The following is an English translation of the Joint
International Declaration, “Learn from Chairman Gonzalo,” on the occasion of
the 28th Anniversary of his infamous “Speech from the Cage,” also known as the
“Transcendental Speech” and the “Speech of the Century,” originally posted to
the revolutionary German news portal, Dem Volke Dienen.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Learn from Chairman Gonzalo!
Chairman Gonzalo’s speech shines before the world as an all
powerful weapon of combat. On this new anniversary of this historic event, we,
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties and Organisations from all over the world,
greet our class, the international proletariat, and the peoples of the world
with revolutionary optimism in these stormy times we are living in.
We consider it a necessity, which it is our duty to meet, in
these times of so much chaos, to reaffirm the full validity of the speech of
Chairman Gonzalo and ourselves in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism, with
the universally valid contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, thus contributing to
the defence of Chairman Gonzalo’s life and health, inseparably linked to the
campaign for Maoism, as part and in the service of the world proletarian
revolution.
We want and we must emphasize the great farsightedness of
Chairman Gonzalo manifested in his speech, how he justly and correctly
describes the development of the New Great Wave of the world proletarian
revolution. He foresees how Maoism will become the command of this New Great
Wave in the upcoming decades and how it will be embodied more and more, by more
and more communists generating their Communist Parties, in more and more
countries, how it will become material violence when it is embodied in the
peoples of the world.
“Finally now, listen to this. As we see in the world, Maoism
is marching unstoppably to lead the new wave of world proletarian revolution.
Listen well and understand! Those who have ears, use them. Those who have
understanding – and we all have it – use it! Enough of this nonsense. Enough of
these obscurities! Let us understand that! What is unfolding in the world? What
do we need? We need Maoism to be incarnated, and it is being incarnated, and by
generating Communist Parties to drive and lead this new great wave of the world
proletarian revolution that is coming.
Everything they told us, the empty and silly chatter of the
famous “new age of peace.” Where is it now? What about Yugoslavia? What about
other places? That is a lie; everything became politicized. Today there is one
reality; the same contenders of the First and Second World War are preparing a
new Third World War. We should know this and we, as the children of an
oppressed nation, are part of the booty. We cannot consent to this! Enough
imperialist exploitation! We must finish with them! We are of the third world
and the third world is the base of the world proletarian revolution, with one
condition, that the Communist Parties brandish and lead! That is what we must
do!” – Speech of Chairman Gonzalo on the 24th of September 1992
Isn’t it just like that? It is! Regardless of the
limitations there may be, regardless of the inequality in the development of
the revolutionary situation in our respective countries, we see how Maoism in
Latin America has gone from spark to prairie fire. We see how in United States
a young guard is shouldering the great duty of struggle at the heart of the
only hegemonic imperialist superpower, advancing firmly united with the
masses.We see how in old Europe parties and organizations are developing in the
direction of making a leap in the reconstitution of the communist parties and
developing the necessary deep roots in the masses, we see not last nor least,
but first and foremost the Peoples Wars in Peru, India, Turkey and the
Philippines – glorious torches of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism for the international
proletariat and the peoples of the world. Maoism is the command of the New
Great Wave of the world proletarian revolution and is becoming more and more
so. We see how exploitation and oppression creates resistance by law, we see
how more and more the necessity of sweeping imperialism and reaction away from
the face of the earth is met.
We see all this, if only we do not close our eyes. We hear
the battle cry “It is right to rebel!” from the chorus of billions of the
peoples of the world, who do not want to live as before, if only we do not turn
a deaf ear.
We hear the battle cry in the national liberation struggles
which are being waged in West Asia (Expanded Middle East) and Africa. We see it
in the explosiveness of the masses in Latin America. We hear it in the
uprisings against Chinese social imperialism and Russian imperialism. We hear
it in the struggles and demonstrations which are taking place in the heart of
Yankee imperialism. We hear it in the struggles of the youth in various
European countries which are flaring up again and again. We hear it in the
workers movements, strikes and the huge protests of the masses in various
European countries which are flaring up again and again.
