•     Introduction    
  
•     New, Third and Higher Stage of Marxism    
  
•     V.I. Lenin    
  
•     Mao Tsetung    
  
•     Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: The Third Great Milestone    
  

  Introduction
In 1984, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement was founded, groupingtogether the nucleus of the Maoist revolutionaries the world over who weredetermined to carry forward the fight for a world without exploitation andoppression, without imperialism, a world in which the very division of societyinto classes will be overcome-the communist world of the future. Since theformation of our Movement we have continued to advance and today, on theoccasion of the Mao Tsetung Centenary, with a deep sense of our responsibility,we declare to the international proletariat and the oppressed masses of theworld that our guiding ideology is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Our Movement was founded on the basis of the Declaration of the RevolutionaryInternationalist Movement adopted by the Second Conference ofMarxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations in 1984. The Declarationupholds the proletarian revolutionary ideology and on that basis in the mainit correctly addresses the tasks of the revolutionary communists in differentcountries and on a world scale, the history of the international communistmovement, and a number of other vital questions. Today we reaffirm theDeclaration as the solid foundation of our Movement upon which weare building a new clarity and deeper understanding of our ideology and themore solid unity of our Movement. The Declaration correctly stresses"Mao Tsetung's qualitative development of the science of Marxism-Leninism"and affirms that he raised it to "a new stage". However, the use of the term"Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought" in our Declaration reflecteda still incomplete understanding of this new stage. In the last nine yearsour Movement has been engaged in a long, rich and thoroughgoing discussionand struggle to more fully grasp Mao Tsetung's development of Marxism. Duringthis same period the parties and organisations of our Movement and RIM asa whole have been engaged in revolutionary struggle against imperialism andreaction. Most important has been the advanced experience of the People'sWar led by the Communist Party of Peru which has succeeded in mobilisingthe masses in their millions, sweeping aside the state in many parts of thecountry and establishing: the power of the workers and peasants in theseareas. These advances, in theory and practice, have enabled us to furtherdeepen our grasp of the proletarian ideology and on that basis take afar-reaching step, the recognition of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the new,third and higher stage of Marxism.
  New, Third and Higher Stage of Marxism
Mao Tsetung elaborated many theses on a whole series of vital questions ofrevolution. But Maoism is not just the sum total of Mao's great contributions.It is the comprehensive and all-round development of Marxism-Leninism toa new and higher stage. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is an integral whole; itis the ideology of the proletariat synthesized and developed to new stages,from Marxism to Marxism-Leninism to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, by Karl Marx,V.I. Lenin and Mao Tsetung, on the basis of the experience of the proletariatand mankind in class struggle, the struggle for production and scientificexperiment. It is the invincible weapon which enables the proletariat tounderstand the world and change it through revolution. Marxism-Leninism-Maoismis a universally applicable, living and scientific ideology, constantlydeveloping and being further enriched through its application in makingrevolution as well as through the advance of human knowledge generally.Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the enemy of all forms of revisionism and dogmatism.It is all powerful because it is true.
  Karl Marx
Karl Marx first developed revolutionary communism almost 150 years ago. Withthe assistance of his close comrade-in-arms Frederick Engels, he developeda comprehensive philosophical system, dialectical materialism, and discoveredthe basic laws which shape human history.
Marx developed a science of political economy that revealed the exploitationof the proletariat and the inherent anarchy and contradictions of the capitalistmode of production. Karl Marx developed his revolutionary theory in closeconnection with and to serve the class struggle of the international proletariat.He built the First International and wrote, together with Engels, the CommunistManifesto with its resounding call "workers of all countries, unite!" Marxpaid great attention to and summed up the lessons of the Paris Commune of1871, the first great attempt of the proletariat to seize state power.
He armed the world proletariat with an understanding of its historic mission:seizing political power through revolution and using this power -- thedictatorship of the proletariat -- to transform social conditions until thevery basis for the cleavage of society into different classes is eliminated.
Marx led the struggle against the opportunists in the proletarian movementwho sought to confine the struggle of the workers to improving the conditionsof wage-slavery without challenging the existence of this slavery itself.
Together, the stand, viewpoint and method of Marx came to be called Marxism,and represents the first great milestone in the development of the ideologyof the proletariat.
  V.I. Lenin
V.I. Lenin developed Marxism to a whole new stage in the course of leadingthe proletarian revolutionary movement in Russia and the struggle in theinternational communist movement against revisionism.
Among many other contributions, Lenin analysed the development of capitalismto its highest and final stage, imperialism. He showed that the world wasdivided between a handful of imperialist powers and the great majority, theoppressed nations and peoples, and showed that the imperialist powers wouldbe forced to go to war periodically to redivide the world amongst themselves.
Lenin described the era in which we live as the era of imperialism andproletarian revolution. Lenin developed the political party of a new type,the Communist Party, as the proletariat's indispensable tool for leadingthe revolutionary masses in the seizure of power.
Most importantly, Lenin raised the theory and practice of proletarian revolutionto a whole new level as he led the proletariat in seizing and consolidatingits political power, its revolutionary dictatorship, for the first time withthe victory of the October Revolution in formerly Tsarist Russia in 1917.
Lenin waged a life-and-death struggle against the revisionists of his daywithin the Second International who had betrayed the proletarian revolutionand had called on the workers to defend the interests of their imperialistmasters in World War I.
The "guns of October" and Lenin's struggle against revisionism further spreadthe communist movement throughout the world, uniting the struggles of theoppressed peoples with the world proletarian revolution, and the Third (orCommunist) International was formed.
Lenin's all-round and comprehensive development of Marxism represents thesecond great leap in the development of proletarian ideology.
After Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin defended the proletarian dictatorshipagainst enemies from within as well as from the imperialist invaders duringWorld War II, and carried forward the cause of socialist construction andtransformation in the Soviet Union. Stalin fought for the international communistmovement to recognise Marxism-Leninism as the second great milestone in thedevelopment of the proletarian ideology.
