I. Tito's Temporary Triumphs and the Revival of Leninism in the International Communist Movement
II. Criticism Without Support – The Guardian
III. "Support" Without Criticism- COUSM-L
IV.
Proletarian Internationalist Support – Critical Support
Comments
on the Youth for Stalin Document and on the current situation
On November 1, 1976 Comrade Enver Hoxha delivered his "Report Submitted to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania." By the end of October, 1976 we had written: "The present rift, so soon after Mao's death, between the ultra-left faction headed by Chiang Ching and the (moderate) rightist wing headed by Hua Kuo-feng signals the beginning of a clearing up of the confusion and mystery behind which the national bourgeoisie has come to power in the People's Republic of China." Comrade Hoxha's important report exposed before the international communist movement the ideological bankruptcy and political renegacy which such terms as "third world," "second world," "non-alignment," "developing countries," etc. represent for the international proletariat. Comrade Hoxha pointed out that "these terms... cover up... the class character of these political forces, the fundamental contradictions of our epoch, the key problem which is predominant today on a national and international scale, the ruthless struggle between the bourgeois-imperialist world on the one hand, and socialism, the world proletariat, and its natural allies, on the other.” *
[* fn. Comrade Hoxha pointed out the fact that in practice at the Colombo "non-aligned" conference "nobody spoke out against or openly attacked the United States of America and the Soviet Union by name for their aggressive and war-mongering policy and activity."]
Though Comrade Hoxha never specified what particular forces are pushing these harmful concepts in the international revolutionary movement, it was clear that the leadership of the Communist Party of China and of the government of the People's Republic of China was the chief proponent of this criminal line against the international working class. Thus, Comrade Hoxha's 7th Congress Report is the first occasion on which an authoritative Leninist Party has waged principled ideological struggle against the forces in power in the leadership of the Communist Party of China and in the People's Republic of China.
At about the same time and totally ignorant of the profound revolutionary content of Comrade Hoxha's 7th Congress Report, we penned the following words in our Draft Program:
"The most consistent and principled struggle against opportunism is a vital component of the struggle for the establishment of a genuine CPUSA and/or CP's in the nations presently imprisoned within the state boundaries of US imperialism as well as of the struggle for the establishment of a new CI. We recognize that, in this period, when opportunist parties and policies are backed by state power in the USSR and the People's Republic of China, etc., that the struggle against opportunism is especially difficult and especially important for the long run victory of the international proletariat." [The Present Party-Building Movement in the USA and the Materialist Conception of History, Ray O. Light, p. 101]
In Comrade Hoxha's Report to the 7th Congress for the first time (that we know of) in many years a Leninist Party raised and defended "the great work of the Comintern," defending and reviving proletarian internationalism. * This represents a decisive break with the bourgeois nationalist stand of jumping either on the USSR national construction bandwagon of the 20th Congress CPSU and the 81 Party Statement of 1960 or the Chinese national construction bandwagon of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the "three worlds concept".
* [fn. We said further that, "The genuine Communist Parties and Communist International must be the pathfinder, the organizer, and the vanguard of this forward march of history undertaken by the proletariat and the toiling masses of humanity. The task of the Communist Parties and the Communist International is to find the path, and to organize and lead the working class and its allies through their own experience to communism... Hence Ray O. Light must wage a systematic and persistent struggle for the building of a new Communist International to lead victorious struggles of the international proletariat, based on proletarian internationalism, over international capital, headed by US imperialism." [The Present Party Building Movement in the USA and the Materialist Conception of History, Ray O. Light, p. 101]]
Events of the past year have dramatically confirmed the fact that the international communist movement is plagued not only by modern revisionism centered in the USSR but also by neo-revisionism centered in the People's Republic of China. But events have also confirmed that the heroic Party of Labor of Albania has initiated a "consistent and principled struggle against opportunism" which is "especially important for the long run victory of the international proletariat."
* [fn. Thirty years ago Comrade Stalin and the Cominform had exposed Titoite Yugoslavia for its bourgeois nationalism and hostility to the socialist camp.]
Fourteen years ago on the occasion of Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Tito in Yugoslavia, Comrade Hoxha had pointed out that Khrushchev himself had condemned the Tito clique as late as at the 21st Congress of the CPSU in 1958. There Khrushchev had stated:
“The Yugoslav leaders claim that they stand outside blocs, above the camps, although in fact they take part in the Balkan bloc which consists of Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece.... The leaders of the Yugoslav League of Communists consider themselves highly insulted when we tell them 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 US 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 US monopolies, which are fostering ‘Yugoslav socialism.’”
Khrushchev spoke the truth about Tito in 1958!
Comrade Hoxha pointed out that during Khrushchev's visit to Yugoslavia in 1963, he had openly taken the path of canceling the socialist camp and uniting with Tito in "one of the crudest and most blatant violations of the 1960 Moscow Declaration [of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties], 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."
Comrade Hoxha pointed out that even then (1963) Khrushchev could not sign an official joint declaration with Tito because such a flagrant violation of the Moscow Declaration of 1960 would have given too much ammunition to the substantial and strong Marxist-Leninist forces struggling against Khrushchev revisionism at that time under the leadership of the Party of Labor of Albania and the Communist Party of China.
Nevertheless Khrushchev was "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."
However Comrade Hoxha went on, "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." [Khrushchev Kneeling Before Tito, Enver Hoxha, p. 21]
Comrade Hoxha drew the conclusion:
“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 US dollars, is a big step towards approach to and unity with his master – US imperialism.”
In light of all the above, how tragic then that fourteen years after Khrushchev's visit to Tito, in 1977, Tito could take a trip to Moscow and Peking and be welcomed in both capitals as an elder statesman of the world communist movement!
How then did the Communist Party of China and its new leader Hua Kuo-feng approach the arch agent of US imperialism first exposed by Comrade Stalin and the Cominform thirty years ago, by even Khrushchev almost two decades ago and thoroughly by the Communist Party of China as well as the Party of Labor of Albania well over a decade ago?
According to Peking Review No. 36 September 2, 1977: (1) An August 30 Renmin Ribao editorial welcoming President Tito stated that, "President Tito's visit will promote the development of the just united struggle against hegemonism waged by various peoples and the progressive cause of national liberation and social emancipation in various countries. It will have a far reaching effect internationally." (2) "At the Banquet in Honor of President Tito," Chairman Hua described Yugoslavia's role in international affairs under Tito's rule as follows: "In international affairs, Yugoslavia has adhered to a non-aligned policy, opposed imperialism and hegemonism, upheld unity among the non-aligned countries and other developing countries and supported other peoples in their struggles for freedom and independence and against oppression and plunder, thus winning the appreciation of the people of all countries."
