Beneath the “Marxist-Leninist” Camouflage, the roots of the “Thought of Mao” are embedded in Han racist nationalism—a fact revealed by Mao Tse-tung himself even in the year of victory for the Chinese Revolution. In 1949 he wrote:
The forty years’ experience of Sun Yat-sen and the twenty-eight years’ experience of the Communist Party have taught us to lean to one side, and we are firmly convinced that in order to win victory and consolidate it we must lean to one side. In the light of the experiences accumulated in these forty years and these twenty-eight years, all Chinese without exception must lean either to the side of imperialism or to the side of socialism. Sitting on the fence will not do, nor is there third road the Chiang Kai-shek reactionaries who lean to the side of imperialism, and we oppose also the illusions about a third road. (Quoted in Essential Works of Chinese Communism. Edited by Winberg Chai. Pica Press, New York. 1969. page 253—My emphasis. H.W.)
Mao’s choice of the word is indeed significant; the concept of “leaning” to one side is far removed from the Marxist-Leninist principle of solidarity with one side—anti-imperialism. This statement was a clear signal to the imperialist powers that the “Thought of Mao” retained deep nationalist reservations about unity with the world’s working classes and national liberation movements—as well as the right of self-determination for the non-Han peoples within China.
In fact, not even Mao’s reasons for “leaning” to the Soviet Union’s side arose from principles of Socialist solidarity! Instead, he was motivated by bourgeois nationalist, opportunist expediency: China needed to “lean” on the Soviet Union’s internationalism “in order to win victory and consolidate.”
And so for a decade, the Maoists “free-loaded” on the massive material support of the Soviet peoples, extended at a time when they had not yet recovered from the vast human and material sacrifices involved in their decisive role in saving the world from Axis fascism—and simultaneously paving the way for the victory of the Chinese Revolution. After this decade of massive Soviet assistance, the Maoists concluded that China’s economy had become sufficiently consolidated for them to strike out on a more openly bourgeois nationalist course. carrying out this aim, always inherent in the “Thought of Mao,” required an end to the policy of “leaning” to the Soviet side. This is the meaning of the Maoists’ break with the Soviet Union and their decision to “lean” more and more to imperialism.
And this decision to “lean” to the imperialist side accounts for the “cultural revolution,” which was in fact a ruthless, violent counter-revolution against the Han Chinese working class, the majority of the Chinese Communist party, and the Han peoples—all of whom resisted Mao’s chauvinist betrayal of Leninist principles.
It took the unleashing of tens of millions of youth, “schooled” by the mindless repetition of quotes from the “Thought of Mao”—supported by the Chinese Army, whose peasant soldiers had been drilled in the same manner—to bring about the temporary destruction of the Communist party. The Maoists’ “revolutionary” facade cannot conceal the stark fact that the “cultural revolution” was a violent political, social and cultural retrogression from the highest expression of culture—Marxist-Leninist principles of class and national liberation.
As the “Thought of Mao” became dominant in China, the Maoists began to attribute certain “revolutionary theories” to Mao—the same “theories” which Mao had in an earlier period, attributed to “Chiang Kai-shek reactionaries.” On April 1, 1959, for instance, in Peking, before the “cultural revolution” succeeded in crushing all open opposition to Maoism, the newspaper Red Flag challenged the Maoists’ growing anti-Sovietism:
Indeed, this will become a step toward going over to the enemy. The Chinese people are very familiar with such anti-Soviet, anti-Communist tunes. In his vilification of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party, Chiang Kai-shek long ago tore to shreds such phrases as “Red imperialism” and “foreign agents” . . . (In 1927) Chiang Kai-shek plunged completely into the embrace of imperialism and literally became an agent of imperialism.
To conceal its “leaning” to the imperialist side, Maoism substitutes such phrases as “Soviet revisionism” and “social imperialism” for Chiang Kai-shek’s “red imperialism.” But this cannot hide the fact of its “going over to the enemy”—the implacable enemy of the liberation movements of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Nor is this “leaning” to imperialism and neo-colonialism hidden by the illusions Maoism spreads about a “third road”—the very same illusions Mao opposed in 1949.