  Mao Tsetung
Mao Tsetung developed Marxism-Leninism to a new and higher stage in the courseof his many decades of leading the Chinese Revolution, the worldwide struggleagainst modern revisionism and, most importantly, in finding in theory andpractice the method of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship ofthe proletariat to prevent the restoration of capitalism and continue theadvance toward communism. Mao Tsetung greatly developed all three componentparts of Marxism -- philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism.
Mao said, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Mao Tsetungcomprehensively developed the military science of the proletariat throughhis theory and practice of People's War. Mao taught that people, not weapons,are decisive in waging war. He pointed out that each class has its own specificforms of war with its specific character, goals and means. He remarked thatall military logic can be boiled down to the principle "you fight your way,I'll fight my way", and that the proletariat must forge military strategyand tactics which can bring into play its particular advantages, by unleashingand relying upon the initiative and enthusiasm of the revolutionary masses.
Mao established that the policy of winning base areas and systematicallyestablishing political power was key to unleashing the masses and developingthe armed strength of the people and the wavelike expansion of their politicalpower. He insisted on the need to lead the masses in carrying out revolutionarytransformations in base areas and to develop these politically, economicallyand culturally in the service of advancing revolutionary warfare.
Mao taught that the Party should control the gun and the gun must never beallowed to control the Party. The Party must be built as a vehicle capableof initiating and leading revolutionary warfare. He emphasised that the centraltask of revolution is the seizure of political power by revolutionary violence.Mao Tsetung's theory of People's War is universally applicable in all countries,although this must be applied to the concrete conditions in each countryand, in particular, take into account the revolutionary paths in the twogeneral types of countries-imperialist countries and oppressed countries-thatexist in the world today.
Mao solved the problem of how to make revolution in a country dominated byimperialism. The basic path he charted for the revolution in China representsan inestimable contribution to the theory and practice of revolution andis the guide for achieving liberation in the countries oppressed by imperialism.This means protracted People's War, surrounding the cities from the countryside,with armed struggle as the main form of struggle and the army led by theParty as the main form of organisations of the masses, mobilising the peasantry,principally the poor peasants, carrying out the agrarian revolution, buildinga united front under the leadership of the Communist Party to carry out theNew Democratic Revolution against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratcapitalism and establishing the joint dictatorship of the revolutionary classesled by the proletariat as the necessary prelude to the socialist revolutionwhich must immediately follow the victory of the first stage of the revolution.Mao put forward the thesis of the "three magic weapons" -- the Party, theArmy and the United Front -- the indispensable instruments for making revolutionin every country in accordance with its specific conditions and path ofrevolution.
Mao Tsetung greatly developed the proletarian philosophy, dialecticalmaterialism. In particular, he stressed that the law of contradiction, theunity and struggle of opposites, is the fundamental law governing natureand society. He pointed out that the unity and identity of all things istemporary and relative, while the struggle between opposites is ceaselessand absolute, and this gives rise to radical ruptures and revolutionary leaps.He masterfully applied this understanding to the analysis of the relationshipbetween theory and practice, stressing that practice is both the sole sourceand ultimate criterion of the truth and emphasising the leap from theoryto revolutionary practice. In so doing Mao further developed the proletariantheory of knowledge. He led in taking philosophy to the masses in their millions,popularizing, for example, that "one divides into two" in opposition to therevisionist thesis that "two combines into one".
Mao Tsetung further developed the understanding that the "people and thepeople alone are the motive force in the making of world history". He developedthe understanding of the mass line: "take the ideas of the masses (scatteredand unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them intoconcentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate andexplain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fastto them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of theseideas in such action". Mao stressed the profound truth that matter can betransformed into consciousness and consciousness into matter, further developingthe understanding of the conscious dynamic role of man in every field ofhuman endeavour.
Mao Tsetung led the international struggle against modern revisionism ledby the Khrushchevite revisionists. He defended the communist ideologicaland political line against the modern revisionists and called upon the genuineproletarian revolutionaries to break with them and forge parties based onMarxist-Leninist-Maoist principles.
Mao Tsetung undertook a penetrating analysis of the lessons of the restorationof capitalism in the USSR and the shortcomings as well as the positiveachievements of the construction of socialism in that country. While Maodefended the great contributions of Stalin, he also summed up Stalin's errors.He summed up the experience of the socialist revolution in China and therepeated two-line struggles against revisionist headquarters within the CommunistParty of China. He masterfully applied materialist dialectics to the analysisof the contradictions of socialist society.
Mao taught that the Party must play the vanguard role -- before, during andafter the seizure of power -- in leading the proletariat in the historicstruggle for communism. He developed the understanding of how to preservethe proletarian revolutionary character of the Party through waging an activeideological struggle against bourgeois and petit bourgeois influences inits ranks, the ideological remoulding of the Party members, criticism andself-criticism and waging two-line struggle against opportunist and revisionistlines in the Party. Mao taught that once the proletariat seizes power andthe Party becomes the leading force within the socialist state, the contradictionbetween the Party and the masses becomes a concentrated expression of thecontradictions marking socialist society as a transition between capitalismand communism.
Mao Tsetung developed the proletariat's understanding of political economy,of the contradictory and dynamic role of production itself and of itsinterrelationship with the political and ideological superstructure of society.Mao taught that the system of ownership is decisive in the relations ofproduction but that, under socialism, attention must be paid that publicownership is socialist in content as well as in form. He stressed the interactionbetween the system of socialist ownership and the other two aspects of therelations of production, the relations between people in production and thesystem of distribution. Mao developed the Leninist thesis that politics isthe concentrated expression of economics, showing that under socialist societythe correctness of the ideological and political line determines whetherthe proletariat actually owns the means of production. Conversely, he pointedout that the rise of revisionism means the rise of the bourgeoisie, thatgiven the contradictory nature of the socialist economic base it would beeasy for capitalist roaders to rig up the capitalist system if they cometo power.
