Maoist Communist Party, Manipur bases
itself on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism with the creative
application of this universal truth to the concrete conditions of the
Manipur revolution under the collective leadership of the Party.
Maoist
Communist Party-Manipur will be the vanguard of the proletariat in
Manipur, which is part of the world proletariat, sworn the basic
principles:
- The masses are the makers of history, and "It is right to rebel;"
- Contradiction, the sole and fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter;
- Class struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and proletarian internationalism;
- The
necessity of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party which
applies with firmness its independence, independent decision, and
self reliance;
- Smash Colonialism, imperialism, revisionism and reaction implacably and relentlessly;
- Conquer and defend power through the People's War;
- Militarization of the Party and the concentric construction of the three instruments of the revolution;
- Two-line struggle as the motive force of the Party's development;
- Constant ideological transformation and always putting politics in command;
- Serve the people and the world proletarian revolution;
Marxism
is not a lifeless dogma, not a completed, ready-made, immutable
doctrine, but a living guide to action” said Com. Lenin, and it is
“bound to reflect the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of
social life.”
It is precisely because Marxism is a living
science, and not a lifeless dogma, has living connection with, and
serves practice, that it undergoes continuous development and gets
enriched in the course of development of the class struggle, the
struggle for production and scientific experiment. The Theory, Ideology
or science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the synthesis of the
experiences of class struggle in all spheres and in all countries over
the last 150 years. It is a comprehensive whole of philosophy, political
economy and scientific socialism or class struggle of the proletariat.
MLM
has been forged and expounded by the most brilliant leaders of the
international proletariat-Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse
tung-in the crucible of class struggle and the ideological struggle
against bourgeois ideology and its various manifestations in the form of
revisionism and various other alien class tendencies in the past 150
years. It is an invincible weapon in the hands of the international
proletariat and other oppressed and exploited masses to understand and
transform this world by carrying out the revolution. It is a living and
scientific ideology which has constantly developed and enriched during
the course of revolutionary practice in the International Communist
Movement.
Marxism, the scientific theory developed by Marx and
Engels, laid the foundation of the new science and became firmly
established by the last decade of the 19th century after defeating all
the bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and opportunist trends in the
International Communist Movement in a bitter struggle lasting for almost
half-a-century. Marxism is the first stage in the development of the
scientific ideology of the proletariat.
The second great leap in
the science of Marxism took place in the initial decades of the 20th
century under conditions of monopoly capitalism, which took the form of
imperialism. It was in the course of creatively applying the basic
tenets of Marxism to the concrete practice of the Russian Revolution and
the World Proletarian Revolution and in the course of the
ideological-political struggle against revisionists like Bernstein,
Kautsky and dogmatic Marxists like Plekhanov, that Com. Lenin defended,
enriched and developed Marxism to a new and higher stage of proletarian
science. Thus Marxism-Leninism represented the second stage in the
development of the scientific ideology of the proletariat.
The
third great leap in the development of the proletarian science was
brought forth by Com. Mao by applying the basic tenets of
Marxism-Leninism to the concrete practice of the Chinese Revolution and
the World Proletarian Revolution and in the course of the resolute
struggle against modern revisionism led by Khrushchov & Co. He
firmly defended, enriched and developed the science of Marxism-Leninism
to a new and higher stage by making significant contributions to the
three component parts of Marxism-Leninism. Thus Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
marks the third stage in the development of the scientific ideology of
the proletariat.
A correct scientific understanding of the
development of the ideology of the proletariat over the last 150 years
is very essential in order to grasp the significance of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a qualitatively higher stage of
Marxism-Leninism.
Marx and Marxism
Pointing out the objective conditions that gave birth to the science of Marxism Com. Mao states :
“For
a very long period in history, men were necessarily confined to a
one-sided understanding of history of society because, for one thing,
the bias of the exploiting classes always distorted history and, for
another, the small scale of production limited men’s outlook. It was not
until the modern proletariat emerged along with immense forces of
production (large-scale industry) that man was able to acquire a
comprehensive historical understanding of the development of society and
turn this knowledge into science, the science of Marxism.”
(Mao - On Practice, Selected Works, Vol I, page 206)
And Com.Stalin succinctly sums up the essence of Marxism thus:
“Marxism
is the science of the laws governing the development of nature and
society, the science of the revolution of the oppressed and exploited
masses, the science of the victory of socialism in all countries, the
science of building a communist society.”
Karl Marx, along with
his close comrade-in-arms, Frederick Engels, developed the philosophy of
dialectical materialism as a method and outlook; applied the
dialectical method to discover the laws of motion of social development
or the materialist conception of history; developed the science of
political economy which discovered the laws of motion of capitalism with
its inherent class contradictions and the doctrine of surplus value-the
cornerstone of Marx’s economic theory-which uncovered the source of
exploitation; developed the theory of scientific socialism based on the
doctrine of the class struggle; and outlined the principles governing
the tactics of the class struggle of the proletariat.
Marx gave
to philosophy the revolutionary task of changing the world. This is
expressed in the famous statement made by Marx in his
Theses on Feuerbach: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, our task is to change it”.
Marx and Engels defined matter as material reality existing objectively
and that it gets reflected in human consciousness. Marxist
philosophical materialism thus resolved the fundamental question in
philosophy- that concerning the relation of thinking and being ...spirit
to nature.
They also proved most scientifically the second
aspect in the fundamental question in philosophy, viz, can human
consciousness properly reflect objective reality? Marxist theory of
knowledge totally rejected agnosticism and skepticism, asserted that
nothing in the world remains forever as a “thing-in-itself” or
unknowable. Marxist theory of knowledge asserted that social
practice
is the source of knowledge. Completely rejecting rationalist and
empiricist trends, it also stated that social practice is the measure of
truth.
Marx synthesized the knowledge gained by humankind over
the centuries and, basing himself mainly on all that was rational in
German classical philosophy, English classical political economy and
French revolutionary and socialist doctrines, Marx discovered the
Materialist Conception of History. He defined the human essence as the
ensemble of social relations.
In the field of political economy, Marx’s greatest contribution is the analysis of Capital.
As explained by Lenin and cited by Com. Mao in his ‘On Contradiction’, “In his
Capital, Marx first analyses the simplest, most ordinary and fundamental, most common and everyday
relation
of bourgeois (commodity) society, a relation encountered billions of
times, viz. the exchange of commodities. In this very simple phenomenon
(in this “cell” of bourgeois society) analysis reveals
all the contradictions (or the germs of
all the contradictions) of modern society. The subsequent exposition shows us the development (
both growth
and
movement) of these contradictions and of this society in the
[summation] of its individual parts, from its beginning to its end.”
Thus
where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the
exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between
people. The exchange of commodities expresses the tie between individual
producers through the market.
In his monumental work,
Das Capital,
he expounded the labour theory of value and showed how surplus value
extracted from the worker is the specific form of exploitation under
capitalism, which takes the form of profit, the source of the wealth of
the capitalist class. He showed that exploitation takes place in the
capitalist mode of production behind the façade of free and equal
exchange. Marx refuted the erroneous views of the Classical economists
that exploitation arises from unequal exchange of labour for the wage.
Based on this analysis and the law of contradiction Marx discovered the
basic contradiction in capitalist society. As Com. Mao explained:
“When
Marx applied this law to the study of the economic structure of
capitalist society, he discovered that the basic contradiction of this
society is the contradiction between the social character of production
and the private character of ownership. This contradiction manifests
itself in the contradiction between the organized character of
production in individual enterprises and the anarchic character of
production in society as a whole. In terms of class relations, it
manifests itself in the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat.”
(On Contradiction)
Marx explained capitalist crises also as another manifestation of this fundamental contradiction of capitalism.
Com.
