean War and voted in the United Nations for an embargo on China and Korea. The Titoites even heaped the blame for U.S. aggression against Korea, on the "evil Stalinists" of the socialist Soviet Union! The Tito clique slandered the great historic battle of the Vietnamese people to liberate Dien Bien Phu, the battle that sealed the doom of French colonialism in Viet Nam, saying that it was "not a gesture of good will". Tito even went so far as to slander the Vietnamese people's struggle as a whole, saying that the Vietnamese were being used by Moscow and Peking "as a card in their post-war policy of cold war." The Titoites slandered China when it was confronted by aggression by the Indian reactionaries in the Sino-Indian border dispute and claimed that China "permits itself to revise its border with India willfully and by force" and "committed aggression". And Tito praised the Kennedy Administration's "Alliance for Progress" program dedicated to deepening the enslavement of the Latin American people. There is no "third road". The "non-alignment" of the Tito class and national traitors proved in practice to be prettification of imperialism and vicious slander of the world forces of freedom and slavery. Titoite revisionism is a counter-revolutionary Trojan Horse for imperialism among the people's forces.
This is only a partial listing of the crimes of the Tito clique. It shows that the Tito clique is, indeed, a gang of "murderers and spies" for U.S. imperialism, as the 1949 Cominform Resolution described it. In 1963 Comrade Enver Hoxha dismissed the possibility that the Titoite revisionists might change and become progressive with the words: "Only the grave can straighten out a hunchback." ("The Crisis of Italian Modern Revisionism")
What is the significance of the attempts by international opportunism to reverse the verdict against the Titoite revisionist clique?
To reverse the verdict on the Tito clique is, first and foremost, to embrace revisionism. Titoite revisionism is one of the main currents of modern revisionism, in the same family as Browder, Khrushchov and Togliatti. Browderite revisionism was the first major current of modern revisionism to make its appearance. Browder tried to degenerate the CPUSA from within. He was obsessed with "bourgeois democracy" and denigrated the need for the Marxist-Leninist Party and the proletarian revolution. He advocated that the oppressed nations could be liberated and develop under the benevolent tutelage of U.S. imperialism. Browder betrayed Marxism-Leninism on a whole series of questions of fundamental principle. Finally he liquidated the CPUSA in 1944 and replaced it with a loose educational association, the Communist Political Association. Browder was a fond advocate of Tito and nauseatingly sang Tito's praises in the infamous revisionist book Teheran, Our Role in War and Peace, while ignoring all the other anti-fascist resistance movements in Europe. Browder praised his fellow lackey in terms well-suited to their common capitalist nature: "...it is clear that if Europe escapes a half-century of chaos, the name of Tito will rate higher in the American financial market than any other name in the Nazi- occupied countries." (p. 45, International Publishers, 1944) Browderism contaminated not just the CPUSA but also other parties; it was an international current. After the downfall of Browder, Tito came out openly as the standard-bearer of modern revisionism. The Tito clique was the first revisionist trend to appear in a socialist country and to take state power. It restored capitalism in a socialist country, became a special detachment of imperialism, a center of intrigues against socialism and the national liberation movement and provided a set of ready-made opportunist ideological, political and organizational forms for the use of all brands of revisionists in attacking the revolution and socialism.
After Tito, Khrushchovite revisionism sprang up as the direct continuation and development of Browderism and Titoism. Khrushchov himself recognized this and stated in 1963 that he and the Tito clique "belong to one and the same idea and are guided by the same theory". (N.S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni in Yugoslavia, Aug. 28, 1963, cited in "The Proletarian Revolution and Khrushchov's Revisionism", Peking, 1964, p. 56) Khrushchovite revisionism, which seized power in the Soviet Union and in most of the Eastern European People's Democracies, became the center of international modern revisionism. Khrushchov was the first opportunist to attempt to reverse the verdict on the Tito clique. Browderism, Titoism, Khrushchovite revisionism and the Italian revisionist theses on "polycentrism" and "structural reform" all constitute concentrated representatives of modern revisionism.
Thus the present attempt to reverse the verdict on the Tito clique shows that modern revisionism is still the main danger in the international communist movement. It shows that now is a time similar to that of the great polemics against revisionism of the early 1960's. It is essential to take up the task of thoroughly repudiating revisionism, social-chauvinism and all opportunism in order to unite the Marxist-Leninists and clarify the political line for the American revolution. In the U.S., Browderism has still not been thoroughly repudiated, and the new Browderites led by Klonsky's October League are running amok. The struggle against all forms of modern revisionism, whether Browderite, Titoite, Khrushchovite or that of the "Eurocommunists" and the theories of the late Italian revisionist Togliatti, must be intensified.
The attempt to reverse the verdict on the revisionist Tito clique reveals the revisionist essence of the anti-Leninist theory of "Three Worlds". It shows that the "theoreticians" of "Three Worlds", those OL champions of "dialectics", are close kin of the Titoites. They have the same hatred for socialism as Tito, the same hatred for national liberation as Tito. The theory of "Three Worlds" and Tito's theory of "non-alignment" are as alike as two drops of water. The theory of "Three Worlds", Tito's "non-alignment" and the Soviet revisionist theory of "non-capitalist road of development" are all in essence the same theory of negating revolution, contending for influence among the oppressor classes and relegating the workers and peasants to the sphere of patiently and slavishly developing the productive forces for the benefit of the imperialists and the domestic comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords. Tito's "non-alignment" and the theory of "Three Worlds" are particularly adapted to hitching the oppressed nations to the U.S. imperialist nuclear umbrella, while the road of "non-capitalist development" is adapted for Soviet domination under a "non-capitalist" banner, but all these theories and "theoreticians" fight against the world revolution. Tito's hugs and kisses with Brezhnev show that you cannot rely on the lackeys of one superpower to oppose another. All the revisionists aim their main blow at the Marxist-Leninists and the revolution.
To embrace Tito is to embrace U.S. imperialism. To open the door to the dog is to let in his master.
The Titoite revisionist theories provide ready-made formulas and political and organizational forms for use of the revisionist elements in restoring capitalism in a socialist country. Titoism is a transmission-belt for the ideology of U.S. imperialism and of capitalism in general into the socialist countries. This is the role it played with regard to the former People's Democracies of Eastern Europe and the formerly socialist Soviet Union. At the same time the Titoite spies and wreckers directly subverted the dictatorship of the proletariat in these countries, all in service of U.S. imperialism. And once the revisionists had seized power in those countries and were actively restoring capitalism, Tito acted as the intermediary between his master, U.S. imperialism, and the revisionist cliques. It is the same with the pro-U.S. imperialist theory of "non-alignment", which the Titoites spread to subvert the national liberation movement. Tito's theory of "non-alignment" has already provided the theorists of the "Three Worlds" theory with ready-made foundations for their own version of this anti-Leninist theory. Thus, as Comrade Enver Hoxha said, "The voice of the Titoites is the voice of U.S. imperialism." ("Khrushchov Kneeling Before Tito") To embrace Tito is, therefore, to say that you, too, are ready to be bought with the blood-soaked Yankee dollars and to be used as a pawn in the war plots and aggressive activities of the Washington slave-masters, who are strengthening their aggressive bloc in preparation for a reactionary world war with their Soviet and Warsaw Pact rivals.
The resurrection of Tito by international opportunism shows the great hatred that international opportunism bears for the glorious Party of Labor of Albania and for Comrade Enver Hoxha. Comrade Hoxha's historic REPORT TO THE SEVENTH CONGRESS OF THE PARTY OF LABOR OF ALBANIA is a Marxist-Leninist classic which is a great rallying point for all genuine Marxist-Leninists the world over to oppose revisionism and all sorts of anti-Leninist theses, such as that of the "Three Worlds". In the difficult period following the death of Chairman Mao, it is Comrade Enver Hoxha who is leading the international movement by defending the purity of Marxism. The social-chauvinists do not dare openly state their views on this Report and have instead been using the dirty methods of whispering in dark corners, first using a campaign of silence and now floating all sorts of innuendos and insinuations and going into an all-round panic. The OL, for example, promised in the pages of The Call, (November 29, 1976) to print the Seventh Congress Report but these social-chauvinists never dared to do that. Now international opportunism is taking up Tito in order to strike at Albania. The OL has found the UN speech of the Titoite Lazar Mojsov of Yugoslavia worthy of praise for, don't laugh, the importance it gave to "the development of the new economic order and the combatting of big-power domination internationally". (The Call, October 10, 1977) Various opportunists are praising Tito for "unifying the nationalities" of Yugoslavia, which is not only a big Hitlerite lie but also an open encouragement for the Titoites to continue "unifying" the Balkan nationalities by carrying out their long-standing desire to make Albania the "seventh republic of Yugoslavia", as various Yugoslav documents put it. Ever since 1942 the Tito clique has continually tried to put Albania under its control, has engineered a number of attempts at coup d'etats, committed hundreds of provocations at the border, viciously persecuted the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia, attempted to militarily occupy Albania with Yugoslav troops in 1948, plotted with the Greek reactionaries and U.S. Sixth Fleet to attack Albania in 1960, etc., etc. In all these activities the Titoites have spearheaded their attacks against the Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Party of Labor of Albania and especially at Comrade Enver Hoxha. Tito regarded Albania as a "thorn in his foot". The Titoites have called Albania all sorts of names, from a "hell on earth" to what is for these perverted souls a term of abuse, "Stalinists". In his historic speech to the 1960 Moscow Meeting Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out that if the Party of Labor of Albania had "made the mistake of joining in the 'conciliation waltz' with the Yugoslav revisionists, as was preached after 1955, then the people's democracy in Albania would have gone down the drain. We, Albanians, would not have been here in this hall, but would have been still fighting in our mountains." To embrace Tito today is to embrace the deadly enemy of Socialist Albania, the rallying center of the world revolution. It is to attack the revolutionary authority of Comrade Enver Hoxha and the PLA, to attack the leadership and the unity of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement.
The rehabilitation of Tito means to slander the great Leninist Comrade Stalin. And in fact international opportunism is stepping up a campaign to talk about Stalin's alleged "mistakes" and to charge the Comintern (Communist or Third International) with all sorts of "mistakes". This is very evident in the new issue of the social-chauvinist journal Class Struggle (Fall 1977, no. 8). The door is being opened to "polycentrism" and to the Titoite heroes of "de-Stalinization". Tito had to attack Stalin as a "dictator" and the socialist Soviet Union as "imperialist" in order to create public opinion for his restorationist activities in Yugoslavia and elsewhere. By these attacks he hoped to turn the peoples away from the socialist road and from alliance with the great bastion of socialism and base of world revolution, Stalin's Soviet Union. The rehabilitation of Tito is always linked to attacking Stalin. It was no accident that the renegade Khrushchov preceded his vile attacks on Comrade Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 with an attempt to rehabilitate Tito in 1955. It is a great tribute to Comrade Stalin that all the opportunists and revisionists find it necessary to attack him in order to oppose Leninism, For Tito, for most varieties of revisionism and for imperialism generally, to call someone a "Stalinist" is the highest form of abuse. The imperialist press constantly rages at Albania for being "Stalinist". This shows that Comrade Stalin not only drew a clear line of demarcation between himself and Leninism on the one hand, and revisionism and all its adherents on the other, but that he accomplished a great deal in his revolutionary work, which all genuine Marxist-Leninists are duty-bound to study conscientiously and uphold. Today, as yesterday, to embrace Tito is to attack Stalin, and the struggle against Titoite revisionism is also a struggle to defend the life and work of Comrade Stalin, the faithful disciple of Lenin.
The attempt to reverse the verdict on Tito indicates the utter opposition of international opportunism to the life and work of Chairman Mao Tsetung. Comrade Mao Tsetung was an ardent Leninist. He always fought as part of the international communist movement and recognized the revolutionary authority of Comrade Stalin. In warm and glowing terms, Chairman Mao wrote how "Since the death of Lenin, Comrade Stalin has at all times been the central figure in the world Communist movement. We rallied a - round him, ceaselessly asked his advice and ceaselessly drew strength from his works". ("The Greatest Friendship", a tribute to Stalin at his death.) After Stalin's death until he himself died in 1976, Comrade Mao Tsetung led the international communist movement. International opportunism always opposed the revolutionary authority of Chairman Mao and Mao Tsetung Thought while he was alive. But now that he is "safely" dead, a section of the opportunists are trying to promote their anti-Leninist theories and Titoism under the cover of the name and prestige of Comrade Mao Tsetung. They are following the line of China's Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi, in presenting Chairman Mao as some sort of Asian Tito and "Asian Marxist". Liu Shao-chi said: "He (Chairman Mao -- ed.) has created a Chinese or an Asiatic form of Marxism..." (Mao Tsetung Thought vs. Opportunism, COUSML, 1976, p. 42) The opportunists want the international proletariat to believe that Chairman Mao, like a Tito, opposed the Communist International led by Stalin, opposed Leninism like Tito does, and that he advocated a "Chinese road to socialism" like Tito's "Yugoslav road to socialism". In this way, international opportunism is trying to blacken and discredit the great life and work of Chairman Mao, which shines so brightly for the proletariat and oppressed peoples of the world. But all this bluster is a sham which will only frighten the weak-nerved. In fact, Comrade Mao Tsetung was a great fighter against revisionism of every kind, including Titoism. The working and oppressed people of the world know and feel that he was their great leader, not a traitor like Tito. Chairman Mao explicitly condemned the Titoite revisionist "third road" in his article "On People's Democratic Dictatorship" in 1949, not to speak of the constant emphasis in his articles that the new-democratic revolution is part of the world proletarian socialist revolution. In 1966, Chairman Mao had this to say about the Titoite revisionists:
"Heroic people's Albania has become a great beacon of socialism in Europe. The revisionist leading clique of the Soviet Union, the Tito clique of Yugoslavia and all other cliques of renegades and scabs of various shades are mere dust heaps in comparison, while you, a lofty mountain, tower to the skies. They are flunkeys and accomplices of imperialism before which they prostrate themselves, while you are dauntless proletarian revolutionaries who dare to fight imperialism and its lackeys, fight the world's tyrannical enemies." (Message of Greetings to the Fifth Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, October 25, 1966)
To uphold the honor of Chairman Mao today one must oppose the counter-revolutionary Tito clique and uphold revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. The verdict condemning the Tito clique can never be reversed! The attempt to whitewash Tito has already backfired and set off a new world-wide storm of condemnation of Tito. The Marxist-Leninists are heeding the warning made by Comrade Enver Hoxha in his speech at the 1960 Moscow Meeting: "The wolf may change his coat but he remains a wolf. Tito and his gang may resort to trickery, may try to disguise themselves, but they remain traitors and agents of imperialism, the murderers of the heroic Yugoslav internationalist communists, and this is what they will be, and how they will act until they are wiped out."
In this issue of The Workers' Advocate we are reprinting the two famous resolutions of the Cominform denouncing the Tito clique. These resolutions represent the first verdict of the international communist movement against Titoite revisionism. The resolutions denounce in detail the Titoite clique's betrayal of the fundamental principles of Marxism concerning the role of the Marxist-Leninist Party, attitude towards the socialist Soviet Union, towards the sharpening of class struggle under socialism, etc., and point out that by 1949 the Yugoslav party had fallen completely into the hands of the Tito clique, a gang of "hired spies and murderers" who had installed "an anti-communist police state--fascist-type regime", carried out the "complete liquidation of the independence of the Yugoslav Republic" and turned the country into an "American center for espionage and anti-communist activity."
The 1960 Moscow Meeting arrived at the second verdict of the international communist movement against the Titoite revisionists. We reprint the sections of the Moscow Statement denouncing Titoite revisionism and pointing out that "revisionism, right-wing opportunism", was the main danger in the international communist movement. We also reprint from Comrade Enver Hoxha's historic speech at that meeting, in which he militantly defended and upheld the verdict of the 1948 and 1949 Cominform Resolutions.
We also reprint two important polemics from the great debates against modern revisionism which erupted in the early 1960's after the Moscow Meeting. This debate marked the third verdict of the international communist movement against Titoite revisionism. Reprinted here is the pamphlet "Is Yugoslavia a Socialist Country?" by the Communist Party of China and an article by Comrade Enver Hoxha entitled "Khrushchov Kneeling Before Tito". Khrushchov was the first to try to reverse the verdict against the Tito gang. In his article Comrade Enver Hoxha points out that by carrying out the rehabilitation of Tito "the Khrushchov group has obliterated any distinction between friend and foe, between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism, between defenders and disruptors of unity, and between anti-imperialist fighters and agents of imperialism, and has gone completely over to the camp of the enemies of Marxism-Leninism, socialism, the peoples and peace in the world".
From the present-day struggle against Titoite revisionism we reprint an editorial from Radio Tirana entitled "The Yugoslav 'Self-Administrative Socialism', An Opportunist Ideological Trend and an Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Political Practice" and excerpts from the article "The Anti-Marxist Content of Self-Administrative Socialism" from Rruga e Parti se, theoretical and political organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania. These articles denounce the so-called "Yugoslav road to socialism" which is actually the road to capitalism. They point out that under the guise of this demagogical slogan the Titoites distort the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of each country into negating the universal laws of Marxism-Leninism altogether. The Titoites hold that these laws are not universally applicable, that the international communist movement does not base itself on a program common to all countries, but that instead each country can go its own way, that the Tito gang can betray the path path of the October Revolution and get away with calling themselves "socialists" and "communists". The "Yugoslav road to socialism" was the model for the polycentrism of Togliatti and for all those who wanted to depart from the path of the October Revolution and split with the international communist movement while covering themselves with deceptive rhetoric. It was a slogan much promoted by the imperialist ideologists.
An integral part of the so-called "Yugoslav road to socialism" is the outright denial of the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist Party in the revolution and the denial of the necessity of the proletarian dictatorship to carry out the transition from capitalism to communism. The Yugoslavs claim that their "road" is free from the "evil Stalinist bureaucracy" allegedly inherent in the Communist Party and proletarian state and instead allows "the workers themselves" to control their fate. "Self-administrative socialism" is based on the hoax that ownership of the means of production by the socialist state will inevitably lead to the creation of a new class of exploiters and to the degeneration of socialism into capitalism. Using this foul slander of socialism, the Titoites destroyed socialist ownership and liquidated Party leadership and replaced them with a revisionist form of industrial management in which the workers in each factory, not the state, allegedly control production. Instead of planned production under the control of the proletarian state led by the Party, this inevitably resulted in capitalist competition between different industrial concerns; the working class was split up into competing factions; rather than "the workers themselves" having power, the factory managers acquired power and became a new bourgeois class exploiting the workers; and capitalism was restored. These anarchist, anti-communist concepts of Titoism were an inspiration to the "New Left" in the U.S., the negative line in the youth and student movement of the 1960's, which advocated "participatory democracy" and opposed any organizational structures such as the Marxist-Leninist Party and the proletarian state on the grounds that they would be "bureaucratic" and "Stalinist".
Finally, The Workers' Advocate exposes the efforts of the OL social-chauvinists to turn Chairman Mao into a Titoite revisionist, to claim that he was the creator of the anti-Leninist "Three Worlds" theory.
We print an article "Flimsy Fraud, Desperate Gamble" together with excerpts from our March 10, 1977, article against the "Three Worlds" theory. These articles expose the fraudulent nature of the flimsy evidence used by the social-chauvinists to "prove" that Chairman Mao originated the "Three Worlds" theory. To defend Chairman Mao today it is necessary to expose those outright liars who feel no compunctions at flagrantly distorting the writings of this great Marxist-Leninist in a desperate gamble to save their counter-revolutionary theories from exposure. We also reprint an article written by Chairman Mao on the death of Stalin,' entitled "The Greatest Friendship", which shows that Chairman Mao resolutely defended the life and work of Comrade Stalin against the Titoite slanders. Chairman Mao's deep love and esteem for Comrade Stalin can be felt in every line of this tribute. It shows that he proudly tread in the footsteps of Comrade Stalin.
We are living in an exciting period. Opportunist traitors are being unmasked right and left. The world revolution is gaining ever-greater momentum. By attempting to rehabilitate Titoite revisionism, international opportunism, the servant of the world system of imperialism, is lifting a rock only to drop it on its own and its master's feet. The exposure of Titoite revisionism, will directly serve to expose all international opportunists. Titoite revisionism, and all forms of revisionism and opportunism, will be stripped of their masks by the Marxist-Leninist Parties and will be more and more thoroughly exposed. This struggle will steel the Marxist-Leninist Parties and prepare them to lead a truly unprecedented upsurge of world revolution. End.
1. The Attitude Towards "One's Own" Reactionary Bourgeoisie and "One's Own" Imperialist State Machine Is the Real Test of Internationalism
2. The "Appeasement" Slogan: An Open Call for U.S. Imperialism to Intensify its Aggression All Around the World
3. The OL Social-Chauvinists Have Become the "Left" Wing of Carter's "Human Rights" Campaign
4. Klehr Should Pin the Label of Trotskyism on Herself
5. Is the Theory of Class Struggle Trotskyism?
6. Is It Trotskyism to Deny the Leading Role in the New-Democratic Revolution to the Bourgeoisie and the Feudal Landlords?
INTRODUCTION
In the spring, 1977, issue of Class Struggle, theoretical journal of the October League (OL) social-chauvinists, there is a major article entitled "Whitewashing Enemies and Slandering Friends" by Eileen Klehr. Klehr is vice-chairman of the OL (now treacherously calling itself the "Communist Party (Marxist- Leninist)"). The OL is a rotten social-chauvinist sect. It is "Marxist-Leninist" only in words, but in deeds it is a bunch of fanatical U.S. superpower imperialist chauvinists. Its theory of directing the "main blow" against the Soviet social-imperialists as the "strategy and tactics" of revolution (The Call, centerfold, Nov. 22, 1976) is an open call for defending the U.S. imperialist fatherland in a reactionary inter-imperialist war for world domination. The OL is trying its hardest to give a "Marxist" color to the propaganda of U.S. imperialism and to create war hysteria and fear of the foreign threat. The OL is so shameless that its propaganda is more warlike and bellicose in tone than that of U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter, and the OL regularly denounces the Carter administration, which is arming to the teeth in order to massacre the people in a threatened third world war, for alleged "appeasement".
In order to gain the confidence of the working class, to deceive it and lead it to the slaughter, the social - chauvinists deck themselves out as "internationalists". Lenin pointed out: "Only lazy people do not swear by internationalism these days. Even the chauvinist defencists, even Plekhanov and Potresov, even Kerensky, call themselves internationalists. It becomes the duty of the proletarian party all the more urgently, therefore, to clearly, precisely and definitely counterpose internationalism in deed to internationalism in word." (1) In Klehr's article, she tries to present the OL's support for U.S. imperialism in its struggle against Soviet social-imperialism and also against the world revolution as "internationalism". According to the OL, true internationalists in the U.S. are not those who resolutely and selflessly struggle to wipe out the ultrareactionary government of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class as their contribution to world revolution. Oh no. For OL true internationalism is -- don't laugh-- to support U.S. imperialism in directing the "main blow" at Soviet social-imperialism. True internationalism, a la the OL, is expressed not by fighting the U.S. imperialists, but by denouncing Carter's decision to not go ahead just yet with much more production on the B-l bomber, an instrument designed for mass slaughter with nuclear weapons, as "appeasement" (The Call, editorial, July 11, 1977). You blink your eyes with amazement at such brazen enthusiasm for imperialism, but Klehr's article begins with a picture captioned "Solidarity between Moroccan and Zairean soldiers". This picture lauds the "unity" between the cannon-fodder from Morocco, fresh from being used in an unsuccessful attempt to drown in blood the national liberation struggle of the Spanish Saharan people led by POLISARIO, and the cannon-fodder from "Zaire" (the Congo-Kinshasa), being used in an attempt to wipe out the national liberation movement in the Congo (K), led by the Marxist Revolutionary Party of the Congo (K). Defense of U.S. imperialism and its neo-colonial empire and spheres of influence from "theft" by Soviet social-imperialism and from true liberation by revolution -- that is the new "internationalism" of the OL.
Ms. Klehr's article talks of "whitewashing enemies and slandering friends". Who are one's friends and who are one's enemies --this is a fundamental question for the revolution. Klehr's "friend" is, first and foremost, U.S. imperialism, which is being "slandered" by being called equally with the Soviet social-imperialists a barbarous and aggressive enemy of the world's people. According to Klehr, this is "slander" as the Soviet Union is the most dangerous source of war and is fascist, presumably in contrast to the allegedly non-fascist, democratic and peace-loving U.S. imperialism, a U.S. imperialism which is alleged to have been civilized by its defeat in Indochina. Another bunch of Klehr's "friends", referred to in the title of her article, are the U.S. neo-colonial lackeys in the vast U.S. colonial empire around the world -- and first and foremost OL lavishes praise on the most blood stained dictators, traitors, to and murderers of their own people, such as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu of the Congo(K) and Idi Amin of Uganda. Klehr says that to oppose these imperialist agents is "... to oppose the struggle of the third world countries and peoples..." and this is echoed in a centerfold article (The Call, July 11, 1977) on the same subject, which says that not to support these lackeys "is a chauvinist attack on the rising national movements in the third world which are not under working class leadership today." (What a nice euphemism for fascist dictatorship -- "national movements...not under working class leadership".) Finally, Klehr rushes to the defense of the West European imperialists, who are more of her poor slandered and misunderstood friends. OL praises this big neo-colonial power, the European Economic Community, which is actually competing with both superpowers to drink the blood of the oppressed nations, which is arming to the teeth to suppress socialism in Europe, and which with NATO is a reliable base area of U.S. imperialism in its struggle against the Soviet-led imperialist Warsaw Treaty bloc.
And who are Klehr' enemies? She subtitles her article "An exposure of the RCP's revisionist line on the international situation". But this is just a ruse. She does not particularly have the Revolutionary Communist Party in mind. Thus her article attacks RCP as being "in opposition to the concept of the three worlds". Yet everybody knows that the RCP has never opposed the counter-revolutionary theory of "Three Worlds". Quite the contrary. So Klehr's article is really directed mainly at all who have preserved their revolutionary honor and wish to fight U.S. imperialism and its social-chauvinist lackeys. Her enemies, first and foremost, are the genuine Marxist-Leninists and true internationalists in the U.S. who are rallying together to fight social-chauvinism, repudiate the theory of directing the "main blow" at Soviet social-imperialism, and who direct their struggle towards forwarding the proletarian revolution in the U.S. She has particular venom for the ideas coming out of the historic Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania. She labels the internationalists as "Trotskyites", "agents of the Soviet social-imperialists", "followers of the gang of four" and "anti-China".
In this article OL continues its trick of using all sorts of sophistry, dressed up as "dialectics", in order to defend chauvinism. Lenin denounced this trick, which was also used by the social-chauvinists of his time, and pointed out that "Dialectic is turned (by the social-chauvinists--ed.) into the meanest and basest sophistry!" (2) Furthermore, he observed that Plekhanov, a social- chauvinist who prided himself on his philosophical and theoretical knowledge, had "set a new record in the noble sport of substituting sophistry for dialectics". (3) Klehr is unable to give any serious argument against the internationalist position that both superpowers, as the leaders of the world system of imperialism, are, to the same extent and the same degree, whether taken separately or together, the main enemy of the world's peoples. Therefore she shrugs the question off, evades the now embarrassing question of where to direct the "main blow", and resorts to pure logic and abstract "dialectics" (or, to be precise, fast talk and hustling). She says that recognizing both superpowers as equally the main enemy of the world's people violates the law of uneven development of capitalism, that it is an undialectical theory of "equilibrium" and thus the real internationalists are, presto!, "mechanical materialists". and "Trotskyites". It is all obvious, just ABC, since "unless one freezed time and space matter and motion, no two things in the universe are 'equal to the same degree and the same extent'." (4) My, that was easy--it didn't require any examination and class analysis of world politics and economics, this "dialectics" is really strong stuff! Is NATO a U.S. imperialist bloc, for fighting the Soviet social-imperialist Warsaw bloc? Oh no, says Klehr, blocs don't exist-- that violates the dialectic principle that nothing is static in the world! Before now, people held to the old-fashioned belief that it was necessary to defeat imperialism arms in hand, with revolutionary struggle and people's war, but now OL has revolutionize warfare and wiped out whole imperialist blocs with a single verbal quibble! Ah, the power of philosophy! And, as everyone knows that dialectics hold that opposites can be transformed into one another -- thus the OL U.S. superpower chauvinists turn into "internationalists" in the hands of Klehr's article.
OL is flying a false flag. It is seeking to persuade the American revolutionaries, tempered as we were by the years of mass struggle against the U.S. imperialist wars of aggression in Indochina and years of denouncing U.S. colonialism hidden under the puppet regimes of Thieu, Diem, Lon Nol, Syngman Rhee, Chiang Kai-shek and others, that times have changed, there are new conditions, and we must support U.S. imperialism as the alleged lesser of the two evils against Soviet social-imperialism and that we mustn't dare to denounce the vast U.S. neo-colonial empire for fear of "distinguishing between progressive and reactionary regimes". The OL acts like a thief, caught in the act, who cries "Stop thief!" to avoid exposure. The OL holds that world war can be put off by preserving the balance of power between the superpowers by aiding the allegedly weaker one to attack the allegedly "rising" one -- and on this basis, just because OL itself calls for maintaining the equilibrium between the superpowers as an alleged factor for peace, OL turns around and attacks the internationalists who believe in fighting all imperialism as adherents of the theory of "detente" and "equilibrium"! The OL opposes the new-democratic and national-democratic revolutions of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America under the hoax that this is "overthrow of third world governments" (and thus presumably violates some social-chauvinist loyalty oath against overthrowing reactionary governments)--and then, having consigned the oppressed people to the tender mercies of the Shah of Iran, Mobutu of the Congo(K), Pinochet of Chile, Mengistu of Ethiopia and Marcos of the Philippines, the OL turns around and accuses the revolutionary internationalists of "not supporting the struggles of the third world". What clowns! The OL is trying to pervert the most revolutionary and scientific theory the world has ever known --Marxism- Leninism -- into a tool for deceiving the masses with militant words while crawling in front of the U.S. imperialists and licking their boots, cleaning off the blood-stains from the torture chambers of the "independent" regimes in Brazil and Chile, from the SAVAK in Iran and the murderers of Lumumba in the Congo (K) and from the blood-stained chauvinists and murders of the revisionist Tito regime in Yugoslavia. The Soviet social-imperialists kill and exploit under the signboard of "socialism", the U.S. imperialists kill and exploit under the signboard of "human rights" and today Klehr is on her knees in front of the imperialists under the signboard of "dialectics". This cannot deceive the masses for long. Comrade Enver Hoxha denounced in 1974 the comical posturings of the various puppets of one superpower or the other, the sham "anti-imperialist" utterances by the rulers of the aircraft carrier neo-colonies of U.S. imperialism, the feigned support for communism by international opportunism, as follows: "... If you make such concessions to these monsters (the two Superpowers--ed.) they will allow you even to insult them, call yourselves communists, even pose as adherents of Marx, Lenin and Mao Tsetung. But all this is bluff, for they have gripped you by the throat and you cannot budge: you have become their slave, their agent, have sold out your country and people. " (5)
1. THE ATTITUDE TOWARDS "ONE'S OWN" REACTIONARY BOURGEOISIE AND "ONE'S OWN" IMPERIALIST STATE MACHINE IS THE REAL TEST OF INTERNATIONALISM
What is real internationalism, internationalism in deeds? Internationalism here in the U.S. imperialist heartland requires the American revolutionaries and proletariat to fight resolutely against "our own" bourgeoisie, to undermine it, weaken it, launch revolutionary struggles against it and overthrow it, as our contribution to the world proletarian socialist revolution. Comrade Lenin teaches that:
"There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is -- working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one's own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle , this, and only this, line, in every country without exception.
"Everything else is deception..." (6)
But this is precisely the question that Klehr avoids like the plague. She discusses this and that, rambles on and on, but never touches to the heart of the matter, never discusses directly the attitude towards "one's own" bourgeoisie. Conscious that directing the "main blow" at the foreign enemy means supporting the U.S. bourgeoisie as the alleged "underdog", she barely mentions the question of the "main blow" in passing, on page 28. Imagine that! According to the OL, directing the "main blow" at the Soviet Union is the fundamental strategy of the revolution, a question that directly follows from the "fundamental strategic rule of Leninism", a lesson of "communist strategy and tactics", and yet the question is side-stepped in a major article on the international situation and on internationalism. What is Klehr hiding?
A real internationalist must inspire in the American proletariat an intense burning hatred towards the bourgeoisie, a fierce indignation at all its crimes. The proletariat must be prepared to sacrifice everything for the struggle against the bourgeoisie. It must feel as an axiom that "There is nothing good in the monopoly capitalist class, there is everything good in the working class." Revolutionary propaganda must make the proletariat feel that each bomb, each rocket, each B-l bomber, is being produced to oppress them, to slaughter their friends abroad, to drown the world proletariat and the socialist countries in blood, and to enchain the oppressed nations. Without this, there will be no revolution. Without this, all talk of the great revolutionary struggle one will wage sometime in the future is a hoax. This is a test which all real internationalists must pass. But look at the reality of OL's propaganda and agitation, at its concrete political work. Whenever the OL denounces U.S. imperialism, it is always show to add that the Soviet Union is yet more aggressive. Take OL's attitude to the B-l bomber. Does the OL inculcate in the proletariat the burning feeling that this plane is a tool of aggression, that may perhaps be used in inter-imperialist rivalry against the Soviet Union -- and we will let the OL leaders, those great "internationalists", take what joy they may from the prospect of murder by nuclear holocaust of tens of millions of the Russian people-- but may also be used against the oppressed nations, or against socialist China and socialist Albania? No, the OL condemned U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter for not producing more B-l bombers in the July 11th issue of The Call. According to The Call, "The decision to drop the B-l bomber must be considered in line with other appeasement policies. " The next sentence then tries to blackmail the American proletariat with fear of the foreign bourgeoisie. "The Soviet Union is already putting a similar weapon, the Backfire bomber, into use, thus gaining yet another military advantage over the U.S." Can this be called training the U.S. proletariat to strive for the defeat of "their own" government in an imperialist war? Of course not! The OL is for victory for the U.S. imperialists in an inter-imperialist war, for preventing the Soviet social-imperialists from "gaining yet another military advantage over the U.S.". This is OL's consistent policy. This shameful editorial is fully in line with such past war-mongering as OL's blaring headline "USSR Leading in Superpower War Race" (The Call, Feb. 21, 1977). The OL laments and cries over each supposed set-back for U.S. imperialist military might. That is OL's real stand on the questions of war and peace and of internationalism: all the rest is deception.
