January 4, 2022
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Uphold the red flag of the Communist
International and of its 7th Congress
Problems of the evaluation of the 7th Congress of the Communist
International – Comintern
(February 2020)
I – Introduction
The general crisis of
imperialism greatly aggravates, sharpening the fundamental contradictions,
principally the one that opposes the oppressed nations to imperialism, inciting
the wide popular masses to rebel against exploitation, oppression, national
subjugation and the imperialist wars of aggression. Among the upheaval of the
masses, the armed struggles of national liberation and especially the heroic
persistence of the People‘s Wars in Peru, India, Philippines and Turkey are
highlighted. Furthermore, as a consequence of the aggravation of the
contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the imperialist
countries, the growth and radicalization of the protests of the deepest parts
of the proletariat against the brutal “policies of austerity” applied by their
governments and increasingly against these same governments of the imperialist
bourgeoisie. On the other hand, the inter-imperialist contradictions intensify
in the struggle for a new partition of the world, through relations of
collusion and contend. Within them, the USA, as the only sole hegemonic
superpower, the enemy number one of the peoples of the world, has its hegemony
questioned by the rivalry with the atomic superpower Russia and other powers
like China, etc. From which Germany struggles to establish its hegemony in
Europe and the contradictions that oppose other imperialist powers with each of
the before-mentioned powers. All these events characterize the world situation
as a growing revolutionary situation in uneven development; within which the
constitution and reconstitution of militarized Communist Parties are taking
place to unleash new people’s wars as part of the struggle to impose maoism as
the only sole command and guide of the World Proletarian Revolution.
In this historical
context and as a product of such sharpening of the class struggle in the world and
the elevation of the two line struggle in the International Communist Movement
(ICM), whose process of dispersion has been reverted (fundamentally) with the
advances of the reunification through the growing unity of its left, we are
marching towards the realization of the First Unified Maoist International
Conference (UMIC). A Conference which will give birth to the New International
Organization of the Proletariat (NIOP), which will mean a new step forward in
the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist International under the
command and guide of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. This event has such important
meaning after decades of dispersion, when treating the most burning problems of
the current class struggle and ICM, which assumes to itself, as indispensable
task, taking the position that fully and decidedly demarcates with revisionism,
trotskism and all opportunism regarding fundamental problems of the historic
experience of the struggle of international proletariat, the proletarian
revolution in general and the ICM in particular.
Among those
undoubtedly stands out, due to its grandiosity and transcendence, the 7th Congress of the
Communist International (Comintern), celebrated in the midst of 1935, which
confronted fundamental problems of the epoch and and crucial for the ICM in
this particular situation of ascension of fascism and a new unbridled
imperialist race for a new partition of the world, a new world war and a
serious threat for the Soviet Union and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, a
situation of gigantic challenge for the World Proletarian Revolution (WPR)].
The 7th Congress in which the magi perverse sterial role of the leadership
(Great Leadership) of comrade Stalin was condensed and portrayed.
In the last decades,
the 7th Congress of the Communist International and the great figure of
comrade Stalin were cast to the shadows due to the action and mystifier and
arrogant influence of the revisionist ideas, criteria and positions within the
ICM, as a repercussion of the ideological dynamic of the general
counterrevolutionary offensive of imperialism, the reaction and revisionism.
The correct and just
assessment of the Communist International and specially its 7th Congress, of the
role of comrade Stalin and comrade Dimitrov, is not a secondary problem for the
ICM. Under these glorious red banners, iron legions of communists and popular
masses of the whole world rose up in arms through of the war of resistance to
fight against fascism, for the defense of the URSS, the dictatorship of the proletariat
and of the World Proletarian Revolution. This great epic of humanity, for which
dozens of million masses have struggled in the whole world, is part of our soul
and heart and therefore is a matter of life and death that separates Marxism
from revisionism.
Against the policy of
the Unified Anti-Fascist Front, the Nazi Germany promoted the so-called pact
“Anti-Comintern”: “At the National-Socialist Congress in
Nuremberg, Hitler, Goebbels and Rosenberg opened a particular furious cannonade
against the danger of the People’s Front, which is menacing the fascist
dictatorship, and against democracy in general. While directing the most
vehement outbursts against the already existing People’s Front in France and
Spain, they at the same time thus expresses their alarm and fear of the
People’s Front movement which is taking shape in Germany itself.” (Dimitrov, The
People’s Front, The Struggle against Fascism and War, 1938).
In this sense, it’s
necessary to highlight that in an intern evaluation of the Yankee-CIA of 1947,
in which is recognized that: “During the
twenty-four years of its official existence the Third (Communist) International
played a key role in the world-wide organization and development of
the revolutionary Marxist movement. As the first global political machine in
history, it coordinated the efforts of groups of determined and fanatical
agitators and revolutionaries in almost every nation
and colonized area of the world. To no small degree the enormous
growth of world communism in our generation has been due to its integrating and
compulsive force.”
Chairman Gonzalo
pointed out the necessity of making an evaluation of the 7th Congress of the
Communist International, affirming that such an evaluation could only be
carried out correctly taking this congress, the role of comrade Stalin in the
direction of the the Great Patriotic War and the Global Antifascist Front as a
whole. He pointed out precisely the Marxist criteria to do it: “It is an urgent task for Communists, and for our Party, to make
an evaluation on the Communist International, especially its IV
Congress,connected to the World War and the role of Comrade Stalin.” (PCP,
International Line)
When the PCP presented
this problem, it was leading a hard two-line struggle inside and outside of the
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), in order for the ICM to
recognize and assume Maoism as the third, new and superior stage of Marxism.
Situation in which the PCP could not open other fronts in the two-line
struggle. Inside the RIM, the PCP faced, above all, the revisionist positions
of Avakian, who had already began with his foulmouthed attacks against comrade
Stalin. Let’s take a look at this:
“Especially after the crushing defeat of the communists in Germany with the
rise of the fascist form of dictatorship (1933), heavy defensive and defeatist
tendencies grew in the leadership of the Soviet Union and the Comintern. Together
with the growing danger of world war, especially of attack on the Soviet Union,
openly rightist deviations, of a fundamental nature, became predominant—the
promotion of nationalism, reformism and bourgeois democracy, the subordination
of everything to the defense of the Soviet Union, etc., in a qualitatively
greater way than before … all this was concentrated in the Dimitroff Report to
the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern (1935) and the implementation and
further development of this line—which, as we know, involved, among other
things, as one of its key ingredients, the basic repudiation of the Leninist
position on „defense of the fatherland.‟ This whole line was in its essence
erroneous… the wrong line promoted under the leadership of Stalin had more than
a little to do with the eventual triumph of counter-revolution. And just as
certainly, the Spanish Civil War is a clear mile marker on a revisionist course
embarked on by many Comintern parties and leaders.” (The Line of the Comintern on the Spanish Civil War. Revolutionary Communist
Party USA 1980)
Today, after more than
35 years since the beginning of the “Campaign for Maoism” by the Communist
Party of Peru in 1982, the majority of Communist parties and organizations of
the international proletariat have rejected the revisionism and have assumed
Maoism and are struggling decidedly for its application to the concrete reality
in their countries. At the same time, a growing number of parties and
organizations of the ICM have advanced in assuming and comprehending the
“contributions of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo”. On this ideological
basis and in the midst and through the storms of the class struggle, the
militarized Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist parties are being constituted or
reconstituted, developing and preparing more People‘s Wars in the whole world.
As we have pointed out
we are in an auspicious advance that shows that we “have broken the ice” and
that the ICM is entering in a new phase of its development. This advance takes
us to the necessity of deepening our comprehension of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
at each of its stages and as a unity to elevate our application of Maoism,
embodying it to keep the course.
Throughout the years,
some parties have always published articles in defense of comrade Dimitrov, but
it was especially in the last year that several declarations, documents and
articles were published for the celebration the Centenary of the Communist
International and the 70 years of the death of comrade Dimitrov. In these pronouncements,
parties and organizations of different countries highlighted the great role
played by comrade Dimitrov and the legacy of the 7th Congress of the
Communist International for the World Proletarian Revolution. This is an
important step forward and an important signal of advance.
On the other hand,
among some Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations that rejected
revisionism and took position for Marxism-Leninism-Maoism still confusion,
limitations and erroneous positions of various orders regarding the evaluation
of the 7th Congress of the Communist International persist. Among these
positions, we distinguish those that are due to limitations that are part of
the development, from those that are manifestations of serious ideological and
political deviations, manifested in the form of a subjective and mechanistic
idealism. Even though both could reach similar conclusions, the first are
closer to Marxism than the latter, and as the Chinese proverb said: “the
prejudice (rightism) is farther from the truth than ignorance”. These opinions
represent the ballast of revisionism and its survival within the ranks of the
ICM, and if they are not corrected, they will inevitably lead to part ways with
the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
The “demolishing
criticism” to the 7th Congress have its origin in the saltimbanco [T.N – From Michaelis Dictionary of Portuguese Language: saltimbanco:
Italian origin, 1. Individual that shows his habillities at public places, says
jests, sell drugs, etc.; fair charlatan. 2. Buffoon, trickster 3. individual of
versatile opinions. 4. Subject that easily changes political party, according
to individual convenience. 5. circus artist.] Trotsky. As a servant of
imperialism, Trotsky centered all his attacks against the United Front policy
of the Communist International and its 7th Congress, which was labeled by him
as the “Congress of liquidation of the Comintern”; which had abandoned
proletarian internationalism and replaced it with patriotism and the struggle
for socialist revolution was replaced with the defense of the bourgeois regime:
“The Seventh Congress of the Comintern, … will sooner or later go down in
history as the liquidation congress. … has liquidated Lenin’s teaching, making
an abrupt about-face to opportunism and patriotism …. replace revolutionary
struggle against the bourgeoisie by reformist and pacifist cooperation with the
“left” bourgeois parties and with all the “friends of peace” in general. In the
question of war, pacifism, and “civil war” there has thus been an almost
180-degree turn.” (Trotsky, The Congress of liquidation of
the Comintern, 23 of August 1935)
About Chairman Mao and
the 7th Congress, Avakian had affirmed: “…only that the problem of Mao consists in him not criticizing the erroneous
ideas of the 7th Congress, because inside himself he had nationalism”. And regarding
comrade Stalin, among other things, what does this mister say?
“Stalin … “reversed” Leninism on a number of important questions. On
internationalism, for example—and this was strikingly so during the period
immediately leading into and during World War 2, when the interests of the
Soviet Union as a state were, on a rather nakedly nationalist basis, put ahead
of the overall advance of the world revolution … under Stalin’s leadership in
the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s … there was
explicitly a revising of the notion that the workers have no country and no
basis and no interest in supporting the imperialist “fatherland.” (Bob Avakian, Breakthroughs, The Historic Breakthrough by Marx,
and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism. A Basic Summary.
2019)
These “lapidary”
quotes of mister Avakian show that there is no way to go against comrade Stalin
without resurrecting Trotsky and sinking in the quagmire of revisionism and
opportunism.
These were the same
arguments resurrected by Trotskysm, by the revisionism of Tito and his
followers, converging with the anti-Stalin campaign of the imperialist
reaction, that the Communist Party of the USSR (Bolshevik and the Communist
International, under the direction of comrade Stalin, betrayed the world
revolution in name of the defense of the USSR.
A complete evaluation
of the Communist International can only be realized by the reconstituted
Communist International under the command and guide of marxism-leninism-maoism.
However, for the communists to draw lessons from the historical experiences of
its successes and errors will always be beneficial, given that they are
correctly summed up according to historic reality and context and not by
tergiversation.
The correct and
justified evaluation can only be ralized based on proletarian internationalism,
in the interest of the World Proletarian Revolution as a whole and not from a
point of view of “my” country, just as Lenin taught us: “I must argue, not from the point of view of ’my’ country (for that is the
argument of a wretched, stupid, petty—bourgeois nationalist who does
not realize that he is only a plaything in the hands of the
imperialist bourgeoisie), but from the point of view of my share in the
preparation, in the propaganda, and in the acceleration of the world
proletarian revolution… That is what internationalism means, and that is the
duty of the internationalist”. (Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky)
Each new development
of Marxism allows us and demands us to have a broader and deeper comprehension
of the prior stages. What does Avakian preaches with his “New Synthesis”,
affirming that it takes Maoism as starting point, if not making a revision of
all the prior stages? He declares:
“Since the time of Marx up through Mao, communism has been mainly scientific
in its method and approach. But there have been elements in it that have run
counter to that scientific method and approach, and the new synthesis is taking
what is positive, is building the essential parts that were positive, but is
also rejecting, casting off or recasting in a more correct light some of the
things from the earlier times in the development of communism that were not
thoroughly scientific.” (Avakian, The New
Communism)
Chairman Gonzalo
defined Avakian, with the precision that is characteristic of him, as someone
who “every day reads
only seeking to find the error”. This is an exact
synthesis of the Avakian method that keeps causing damage in the ICM. Marxism
is completely opposed to the bourgeois rationalism of Avakian. To separate the
development from our ideology from its material basis, from class struggle, is
an attempt to negate the class character of truth.
Chairman Gonzalo
taught us that when studying a document we must correctly see its context and
know what each document means, what is its political meaning. It’s not about
“finding the error”, as Avakian proposes. This is why to study and understand
the Rectification Movement put forward by the Communist Party of China in 1941
is of utmost importance. This profound rectification movement was a condition
for the correct integration of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the
concrete practice in the Chinese Revolution, basis on which Mao Tsetung Thought
was being forged. Chairman Mao defined the necessity of studying a problem in
its diverse domains, the study of the political, military, economic and
cultural situation on a national and international levels; the study of the
history of the country at least its last hundred years; the study of the
international experiences of Marxism, taking it as a contradiction; and not
having unilateral points of view, combating the subjectivist method, which
consists of not seeking the truth in the facts. He summarized that there are
two ways of partial knowledge: the one that is acquired systematized in the
books and the one that is, mainly, of sensible degree. That means, when
analyzing the process of the International Communist Movement in general and of
Marxism in particular, we need to approach it as a whole and not by isolated
parts.