He profoundly criticised the revisionist theory of the productive forcesand concluded that the superstructure, consciousness, can transform the baseand with political power develop the productive forces. All this took expressionin Mao's slogan, "Grasp Revolution, Promote Production."
Mao Tsetung initiated and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution whichrepresented a great leap forward in the experience of exercising the dictatorshipof the proletariat. Hundreds of millions of people rose up to overthrow thecapitalist readers who had emerged from within the socialist society andwho were especially concentrated in the leadership of the Party itself (suchas Liu Shao-chi , Lin Piao and Deng Xiao-ping) . Mao led the proletariatand masses in challenging the capitalist roaders and imposing the interests,outlook and will of the great majority in every sphere that, even in socialistsociety, had remained the private reserve of the exploiting classes and theirway of thinking.
The great victories won in the Cultural Revolution prevented the capitalistrestoration in China for a decade and led to great socialist transformationsin the economic base as well as in education, literature and art, scientificresearch and other parts of the superstructure. Under Mao's leadership themasses dug away at the soil which engenders capitalism -- such as bourgeoisright and the three great differences between town and country, between workerand peasant, and between mental and manual labour.
In the course of fierce ideological and political struggle, millions of workersand other revolutionary masses greatly deepened their class consciousnessand mastery of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and strengthened their capacity towield political power. The Cultural Revolution was waged as part of theinternational struggle of the proletariat and was a training ground inproletarian internationalism.
Mao grasped the dialectical relationship between the necessity of revolutionaryleadership and the need to arouse and rely on the revolutionary masses frombelow to implement proletarian dictatorship. In this way, the strengtheningof the proletarian dictatorship was also the most extensive and deepest exercisein proletarian democracy yet achieved in the world, and heroic revolutionaryleaders came forward such as Chiang Ching and Chang Chun-chiao who stoodalongside the masses and led them into battle against the revisionists andwho continued to hold high the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the faceof bitter defeat.
Lenin said, "Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the classstruggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat." In thelight of the invaluable lessons and advances achieved through the GreatProletarian Cultural Revolution led by Mao Tsetung, this dividing line hasbeen further sharpened. Now it can be stated that only he is a Marxist whoextends the recognition of class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorshipof the proletariat and to the recognition of the objective existence of classes,of antagonistic class contradictions, of the bourgeoisie in the Party andof the continuation of the class struggle under the dictatorship of theproletariat throughout the whole period of socialism until communism. AsMao so powerfully stated, "Lack of clarity on this question will lead torevisionism."
The capitalist restoration following the 1976 counter-revolutionary coupd'etat led by Hua Kuo-feng and Deng Xiao-ping in no way negates Maoism orthe world-historic achievements and tremendous lessons of the Great ProletarianCultural Revolution; rather this defeat confirms Mao's theses on the natureof socialist society and the need to continue the revolution under thedictatorship of the proletariat.
Clearly, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution represents a world-historicepic of revolution, a victorious high point for the world's communists andrevolutionaries, an imperishable achievement. Although we have a whole processahead of us, that revolution left us great lessons we are already applying,such as, for example, the point that ideological transformation is fundamentalin order for our class to seize power.
  Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: The Third Great Milestone
In the course of the Chinese revolution Mao had developed Marxism-Leninismin many important fields. But it was in the crucible of the Great ProletarianCultural Revolution that our ideology took a leap and the third great milestone,Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, fully emerged. From the higher plane ofMarxism-Leninism-Maoism the revolutionary communists could grasp the teachingsof the previous great leaders even more profoundly and indeed even Mao Tsetung'searlier contributions took on deeper significance. Today, without Maoismthere can be no Marxism-Leninism. Indeed, to negate Maoism is to negateMarxism-Leninism itself.
Each great milestone in the development of the revolutionary ideology ofthe proletariat has met with bitter resistance and has only achieved recognitionthrough intense struggle and through its application in revolutionary practice.Today the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement declares thatMarxism-Leninism-Maoism must be the commander and guide of the world revolution.
Hundreds of millions of proletarians and oppressed masses of the world areincreasingly propelled into struggle against the world imperialist systemand all reaction. On the battlefield against the enemy they search for theirown flag. Revolutionary communists must wield our universal ideology andspread it among the masses to further unleash them and organise their forces,in order to seize power through revolutionary violence. To accomplish this,Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties, united in the Revolutionary InternationalistMovement, must be formed wherever they do not exist and existing ones mustbe strengthened in order to prepare, launch and carry through to victoryPeople's War to seize power for the proletariat and the oppressed people.We must uphold, defend and, most importantly, apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
We must step up our struggle for the formation of a Communist Internationalof a new type, based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The world proletarian revolutioncannot advance to victory without forging such a weapon because, as Mao Tsetungtaught, either we all go to communism or none of us go.
Mao Tsetung said, "Marxism consists of thousands of truths, but in the finalanalysis they all boil down to one: it is right to rebel." The RevolutionaryInternationalist Movement takes the rebellion of the masses as its startingpoint, and calls on the proletariat and revolutionaries the world over totake up Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. This liberating, partisan ideology mustbe brought home to the proletariat and all the oppressed because it alonecan enable the rebellion of the masses to sweep away thousands of years ofclass exploitation and bring to birth the new world of communism.
  Hold High the Great Red Banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
26 December 1993

