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The historical experience of the ICM in brief The bourgeois revolution that started in England in the 17th century continued till the end of the 19th century. With this the Capitalist system gained irrevocable success over the reactionary feudal system in North West Europe and North America. However this world bourgeois revolution succeeded, lost, again succeeded and finally succeeded in a protracted process. The new capitalist system that emerged in this process itself gave birth to a militant proletariat class. The analysis of social, economic, political conditions and the emergence of proletarian ideology became inevitable. Marxism embedded the best of all the sciences the human race created, in the form of the German philosophy of the 18th century, the English Economy (that sprouted from the British centered Industrial revolution), and French Socialism (that grew from the French Revolution of 1789). This acted as the material basis for it as a Revolutionary, Socialist and Communist ideology. By 1848 this hypothesized in the best way as Communist Manifesto. The creators of Marxism, Marx and Engels participated in the severe class struggle that took place during the free trade phase of Capitalism. Proletarian class leaders Marx and Engels spent their whole lives to abstract and develop Marxist theory, from the three great revolutionary practices – the class struggle, the struggle for production and the scientific experiment that happened and was happening in the society. With great study, and in the process of struggle against the wrong tendencies in all the fields, Marx and Engels brought forward the three parts of Marxism – Philosophy, Political Economy and Scientific Socialism, the fundamental concepts of class struggle. In Europe, when Marxism emerged initially and proletarian class was embedding the theory for its sake, the enemies of Marxism immediately realized that there was a severe danger from it. They said that a spectre caught hold of Europe and all the ruling classes of old Europe formed a ‘sacred alliance’ to eliminate it. Marxism developed and advanced amidst these severe counter attacks. Proletarian organisations and struggles developed in this period in the leadership of Marxism. Marxism embraced the proletarian masses and advanced. Independent proletarian parties – First International and German Social Democratic Party – were formed for the first time in Marxist leadership. In this process Marx guessed the possibility of revolution in all the West European capitalist countries at a time. And Marxism led a big proletarian class movement that started challenging the bourgeois class. Marxism fought and defeated the wrong trends in the proletarian class movement in the Communist League and the First International, especially Bakunin anarchism, Blanquist trend and Lasallianism (bourgeoisie opportunist trend). The theory of Marx drew a clear line of demarcation between Scientific Socialism and all types of fake socialisms including Idealistic Socialism. History has proved during the time of Marx and Engels itself that the tactics formulated to develop the International Proletarian class movement by synthesizing its experiences are totally correct. Especially Paris Commune ascertained without doubt that the Marxist understanding about the issues like Party, State and Proletarian dictatorship is totally correct.
Though the 1871 Paris Commune was a success, it collapsed within a short period. But the value of the theory regarding class struggle and proletarian dictatorship did not come down. It rather increased. Forty-six years after this the Great October Socialist Revolution was a success. The defeat of a revolution does not mean that it ended permanently. After the demise of Marx and Engels, Marxism extended organizationally. With the emergence of capitalist monopoly organisations and with the emergence of imperialism, in addition to the repression from outside, the main enemy of Marxism attacked the Socialist parties from inside too. So opportunism and revisionism rose in the proletarian class leadership and its Parties and organisations. The Second International turned to be the main danger to the International proletarian class movement. Except for the Bolshevik Party in the leadership of Lenin all the Parties in the Second International deceived Marxism, or became opportunistic. In the struggle against revisionism in the Second International, Lenin creatively applied Marxism to the revolutionary practice in Russia and protected it. He developed it into another stage, the higher stage, Marxism-Leninism. During the emergence of Imperialist, Socialist Revolutionary era, great Marxist teachers Lenin and Stalin continued the revolutionary legacy of Marx and Engels. The series of struggles against the wrong trends in the Russian revolutionary movement [(Narodniks, Economists, Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Trotskyites, Bukharinists, (narrow) Nationalists and other such petty bourgeois parties)] formed a strong foundation for Leninist Party. Capitalism that was in the phase of free trade developed into a new phase, Imperialism. Lenin said imperialism is ‘the moribund capitalism’. Lenin reached to this important conclusion by studying the concrete forms and rules of the special characteristics of imperialism. He said, ‘Due to the unequal economic and political development, Imperialism must be destroyed in its weak link; Proletarian revolution would be successful first in one or more countries’. During the First World War period, Russia was one main centre for all kinds of contradictions in imperialism. So Lenin transformed the war between the imperialists as civil war and led the Russian proletariat to overthrow the Russian bourgeois dictatorship with revolutionary violence. Thus they utilized the revolutionary spate during the First World War, mobilized and organized the proletariat and the peasantry, made the Great Socialist October Revolution in Russia a success and established the first Socialist country under the dictatorship of the proletariat in the World.