Chairman Gonzalo
warned us about the necessity of taking Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a unity, as
a whole:We, comrades, I believe we are taking
the root in place of the leaves, we grasp a nail – from the little
finger – we want to define men. Would it be correct? If one grasp the nail
of the little finger and say what men are: a calcified crust, these
is man. Would it be? It is not, comrades, because we have to
consider it as a unity.””. (Chairman Gonzalo, First Congress).
The evaluation of the
Communist International, especially of its 7th Congress, cannot be separated from
the evaluation of the role of comrade Stalin. At the end of the 1920 and 1930
years, comrade Stalin had to give great attention to the heating two-line
struggle, which was developing itself within the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of
the USSR through which the great challenge of building Socialism for the first
time in history and the preparation of the USSR facing the imminent imperialist
aggression. It is false what pseudo-historians and other detractors affirm,
that Stalin left the direction of the Communist International aside. The
direction of the Communist International and the problems of the International
Communist Movement were under growing attention and direction of comrade
Stalin, in his condition of acknowledged Great Leader of the world revolution.
To separate the role of comrade Stalin from the 7th Congress, from
the problems of the Second World War and the Great Chinese Revolution is to
negate his acknowledged condition of Great Leader of the World Revolution. Then
we ask: after all, the great and glorious triumph over Nazi-Fascism was it or
was it not due to the direction of comrade Stalin? And if we agree with the
reality that yes, it was due to the magisterial direction of the great general
Stalin, with which line was such a glorious triumph achieved? Isn’t it clear
that it was with the line of the 7th Congress or was it despite of it?
Not having this clear is, in summary, to oppose Stalin against Chairman Mao and
to fracture Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
No matter how clear
this might be, we have to go to the bottom of the matter, go back to the facts,
the quotes, the transcriptions and registries of the two-line struggle which
engaged so much comrade Stalin at the leadership of the Communist Party
(Bolshevik) of USSR, of the Communist International, in the internal struggle
presided by Chairman Mao in the Communist Party of China and the struggle in
different Communist Parties in the decades of 1920 and 1930.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
can only be understood as a unity in a dialectical process of development. In
this process, each new great leap of quality in Marxism is composed of small
and medium leaps, which synthesize it and elevate it, concentrating the
solution of the fundamental problems of the World Proletarian Revolution a
whole historical period, as Chairman Gonzalo explained: “What lies behind this regarding the titans of thought and action that is
linked to ‘three bright beacons stand out: Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao Tsetung’,
comrades, a chain of mountains does not have only three summits, there are also
small summits, medium summits, but there are also very high summits… ‘and how
does our ideology will develop itself being a dialectical process? Through
great leaps; this is why the document says through great leaps and three great
ones, of course! Three great qualitative leaps: Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao
Tsetung. However, these three great qualitative leaps could not be understood
without other big, medium and even small leaps and with these incessant leaps
that, due to their such elementary magnitude, we do not consider”. (Chairman Gonzalo First Congress)
The development of
Marxism is product of the development of the class struggle of the
international proletariat and the two-line struggle in the proletarian vanguard
(ICM) in defense of the proletarian red line and against the bourgeois line and
the other non-proletarian lines. Only the class struggle, whose center is the
politics to conquer and defend the power of the class, can generate our
ideology and in the same class struggle develop it through the two-line
struggle. As such, it’s necessary to see and understand the context in which
Maoism develops itself . And this was of the most complex convergence of
contradictions and the grueling class struggle in the center of the world
revolution that had already been Germany, France, Russia and that had moved to
China.
“When it comes to CONTEXT in which Chairman Mao Tsetung developed and Maoism
was forged, internationally on the basis of imperialism, world wars,
International Proletarian Movement, national liberation movement, struggle
between Marxism and revisionism and restoration of Capitalism in the USSR,
three great historical milestones stand out in the current
century, the 20th century. First, the October Revolution, 1917, which opens the era of
Proletarian World Revolution; second, the Chinese Revolution, 1949, changing
the correlation of forces in favor of Socialism; and third, the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution, started in 1966, as the continuation of the
revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat to keep the path towards
Communism. It is enoughto point out that Chairman Mao directed two of
these glorious historical happenings. And in China, where as the center of
world revolution Maoism was concreted.” (Chairman Gonzalo,
First Congress, CPP)
For this reason the
Communist Party of China always maintained that the problem of how to justly
and correctly appraise and focus the role and direction of comrade Stalin is
the one of “how to sum up the historical
experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the international
communist movement since Lenin’s death.” (CPCh China, On The Question Of
Stalin).
After the death of
Lenin, comrade Stalin had to face a complex situation represented by the hard
internal struggle in the Communist Party (Bolchevik) of the USSR that lasted
almost 14 years. A struggle that affected particularly the direction of the
Communist International, the defeat of the revolutions in Germany, Hungary,
Italy, etc. and the emergence of the new phenomena, fascism, while facing the
new problems that represented the construction of socialism and having to
confront the feverish preparation for an imperialist aggression war against the
USSR. Chairman Mao summarized the fundamental contributions of comrade Stalin
as follows:
“Stalin led the CPSU and the Soviet people in upholding the line of
socialist industrialization and
agricultural collectivization and in achieving great successes in socialist
transformation and socialist construction.
Stalin led the CPSU, the Soviet people, and the Soviet army in an arduous
and bitter struggle to the great victory of the anti-fascist war.
Stalin defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the fight against various
kinds of opportunism, against the enemies of Leninism, the Trotskyites, Zinovievites,
Bukharinites, and other bourgeois agents.
Stalin made an indelible contribution to the international communist
movement in a number of theoretical writings which are immortal
Marxist-Leninist works.
Stalin led the Soviet Party and Government in pursuing a foreign policy
which on the whole was in
keeping with proletarian internationalism and in greatly assisting the
revolutionary struggles of all
peoples, including the Chinese people.
Stalin stood in the forefront of the tide of history guiding the struggle,
and was an irreconcilable enemy of the imperialists and all reactionaries.
Stalin’s activities were intimately bound up with the struggles of the
great CPSU and the great Soviet people and inseparable from the revolutionary
struggles of the people of the whole world”.
Thus Chairman Mao put
forward the criteria on the evaluation of the role of comrade Stalin is
inseparable from the evaluation of theory and praxis of the World Proletarian
Revolution since the death of Lenin. Regarding the errors of comrade Stalin,
our party takes position for the established by Chairman Mao that Stalin was
70% right and 30% wrong and that Stalin was “a great Marxist”:
“In his way of thinking, Stalin departed from dialectical materialism and
fell into metaphysics and subjectivism on certain questions and consequently he
was sometimes divorced from reality and from the masses. In struggles inside as
well as outside the Party, on certain occasions and on certain questions he
confused two types of contradictions which are different in nature,
contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and contradictions among the
people, and also confused the different methods needed in handling them. In the
work led by Stalin of suppressing the counter-revolution, many
counter-revolutionaries deserving punishment were duly punished, but at the
same time there were innocent people who were wrongly convicted; and in 1937
and 1938 there occurred the error of enlarging the scope of the suppression of
counter-revolutionaries. In the matter of Party and government organization, he
did not fully apply proletarian democratic centralism and, to some extent,
violated it. In handling relations with fraternal Parties and countries, he
made some mistakes. He also gave some bad counsel in the
international communist movement. These mistakes caused some losses to the
Soviet Union and the international communist movement”. (CPCh China, On The Question Of Stalin, 1963)
Chairman Mao
maintained that the ‘question of Stalin’ had repercussions in all the social
classes and that a hundred years would be necessary to achieve a definitive
conclusion about the topic, but he emphasized that within the international
working class and the revolutionary peoples, his memory was more and more
venerated.
Besides, when making
the evaluation of the role of comrade Stalin‘s direction in the Communist International
on each country, an investigation must be made on the mistakes that
corresponded to the adopted line and instructions and the ones committed by the
sinister role played by opportunist elements, such as Wang Ming, who later
degenerated in putrid revisionists. Sufficient is to see that only after the
Rectification Movement of 1942, when the opportunist lines of “left” and right
were defeated, is that a great number of works by comrade Stalin on China were
systematically edited by the Communist Party of China, and the book “Lenin and
Stalin on the problems of China” became one of the twelve necessary works for
the formation of cadres.
Chairman Mao himself
established that “we Chinese should bear the
responsibility. In its struggle against “Left” and Right opportunism,
therefore, our Party criticized only its own erring comrades and never put the
blame on Stalin.” The Communist Party of China itself declared that regarding some bad
advice from comrade Stalin, it sufficed for the Chinese communists to resist a
bit to Stalin “…When Stalin did something wrong, he was
capable of criticizing himself. For instance, he had given some bad counsel
with regard to the Chinese revolution. After the victory of the Chinese
revolution, he admitted his mistake”. (Commentary of the CPCh China, On The Question Of Stalin)
Regarding the
relationship with comrade Stalin, Chu En-Lai declared that when he made
mistakes: “When we held our ground, he could still
accept our views and implicitly acknowledge his mistakes.” (The Communist Party of China and the International, 1960)
Chairman Gonzalo
underlined that “Comrade Stalin has been a great
Marxist-Leninist. Did he make mistakes? Yes, but he never sold the
revolution, he may have been wrong, he may not have comprehended; as the Chairman
has taught us, his mistake started from an insufficient comprehension of
dialectics, there was metaphysics in himself, thisis where
the problem of comrade Stalin derives from; but no one can deny his enormous
role nor take away his condition of Great Leader of the International
Proletariat in decades, confronting for the very first time the construction of
socialism, without precedents, nor the great effort that he led in the Second
World War. He made contributions. Of course he did! It can
not be denied to him. We have to know how to appreciate.
There we have then five. When adding the three, they are five; but
it is a pleiad, a considerable whole composed of great
figures, of titans of thought and action. There then it
is comprised. Why haven’t we enumerated them? That wayit’s clear
that there are three great figures: Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao Tsetung. That is
the reason. Can you see it?”. (Chairman Gonzalo, First Congress)
In his theoretical and
practical work, comrade Stalin defined Marxism-Leninism as a second stage of
Marxism and added contributions to Marxism-Leninism and its development,
shaping them in the construction and defense of socialism, in the dictatorship
of the proletariat and the direction of the International Communist Movement.
Starting from the
creative application of Marxism-Leninism, including the contributions of
comrade Stalin to a new stage of its development, and of all the experience of
the International Communist Movement, of the Great Socialist October Revolution
(GSOR), of the defeats of the German and Hungarian revolution and the
development of the antifascist wars with the World Antifascist Front,
established by the 7th Congress of the Communist International, Chairman Mao was able to
give a just and correct solution to the problems of the Chinese Revolution and
the world revolution, elevating Marxism to a third, new and higher stage.
Maoism is thus, product of the international and national class struggle and
the arduous two-line struggle in the accumulated process of the International
Communist Movement and the world revolution, of which the contributions of
comrade Stalin are integrant parts of Maoism.
II – The 7th Congress of the
Communist International
The 7th Congress of the
Communist International was the first Congress to put forward the problem of
the United Front in a complete form, defeating the opportunist right and “left”
lines. In it, strategic and tactic problems of the world revolution that were
only developed completely by the Chinese Revolution and Maoism are put forward.
When studying the 7th Congress we ought to consider, what are its tactical aspects, such as
the possibility of reaching a unity with Social Democracy, and what are the
strategic problems that it presents.
Chairman Gonzalo
established with straightforward clarity that the question of the United Front
was presented by comrade Stalin and the International, and that Chairman Mao
developed it: “The problem of the front starts
to develop when the Communist
International, when Lenin himself, starts to propose this
question…but I insist, Lenin dies on the 24th. The problem with the front
will gaingreater dimension in the struggle against fascism, there,
that doesn’t mean that, for example,the front hadn’t been
proposed for the question in China by Stalin.
Of course he proposed it. Stalin was who proposed the
Chinese communists should integrate to the Kuomintang and have twopersonal
document (identificationcard of the Party and identification
card of the front). That is the reality. But it is the Chairman who
establishes the laws of the front, the six laws of the front. This
is in “Introducing [the magazine] ‘The Communist’”, as you know well. (Chairman Gonzalo, First Congress)
The policy of United
Front of the 7th Congress of the Communist International represented the culmination
of the two-line struggle initiated by Lenin in the Third Congress of the
International against the opportunist positions disguised as left,
petty-bourgeois positions, which negated the necessity of preparation of the
Communist Parties and the role of the masses for the revolution.
Between 1917 and 1921,
despite the great impulse towards revolution, especially in Europe, it could
not maintain itself, because there were no mature Communist Parties to lead it.
With the defeat of the revolution in Hungary and Germany, the first wave of
revolution was temporarily thrown back.
The opportunist
positions bearing the flag of the so-called “offensive theory”, defended by the
“left” opportunists of the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany and
supported by Zinoviev and Bukarin, opposed themselves to the tactic of the Open
Letter and the correct line of Lenin on the United Front, which they qualified
as a “step towards opportunism”. The opportunists defended the theory that the
Communist Party should not win over the great majority of the working class,
but only its “social determining part” and that through offensive –
insurrectionist, adventurer – action of a small group they could carry out the
revolution. This thesis had supporters in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Italy,
Austria and France. The struggle was so hard that Lenin himself had to resort
to the discipline of the Bolshevik Party so that everyone voted for the thesis
presented by the Bolshevik delegation against the “left” opportunists.