Today “third road” illusions are even more harmful than in the past. Now the liberation movements everywhere—from South Africa to Indo-China to Chile—are directly confronting the reality of a struggle in which there is no “third road.” The only alternative to solidarity with the Socialist countries, and first of all the Soviet Union, against the economic, political and military intervention of imperialism is surrender of the right to national existence and liberation.
In this connection Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party, U.S.A., writes:
Now that there is a world revolutionary process and a world revolutionary force, policies of disunity take on added significance. The Maoist policy of driving wedges into the ranks of the countries and the movements for national liberation, the efforts at disrupting the unity within the world Communist movement is a historic service to world imperialism.
What is the tactic of imperialism in the context of today’s world? It is to disrupt the unity between the socialist countries and the national liberation movements and in the first place to isolate them from the Soviet Union.
The socialist states and the growing unity between them and the national liberation movements is the main roadblock to imperialism. It is an unalterable fact that U.S. imperialism can succeed in its aggression in Asia, Africa and South America only to the extent that it can create divisions between the forces of national liberation and the socialist countries.” (Imperialism Today, by Gus Hall. International Publishers. New York, 1972, Page 254, Emphasis in the original.)
This is why the Communist and Workers’ Parties throughout the world reject Maoism’s illusory “third” way, and resolutely adhere to the basic Leninist principles of self-determination and peaceful co-existence as central to the fight against imperialism and neo-colonialism. These twin principles were the core of the strategy leading to the October Revolution, and to Socialism’s consolidation within forms guaranteeing the free national existence of the many peoples liberated from czarist imperialism.
Lenin saw that in the new era the bourgeoisie, which had led the national movements against feudalism, had become the enemy of the sovereign existence of the peoples who had failed to win their national independence during the pre-monopoly, pre-imperialist stage of capitalism. Leninist strategy recognized that the cause of proletarian revolution and Socialism had merged with and become the foundation for the liberation of all oppressed peoples.
The consolidation of Socialism and the irrevocable right of self-determination in the USSR has led to the forging of a commonwealth of Socialist nations creating a profound transformation in the economic, political and social map of the world. Monopoly capital now finds itself confronted not only by “Socialism in one country” but by a world Socialist camp.
The new world system, headed by the Soviet Union, has transformed the anti-imperialist process. The fusion of the Socialist revolution and the national liberation in Africa, Asia and Latin America represents an historic new level in which the worldwide prospect for liberation and social advance is vastly enhanced.
The Socialist camp recognizes that the “third world” peoples need support not only in their for the right of self-determination, but also in shaping a course leading to a breakaway from the capitalist system. To overcome the heritage of underdevelopment, the “third world” countries require the right to freely develop economic relations first of all, even if not exclusively, with the socialist countries; freedom from economic blockades, an end to neo-colonialist political, economic and military pressures in every form. That is why the struggle for the right to self-determination in its very nature becomes at the same time a struggle for peaceful co-existence.
The fight for economic independence can only be hobbled by “Marshall Plans” and similar types of neo-colonialist “aid.” On the contrary, an end must be put to the nonequivalent economic relations which exist today between the newly independent countries and the markets still under imperialist control. The existence of a world Socialist system is the touchstone for ending the long years of economic plunder of “third world” peoples.
It is especially around these issues that Maoism employs “revolutionary” rhetoric to conceal its betrayal of the kind of truly revolutionary strategy that could effectively support the right of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
In 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist party of China issued a statement titled, “A Proposal Concerning The General Line of the International Communist Movement.” One of its central aspects was Maoist opposition to the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary struggle for peaceful co-existence and its inter-connection with the fight for national liberation:
Peaceful coexistence designates a relationship between countries with different social systems and must not be interpreted as one pleases. It should never be extended to apply to the relations between oppressed and oppressor countries or between oppressed and oppressor classes, and never be described as the main content of the transition from capitalism to socialism, still less should it be asserted that peaceful is mankind’s road to socialism. (“A Proposal Concerning The General Line of the International Communist Movement.” Foreign Languages Press. Peking, 1963. Page 34.)