   Adopted by the delegates and observers at the Second International
  Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations which
  formed the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.   

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    Central Reorganisation Committee, Communist Party of India  (Marxist-Leninist)
  Ceylon Communist Party
  Communist Collective of Agit/Prop [Italy]
  Communist Committee of Trento [Italy]
  Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist) [BSD (M-L)]
  Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), Mao Tsetung Regional  Committee
  Communist Party of Peru
  Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist
  Haitian Revolutionary Internationalist Group
  Nepal Communist Party (Marshal)
  New Zealand Red Flag Group
  Revolutionary Internationalist Contingent [Britain]
  Proletarian Communist Organisation, Marxist-Leninist [Italy]
  Proletarian Party of Purba Bangla (Bangladesh)
  Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia
  Leading Committee, Revolutionary Communist Party, India
  Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
  Revolutionary Communist Union [Dominican Republic]
  Union of Iranian Communists (Sarbedaran)

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•       The World Situation      
  
•       On the Two Component Parts of the World Proletarian      Revolution      
  
•       Some Questions Regarding the History of the International      Communist Movement      
  
•       The USSR and the Comintern      
  
•       Mao Tsetung, the Cultural Revolution and the Marxist-Leninist      Movement      
  
•       The Tasks of Revolutionary Communists      
  
•       Tasks in the Colonial, Semi (or Neo) Colonial Countries      
  
•       The Imperialist Countries      
  
•       For the Ideological, Political and Organisational Unity      of Marxist-Leninists      
  
•       Summation      

Today the world is on the threshold of momentous events. The crisis of theimperialist system is rapidly bringing about the danger of the outbreak ofa new, third, world war as well as the real perspective for revolution incountries throughout the world." The scientific accuracy of these words fromthe Joint Communique of our First International Conference in Autumn 1980have not only been fully borne out by the recent developments in the world,but the world situation has been further accentuated and aggravated sincethat time.
Thus the Marxist-Leninist movement is confronted with the exceptionally seriousresponsibility to further unify and prepare its ranks for the tremendouschallenges and momentous battles shaping up ahead. The historic mission ofthe proletariat calls ever more urgently for an all-out preparation for suddenchanges and leaps in developments, particularly at this current conjuncturewhere national developments are more profoundly affected by developmentson a world scale, and where unprecedented prospects for revolution are inthe making. We must sharpen our revolutionary vigilance and increase ourpolitical, ideological, organisational and military readiness in order towield these opportunities in the best possible manner for the interests ofour class and to conquer the most advanced positions possible for the worldproletarian revolution.
Armed with the scientific teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and MaoTsetung we are fully conscious of the tasks expected of us in the presentsituation and are proud to accept and act in accordance with this historicresponsibility.
The Marxist-Leninist movement continues to confront a deep and serious crisiswhich came to a head following the reactionary coup d'etat in China followingthe death of Mao Tsetung and the treacherous betrayal of Enver Hoxha. Howeverdespite these reversals there are genuine Marxist-Leninists on all continentswho have refused to abandon the struggle for communism.
The international communist movement is developing through a process of furtherconsolidated unity and advance along the scientific principles ofMarxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Since 1980 we have developed our strengthand increased our ability to influence and lead developments. Our SecondInternational Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations whichwas successfully convened despite unfavourable and difficult conditions,represents a qualitative leap in the unity and maturing of our movement.The tasks that cry out to be done can and shall be accomplished by forgingan invincible barricade against revisionist and all bourgeois ideology, byproviding scientific leadership to and standing in the forefront of the surgingrevolutionary waves, by consciously applying the principles ofMarxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to guide our practice and sum up ourexperience in the crucible of revolutionary class struggle.
The following Declaration has been forged through painstaking, comprehensivediscussions and principled struggle by the delegates and observers at theSecond International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisationswhich formed the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
  The World Situation
All the major contradictions of the world imperialist system are rapidlyaccentuating: the contradiction between various imperialist powers, thecontradiction between imperialism and the oppressed peoples and nations,and the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in theimperialist countries. All of these contradictions have a common origin inthe capitalist mode of production and its fundamental contradiction. Therivalry between the two blocs of imperialist powers led by the US and theUSSR respectively is bound to lead to war unless revolution prevents it andthis rivalry is greatly affecting world events.
The post World War II world is rapidly coming apart at the seams. Theinternational economic and political relations the "division of the world"- established through and in the aftermath of World War II no longer correspondto the needs of the various imperialist powers to "peacefully" extend andexpand their profit empires. While the post World War II world has undergoneimportant changes as a result of conflicts between the imperialists and,especially, as a result of revolutionary struggle, today it is this entirenetwork of economic, political and military relations that is being calledinto question. The relative stability of the major imperialist powers andthe relative prosperity of a handful of countries based on the blood andmisery of the exploited majority of the world's people and nations is comingunraveled. The revolutionary struggles of the oppressed nations and peoplesis again on the rise and delivering new blows to the imperialist world order.
It is in this context that the statement by Mao Tsetung, "Either revolutionwill prevent war, or war will give rise to revolution" rings out all themore clearly and takes on urgent importance. The very logic of the imperialistsystem and the revolutionary struggles is preparing a new situation. Thecontradiction between the rival bands of imperialists, between the imperialistsand the oppressed nations, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie inthe imperialist countries, are all likely in the coming period to expressthemselves by the force of arms on an unprecedented scale. As Stalin saidin regard to the First World War:

