1984-2014 Anniversary of the Declaration of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (1984) - Part 1

DECLARATION OF THE

REVOLUTIONARY INTERNATIONALIST

MOVEMENT

Adopted by the delegates and observers at the Second International
Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations which
formed the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement

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Central Reorganisation Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

Ceylon Communist Party

Communist Collective of Agit/Prop [Italy]

Communist Committee of Trento [Italy]

Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist) [BSD (M-L)]

Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), Mao Tsetung Regional Committee

Communist Party of Peru

Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist

Haitian Revolutionary Internationalist Group

Nepal Communist Party (Marshal)

New Zealand Red Flag Group

Revolutionary Internationalist Contingent [Britain]

Proletarian Communist Organisation, Marxist-Leninist [Italy]

Proletarian Party of Purba Bangla (Bangladesh)

Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia

Leading Committee, Revolutionary Communist Party, India

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Revolutionary Communist Union [Dominican Republic]

Union of Iranian Communists (Sarbedaran)

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Part 1
- Introduction
- The World Situation
- On the Two Component Parts of the World Proletarian Revolution
- Some Question Regarding the History of the International Communist Movement

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Today the world is on the threshold of momentous events. The crisis of the imperialist system is rapidly bringing about the danger of the outbreak of a new, third, world war as well as the real perspective for revolution in countries throughout the world.” The scientific accuracy of these words from the Joint Communiqué of our First International Conference in Autumn 1980 have not only been fully borne out by the recent developments in the world, but the world situation has been further accentuated and aggravated since that time.

Thus the Marxist-Leninist movement is confronted with the exceptionally serious responsibility to further unify and prepare its ranks for the tremendous challenges and momentous battles shaping up ahead. The historic mission of the proletariat calls ever more urgently for an all-out preparation for sudden changes and leaps in developments, particularly at this current conjuncture where national developments are more profoundly affected by developments on a world scale, and where unprecedented prospects for revolution are in the making. We must sharpen our revolutionary vigilance and increase our political, ideological, organisational and military readiness in order to wield these opportunities in the best possible manner for the interests of our class and to conquer the most advanced positions possible for the world proletarian revolution.

Armed with the scientific teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tsetung we are fully conscious of the tasks expected of us in the present situation and are proud to accept and act in accordance with this historic responsibility. The Marxist-Leninist movement continues to confront a deep and serious crisis which came to a head following the reactionary coup d’état in China following the death of Mao Tsetung and the treacherous betrayal of Enver Hoxha. However despite these reversals there are genuine Marxist-Leninists on all continents who have refused to abandon the struggle for communism.

The international communist movement is developing through a process of further consolidated unity and advance along the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Since 1980 we have developed our strength and increased our ability to influence and lead developments. Our Second International Conference of Marxist- Leninist Parties and Organisations which was successfully convened despite unfavourable and difficult conditions, represents a qualitative leap in the unity and maturing of our movement. The tasks that cry out to be done can and shall be accomplished by forging an invincible barricade against revisionist and all bourgeois ideology, by providing scientific leadership to and standing in the forefront of the surging revolutionary waves, by consciously applying the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to guide our practice and sum up our experience in the crucible of revolutionary class struggle.

The following Declaration has been forged through painstaking, comprehensive discussions and principled struggle by the delegates and observers at the Second International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations which formed the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.

The World Situation

All the major contradictions of the world imperialist system are rapidly accentuating: the contradiction between various imperialist powers, the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed peoples and nations, and the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the imperialist countries. All of these contradictions have a common origin in the capitalist mode of production and its fundamental contradiction. The rivalry between the two blocs of imperialist powers led by the US and the USSR respectively is bound to lead to war unless revolution prevents it and this rivalry is greatly affecting world events.

The post World War II world is rapidly coming apart at the seams. The international economic and political relations the “division of the world” - established through and in the aftermath of World War II no longer correspond to the needs of the various imperialist powers to “peacefully” extend and expand their profit empires. While the post World War II world has undergone important changes as a result of conflicts between the imperialists and, especially, as a result of revolutionary struggle, today it is this entire network of economic, political and military relations that is being called into question. The relative stability of the major imperialist powers and the relative prosperity of a handful of countries based on the blood and misery of the exploited majority of the world’s people and nations is coming unravelled. The revolutionary struggles of the oppressed nations and peoples is again on the rise and delivering new blows to the imperialist world order.