Through skillful word manipulation, Mao presents a false version of the Leninist policy of peaceful coexistence. The world Communist and Workers’ Parties do not say that “peaceful coexistence” is “mankind’s road to Socialism.” lnstead, they assert that the struggle for peaceful coexistence is central to the strategy for building the road on which the fight for national liberation and socialism can advance.
By obscuring the difference between the “road to socialism” and the strategy to build that road, the Maoists try to conceal the fact that their “theory” of “peaceful coexistence” is actually a betrayal of the right of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America to determine their own futures free from the interventions and of imperialism.
Clearly, the Maoists today actively “lean” to the side of imperialism. How else can one interpret their chauvinist indifference to the fate of the fighters for liberation against Portuguese and South African racist imperialism, and to the existence of the newly independent African nations? Does this not also explain Maoist betrayal of unity with the USSR in support of the Vietnamese people’s fight for self-determination and peaceful coexistence?
But the Communist and Workers Parties on every continent assert that the principle of peaceful coexistence applies not only to Socialist countries, but is of the greatest urgency for the “third world” nations preyed upon, as they are, economically and militarily by imperialism. They emphasize that the right to peaceful coexistence has merged with, indeed has become an integral part of the right to self-determination. The Socialist countries and the world’s Communist and Workers’ Parties single out commitment to these twin rights as the test of loyalty to class and national liberation.
When the Maoists state that the principle of peaceful coexistence “should never be extended to apply to the relations between oppressed and oppressor nations,” they are simply projecting their own great power chauvinist denial of the right of self-determination for the non-Han peoples in China to the international arena. But it is precisely in the relations between the oppressor and oppressed nations that the struggle for peaceful coexistence has become inextricably bound up with the right of self-determination—whether in Vietnam, Guinea-Bissau, Chile or Cuba.
By also stating that peaceful coexistence does not apply to relations “between oppressed and oppressor classes,” the Maoists again attempt to conceal their betrayal of the Leninist strategy of peaceful coexistence. Far from implying “peaceful coexistence” between oppressed classes and their capitalist oppressors, this strategy is based on the recognition that the struggle for self-determination and peaceful coexistence in Africa and elsewhere can be advanced only through higher and still higher levels of class struggle.
An international meeting of 75 Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow in 1969 declared:
The defense of peace is inseparably linked up with the struggle to compel the imperialists to accept coexistence of states of different social systems. (International Meeting of Communist And Workers’ Parties. Peace and Socialism Publishers. Prague. 1969. Page 31.)
Countering the Maoist distortion of the Leninist principles of peaceful coexistence, these parties asserted that this policy must be an integral part of the strategy of all anti-imperialist forces in support of the rights of every people. Peaceful coexistence, the Parties went on to say,
. . . demands observance of the principles of sovereignty, equality, territorial inviolability of every state, big and small, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, respect for the rights of every people freely to decide their social, economic and political system, and the settlement of outstanding international issues by political means through negotiation.
The policy of peaceful coexistence facilitates the positive solution of economic and social problems of the developing countries. This policy of peaceful coexistence does not contradict the right of any oppressed people to fight for its liberation by any means it considers necessary—armed or peaceful. This policy in no way signifies support for reactionary regimes.
It is equally indisputable that every people has the inalienable right to take up arms in defense against encroachments by imperialist aggressors and to avail itself of the help of other peoples in its just cause. This is an integral part of the general anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples.
