First Published: The Call, Vol. 7, No. 2, January 16, 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) held its first school for cadres recently. Cadres are those party members who hold positions of responsibility and leadership. The school provided leading members of the Party with a concentrated period of study of Marxism-Leninism.
Mao Tsetung once wrote, “Cadres are a decisive factor once the political line is determined.” Now that the CPML has been founded and its program developed, the training of cadres has become one of its most important tasks. It is in this spirit of getting the new Party planted firmly on its feet that the first cadres’ school was held.
To develop backbone cadres, various methods are put into play by the Party. Schools are but one form of training. The main form the Party uses is “learning warfare through warfare.” That is, Party leaders and rank-and-file members are trained in the course of the daily battles with the capitalists. The study of Marxism is combined with, mass work in solving the problems that continually arise. But schools also have an important role to play.
The recent school combined classroom study with physical activity, cultural work and free time for individual study and informal discussions. It lasted for nearly a week. Cadres came from every region of the country, many from the national minorities and the working class, as well as some intellectuals and students.
The main textbook used in the study was Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin. There was also supplementary material as well as oral presentations by some of the CPML’s leading members. Presentations on the international situation, the trade unions, the national question, the emancipation of women and the state of the communist movement, just to name a few, were combined with the lessons taken from Lenin’s writings.
The school was marked by a spirit of combining learning with teaching and cadres and teachers learning from each other with everyone participating fully.
All of the cadres felt that Lenin’s Imperialism was a good choice to focus the study around. Even though it was written over 60 years ago, the book remains as relevant as ever for today’s world.
This is still the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, as Lenin defined it. The working class and oppressed peoples are still fighting to defeat imperialism and especially the two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The principles of Marxism-Leninism still hold true.
Lenin’s book traces the development of capitalism from its early period of free competition to its highest and last stage of imperialism, the transitional stage to socialism. Imperialism lays the basis for dealing with many of today’s burning questions, such as the liberation of the oppressed nations and the division of the world into three. It reveals all of the basic contradictions in modern society and proves without a doubt that the socialist revolution is the only path possible for mankind to take.
The cadre school students also learned a great deal from Lenin’s method. Seeking truth from facts, based on a scientific analysis, is a hallmark of Leninism. His main resources were bourgeois writings, 1 and he even had to use some disguised formulations in order to get the book past the czarist censors.
But none of these problems could prevent Lenin from producing this immortal work. Lenin used the dialectical and historical method, revealing the essential features of imperialism through the basic internal contradictions in this system.
The students were particularly interested in how imperialism meant the complete division of the world among the great powers, enslaving the great majority of the world’s people, who are members of the oppressed nations. From this, students learned that the national question in this era can only be solved through the working class revolution.
The fact that imperialism was a product of uneven development meant that the struggle for redivision of the world among these powers could only lead to world war. This is the situation today as the two superpowers battle each other for world domination. A new world war is inevitable.
Finally, Lenin’s work impressed the students with its sharp, uncompromising polemic with the main revisionist of Lenin’s time, Karl Kautsky. Kautsky preached a theory of “ultra-imperialism,” claiming that under imperialism there could be “equilibrium” among the great powers. He said that together, in a “peaceful” way, the imperialist powers could bring progress to a world filled with crisis and war.
These theories are very similar to the theories of “detente” and “peaceful transition” being preached today by the modern revisionists and other opportunists.
For all these reasons the discussion of Lenin’s book was rich with lessons, and the school as a whole was met with warm enthusiasm by the students. Upon graduation, they all anxiously looked forward to going back to their own cities to apply the things they had learned.
Their work will include setting up local classes on these same subjects, encouraging self-study and promoting the CPML’s various study campaigns. It will also include writing articles for The Call, Class Struggle and other publications, applying what they learned to the concrete conditions of our revolution.