First Published:The Workers’ Advocate Vol. 14, No. 5, April 20, 1984.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Albania today is the only genuinely socialist country in the world. The Albanian workers and peasants overthrew the brutal rule of the local and foreign exploiters, and today they persist in building socialism in defiance of the world bourgeoisie and the capitalist-revisionist encirclement. This is why the class conscious workers and revolutionary activists around the world hold Albania in high esteem and study the lessons of the revolutionary struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian toilers.
Our Party is linked with bonds of revolutionary solidarity with the PLA. As part of this, we have studied and learned much from the historic accomplishments and valuable views of the PLA: the great victory of the anti-fascist national liberation war, the socialist construction, the fight against the Yugoslav revisionists, the defiance of Khrushchov, Brezhnev and all the Soviet revisionists, the exposure of the “three worlds” theory and Maoism, etc.
In our view, proletarian internationalist solidarity includes not just assimilating what is correct in the stands of another party, but also criticizing what is weak or wrong. The Second Congress of our Party carefully assessed both the strengths of the PLA, and the weaknesses that have become apparent in its stands in the early 1980’s on world events and the problems of the international Marxist-Leninist movement. Our views are presented in the issue of The Workers’ Advocate of March 20, 1984, whose lead article is entitled “Our Differences With the Party of Labor of Albania.”
At that time we also pointed out that the Maoists, such as the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA of Bob Avakian, have their own critique of the PLA. We pointed out that the stand of the Maoist RCP, USA towards Albania is utterly shameless. It has no solidarity with the cause of socialism in Albania and the revolutionary struggle of the PLA and the Albanian working masses. It rabidly attacks the PLA because the PLA had the communist steadfastness to expose the opportunism of Mao Zedong Thought and its relation to “three worldism.”
The RCP,USA is an example of the “left” wing of Maoism; this give more significance to its inability to deal with “three worldism” and its relation to Maoism. The RCP denounces the post-Mao leadership in China and presents itself as an opponent of Chinese revisionism. It denounces various of the right-wing Maoists in the U.S. who took up the blatant social-chauvinism of calling for the buildup of U.S. imperialism’s military might against the Soviet social-imperialists. Yet, as soon as Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed to the Maoist foundation that gave rise to “three worldist” social-chauvinism, the RCP immediately began to repeat the very slanders and lies against Albania that were being trumpeted by the post-Mao Chinese leadership and the right-wing Maoists in the U.S. The RCP’s criticism of Albania consisted of putting a revolutionary-sounding cover on the reactionary ravings of the right-wing Maoists.
Thus, the RCP’s critique of Albania has been less than worthless. In form, it has consisted of mountains of lies and abuse and of one attempt after another to divert attention from the basic issues. Avakian’s minions have proved capable of spewing piles of garbage, but not of principled discussion of the burning questions of revolutionary theory.
In content, the RCP did its best to defend various of the underlying ideas of the discredited “three worlds” theory. It raved against the idea that the world is divided into two camps, the camp of labor and the camp of capital; against the applicability of the laws of the class struggle to dependent countries; against the Leninist ideas on party-building; and so forth. To this day, although the RCP pays lip service to the condemnation of “three worldism,” it ardently embraces various basic ideas of “three worldism.” It is only willing to condemn ”three worldism” when that is understood as referring simply to the formulations of certain factions in the Chinese leadership, and not to Mao’s own “three worldism.” Indeed, to this day the RCP even defends Mao’s meeting with Nixon or the analysis that the Soviet Union was the main danger to China, and only opposes later developments in the U.S.-China alliance that it charges to other Chinese leaders. Meanwhile a central theme of RCP’s critique of the PLA is that it put too much stress on the fight against “three worldsism”
In our view, the denunciation of “three worldism” and Maoism is absolutely essential for the advance of the revolutionary movement. We regard it as the historic accomplishment of the PLA that it opened up first the period of the worldwide denunciation of the “three worlds” theory and then the period of the worldwide condemnation of Mao Zedong Thought. The PLA’s weakness is that it has not carried these struggles through to the end. Hence, in order to learn from the experience of the PLA, it is necessary to utterly reject the opportunist blather of the RCP, which criticizes the PLA for attacking the basic ideas of “three worldism” and the revisionist essence of Maoism. The quandary of the RCP shows that a break with Maoism, even of refined and “left”-wing Maoism, is essential for all those who wish to fight against the “three worldist” filth.