The attempts of imperialism to overcome its internal contradictions by building up international tensions and creating hotbeds of war are hampered by the policy of peaceful coexistence. This policy does not imply either the preservation of the social-political status quo or a weakening of the ideological struggle. It helps to promote the class struggle against imperialism on a national and world-wide scale. Determined class struggle for the abolition of the monopolies and their rule, for the institution of a genuinely democratic system, and for the establishment of socialist power, whatever may be the road lending to this goal, is an inalienable right and duty of the working people and their Communist Parties in the capitalist countries. The Communists of the world are in solidarity with this just battle.
Mass action against imperialism is a condition for implementing the policy of peaceful coexistence.
As this statement emphasizes—and contrary to the “Thought of Mao”—Leninist strategy of peaceful coexistence keeps the anti-imperialist forces on the offensive. At the same time, the statement brings out the new dimension in this strategy. The solidarity of the Socialist countries with the world forces of class and national liberation has fused—and profoundly enlarged the scope of—the struggles for liberation, the right of self-determination and peaceful co-existence.
It was in recognition of its role in helping fuse the struggle for peaceful coexistence with the African liberation struggles, that Amilcar Cabral hailed the Socialist camp as “the historical associates of the liberation movements.” One of Cabral’s last interviews before his assassination took place in Chile, in December, 1972. “In relation to help that we receive,” he stated at that time, “we have had help from the socialist countries from the beginning. . . . It is necessary to point out that the Socialist country that has helped us the most has always been the USSR.” (Reprinted in Muhammad Speaks, February 9, 1973.)
Thus, Cabral reveals in its very essence why Maoist denial of the principles of peaceful coexistence to “third world” countries is nothing less than a betrayal of the right of self-determination. It is axiomatic that the newly independent African countries and those still fighting for liberation can take a path leading to Socialism only if, in the struggle for the right to self-determination and peaceful coexistence, they are allowed to choose an economic system outside the orbit of imperialism. If the right to peaceful coexistence is limited to relations between socialist and capitalist countries, as Maoism would have it, then this concept is robbed of its revolutionary relationship to national liberation. Maoism violates the inseparability of the struggle for the right to coexistence and the right to self-determination—which is the revolutionary essence of this Marxist-Leninist strategy.
Both the similarities and differences shown by Henry A. Kissinger and Mao Tse-tung in their methods of attack on the Leninist strategy of peaceful coexistence and the right to self-determination are revealing.
Kissinger began his rise to eminence as a spokesman for U.S. imperialism—serving three successive Administrations—with the publication in 1957 of his Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. (Published for the Council On Foreign Relations by Harper Brothers. New York.) In this book, he warned the monopoly ruling class that its hope for survival lay in combating the Leninist policy of peaceful coexistence, which the author recognized as a revolutionary offensive tactic and an integral part of Communist strategy against imperialism’s positions in underdeveloped areas. Kissinger wrote:
For none of our allies, not even Great Britain, can be considered major powers any longer . . . It goes without saying that none of our allies is capable of conducting a war against the USSR without our assistance. But the change in the position of the powers goes even further. Since they are unable to deter all-out war themselves, they cannot even conduct limited war against smaller except under our protection. . . . Whatever the remaining margin of superiority of the European powers over the underdeveloped part of the world—and in some respects it is larger than in the heyday of colonial rule—they can no longer impose their will if the United States does not provide the shield of its retaliatory support. (Ibid. Page 251. My emphasis—H.W.)
After his admission that U.S. is the bulwark of imperialism and neo-colonialism throughout the world, Kissinger goes on to say:
Because disciplined Communists see everything in relation to the class struggle, the concepts of war and peace, seemingly so unambiguous, have turned into tools of Soviet political warfare. If wars are caused by the class struggle, and if the class struggle reveals the determining role of an exploiting class, all wars by non-Communist powers are unjust by definition. (Ibid. Page 329.)
This comment appears in a chapter titled “The Strategy of Ambiguity,” a description Kissinger applies to the Leninist policy of peaceful coexistence but which in reality is an accurate picture of the methods used by the enemies of Leninism—from Kissinger to Mao.
