Speech by a representative of the COUSML to the 4th Consultative Conference of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), May 16, 1976.
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Comrades: We are extremely honored and happy to be able to participate in this very vigorous Fourth Consultative Conference with you, to be able to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution together and to be able to address this body.
As Comrades Marx and Engels have pointed out, ever since the modern proletariat has come onto the historical stage, a specter has haunted the capitalist world – the specter of communism. In Marx’s time, all the reactionary powers of Europe entered into a Holy Alliance to try to exorcise this “demon”, but to no avail. In recent years, since the middle of the 1960’s the bourgeoisie of the imperialist and social-imperialist countries have been haunted by a new form ot that same specter. This new form is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a continuation and development of the proletarian struggle along the path first opened up by Comrades Marx and Engels. Many of the comrades here were first aroused to participate consciously in the class struggle during the revolutionary storms of the 1960’s and can remember well how it was that Chairman Mao’s China, the revolutionary masses of China, held up the beacon of rebellion and revolution, raised high the bright red banner of Mao Tsetung Thought, disseminated the Red Book of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung by the millions, in China and throughout the world, and gloriously marched toward on the road of the proletarian revolution. Comrades can recall how the international bourgeoisie fumed and raved and cursed at the Great Cultural Revolution in China and made threat after threat against it and against those who followed its banner, and, where it could, attacked them violently. But far from killing this specter of communism, the frenzied ravings of the bourgeoisie only still further convinced the people of the world that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is their revolution and Mao Tsetung Thought is the ir great weapon against reactionaries, that China’s path is their path and China’s Chairman is their Chairman too. Today, as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution continues and deepens in the present struggle against the capitalist-roaders in China, Chairman Mao’s banner is becoming ever more the fighting banner of the world’s people.
Today is May 16. May 16 marks the tenth anniversary of the historic May 16, 1966 Circular of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party drawn up under the personal guidance of Chairman Mao Tsetung. This great historic document laid down the theory, line, principles and policies of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and constituted its great program. It was with its publication that the full-scale opening of the Cultural Revolution, guided by Chairman Mao took place, the great salvo of the proletarian revolutionaries was fired and the Cultural Revolution broke out. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which opened with the May 16 Circular, was an important sign that Marxism-Leninism had developed to an entirely new stage, that of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
What is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and why are cultural revolutions necessary?
Chairman Mao has stated: “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is in essence a great political revolution carried out by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes. It is a continuation of the prolonged struggle waged by the Chinese Communist Party and the masses of the revolutionary people under its leadership against the Kuomintang reactionaries, a continuation of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.” He also stated that: “The current Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is absolutely necessary and most timely for consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, preventing capitalist restoration and building socialism.”
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is the continuing of the revolution of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The immediate aim of the Cultural Revolution is to defend and strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is part of the long-term struggle of the Chinese proletariat to wipe out the bourgeoisie together with all the soil for its regeneration once and for all in order to create the conditions for the complete elimination of classes and the creation of a classless, communist society. In the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which is continuing and deepening today, the Chinese people, led by Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China, have shattered the bourgeois headquarters of the revisionist renegades Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao and smashed their attempt to restore capitalism, have ousted the unrepentant capitalist-roader Teng Hsiao-ping and are counter-attacking heroically against the right deviationist attempt by the capitalist-roaders to reverse the correct verdicts of the Cultural Revolution in order to defeat their attempts to restore capitalism.
Why are cultural revolutions necessary? Chairman Mao has frequently pointed out the basic thesis incorporated into the Constitution of the Communist Party of China that: “Socialist society covers a considerably long historical period. Throughout this historical period, there are classes, class contradictions and class struggle, there is the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, there is the danger of capitalist restoration and there is the threat of subversion and aggression by imperialism and social-imperialism. These contradictions can be resolved only by depending on the theory of continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and on practice under its guidance.”