As in the case of Khrushchev's trip to Yugoslavia fourteen years ago, US imperialism is not disturbed at all about the developing rapprochement between the Chinese Party and government leaders and the Titoite clique. This time Tito's reward from his master, US imperialism, came in the form of military credits. Almost immediately upon his triumphal return from Moscow and Peking, Tito greeted the US Secretary of Defense Harold Brown who extended US military aid to Tito for a job well done. Brown thus became the first US Secretary of Defense ever to visit a "communist" country! In concert with Secretary of Defense Harold Brown's visit to Yugoslavia immediately after Tito's return from China, US Secretary of State Vance was in Peking just a few days before Tito arrived. At a farewell banquet for Vance on August 25, Chinese Foreign Minister Huang Hua had said among other things that, "in the present international situation our two countries face questions of common concern and have quite a few points in common." [Peking Review No. 36, September 2, 1977, p. 7]
Comrade Hoxha's fourteen-year-old words are worth raising again: "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 US dollars, is a big step towards approach to and unity with his master – US imperialism."
And in fact the heroic comrades of the Party of Labor of Albania themselves have raised these great words again!
Comrade Hoxha's fourteen-year-old article regarding Khrushchev's visit to Yugoslavia was republished in Tirana this year under the title, Khrushchev Kneeling Before Tito at almost exactly the time that Tito was visiting the People's Republic of China! This proletarian internationalist act by the Party of Labor of Albania exposed to the international proletariat and the oppressed peoples the revisionist treachery of not only Tito and. Brezhnev but of Hua as well! The republication of this pamphlet, however, is only one of a series of significant and inspiring Marxist-Leninist initiatives taken by the heroic Party of Labor of Albania in the year since the 7th Congress.
(1) Following the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania and no doubt inspired by the heroic anti-revisionist stand taken by the PLA in that Congress, a conference of the delegations of seven Latin American Parties held a fraternal meeting and issued a joint declaration in which they stated, among other things, that "This [Yankee] imperialism is the main enemy of the peoples on the continent [of South America]." Compare the position of the present CPC leadership on this question – "Soviet social-imperialism is the main danger," etc.
(2) Several large internationalist rallies publicized by the PLA have been held in Italy, Germany, Greece and Portugal at which speeches have been delivered by comrades from some of these same Latin American Parties as well as by comrades from throughout Mediterranean Europe. In recent months at least two of these rallies, in Italy and Portugal, a spokesman from the Albanian Party has appeared to speak to the masses!
(3) More recently, in October, five European Parties held joint meetings and issued a Joint Declaration. The Joint Declaration has been published and circulated in the international communist movement by the Albanian Party. This Joint Declaration unlike the one by the Latin American Parties of eight or ten months ago makes no mention of the Communist Party of China as a leading anti-revisionist force. Quite the contrary, the theory of the "three worlds" (which is ever more openly pushed by the CPC leadership) was directly opposed in the Joint Declaration. The comrades declare: "The so-called 'theory of the three worlds' is in complete opposition to the teachings of Lenin and Stalin as to the character of our epoch, which is the epoch of imperialism and the proletarian revolution, and to the analysis that Lenin and Stalin made to its fundamental contradictions."
Furthermore, the European comrades raise the possibility that "little socialist Albania" might be "the only socialist country in the world"!
Finally, the Joint Declaration of the European parties hails "the determined and courageous stand adopted by the Party of Labor of Albania and its protracted and courageous struggle against all forms of opportunism and revisionism" pledging "defense of and solidarity with the People's Socialist Republic of Albania."
(4) The Albanian comrades have republished several pamphlets from the period of the early 1960's by Comrade Hoxha (including Khrushchev Kneeling Before Tito). The early 1960's was a period of most acute struggle waged against modern revisionism headed by Togliatti, Tito and Khrushchev, by the Marxist-Leninists spearheaded by the Party of Labor of Albania and the Chinese Communist Party. Armed with this proletarian internationalist leadership, the oppressed peoples in countries throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America launched armed struggle for their national liberation from imperialist oppression, and especially from US imperialist domination, during the early 1960's.
Besides the obvious significance of the republication of Khrushchev Kneeling Before Tito discussed above, the fact that these pamphlets are being republished, translated and circulated in the international Marxist-Leninist movement represents an attempt by the Albanian comrades to revive and deepen the absolutely vital ideological struggle against modern revisionism, (an ideological struggle which virtually ceased in the Communist Party of China with the beginning of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in China in 1966!) and to continue this struggle mercilessly until modern revisionism has been vanquished and Marxism-Leninism has become again the dominant political force in the international Marxist Leninist movement.
(5) Since the
7th Congress the courageous Albanian comrades have indeed developed and deepened
their renewed ideological offensive against international revisionism.
In particular the Zeri I Popullit editorial of July 7, 1977 entitled The
Theory and Practice of the Revolution and more recently the speech by
Comrade Hysni Kapo on the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution entitled The
Ideas of the October Revolution Are Defended and Carried Forward In Struggle
Against Modern Revisionism constitute real contributions to the theoretical
clarity of the international communist movement as we carry out the necessary
struggle against opportunism without which consistent struggle against
international capital is impossible.
By boldly and honestly presenting our views, sharing our particular experience and perspectives with the rest of the international Marxist-Leninist movement including the heroic Albanian Party. Any forms of support – economic, diplomatic, political (Joint Declarations, etc.), military, ideological – may well prove of great value to the People's Socialist Republic of Albania in this period. However in the ideological sphere, the only genuine internationalist support which the rest of the international Marxist-Leninist movement can give the heroic Albanian Party is critical support. And only such critical support serves the long run interests of the international proletariat in the ideological struggle.
In the USA today there are a number of forces who have responded to the important, new Marxist-Leninist polemics of the Albanian Party of Labor against revisionism. Most notably the Guardian has provided an example of criticism without support, while the Central Organization of US Marxist-Leninists (COUSML) has provided the clearest example of "support" without criticism.
Commenting on the Guardian's introduction to the excerpts it published in its July 27, 1977 issue from the Zeri I Popullit editorial, The Theory and Practice of the Revolution, we wrote, *
* [fn. For the full text of our September 10, 1977 letter to the Guardian see Appendix.]
"...this very editorial from Zeri I Popullit is a part of the process by which the Albanian comrades are making a principled break with the current Chinese Communist Party thesis that Soviet social-imperialism is today more dangerous than US imperialism. Interestingly the Guardian, with its view that US imperialism is the main enemy, in its introductory editorial takes the trouble to distinguish itself from the Albanian position that both superpowers are equally the main enemy, without directing itself to its [the Guardian's] far greater differences with the Chinese Communist Party position that Soviet social imperialism is the main enemy!"