It is in this context that the statement by Mao Tsetung, “Either revolution will prevent war, or war will give rise to revolution” rings out all the more clearly and takes on urgent importance. The very logic of the imperialist system and the revolutionary struggles is preparing a new situation. The contradiction between the rival bands of imperialists, between the imperialists and the oppressed nations, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, are all likely in the coming period to express themselves by the force of arms on an unprecedented scale. As Stalin said in regard to the First World War:

The significance of the imperialist war which broke out ten years ago lies, among other things, in the fact that it gathered all these contradictions into a single knot and threw them on to the scales, thereby accelerating and facilitating the revolutionary battles of the proletariat

The heightening of contradictions is now drawing, and will do so even more dramatically in the future, all countries and regions of the world and sections of the masses previously lulled to sleep or oblivious to political life into the vortex of world history. And so the revolutionary communists must get prepared, and prepare the class conscious workers and revolutionary sections of the people and step up their revolutionary struggle.

Communists are resolute opponents of imperialist war and must mobilise and lead the masses in the fight against preparations for a third world war which would be the greatest crime committed in the history of mankind. But the Marxist-Leninists will never hide the truth from the masses: only revolution, revolutionary war that the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary forces are leading or preparing to lead, can prevent this crime. Marxist- Leninists must seize hold of the revolutionary possibilities that are developing rapidly and lead the masses in stepping up the revolutionary struggle on all fronts - beginning revolutionary warfare where that is possible, stepping up preparations where the conditions for such revolutionary warfare are not yet ripe. In this way the struggle for communism will advance and it is possible that the victory of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples in the course of decisive battles will shatter the imperialists’ present preparations for world war, establish the rule of the working class in a number of countries and create an overall world situation more favourable to the advance of the revolutionary struggle. If, on the other hand, the revolutionary struggle is not capable of preventing a third world war, the communists and the revolutionary proletariat and masses must be prepared to mobilise the outrage that such a war and the inevitable suffering accompanying it will engender and direct it against the source of war - imperialism, take advantage - of the weakened position of the enemy and in this way turn a reactionary imperialist war into a just war against imperialism and reaction.

Since imperialism has integrated the world into a single global system land is increasingly doing so) the world situation increasingly influences the developments in each country; thus revolutionary forces all over the world must base themselves on a correct evaluation of the overall world situation. This does not negate the crucial task they face of evaluating the specific conditions in each country, formulating specific strategy and tactics and developing revolutionary practice. Unless this dialectical relationship between the overall situation at the global level and the concrete conditions  in each country is grasped correctly by Marxist-Leninists they will not be able to utilise the extremely favourable situation at the global level in favour of revolution in each country.

Tendencies in the international movement to view the revolution in one country apart from the overall struggle for communism must be struggled against: Lenin pointed out, “There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is - working wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting {by propaganda, sympathy and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line in every country without exception.” Lenin stressed that proletarian revolutionaries must approach the question of their revolutionary work not from the point of view of “my” country but “from the point of view of my share in the preparation, in the propaganda, and in the acceleration of the world proletarian revolution.”

On the Two Component Parts of the World Proletarian Revolution

Lenin analysed long ago the division of the world between a handful of advanced capitalist countries and the great number of oppressed nations comprising the largest part of the world’s territory and population which the imperialists parasitically pillage and maintain in an enforced state of dependency and backwardness. From this reality flows the Leninist view, confirmed by history, that the world proletarian revolution is composed essentially of two streams - the proletarian-socialist revolution waged by the proletariat and its allies in the imperialist citadels and the national liberation, or new democratic revolution waged by the nations and peoples subjugated to imperialism. The alliance between these two revolutionary currents remains the cornerstone of revolutionary strategy in the era of imperialism.

In the period since the Second World War until now the struggle of the oppressed peoples and nations has been the storm centre of the world revolutionary struggle. Prosperity, stability and “democracy” in a number of imperialist states has been bought and paid for by the intensified exploitation and misery of the masses in the oppressed countries. Far from eliminating the national and colonial question, the development of neo-colonialism has further subjugated whole nations and peoples to the requirements of international capital and led to a whole series of revolutionary wars against imperialist domination.

The current intensification of world contradictions while bringing forth further possibilities for these movements also places new obstacles and new tasks before them. Despite efforts and even some successes of the imperialist powers in subverting or perverting the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed masses, especially in the hopes of turning them into weapons of inter-imperialist rivalry, these struggles continue to deal powerful blows to the imperialist system, and accelerate the development of revolutionary possibilities in the world as a whole.

In the imperialist countries of the Western bloc the post World War II period has been essentially marked by a non-revolutionary situation reflecting the relative stability of imperialist rule in these countries inseparably linked to the intense exploitation of the oppressed peoples by these imperialist states. Nevertheless, the revolutionary prospects in these countries are more favourable than in any time in recent memory. History has shown that revolutionary situations in these types of countries are rare and are generally connected with the acute intensification of world contradictions, such as the conjuncture taking form in the world today.