This was clearly illustrated by the example of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was the land of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the land of the Communist Party of Lenin and Stalin. But after Stalin’s death a clique of revisionists led first by Khrushchov and now by Kosygin and Brezhnev staged a counterrevolutionary coup d’etat and restored capitalism. To hide his crimes, Khrushchov advocated the theory of the “dying out of class struggle”, claiming that there were no longer hostile classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union, and hence the dictatorship of the proletariat should be packed up and be replaced by “the stateof the whole people”, while the Communist Party would become “the party of the entire people”. Under the signboard of these revisionist theories of class peace, Khrushchov in fact waged a most intense class struggle against the Soviet workers and peasants in the interests of a new-type bureaucrat monopoly capitalist class. Chairman Mao cut to the core of the matter by pointing out: “The rise to power of revisionism means the rise to power of the bourgeoisie” and “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.” thus the Soviet Union became a dark, fascist social-imperialist state which is contending with U.S. imperialism for world hegemony and is making all-out preparations for an aggressive world war. This restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union was a big set-back for the world working class movement but it was a valuable lesson by negative example. Chairman Mao paid close attention to the historical experience of the Soviet Union. He pointed out that this experience proves that classes and class struggle continue to exist in the entire period of socialism and that the possibility of capitalist restoration also continues to exist. He pointed out that ”Lenin said that ’small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously and on a mass scale’. They are also engendered among a part of the working class and of the Party membership. Both within the ranks of the proletariat and among the personnel of state and other organs there are people who take to the bourgeois style of life.” Chairman Mao solved the theoretical and practical questions of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and preventing such a restoration of capitalism.
In China, too, a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists, led at first by China’s Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi, infiltrated the Party on behalf of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes and seized portions of political power away from the proletariat. These people in power taking the capitalist road sought to corrode the Party from within. The bourgeoisie particularly used its traditional domain, the cultural superstructure, to create public opinion for capitalist restoration. Chairman Mao has pointed out: “To overthrow a political power, it is always necessary first of all to create public opinion, to do work in the ideological sphere. This is true for the revolutionary class as well as for the counter-revolutionary class.” Although the bourgeoisie was overthrown, it was still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds and endeavor to stage a come-back. Class struggle still exists under socialism and becomes very acute at times. Thus the proletariat must exercise dictatorship in the superstructure, including all fields of culture, art, education, press, health, etc. As Chairman Mao teaches, “The working class must exercise leadership in everything.” The socialist transformation on the economic front (the ownership of the means of production) is thus insufficient by itself and cannot be consolidated by itself. There must also be a thorough socialist revolution on the political and ideological fronts. This shows the necessity of waging cultural revolutions.
Chairman Mao always attached major importance to the struggle on the ideological front. He criticized those departments of literature and art controlled by China’s Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi, as “still dominated by the dead” and said of the Ministry of Culture, “If it refuses to change, it should be renamed the Ministry of Emperors, Kings, Generals and Ministers, the Ministry of Talents and Beauties or the Ministry of Foreign Mummies” while the Ministry of Health should be renamed “Ministry of Health for Urban Overlords.” With regard to the field of education, Chairman Mao pointed out: “The domination of our schools and colleges by bourgeois intellectuals should not be tolerated any longer.”
Armed with these instructions and Chairman Mao’s teachings on class struggle under the dictator ship of the proletariat, the Chinese revolutionary masses plunged into an unprecedentedly profound revolutionary struggle. Using the method of mass democratic debates, the Chinese masses denounced, criticized, overthrew and repudiated the representatives of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie who had infiltrated the Party and state, shattered Liu Shao-chi’s bourgeois headquarters and smashed his attempts to restore capitalism. Chairman Mao himself personally initiated and guided the revolutionary mass struggles, issuing the big-character poster “Bombard the Headquarters”. He personally encouraged the revolutionary initiative of the masses, receiving six million Red Guards in massive rallies at Tien An Men Square. He gave them his blessings with the inspiring call: “It is right to rebel against reactionaries” and “Serve the people”. In February 1967, in the midst of the Cultural Revolution Chairman Mao pointed out that “ln the past we waged struggles in rural areas, in factories, in the cultural field, and we carried out the socialist education movement. But all this failed to solve the problem because we did not find a form, a method, to arouse the broad masses to expose our dark aspect openly in an all-round way and from below.” The Political Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 1969, drawn up under Chairman Mao’s personal guidance, pointed out: “Now we have found this form – it is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It is only by arousing the masses in their hundreds of millions to air their views freely, write big character posters and hold great debates that the renegades, enemy agents and capitalist-roaders in power who have wormed their way into the Party can be exposed and their plots to restore capitalism smashed.” Chairman Mao has pointed out: “Never before in any mass movement have the masses been aroused so thoroughly and on so broad a scale.”