Marxist-Leninists as dialecticians always attempt to analyze phenomena from the standpoint of their motion. The facts are clear: the Albanian comrades have made a principled break with the Chinese Communist Party position of the "Three Worlds." Included in this is the Albanian Party's difference with the CPC leadership around the "main danger." While the CPC maintains that Soviet social-imperialism is the main danger, the PLA has adopted the view that US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are equally the main danger. This means that the PLA position is focusing the attention of the revolutionary proletariat and oppressed peoples more and more on US imperialism once again. It is reflected in the fine polemics they have produced in the past year which correctly focus more on the imperialist aggression of US imperialism throughout the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America than on the aggressions committed by Soviet social-imperialism.
While (correctly, we believe) holding the view that US imperialism is the main danger, the Guardian has refused to polemicize against the dangerous, opportunist view on this question being pushed by the CPC leadership under Chairman Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping. Yet the Guardian expressed its opposition to the PLA which has taken a principled step away from the CPC position and toward the position that the Guardian itself holds!
Why then, has the Guardian criticized the PLA while refusing to support the PLA's principled and critically important Marxist-Leninist polemics against the CPC leadership of Hua-Teng?
The basis of the Guardian's criticism without support of the Albanian Party of Labor is its basic right opportunist petty-bourgeois hostility to Marxism-Leninism. This can be seen clearly in the Guardian's support for "non-alignment," i.e. in its opportunist approach to the struggles of the oppressed peoples. In our September 10 letter to the Guardian, we pointed out,
"The other political difference with the Albanian thesis that the Guardian raises is that 'the Albanian statement underestimates the progressive character of the non-aligned movement'…. For on the principal theoretical question raised by the July 7, 1977 Zeri I Popullit editorial – Lenin's teachings on imperialism and the Leninist theory of the socialist revolution in particular – the Guardian is 'aligned' with the Hua Kuo-feng – Teng Hsiao-ping leadership and their new mentor Tito of Yugoslavia, and in opposition to Leninism and the heroic Party of Labor of Albania."
Wilfred Burchett, the Guardian's chief spokesman "for" the so-called "Third World," talks about "internationalism" in general, characterizing as "dogmatists" those who uphold "proletarian internationalism."
But this is not all. Guardian support for Monthly Review neo-Trotskyite articles comparing Comrade Stalin unfavorably to Comrade Mao and the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in China, are attacks on the dictatorship of the proletariat which for decades was being consolidated in the Soviet Union. Chairman Hua has projected this many times. For example in his pamphlet "Continue the Revolution Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to the End," after criticizing Stalin for his alleged theoretical deficiencies, while admitting that Stalin led the USSR and the international proletariat to unprecedented practical victories, Hua states,
"...Chairman Mao... gave the first scientific answer in the history of the international communist movement to this question of cardinal importance relating to the historical destiny of the dictatorship of the proletariat and founded the great theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat."
Trying as much as possible to follow the leadership of Chairman Hua and Teng Hsiao-ping, the Guardian wrote a favorable review of the lead article in the February 1977 issue of Monthly Review by editor Paul Sweezy, entitled, "Theory and Practice of the Mao Period." Sweezy's article was full of petty-bourgeois hostility to the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR, based on petty-bourgeois democratic illusions regarding the bestial nature of the imperialist enemy, serious underestimation of the scope, difficulty and protracted character of the tasks of socialist construction, etc. Sweezy talked about "the tyranny of the Soviet model," "the extreme methods of repression in use under Stalin," "...the grand illusion of the Marxism of the period of the Third International."
Furthermore, Sweezy described the Chinese leadership in the early 1960's in negative terms, e.g. "...the early 1960's witnessed the proliferation of elitist tendencies in both economics and politics" and in "...the rightward movement of the early 1960's." There is not one positive mention of any Communist Party in Sweezy's article! And it is this specific article which is pushed in the Guardian of March 9, 1977!
The theory and practice of the Albanian Party exposes the petty-bourgeois, imperialist-minded character of Sweezy's polemic (and therefore the Guardian).
The tremendous positive accomplishments of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR under the leadership of Comrade Stalin and the CPSU(B) have been upheld in Albania by the Albanian Party of Labor under Comrade Enver Hoxha's leadership. The fruit of this principled Leninist policy has been the advance of development of the form of rule in Albania from a people's democratic republic (the form of government in China) to a people's socialist republic.
And it is no accident that it was precisely in the period when the constitution of the people's socialist republic was being discussed and passed that the historic 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania took place, reviving the struggle against revisionism, defending the history of the Comintern, etc. For the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country cannot thrive and develop in conditions where bourgeois nationalism dominates the foreign policy of the government and Communist Party. On the contrary, the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country can only be consolidated when its relationship to the rest of the world is guided by proletarian internationalism, by the science of Marxism-Leninism.
It is noteworthy that Sweezy (and his Guardian supporters) attack the CPC leadership of the early 1960's, the period in which genuine proletarian internationalism dominated the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party of China and was manifested in the outstanding Marxist-Leninist polemics against Khrushchev revisionism which inspired oppressed peoples throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America to take the path of armed struggle against imperialism, headed by US imperialism. Likewise today, the adoption by the Albanian people under the leadership of the Albanian Party of Labor of a constitution for the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and the new concentration of the PLA on the anti-revisionist struggle and revival of proletarian internationalism are part and parcel of the same process, the process of consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, as Lenin would say, not as an end in itself but as a means for advancing the proletarian revolutionary cause throughout the world.
Indeed the theory and practice of the PLA and the People's Socialist Republic of Albania confirms the validity of the two main propositions put forth in the document by Youth for Stalin republished in this pamphlet on "The Role of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in the International Marxist-Leninist Movement: The October Revolution vs. the 'Cultural Revolution.'" The propositions are: (1) A dialectical relationship exists between the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country and proletarian internationalism in the international Marxist-Leninist movement and (2) The principled Marxist-Leninist theory and practice of the October Revolution and its consolidation under Comrades Lenin and Stalin must be upheld in order to uphold Leninism in our time. And the idea that Chairman Mao and the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" "founded the great theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" must be exposed for the anti-Stalin, anti-Leninist bourgeois nationalist line and program that it represents.