•     The significance of the imperialist war which broke out ten years ago lies,    among other things, in the fact that it gathered all these contradictions    into a single knot and threw them on to the scales, thereby accelerating    and facilitating the revolutionary battles of the proletariat.

The heightening of contradictions is now drawing, and will do so even moredramatically in the future, all countries and regions of the world and sectionsof the masses previously lulled to sleep or oblivious to political life intothe vortex of world history. And so the revolutionary communists must getprepared, and prepare the class conscious workers and revolutionary sectionsof the people and step up their revolutionary struggle.
Communists are resolute opponents of imperialist war and must mobilise andlead the masses in the fight against preparations for a third world war whichwould be the greatest crime committed in the history of mankind. But theMarxist-Leninists will never hide the truth from the masses: only revolution,revolutionary war that the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary forces areleading or preparing to lead, can prevent this crime. Marxist-Leninists mustseize hold of the revolutionary possibilities that are developing rapidlyand lead the masses in stepping up the revolutionary struggle on all fronts- beginning revolutionary warfare where that is possible, stepping uppreparations where the conditions for such revolutionary warfare are notyet ripe. In this way the struggle for communism will advance and it is possiblethat the victory of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples in the courseof decisive battles will shatter the imperialists' present preparations forworld war, establish the rule of the working class in a number of countriesand create an overall world situation more favourable to the advance of therevolutionary struggle. If, on the other hand, the revolutionary struggleis not capable of preventing a third world war, the communists and therevolutionary proletariat and masses must be prepared to mobilise the outragethat such a war and the inevitable suffering accompanying it will engenderand direct it against the source of war - imperialism, take advantage-ofthe weakened position of the enemy and in this way turn a reactionary imperialistwar into a just war against imperialism and reaction.
Since imperialism has integrated the world into a single global system landis increasingly doing so) the world situation increasingly influences thedevelopments in each country; thus revolutionary forces all over the worldmust base themselves on a correct evaluation of the overall world situation.This does not negate the crucial task they face of evaluating the specificconditions in each country, formulating specific strategy and tactics anddeveloping revolutionary practice. Unless this dialectical relationship betweenthe overall situation at the global level and the concrete conditions ineach country is grasped correctly by Marxist-Leninists they will not be ableto utilise the extremely favourable situation at the global level in favourof revolution in each country.
Tendencies in the international movement to view the revolution in one countryapart from the overall struggle for communism must be struggled against:Lenin pointed out, "There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism,and that is - working wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionarymovement and the revolutionary struggle in one's own country, and supporting{by propaganda, sympathy and material aid) this struggle, this, and onlythis, line in every country without exception." Lenin stressed that proletarianrevolutionaries must approach the question of their revolutionary work notfrom the point of view of "my" country but "from the point of view of myshare in the preparation, in the propaganda, and in the acceleration of theworld proletarian revolution."
  On the Two Component Parts of the World Proletarian  Revolution
Lenin analysed long ago the division of the world between a handful of advancedcapitalist countries and the great number of oppressed nations comprisingthe largest part of the world's territory and population which the imperialistsparasitically pillage and maintain in an enforced state of dependency andbackwardness. From this reality flows the Leninist view, confirmed by history,that the world proletarian revolution is composed essentially of two streams- the proletarian-socialist revolution waged by the proletariat and its alliesin the imperialist citadels and the national liberation, or new democraticrevolution waged by the nations and peoples subjugated to imperialism. Thealliance between these two revolutionary currents remains the cornerstoneof revolutionary strategy in the era of imperialism.
In the period since the Second World War until now the struggle of the oppressedpeoples and nations has been the storm centre of the world revolutionarystruggle. Prosperity, stability and "democracy" in a number of imperialiststates has been bought and paid for by the intensified exploitation and miseryof the masses in the oppressed countries. Far from eliminating the nationaland colonial question, the development of neo-colonialism has further subjugatedwhole nations and peoples to the requirements of international capital andled to a whole series of revolutionary wars against imperialist domination.
The current intensification of world contradictions while bringing forthfurther possibilities for these movements also places new obstacles and newtasks before them. Despite efforts and even some successes of the imperialistpowers in subverting or perverting the revolutionary struggles of the oppressedmasses, especially in the hopes of turning them into weapons of inter-imperialistrivalry, these struggles continue to deal powerful blows to the imperialistsystem, and accelerate the development of revolutionary possibilities inthe world as a whole.
In the imperialist countries of the Western bloc the post World War II periodhas been essentially marked by a non-revolutionary situation reflecting therelative stability of imperialist rule in these countries inseparably linkedto the intense exploitation of the oppressed peoples by these imperialiststates. Nevertheless, the revolutionary prospects in these countries aremore favourable than in any time in recent memory. History has shown thatrevolutionary situations in these types of countries are rare and are generallyconnected with the acute intensification of world contradictions, such asthe conjuncture taking form in the world today.