In addition to overthrowing the bourgeois headquarters of Liu-Shao-chi, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution criticized and repudiated a whole series of bankrupt ideological and political lines promoted by the capitalist-roaders in order to prepare public opinion for capitalist restoration. In doing so, the Cultural Revolution vigorously prepared public opinion against capitalist restoration and in favor of deepening the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. It repudiated the revisionist theory of the “dying out of class struggle” promoted by Liu Shao-chi and by Lin Piao and Teng Hsiao-ping after him. Chairman Mao’s analysis and the practice of the Cultural Revolution deeply educated the Chinese people to the fact that the bourgeoisie continually spouts the fallacy that class struggle has “died out” and that this is only a smokescreen from which the bourgeoisie launches the most vicious class struggle against the proletariat in order to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship and restore the lost “paradise” for the bourgeoisie and misery for the toiling masses. The Cultural Revolution also forcefully repudiated the bourgeois revisionist “theory of the productive forces” trumpeted by the capitalist-roaders. This theory claimed that it is not class struggle by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, in order to perfect the socialist relations of production and bring them more fully into harmony with the socialist economic base, which moves socialist society forward. Instead it claims that the development of production and the productive forces should be put in command and class struggle be forgotten. Again, this is a smokescreen for the bourgeoisie to wage class struggle against the proletariat and overthrow it. The theory of productive forces is the theory that production should be in command of revolution. Chairman Mao incisively criticized this theory and put forward the guideline “Grasp revolution, promote production” which correctly sets forth the relationship between revolution and production, pointing out that it is revolution and the change of the productive relations which liberates the productive forces and leads to the development of production. Whether revolution is in command of production or production is in command of revolution is a matter of class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat. Putting revolution in command necessarily means putting the proletariat in command of everything and suppression of the capitalist-roaders. Putting production in command is to put the bourgeoisie in command of the proletariat and this means restoration of capitalism. In fact, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution led to a tremendous growth of China’s production, far outstripping anything the capitalist-roaders are capable of, thus proving that only by grasping revolution can production be really promoted. The Cultural Revolution also exposed and repudiated Liu Shao-chi’s theory of self-cultivation, which advocated detaching Marxism-Lenin ism-Mao Tsetung Thought and its study from solving the actual problems of Chinese and world revolution and those of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and instead turning study into a tool for the promotion of detached bourgeois experts, overlords who suppressed the masses and deprived them of Marxism as a living guide to action.
At the same time as it led to mass repudiation of many bourgeois and revisionist fallacies, the Cultural Revolution brought into being many vigorous, healthy socialist new things. These included the direct supervision and dictatorship by the working class over all fields of culture, education, science, technology, etc., domains held sacred by the bourgeoisie which considers that the supposedly ignorant workers cannot handle these matters. The crux of the matter is political line, whether or not the cultural superstructure serves proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship or is used instead as a base area for the bourgeoisie to attack the proletariat. Armed with Mao Tsetung Thought, the workers marched into the universities, criticized and repudiated and overthrew the bourgeois experts and struggled to turn the schools into instruments of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Many other socialist new things emerged in the course of the Cultural Revolution, including large scale cadre participation in collective labour, the re-settling of educated youth in the countryside, and many others.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was personally initiated and led by Chairman Mao. In leading it, Chairman Mao solved a whole series of crucial questions facing the international communist movement. As the Chinese article “A Great Historic Document”, published in 1967, says in discussing the May 16 Circular. “Are there still classes and class struggle in a socialist society, particularly after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production has in the main been accomplished? Do all the class struggles in society still center around the question of the fight over political power? Under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, do we still have to make revolution? Against whom should we make revolution? And how should we carry out the revolution? Marx and En gels could not possibly solve this series of major theoretical problems in their time. Lenin saw that after the proletariat seized power the defeated bourgeoisie remained stronger than the