At January 8th,1921, the Communist
Party of Germany had published an “Open Letter” in which it made a call to all
syndicalist, socialist and workers organizations to combat together the growing
reaction and reject the offensive of the capital against the workers’ rights: “we do not hide in any moment the working masses, nor do we hide ourselves,
that the demands we have established cannot put an end to poverty. Without
abandoning in any moment the idea that within the working masses we will spread
the slogan of the struggle and the dictatorship, as the only way towards
liberation, without renouncing to call and guide the working masses in
each favorable moment for the struggle for the dictatorship. The
Unified Communist Party is ready to carry out, together with other parties
that support themselves on the proletariat, actions to achieve the
before-mentioned measures”. (Communist Party of Germany, Open Letter).
The tactic of the Open
Letter was based on the orientation of Lenin to the Communists of England:
according to which “the groups and sympathizers of Communism
have to join the Labor Party, even though they are part of the 2nd International”. Lenin considered
the Open Letter to be an exemplary political step in attracting the majority of
the working class. As a condition, Lenin emphasized that “…the Communists should, without leave, take all the necessary measures and
accept certain compromises in order to be able to influence the broader
and deepest worker masses, to unmask their opportunist leaders from a higher
tribune”. In a letter form Lenin to Clara Zetkin and Paul Levy, Lenin declared: “The only thing I have seen is the Open Letter, which I think is perfectly
correct tactics” (…)
Back then Lenin had
already proposed the law of gradual incorporation of the masses in the
revolution: “At the beginning of the struggle, a
couple thousands of truly revolutionary workers were enough to talk
about masses… If the Party, apart from taking its militants to the
struggle, can put forward the workers without a party, that is the beginning of
the conquest of the masses…during our revolution, there were moments in which a
couple thousand workers represented the masses… When the revolution is prepared
enough already, the concept of masses is different: a couple thousands of
workers are not the masses anymore…the concept of the masses changes in the
sense that it means the majority, and also not just a simple majority of workers,
but a majority of all the exploited”. ()
It is a grave error to
underestimate the “left” deviations within the ICM, because Trotskyism took
shelter in it. Comrade Stalin warned us, regarding the deviations by affirming
that “the ones from the “left” [deviationists of the ‘left’] are the ones of
the right that dress up their right positions with phrases like that”.
“It should not be forgotten that Rights and “ultra-Lefts” are actually
twins, that consequently both take an opportunist stand, the difference between
them being that whereas the Rights do not always conceal their opportunism, the
Lefts invariably camouflage their opportunism with “revolutionary”
phrases”. [Joseph V. Stalin, The Fight Against Right and “Ultra-Left” Deviations
1926].
These defeats
reflected the lack of ideological and political maturity of the Communist
Parties to lead revolution and, at the same time, expressed the necessity of
solving what Lenin defined “as getting closer to the Proletarian
Revolution”, in other words, on how to specify the experience of the Great Socialist
October Revolution, combat putschist tendencies and develop the strategy and
tactics to make revolution. Until then, the tactics of waiting for the
development of a revolutionary political crisis prevailed in the International
Communist Movement, in order for the proletariat to be able to raise an armed
insurrection. Lenin said the United Front was the path to solve how to “get closer to the Proletarian Revolution”.
After the death of the
great Lenin, these opportunist tendencies resurrected in the Communist
International, which until its 5th Congress was under the presidency
of Zinoviev, with the predominance in the interior and in great part of the
parties of the International Communist Movement.
The 14th Conference of
the Communist Party of the USSR, in April 1925, condemned the thesis of Trotsky
on the impossibility of constructing socialism in one country. The 14th Congress of the
Communist Party of the USSR (Bolshevik), in December 1925, defeated the new
“opposition” led by Zinoviev and Kamenev. The 5th expanded plenary
session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), from
March to April 1925, approved the thesis for the “bolchevization” of the communist parties of the Communist International”, a campaign that
elevated the ideological, political and organizational level of the parties in
the whole world.
In this plenum, it is
defined that the International is guided by Marxism-Leninism, because “Leninism is Marxism of the epoch of monopolist capital, of the
imperialist wars and the proletarian revolution”. This important
victory of the red line of comrade Stalin represented a great triumph and an
huge number of communist cadres from the whole world were formed in the biggest
school of communism in this epoch.
In 1926, Trotskysm had
formulated its own “thesis” for the International, being that the pseudo-left
positions of Zinoviev, Kamenev, were nothing but a mask of the rotten and
demoralized Trotstkym. Comrade Dimitrov said that regarding the clique
Zinoviev-Kamenev/Trotsky, “in the Comintern an international
fraction is already forming”, emphasizing that this struggle should be coated
with an international character in defense of the Comintern.
The 7th expanded plenum
of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI),
November-December, 1926, marked a decisive victory of the left in the interior
of the Communist International. Under the direct leadership of comrade Stalin,
the trotskyst-zinovievist positions, which accused the Comintern of replacing
internationalism with nationalism, were crushed. In its resolution, the plenum
affirmed that:
“The enlarged plenum believes that the land of the Soviets . .. has
demonstrated its internationalism in deeds and has given most magnificent
examples of its internationalism. The enlarged plenum regards the accusation of
national narrowness against the CPSU as a calumny.” (Jane Degras, Ed.,
The Communist International: 1919-1943).
In the 7th expanded plenum
of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, on October 23, 1926,
C. Zetkin, P. Togliatti, O. Geschke, B. Smerral, O. Kuusinen, H. Valecki, J.
Dimitrov, Sen Katayama, K. Manner and others, in the name of their parties,
presented, to the presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist
International (ECCI), a resolution draft in which they declared that it was no
longer possible that Zinoviev continued being the Chairman of the Comintern, a
resolution that was approved by the 7th Plenum, decisively crushing he
usurpation of the Comintern apparatus by the zinovievist clique.
Only in September 27th, in accordance with
the resolution of the 8th Plenum, the presidium of the
Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) excluded Trotsky from
this organism. In its resolution, the 8th Plenum of the (ECCI) qualified
Trotsky’s position as “a desperate struggle of handful political deserters
against the front of the communists of the whole world.”
With these victories
of the left, conditions were generated for the development and application of a
correct line for the Communist International. The 8th Plenum of the
(ECCI), of 1927, centered its attention in the preparation of the tasks of the
Communist International, facing the race for a new imperialist war against the
USSR.
In the resolution of
the 8th Plenum of the (ECCI) it was said that: “The workers masses of the whole world have to be more alert today more
than ever. The communists of all countries have to close lines and mobilize
their forces against the war already started in China and the one being
prepared against the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics” (The Communist
International in documents, page 699.)
The 8th Plenum pointed
out that the politics of preparing a war that was adopted by the imperialists
inherently brought the fascist, terrorist, methods against the working class
and that the “Internationalizationof those methodsto
wage wars, capitalism needs a ‘quiet rear’”. Thus, the rise of
fascism was correctly seen as a part of the aggressor’s plans against the USSR
and the World Revolution, and the tasks of the proletariat were defined as part
of the defense of the homeland of socialism against the imperialist aggression.
In its resolutions,
The 6th Congress of the CI (1928) denounced the preparation of an imperialist
war, calling the communist movement and the peoples of the world to defend the
USSR and struggle against the imperialist intervention in China, defend the
Chinese revolution and the struggles of national liberation. Furthermore, This
Congress also played an important role in the cohesion of the proletariat
against right opportunism by struggling against the coalition of
“social-democracy” with reactionary governments.
One has to point out
the importance approbation, for the first time, of the Program of the Communist
International, which established solid bases to advance by defining, among
other things, that: “The conquest of power by the proletariat
does not mean peacefully “capturing” the ready-made bourgeois State machinery
by means of a parliamentary majority (…) Hence, the violence of the bourgeoisie
can be suppressed only by the stern violence of the proletariat (…) The
conquest of power by the proletariat is the violent overthrow of bourgeois
power, the destruction of the capitalist State apparatus (bourgeois armies,
police, bureaucratic hierarchy, the judiciary, parliaments, etc.), and the
substitution in its place of new organs of proletarian power, to serve
primarily as instruments for the suppression of the exploiters”. (Programme of the
Communist International, 1928). All developments posterior to the Communist
International has to take as a starting point the principles established in
this important Congress.
While Knowing the
inevitability of the Imperialist War and that it would aim for the destruction
of the USSR, comrade Stalin established the strategy and tactics to defend the
dictatorship of the proletariat and advance the World Proletarian Revolution.
In the 17th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in 1934, Stalin masterly designed the
tactics of the World Antifascist Front, as part of the defense of the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the development of the World Proletarian
Revolution. This Congress represented a powerful influx for the ICM, in which
comrade Stalin defined a correct and brilliant characterization of the
international situation, of the character of fascism, conceive the defense of
the USSR and the nexus to rise the oppressed nations and unify the two great
currents of the World Proletarian Revolution, the proletarian international
movement and the movement of national liberation, impulsing it, thus showing
his status of great Marxist and leader of the ICM: “a second war against the U.S.S.R will lead to the complete defeat of the
aggressors, to revolution in a number of countries in Europe and in Asia, and
to the destruction of the bourgeois-landlord governments in those countries”. (Stalin, Report to
the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the
C.P.S.U.(B.)).
Stalin pointed out the
necessity of preparing a World Antifascist Front in defense of the USSR and the
Proletarian Revolution as part of a war that also takes place at the rearguard
of the enemy: “Not only because the peoples of the
U.S.S.R. would fight to the death to preserve the gains of the revolution; it
would be the most dangerous war for the bourgeoisie for the added reason that
it would be waged not only at the fronts, but also in the enemy’s rear. The
bourgeoisie need have no doubt that the numerous friends of the working class
of the U.S.S.R. in Europe and Asia will endeavor to strike a blow in the rear
at their oppressors who have launched a criminal war against the fatherland of
the working class of all countries”. (Stalin, Report to the Seventeenth
Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.))
Soon, he notes that:
“In the capitalist countries feverish preparations are in progress for a new
war for a new redivision of the world…And if the interests of the U.S.S.R.
demand rapprochement with one country or another…we adopt this course without
hesitation…(the war) is sure to unleash revolution and jeopardise the very
existence of capitalism in a number of countries, as happened in the course of
the first imperialist war”. (Stalin, Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress
on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.))
“The masses of the people have not yet reached the stage when they are ready
to storm capitalism; but the idea of storming it is maturing in the minds of
the masses — of that there can hardly be any doubt. This is eloquently
testified to by such facts as, say, the Spanish revolution which overthrew the
fascist regime, and the expansion of the Soviet districts in China, which the
united counter-revolution of the Chinese and foreign bourgeoisie is unable to
stop.” (Stalin, Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the
Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.))
Comrade Stalin
correctly defined the essence of fascism and its connection to the imminent
aggression towards the USSR: “the ruling classes in
the capitalist countries are so zealously destroying or nullifying the last
vestiges of parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy which might be used by the
working class in its struggle against the oppressors, why they are driving the
Communist Parties underground and resorting to openly terrorist methods of
maintaining their dictatorship… Chauvinism and preparation of war as the main
elements of foreign policy; repression of the working class and terrorism
in the sphere of home policy as a necessary means for strengthening the rear of
future war fronts — that is what is now particularly engaging the minds of
contemporary imperialist politicians”.
In the 13th Plenum of the
ECCI, 1933, Dimitrov defined fascism as follows: “Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary,
most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance
capital. Fascism tries to secure a base of masses for the monopol capital
amount he petty bourgeoisie, appealing to the peasantry, the artisans, the
office and civil service workers that were taken out of the normal way of their
lives, and particularly the declassified elements of the big cities, trying
also to penetrate into the working class…The possibility to prevent [the
fascist dictatorship] depends on the strength of the combative proletariat, who
are paralyzed by the corrupting [desintegrating] force of social-democracy more
than by any other thing”. [Extracts from the Thesis of the Thirteenth Plenum
of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on Fascism, the Danger
of War, and the Tasks of the Communist Parties (December 1933), in Jane Degras,
ed.; The Communist International: 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 3, London, 1971,
pages 296-7]
It’s only with the
realization of the 7th Congress in 1935, with the defeat of the Trotskyist, Zinovievist and
Bukarinist positions, that the ICM is going to assume and decidedly apply the
necessity of constructing the United Front and establish the basic guideline of
a strategy and tactics of the proletarian revolution. On this basis, the
International Communist Movement was able to open a new stage in its
development, the one of the existence of the Communist parties with mass
character, developing guerilla warfare and the united front as instruments to
make revolution, as was applied in dozens of countries during the resistance
against fascism, the triumph of the Great Patriotic War and the victory of the
USSR, culminating with the triumph of the Great Chinese Revolution.
One of the experiences
of major importance, over which the thesis of the 7th Congress of the
Communist International were established, was the uprising of the Austrian
workers in February, 1934. In this great experience, many ideological problems
that would develop in posterior years were already concentrated. In a letter
addressed to the Austrian comrades, comrade Dimitrov made the following
evaluation:
“No, the armed struggle of the Austrian working class was not a mistake. The
mistake consisted in the fact that this struggle was not organized and was not
waged in a revolutionary, a Bolshevik fashion. The main weakness of the
February struggle of the Austrian workers lay in the fact that, owing to the
pernicious influence of the Social Democrats, they failed to grasp that it was
not enough to resist the attack of fascism, but that they should have turned
their armed resistance into a fight for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and
for seizing power by the proletariat. The armed fight of the Austrian
proletariat was not transformed into an actual armed uprising. Herein lies the
main error”. (Georgi Dimitrov, Letter to the Austrian Workers, March of 1934)
Thus, in 1934,
Dimitrov had already clearly warned that the proletariat shouldn’t limit its
struggle only against fascism, but it should keep developing its armed resistance
to overthrow the whole bourgeoisie and capitalism, for the dictatorship of the
proletariat, socialism. By pointing out that the main responsibility for this
defeat was the bourgeois leadership represented by the social-democracy of Otto
Bauer, comrade Dimitrov stressed that:
“The fighting workers, however, who had passed through the school of
Austrian social democracy, preferred to starve rather than infringe on
sacrosanct private property by a confiscation of provisions… It is necessary to
make use of the lessons to be drawn from this struggle, which reflects the
whole bankruptcy of social democratic policy… Your armed struggle was
essentially a struggle for the restoration of the Constitution which had been
violated by Dollfuss. it did not go beyond those limits and was never
transformed into a struggle for power. In the century of the general crisis of
capitalism, however, when the bourgeoisie is no longer in a position to rule
with the methods of parliamentary democracy and when it embarks on the road of
fascism, the decisive question in the workers’ struggle is no longer the
restoration of the outdated bourgois democracy, but that of the overthrow of
the bourgeoisie, the fight for the proletarian dictatorship.”