Now examine OL's stand on the question of the U.S. colonial empire. The OL has always prided itself on its own special sectarian principles and alleged great contributions on "the national question". Klonsky boasts that "It is on the national question and especially in defense of the right of self-determination for all oppressed nations that our Party has clearly stood out from every other trend." (7) Well, does the OL engage in exposing the cruel exploitation and vicious suppression of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America by U.S. imperialism? No, not at all. In fact, it is precisely on this question that the OL first achieved real notoriety for its social-chauvinist stand in support of the fascist feudal butcher, the Shah of Iran. The OL, in order to retain any influence in the working-class movement at all, is forced to make a show of alleged support for struggles against open colonialism of the old style, such as in Palestine, Azania ("Republic of OL completely hides the existence of the vast U.S. neo-colonial empire, in which formally independent countries with "their own" flags and postage stamps, are held in the iron grip of partial or complete neo-colonial slavery to U.S. imperialism through financial links, economic and military alliances and puppet regimes. Following World War II, the national liberation movement reached new heights and the protracted anti-imperialist struggles have shattered the old-style colonial system. One country after another has won independence. But, Khrushchov and Klonsky to the contrary, colonialism did not vanish. The imperialists have certainly not given up colonialism, but have adopted a new form, neo-colonialism. The U.S. imperialists, while retaining various direct colonial possessions until defeated by the national liberation movement, have specialized in developing new-style colonialism, neo-colonialism. The U.S. imperialists are still today the biggest neo-colonial power in the world. The workers and peasants in many allegedly "independent" countries, groan under colonial and semi-feudal slavery, masked by the ruling regimes of the domestic reactionary classes. This vast colonial empire is white-washed and prettified by the OL. Far from arousing the indignation of the American proletariat against the crimes of U.S. imperialism and its running dogs, the OL denies these crimes and paints beautiful opium dreams of a fantasy world where imperialist lackeys are the "main force" pushing world history forward. The OL even chokes at the sound of the word "neo-colonialism" . Klehr's article does not even mention this word. This word appears only once, without explanation, in the entire 165 page book of "Documents from the Founding Congress of the Communist (read: Social-Chauvinist) Party (Marxist-Leninist)". Dan Burstein, the editor of The Call, managed to spit the word out a few times in his Titoite article "'The World Is Being Turned Upside Down'", but all but once in reference to Soviet neo-colonialism. (8) Take Latin America, where bloody military dictatorships and feudal oligarchies in hock to U.S. imperialism abound. The OL paints these U.S. imperialist-dominated regimes as fighters against the superpowers and, in fact, says that "...the Soviet Union is pursuing a far more aggressive policy on the continent than its rival. " (The Call, Jan. 10, 1977 in the article "Latin America Rebuffs Superpower Schemes.") In this way, the OL objectively lines up with U.S. imperialism and such valiant "fighters" against social-imperialism as the bloody murderer Pinochet of Chile, Geisel of Brazil, etc. Instead of exposing the U.S. imperialists to the proletariat, the OL exposes only the designs of social-imperialism. Whenever it is time to put theories into practice, the OL is always found on the side of U.S. imperialism. When there was a Soviet-backed invasion of the Congo- Kinshasa ("Zaire") earlier this year, the OL came out as a big defender of the reactionary regime of Mobutu and painted U.S. imperialist domination of the Congo (K) in liberation colors. OL neither exposed the crimes of U.S. domination nor even mentioned the true revolutionary forces that have been fighting for years against Mobutu, the murderer of the national hero of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Instead of a- rousing a burning hatred for U.S. colonialism, the OL is trying to mobilize the proletariat behind U.S. domination of the oppressed nations as an alleged bulwark against social-imperialism. This is not internationalism, but great-power chauvinism.
In fact, even the OL's "support" for the struggles against old-style colonialism is just a big sham. At the crucial moment, OL always comes out in favor of the schemes of U.S. imperialism. Consider the case of the U.S. colonial rule over the Panama Canal Zone and U.S. domination of all Panama. The raging struggle of the Panamanian people against U.S. colonialism is dealing big blows to U.S. imperialism and damages it in the eyes of all the other Latin American peoples. Therefore U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter has concluded the negotiations for a new unequal treaty. This treaty continues to legalize U.S. military occupation of the Canal Zone, in words that are even more explicit than the old 1993 unequal treaty. But it removes certain hated symbols of the old colonialism. Now the Panamanian flag will fly over the territory trampled on by U.S. colonial troops. By this neo-colonial policy, by removing some symbols of colonialism while retaining the essence of the brutal aggression against Panama, Carter hopes to lull the Panamanian people to sleep and to present himself to Latin America as a great man of "peace", a supporter of "human rights". Instead of exposing this miserable farce and thus educating the American proletariat and giving aid to the Latin American people, the OL instead gives a "communist" cover to Carter's deception. In an editorial in The Call of Sept. 19, 1977, the OL hails this new unequal treaty, this tool of aggression, as a victory for... Panama! The editorial is entitled "Panama Wins a Victory on Canal Treaty" and states that "the Panamanian people won an important victory with the signing of a new Canal Treaty last week." OL simply bubbles over with enthusiasm and, echoing the lies of the bourgeois press, states: "The new treaty gives the Panamanian government full control of the Canal and the 500-square- mile Canal Zone by the year 2000." What touching faith in the promises of the U.S. imperialists. Actually the treaty guarantees U.S. military domination for the lifetime of the treaty, until 1999... and naturally what comes after 1999 is regulated by the next treaty, not this one. And this treaty gives the U.S. the "permanent right", not even limited by the life of the treaty, to "defend the neutrality" of the canal. In this way, the U.S. imperialists are openly vowing to never, ever give up control over Panama. What an "important victory" for the Panamanian people! Today the OL scrapes and bows and licks Carter's boots clean. Thus at the crucial moment the OL has come out to oppose the struggle against the old- style colonial possession of the Panama Canal.
The OL has even gone to the extent of supporting the U.S. bourgeoisie in its aggressive intentions towards the socialist countries. Instead of putting the spotlight on the intense hatred the U.S. imperialists have for China, and Albania, on their plans for military aggression and their constant attempts to subvert socialism from within, the OL is advocating that U.S. imperialism is friendly towards China and is just a little bit sluggish in its friendship, that it is just "stalling". According to a shameful editorial in The Call, "The Carter Administration, after putting China on the bottom of its list of foreign policy, is finally sending its emissary to Peking." (The Call, Aug. 20, 1977, "Normalize U.S.-China Relations!", underlining added.) So U.S. imperialism is not surrounding China with military bases, building aggressive cruise missiles and neutron bombs, flying spy satellites over China, occupying China's province of Taiwan and sponsoring subversive forces from within, but simply not paying enough attention to China! According to the editorial "... the only real opposition ("which is preventing" Carter "from breaking relations with Taiwan in favor of the PRC"--ed.) is coming from certain groupings of big businessmen and from the Soviet Union, which claims that 'detente' will be threatened by closer U.S.-China relations." So the real reason that U.S. imperialism occupies Taiwan is fear of the Soviet New Tsars! How is that for whitewashing the aggressive imperialism of Wall Street and the White House! Of course, the OL is walling to grant that there are a few big bad businessmen, "certain groupings of big businessmen", just as the revisionist party talks of an ultra-right fringe. What an exposure of the anti-China nature of the OL, those alleged great friends of China, who whitewash U.S. military occupation of Chinese territory! Perhaps the OL will be satisfied by a solemn pledge from the New York Times that the U.S. will vacate both the Panama Canal Zone and Taiwan by the year 1999.
Thus the OL is constantly prettifying U.S. aggression in order to create an atmosphere of war hysteria in which to strike the "main blow" at Soviet social- imperialism. The OL's support for the B-l bomber, their painting the U.S. neo-colonial empire in liberation colors, their treacherous stand toward the socialist countries -- all these are but the practical consequences of OL's theory of directing the "main blow" at a foreign enemy. OL's "internationalism" is the "internationalism" of superpower finance capital, which recognizes no national boundaries but instead seeks to bring the entire world under its murderous domination and ruthless exploitation. This "internationalism" of finance capital is called, in plain language, rabid chauvinism, war-mongering and jingoism. Proletarian internationalism requires one to be a revolutionary at home. You can not be a slave to "your own" imperialist bourgeoisie at home in a superpower, and a great "revolutionary" on the international level.
2. THE "APPEASEMENT" SLOGAN: AN OPEN CALL FOR U.S. IMPERIALISM TO INTENSIFY ITS AGGRESSION ALL AROUND THE WORLD
In place of fighting against the U.S. bourgeoisie and its state apparatus, Klehr calls on the U.S. imperialists to fight harder against the Soviet New Tsars. Klehr actually scolds what she calls the "dominant U.S. ruling circles" for "appeasing " the foreign threat. Thus there are two roads, two paths placed before the American proletariat. On the one hand, there is the path of proletarian internationalism. The internationalists fight against the U.S. bourgeoisie, desire the defeat of "their own" government in its rivalry with foreign imperialists or in its struggles against world revolution, and actively work for the overthrow of the imperialist bourgeoisie. On the other hand, there is the path of imperialist aggression, chauvinist "internationalism". The social-chauvinists are scared stiff by the sorry plight of the U.S. imperialists. They use the slogan of "appeasement" to "accuse" the government of being weak-kneed and peace-loving. They are seeking to mobilize the proletariat to force the government to step up its aggression all around the world. And they are pledging in advance their loyalty to the U.S. monopoly capitalists in the threatened world war.
What is "appeasement"? According to Klehr, "It is a policy that the U.S. imperialists have chosen as the best way to contend with the Soviet social-imperialists. It is a policy of making ever-greater concessions to them in the hopes that this will temporarily divert their aggression, thus enabling the U.S. to strengthen its own political and military position." (p. 25) Klehr is opposed to this "appeasement" policy because she believes that it is not the best way for the U.S. imperialists to contend with the Soviet social-imperialists and strengthen U.S. imperialism's political and military situation. If Klehr were a revolutionary and believed that the "dominant U.S. ruling circles" were making a mistake and blundering right and left, then she would welcome this. She would utilize these mistakes to bring U.S. imperialism to its knees. She would use these blunders to create optimism in the American proletariat, not fear. But Klehr is not a revolutionary, but a volunteer adviser to the Pentagon and State Department. She does not welcome the difficulties of U.S. imperialism, but on the contrary she advises U.S. imperialism how best to strengthen its positions. What a glaring self-exposure!
Klehr brings out what is on her mind by quoting an article about real appeasement of the fascists in the 1930's which claims that appeasement "could only expose the weakness of the West European countries and thereby encourage Hitler to accelerate a war of aggression." (p. 42) Klehr clearly believes that the present-day alleged "appeasement" exposes the weakness of U.S. imperialism, and that weakness pains her.
Of course you mustn't think Klehr wants to strengthen U.S. imperialism in order to keep the U.S. colonial empire enslaved, attack the socialist countries, and exploit the proletariat at home. Oh, no. She is simply concerned to spare the world's people a little longer from the holocaust of what OL regards as an "inevitable" third world war. What a humanitarian! According to Klehr, appeasement "bring(s) on war that much sooner", (p. 25) Thus Klehr believes that it is U.S. imperialism's weakness that brings on war. OL is thus a real believer in what the U.S. imperialists call the "balance of terror". Both the superpowers present the arms race as an alleged factor for peace, because it preserves the balance of terror, and Klehr goes along with this imperialist war-mongering. She accuses others of believing in what she calls the "theory of equilibrium", but it she who believes that the military balance of power, the "equilibrium" between the two superpowers, must be preserved in order to preserve peace. She is biting her finger-nails over her belief that "...militarily the USSR has not only achieved 'parity' but has exceeded the U.S. in this field." (p. 24) She is just an imperialist lackey, mesmerized by the guns and armies of the imperialists, who forgets a "trifle" -- the revolution. The threatened world war has not yet broken out for one reason only -- not the "balance of terror", but the revolutionary struggle of the world's people. It is the international workers' movement, the surging national liberation movement and the victories of socialism, all taken together, that have shaken world imperialism. Either revolution will prevent the threatened world war, or the world war will give rise to revolution. To fight for peace, one must weaken imperialism, not strengthen it. It is criminal to preach fatalism to the masses, that the world war is inevitable so they should pin their hopes for a few more years of peace on strengthening the U.S. imperialist nuclear umbrella. Yet this is just what Klehr does. She does not even pretend to discuss the role of revolution in the U.S. preventing the war. This is because the OL believes that "a new world war is inevitable" and "there is no possibility of civil war and the victory of socialism heading off the war. " (p. 9) So, as a good Samaritan and counterrevolutionary liberal, Klehr just must support building more B-l bombers as a way of "delaying the outbreak" of world war.
Of course, Klehr is outraged whenever anyone accuses OL of wanting to strengthen U.S. imperialism. She rages and fumes, wriggles and squirms, but never straightforwardly denies it. She never states that U.S. imperialism should be weakened to prevent war. She says that the internationalists "opportunistically equate OL's opposition to appeasement of the Soviet Union with 'calling for increased U.S. armaments and national unity behind a strong anti-Soviet government as a way to 'postpone war' " (p. 23)
And this is exactly right. This is just what OL does. Klehr screams: "Gangster logic". But she can't deny the charge and she doesn't want to anyway. Instead she goes off into a historical parallel with World War II in order to justify "calling for increasing U.S. armaments". Klehr believes that the social-chauvinists should work to strengthen U.S. imperialism in a slightly hidden way, so as to draw the proletariat in behind the U.S. war schemes, and is incensed when the internationalists call a spade a spade. Klehr is furious that "The OL's work of pointing out the more dangerous character of social-imperialism world-wide" is characterized as '"urging our own imperialists to be more vigorous in carrying out their imperialist aims and intentions and in their own imperialist drives, to be more vigorous in their plunder and in their contention for domination, exploitation and oppression.'" (p. 24) Why, Klehr fulminates, this is... "distorting OL's line"! But instead of denying the charge, she evades it. She never calls for U.S. imperialism to get out of its neo-colonial empire. If U.S. imperialism is strengthened, if it builds more and more bombers, tanks and missiles in order to fight its imperialist rivals, if NATO is strengthened, won't the U.S.-led western imperialists be "more vigorous in carrying out their own imperialist aims and intentions and in their own imperialist drives"? Can Klehr deny this? What does criticism of "appeasement" mean, if not that U.S. imperialism should send in its troops and military aid into Angola, Ethiopia, and elsewhere on an even bigger scale.
The social-chauvinists not only want to strengthen U.S. imperialism directly, through more B-l bombers, but they also want to use the banner of opposing "appeasement" to mobilize the proletariat into armed brigades to fight for U.S. imperialism wherever U.S. imperialism is "appeasing" the Russians. Klehr states:
"One might ask the RCP: Should U.S. workers have fought in Spain in the 1930's? Should they have organized support actions for Ethiopia and China? After all, the main enemy of workers in the U.S. was the U.S. bourgeoisie while aggression in these areas was instigated mainly by its chief rivals, the imperialists of Germany, Italy and Japan. Was this 'class collaboration' or genuine internationalism?"
By this historical analogy Klehr is suggesting that American workers should fight arms in hand on behalf of Mobutu in the Congo-Kinshasa ("Zaire") and of all U.S. puppets. In fact, Klehr's historical parallel betrays her complete U.S. chauvinism, her interpretation of the 1930's after the ideas of an ordinary, imperialist liberal. For Klehr's information, when it was simply a question of supporting one group of imperialists or the other, the world proletariat did not give its support to the struggle. That is why when the Nazis invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, the world proletariat denounced both sides, the Anglo-French and the German imperialists armies, and shed no tears for the fascist, reactionary government of the Polish landlords and bourgeoisie which drove the Polish people to be cannon-fodder for the Anglo-French imperialists. Instead the world proletariat called for the Polish people to "rise up against the oppression of the German fascists and against their own reactionary landlord and bourgeois classes, and establish an independent, free and democratic Polish state. " This is explained in Chairman Mao's article "The Identity of Interests Between the Soviet Union and All Mankind", Sept. 28, 1939. The situation in Spain, Ethiopia and China was different. According to Klehr's argument, the chief thing going on in Spain, Ethiopia and China was defense of the interests of the "democratic" Anglo-American-French imperialists against those of the fascist Axis imperialists. Klehr "forgets" only a trifle -- the Chinese and Spanish revolutions and the struggle of the Ethiopian people against fascist enslavement. The world proletariat didn't forget these revolutions and just struggles and always firmly supported them. The "democratic" Anglo-American-French imperialists didn't forget these revolutions either. They wanted to drown in blood the world revolution, the proletariat, oppressed nations and the Soviet Union. That is why they didn't mind the Axis doing part of the job for them. But for Klehr, when the Ethiopian people fought against Italian fascist aggression which aimed to reduce them to total colonial slavery, the content of that struggle was simply defense of another imperialist power. For Klehr, when the Chinese people fought Japanese colonial aggression, that was not part of their new-democratic revolution directed against all imperialism, oh no, it was in the interests of the western imperialists. What a slander of the Chinese Communist Party! For Klehr, the world is not in struggle between world revolution and world reaction, but between different rival groups of imperialists. So, Klehr reasons, if the revolutionaries are fighting against one imperialist power, they are therefore fighting for its rivals. Her whole historical analogy boils down to this: if the communist movement can support a revolutionary movement against a U.S. imperialist rival, then why not support any movement in support of U.S. imperialism? How clever! Thus Klehr reveals that the fight against "appeasement" means to organize support groups for the Shah of Iran and other U.S. lackeys. And that the reason that the OL didn't organize armed detachments to fight for Mobutu was only lack of support in the proletariat and not OL's lack of desire.
The basis of the theory of "appeasement" is the repudiation of revolution. The OL keeps the issue on the level of a struggle between imperialist governments and not of a struggle of the oppressed classes against the imperialists. Klonsky crystallized the essence of social-chauvinism as follows: "As long as the two superpowers continue to contend for world domination, one must either defeat the other or be defeated by the other. " (11) What "dialectics"! Either "they", the foreign superpower and "main danger" wins, or "we", the allegedly democratic superpower, wins. Who can deny that? We deny it. The issue is revolution, not which superpower gains a temporary advantage on the road to the total doom of imperialism. The wretched opportunist Kautsky defended social-chauvinism in exactly the, same was as Klonsky. Kautsky stated "...Never is government so strong, never are parties so weak, as at the outbreak of war.... Today the practical question is: victory or defeat for one's own country. " (12) And Klonsky echoes this. What he is saying is: either "we" win or "they" win. Revolution--forget it. Be practical, not dogmatic and "ultra-left". The only practical question is -- which superpower prevails. So the Klonsky-ites compare the two superpowers, rationalizing that not two things are exactly equal, and, lo and behold! decide that democracy, justice, morality and even "Marxism-Leninism" compel them to support "their own" bourgeoisie in its struggle to dominate the world.
Klehr is so ingrained with this imperialist chauvinism that for her any criticism of social-chauvinism is "a new apology for the two superpowers, especially the Soviet social-imperialists", means "serving Soviet social-imperialism". Are you against NATO ? But the Soviet Union is "trying to disband NATO while leaving the Warsaw Pact intact." (13) Therefore criticism of NATO "serves (the) social-imperialists". Are you against U.S. war preparations ? The Soviet Union is too! Therefore build more B-1 bombers! The only practical question is --which superpower stands to gain or lose by the war preparations. Klehr and Klonsky's whining about how revolution against U.S. imperialism serves Soviet social-imperialism is no different from the cries of the open anti-communists to "go back to Russia". Klonsky moans that the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists "try and defend the New Tsars by complaining that we are too hard on them (New Tsars -- ed.)." (14) No, dear social-chauvinists. Our "complaint" is that you are too soft on imperialism, that you are a lackey of world imperialism. Lenin denounced your sophistry long ago. He said: "The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia's defeat means desiring the victory of Germany." (15)
Thus the appeasement slogan in today's conditions is a slogan that first and foremost means repudiating revolution. The social-chauvinists are afraid to make revolution for fear that this will give the Soviet New Tsars an advantage. They have no faith that the revolutionaries suffering under social-imperialism will undermine the imperialist bloc of the east, while we undermine U.S. imperialism, the leader of the imperialist bloc of the west. They pretend not to understand that any upsurge of revolution right in the heartland of U.S. imperialism will be a tremendous inspiration to the entire world revolution. No, for them the "practical" question is: either U.S. imperialism will defeat the New Tsars or it will be defeated by them. The real practical question is: either the American revolutionaries will defeat social-chauvinism, or they will betray the confidence of the entire world proletariat and be condemned forever as Klonskyite imperialists, phrase-mongering slaves of "their own" bourgeoisie.
3. THE OL SOCIAL-CHAUVINISTS HAVE BECOME THE "LEFT" WING OF CARTER'S "HUMAN RIGHTS" CAMPAIGN
Under the banner of criticizing "appeasement", Klehr in fact presents a picture of an alleged weak-kneed, peace-seeking U.S. imperialism. The OL is actually giving credibility to the political deception of the Carter administration, to Carter's imperialist pacifism and his "human rights" campaign.
Carter has been following the policy of imperialist pacifism, of concealed but frenzied war-mongering and aggression. Carter is trying to paint a false picture of a U.S. imperialism that has been "reformed" that has "learned its lessons" and which is now "peaceful", "anti-racist" and "democratic". He is doing this in order to disarm the revolutionary masses at home and to mobilize allies abroad. Comrade Stalin pointed out: "Imperialist pacificism is an instrument for the preparation of war and for disguising this preparation by hypocritical talk of peace." (16) The U.S. imperialists have not adopted this policy from choice, as the OL thinks, but because they are faced with the rising workers' movement at home and the anti-imperialist and national liberation movements abroad, with chaos at home and chaos abroad. Instead of exposing this sham, the OL joins the deception and shouts that the U.S. imperialists are following a policy of "ever-greater concessions" to the Soviet New Tsars. Carter appointed Andrew Young ambassador to the U.N. in order to put on a show of "anti-racism" and "human rights" in order to fool the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America and to suppress the Afro-American people's movement at home. The OL is supporting the illusions about Andrew Young by labeling him a supporter of "appeasement", a softy. (17) Another corner-stone of Carter's "human rights" campaign is the new unequal Panama Canal Treaty, which continues U.S. aggression in Panama only with a few of the more obvious old-style colonial symbols removed. The OL supported this too and hailed it as a "victory" for the Panamanian people, thus helping U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter, giving him exactly what he needs in his plot to pacify the Panamanian people's struggles and to strengthen U.S. imperialism's positions in Latin America generally. And by denouncing Carter's decision to not yet build more than a few prototype B-l bombers, the OL paints a fantasy of a U.S. imperialism which is not armed to the teeth.
In order to give some air of reality to their war hysteria about "appeasement", the OL considers imperialist pacifism to be "appeasement". The OL has a very touching faith in the "peaceful" pronouncements of the U.S. government. Furthermore, especially when the two superpowers collaborate to suppress the revolution, the OL refuses to side with the world revolution but instead presents this collaboration as U.S. imperialism giving in to the Soviet New Tsars. The collusion and contention of the two superpowers are two sides of the same contradictory reality, important expressions of the same imperialist strategy to rob the world's peoples of their freedom and to dominate the world. At the same time as the contention between the superpowers is sharpening and leading towards world war, they are also trying to devise new forms of collaboration amidst their divergencies. But strangely enough this is something that is incomprehensible to that great "dialectician" Klehr, who is on the rampage against "mechanical materialism" and "metaphysics". She just cannot understand that the superpowers are united against the revolution at the same time as they are at each others throats in a deadly attempt to redivide the world. Pretending that each contact between the superpowers is a sell-out of U.S. imperialist interests is a typical trick of a certain section of fascist American politicians, and one of the ways in which the U.S. imperialists bargain for better terms with the Soviet New Tsars.
Consider the way that OL whitewashes the U.S. imperialist aggression against Ethiopia by "accusing" the U.S. of "appeasing" the Russians. According to Klonsky, "Among the appeasers of Soviet social- imperialism are the leaders of U.S. imperialism themselves. This could be clearly seen in Andrew Young and Vice-President Mondale's recent statement supporting the presence of hundreds of Soviet 'advisors' in Ethiopia." (18) The fact that Young and Mondale support the presence of Soviet advisors is indeed revealing, and it is a pity that Klonsky didn't learn anything from it about the criminal collaboration of the superpowers against the world revolution. Instead, Klonsky is painting a picture of a U.S. imperialism that has become a "timid mouse", that has lost its fangs when it comes to fighting for domination of Ethiopia. But the truth is far different. The U.S. imperialists are experience neo-colonialists. They don't run into quite as much of a frenzy at the sight of a Soviet soldier as the OL does. The U.S. imperialists know that they have positions in the Ethiopian state apparatus and ties with the Ethiopian economy that are not easily dislodged by the presence of the Soviet advisors. And they also have a blood-stained, counter-revolutionary army fighting on their behalf, the so-called Ethiopian Democratic Union, a band of feudal gangsters which is massacring the peasants, committing numerous anti-people atrocities, fighting the Marxist-Leninists of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP), and contending with the fascist junta for state power. This is the way the U.S. imperialists think: "We have not been able to strangle the Ethiopian revolution, which has overthrown Haile Selassie and continues to grow in the struggle against the junta. The Soviet Union wants Ethiopia? First they must destroy the revolution. Let the Soviet Union pour in its resources and its lackey Castro in an attempt to destroy the EPRP and the Ethiopian National-Democratic Revolution and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and the Eritrean National Liberation Struggle. Once revolution is defeated and Ethiopia is preserved as an area for exploitation by the world system of imperialism, then we shall see if the New Tsars find it so easy to displace U.S. imperialism. In the meantime, we will enflame the war between Ethiopia and Somalia and utilize the Soviet backing of the Ethiopian fascist junta to win over the Somalian regime and try to displace the Soviet Union there." And the OL is silent on these aggressive maneuvers of U.S. imperialism. The OL is covering up for U.S. imperialist aggression in Ethiopia and Somalia by presenting the U.S. as a man who has lost his nerve and resigned himself to "appeasing" the Russians. The open lackey Andrew Young is in his way a far better "Marxist" than the sophistical, evasive lackey Klonsky, and he shamelessly and cynically blurts out a good deal about U.S. policy in his Playboy interview. (19) Young sneers at the "Marxism" of the Soviet-Cuban-MPLA neo-colonial government in Angola and states: "There's nothing wrong with their deciding to live under a socialist system. It's a decision that does not interfere with us in any way (just as Klonsky's "Marxism" doesn't interfere with his services to U.S. imperialism in any way either--ed.). In spite of the fact that he's a Marxist, Neto's relationship with Gulf Oil is what keeps the revenues coming in that make it possible for the Cubans to run the country. The Cubans could not run it by themselves." And Young adds: "There's nothing the Cubans can do that we cannot thwart. " Thus Young explodes the myth of U.S. "appeasement" in Angola and lauds the "socialist" Soviet-Cuban-MPLA government for continuing to exploit the Angolan people and for preserving Angola (that part of it not yet liberated by the Angolan national liberation movement led by UNITA) for world imperialism and Gulf Oil.
Carter's "human rights" fraud combines both the "soft" tactics of imperialist pacifism and the "hard" tactics of outright attacks on the world revolution and on U.S. imperialist rivals. Carter's "hard" tactics are at present focused on the propaganda front of support for Soviet "dissidents", on outright attacks on revolutionary peoples and on an open arms build-up. The OL supports this open aggression of U.S. imperialism as well as the political deception of imperialist pacifism. We have already seen how the OL supports the open arms build-up and sheds tears for the B-l bomber. The OL also supports Carter's campaign of support for Soviet "dissidents" aid tries to outdo Carter in denouncing the Soviet Union. The OL, who are timid liberals in denouncing U.S. imperialism, suddenly become "bold" "Marxists" when denouncing the foreign imperialists. They contrast the "bourgeois democracy" in the U.S. to the fascism in the Soviet Union. They are crusaders for "bourgeois democracy" and the "pro-west" capitalist elements in the imperialist bloc of the east. They are for the reactionary pro-West intelligentsia who wish to see a more thorough "liberalization" than exists presently under Soviet social-imperialist domination. The OL has continued so far on this path that they have come out in favor of George Orwell's Hitlerite books that attack the Soviet Union of Lenin's and Stalin's time, namely, 1984 and Animal Farm . The OL protests the fact that the Soviet Union banned these books from Moscow's International Book Fair (see The Call, September 26, 1977). According to the OL, "Orwell's description of the police-state run by 'Big Brother' hit a little too close to home for the Soviet Union's new tsars." The OL adds with enthusiasm, in "the hands of Russian readers, they would be read as an indictment of today's Soviet fascist rule." Why, maybe OL's Liberator Press should reprint them! But any class-conscious Soviet worker would burn this fascist bit of U.S. ideological aggression which slanders socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the "Big Brother" who was denounced by Khrushchov. Orwell's books are straightforward cold-war anti-communist poison. The OL rehabilitates Orwell's Hitlerite poison, saying "Certainly, Orwell's books were reactionary at the time they were written." (!!! underlining added) And not today? The OL believes that fascism improves with age, like good wine. Orwell's poison seems to them a particularly good vintage. Should Trotsky's slanders of the dictatorship of the proletariat and Khrushchov's "secret speech" also be rehabilitated on the grounds that they were "reactionary at the time they were written" but could be read today as an indictment of the Soviet New Tsars? The OL shamelessly ridicules the charge that these books "were said to be guilty of 'promoting racism, violence, fascism and war.'" The OL justifies its defense of Orwell's book by the same trick as usual -- the Soviet New Tsars are against it so it's good. The OL self-righteously says that other reactionary books were present. Then, of course, any good ACLU bourgeois democrat and advocate of "human rights" would be offended by removing Orwell's Hitlerite books, while any proletarian revolutionary would denounce the Soviet Union for organizing a book fair for western ideological aggression, for demoralizing and degenerating the Soviet people, and for the spreading of fascist propaganda. OL's only complaint, however, is that the Soviet Union did not include enough reactionary books! Thus OL is not for revolution in Russia, but for bourgeois "liberalization". The OL is not for the dictatorship of the proletariat, which also would not promote Orwell's anti-communist wild ravings, but for an open fascist dictatorship without the socialist mask.
The only part of Carter's "human rights" campaign that OL refuses to go along with is certain outright attacks on the oppressed peoples. But this is no virtue of OL's. OL would be hounded out of the communist and workers' movement if it, say, openly supported Zionism, apartheid or Ian Smith's racist regime in "Rhodesia". That is why the OL makes a show of support for these struggles, while waiting for the crucial moment to betray them, like it betrayed the Panamanian people's struggle. If the OL were to move further to the right, it would lose any appeal at all and cease to be of any value for the bourgeoisie. That is OL's special role in the "human rights" campaign -- to win the working class to the campaign through giving it a facade of "Marxism-Leninism."
4. KLEHR SHOULD PIN THE LABEL OF TROTSKYISM ON HERSELF
Lacking anything serious to say, Klehr accuses the revolutionary internationalists of "Trotskyism". This is an especially unfortunate accusation for her to make. She quotes Comrade Stalin a number of times, but anyone who checks these quotations and studies Comrade Stalin's works will find that these very quotations speak against OL's social-chauvinism. OL suffered the same fiasco on the question of the "main blow". Comrade Stalin's clear teachings on. the "main blow" in his classic work The Foundations of Leninism show the absolute necessity to fight OL's opportunism and social-chauvinism. Actually when Klehr quotes Comrade Stalin and makes a big show of "anti-Trotskyism" this doesn't even indicate respect for Comrade Stalin, since the OL is shouting up and down about Comrade Stalin's alleged "mistakes" and the "mistakes" of the Comintern (see Class Struggle, no. 8). Klehr is making such a big deal about "Trotskyism" because OL's open struggle against the "ultra-left" as the main danger in the U.S. communist movement has been discredited. Our historical task at this time is to repudiate Browderism, right opportunism, the theoretical basis of social-chauvinism. In order to give lip-service to fighting revisionism while still continuing the fight against the "ultraleft", OL denounces "Trotskyism" instead of the "ultra-left", and denounces "mechanical materialism", "metaphysics" and the "theory of equilibrium" instead of "dogmatism". At the very sight of all these dreadful words, the weak-nerved are supposed to get down on their knees and beg absolution from the Klonkskyites, beg to never again get any "uppity" ideas about thinking for themselves, following Marxism-Leninism and overthrowing the bourgeoisie. For the social-chauvinists, blackmail and bullying long ago replaced serious analysis.
This empty bluster of the social-chauvinists is not new or original. It is an old trick of the revisionists and class traitors to call the revolutionaries "anarchists", "ultra-leftists" and, more recently, "Trotskyites". Not that there is anything good in anarchism, ultra-leftism or Trotskyism, and in fact it is the revolutionary Marxists who have led in defeating anarchism, ultra-leftism and Trotskyism. But the Marxist-Leninists fight sham revolutionism for the sake of teaching the proletariat how to be more revolutionary, to fight in a genuinely revolutionary manner, and to follow Marxism, the most revolutionary theory ever known. The revisionists and social-chauvinists, in order to deceive the working class, present their fight against revolution and their betrayal of the interests of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie in the guise of a "Marxist" fight against sham revolutionism. When the Second International collapsed into a sea of chauvinism, went over to the side of the bourgeoisie and justified the mass slaughter of the First World War, the opportunists called those who remained loyal to revolutionary Marxism "anarchists". What, lead mass revolutionary struggles in the midst of wartime and see the legal trade unions smashed and the legal newspapers banned ? Anarchism! Work for the defeat of "one's own" government and risk arrest and execution for high treason? Anarchism! In unison, the social-chauvinists and revisionists cried out: "Down with anarchism, down with Leninism, down with revolution!" Comrade Lenin said: "Of course, the counter-revolutionary philistines cry out 'anarchism!', just as the opportunist Eduard David cried 'anarchism' when he denounced Karl Liebknecht (revolutionary German Marxist and internationalist who put forward in World War I the fighting slogan "Our chief enemy is at home. "--ed.). In Germany, only those leaders seem to have remained honest socialists whom the opportunists revile as anarchists...." (20) Similarly, when Khrushchov restored capitalism in the USSR and split the international communist movement with his modern revisionist line, he called the Marxist-Leninists "Trotskyites", "ultra-left" and "dogmatic". And just because he himself had sold out to imperialism, he threw in "agents of the imperialists", "sold out for thirty pieces of gold", just as the OL denounces the internationalists for being agents of the New Tsars just because it is OL itself which has sold out to world imperialism.
With this charge of "Trotskyism", the OL is lifting a big rock to drop it on their own feet. Very well then, let us repudiate Trotskyism. In repudiating Trotskyism we will find that it is OL and the social-chauvinists who are in fact reviving and taking up a number of Trotskyite theories and methods. Since OL insists on forcing the question of Trotskyism upon everybody, one could hardly close one's eyes to the close alliance and mutual support that has always existed between Trotskyism and both old and new modern revisionism. During the polemics of the '60's against modern revisionism, the Marxist-Leninists pointed out this close alliance as follows:
"It is most absurd for the leadership of the CPSU to pin the label of 'Trotskyism' on the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, it is Khrushchov himself who has succeeded to the mantle of Trotskyism and who stands with the Trotskyites of today.
Trotskyism manifests itself in different ways on different questions and often wears the mask of 'ultra-leftism', but its essence is opposition to revolution, repudiation of revolution.
As far as the fundamental fact of their opposition to the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat is concerned, Trotskyism and the revisionism of the Second International are virtually the same. This is why Stalin repeatedly said that Trotskyism is a variety of Menshevism, is Kautskyism and social democracy, and is the advanced detachment of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
In its essence, the present-day revisionism of Khrushchov also opposes and repudiates revolution. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that Khrushchov's revisionism is not only cut from the same cloth as Kautskyism, but also converges with Trotskyism to oppose revolution. Khrushchov had better pin the label of Trotskyism on himself. "(21)
Let us start with the question of method. Both the opportunist Second International and the Trotskyites took up the style of making all sorts of revolutionary declarations in words to mask their abject slavery to the bourgeoisie in practice. Lenin pointed out that "The sad experience of the Second International has clearly demonstrated the immense damage caused by combining in actual practice, 'general' revolutionary decisions, formulated in general phrases, with reformist actions...." (22) Trotsky perfected this method with his use of ultra-revolutionary rhetoric to cover unity with opportunism and service for imperialism. As Lenin put it, "...Trotsky... screens them (the extreme opportunist Liquidators--ed.) with r-r-revolutionary phrases, which cost him nothing and do not bind them in any way. " (23) The new Browderites of the OL have taken to this same policy, to covering their chauvinism with the most "revolutionary" "general" declarations. Take their attitude to the threatened world war. The OL is for U.S. imperialism in its rivalry with the Soviet New Tsars and is oh so afraid that the Soviet social-imperialists will pick up military advantages over the U.S. imperialists. To cover this, Klonsky "boldly" says in his Political Report "Our slogan of 'turn the imperialist war into a civil war' must be transformed from a propaganda slogan into an action slogan. "(24) My, my, how r-r-revolutionary! The OL is not only for "turning the imperialist war into a civil war" when the imperialist war breaks out. Oh no, the OL even puts forward this slogan today, before the imperialist world war has broken out. Not only that, it is to become an "action slogan". Just try and let the internationalist Marxist-Leninists beat that! Who says the OL is "ultra-rightist"? Why, the OL is the most "left" of anyone! Only, just a second there, what does it mean to "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" into an "action slogan"? Does it mean to start the armed insurrection ? That is what making "civil war" into an "action slogan" actually means. Yet obviously that is not what OL has in mind. Does it mean to use mass revolutionary struggle right now to stop the threatened imperialist war? Well, not that either. Klonsky has pointed out just two paragraphs previously that, in his fatalist view, "... there is no possibility of civil war and the victory of socialism heading off the war. " In fact, according to Klonsky, "... a revolutionary situation does not presently exist in the U.S.... "(25) So all this talk of "civil war" as an "action slogan" is just empty talk, hot air, striking a r-r-revolutionary pose to fool the naive and reconcile them to ultra-rightist reformist practical work. In fact, it commits OL to nothing. It hasn't made one bit of difference in the chauvinist drivel coming out of The Call and Class Struggle, which are still denouncing "appeasement" and advising the U.S. imperialists on how best to fight the Soviet New Tsars. The OL is still worshiping "bourgeois democracy", prostrating itself in front of the capitalist courts and dreaming of "revolutionizing" the capitalist trade unions as a prerequisite for class struggle. They refuse to propagate active resistance in the legal cases they take up, for fear that this will harm the legal defense. Better to always shout about how powerful the police and fascists are and how the masses are being trampled to the ground, better to write headlines like "Racist Chants Haunt Dying Black Girl" (The Call, Sept. 26, 1977, p. 3). Meanwhile OL is fighting against those who are really preparing for civil war, who are leading the resistance movement against growing fascism and are learning how to arouse the masses in revolutionary struggle that breaks through the capitalist legality.