proletariat and was always trying to stage a comeback. At the same time, small production continuously engendered capitalism and the bourgeoisie anew, thus posing a threat to the dictatorship of the proletariat. In order to cope with this counter-revolutionary threat and overcome it, it was therefore necessary to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat in practice over a long period of time. There was no other way. However, Lenin died before he could solve these problems in practice. Stalin was a great Marxist-Leninist who actually cleared out a large number of counter-revolutionary representatives of the bourgeoisie who had sneaked into the Party, including Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Bukharin, Rykov and their like. But where he failed was in not recognizing on the level of theory, that classes and class struggle exist in society throughout the historical period of the dictatorship of the proletariat and that the question of who will win in the revolution has yet to be finally settled; in other words, if all this is not handled properly there is the possibility of a comeback by the bourgeoisie. The year before he died, Stalin became aware of this point and stated that contradictions do exist in socialist society and if not properly handled might turn into antagonistic ones. Comrade Mao Tsetung has given full attention to the whole historical experience of the Soviet Union. He has correctly solved this series of problems in a whole number of important writings and instructions, in this great historic document (the May 16, 1966 Circular - ed.) and in the most significant practice of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution personally initiated and led by him. This is a most important sign indicating that Marxism has developed to an entirely new stage. In the early years of the twentieth century, Marxism developed into the stage of Leninism. In the present era, it has developed further into the stage of Mao Tsetung Thought.
The lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution are of universal significance. A fresh wave swept through the international communist movement, giving rise to new Marxist-Leninist parties and anti-revisionist centers in many countries. In India, Comrade Charu Mazumdar, martyred leader of the Communist Party of lndia(Marxist-Leninist) and organizer of the Naxalbari uprising, pointed out: “Naxalbari represented the first ever application of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India”. In the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army were re-established on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. And in many other countries the communist movement surged forward. North America was no exception. In Canada the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) was founded at the call of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In the U.S., the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), a predecessor of COUSML, was founded as the first national center for the dissemination of Mao Tsetung Thought. The imperialist cultural counter-revolution of the 60’s, used to undermine the youth and student movement, also gave particular urgency to the study of the lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Thus the victories of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which were summed up at the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, had great significance both for China and for the entire international communist movement. But Chairman Mao had already pointed out that the issue of who will win in the revolution can only be settled over a long historical period. Not one or two, or even three or four cultural revolutions will suffice to settle everything. As Chairman Mao teaches: ’The present Great Cultural Revolution is only the first; and there will inevitably be many more in the future. The issue of who will win in the revolution can only be settled over a long historical period. If things are not properly handled, it is possible for a capitalist restoration to take place at any time. It should not be thought by any Party member or any one of the people in our country that everything will be all right after one or two Great Cultural Revolutions, or three or four. We must be very much on the alert and never lose our vigilance”. Thus the class struggle in China did not stop with the defeat of China’s Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi. Soon Lin Piao, the ultra-rightist and superspy for Soviet social-imperialism, jumped out for a trial of strength with the proletariat. Lin Piao regarded the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as “ultra-left” and cursed the socialist new things that had come into being. The Lin Piao anti-Party clique slandered intellectuals integrating themselves with the workers and peasants and going to the countryside as “reform through forced labor in a disguised form”, slandered the communist spirit displayed by the working class in criticizing the revisionist “material incentives” as “exploitation in a disguised form” and slandered office cadre going to May 7 Cadre Schools as “unemployment in a disguised form.” Lin Piao was rabid about these things because they blocked his ambitions to restore capitalism in China and set up a fascist Lin dynasty ruling China in the interests of the New Tsars of Russia. The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China summed up the great victory of the Chinese people in smashing the Lin Piao anti-Party clique.