The mass revolutionary struggles that developed in most of the Westernimperialist countries especially during the 1960s demonstrate forcefullythe possibility of proletarian revolution in these countries, despite thefact that the conditions were not favourable for a seizure of power at thattime and these movements declined along with the overall ebb in the worldmovement. Today the sharpening world situation is increasingly reflectedin these countries as seen, for example, by important rebellions of the lowerstrata of the proletariat in some imperialist countries as well as the growthof a powerful movement against imperialist war preparations in a number ofcountries, including within it a more revolutionary section.
In the capitalist and imperialist countries of the Eastern bloc importantcracks and fissures in the relative stability of the rule by the state-capitalistbourgeoisie are more and more apparent. In Poland the proletariat and othersections of the masses have risen in struggle and delivered powerful blowsto the established order. In these countries, also, possibilities for proletarianrevolution are developing and will be heightened by the development andintensification of world contradictions.
It is important that the revolutionary elements in both kinds of countriesbe educated to understand the nature of the strategic alliance between therevolutionary proletarian movement in the advanced countries and thenational-democratic revolutions in the oppressed nations. The social-chauvinistposition that would deny the importance of the revolutionary struggle ofthe oppressed peoples or their ability, under the leadership of the proletariatand a genuine Marxist-Leninist party, to lead to the establishment of socialismis still a dangerous deviation to be combated. The modern revisionists, ledby the USSR, who claim that a national liberation struggle can only be successfulif bestowed by "aid" from its "natural (imperialist) ally" and the Trotskyiteswho negate in principle the possibility of the transformation of anational-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution are examples ofthis pernicious tendency. On the other hand, in the recent period a significantproblem has been another deviation which ignores the possibility of revolutionarysituations arising in the advanced countries or considers that such revolutionarysituations could only arise as a direct result of the advances in the nationalliberation struggles. Both these deviations sap the strength of the revolutionaryproletariat in that they fail to take account of the developing world conjunctureand the possibilities for revolutionary advances in different kinds of countriesand on a world scale that flow from it.
  Some Questions Regarding the History of the International  Communist Movement
In the little over a century since the publication of the CommunistManifesto and its call "workers of all countries, unite!" an immensewealth of experience has been accumulated by the international proletariat.This experience comprehends the revolutionary movement in different typesof countries in the great days of decisive victories and revolutionary elanand the periods of the darkest reaction and retreat. In the course of thetwists and turns of the movement the science of Marxism-Leninism-Mao TsetungThought has taken shape and developed through a constant struggle againstthose who cut out its revolutionary heart and/or render it a stale and lifelessdogma. Important turning points in the development of world history and theclass struggle have invariably been accompanied by fierce battles on theideological front between Marxism and revisionism and dogmatism. This wasthe case with Lenin's struggle against the Second International (whichcorresponded with the outbreak of the First World War and the developmentof a revolutionary situation in Russia and elsewhere} and in the struggleof Mao Tsetung against modern Soviet revisionism, a great struggle whichreflected world historic developments (the reestablishment of capitalismin the USSR, the intensification of the class struggle in socialist China,the development of a worldwide upsurge of revolutionary struggle aimedparticularly at US imperialism). Similarly, the profound crisis that theinternational communist movement is now experiencing is a reflection of thereversal of proletarian rule in China and the all-round attack on the CulturalRevolution following the death of Mao Tsetung and the coup d'etat of TengHsiao-ping and Hua Kuo-feng, as well as the overall heightening of worldcontradictions accentuating the danger of world war and the prospects forrevolution. Today, as in the other great struggles, the forces fighting fora revolutionary line are a small minority encircled and attacked by revisionistsand bourgeois apologists of all stripes. Nevertheless, these forces representthe future, and the further advances of the international communist movementdepend on their ability to forge a political line which charts the path forwardfor the revolutionary proletariat in the current complex situation. Thisis because if one's line is correct, even if one has not a single soldierat first there will be soldiers and even if there is no political power,power will be gained. This is borne out by the historical experience of theinternational communist movement since the time of Marx.
An extremely important element for the elaboration of such a general linefor the international communist movement is the correct evaluation of thehistorical experience of our movement. It would be extremely irresponsible,and contrary to the Marxist theory of knowledge, to fail to attach adequateimportance to experience gained and lessons learned in the course of massrevolutionary struggles of millions of people and paid for by countless martyrs.
Today, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, together with other Maoistforces, are the inheritors of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, and theymust firmly base themselves on this heritage. But they must also, on thebasis of this heritage, dare to criticise its shortcomings. There are experienceswhich people should praise and there are experiences which should make peoplegrieve. Communists and revolutionaries in all countries should ponder andseriously study these experiences of success and failure so as to draw correctconclusions and useful lessons from them.