Klonsky's hot air about "civil war" as an "action slogan" is just the revisionist-Trotskyite method of using general revolutionary phrases which cost him nothing and which hide the fact that he is fighting against those for whom revolution is not a rhetorical flourish for a speech but a problem taken up for solution. Actually, since OL doesn't believe that civil war is possible prior to world war, all transforming the slogan of "turning the imperialist war into a civil war" into an "action slogan" can mean for the OL social-chauvinists is to bring about the imperialist war. Now there's something more to OL's liking. It fits in with building more B-l bombers. And it tells you which side OL will be on in the inevitable civil war.
How did Trotskyism arise and develop? Let us start with Trotsky's career prior to when he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 for the purpose of infiltration. In this period a key question was the struggle against opportunism: economism, Menshevism, Liquidationism, otzovism (liquidationism from the "left") and social-chauvinism. Either fight against opportunism and work to consolidate a steeled party or conciliate with opportunism. This question has great relevance for today's struggle against social-chauvinism. Trotsky constantly vacillated back and forth from one side to the other. But in the main his policy was left phraseology and a bloc with the opportunists against the aim of the left. Trotsky did not take a premature, impetuous stand and call for a break with opportunism and Menshevism prior to when the conditions were ripe for this. No, the exact opposite. Trotsky was a notorious conciliator even with the liquidators, so named because they wanted to liquidate the underground, illegal party and replace it with mere dreams of a non-Party labor congress or a legal liberal-labor Party under Tsarist autocracy. Trotsky also conciliated social-chauvinism after World War I broke out and denounced the slogan of working for the defeat of "one's own" government as...a concession to social-patriotism! There you have typical Trotskyism: "militant", "left" phrase-mongering "against" social-chauvinism for the sake of uniting with the social-chauvinists in the struggle against Leninism and its slogan of "the defeat of 'one's own' government in the imperialist war". Lenin aptly denounced Trotsky's policy as "...high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism." (26) Thus Lenin scornfully flayed Trotsky's "high-flown phraseology" and clearly pointed to Trotsky's constant conciliation with Menshevism and opportunism.
Trotsky always found unity with the opportunists and participated in many right opportunist groupings. It was Trotsky who was the chief organizer of the infamous anti-Party "August bloc" in 1912 which was set up to shield the liquidators and oppose the Bolsheviks. The History of the CPSU(B), 1939 edition describes Trotsky's role as follows: "Trotsky and the Trotskyites took a liquidationist stand on all fundamental issues. But Trotsky masked his liquidationism under the guise of Centrism, that is conciliationism; he claimed that he belonged to neither the Bolsheviks nor the Mensheviks and that he was trying to reconcile. In this connection, Lenin said that Trotsky was more vile and pernicious than the open Liquidators, because he was trying to deceive the workers into believing that he was 'above factions', whereas in fact he entirely supported the Menshevik Liquidators. The Trotskyites were the principal group that fostered Centrism." This Marxist-Leninist classic goes on to quote Comrade Stalin: "Centrism is a political concept. Its ideology is one of adaption, of subordination of the interests of the proletariat to the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie within one common party. This ideology is alien and abhorrent to Leninism." (27) Trotsky denounced Comrade Lenin as a "dictator" and "sectarian" for calling resolutely for a break with opportunism. Various opportunists have advocated that the PL and certain other groups fell into Trotskyism by exaggerating the struggle against revisionism, although the historical fact is that PL fell into Trotskyism when it gave up the struggle against revisionism. Here we see that Trotsky himself did not exaggerate the struggle against opportunism, but was a sectarian who conciliated and advocated unity with the opportunists under cover of the most extreme ''revolutionary'' phrase-mongering.
After Trotsky joined the Bolshevik Party he tried to destroy it from within. He was denounced and defeated in a protracted struggle led by Comrades Lenin and Stalin. Comrade Stalin wrote a number of classic works against Trotsky, such as "The Social-Democratic Deviation In Our Party". A fine collection of these works has been published under the title On the Opposition. After Trotsky was defeated politically and ideologically, he continued to degenerate. Comrade Stalin pointed out in 1937 in Mastering Bolshevism that "...Trotskyism has ceased to be a political trend in the working class, that has changed from the political trend in the working class which it was seven or eight years ago into a frantic and unprincipled gang of wreckers, diversionists, spies and murderers acting on the instruction of the intelligence services of foreign states." This is a crucial fact about Trotskyism. Today Trotskyism is a direct agency of imperialism and fascism. It has not changed its nature.
In the process of its degeneration, Trotskyism concocted a whole array of pseudo-theories, from the absurdly "left" to right opportunist ones, from dogmatic deviations to "creative" revisions of Marxism There is a multitude of Trotskyite sects. Nevertheless there are certain basic features of Trotskyism. These include:
1) First and foremost, Trotskyism is directly in the service of imperialism.
Trotskyism long ago ceased to be a trend in the international communist movement and went over to direct support of imperialism. Inside the Soviet Union the Trotskyites murdered a number of revolutionary communists, like Comrades S. M. Kirov, Maxim Gorky, Menzhinsky and Kuibyshev. The Trotskyites were the Nazi Fifth Column inside Russia. The Trotskyite so-called "Fourth International" worked internationally against the communist and workers' movement and had extensive ties to the Axis Fifth Column network. The Trotskyites refused to support the anti-fascist war against the Axis since they worked hand-in-hand with the Axis.
Today the Trotskyites are still an agency of fascism and are directly linked with imperialism. They are even angling for an open payment of several million dollars from the courts to be levied as an alleged "penalty" against the government.
2) Trotskyism denies the revolutionary potential and strength of the proletariat, denies the strength of the revolution, and opposes the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution.
In denouncing Trotsky's "theory" of "permanent revolution", Comrade Stalin pointed out: "Lack of faith in the strength and capacities of our revolution, lack of faith in the strength and capacity of the Russian proletariat -- that is what lies at the root of the theory of 'permanent' revolution'." (28) And he stated that the mistake of the Russian 'permanentists' lay not only in their underestimation of the role of the peasantry, but also in their underestimation of the strength of the proletariat and its capacity to lead the peasantry, in their disbelief in the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat." (29)
The Trotskyites believe in the strength of imperialism and the weakness of the revolution. Thus Trotskyism denied that the Russian proletariat could build socialism in one country and lead its allies, first and foremost, the masses of laboring peasants. This led the Trotskyites into the arms of the fascists.
3) Trotskyism denies that the proletariat has allies, and negates, first and foremost, the revolutionary potential of the masses of peasantry and the. revolutionary class alliance of the workers and peasants under the leadership of the proletariat.
The Trotskyite theory of "permanent revolution" openly denounces the peasantry and "skips" the bourgeois-democratic stage of revolution under the absurdly "left" phrase-mongering of being immediately for the proletarian revolution. As the peasants form the main force (but not the leading force) in the national revolution, and as the democratic revolution is essential in arousing the peasantry, the theory of "permanent revolution" fits in well with the Trotskyite negation of the national liberation movement and opposition to the theory of national democratic or new-democratic revolution. The Trotskyites both directly serve their imperialist masters and also deny the world proletarian movement its natural ally by denouncing the great historical revolutionary current of national liberation.
The Trotskyites oppose the united front, denouncing not only the peasantry but also negating the dual, vacillating character of the national bourgeoisie in an oppressed nation and opposing progressive elements from other classes. They create maximum confusion concerning united front tactics in general.
It is very significant that the Trotskyites at the same time give the line that "all nationalism is reactionary" in order to denounce the national liberation movement and "all nationalism is progressive" in order to attach the proletariat as a tail to all sorts of dubious elements, cultural nationalists and even the Congressional Black Caucus (in the case of SWP).
4) Trotskyism denies the nature of the present epoch and denies that imperialism is moribund capitalism.
Stalin pointed out: "It is the extreme misfortune of our opposition that it does not understand the extreme importance of this difference (that "imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism in transition to socialism"--ed.) between pre-imperialist capitalism and imperialist capitalism.
"Hence the starting point for the position of our Party is the recognition of the fact that present-day capitalism, imperialist capitalism, is moribund capitalism." (30)
Stalin pointed out that the result of this was the Trotskyite line of "sapping the proletariat's will for revolution, the line of passivity and waiting. " in contrast to the revolutionary line "of intensifying the revolutionary onslaught on one's own bourgeoisie and giving free rein to the initiative of the proletarians of the individual countries..."(31)
5) Trotskyism goes to great extremes to camouflage its opportunism and service to world capitalism with "left" and "revolutionary" phrase-mongering, with "high-flown phraseology" which costs it nothing.
Trotsky started this policy to cover his unity with the opportunists against the left. Later on, this same tactic was used and still is used as a mask for the straight-forward wrecking activity of the Trotskyites.
6) The Trotskyites promote the "theories" and ravings of Trotsky and slander the great Marxist-Leninist leaders. They especially go all out to launch hysterical ravings often harsher than the imperialists themselves against Comrade Stalin, Chairman Mao Tsetung and Comrade Enver Hoxha, the leaders of the international communist movement in the period since the death of great Lenin.
It was Trotsky who began the frenzied slanders against Comrade Stalin, accusing him of "betraying the revolution", "liking to kill people" and other similar trash one does not like to soil this paper with. These slanders were taken up by the imperialist yellow press as their own. Tito, Khrushchov and international opportunism have continued this tradition. And to this day slanderous attacks on Comrade Stalin are connected with the desire to rehabilitate one or another renegade, such as Tito, the "Eurocommunists", Khrushchov or Trotsky.
We shall see that OL's ultra-right social-chauvinism leads it to unity with the social-democratic essence of the Trotskyite theses. For example, OL's eulogies of neo-colonialism leads them to negate the hegemony of the proletariat in the national liberation movement, negate the peasantry, negate the new- democratic revolution and instead praise the comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords. That is why Eileen Klehr's cries of "Trotskyism" are so unfortunate... for her. She wanted to ruin others, but she is ruining herself. Let her pin the label of Trotskyism on herself!
5. IS THE THEORY OF CLASS STRUGGLE TROTSKYISM?
In order to eulogize imperialist puppets, reactionary landlords and the comprador bourgeoisie as alleged anti-imperialist fighters and even the "main force" in pushing forward history, Klehr negates the Marxist-Leninist teachings on class struggle. She negates the well-known fact, known both to Marxist-Leninists and to the colonialists themselves who have always paid great attention to the tactics of "divide and rule" and to creating traitor classes to support them, that the comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords are the main social basis of imperialist domination of a country. Klehr goes to the ridiculous extent of attacking the theory of class struggle itself as something Trotskyite, which should not be "harped on". According to Klehr:
"In short, how should the third world be summed up today? From the viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism (read: social-chauvinism and Titoism -- ed.), it is the main force opposing imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism. From the viewpoint of the RCP, it is rampant with the imperialist puppets and a bastion of neocolonialism (where else should one expect to find neo-colonies, except among the oppressed nations? -- ed.).
"'But what about class struggle! harp the Trotskyites. 'You are liquidating class struggle!'" But this is all a sham, even when echoed by the RCP. It is basically a reactionary call to skip over the first stage of national and democratic revolution in the third world, to wreck the anti-imperialist united front of all patriotic classes and strata, to deny to the proletariat its ability and duty to lead these forces and thus, finally, to sabotage the possibility of the revolution's ever passing over to its second stage of socialist revolution." (p. 31)
According to Klehr, it is Trotskyism to "harp" on the class struggle. She accuses the theory of class struggle of a whole list of sins, from negating the national-democratic revolution and wrecking the united front to sabotaging the possibility of reaching the socialist revolution.
Now, it is indeed Trotskyism to negate the new-democratic revolution by setting it against the socialist revolution. But the question arises, does this Trotskyite negation of the new-democratic revolution flow from the theory of class struggle? Is it the Marxist theory of the class struggle that opposes developing the revolution step by step and uniting all the revolutionary forces into a united front? Klehr lists this sin and that sin of Trotskyism, but the question is: do these sins arise from the theory of class struggle? Or, on the contrary, is it absolutely necessary to make a class analysis of the forces in the oppressed nations in order to be able to lead the revolution through to victory?
All Klehr's talk of negating the new-democratic revolution with the class struggle is, of course, "all a sham". Klehr shares with the Trotskyites the negation of the new-democratic revolution, for she explicitly denies the possibility of revolution leading to "the overthrow of the third world governments." (p. 33) By denying the proletariat and the peasantry in the "third world" the right to overthrow imperialist lackey governments, the theory of new-democratic revolution is thrown out the window. This is especially true since in the majority of oppressed nations under the domination of colonialism today, imperialism rules not through old-style colonialism but through neo-colonial lackeys and reactionary imperialist puppets who must be defeated by revolutionary civil war. The Chinese new-democratic revolution won victory by overthrowing the "third world government" of Chiang Kai-shek, a blood-stained imperialist lackey and murderer of communists and patriots. The national-democratic revolution in the Philippines is seeking to overthrow the U.S. puppet Marcos government and any other puppet government the imperialists might replace Marcos with. The Ethiopian new- democratic revolution is seeking to overthrow the "third world government" of the fascist puppet Mengistu. The Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile is leading the Chilean people to overthrow the fascist government of Pinochet. UNITA is leading the Angolan people in struggle against the Soviet-Cuban-MPLA neo-colonial government. To deny these revolutionary peoples the right to "overthrow third world governments" is to deny them revolution, to consign them to the struggle for production while the politics, economy and whole life of the oppressed nation is monopolized in the hands of the imperialists and their trusted and well-groomed running dogs.
It is clear that both Klehr and the Trotskyites oppose the new-democratic or national-democratic revolution, one with open ultra-right phraseology, the other with "leftist" phraseology masking direct service fop imperialism. So why does Klehr bring up the question of negating the new-democratic revolution? Solely to blame the theory of class struggle!
In fact it is only the theory of class struggle that illuminates the road forward for the oppressed nations. Class struggle is a universal Marxist law, valid for all class societies. Marx and Engels declared in the Communist Manifesto that: "The history of all existing society is the history struggles." They exempted only the pre-history of society with its primitive communism. This Marxist law also applies to Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Marxists have fought against the cultural nationalists and others who denied that class analysis applied to oppressed nations. It is Marxism, the theory of class struggle, that illuminates the exact content and tasks of the bourgeois-democratic and proletarian socialist revolutions and of the necessity for the one to pass uninterruptedly into the other.
What Klehr is trying to do is hide and prettify the role of the reactionary and sold-out traitor classes. She is denying that imperialism has a social base inside a country in the feudal landlords and comprador bourgeoisie. She is denying that no national liberation struggle in history ever won victory without fighting against sold-out traitors and internal enemies. In denying these things, Klehr is going straight against Mao Tsetung Thought.
Let us examine how Chairman Mao utilized the theory of class struggle to chart the path forward for the Chinese Revolution. We will give some quotations from Chairman Mao to re-establish some basic principles concerning the motive forces and targets of revolution and the existence of internal enemies of the revolution. Klehr differs with Marxism-Leninism not on a tactic here or there, but on basic principles common to any of the tactics used in the Chinese Revolution. Any of Chairman Mao's works from any stage of the revolution refute her. Of course, the exact alignment of class forces and the tactics changed during the course of the Chinese Revolution according to the concrete circumstances. China had three revolutionary civil wars and a war of resistance to Japan prior to liberation in 1949. The tactics used were not stereotyped but rich, living, flexible tactics based on careful study of the class alignments. There is no substitute for a thorough reading of Chairman Mao's works. The OL and other social-chauvinists expose their great-power chauvinism by giving right opportunist dogmatic prescriptions for capitulation stereotyped for all the oppressed nations. Thus Klehr wants to give at one stroke a prescription for the relation between the comprador and national bourgeoisie good for all the oppressed nations at one time. Her prescription is -- the entire bourgeoisie and class of feudal landlords in Asia, Africa and Latin America are objectively revolutionary. And she stubbornly maintains this despite all the news readily available about the acts of the neo-colonial lackeys. What right-wing ultra-dogmatism!
In "The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party", written in 1939 during the War of Resistance Against Japan, Chairman Mao identified the landlord class and the comprador bourgeoisie as the main props of the imperialist rule in China and among the targets of the revolution. He pointed out the inseparable relation between the national revolution against imperialism and the democratic revolution against feudalism. He stated: "Imperialism and the feudal landlord class being the chief enemies of the Chinese revolution at this stage, what are the present tasks of the revolution?
"Unquestionably, the main tasks are to strike at these two enemies, to carry out a national revolution to overthrow foreign imperialist oppression and a democratic revolution to overthrow landlord oppression, the primary and foremost task being the national revolution to overthrow imperialism.
"These two great tasks are interrelated.... Therefore the two fundamental tasks, the national revolution and the democratic revolution, are at once distinct and united.
"...It is wrong to regard the national revolution and the democratic revolution as two entirely different stages of the revolution."
He clearly pointed out that "The landlord class forms the main social base for imperialist rule in China; it is a class which uses the feudal system to exploit and oppress the peasants, obstructs China's political, economic and cultural development, and plays no progressive role whatsoever."
As to the comprador big bourgeoisie, Chairman Mao denounced them, stating: "The comprador big bourgeoisie is a class which directly serves the capitalists of the imperialist countries and is nurtured by them; countless ties link it closely with the feudal forces in the countryside. Therefore, it is a target of the Chinese revolution and never in the history of the revolution has it been a motive force."
Chairman Mao carefully pointed out that as different compradors owe their loyalty to different imperialist powers, under certain circumstances "...it becomes possible for the sections of the comprador class which serve other imperialist groupings to join the current anti-imperialist front to a certain extent and for a certain period. But they will turn against the Chinese revolution the moment their masters do." That is, the contradictions among the compradors can be utilized by the revolutionaries, but this is due to the class struggle waged by and the correct policy of the communists and the masses of the people. In 1945 Chairman Mao summed up the role of the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang as follows:
"In the past, this party carried on a counter-revolutionary civil war for ten whole years. During the War of Resistance (when it was part of the united front -- ed.) it launched three large-scale anticommunist campaigns, in 1940, 1941, 1943, each time attempting to develop the attack into a country-wide civil war. It was only because of the correct policy adopted by our Party and the opposition of the people of the whole country that its attempts failed. As everyone knows, Chiang Kai-shek, the political representative of China's big landlords and big bourgeoisie, is a most brutal and treacherous fellow. His policy has been to look on with folded arms, wait for victory, conserve his forces and prepare for civil war." (28) This statement strikes like a dagger at the enthusiasm for the U.S. imperialist lackey Chiang Kai-shek's alleged "anti-imperialist role", which is rampant among certain forces in the U.S. who seek to justify today's neo-colonial lackeys by reference to past imperialist lackeys.
What were the motive forces of the Chinese Revolution? First and foremost, Chairman Mao points out that "the Chinese proletariat is nonetheless the basic motive force of the Chinese revolution. Unless it is led by the proletariat, the Chinese revolution cannot possibly succeed." The biggest motive force is the peasantry. "They (the poor peasants -- ed.) are the broad peasant masses with no land or insufficient land, the semi-proletariat of the countryside, the biggest motive force of the Chinese revolution, the natural and most reliable ally of the proletariat and the main contingent of China's revolutionary forces. Only under the leadership of the proletariat can the poor and middle peasants achieve their liberation, and only by forming a firm alliance with the poor and middle peasants can the proletariat lead the revolution to victory. Otherwise neither is possible. The term 'peasantry' refers mainly to the poor and middle peasants."
Chairman Mao also analyzes the petty bourgeoisie and points out that "...these sections of the petty bourgeoisie constitute one of the motive forces of the revolution and are a reliable ally of the proletariat. Only under the leadership of the proletariat can they achieve their liberation."
As well, "The national bourgeoisie is a class with a dual character." "...at certain times and to a certain extent, it can take part in the revolution against imperialism and the governments of bureaucrats and warlords and become a revolutionary force, but that at other times there is the danger of its following the comprador big bourgeoisie and acting as its accomplice in the counterrevolution." If a reactionary regime rules a "formally independent" country, some people are very quick to label it "national bourgeois" or, if it is being courted by the Soviet social-imperialists, "radical petty bourgeois". In fact, however, the national bourgeoisie is a very weak class. In China, although China (or parts of China) held formal independence before liberation, it was not the national bourgeoisie that really held political power. Chairman Mao points out that "The national bourgeoisie in China, which is mainly the middle bourgeoisie, has never really held political power but has been restricted by the reactionary policies of the big landlord class and big bourgeoisie which are in power, although it (the national bourgeoisie -- ed.) followed them in opposing the revolution in the period from 1927-1931..." (emphasis added)
Thus what distinguishes Marxism-Leninism from Trotskyism is not that Trotskyism upholds class struggle, but the contrary, that only Marxism-Leninism upholds class struggle and the correct class analysis. Chairman Mao clearly identified the reactionary internal enemies of the anti-imperialist revolution and the inseparable connection between fighting them and fighting imperialism.
6. IS IT TROTSKYISM TO DENY THE LEADING ROLE IN THE NEW-DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION TO THE BOURGEOISIE AND THE FEUDAL LANDLORDS?
Klehr and the social-chauvinists piously sing psalms of praise to the bourgeoisie. In the section of her article entitled "RCP Sneaks in Trotskyism", she concocts the theory that it is Trotskyism to deny that the entire bourgeoisie in any oppressed nation is progressive. In this way, Klehr wishes to present all the ruling regimes of the formally independent countries of the "third world", every one of them without exception, as part of "the movements for national independence" and hence objectively revolutionary. Including Iran. Much of her argument is done by slight of hand behind the reader's back, such as "forgetting" the feudal landlords or identifying the ruling regimes with the "movements for national independence". In this section of her article, Klehr "triumphantly" quotes Comrade Stalin giving the exact opposite line to the OL. Klehr believes that the more quotes the better, no matter what they say. The quotation goes: "Now, after the national bourgeoisie has split into a revolutionary and an anti-revolutionary wing, the picture of the national movement is assuming a somewhat different aspect. Parallel with the revolutionary elements of the national movement, compromising and reactionary elements which prefer a deal with imperialism to the liberation of their countries are emerging from the bourgeoisie." (29) This profound Marxist-Leninist analysis is a strong blow at all prettification of neo-colonialism. Comrade Stalin concludes from this that "The task is to unite the advanced elements of the workers in the colonial countries in a single Communist Party that will be capable of leading the growing revolution."
But Klehr has quoted Comrade Stalin only to slap her own face. She goes on immediately to misquote Stalin. According to Klehr, the task of communists is to break up the bloc of imperialism and the sold-out bourgeoisie in order to unite the bourgeoisie again into a unified revolutionary force, the "main force" opposing imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism. Thus Klehr states that "Stalin added that the task of the proletariat in these countries was to unite independently in a communist party, to link up with the revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie, and to break up the alliance between the compromising elements and the imperialists. " (emphasis added) But what Comrade Stalin actually said was quite different, namely, "Hence the task of the communist elements in the colonial countries is to link up with the revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie, and above all with the peasantry, against the bloc of imperialism and the compromising elements of 'their own' bourgeoisie, in order, under the leadership of the proletariat, to wage a genuinely revolutionary struggle for liberation from imperialism." (emphasis added) Thus Klehr has distorted Comrade Stalin's words on two points. l)She has converted Stalin's concept of fighting against the bloc of imperialism and the sold-out elements of the bourgeoisie into breaking up that bloc. For example, this would mean that the Iranian people should not fight against the bloc of the feudal Shah of Iran and imperialism, but should break up that bloc and bring the Shah of Iran, the feudal landlords and the comprador big bourgeoisie into its national liberation movement. She is trying to negate the existence of neo-colonialism and of dependent countries. 2) She has forgotten a "trifle" of what Stalin says about the allies of the proletariat, that "trifle" being the peasantry! And this "forgetfulness" of the revolutionary role of the peasantry is characteristic of the Trotskyite liquidation of the anti-imperialist revolution. This "forgetting" of the peasantry is precisely one of the main fallacies of Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution". Klehr does this because she has no faith in the proletariat and peasantry and stakes everything on the bourgeoisie and landlords.
To see the difference between Klehr's views and Stalin's, consider this further quotation from Comrade Stalin in 1927 on the same subject applied to the concrete conditions of China after Chiang Kai-shek's coup.
"Hence, two paths for the development of events in China: either the national bourgeoisie smashes the proletariat, makes a deal with imperialism and together with it launches a campaign a- against the revolution in order to end the latter by establishing the rule of capitalism; or the proletariat pushes aside the national bourgeoisie, consolidates its hegemony and assumes the lead of the vast masses of the working people in town and country, in order to overcome the resistance of the national bourgeoisie, secure the complete victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and then gradually convert it into a socialist revolution, with all the consequences flowing from that. One or the other." (30)
Thus Comrade Stalin emphasizes the necessity for the proletariat to lead the revolution and to lead the vast masses of the working people in town and country and says nothing whatsoever about patching the role of the bourgeoisie to make it revolutionary.
Klehr then explicitly shows what lies behind her distortion of Comrade Stalin's remarks. She states:
"But while the RCP will not go so far as to say that these two elements (the revolutionary and anti-revolutionary wing of the national bourgeoisie--ed.) even exist in any significant way, even this would not be enough. It is necessary, furthermore, to make an assessment: Which of the elements represents the main trend of development, which is rising? On the other hand, which elements represents an adverse but parallel countercurrent, which is declining?
"In short, how should the third world be summed up today? From the viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism, it is the main force opposing imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism. From the viewpoint of the RCP, it is rampant with the imperialist puppets and a bastion of neo-colonialism." (emphasis added)
From these remarks of Klehr, several points are crystal-clear:
1) According to Klehr, Marxism-Leninism is "not enough", so it is necessary to use the plea of new conditions and the sophistry of "grasping the developing trend" to negate the analysis from Comrade Stalin that she quoted previously.
2) According to Klehr, the revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie are the main trend, which is rising, so that the whole bourgeoisie, without exception, will march through the national movement to national independence and straight to socialism. This is the bankrupt revisionist theory of the "dying out of class struggle". It is the exact opposite of Comrade Stalin's assessment.
3) Klehr identifies the question of which trend among the bourgeoisie is dominant with the question of "how should the third world be summed up today?" Therefore she is openly admitting that the "third world" refers to the bourgeois elements in Asia, Africa and Latin America and not to the revolutionary masses of the proletariat and peasantry and allies. She is admitting that "support for third world struggles" means support for the struggles of the ruling cliques of comprador bourgeoisie and feudal landlords in the neo-colonies and support for suppressing the proletariat and peasantry.
4) Klehr completely "forgets" the existence of the feudal landlords, just as she "forgets" about the revolutionary role of the peasantry. This amounts to "forgetting" the democratic revolution directed against feudalism, which is necessary to arouse the peasantry and is a component part of the national-democratic revolution. To "forget" the bourgeois-democratic revolution is also a main fallacy of Trotsky's "theory" of "permanent revolution". This proves that Klehr is a bitter opponent of Chairman Mao Tsetung's great theory of new-democratic revolution. In fact, for Klehr there is no role for any revolution in the "third world".
Thus Klehr has the world outlook of a diehard bourgeois, She only sees the power wielded by governments, and in the neo-colonial and dependent countries she therefore eulogizes the reactionary leading cliques, while in the U.S. she kneels before U.S. imperialism. She neglects the basic elements of the masses, the proletariat and the peasantry. She calls negating the bourgeoisie Trotskyism, and in reality she means negating the Shah of Iran and Mobutu of the Congo-K ("Zaire"). Trotskyism does indeed negate the dual nature of the national bourgeoisie; Klehr negates this dual nature too, but from the other end, so to speak. But naturally, if you forget the revolution altogether, then the question of utilizing the vacillating, dual nature of the national bourgeoisie does not even present itself. And to forget the workers and peasants is to forget the revolution. Trotskyism's major sin in stripping the proletariat of its allies is in negating the revolutionary potential of the laboring masses of the peasantry and the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat to lead the peasantry. The key question in the oppressed nations is not the competition between the local bourgeoisie and the foreign bourgeoisie, although this contradiction must be handled properly. Comrade Stalin emphasized this point in a number of famous articles. In his article "Concerning the National Question in Yugoslavia" Comrade Stalin stressed: "It is quite true that the national question must not be identified with the peasant question, for, in addition to peasant questions, the national question includes such questions as national culture, national statehood, etc. But it is also beyond doubt that, after all, the peasant question is the basis, the quintessence, of the national question. That explains the fact that the peasantry constitutes the main army of the national movement, that there is no powerful national movement without the peasant army, nor can there be. That is what is meant when it is said that, in essence, the national question is a peasant question." (31) Stalin returned to this question in the article "The National Question Once Again, Concerning the Article by Semich". He stated : "The essence of the national question today lies in the struggle that the masses of the people of the colonies and dependent nationalities are waging against financial exploitation, against the political enslavement and cultural effacement of those colonies and nationalities by the imperialist bourgeoisie of the ruling nationality. What significance can the competitive struggle between the bourgeoisies of different nationalities have when the national question is presented in that way? Certainly not decisive significance, and, in certain cases, not even important significance." (32) End.
NOTES
All page references in the text which are not otherwise indicated are to Klehr's article "Whitewashing Enemies and Slandering Friends".
1) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 74.
2) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 218, "The Collapse of the Second International"
3) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 235.
4) Klehr, Eileen, "How RCP's 'Theory of Equality' Serves Soviet Social-Imperialism" in Class Struggle, Fall 1977, #8, p. 34.
5) E. Hoxha, "Speech at the Meeting With His Electors of the No. 299 Precinct in Tirana, October 3, 1974" in The Workers' Advocate, Vol. 5, #1, Dec. 15, 1974, p. 15
6) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 75.
7) Klonsky, Michael, "Political Report to the Congress", p. 21 in Documents from the Founding Congress of the Communist Part (Marxist-Leninist), 1977. From here on, this is shortened to "Political Report".
8) Class Struggle. Winter 1976-77, #6. For criticism of this article, see "OL's Theory of 'Three Worlds' Denies Revolution and Apologizes for Neo-colonialism", The Workers Advocate. March 10, 1977.
9) "Political Report", p. 44
10) "Political Report", p. 41
11) "Political Report", p. 44
12) Quoted by Lenin in "Dead Chauvinism and Living Socialism", Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 96.
13) Klehr in Class Struggle #8, p. 42.
14) "Political Report", p. 40.
15) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 276 in "The Defeat of One's Own Government in the Imperialist War".
16) J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 11, p. 209.
17) "Political Report", p. 40.
18) Ibid.
19) This interview is analyzed in the article "Andrew Young, Mouthpiece for Imperialist Pacifism", The Workers' Advocate, vol. 7 #4, August 1, 1977.
20) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 253.
21) "The Proletarian Revolution and Khrushchov's Revisionism", Eighth Comment on the Open Letter of the C.C. of the CPSU in The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement, p. 398.
22) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 23, p. 215.
23) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 18, p. 24.
24) "Political Report", p. 45.
25) Ibid., p. 30.
26) This interview is analyzed in the article "Andrew Young, Mouthpiece for Imperialist Pacifism", The Workers' Advocate, vol. 7 #4, August 1, 1977.
27) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 253.
28) "The Proletarian Revolution and Khrushchov's Revisionism", Eighth Comment on the Open Letter of the C.C. of the CPSU in The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement, p. 398.
29) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 23, p. 215.
30) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 18, p. 24.
31) "Political Report", p. 45.
32) Ibid., p. 30.
33) V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 21, p. 275.
34) History of the CPSU(B). 1939 edition, p. 136.
35) Mao Tsetung, Selected Works, vol. 4, p. 11.
36) J.V. Stalin, On the Opposition, p. 204, or Works, vol. 7, p. 108.
37) J.V. Stalin, On the Opposition, p. 658, or Works, vol. 9, p. 255.
38) J.V. Stalin, Works. vol. 7, pp. 71-72.
39) J.V. Stalin, Works, vol. 7, p. 225.
Resolution of the Information Bureau Concerning the Situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
June 1948
During the second half of June, a meeting of the Information Bureau was held in Romania. The meeting was attended by the following representatives:
Bulgarian Workers' Party (Communists), Comrades T. Kostov, B. Chervenkov; Romanian Workers' Party, Comrades G. Georgiu Dej, V. Luca, A. Pauker; Hungarian Workers' Party, Comrades M. Rakosi, M. Farcas, A. Gero; Polish Workers' Party, Comrades J. Berman, A. Zavadski; Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Comrades A. Zhdanov, G. Malenkov, M, Suslov; Communist Party of France, Comrades J. Dados, E. Fajon; Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Comrades R. Slansky, V. Siroky, B. Geminder, G. Bares; Communist Party of Italy, Comrades P. Togliatti, P. Secchia.
The Information Bureau discussed the situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and unanimously adopted a resolution on this question.
TEXT OF THE RESOLUTION
The Information Bureau, composed of the representatives of the Bulgarian Workers' Party (Communists), Romanian Workers' Party, Hungarian Workers' Party, Polish Workers' Party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Communist Party of France, Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Communist Party of Italy, upon discussing the situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and announcing that the representatives of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had refused to attend the meeting of the Information Bureau, unanimously reached the following conclusions:
1. The Information Bureau notes that recently the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia has pursued an incorrect line on the main questions of home and foreign policy, a line which represents a departure from Marxism-Leninism. In this connection the Information Bureau approves the action of the Central Committee of the C. P. S. U. (B.), which took the initiative in exposing this incorrect policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, particularly the incorrect policy of Comrades Tito, Kardelj, Djilas and Rankovic.
2. The Information Bureau declares that the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party is pursuing an unfriendly policy toward the Soviet Union and the C.P.S.U.(B.). An undignified policy of defaming Soviet military experts and discrediting the Soviet Union has been carried out in Yugoslavia. A special regime was instituted for Soviet civilian experts in Yugoslavia, whereby they were under surveillance of Yugoslav state security organs and were continually followed. The representative of the C.P.S.U.(B.) in the Information Bureau, Comrade Yudin, and a number of official representatives of the Soviet Union in Yugoslavia, were followed and kept under observation by Yugoslav state security organs.
All these and similar facts show that the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia have taken a stand unworthy of Communists, and have begun to identify the foreign policy of the Soviet Union with the foreign policy of the imperialist powers, behaving toward the Soviet Union in the same manner as they behave to the bourgeois states. Precisely because of this anti-Soviet stand, slanderous propaganda about the "degeneration" of the C.P.S.U.(B.), about the "degeneration" of the U.S.S.R., and so on, borrowed from the arsenal of counter-revolutionary Trotskyism, is current within the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
The Information Bureau denounces this anti-Soviet attitude of the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia as being incompatible with Marxism- Leninism and only appropriate to nationalists.
3. In home policy, the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia are departing from the positions of the working class and are breaking with the Marxist theory of classes and class struggle. They deny that there is a growth of capitalist elements in their country and, consequently, a sharpening of the class struggle in the countryside. This denial is the direct result of the opportunist tenet that the class struggle does not become sharper during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, as Marxism-Leninism teaches, but dies down, as was affirmed by opportunists of the Bukharin type, who propagated the theory of the peaceful growing over of capitalism into socialism.
