First Published: Unity and Struggle, Vol. VIII, No. 1-2, February 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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It is through him that we all are what we are; and it is through his theoretical and practical activity that the movement is what it is today; without him we would still be plunged into confusion. F. Engels speaking, commemorating Karl Marx.
With the letter from the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania (PLA) to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the whole ideological and political struggle within the international communist movement has reached a new level. This letter goes to the core of the polemics that started a few years ago, mounting into a political campaign by the PLA after Mao Tse-tung’s death, and intensifying to the point that the Albanian Government and the PLA openly attack the CPC. Many young communists in the anti-revisionist communist movement worldwide have been confused because of the split that has developed between the CPC and the PLA. The ideological and political certainty they felt when Mao Tsetung was alive is no longer there and frankly, many comrades and friends have waivered since Mao’s death, the fall of the Gang of Four in China, and the open split between the Party of Labor of Albania and the Communist Party of China. Which side should you take? People must seriously weigh all the facts and arguments, seeking truth from facts, and firmly take a stand on this burning question. It is a question of whether or not we uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought or not. It is a question of maintaining the purity of Marxism-Leninism against the filth of revisionism. It is the question of how do we make revolution in the world today!
There can be no doubt that the Chinese Revolution found its way forward under the leadership of Chairman Mao and his revolutionary line for over a half century, surmounting obstacles that no one else had overcome, solving problems on the road to revolution that had never been solved before. The theory and practice of Chairman Mao Tsetung have been a lighthouse for the oppressed peoples around the world because they are the theory and practice of revolution, the acme of Marxism-Leninism in our time. Mao Tsetung Thought is an integrated scientific system and a continuation and development of the revolutionary science of Marxism-Leninism. Some people try to limit Chairman Mao’s creative development of Marxism to one field but in reality he developed Marxism-Leninism in all fields. Mao Tsetung has left us with complete sets of concepts in philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism, not to speak of the concepts he left behind on tasks of party building, the building of a revolutionary army and peoples war, literature and art, science and education. The revisionists of all shades want to take the weapon of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought away from the revolutionary people. Led by the Soviet Revisionists, they huff and puff, but Mao Tsetung Thought represents a great and invincible force in the world because it has been grasped by millions and millions of people as they transformed the lives of more than one-fourth of humanity. OPEN YOUR EYES AND YOU WILL SEE THAT THE REVOLUTIONARIES OF TODAY ARE THOSE WHO UPHOLD AND DEFEND MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT AND NOT THOSE WHO ARE IN A FRENZIED DANCE WITH THE SOVIET REVISIONISTS BENT ON DESTROYING IT.
The PLA Letter is full of slanders and anti-communist arguments that must be answered. These brief comments are put together to clarify the issues at stake that have been raised by this letter.
The whole history of the anti-revisionist communist movement is turned upside down in the PLA account, but what becomes crystal clear is that the PLA is attacking the CPC, not because the CPC is departing from the line and policies of Mao Tsetung and Chou En-lai, but they are under attack because they uphold the banner of Chairman Mao today. Obviously the unity between the PLA and the CPC was a united front against Soviet Revisionism at one point in time. The ideal unity that many militants in the movement refer to between the CPC and the PLA, departs from reality because it closes its eyes to the concrete time, place and conditions under which the CPC and the PLA united. E.F. Hill, Chairman of the Australian Communist Party, has written a good account of the anti-revisionist communist movement and Chairman Mao’s actual role. It gives a good perspective to the question, so we will start with his first hand account:
Chairman Mao Tsetung was the great continuer of the work of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Chairman Mao was the greatest single fighter against modern revisionism. He was unswerving in his adherence to Marxism-Leninism and upholding its revolutionary banner.
Like the immortal Lenin, he stood as a giant on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theoretical principle, the purity of which is critical to the victory of proletarian revolution.
Amid all the furor of revisionism, amid the avalanche of the Right, this mighty man calmly and deliberately expounded correct Marxist-Leninist principle. He declined to go along with revisionism...
All the recognized leaders of international communism, headed by the leaders of the CPSU, proclaimed revisionism as Marxism-Leninism. Chairman Mao Tsetung denounced it as revisionism.” (Study Guide For Chairman Mao’s Theory of the Three Worlds, “Chairman Mao Tsetung Stands on the Pinnacle of History,” ed. by Yenan Books, pg 12)
The PLA Letter slanders Mao’s role in the struggle against modern revisionism. The PLA letter attempts to do what the revisionist CPSU failed to do, by first of all saying that the Communist Party of China’s ideological and political struggle against modern revisionism was pragmatically inspired and that the CPC, with Chairman Mao at the helm, was motivated by narrow national interests. In a word, Mao Tsetung’s criticism of modern revisionism and the great contributions developed in this struggle – according to the PLA – are not based on Marxism-Leninism! The PLA says:
The events that were taking place revealed ever more clearly that the political and ideological struggle of the Communist Party of China against the Khrushchevites did not proceed from a sound basis, in reality, its aim was not to defend Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and the liberation of peoples. It was waged simply for pragmatic ends and selfish interests. (Letter of the CC of the PLA, pg 40)
With this lie the PLA is echoing the slander and dirt of the revisionist CPSU in the 60s, which attempted to divert people’s attention away from the principled Marxist-Leninist criticism initiated by Mao Tsetung. To this day the social fascist party, the CPSU, is running this line to cover their filthy social-imperialist acts! During the 60s the CPSU charged that the Communist Party of China (CPC) was deviating from Marxism and the October Road, and that it was not a genuine communist party. In the following passage, the PLA echoes this slander.