Lenin expounded the Marxist understanding regarding the capitalist
crisis, while refuting the Sismodian view, that crisis manifests
“precisely in the conditions of production. To put it more briefly, the
former (Sismondian) explains crises, by underconsumption
(Unterkonsumption ), the latter (Marxist) by the anarchy of production.”
(The characterization of Economic Romanticism)
Explaining how the capitalists try to resolve the crisis, The Communist Manifesto puts it lucidly:
“The
conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth
created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On
the one hand, by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on
the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough
exploitation of the old ones. That is to say,, by paving the way for
extensive and more destructive crisis, and thereby diminishing the means
whereby crises are prevented.”
Basing on the above
understanding Marx and Engels recognised that the proletariat has
emerged as the most revolutionary social class and a motive force for
social development; that the proletariat, in the course of liberating
itself from wage slavery, will also liberate the entire society from all
class exploitation and oppression and advance towards a classless
society. They realized that, in order to liberate itself by overthrowing
capitalism the proletariat should develop its own class ideology, that
it should transform from the position of class-in-itself to a
class-for-itself, and that it should form its own advanced
organization-the Party of the proletariat.
They proved that the
contradiction between productive forces and relations of production in
class society manifests itself as a class contradiction and it is this
class struggle, which serves as the driving force of society. Hence they
described the history of class society as a history of a class
struggle. The Communist Manifesto, an immortal work of Marx and Engels
which appeared over 150 years ago, remains the international
proletariat’s guide even to this day.
The birth of Marxism
belongs to the period of one of the greatest transformations in human
history and the establishment of the global domination of a few Western
capitalist regimes. It was in the period of stormy revolutions of the
bourgeois-democratic epoch and nascent proletarian-revolutionary
movements from 1848 to the Paris Commune of 1871, and a relatively
peaceful period of preparation of the proletarian revolutions after the
fall of the Commune to the turn of the century that Marxism became
established through the correct analysis provided by Marx and Engels
into the great events of the period like the Paris Commune. Marx and
Engels played a major role in establishing and guiding the Communist
Parties and the First International and gave the workers of various
nations an internationalist outlook and camaraderie through their
clarion call : “
Workers of the world Unite!”
Marxism
developed into an ideological weapon in the hands of the proletariat by
defeating the various petty-bourgeois trends like the Anarchist trend of
Proudhon, Bakunin and the like who rejected the need for the political
struggle of the working class, rejected the need for a Party of the
proletariat and rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat; the
Blanquist trend that relied exclusively on conspiratorial methods; and
the opportunist trend of Lassalle, who proposed a system of
government-subsidised co-operatives, which would gradually replace
capitalism, and opposed even trade union struggles and strikes by his
infamous theory of the “iron law of wages”.
Marx criticized the
opportunist Gotha Programme that was adopted by the new Party formed in
Germany by the merger of the revolutionary Left led by Liebknecht and
Bebel with the opportunist Lassalle who believed in the democratization
of the state through universal suffrage or so-called state socialism and
collaborated with Bismarck.
Marx developed the theory of the
dictatorship of the proletariat as a form of rule of the proletariat and
as a method of overthrowing the rule of capital by force. Marx and
Engels explained the birth, development and the withering away of the
State in the course of development of human society from the
slave-owning society to communism. They explained that “the executive of
the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of
the whole bourgeoisie”.(The Communist Manifesto).
The most
important principle derived from the experience of the Commune,
according to Marx, is that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of
the ready-made state machinery, and use it for its own purposes.’ In
other words, the proletariat should use revolutionary means to seize
state power, smash the military bureaucratic machine of the bourgeoisie
and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat to replace the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Dictatorship of the
proletariat is a key concept in Marxist political theory. Marx proved
that “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the
proletariat; that this dictatorship itself constitutes the transition to
the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.” (Letter to
Wedemeyer, March, 1852) Marx and Engels thus exposed and defeated all
petty bourgeois, utopian theories of socialism that rejected class
struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat and firmly established
the principles of scientific socialism.
It is through the
development of the theory and tactics of the proletariat in the
pre-monopoly stage of capitalism and the resolute struggle waged by
Marx, against the various opportunist trends hostile to the interests of
the proletariat, that Marxism got established as the first stage in the
development of the proletarian ideology. And the Marxist methodology
has been adopted in understanding and developing almost all subjects
ranging from natural sciences to the strategy and tactics of revolution.
The great contributions of Marx and Engels are inseparable.
It was in close collaboration with Engels that Marx developed his
theory. Engels assisted Marx and enriched the latter’s writings,
simplifying and elaborating them where necessary. Engels also made great
contributions to philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism
after the death of Marx. He defended Marx and led the ideological
struggle against the opportunism in the Second International in the
initial years of its existence. Thus the contributions of Engels are an
inseparable part of the theory of Marxism.
The revolutionary
standpoint, political theory, the dialectical method and the
all-embracing world view developed by Marx i.e., doctrine of Marx, came
to be called Marxism, and represents the first great milestone in the
development of the scientific ideology of the proletariat.
Lenin and Leninism
Lenin,
following Marx and Engels, was a great revolutionary teacher of the
proletariat, the working people and the oppressed nations of the whole
world. Under the historical conditions of the epoch of imperialism and
in the flames of the proletarian socialist revolution, Lenin inherited,
resolutely defended, scientifically applied and creatively developed the
revolutionary teachings of Marx and Engels. Leninism is Marxism of the
epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution.
He creatively
applied the basic tenets of Marxism to the concrete practice of the
Russian revolution and to the World Proletarian Revolution in the early
phase of the imperialist era. Comrade Stalin summed up Leninism as:
“Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution.”
Stalin
mentioned two causes for the specific features of Leninism. “...
firstly, to the fact that Leninism emerged from the proletarian
revolution, the imprint of which it cannot but bear; secondly, to the
fact that it grew and became strong in clashes with the opportunism of
the Second International.”
Com. Lenin made great contributions
to enrich all the three component parts of Marxism and elevated our
understanding of the proletarian Party, revolutionary violence, the
State, the dictatorship of the proletariat, imperialism, the peasant
question, the women’s question, the national question, world war, and
tactics of the proletariat in the class struggle to a higher stage of
conception. The theoretical writings of Com. Lenin deal with almost
every subject applying the dialectical method of Marx.
Lenin
undertook the very serious task of generalizing, on the basis of
materialist philosophy, the most important achievements of science from
the time of Engels down to his own time, as well as of subjecting to
comprehensive criticism the anti-materialistic trends among Marxists. In
particular, his criticism on empirio-criticism which came to the fore
as a revisionist trend in philosophy is of fundamental importance. From
then on until today it has served as Marxist critique of the modern
bourgeois philosophical trends. He considered the attack on Marxism in
name of “New” philosophical trends based on modern scientific
discoveries as a manifestation of the class struggle in the
philosophical front. He proved that all the “New” philosophical theories
were no different from the old subjective idealism of Berkeley and
Hume. Lenin thus defeated most ably this attack on Marxism in the
philosophical front. In this process he creatively developed Marxist
philosophy.
Lenin developed Marxist theory of reflection in a
creative way. He explained on the basis of modern scientific discoveries
that matter has the property of being reflected and consciousness is
the highest form of reflection of matter in the brain.
The
theory of reflection of matter developed by Lenin, the definition he
gave to matter further strengthened the foundations of Marxist
philosophical materialism, making them impregnable to any attacks from
any form of idealism. The revolutionary dialectics was further carried
ahead by Lenin who particularly made a deep study of contradictions. He
called contradiction “the essence of dialectics” and stated that ‘the
division of the One and the knowledge of its contradictory parts is the
essence of dialectics.” He further asserted, “In brief, dialectics can
be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites”.
Lenin
made some of his greatest contributions to political economy. While Marx
and Engels revealed the various aspects of capitalism when it was at
the stage of free-competition and pointed out its tendencies and future
direction, it was not possible for them to analyse imperialism, the
highest stage of capitalism which was yet to be unfolded. Lenin further
developed the Marxist political economy and analysed the economic and
political essences of imperialism.