The Yugoslav leaders are pursuing an incorrect policy in the countryside by ignoring the class differentiation in the countryside and by regarding the individual peasantry as a single entity, contrary to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of classes and class struggle, contrary to the well-known Lenin thesis that small, individual farming gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie continually, daily, hourly, spontaneously and on a mass scale. Moreover, the political situation in the Yugoslav countryside gives no grounds for smugness and complacency, in the conditions obtaining in Yugoslavia, where individual peasant farming predominates, where the land is not nationalized, where there is private property in land, and where land can be bought and sold, where much of the land is concentrated in the hands of kulaks, and where hired labor is employed -- in such conditions there can be no question of educating the Party in the spirit of glossing over the class struggle and of reconciling class contradiction without by so doing disarming the Party itself in face of the difficulties connected with the construction of socialism.
Concerning the leading role of the working class, the leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party, by affirming that the peasantry is the "most stable foundation of the Yugoslav state" are departing from the Marxist-Leninist path and are taking the path of a populist, kulak party. Lenin taught that the proletariat is the "only class in contemporary society which is revolutionary to the end... must be the leader in the struggle of the entire people for a thorough democratic transformation, in the struggle of all working people and the exploited against the oppressors and exploiters."
The Yugoslav leaders are violating this thesis of Marxism-Leninism.
As far as the peasantry is concerned it may be that the majority, that is, the poor and medium peasants, are already in alliance with the working class, with the working class having the leading role in this alliance.
The attitude of the Yugoslav leaders disregards these theses of Marxism-Leninism.
As can be seen, this attitude also reflects views appropriate to petty-bourgeois nationalism, but not to Marxist-Leninists.
4. The Information Bureau considers that the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia is revising the Marxist-Leninist teachings about the Party. According to the theory of Marxism-Leninism, the Party is the main, guiding and leading force in the country, which has its own, specific program, and does not dissolve itself among the non-Party masses. The Party is the highest form of organization and the most important weapon of the working class.
In Yugoslavia, however, the People's Front, and not the Communist Party, is considered to be the main leading force in the country. The Yugoslav leaders belittle the role of the Communist Party and actually dissolve the Party in the non-party People's Front, which is composed of the most varied class elements (workers, peasants engaged in individual farming, kulaks, traders, small manufacturers, bourgeois intelligentsia, etc.) as well as mixed political groups which include certain bourgeois parties. The Yugoslav leaders stubbornly refuse to recognize the falseness of their tenet that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia allegedly cannot and should not have its own specific program and that it should be satisfied with the program of the People's Front.
The fact that in Yugoslavia it is only the People's Front which figures in the political arena, while the Party and its organizations do not appear openly before the people in its own name, not only belittles the role of the Party in the political life of the country, but also undermines the Party as an independent political force, which has the task of winning the growing confidence of the people and of influencing ever broader masses of the working people by open political activity and open propaganda of its views and program. The leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party are repeating the mistakes of the Russian Mensheviks regarding the dissolution of the Marxist party into a non-party, mass organization. All this reveals the existence of liquidation tendencies in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
The Information Bureau believes that this policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia threatens the very existence of the Communist Party and ultimately carries with it the danger of the degeneration of the People's Republic of Yugoslavia.
5. The Information Bureau considers that the bureaucratic regime created inside the Party by its leaders is disastrous for the life and development of the Yugoslav Communist Party. There is no inner Party democracy, no elections, and no criticism and self-criticism in the Party. Despite the unfounded assurances of Comrades Tito and Kardelj, the majority of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia is composed of co-opted, and not of elected members. The Communist Party is actually in a position of semi-legality. Party meetings are either not held at all, or meet in secret -- a fact which can only undermine the influence of the Party among the masses. This type of organization of the Yugoslav Communist Party cannot be described as anything but a sectarian-bureaucratic organization. It leads to the liquidation of the Party as an active, self-acting organism, it cultivates military methods of leadership in the Party similar to the methods advocated in his day by Trotsky.
It is a completely intolerable state of affairs when the most elementary rights of members in the Yugoslav Communist Party are suppressed, when the slightest criticism of incorrect measures in the Party is brutally repressed.
The Information Bureau regards as disgraceful such actions as the expulsion from the Party and the arrest of the Central Committee members, Comrades Djuiovic and Hebrang because they dared to criticize the anti-Soviet attitude of the leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party, and called for friendship between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
The Information Bureau considers that such a disgraceful, purely Turkish, terrorist regime cannot be tolerated in the Communist Party. The interests of the very existence and development of the Yugoslav Communist Party demand that an end be put to this regime.
6. The Information Bureau considers that the criticism made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B.) and Central Committees of the other Communist Parties of the mistakes of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and who in this way rendered fraternal assistance to the Yugoslav Communist Party, provides the Communist Party of Yugoslavia with all the conditions necessary to speedily correct the mistakes committed.
However, instead of honestly accepting this criticism and taking the Bolshevik path of correcting these mistakes, the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, suffering from boundless ambition, arrogance and conceit, met this criticism with belligerence and hostility. They took the anti-Party path of indiscriminately denying all their mistakes, violated the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism regarding the attitude of a political party to its mistakes and thus aggravated their anti-Party mistakes.
Unable to face the criticism of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.) and the Central Committees of the other fraternal Parties, the Yugoslav leaders took the path of outrightly deceiving their Party and people by concealing from the Yugoslav Communist Party the criticism of the Central Committee's incorrect policy and also by concealing from the Party and the people the real reasons for the brutal measures against Comrades Djuiovic and Hebrang.
Recently, even after the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.) and fraternal parties had criticized the mistakes of the Yugoslav leaders, the latter tried to bring in a number of new leftist laws. They hastily decreed the nationalization of medium industry and trade, though the basis for this is completely unprepared. In view of such haste the new decision only hampers the supply of goods to the population. In a similar hurried manner they brought in a new grain tax for which the way is also not prepared and which can, therefore, only dislocate grain supplies to the urban population. Finally, only recently the Yugoslav leaders in loud declarations declared their love for, and devotion to, the Soviet Union, although it is known that in practice they are pursuing an unfriendly policy toward the Soviet Union.
Nor is this all. Of late the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia have, with perfect aplomb, been declaiming a policy of liquidating the capitalist elements in Yugoslavia. In a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B.), dated April 13, Tito and Kardelj wrote that "the plenum of the Central Committee approved the measures proposed by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee to liquidate the remnants of capitalism in the country."
In accordance with this line Kardelj, speaking in the Skupschina on April 25, declared: "In our country the days of the last remnants of the exploitation of man by man are numbered."
In the conditions prevailing in Yugoslavia this position of the leaders of the Communist Party in regard to the liquidation of the capitalist elements, and hence, the kulaks as a class, cannot be qualified as other than adventurous and non-Marxist. For it is impossible to solve this task as long as individual peasant economy predominates in the country, which inevitably gives birth to capitalism, as long as conditions have not been created for the large-scale collectivization of agriculture; and as long as the majority of the working peasantry is not convinced of the advantages of collective methods of farming. The experience of the C.P.S.U.(B.) shows that the elimination of the last and biggest exploiting class -- the kulak class -- is possible only on the basis of the mass collectivization of agriculture, that the elimination of the kulaks as a class, is an organic and integral part of the collectivization of agriculture.
In order to eliminate the kulaks as a class, and hence, to eliminate the capitalist elements in the countryside, it is necessary for the Party to engage in detailed preparatory work to restrict the capitalist elements in the countryside, to strengthen the alliance of the working class and the peasantry under the leadership of the working class, to make socialist industry capable of producing machinery for the collective administration of agriculture. Haste in this matter can only lead to irreparable harm.
Only on the basis of these measures, carefully prepared and consistently carried out, is it possible to go over from restriction of the capitalist elements in the countryside, to their liquidation.
All attempts by the Yugoslav leaders to solve this problem hastily and by means of decrees, signify either that the venture is foredoomed to failure or that it is a boastful and empty demagogic declaration.
The Information Bureau considers that by means of these false and demagogic tactics, the Yugoslav leaders are endeavoring to demonstrate that they are not only for class struggle, but that they go even further, beyond those demands which -- taking into account the real possibilities -- could be advanced by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the matter of restricting the capitalist elements.
The Information Bureau considers that since these leftist decrees and declarations of the Yugoslav leadership are demagogic and impracticable in the present conditions, they can but compromise the banner of socialist construction in Yugoslavia.
That is why the Information Bureau considers such adventurist tactics as an undignified maneuver and an impermissible political gamble.
As we see, these leftist demagogic measures and declarations on the part of the Yugoslav leaders are designed to cover up their refusal to recognize mistakes and honestly correct them.
7. Taking into account the situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, and seeking to show the leaders of the Party the way out of this situation, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B.) and the Central Committees of other fraternal parties suggested that the matter of the Yugoslav Communist Party should be discussed at a meeting of the Information Bureau, on the same normal party footing as that on which the activities of other Communist Parties were discussed at the first meeting of the Information Bureau.
However, the Yugoslav leaders rejected the repeated suggestions of the fraternal Communist Parties to discuss the situation in the Yugoslav Party at a meeting of the Information Bureau.
Attempting to avoid the just criticism of the fraternal parties in the Information Bureau, the Yugoslav leaders invented the fable of their allegedly "unequal position". There is not a grain of truth in this story. It is generally known that when the Information Bureau was set up, the Communist Parties based their work on the indisputable principle that any party could report to the Information Bureau in the same way that any party had the right to criticize other parties.
At the first meeting of the Nine Communist Parties, the Yugoslav Communist Party took full advantage of this right.
The refusal of the Yugoslav Party to report to the' Information Bureau on its actions and to listen to criticism by other Communist Parties means, in practice, a violation of the equality of the Communist Parties and is, in fact, tantamount to a demand for a privileged position for the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the Information Bureau.
8. In view of this, the Information Bureau expresses complete agreement with the estimation of the situation in the Yugoslav Communist Party, with the criticism of the mistakes of the Central Committee of the Party, and with the political analysis of these mistakes contained in letters from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B.) to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia between March and May, 1948.
The Information Bureau unanimously concludes that by their anti-Party and anti-Soviet views, incompatible with Marxism-Leninism, by their whole attitude and their refusal to attend the meeting of the Information Bureau, the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia have placed themselves in opposition to the Communist Parties affiliated to the Information Bureau, have taken the path of seceding from the united socialist front against imperialism, have taken the path of betraying the cause of international solidarity of the working people, and have taken up a position of nationalism.
The Information Bureau condemns this anti-Party policy and attitude of the Central Committee of the f Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
The Information Bureau considers that, in view of all this, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia has placed itself and the Yugoslav Party outside the family of the fraternal Communist Parties, outside the united Communist front and consequently outside the ranks of the Information Bureau.
* * *
The Information Bureau considers that the basis of these mistakes made by the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia lies in the undoubted fact that nationalist elements, which previously existed in a disguised form, managed in the course of the past five or six months to reach a dominant position in the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and, that consequently, the leadership of the Yugoslav Communist Party has broken with the international traditions of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and has taken the road of nationalism.
Considerably overestimating the internal, national forces of Yugoslavia and their influence, the Yugoslav leaders think that they can maintain Yugoslavia's independence and build socialism without the support of the Communist Parties of other countries, without the support of the people's democracies, without the support of the Soviet Union. They think that the new Yugoslavia can do without the help of these revolutionary forces.
Showing their poor understanding of the international situation and their intimidation by the blackmailing threats of the imperialists, the Yugoslav leaders think that by making concessions they can curry favor with the imperialist states. They think they will be able to bargain with them for Yugoslavia's independence and, gradually, get the people of Yugoslavia orientated on these states, that is, on capitalism. In this they proceed tacitly from the well-known bourgeois-nationalist thesis that "capitalist states are a lesser danger to the independence of Yugoslavia than the Soviet Union."
The Yugoslav leaders evidently do not understand or, probably, pretend they do not understand, that such a nationalist line can only lead to Yugoslavia's degeneration into an ordinary bourgeois republic, to the loss of its independence and to its transformation into a colony of the imperialist countries.
The Information Bureau does not doubt that inside the Communist Party of Yugoslavia there are sufficient healthy elements, loyal to Marxism-Leninism, to the international traditions of the Yugoslav Communist Party and to the united socialist front.
Their task is to compel their present leaders to recognize their mistakes openly and honestly and to rectify them; to break with nationalism, return to internationalism; and in every way to consolidate the united socialist front against imperialism.
Should the present leaders of the Yugoslav Communist Party prove to be incapable of doing this, their job is to replace them and to advance a new internationalist leadership of the Party.
The Information Bureau does not doubt that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia will be able to fulfill this honorable task. End.
November 1949
The Information Bureau, consisting of representatives of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, Rumanian Workers' Party, Working People's Party of Hungary, United Workers' Party of Poland, Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Communist Party of France, and the Czechoslovak and Italian Communist Parties, having considered the question: "The Yugoslav Communist Party in the power of murderers and spies", unanimously reached the following conclusions:
Whereas, in June 1948 the meeting of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties noted the change-over of the Tito-Rankovic clique from democracy and socialism to bourgeois nationalism, during the period that has elapsed since the meeting of the Information Bureau, this clique has travelled all the way from bourgeois nationalism to fascism and outright betrayal of the national interests of Yugoslavia.
Recent events show that the Yugoslav Government is completely dependent on foreign imperialist circles and has become an instrument of their aggressive policy, which has resulted in the liquidation of the independence of the Yugoslav Republic.
The Central Committee of the Party and the Government of Yugoslavia have merged completely with the imperialist circles against the entire camp of socialism and democracy; against the Communist Parties of the world; against the New Democracies and the U.S.S.R.
The Belgrade clique of hired spies and murderers made a flagrant deal with imperialist reaction and entered its service, as the Budapest trial of Rajk-Brankov made perfectly clear.
This trial showed that the present Yugoslav rulers, having fled from the camp of democracy and socialism to the camp of capitalism and reaction, have become direct accomplices of the instigators of a new war, and, by their treacherous deeds, are ingratiating themselves with the imperialists and kow-towing to them.
The change-over of the Tito clique to fascism was not fortuitous. It was effected on the order of their masters, the Anglo-American imperialists, whose mercenaries, it is now clear, this clique has been for long.
The Yugoslav traitors, obeying the will of the imperialists, undertook to form in the People's Democracies political gangs consisting of reactionaries, nationalists, clerical and fascist elements and, relying on these gangs, to bring about counter-revolutionary coups in these countries, wrest them from the Soviet Union and the entire socialist camp and subordinate them to the forces of imperialism.
The Tito clique transformed Belgrade into an American center for espionage and anti-Communist propaganda.
When all genuine friends of peace, democracy and socialism see in the U.S.S.R. a powerful fortress of Socialism, a faithful and steadfast defender of the freedom and independence of nations and the principal bulwark of peace, the Tito-Rankovic clique, having attained power under the mask of friendship with the U.S.S.R., began on the orders of the Anglo-American imperialists, a campaign of slander and provocation against the Soviet Union, utilizing the most vile calumnies borrowed from the arsenal of Hitler.
The transformation of the Tito-Rankovic clique into a direct agency of imperialism, and accomplices of the war-mongers, culminated in the lining up of the Yugoslav Government with the imperialist bloc at U.N.O., where the Kardeljs, Djilas and Beblers, joined in a united front with American reactionaries on vital matters of international policy.
In the sphere of home policy, the chief outcome of the activity of the traitor Tito-Rankovic clique is the actual liquidation of the People's Democratic system in Yugoslavia.
Due to the counter-revolutionary policy of the Tito-Rankovic clique which usurped power in the Party and in the State, an anti-Communist police State -- fascist type regime -- has been installed in Yugoslavia.
The social basis of this regime consists of kulaks in the countryside and capitalist elements in the towns.
In fact power in Yugoslavia is in the hands of anti-popular, reactionary elements. Active members of the old bourgeois parties, kulaks and other enemies of People's Democracy, are active in central and local government bodies.
The top fascist rulers rely on an enormously swollen military-police apparatus, with the aid of which they oppress the peoples of Yugoslavia.
They have turned the country into a military camp, wiped out all democratic rights of the working people, and trampled on any free expression of opinion.
The Yugoslav rulers demagogically and insolently deceive the people, alleging they are building socialism in Yugoslavia.
But it is clear to every Marxist that there can be no talk of building socialism in Yugoslavia when the Tito clique has broken with the Soviet Union, with the entire camp of socialism and democracy, thereby depriving Yugoslavia of the main bulwark for building socialism and when it has subordinated the country economically and politically to Anglo-American imperialists.
The State sector in the economy of Yugoslavia has ceased to be people's property, since State power is in the hands of enemies of the people.
The Tito-Rankovic clique has created wide possibilities for the penetration of foreign capital into the economy of the country, and has placed the economy under the control of capitalist monopolies.
Anglo-American industrial-financial circles investing their capital in Yugoslav economy, are transforming Yugoslavia into an agrarian-raw materials adjunct of foreign capital.
The ever growing slavish dependence of Yugoslavia on imperialism leads to intensified exploitation of the working class and to a severe worsening of its conditions.
The policy of the Yugoslav rulers in the countryside bears a kulak-capitalistic character.
The compulsory pseudo co-operatives in the country-side are in the hands of the kulaks and their agencies and represent an instrument for the exploitation of wide masses of working peasants.
The Yugoslav hirelings of imperialism, having seized leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, unloosed a campaign of terror against genuine Communists loyal to the principles of Marxism and Leninism and who fight for Yugoslavia's independence from the imperialists.
Thousands of Yugoslav patriots, devoted to Communism, have been expelled from the Party and incarcerated in jails and concentration camps. Many have been tortured and killed in prison or, as was the case with the well-known Communist, Arso Jovanovic, were dastardly assassinated.
The brutality with which staunch fighters for Communism are being annihilated in Yugoslavia, can be compared only with the atrocities of the Hitler fascists or the butcher Tsaldaris in Greece or Franco in Spain.
Expelling from the ranks of the Party those Communists loyal to proletarian internationalism, annihilating them, the Yugoslav fascists opened wide the doors of the Party to bourgeois and kulak elements.
As a result of the fascist terror of the Tito gangs against the healthy forces in the Yugoslav Communist Party, leadership of the Party is wholly in the hands of spies and murderers, mercenaries of imperialism.
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia has been seized by counter-revolutionary forces, acting arbitrarily in the name of the Party. Recruiting spies and provocateurs in the ranks of the working class parties, is, as is well-known, an old method of the bourgeoisie.
In this way the imperialists seek to undermine the Parties from within and subordinate them to themselves. They have succeeded in realizing this aim in Yugoslavia.
The fascist ideology, and fascist domestic policy, as well as the perfidious foreign policy of the Tito clique, completely subordinated to the foreign imperialist circles, have created a gulf between the espionage fascist Tito-Rankovic clique and the vital interests of the freedom-loving peoples of Yugoslavia.
Consequently, the anti-popular and treacherous activity of the Tito clique is encountering ever-growing resistance from those Communists who have remained loyal to Marxism-Leninism, and among the working class and working peasantry of Yugoslavia.
On the basis of irrefutable facts testifying to the complete change-over of the Tito clique to fascism and its desertion to the camp of world imperialism, the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties considers that:
1. The espionage group of Tito, Rankovic Kardelj, Djilas, Pijade, Gosnjak, Maslaric, Bebler, Mrazovic, Vukmanovic, Koca Popovic, Kidric, Neskovic, Zlatic, Velebit, Kolishevski and others, are enemies of the working class and peasantry and enemies of the peoples of Yugoslavia.
2. This espionage group expresses not the will of the peoples of Yugoslavia but the will of the Anglo-
American imperialists, and has therefore betrayed the interests of the country and abolished the political sovereignty and economic independence of Yugoslavia.
3. The "Communist Party of Yugoslavia", as at present constituted, being in the hands of enemies of the people, murderers and spies, has forfeited the right to be called a Communist Party and is merely an apparatus for carrying out the espionage assignments of the clique of Tito-Kardelj-Rankovic-Djilas.
The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties considers therefore, that the struggle against the Tito clique, hired spies and murderers, is the international duty of all Communist and Workers' Parties.
It is the duty of Communist and Workers' Parties to give all possible aid to the Yugoslav working class and working peasantry who are fighting for the return of Yugoslavia to the camp of democracy and socialism.
A necessary condition for the return of Yugoslavia to the socialist camp is active struggle on the part of revolutionary elements both inside the Yugoslav Communist Party and outside its ranks, for the regeneration of the revolutionary, genuine Communist Party of Yugoslavia, loyal to Marxism-Leninism, to the principles of proletarian internationalism, and fighting for the independence of Yugoslavia from imperialism.
The loyal Communist forces in Yugoslavia, who in the present brutal conditions of fascist terror, are deprived of the possibility of engaging in open action against the Tito-Rankovic clique, were compelled in the struggle for the cause of Communism, to follow the path taken by the Communists in those countries where legal work is forbidden.
The Information Bureau expresses the firm conviction that, among the workers and peasants of Yugoslavia, forces will be found capable of ensuring victory over the bourgeois-restoration espionage Tito-Rankovic clique; that the toiling people of Yugoslavia led by the working class will succeed in restoring the historical gains of People's Democracy, won at the price of heavy sacrifice and heroic struggle by the peoples of Yugoslavia and that they will take the road of building socialism.
The Information Bureau considers one of the most important tasks of the Communist and Workers' Parties to be an all-round heightening of revolutionary vigilance in Party ranks, exposing and rooting out bourgeois-nationalist elements and agents of imperialism, no matter under what flag they conceal themselves.
The Information Bureau recognizes the need for more ideological work in the Communist and Workers' Parties; more work to train Communists in the spirit of loyalty to proletarian internationalism, irreconcilability to any departure from the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and in the spirit of loyalty to People's Democracy and Socialism. End.
It has been said that J.V. Stalin was mistaken in assessing the Yugoslav revisionists and in sharpening the attitude towards them. Our Party has never endorsed such a view, because time and experience have have proved the contrary. Stalin made a very correct assessment of the danger of the Yugoslav revisionists; he tried to settle this affair at the proper moment and in a Marxist way. The Information Bureau, as a collective organ, was called together at that time, and after the Titoite group was exposed, a merciless struggle was waged against it. Time has proven over and over again that such a thing was necessary and correct.
The Party of Labor of Albania has always held the opinion and is convinced that the Tito group are traitors to Marxism-Leninism, agents of imperialism, dangerous enemies of the socialist camp and of the entire international communist and workers' movement, therefore, a merciless struggle should be waged against them....
But our Party offered heroic resistance to these secret agents who posed as communists. When the Belgrade Trotskyites realized that they had lost their case, that our Party was smashing their plots, they tried their last card, namely, to invade Albania with their army, to overwhelm all resistance, to arrest the leaders of the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian state, and to proclaim Albania the 7th Republic of Yugoslavia. Our Party smashed this diabolic plan of theirs too. The aid and intervention of J.V. Stalin at these moments was decisive for our Party and for the freedom of the Albanian people. Precisely at this time the Information Bureau exposed the Tito clique. Stalin and the Soviet Union saved the Albanian people for the second time.
The Information Bureau brought about the defeat of the conspiracies of the Tito clique, not only in Albania, but also in the other people's democracies. Posing as communists, the renegade and agent of imperialism, Tito, and his gang, tried to alienate the people's democracies in the Balkans and Central Europe from the friendship and war-time alliance with the Soviet Union, to destroy the communist and workers' parties of our countries, and to turn our states into reserves of Anglo-American imperialism.
Who was there who did not know about and see in action the hostile schemes of imperialism and its loyal servant Tito? Everybody knew, everybody learned, and all unanimously approved the correct decisions of the Information Bureau. Everyone, without exception, approved the Resolutions of the Information Bureau, which, in our opinion, were and still are correct without exception.
Those who did not want to see and understand these acts of this criminal gang had a second chance to do so in the Hungarian counter-revolution and in the unceasing plots against Albania. The wolf may change his coat but he remains a wolf. Tito and his gang may resort to trickery, may try to disguise themselves, but they are traitors, criminals and agents of imperialism. They are the murderers of the heroic Yugoslav internationalist communists, and this is what they will be, and how they will act, until they are wiped out.
The Party of Labor of Albania considers the decisions taken against the renegade Tito group by the Information Bureau not as decisions taken by comrade Stalin personally, but as decisions taken by all the parties that took part in the Information Bureau. And not only by these parties alone, but also by the communist and workers' parties which did not take part in it. Since this was a matter that concerned all the communist and workers' parties, it also concerned, the Party of Labor of Albania, which, having received and studied a copy of the letter comrades Stalin and Molotov had written to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, endorsed in full both the letter and the decisions of the Information Bureau.
Why, then, was the "change of attitude" towards the Yugoslav revisionists, adopted by comrade Khrushchov and the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1955, not made an issue for consultation in the normal way with the other communist and workers' parties, but was conceived and carried out in such hostile and unilateral way? This was a matter that concerned us all. The Yugoslav revisionists had either opposed Marxism-Leninism and the communist and workers' parties of the world, or they had not; either they were wrong, or we were wrong in regard to them, and not just Stalin. This thing could not be resolved by comrade Khrushchov at his own discretion, and it is impermissible for him to try to do so....
The slogan of "overriding interests" was launched, the 2nd Resolution of the Information Bureau was speedily revoked, the "epoch of reconciliation" with "the Yugoslav comrades" began, the conspirators, wherever they were, re-examined and rehabilitated, and the "Yugoslav comrades" came off unscathed, strutted like peacocks, trumpeted abroad that their "just cause" had triumphed, that the "criminal Stalin" had trumped up all these things, and a situation was created in which whoever refused to take this course was dubbed a "Stalinist" who should be done away with.
Our Party refused to take such a conciliatory and opportunist course. It stood fast on the correct Marxist-Leninist ideological position, on the position of the ideological and political struggle against the Yugoslav revisionists. The Party of Labor of Albania remained unshaken in its views that the Titoite group were traitors, renegades, Trotskyites, subversionists, and agents of the U.S. imperialists, that the Party of Labor of Albania had not been mistaken about them.
The Party of Labor of Albania remained unshaken in its view that comrade Stalin had made no mistake in this matter, that, with their line of betrayal, the revisionists had attempted to enslave Albania, to destroy the Party of Labor of Albania, and through hatching up a number of international plots with the Anglo-American imperialists, they had tried to embroil Albania in international conflicts.
On the other hand, the Party of Labor of Albania was in favor of establishing state relations of good neighborliness, trade and cultural relations with the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, provided that the norms of peaceful coexistence between states of different regimes were observed, because as far as the Party of Labor of Albania is concerned, Titoite Yugoslavia has not been, is not, and never will be a socialist country, as long as it is headed by a group of renegades and agents of imperialism.
In Albania, the Titoite saw struck a nail, or, as Tito says, "Albania was a thorn in his foot", and, of course, the Titoite traitor group continued their struggle against the Party of Labor Of Albania, thinking that they were exposing us by dubbing us "Stalinists".
The Belgrade group did not confine their fight against us to propaganda alone, but they continued their espionage, subversion, plots, dispatching armed bands into our country, more intensively than in 1948. These are all facts. But the tragedy is that, while the Party of Labor of Albania, on the one hand, was defending itself against the bitter and unceasing attacks by the Yugoslav revisionists, on the other hand, its unwavering, principled, Marxist-Leninist stand was in opposition to the conciliatory stand of the Soviet leaders and of certain other communist and workers' parties towards the Yugoslav revisionists.
At that time is was loudly proclaimed and written that "Yugoslavia is a socialist country, and this is a fact", that "the Yugoslav communists possess a great experience and great merits", that "the Yugoslav experience is worthy of greater interest and more attentive study", that "the period of disputes and misunderstandings had not been caused by Yugoslavia", and that "great unjustice had been done to it", and so on and so forth. This, of course, gave heart to the Tito clique, who thought they had won everything, except that there still remained one "thorn in their foot" which they intended to isolate and, later, liquidate. However, not only could our Party not be isolated, much less liquidated, but on the contrary, time proved that the views of our Party were correct.
A great deal of pressure has been exerted on our Party over this stand. The Albanian leaders were considered "hot-blooded" and "stubborn", "exaggerating" matters with Yugoslavia, "unjustly harassing" the Yugoslavs, etc. The attack against our Party in this direction has been led by comrade Khrushchov.
So far, I have mentioned in brief what the Yugoslav revisionists have done against our Party and our country during and after the war, after 1948, but I shall dwell a little, also, on the events prior to the Hungarian counter-revolution, which is the work of Yugoslav agents. The Belgrade traitor group began to organize a counter-revolution in Albania also. Had our Party made the mistake of joining in the "conciliation waltz" with the Yugoslav revisionists, as was preached after 1955, then the people's democracy in Albania would have gone down the drain. We, Albanians, would not have been here in this hall, but would have been still fighting in our mountains. End.
The Communist Parties have unanimously condemned the Yugoslav variety of international opportunism, a variety of modern revisionist "theories" in concentrated form, After betraying Marxism-Leninism, which they termed obsolete, the leaders of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia opposed their anti-Leninist revisionist program to the Declaration of 1957; they set the L.C.Y. against the international Communist movement as a whole, severed their country from the socialist camp, made it dependent on so-called "aid" from U.S. and other imperialists, and thereby exposed the Yugoslav people to the danger of losing the revolutionary gains achieved through a heroic struggle. 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. Further exposure of the leaders of Yugoslav revisionists and active struggle to safeguard the Communist movement and the working class movement from the anti-Leninist ideas of the Yugoslav revisionists, remains an essential task of the Marxist-Leninist Parties....
The further development of the Communist and working-class movement calls, as stated in the Moscow Declaration of 1957, for continuing a determined struggle on two fronts--against revisionism, which remains the main danger, and against dogmatism and sectarianism.
Revisionism, Right-wing opportunism, which mirrors the bourgeois ideology in theory and practice, distorts Marxism- Leninism, emasculates its revolutionary essence, and thereby paralyzes the revolutionary will of the working class, disarms and demobilizes the workers, the masses of the working people, in their struggle against oppression by imperialists and exploiters, for peace, democracy and national liberation, for the triumph of socialism.
Dogmatism and sectarianism in theory and practice can also become the main danger at some stage of development of individual parties, unless combated unrelentingly. … End.
On August 28, Radio Tirana broadcast a commentary entitled: "The Yugoslav 'Self-Administrative Socialism', An Opportunist Ideological Trend and an Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Political Practice". This commentary was broadcast during the regular Radio Tirana feature, "Marxism-Leninism, An Ever-Young and Scientific Doctrine". The text of the commentary is printed below, as transcribed by the editorial and technical staff of People's Canada Daily News.
At the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out that Yugoslav revisionism is one of the main trends of modern revisionism and remains a constant danger because it offers ready-made anti-Marxist concepts to all opportunists, revisionists and other renegades of every hue who have taken the road of betrayal. Yugoslav revisionism also remains a favorite weapon of the international imperialist bourgeoisie in the struggle against socialism and the liberation movements. Therefore, while it concentrates its struggle first of all against Khrushchovite Soviet revisionism, at the same time, the Party of Labor of Albania has continued and will continue its struggle against Yugoslav revisionism in order to unmask both its anti-Marxist theories and its deliberate misuse of and demagogy with the ideas of socialism and Marxism-Leninism.
After Stalin unmasked them and the Information Bureau and the whole International Communist Movement condemned them, in order to justify their betrayal of and deviation from Marxism-Leninism and socialism, the Yugoslav revisionists brought out their theories about "national" or "specific socialism" and later the theory about self-administrative socialism, camouflaging these anti-Marxist ideas with the Marxist-Leninist theory of scientific socialism. The essence of these theories is the anti-Marxist idea that socialism cannot be in only one form but there can be different varieties of socialism in different countries at different times. Deliberately distorting the correct teachings about the application of Marxism-Leninism in a creative way, in the specific conditions of each country, the Yugoslav revisionists emphasized that allegedly, there is no universal law common to all countries for the construction of socialism and that each country can build socialism according to its own desires, etc. Concretizing their anti-Marxist idea about specific socialism, in the early 1950's, they brought out their new kind of socialism, the so-called "self-administrative socialism", which they presented as something new in the modern workers' movement. The essence of this self-administrative socialism of the Yugoslav revisionists is the idea that allegedly, genuine socialism cannot be built by concentrating the means of production in the hands of the socialist state. Falsifying Marx and Lenin, the Yugoslav revisionists claim that on the question of construction of socialist society, they, Marx and Lenin, allegedly put the emphasis not on the absolute necessity of the creation of socialist state property, not on the role of the socialist state as the manager and organizer of the means of production in the socialist economy in a centralized and planned way, but on the so-called "self-management" or the direct self-administration of the property by groups of workers, for the reason that this is the only way that the so-called "direct economic democracy" of the free people can be achieved. According to them, Marxism allegedly considers the revolutionary role of the socialist state as an executor of the duty of the collective owners, to use the words of a revisionist theorist, as a transitory phase, after which the socialist state should surrender these fundamental duties for the reason that it inevitably becomes a private owner, it imposes its own will on the working masses by means of state violence just like a capitalist owner or a capitalist state. Both in form and content the whole theory and practice of "self-administrative socialism" is a flagrant falsification and open denial of the Marxist- Leninist theory of scientific socialism.
The Yugoslav revisionists have distorted the original ideas of Marx and Lenin about socialism by reviving the old anarchist ideas and theories of Proudhon, Bakunin, the so-called "Workers' Opposition" and other opportunists, presenting these old anti-Marxist and anti-socialist ideas as something new in the workers' movement. Marx and Lenin consistently defended the idea that the socialist state, or the dictatorship of the proletariat, must concentrate all the main means of production in its own hands, transforming them into state property or the property of the whole people, which is the highest form of socialist property, which it manages and administers on behalf and in the interests of all the working people in a planned and centralized way. They fought the views about workers' self-administration and workers' factories and denounced them as anarcho-syndicalist ideas of the Workers' Opposition, an anti-Party group which supported the idea of handing over the factories to the workers and the organization and management of production not by the Soviet state, but by so-called producers' councils that are representatives of separate groups of workers. Criticizing this idea, Lenin said, "It is a distortion of the basic principle of socialism. If the ownership of the products by the workers in the factories is legalized, the right to weaken or impede the decrees of the Soviet state is recognized."
The Yugoslav revisionists' view that socialism and state property are irreconcilable in nature, hence, that the dominant role of the state in the managing of the economy is only for a short period, is also anti- Marxist myth. The role of the socialist state in the management of the socialist economy is by no means dependent on momentary interests as the Yugoslav revisionists try to argue, that is, short-term interests, with the elimination of which, the necessity of its role as leader and organizer also disappears. On the contrary, the socialist state is maintained and continuously strengthened during the whole historic period of the transition from capitalism to communism. Therefore its role as the organizer and manager of the socialist property in a planned and centralized manner is maintained and strengthened too. This is a universal law of the construction of socialism. Any deviation from this fundamental principle leads to liberal, anarchist positions, to the destruction of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the degeneration of the socialist society. The fragmentation of the socialist property and the creation of group property, as well as the denial of the leading role of the state, such as has occurred in Yugoslavia, has led to the fragmentation of the working class into separate groups which are opposed to one another, between which a competitive struggle is being waged, because each group strives to defend its own narrow interests at the expense of the interests of the whole society and other groups of workers. Under these conditions the working class in Yugoslavia no longer acts as a united class over the whole country. Therefore, it has long since lost its leading role as leading and directing class in present-day Yugoslav society. It has been transformed from a leading class in power into a class which is led, oppressed and exploited by the new bourgeoisie which has all power in its hands.
The self-administration of production by the workers about which the Yugoslav revisionists talk, is possible only in the conditions of classless society, in communism. Then, as is known, the socialist state becomes unnecessary. Therefore it withers away, and its functions pass to society as a whole, which organizes and manages production itself, that is, self-administrative, without the need for a special organ such as the state. Therefore, as Comrade Hoxha has pointed out, "The Yugoslav revisionists are trying by means of leftist slogans, such as those of workers' self-administration, to disguise their anti-Mar xi st, rightist standpoint and actions and they have to do this to disguise the degeneration of Yugoslavia into a capitalist country of a special type." Yugoslav revisionists present the relations of production in the framework of the self-administrative socialism, not just as socialist relations, but as the best form of these relations. In order to form a judgement of the accuracy of this claim, let us examine what the relations within the so-called system of self-administrative socialism really are.