THE RCP’S METHOD OF THEORETICAL DISCUSSION – GUTTER ABUSE
The RCP’s antagonism to the PLA stems back to the publication in early 1979 of Enver Hoxha’s book Imperialism and the Revolution. In this work, Comrade Enver put forward his critique of Mao Zedong Thought.
The Albanian denunciation of Mao Zedong Thought was a serious issue that required careful study and evaluation. The counterrevolutionary theory of “three worlds” had done tremendous harm to the world revolution and to the struggle against revisionism. The Chinese Communist Party had step by step abandoned its support of world revolution when it began building the counterrevolutionary U.S.-China alliance, and it was at this time that it elaborated in full detail the theory of “three worlds.” However, various basic features of “three worldism” had been upheld by the Chinese leadership for years before the U.S.-China rapprochement, and these “three worldist” positions had even then a corrosive and undermining effect. The question of finding the roots of the “three worlds” theory so as to thoroughly rectify the damage caused to the revolutionary movement and the anti-revisionist struggle was being widely discussed in the international Marxist-Leninist movement when Imperialism and the Revolution appeared.
Thus Imperialism and the Revolution played an important role in the international Marxist-Leninist movement. For example, for some time prior to the publication of this work our Party’s predecessor, the COUSML, had already been looking into the question of the origins of the “three worlds” theory and reexamining the assessment of Mao and the history of the struggle against revisionism. Imperialism and the Revolution helped us crystallize the results of our study and understand the role of Mao’s revisionism and opportunism.
But the RCP refused to pay serious attention to the question of “three worldism” and the responsibility of Mao. Nor did they have the attitude of carefully examining what the PLA, a party which they had claimed to support for years, was saying on the burning questions of revolutionary theory. Instead, they announced in an editorial in their journal Revolution (“Enver Hoxha Exposes Opportunism – His Own,” January 1979, p. 4) that they had condemned Imperialism and the Revolution before reading it, just as soon as they learned from the blurb in the Albanian Telegraphic Agency announcing its impending release that it attacked Mao’s opportunism. Immediately Enver Hoxha became the devil incarnate for RCP. Immediately the RCP gave up the pretense of support for socialism in Albania, and it declared on the spot that a “counterrevolutionary line” had seemed “to have won out in the Albanian Party.” (Ibid.) Immediately, for the RCP, the question was not to examine Comrade Enver’s views, but how to throw as much mud as possible at the PLA. Avakian and company hoisted the banner: Mao, right or wrong, revolutionary or “three worlder,” communist or revisionist, but Mao forever!
The basic RCP critique of the PLA is set forth in two articles: “Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought: Comments on Enver Hoxha’s Imperialism and the Revolution” in the May 1979 issue of The Communist, the former theoretical journal of the RCP, and “Enver Hoxha’s Imperialism and the Revolution – An ’Error’ from Beginning to End” in the September 1979 issue of Revolution, central organ of the RCP.
The basic method of these articles is to paint the PLA utterly black and to pile up as many insults, lies and distortions as possible. It didn’t matter how ridiculous the charges, only that there be a lot of them. Thus Enver is accused of advocating Soviet revisionist views and of supporting Soviet social-imperialism as against U.S. imperialism; of following a “counterrevolutionary” line; of being the champion of “a new revisionist tendency”; of being a Trotsky, a Kautsky, a Browder, a supporter of the views of Wang Ming, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, a follower of the Deborin school of philosophy; and so on and so forth.
Thus the RCP read Imperialism and the Revolution only to search for words and phrases to tear out of context. A typical example of its method was that its articles sought to prove that Enver really no longer condemned the two superpowers, but actually thought that U.S. imperialism was the main danger and the Soviet social-imperialists were simply a mere “tool” or “agency” of U.S. imperialism. The RCP turned incredible acrobatics. For example, statements that the U.S. imperialists were the leaders of the Western imperialist bloc were cited to prove that Enver was saying that they were the leaders of social-imperialism as well.