The summation of our heritage is a collective responsibility which must becarried out by the entire international communist movement. Such a summationmust be done in a ruthlessly scientific manner, basing itself on Marxist-Leninistprinciples and fully taking into account the concrete historical conditionswhich existed then and the limits they placed on the proletarian vanguardand above all in the spirit of making the past serve the present, in orderto avoid metaphysical errors of measuring the past with today's yardstick,disregarding historical conditions. Such a thorough summation will undoubtedlytake a fairly long time but the pressure of world events, the opening upof revolutionary possibilities, demands that certain key lessons be drawntoday to better enable the vanguard forces of the proletariat to fulfilltheir responsibilities.
The summation of historical experience has, itself, always been a sharp arenaof class struggle. Ever since the defeat of the Paris Commune, opportunistsand revisionists have seized upon the defeats and shortcomings of the proletariatto reverse right and wrong, confound the secondary with the principal, andthus conclude that the proletariat "should not have taken to arms." The emergenceof new conditions has often been used as an excuse to negate fundamentalprinciples of Marxism under the signboard of its "creative development."At the same time, it is incorrect and just as damaging to abandon the Marxistcritical spirit, to fail to sum up the shortcomings as well as the successesof the proletariat, and to rest content with upholding or reclaiming positionsconsidered correct in the past. Such an approach would make Marxism-Leninismbrittle and unable to withstand the attacks of the enemy and incapable ofleading new advances in the class struggle - and suffocate its revolutionaryessence.
In fact, history has shown that real creative developments of Marxism landnot phoney revisionist distortions) have always been inseparably linked witha fierce struggle to defend and uphold basic principles of Marxism-Leninism.Lenin's two-fold struggle against the open revisionists and against those,like Kautsky, who opposed revolution under the guise of "Marxist orthodoxy"and Mao Tsetung's great battle to oppose the modern revisionists and theirnegation of the experience of building socialism in the USSR under Leninand Stalin while carrying out a thorough and scientific criticism of theroots of revisionism are evidence of this.
Today a similar approach is necessary to the thorny questions and problemsof the history of the international communist movement. A serious dangercomes from those who, in the face of setbacks in the international communistmovement since the death of Mao Tsetung, declare that Marxism-Leninism hasfailed or is outmoded and the entire experience acquired by the proletariatmust be put into question. This tendency would negate the experience of thedictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union, eliminate Stalin fromthe ranks of proletarian leaders, and in fact, attack the basic Leninistthesis on the nature of the proletarian revolution, the need for a vanguardparty and the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Mao powerfully expressed"I think there are two 'swords': one is Lenin and the other Stalin", oncethe sword of Stalin has been discarded "once this gate is opened, by andlarge Leninism is thrown away." This statement made by Mao Tsetung in 1956has been shown by the experience of the international communist movementup to today to retain its validity. Similarly today the advances in the scienceof revolution made by Mao Tsetung are also attacked or rendered unrecognizable.In fact all this is a "new" version of very old and stale revisionism andsocial democracy.
This more or less open revisionism, whether it comes from the traditionalpro-Moscow parties or its "Euro-communist" current from the revisionist usurpersin China, or from the Trotskyites and the petit-bourgeois critics of Leninism,remains the main danger to the international communist movement. At the sametime, revisionism in its dogmatic form continues to be a bitter enemy ofrevolutionary Marxism. This current, most sharply expressed in the politicalline of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania, attacks Mao TsetungThought, the path of the Chinese Revolution and especially the experienceof the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Masquerading as defenders ofStalin (when in fact many of their theses are Trotskyites), these revisionistssoil the genuine revolutionary heritage of Stalin. These imposters use theshortcomings and errors of the international communist movement, and notits achievements in order to buttress up their revisionist-trotskyite line,and demand that the international communist movement follow suit on the basisof a return to some mystical "doctrinal purity". The many features this Hoxhaiteline shares with classical revisionism, including the ability of Sovietrevisionism (as well as reaction in general) to promote and/or profit fromboth openly anti-Leninist "Euro-communism" and Hoxha's disguised anti-Leninismat the same time, are testimony to their common bourgeois ideological basis.
Upholding Mao Tsetung's qualitative development of the science ofMarxism-Leninism represents a particularly important and pressing questionin the international movement and among the class conscious workers and otherrevolutionary minded people in the world today. The principle involved isnothing less than whether or not to uphold and build upon the decisivecontributions to the proletarian revolution and the science of Marxism-Leninismmade by Mao Tsetung. It is therefore nothing less than a question of whetheror not to uphold Marxism-Leninism itself.
Stalin said, "Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarianrevolution." This is entirely correct. Since Lenin's death the world situationhas undergone great changes. But the era has not changed. The fundamentalprinciples of Leninism are not outdated, they remain the theoretical basisguiding our thinking today. We affirm that Mao Tsetung Thought is a new stagein the development of Marxism-Leninism. Without upholding and building onMarxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought it is not possible to defeat revisionism,imperialism and reaction in general.
  The USSR and the Comintern
The October Revolution in Russia and the establishment of the dictatorshipof the proletariat opened a new stage in the history of the internationalworking class movement. The October Revolution was the living confirmationof Lenin's vital development of the Marxist theory of the proletarian revolutionand the dictatorship of the proletariat. For the first time in history theworking class succeeded in smashing the old state apparatus, establishingits own rule, beating back the attempts of the exploiters to strangle thesocialist regime in its infancy and creating the political conditions necessaryfor the establishment of a new, socialist, economic order. In this processthe central role of a vanguard political party of a new type, the Leninistparty, was demonstrated.