The Yugoslav economy today consists of an accumulation of separate enterprises independent of one another, in which each has complete freedom of actions. Thus, on the basis of the law on self-administration, each has the right to decide the volume and character of its production, and to invest capital, to buy and sell means of production, to employ workers and to dismiss them when they are no longer needed, to present their goods independently on the home and foreign markets, and to set the prices of those products in accord with the situation of supply and demand on the market. Each enterprise produces whatever products and quantities of products are profitable to it, and nobody is concerned about what products the society needs. The main purpose of production is profit, while the rewarding of labor in each enterprise is done on the basis of the income and profits which the enterprise makes, and there is no uniform basis for assessing the earnings of all the workers. Thus the property in Yugoslavia has been fragmented and handed over to separate groups of self-administration. The organization and management of production in a planned and centralized manner has been abandoned, while profit has been proclaimed as the purpose of production. Thus the existing relations of production which have emerged on the basis of group property, are essentially capitalist relations, relations of oppression and exploitation.
The Yugoslav revisionists also try to present their self-administrative socialism as the acme of direct economic democracy, which allegedly makes man the center of attention.,To this end, they divide socialism into two phases, which according to them has been achieved only in Yugoslavia. The purpose of this division is to show that state socialism is characterized by restriction of democracy for the masses, whereas self-administrative socialism assures direct democracy for the masses. In reality, the constitution of Yugoslavia itself proclaims that the center of the enterprise, and all-powerful in it, is not the working class but the manager, who is completely free and independent in the performance of his functions. The fact that managers of enterprises and other central organs receive very high salaries and enjoy many benefits and privileges, which permits them to live a life of bourgeois luxury, the fact that the enterprises are closed down because of the competitive struggle and the workers are thrown out into the streets, the fact that the workers are encouraged to chase after profits, is clear evidence, not of the democratic character of the self-administrative socialist system, but of the lack of democracy, of the existence of relations of oppression and exploitation which emerge on the basis of this system which they pretend is socialist, but which in fact is capitalist. Comrade Enver Hoxha said at the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, "Titoite 'self-Administration' has proven to be an eclectic bourgeois doctrine which has led to permanent political and ideological confusion, to weak and disproportionate economic development, to great social differentiation, to squabbles among nationalities and degeneration of spiritual life in Yugoslavia." End.
The Anti-Marxist Content of Self-Administrative Socialism
On October 23, Radio Tirana broadcast excerpts from the article "The Anti-Marxist Content of Self- Administrative Socialism", which was published in the review, Rruga e Partise, theoretical and political organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania. The excerpts were broadcast during the regular feature, "Marxism-Leninism, An Ever-Young and Scientific Doctrine". The text of the excerpts broadcast by Radio Tirana are published below, as transcribed by the editorial and technical staff of People's Canada Daily News.
Yugoslav revisionism is still a favorite weapon of the international imperialist bourgeoisie in the struggle against the revolution, socialism and the liberation movements. It was prepared as a special political and ideological agency of United States and British imperialism in the period of the Second World War. After the war, the Yugoslav revisionists, preserving their disguise as socialists and communists, were given the role of the trojan horse, or the fifth column inside the socialist countries and the International Communist Movement in order to undermine and destroy socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat from within, by means of subversion, espionage and conspiracies.
Deliberately misusing and distorting the correct Marxist-Leninist thesis of the implementation of Marxism-Leninism in a creative manner in the specific conditions of each country, the Yugoslav revisionists stressed that allegedly there are no universal laws common to all countries for the construction of socialism: that each country can build socialism in the way it sees fit and so on. In fact, Marxism-Leninism teaches us that there is only one form of socialism. At all times and in all countries, it can only be built on the universal laws and principles which are always identical and common to all countries, regardless of the specific conditions of each individual country. Such fundamental problems as: securing the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party; the safeguarding and continuous strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat; the hegemonic role of the working class; the liquidation of capitalist ownership and the establishment of socialist ownership of the means of production; the construction of socialism on the basis of the consistent waging of the class struggle; the strengthening of the alliance of the working class with the cooperativist peasantry, the organization and management of the economy in a centralized and planned manner on the basis of the principles of democratic centralism; etc, are laws and principles essential to all countries which take the road of socialism. They are laws of a universal character, which recognize no national boundaries.
Despite the identity of the main laws and features, it is natural that in the construction of socialism in different countries there may be differences in the forms, methods and rates of the construction of socialism, in conformity with the concrete conditions of each country. This must be taken into account, but always while acting on the basis of these laws and not negating them like the Yugoslav revisionists do in fact.
Concretizing their anti-Marxist idea about specific socialism, at the beginning of the fifties, the Yugoslav revisionists publicly proclaimed that they were abandoning the state socialist system that they had adhered to up until that time, because they had allegedly discovered a new kind of socialism, which they called the system of self-administrative socialism. The theoretical arguments supporting this self-administrative socialism constitute a variant of the ideas of syndicalists and anarchists, raised to an official line and dominant ideology in a country in which revisionists are in power as in the case of Yugoslavia. And in fact, the Yugoslav revisionists are the most ardent defenders of anarchism in the world today.
In open opposition to Marxism-Leninism, the theoreticians of self-administrative socialism preach that in this kind of socialism, the role of the Communist Party must be simply an ideological one. It must not be in the leading role in the economy, in the state administration or in the organizations of the masses, and must not even be involved in the problem of cadres. The Yugoslav revisionists try to justify the negation of the leading role of the Communist Party, of its transformation into simply an ideological guiding factor, under the pretext that allegedly the leadership of the Party is incompatible with the true decisive role of the producing masses, who, according to the revisionists, must exert their political influence directly and not through the Communist Party, because otherwise the role of the Party becomes one of bureaucratic despotism which is opposed to the construction of socialism. These views are in open and flagrant opposition to the teachings of Marxism- Leninism, because, as experience shows, it is impossible to build genuine socialism without the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party. V.I. Lenin stressed, "If the unity, strength and influence of the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat is weakened in the slightest, from this vacillation nothing can emerge other than the restoration, the re-establishment of the state power and property of the capitalists and landowners."
The leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party does not hinder the decisive role of the working class. On the contrary, only under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party can the working class become an organized and conscious force, a decisive force both in the revolution and the construction of socialism. As Comrade Enver Hoxha stresses, "To deny the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist parties means to leave the working class without its leading staff, to disarm the working class completely in the interests of the bourgeoisie, to betray the working class". Life itself has proved that it is not the ensuring of the leadership of the party in the state administration, the economy, the mass organizations, etc., but the undermining and weakening of this role that leads inevitably to the development of bureaucracy and degeneration of the party, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist order itself. The negative experience of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and other former socialist countries, has confirmed this completely. Tito himself has admitted that the Communist League of Yugoslavia has been reduced to an amorphous apolitical organization. As a result, the policy pursued in Yugoslavia is ruinous for the life of the people. On the other hand, the positive experience of the construction of socialism in Albania demonstrates clearly that the preservation and continuous strengthening of the leading role of the Party in all directions and all fields, has been and still is the main factor in the successful construction of socialism. It is true that the masses play a decisive role in the revolution and the construction of socialism, but always under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party.
The preaching of the Yugoslav revisionists, that allegedly socialism and the state, socialism and state ownership, are incompatable notions, which denies the necessity for the leading and organizing role of the socialist state in the economy is utterly anti-Marxist. Marx and Lenin teach us and experience of socialist construction confirms, that the socialist state must be maintained and strengthened continuously during the entire historical period of the transition from capitalism to communism, and that its role as the organizer and manager of the state property in a centralized and planned way must be strengthened. Any deviation from this fundamental principle leads to liberal anarchist positions, to the destruction of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the degeneration of the socialist society.
The aim of the anti-state ideology of the Yugoslav revisionists is on the one hand, to cause confusion and disorganization in the ranks of the genuine Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries in connection with the key problem of the Marxist-Leninist doctrines, that is, the question of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and on the other hand, to conceal the degeneration of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia into a bourgeois party and the exploiting capitalist real character of the present day Yugoslav state, which has by no means withered away as the Yugoslav revisionists pretend, but has become steadily stronger as a weapon in the hands of the new Yugoslav bourgeoisie to oppress and exploit the workers and the peoples of Yugoslavia. Comrade Enver Hoxha says, "The aim of the Yugoslav revisionists is to disguise their anti-Marxist and anti-socialist rightest positions with leftist slogans, like workers' self-administrative socialism, which they need to disguise the development of capitalism of a special type". The Yugoslav revisionists try to present their self-administrative socialism as the acme of the direct democracy of producers which allegedly makes man the focus of its attention and is the true form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But it is absurd to deny the socialist state while allegedly accepting the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of so-called "direct democracy" as the Yugoslav revisionists do.
The socialist state and the dictatorship of the proletariat are the same thing. Therefore to deny one and accept the other really means that you are opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin always talked about the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the working class organized as the ruling class, that is, organized in the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. To propagate that the working class will secure more completely an extension of democracy without the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat is an absurdity. "Democracy", said Lenin, "is a form of state. Therefore socialist democracy cannot exist except by means of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat". Denial of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat is denial of the dictatorship of the proletariat itself, hence, of democracy for the working masses. Therefore, remaining loyal to the interests of the revolution, socialism and the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, as Comrade Enver Hoxha stressed at the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania, "As always, in the future too, our Party will fight to expose the deceptive nature of the Yugoslav variety of revisionism and the danger it presents." End.
by Enver Hoxha, September 13, 1963
Article published in the newspaper Zeri i Popullit, Organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, on September 13, 1963, under the title "Results of N. Khrushchov's Visit to Yugoslavia", taken from the book: Enver Hoxha -- Speeches and Articles (1963-1964), Tirana, 1977.
RESULTS OF KHRUSHCHOV'S VISIT TO YUGOSLAVIA
A few days ago Khrushchov concluded his visit to Yugoslavia. Both the propaganda machine of the revisionists and the Western press tried to give this visit the maximum "international political significance". It is now clear to all that Khrushchov did not go to Yugoslavia for a vacation, as stated at first. He went there to complete the process of the full rehabilitation of the Tito clique, to unite openly with this band of traitors, long condemned by all the communist and workers' parties, to hatch up new plots against the socialist camp, the international communist movement and peace, and to take another step in his rapprochement with U.S. imperialism.
These aims of N. Khrushchov's visit became immediately obvious from his endless statements boosting the "successful building of socialism in Yugoslavia", the "correct Marxist-Leninist line and the outstanding merits of the present Yugoslav leaders" headed by "my friend and comrade Tito", about the contribution of the Tito clique to the "development of the principles of peaceful coexistence", to the "strengthening of the-world socialist community", to the "consolidation of the unity of the communist and workers' movement", to the "creative development of Marxism-Leninism", about the contribution of the Yugoslav leaders to the "strengthening of the anti-imperialist front", about "the good points of the Yugoslav road to socialism", and particularly about the "workers' self-administration", which, allegedly, is worthy of special attention and study by other socialist countries, in order to copy it, and about the "great role which Yugoslavia should play in the Balkans", and so on. Tito, on his part, pointed out that certain differences of points of view which still exist are losing their significance in the face of their great common goals. He expressed his satisfaction at Khrushchov's high appraisal of his own activity, of his struggle for "socialism" and the spreading of "communist" ideas and the "communist" spirit in Yugoslavia, at the attacks which Khrushchov has launched against the communist movement, the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labor of Albania and other Marxist-Leninist parties.
* * * *
The first main conclusion to be drawn from Khrushchov's visit to Yugoslavia is that, by completely rehabilitating the Tito clique and uniting with it, the Moscow revisionist group has committed itself even more thoroughly to the camp of the enemies of Marxism-Leninism, of socialism and peace, and plunged even deeper into the mire of betrayal.
In his August 24th speech at Split, Khrushchov publicly declared, "We note with satisfaction, that on the absolute majority of international problems, the views of the USSR and Yugoslavia are similar... The unity of views and actions of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the international plane is a very important factor in world politics. This unity contributes to the development of the principle of peaceful coexistence in relations among all states." This, and many other statements of this kind, not only show a complete unity of views between N. Khrushchov and Tito on matters of foreign policy, but they also demonstrate that N. Khrushchov has made Tito his equal partner in the leadership of world's policy. But what role has N. Khrushchov assigned to his other partners? Apparently, they are to follow the "Yugoslav star" of the revisionist caravan, blindly, like puppets.
In the field of ideology Khrushchov himself several times admitted that complete unity has been achieved on the fundamental issues. "For us Soviet communists", he stressed, "there can be no basic contradictions with the Yugoslav communists", while at Brioni, on August 28, he told foreign journalists: "We have the same ideas and are guided by the same theory".
There is no need for a guide to a village already in sight. It has now become quite clear to the whole world, even without these public confirmations, that both Tito and Khrushchov are inspired by the same out-and-out revisionist ideas which have inspired all the renegades from Marxism-Leninism, and that in their disruptive anti-Marxist practical activity they are guided by the same objectives, which are to extinguish the revolutionary spirit of the international communist movement, to bury Marxism-Leninism, to liquidate socialism and re-establish the domination of imperialism.
Apart from their unity of views and activities in the fields of politics and ideology, Khrushchev also laid the basis for closer collaboration with the Tito clique in the economic field. The purpose here is clear. He wants to make a contribution, along with the imperialists, to keep this clique on its feet, not only through his all-round political and ideological support, but also through economic aid, in order to make Yugoslavia a showpiece or model of revisionist "socialism". At Rakovica Khrushchev stated, "Good economic relations, too, are being established between our countries. Compared with 1955, the volume of trade turnover between our countries has risen nearly six fold. In 1963 the mutual exchanges of goods are 50 per cent upon last year."
In Velenja on August 30, Tito, for his part, confirmed that, "It is in the interests of both sides that we should extend and develop our relations still further. And we shall do this. We have, for instance, already reached an agreement about the cooperation of certain branches of the economy, which through our further collaboration will be expanded even more". Yugoslavia has agreed to participate in the "socialist division of labor". Finally it was accorded observer status in the Council of Mutual Economic Aid (COMECON). Tito, of course, has every reason to be satisfied with all this; he is like a horse with two or more mangers to feed from.
During his sojourn in Yugoslavia, Khrushchev also revealed his determination to support the revisionist course of the Belgrade clique and, naturally enough, this was one of those matters that received the greatest publicity and most enthusiastic welcome from the Western press. Khrushchev revealed himself as a supporter of the Yugoslav road of socialism. In order to do this, he did not even hesitate to come out against the Soviet Union's road for the construction of socialism and communism, to openly criticize Soviet methods of management of the economy while eulogizing the Yugoslav system of self-administration.
Are there no limits to his treachery! This is how the Tanjug news agency describes Khrushchev's meeting with the managers of the Rakovica combine in the neighborhood of Belgrade: "While stressing that in the Soviet Union they stick to the principle of a 'single manager', comrade Khrushchev said that he liked the form of workers' councils and that such a thing was progressive. "We, in our country", Khrushchev continued, "are now seeking new forms of management, in which the public can find its full expression, and therefore, your experience interests us... " He emphasized once again that the experience of Yugoslavia in regard to the workers' self-administration could also prove valuable. A study should be made of things which time has already confirmed. In connection with this, Khrushchev added that he would certainly send a group of functionaries of the party, the trade unions and the economic organs to make a detailed study of these matters in the Yugoslav practice".
It strikes the eye that through its detailed stories and reports, the Yugoslav press highlights Khrushchev's opinions and remarks at his meeting with the managers of the Rakovica combine, especially emphasizing his high appraisal of "self-administration" and "workers' councils" as "progressive forms", when, as is known, they are the links to the restoration of capitalism in the Yugoslav economy. However, precisely at the time the Yugoslav and Western press was making a great fuss about these utterances of Khrushchev's, the Soviet press, which specializes in extolling the "genius" of N. Khrushchev and which allows no chance to go by without singing praises to his "wit" and "sagacity", for once became surprisingly mute on that day, and published not one word about this discussion. Apparently, the Moscow revisionists do not feel secure, and dare not come out openly before their own people in praise of those revisionist forms of the economy management which have nothing in common with socialism and which they themselves, not very long ago, criticized and rejected as anti- Marxist and anti-socialist, and as a variant of the theories of anarcho-syndicalism,..
Tito, once again proclaimed the superiority of the Yugoslav road to socialism and stressed that it was no longer specific to Yugoslavia alone but should become the foundation of the work of every party in the socialist countries. And the first successes, according to Tito, have become apparent in the Soviet Union during these last ten years. His exact words are, "When we speak of workers' self-administration, we are not referring just to the problems and needs of one country in particular. Social self-administration is founded on the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin. That is why comrade Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev, quite correctly, always attaches very great importance to it. When we were in the Soviet Union we had the opportunity to convince ourselves that extraordinary development in all fields has been achieved there during these last ten years".
Western observers have found it difficult to conceal their enthusiasm over Khrushchev's approval of the Yugoslav type of "socialism". In Yugoslavia they saw "a Khrushchev prepared to make many concessions, to take many steps forward". They have long regarded Yugoslavia as "a transmission-belt" to carry counter-revolutionary ideas from the West to the East. This is how Radio London expressed it on August 30: "Many observers consider Khrushchev's interest in the 'workers' councils' in Yugoslavia as the most important result of his visit to the Adriatic coast. These councils are nothing else but a symbol of Titoite communism, and constitute one of the main parts of the revisionism which the Soviet Union and the entire communist world officially condemned less than three years ago. The system of 'workers' councils' in Yugoslavia is half communist and half western. The only danger is that it may fall between two stools. This system, based on two models, is still holding its own. That's why N. Khrushchev is eager to do something similar in Russia. And if he does this he will be acclaiming not only Tito but also the Western economic system. " The mouthpiece of the big U.S. monopolists, the "New York Times", wrote: "The most interesting aspect...is the very friendly attitude of the Soviet Premier, N. Khrushchev, towards the Yugoslav system of implementing orthodox communism. This could give rise to big changes in Moscow's economic organization. Yugoslavia has adopted so many ideas from the West that it can play the role of a transmission- belt carrying Western economic ideas to the East."
Under these circumstances, is there any reason for the imperialist West to have the slightest worry about the results of Khrushchev's visit to Yugoslavia ? None whatsoever.
Khrushchev's demagogy cannot continue for long to deceive the Soviet people, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the other communist and workers' parties with his tales that allegedly changes have been made in Yugoslavia towards socialism, that the Yugoslav leaders are correcting their former mistakes, and consequently, that Yugoslavia is a country which "is building socialism".
Everybody knows how matters really stand, what "changes" have been made there. Daily life brings out many facts which prove that nothing has changed in Tito's Yugoslavia. Only the grave can straighten out a hunchback. Tito himself has stated repeatedly that he has discarded nothing from his program, that "there is no question of any concession" and that he has not made and has no intention of making any change whatsoever.
He repeated this once again to Khrushchev's very face. Once again publicly reassuring his friends in the West, Tito said, "In connection with the visit of N. Khrushchev rumours are already circulating in the West, conjecturing as to who will make concessions. Will Tito and the Yugoslav communists enter the camp, or will N.S. Khrushchev make concessions to the Yugoslav communists on behalf of the communists of the Soviet Union? This is altogether out of the question", Tito emphasized, "There is no question of any concessions. This matter will not be taken up in the talks. " (Pravda, August 23, 1963)
Tito's words are really meant for other ears. For his part, his assurances are the truth. And the facts show this. Tito has made no concessions to Khrushchev, but Khrushchev has made many concessions to Tito. The newspaper "Washington Post", which is very close to the U.S. government and especially to the State Department, expressed the idea on August 24 that in the present state of international affairs, especially "in the Sino-Soviet conflict, Khrushchev stands in greater need of Tito than Tito of Khrushchev. Premier Khrushchev is trying to get on good terms with the Yugoslav leader again".
Khrushchev's demagogic tales about the Tito's clique having changed and corrected its mistakes are intended to prove that Yugoslavia is a real socialist country and that socialism is being built there successfully, in order to justify his full collaboration with the Tito clique, its final rehabilitation and the inclusion of Yugoslavia in the family of socialist countries and that of the League of Yugoslav communists in the ranks of the international communist movement. But this is one of the crudest and most blatant violations of the 1960 Moscow Declaration, unanimously approved by all the fraternal parties, in which the Yugoslav revisionists were branded as traitors to Marxism-Leninism and as agents of imperialism, as splitters and underminers of the socialist camp, the international communist movement and the peace-loving forces and states.
But the achievement of full unity with the Tito clique shows clearly once again down which road the Khrushchev group is rushing. As the popular saying goes, "a man is judged by the company he keeps". To unite with the Yugoslav revisionists, means to unite with the enemies of socialism, the renegades from Marxism-Leninism, with the splitters of unity and the agents of imperialism, who are conspiring against the socialist countries and the entire world revolutionary movement. Not only has the Khrushchev group united with the treacherous Tito clique but it has launched frenzied attacks on all those communist parties which, standing loyal to the Moscow Declaration of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties, carry out their international duty and expose the Yugoslav leaders with their revisionist ideas and anti-socialist activities. This means that the Khrushchev group has obliterated any distinction between friend and foe, between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism, between defenders and disrupters of unity, and between anti-imperialist fighters and agents of imperialism, and has gone completely over to the camp of the enemies of Marxism-Leninism, socialism, the peoples and peace in the world.
* * * *
The second main conclusion to be drawn from Khrushchev's visit to the Tito clique, from their talks and public statements, is that they have coordinated their dangerous undermining activities against the socialist camp and the international communist movement, first and foremost, against the Marxist-Leninist parties which are struggling, in a resolute and principled way, against modern revisionism and in defense of the purity of Marxism- Leninism. This is clearly borne out by a series of incontestable facts.
It is now no secret to anyone that for some time back, Khrushchev and his propaganda agents have ceased to use the term "socialist camp". This was especially noticeable during his tour of Yugoslavia. In no address, in absolutely no published speech or conversation, can one find such an expression except at the August 21 banquet, when Tito made a scornful reference to it. The question here is not just that Khrushchev tried to avoid saying anything that might prejudice his "cordial relations" with the renegade Tito, through the use of such "unfashionable" and "unnecessary" terms as "the socialist camp", towards which, as everybody knows, the Yugoslav revisionists maintain a completely negative and hostile attitude. The fact is that Khrushchev supports and fully agrees with Tito's hostile attitude towards the socialist camp. When a journalist asked him at Brioni whether "the fact that Yugoslavia does not belong to blocs hinders the Soviet-Yugoslav cooperation", Khrushchev answered, "No!" and added, "Historically all the socialist countries take the same Marxist-Leninist position, for we are linked by common ideas and are guided by a single theory, while other manifestations like 'blocs' and so on are temporary".
What does this mean? To what blocs is he referring? It is publicly known that the Yugoslav revisionists consider the socialist camp as a "bloc" that when they speak about the so-called "neutrality" or "non-alignment" of Yugoslavia, they pretend that they stand not only outside military blocs and organizations, but also outside camps and above the camps. Under these circumstances Khrushchev's statement against the so-called "blocs" inevitably gives rise to two conclusions:
On the one hand, it is clear that Khrushchev fully accepts Tito's reactionary position, regarding the socialist camp as "a military bloc", as a negative phenomenon that has led to the aggravation of the international situation and as something "temporary".
On the other hand, in this way N. Khrushchev supports and justifies the demagogic manoeuvres of the Tito clique about the so-called "neutrality" and "non- alignment" of Yugoslavia. But how can there be a country which is socialist and at the same time "neutral" in the great historic struggle between the two camps, the socialist and imperialist camp? There was a time when Khrushchev himself condemned and rejected this absurd pretension of the Tito clique:
"The Yugoslav-leaders", he declared at the 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, "claim that they stand outside blocs, above the camps, although in fact they take part in the Balkan bloc, which consists of Yugoslavia, Turkey, and Greece... The leaders of the Yugoslav League of Communists consider themselves highly insulted when we tell them that they are sitting on two stools. They assure us that they are sitting on their own Yugoslav stool. However, this Yugoslav stool seems to be largely supported by the U.S. monopolies. And precisely for this reason this position 'outside blocs', the neutrality to which the leaders of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia are so attached, has a strong smell of the U.S. monopolies, which are fostering 'Yugoslav socialism'. The history of the class struggle still knows of no example in which the bourgeoisie has supported its class enemy materially or morally, and assisted it to build socialism."
Thus Khrushchev has now decided to cancel out the existence of the socialist camp and does not hesitate to come out openly against it. Here we have to do not only with a major concession of principle to Tito's revisionist and anti-socialist positions, but also with a real betrayal of the vital interests of socialism, with an attempt to undermine the socialist camp itself and to liquidate it.
In the context of his activities to undermine and split the socialist camp, the international communist movement and their unity based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, Khrushchev deemed it necessary to revive the ideas of pan-Slavism during his visit to Yugoslavia. From the very first day he spoke of "our traditional friendship", "our common historical destiny" and "our common final goal", in this way, implying and stressing the special links between peoples of the same ethnic group. This is not the first time that the Khrushchev group, departing from the Marxist- Leninist class position, has tried to build its political platform regarding the relations between states and parties on such ethnic, racial, and even religious grounds, even going so far as to make one effort after another for rapprochement with the Pope of Rome in order to win the support of Catholics. But to replace the class principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism with pan-Slavism or with other similar non-Marxist ideas means to undermine the very foundations on which the workers' international solidarity and unity, and the relations among the peoples of the socialist countries and the communist and workers' parties are based. It means to degrade and seriously damage the cause of socialism. This is one of the many proofs of the complete and hopeless ideological degeneration of the Khrushchev group.
Moreover Khrushchev did not fail to assign a special, if not a decisive, role to Yugoslavia in the Balkans and even in the world (!).
It was for this purpose that in his speech at Velenja, he extolled in an one-sided way the fight of the Yugoslav peoples against the fascist invaders, while deliberately denigrating the great contribution of the other Balkan peoples in the anti-fascist war. Of course, the peoples of Yugoslavia waged a really heroic war for the liberation of their country, but the other Balkan peoples, also, were in the thick of it and shed a lot of blood in that war. The setting of one people against another, the tendentious praising of the fight of one people and the deliberate ignoring of the contribution and the struggle of other peoples, which Khrushchev resorted to, reveals once again his aims of disruption and provocation by inciting the nationalist and chauvinist passions of the friends he supports. Khrushchev also took the opportunity to encourage Tito's old dream of a special role in the Balkans, of his hegemony in some sort of "Balkan Federation". Thus during this visit Khrushchev revealed himself nakedly to be the complete Machiavelli, politically and morally.
Khrushchev and Tito puffed themselves up by posing as masters of the fate of the Balkans. When a foreign journalist asked them about this in Brioni, observers could not fail to notice Khrushchev's angry reaction, when he said, "Why do you stick your nose into our affairs?" Just what lies hidden behind the phrase "our affairs" was revealed by the British news agency Reuters, which wrote on August 18, "The possibility of new Balkan projects, in which Yugoslavia would play a primary role, cannot be ruled out". The peoples of the Balkans are justified in asking: Since when have the affairs of the Balkans become the private business of Khrushchev and Tito ? Who gave them the monopoly of the right to speak and act in the name of the Balkan peoples, to make deals and divide the roles behind their backs and to their detriment?
But what is this Tito clique to which Khrushchev wants "to entrust the fate of the Balkans"? And what is the "special role" which Khrushchev has assigned to it? Our people, as well as the other peoples of the Balkans, are very well acquainted with the features of this gang of renegades and agents of imperialism, we are well aware of their intentions and role. Are we perhaps to forget the active role of the Tito clique in the Hungarian counter-revolution? Can it be, that the subversive and conspiratorial activity of the Yugoslav revisionist agents, which have been detected and exposed time after time, in Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania and Rumania, have been forgotten so soon? The Albanian people will never forget the betrayal and plot by Koqi Xoxe and others, the plot hatched up by the Yugoslav revisionists in collaboration with the Greek monarcho-fascists, the U.S. 6th Fleet, and some traitors against the sovereignty of our country, nor will they forget the numerous acts of provocation and hostility against the People's Republic of Albania and our people.
Tito accompanied his "dear friend" to the vicinity of the northern borders of our Homeland in a demonstrative way. Khrushchev did not go to Titograd to pay a "passing" visit to the ethnographic museum of Cetigne and see the relics of Nyegosh. He inspected the Albanian-Yugoslav border, in order to express in this way his support and approval of the profoundly hostile stand and intentions towards our people of the Yugoslav revisionist leaders who are notorious for the attempts they have made on the freedom and the independence of our socialist Homeland.
It is clear that "the special role" of Titoite Yugoslavia in the Balkans, indeed in the world(!), is directed against the vital interests of the socialist camp and the international communist movement; that its aim is to undermine and split them; and that this is a component part of the campaign of the Khrushchev-Tito revisionist united front against those fraternal parties which firmly uphold the principles of Marxism-Leninism, first and foremost, the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania. The clearest evidence of this is the fact that Khrushchev's entire visit to Yugoslavia was accompanied by a frenzied campaign of monstrous, coordinated attacks launched by Khrushchev and Tito and others against the Marxist-Leninist parties.
The third main conclusion to be drawn from Khrushchev's visit to Yugoslavia is that he has moved closer to the imperialists, particularly to the U.S. imperialists.
It is a publicly known fact -- and Tito has more than once confirmed it by his own words -- that "socialist" Yugoslavia has become a "bridge between the East and the West". Khrushchev is now openly using this "bridge" not just to make approaches to, but actually to cross over to the West.
The establishment of a direct line of telephone communication between the Kremlin and the White House was recently inaugurated. This line is called "the hot line", through which Khrushchev may talk directly to Kennedy and carry on further negotiations at the expense of the peoples. But Khrushchev and Kennedy also have a living telephone "line", Tito, who provides good service in a "creative way" to their common purpose.
Expressing his great satisfaction over the conclusion of the tripartite Moscow agreement, which is another capitulation of the Khrushchev group to the imperialists, a fraud and a betrayal of the cause of socialism, Tito said in his speech at the banquet given by Khrushchev on August 21, "Of course this is still insufficient. Much still remains to be done...". Tito, the inveterate agent of imperialism, is not satisfied with the results achieved, he wants further steps to be taken along the road which he long ago made clear to his revisionist colleagues. This is the road of the "economic and political integration of the world", in other words, the road towards the gradual and peaceful integration of socialism into capitalism about which Kennedy has spoken.
In analyzing Khrushchev's public utterances in Yugoslavia, everybody notices that he not only refrained from attacking U.S. imperialism openly, but did not refer to it even once by name. He confined himself to the usual terms of the revisionists regarding "the most aggressive circles of imperialism" and very rarely at that. The AFP news agency pointed out, "This moderation of language can be explained, of course, by Khrushchev's desire to maintain the tone of 'peaceful coexistence', and also to avoid placing the Yugoslavs in an embarrassing position with regard to Washington". But this is not all. Khrushchev did not make any open attack against the imperialists, because his views regarding imperialism in general, and U.S. imperialism in particular, are the same as those of Tito, and because he has now set out on the road to full reconciliation and rapprochement with the imperialists. Western observers pointed out on this occasion, not without justification, that while awaiting the decision of the U.S. Congress on the re-establishment of the "most favored nation" clause in the trade relations with Yugoslavia, Tito will have something to report and bring as compensation to President Kennedy at the White House on the occasion of the trip he is to make to Latin America soon, that is, the new and more moderate attitude of Khrushchev.
The attitude of the Tito clique towards U.S. imperialism and the attitude of U.S. imperialism towards the Tito clique is no secret to anyone. Their relations are like those of master and servant. It is clear that the approach to and unity with the servant and agent of imperialism, who is nurtured and kept on his feet by U.S. dollars, is a big step towards approach to and unity with his master -- U.S. imperialism. Everybody sees this. They see and condemn this open betrayal by Khrushchev who, by uniting with Tito, is rolling out the carpet in anticipation of the not so far distant day when the imperialists and the revisionists will celebrate Khrushchev's complete rapprochement with John Kennedy. The facts are now so clear that it is difficult even for those who, for some time, have made it their habit to follow Khrushchev in his great betrayal, to refuse to see it. A truly great responsibility' towards their parties, their peoples and the international communist movement falls on those leaders who have had and still have reservations about Tito particularly, and about what Khrushchev and Tito are doing, and yet who keep silent, who are afraid to say what they think and dare not express their opinion. Embracing Tito leads to embracing Kennedy as well. Are all those leaders who call themselves communists, but who remain silent, in favor of this, too? The Khrushchev group is trying to persuade the communists and the people that unity with Titoite Yugoslavia means unity with socialist and anti-imperialist forces and is in the interests of the socialist camp and the international communist movement.
In order to judge whether this union really has such a character or not, let us look at how the West reacted to Khrushchev's visit to Yugoslavia and whether the capitalist world was perturbed by the "new rapprochement" of Belgrade with Moscow.
The facts show that, far from being disconcerted, the West and the imperialist powers received this visit with lively interest and welcomed it. In one of its reports from Belgrade, the "Washington Post" said, "Western diplomats are pleased with the tone and results of the talks between Tito and Khrushchev". Therefore, Washington did not cut off its credits to Tito over his "rapprochement with Moscow", but, on the contrary, is taking steps to increase them.
This fact alone is sufficient to prove how false is Khrushchev's demagogic prattle that unity with Tito allegedly means unity with the socialist and anti-imperialist forces. If it were so, if this unity were spearheaded against imperialism, then we would not be hearing praises and congratulations from the imperialists for the Yugoslav road and the rapprochement of the Tito clique with Khrushchev, but would be hearing those same anti-socialist and counter-revolutionary attacks which the imperialists usually aim against their class enemy -- the proletariat and its Marxist-Leninist party and the socialist and antiimperialist forces of the world.
From this it is not difficult to understand who will benefit from such rapprochement and unity. The imperialists have good reason to welcome and support it, because they see in this unity the establishment of a united revisionist front against socialism and all the forces of the world revolutionary, anti-imperialist movement.
The fact that Khrushchev's visit to Yugoslavia ended with no big rally in Belgrade or final statement or communique must attract attention. This is by no means accidental, because, although it was officially announced that Khrushchev went to Yugoslavia for a holiday, Khrushchev and Tito themselves stressed, more than once, that this visit had been turned into a working visit. In reality, this was the only possible conclusion to talks between Tito and Khrushchev in this situation.
Both Tito and Khrushchev are very fond of publicity. They would have liked to consecrate their complete unity publicly, but at the same time the matter required them to restrain themselves to avoid openly disclosing their card and damaging their position.
Tito, of course, was the more interested in holding a rally and having official documents published because he would have liked to see the Moscow Declaration torn up officially, to see the final seal put on his complete rehabilitation, Yugoslav "specific socialism" given the "right of citizenship" and the League of Yugoslav Communists finally included in the ranks of the international communist movement as a "Marxist-Leninist party" and to have their joint views on present world development and the problems of the international communist movement sanctioned. In other words, Tito would have liked everything Khrushchev said in secret talks and publicly in support of the Yugoslav leaders and about their common concepts to be proclaimed in a joint official document.
But Khrushchev still feels obliged to keep up his disguise, because however carefully a joint official document was drawn up, it would still be in flagrant opposition to the Moscow Declaration. Khrushchev is obliged to resort to manoeuvre and deceit while still trying to hide behind the Moscow Declaration. He calculates that the work must be done, that is, Tito must be rehabilitated, the Moscow Declaration violated, his activities coordinated with the Yugoslav revisionists and plots hatched up together with them, but all this cannot yet be sanctioned by any official document, which would be another powerful weapon in the hands of the Marxist-Leninists.
Tito's dissatisfaction on this issue could be clearly understood from his farewell speech at the airport. While Khrushchev confined his speech to generalities, Tito concretely defined the results of the visit and the talks with his guest. He enumerated the points on which they agreed, and did this in such a way as to leave no doubt that he intended to remind his friend of the pledges he had made during his visit and to advise him not to forget them.