By confusing the distinction between just and unjust wars, Kissinger attempts to hide the identity of the monopolists as the source of unjust war—and to cover up the fact that the potential for blocking or defeating unjust wars lies in struggles of the working class—particularly in countries where it has come to state power—together with all the anti-imperialist forces. Furthermore, in this ambiguous statement, Kissinger implies that wars involving the existence of a Socialist country are the only ones Communists consider just.
However, Kissinger himself refutes this point in the course of warning the imperialists that the Communist policy of peaceful coexistence and aid to liberation struggles is the prime threat to their privileges and positions:
Leninist theory counsels keeping the provocation below the level that might produce a final showdown. Peaceful coexistence would thereby become the most efficient offensive tactic, the best means to subvert the existing order. (Ibid. Page 350.)
It is clear that what Kissinger termed “provocation” was merely anticipation of the support the imperialists knew the Soviet Union would give to all national liberation struggles—to the Vietnamese people, the Cuban revolution, the freedom fighters in Africa. The policy of peaceful coexistence is an unambiguous one, vital to national liberation movements in their just struggles to “subvert” the racist, neo-colonial “existing order.”
While the phrase “strategy of ambiguity” has no relationship to the forthright strategy of the world’s Communist and Workers’ Parties, it is an apt description of U.S. imperialism’s policies and those of the Maoists who “lean” more and more to the side of imperialism, betraying the principles of national liberation with “super-revolutionary” opposition to “Soviet revisionism.”
However, when it comes to advising his imperialist masters, Kissinger momentarily sets ambiguity aside and comes straight to the point: “What is permanent in Soviet theory,” he warns, “is the insistence upon the continuing struggle, not the form it takes at any given moment.” (Ibid. Page 350. My emphasis—H.VV.) This is indeed the heart of the Leninist principles—a permanent strategy of struggle to advance the policy of peaceful coexistence, “the most efficient offensive tactic” of the national and international class struggles, merging with the for the right to self-determination everywhere.
In their aim of isolating national liberation movements and newly independent countries from their natural allies, and especially from the Socialist camp, the Maoists resort to one of their crudest falsifications.
In line with their great power anti-Soviet aims, they assure African and other “third world” countries that the Chinese Revolution took place without the support of the Soviet Union or unity with the world anti-imperialist forces. Against a background of such falsification, the Maoists advise the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, that:
The Chinese people have adhered to the policy of self-reliance both in revolution and in construction. It is a policy of key importance . . . Relying mainly on their own efforts, they have rapidly restored the rundown war-ravaged economy left by the reactionary Kuomintang regime. . . . (Peking Review. June 18, 1965. My emphasis—H.W.)
In carrying out their aim of isolating the underdeveloped countries from the Soviet Union, the Maoists try to camouflage the continued dependence on neo-colonialism which would be the fate of these nations, by adding:
There is also the need for the underdeveloped to develop trade among themselves and with the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial countries on the basis of mutual benefit. This will help to alter step by step the present state of affairs in which over 70 percent of their trade is conducted with imperialist powers. (Ibid.)
One cannot help noting the glaring contradiction between the Maoists’ advice to the “third world” countries and their own policies. After giving this advice to the underdeveloped nations, the Maoists, ironically, altered “step by step” their trade that by 1972 70 percent of China’s trade was with the imperialist countries! Such a qualitative shift in economic exchange from the to the imperialist camp—even if unaccompanied by the anti-Soviet disruption of the united front against imperialism in which the Maoists specialize—would undermine a country’s capacity to resist neo-colonialist pressures.
The Maoists advise the underveloped countries to trade “with the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial countries”— a Maoist category which does not include the Socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union (identified as a “white imperialist superpower”). In view of this Maoist exclusion of the Socialist nations, where would the newly independent countries go to develop trade “on the basis of equality and mutual benefit”?