Today, on the tenth anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a profound revolutionary mass movement is stirring all across China, a movement to defeat the right deviationist wind of the capitalist-roaders and denounce the arch-unrepentant capitalist-roader, Teng Hsiao-ping. Teng Hsiao-ping had worked in collaboration with China’s Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi, in pushing a counter-revolutionary revisionist line. Criticized during the Cultural Revolution, he claimed to express his willingness to mend his ways and declared that he would “never reverse the verdict”. Yet once back in a position to wield some power, he again practiced a counter-revolutionary revisionist line negating class struggle in words while waging bitter class struggle in deeds against the proletariat to try and overthrow it. The right deviationist wind fanned up by him seeks to reverse the correct verdicts passed by the masses in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and to negate the Cultural Revolution itself. The capitalist-roaders represented by Teng Hsiao-ping are out to restore capitalism in China. The counter-revolutionary incident staged by them on April 5 of this year is a further illustration of the profound nature of class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The smashing of the counter-revolutionary elements who staged the incident by the might of the proletarian dictatorship, by the workers’ militia, caused great consternation to the bourgeoisie in China and abroad. The sorrow shown by the Soviet revisionists upon the dismissal of Teng Hsiao-ping from all posts inside and outside the Party is eloquent testimony concerning whose class interests the right deviationist wind serves! Chairman Mao has penetrated to the essence of the matter and, defending and developing Marxism, has pointed out “With the socialist revolution they themselves come under fire. At the time of the co-operative transformation of agriculture there were people in the Party who opposed it, when it comes to criticizing bourgeois right, they resent it. You are making the socialist revolution, and yet don’t know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party – those in power taking the capitalist road. The capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road.”
The struggle against the right deviationist wind in China is a continuation and deepening of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It is of great significance internationally and to the U.S. Opportunism is international and the revisionists, hidden and open, corroding the American people’s revolutionary movement from within, are sympathizers with the right deviationist wind in China.
We U.S. Marxist-Leninists are also sons and daughters of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, nurtured on Mao Tsetung Thought, the Marxism-Leninism of our era. In the U.S. too it is necessary to staunchly oppose revisionism and beat back the right deviationist wind trying to corrode the American Marxist-Leninist movement from within. We vigorously denounce the revisionists in the U.S., both hidden and open, who are trying to reverse the verdict of the international communist movement against Soviet revisionist social-imperialism, portraying its fascist aggression in Angola as “socialist aid”. We also denounce those other American right deviationist elements, who are also American Liu Shao-chi’s, Lin Piao’s and Teng Hsiao-ping’s who have all along opposed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, who have sought to reverse the verdicts of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution by describing it as “ultra-left” and by describing the revisionist renegade Lin Piao, aptly and correctly denounced in the Report to the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China as an “ultra-rightist” and a “superspy” for Soviet social-imperialism, as “ultra-left”. In allying themselves with the capitalist-roaders in China, these bad eggs are not only trying to assist them in restoring capitalism there but are also trying to prevent proletarian revolution in the U.S. and preserve the rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, since revolution in the U.S cannot be led to victory unless the Marxist-Leninists build a Party which firmly adheres to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and applies the lessons of the Great Proletarian CuItural Revolution to defeating revisionism.
All these revisionists have directed the spearhead of their attack at Chairman Mao and the universally applicable theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. They have tried their best to prevent the American workers, oppressed nationalities and other progressive people from hearing Chairman Mao’s important statements and instructions and have concocted the theory that “Peking Review is not suitable for American workers” and “Mao Tsetung Thought is not applicable to American conditions”. These revisionists are seeking to undo the gains of the past period – the recognition by the revolutionary activists from the mass movement that only Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought can be the foundation of the proletarian party and lead the American revolution to victory.
Let us take a longer look at the positions of some of these American Lin Piao’s and Teng Hsiao-ping’s. Take for example the court jester of international opportunism, the “independent radical newsweekly”, the Guardian. This paper claims to be “among China’s foremost supporters”. This statement, however, merely omits a few keywords, since the paper is actually among the foremost supporters of capitalist restoration in China, to say nothing of its support for Soviet social-imperialist aggression throughout the world.
When the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution first broke out, The Guardian slandered it and mostly ignored it. At this time, the questions of fundamental orientation for the U.S. revolutionary movement were under debate. Everyone was asking what path the revolutionary activists should take. It was Mao Tsetung Thought that showed the path forward and millions of copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung were being distributed in the U.S. The Guardian opposed Mao Tsetung Thought at this critical juncture. This so-called independent paper which calls the Marxist-Leninists “flunkies”, itself became the flunkey of a flunkey and promoted Castroism.