These are the main results of Khrushchev's visit to Yugoslavia and his talks with the Tito clique.
The whole world is becoming more and more convinced that with his policy of unity with the Belgrade renegades and his rapprochement with the imperialists, Khrushchev is betraying the Soviet people and the other peoples of the socialist countries, the international communist movement and the national liberation and anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of the world. Khrushchev had the audacity to say at Brioni, "I have something to boast about!" True enough! He could "boast" that he is carrying out the aims of the rabid class enemies of socialism and the Soviet Union, he could boast that he is seriously endangering the achievements of the Great October Socialist Revolution, that he is wrecking the socialist camp and splitting the international communist movement for the benefit of international reaction and U.S. imperialism.
But the peoples and history will not forget and will not forgive him. The Soviet peoples who have emerged triumphant from many severe trials in their history, their Communist Party, the other peoples, the communists and revolutionaries of the world will not forget and will never forgive Khrushchev for his high treason to Marxism-Leninism, the international working class, the peoples, socialism and peace.
Keeping their revolutionary vigilance, their spirit of proletarian internationalism and unbounded loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and the interests of the proletariat and the people at a high level, true Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries will fight selflessly and with determination against modern revisionism, for the preservation of the purity of the Leninist teachings, and against imperialism and reaction for the triumph of socialism, communism and peace in the world. End.
THIRD COMMENT ON THE OPEN LETTER OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPSU by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao(People's Daily) and Hongqi (Red Flag) September 26, 1963
Is Yugoslavia a socialist country?
This is not only a question of ascertaining the nature of the Yugoslav state, but it also involves the question of which road the socialist countries should follow: whether they should follow the road of the October Revolution and carry the socialist revolution through to the end or follow the road of Yugoslavia and restore capitalism. In addition, it involves the question of how to appraise the Tito clique: whether it is a fraternal Party and a force against imperialism or a renegade from the international communist movement and a lackey of imperialism.
On this question there are fundamental differences of opinion between the leaders of the CPSU, on the one hand, and ourselves and all other Marxist-Leninists, on the other.
All Marxist-Leninists hold that Yugoslavia is not a socialist country. The leading clique of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia has betrayed Marxism-Leninism and the Yugoslav people and consists of renegades from the international communist movement and lackeys of imperialism.
The leaders of the CPSU, on the other hand, hold that Yugoslavia is a socialist country and that the League of Communists of Yugoslavia bases itself on Marxism-Leninism and is a fraternal Party and a force against imperialism.
In its Open Letter of July 14 the Central Committee of the CPSU declares that Yugoslavia is a "socialist country" and that the Tito clique is a "fraternal Party" that "stands at the helm of the ship of state".
Recently Comrade Khrushchov paid a visit to Yugoslavia and in a number of speeches he revealed the real standpoint of the leaders of the CPSU still more clearly, and completely discarded the fig-leaf with which they had been covering themselves on this question.
In Khrushchov's opinion, Yugoslavia is not only a socialist country but an "advanced" socialist country. There, one finds not "idle talk about revolution" but "actual construction of socialism", and the development of Yugoslavia is "a concrete contribution to the general world revolutionary workers' movement", (1) which Khrushchov rather envies and wishes to emulate.
In Khrushchov's opinion, the leaders of the CPSU and the Titoites are "not only class brothers" but "brothers tied together... by the singleness of aims confronting us". The leadership of the CPSU is a "reliable and faithful ally" of the Tito clique. (2)
Khrushchov believes he has discovered genuine Marxism-Leninism in the Tito clique. The Central Committee of the CPSU was merely pretending when it asserted in its Open Letter that "differences on a number of. fundamental ideological questions still remain between the CPSU and the Yugoslav League of Communists", Now Khrushchov has told the Tito clique that "we belong to one and the same idea and are guided by the same theory", and that both stand on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. (3)
Khrushchov has cast the Statement of 1960 to the winds. The Statement says:
The Communist Parties have unanimously condemned the Yugoslav variety of international opportunism, a variety of modern revisionist "theories" in concentrated form.
It says:
After betraying Marxism-Leninism, which they termed obsolete, the leaders of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia opposed their anti-Leninist revisionist programme to the Declaration of 1957; they set the L.C.Y. against the international communist movement as a whole....
It says:
[The leaders of the L.C.Y. were] dependent on so-called "aid" from U.S. and other imperialists, and thereby exposed the Yugoslav people to the danger of losing the revolutionary gains achieved through a heroic struggle.
It further says:
The Yugoslav revisionists carry on subversive work against the socialist camp and the world communist movement....they engage in activities which prejudice the unity of all the peace-loving forces and countries.
The Statement is absolutely clear, and yet the leaders of the CPSU dare to say: "In accordance with the 1960 Statement, we consider Yugoslavia a socialist country."(4) How can they say such a thing!
One would like to ask:
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it is guided by a variety of international opportunism, a variety of modern revisionist theories?
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it I has betrayed Marxism-Leninism and sets itself against the international communist movement as a whole?
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it carries on subversive work against the socialist camp and the world communist movement?
Can a country be socialist when, as the Statement says, it I engages in activities which prejudice the unity of all the peace-loving forces and countries?
Can a country be socialist when the imperialist countries, headed by the United States have nurtured it with several billions of U.S. dollars?
This is indeed out of the ordinary and unheard of!
Apparently, Comrade Togliatti speaks more plainly than Comrade Khrushchov. Togliatti did not mince his words; he said the position taken by the Statement of 1960 on the Tito clique was "wrong". (5) Since Khrushchov is bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito clique, he should be more explicit; there is no need to pretend to uphold the Statement.
Is the Statement's verdict on Yugoslavia wrong and should i it be reversed? Togliatti says it is wrong and should be reversed. Khrushchov in effect also says it is wrong and should be reversed. We say it is not wrong and must not be reversed. All fraternal Parties adhering to Marxism-Leninism and upholding the Statement of 1960 likewise say it is not wrong and must not be reversed.
In doing so, in the opinion of the leaders of the CPSU, we are clinging to a "stereotyped formula" and to the "jungle laws" of the capitalist world (6) and are " 'excommunicating' Yugoslavia from socialism". (7) Furthermore, whoever does not regard Yugoslavia as a socialist country is said to be going contrary to facts and making the mistake of subjectivism, (8) whereas in shutting their eyes to the facts and asserting that Yugoslavia is a socialist country they are "proceeding from ; objective laws, from the teaching of Marxism-Leninism" and have drawn a conclusion based on "a profound analysis of reality". (9)
What are the realities in Yugoslavia? What sort of conclusions ought one to draw if one proceeds from objective laws, from the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, and makes a profound analysis of the realities in Yugoslavia?
Let us now look into this question.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRIVATE CAPITAL IN YUGOSLAV CITIES
One of Khrushchov's arguments to affirm that Yugoslavia is a socialist country is that private capital, private enterprise and capitalists do not exist in Yugoslavia.
Is that true? No, it is not.
The fact is private capital and private enterprise exist on a very big scale in Yugoslavia and are developing apace.
Judging by the record in all socialist countries, it is not strange to find different sectors, including a private capitalist sector, existing in the national economy of a socialist country for a considerable period after the proletariat has taken political power. What matters is the kind of policy adopted by the government towards private capitalism -- the policy of utilizing, restricting, transforming and eliminating it, or the policy of laissez-faire and fostering and encouraging it. This is an important criterion for determining whether a country is developing towards socialism or towards capitalism.
On this question the Tito clique is going in the opposite direction from socialism. The social changes Yugoslavia introduced in the early post-war period were in the first place not thoroughgoing. The policy the Tito clique has adopted since its open betrayal is not one of transforming and eliminating private capital and private enterprise but of fostering and expanding them.
Regulations issued by the Tito clique in 1953 stipulate that "citizens' groups" have the right to "found enterprises" and "hire labour". In the same year, it issued a decree stipulating that private individuals have the right to purchase fixed assets from state economic establishments.
In 1956 the Tito clique encouraged local administrations to foster private capital by its taxation and other policies.
In 1961 the Tito clique decreed that private individuals have the right to purchase foreign exchange.
In 1963 the Tito clique embodied the policy of developing private capitalism in its constitution. According to provisions of the constitution, private individuals in Yugoslavia may found enterprises and hire labour.
With the Tito clique's help and encouragement, private enterprise and private capital have mushroomed in the cities in Yugoslavia.
According to the official Statistical Pocket-Book of Yugoslavia, 1963 published in Belgrade, there are over 115,000 privately-owned craft establishments in Yugoslavia. But in fact the owners of many of these private enterprises are not "craftsmen" but typical private capitalists.
The Tito clique admits that although the. law allows private owners to employ a maximum of five workers each, there are some who employ ten or twenty times as many and even some who employ "five to six hundred workers". (10) And the annual turnover of some private enterprises is over 100 million dinars. (11)
Polilika disclosed on December 7, 1961 that in many cases these private entrepreneurs are actually "big entrepreneurs". It says:
It is difficult to ascertain how wide the net of these private entrepreneurs spreads and how many workers they have. According to the law, they are entitled to keep five workers who are supposed to help them in their work. But to those who know the ins and outs of the matter, these five persons are actually contractors who in turn have their own 'sub-contractors'.... As a rule, these contractors no longer engage in labour but only give orders, make plans and conclude contracts, travelling by car from one enterprise to another.
From the profits made by these entrepreneurs, one can see that they are one hundred per cent capitalists. Svet reported on December 8, 1961 that "the net income of some private handicraftsmen reaches one million dinars per month", and the Belgrade Veiemje novosti said on December 20, 1961 that in Belgrade "last year 116 owners of private enterprises each received an income of more than 10 million dinars". Some entrepreneurs "received an income of about 70 million dinars" in one year, which is nearly U.S.$100,000 according to the official rate of exchange.
In Yugoslav cities not only are there private industrial enterprises, private service establishments, private commerce, private housing estates and private transport business, there are also usurers, who are known as "private bankers". These usurers operate openly and even advertise their business in the newspapers; one such advertisement runs as follows: "A loan of 300,000 dinars for three months offered. 400,000 dinars to be returned. Security necessary." (12) All these are indisputable facts.
We would like to ask those who are bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito clique: Unless it is your intention to deceive, how can you assert that Yugoslavia has no private capital, no private enterprise and no capitalists?
YUGOSLAV COUNTRYSIDE SWAMPED BY CAPITALISM
Let us now consider the situation in the Yugoslav countryside.
Does it no longer have capitalists, as Khrushchov asserts?
No, the facts are quite the reverse.
The fact that Yugoslavia has been swamped by capitalism is even more striking in the countryside.
Marxism-Leninism teaches us that individual economy, petty-producer economy, generates capitalism daily and hourly, and that only collectivization can lead agriculture on to the path of socialism.
Stalin pointed out:
Lenin says that so long as individual peasant economy, which engenders capitalists and capitalism, predominates in the country, the danger of a restoration of capitalism will exist. Clearly, so long as this danger exists there can be no serious talk of the victory of socialist construction in our country. (13)
On this question the Tito clique pursues a line running counter to socialism.
In the initial post-war period a land reform took place in Yugoslavia and a number of peasants' working co-operatives were organized. But in the main the rich-peasant economy was left untouched.
In 1951 the Tito clique openly declared its abandonment of the road of agricultural collectivization and began to disband the peasants' working co-operatives. This was a serious step taken by the Tito clique in betraying the socialist cause. Such co-operatives decreased from over 6,900 in 1950 to a little more than 1,200 at the end of 1953, and to 147 in 1960. The Yugoslav countryside is submerged in a sea of individual economy.
The Tito clique declares that collectivization has not proved of value in Yugoslavia. It makes the vicious slander that "collectivization is the same as expropriation" (14) and is a path which "preserves serfdom and poverty in the countryside for the longest possible time". (15) It advocates the ridiculous idea that the development of agriculture should be "based on the free competition of economic forces" cultivating their land for them". (16)
While dissolving many of the peasants' working co-operatives, the Tito clique has promulgated one law and decree after another since 1953 to encourage the development of capitalism in the rural areas, granting freedom to buy, sell and rent land and to hire farm hands, abolishing the planned purchase of agricultural produce and replacing it with free trading in this sphere.
Under this policy, the forces of capitalism spread rapidly in the rural areas and the process of polarization quickened. This has been an important aspect of the Tito clique's work of restoring capitalism.
Polarization in the countryside is firstly revealed in the changes occurring in land ownership. Slavko Komar, formerly Yugoslav Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, admitted that, in 1959 poorer peasant households with less than 5 hectares of land each, which constitute 70 per cent of all peasant households, owned only 43 per cent of all privately-owned land, whereas well-to-do peasant households with more than 8 hectares of land each, which form only 13 per cent of all peasant households, owned 33 per cent of all privately-owned land. Komar also admitted that about 10 per cent of the peasant households bought or sold land every year. (17) Most of the sellers were poorer families.
The concentration of land is actually much more serious than is apparent from the above data. As revealed in the July 19, 1963 issue of Borba, the organ of the Tito clique, in one district alone there were "thousands of peasant households with far more than the legal maximum of 10 hectares of land". In Bijeljina Commune, "it was found that five hundred peasant households owned estates of 10 to 30 hectares". These are not isolated cases.
Polarization in the rural areas also manifests itself in the great inequalities in the ownership of draught animals and farm implements. Of the 308,000 peasant households in the province of Vojvodina, which is a leading grain-producing area, 55 per cent have no draught animals. Peasant households with less than 2 hectares of land each, which constitute 40.7 per cent of all peasant households, have only 4.4 per cent of all the ploughs in this region, or an average of one plough to 20 households. On the other hand, the rich peasants own more than 1,300 tractors and a great deal of other farm machinery as well as large numbers of ploughs and animal-drawn carts. (18)
Polarization likewise manifests itself in the growth of such forms of capitalist exploitation as the hiring of labour.
The February 7, 1958 issue of Komunist revealed that 52 per cent of the peasant households in Serbia owning more than 8 hectares of land hired labourers in 1956.
In 1962 Slavko Komar said that the heads of some peasant households had in recent years "become powerful" and that "their income is derived not from their own labour but from unlawful trade, from the processing of both their own products and those of others, from illicit' distilling of spirits, from the possession of more than the prescribed maximum of 10 hectares of farmland, which is obtained by purchasing, or more often by leasing land, fictitious partition of land among family members, seizure or concealment of public land, from the acquisition of tractors through speculation and from the exploitation of poor neighbours by cultivating their land for them". (19)
Borba stated on August 30, 1962 that "the so-called kind-hearted producer ... is a leaseholder of land, a hirer of labour and an experienced merchant....Such people are not producers, but entrepreneurs. Some never touch a hoe all the year round. They hire labour and only supervise the work in the field and they engage in trading".
Usurers, too, are very active in the Yugoslav countryside. Interest rates often run to more than 100 per cent per annum. In addition, there are people who, taking advantage of the plight of the unemployed, monopolize the labour market and practise exploitation in the process.
Deprived of land and other means of production, large numbers of poverty-stricken peasants can live only by selling their labour power. According to figures given in Politika of August 20, 1962, about 70 per cent of the 1961 cash income of Yugoslav peasant households with less than 2 hectares of land came from selling their labour power. These peasants are fleeced right and left and lead a miserable life.
As facts show, the Yugoslav countryside is dominated by the exploiting class.
In arguing that Yugoslavia is a socialist country, the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU states that the "socialist sector" in the rural areas of Yugoslavia has increased from 6 to 15 per cent.
Unfortunately, even this pitiable percentage is not socialist.
By the socialist sector of 15 per cent the leaders of the CPSU can only mean such organizations as the "agricultural farms" and "general agricultural co-operatives" promoted by the Tito clique. But in fact the "agricultural farms" are capitalist farms and the "general agricultural co-operatives" are capitalist economic organizations engaging mainly in commerce. They do not affect the private ownership of land; what is more, their main function is to foster the development of the rich-pcasant economy.
Problems of Agriculture in Yugoslavia, a work published in Belgrade, states that "judging by how they are organized today and how they function", the co-operatives "do not in the least signify socialist reconstruction of agriculture and of the countryside. They are working not so much for the creation of socialist strongholds as for the development and promotion of capitalist elements. There are cases in which these cooperatives are kulak associations".
The Tito clique has given the "general agricultural cooperatives" the monopoly right to purchase agricultural products from the peasants. Taking advantage of this special privilege and of uncontrolled fluctuations in prices of farm produce, the so-called co-operatives speculate and through such commercial activities exploit the peasants in a big way. In 1958 Yugoslavia had a poor harvest. The co-operatives and other commercial organs took the opportunity to raise the selling prices of farm produce. The year 1959 brought a better harvest and the co-operatives broke their contracts with the peasants and reduced their purchases, not even hesitating to let the crops rot in the fields.
The "general agricultural co-operatives" and the "agricultural farms" hire and exploit a large number of long-term and temporary workers. According to data in The Statistical Year-Book of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia of 1962, long-term workers hired by the "co-operatives" alone totalled more than 100,000 in 1961. A large number of temporary workers were also employed. As disclosed by Rad on December 1, 1962, hired labourers "are very often subject to the crudest exploitation (the working day may be as long as 15 hours), and usually their personal income is extremely low".
It is thus clear that these agricultural organizations of the so-called socialist sector are nothing but capitalist agricultural organizations.
Expropriation of poorer peasants and promotion of capitalist farms form the Tito clique's basic policy in the sphere of agriculture. Back in 1955, Tito said:
We do not abandon the idea that the day will come in Yugoslavia when small farms will be combined in one way or another.... In America they have already done so. We must find a solution to this problem.
In order to take the capitalist path, in 1959 the Tito clique promulgated the Law on the Utilization of Cultivated Land, stipulating that the land of peasants working on their own, who cannot farm it according to requirements, is subject to the "compulsory management" of the "general agricultural cooperatives" and "agricultural farms". In effect, this means the expropriation of poorer peasants and the forcible annexation of their land to develop capitalist farms. This is the path of capitalist agriculture, pure and simple.
In speaking of the transition from small peasant economy to an economy of large-scale farming, Stalin said:
There you have two paths, the capitalist path and the socialist path: the path forward -- to socialism, and the path backward -- to capitalism.
Is there a third path? Stalin said, "The so-called third path is actually the second path, the path leading back to capitalism." "For what does it mean to return to individual farming and to restore the kulaks? It means restoring kulak bondage, restoring the exploitation of the peasantry by the kulaks and giving the kulaks power. But is it possible to restore the kulaks and at the same time to preserve the Soviet power? No, it is not possible. The restoration of the kulaks is bound to lead to the creation of a kulak power and to the liquidation of the Soviet power -- hence, it is bound to lead to the formation of a bourgeois government. And the formation of a bourgeois government is bound to lead in its turn to the restoration of the landlords and capitalists, to the restoration of capitalism." (20)
The path taken by Yugoslavia in agriculture during the past ten years and more is precisely the path of restoring capitalism.
All these are indisputable facts.
We would like to ask those who are bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito clique: Unless it is your intention to deceive, how can you assert that there are no capitalists in Yugoslavia?
THE DEGENERATION OF SOCIALIST ECONOMY OWNED BY THE WHOLE PEOPLE INTO CAPITALIST ECONOMY
The restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia manifests itself not only in the fact that private capitalism is spreading freely both in the cities and in the countryside. Still more important, the "public" enterprises, which play a decisive role in the Yugoslav economy, have degenerated.
The Tito clique's economy of "workers' self-government" is state capitalism of a peculiar kind. It is not state capitalism under conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat but stale capitalism under conditions in which the Tito clique has turned the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie. The means of production of the enterprises under "workers' self-government" do not belong to one or more private capitalists but to the new type of bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie of Yugoslavia, which includes the bureaucrats and managers and which the Tito clique represents. Usurping the name of the state, depending on U.S. imperialism and disguising itself under the cloak of socialism, this bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie has robbed the working people of the property originally belonging to them. In reality, "workers' self-government" is a system of ruthless exploitation under the domination of bureaucrat- comprador capital.
Since 1950, the Tito clique has issued a series of decrees instituting "workers'self-government" in all state-owned factories, mines and other enterprises in communications, transport, trade, agriculture, forestry and public utilities. The essence of "workers' self-government" consists of handing over the enterprises to "working collectives", with each enterprise operating independently, purchasing its own raw materials, deciding on the variety, output and prices of its products and marketing them, and determining its own wage scale and the division of part of its profits. Yugoslav decrees further stipulate that economic enterprises have the right to buy, sell or lease fixed assets.
In the enterprises under "workers' self-government", ownership is described by the Tito clique as "a higher form of socialist ownership". They assert that only with "workers' self-government" can one "really build socialism".
This is sheer deception.
Theoretically speaking, as anyone with a slight knowledge of Marxism knows, slogans like "workers' self-government" and "factories to the workers" have never been Marxist slogans but slogans advanced by anarchist syndicalists, bourgeois socialists and old-line opportunists and revisionists.
The theory of "workers' self-government" and "factories to the workers" runs counter to the fundamental Marxist theory of socialism. It was completely refuted by the classical Marxist writers long ago.
As Marx and Engels pointed out in the Communist Manifesto, "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State...." Engels wrote in Anti-Duhring, "The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into state property."
Having seized political power, the proletariat must concentrate the means of production in the hands of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a fundamental principle of socialism.
In the early period of Soviet power following the October Revolution when some people advocated handing the factories over to the producers so that they could "organize production" directly, Lenin sternly criticized this view, saying that in reality it meant opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat. He acutely pointed out:
. .. Any direct or indirect legalization of the possession of their own production by the workers of individual factories or individual professions or of their right to weaken or impede the decrees of the state power is the greatest distortion of the basic principles of Soviet power and the complete renunciation of socialism. (21)
It is thus clear that "workers' self-government" has nothing to do with socialism.
In fact, the "workers' self-government" of the Tito clique does not provide self-government on the part of the workers; it is a hoax.
The enterprises under "workers' self-government" are actually in the clutches of the new bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie represented by the Tito clique. It controls the enterprises' property and personnel and takes away much the greater part of their income.
Through the banks the Tito clique controls the credit of entire country and the investment funds and liquid capital of all enterprises and supervises their financial affairs.
The Tito clique plunders the income of these enterprises by various means, such as the collection of taxes and interest. According to the statistics of the "Report on the Work in 1961 by the Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia", it took away about three-quarters of the enterprises' net income in this way.
The Tito clique seizes the fruits of the people's labour which it appropriates chiefly for meeting the extravagant expenses of this clique of bureaucrats, for maintaining its reactionary rule, for strengthening the apparatus which suppresses the working people, and for paying tribute to the imperialists in the form of the servicing of foreign debts.
Moreover, the Tito clique controls these enterprises through their managers. The managers are nominally chosen by competition by the enterprises but are in fact appointed by the Tito clique. They are agents of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie in these enterprises.
In the enterprises under "workers' self-government", the relations between managers and workers are actually relations between employers and employees, between the exploiters and the exploited.
As matters stand, the managers can determine the production plans and the direction of development of these enterprises, dispose of the means of production, take the decisions on the distribution of the enterprises' income, hire or fire workers and overrule the resolutions of the workers' councils or management boards.
Abundant information published in the Yugoslav press proves that the workers' council is merely formal, a kind of voting machine, and that all power in the enterprise is in the hands of the manager.
The fact that the manager of an enterprise controls its means of production and the distribution, of its income enables him to appropriate the fruits of the workers' labour by means of various privileges.
The Tito clique itself admits that in these enterprises there is a wide gap between managers and workers not only in wages but also in bonuses. In some enterprises, the bonuses of the managers and higher staff are forty times those of the workers. "In certain enterprises, the total amount of the bonus which a group of leaders received is equal to the wage fund of the entire collective." (22)
Moreover, the managers of the enterprises use their privileges to make a lot of money by various subterfuges. Bribery, embezzlement and theft are still bigger sources of income for the managers.
The broad masses of the workers live in poverty. There is no guarantee of employment. Large numbers of workers lose their jobs with the closing down of enterprises. According to official statistics, in February 1963 the number of the unemployed reached 339,000, or about 10 per cent of the number of the employed. In addition, every year many workers go abroad seeking work.
Politika admitted on September 25, 1961 that "there exists a great gap between some workers and office employees; the former look upon the latter as 'bureaucrats' who 'swallow up' their wages".
These facts show that in the Yugoslav enterprises under "workers' self-government", a new social group has come into being consisting of the few who appropriate the fruits of labour of the many. It is an important component of the new bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie in Yugoslavia.
By promoting "workers' self-government", the Tito clique has completely pushed the enterprises originally owned by the whole people off the path of socialist economy.
The main manifestations of this are the following:
First, the abandonment of unified economic planning by the state.
Second, the use of profits as the primary incentive in the operation of the enterprises. They may adopt a variety of methods to increase their income and profits. In other words, in the enterprises under "workers' self-government" the aim of production is not to meet the needs of society but to seek profits, just as in any capitalist enterprise.
Third, the pursuance of the policy of encouraging capitalist free competition. Tito has said to the managers of the enterprises, "Competition at home will be beneficial to our ordinary people, the consumers." The Tito clique also openly declares that it allows "competition, the seeking of profits, speculation and the like" because "they play a positive role in promoting the initiative of the producers, their collective, the communes, etc.". (23)
Fourth, the use of credit and the banks as important levers to promote capitalist free competition. In granting loans, the Tito regime's credit and banking system invites tenders for investment. Whoever is capable of repaying the loan in the shortest period and paying the highest rate of interest will obtain the loan. In their words, this is "to use competition as the usual method of allocating investment credits". (24)
Fifth, relations among the enterprises are not socialist relations of mutual support and co-ordination under a unified government plan but capitalist relations of competition and rivalry in a free market.
All this has undermined the very foundation of socialist planned economy.
Lenin said:
Socialism ... is inconceivable without planned state organisation which subjects tens of millions of people to the strictest observance of a single standard in production and distribution. (25)
He also said:
...without all-sided state accounting and control of production and distribution of goods, the power of the toilers, the freedom of the toilers, cannot be maintained, and... a return to the yoke of capitalism is inevitable. (26)
Under the signboard of "workers' self-government", all the economic departments and enterprises in Yugoslavia are locked in fierce capitalist competition. It is quite common for the enterprises under "workers' self-government" to engage in embezzlement, speculation and hoarding, to inflate prices, bribe, hide technical secrets, grab technical personnel and even to attack one another in the press or over the radio in rivalry for markets and profits.
The fierce competition among Yugoslav enterprises goes on not only in the home market but also in foreign trade. The Yugoslav press says that it is not unusual for twenty or thirty agents of Yugoslav foreign trade establishments to visit the same market abroad, compete among themselves for business, and take away the others' customers or suppliers. "From selfish motives", these enterprises engaged in foreign trade seek to "make profits at any cost" and "is not choosy about their means".
A result of this fierce competition is chaos in the Yugoslav market. Prices vary considerably not only in different cities or regions but also in different shops in the same place, and even for the same kind of goods from the same producer. In order to maintain high prices, some enterprises do not hesitate to destroy large quantities of farm produce.
Another result of this fierce competition is the closing down of large numbers of enterprises in Yugoslavia. According to information provided by the Official Bulletin of the FPRY, five hundred to six hundred enterprises closed down annually in recent years.
All this shows that the "public" economy of Yugoslavia is governed not by the laws of socialist planned economy but by those of capitalist competition and anarchy of production. The Tito clique's enterprises under "workers' self-government" are not socialist but capitalist in nature.
We would like to ask those who are bent on reversing the verdict on the Tito clique: Unless it is your intention to deceive, how can you describe the state capitalist economy controlled by the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie as a socialist economy?
A DEPENDENCY OF U.S. IMPERIALISM
The process of the restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia is interwoven with the process in which the Tito clique has become subservient towards U.S. imperialism and Yugoslavia has degenerated into a U.S. imperialist dependency.
With its betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, the Tito clique embarked on the shameful course of selling out the sovereignty of the state and living off the alms of U.S. imperialism.
According to incomplete statistics, from the conclusion of World War II to January 1963 the United States and other imperialist powers extended to the Tito clique "aid" totalling some U.S. $5,460 million, of which more than 60 per cent, or about $3,500 million, was U.S. "aid". The greatest part of this U.S. aid was granted after 1950.
U.S. aid has been the mainstay of Yugoslavia's finances and economy. Official statistics show that in 1961 the loans the Tito clique obtained from the United States and U.S.-controlled international financial organizations totalled U.S.$346 million, or 47.4 per cent of the federal budgetary income of Yugoslavia in that year. With the inclusion of aid from other Western countries, the money received by the Tito clique from Western countries in 1961 totalled U.S.$493 million, or 67.6 per cent of the federal budgetary income in that year.
In order to obtain U.S. aid, the Tito clique has concluded a series of traitorous treaties with the United States.
The notes exchanged between Yugoslavia and the United States in 1951 concerning the Agreement Relating to Mutual Defense Assistance stipulated that U.S. Government officials have the "freedom...without restriction", to observe and supervise the receipt and distribution in Yugoslavia of U.S. military aid material and has "full access to communication and information facilities". The agreement also required Yugoslavia to provide the United States with strategic raw materials.
The Agreement Regarding Military Assistance signed between Yugoslavia and the United States in 1951 stipulated that Yugoslavia should "make the full contribution...to the development and maintenance of the defensive strength of the free world" and should be ready to provide troops for the United Nations. Under this agreement the military mission sent by the United States was to directly supervise the training of Yugoslav troops.
The Yugoslav-U.S. Economic Co-operation Agreement of 1952 stipulated that Yugoslavia must use U.S. aid for "furthering fundamental individual human rights, freedoms and democratic institutions", that is, for furthering capitalism.
In 1954 Yugoslavia concluded a Treaty of Alliance, Political Co-operation and Mutual Assistance with Greece and Turkey, both members of NATO. The treaty provided for military and diplomatic co-ordination among the three countries, thus making Yugoslavia a virtual member of the U.S.-controlled military bloc.
Since 1954 Yugoslavia has concluded a series of agreements with the United States, selling out its sovereignty. More than fifty such agreements were signed in the period between 1957 and 1962.
Because of the conclusion of these treaties and agreements and because the Tito clique has made Yugoslavia dependent on U.S. imperialism, the United States enjoys the following rights in Yugoslavia:
(1) to control its military affairs;
(2) to control its foreign affairs;
(3) to interfere in its internal affairs;
(4) to manipulate and supervise its finance;
(5) to control its foreign trade;
(6) to plunder its strategic resources; and
(7) to collect military and economic intelligence.
The independence and sovereignty of Yugoslavia have thus been auctioned off by the Tito clique.
In addition to selling out Yugoslavia's sovereign rights in a series of unequal treaties with the United States, the Tito clique, in order to secure U.S. aid, has taken one step after another in domestic and foreign policy to comply with Western monopoly capital's demand to penetrate Yugoslavia.
Starting from 1950 the Tito clique abolished the monopoly of foreign trade by the state.
The Act on Foreign Trade Activities promulgated in 1953 permitted enterprises to conduct foreign trade independently and to have direct transactions with Western monopoly capitalist enterprises.
In 1961 the Tito regime introduced reforms in the systems of foreign exchange and foreign trade. Their main content was the further relaxation of restrictions on import and export trade. Complete liberalization was effected in the import of major semi-processed materials and certain consumers goods, and restrictions on the import of other commodities were relaxed in varying degrees. Restrictions were removed on the supply of foreign exchange needed for so-called unrestricted imports.
Everybody knows that state monopoly of foreign trade is a basic principle of socialism.
Lenin said that the industrial proletariat "is absolutely not in a position to recover our industry and to make Russia an industrial country without the protection of industry, which in no way refers to its protection by customs policy, but solely and exclusively refers to its protection by monopoly of foreign trade". (27)
Stalin said that "the monopoly of foreign trade is one of the unshakable foundations of the platform of the Soviet Government" and that the abolition of the monopoly of foreign trade would mean "abandoning the industrialisation of the country", "flooding the U.S.S.R. with goods from capitalist countries", and "transforming our country from an independent country into a semi-colonial one".(28)
To abolish the state monopoly of foreign trade, as the Tito regime has done, is to throw the door wide open to imperialist monopoly capital.
What are the economic consequences of the fact that the Tito clique receives large amounts of U.S. aid and keeps Yugoslavia's door wide open to imperialism?
First, Yugoslavia has become a market for imperialist dumping.
Huge quantities of industrial goods and farm produce from the imperialist countries have flooded the Yugoslav market. In pursuit of profits the Yugoslav comprador capitalists, who make piles of money by serving foreign monopoly capital, keep on importing commodities even though they can be produced at home and even when stocks are huge. Politika admitted on July 25, 1961 that it "was everywhere evident" that Yugoslav industry "was suffering blows from the continuous and very complicated competition of foreign industry".
Secondly, Yugoslavia has become an outlet for imperialist investment.
Many Yugoslav industrial enterprises have been built with "aid" from the United States and other imperialist countries. A great deal of foreign private monopoly capital has penetrated into Yugoslavia. According to Augustin Papid, the general manager of the Yugoslav Investment Bank, in the period between 1952 and 1956 "the participation of foreign funds reached 32.5 per cent of the total value of economic investments". U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk said on February 5, 1962 that Yugoslavia's source of capital was "largely in the West".
Thirdly, Yugoslavia has become a base from which imperialism extracts raw materials.
In accordance with the Agreement Regarding Military Assistance, the Tito clique has since 1951 continually supplied the United States with large quantities of strategic raw materials. According to the Statistical Year-Book of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia of 1961, about half of Yugoslavia's exports of important metals, such as magnesium, lead, zinc and antimony, have gone to the United States since 1957.
Fourthly, the industrial enterprises of Yugoslavia have become assembly shops for Western monopoly capitalist companies.
Many major Yugoslav industries produce under licence from Western countries and are dependent on imports of semiprocessed materials, parts, spare parts and semi-manufactured products. The production, of these industries is under the control of Western monopoly capital.
In fact, many of the industrial products sold as home products in Yugoslavia are assembled from imported ready-made parts and have Yugoslav trade marks attached. Vesnik u sredu of April 25, 1962 said that "some of our industrial enterprises are becoming a special type of commercial organization, which does not produce but assembles, only sticking its own trade mark on the products of others".
In these circumstances, Yugoslavia has become an integral part of the world market of Western monopoly capital. In the financial and economic spheres it is tightly bound to the capitalist world market and has degenerated into a dependency of imperialism, and particularly of U.S. imperialism.
When a socialist country sells out its independence and sovereign rights and becomes an imperialist appendage, the restoration of the capitalist system is the inevitable result.
The special road of building "socialism" by relying on U.S. aid advertised by the Tito clique is nothing but a road for turning a socialist system into a capitalist system to meet the needs of imperialism, a road of degeneration from an independent country into a semi-colony.
Khrushchov insists that this dependency of U.S. imperialism is "building socialism". This is fantastic. A self-styled socialism having U.S. aid as its trade mark is a new variety to be added to the bogus brands of socialism, which were criticized by Marx, Engels and Lenin, and this is presumably a great contribution on the part of Tito and Khrushchov in "creatively developing the theory of Marxism-Leninism".
A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY SPECIAL DETACHMENT OF U.S. IMPERIALISM
Judging by the counter-revolutionary role played by the Tito clique in international relations and by its reactionary foreign policy, Yugoslavia is still farther from being a socialist country.
In the international arena the Tito clique is a special detachment of U.S. imperialism for sabotaging the world revolution.
By setting the example of restoring capitalism in Yugoslavia, the Tito clique is helping U.S. imperialism to push its policy of "peaceful evolution" inside the socialist countries.
Under the signboard of a socialist country, the Tito clique is frantically opposing and disrupting the socialist camp and serving as an active agent in the anti-Chinese campaign.
Under the cover of non-alignment and active coexistence, the Tito clique is trying to wreck the national liberation movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America and is serving U.S. neo-colonialism.
The Tito clique spares no effort to prettify U.S. imperialism and benumb the people of the world in their struggle against the imperialist policies of war and aggression.
Under the pretext of opposing "Stalinism", the Tito clique is peddling revisionist poison everywhere and opposing revolution by the people in all countries.