The mass revolutionary struggles that developed in most of the Western imperialist countries especially during the l960s demonstrate forcefully the possibility of proletarian revolution in these countries, despite the fact that the conditions were not favourable for a seizure of power at that time and these movements declined along with the overall ebb in the world movement. Today the sharpening world situation is increasingly reflected in these countries as seen, for example, by important rebellions of the lower strata of the proletariat in some imperialist countries as well as the growth of a powerful movement against imperialist war preparations in a number of countries, including within it a more revolutionary section.

In the capitalist and imperialist countries of the Eastern bloc important cracks and fissures in the relative stability of the rule by the state-capitalist bourgeoisie are more and more apparent. In Poland the proletariat and other sections of the masses have risen in struggle and delivered powerful blows to the established order. In these countries, also, possibilities for proletarian revolution are developing and will be heightened by the development and intensification of world contradictions.

It is important that the revolutionary elements in both kinds of countries be educated to understand the nature of the strategic alliance between the revolutionary proletarian movement in the advanced countries and the national-democratic revolutions in the oppressed nations. The social-chauvinist position that would deny the importance of the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples or their ability, under the leadership of the proletariat and a genuine Marxist-Leninist party, to lead to the establishment of socialism is still a dangerous deviation to be combated. The modern revisionists, led by the USSR, who claim that a national liberation struggle can only be successful if bestowed by “aid” from its “natural (imperialist) ally” and the Trotskyites who negate in principle the possibility of the transformation of a national-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution are examples of this pernicious tendency. On the other hand, in the recent period a significant problem has been another deviation which ignores the possibility of revolutionary situations arising in the advanced countries or considers that such revolutionary situations could only arise as a direct result of the advances in the national liberation struggles. Both these deviations sap the strength of the revolutionary proletariat in that they fail to take account of the developing world conjuncture and the possibilities for revolutionary advances in different kinds of countries and on a world scale that flow from it.

Some Questions Regarding the History of the International Communist Movement

In the little over a century since the publication of the Communist Manifesto and its call “workers of all countries, unite!” an immense wealth of experience has been accumulated by the international proletariat. This experience comprehends the revolutionary movement in different types of countries in the great days of decisive victories and revolutionary élan and the periods of the darkest reaction and retreat. In the course of the twists and turns of the movement the science of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought has taken shape and developed through a constant struggle against those who cut out its revolutionary heart and/or render it a stale and lifeless dogma. Important turning points in the development of world history and the class struggle have invariably been accompanied by fierce battles on the ideological front between Marxism and revisionism and dogmatism. This was the case with Lenin’s struggle against the Second International (which corresponded with the outbreak of the First World War and the development of a revolutionary situation in Russia and elsewhere} and in the struggle of Mao Tsetung against modern Soviet revisionism, a great struggle which reflected world historic developments (the reestablishment of capitalism in the USSR, the intensification of the class struggle in socialist China, the development of a worldwide upsurge of revolutionary struggle aimed particularly at US imperialism). Similarly, the profound crisis that the international communist movement is now experiencing is a reflection of the reversal of proletarian rule in China and the all-round attack on the Cultural Revolution following the death of Mao Tsetung and the coup d’état of Teng Hsiao-ping and Hua Kuo-feng, as well as the overall heightening of world contradictions accentuating the danger of world war and the prospects for revolution. Today, as in the other great struggles, the forces fighting for a revolutionary line are a small minority encircled and attacked by revisionists and bourgeois apologists of all stripes. Nevertheless, these forces represent the future, and the further advances of the international communist movement depend on their ability to forge a political line which charts the path forward for the revolutionary proletariat in the current complex situation. This is because if one’s line is correct, even if one has not a single soldier at first there will be soldiers and even if there is no political power, power will be gained. This is borne out by the historical experience of the international communist movement since the time of Marx.

An extremely important element for the elaboration of such a general line for the international communist movement is the correct evaluation of the historical experience of our movement. It would be extremely irresponsible, and contrary to the Marxist theory of knowledge, to fail to attach adequate importance to experience gained and lessons learned in the course of mass revolutionary struggles of millions of people and paid for by countless martyrs.

Today, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, together with other Maoist forces, are the inheritors of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, and they must firmly base themselves on this heritage. But they must also, on the basis of this heritage, dare to criticise its shortcomings. There are experiences which people should praise and there are experiences which should make people grieve. Communists and revolutionaries in all countries should ponder and seriously study these experiences of success and failure so as to draw correct conclusions and useful lessons from them.