If the RCP would lie even about the simplest thing, which anyone can check without difficulty, such as when it denies that the PLA opposes both superpowers and regards them as the heads of rival imperialist blocs, then one can imagine how the RCP handles more difficult and subtle questions. This example gives one an idea of RCP’s gutter method in all its ugliness and filth. It would take hundreds of pages to catalog each lie and distortion used by the RCP. It is clear that the RCP’s critique of the PLA was just gutter politics.
A DIEHARD DEFENSE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF “THREE WORLDISM”
Nevertheless, despite the mountains of diversions, slanders and lies in the RCP’s articles on Imperialism and the Revolution, it is possible to extract their political content. This content is the RCP’s diehard defense of various of the basic ideas of “three worldism.” The RCP abandoned the term “three worlds theory” and various of the most extreme social-chauvinist positions put forward in the last stage of degeneration of “three worldism,” but it clung all the more strongly to the basic Maoist “three worldist” ideas.
We would like to remind the reader that our Party holds that even the best of the theoretical works from the PLA, such as Imperialism and the Revolution, show certain weaknesses. This was pointed out in The Workers’ Advocate of March 20, 1984. But, despite these weaknesses, the PLA’s best works were a tremendous step forward that had a liberating significance for the international Marxist-Leninist movement because they helped blow up various of the opportunist prejudices and anti-Marxist-Leninist dogmas inculcated by the Chinese revisionists. And, we shall see, when the RCP criticized the PLA, it did so from the standpoint of defending the outmoded “three worldist” ideas.
The RCP Repeats the Slanders From Beijing and the Right-Wing Maoists
First of all, the main slanders that the RCP threw at Imperialism and the Revolution were not the original inventions of Bob Avakian and company. They were the same ones that were preached by the Beijing post-Mao leadership and in the press of the rabid right-wing Maoists in the U.S. who advocated “striking the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism.” Despite its attempts to present itself as the only real Opponents of the right-wing Maoists and the present-day Chinese leadership, its struggle in defense of Maoism led the RCP right back towards this swamp. The RCP’s role was to give the mud-throwing campaign at Imperialism and the Revolution a more revolutionary-sounding cover and to elaborate each slander with more energy.
For example, one of the main themes of the Beijing leadership and the right-wing Maoists was that to criticize the “three worlds” theory or Mao was to go pro-Soviet. They tore phrases out of context and concocted lies to prove that the PLA had given up criticism of both superpowers. As we have seen, this was a main theme of RCP’s criticism of the PLA as well.
The Beijing leadership and the right-wing Maoists also made a big fuss that to apply class analysis to the “third world” was trotskyite. The RCP too took up the same theme of smearing the PLA as “trotskyite.”
The Beijing leadership and the right-wing Maoists wanted to obliterate Albania’s role as a socialist country. The RCP obliged on this as well. As soon as the PLA criticized Mao, the RCP dropped support for socialism in Albania and denounced it for a “counterrevolutionary” line. What was important, for the RCP, was not the actual role a country plays in the world, but only its relation to Mao Zedong Thought.
The Question of Two Worlds Versus Three Worlds
One of the central points of the criticism of the “three worlds” theory was the declaration that the world is split into two parts, the camp of labor, comprising the world proletarian movement, the liberation struggle of the oppressed nations, and the socialist countries; and the camp of capital, comprising the imperialists (and social-imperialists), capitalism, revisionism and reaction. In contrast to the “three worlds” concept, that regarded the real essence of world politics as simply the maneuvers between the different types of exploiting regimes, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists stressed the role of struggle between revolution and counterrevolution, the role of the class struggle in all its forms.
For its part, the RCP – once again trailing helplessly behind the post-Mao leadership and the right-wing Maoists – makes the attack on what it calls “Hoxha’s ’Two Worlds’ Thesis” a major part of its critique of the stands of the PL A. The RCP argues vehemently that the international situation must be described simply as the maneuvering between the various regimes. The RCP, however, is willing to replace the “three worlds” classification with a different classification: the lining up of the regimes into the different imperialist blocs that are preparing for war. It rules out the forces of revolution from world politics, and it ridicules the significance of the existence of socialist Albania.