The Guardian's support for the neo-Trotskyite Sweezy's attacks on the dictatorship of the proletariat is linked to the Guardian's "third world," "non-aligned" orientation in reducing the anti-imperialist struggles of the oppressed peoples for national liberation and socialism, to a struggle for national liberation under bourgeois rather than proletarian leadership with the erection of a "Chinese Wall" between the bourgeois democratic and socialist stages of the revolution. This is one of the main violations of the Leninist theory of the revolution exposed so clearly by Comrade Stalin in Foundations of Leninism. *
* [fn. Ironically, Comrade Stalin's metaphor regarding a "Chinese Wall" between the bourgeois democratic and socialist stages of the revolution has become somewhat literally the case today, since the chief proponent of the "three worlds" conception is the present leadership in China!]
Within the boundaries of US imperialism the Guardian pushes academic Guardian clubs for the building of a party, multi-class coalition work and liberal liberation support groups, all aimed at mobilizing the petty-bourgeoisie for political action when the socialist stage of the revolution in the US (north) oppressor nation requires strategy and tactics that win the working class first and foremost to the proletarian revolutionary cause.
The link-up between the bourgeois nationalist forces in the socialist countries and the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia in the oppressor nations is no accident. Together they form an international middle "class" (force) which vacillates between the international proletariat and the international bourgeoisie.
The "theory of the three worlds," which revisionist essence is the renunciation of all forms of revolutionary struggles against imperialism throughout the world based on the needs of the national bourgeoisie in power in a revolutionary democratic country (e.g. the People's Republic of China) is also an excellent line and program for the petty bourgeoisie of the imperialist nations to adopt in order to defend their privileges vis-a-vis the international proletariat and the oppressed peoples.
This is the material reason why the Guardian in its approach to the Party of Labor of Albania is critical while refusing to support the PLA.
In October, we received a letter from a comrade in prison who had first corresponded with us in response to the Ray O. Light pamphlet on party-building in the USA. He stated:
"Yes, we too are encouraged by the activities of the Albanian comrades. We hope, however, that these activities, which will reduce the slavish dependence of a large part of the world communist movement on the Communist Party of China, will not result in this slavish dependence being transferred to the Party of Labor of Albania. We believe Marxist-Leninist's should look to the leadership of Marxist-Leninist Parties which have led their nations through national revolutionary revolutions, and are leading their people in the struggle for socialism, but we do not think any Marxist-Leninist should uncritically (i.e. slavishly) support these comrades."
The Central Organization of US Marxist-Leninists (COUSM-L) has responded to the developing Albanian polemic against modern revisionism by jumping on the Albanian bandwagon in much the same way as the American Communist Workers' Movement (M-L) (from which COUSM-L came) was founded in response to the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." That original group became the most open "cheerleaders" in the USA of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution." COUSM-L has now replaced "slavish dependence" on Chairman Mao with "slavish dependence" on Comrade Enver Hoxha! Within the narrow circles in which COUSM-L carries out practice, all the leadership and direction they've provided during the past year can be summed up in their slogan, "Closely follow Comrade Enver Hoxha." Such "practice" is a classic case of applying the idealist conception of history. Comrade Stalin taught that,
"The strength and vitality of Marxism-Leninism lie in the fact that it does base its practical activity on the needs of the development of the material life of society and never divorces itself from the real life of society... in order not to err in policy, in order not to find itself in the position of idle dreamers, the party of the proletariat must not base its activities on 'abstract principles of human reason,’ but on the concrete conditions of the material life of society, as the determining force of social development; not on the good wishes of 'great men,’ but on the real needs of development of the material life of society." [Dialectical and Historical Materialism, pp. 21-22]
To the idealists of the Central Organization of US Marxist-Leninists (COUSM-L), once the elite intellectual members of their sect learn the "Truth, "victory has been achieved. Their idealist conception of the anti-revisionist struggle leads COUSM-L to draw conclusions such as contained in their article, "Against Reversing the Verdict Condemning the Yugoslav Revisionist Tito Clique, Murderers and Spies for US Imperialism" [November 1, 1977 Workers' Advocate] where they state:
"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 opportunism, will be stripped of their masks by the Marxist Leninist Parties and will become 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,"
The fawning and cringing and band wagoning approach of COUSM-L to the PLA not only is worthless from the point of view of proletarian internationalist solidarity, of mutual support; it is downright harmful in creating illusions of real support for the PLA by a large movement where none exists and is helping to create conditions which could breed complacency on the part of the Albanian or other comrades with regard to the significance of the victories already achieved and the tasks that lie ahead in the anti-revisionist struggle and the revolutionary struggles against imperialism.
In pages of the Workers' Advocate, the COUSM-L organ, many words have been concentrated against the CP(M-L) (formerly October League). COUSM-L correctly exposes the social-chauvinism of CP(M-L) which, in "closely following Chairman Hua Kuo-feng," is actually aiding US imperialism in mobilizing the US working class to support US imperialism against the Soviet Union (and the oppressed peoples). Along with its social chauvinism in whipping up anti-Soviet feelings the CP(M-L) is fanning the flames of anti-communism which unfortunately still burn far and wide in the US working class. Since chauvinism and anti-communism are the two most potent ideological poisons of US imperialism among the US working class, COUSM-L's polemic against the CP(M-L) is positive at least within the narrow circle of its influence, even with its idealist core.
However, along with its idealist conception of history, COUSM-L is afflicted with the disease characteristic of the "new communist movement," namely, infantile leftism and sectarianism. Thus, COUSM-L does virtually no work in mass organizations, in the factories, among the poor and working people. COUSM-L liquidates the fundamental task of all Marxist-Leninists – the need anywhere and everywhere to win the hearts and minds of the masses to the cause of socialism and communism.
Hence it is not surprising that CO USM-L uncritically "supports" the PLA in such a way as to downplay, bury and even at times to liquidate entirely, the national liberation movements against imperialism, headed by US imperialism, as well as the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries, especially in the USA.
In discussing the significance of the struggle against revisionism COUSM-L takes the position that either the question of capitalist restoration in the socialist countries, of socialist construction, etc. or (at other times) the contradiction among the imperialist (and social-imperialist) groupings, countries, etc., is primary.
When focusing on the problem of capitalist restoration and the companion problem of socialist construction as the primary contradiction, COUSM-L is pushing the line which the CPSU used to mobilize support through the 81 Party Statement for its revisionist detente with US imperialism (at the expense of the oppressed peoples) as the strategic method for the international proletariat to use in "dealing" with international capital. *
* [fn. One of the great strides forward in the current PLA struggle against revisionism as compared with the general level of the anti-revisionist polemics in the early 1960's is that in the 1960's the 81 Party Statement, which represented a compromise of Marxist-Leninist principles and parties with the unprincipled revisionists headed by Khrushchev, was the basis for much of the limits of the criticism waged by the CPC and the PLA against modern revisionism, whereas now in such outstanding polemics by the PLA as the Theory and Practice of the Revolution [7/7/77 Zeri I Popullit], Lenin's teachings on imperialism and specifically the Leninist analysis of the contradictions facing imperialism are directly applied to the theory and practice of the revisionists.]