On the contrary, the leader of the Second International Kautsky defined imperialism as ‘Ultra Imperialism’, as a system establishing an organized, stable capitalist world, as imperialism without contradictions and a phase of capitalism without the possibility of wars. He said thus we could attain socialism through peaceful path and brought the revisionist theory that protects imperialism. Thus he divorced from class struggle and proletarian dictatorship. The Second International brought forward the dogmatic theory that ‘revolution would come at a time across Europe, there is no other way’ for which it quoted what Marx said about capitalism in the phase of free trade. During the initial period of the bourgeois democratic revolutions against the reactionary feudal system, in view of the progressive character of the revolutions, Marx gave a call to ‘Defend the Mother land’. This was implemented in the imperialist phase in a dogmatic manner by the Second International. Thus, after the First World War the Second International quashed the possibilities to make the Socialist revolutions of various countries of Europe a success. The imperialists, the revisionist ‘heroes’ of the Second International who served them and all anti-revolutionaries and traitors came together to form a ‘sacred alliance’ against Marxism-Leninism and intensified attacks from all sides. On the other hand, the Trotskite clique talked about permanent revolution in the guise of leftist jargon and brought forth a theory that though revolution wins in a country, it can never sustain. This clique rejected the Brest-litovsk accord and deceived the revolution. Lenin and Stalin made it clear that the proletarian dictatorship formed in Russia must be consolidated, that this country should be utilized as a revolutionary base of the world and the elimination of the imperialism spread over the rest of the world be speeded up. So they expressed their view that all National Democratic, Socialist Revolutions in the respective countries of the world in the imperialist era were the inevitable part of World Socialist Revolution. They also clearly said that if revolution is successful in a country it would not be absolutely self-completed and that its ultimate victory depends on the completion of World Socialist Revolution. With the exposure of the traitorous leadership of the Second International, the revolutionary forces of the old Parties in many capitalist countries consolidated to form Communist Parties. All these forces integrated and the Third International formed in March 1919 in the leadership of Lenin.
It held the First Congress and elected the Committee for Communist International. ‘It gave a call to the workers of all countries to fight for proletarian dictatorship and for the victory of Soviets across the world. It adopted a Manifesto for the workers of all countries’. The Communist Party of Soviet Union (Bolshevik) (CPSU (B)) properly implemented the ‘War time Communism’ policy. It started the process of building Socialism in a relatively backward country. In the leadership of Stalin it followed proper tactics in the Imperialist (Second World) war and turned the war favourable for the proletariat. It guided the outbreak of National Liberation struggles in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. It adopted a suitable strategy and tactics for those countries. It achieved success in many countries and thus formed a Socialist camp constituting one third of the humanity. Marxist-Leninist theory stepped forward and achieved a historic progress. Immediately after the demise of Lenin, Stalin summarized the main additions Lenin made to Marxism. He researched the historic origins of Leninism and explained the main characteristics of Leninism regarding method, theory, party, proletarian dictatorship, peasant problem, nationality problem, strategy-tactics and party method of work. In the period of Socialism in Soviet Union, collectivization of agricultural sector and the tasks of Socialist industrialization were fundamentally achieved. The government of Soviet Union under the leadership of Stalin adopted basically proper tactics as per the specific situation of the Second World War. When non fascist imperialist forces were instigating Germany on Soviet Union, Stalin came to a ceasefire agreement with Germany in August 1939. Thus the Second World War first started as the War between imperialists. In June 1941, fascist Germany attacked Soviet Union, the Socialist base area. With this the character of war turned to be anti-fascist. The tactics the Third International adopted in the earlier period were applied. These tactics worked towards the protection of Soviet Union, towards the defeat of fascist war mongers, towards the success of the National Liberation struggles and towards the establishment of Soviet power in possible number of countries. Thus history proved that the strategy and tactics the Third International adopted were fundamentally genuine. However the Third International was dogmatic in thinking that the revolutionary path in all the countries would be a general armed struggle like in Russia. Also, in the United Front against fascism, it saw only unity and left struggle. Thus few communist Parties of Europe and the Communist Party of India fell in reformism and turned out to be the tails of ruling classes. In the later period all these parties took up revisionist line. The Third International could not fight against these revisionist trends. The various member countries faced much varied conditions and it was incapable to guide them. So the Third International (Comintern) dissolved on the 10th of June 1943. The great Marxist teacher Mao applied the concept of unequal development in imperialism to the specific (semi-feudal, semi-colonial, colonial) conditions of China. He said that country wide liberation is not possible at a time and found out the path of Protracted People’s War in which, country wide success would be achieved by extending from a base area in the broad backward rural area where the enemy is weak to many base areas, extending from small areas to extended areas thus liberating the rural areas firstly and finally encircle and seize the cities. Mao said that the New Democratic Revolution going on in China is an inseparable part of the advancing World Socialist Revolution. The CPC faced defeat, victories, many ups and downs, difficulties for 28 years, did protracted people’s war and finally seized country-wide state power in October 1949. This is exemplary path for all the colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries. Mao protected and developed the Marxist-Leninist theory by taking up struggles against the rightist, leftist opportunistic and many alien trends that arose in various phases in the CPC and by creatively applying the theory to the specific conditions of Chinese revolution and to the various fields in revolution. Thus the Chinese revolutionary class struggle became a main centre for the development of Marxism-Leninism. After the Second World War there were major changes in the world. The National revolutions in China and other Asian and European countries achieved great success. Imperialists became very weak. The World Capitalist market diminished. The imperialist political, economic and social crisis intensified more. Anyhow the imperialist phase continued. In such conditions, Mao said thus - ‘We are still in the imperialist phase, the proletarian revolutionary phase. Lenin’s scientific analysis of imperialism basing on the basic concepts of Marxism is totally correct. The basic concept of Leninism is not outdated’. Mao also made it clear that the revolutionary centre changed to Asian, African and Latin American areas.