While defending the
armed struggle and denouncing the role of social-democracy, comrade Dimitrov
affirmed: “The armed struggle is not an action
detached from the general policy of the party. A party which always
retreats, which in the course of 15 years urges the workers to avoid fighting,
can in no case reconstruct itself politically and organizationally within 24
hours to wage an armed struggle… It is a question, comrades, of your
organizational break with the Social Democratic Party, and of establishing,
together with the communist workers, a genuine fighting unity of the Austrian
working class. This fighting unity is possible only on the basis of the
revolutionary struggle.”.
About the evaluation
of these struggles Dimitrov sentenced: “There is no
power on earth that can check the historical development of mankind towards
socialism. A battle has come to an end, the fighters are counting their dead,
but they have not been crushed. The great proletarian army continues its march
forward to the final victory”. (G. Dimitrov, Letter to the Austrian Workers)
III- THE REPORT OF COMRADE DIMITROV TO THE 7th CONGRESS OF THE COMINTERN
The 7th Congress
represented the overcoming of a whole long two-line struggle within the
Communist Party Bolshevik of the USSR and the Executive Committee of the
Communist International, that took more than 17 years to be resolved. It was
only in the 7th Congress of the Communist International, in which the opportunist
positions of Trotsky-Zinoviev-Kamenev-Bukarin were finally defeated, that for
the first time an Executive Committee subject to the leadership of comrade
Stalin was established.
The Report of comrade
Dimitrov to the 7th Congress “The fascist offensive and the tasks of
the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against
fascism” was guided by the red line established by comrade Stalin in the 14th Congress of the
Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR and represented a synthesis of all the
accumulated experience of the proletarian revolution until then, thus arming
the international proletariat to confront the tasks that the World Proletarian
Revolution demanded.
In the class struggle
at world level and of each country there is a whole set of contradictions, both
principal and secondaries, from which derives the principal and secondary
enemies in each case and in each stage of a determined revolutionary process.
Leading the Communist
International, comrade Stalin knew how to masterly handle the principal
contradiction, and, through its solution, the World Proletarian Revolution
could develop. This was undeniably proven by the powerful impulse that
represented the victory over Nazi-fascism and the triumph of the Great Chinese
Revolution, which raised the World Proletarian Revolution to its stage of
strategic stalemate.
In middle of the
preparation and unfolding of the Second World War, the defense of the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat represented by the USSR, facing the imminent
imperialist aggression, was converted into the principal problem for the ICM
and the Fascist Front became the main enemy to be combated in the whole world.
Dimitrov demonstrated
that fascism was the spearhead of imperialism to stop the development of the
Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, that means, the
principal enemy to be defeated in order to impulse the World Proletarian
Revolution and conceived the World Antifascist United Front as an instrument to
defeat it, from its preparation, also pointed out the role of China:
“Attacking the Soviet Union, enslaving and partitioning China, and by all
these means preventing
revolution… They are striving to forestall the growth of the forces of
revolution by smashing the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants
and by undertaking a military attack against the Soviet Union –the bulwark of
the world proletariat. That is why they need fascism”. (Dimitrov, The
Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle
of the Working Class against Fascism)
“Joint struggle against all forms of the fascist offensive, in defense of
the gains and the
rights of the working people, against the abolition of bourgeois-democratic
liberties…joint struggle against the approaching danger of an imperialist war,
a struggle that will make the preparation of such a war more difficult”. (idem)
Dimitrov revealed the
true class character of fascism, against the social-democrat and trotskyist
pseudo-theories that sought to place fascism over the social classes, as well
as the “left” opportunism that underestimated it for not seeing its character
and the danger it represented.
“The open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic
and most imperialist elements of finance capital… Fascism is not a form of
state power “standing above both classes — the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie,” as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not “the revolt
of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state,” as the
British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing
above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat
over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself.
It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the
revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy,
fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other
nations”. (Dimitrov, The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist
International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism)
Did he wanted to say
with this, just as some pure critics intend, that the demo-liberal form of the
bourgeois dictatorship would not be dictatorship? Evidently not. Dimitrov
himself points out that it is an “open dictatorship”, of the most reactionary
elements that applies terror to attempt stopping the revolution.
Chairman Gonzalo
underlined against those that try to equal fascism with the demo-liberal
regime, that “fascism is the worst enemydue to the plan it seeks to set up, for the negation
of every right, starting by the people’s, for undoing
all principles of a structuring, to which we use, (e.g.) for the
legal defenses that are made. What it seeks is to stop
revolution” (Chairman Gonzalo, Put the MRDPP in motion)
Chairman Mao affirmed,
“Fascism is war”; this
is perfectly true”. Later on he complements in a footnote
at the end of the corresponding page: In August 1935, in the report to the 7th Congress of the
Communist International, titled “The Fascist Offensive
and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working
Class against Fascism”, comrade Georgi Dimitrov affirmed that “fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war”. In July of 1937,
comrade Dimitrov published an article titled “Fascism Is War”. (Chairman Mao Tsetung, On Protracted
War Volume II).
Against those that
defended a capitulationist position facing fascism, denying the possibility of
developing mass work under fascism, Chairman Gonzalo pointed out:
“Fascism is violence, it sweeps everything away, this is
why one has to wait to be able to organize”[say the
capitulationists]; such ignorance. Fascism
sweeps everything it can destroy away, and it is on us
to build apparatuses that they could not destroy; the Communist
International itself, at the 7th Congress, provides the
example of the Austrian comrades and tells us that it is feasible to
work, develop and organize the masses under fascism
and that it is even feasibleto legality or
semi-legality, every vestigethat law provide. Did Chairman
Mao not taught us to use the laws, manners and customs, all
possible vestigesas well? It is in “expanding rapidly the
anti-Japanese forces”, point 6, 2ndVolume. Clear things comrades: terror to
fascism.” (Chairman Gonzalo, PCP, First Congress)
Comrade Dimitrov
demonstrated the particular mission that fascism was charged with:to defeat
revolution through terror and the corporativization of the masses. Furthermore
he has shown the reason behind that: defeating revolution, which was what made
it the main enemy. This was a justified and correct definition at that
historical situation, which was capable of demonstrating that the essence of
fascism, as a policy of imperialism, the financial bourgeoisie and its
counterrevolutionary mission, demanded by the situation, needed to deny the
demo-liberal order, apply the open terror and the manipulation of the masses
through its corporativism.
Chairman Gonzalo
pointed out the contribution made by comrade Stalin and comrade Dimitrov in the
characterization of fascism:
“The origin of fascism is in Japan, this is never told. The action is
polarized between revolution and counterrevolution and the demo-bourgeois forms
and the demo liberal ideas are insufficient to contain revolution, there is the
necessity for fascism. In 35, the 7th Congress of the Communist International
would take place and Dimitrov would analyze the problem of
fascism, would put forward that fascism is the state expression of the
financial bourgeoisie, of the financial oligarchy that applies the most
shameless terror. A definition like this focuses on terror.
Before that, Dimitrov would analyse fascism together with Clara Zetkin and the
proposition is that one has to see the negation of bourgeois
liberties which fascism represents. There is a quote from
Stalin in which is put forward that it is a shameless terror and there is also
more written works by him and there is the need to Study what was said by
Stalin. In this Congress, Dimitrov would put forward the
possibility of unity of the demo-liberal against fascism. That make us see
that not everything was terror, to understand that fascism was the negation of
the demo-liberal, but the party said that this does not fit us, because the
situations are different. Dimitrov considers fascism as the state that
represents and defend the interests of the financial bourgeoisie (big
bourgeoisie), rejecting the demo-liberal criteria, its principles, introducing
the fascist criteria of negation of its own demo-liberal principles, rejecting
demo-bourgeois parliamentarian order to put forward corporatism and that
besides they use terror, soft politics and hard politics. Terror, what fascism
does is to develop further violence as a paralyzing instrument for domination
to achieve the application of their fascist goals and the corporatist order
(political goals). Stalin put forward the union with bourgeois democrats
(alliance of certain sectors to smash fascism). In the process of the bourgeois
state, the demo-bourgeois system carries on with the danger of taking bad measures
to restrict and hinder the struggles, it is not that the demo-liberal
make a leap toward fascism, but, with the restriction laws they make,
they prepare the path to it. Dimitrov would analyze that fascism is not the
same everywhere, it has concrete forms according to the conditions in which it
develops and the degree of revolution, and it can coexist with parliament for
some time. But it has some general things that are common, it sweeps away
everything that is bourgeois democracy, potentiate nationalism, use social
demagogy (struggle against the rich), points out to the banks, is a clear
expression, even by their buildings, of wealth. Great offerings to the masses,
to the workers, they offer employment to the unemployed, land to the peasants,
study to the youth, education to the intellectuals, capacity to develop their
faculties (anything like that…). They are cynical and base themselves in the
most shameless lie.” (Mentioned work, underlined on the original)
In another document
Chairman Gonzalo affirms:
“Some identify fascism and violence. Violence is a method to have the masses
subjected; violence is a manifestation of every state. Dimitrov is badly
interpreted. The state has a process of development: the
bourgeoisie builds a demo-liberal state, but when imperialism comes, such
state becomes outdated … Violence is an ingredient but the essence of
fascism, its essence is the questioning of
the demo-liberal order and thus, it develops a frame from the past, renewed,
to oppose the struggle of the masses; carry out the implantation of
institutions acknowledged as ‘natural’, its fundamental norms are: personality,
property, family and together with these the State, the Church,
‘magnifier of men’, and the Army as the ‘living spirit of nationality’.
Fascism is not a simple problem of military and civilians, but the efficiency
to fulfill it. it must be clarified the character of
the corporate state. The government is not openly presented as
fascist nor corporate to avoid its discredit; however, its measures show
its ideology and its goals.” (Chairman Gonzalo, V Extended Plenum of the
Regional Committee of Ayacucho, 1972)
That’s why comrade
Dimitrov correctly upheld the necessity for the communists to defend the
democratic rights, placing the defense of these discredited rights as a part of
the proletarian revolution and of the open struggle for the dictatorship of the
proletariat:
“Let the Communists recognize democracy, let them come out in its defense;
then we shall be ready for a united front.” To this we reply: We are the
adherents of Soviet democracy, the democracy of the working people, the most
consistent democracy in the world. But in the capitalist countries we defend
and shall continue to defend every inch of bourgeois-democratic liberties,
which are being attacked by fascism and bourgeois reaction, because the
interests of the class struggle of the proletariat so dictate”.
The right opportunists
were seeking to place the struggle against fascism as a stage itself, of
bourgeois-democratic character, prior the socialist revolution in the
capitalist countries. In crystal clear form, Comrade Dimitrov crushed these
positions as he made visible that the struggle against fascism was part of the
struggle for the socialist revolution and the possibility of a government of
united front.
In addition, He warned
that the unfolding of the antifascist struggle would lead to the change in
contradictions and the necessity of transiting to the offensive: “We must tirelessly prepare the working class for a rapid change in forms
and methods of struggle when there is a change in the situation. As the
movement grows and the unity of the working class strengthens, we must go
further, and prepare the transition from the defensive to the offensive against
capital”.
He also clearly
indicated that the United Front should be applied according to the particular
situation of each country, that means, according to the particularities of the
revolution on each country and the necessities of the World Antifascist Front:
“It goes without saying that the practical realization
of a united front will take various forms in various countries, depending upon
the condition and character of the workers’ organizations and their political
level, upon the situation in the particular country, upon the changes in
progress in the international labor movement, etc.”
The Antifascist
Popular Front was conceived as a Front that would develop on the basis of an
united proletarian front. The condition for the construction of a broad popular
antifascist front was the unity of the working class. That means, that the
proletariat could exert its hegemony as an independent force. The tactic of
unity of action with social-democracy was retaken from what Lenin defined, it
was established as a tactic to break broad masses of workers that were still
under its influence away. The possibility of concreting the Proletarian Front,
was essentially due to an important separation between the right and left wings
that took place between the 6th and 7th Congress. This
differentiation was mainly defined on its attitude towards the united front, to
the defense of the USSR and to the combat against fascism.
“In the first place, the crisis has severely shaken the position of even the
most secure sections of the
working class, the so-called aristocracy of labour which, as we know, is
the main support of Social
Democracy. These sections, too, are beginning more and more to revise their
views as to the expediency of the policy of class collaboration with the
bourgeoisie.
Second, as I pointed out in my report, the bourgeoisie in a number of
countries is itself compelled to
abandon bourgeois democracy and resort to the terroristic form of
dictatorship, depriving Social
Democracy not only of its previous position in the state system of finance
capital, but also, under certain conditions, of its legal status, persecuting
and even suppressing it.
Third, under the influence of the lessons learned from the defeat of the
workers in Germany, Austria and Spain, a defeat which was largely due to the
Social Democratic policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie and, on
the other hand, under the influence of the victory of socialism in the Soviet
Union as a result of Bolshevik policy and the application of revolutionary
Marxism, the Social Democratic workers are becoming revolutionized and are
beginning to turn to the class struggle against the bourgeoisie”. (Dimitrov, Unity of
the Working Class against Fascism)
The division within
the opportunist parties of the 2nd International was analyzed by
Chairman Mao in the “Interview with a New Daily Correspondent on the New
International Situation” first in September 1939: “With Chamberlain and Daladier practicing intimidation and bribery, the
social-democratic parties affiliated to the Second International are splitting
up. One section, the reactionary upper stratum, is following the same old
disastrous road as in the First World War and is ready to support the new
imperialist war. But another section will join with the Communists in forming a
popular front against war and fascism”.