The following quote from an article of the present Executive Editor, Irwin Silber, of the Guardian written in 1968 clearly exposes the relationship of the Guardian’s opposition to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and its American great-power chauvinism: “It has become almost fashionable on the left in recent years to dismiss the Chinese revolution. We know that ping-pong matches aren’t won by reading the appropriate passages from The Thoughts of Chairman Mao. Certainly, based on the little we know of the cultural revolution in China, there seems to be a senseless deification of Chairman Mao and an attack on the individuality of the human being, which is a violation of our western and our own revolutionary sensibilities. (Yes, I think our revolution will be western, when it comes.)” This passage is sheer anti-communist garbage, written in the typically vulgar fashion of the Guardian and other opportunists. It shows the utter shameless rejection of Mao Tsetung Thought in favour of Khrushchovite revisionism with its idle chatter about the “cult of the individual” or “senseless deification of Chairman Mao”. It trumpets the fascist line that communism is an “attack on the individuality of the human being” and positively revels in “western” chauvinism. Mainly, however, the Guardian ignored the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, while writing dozens of articles about Castroism. In 1970 Irwin Silber wrote his book on Cultural Revolution; this book is all about the Woodstock rock festival and the bourgeois cultural counterrevolution and never mentions the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution at all.
With the admission of China to the UN, the Guardian decided that China was no longer “isolated”. Further, and more important, the defenders of Mao Tsetung Thought in the U.S. at the time, the ACWM(M-L), were making rapid headway and were putting the Guardian and other revisionists in a difficult position. The Guardian therefore changed its tactics and adopted the line of Lin Piao of “waving Chairman Mao’s flag to strike at Chairman Mao’s forces”. The Guardian began to present itself as the great defender of China, particularly against those nasty ultra-leftists and “maoists” like ACWM(M-L). On May 12, 1971, the social-imperialist agent Wilfred Burchett wrote in the Guardian that “It is probably difficult for the outside world to grasp that the ’Maoists’ as they are called abroad, were a major problem here at the height of China’s cultural revolution. “Officially designated today as ’ultra-leftists’, the ’Maoists’ acted as if violence itself was the supreme expression of the ’thoughts of Chairman Mao’.”
This article was entitled “Mao’s Problems with Maoists” and paraded as the Guardian’s general line about the Cultural Revolution. Besides giving Lin Piao’s line of slandering the Cultural Revolution as “ultra-left”, Burchett’s article was designed to attack all the forces of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in North America led by ACWM (M-L) and CPC(M-L). The article stated: “In discussions with Chinese officials on the analogy with some Maoist groups abroad, a frequent dry reaction was that perhaps they should get down to studying the ’thoughts of Chairman Mao’ instead of just pinning on Mao badges.” This was really only a transparent ruse to attack Mao Tsetung Thought itself and in this article the phrase ’thoughts of Mao Tsetung’ is always put in quotes to make it more ironical. Burchett’s view of Mao Tsetung Thought is expressed in another article on May 19 where he states: “To convey his ideas, Mao has fused Marxist dialectics with classical Chinese Confucian concepts of austerity, probity, social responsibility and patriotism.” According to the Guardian, Chairman Mao is a Chinese Ronald Reagan, and “Maoists” are fascists and Confucianists. Thus the Guardian promoted Confucianism under the cover of supporting Chairman Mao. In 1973 the Guardian continued this path in its anti-China pamphlet Unite the Many, Defeat the Few, written by Jack Smith, its present Managing Editor. There the Guardian approvingly quotes none other than China’s Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi, to prove that Mao Tsetung Thought is “Asiatic Marxism-Leninism”. The Guardian quotes Liu Shao-chi as saying “Mao Tsetung’s great accomplishment has been to change Marxism-Leninism from a European to an Asiatic form.” Naturally so-called Asiatic Marxism-Lenin ism could be of no particular value to the U.S., except to promote the revisionist theory of “polycentrism”.