In his brilliant analysis of
imperialism, which is a great contribution to the theory of Marxism,
comrade Lenin scientifically explained the transformation of capitalism
from the pre-monopoly stage to monopoly stage and how this highest stage
of capitalism bred war and revolution. He pointed out that imperialist
war is a continuation of imperialist politics. The imperialists because
of their insatiable greed in scrambling for world markets, sources of
raw materials and fields for investment, and because of their struggle
to re-divide the world start world wars. Hence, so long as imperialism
exists in the world, the source and possibility of war will remain. He
laid bare the myth of democracy and showed how “politically imperialism
is always a striving towards violence and reaction.”
Lenin
asserted that imperialism is monopolistic, parasitic or decaying,
moribund capitalism, that it is the highest and final stage in the
development of capitalism and therefore is the eve of the proletarian
revolution.
Another major contribution of Lenin was regarding
the smashing of the State structure of the exploiting classes and the
establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He explained how
the State is an instrument of oppression of one class by another and how
the exploitative State can be smashed only by means of revolutionary
violence. Lenin repeatedly pointed out that the proletarian revolution
must smash the bourgeois state machine and replace it with the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Drawing lessons from the
experiences of the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution, he
discovered that the Soviet form of government was the best form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat; defined the dictatorship of the
proletariat as a special form of the class alliance between the
proletariat, and the exploited masses of the non-proletarian classes,
particularly the peasantry, under the leadership of the working class;
and explained how the dictatorship of the proletariat is the highest
type of democracy, the form of proletarian democracy, which expresses
the interests of the majority of the masses. Lenin pointed out that the
dictatorship of the proletariat is a persistent struggle - bloody and
bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and
administrative - against the forces and traditions of the old society,
that it means all-round dictatorship over the bourgeoisie. The
importance of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Lenin’s thinking
could be gauged from his famous observation:
“Only he is a Marxist who extends
the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Lenin
also warned of the danger of the restoration of capitalism if the
working class does not completely transform the small commodity
production. Lenin said: “small production engenders capitalism and the
bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass
scale.” That is why Lenin considered that the dictatorship of the
proletariat is essential to check the rise of the new bourgeoisie.
Moreover, basing on the law of the uneven economic and political
development of capitalism, Lenin came to the conclusion that, because
capitalism developed extremely unevenly in different countries,
socialism would achieve victory first in one or several countries but
could not achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. Therefore, in
spite of the victory of socialism in one or several countries, other
capitalist countries still exist, and this gives rise to imperialist
subversive activities against the socialist states. Hence the struggle
will be protracted. This was very lucidly brought out by the CPC in its
famous June 14 Letter of 1963:
“After the October Revolution, Lenin pointed out a number of times that:
a. The overthrown exploiters always try in a thousand and one ways to recover the “paradise” they have been deprived of.
b. New elements of capitalism are constantly and spontaneously generated in the petty-bourgeois atmosphere.
c. Political degenerates and new bourgeois elements may emerge in the
ranks of the working class and among government functionaries as a
result of bourgeois influence and the pervasive, corrupting atmosphere
of the petty bourgeoisie.
d. The external conditions for the
continuance of class struggle within a socialist country are
encirclement by international capitalism, the imperialists’ threat of
armed intervention and their subversive activities to accomplish
peaceful disintegration. “
. This thesis of Lenin that the
struggle between socialism and capitalism will embrace a whole
historical epoch is a tremendous contribution to the theory of building
socialism and communism.
Lenin made a path-breaking leap in the
concept and practice of Party building, which is a great addition to the
arsenal of Marxism. Lenin considered it of prime importance for the
proletariat to establish its own genuinely revolutionary political
party, which completely breaks with opportunism, that is, a Communist
Party, if the proletarian revolution is to be carried through, and the
dictatorship of the proletariat established and consolidated. He
brilliantly summed up the need for the party in the famous phrase “The
Proletariat, in its struggle for power, has no weapon other than
organization”. He postulated that the Party is the highest form of class
organization that directs all other forms of organization of the
masses, that the dictatorship of the proletariat can be realized only
through the proletarian Party, and that the Party should consist of a
stable nucleus of professional revolutionaries with an extensive network
of Party membership. This political party must identify itself with the
masses and attach great importance to their creative initiative in the
making of history; it must closely rely on the masses in revolution as
well as in building Socialism and Communism.
The Leninist
understanding on the national question is qualitatively of a higher
level. He fought both the chauvinism of the oppressor nation and the
narrow nationalism of the oppressed nation and laid out a correct policy
for the Party of the proletariat on the national question i.e. complete
equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to
self-determination, including the right of secession, and the
amalgamation of all nations. He showed how the national and colonial
question is a component part of the general question of the world
proletarian revolution and how it can be resolved only by the complete
elimination of imperialism worldwide. According to the National and
Colonial Thesis of Com. Lenin, the proletarian revolutionary movements
in the capitalist countries should ally themselves with the national
liberation movements in the colonies and dependent countries; this
alliance can smash the alliance of the imperialists with the feudal and
comprador reactionary forces in the colonies all dependent countries,
and will therefore inevitably put a final end to the imperialist system
throughout the world.
Lenin creatively developed the ideas of
Marx and Engels on an alliance of the working class and the peasantry
into an integral doctrine. Refuting the line of the Mensheviks like
Plekhanov who argued that the proletariat should only play the role of
extreme left opposition and leave the leadership role of the bourgeois
democratic revolution in Russia to the bourgeoisie and that the
peasantry should be left under the latter’s tutelage, Lenin formulated
the strategic plans for both the stages of revolution in Russia as: “The
proletariat must carry the democratic revolution to the completion,
allying to itself the mass of the peasantry in order to crush the
autocracy’s resistance by force and paralyse the bourgeoisie’s
instability. The proletariat must accomplish the Socialist revolution,
allying to itself the masses of the semi-proletarian elements of the
population, so as to crush the bourgeoisie’s resistance by force and
paralyse the instability of the peasantry and the petty-bourgeoisie.”
Analysing
the international and the internal conditions in Russia in the era of
imperialism Lenin thus developed a completely new theory of two stages
of revolution-bourgeois democratic and proletarian socialist-both of
which are indivisible and should be led by the proletariat.
Leninism
developed through relentless fight against the various shades of
opportunists such as the Bernstenian revisionists, Narodniks,
Economists, Mensheviks, Legal Marxists, Liquidators, Kautskyites,
Trotskyites, etc. Lenin drew up the tactics by taking Marxism as not a
dogma but a guide to action. The amazing clarity of the tactical slogans
and the astounding boldness of the revolutionary plans of Lenin won
over all the Left forces in the Second International and the
revolutionary masses to the side of the Bolsheviks.
Lenin
considered revisionists as agents of imperialism hiding among the ranks
of the working class movement and said: “…the fight against imperialism
is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight
against opportunism.”
With the collapse of the Second
International during the First World War due to the betrayal by most of
the Social-Democratic Parties that pursued a national chauvinist policy
of “Defence of the Fatherland”, Com. Lenin formed the Third
International immediately following the War and made it a powerful
instrument of the international proletariat in its fight against
imperialism.
While Marxism is the doctrine of the era of
relative peaceful development of capitalism and Leninism is the doctrine
of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution.
Describing
the conditions under which Leninism arose, Com.Stalin said: “Leninism
grew up and took shape under the conditions of imperialism, when the
contradictions of capitalism had reached an extreme point, when the
proletarian revolution had become an immediate practical question, when
the old period of preparation of the working class for revolution had
come up and passed over to a new period, that of direct assault on
capitalism”. And that “Leninism is the theory and tactics of the
proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the
dictatorship of the proletariat in particular.”