During the 16th Congress of the
CP (Bolshevik) USSR, 1930, comrade Stalin had affirmed that: “The desertion of the masses of the workers from the Social-Democrats,
however, signifies a turn on their part towards communism. That is what is
actually taking place… It is the guarantee that our fraternal Communist
Par-ties will become big mass parties of the working class. All that is
necessary is that the Communists should be capable of appraising the situation
and making proper use of it… [The Communist Parties] must definitely fortify
themselves on this road; for only if they do that can they count on winning
over the majority of the working class and successfully prepare the proletariat
for the coming class battles. Only if they do that can we count on a further
increase in the influence and prestige of the Communist International”. [Joseph V. Stalin,
Political Report of the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the
C.P.S.U.(B.), in Works, vol. 12, Moscow, 1949, Page 260-1]
After the 7th Congress, this
tendency was proven with the conquest of broad sectors of the masses coming
from the social-democracy, however, the unity with social-democracy was not the
essence of the proletarian united front, but a tactic to reach it. Dimitrov
clearly pointed out that this could not be an ideological unity:
“It must further be borne in mind that, in general, joint action with the
Social-Democratic Parties and organizations requires from Communists serious
and substantiated criticism of Social Democracy as the ideology and practice of
class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and untiring, comradely explanation
to the Social-Democratic workers of the program and slogans of Communism. In
countries having Social-Democratic governments this task is of particular
importance in the struggle for a united front”.
When it comes to the
fusion between the Communist Party and the social-democratic parties or one of
its wings), this was defended under the condition of them abandoning
revisionism and adhering the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the
proletariat:
“The interests of the class struggle of the proletariat and the success of
the proletarian revolution make it imperative that there be a single party of
the proletariat in each country. …The Communist Parties, basing themselves on
the growing urge of the workers for a unification of the Social-Democratic
Parties or of individual organizations with the Communist Parties, must firmly
and confidently take the initiative in this unification. …This unification is
possible only on the following conditions: First, complete independence from
the bourgeoisie and dissolution of the bloc of Social-Democracy with the
bourgeoisie; Second, preliminary unity of action; Third, recognition of the
revolutionary overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of
the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of soviets a sine qua non;
Fourth, refusal to support one’s own bourgeoisie in an imperialist war; Fifth,
building up the Party on the basis of democratic centralism, which ensures
unity of purpose and action, and which has been tested by the experience of the
Russian Bolsheviks.” [Extracts of the Main Report delivered at the Seventh Congress of the
Communist International, The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist
International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism (20-8-25),
Jane Degras, Ed., The Communist International: 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 3,
London, 1971, Pages 368-9]
Afterwards, in 1941,
Dimitrov, demonstrating once more the tactic character of the unity proposed in
1935 and the necessity of combating revisionism, noted in his diary: “D. Z. [Manuilsky] and I discussed the draft theses on the Second
International. (I offered him my observations: our intention is not evident in
the theses; there is no clear orientation toward our goal: the final ousting of
social democracy from the workers’ movement, the establishment of a united command
for the workers’ movement in the person of the Com[munist] Party; not to allow
social democracy to rise again and reprise the counterrevolutionary role that
it played at the end of the first imperialist war, etc.)” (page. 354)
Comrade Dimitrov
linked the question of the United Front to the question of Power, establishing
that the United Front should serve the destruction of the old order and that
the government emerging from it would have to be an expression of the new
power, of the revolutionary classes.
“(…) we recognize that a situation may arise in which the formation
of a government of the proletarian united front, or of an anti-fascist
People’s Front, will become not only possible but necessary… I am
not speaking here of a government which may be formed after the
victory of the proletarian revolution…but of the possible formation of a united
front government on the eve of and before the victory of
the [Soviet] revolution”.
Comrade Dimitrov aimed
against the rightist conceptions that separated the formation of a government
of united front from the destruction of the old order and the “left”
opportunist conception that excluded the possibility for the formation of said
government prior to the complete triumph of the revolution.
“…the Right opportunists were able to interpret matters as though we should
strive for the formation of a workers’ government, supported by the Communist
party, in any, so to speak, “normal” situation. The ultra-Lefts, on the other
hand, recognized only a workers’ government formed by an armed insurrection
after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie”.
Comrade Dimitrov
clearly pointed out the nexus between the question of the United Front and the
destruction of the old State, establishing three conditions for the emergence
of an united front government: 1) the destruction of the old state apparatus
(disorganization and immobilization of the state apparatus), 2) unfolding of
the mass political struggle against fascism and all reaction, and 3) hegemony
of the communist party in the united front:
“Only the existence of certain special prerequisites can put on the agenda
the question of forming such government as a politically essential task. It
seems to me that the following prerequisites deserve the greatest attention in
this connection: First, the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie
must already be sufficiently disorganized and paralyzed, so that
the bourgeoisie cannot prevent the formation of a government of struggle
against reaction and fascism. Second, the widest masses of working people,
particularly the mass trade unions, must be in a state of vehement revolt
against fascism and reaction, though not ready to rise in
insurrection so as to fight under Communist Party leadership for the
establishment of a fully socialist government. Third, the
differentiation and radicalization in the ranks of Social-Democracy and other
parties participating in the united front must already have reached the point
where a considerable proportion of them demand ruthless measures against the
fascists and other reactionaries, fight together with the Communists
against fascism and openly oppose the reactionary section of their own party
which is hostile to Communism”. (underlined by us)
At the 7th Congress of the
Communist International, the left needed to inflict a decisive blow to the
“left” opportunist tendencies rightists in fact, at the expense of not being
able to forge and develop a broad world anti-fascist front. Right] opportunist
elements necessarily took advantage of this struggle to hide their opportunist
and revisionist positions. This is a law of class struggle in the ideological
terrain, every time that struggles against right or “left” deviations develop,
an opposite deviationist tendency tends to strengthen during a two-line
struggle, another one hides. Aware of the dangers of right deviations: of
supposing the existence of an intermediate stage between capitalism and
socialism in the imperialist countries, comrade Dimitrov combated these
positions in a totally clear form while affirming that:
“Fifteen years ago Lenin called upon us to focus all our attention on
“searching out forms of transition or approach to the proletariat revolution.”
It may be that in a number of countries the united front government will prove
to be one of the most important transitional forms. “Left” doctrinaires
have always avoided this precept of Lenin’s. Like the narrow-minded
propagandists that they were, they spoke only of aims, without ever worrying
about “forms of transition.” The Right Opportunists, on the other hand, have
tried to establish a special democratic intermediate stage lying between the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the purpose of instilling into the workers the illusion of
a peaceful parliamentary passage from the one dictatorship to the other. This fictitious “intermediate stage” they have also called “transitional
form,” and even quoted Lenin’s words. But this piece of swindling was not
difficult to expose: for Lenin spoke of the form of transition and approach to
the proletarian revolution, that is, to the overthrow of the bourgeois
dictatorship, and not of some transitional form between the bourgeois and the
proletarian dictatorship”.
This position was
ratified in the final resolution of the 7th Congress regarding the report of
comrade Dimitrov:
“…the toilers must be shown the impossibility of bringing about socialism so
long as power remains in the hands of the bourgeoisie”. (Resolution adopted
by the 7th Congress of the Comintern regarding the report of Georgi Dimitrov, 20
of August 1935).
Highlighting the
necessity of combating revisionism, he affirmed:
“It must further be borne in mind that, in general, joint action with the
Social-Democratic Parties and organizations requires from Communists serious
and substantiated criticism of [reformism, of] Social Democracy as the ideology
and practice of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and untiring,
comradely explanation to the Social-Democratic workers of the program and
slogans of Communism”. (Resolution emitted by the 7th Congress of the Comintern
regarding the report of Georgi Dimitrov, 20 of August 1935).
The resolutions showed
the necessary link between the anti-fascist struggle and the conquest of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, by affirming that:
“In the struggle to defend against fascism the bourgeois-democratic
liberties and the gains of the toilers, in the struggle to overthrow fascist
dictatorship, the revolutionary proletariat prepares its forces, strengthens
its fighting contacts with its allies and directs the struggle toward the goal
of achieving real democracy of the toilers – Soviet Power. (…) The capitalist
world is entering a period of sharp clashes as a result of the accentuation of
the internal and external contradictions of capitalism. (…) Only the welding of
the proletariat into a single mass political army will ensure its victory in
the struggle against fascism and the power of capital, for the dictatorship of
the proletariat and the power of the Soviets.”. (Resolution
adopted by the 7th Congress of the Comintern regarding the report of Georgi Dimitrov, 20
of August 1935).
“…the communists must increase their vigilance in guarding against the
danger of right opportunism, and
must carry on a determined struggle against all its concrete
manifestations, bearing in mind that the right danger will grow as the tactics
of the united front are widely applied. The struggle for the establishment
of the united front, of the unity of action of the working class, gives rise to
the necessity that the social-democratic workers be convinced by object lessons
of the correctness of the communist policy and the incorrectness of the
reformist policy, and charges every communist party to wage an irreconcilable
struggle against any tendency to gloss over the differences in principle
between communism and reformism, against weakening the criticism of social-democracy
as the ideology and practice of [class] collaboration with the bourgeoisie,
against the illusion that it is possible to bring about socialism by peaceful,
legal methods, against any reliance on automatism or spontaneity, whether in
the liquidation of fascism or in the realization of the united front, against
belittling the role of the party and against the slightest vacillation at the
moment of decisive action”. (Resolution adopted by the 7th Congress of the
Comintern regarding the report of Georgi Dimitrov, 20 of August 1935).
These are the clear
warnings and an absolutely clear demarcation. Can there exist enough warnings
to prevent revisionism? Evidently not, revisionism is a form of bourgeois
ideology within the labor movement, distinct and opposed to Marxism. Those who
think they can keep themselves from falling into sins, keeping themselves on
the immaculate altar of pure criticism, are already condemned to it. Those who
intend to justify the revisionist treason in the 7th Congress don’t
make a distinction between red and black, between Marxism and revisionism.
Within the context of
strategic defensive of the World Proletarian Revolution, the policy established
by the 7th Congress of the Comintern was a just and correct policy through which
the international proletariat was able to defeat the offensive of the armed
counterrevolution represented by fascism. It was with the impulse of this
transcendental victory, for which the immense sacrifices and efforts of the
Chinese people and the Communist Party of China were made that, with the
triumph of their great revolution, four years later, the Proletarian World
Revolution reached its stage of strategic stalemate.
IV – THE 7th CONGRESS OF THE
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA
The Communist Party of
China, from its very foundation, has its history intrinsically linked with the
Communist International and the two-line struggle within it.
In 1935, the Communist
International approved an important resolution affirming that its Executive
Committee had to move its center of gravity to the elaboration of the
fundamental line and tactic for the ICM, not directly intervening in the intern
matters of the communist parties. Chu En-lai recognizes that since then until
its dissolution in 1943, the Communist International did not directly interfere
in the life of the Communist Party of China: “In 1935 it adopted a resolution to the effect that it should not interfere
with the internal affairs of the various Parties, and after that it did give them
a freer hand.” (Zhu Enlai. The Communist International and the Communist Party of
China, 1960)
It is false that the
Communist International had centered its efforts in the countries of Western
Europe. The situation of Germany had a great importance, once it had the
biggest communist party on the West, where the opportunist and revisionist
tendencies had more strength and influence for the whole struggle between
revolution and counterrevolution in the continent. This importance was also for
being the rear of the main enemy. Such conditions became the vertex of
preparation for the war against the USSR, constituting itself as the problem of
biggest magnitude for the USSR, given that the action of the communists would
be used as a justification to attack the USSR, just as it was attempted with
the phony burning of the Reichstag.
Comrade Stalin and the
Communist International were fully conscious of the growing importance of the
Chinese revolution. The revolution in China has always taken a central place in
the attention of the Communist International. No other country received as many
contribution as the Communist Party of China. It suffices to see that, given
the central importance of the Chinese question, all the resolutions and
telegrams directed to China signed by comrade Dimitrov in the name of the
(ECCI), were debated and revised by comrade Stalin or, in other cases, by
Molotov.
Comrade Stalin
brilliantly established that “In China, the troops
of the old government are confronted not by an unarmed people, but by an armed
people, in the shape of its revolutionary army. In China the armed revolution
is fighting the armed counter-revolution”. (Stalin, The Prospects of the
Revolution in China). This affirmation has great transcendence and represented
an enormous contribution to the Communist Party of China with the affirmation
that “the colonial and semicolonial question
is in essence the peasant question”. These two assertions have a great
transcendence and played a very important role in the course of the Chinese
Revolution. Throughout the Anti-Japanese War and the Third Revolutionary Civil
War, chairman Mao studied and applied the correlation between these two
fundamental principles.
The conception of the
United Front, based on Marxism-Leninism and the contributions of comrade
Stalin, could develop through the successive two-line struggles against the
“left” and right deviations, with the realization of great rectification
campaigns, until reaching the great 7th Congress of the Communist Party of
China, that took place in 1945. During the eight years of the Second
Revolutionary Civil War in China, the Communist Party of China incurred in
three “left” deviations that were only corrected in the Conference of Tsunyi,
in January 1935, and the following ten years until its glorious 7th Congress, 1945.
These deviations were to some extent linked to the two-line struggle within the
Communist International.
The victory of the
left in the Communist Party of China, in 1935, is directly linked to the
triumph of the left in the Communist International under the leadership of
comrade Stalin. When refuting the Trotskyist chattering regarding the Chinese
question, Stalin very clearly stated the main tactical principles of Leninism :
“1- The principle of necessity of taking into consideration
the national peculiarities and the national characteristics of each country
when elaborating the directives of the Comintern for the workers’ movement in
that nation”.