When COUSM-L focuses on the contradiction among the imperialist (and social-imperialist) groupings as the primary contradiction in the world as in its polemics against the CP(M-L), it feeds the line of approach of the present leadership of the CPC which projects the "three worlds concept" as a means of dealing with the reactionary capitalist world which it considers the only active and initiating force. The fact that COUSM-L virtually liquidates the contradiction among the imperialists does not negate the fact that COUSM-L focuses primary attention on this contradiction at the expense of the contradiction between labor and capital and the contradiction between the oppressed and oppressor nations. COUSM-L's approach here is the other side of the coin of the right opportunists of the present CPC leadership. COUSM-L blindly accepts the view projected in the initial PLA statements criticizing the "three worlds concept" that "Each separated or together, the two superpowers represent, in the same degree and to the same extent, the main enemy of socialism and the freedom and independence of nations, the greatest force defending oppressive and exploiting systems..." etc. The fact that Comrade Hoxha stated this is apparently enough for COUSM-L to accept it uncritically. Never mind the fact that the same degree and the same extent thesis is undialectical on the face of it, or that in life, quite obviously there is a huge difference between whether the freedom of a nation is threatened by the two superpowers separately or together, etc.
The significance of the fact that the other two of the four most important contradictions of imperialism are downplayed, neglected, and at times negated by COUSM-L lies in the fact that these contradictions are the two forms of direct, revolutionary armed struggle against imperialism, the bourgeois democratic revolution and the proletarian (socialist) revolution! To apply these two contradictions to the concrete situation would require that COUSM-L and its followers would have some real revolutionary responsibilities instead of merely having to study and sloganize the dispatches coming out of Albania. And to take up revolutionary responsibilities in relation to these two contradictions would bring COUSM-L up against imperialism and could threaten the foundation of the privileges which COUSM-L with its predominantly petty-bourgeois class composition is trying to maintain.
Likewise, they cannot afford to raise comradely criticism or even questions around the 7th Congress Report or any other subject. For criticism of others implies a willingness to be criticized and to be self-critical regarding one’s own concrete history. And COUSM-L's approach to their own concrete history regarding the "three worlds concept" further exposes their parasitical approach to the PLA.
In a statement of October 1, 1975 the COUSM-L National Committee strongly upholds the "three worlds" concept. They state,
“Today Chairman Mao's China is leading the world's people in a great international united front against the hegemonism of the two superpowers, against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and all reaction. With the third world as the main force a tremendous revolutionary current is sweeping the world.... Soviet social-imperialism has an especially aggressive character and must be strongly exposed and combated, while US imperialism is unleashing fascism at home and is also preparing for war and must also be combated.”
Here we see COUSM-L upholding the classic CPC positions that the "third world" is leading the struggle against hegemonism and that the Soviet Union is more of an enemy to mankind than US imperialism – a social-chauvinist position that COUSM-L is now taking such pains to expose the CP(M-L) on! And earlier in this statement COUSM-L refers to China as a "developing country" of the "third world" – two classic formulations of the theorists of the "three worlds" specifically exposed by Comrade Hoxha in the report to the 7th Congress.
Now COUSM-L claims to uphold the Leninist teachings on the revolution as put forth in the July 7, 1977 editorial in Zeri I Popullit and claims to oppose the "theory of the three worlds" that they themselves once followed. Yet not a word of self-criticism has crossed their lips or a word of their printed page, creating the illusion that COUSM-L has always and consistently upheld the revolutionary positions now being put forth by the Albanian comrades to the international communist movement.
With how much confidence can proletarian revolutionaries now heed COUSM-L's declarations of opposition to the “three worlds theory” and the social-chauvinism of CP(M-L), or honeyed words of praise which COUSM-L is now spewing forth for the PLA?
In light of the above, it is not surprising that COUSM-L has never been self-critical regarding its anti-Leninist projection of "Mao Tse-tung Thought." For example on October 1, 1975 the COUSM-L National Committee statement included the following:
"In 1966, Chairman Mao personally initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.... This revolution was an earth shaking development on the scale of the October Revolution and was a continuation of it. It marked a tremendous development of Marxism-Leninism to an entirely new stage, that of Mao Tse-tung Thought. It is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which solved in practice and in theory the great problem of how to thoroughly defeat the attempts of the bourgeoisie to restore capitalism in a socialist country and showed how to defeat modern revisionism on a world scale. Its lessons are universally applicable."
COUSM-L continues,
"...Chairman Mao... has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism and raised it to a higher and completely new state, the stage of Mao Tse-tung Thought."
Leaving aside the slanders of J.V. Stalin and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR, which COUSM-L had in common with the Guardian, Sweezy and Chairman Hua Kuo-feng, the key fact is that COUSM-L used the concept of "Mao Tse-tung Thought" in precisely the same way as the present Chinese leadership led by Chairman Hua and Teng Hsiao-ping use this concept, namely to bury Leninism and specifically the Leninist teachings on imperialism and especially the Leninist theory of the revolution. In this cause COUSM-L has constantly credited Chairman Mao with Lenin's (two stage) theory of the revolution.
Perhaps the most outstanding theoretical contribution of the Youth for Stalin document is the section dealing with "Chairman Mao Tse-tung – An Evaluation" which deals with the individual and his thinking and then distinct from those considerations exposes the use which the leadership of the so-called "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" made of "Mao's Thought." In April, 1968, Youth for Stalin pointed out that, "The 'Mao's Thought' slogan created an ideological smokescreen for the ascendancy of the national bourgeoisie within the CPC."
Today, the heroic PLA has dropped all use of "Mao's Thought" and in the PLA's series of polemics against revisionism has not even mentioned Chairman Mao. This is a confirmation of the perceptive ideological position put forth a decade ago by Youth for Stalin. Further it is a dramatization of how the Chinese leadership has used Mao's name to bury Leninism, and that consequently the revival of Leninism which is the core of the Albanian polemics requires the elimination of the "Mao's Thought" concept from the ideological arsenal of Marxism-Leninism.
Interestingly, COUSM-L still uses the "Mao's Thought" concept. This is no accident, for "Mao's Thought" or "Hoxha's Thought," i.e. the "good wishes of great men", as Comrade Stalin described it, is the core of COUSM-L's idealist theory and practice.