Lenin’s
teachings on imperialism, on proletarian revolution and the dictatorship
of the proletariat, on war and peace, and on the building of socialism
and communism still retain their full vitality. The science of Marxism
thus took a qualitative leap into the second and higher stage of
Marxism-Leninism in the course of the proletarian revolution and the
struggle against the opportunists of the Second international in the
imperialist stage of capitalism.
Stalin’s Defence of Marxism-Leninism
Stalin’s
contribution is part and parcel of Leninism. Based on the theoretical
foundations of Com. Lenin he further enriched and played a leading role
in construction of socialism in the USSR, the world’s first ever
socialist country.
Com. Stalin, the comrade-in-arms of Lenin,
creatively applied, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in some
fields. He led the International Communist Movement, in the three
decades after the death of Com.Lenin. He played a glorious role in
defeating the Hitler fascism during the 2nd World War.
Stalin
defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the fight against various
kinds of opportunism, against the enemies of Leninism, the Trotskyites,
Zinovievites, Bukharinites, and other bourgeois agents.
Stalin
made an indelible contribution to the international communist movement
through a number of theoretical writings such as those on the
Nationality question, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR,
History of the CPSU(B), on linguistics, etc and is known for the most
lucid, popular and simplified presentation of the works of Lenin such as
“The Foundations of Leninism” making them easier to grasp by the
Marxist-Leninists all over the world.
Mao and Maoism
Combining
the Chinese Revolution and the international proletarian revolution
with the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism, Com.Mao has protected,
inherited and developed Marxism-Leninism to a new and higher stage in
the field of philosophy, political economy, military science and
scientific socialism. Com.Mao has further developed the Marxist-Leninist
strategy and tactics. Protracted people’s war was developed through
revolutionary struggle and was for long 28 years in colonial,
semi-colonial, semi-feudal China-in a situation totally different from
the capitalist Europe. His theory of the New Democracy is also a unique
contribution to the arsenal of Marxism-Leninism.
After the
successful completion of the great Chinese Revolution in 1949 he made
some of his most brilliant contributions through the process of leading a
worldwide struggle against Khrushchov revisionism as well as modern
revisionism which is popularly known as The Great Debate in the history
of the International Communist Movement and thereafter by making
continuous contributions to the treasury of Marxism-Leninism, he
initiated and led the earth-shaking GPCR which marked a historical
turning point in the history of International Communist Movement. During
this period he developed the theory of continuing the revolution under
the dictatorship of the proletariat to prevent the restoration of
capitalism thereby consolidating and strengthening the socialist system
and the dictatorship of the proletariat with the very purpose of
advancing it towards communism on a world scale. On the whole, Com. Mao
developed the science of Marxism-Leninism to its third, higher and
qualitatively new stage.
Marxist philosophy: Mao
Tse-tung made invaluable contributions in greatly developing the
proletarian philosophy of dialectical materialism including the theory
of knowledge. Through his penetrating study of society and human
thought and particularly fighting against the dogmatists and made a
conceptual leap in understanding and developing the law of
contradiction. He pointed out that law of contradiction, the unity and
struggle of opposites, is the fundamental law of motion governing
nature and society including the human thought. He expounded that the
unity and identity in all things and processes is temporary and
relative, while the struggle between opposites is constant and
absolute which marks “breaks in continuity” and new leaps. He further
explained this conceptual leap in identifying the relationship between
the particularity of contradiction and the universality of
contradiction. He said that in given condition, opposite in a
contradiction possesses identity, and consequently can coexist in a
single entity and can transform themselves into each other. This is the
particularity and relativity of contradiction. But the struggle of
opposites is ceaseless, it goes on both when the opposites are
coexisting and when they are transforming themselves into each other,
and this struggle becomes especially visible when the opposites are
transforming themselves into one another - this is universality and
absoluteness of contradiction. In this context he further said that in
analyzing the particularity of contradictions we must give attention to
the distinction between the principal contradiction and the
non-principal contradiction and to the distinction between the
principal aspect and the non-principal aspect of a contradiction, while
in studying and analysing the universality of contradiction and the
struggle of opposites in contradiction, we must give attention to the
distinction between the different forms of struggle. That is why he
stressed that “the study of the various states of unevenness in
contradictions, of the principal and the non-principal contradictions
and of the principal and the non-principal aspects of a contradiction
constitutes an essential method by which a revolutionary political Party
correctly determines its strategic and tactical policies both in
political and in military affairs.”
(Mao - ‘On Contradiction’ Selected Readings, Page 117)
How
we must study every great system of the forms of motion of matter, Com.
Mao said, “It is necessary not only to study the particular
contradiction and the essence determined thereby of every great system
of the forms of motion of matter, but also study the particular
contradiction and the essence of each process in the long course of
development of each form of motion of matter . In every form of motion,
each process of development which is real (and not imaginary) is
qualitatively different. Our study must emphasise and start from this
point.”
(On Contradiction).
How to solve the
qualitatively different contradictions Com.Mao taught us, “qualitatively
different contradictions can only be resolved by qualitatively
different methods.”
( Ibid.). How to study a long process he
advised us to remember the following guideline: “ the process is marked
by stages. If people do not pay attention to the stages in the process
of development of a thing, they cannot deal with its contradictions
properly.”
Regarding the interrelationship between class
struggle and the development of ideology, Com. Mao said, “The three
basic constituents of Marxism are scientific socialism, philosophy and
political economy. The foundation is social science, class struggle.
There is a struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Marx
and others saw this. Utopian Socialists are always trying to persuade
the bourgeoisie to be charitable. This won’t work. It is necessary to
rely on the class struggle of the proletariat…….it is only starting from
this view-point that Marxism appeared. The foundation is class
struggle.” (
Talks on the Question of Philosophy, Mao, 1964)
Mao
also developed the dialectical understanding regarding the relationship
between productive forces and relations of production, theory and
practice, economic base and superstructure, matter and consciousness,
and so on. He raised the understanding to a qualitatively higher level
by pointing out that although productive forces, practice, matter,
economic base, etc. are the principal aspects in the above
contradictions, in certain conditions, aspects such as relations of
production, theory, superstructure and consciousness can become the
principal and play a decisive role.
Thus Mao stressed the
profound truth that matter can be transformed into consciousness and
then consciousness back into matter, thereby further developing the
understanding of the conscious, dynamic role of man in every field of
human activity.
Mao Tse-tung masterfully applied this
understanding in analysing the relationship between theory and practice,
he stressed that practice is both the sole source and ultimate
criterion of truth and emphasising the leap from theory to revolutionary
practice. He elaborating this understanding in developing the theory of
knowledge :
“Discover the truth through practice, and again
through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual
knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start
from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to
change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge,
again practice and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless
cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises
to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist
theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialistic theory of
the unity of knowing and doing.”
(Mao, On Practice, Selected Reading, page 81-82)
During
the GPCR Mao Tse-tung gave utmost importance to the study and
popularising the philosophy of the proletariat and thereby coined the
term that “Philosophy is no mystery” and hence to take philosophy to the
masses in their million he developed the new concept of “one divides
into two” in opposing the revisionist thesis of “Two combine into one”.
This became the most popular version of the law of the unity and
struggle of opposites which marked a new development in philosophy.
Political Economy :
In
the realm of the political economy of Socialism, Com.Mao Tse-tung made
tremendous advances, particularly analyzing the concrete laws of motion
governing the Socialist Construction by undertaking deep and critical
analysis of the then ‘Soviet Economics’ and by taking lessons from the
positive and negative experiences of socialist construction in Soviet
Russia. During this penetrating analysis he defended and highlighted the
positive achievements of the socialist construction while at the same
time criticised some of its negative aspects. On the basis of this
analysis including the analysis of the Chinese experience itself, com.