At the same time that the Guardian promoted Lin Piao’s view that the Cultural Revolution was “ultra-left”, other American Lin Piao’s arose. Some claimed that while revisionism was the main danger internationally, “ultra-leftism” was the main danger in the U.S., and in Canada too for that matter, and in India, etc. etc., in fact, everywhere that the Marxist-Leninists were getting organized. These American Lin Piao’s and Liu Shao-chi’s propagated the theory that Lin Piao was “ultra-left” in order to strike at the followers of Marxism-Leninism Mao Tsetung Thought in the U.S., the ACWM (M-L), under the cover of supposed loyalty to China.
The Tenth National Congress summed up the struggle against the Lin Piao anti-Party clique and correctly and aptly labelled Lin Piao as “ultra-rightist” and a “superspy” for Soviet social-imperialism. The Guardian however was so sorrowful over Lin Piao’s death that it could not wait until the Tenth National Congress to put on its mourning clothes. It expressed its distress over Lin Piao’s downfall in an article on August 30, 1972 where it states: “The Lin Piao affair, in contradiction to conventional struggles between two lines in the Chinese Communist Party, is an unfortunate page in Chinese history”. Only an agent of capitalist restoration who wanted to turn China into a Soviet colony would find the defeat of the Lin Piao anti-Party clique an “unfortunate page in China’s history”. The Guardian hurries on to give Teng Hsiao-ping’s line that class struggle is over. “But it is a page that has been decisively turned. A new page, with China stabilising itself internally and exercising extraordinary influence externally, has replaced it.” The Guardian re-emphasises this in its reporting of the Tenth National Congress a year later. The Guardian’s first sentence is “Political stability characterizes the People’s Republic of China today.” Thus the Guardian gives the revisionist line of the dying out of class struggle. The Guardian has coupled this with a campaign to reverse correct verdicts against Soviet social-imperialism and has justified the fascist Soviet aggression against Angola. Last week Irwin Silber speaking in Detroit openly exposed the real nature of these American Lin Piao’s and Teng Hsiao-ping’s by calling for re-examination of the correct verdict of the international communist movement against Khrushchov himself.
Thus the spearhead of this frenzied support to the capitalist-roaders in China is directed at Chairman Mao and Mao Tsetung Thought and to reverse the verdicts of the Cultural Revolution and on Soviet social-imperialism. The Guardian continually rails at the followers of Mao Tsetung Thought as “flunkeys of China”. According to the Guardian, “polycentrism”, i.e. revisionism, is a barrier to revisionism, while adherence to Mao Tsetung Thought is a cause of revisionism! Attacking adherence to Mao Tsetung Thought, Irwin Silber in an article in December 1975 draws a historical parallel and states: “...Thus flunkeyism of the various parties whose international line was always the automatic reflection of the Soviet party led these parties into the abyss of revisionism without a murmur when Khrushchov and his successors abandoned Marxism-Leninism.” (Irwin Silber forgets to add, that Khrushchov and his successors abandoned Marxism-Leninism to the applause of the Guardian, which lauded Khrushchov, Tito, Dubcek, Giereck and others as well as today following the lines of Lin Piao and Teng Hsiao-ping). Here Silber again gives the fascist line that communists were “agents of Moscow” under Lenin and Stalin and, by implication, today are “agents of Peking”.
Comrades, these are some of the crimes of the American capitalist-roaders of the “independent radical newsweekly” the Guardian and others. You can see that while they are “independent” of the proletarian revolutionary line of Chairman Mao and the international communist movement, they are the most servile flunkeys of the international bourgeoisie, including both superpowers, who are trying to restore capitalism in China in order to rob the people of the world of their bastion of world revolution and start a new world war. Such monsters are in fact the greatest enemies of China and of all the oppressed nations and peoples including the Canadian and American working classes. Nothing will give us, the comrades of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, more pleasure than to strip these and other American Lin Piao’s and Teng Hsiao-ping’s of their masks and annihilate them politically.