The "support" without criticism which COUSM-L has given to the PLA and specifically to Comrade Hoxha is in the final analysis, no support at all. For with its idealist conception of history and its sectarian practice, including its refusal to be self-critical, COUSM-L shifts the responsibility for its actions as well as the responsibility of all other Marxist-Leninists onto the shoulders of its new, great individual leader, Comrade Enver Hoxha. And this support represents in practice the most vicious form of isolation.
Our purpose in republishing "The Role of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in the International Marxist-Leninist Movement: The October Revolution vs. The 'Cultural Revolution'" by Youth for Stalin is to help deepen the renewed ideological struggle against revisionism which the heroic PLA under the leadership of Comrade Enver Hoxha has spearheaded during the past year or so.
In the early 1960's the vitally important polemics against modern revisionism by the CPC and the PLA represented a decisive and principled break with Khrushchev revisionism. Yet certainly in the first few years of this struggle (around 1960-1961) the Marxist-Leninists of the CPC and the PLA could not possibly have discarded all the revisionist baggage with which they had been able to retain unity with the opportunists prior to the launching of the anti-revisionist polemics.
Likewise in their renewed anti-revisionist polemics beginning with the 7th Congress, the heroic PLA must still possess some of the ideological baggage to which the PLA's decade long unity with the Chinese revisionists must have inevitably given rise. To underscore this point, it is noteworthy that in dealing with international questions from the standpoint of proletarian internationalism in the 7th Congress report and in numerous articles since then, the PLA draws specifically on the 5th Congress of the PLA and its perspectives (rather than on the 6th for example) for inspiration and continuity with the anti-revisionist polemics of the 7th Congress and its aftermath. The 5th Congress of the PLA was held in November, 1966, not long after the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" began and certainly before its real impact on the international Marxist-Leninist movement could be felt. (In this connection remember that the CPC polemics against Khrushchev revisionism ceased right in the period when the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was initiated.)
The Youth for Stalin document, republished in the following pages, was an attempt to help keep alive the strategically important anti-revisionist struggle in the new conditions after the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" had been launched and the CPC polemics against revisionism had ceased.
It
is in this light that the Youth for Stalin document can be of value in
helping to chart the path for the development of the current anti-revisionist
struggle so that it leads to significant and thoroughgoing victory for the
international proletariat and the oppressed peoples.
First, we are republishing the document exactly as it was originally published, so that the strength of its perspective in relation to the international situation as a whole as well as to specific aspects of that situation can be fully appreciated. Certainly, the almost ten years of historical experience of the international proletariat which have transpired since then have provided further and much more substantial evidence of the correct conclusions offered there.
At the same time two weaknesses in the document are worth noting. One definite weakness was the omission of any specific mention of the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries. (And the omission of the proletarian demand for "bread" from the explanation of the October Revolution in the document reflects this weakness as well.) This represented a significant downplaying of the contradiction between labor and capital in the imperialist countries, even though the concrete direction provided to proletarian revolutionaries in the imperialist countries objectively would lead to the proletarian revolution since this direction was oriented around the main contradiction of the time – between the oppressed peoples and imperialism, headed by US imperialism.
The other point of weakness was, in 1968, merely an inaccurate use of the words "era" and "stage" to describe the post-World War II international situation in which the main contradiction had become the contradiction between the oppressed and oppressor nations. The "Mao's Thought" slogan warned about by Youth for Stalin was ultimately used to bury Leninism and specifically the Leninist analysis of imperialism and its contradictions. Those in China and elsewhere who pushed "Mao's Thought" at the expense of Leninism described an "era" of "Mao's Thought," a new "stage,” in order to bury the contradictions of imperialism and to reconcile themselves with imperialism, and US imperialism in particular.
Youth for Stalin had
said that, "...a new, higher stage in the struggle to smash world
capitalism was ushered in... the era of the world-wide victory for national
liberation over imperialism. However Youth for Stalin, far from burying
the other important contradictions facing imperialism (except to the extent
that they downplayed the contradiction between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries), even with their formulations of
"era" and "stage," took fully into account these
contradictions facing imperialism, in their living interconnection with the
main contradiction of the time, that between the oppressed and oppressing
nations.
(1) The Youth for Stalin document raised the question of the main contradiction and how a correct evaluation of the main contradiction in a given period within the Leninist epoch, rather than burying the other three key contradictions does just the opposite; it correctly orients the international communist movement as to its tasks in implementing all of these contradictions to the full against imperialism.
This is the Leninist epoch, the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution, as Comrade Stalin described it. Throughout this epoch the struggle between the old and dying capitalist system and the new and rising socialist system occupies center stage. However during this protracted epoch, the main contradiction may well shift again and again as the international situation changes. In this Leninist epoch, already the contradiction among the imperialists themselves has been the main contradiction as during World War I and World War II. And the main contradiction changed to the contradiction between the oppressed and oppressor nations from the end of World War II to the present as described well in the Youth for Stalin document.
As the principled CPC leadership put it in 1963,
"The various types of contradiction in the contemporary world are concentrated in the vast areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America; these are the most vulnerable areas under imperialist rule and the storm centers of world revolution dealing direct blows at imperialism. In a sense, therefore, the whole cause of the international proletariat hinges on the outcome of the revolutionary struggles of the people in these areas." [Letter of the Central Committee, CPC, 1963] *
* [fn. Today the opportunist leadership of the CPC headed by Chairman Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping are the chief proponents of the "Three Worlds Theory." On the surface this theory pays lip service to the idea that the main contradiction in the world is between the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America and imperialism. However on close examination it is clear that the "three worlds theory" buries all of the contradictions of imperialism which make up the foundation of Leninist theory. Instead the "three worlds theory" proves to be only another variant of the classic opportunism of the Russian revisionists – namely peaceful co-existence with imperialism and peaceful transition as a means by which the nationally oppressed peoples can allegedly achieve bourgeois democratic "revolution." In short, despite militant facade, the "Theory of the Three Worlds" is opportunist renunciation of the revolution all down the line, in the .oppressed nations, in the imperialist countries, and in the liquidation of the proletarian dictatorship in the socialist camp.]
It is encouraging that in the past year, in such fine Marxist-Leninist polemics as "The Theory and Practice of the Revolution,” the Albanian comrades have focused more on the impact of revisionism on the struggles of the oppressed peoples against imperialism than on the other important contradictions. This is a reflection of the strong and correct orientation of the current anti-revisionist struggle being waged by the PLA.