Few wrong trends arose in the understanding of CPSU (B) and Stalin. It was mainly about the existence of classes in socialism, their role and class struggle. In the report to the 18th Congress of the Party in March 1939 Stalin said thus: ‘Antagonistic classes and enemy classes no more exist in Soviet society’. So they were dogmatic and felt that class struggle is no more necessary and that revolution in the economic base and the development of forces of production would automatically advance to Communism. Khrushchev clique that took up new kind of capitalist class leadership after the demise of Stalin in 1953 consolidated the counter revolutionary rebellion. This clique killed or chased the revolutionaries in the party. The domination of this new class took birth and grew internally in CPSU (B) basing on the revisionist political line. This grew without any hurdles. By 1956 the Soviet traitorous clique seized the party and the state power. Since then the Russian bourgeois privileged stratum widened its own political and economic power in a big scale. This privileged stratum came to a dominant place in the party, government and army, economic and cultural fields. In the 20th Congress of the CPSU (B) it started spreading its revisionist poison into the other Communist Parties. At the same time this clique started attack on the so called individual worship of Stalin and brought forth its revisionist three ‘peace’ theory - peaceful transformation, peaceful co-existence and peaceful competition. The leaderships of majority ‘Communist’ parties in the world accepted the revisionist line that the revisionist Khrushchev proposed (since by that time they turned revisionist). By 1948 Socialist state Yugoslavia degenerated into a capitalist country due to traitorous Tito clique. Dhorej, the leader of France in the Third International took up bourgeois national chauvinist attitude. He turned to be a class agent of the French imperialist bourgeoisie. Togliatti of Italy brought forth the theory ‘to reform Capitalism as Socialism with structural reforms’ through bourgeois parliament. The leadership of CPI changed its tactical line so as to take up peaceful path. The Parties that sincerely tried to implement ‘peaceful transformation’ through bourgeois parliamentary electoral system – Brazil (1964), Indonesia (1965), Chili (1975) - were eliminated with the military actions and barbaric white terror of the fascist, exploitive ruling class governments. China Communist Party in the leadership of Mao stood in the forefront of the struggle against Khrushchev’s modern revisionism. It recognized Stalin as the greatest Marxist-Leninist. Since 1956, CPC fought internally in the Party forums for seven long years to defeat Khrushchev’s revisionism. This effort continued in the meeting of 60 brotherhood parties in 1957, in the meeting of 80 brotherhood parties in 1960 and in the meetings of the CPC with the leadership of CPSU (B). This struggle became open in 1963 and continued through out 1964. This open struggle came to be known as the Great Debate. The Great Debate is a conceptual, comprehensive struggle against modern revisionism. It became a central point to mobilise all the proletarian revolutionaries of the world. Through this Great Debate Mao formulated policies for important problems of the International proletariat – basic contradictions in the world, who were friends and who were enemies, the objectives of the movement, the path to achieve World Socialist Revolution –the policies to solve these and enriched Marxism-Leninism. CPC wrote a famous letter to CPSU (B) on 14th June, 1963 suggesting the general line of ICM. Later it published nine comments detailing about neo colonialism, war and peace, peaceful co-existence, the revisionism of Yugoslavia, Khrushchev and the lessons from it and other such problems. These became famous as the documents of Great Debate. Many revolutionary forces mobilized on the revolutionary line of CPC under the leadership of Mao during the period of Great Debate. During this time revolutionary Communist Parties were formed on the basis of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology in almost all the countries of the world.
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