But these two-bit flunkeys can never stop the forward motion of the world revolution nor of the revolutionary struggle in the United States. Our organization is a contingent of the international communist movement and we are the Internationalists in the United States. We, like you comrades, came into the world at the call of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and, like you, we were raised on Mao Tsetung Thought as our mothers’ milk. The role of the Internationalists, led by Comrade Hardial Bains, now Chairman of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), is of great significance. Comrade Bains was the only person in the youth and student movement in Canada who consistently upheld a proletarian revolutionary line and fought uncompromisingly for Mao Tsetung Thought, the theoretical basis of our thinking. This struggle, which began in all earnestness in 1968, ended in victory and the CPC(M-L) was established as the Party of the Canadian proletariat. The CPC(M-L) under Comrade Bains’ leadership, has established itself in the proletariat on a nationwide basis, withstood over 2,000 arrests of its comrades by the reactionary Canadian state, and solved a series of problems facing the Canadian revolution, including opposing U.S. imperialist cultural aggression, exposing anarcho-syndicalist and revisionist lines in the workers’ movement, and setting a general and tactical line for the Canadian workers’ movement. Now the opportunists in Canada are trying to reverse the verdict of the Canadian proletariat in favour of Mao Tsetung Thought and replace it with social-fascism.
At the same time, the American Internationalists, represented by the ACWM(M-L), the Association of Communist Workers (Lousiville) and others, learning from the advanced experience of the Canadian comrades and upholding the lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, won many victories over opportunism, forming and consolidating the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, the nucleus of the Party of the American proletariat. The ACWM(M-L) and the COUSML placed principal emphasis on Party-building right from 1969, fought for the unity of the Marxist-Leninists, waged a resistance movement against state attacks, exposed the growing fascism in the U.S. and carried on massive propaganda among the workers and other oppressed sections for proletarian revolution.
The CPC(M-L), led by Comrade Bains, and the COUSML (and its predecessors) have always been firmly united with each other, have shared weal and woe and have battled opportunism and the bourgeoisie side by side. For the first time American and Canadian revolutionaries are uniting on an equal basis, on the basis of revolutionary principles, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and proletarian internationalism, and not on the basis of one social-chauvinist group dictating to others. This is a very important historical point. For years American social-chauvinists have been going to Canada and establishing their splittist, disruptive offshoots. Among the latest in this line of American social-chauvinists is the October League (Marxist-Leninist), whose aspirations are entirely consistent with those of a clique of bad elements in Montreal. But no matter how much they talk, no matter how much they disrupt and attempt to split, they will never prevent the Canadian and American proletariat from uniting under the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, supporting each other and making revolution.
The question of equal, principled relations between the Canadian and American Marxist-Leninists was sorted out in theory at the Regina Conference in May 1969 and in practice at the same time. Only bad elements who don’t want to organize on the basis of Mao Tsetung Thought and proletarian internationalism seek agents in other countries in the form of social-chauvinist groups. It is no accident that OL is doing this; the Progressive Labour Party did it before them, establishing its subsidiary plant in Canada, the “Canadian Party of Labour”. In fact, a number of people who were in CPL when it viciously attacked Chairman Mao and China are now members of the social-chauvinist splitter group in Montreal which is associated with OL.
It is quite contemptible that an organization claiming to be Marxist-Leninist has sunk to the level OL has. In fact, not only does it meddle in the affairs of others to dictate a wrong line to them, but it shamelessly flaunts its international connections to impress others. Everyone knows that it recruits cadres on the basis that it is the organization in the U.S. which is “recognized” by China. Lately it has even taken to printing a scorecard to announce the number of places where its articles have been reprinted. This proves that the OL has been created for foreign consumption, not for organizing proletarian revolution in the U.S. Revolution is not based on international “recognition”; revolution is based on class struggle internal to the country, on self-reliance. The Cambodian people did not have to flaunt their international connections to make revolution; they were fighters in their own right. The arrogance of the leaders of the OL will be smashed by the American proletariat, and in the near future too.
Comrades, through our own efforts Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought has made great headway in the United States. On the 10th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, it is time for us American revolutionaries to rededicate ourselves to upholding the bright red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, the lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, wage a vigorous struggle against opportunism build the proletarian Party in the U.S. and work to lead the working-class movement towards the proletarian revolution.