(2) The Youth for Stalin document sharply criticized the centrist revisionist essence of the 81 Party Statement. Youth for Stalin replaced this statement with Lenin's teachings on imperialism, specifically evaluating the international situation and the tasks of the Marxist-Leninists from the standpoint of the contradictions inherent in the imperialist stage of capitalism as taught by Comrade Lenin.
Armed with a correct understanding of the main contradiction, the 81 Party Statement could have been seen clearly as a compromise between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism, a centrist revisionist document. The line of the 81 Party Statement pursued socialist construction with peaceful competition with imperialism as the main form of “struggle.” With the incorrect projection of the contradiction between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp as the main contradiction in this period, the revisionists were able to make peaceful co-existence and hence "peaceful transition" the main "weapon" with which the international communist movement dealt with imperialism, headed by US imperialism.
Thus the 81 Party Statement objectively served to hamper the Marxist-Leninists from providing Marxist-Leninist leadership internationally and nationally to the national liberation movements against imperialism which were in fact the weakest link in the imperialist chain at the time. The 81 Party Statement objectively served to tone down and even disarm the national democratic revolutions of the oppressed peoples against imperialism in the name of peaceful co-existence between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp.
The Marxist-Leninist polemics of the PLA this year are now clearly based on a revival of the Leninist teachings on imperialism and no longer on the 81 Party Statement as exemplified by the outstanding Marxist-Leninist document, "The Theory and Practice of the Revolution."
(3) Youth for Stalin also exposed the bankrupt and dangerous concept of the "favorable situation," a "false parade of well being" behind which revisionists in China and their followers in the USA and elsewhere have been able to bury their own revolutionary responsibilities to the working class and toiling masses especially in light of the degeneration of the USSR and the subsequent domination of the international Marxist-Leninist movement by revisionism. On this question, too, the Albanian comrades are now taking seriously into account the difficult situation that we Marxist-Leninists are in. Not only is attention being paid to the fact that the revisionist betrayal and restoration of capitalism in the USSR and elsewhere has caused "colossal damage to the revolution," as Comrade Hysni Kapo points out, but the possibility is raised (in the Joint Declaration by the European Parties) that the People's Socialist Republic of Albania is the only socialist country in the world.
Such frank and honest recognition of where our movement is today is a prerequisite for learning the lessons of our mistakes and rebuilding an even stronger and more effective international communist movement tomorrow.
(4) Youth for Stalin warned about the misuse of the concept of "Mao Tse-tung Thought" by the revisionists within the CPC leadership who used it to conceal their opportunist line and policy leading to national bourgeois rule in China. Marxist-Leninists can never substitute the thought of one man or woman, no matter how great a leader, for the collective genius of the international proletariat, which produces its Marxist theory, as Comrade Stalin put it, "based on the experience of the working class movement summed up in its general aspect." The leadership of one individual no matter how great cannot substitute for a Communist International which is capable of collectivizing the experience and coordinating the theoretical development of the international revolutionary proletarian movement in its struggle against international capital. The thought of one individual leader, no matter who, should never be substituted for a concrete analysis of the concrete conditions which is the starting point for the dialectical materialist political positions of the Marxist-Leninist movement. Every Marxist-Leninist has the responsibility to help make such a concrete analysis whenever and wherever possible.
(5) Perhaps the central theme of the Youth for Stalin document is the dialectical relationship that exists between the dictatorship of the proletariat and its consolidation in one country and the struggles of the rest of the international proletariat against international capital. Bourgeois nationalism in external policy leads to bourgeois nationalism on the internal domestic front and vice versa. The inspiring establishment of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania is dialectically interconnected with the new inspiring proletarian internationalist upsurge in the international Marxist-Leninist movement by the heroic PLA.
(6) The Youth for Stalin document clearly establishes the national bourgeois class as the social basis for revisionism in the socialist countries. In his recent speech Comrade Hysni Kapo pointed out, "All the revisionist theories... [are] inspired by a marked bourgeois nationalism of the chauvinist character of the big state or by the narrow interests of their 'own' national bourgeoisie. "
(7) The predictions of Youth for Stalin regarding the developing rapprochement between the Chinese national bourgeoisie and US imperialism were extremely accurate. Life itself proved richer in its process than the scenario laid out by Youth for Stalin in early 1968 only to the extent that it was not the liberal Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy but the professional red-baiter Richard Nixon who became the US president that consummated the deal between the Chinese national bourgeoisie and US imperialism. After Nixon was president, the Chinese leadership did “openly advise the Vietnamese people to negotiate with the US imperialist beasts” as Youth for Stalin predicted.
In 1972, I.F. Stone, a liberal US imperialist spokesman, said,
"Without the enormous resolution and courage of the Vietnamese what would Moscow and Peking have to offer Mr. Nixon, what would they have to sell? Peking bought its admission into the United Nations, bought its way out of containment, with the blood of the Vietnamese people".
In January, 1973, Robert S. Elegant in a report for the Los Angeles Times from Hong Kong stated that:
"Well informed diplomatic sources here indicated yesterday that pressure from Peking and Moscow played a major role in inducing the Vietnamese Communists to return to the conference table.... The diplomats pointed out that neither Peking nor Moscow now feels that continuation of hostilities is in its interest. The Chinese do not wish to imperil their rapprochement with the United States..." Together with Soviet pressure, the Chinese swayed the wavering political bureau of the North Vietnamese Labor (Communist) Party. The faction in the Hanoi Politburo that favors present accommodation... therefore prevailed."
A July 2, 1973 item from Newsweek entitled "Peking Votes for Plowshares" reads:
"Peking has given Hanoi the word that it now favors political over military tactics in Indochina. Le Duan, the veteran secretary of North Vietnam's Communist Party... tried and failed to get more military aid during his recent visit to Peking..."
Such was the role (since the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" began in 1966) of the Chinese national bourgeoisie in the struggle of the Vietnamese people – the focal struggle of the past decade in the entire world.
(8) In April of 1968 Youth for Stalin characterized the international situation in the following way:
"Since the death of Stalin, the two main characteristics of the international situation have been (1) the intensification of the contradiction between the oppressed nations and US imperialism; and (2) the development of a policy in most socialist countries of betrayal of the oppressed peoples based on the ascendancy of the national bourgeois class in the socialist countries."
In the almost ten years since then, world developments have provided much substantiation for this view. Successful revolutions against imperialism have occurred only in the oppressed nations. The peoples of Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique achieved victory over the tottering Portuguese junior partner of US imperialism, and, most notably, victory was achieved by the peoples of Kampuchea (Cambodia), Vietnam and Laos over US imperialism after a protracted war of truly massive dimensions. These victories for the oppressed peoples and the international proletariat certainly confirm the first characteristic projected by Youth for Stalin.