The PLA Letter says: “The great ideas of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Marxist-Leninist ideology were not properly made the example for, the pillar and the compass of, the Communist Party of China in the concrete conditions of its country.” (pg 35)
The fine legacy of the Communist Party of China, with Chairman Mao at the helm, was basing itself on the fundamental principle of integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the revolution. Chairman Mao made remarkable contributions to the revolutionary science of Marxism-Leninism and won victory after victory against the class enemies at home and abroad. History confirms this truth. The Communist Party of China is a great, glorious and correct Marxist-Leninist Party.
During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, the anti-revisionist communist movement assessed Mao Tsetung and the CPC. The evaluation expressed in 1967 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Burma is that, “Comrade Mao Tsetung is the leader of the world proletariat and the Communist Party of China is the vanguard of the international communist movement.” (Peking Review, No. 51, Dec. 15, 1967, pg 5). In both theory and practice, the Communist Party of China with Chairman Mao at the helm, not only built a great Marxist-Leninist Party, but it further developed the Marxist-Leninist science of party building.
Some people would have us forget that the Chinese Revolution travelled a long and tortuous road, growing stronger and stronger, under the leadership of the working class defeated the Japanese imperialists and drove them out of China and successfully carried out the great proletarian cultural revolution. Before the heroic CPC took leadership in the Chinese Revolution, the people’s struggled raged wave after wave against foreign subjugation and exploitation. But it was not until the working class created its own genuine Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, that the Chinese people blazed a revolutionary trail in the East, and won victories that changed the balance of class forces in the world. THE PLA WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE THAT THESE VICTORIES WERE DONE WITHOUT MARXISM-LENINISM, which is incredible! Ultimately they are slandering Mao Tsetung and the CPC as opportunists. Now let us look at the truth of history!
The very fact of the liberation struggle which culminated in victory in 1949 was a gigantic breach in the whole system of imperialism and colonialism. Just imagine a country...populated by hundreds of millions of people breaking from feudalism, colonialism and imperialism! It gave a mighty demonstration of Lenin’s writings that in the smashing of imperialism, the peoples of the East would be decisive. China’s liberation inspired the workers and working and oppressed people of the world. The Chinese people stood up. They inspired the people of Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea to intensify their struggle for liberation. They constituted a reliable rear area for these peoples in their victorious struggle! E.F. Hill, “Communist Party of China Indestructible”, VANGUARD, Ja. 20, 1977.)
In reality Chairman Mao developed a Marxist-Leninist party that was able to win great victories against the class enemy precisely because it possessed the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, a knowledge of history and a profound grasp of the practical movement. The Party of Labor of Albania’s Letter deviates from the verdict on Mao Tsetung and the Chinese Revolution upheld by the anti-revisionist communist movement and in this unprincipled frenzied slander on the Chinese Revolution, they isolate themselves from the great majority of anti-revisionist parties and organizations in the world communist movement; while simultaneously lining up with an ugly host of scabs from the revisionist CPSU, center of world reaction, to the Trotskyite renegades!
In regard to the PLA charge that the Communist Party of China did not use the ideas of the October Revolution as a compass for their revolutionary struggle, the PLA reveals another ideological error. Mao Tsetung stated, “To acknowledge the standard of the October revolution is to acknowledge that the ’basic content’ of the revolution of any country is the same.” (Mao Tsetung, A Critique of Soviet Economics, p. 35) V. I. Lenin addressed the problem of the revolution in the East taking the road of the October Revolution and his stand is remarkably different from the PLA’s stand against the Chinese revolution. V.I. Lenin would have embraced the victory of the communist revolution in China in 1949.
“In this respect you are confronted with a task that has not previously confronted the communists of the world: relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt yourselves to specific conditions such as do not exist in the European countries; you must be able to apply that theory and practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are peasants, and in which the task is to wage a struggle against medieval survivals and not against capitalism...The task is to arouse the working masses to revolutionary activity, to independent action and to organization, regardless of the level they have reached; to translate the true communist doctrine, which was intended for the Communists of the more advanced countries, into the language of every people; to carry out those practical tasks which must be carried out immediately, and to join the proletarians of other countries in a common struggle.
Such are the problems whose solution you will not find in any communist book, but will find in the common struggle begun by Russia. You will have to tackle that problem and solve it through your own independent experience. (Lenin, COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 30, pg. 161-162.)
Lenin’s understanding of the task of making revolution in the East is quite different from the theoreticians of the PLA! Mao Tsetung chose Leninism! He had earthshaking results. “Comrade Mao Tsetung not only correctly applied the Marxist-Leninist theories to the reality in Chinese society and developed the Marxist-Leninist theories with the rich and extremely extensive revolutionary experience of the Chinese people, but also scientifically analyzed, with dialectical materialism, the major problems in the revolution of the contemporary era and pointed out the infallibly correct orientation and infinitely broad future for this revolution.” (Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile PR No. 45, 1976, pg. 35)
We must pay close attention to the PLA’s philistine attack on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Out of one side of the mouth they say, the PLA “supported the general line of the Cultural Revolution for the liquidation of the capitalist and revisionist elements who had usurped key positions in the Party and state power, though it did not agree over many questions of principle and methods which guided this revolution and were used in it.” (PLA Letter, pg 34-35.) Yet, out of the other side of the mouth comes, “The Cultural Revolution, more often than not, preserved the spirit and actions of an unprincipled struggle, WHICH WAS NOT LED BY A GENUINE PARTY OF THE WORKING CLASS (Our Emphasis – Ed.) which should strive for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. (to be continued)