The Tito clique has invariably played the role of a lackey of U.S. imperialism in the major international events of the past ten years and more.
1. The revolution in Greece. On July 10, 1949 Tito closed the border between Yugoslavia and Greece against the Greek people's guerrillas. At the same time, he allowed the Greek fascist royalist troops to pass through Yugoslav territory in order to attack the guerrillas from the rear. In this way the Tito clique helped the U.S.-British imperialists to strangle the Greek people's revolution.
2. The Korean War. In a statement issued on September 6, 1950, Edvard Kardelj, who was then foreign minister, brazenly slandered the Korean people's just war of resistance to aggression and defended U.S. imperialism. On December 1, speaking at the U.N. Security Council, the representative of the Tito clique attacked China for its "active interference in the Korean War". The Tito clique also voted in the United Nations for the embargo on China and Korea.
3. The Vietnamese people's war of liberation. On the eve of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China in April 1954, the Tito clique violently slandered the just struggle of the Vietnamese people, asserting that they were being used by Moscow and Peking "as a card in their post-war policy of cold war"." They said of the Vietnamese people's great battle to liberate Dien Bien Phu that it was "not a gesture of goodwill". (30)
4. Subversion against Albania. The Tito clique has been carrying on subversive activities and armed provocations against socialist Albania for a long time. It has engineered four major cases of treason, in 1944, 1948, 1956 and 1960. Its armed provocations on the Yugoslav-Albanian border numbered more than 470 from 1948 to 1958. In 1960 the Tito clique and the Greek reactionaries planned an armed, attack on Albania in co-ordination with the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
5. The counter-revolutionary rebellion in Hungary. The Tito clique played a shameful role of an interventionist provocateur in the Hungarian counter-revolutionary rebellion in October 1956. After the outbreak of the rebellion, Tito published a letter supporting the counter-revolutionary measures of the traitor Nagy. On November 3 the Tito clique bade Nagy seek asylum in the Yugoslav Embassy in Hungary. In a speech on November 11, Tito characterized the counter-revolutionary rebellion as resistance by "progressives" and impudently questioned whether the "course of Yugoslavia" or the "course of Stalinism" would win.
6. The Middle Eastern events. In 1958 troops were sent by U.S. imperialism to occupy Lebanon and by British imperialism to occupy Jordan. There arose a world-wide wave of protest demanding the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. and British troops. At the emergency session of the U.N. General Assembly on the Middle Eastern situation, Koca Popovic, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia, said that "it is not a question of whether we insist on condemning or approving the actions taken by the United States and Great Britain". He advocated intervention by the United Nations, an organization which is under the control of U.S. imperialism.
7. The event in the Taiwan Straits. In the autumn of 1958, the Chinese People's Liberation Army shelled Quemoy in order to counter the U.S. imperialist provocations in the Taiwan Straits and to punish the Chiang Kai-shek gang, which is a U.S. imperialist lackey. The Tito clique maligned China's just struggle as "a danger to the whole world"; and "harmful to peace". (32)
8. The U-2 incident. In 1960 the United States sent a U-2 spy plane to intrude into the Soviet Union and sabotaged the four-power summit conference scheduled to be held in Paris. On May 17 Tito issued a statement attacking the correct stand then taken by the Soviet Government as creating "such large-scale disputes".
9. The Japanese people's patriotic struggle against the United States. In June 1960 the Japanese people waged a just and patriotic struggle against the United States, which was unprecedented in its scale. But the Tito clique defended U.S. imperialism, saying that the U.S. occupation of Japan "promoted the democratization of political life in Japan".'33 Subsequently, it attacked the statement of Inejiro Asanuma, the late President of the Japanese Socialist Party, that "U.S. imperialism is the common enemy of the Japanese and Chinese peoples", accusing him of "standing for an extremist line". (34)
10. The struggle of the Indonesian people. The Tito clique tried to sabotage the Indonesian people's struggle against imperialism. It engaged in base activities in an effort to prevent the establishment of a "Nasakom" cabinet in Indonesia, that is, a government of national unity comprising the nationalists, religious circles and the Communists.
11. The Congo event. In the summer of 1960, when U.S. imperialism carried out armed aggression in the Congo under the flag of the United Nations, the Tito clique not only voted for U.S. imperialism in the United Nations but, in accordance with the desire of U.S. imperialism, sent air force personnel to the Congo to take a direct part in the bloody suppression of the Congolese people.
12. The Laotian question. When U.S. imperialism stepped up its intervention in Laos in January 1961, the Tito clique spread the view that the United States "is really concerned for the peace and neutralization of Laos". (35) When U.S. imperialism engineered political assassinations and armed conflicts in Laos in May 1963, the Tito clique attacked the Laotian patriotic forces for "putting all the blame on the United States". (36)
13. The U.S. Alliance for Progress programme. In August 1961 the United States forced various Latin American countries to sign the Alliance for Progress programme, which was a new U.S. imperialist instrument for the enslavement of the Latin American people. This programme of aggression was strongly opposed by the Latin American people but was praised by the Tito clique as "meeting in a large measure the requirements of the Latin American countries".'' (37)
14. The Sino-Indian border conflict. Ever since the Indian reactionaries created tension on the Sino-Indian border in l959, the Tito clique has consistently supported the expansionism, aggression and provocations of the Indian reactionaries against China. It openly spread the lie that "the demarcation of the boundary was already completed at the beginning of the present century and put into the shape of the well-known McMahon Line" and did its best to confuse right and wrong, making the slander that China "permits itself to revise its border with India willfully and by force" (39) and "committed aggression" against India. (40)
15. The Cuban revolution and the Caribbean crisis. The Tito clique has made numerous comments attacking Cuba, saying that Cuba "believes only in revolution" (41) and that the Cuban revolution is "not so much a model as an exception to the road of revolution". (42) During the Caribbean crisis in the autumn of 1962, the Tito clique defended U.S. imperialist aggression, saying that "the difficulties started when the Cuban revolution trod on the pet corns of the U.S. companies", (43) and that "if it is said that the United States was irritated by the establishment of rocket bases in Cuba, in its close neighbourhood, that would be understandable". (44)
From all this, people cannot fail to see that for the past ten years and more the Tito clique has desperately opposed the socialist countries, tried to sabotage the national liberation movement, maligned the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle of the people in all countries and actively served imperialism, and especially U.S. imperialism.
Khrushchov has said repeatedly that there is "unanimity" and "accord" between the leadership of the CPSU and the Tito clique in their positions on international problems. Well, then, we would like to ask whether or not there is unanimity or accord between your activities and the counter-revolutionary crimes of the Tito clique. Please answer, if you have the courage.
THE DEGENERATION OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT INTO THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE BOURGEOISIE
In the final analysis, the fact that capitalism has swamped Yugoslavia in both town and country, the degeneration of an economy owned by the whole people into a state capitalist economy and the decline of Yugoslavia into a dependency of U.S. imperialism are all due to the degeneration of the Party and state power in Yugoslavia.
Fighting heroically against the German and Italian fascist aggressors during World War II, the Communist Party and people of Yugoslavia overthrew the reactionary rule of imperialism and its lackey in Yugoslavia and established the people's democratic state power under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Not long afterwards, the leading group of the Yugoslav Communist Party betrayed Marxism-Leninism and embarked on the path of revisionism, bringing about the gradual degeneration of the Party and state power in Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav Communist Party had a glorious tradition of revolutionary struggles. The betrayal of the Tito clique met first of all with strong resistance inside the Party. To suppress this resistance, the Tito clique used its power to expel and purge from the Party a great number of Communists loyal to Marxism-Leninism. In the period from 1948 to 1952 alone, more than 200,000 Party members, or half the original membership of the Yugoslav Communist Party, were expelled. Taking action against the so-called Cominform elements, it arrested and slaughtered large numbers of Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary cadres and people, the number of Communists and active revolutionaries arrested and imprisoned alone exceeding thirty thousand. At the same time, the Tito clique opened the door wide to counter-revolutionaries, bourgeois elements, all kinds of anti-socialist elements and careerists seeking position and wealth through their membership cards. In November 1952 the Tito clique declared that "the appellation Party no longer fits" and changed the name, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, into the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In violation of the will of all honest Communists in Yugoslavia, it changed the character of the Yugoslav Communist Party as the vanguard of the proletariat and made the L.C.Y. the virtual instrument for maintaining its dictatorial rule.
In the socialist countries, state power is under the leadership of communist political parties. With the degeneration of a communist into a bourgeois political party, state power inevitably degenerates from the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
The state power of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Yugoslavia was the fruit of the protracted and heroic struggle of the Yugoslav people. But as the Tito clique turned renegade, this state power changed its nature.
The Tito clique has declared, "The means of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat,i.e., of the socialist state system, become increasingly unnecessary." (46)
But is there no dictatorship in Yugoslavia any longer? Yes, there is. While the dictatorship of the proletariat is indeed no more, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie not only exists, but is a brutal fascist dictatorship at that.
The Tito regime has set up many fascist prisons and concentration camps, where tens of thousands of revolutionaries have been tortured to death by every kind of inhuman punishment. At the same time, the Tito regime has pardoned large numbers of counter-revolutionaries and traitors in the anti-fascist war. Replying to a United Press correspondent on January 7, 1951, Tito admitted that 11,000 political prisoners had been pardoned in Yugoslavia. On March 13, 1962 another 150,000 counterrevolutionaries living in exile abroad were pardoned. The dictatorship over these enemies of the people was indeed abolished and they have obtained "democracy". Whatever fine-sounding phrases the Tito clique may use, its "democracy" is only a democracy for the small number of old and new bourgeois elements; for the working people it is out-and-out dictatorship. The Tito clique has transformed the revolutionary state machinery, which was built up to suppress the small minority of exploiters, into a state machinery for suppressing the proletariat and the broad masses.
The degeneration of the state power in Yugoslavia occurred not through the overthrow of the original state power by violence and the establishment of a new state power, but through "peaceful evolution". In appearance, the same people remain in power, but in essence these people no longer represent the interests of the workers, peasants and the working people but those of imperialism and the old and new bourgeoisie of Yugoslavia.
Utilizing state power and controlling the economic lifeline of the country, the Tito clique exploited the Yugoslav working people to the utmost extent and brought into being a bureaucrat-capitalist class. Being dependent on U.S. imperialism, this class is strongly comprador in character and is also a comprador capitalist class. The state power controlled by the Tito clique is that of the dictatorship of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie.
The above facts show from various aspects that the policy pursued by the Tito regime is one of restoring and developing capitalism, namely, of reducing Yugoslavia to a semi-colony or a dependency.
The degeneration of the state power in Yugoslavia has led to the destruction of the socialist economic system and the restoration of a capitalist economic system. When a new bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie has gradually come into being with the re-establishment of the capitalist economic system in a new form, it demands the intensification of the bourgeois dictatorship and the development of a political system suited to the capitalist economic system so as to consolidate its ruling position.
This is how the process from the degeneration of the Party and state power to the restoration of capitalism in the entire social and economic system has been realized step by step in Yugoslavia. The process of degeneration has gone on for fifteen years. This is the record of how a socialist state "peacefully evolves" into a capitalist state.
The Tito clique maintains its rule in Yugoslavia by relying on U.S. imperialist support, the state machine of the dictatorship of the bureaucrat-comprador bourgeoisie, the labour aristocracy bought by it, and the rich peasants in the countryside. At the same time, it uses various cunning means to disguise its reactionary features and hoodwink the people. But its reactionary policies are extremely unpopular. The degeneration of the socialist state into a capitalist state, the degeneration of an independent country into a semi-colony or a dependency of imperialism, runs counter to the basic interests of the Yugoslav people, and cannot but be opposed by all the honest Communists and the overwhelming majority of the people of Yugoslavia.
We are in deep sympathy with the people and Communists of Yugoslavia in their present predicament. Although the Tito clique can ride roughshod over the people for a time, we are confident that whatever high-handed measures and whatever tricks of deception it may resort to, no ruling group will come to a good end once it is against the people. The Tito clique is of course no exception. The deceived people will gradually wake up in the end. The people and Communists of Yugoslavia who have a glorious history will not submit to the renegade Tito clique for ever. The future of the Yugoslav people is bright.
THE PRINCIPLED STAND OF THE CPC ON THE QUESTION OF YUGOSLAVIA
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU asserts that for a time "the CPC leaders had no doubts as to the nature of the socialist system in Yugoslavia", and that now the Chinese leaders have "changed their position on the Yugoslavian question so drastically".
True, Yugoslavia was once a socialist state. For a time the country advanced along the path of socialism.
But soon after, owing to the Tito clique's betrayal, the Yugoslav social system began to degenerate step by step.
In 1954, when Khrushchov proposed to improve relations with Yugoslavia, we agreed to treat it as a fraternal socialist country for the purpose of winning it back to the path of socialism and watching how the Tito clique would develop.
We did not entertain very much hope for the Tito clique even then. In its letter of June 10, 1954 to the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Central Committee of the CPC pointed out that the fact should be taken into account that as the leaders of Yugoslavia had already gone quite far in their dealings with imperialism, they might reject our effort to win it over and refuse to return to the path of socialism; "but even though this should occur, it would not involve any political loss to the camp of peace, democracy and socialism -- on the contrary, it would further expose the hypocrisy of the Yugoslav leaders before the people of Yugoslavia and of the world."
Unfortunately, our words have proved all too true! Indeed the Tito clique has flatly rejected our effort to win it over and gone farther and farther along the path of revisionism.
After it refused to sign the 1957 Declaration, the Tito clique put forward its out-and-out revisionist programme in 1958 and set this banner of modern revisionism against the 1957 Declaration which is the common programme acknowledged by all Communist and Workers' Parties. The process of restoring capitalism in Yugoslavia has been realized step by step. And internationally, the Tito clique is serving more and more energetically as a counter-revolutionary special detachment of U.S. imperialism.
In these circumstances, the attitude every Marxist-Leninist Party should take towards the Tito clique is no longer the one it should take towards a fraternal Party or a fraternal country, nor should it be that of winning the Tito clique over, but it should be one of thoroughly exposing and firmly combating this gang of renegades. The 1960 Statement has given its clear conclusion on this point.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU has deliberately evaded the series of important events which occurred after the meeting of the fraternal Parties in November 1957 and also the conclusions unanimously reached at the meeting of the fraternal Parties in 1960, and tries to defend the erroneous stand of the leadership of the CPSU by quoting a sentence from the editorial on Yugoslavia in Renviin Ribao of September 12, 1957. This is futile.
The facts prove that our position with regard to the Tito clique conforms with reality, is a principled position, and is in accord with the common agreement of the meeting of the fraternal Parties in 1960. On the other hand, the leaders of the CPSU have tried in a thousand and one ways to reverse the verdict on the Tito clique, which testifies to their betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, their abandonment of the 1960 Statement, and their rendering of assistance to the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys in deceiving the people of Yugoslavia and of the whole world.
HAS TITO "REMOVED HIS ERRORS"? OR DOES KHRUSHCHOV REGARD TITO AS HIS TEACHER?
Khrushchov says that the Yugoslav leaders have removed very much of what was considered erroneous. But the Titoites do not admit that they have committed any errors, much less removed them. The Titoites say that they have "no need" to correct any error1"'and that "it would just be a waste of time"(49) and "simply superfluous and ridiculous" to expect them to do so.
Let us look at the facts. Have the Titoites changed their revisionist programme? No, they have not. Have they accepted the 1957 Declaration and the 1960 Statement? No, they have not. Have they changed their revisionist domestic and foreign policies? Again, no.
The new constitution adopted by the Yugoslav Federal People's Assembly in April 1963 most clearly shows that the Tito clique has not in the least changed its revisionist stand. The constitution is the legal embodiment of the out-and-out revisionist programme of the Tito clique. Edvard Kardelj said in his report on the draft of the new constitution that it is the "legal-political and organizational embodiment" of the concepts of the programme of the L.C.Y.
Khrushchov is warmly fraternizing with the Tito clique not because it has corrected any of its errors but because he is following in Tito's footsteps.
Consider the following facts:
1. Tito denounces Stalin in order to oppose Marxism-Leninism in its very fundamentals. Khrushchov completely negates Stalin for the same purpose.
2. Both Tito and Khrushchov repudiate the fundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism, both malign as dogmatists the Chinese and other Communists who firmly uphold Marxism- Leninism, and both describe their own revision of Marxism- Leninism' as a "creative development" of Marxism-Leninism.
3. Both Tito and Khrushchov laud the chieftains of U.S. imperialism. Tito says that Eisenhower "is a man who persistently defends peace", (50) and that Kennedy's effort "will be helpful to the improvement of international relations and to the peaceful settlement of pressing world problems" (51) Khrushchov says that Eisenhower "has a sincere desire for peace", (52) and that Kennedy "shows solicitude for the preservation of peace". (53)
4. Both Tito and Khrushchov play up the horrors of nuclear war in order to intimidate the people of the world into abandoning revolutionary struggle. Tito says that once a nuclear v/ar breaks out, it will be the "annihilation of mankind" (54) Likewise, Khrushchov says that once a nuclear war breaks out, "we will destroy our Noah's Ark -- the globe". (55)
5. Both Tito and Khrushchov preach that a world without weapons, without armed forces and without wars can be brought into being while imperialism still exists.
6. The Tito clique proclaims that "active peaceful coexistence" is the cornerstone of Yugoslavia's foreign policy (56) while Khrushchov declares that peaceful coexistence is the "general line of the foreign policy" of the Soviet Union. (57)
7. Both Tito and Khrushchov proclaim that the possibility of peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism has increased. The Tito clique says that "mankind is irresistibly entering a long way into the era of socialism through different ways". (58) Khrushchov says that the road of the October Revolution can be replaced by the "parliamentary road".
8. Tito advocates the introduction of "political and economic integration" (59) of the world through "peaceful competition". Khrushchov also advocates "all-round co-operation" with imperialism through "peaceful economic competition".
9. The Tito clique sabotages the national liberation movement and national liberation wars in every way. Khrushchov opposes the national liberation movement and national liberation wars on the pretext that "any small 'local war' might spark off the conflagration of a world war". (60)
10. The Tito clique has renounced the dictatorship of the proletariat. Under the slogan of "the state of the whole people", Khrushchov also renounces the dictatorship of the proletariat.
11. The Tito clique denies that the Communist Party should be the vanguard of the working class. Likewise, Khrushchov says that the CPSU "has become a party of the entire people". (61)
12. The Tito clique, flaunting the "non-bloc" label, is opposing the socialist camp. Khrushchov also says that "expressions like blocs etc., are temporary phenomena". (62) They both want to liquidate the socialist camp.
From these facts one must conclude that, both in domestic and foreign policy, Khrushchov really regards Tito as his teacher and is sliding down the path of revisionism hard on Tito's heels.
Khrushchov has abandoned Marxism-Leninism, scrapped the 1960 Statement and wallowed in the mire with the renegade Tito clique, in complete violation of the interests of the Soviet Union, the Soviet people and the people of the whole world. This will not be tolerated by the great Soviet people, the overwhelming majority of the members of the CPSU and cadres at various levels, all of whom have a glorious revolutionary tradition.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's collusion with the Tito clique in opposition to the fraternal Parties which uphold Marxism-Leninism.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's collusion with the Tito clique and collaboration with imperialism in opposing socialist China, Albania and other fraternal countries and in disrupting the socialist camp.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's collusion with the Tito clique and collaboration with the reactionaries of all countries in opposition to the people of the world and to revolution.
The great Soviet people and the membership of the CPSU will never agree with Khrushchov's efforts to follow the example of the Yugoslav revisionists, change the nature of the Party and the state and pave the way for the restoration of capitalism.
Khrushchov has caused dark clouds to overcast the Soviet Union, the first socialist country in the world. But this can only be an interlude in the history of the CPSU and of the Soviet Union. People who are deceived and hoodwinked for a time will gradually wake up in the end. History has confirmed, and will continue to confirm, that whoever wants to turn back the Soviet people in their advance is like the grasshopper in the fable which wanted to stop the chariot. He will never succeed in his aim.
BRIEF CONCLUSION
The restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia provides a new historical lesson to the international communist movement.
This lesson shows us that when the working class has seized power, struggle continues between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, struggle for victory continues between the two roads of capitalism and socialism, and there is a danger that capitalism may be restored. Yugoslavia presents a typical example of the restoration of capitalism.
It shows us that not only is it possible for a working-class party to fall under the control of a labour aristocracy, degenerate into a bourgeois party and become a flunkey of imperialism before it seizes power, but even after it seizes power it is possible for a working-class party to fall under the control of new bourgeois elements, degenerate into a bourgeois party and become a flunkey of imperialism. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia typifies such degeneration.
It shows us that the restoration of capitalism in a socialist country can be achieved not necessarily through a counterrevolutionary coup d'etat or armed imperialist invasion and that it can also be achieved through the degradation of the leading group in that country. The easiest way to capture a fortress is from within. Yugoslavia provides a typical case in point.
It shows us that revisionism is the product of imperialist policy. Old-line revisionism arose as a result of the imperialist policy of buying over and fostering a labour aristocracy. Modern revisionism has arisen in the same way. Sparing no cost, imperialism has now extended the scope of its operations and is buying over leading groups in socialist countries and pursues through them its desired policy of "peaceful evolution". U.S. imperialism regards Yugoslavia as the "bellwether" because it has set an example in this respect.
The restoration of capitalism in Yugoslavia will make all Marxist-Leninists see better and enable people to realize more keenly the necessity and urgency of combating modern revisionism.
So long as imperialism exists, there is apparently no ground for saying that the danger of the restoration of capitalism in the socialist countries has been eliminated.
The leaders of the CPSU proclaim that they have already eliminated the danger of the restoration of capitalism and are building communism. If this were true, it would of course be heartening. But we see that in fact they are imitating Yugoslavia in every way and have taken a most dangerous road. This deeply worries and pains us.
Out of our warm love for the great Soviet Union and the great CPSU, we would like sincerely to appeal to the leaders of the CPSU: Comrades and friends, Do not follow the Yugoslav road. Turn back at once. Or it will be too late!
FOOTNOTES:
1. N.S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Mass Rally in Velenje, Yugoslavia, August 30, 1963.
2. N.S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Meeting in a Factory of Rakovica, Yugoslavia, August 21, 1963.
3. N.S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni, Yugoslavia, August 28, 1963, as reported by Tanjug.
4. "For the Victory of Creative Marxism-Leninism and Against the Revision of the Course of the World Communist Movement", editorial board article in Kommunist, Moscow, No. 11, 1963.
5. Palmiro Togliatti, "Let Us Lead the Discussion Back to Its Real Limit", L'Unita, January 10, 1963.
6. N.S. Khrushchov, Report to the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, December 1962.
7. Open Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to All Party Organizations, to All Communists of the Soviet Union, July 14, 1963.
8. Ibid.
9. N.S. Khrushchov, Report to the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, December 1962.
10. M. Todorovi, "The Struggle on Two Fronts", Nasha Stvarnost, March issue, 1954.
11. Vesnik u sredu, December 27, 1961.
12. Vesnik u sredu, December 6, 1961.
13. J.V. Stalin, "Grain Procurements and the Prospects for the Development of Agriculture". Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1954, Vol. XI, p. 8.
14. Edvard Kardelj, Opening Address at the Ninth Plenum of the Fourth Federal Committee of the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia, May 5, 1959.
15. Vladimir Bakaric, Speech at the Sixth Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.
16. Edvard Kardelj, "On Some Problems of Our Policy in the Villages", Komunist, Belgrade, No. 4, 1953.
17. Slavko Komar, "Some Problems Concerning the Countryside and the Peasant Households", Socializam, No. 5, 1962.
18. The Yugoslav journal, Index, No. 2, 1962.
19. Slavko Komar, op. cit.
20. J Stalin, "Speech Delivered at the First All-Union Congress of Collective-Farm Shock Brigaders", Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1955, Vol. XIII, p. 248.
21. V.I. Lenin, "On the Democracy and Socialist Character of the Soviet Power".
22. Letter of the Central Committee of the LCY to Its Organizations and Leaderships at All Levels, February 17, 1958.
23. Vladimir Bakaric, Report to the Fourth Congress of the League of Communists of Croatia, April 7, 1959.
24. Augustin Papic, "Investment Financing in Yugoslavia", Annals of Collective Economy, Belgrade, April-November, 1959.
25. V.I. Lenin, "'Left-Wing' Childishness and Petty-Bourgeois Mentality", Selected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York, 1943, Vol. VH, p. 365.
26. V. I. Lenin, "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government", Selected Works, Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York, 1943, Vol. VII, p. 327.
27. V.I. Lenin, "On the Monopoly of Foreign Trade", Collected Works, Russ. ed., SPPL, Moscow, 1950, Vol. XXXIII, p. 420.
28. J.V. Stalin, "Interview with the First American Labor Delegation", Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1954, Vol. X, pp. 115 and 116.
29. Borba, April 23, 1954.
30. Borba, May 8, 1954.
31. Slobodni Pom, September 4, 1958.
32. Slovenski Porocevalec, September 9, 1958.
33. Komunist, Belgrade, June 2, 1960.
34. Foreign Political Bulletin, February 1, 1962.
35. Borba, January 13, 1961.
36. Politika, May 5, 1963.
37. Komunist, Belgrade, August 17, 1961.
38. Rad, September 12, 1959.
39. Borba, December 26, 1960.
40. Politika, September 3, 1959.
41. The Rebellion of Cuba, Belgrade, November 1962
42. Politika, January 1, 1963.
43. Komunist, Belgrade, September 13, 1962.
44. Politika, November 13, 1962.
45. N.S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Mass Rally in Split, Yugoslavia, August 24, 1963.
46. Edvard Kardelj, "The New Constitution of Socialist Yugoslavia", Borba, September 29, 1962.
47. J.B. Tito, Speech at the Belgrade Railway Station, December 20, 1962.
48. J.B. Tito, Speech at the Seventh Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, April 1958.
49. J.B. Tito, Speech at the Belgrade Railway Station, December 20, 1962.
50. J.B. Tito, Talk with a New York Times Commentator, February 28, 1958.
51. J.B. Tito, Message of Greetings to J. F. Kennedy, Borba, January 21, 1961.
52. N.S. Khrushchov, Speech at the Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, May 1960.
53. N.S. Khrushchov, Letter to J. F. Kennedy, October 27, 1962.
54. J.B. Tito, Report to the Session of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia, April 19, 1958.
55. N.S. Khrushchov, Speech at a Meeting of the Austro-Soviet Society, July 2, 1960.
56. Koca Poppvid, Report on Foreign Policy to the Session of the Federal People's Assembly of Yugoslavia, Borba, February 27, 1957.
57. N.S. Khrushchov, Report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, February 1956.
58. Programme of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.
59. J. B. Tito, Replies to Questions by Washington Post Correspondent Drew Pearson, Borba, August 12, 1962.
60. N.S. Khrushchov, Statement at the Press Conference in Vienna, July 8, 1960.
61. N.S. Khrushchov, "On the Programme of the CPSU", delivered at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, October 1961.
62. N.S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni in Yugoslavia, August 28, 1963.
The OL social-chauvinists are not content to themselves degenerate into an open alliance with U.S. imperialism under the guise of fighting Soviet social- imperialism. Lacking any sense of shame, they are brazenly dragging Chairman Mao's name through the mud to justify their own chauvinism. In the September 12th issue of The Call, the OL social-chauvinists make another attempt to convert Chairman Mao into a social-chauvinist. They print a centerfold article which purports to "prove" that Chairman Mao supported the "Three Worlds" theory. It is a flimsy fraud indeed, since as we will show, the quotation from Comrade Mao Tsetung gives the opposite line from OL's Titoite theory of "Three Worlds". It is even more flimsy, because if Chairman Mao had supported the anti-Leninist theory of "Three Worlds", then why does the OL have to play around with odd quotations from here and there, which even they are forced to call "early version" of the three worlds theory. How about the "full" theory?Why isn't this theory, this alleged "great strategic concept" for world revolution, emblazoned in every one of Chairman Mao's major articles? All OL's noise about this being Chairman Mao's theory is just a desperate gamble to shore up the sagging fortunes of their revisionism. They had already boasted in advance in the editorial to the May 9, 1977 issue of The Call that "Most significantly, they (the articles in Vol. 5 of the Selected Works of Mao Tsetung -- ed.) include Chairman Mao's teachings on... ( a list follows -- ed.)... and the concept of 'three worlds', which is being used today to guide the world-wide struggle against the two superpowers. " Unfortunately for the OL, however, this volume is now available in English and the OL has to make good on its flimsy fraud. The OL is hoping that everyone will be so intimidated by social-chauvinist bluster that no one will actually read and study Chairman Mao's great works themselves, works like On New Democracy, On Coalition Government and many many others. But today the world proletariat has Marxism-Leninism. All around the world, revolutionaries are studying and restudying the classic works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tsetung and Enver Hoxha. The OL is bogged down deep in the quicksand of revisionism and social-chauvinism, and the more it flails around and stakes everything on desperate gambles, the deeper it sinks and the more it is universally condemned.
The social-chauvinists are trying to cover themselves with the prestige of Chairman Mao -- now that they think he is "safely" dead -- in order to negate the revolutionary essence and spirit of great Mao Tsetung Thought. This is a big farce, as the OL has never supported Mao Tsetung Thought. It is a typical trick of revisionists and even the capitalists themselves to give mock respect to the dead leaders of the international communist movement in order to discredit the current leaders. The Mensheviks and opportunists used to "quote" Marx and Engels against the Bolsheviks and the great Lenin, tearing isolated odds and ends from Marxism out of context and obliterating the revolutionary spirit of Marxism in order to discredit great Leninism. The trotskyites made a pretense of "supporting" Lenin in order to attack great Stalin. The revisionists of various sorts "upheld" Marxism-Leninism against Mao Tsetung Thought and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. And now the social-chauvinists are trying to use the name of Mao Tsetung to negate his revolutionary teachings and to attack his close comrade-in-arms Enver Hoxha, who is gloriously leading the international communist movement against both imperialism and opportunism and revisionism of all kinds. Lenin himself pointed to this phenomenon in his classic book, The State and Revolution. Lenin said:
"What is now happening to Marx's teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and-slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the 'consolation' of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of their revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. …
"All the social-chauvinists are now 'Marxists' (don't laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, but yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the national-German Marx, who, they aver, educated the workers' unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of conducting a predatory war !" (Emphasis as in the original.)
In this article we will refute the feeble attempts of the OL social-chauvinists to tar Mao Tsetung's name with Titoism and other mud. Anyone who examines these efforts, which are part of a campaign by international opportunism, will be struck by a significant fact. Some of these opportunists say that Chairman Mao first elaborated the theory of "Three Worlds" in 1974, some say he has been giving it ever since World War II (thus criminally confusing Mao Tsetung with the renegade and imperialist agent Tito), some even try to go back and claim that Lenin advocated or foreshadowed the theory of three worlds. All these different and contradictory assertions exist side by side, and are even given by the same sources. This shows that the theoreticians of the "Three Worlds" are die-hard opportunists without principles of any sort. The "Three Worlds" theory is a counter-revolutionary mood, an attitude of negating socialism, negating revolution, prettifying U.S. imperialism and justifying neo-colonialism. Even the simplest points of this "theory" are shrouded in contradictions and vagueness. Does the "third world" include oppressed nations in Europe, such as the Irish people? In which world does the theory of "three worlds" place the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, the radiant beacon of socialism in Europe and the rallying center of the world revolution ? How can the people in an oppressed "Three Worlds" place the fight against reactionary regimes like those of Marcos in the Philippines and the Shah in Iran, while at the same time strengthening and supporting these same regimes as alleged bastions of struggle against social-imperialism? The opportunists are total mystifiers. It is almost a concession to them to even call the "three worlds" concept a "theory", rather than simply counter-revolutionary demagogy and sophistry in the direct service of U.S. imperialism.
Now let us examine OL's latest feeble effort. In their centerfold article "From Mao's Fifth Volume: Early Version of 3 Worlds Theory" they give a quotation. Their comment on the quotation includes:
"The article shows the early development of the great strategic concept of the three worlds on which Chairman Mao would later elaborate. In this talk, he speaks about the 'three forces', which correspond generally to the first, second and third worlds today."
First of all, Chairman Mao never talks of "three forces". It is amazing how OL can lie about such a simple matter, which can be checked by simply reading the quotation given by themselves. In the quotation Chairman Mao, in explaining the aggressive Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956 and the U.S. 's mock support for Egypt, says: "In the Middle East, two kinds of contradictions and three kinds of forces are in conflict." Here we have "three kinds of forces", not "three forces"; in the Middle East, not in the world; and in conflict in the Suez incident, not in the Middle East in general. Furthermore, as we shall discuss later on in this article, Chairman Mao in discussing the world situation in this quotation refers to still other kinds of forces, besides the "three kinds of forces", such other kinds of forces as the socialist countries, the people's revolution in the imperialist countries and the imperialist subversive forces in the socialist countries. No matter, the OL social-chauvinists have become real numerologists. Since Chairman Mao mentions the magic number "three", this must indeed, according to them, be the theory of "Three Worlds" or, perhaps, "three kinds of worlds". And the OL will,parade around their Titoite formulation and negate Chairman Mao's actual analysis, which he shares in common with Comrades Stalin and Enver Hoxha and with all Marxist-Leninists, of four main contradictions in the world and two camps. That is how the social-chauvinists "study" Marxism-Leninism.
But now let us continue by examining the "three kinds of forces" and see if there is any relation between them and the "Three Worlds".
The first kind of force is "the United States, the biggest imperialist power". In the "Three Worlds" however, the "first world" consists of both superpowers, allegedly "declining" U.S. imperialism and allegedly "rising" Soviet social-imperialism, and in practice it is regarded as sufficient to struggle against Soviet social-imperialism while propping up U.S. imperialism. Thus the OL social-chauvinists equate a situation where there was only one superpower, U.S. imperialism, which was leading the world system of imperialism, to the present situation where there are two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, which together are leading world imperialism.. Whether the Soviet Union is a socialist country or an imperialist superpower, this is a minor matter according to the OL and "generally" doesn't affect much in analyzing the world situation. In this way the OL negates the importance of the role of the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin as the bastion of world revolution and the leader of the socialist camp. In discussing the world situation, the OL is "forgetting" a mere "trifle", the world of socialism and the international communist movement. This stands in direct contradiction to the proletarian revolutionary line of Chairman Mao and his discussion, in the very quotation cited by The Call, of the role of the socialist countries. By wiping out the world of socialism in discussing the situation of 1956-57, the OL is shamefacedly supporting not Marxism-Leninism but Titoism, which at that time was busy subverting the socialist camp, talking of "red imperialism" and trying to rig up its "non-aligned movement" or "nonbloc", which was allegedly independent both of imperialism and also of socialism.
The OL has no better luck with the "second world". Chairman Mao refers to "...two, Britain and France, second-rate imperialist powers,..." Chairman Mao clearly identifies these imperialist powers as part of imperialism, in antagonistic contradiction with the oppressed nations, and contending with the United States for the control of the Middle East. But the theory of "Three Worlds", while recognizing in a distorted way the existence of a contradiction between Britain and France on the one hand and the U.S. imperialists on the other (and at the same time negating the existence of inter-imperialist rivalries between the West European imperialist powers), negates the imperialist character of these countries. According to the "three worlds" scheme, imperialism is only a policy of these countries which can be replaced, and is being replaced, with a different policy... namely liquidating imperialist and colonialist remnants and helping the "third world" to develop and to oppose imperialist domination. The OL is giving the Kautskyite theory that the "second world" can peacefully unite in ultra-imperialist wedded bliss, at least as far as the European Common Market and the Western imperialist bloc goes, and give up their naughty "policies" of inter-imperialist rivalry among themselves and of exploitation and oppression of the "third world". There is nothing whatsoever in common between this vulgar Kautskyite and anti-Leninist fantasy world and Chairman Mao's description of Britain and France as imperialist powers engaged in aggression against Egypt.