“2 – The principle of necessity of each Communist Party of every country to
use the smallest possibilities of conquering allies of masses for the
proletariat, even if they are temporary, hesitant, indecisive, or untrustworthy”.
“3 – The principle of necessity of taking into account the truth that
propaganda and agitation alone are not enough for the political education of
the millions of masses of men, furthermore this political education requires
the political experience of the masses”.
Stalin continues
emphasizing the combination of the general Marxist-Leninist principles with the
national characteristics. He wrote:
“Notwithstanding the ideological growth of our Party, unfortunately there is
still in our Party a certain type of “leaders”who sincerely believe that it is
possible to direct the revolution in China, so to speak, by telegraph
on the basis of the known and universally recognized general principles of the
Communist International without taking into consideration the national
peculiarities of Chinese culture, Chinese customs and traditions. These
“leaders” differ from the real leaders precisely in that they always have in
their pockets two or three ready-made formulae that are “suitable” for all
countries and “obligatory” in all conditions. For them there is no question of
taking into account the national character and national peculiarities of each
country. For them there is no question of coordinating the general principles
of the Communist International with the national peculiarities of the
revolutionary movement in each country, of applying the general principles of
the Communist International to the national and state peculiarities of
different countries”.
“They do not understand that the main task of leadership at the present
time, when the Communist parties have already grown up and have become mass
parties, consists in finding, grasping and skillfully combining the national
and characteristic features of the movement in each country with the general
principles of the Communist International in order to facilitate and make
practically possible the carrying out of the basic aims of the Communist
movement”.
“Hence the attempts to stereotype the leadership for all the countries.
Hence the attempts to apply mechanically certain general formulae regardless of
the concrete conditions of the revolutionary movement in different countries.
Hence the endless conflicts between formulae and the revolutionary movement in
different countries, which are the essential outcome of the leadership of these
miserable leaders”. (J. Stalin – Commentaries on questions of the moment: The question of
China)
The Tsuny Meeting
(January 1935), in which the leadership of Chairman Mao triumphed, represented
the overcoming of two “left” opportunist deviations, which were manifested in
the attitude of “closed doors” toward the formation of a United Front against
the Japanese aggressors. It expressed an understanding on the united front, as
an application of the Global Anti-Fascist Front in China, which was debated in
the Comintern and would be sanctioned by the 7th Congress of the
International. About these mistakes Chairman Mao affirmed:
“The present situation demands that we boldly discard all closed-doorism,
form a broad united front and guard against adventurism. We must not plunge
into decisive battles until the time is ripe and unless we have the necessary
strength.”
The followers of the “closed
doors policy” who considered that: “The forces of the
revolution must be pure, absolutely pure, and the road of the revolution must
be straight, absolutely straight. Nothing is correct except what is literally
recorded in Holy Writ. … The yellow trade unions must be fought tooth and nail.
…Was there ever a cat that did not love fish or a warlord who was not a
counter-revolutionary? Intellectuals are three-day revolutionaries whom it is
dangerous to recruit. It follows therefore that closed-doorism is the sole
wonder-working magic, while the united front is an opportunist tactic.
Comrades, which is right, the united front or closed-doorism? Which indeed is
approved by Marxism-Leninism? I answer without the slightest hesitation–the
united front and not closed-doorism. Three-year-olds have many ideas which are
right, but they cannot be entrusted with serious national or world affairs
because they do not understand them yet. Marxism-Leninism is opposed to the
“infantile disorder” found in the revolutionary ranks. This infantile disorder
is just what the confirmed exponents of closed-doorism advocate. Like every
other activity in the world, revolution always follows a tortuous road and
never a straight one. The alignment of forces in the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary
camps can change, just as everything else in the world changes.” (On the tactic
of struggle against Japanese imperialism, Volume II, p 177)
While hoisting the
Anti-fascist Front policy, Chairman Mao affirmed: “Now, in the mounting tide of nation-wide struggle against Japan and of
world-wide struggle against fascism, just wars will spread all over China and
the globe. All just wars support each other, while all unjust wars should be
turned into just wars–this is the Leninist line.” (On the tactic
of struggle against Japanese imperialism, Volume II, p 177)
The Communist
International, through its Executive Secretariat, personally commanded by
comrade Dimitrov, played an important role in the concreting of the
Anti-Japanese United Front. When the incident in Sian took place, in December
1936, comrade Dimitrov played an important role in the correct solution of the
conflict. The Secretariat of the Communist International emitted a telegram
supporting the position of Chairman Mao, against the position of Wang Ming, who
comrade Stalin accused of having a position of an agent provocateur (See
Dimitrov Diary, page 42), where it reads:
“1. Zhang Xueliang’s action, whatever his intentions were, objectively can
only harm the consolidation of the Chinese people’s forces into a unified
anti-Japanese front and encourage Japanese aggression with respect to China.
2. Since this action has been taken and we must reckon with the real facts
of the matter, the Communist Party of China vigorously supports a peaceful
resolution of the conflict on the following basis:
a) Reorganizing the government through the inclusion of a few
representatives of the anti-Japanese movement, supporters of the integrity and
independence of China (The suggested text in our draft: “reorganizing the
government from among the most conspicuous activists in the anti-Japanese
movement, supporters of the integrity and independence of China”) b) Ensuring
the democratic rights of the Chinese people c) Discontinuing the policy of
destroying the Red Army and establishing cooperation with it in the struggle
against Japanese aggression d) Establishing cooperation with states sympathetic
toward the liberation of the Chinese people from the attack of Japanese
imperialism”. (Telegram of the Secretariat of ECCI to the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China on the Necessity of a Peaceful Solution to the Xian
Conflict)
At the debate of the
Secretariat of the ECCI regarding the Chinese Question of August 10th 1937, comrade
Dimitrov pointed out that: “He knows well, and we
have talked with him on more than one occasion as I am the one directly dealing
with the Chinese party, that the problems confronting the Chinese party are
extremely complex and the position of the party is exceptional. Imagine all
that has occurred during the past two years. The Chinese Communist Party, which
was leading the Red Army in China, takes a crucial turn. You will not find a
single section of the Comintern that has been put into such a situation and
that has made such a crucial change in its policies and its tactics during the
past few years as has been done by the Chinese Communist Party. It fought for
the Soviets in China, for Soviet regions, created a Soviet government, created
an army, estranged a part of the army of Chiang Kai-shek from him in its aim of
sovietisation etc. The cadre of the party, materials of the party and the
strength of the party – all of this was concentrated up to 95% if not wholly
100% in these Soviet regions. And in the armed struggle against Nanking the
cadre was educated, they matured and grew; good cadre emerged as did their
political leaders. (…) But from this orientation it was required at this moment
to turn around 180 degrees in the policies and the tactics of the party. And
now the same cadres, not another party, not new people but the same members of
the party, the same masses must conduct a different policy. (…) Is this policy
correct? Certainly. It is being conducted in accordance with the general line
of the VII Congress of the Communist International and is in accordance with
the development of the Chinese revolution. The issue in China today is not of
Sovietisation but about keeping the Chinese people from being devoured by
Japanese imperialism. It is necessary to unite large forces of the Chinese
people in the struggle against the Japanese aggression for upholding the
independence, freedom and integrity of the Chinese people. And here the party
was supposed to – and on the whole it did so – make the transition to the
position of struggle not for the Sovietisation of China but for democracy, for
unification on a democratic base of the forces of the Chinese people against
Japanese imperialism, against Japanese aggression.”
The resolution of the
Secretariat of the ECCI regarding the Chinese Question of October 10th 1937, affirmed:
“1. The start of the all-Chinese armed resistance against the Japanese
aggressor and the successful advances in creating the united national front
would mark a new stage in the struggle of the Chinese people…
2. One of the most important tasks of the party consists in re-educating
the old cadre politically, in military matters and in the use of new methods of
work, and in promoting new cadre from the ranks of, above all, the workers and
the activists and leaders of the mass revolutionary movement.
3. We must obtain by persistent pressure on the Kuomintang and the Nanking
government and by means of mass campaigns the legalisation of the functioning
of the party in all the regions under the Kuomintang and must turn our
attention towards setting up of a massive legal press in the major towns.
4. The Communist Party of China, as the party of the workers, must increase
its work especially among the workers and their trade organisations, and draw
them into active participation in the anti-Japanese struggle and in the united
national front…”
In 1937, Wang Ming,
who was back then in the Communist International, came back returned to China
and went on to head a right capitulationist line at the initial period of the
War of Resistance against Japan. Wang Ming negated back then the hegemony and
the independence of the proletariat at the core of the Unite Front, he sought
to place the Communist Party of China under the rule of the Kuomintang, making
concessions to the anti-popular politics of the KMT, he didn’t dare to mobilize
the masses to struggle nor to expand the popular forces and extend the
anti-Japanese bases in the zones occupied by Japan. Wang Ming then advocated
the opportunist line “everything through the United Front”.
“During the War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression, those comrades who had
earlier committed “Left” opportunist mistakes swung over to Right opportunism.
Their views were exactly like those of the Chen Tu-hsiu opportunism of 1927 in
that they overlooked the anti-feudal aspect. They “saw only the bourgeoisie”
and “failed to understand the decisive significance of China’s agrarian
revolutionary movement.”
“They ‘do not consider it possible to unleash the revolution in the
countryside, because they are afraid that the drawing of the peasantry into the
revolution will undermine the united anti-imperialist front’ … Such erroneous
views were, of course, in direct opposition to the teachings of Lenin and
Stalin. According to Stalin: ‘The anti-imperialist united front in China will
become stronger and more powerful, the sooner and more solidly the Chinese
peasantry is drawn into the revolution’.”. (Chen Po-ta, Stalin and the Chinese
revolution)
This opportunist line
was combated in the 6th Plenary Session of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China from September to November , 1938,
unifying the whole party around the left line of Chairman Mao Tsetung,
according to which the proletariat should exercise independence and
self-decision making in the heart of the United Front. The report made by
Chairman Mao Tsetung with “The role of the Communist Party of China in the
National War” (Selected Works, T II, page 201)
In a celebratory
message for the 21st year of foundation of the Communist Party of China, comrade Dimitrov
combated these capitulationist positions of Wang Ming: “But there are also internal difficulties in the path of the Communist Party
of China. It has to win against the resistance of the sectarian elements, which
do not understand that in the present conditions the only way to assure the
liberation of the Chinese people is by establishing a united national front
against the Japanese aggressor. It also has to keep up the struggle against the
capitulationist opportunists, who are on the verge of sacrificing political and
organic independence of the Party and the Red Army, and to dissolve them in
other organizations and armies”. (Dimitrov, The People’s Front)
Between 1942 and 1944,
in the course of the great Rectification Movement developed in the Communist
Party of China under the leadership of Chaiman Mao Tsetung, the Communist Party
of China dedicated itself into making a deep evaluation about the problems of
its history. Especially on the period between 1931 and 1934, when sharp “left”
opportunist deviations were manifested, which would only star to be overcome
with the Conference of Tsuny in January 1935. These discussions were part of
the preparation of the great, historic and transcendental 7th Congress of the
Communist Party of China (1945), with the triumph of Mao Tsetung Thought. With
it, it was established that the communist Party of China was guided by
Marxism-Leninism and the ideas of Mao Tsetung Thought.
In the course of this
debate, Chairman Mao wrote in “Our Studies and the current Situation”, 12th April 1944
(Selected Works, V. III) published together with an attachment “Some questions
regarding the history of our party”. Such documents, which stand out together
with others, are of fundamental importance for the whole ICM. In our study and the current situation, he brilliantly systematized the
situation when he affirmed:
“The present situation has two characteristics: one is that the anti-fascist
front is growing stronger and the fascist front is declining, and the second is
that within the anti-fascist front the people’s forces are growing stronger and
the anti-popular forces are declining. The first characteristic is quite obvious and can readily be seen. Hitler
will be defeated before long, and the Japanese aggressors, too, are heading for
defeat. The second characteristic is not so obvious and cannot readily be seen,
but it is daily becoming more manifest in Europe, in Britain and the United
States and in China.”
Chairman Mao showed
how, during the seven years that passed since July 1937, the democratic forces,
led by the Communist Party of China, confronted three phases: 1) rise between
1937 and 1940, when the Japanese aggressors centered their attacks against the
Kuomintang and underestimated the Communist Party of China. In this phase the
Kuomintang undertook serious battle against the Japanese aggressors and
politics of unity with the Communist Party of China. Later, after the fall of
Wuhan in October 1938, the Japanese aggressors started to center combat against
the anti-Japanese bases led by the Communist Party of China, and the Kuomintang
increasingly started to make active anti-communist politics and passive
resistance towards Japan.
In this period,
Chairman Mao masterly systematized the three fundamental instruments of
revolution and their interrelation: “Our eighteen years of
experience show that the united front and armed struggle are the two basic
weapons for defeating the enemy. The united front is a united front for
carrying on armed struggle. And the Party is the heroic warrior wielding the
two weapons, the united front and the armed struggle, to storm and shatter the
enemy’s positions. That is how the three are related to each other”. (Mao, Introducing
the Communist, Volume II, 1939)
2) descent, between
1941 and 1942, in order to prepare and wage war against the United States and
England, the Japanese aggressors intensified their politics of centering their
attacks against the Communist Party. During this period, the Kuomintang,
feeling free-handed, undertook its second anti-communist campaign, attacking the
bases of the Communist Party in coordination with the Japanese aggressors.