Mao developed a new conception thereby making a major breakthrough in
this field. In his masterful writing “
Ten Major Relationships”
Com.Mao underlined and developed new concepts for building Socialism,
such as “take agriculture as the foundation and industry as the leading
factor”. He emphasized the contradictory and dynamic role of production
and its interaction with the political and ideological superstructure of
the society. Mao recognized that although the ownership of the whole
people will coexist with the ownership of the collective for a fairly
long period of time, the latter can also prove to be a hurdle for the
further and full development of the productive forces. That is why he
stressed that there should be constant interaction between the system of
socialist ownership with the other aspects of the relations of
production, that is the relations between the people in production
including the system of distribution. In this context he emphasized the
fact that since the law of value and the “bourgeois right” still
continue to operate (although restricted) in the Socialist society, it
is therefore the correctness of the ideological and political line that
decides whether the proletariat actually owns the means of production.
It is in this background that Com.Mao warned time and again that if the
revisionists succeeded in capturing the political power it would be easy
for them to rig up the capitalist system. He thereby enriched and
developed the Marxist political economy by profoundly criticizing and
waging a life and death struggle against the revisionist theory of the
productive forces represented by Liu Shao-chi &Co in China and
Khrushchov in Russia. He concluded that the superstructure and
consciousness can transform the base and, by placing politics in command
in every field, productive forces can be constantly developed.
With
this higher stage of conception and understanding of the laws of
socialist construction Com.Mao formulated some important guidelines in
the form of slogans such as “Grasp Revolution, Promote Production”,
“Never Forget Class Struggle” and “Take Class Struggle as the Key Link”
in carrying out production in the correct direction. Refuting the
revisionist theory of “
Only Expert”, com. Mao enunciated an
important guideline by emphasizing the interrelationship between
expertise and revolutionary politics or “
Red and Expert”.
Another
great contribution of Com. Mao is the new conception of bureaucrat
capital, which is comprador in nature and is tied to imperialism and
feudalism. He explained how, during their twenty-year rule, the four big
families, Chiang, Soong, Kung and Chen, have piled up enormous fortunes
and monopolized the economic lifelines of the whole country; how this
monopoly capital, combined with state power, has become state-monopoly
capitalism. He stated: “This monopoly capitalism, closely tied up with
foreign imperialism, the domestic landlord class and the old-type rich
peasants, has become comprador, feudal, state-monopoly capitalism. Such
is the economic base of Chiang Kai-shek’s reactionary regime. This
state-monopoly capitalism oppresses not only the workers and peasants
but also the urban petty bourgeoisie, and it injures the middle
bourgeoisie. This capital is popularly known in China as
bureaucrat-capital. This capitalist class, known as the
bureaucrat-capitalist class, is the big bourgeoisie of China.” He said
that besides doing away with the special privileges of imperialism in
China, the task of the new-democratic revolution at home is to abolish
exploitation and oppression by the landlord class and by the
bureaucrat-capitalist class (the big bourgeoisie), change the comprador,
feudal relations of production and unfetter the productive forces.
Com.
Mao’s analysis of the degeneration of the Socialist economy of the
Soviet Union into a capitalist economy, the process of development of
state monopoly capital in the Soviet Union and the transformation of the
latter into a social-imperialist country and then into a superpower has
also enriched our understanding of the bureaucratized capitalist states
i.e. in States where capitalism is restored.
Development of a Maoist Revolutionary Line
The
principal elements of Com. Mao’s revolutionary line are the political
line of carrying out the New Democratic Revolution under the leadership
of the working class which will pass over to the Socialist stage; the
military line with the protracted people’s war as its essence; the
organizational line that consists of the basic principles underlying the
construction of the three magic weapons; and the revolutionary mass
line.
Com. Mao’s revolutionary line emerged by creatively and
masterfully applying the science of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete
practice of the Chinese Revolution. During the long and complex course
of the Chinese Revolution he developed a qualitatively new theory
regarding the nature and the path of the revolution for the colonial,
semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries; developed the strategic and
tactical principles of people’s war and enriched the military science;
and developed the mass line and class line and thereby developed the new
theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
New Democratic Revolution
According
to the new theory developed by Com. Mao that the revolution in the
semi-colonial, semi-feudal, countries will generally pass through two
different or distinct but inseparably interlinked stages. The first
stage will be the New Democratic Stage, which will uninterruptedly pass
over to the socialist stage directed towards communism. This is because
these countries have not gone through the bourgeois democratic
revolution and hence are oppressed by both imperialism and feudalism. By
basing on the Leninist thesis with regard to the Russian revolution Mao
developed the theory of two stages to a qualitatively new level. Thus
he explained that the democratic revolution in China is not the old type
of bourgeois revolution but a new democratic revolution and that it had
the two-fold task of overthrowing feudalism on the one hand, which
determined the democratic character, and of overthrowing imperialism,
which determined the national character of the revolution. The NDR will
remain directed against imperialism, feudalism and comprador
bureaucratic bourgeoisie. Agrarian revolution will be the axis of this
revolution. The proletariat and its party will play the leading role in
this revolution. He analyzed that the bourgeoisie is divided into two
sections-the comprador big bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.
While the former is the target of the revolution the latter is a
vacillating ally in the democratic stage of the revolution. It is this
penetrating analysis that made it possible for the CPC to forge a
powerful united front of all the classes that stood opposed to
imperialism and feudalism based on worker-peasant alliance and led by
the working class.
Path of Protracted People’s War
In
order to victoriously carry out the new democratic revolution Com. Mao
developed a qualitatively new theory of protracted people’s war. Before
the Chinese Revolution the path of armed insurrection, generally known
as the soviet model of revolution, was considered as the general path
for the seizure of power by the working class. But great Mao Tsetung
solved the question of successful completion of the revolution in the
colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries. He solved this
question by waging a bitter struggle against various right, dogmatist
and “left” deviations and learning from mistakes in the course of
advancing the Chinese revolution. With the victorious completion of this
revolution the truth that has come out is marked with internationalist
significance. This truth is revolution in colonial, semi-colonial and
semi-feudal countries can be victorious generally by following the path
and the principles underlying the strategy and tactics of the Chinese
Revolution. According to this path the countryside will remain the main
centre of the revolution and armed agrarian revolution will be the key
in the creation of the unending flow of armed revolutionary forces from
the mass of the peasantry, which will lead towards establishing the
invincible people’s army. The protracted people’s war will advance
towards victory by liberating the vast areas of the countryside first
and then encircling and finally capturing the cities.
During
this revolution Com. Mao put forth immense importance to the building of
a staunch and heroic people’s army and establishment of the liberated
base areas firstly in the strategic areas of the countryside. The
emergence of the base areas will contribute to enhance and expedite the
revolutionary high tide throughout the country and this lays the basis
for building up new base areas. Moreover, the task of carrying out the
revolutionary transformations in the base areas, by mobilising and
relying on the masses themselves, will help in further strengthening
these base areas politically, economically as well as culturally, which
will definitely help in achieving new victories in the protracted
people’s war.
Military Line
Com. Mao developed a
most comprehensive military line of the proletariat of a new type in the
history of the international communist movement. He developed this line
by comprehending the laws of war developed in the previous history and
particularly by basing on the Marxist-Leninist understanding regarding
the revolutionary warfare.
Comrade Mao systematically and
comprehensively formulated the basic principles of building up the Red
Army and of the Red Army’s strategy and tactics during the course of
China’s Revolutionary war, or in short, the laws that govern the
people’s war. The basic strategic and tactical principles of the Red
Army were derived from the principal characteristics of China’s
revolutionary war These basic principles, together with other military
theories, constitute the military line of the CPC represented by Com.
Mao.
The principles and theories comprising the military line
have enriched the military science and have become a guide for directing
the war, particularly in colonial, semi-feudal. semi-colonial countries
as the experiences of the people’s wars and national liberation
struggles in several countries since the Second World War amply
demonstrate.