In India the suffering of and repression against the masses
has reached an unbearable level. Against this situation the Communist Party of
India (maoist) has resolutely developed the new democratic revolution by means
of invincible Peoples War to smash the old reactionary state, imperialism,
bureaucratic capitalism and semi-feudalism. In Latin America the crisis
generates new waves of mass protests whichmakes the true Marxist-Leninst-Maoist
revolutionaries progress in the foundation/reconstitution of the militarised
Communist Parties, preparing new powerful leaps.
We enter a new period of revolutions! A new period inside
the strategic offensive of world proletarian revolution that was opened by the
Peoples War in Peru. The characterisation of this new situation, in which international
class struggle enters we understand as very favourable for world revolution,
generated because it is just concreted in the correspondence of the development
of the objective situation with the advances in the task to reconstitute the
Communist Party, what necessarily takes shape in the initiation of new Peoples
Wars and the victorious development of the New Great Wave of world proletarian
revolution.
The task ahead is to unite the two great forces: The
movement of the international proletariat that takes place in the whole world
and the national liberation movement generated in the oppressed nations, to
unleash a powerful storm which will culminate in the World Peoples War and bury
imperialism. In doing so, always defying the danger of converging with one or
another imperialist power. Hence, it is necessary to combat imperialism, world
reaction and revisionism unyieldingly and irreconcilably.
It is undeniable that this system is heading for its
downfall. The decomposition of imperialism moves on every day. Imperialism
worldwide is in its general crisis. Its rottenness is even more acute in the
oppressed nations where semi-colonialism, bureaucratic capitalism and
semi-feudalism are increasingly under pressure and are less and less able to be
the necessary support for the imperialist world system.
The imperialist are seeking for a way out of their
situation, they are lashing out in desperate agony, averagely more collusion
and struggle. They are using the Corona-Pandemic to confront the coming gigantic
economic crisis and the explosiveness of the masses by economic measures and
world-wide declared state of emergencies, without precedence, creating a real
state of war. While the reactionaries of different countries are generating
stronger centralisation of absolute power in the executive through “Aid for
Companies” and “Healthcare Protocols”, the Pandemic hits especially hard the
health and lives of millions of the deepest and broadest masses because of the
system itself, the policy of privatisation of the last decades and their own
“Health Protocols”. The genocidal character of imperialism is thus becoming
ever clearer: Its unthinkable malice and its willingness to do everything. At
the same time, however, imperialism is facing a gigantic crisis, bigger than
the great depression of 2008. Even more reactionarisation and militarisation of
the reactionary state. More violence, more terror, more deprivation of
freedoms, rights, benefits and conquered achievements, the masses have
conquered in fierce struggle. More centralisation of reactionary state power to
use it against the revolution. That are the economic and political relations
developing as part of the process of decomposition of imperialism. The storm
centres of the world revolution are the oppressed nations, we must always bear
this in mind, and they are fulfilling this role ever more consciously. The
weight of the masses will decide the revolution and this weight lays in the
oppressed nations, corresponding to revolution as main tendency and to the main
contradiction.
Yankee imperialism, as the only hegemonic superpower, is
particularly hit hard by the general crisis and by the current overproduction
crisis. Contradictions there, like everywhere else, are sharpening more and the
contradiction masses-imperialist state is expressed in the contradiction
masses-government. Therefore, the upcoming elections are crucial for Yankee
imperialism. They need a new government that has (apparent) “legitimacy” with
higher voter turnout to a greater extent than before. In this context, it is
important to stress that Donald Trump is a disgusting reactionary, but he is
not an idiot. Let us not forget that there is continuity within the Trump
administration, e.g. Finance Minister Mnuchin. This is the political proof, that
Trump is not a maniac, but a representative of a faction of Yankee finance
capital. He is now playing with fire, he is doing so to win the elections. That
is his way of mobilising people for the elections. His counterpart Biden does
nothing different, directly supported by revisionists and opportunists of all
stripes, like Bob Avakian and others, but he tries to sell other fairy tales to
the masses. For the proletariat and the people of the USA, especially black
peoples, women and migrants, it is once again only a matter of choosing who to
trample them for the next few years.