During this difficult
period, the Communist Party initiated the politics of the “three thirds” within
the organizations of power in the Front/New State. In this period, the Communist
Party of China established the principle of struggling with “reason, advantage
and limit without surpassing it” and underlined the necessity of practicing
“unity and struggle at the same time and unity through struggle” within the
united front. The system of three thirds, whose application is not made in the
army, in which the Communist Party should hold “...the “three thirds system” should not be
introduced into our main forces, but so long as the leadership of the army is
kept in the hands of the Party (this is an absolute and inviolable necessity),
we need not be afraid of drawing large numbers of sympathizers into the work of
building up the military and technical departments of our army. Now that the
ideological and organizational foundations of our Party and our army have been
firmly laid, not only is there no danger in drawing in large numbers of
sympathizers (not saboteurs of course).
3) new rise starting
from 1943: the Japanese aggressors kept centering their attacks against the
Communist Party, but the Kuomintang, strongly beaten, kept up the politics of
“running to the mountains” and “contemplate the fight”. Chairman Mao Tsetung
showed that through this relationship of unity and struggle within the united
front, in middle of the combat with the main enemy, the Communist Party was
able to develop and get stronger. Chairman Mao affirmed that the Kuomintang
“from looking on with folded arms for five and a half years is the loss of its
fighting capacity. What the Communist Party has gained from fighting and
struggling hard for five and a half years is the strengthening of its fighting
capacity. This is what will decide China’s destiny“. (Mao. Our Studies and the
current situation. 12th April 1944, V III).
In “On New Democracy”,
regarding the character of the democratic revolution in China, Chairman Mao put
forward that it doesn’t belong to the old bourgeois revolutions, but to the
“Socialist World Revolution”, he affirmed that “This correct thesis advanced by the Chinese Communists is based on Stalin’s
theory”. (Mao. On New Democracy, 1940, T II)
The problem of the
uninterrupted revolution, developed by Chairman Mao, departs from Stalin and
the International, as Chairman Gonzalo pointed out:
““Did the Communist International knew? Of course it did. many things, my
dear comrades, that are on Mariátegui are from the Communist International,
this is why you do not know; i believe that we do not know history and we talk
of things we do not know. Do you believe that the Communist International did
not know that revolution was uninterrupted, you believe the Communist
International did not know that? Comrade Stalin perfectly knew that. Was Stalin
not a Marxist? Please, man!” (Chairman Gonzalo, First Congress)
In the course of war
against the Japanese aggressors, the contradiction between the Communist Party
of China and the Kuomintang turned into a secondary contradiction, although
this one, by its own nature, has an antagonistic and irreconcilable character.
When the main enemy was defeated, there was a change in the principal
contradiction and the principal enemy and there was a new differentiation in
the interior of the Antifascist Front. The secondary enemies, just like Yankee
imperialism and the Kuomintang, allies at the time, increasingly became main
enemies, and the revolution entered a new phase, starting the Third Revolutionary Civil War, developed until the conquest of Power
in the whole country.
V – The Great Patriotic War
“After the first imperialist war the victor states, primarily Britain,
France and the United States, had set up a new regime in the relations between
countries, the post-war regime of peace. The main props of this regime were the
Nine-Power Pact in the Far East, and the Versailles Treaty and a number of
other treaties in Europe. The League of Nations was set up to regulate
relations between countries within the framework of this regime, on the basis
of a united front of states, of collective defense of the security of
states. However, three aggressive states, and the new imperialist war launched
by them, have upset the entire system of this post-war peace regime. Japan tore
up the Nine-Power Pact, and Germany and Italy the Versailles Treaty. In order
to have their hands free, these three states withdrew from the League of
Nations. The new imperialist war became a fact.” (Stalin. Report on
the 18th Congress of the party regarding the work of the Central Committee of
the CP USSR)
In 1935, fascist Italy
had thrown itself and occupied Abisinia. In the summer of 1936, Italy and
Germany intervened in Spain against the Republic. In 1937, Japan, after
occupying Manchuria, advanced over the northern and central region of China,
occupying Beijing, Tientsin and Shanghai. In the beginning of 1938, Germany
occupied and annexed Austria and, in autumn, the region of the Sudetes in
Czechoslovakia. At the end of 1938, Japan occupied Canton. In March 1935,
Hitler proclaimed a new law establishing obligatory military service, breaking
with the Treaty of Versailles and exceeding France in troops.
Only the USSR made
systematic efforts for a broad pact of collective security with the western
powers, against the expansion of the fascist aggression and to breaking the
attempt of isolating the USSR. The revolutionary diplomacy of the USSR spent
the 1930 decade trying to obtain a treaty of non-aggression with England and
France without reaching it. England and France systematically rejected signing
a pact with the USSR, adopting the lying “appeasing policy”. Which means, While
Hitler threatened to annex countries of Europe, Austria and others, invaded
Czechoslovakia and Poland, nothing was done to stop it, in the attempt to push
Germany against the USSR. Politics that ended in the treaty of the Munich
Conference, celebrated on the 29th and 30th of September
1938, between Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini and Daladier, who gave up
Czechoslovakia. Regarding this, comrade Stalin affirmed, during in the 18th Congress of the
Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR, celebrated in March 1939:
“The policy of non-intervention means conniving at aggression, giving free
rein to war, and, consequently, transforming the war into a world war. The
policy of non-intervention reveals an eagerness, a desire, not to hinder the
aggressors in their nefarious work : not to hinder Japan, say, from embroiling
herself in a war with China, or, better still, with the Soviet Union : to allow
all the belligerents to sink deeply into the mire of war, to encourage them
surreptitiously in this, to allow them to weaken and exhaust one another; and
then, when they have become weak enough, to appear on the scene with fresh
strength, to appear, of course, “in the interests of peace,” and to dictate
conditions to the enfeebled belligerents.”
The USA had made so
many campaigns demonizing the USSR up to this point, that for it to enter the
war it had to mount the coward machination of Pearl Harbor. Hundreds of
North-Americans, military and civilians, were massacred and wounded in it, due
to having been taken by surprise by the operation Tora Tora of Japan. An attack
on the naval base in Hawaii of which the Yankee government knew beforehand, but
needed something that would cause popular indignation and national commotion so
that the Congress would be obliged to approve its entering the war.
Counting with his
expertise, the great Stalin succeeded in a non-aggression pact with Nazi
Germany in one week and in the next one with fascist Japan, gaining valuable
time to prepare for the German invasion. The secret correspondence between
Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, and soon after with Atle and Eisenhower, is a
proof of how comrade Stalin applied with mastery the World Antifascist Front,
placing the Soviet State as the axis and in the defense of the popular forces
led by the communist parties in each country involved in the conflict. This is
fact and is extensively documented.
When Germany invaded
the USSR on 22nd of June 1941, the next day Chairman Mao affirmed: “For Communists throughout the world the task now is to mobilize the people
of all countries and organize an international united front to fight fascism
and defend the Soviet Union, defend China, and defend the freedom and
independence of all nations. In the present period, every effort must be
concentrated on combating fascist enslavement”. (Mao. On the International
Anti-Fascist United Front. 1941. T II)
Soon after he
specified the form and content that should be assumed in China:
“For the Chinese Communist Party the tasks throughout the country are as
follows: 1. Persevere in the National United Front Against Japan, persevere in
Kuomintang-Communist co-operation, drive the Japanese imperialists out of
China, and by these means assist the Soviet Union. 2. Resolutely combat all the
anti-Soviet and anti-Communist activities of the reactionaries among the big
bourgeoisie. 3. In foreign relations, unite against the common foe with
everybody in Britain, the United States and other countries who is opposed to
the fascist rulers of Germany, Italy and Japan”. (Mao. On the
International Anti-Fascist United Front. 1941. T II)
Again we point out
that Chairman Gonzalo put forward: “To make the
evaluation of the Communist International, especially its 7th Congress, linked
to the world war and the role of comrade Stalin”. In the exposition in
front of the First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru Chairman Gonzalo,
fundamenting substantiate the definition of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, affirmed:
“The World war II is a milestone of transcendence in world history,
is strictly began on 1939 and ended in 1945 (…) it is a world war in
which on the one hand there is the imperialist
plunder, the dispute for world hegemony, which Germany, under Hitler,
claimed to itself; but on the other hand there is the defense of
socialism and development of revolution, it is clear and correct that the
war then unleashed by the USSR was a great patriotic war … it
was a justified war of defense, a great patriotic war, this
is how it was defined with all correctness, that is why; And
development of the world revolution because more than that
glorious defense that costed 20 million men to USSR, we have an
anti-imperialist struggle that will develop in the oppressed countries, mainly
in China (… )
It is the great war of resistance of the oppressed nations, like China,
like Korea, like Birmania, like Indonesia, Philippines, etc. Where precisely
the imperialists fled like rats and went to the peoples of those nations who
took up arms; the ones who had luck to rely on a communist
party had triumphed and advanced and the ones who did not, at least
freed themselves of being colonies by means of transactions, as an example,
Indonesia had ceased to be, as a consequence of this war, a colony of the
Netherlands.
There was a sinister plan in this war: the crusade against the USSR, … (a
word that expresses) clearly its reactionary innards and because this is how it
was put forward by Hitler himself, as an anti-Bolshevik crusade, because the
black dream they had was to sweep the USSR away from the face of Earth;
futile, glass dream, it shocked against the power of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, with the leadership of the party and comrade
STALIN, the Russian proletariat, the Russian people. Comrades, heroic
pages!: Stalingrad … also there was clearly seen the dirty, tricky work of the
imperialist allies … seeking that fascist germany would defeat USSR … What
could Russia do facing such smite? To apply a strategic defensive then, and
that is what was done … together with razed grounds, not leaving anything to
them, naked land (…)
“Comrades, the dictatorship of the proletariat was at stake, revolution was
at stake, we can not stop in our minds nor simple let ourselves be stupefied as
said by Chairman Mao, for the defense of pieces of land neither vases; this is
how we are, the communists.”
All this great deed of the World War II has shaken the world and marked men
and given good results; not
everywhere, but inclusively had given medium results, as example,
France and Italy, the reason: revisionists, they let be carried away due to
triumph, the results of victory having the 500 thousand men guerrillas, 300
thousand men, forged in this heroic struggle of the class and the European
peoples that we also have to take into account. This is then, the World War II
is a milestone of great transcendence. The prestige of the USSR highly
increased across the Earth. Enough is to see the newspapers at
that time (…) given that, we can no more judge comrade STALIN, this is
why the party said we have to look at the World War II”. (Chairman Gonzalo,
PCP, First Congress)
We consider that this
appreciation has a value of synthesis for the whole ICM. The victory against
fascism on the Second World War is one of the great historic all events of the
process of the Proletarian World Revolution, which has to be seriously studied
for its just and correct comprehension, it has to be highlighted and
celebrated.
After the end of the
Great Patriotic War, the imperialist camp found itself deeply beaten, three
important imperialist powers were defeated: Germany, Japan and Italy. Other
powers such as France and England were weakened, as for the international
proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the whole world enormously rose up.
The socialist camp, covering the popular democracies had expanded and a
powerful movement of national liberation was impulsed.
Chairman Mao warned us
that it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the importance of the victory
on the Second World War:
“The world revolutionary united front, with the Soviet Union at its head,
defeated fascist Germany, Italy and Japan. This was a result of the October
Revolution. If there had been no October Revolution, if there had been no
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, no Soviet Union and no anti-imperialist
revolutionary united front in the West and in the East led by the Soviet Union,
could one conceive of victory over fascist Germany, Italy, Japan and their
running dogs? If the October Revolution opened up wide possibilities for the
emancipation of the working class and the oppressed peoples of the world and
opened up realistic paths towards it, then the victory of the anti-fascist
Second World War has opened up still wider possibilities for the emancipation of
the working class and the oppressed peoples of the world and has opened up
still more realistic paths towards it. It will be a very great mistake
to underestimate the significance of the victory of World War II”. (Mao. Revolutionary
Forces of the World, unite, Struggle against the imperialist aggression!
November 1948. T IV)
In the editorial of
the Hongqi magazine of 1965, published for the occasion of the 20 years of the
victory on the Anti-fascist War, the Communist Party of China affirmed,
regarding the evaluation of this historic experience:
“Points out that surrounding the evaluation of the experience in the
Anti-Fascist War questions of principles between Marxist and revisionist are
defined: “There is an entire series of important differences of principle
between Marxist-Leninist and modern revisionism in the question of how to
evaluate the Anti-Fascist War and in the lessons that can be extracted from it”
They highlight the
great role of the anti-fascist war in defense of Socialism, of the Peoples War
and the United Front:
“In the first place, the history of anti-fascist war shows that the
socialist system has an enormous vitality that can resist the most
severe test and that a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat is
invincible.
In second place, the history of the anti-fascist war shows that imperialism
is the source of all wars in modern times, that the aggressive nature of
imperialism will not change and because of that, to defend world peace it is
necessary to persist in the struggle against imperialism.
In third place, the history of the anti-fascist war shows that the peoples
war sure to attain victory, that it is completely possible to defeat the
imperialist aggressors, that imperialism is a paper tiger, who is apparently
strong, but in reality is weak, and that the atomic bomb is also a paper
tigress and it is the people and not the arms, of any class, who decide the
outcome of the war.
In fourth place, the history of the anti-fascist war shows that, in
order to defeat the imperialist aggressor, it is imperative to trust in the
unity of the revolutionary forces of the people in all countries, to attract to
our side all the forces that can be won, to form the broadest possible
international united front and concentrate our blows on the main enemy of the
peoples of the world”.
Still In the same
editorial it is shown how Kruschov, when he had to praise the role of the Great
Patriotic War aiming to insufflate the “Great Russian” feeling among the
masses, negated the role of the anti-fascist war, affirming that fascism was
crushed only by the USSR, crashing this way against proletarian
internationalism:
“The Soviet Union, which was the only socialist country of that time, was
the main force to annihilate the German fascists and played the decisive function
in the defeat of fascism. The Chinese people undertakes its revolutionary war
against Japanese imperialism, for a really long time on its part, and made one
of the most significant contributions to the victory in the Anti-Fascist War.