One of the greatest contributions of Com.Mao to
military science lies precisely in his interpreting guerilla warfare on a
strategic level. Formerly, guerilla warfare was only considered as a
tactical problem. He said that throughout the period of war, guerrilla
warfare and mobile warfare of a guerilla character are the chief forms
of fighting.
The strategic role of guerilla warfare is two-fold, to support regular warfare and to transform itself into regular warfare.
While guerilla warfare is basic, he stressed that “the outcome of the
war depends mainly on regular warfare, especially in its mobile form”,
and that “these two forms of warfare will afford full play to the art of
directing the war and to the active role of man”. Which form of
warfare-guerilla, mobile, positional-will assume the main form at a
particular phase of the protracted people’s war depends on the concrete
conditions. But in all conditions the basic principle will remain “You
fight your way and we’ll fight ours: We fight when we can win and we
retreat when we cannot.” In the same way he categorically stated that “
all the guiding principles of military apparatus grow out of one basic
principle, ‘to preserve oneself and destroy the enemy’”. All technical
principles and all principles concerning tactics, campaigns and strategy
represent application of this basic principle.
One of the most
important contributions of Mao is the involvement of the broad masses in
the people’s war. He showed that it is the people, not weapons that are
decisive in carrying out the people’s war. The development of the
people’s militia as the local fighting force with the slogan of “Every
citizen a soldier” spread the guerilla warfare in depth and breadth
throughout China. Guerilla warfare acquired a mass character behind the
enemy lines thereby facilitating the advance of the regular people’s
army and the guerilla units. Com. Mao taught that Party should always
command the gun and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.
Com.
Mao also profoundly chalked out the three distinct but interlinked
stages that the revolutionary war would generally traverse through.
These are the stage of strategic defensive, the stage of strategic
stalemate or strategic equilibrium and finally the stage of strategic
offensive. The duration of these stages will vary according to varying
conditions of a country. Com. Mao forcefully stated that “It is
imperative that we arouse interest in the study of military theory and
direct the attention of the whole membership to the study of military
matters.” In this context of developing and applying the military line,
the military writings of Mao Tse-tung are a guide to action. These must
be studied and grasped for continuously deepening and advancing the
revolutionary protracted people’s war to higher and higher stages.
Mass Line
Com.
Mao further developed the concept regarding the revolutionary mass
line based on his famous dictum that “the people and the people alone
are the motive force in making world history.” He explained the basic
method of leadership by showing how correct ideas are formed in the
leadership by taking the ideas of the masses and concentrating them, and
again going to the masses, persevering in the ideas and carrying them
through. He stated that “take the ideas of the masses (scattered and
unsystematic ideas), and concentrate them (through study, turn them into
concentrated and systematic ideas) then go to the masses and propagate
and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold
fast to them and translate them into action and test the correctness of
these ideas in such action.” Such is the essence of Mao’s mass line.
The 1945 CPC ‘Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our
Party’, lucidly summed up Com. Mao’s conception of mass line inside and
outside the Party:
“As Comrade Mao Tse-tung says, the correct
line should be ‘from the masses, to the masses’. To ensure that the line
really comes from the masses and particular that it really goes back to
the masses, there must be close ties not only between the Party and the
masses outside the Party (between the class and the people), but above
all between the Party’s leading bodies and the masses within the Party
(between the cadres and the rank and the file); in other words there
must be a correct organizational line. Therefore, just as in each period
of the Party’s history Comrade Mao Tse-tung has laid down a political
line representing the interests of the masses, so he has laid down an
organizational line serving the political line and maintaining ties with
the masses both inside and outside the Party.”
Three Magic Weapons
The
“Three Magic Weapons”-the party, army and the united front-is another
new thesis developed by Com. Mao. The deeper understanding and masterful
use of these weapons by the party of the proletariat can and will
guarantee the advancement of revolution towards victory. It is extremely
necessary to understand and grasp not only the significance of each
weapon taken by itself but it is more important to understand and master
their interrelationship in theory and, more importantly, in concrete
practice. In this regard Com. Mao remarkably concluded: “Our eighteen
years experience show that the UF and armed struggle are the two basic
weapons for defeating the enemy. The UF is a UF for carrying on armed
struggle, and party is the heroic warrior wielding the two weapons, the
UF and the Armed Struggle to storm and shatter the enemy’s positions.
That is how they are related to each other.” (Mao, “Introducing the
Communist” Vol. II, Page 295)
This is the essence of Com. Mao’s
theory in understanding and correctly handling the two weapons, UF and
Armed Struggle, by the Party of the Proletariat.
Apart from the
three magic weapons Com. Mao also developed an important guideline in
understanding and developing the relationship of other forms of
organization and struggles. He said that “....war is the main form of
struggle and the army is the main form of organization. Other forms such
as mass organizations and mass struggles are also extremely important
and indeed indispensable and in no circumstances to be overlooked, but
their purpose is to serve the war.” This is the most correct criterion
in judging the performance of all other forms of organization and forms
of struggles.
Communist Party
Com. Mao further
developed the vanguard role of the Leninist concept regarding the
Communist Party who emphatically stated that “if there is to be
revolution there must be a revolutionary party.” The party must be armed
with the scientific ideology of MLM, it must be built on revolutionary
style and should be well disciplined, using the method of criticism and
self- criticism and closely linked with while relying vast masses of the
People. Apart from fighting against bourgeoisie ideology and various
shades of revisionism Com. Mao developed the profound understanding of
how to develop and preserve and enhance the
proletarian character of
the party through waging active and relentless struggle against the
influence of the bourgeoisie tendencies inside the party ranks at all
levels.
Com. Mao taught that the communist party plays the
primary and vanguard role in all matters before, during and often the
revolution in leading the proletariat and the masses in the historic
struggle leading toward communism. He developed the profound
understanding of how to develop and preserve the proletarian character
of the party through waging an active and serious struggle against
bourgeois and petty-bourgeois tendencies in the party ranks at all
levels. In addition to the ideological remoulding of the party members
the weapon of criticism and self-criticism should be used for
strengthening the party organization and increasing its fighting
capacity. In opposing subjectivism and sectarianism and other alien
class tendencies communist must firstly “learn from past mistakes to
avoid future ones,” and secondly “cure the sickness to save the
patient”, this is the only correct and effective method. He also set a
new example to constantly rectify the party in order to proletarianize
the Party and safeguard the political line through initiating
rectification campaigns from time to time. He also warned against
subjectivism, arbitrariness and vulgarization of criticism and
emphasized that during this process statements should be based on facts
and criticism should stress the political side.
Com. Mao
highlighted the importance of integration of the leadership with the
masses. Thereby he emphasized that they should be bold in unleashing
their initiative and creativity. For this they should set an example in
“simple living and hard work”. Both commandism and the attitude of
dispensing favors have to be fought. Communists must be modest and
prudent and guard against arrogance and impetuosity; they must be imbued
with the spirit of self-criticism and have the courage of correcting
the mistakes and shortcomings in their work. They must not cover up
their errors and claim the credit for themselves and shift all the blame
on others. In developing the mass line Mao Tsetung continued to stress
that communist should set an example in learning from the masses and
relying on them.
On Democratic Centralism
Mao’s
dialectical presentation of the understanding of democratic centralism
was a significant contribution to the Marxist theory of organisational
principles. He stressed on creating ‘a political situation in which we
have both centralism and democracy, both discipline and freedom, both
unity of will and personal ease of mind and liveliness’ both inside and
outside the Party and said that “Otherwise it will be impossible to
arouse the enthusiasm of the masses. We cannot overcome difficulties
without democracy. Of course, it’s even more impossible to do so without
centralism. But if there’s no democracy, centralism can profit to only
few”
“Without democracy there can’t be correct centralism
because centralism can’t be established when people have divergent views
and don’t have unity of understanding. What is meant by centralism?