Yet an examination even of these great victories reveals that the second characteristic also became more pronounced in the past decade of class struggle, especially between the oppressed peoples and imperialism, headed by US imperialism. In Kampuchea (Cambodia), the nation which was the first in this period to win military victory over US imperialism and which showed the others in practice that such a victory was possible, the Soviet revisionists recognized and backed the open US imperialist-CIA backed Lon Nol regime right to the very end! In Angola, the key national liberation struggle in the old Portuguese colonies was objectively opposed by the Chinese revisionist leadership which supported the US-CIA created FNLA and South Africa regime-backed UNIT A forces against the genuine anti-imperialist national liberation organization, the MPLA!
What is the Current Situation?*
* [fn. As we are going to press it has been reported that the revolutionary government of Kampuchea has broken off diplomatic relations with the revolutionary government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Both governments are led by so-called communist parties. How tragic that bourgeois nationalism has so deeply infected the international communist movement that these two neighboring parties whose countries were liberated from a common enemy at the same time have been unable to resolve their present differences on the basis of proletarian internationalism!]
On the Horn of Africa, the just national revolutionary struggle of the Eritrean people against imperialism and specifically directed against the reactionary Ethiopian regime is being opposed by the national "revolutionary" "socialist" regimes of Cuba and South Yemen backed by Soviet social-imperialism. In the Middle East the Chinese revisionists continue to call for "unity" of the Palestinian and other Arab revolutionary fighters with the most reactionary, bloody and oppressive Arab regimes which are puppets of US imperialism. In the past year the present Chinese leadership signed a pact with the Jordanian regime of King Hussein, describing Hussein, a known paid agent of the US-CIA, as a defender of Jordan's national sovereignty! In addition to the Butcher of Amman, the CPC leadership is pushing the Palestinian people and other Arab revolutionaries to unite with Assad, the Syrian butcher in Lebanon, with CIA-connected Saudi Arabia's Royal House, etc.
By contrast, the bourgeois-democratic regimes in Southern Africa including Mozambique and Angola are practicing far more effective international solidarity with the anti-imperialist forces in Zimbabwe, Azania, Namibia, etc. than is any so-called "socialist" country, with the exception of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.
All
these facts demonstrate the truth of the first characteristic of the
international situation laid out by Youth for Stalin and they
demonstrate the second characteristic as well. This second characteristic is
ultimately confirmed by the ascendancy of the national bourgeoisie to power in
China!
To update the concluding sentence of the Youth for Stalin's introduction to the document which follows:
In this 60th Anniversary year of the Great October Revolution, Marxist-Leninists throughout the world must support the initiatives and defend the integrity of the heroic Party of Labor of Albania which has indeed rekindled the revolutionary flame of the October Revolution on the soil of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.
December 1977
September 10, 1977
GuardianTo the Editor:
We hail the Party of Labor of Albania editorial in the 7/7/77 issue of Zeri I Popullit as the outstanding Marxist-Leninist document produced in the international communist movement in the last decade. It represents the first real alternative for those revolutionaries fighting against international capital and semi-feudal reaction to the opportunism that has dominated the international communist movement since the beginning of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" and the cessation of Chinese Communist Party anti-revisionist polemics in 1966. We believe that the Guardian performed a good service to the Marxist-Leninists in the USA by publishing excerpts of this profound Marxist-Leninist document in its 7/27/77 issue.
The Guardian has demonstrated a surprisingly principled independence from the current Chinese Communist Party position on such important questions as the revolutionary struggle in Angola and in Zaire, etc. Yet while opposing those forces in the above mentioned countries supported by the present Chinese leadership, the Guardian has adamantly refused to expose the objectively counter-revolutionary role being played by the present Chinese leadership in those countries. How inconsistent and hypocritical then for the Guardian to name the Chinese as the target of the recent Albanian Party editorial when the Albanian comrades themselves never mentioned the Chinese Party by name in the Zeri I Popullit editorial. The Guardian entitled its own introductory editorial, "The China-Albania Split."
Having fought against the opportunism of the Chinese leadership since the "GPCR" began we might be expected to join a bandwagon of speculation regarding a China-Albania split. Our view, however, is quite the opposite. The courageous and principled Albanian party, Government, and people at a moment when taking new steps forward in "uncharted waters," at a moment of vulnerability and danger, need to retain as much of its old support as possible on a principled basis while mobilizing the genuine proletarian internationalist forces to the full extent made possible by the new heights of principle and clarity of vision achieved and reflected in the 7/7/77 Zeri I Popullit editorial.
How can the Guardian fail to respect the way in which the heroic Party of Labor of Albania is conducting its invaluable polemics in the international communist movement, while the Guardian itself takes the "liberty" (liberalism?) to remain completely silent on the role of the Chinese CP leadership of Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping while condemning reactionary forces supported by these Chinese leaders?
The answer to the above can be found through examination of the brief political comments made by the Guardian in its introductory editorial to the excerpts from the Albanian editorial [p. 16, 7/27/77].
In our opinion the Guardian correctly criticizes the Albanian thesis "from the left" on the question of the main enemy. We agree with the Guardian that US imperialism is the main enemy of the oppressed peoples, not both US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism equally as the Albanian comrades presently maintain. (In fact in the Albanian editorial in the list of comprador elements in the oppressed nations which are mentioned, every one of them – Hussein, Suharto, Pinochet – is primarily an agent of US imperialism!) Objectively, however, this very editorial from Zeri I Popullit is a part of the process by which the Albanian comrades are making a principled break with the current Chinese CP thesis that Soviet social-imperialism is today more dangerous than US imperialism. Interestingly the Guardian with its view that US imperialism is the main enemy in its introductory editorial takes the trouble to distinguish itself from the Albanian position that both superpowers are equally the main enemy, without directing itself to the question of its [the Guardian's] far greater differences with the Chinese CP position that Soviet social-imperialism is the main enemy!
The other political difference with the Albanian thesis that the Guardian raises is that, "the Albanian statement underestimates the progressive character of the non-aligned movement." It is in this right opportunist political position of the Guardian that we find the key to understanding the Guardian's double standard toward the current Chinese leadership, i.e. one for itself, another for the Party of Labor of Albania.
For on the principal theoretical question raised by the 7/7/77 Zeri I Popullit editorial – Lenin's teachings on imperialism and the Leninist theory of the Socialist revolution in particular – the Guardian is "aligned" with the Hua Kuo-feng – Teng Hsiao-ping leadership and with their new mentor – Tito of Yugoslavia, and in opposition to Leninism and the heroic Party of Labor of Albania.