The peoples of many countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and America made
their own contribution to the Anti-Fascist War. The peoples of the countries
occupied by the German, Italian, and Japanese fascists also persisted in the
guerilla war and the clandestine struggles at home or organized in
armies in foreign countries, which later came back to fight in their home
countries. In the last period of the war, the people in some countries
rose up successfully in revolting armies and liberated great parts of their territory,
or sent troops to unite in the persecution of the hordes and to support the
liberation struggles of the peoples of other countries after their own
countries had been liberated. In Germany, Italy and Japan, the masses
of the people under fascism also resisted at home in carious ways, even
including armed struggle, and supporting the struggle of other peoples that
suffered the fascist aggression and slavery. All these struggles
have contributed to the victory of the Anti-Fascist War and each one
takes a place of honor in the history of the War. The revisionist
Kruschov, tries to write to erase from a pen stroke played against the peoples
of all the other countries in the Anti-Fascist War, declaring arrogantly that
the Soviet Union was the only force in “breaking the German fascist machine”. In
this way they intend to promote great-power chauvinism and demand that other
countries that were helped by the Soviet army had to obey their orders, give in
to their control and harassment and put up with their exploitation”.
Under the guns of the
glorious Red Army, the Nazi German State and its capitalist relations of
production were destroyed, Socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat
arose in Eastern Germany. The Red Banner of the Communist Party and the USSR
waving over the shadowed and destroyed German Reichstag is an undeniable great
moment of the international proletariat that symbolize the whole heroic and
glorious epic of the struggle against fascism in defense of the USSR and for
the development of the Proletarian World Revolution. The sentence made by
comrade Dimitrov when he embarked in the direction of USSR after the great
victory in the Nazi Tribunal in Leipzig was thus accomplished: “we will make
Germany Soviet!”.
This way the lapidary
words of Chairman Gonzalo demand full value and understanding:
“Against history, what do the words do, comrades, what could the denials do,
what could the questionings do, what could the interrogations do? Nothing! The
reason: as time passes on, history has wider dimension and
perspective, so, further clearly this shining peak will stand out.”
(Chairman Gonzalo,
First Congress, Transcriptions)
The 7th Congress had its
highest and fullest expression and development at the development of the Great
Patriotic War to which the Anti-Japanese Resistance War against the Japanese
aggressors in China is included. Through the Anti-Japanese United Front
formulated by Chairman Mao, which he developed by applying unity and struggle
and independence of the Communist Party, defining it as one of the three
fundamental instruments of the revolution, fulfilling a fundamental role when
stopping close to 60% of the Japanese army in the important East Front. Beyond
this, all the other wars and anti-fascists actions of resistance in Italy,
France, Austria, Yugoslavia, Japan, Spain, Greece, Belgium and dozens of other
countries were added, as part of the Global Anti-fascist Front. This great
historic experience is part of Maoism, and to negate its role, importance and
meaning is revisionism.
The defeat of fascism
meant the change in the principal contradiction in each country. During the
course of the anti-fascist wars, the imperialist bourgeoisie of each country
was weakened and the communist parties and the masses were enormously strengthened.
The defeat of the fascist regime led to the consequent change of the main
contradiction and the main enemy in the interior of these countries. At the
Communist Parties of those times, wherever there was an opportunist leadership,
they limited themselves to a struggle against fascism in favor of the old
bourgeois order and didn’t lead the revolution until the end.
While synthesizing the
experiences of the United Front, Chairman Mao taught us that the correct
handling of the politics of the United Front of the proletariat can be
summarized in three fundamental questions: whom base oneself on, whom to ally
and whom to combat (11).
A correct handling of these three questions and their interrelation, in each
stage and phase of the revolution guarantee an asserted political leadership.
The contradiction between the anti-fascist front and the fascist front, on the
one hand, and the contradiction in the interior of the anti-fascist front on
the other, between the popular forces and the anti-popular forces, e success or
defeat of the revolution depended on the correct handling of these
contradictions.
In the countries, such
as Italy and France, where a right opportunist leadership prevailed, the
communist party didn’t lead the revolution to the end, leaving it in the middle
of the way. The leadership of the respective parties didn’t proceed with the struggle
to defeat the whole imperialist bourgeoisie of their own country and
capitulated in front of it thus betraying the revolution, handing over the
weapons, degenerating themselves by following the putrid parliamentary way.
Chairman Gonzalo
summarized the problem with clarity, that it was not the anti-fascist front,
but the revisionist criteria of Thorez, Togliatti, as also Earl Browder who
centered only in the struggle against fascism: “Two problems of great repercussion arose in the Communist International during the
1920s, the problem of Germany, which means the revolution in an
advanced country, and the problem of China, which means, the
revolution in a not advanced country. Later, the situation sharpened with
the rise and triumph of fascism and the question on how to build
the Front; there were revisionist criteria from Togliatti and
Thorez who were seeking tomaintain the order and not to
overthrow it and focused only on the fight against fascism”. (PCP. International
Line).
The two-line struggle
at the core of the Comintern during the period of the 7th Congress
(1935-1943) fundamentally developed itself between the left line represented by
comrade Stalin, Chairman Mao Tsetung and comrade Dimitrov, against the ideas,
criteria, positions and right opportunist lines of Trotskysm, Browder, Tito,
Togliatti and Thorez.
Chairman Mao
established with clarity and correction that the revisionist line of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union “arose in the 20th Congress and was
systematized in the 22nd congress of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union” (About the false Communism of Kruschov and the Historical
Lessons for the World). For revisionism to be able to impose itself on parties
where right positions predominated, these parties had to make successive Congresses
in order to modify their ideological and political line, which had then been
oriented by the Communist International with its 7th Congress, and
was substituted by the most putrid revisionism. Just as it happened with the 10th Congress of the
Communist Party of Italy, the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of
Bulgaria. The 10th Congress of the Communist Party of Italy substituted the struggle for
the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat with the
‘path of structural reforms”.
Chairman Mao defined
that the rise of modern revisionism takes place “starting at the Second World War, the international communist
movement, on the side of great developments it developed its greatest
anti-thesis inside its own lines, a revisionist counter-current opposed to
socialism, to Marxism-Leninism and the proletarian revolution. This
counter-current was mainly represented first by Browder, later by Tito and
today by Kruschov. Kruschov’s revisionism is nothing more than a
continuation and the development of Browder’s and Tito’s revisionism. (CPCh The Proletarian
Revolution and the Revisionism of Khruschev)
The opportunist and
revisionist right inside the international communist movement is clearly
defined and developed in modern revisionism of Thorez, Togliatti, Tito and
Kruschov. And that “ Kruschov is a disciple of
Bernstein and Kautsky and also Browder and Tito…Browder’s and Tito’s
revisionism as well as the theory of the “structural reforms” arose at
the start the Second World War. These varieties of revisionism are
local phenomenons in the international communist movement. Nevertheless,
Kruschov’s revisionism arose and acquired predominance in the leadership of the
CPSU, it became a great problem of general significance for the international communist
movement, from which the success or the failure of the revolutionary cause of
the international proletariat (considered in its whole) depends”. (PCCH. The
Proletarian Revolution and the Revisionism of Khrushchev, 1963)
The first person to
put forward the positions of modern revisionism was Earl Browder, already in
the 1930s. “Browder had begun to reveal his
revisionism around 1935. He worshiped the bourgeois democracy renounced to the
necessary critiscism to the bourgeois government and took the dictatorship of
the bourgeoisie for the paradise of communism. His motto was: ‘Communism is
americanism of the 20th century’2
With the formation of
the International and National Antifascist United Front during the World War
Two, he was obsessed with ‘democracy’, ‘progress’ and the prudence of the
bourgeoisie, he was totally bent facing the bourgeoisie and degenerated in a
capitulationist from the bottom to the top… He preached that the Teheran
Declaration of the Soviet Union, of the United States and Great Britain had
permanently opened for the world an epoch of ‘protracted trust and cooperation’
between capitalism and socialism and could assure a ‘stable peace for
generations’,” 3(idem)
Browder pretended to
give to the revolutionary debates and resolutions of the 7th Congress of the
Communist International an interpretation convergent with his rightist position
of class collaboration. The positions of Browder were fiercely combated by the
Communist International.
The ones seeking to
identify the origin of modern revisionism in the the 7th Congress of the
Communist International are repeating Browder, opposing Chairman Mao with
Stalin, and doing nothing more than resurrecting Trotsky and the old paladins
of revisionism. Under the leadership of comrade Stalin, hard struggles against
revisionism were developed inside the Communist Party and the Communist
International, while comrade Stalin was alive revisionism never managed to get
its head up and was crushed. Revisionism could never raise its head and impose
itself while Stalin was alive.
After the dissolution
of the Comintern in 1943, the right deviations and revisionism, such as the
Titoism, were fiercely combated by comrade Dimitrov: “With frequency we can lose track of the fact that, although the
Comintern does not exist , the communist parties form a united international
communist front under the leadership of the most powerful men in the experience
of the struggle against capitalism and the construction of socialism: the party
of Lenin and Stalin; that all communist parties have scientific theory as their
only guide for action – Marxism-Leninism -, and that all of them have a
generally recognized teacher and leader – comrade Stalin – leader of the
glorious Bolshevik party and the great land of socialism”. (Dimitrov. Report
to the 16th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Workers Party
(Communist), July of 1948)
Regarding the mistakes
of the 7th Congress, we consider that these mainly took place regarding the
application of the resolutions in each country, due to the existence of many
parties that were not mature enough and due to capitulationist opportunist
leaders, who didn’t lead the revolution to the end and sold it, of course.
Regarding the limitations, these were overcome with the solution of the
problems by Chairman Mao in the development of the Peoples War and the triumph
of the revolution in China, which, with the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, its magisterial contributions developed in an new, third and
superior stage of Marxism : Maoism.
It’s the duty of the
communist parties on each country to make a serious and well-thought evaluation
of the historic process of the communist movement in their own countr, clearly
differentiating the errors that take place at the practical work (problems of
application) from the errors of principle (problems with the conception),
separating Marxism from revisionism, to serve the just, correct and full
evaluation of these extraordinary milestone of world history, in general, and
the Proletarian Revolution, in particular.
VI – Conclusion
The 7th Congress of the
Communist International was a great Marxist-Leninist Congress led brilliantly
by comrade Stalin who laid bases for the Proletarian World Revolution to be
able to make a powerful leap, with Maoism and the Peoples War.
Chairman Gonzalo, when
highlighting what was established by Chairman Mao, underlined in regards to the
role of comrade Stalin that “There are historical
figures that always require time span for its full comprehension, there are
multiple cases in history; it was not understood that even the figures are
historically re-evaluated, and sometimes they are forgotten and soon they are
again upheld or acknowledged in these or those contributions and, in
every field this happens, even on music comrades. Let us put an example
forward: nowadays everyone enjoy listening to Bach, was
Bach acknowledged in the last century? No, it was then taken from
him, it was re-evaluated and how much time had to pass? Do you know what does
this Irani comrades speaks of? He Speaks as a restrained dog, with
lent thought, is not good. One can not condemn comrade Stalin like it is being
done, to the letter! No this can not be consent,” (Chairman Gonzalo, I
Congress PCP, 1988)
This affirmation is
covered with a great significance. The Irani Avakianists cackle that “if there
are a hundred years ahead to understand the historic figure of comrade
Stalin,…there are hundred years to combat him!” For our party, 67 years after
the death of comrade Stalin, when one brings into the light the historic
experience of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the
proletariat under the leadership of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism
with contributions of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo, the great and
unscathed figure of comrade Stalin elevates more and more.
The undertaking of the
first Unified Maoist International Conference and the founding of the New
International Organisation of the Proletariat is a great event that will mark
the history of the ICM and the Proletarian World Revolution for decades. Such
event, facing the highest milestone of the glorious Communist International,
its 7th Congress, at this point cannot make a criminal silence on it, not to
say lowering oneself to the judgment of Trotskyst and other revisionist, as
until recently Avakian and Prachanda stand out, but uphold it as a decisive and
great event in the history of the ICM and of the proletarian revolution. At
this historic moment, to remove the red flag of the 7th Congress, the
role of comrades Stalin and Dimitrov at the leadership of the ICM from the
shadows and to retrieve them to the golden pantheon of the world proletariat is
an imperative demand for the communists of the whole world.
The history of the ICM
is not simply for record or information. To our Party it’s mainly a weapon of
combat and of great positive and negative lessons, in the struggle against
revisionism and opportunism, as a condition to fulfill what was foreseen by
Chairman Mao that “within the fifty to hundred years”, the complete razing of
imperialism and the whole reaction from the face of the earth by the
Proletarian World Revolution.
Long live the Centenary of the Glorious Communist
International!
Long live the victory over Trotskysm, revisionism and all opportunism
inside the Communist International!
Long live its great 7th Congress and the firm, resolute and wise leadership of comrade
Dimitrov!
Long live the magisterial leadership of comrade Stalin in the Communist
International and its 7th Congress, in the World Anti-fascist Front and the Great Patriotic War!
Long live the 75th anniversary of the victory against Nazi-fascism!
Long live Chairman Mao, developer of the Revolutionary United Front and the
Theory of the Three Fundamental Instruments of the Revolution!
Long live Chairman Gonzalo, continuer of Marx, Lenin
and Chairman Mao, greatest Marxist-Leninist-Maoist living on the face of the
earth and his almighty Thought!
Down with revisionism and all opportunism!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism and the contributions
of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo!
Long live the invincibility of the People’s War and its universal validity!
Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction) – C.P.B. (RF)
Central Committee
February 2020
1 9th
Commentary to the letter of the CPSU, July 1964: “The communism of Khrushchev
and the lessons it gives to the world”.
2 Willian Z
Foster, quoting Browder at “History of the Communist Party of the United
States”
3 E. Browder
“Teheran: Our Path in War and Peace”