China’s own status cannot of course be equated with that of the “third world” countries in Africa and elsewhere. The massive aid from the Soviet Union helped establish China’s industrial foundation. China’s size, level of development, and power put it in a substantially different relationship to world imperialism from that of the smaller, underdeveloped countries. By depicting China’s position as similar to the African countries the Maoists reveal their great power chauvinism.
Behind “revolutionary” declarations to the “third world” countries, the Maoists try to conceal the fact that their own policies parallel and actually reinforce imperialist strategy on a global scale. If accepted by the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, these policies would—in the name of “self-reliance”—undermine even the semblance of independence from neo-colonial domination.
The Maoists “concept” of “self-reliance” for underdeveloped countries is one which they reject for China! No state can develop its potential as an entity in itself. Without the right to peaceful coexistence and the right to trade on the basis of equality, the newly independent nations cannot escape the domination of international capital.
The Maoist “theory” of “self-reliance” contradicts Marxist-Leninist principles of self-reliance, which affirm the dialectical inter-relationship between self-reliance and proletarian internationalism, that is, the national liberation movements and the Socialist camp as the bulwark of anti-imperialism. It is through the struggle, the self-action of each national liberation component within the total world revolutionary process that the aim of independence is realized. To maintain independence, to continue social and economic advance, requires ever increasing unity with the Socialist, anti-imperialist camp. Without such unity, there is no prospect of “self-reliance”—only self-defeat and continued submission to neo-colonialism.
The logic of Maoist “self-reliance” can be seen in the status of such a country as Lesotho which—in anti-Communist isolation from the anti-imperialist forces of Africa and the world—pursues both the political and trade policies advocated by Maoism.
China, a big and powerful country, may momentarily escape the full consequences of “leaning” on imperialism—that is, complete loss of independence. But in following the Maoist “leaning” strategy, small and underdeveloped countries like Lesotho become incorporated into the economic, political and military domination of U S. backed Portuguese, Rhodesian, and South African imperialism.
Significantly, some of the same forces who organized the anti-Communist, neo-Pan-African split-off (the Pan African Congress), from the African National Congress of South Africa also played a key role in turning the economy of Lesotho and other African countries toward submission to neo-colonialism. Along with Maoism, neo-Pan-African ideology has aided the policies of reaction, and countries such as Lesotho have—like China—split the unity against apartheid imperialism on the African continent.
The policies of Lesotho and a few other African countries have led to their partnership with the racist rulers of southern Africa. In this they reflect the example of Maoism. Following their open break with the Socialist camp in the early sixties, the Maoists began to “lean” more and more openly to the imperialist side—actively promoting, for example, trade with imperialist countries, such as fascist Portugal and the fascist Republic of South Africa. Even before the “Cultural revolution” brought about the full ascendancy of their policies, the Maoists were expanding trade with Portugal. In order to develop this flourishing trade even further at a time when the freedom fighters of Portuguese-occupied Africa and anti-imperialists everywhere were calling for economic sanctions against Portugal, the Maoists tolerated continued Portuguese occupation of Macao. Since Macao was a convenient area for conducting trade with Portugal, the Maoists sacrificed both the interests of the African liberation struggles and their own people, who continue to live under Portuguese rule. For the same reasons that they have cooperated with Portuguese occupation of Macao, the Maoists also tolerate—without ever having lodged so much as a formal protest—British occupation of Hong Kong.
A full decade before the Maoists falsely proclaimed their trade policies with the U.S. as an expression of “peaceful coexistence,” their most important trading partners had become South Africa and West Germany. This shift occurred at the time when armed struggles, led by the African National Congress of South Africa against the apartheid regime in South Africa had already begun. While supporting neo-Pan African disruption of unity with the African National Congress of South Africa, Maoism continued to expand its trade with South Africa. And Maoist trade with Portugal and South Africa took this “great leap forward” at the time the world anti-imperialist forces were calling for unity behind the freedom fighters in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Zimbabwe.