In Belarus we see a fascist regime, which the masses are
rebelling against – the just rebellion of the masses is, without proper
leadership, used to impose reactionary objectives – economically, politically
and militarily dependent, mainly dominated by Russia, a semi-colony of Russian
imperialism and essential for it. So it is clear that imperialist Russia is
alone in Eastern Europe: After Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and now Belarus, the
legitimacy of its hegemonic role in its regional environment is being
undermined. The process of disintegration of the former USSR through the
bankruptcy of revisionism is far from over. Added to this are the difficulties
in their own internal affairs: Their own protest movements in Siberia and other
areas, the upcoming regional elections and the endless costs of their
intervention in Crimea and the situation of the Donbas. The NATO alliance, led
by Yankee imperialism, is pursuing a long-term strategy of encircling Russia.
Any manipulation by Russian imperialism of the conflict zones located along the
internal lines of Russian imperialism must be seen as a counter-measure to this
strategy. This is important. Russian imperialism cannot give up Belarus without
suffering a strategic defeat, that would threaten its existence. Accordingly, a
solution to this question is impossible without war. The Yankees and also the
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), as well as the rest of the NATO members have
no interest in a war with Russian imperialism at the present moment. We
understand: Any demagogy about the defence of “democracy and human rights” can
bring nothing more than a relative advance of the tactical positions of the
Yankee, German and French imperialism. That is why the transfer of Yankee
troops to Poland is also a manoeuvre within a long-term plan and not a tactical
manoeuvre to provoke an immediate war.
In the Greater Middle East, after the defeat of Yankee
imperialism in Syria, where they keep control of amilitary strategically
relevant oil producing area by support of their local lackeys to avoid direct
confrontation with the troops of Russian imperialism. They are recurring on
their old imperialist politics, following the policy of “Let the natives beat the
natives”, simultaneously advancing in the encirclement of Iran trying to
develop the war against Iran as a religious war of the local lackeys
(“sunnies”) against the “shias” of Iran, its allies in the region like Syria
etc..
Within the EU, the FRG continues to develop as a leading
imperialist power. It is economically dominant and gains thereby certain
influence in the development of the class struggles in Western Europe. This is
especially true for the handling of the current crisis of overproduction, where
German imperialism is preparing to further develop its leading role at the
expense of its competitors and the oppressed nations which are incorporated
within the EU.
In the China Sea, the US imperialists are carrying out their
plan to curb the claims of the Chinese social imperialists to make China a
regional hegemonic power. They are deliberately trying to undermine China’s
nuclear retaliation capability. Together with their allies in the region, they
have stationed a growing number of nuclear naval, submarine and air forces on
military bases near China. Since the failure of the INF Treaty in 2019, the
United States has sought to deploy conventional land-based short and
medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region to counter China’s so-called anti-access
and area-denial (A2AD) capabilities. Such deployment, if carried out, would
raise concerns in China about the survival of its nuclear forces, as such US
missiles deployed near China would enhance the US capability to deliver a
conventional strike against Chinese nuclear forces, including mobile ones.
These are the conditions for Trump calling Russian imperialism, Chinese social
imperialism and other nuclear powers for a new deal of “Limitation of nuclear
weapons and ballistic projectiles”. He is seeking to impose at the negotiation
table what they had won in different scenarios.
One thing needs to be clearly stated, international
conditions are brilliant! What is to be done is to put politics in command,
i.e. to apply the ideology of the international proletariat,
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism, with the universally valid
contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, in class struggle. Reality demands creative
application to give answer to new questions.This also means that comrades must
think more in order to answer these questions. It needs flexibility in many
respects and at the same time firmness in principles.
There is great chaos in the world. That is wonderful!
Because only out of great chaos a new great order can emerge, and it will.
Long live the 28th anniversary of Chairman Gonzalo’s speech!
Unite under Maoism!
Learn from Chairman Gonzalo!
24th September 2020
Communist Party of Peru
Revolutionary Nucleus for the Reconstitution of the
Communist Party of Mexico (NR-PCM)
Committees for the Foundation of the (maoist) Communist
Party in Austria
Communist Party of Brazil (Red Fraction)
Red Faction of the Communist Party of Chile
Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun
Maoist Committee in Finland
Serve the People – Communist League of Norway
Communist Party of Colombia (Red Faction)
Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA –
CPUSA (CR)
Committee Red Flag – FRG