This is an excellent example of how the RCP boils down the “three worlds” theory to its essentials, preserving its basic essence and removing all secondary and accidental features. The key idea of “three world-ism” is that it loses sight of the class forces in the face of the maneuvering between the regimes of the exploiters. There is no fundamental difference between dividing the world into “three,” in the fashion of the more usual “three worldism,” and dividing it into two big war blocs, as the RCP does. In both cases, the question of revolution and class struggle is cast aside. It is no wonder that the RCP also holds that the division of the world into “three” isn’t so bad in itself, despite their alleged repudiation of “three worldism.”
The Question of the Interlinking of the Democratic and Socialist Revolutions in the Dependent Countries
Another central point in the RCP’s critique of the PLA is the RCP’s all-out assault on the concept of the interlinking of the democratic and socialist revolutions. Just as the right-wing Maoists pontificated about how struggle against the local exploiters in the dependent countries would be “skipping stages,” so the RCP paraphrased this by denouncing Comrade Enver for allegedly mushing together the democratic and socialist stages of the revolution into a single stage. The RCP admits that Enver talks about the different stages of revolution, but then all the more strongly insists that anyone who opposes the Maoist “three worldist” ideas is really obliterating the different stages of revolution. Under this banner, the RCP raises the following issues and more:
1) The RCP denigrates the fact that a number of dependent countries are already at the stage of socialist revolution and that in these countries the socialist revolution is the only way to fight imperialist domination. The RCP also defends the Maoist theses that put an iron wall between the bourgeois-democratic and socialist revolutions and deny the Leninist theses on uninterrupted revolution.
2) The RCP vehemently opposes the concrete issues on the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution in the dependent countries that Enver raises and denounces this as a denial of the role of the peasantry.
3) The RCP denies the applicability of the path of the October Revolution and the various laws of the class struggle to the dependent countries.
4) The RCP glorifies the national bourgeoisie of the dependent countries.
The RCP Denies the Applicability of the Marxist- Leninist Laws of die Class Struggle to the Dependent Countries
A key point of the denunciation of the “three worlds” theory by the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists was the putting forth of the basic principle that the internal exploiting classes in the dependent countries were the social basis of imperialist domination of these countries. This struck hard against the glorification of the “third world” regimes of the bourgeoisie and landlords as the “motive force” of world development. But the RCP denounced Enver up and down for talking of the struggle against the bourgeois exploiting forces in the dependent countries. It is striking to see the RCP back up its criticism of Enver for allegedly obliterating the difference between democratic and socialist revolution by giving a series of quotations that don’t deal with the question of the stage of revolution but target the exploitation of the local bourgeoisie and landlords in the dependent countries. (“An ’Error’ From Beginning to End,” pp. 34-35)
In fact, the RCP holds that lessons from the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks and the basic Marxist- Leninist laws of the class struggle don’t apply to the dependent countries. It has a stereotyped pattern of what it calls democratic, anti-imperialist revolution that it applies in general throughout these countries. Unlike the more right-wing “three worlders,” it still talks of revolution in these countries and will admit struggle against the landlords and the comprador bourgeoisie. But it adheres all the more strongly to the old “three worldism” that could only understand revolution in the form of a national liberation struggle and perhaps a bourgeois-democratic agrarian revolution against feudalism or semi-feudalism, whether or not these suited the conditions of the countries involved.
The RCP’s Glorification of the National Bourgeoisie of the Dependent Countries
The above question is connected to the RCP’s glorification of the national bourgeoisie in the dependent countries. The RCP does not regard it as sufficient to admit the possibility that, under certain conditions, the national bourgeoisie or certain sections of it, may take on national-revolutionary features and may be a possible ally of the proletariat. The recognition of the struggle against bourgeois exploitation is itself a violation, in their eyes, of the correct attitude to the bourgeoisie.
In the stereotyped pattern of revolution they set up, the imperialists rule the dependent countries through an alliance with the landlords and perhaps the comprador bourgeoisie, an alliance that hits against the national bourgeoisie. It does not fit their rigid dogma that today, in most of the dependent countries, the local bourgeoisie has absorbed the big landlords and other reactionary dregs as additional factions of the bourgeoisie. (This does not require that all semi-feudal remnants and other precapitalist forms of exploitation are replaced by ordinary capitalist relations in the countryside.) It does not fit their rigid dogma that today, in most of the dependent countries, the local bourgeoisie (which now includes the big landlords) holds state power and itself has an alliance with imperialism against the exploiting masses.