Now for the "third world". Chairman Mao refers to ".. .three, the oppressed nations. " Thus Chairman Mao is referring to the nations, comprising the oppressed masses, first and foremost the proletariat and peasantry but also including other classes and strata. But the "third world" is not the oppressed nations, but the formally independent countries, the ruling regimes. The theoreticians of the "third world" are talking about the governments and, first and foremost, the OL includes in the "third world" such imperialist puppets and murderers as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu of the Congo-Kinshasa ("Zaire"), and Idi Amin of Uganda. Among the formally independent countries, various countries play different roles. The neo-colonial forces are not part of the oppressed nations, but are internal enemies allied to imperialism and fighting against the national liberation movement of the oppressed nations. Thus OL's "third world" does not correspond to the oppressed nations, but first and foremost includes the vast U.S. neo-colonial empire and other traitors and sold-out elements fighting against the oppressed nations. A further illustration of this is seen by considering the subject of the quotation: Egypt, the nationalization of the Suez Canal, and the imperialist invasion of Egypt. Who nationalized the Suez Canal? President Nasser. How did President Nasser come to power? As part of a movement that overthrew the corrupt King Farouk in 1952, thus committing the alleged crime (according to the social-chauvinists) of "overthrowing a third world government". Yet Chairman Mao does not devote a single word of criticism of Nasser on this account. Instead, Chairman Mao calls for support for the anti-imperialist struggles of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Finally it should be noted that Chairman Mao never said that only "three kinds of forces" were acting in the world or even in general in the Middle East. There are no socialist countries in the Middle East, either now or at the time of Chairman Mao's article. But there was a whole camp of socialist countries in Europe and Asia at the time Chairman Mao was writing. Chariman Mao explicitly refers to these socialist countries and includes China among them, saying "We, the socialist countries,..." and laying down the policy for these countries, their tasks towards the anti-imperialist struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the revolutionary struggles all around the world. Thus we have a fourth kind of force in the world. Furthermore Chairman Mao also referred to the fact that the socialist revolutionary forces existed inside the imperialist countries and identified these movements as linked to the socialist countries. Thus there is even a fifth kind of force referred to in the article. And Chairman Mao also refers to the subversive forces of imperialism acting inside the socialist countries. Once we add the socialist countries to the "three kinds of forces", to say nothing of adding the proletarian revolutionary forces around the world or the imperialist subversive forces, what happens to the magic number "three"? It is gone and so is OL's flimsy "proof" of the "Three Worlds" theory.
Now it is quite clear why the OL social-chauvinists generally restrict themselves to simply asserting without proof, over and over again like a broken record, that the theory of "Three Worlds" is Chairman Mao's. Whenever they try to back up this flimsy fraud and despicable political blackmail, the social-chauvinists put their smelly feet in their mouths. For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that twice before OL has tried to give some "proof" to their fraud that "Three Worlds" is Marxism-Leninism, and both times they flopped miserably.
In his article '"The World Is Being Turned Upside Down'", and this article does indeed turn the world upside down and not at all in the sense Chairman Mao had in mind, Dan Burstein, editor of The Call, tried to give some "proof" that the theory of "Three Worlds" was due to Chairman Mao. He ended up being reduced to the level of a blabbering idiot, who in one paragraph says that "Chairman Mao's views on the third world" were "not publicly articulated outside of China until the 1970s" and in the next paragraph cited Chairman Mao's famous 1946 interview with Anna Louise Strong, an interview which was definitely "publicly articulated outside of China" long ago in, for instance, Vol. 4 of the Selected Works of Mao Tsetung. For the complete destruction of Burstein's forgeries, we refer the reader to the article "OL's Theory of 'Three Worlds' Denies Revolution and Apologizes for U.S. Neo-Colonialism" in the March 10, 1977 issue of The Workers' Advocate and in particular to sections 2 "OL's Evidence That Chairman Mao Originated and Supported the 'Three Worlds' Thesis Is a Fraud" and section 6 "How the OL Leaders Attempt to Turn Chairman Mao into a Titoite Revisionist and Fail Miserably".
The OL social-chauvinists must themselves have realized that something was wrong in their "proofs" that Chairman Mao originated the "Three Worlds" concept and so, in their one other attempt to attribute this anti-Leninist Titoite theory to Marxism-Leninism, they slapped themselves in the face and attributed the theory to Lenin, not Chairman Mao. This farce occurs in a major article in the centerfold of the May 2, 1977 issue of The Call, entitled "Program Upholds and Defends 'Three Worlds' Concept". There is no better way to refute OL's argument than by quoting the relevant passage in full:
"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".)
"As early as 1916, in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin clearly distinguished three forces in the world which had resulted from the division of the world among the great powers. One of these forces was the wealthiest monopoly capitalist countries, which included young capitalist states such as America and older capitalist countries such as France. The other two forces were the less developed capitalist countries, such as Russia, and the colonies and semi-colonies. Adapted to today's concrete conditions, which are different from those during Lenin's time (here the OL confesses that Lenin in fact does not give any support to the "Three Worlds" concept after all and that all the rest of the paragraph previous to this was just window-dressing, since according to the OL, Leninism no longer applies to "today's concrete conditions" -- ed.), the theory of three worlds is solidly based on a dialectical materialist analysis."
What a pity that Lenin himself didn't realize this. Instead of overthrowing Russian Tsarism and the bourgeois Kerensky government, instead of blazing the path of the Great October Socialist Revolution, he should have supported this "second world" force, Russian Tsarism and military-feudal imperialism, in the struggle against the hegemonism of such states as America and France! It is not for nothing that the OL does not dare to quote directly from Lenin. However, since The Call is having such difficulty finding any forerunners of the "Three Worlds" prior to Tito, we world like to help them out of their misery and suggest that they look ad early as classical antiquity in Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There you can find "three forces distinguished": (1) the superpower, Rome; (2) the lesser empires; and (3) the barbarians. Who knows what the OL can make of such rich material, when "adapted to today's concrete conditions"? End.
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 "publically 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 "publically 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 "publically 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 ;ond 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.
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 treats 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. End.
by MAO TSETUNG -1953
Joseph Vissarionovic Stalin, greatest genius of the present age, great teacher of the world Communist movement, comrade-in-arms of the immortal Lenin, has departed from the world. Comrade Stalin made an inestimable contribution to our era by his theoretical and practical activities. Comrade Stalin represents our entire new era. His activities have led the Soviet people and the working people of all countries to transform the whole world situation: the cause of justice, of People's Democracy and Socialism has achieved victory on tremendous scale over a territory containing one-third of the earth's population--more than...million people; moreover, the influence of the victory is spreading daily to every comer of the globe.
The death of comrade Stalin has aroused unparalleled and profound grief among the working people of the whole world; it has stirred the hearts of upright people throughout the world. This demonstrates that comrade Stalin's cause and his ideas have gripped the hearts of the broad masses of the people throughout the world and have become an invincible force, a force that will guide those peoples who are already victorious from one fresh victory to another and lead all who are still groaning under the oppression of the old, vicious capitalist world to strike courageously at the people's enemies.
After the death of Lenin, Comrade Stalin led the Soviet people in building into a magnificent socialist society the first socialist state in the world, which, together with the great Lenin, created during the October Revolution. The victory of sociast construction in the Soviet Union is not only a victory of the Soviet people, but also a common victory of the people of the whole world. Firstly, this victory proved in real life the absolute correctness of Marxism-Leninism and gave concrete instruction to the working people throughout the world how they should advance towards a happy life. Secondly, this victory ensured that humanity would have the strength to defeat the fascist beasts during the Second World War. The achievement of victory in the anti-fascist war would have been inconceivable without the victory of socialist construction in the Soviet Union. The fate of all mankind was bound up with the victory of socialist construction in the Soviet Union and victory in the anti-fascist war, and the glory of these victories must go to our great Comrade Stalin.
Comrade Stalin carried out a comprehensive and epoch-making development of Marxist-Leninist theory and advanced Marxism to a new stage of development. Comrade Stalin creatively developed Lenin's theory concerning the law of the uneven development of capitalism and Lenin's theory that Socialism can first be victorious in one country; Comrade Stalin creatively contributed the theory of the general crisis of the capitalist system; he contributed the theory concerning the building of Communism in the Soviet Union; he contributed the theory of the basic economic laws of modern capitalism and of Socialism; he contributed the theory of the revolution in colonial and semicolonial countries. Comrade Stalin also creatively developed Lenin's theory on the building of the Party. All these creative theories of Comrade Stalin further united the workers throughout the world, further united the oppressed classes and the oppressed peoples throughout the world, and thereby enabled the struggle for the emancipation and well-being of the world's working class and all oppressed people, and the victories in this struggle, to attain unprecedented proportions.
All Comrade Stalin's writings are immortal works of Marxist literature. His Foundations of Leninism, History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) and his last great work Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. comprise an encyclopaedia of Marxism-Leninism, a summing-up of the experiences of the world Communist movement in the past hundred years. His speech at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is a precious testament bequeathed to the Communists of all countries of the world. We Chinese Communists, like the Communists of all other countries, find our own road to victory in the great works of Comrade Stalin.
Since the death of Lenin, Comrade Stalin has at all times been the central figure in the world Communist movement. We rallied round him, ceaselessly asked his advice and ceaselessly drew ideological strength from his works. Comrade Stalin was full of warm love for the oppressed peoples of the East. "Do not forget the East" --this was Comrade Stalin's great call after the October Revolution. Everyone knows that Comrade Stalin warmly loved the Chinese people and regarded the might of the Chinese revolution as immeasurable. He contributed his lofty wisdom to the problems of the Chinese revolution. And it was by following the teachings of Lenin and Stalin, and with the support of the great Soviet state and all the revolutionary forces of other countries, that the Communist Party pf China and the Chinese people won their historic victory a few years ago.
Now we have lost our great teacher and most sincere friend -- Comrade Stalin. What a misfortune this is! It is impossible to express in words the sorrow which this misfortune has brought us.
Our task is to transform sorrow into strength. In memory of our great teacher Stalin, the great friendship linked with the name of Stalin, which exists between the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people, will be immeasurably strengthened. Chinese Communists and the Chinese people will further intensify the study of Stalin's teachings, of Soviet science and techniques, to build their country.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is a party personally reared by Lenin and Stalin; it is the most advanced party in the world, the most experienced and the best trained in theory. This Party has been our model in the past, is our model now and will remain our model in the future. We are completely confident that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Government, headed by Comrade Malenkov, will certainly be able to follow Comrade Stalin's behest to advance and carry to greater glory the great cause of Communism.
There is not the slightest doubt that the world camp of peace, democracy and Socialism headed by the Soviet Union will be still more united and become still more powerful.
In the past thirty years, Comrade Stalin's teachings and the example of Soviet socialist construction have made the world advance with giant strides. Now that the Soviet Union has become so powerful; the Chinese people's revolution has obtained such great victories; construction in the various People's Democracies has brought such enormous achievements; the movement of the peoples throughout the world against oppression and aggression has risen to such heights; our front of friendship and solidarity is so consolidated -- we can definitely declare that we are not afraid of any imperialist aggression. Any imperialist aggression will be smashed by us; all foul provocations will be of no avail.
The reason that the great friendship between the peoples of China and the Soviet Union is unbreakable is precisely because our friendship has been built on the great principles of internationalism of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The friendship between the peoples of China and the Soviet Union, and the peoples of the various People's Democracies, as well as all people who love peace, democracy and justice in every country of the world, is also built upon this great principle of internationalism and is therefore also unbreakable.
Clearly, the strength created by our friendship, which is of this kind, is inexhaustible and truly invincible.
Let all imperialist aggressors and war-mongers tremble before our great friendship!
Long live the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin!
The glorious name of the great Stalin is immortal! End.
(Reprinted from People's China, 1953, Peking)
Article of the Newspaper A Classe Operaria, Central Organ of the Communist Party of Brazil (July, 1977)
Under the above title the newspaper Zeri i Popul- lit, organ of the Central Committee of, the PLA, publishes the article of the newspaper A Classe Operaria, central organ of the Communist Party of Brazil (July 1977). The article reads:
Four years ago A Classe Operaria published the article "On the Anti-Imperialist Struggle". This article was an affirmation of the resolute stand of the C C of the C P of Brazil in connection with the false role which was being attributed to the so-called third world. This article armed the Brazilian communists with a correct understanding of the problems connected with the anti-imperialist united front and gave them a clear perspective of the struggle for the revolution and the hegemony of the proletariat.
Since that time, life has fully confirmed the assessment made in this article. The Party was not sucked in by the harmful orientation which preached reformist solutions according to the theory of the third world to the dependent countries. Thus ideological confusion in its ranks was avoided.
Today, when the confusing, counter-revolutionary theory of three worlds is taking form and efforts are being made to implant it in the communist movement, the article "On the Anti-Imperialist Struggle" is assuming greater importance and is very valid today for our Party. Although all the problems included in this theory are not dealt with, the arguments which the article presents are opposed in essence to the mistaken theses from which it is formed.
At the present time, the ideological debate is centered on the theory of three worlds, against all aspects of which a consistent struggle must be waged.
We are living at a moment when everyone must take his stand. Just as in the sixties, the question is posed again, whether to accept or reject an orientation which is a fundamental violation of the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism.
THE "DECADENCE" OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM
One of the arguments most in fashion which the partisans of the theory of three worlds are spreading is the hypothetical decadence of American imperial ism. This decadence allegedly determines the possibility that U.S. imperialism can become one of the allies in the struggle against social-imperialism and facilitate the rise of the third world. A ClasseOperaria has opposed this thesis, which is neither new nor original and has always been linked with the "peaceful road", since that time.
The Brazilian comrades long ago recognized its real content. In 1945, basing himself on Browderism, Prestes defended the idea that "imperialism had lost its teeth", and in this way, to some degree, accepted that its nature had changed. According to him, the U.S.A. was no longer able to stop the advance of various countries to democracy. Thus he substantiated the opportunist orientation of the peaceful road which the party was following. It did not take long for it to be shown that this thesis was without foundation. In 1947, Truman went on the offensive, with the aim of establishing world domination, and the feeble democracy in Brazil was wiped out.
Later in 1956, it was Khrushchov who claimed that "imperialism had lost its teeth". Allegedly a profound change had taken place in the ratio of forces in the world, and this would allow the communist and workers' movement to achieve its objectives in a peaceful way. Moreover, with the "decadence" of imperialism, the conditions had allegedly been created for the existence of a world "without arms and with out wars". Such an orientation caused the revolutionary movement great harm and did not respond in the least to the reality.
Now this issue has emerged again on the political scene, decked out in new raiment, but still with the same opportunist character. By talking about the "decadence" of U.S. imperialism, efforts are being made to minimize its aggressive and predatory activity, to present it as less dangerous than its Soviet rival, to justify alliance with it (reliance on one superpower to combat the other). If this theory were taken to its logical conclusion it would be catastrophic for the peoples.
As long ago as in Ms time, Lenin stressed that imperialism is capitalism in its death throes, in decay. Although it continues to develop as a system, it has now reached its peak, and is in its fatal decline. We can speak of the decadence of imperialism in this way, both U.S. imperialism and Soviet imperialism and the others. This shows that the historical conditions are ripe for socialism, that the proletarian revolution has become an objective necessity.
However the decadence about which the partisans of the theory of three worlds are speaking is some thing quite different. According to them, the decadent imperialism is the one which is falling behind its competitor, the one that is in decline in comparison with the positions it occupied earlier in the context of its exploitation of the world. In this case, they say, its nature is not what it was before and it can play a positive role in the struggle against the more powerful forces, and even become a reserve of the revolution. But the very nature of capitalism in its mono poly phase is aggressive, expansionist, and predatory. It will continue to display this character in any circumstances, and will carry it to the grave. It is known that British, French, German and Japanese imperialism have lost their former "brilliance" and that the ambitious post-war plans of U.S. imperial ism are being cut back. Nevertheless, British imperialism coped with Nazi Germany. In the 1950's British imperialism, together with French imperial ism attacked Egypt. In the 50's and 60's the French monopolists waged the war in Indochina and Algeria. German and Japanese imperialism are raising their heads and preparing to secure a "place in the sun".
In regard to U.S. imperialism, it has been the banner-bearer of armed aggressions since World War II.
They have all suffered defeats at the hands of the national liberation movements. Despite this, however, they have not reconciled themselves to defeat, have not become harmless to the peoples, and certainly not their friends. All of them, without exception, are striving for expansion and trying to find neo-colonialist formulas to achieve their ambitions.
U.S. imperialism is the most savage oppressor and exploiter of the peoples, one of the greatest enemies of national freedom and independence. With its use of the atomic bomb in Japan and the horrors of the war in Korea and Viet Nam, it has shown just what it is capable of in its attempts to achieve its aims. The champions of the theory of three worlds say that now it is on the defensive, whereas social-imperialism is on the offensive. But defense does not indicate any change in the war-mongering and exploiting nature of imperialism. On the contrary, frequently it is the form in which to prepare for a future aggression. In any case the question must be asked: who is on the offensive in the Middle East, Latin America and even the Indian Ocean region? Likewise in Spain and Portugal ? Who commands the military union of Western Europe in the framework of NATO? It is clear that it is the U.S.A. despite the contradictions and differences it has with the governments of some of these states. One of the criteria for asses sing the offensive or defensive positions of a given country, in regard to its ambitions for world domination, is its preparations for war. At present the U.S.A. is leading in the armaments race. In total volume, no other country spends so much, no one is so intensively perfecting death-dealing weapons. In deed, Carter is ready to order the serial production of neutron bombs, weapons intended to wipe out people on an unimaginable scale. The Soviet Union, too, is intensifying its armaments industry. It is increasing its war fleet to extraordinary proportions, has built up its stocks of nuclear missiles, and has created new types of devastating offensive weapons
The fact is that U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are competing fiercely for world hegemony and are preparing for a new world bloodbath. Each of them is striving to gain strategic positions.
In a number of zones, the Russians are on the offensive, in others, the Americans. But their plans run up against the struggle of the peoples, who are dealing them continual blows and opposing their plans for domination. Sometimes they are forced to withdraw from the places in which they had been established, but they never abandon their ominous aims.
In trying to justify the "decadence" of U.S. imperialism, the partisans of the theory of three worlds point to the superiority of social-imperialism in all fields. It is true that capitalism develops unevenly, and consequently, that it is possible that the Soviet Union will outstrip the U.S.A. But it cannot be said flatly that the Soviet Union is ahead of the Americans. It must be pointed out that the great development of the Soviet Union comes about as a result of its development in the period when it was a socialist country. Since it became an imperialist country, its foreign debts have increased, it has taken foreign capital to increase its production, its foreign trade has suffered serious upsets with the need to import colossal quantities of grain. It is incontestable that it has tried to expand and has transformed its allies into "satellites", is carrying on an extensive arms trade, and investing capital outside its borders in order to secure maximum profits. But this kind of development is precisely one of the factors leading to the decay of the new system. The U.S.A. has a great ad vantage in the basic branches of the economy and the total volume of gross production, in the financial field and in technology. And it is not lagging behind in the creation of a powerful military arsenal.
The superiority of one imperialist country over the others is a factor for war, because that country seeks to redivide the world to its own advantage, and this can be achieved only by means of force. There is no doubt that the Soviet Union has pretensions to world domination, is following a counter-revolutionary policy of aggression and hegemony. But the U.S.A. is still superior to Soviet social-imperialism.
And even if we accept that the Soviets will manage to surpass the Americans and take the initiative to launch an aggression on a world scale, would they be the only aggressors ? Isn't the U.S.A. trying to establish its hegemony? In defending the positions they have, the imperialist countries (mainly the U.S.A.) are preparing to attack and defeat their rival. In inter-imperialist conflicts, there are no aggressors and victims of aggression, there is no just or unjust cause. The two sides incite aggression, the cause they defend is unjust. In war they are pursuing, with other means, the same expansionist, predatory policy they followed previously.
The Soviet Union, as a social-imperialist power, must not be underestimated, It is a perfidious and savage enemy, one of the main incitors of war. Under the mask of socialism, which it has betrayed, and of Leninism, which it has deemed, it is trying to pave the way to its domination over the peoples. The peoples are faced with the major duty of exposing it and destroying its hegemonic plans. But its opponent in world-wide rivalry, Yankee imperialism, is no less dangerous and no less barbarous. The hatred of the masses of the working people is focused on it. Like wise the struggle of the exploited and oppressed throughout the continents is directed against it.
It would be fatal for the proletariat to rank itself on the side of one or the other war-mongering group, to link itself with one of them. In this case, the two sides are the main enemy. In the time of the inter imperialist war of 1914-1918, Lenin proclaimed the genuine proletarian policy, supporting the decisions taken in Basle against war and its transformation into a war for social liberation. The parties which wanted to find out which was the aggressor and which was the more dangerous in this fight between jackals slipped into chauvinism, betrayed the international cause of the proletariat. If the present-day Marxist-Leninist parties allow themselves to be sucked in by the absurdity that in every war, even in an inter-imperialist war, there is always a main enemy against which the working class must take the side of its rival, they would be making the criminal blunder which led to the defeat of the Second International.
In conclusion, the so-called inferiority and "decadence" of the U.S. A., preached by the theoreticians of the three worlds, serves to lull to sleep the revolutionary consciousness of those exploited by capital, to hitch them to the strategy of one of the two aggressive blocs. Likewise, the so-called aid which Soviet revisionism is giving for national liberation and its alleged desire for the reduction of tension on a world scale, propagated by the servants of the Kremlin, serve to deceive the peoples, to blunt their vigilance, to facilitate its domination over them. To rely on one of the two superpowers, under whatever pretext, to believe in their demagogy about peace, to accept that one of them can join the oppressed to help their liberation, means to commit the gravest blunder, to deviate from the principle of the class struggle, to turn one's back on the revolution and plunge into the filth of opportunism.
THE THIRD WORLD
The so-called third world is introduced as a decisive part of the theory of the three worlds. In the present conditions, it is supposed to be the motive force of social development, the fundamental basis for the defeat of the superpowers, and first and fore most, for the defeat of the Soviet Union, defined as the main and most dangerous enemy. It allegedly represents a growing force, which is scoring victory after victory over imperialism. The countries it includes are allegedly advancing in the construction of an independent and progressive society.
It was a time when this third world, the world of the non-aligned or developing countries -- three definitions, which express the same content -- appeared to be united and achieving considerable successes. This "world" surged ahead in the years 1972-1973. The demand for 200 miles of territorial waters was presented as a determined anti-imperial ist stand (now, the United States, the Soviet Union and France, too, have established the 200 miles limit). The raising of the oil price was hailed as the liberation of countries oppressed by imperialism and, the demand for the evaluation of raw materials of the third world was pointed out as a new road for national liberation. The third world became fashionable. Allende in Chile, Peron in Argentine, Velasco in Peru, Fidel Castro in Cuba -- all considered themselves as belonging to the third world. Indeed, even Geisel fell in love with tliis trend. Precisely at this time certain revolutionary, socialist circles began to sing praises to the third world and consider themselves as an integral part of it, obscuring the distinctions in principle between socialism and capitalism.
Our Party never accepted this astonishing classification, or this tattered rag of the anti-imperialist united world front. As early as 1973 it revealed the incoherence and opportunist character implicit in it. "The prospect of a third position which some trends are giving the anti-imperialist movement is false, both theoretically and politically", stressed the article in A Classe Operaria.
Now, whether its apologists like it or not, the concept of the third world is in crisis. The so-called independence of the majority of these countries was nothing but a passing illusion. Changes have taken place in almost all of them, which have put an end to the alleged anti-imperialism of their governments. They have become still more dependent on international finance capital (including that of the Soviet Union). According to figures published recently by the UN Conference on Trade and Development, on the basis of the figures released by the World Bank, the foreign debts of these countries in 1974 were 80 billion dollars, whereas now they have reached 240 billion dollars. This is a heavy burden which has turned these countries into vassals of the big powers. At the same time, they are taking part in the armaments race. Never before have they bought so many modern weapons which bind them to the imperialist suppliers from the technical and military stand points. The military coups or phoney elections have destroyed what was left of the democratic freedoms and have established ultra-reactionary and fascist systems. Their unity has been smashed. Annexationist tendencies emerged in some of them and b bloody clashes burst out in many regions. India, Indonesia, Syria, Iran and others subjugated their neighbors by means of force or are organizing campaigns for such aims. Brazil subjugated the neighboring countries to its own interests and is threatening Guayana. Peru and Chile are arming them selves and threatening each other. Guatemala seeks to annex Belize. Territorial conflicts in Africa are becoming more acute. Apart from the ominous aims of the ruling classes of these countries, there are the maneuvers of imperialism, which is trying to exploit the conflicts and quarrels to strengthen its own positions. The much trumpeted development of the productive forces in the backward countries is a dependent development, subordinated to foreign capital, totally in opposition to the interests of these nations.
And it could not be otherwise, because those who consider themselves of the third world, are the ruling classes in the semi-colonial and dependent countries, and the governments which represent them. In general, these classes are reactionary because they have always been linked, in one way or another, with imperialism which they have never intended to destroy. They are guards protecting old structures. Threatened by the difficulties and under the great pressure of the revolutionaries to demand certain advantage which they propose, whether an economic or political character, are interwoven with the "goodwill" and "aid" of the developed countries, that is, of the big monopolies. As they themselves say, they want to strike bargains with imperialism. They do not represent the genuine democratic and anti-imperialist movement which is undoubtedly growing in almost all zones of the world. On the contrary, this movement, which gathers in its ranks the majority of every nation, is resolutely fighting such classes and governments, traitors to the national interests.
Thus, how can it be said that these reactionary forces are the motor of social development? How can it be accepted, without making gross opportunist deviation, that this heterogenous conglomeration linked with the monopolies, represents the bastion of the struggle against the superpowers and for liberation from the yoke of imperialism? The Albanian comrades are completely correct when they stress that "to speak in general terms about "third world" as the main force of against imperialism and the revolution, as supporters of the theory of the "three worlds" are doing, without making any distinction between the genuine anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces; and the pro- imperialist, reactionary and fascist forces in power in a number of the developing countries means a flagrant departure from the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and to preach typically opportunist views, causing confusion and disorganization among the revolutionary forces".
It is a deception to call on the peoples to close their ranks around the third world, that is around reactionary forces of the under developed countries. In this way they will never achieve the solution of their fundamental problems, shake off the yoke of oppression and defeat their sworn enemies.
The partisans of the third world are deviating from the revolution, they do not want it and do not fight for it, because the revolution -- an objective necessity for national and social liberation -- is directed be against the external enemy, and against the reactionary and fascist governments of semi-colonial and dependent countries. The partisans of the third world formulated the thesis that the fundamental task of those countries is to ensure their economic independence, because allegedly they have their political independence. This thesis, with a reformist content, corresponds to the aspirations of the reactionary bourgeoisie. By mechanically separating economic independence from political independence they deny the necessity for the revolution, subordinate the struggle of the people to the leadership of the bourgeoisie which is allegedly fighting for economic independence, when in fact it is opening the doors of the country to foreign capital and making enslaving agreements with imperialism. There is no doubt that the winning of genuine political independence is the fundamental premise for ensuring economic independence. Without the former, the latter cannot be won. Precisely for this reason it is necessary to carry out the revolution, because none, or almost none, of the countries of the so-called third world enjoys real national independence. In one way or the other they have been trapped in the web of imperialist domination, are suffering under the oppressive yoke of the foreign monopolies and still have a backward agricultural structure. In general, their governments are anti-popular. The peoples of the oppressed nations "can put an end to imperialist oppression and exploitation", stressed the article of A Classe Operaria in July 1973, "only by following the road of the revolution. This must smash the main obstacles to national progress and independence, must overthrow the power of the reactionary forces, isolate the conciliatory forces, liquidate the bureaucratic apparatus, ensure extensive freedoms for the masses and create the people's armed forces." It also stressed that this task requires the leadership of the proletariat and an appropriate socialist perspective.
It is not correct to speak of an upsurge of the so- called third world. The true democratic and anti imperialist movement is on the rise. It is developing on almost all the continents, coping with the most brutal reaction of the reactionary ruling classes of those countries. This movement, and not the third world, must be considered as a support basis and ally of the world revolution, as one of the pillars on which the strategy of the international proletariat is based. It is a fraud to confuse this movement with the reactionary governments. This means to deny the principle of the class struggle, to plunge into the filth of reformism, of narrow and anti-progressive nationalism, it means to assist to maintain the capitalist system on a world scale, which is in its final phase and in the toils of its general crisis.
THE SECOND WORLD --AN OPPORTUNIST INVENTION
In the strategic scheme of the theory of three worlds there is a so-called second world, which is presented as a victim of the plunder and oppression by U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. Allegedly it is threatened by the imminent Russian domination and opposes the growing pressure of the USA Its members are supposed to be imperialist countries of Europe and Asia, as well as Canada, Australia and the European satellites of the Soviet Union. They allegedly have common demands which bring them into rapport with the dependent countries of the third world, which they can help and unite with in the struggle against the superpowers.
In fact, this second world is an opportunist invention. Although social-imperialist threats and U.S. pressures exist, the countries of Western Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia are allies of the U.S.A. and not of the dependent countries. The other bloc of Eastern Europe, despite the latent discontent, is the ally of the Soviet Union. Although elbowed out from their old domains as a result of the revolutionary movement, the European countries and Japan remain plunderers and exploiters of peoples as always. Their predatory and war-mongering nature has not changed. All of them employ neo-colonialist forms in their relations with the backward countries, keep close to the reactionary ruling classes of the oppressed nations with the aim of establishing the necessary connections for economic penetration and the strengthening of their political influence.
The aid of the second world for the third world is a fraud. For instance, to regard the nuclear agreement between Federal Germany and the Brazilian dictatorship as aid for the efforts of our people to ensure their true independence, would show a total lack of revolutionary spirit. This agreement, which is thoroughly harmful to the fundamental interests of Brazil, and which is opposed by the broad patriotic forces, is a profitable deal for the German monopolies, a means which will enable them to get their hands on the reserves of uranium in our country, and in particular, will assist in the nuclear arming of Germany. It will also serve the Brazilian military regime to produce atomic weapons intended to threaten the neighboring peoples and satisfy the megalomanian great power ambitions of the fascist generals.
Federal Germany is now one of the biggest investors in Brazil, second only to the U.S. A. The aim of its investments is not in the least different from that of American monopolies. It is mercilessly exploiting the Brazilian workers and people, drawing fabulous profits from their sweat and blood and the plunder of natural assets. Can it be said that the German monopolists act differently in other countries? They act in the same way everywhere.
The countries of the so-called second world not only invest capital, plunder the raw materials, provide high interest loans, and technical aid under heavy conditions, but also strive to secure key positions in the home markets of the undeveloped countries. They are acting more and more openly in the political field, too, trying to strengthen their influence there.
It is well known that Federal Germany, jointly with the United States of America or for its own account, is carrying out intensive activity in this direction, in an effort to curb the political processes which are undesirable for imperialism. In Portugal and Spain it financed and provided political support for the so- called moderate circles of those countries, with the objective of closing the road to the advance of the left. In Latin America it is trying to organize the social-democratic (or Christian Democrat) movement as a counterweight against the revolutionary forces after the fall of the dictatorships. France, which still has colonies, is intensifying its activity in Africa, trying to rally around the metropolis the countries which were under its domination in the past. It is selling them modern arms, accompanied with French technicians and advisors. It is also taking part in military actions, as in the case of Chad and Zaire. Britain, which is perpetrating aggression against the people of Ireland and undertakes acts of war against Iceland, is still rallying around itself the old colonies of the British Commonwealth. Although they have lost their so-called colonial majesty, the imperialist countries of Europe and Asia are still monopolist and colonialist. The financial income which is drawn from capital invested abroad, from their unequal trade with the undeveloped countries, the sale of arms, from the interest on usurous loans, etc., still represent a considerable part of their national incomes, that is, a part of the total volume of capitalist profits. They are enemies of the revolution, and the freedom and independence of the oppressed peoples. There are contradictions between them just as there are contradictions between them and American imperialism and Russian social-imperialism, which are inevitable contradictions between the exploiters, between wild beasts from the same pack.
The so-called unity of this "world" with what is called the third world, does not serve the policy of national liberation, but serves the alliance of the imperialist countries of Europe and Asia with the reactionary ruling classes of the oppressed nations.
It assists them to regain the positions they have lost and to intensify their plunder. This harmful orientation deceives the peoples with a false perspective, and creates confusion in the democratic and anti-imperialist movement. It is only natural that the contradictions in the imperialist camp can and should be skillfully exploited when the possibilities exist, but never by accepting that the enemy can be transformed into a friend because we have aims identical with his, and creating the illusion that he is ready to liquidate the system which belongs to him and which he is defending tooth and nail.
THE TIME HAS COME TO DEFINE ONE'S STAND
The theory of the three worlds is openly opposed to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine. The roads which they point to are different. The one leads to revolution (for national and social liberation), while the other, to the maintenance of the capitalist-imperialist system. One road favors the struggle for the hegemony of the proletariat, while the other binds the working class and the progressive forces to the bandwagon of the bourgeoisie. One road aids in strengthening the communist parties, in order to awaken and unite the broad masses of the exploited and oppressed, while the other divides the parties of the vanguard forces, merges the revolutionary struggle in a front dominated by reactionary trends. One enhances the political consciousness and fighting spirit of the working people and the masses of the people, while the other reduces the class consciousness of the proletariat.
The revolution is the main objective of the working class, it is the inevitable trend of our epoch. As far back as 1848, with "The Communist Manifesto" of Marx and Engels, the proletariat raised high its independent banner of the struggle against the bourgeoisie. This was not merely a formal proclamation. That same year, it attempted to attain its socialist objectives in France and again threw itself into the attack in the heroic and ever relevant Paris Commune in 1871. It triumphed in old Russia in 1917. Likewise it attempted to seize power in Hungary and Germany after the First World War. Later, it triumphed in a number of countries of Europe and Asia. Because of the revisionist betrayal, it suffered a setback, but it stood gloriously in Albania and China. Whatever the zig zags of history, the future belongs to it. And for this reason it publicly proclaims its revolutionary objectives and never, under any pretext, conceals its socialist aims because they are the beacon that illuminates its consciousness and the road to victory.
On various occasions, attempts have been made to divert the proletariat from this correct course. The ideals in connection with the transformation of the world have been deliberately distorted. Thus the time came to take decisions and these decisions, divided the revolutionaries from the opportunists.
Now, too, the communist and workers' movement is living through a decisive moment. Either to continue to forge ahead on the road opened by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, despite the very great difficulties which emerged for it, or to enter a deceptive blind alley, by accepting theories which have nothing proletarian about them.
The time has come to define one's stand. These are moments in which the ideological and political structure of every party, every leader, every vanguard militant is revealed. He who does not take a stand, in reality takes inconsistent, vacillating stands, devoid of any spirit of determination. The theory of three worlds is no ordinary theory, towards which one can adopt a neutral stand. It lays down the guidelines, it is an entire concept that claims to be the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary proletariat and cause for organization of the forces to put it into practice. A resolute struggle must be waged against it. Only struggle will help the honest elements who have been misled to correct their mistakes. The Communist Party of Brazil will firmly adhere to the attitude it adopted in 1962 when it broke with revisionism, when it upheld the ideals of the revolution and took its place beside those who were defending Marxism-Leninism. It expresses its opposition to the theory of three worlds, to the strategy and tactics which stem from it, to creation of sham Marxist- Leninist parties to give it support Four years ago, and indeed even earlier, in the article "On the Anti-Imperialist Struggle", it opposed the opportunist attempts to abandon the common course laid down after the exposure of Khrushchov and his flunkeys. And it will continue to march forward on the same road.
Unity is a great thing. We will defend the unity of the revolutionary movement but on the basis of principles. We hail the courageous and unwavering stand of the Party of Labor of Albania and the other sister parties which have come out openly in defense of Marxism-Leninism, against the new opportunist trend on a world scale. These are consistent stands of historic importance, which clearly show the vitality and invincibility of the doctrine and ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, of the proletarian revolutionaries of the present-day, Marxism-Leninism will triumph throughout the world. Although the proletarian revolution has now suffered a number of setbacks, owing to the treachery of revisionists, the factors which condition this revolution continue to develop intensively and in colossal proportions. The day will come when mankind will make a new, powerful leap forward towards socialism and communism. End.
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