Now the leaders of the guerilla struggles in Africa demand that China stop defying the UN resolutions calling for sanctions against the Republic of South Africa—which would speed the end of white imperialist rule in all of southern Africa. And against the Maoists’ betrayal, the fighters against Portuguese and South African imperialism are calling upon the world anti-imperialist forces to support liberation of the people of Macao from Portuguese rule. This would not only end Portuguese oppression of that island, it would also strike a significant blow against Portuguese imperialism’s economic position.
African freedom fighters are also the Maoists’ “super-revolutionary” stance in other ways. They bitterly contrast Maoist toleration of the Portuguese occupation of Macao with India’s action of more than a decade ago—when it compelled Portugal to end its 400-year occupation of Goa. The heroic leaders of the armed struggles against Portuguese imperialism in Africa are sharply aware that China is in a much stronger position to oust Portugal from its territory today than India was then. Moreover, the situation of Portuguese imperialism is much weaker today—when it exists only through U.S. financial and military support—than it was when India unceremoniously repossessed its Goan territory. And African freedom fighters also realize that if China were to Oust Portuguese imperialism from Macao, the U.S. could not come to its support in that area of the globe. Yet China continues to cooperate with the Portuguese occupation of Macao, while it escalates its trade with Portugal and South Africa. The new facet in this picture is the Maoists’ expanding trade with the U.S.—carried on under policies that distort the meaning of peaceful coexistence.
The Chinese people’s Socialist gains are being seriously weakened, perhaps even jeopardized, by the Maoist great power aims—which have already isolated China from the Socialist camp and are now betraying the African liberation movements.
The Maoists seek to obscure the realistic alternative to their “theories” of a “third way” and “self-reliance” apart from international anti-imperialist unity for the newly independent countries. The alternative to these twin concepts of accommodation to imperialism lies in the Leninist strategy of the inter-related struggles for the rights of peaceful coexistence and national self-determination—the basis for the underdeveloped countries to escape neo-colonial control and take the direction of their economies into their own hands. This united, anti-imperialist strategy creates the context in which the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America can emerge on the world stage in a genuinely self-reliant, genuinely independent way—with strengthened positions based on equal and expanding economic relations with the Soviet Union and the whole Socialist system.
From these new positions of independence, the “third world” nations can develop economic relations with capitalist countries based on respect for their terms of trade and their sovereignty. But this perspective can be realized only through continuous, united struggle for the right to self-determination and peaceful coexistence.
On the day that Le Duc Tho announced the agreement to end the war, he spoke of the Vietnamese people’s fight for peace and self-determination, which now takes on new forms, and demands still greater world anti-imperialist unity. Le Doc Tho declared that:
. . . The conclusion of such an agreement represents a great victory for the Vietnamese people. . . . It is a great victory for the Socialist countries, the oppressed peoples and all the peace-loving and justice-loving peoples throughout the world, including the American people, who have demonstrated their solidarity and given devoted assistance to the just struggle of our people. (The New York Times, January 25, 1973)
Le Duc Tho then stated:
With the return of peace, the struggle of the Vietnamese people enters a new period. . . . It will also have to rebuild its war-devastated country and consolidate and develop friendly relations with all the peoples of the world, including the American people. . . . We have the conviction that the dark designs of the reactionary forces in the country and abroad to obstruct the application of the agreement and to sabotage it can only fail. (Ibid.)
Le Duc Tho’s words express the unsurpassed self-reliance of the Vietnamese people, who have carried on their long battle in solidarity with the Socialist camp, the working classes, and all peoples fighting imperialist oppression. Le Duc Tho’s convictions are in direct opposition to Maoism, which promotes disunity instead of solidarity. Above all, Le Duc Tho’s message—which applies to Africa as well as Vietnam—asserts that imperialism can be defeated through adherence to the Leninist principles of international solidarity, based on an offensive strategy of struggle for the right to national and peaceful coexistence.
Next: THE “CULTURAL REVOLUTION” AND U.S. ESCALATION IN VIETNAM