First Published: The Call, Vol. 5, No. 20, September 20, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The following is the first in a series of reports written especially for The Call on the revolutionary communist movement in Western Europe today. The series includes many first-hand accounts based on discussions held with the leaders of various Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations.
The first article is an introduction to the overall series. Other articles will go into detail on each country our reporter visited, including Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.
Interviews with leaders of some of these parties will also be published as part of this series.
* * *
Factors for both war and revolution are on the rise in Western Europe today.
From the Arctic Ocean in the far north to the Mediterranean in the south, the two imperialist superpowers, the U.S. and the USSR, are engaged in sharp rivalry and contention. Despite all the talk of “detente” and “the spirit of Helsinki,” the conditions are being set for the outbreak of a new world war.
The Soviet Union especially is increasing its aggressiveness. Its submarines and fighter planes regularly violate the sovereign waters and air space of the Nordic countries in order to test their lines of defense. Its fishing fleets plunder the economic resources of small countries like Iceland and the Faroe Islands, while its political agents vie for power in France and Italy.
But the danger of war is not the only factor developing in Europe. The general crisis of capitalism is sharpening all the contradictions in the second world: Within each country, the working class is locked in the struggle for socialism against its “own” bourgeoisie and is fighting against political repression, attacks on living standards and national capitulation to superpower hegemonism.
Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations are actively involved in these class struggles in every country and in many cases are the leading force. Formed over the last decade in a fierce struggle against modem revisionism, especially following the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, these organizations have won tens of thousands of European workers and revolutionary intellectuals to ,the cause of communism.
“ Today the bourgeoisie,” states Pal Steigan, Chairman of the Norwegian Workers Communist Party (M-L), “has been forced to recognize strikes, the anti-imperialist movement, the women’s movement, the movement of revolutionary youth, as demonstrations of the fact that mass support of the Marxist-Leninists is steadily increasing. ”
One example of this was the celebration of May Day in Norway this year. The WCP-ML organized demonstrations in more than 100 cities and towns, mobilizing 23,000 people. In Oslo, nearly 12,000 workers and youth turned out. In contrast, the social-democrat and revisionist trade union leaders, despite their “united action”: and official posts, only rallied 4,200 people.
The communist movement is growing in other countries as well. In West Germany, there are several parties and organizations, and combined circulation of their newspapers is nearly 100,000. The Communist Party of Germany Marxist-Leninist (KPD-ML) announced this year that it had established a branch of its party in East Germany, under the harsh conditions of social-fascist rule. Also in West Germany, more than a thousand revolutionary cadres have been arrested and put on trial for leading mass protests against the police killing of a KPD-ML worker militant.
With the exception of Norway, the Marxist-Leninists in the countries of West Europe have not yet completely united into single, unified parties of the working class. Nonetheless, in every country in the past two or three years, there has developed a basic trend towards unification.
In Denmark, for instance, an organization called' the KFML, or Communist League (Marxist-Leninist), is preparing to hold its first party congress at the end of this year. The KFML has waged a complex struggle with other groups for several years, but last year the other main Marxist-Leninist group dissolved after a self-criticism and rallied to the party-building efforts of KFML. The cadres are now debating and drafting a party program.
The growing war danger .has clearly influenced the trend toward Marxist-Leninist unity. In Germany, the two anti-revisionist parties, KPD-ML and the KPD (Communist Patty of Germany) have held joint meetings and actions. In France, the Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist) has had a similar relationship with the Revolutionary Communist Party. Both French parties have daily newspapers.
This unity trend, naturally, is developing through struggle. It has not proceeded in a straight line, but through twists and turns. Important differences still exist, and some groups have degenerated into opportunism and revisionism, falling by the wayside.
What are some features of the debate? All the Marxist-Leninists in Europe state that the two superpowers are the two main enemies of the world's people. There is also general agreement that the Soviet Union is the most dangerous of the two, especially in Europe, where it is seen as the most likely instigator of a new world war. There is also agreement that the third world countries and peoples are the main force in opposing imperialism and superpower hegemonism.
There are differences, however, in how to assess the effects of the international and European situation within the context of the class struggle in each country. For example, in Germany there is debate around the “German national question.” The KPD-ML stresses the primacy of the struggle for socialism and insists that the principal contradiction in Germany today is between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in both parts of Germany. The KPD, on the other hand, says there are two main contradictions in all Germany. In the West, it is principally between the workers and the bourgeoisie. In the Soviet-occupied East, it is between the people and Soviet social-imperialism. Another large group, the Communist League of West Germany (KBW), stresses the struggle for democratic rights in West Germany today and says that it is incorrect to take up the national question until after the socialist revolution.
Important two-line struggles have also taken place within many of the European parties in recent years, mainly against a right deviation. In Norway and Sweden, the struggle broke out against the line of “united action” with the revisionist parties in the 1973 elections. This was summed up as conciliation and underestimation of the danger of Soviet social-imperialism. The parties and organizations in Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxemburg all have another point of unity. This is that the line of centrism, of conciliation with Soviet social-imperialism, is the most dangerous form of revisionism in the movement. And most groups pointed to the stand of the Guardian's support for Soviet aggression in Angola as a prime example of this betrayal in the United States.
There was also general agreement on another deviation, that which calls for unity with U.S. imperialism in a front against Soviet social-imperialism. Only one national organization in Europe supports this line, the “Amada” group in Belgium. It is criticized by other Belgian Marxist-Leninists as “right-wing national chauvinism.”
While there are differing estimates of contradictions within NATO, the Common Market and the European bourgeoisie in the face of the third world and two superpowers (all of which will be discussed later in this series), the line of conciliation or collaboration with U.S. imperialism was totally rejected. The chairman of the Norwegian party summed up his party's stand with the statement that “relying on one superpower to defeat the other is like spreading cholera to prevent the plague.”
U.S. Marxist-Leninists have a lot to learn from the communist movement in the countries of the second world. In many cases, they have a longer and broader experience in both the class struggle and the struggle against modem revisionism. The workers in all countries have always learned from and supported each other, and it is in this proletarian internationalist spirit that this series is written.