This basic Maoist and “three worldist” prejudice in favor of the national bourgeoisie is why various parties that tried to carry forward the revolution but were under the influence of Maoism came up with the astounding conclusion that there was no national bourgeoisie in their countries. If they admitted the existence of the “national bourgeoisie,” the Maoist dogmas would have forced them to surrender the struggle against it.
The RCP took the prettification of the national bourgeoisie so far in its critique of the PLA that it defended the Maoist concept of marching into socialism hand in hand with the national bourgeoisie, or major sections of it.
Denigration of the Role of Socialism
The RCP, in its critique of the PLA, denigrated the role of socialism in the world. On one hand, it denied the role of the socialist revolution in the dependent countries.
On the other hand, it also denied the importance of the support for socialism as part of the world situation. Its world view was that the world is divided into competing imperialist blocs, and it ridiculed the significance of the existence of socialist Albania for the world camp of labor.
The RCP in fact denied the socialist character of Albania. It has never been able to analyze the internal situation in Albania and deny its socialist character. Instead it used the method of saying that anything the PLA did was out of bourgeois national interests. The RCP said that the world’s people shouldn’t respect Albania’s fight against both superpowers as opposed to the Chinese revisionist capitulation to imperialism: no, according to Avakian and company, it shows just as much bourgeois nationalist interest for Albania, in its conditions, to fight imperialism as for China, in its conditions, to join the imperialist dance of alliances. And similarly the RCP attributed the PLA’s fight against Yugoslav revisionism, against Khrushchovite revisionism, against “three worldism” and so forth to “narrow nationalist and bourgeois-nationalist interests.”
It is one thing to note that the present weaknesses of the PLA’s policies involve speculating on the petty-bourgeois and bourgeois nationalism of various other countries or vacillating from Marxist-Leninist positions towards petty-bourgeois nationalist ideology on this or that question. But the RCP attributes the strengths of the PLA’s positions to “bourgeois nationalist interests.” This was not only absurd slander, but it was another repetition of the basic “three worldist” stand. If bourgeois nationalist interests could lead a regime with a “counterrevolutionary” line to take revolutionary stands against both superpowers, against revisionism, against the local bourgeoisie, and so forth, then the “third world” regimes would indeed provide many models of staunch revolutionary struggle, just as the most degenerate “three worldism” advocates.
Denigration of the Revolutionary Capacity of the Proletariat
One of the basic features of “three worldism” is its skepticism in the revolutionary drive of the proletariat. We have already remarked that the RCP opposed Comrade Enver for his stand in favor of the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution in the dependent countries. It is also true that the RCP was skeptical of the proletariat in the advanced capitalist countries.
In RCP’s early days, it expressed its skepticism in the revolutionary capacity.of the proletariat by the economist nature of its work in the factories and elsewhere. Later it changed over to semi-anarchist despair about the possibilities of work in the proletariat; in this mood, it now attacks the economic struggle in itself as essentially reformist and economist. This was the standpoint from which it made its critique of the PL A, attacking Enver for talking of work in the trade unions. It denounced talk of the importance of this work as economist, and it displayed utter incomprehension of how one could talk of using such work to fight the trade union bosses. (“An ’Error’ From Beginning to End,” pp. 37-8)
Prettification of Chinese Social-Imperialism
Another aspect to the RCP’s critique of the PL A is. the RCP’s prettification of Chinese social-imperialism. In this case, the RCP goes beyond prettifying Mao to prettify the post-Mao leadership as well. The RCP denounces the very idea that revisionist China could be social-imperialist because imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, but China is still relatively backward. Actually state monopoly capitalism exists in China, but even noting this is not necessary to see the complete absurdity of the RCP’s sorry apologetics. According to the RCP’s logic, Tsarist Russia undoubtedly wasn’t imperialist in World War I, because Russia was incredibly backward economically, was bound to English and French capital, was still to have a bourgeois- democratic revolution in February 1917, and represented a sort of military-feudal imperialism.
The RCP also raves against Enver for the very idea that the Chinese leadership should be denounced as warmongering. According to the RCP, the very concept of warmongering shows an “extremely voluntarist” view on the question of war.