First, there must be concentration of correct ideas. Unity of
understanding, of policy, plan, command and action is attained on the
basis of concentrating correct ideas. This is unity through centralism.
But if all those concerned are still not clear about the problems, if
their opinions are still unexpressed or their anger is still not vented,
how can you achieve this unity through centralism? Without democracy,
it is impossible to sum up experience correctly. Without democracy,
without ideas coming from the masses, it is impossible to formulate good
lines, principles, policies or methods.”
Mao also explained the dialectical relationship between democratic centralism and dictatorship of the proletariat:
“Without
democratic centralism, the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be
consolidated. Without broad democracy for the people, it is impossible
for the dictatorship of the proletariat to be consolidated of for
political power to be stable. Without democracy, without arousing the
masses and without supervision by the masses, it is impossible to
exercise effective dictatorship over the reactionaries and bad elements
or to remould them effectively.”
He warned that if the DOP is
not consolidated based on democratic centralism it is impossible to
establish a socialist economy and then China will turn into a bourgeois
state and the DOP will turn into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and
into a reactionary fascist dictatorship.
People’s Army
The
importance of the people’s army in the seizure of political power is
captured in the well-known statement of Mao, “Without a people’s army
the people have nothing.” He further stated that “the people’s army is
an armed body for carrying out the political tasks.” For this is it
highly necessary to comprehend that the people’s army can accomplish its
historic tasks only by earnestly and firmly following the great
teachings of Com. Mao. He showed that besides fighting to destroy the
enemy while preserving its own strength it should shoulder such
political tasks of doing propaganda among the masses, mobilizing the
masses along with organizing and arming them and helping them in
establishing their revolutionary political power thereby setting up and
developing the party also. Com.Mao said without these objectives
fighting looses and the red army looses the significance of its
existence.
The Revolutionary United Front
The building
of the united front of the four anti-imperialist, anti-feudal
classes-the working class, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the
national bourgeoisie- on the basis of the worker-peasant alliance, is
another major breakthrough in the Marxist-Leninist understanding on the
united front. Com. Mao laid down the basic tactical principles of the
united front to be pursued by the proletariat. These were: to isolate,
and destroy the main targets of the revolution-the imperialists, the
feudal forces and the comprador bureaucratic capitalists by mobilising
and organising the broad masses and uniting with all classes, parties,
organizations and individuals that were willing to oppose feudalism and
imperialism; to maintain the hegemony of the working class over the
united front; to maintain the independence and initiative in the hands
of the working class and to rely on its own efforts in all conditions;
and that the united front should serve the armed struggle. Such a UF
should be built up through armed struggle and for carrying forward the
armed struggle. The party of the proletariat should play a vanguard role
in this united front. The national bourgeoisie will take part in the
revolution against imperialism and feudalism at certain times and to a
certain extent. Hence the correct and incorrect handling of relationship
with the national bourgeoisie will be another hallmark for the party of
the proletariat.
On Art and Culture
Com.
Mao’s
contribution to the field of culture and art are a new development. He
forcefully refuted the idea of art for art’s sake. He said all
literature and art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite
political lines. There is no such thing as art for art’s sake. He
emphatically declared “all our literature and art are for the masses of
the people.” He put forth a completely new line. He said that our
literary and art workers must “move their feet over to the side of the
workers, peasants and soldiers, to the side of the proletariat.” He
also called upon them that they should go “into the thick of practical
struggles and through the process of studying Marxism and society.” He
further asserted, “an army without culture is a dull - wetted army, and a
dull-wetted army cannot defeat the enemy.” How to develop a socialist
culture, Com. Mao in a unique way said, “Letting a hundred flowers
blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for
promoting the progress of the arts and sciences and a flourishing
socialist culture in our land.”
This is the only way to bring forth a revolutionary and socialist culture in the finest sense.
On Imperialism and the National Question
Basing
on Lenin’s theses on the national and colonial question Mao developed
the concept of national liberation struggles in the colonies and
semi-colonies particularly in the conditions prevailing after WW II,
analyzed the neo-colonial forms and methods of rule adopted by
imperialism in the post WW II period, and explained how the struggles of
the oppressed nations and people in the countries of Asia, Africa and
Latin America - the storm centers of world revolution - are dealing
blows against imperialism shaking the very foundations of imperialist
rule. He stressed on the importance of forging a united front of the
national liberation struggles in the semi-colonial, semi-feudal
countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America on the one hand and the
proletarian revolutionary movements in the capitalist countries on the
other in order to defeat imperialism and hasten the victory of the world
revolution. He pointed out that no nation, however big and powerful,
can subject a weak and small nation and said that even a superpower like
the US is a paper tiger and the nuclear bomb is also a paper tiger.
Explaining how we should look at imperialism and all reactionaries from
the strategic and tactical points of view, Com. Mao said:
“Imperialism
and all reactionaries have a dual nature-they are real tigers and paper
tigers at the same time. Hence, imperialism and all reactionaries
looked at in essence from a long-term point of view, from a strategic
point of view, must be seen for what they are-paper tigers. On this we
should build our strategic thinking. On the other hand, they are also
living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers which can devour people. On this
we should build our tactical thinking.”
The Great Debate and Ideological struggle against modern revisionism
After
the demise of great Stalin, the agent of imperialists and the die-hard
revisionist Khrushchev through the 20th Congress of the CPSU held in
1956, brought forth his pernicious theory like ‘peaceful transformation
to socialism’, ‘peaceful competition’, and ‘peaceful co-existence’. All
these theories are diametrically opposite to the theory of
Marxism-Leninism and through these harmful theories Khrushchev left no
stone unturned to make a split and loss to the international communist
movement. In the same way, Khrushchev revisionism tried to divert the
world proletarian movement by denying the existence of imperialism and
by showing the danger of ‘atom bomb’ and ‘war’ in the situation
developed after the 2nd World War. Com. Mao fought relentlessly and
resolutely against Khrushchev revisionism and defended and advanced the
ICM with a correct Marxist-Leninist orientation by drawing a clear line
of demarcation with those die-hard revisionists. As a part and parcel
of the struggle against revisionism Com. Mao resolutely fought against
Tito, the agent of imperialism and against the recognised revisionists
like Togliotte and Thorez and through these struggles against
revisionism he defended and developed Marxism-Leninism and formulated a
new and general line for the international communist movement.
Mao
Tsetung led the international struggle against modern revisionism
through initiating the Great Debate. During this great struggle he not
only defended Marxism-Leninism but also developed it in some aspects.
This struggle was focused on all the major questions particularly on the
dictatorship of the proletariat. He set forth a new general line for
the international communist movement, which paved the way for the
genuine Marxist - Leninist forces for struggling against and revolting
from revisionism thereby advanced towards forging and building new ML
parties based on ML principles all over the globe.
During this
period Mao Tsetung has to wage repeated two line struggles against the
revisionist headquarters within the CPC also. Actually, this process of
analysis and struggle against modern revisionism including the repeated
two-line struggle in the CPC begins in the new form with the 20th
Congress of the then CPSU. Thereafter this process go deepening and
getting sharp and sharp in the subsequent period. It culminated during
the GPCR.
Mao Tsetung initiated and led the historic GPCR. The
GPCR represented the culmination of the great struggle against Modern
Revisionism including repeated two-line struggles in the CPC. During the
initial period of this struggle Com. Mao, while keeping the edge of his
struggle against Revisionism, also analysed some of the questions
related with the history of the International Communist Movement. In
this context, he analysed the role of Com. Stalin. While doing so, he
principally defended and highlighted the great achievements of Com.
Stalin while at the same time summed up some of his errors in the
“Second Comment” of the CPC “On the Question of Stalin”.
