First Published: FORUM for Marxist-Leninist Inner-Party Struggle, No. 3, May 1964.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Sam Richards and Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
Like all traitors to Marxism-Leninism and the working class, Palme Dutt is full of moralisms. In the first of a series of articles on the international differences in Comment he latches on to the “tone” in which the Chinese statements have been made and ignores or perverts once more what the CPC actually said. There is no space here to deal in detail with the March 31st statement of the CPC which can be read in Peking Review No.14 (April 3rd), and every comrade, if he reads nothing else should make it a prime duty to read this side by side with Dutt’s perversions. This article here is concerned only with pointing out a few facts.
Dutt is a hypocrite and a liar when he accuses the Chinese of bringing “foul charges” against the Bolshevik Revolution. The charges are against those, including Khrushchov, who are betraying that revolution in every respect. Any “foulness” belongs to these traitors (in word and deed) alone.
Dutt is a hypocrite and a liar when he accuses the Chinese of “openly repudiating” the 1960 statement. In the very quotation he gives (which is, as usual, removed from context) they ask for an amendment of one section of the document. Since when has such an amendment a repudiation of the whole? Dutt should consult his own experience in the Party. On this score every amendment to any political resolution before any Congress could at any time be declared a repudiation of the whole.
This type of pejorative argument simply serves to obscure the real issue. But then, this is what Dutt wants to do, as is shown by yet another lie, i.e. that “previously every Chinese Communist statement has professed fidelity to these agreed documents of the International Communist Movement.” The Chinese have never concealed their opposition to this formulation on peaceful transition. What they have done is to keep their criticisms private to the Movement itself until Khrushchov himself brought these issues into public view in 1960.
Dutt knows this perfectly well and yet he blatantly perverts the history of t he differences to suit his own ends. He even goes to the length of “interpreting” the call for ”joint consultation of Communist and Workers’ Parties” as a sinister move to take unilateral action. In this too, Dutt is a hypocrite and a liar. In resounding tones he states that “Our Party has advocated a world conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties”, yet when anything of this character comes from the Chinese and specifically refers to an important section of the 1960 Statement, which in their view needs amendment, this is “repudiation” and “unilateral action”.
The truth of the matter is that Dutt, like all the revisionists in the leader ship of the British Communist Party, is in the same position, not only as Kautsky and Bernstein but also Browder and Tito. Browder tried to liquidate the American Party on exactly the same arguments for peaceful transition as the revisionists present in the British Road to Socialism. Now, Browder writes for Harpers Magazine (a really ’progressive’ U.S. journal!) and says he was expelled fifteen years ago for doing exactly what Khrushchov is doing now (“How Stalin ruined the American Communist Party”, Harpers Magazine, New York, March 1960). Tito has long betrayed the working masses of Yugoslavia by introducing capitalism and siding with the imperialists on Cuba and or the Indian attacks on China. Khrushchov now openly admits that he and Tito “belong to one and the same idea and are guided by the same theory”.
Kautsky, Bernstein, Trotsky, Browder, Tito, Khrushchov, Dutt – this is the line of descent. It is Dutt and his ilk who are responsible for suppression of discussion in the Communist Party for years; for the perversion and suppression of information for years. It is Dutt and his ilk who are AFRAID of confrontation by facts and arguments not only from the Chinese but from honest members of the Party and the working class here. But it takes the specially obnoxious variety of treachery possessed by Dutt himself to do what he did at the last National Congress, to stand up before 450 delegates and deliberately misquote from Long Live Leninism in order to give the impression that the CPC wants socialism through nuclear war. Who is the real enemy of Marxism-Leninism within the ranks of the Movement?’ Who is the real enemy of the working class and the oppressed masses? Who, ultimately, is the real enemy of mankind? The facts speak for themselves. This creature who poses as a “communist” for a longer period than the existence of the CPC, stands fully exposed as the worst, form of traitor and philistine.
This latest piece of malicious rubbish to come from his pen is, like his former article in Marxism Today, accusing the Chinese of racism and other foul charges, one more exposure of Dutt’s complete bankruptcy and viciousness.
How much more must we stomach of this? Comrades inside the Party must press for full and open discussion in the Party of what is going on and what is being said in the international movement. Comrades must fearlessly expose the treachery of the revisionist leadership and call for their removal. We must not be fobbed off with so-called “statements” to be followed up by some rigged ‘conferences’ either here or internationally.
PRESS FOR OPEN AND FULL DISCUSSION IN THE PARTY.
PRESS FOR AN EXPOSURE OF THESE PERVERTERS OF THE TRUTH.
PRESS FOR THE EXPULSION OF ALL TRAITORS TO MARXISM-LENINISM AND THE WORKING CLASS.