The summation of our heritage is a collective responsibility which must be carried out by the entire international communist movement. Such a summation must be done in a ruthlessly scientific manner, basing itself on Marxist-Leninist principles and fully taking into account the concrete historical conditions which existed then and the limits they placed on the proletarian vanguard and above all in the spirit of making the past serve the present, in order to avoid metaphysical errors of measuring the past with today’s yardstick, disregarding historical conditions. Such a thorough summation will undoubtedly take a fairly long time but the pressure of world events, the opening up of revolutionary possibilities, demands that certain key lessons be drawn today to better enable the vanguard forces of the proletariat to fulfil their responsibilities.

The summation of historical experience has, itself, always been a sharp arena of class struggle. Ever since the defeat of the Paris Commune, opportunists and revisionists have seized upon the defeats and shortcomings of the proletariat to reverse right and wrong, confound the secondary with the principal, and thus conclude that the proletariat “should not have taken to arms.” The emergence of new conditions has often been used as an excuse to negate fundamental principles of Marxism under the signboard of its “creative development.” At the same time, it is incorrect and just as damaging to abandon the Marxist critical spirit, to fail to sum up the shortcomings as well as the successes of the proletariat, and to rest content with upholding or reclaiming positions considered correct in the past. Such an approach would make Marxism-Leninism brittle and unable to withstand the attacks of the enemy and incapable of leading new advances in the class struggle - and suffocate its revolutionary essence.

In fact, history has shown that real creative developments of Marxism land not phoney revisionist distortions) have always been inseparably linked with a fierce struggle to defend and uphold basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. Lenin’s two-fold struggle against the open revisionists and against those, like Kautsky, who opposed revolution under the guise of “Marxist orthodoxy” and Mao Tsetung’s great battle to oppose the modem revisionists and their negation of the experience of building socialism in the USSR under Lenin and Stalin while carrying out a thorough and scientific criticism of the roots of revisionism are evidence of this.

Today a similar approach is necessary to the thorny questions and problems of the history of the international communist movement. A serious danger comes from those who, in the face of setbacks in the international communist movement since the death of Mao Tsetung, declare that Marxism-Leninism has failed or is outmoded and the entire experience acquired by the proletariat must be put into question. This tendency would negate the experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union, eliminate Stalin from the ranks of proletarian leaders, and in fact, attack the basic Leninist thesis on the nature of the proletarian revolution, the need for a vanguard party and the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Mao powerfully expressed “I think there are two ‘swords’: one is Lenin and the other Stalin”, once the sword of Stalin has been discarded “once this gate is opened, by and large Leninism is thrown away.” This statement made by Mao Tsetung in 1956 has been shown by the experience of the international communist movement up to today to retain its validity. Similarly today the advances in the science of revolution made by Mao Tsetung are also attacked or rendered unrecognizable. In fact all this is a “new” version of very old and stale revisionism and social democracy.

This more or less open revisionism, whether it comes from the traditional pro-Moscow parties or its “Euro-communist” current from the revisionist usurpers in China, or from the Trotskyites and the petit-bourgeois critics of Leninism, remains the main danger to the international communist movement. At the same time, revisionism in its dogmatic form continues to be a bitter enemy of revolutionary Marxism. This current, most sharply expressed in the political line of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania, attacks Mao Tsetung Thought, the path of the Chinese Revolution and especially the experience of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Masquerading as defenders of Stalin (when in fact many of their theses are Trotskyites), these revisionists soil the genuine revolutionary heritage of Stalin. These imposters use the shortcomings and errors of the international communist movement, and not its achievements in order to buttress up their revisionist-trotskyite line, and demand that the international communist movement follow suit on the basis of a return to some mystical “doctrinal purity”. The many features this Hoxhaite line shares with classical revisionism, including the ability of Soviet revisionism (as well as reaction in general) to promote and/or profit from both openly anti-Leninist “Euro-communism” and Hoxha’s disguised anti-Leninism at the same time, are testimony to their common bourgeois ideological basis.

Upholding Mao Tsetung’s qualitative development of the science of Marxism-Leninism represents a particularly important and pressing question in the international movement and among the class conscious workers and other revolutionary minded people in the world today. The principle involved is nothing less than whether or not to uphold and build upon the decisive contributions to the proletarian revolution and the science of Marxism-Leninism made by Mao Tsetung. It is therefore nothing less than a question of whether or not to uphold Marxism-Leninism itself.

Stalin said, “Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution.” This is entirely correct. Since Lenin’s death the world situation has undergone great changes. But the era has not changed. The fundamental principles of Leninism are not outdated, they remain the theoretical basis guiding our thinking today. We affirm that Mao Tsetung Thought is a new stage in the development of Marxism- Leninism. Without upholding and building on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought it is not possible to defeat revisionism, imperialism and reaction in general.

To be continued