GPCR and the theory of continuing revolution
Mao
Tsetung initiated and led the historic GPCR which proved to be a
earth-shaking event in the history of the international communist
movement. It represented a new and qualitative leap forward in defending
and exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was directed
mainly against the capitalist roaders who emerged from within the
socialist society itself. Their chieftains were especially concentrated
in the leadership of the Party. During the GPCR Mao Tsetung’s historic
and powerful new slogan
“It is right to rebel” and
“Bombard the Headquarters”
resounded throughout China and proved to be a clarion call against the
capitalist roaders. This helped in rousing millions of people and from
below. Actually this mass mobilisation of the proletarian masses set
forth a new record.
Fighting against the headquarters of the
capitalist roaders led by Liu Shao-chi, Com. Mao Tse-tung had already
reasserted that the principal contradiction in socialist China continues
to remain between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and thereby laid
down the tasks for carrying on the class struggle against the bourgeois
class through to the end. The high point of this class struggle reached
during the GPCR. In this great struggle masses in their million led by
Mao himself deeply uprooted the soil which engendered capitalism, that
is , the bourgeois right and the three major differences still existing
in the socialist society. This great revolution not only helped in
deepening the class consciousness in China but also greatly helped in
sharpening the struggle against revisionism in various communist
parties at the international level. Two outstanding achievements of the
GPCR marked its historic importance.
One is that it developed a
completely new method in the arsenal of MLM to prevent the restoration
of capitalism. That method is continuing the revolution thereby to
prevent the restoration of capitalism. With this purpose it concentrated
on remoulding the world outlook. The class struggle and the two-line
struggle are extremely complex. When one tendency covers another many
comrades often fail to note it. This great teaching of Com. Mao was
vindicated immediately after the Cultural Revolution against the
capitalist roaders in the case of Lin Piao. While being in the forefront
during the GPCR Lin Piao actually proved himself later to be a
conspirator in the guise of Mao Thought who had tried to bring forth a
revisionist line. But, according to dialectical materialist point of
view, all objective things are knowable. But for this, “natural eye is
not enough, we must have the aid of the telescope and the microscope.
Marxist method is our telescope and microscope in political and military
matters.” For this one must diligently study the works of Marx, Engels,
Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung and take active part in actual struggle
and work hard to remould one’s world outlook. That is the way one can
constantly raise the ability to distinguish genuine from sham Maoism and
differentiate between correct and wrong lines and views. The
concentrated expression of this understanding is that for constantly
going on remoulding the world outlook., “Fight Self, Repudiate
Revisionism” and the “Revolutionary spirit of daring to go against the
tide”, are extremely necessary.
Second is it represented a
higher leap in defending and strengthening dictatorship of the
proletariat. It also represented the most extensive and deep going
exercise of the proletarian democracy in the world history, that too,
under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The capitalist
restoration following the 1976 counter-revolutionary coup d’etat led by
Teng-Hua revisionists in no way negates the historic lessons of the GPCR
rather it confirms Mao’s teachings that classes and class contradiction
remain operative in the entire socialist society and the need to
continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. No
doubt, if the working people of the world want to defeat the bourgeoisie
fully then the task to continue the revolution continuously will be the
inevitable condition.
Com.Mao, through the process of
integrating the truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of
the Chinese Revolution, developed this science to its higher and new
qualitative stage. His theory of GPCR, which is meant for preventing the
restoration of capitalism and consolidating and strengthening of
Socialism, is the outcome of higher and qualitatively new synthesis and
has no parallel in the history of class struggle under the dictatorship
of the proletariat.
So, it can be said that the GPCR is not only
tremendous and higher contribution of Mao to the theory of Scientific
Socialism, rather it is a theory of historic importance to prevent
restoration of capitalism and advance the socialist society towards
communism on a world scale.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is an Integrated Whole
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
is an integrated whole today. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the most
advanced and scientific ideology of the world proletariat. Not only
that, MLM is the all-powerful weapon, by which we can combat and defeat
bourgeois ideology and all brands of revisionism, including that which
may don the garb of Maoism.
Marxism arose as a science of the
laws of motion of nature, society and human thought, a science of
revolution at a moment in history when the proletariat made its
appearance as a revolutionary class capable of shaping the destiny of
the society including its own destiny. Marxism is the ideology of the
proletariat that was further synthesized and developed to new and higher
stages. From Marxism it developed into Marxism-Leninism. Thereafter, it
further developed into Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It is not a science
pertaining to a particular field of knowledge but a science representing
a whole comprehensive philosophical system, political economy,
scientific socialism, and the strategy and tactics of the proletariat in
comprehending and transforming the world through revolution.
The
CPC led by Com. Mao made historic and comprehensive analysis of the
development of Mao Thought (now Maoism), through its 9th Congress, held
in 1969. It summed up Mao Tse-tung Thought as a completely new and
higher stage of Marxism-Leninism. Thus Mao Tse-tung Thought, whose
historic significance began to be recognized by the Marxist-Leninist
forces worldwide ever since The Great Debate, became established as a
qualitatively higher stage in the development of the proletarian
ideology by the time of the 9th Congress of the CPC. Maoism is not just
the sum total of Mao’s great contributions. It is the most comprehensive
and all-round development of the science of Marxism-Leninism that had
taken shape in the period of the tremendous changes and great upheavals
that had occurred in the world since the time of Com. Lenin, namely, the
emergence of the Socialist camp following WW II; the upsurge of the
national liberation struggles throughout the world leading to a new
phase of neo-colonial control and exploitation; and the restoration of
capitalism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe with the usurpation of
power by the modern revisionist Khrushchov clique.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is an integrated whole. Maoism is
Marxism-Leninism of the present-day. To negate Maoism is to negate
Marxism-Leninism itself.
In our understanding, there has never
been a Chinese wall between Marxism-Leninism-Mao Thought and MLM. Yet
the term Maoism is a more precise and scientific explanation for Mao’s
contribution. In addition since modern revisionism is belittling Mao
Thought and negating or denying the historical and international
significance of Mao Thought, it will be more correct and appropriate to
use the terminology Maoism in lieu of Mao Thought in order to draw a
clear line of demarcation with them
Lenin put forth the
dividing line that “Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of
the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the
proletariat.” But today this dividing line has become more sharpened.
Today only he is a Marxist-Leninist who extends the recognition of class
struggle not only to the recognition of the dictatorship of the
proletariat but also to the recognition of the existence of classes and
antagonistic class contradictions, to the recognition of the existence
of the bourgeoisie in the party and of continuing the revolution under
the dictatorship of the proletariat throughout the period of socialism
up until communism.
Today the world situation is passing
through a period of unprecedented turmoil. People in their millions are
increasingly drawn into the struggle against imperialism, particularly
the US imperialism and all reactionary forces serving imperialism. All
the genuine Maoist forces throughout the world and in India are duty
bound to spread our ideology of MLM among the struggling masses.
Protracted people’s war, presently in the form of guerrilla war, is
powerfully going on and developing in India, under the leadership of
our two Maoist parties. Armed with the ideological weapon of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we are confident that we can further deepen and
advance the protracted people’s war on the soil of India by applying
our ideology to the concrete conditions in India and the contemporary
world. And that we can victoriously complete the New Democratic
Revolution and successfully build Socialism, prevent the restoration of
Capitalism, and advance to Communism under the guidance of MLM. It is
only by assimilating the substance of the ideology of MLM and creatively
applying it to the solution of the practical problems of the
revolutionary movement under the varying conditions of the class
struggle, only by applying it to the all-important task of forging of a
strong proletarian Party, a mighty People’s Liberation Army and the
Revolutionary United Front, and achieving great leaps in our people’s
war, that we can spread MLM more vigorously to the four corners of India
and also at the international level. It is also in this process of
creative application of MLM and synthesis of our revolutionary
experiences that we can further enrich the proletarian science.
Adopted by
Central Committee
MCPM on 10th August 2011
Le cratère laissé par l'explosion