The RCP is also very mild in criticizing the U.S.- China rapprochement. It defends various of Mao’s actions and insists that even the conception of the U.S.- China alliance, although an “error,” was not a counterrevolutionary line and did not involve subordinating the world revolution to this alliance. Oh no. All it involved was, in Mr. Avakian’s own words in his article “Creeping Three Worldism”: “...a conception of the united front which was not merely for a year or two or for a very brief period but for a whole period of struggle envisioning the development of a world war [against Soviet social-imperialism – WA] in which the alignment on a world scale would be China and the revolutionary forces of the world aligned with the Western bloc of imperialists headed by the U.S. and the countries and governments of the world that were under their domination or under the control of their bloc.” (Revolutionary Worker, October 14, 1983, p. 15, col. 2) Mr. Avakian insists, however, that, despite some “obvious similarities,” this cannot be regarded as the “fully worked out three worlds theory as a counterrevolutionary line....” This was not counterrevolutionary or warmongering, oh no, but Imperialism and the Revolution is counterrevolutionary for criticizing Mao on this. Such is the depths of sick apologetics that Mr. Avakian and company descend to.
THE RCP’S CRITIQUE OF THE PLA IN THE LIGHT OF THE WEAKNESSES IN THE PRESENT STANDS OF THE PLA
In The Workers’ Advocate of March 20, 1984 we outline the weaknesses in the stands of the PLA in the early 1980’s. How does the RCP’s critique of the PLA fare in the light of the fact that weaknesses have appeared in the policies of the PLA? It turns out that not only was the RCP’s critique worthless “three worldist” trash back when the RCP first elaborated it, but time has further confirmed that it is utterly off base and worthless trash.
The RCP laid great stress on claiming that the PLA had given up opposition to both superpowers, had fallen into serving the purposes of Soviet revisionism and now regarded U.S. imperialism as the main enemy and Soviet social-imperialism as a mere U.S. imperialist agency. Nothing of the sort happened. The PLA has continued denouncing both superpowers right down to the present.
The RCP cried up and down that the PLA had allegedly obliterated the distinction between the democratic and socialist revolutions by attacking the exploitation of the local bourgeoisie in the dependent countries. All this has turned out to be off the mark. The weaknesses in the present stands of the PLA on the dependent countries and its errors with respect to Turkey, Iran and the war between Britain and Argentina over the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) point in exactly the opposite direction. The PLA took its best positions on the dependent countries at the height of its struggle against “three worldism,” as it stressed the interlinking of the democratic and socialist revolutions and the class struggle in the dependent countries. Its present weaknesses involve ignoring the questions of the revolutionary class struggle and the nature of the present regimes.
Furthermore, one of the morals that the RCP draws from its critique of the PLA is that it is wrong to put too much emphasis on the struggle against “three worlds.” This was another in their interminable sequence of arguments denigrating the struggle against “three worldism.” Yes, the RCP says, we have to say a word or two against “three worldism” to satisfy appearances. But the “three worlds analysis” is not wrong, but only a part of the general line. (Revolution, July 1977) Well, the “three worlds” analysis is not wrong in itself, especially when Mao uses it, but it is a counterrevolutionary “three worlds strategy” when Deng Xiao-ping says it. (Revolution, November 1978) However, it is just the “international line” and so not much stress should be put on it. And to this day Mr. Avakian and company are saying that one must not “make the three world theory line the decisive issue” because otherwise one might fall into the mistakes of the PLA. (Revolutionary Worker, October 14, 1983)
The truth is the exact opposite. It is quite clear that the weaknesses in the present stands of the PLA stem, in part, from failing to carry the struggle against “three worldism” through to the end. Various of the errors in the present stands of the PLA bear a striking resemblance to the fallacies of the “three worlds” theory. The PLA does not use the specific Chinese revisionist formulations and it has reached these errors from another direction; future issues of The Workers’ Advocate will deal with some of the roots for the errors of the PLA. But it is clear that the difficulties that the PLA has been having in the early 1980’s show all the more vividly the utmost importance that the struggle against “three worldism” has. And this shows the worthless character of the RCP’s critique, which denounces the PLA precisely from the standpoint of upholding various of the fundamental ideas of Maoist “three worldism” and trying to put the brakes on any struggle against “three worldism” and thus any real struggle against Chinese revisionism.