The international impact of the Russian Revolution, coming especially asit did in the course of the world conjuncture marked by the First World Warand the upsurge of revolutionary activity that accompanied it, was immense.From the beginning the leaders and class conscious workers in the new socialiststate viewed the success of the revolution there not as an end in itselfbut as the first major breakthrough in the worldwide struggle to defeatimperialism, uproot exploitation and establish communism throughout the world.In the wake of the Russian Revolution a new, Communist, International wasformed on the basis of assimilating the vital lessons of the Bolshevik revolutionand in rupturing with the reformism and social democracy that had poisonedand eventually characterised the great majority of socialist parties makingup the Second International. The Russian Revolution and the Comintern inconnection with the objective developments brought about by World War Itransformed the struggle for socialism and communism from an essentiallyEuropean phenomenon into a truly worldwide struggle for the first time inhistory.
Lenin and Stalin developed the proletarian line on the national and colonialquestion, stressing the importance of the revolutions in oppressed countriesin the overall process of the world proletarian revolution and arguing againstthose such as Trotsky who held that the revolution in these countries wasdependent on the victory of the proletariat in the imperialist countriesand denied the possibility of the proletariat carrying out a socialist revolutionon the basis of having led the first, bourgeois democratic stage of therevolution in these types of countries.
The period that followed the Russian Revolution was marked by worldwiderevolutionary ferment and attempts at establishing working class politicalpower in a number of countries. Despite the unbending assistance the newlyestablished USSR gave and the political attention by Lenin to the revolutionarymovement worldwide, the temporary resolution of the crisis that World WarI concentrated and the remaining strength of the imperialist powers as wellas the weaknesses of the revolutionary working class movement led to thedefeat of the revolution outside the borders of the USSR.
Lenin and his successor Stalin were faced with the necessity of safeguardingthe gains of the revolution in the USSR and carrying through the establishmentof a socialist economic system in the Soviet Union alone. Following Lenin'sdeath an important ideological and political struggle was waged by Stalinagainst the Trotskyites and others who claimed that the low level of theproductive forces in the USSR, the existence of an immense peasantry andthe USSR's international isolation made it impossible to carry out theconstruction of socialism. This erroneous, capitulationist viewpoint wasrefuted both theoretically and, more importantly, in practice as tens ofmillions of workers and peasants went into battle to uproot the old capitalistsystem, to collectivise agriculture and create a new economic system no longerbased on the exploitation of man by man.
These soul-stirring battles and the important victories won in them greatlyspread the influence of Marxism-Leninism and increased the prestige of theUSSR throughout the world. The class conscious workers and oppressed peoplescorrectly considered the socialist USSR as their own, rejoiced in the victorieswon by the Soviet working class and came to its defence against the menacesand attacks of the imperialists.
Nevertheless it can be seen in retrospect that the progress of the socialistrevolution in the USSR, even in the period of the great socialist transformationsin the late 1920s end '30s, was marked by serious weaknesses and shortcomings.Some of these weaknesses are to be explained by the lack of previous historicalexperience of the dictatorship of the proletariat [outside of the short-livedParis Commune) and by the severe imperialist blockade and aggression aimedat the USSR. These problems were increased and supplemented, however, bysome important theoretical and political errors. Mao Tsetung, while upholdingStalin from the slanders of Khrushchev, made serious and correct criticismsof these errors: Mao explained the ideological basis for Stalin's errors:"Stalin had a fair amount of metaphysics in him and he taught many peopleto follow metaphysics", "Stalin failed to see the connection between thestruggle of opposites and the unity of opposites. Some people in the SovietUnion are so metaphysical and rigid in their thinking that they think a thinghas to be either one or the other, refusing to recognise the unity of opposites.Hence, political mistakes are made." Stalin's most fundamental error wasto fail to thoroughly apply dialectics in all spheres and thus draw seriouswrong conclusions concerning the nature of the class struggle under socialismand the means to prevent capitalist restoration. While waging a fierce struggleagainst the old exploiting classes, Stalin denied in theory the emergenceof a new bourgeoisie from within the socialist society itself, reflectedand concentrated by the revisionists within the ruling communist party, hencehis erroneous claim that "antagonistic class contradictions" had been eliminatedin the Soviet Union as a result of the basic establishment of socialist ownershipin industry and agriculture. Similarly a failure to thoroughly apply dialecticsto the analysis of socialist society led the Soviet leadership to concludethat there was no longer a contradiction between the productive forces andthe relations of production under socialism and to neglect to pay adequateattention to carrying out the revolution in the superstructure and continuingto revolutionise the relations of production even after the establishment,in the main, of the socialist ownership system.
This incorrect understanding of the nature of socialist society also contributedto Stalin's failure to adequately distinguish the contradictions betweenthe people and the enemy and the contradictions among the people themselves.This in turn contributed to a marked tendency to resort to bureaucratic methodsof handling these contradictions and gave more openings to the enemy.
In the period following the death of Lenin, Stalin led the CommunistInternational which continued to play an important role in advancing theworld revolution and developing and consolidating the newly formed CommunistParties.
In 1935 an extremely important Congress of the Communist International washeld in the midst of a severe world economic crisis, the growing threat ofa new world war and imperialist attacks on the Soviet Union, the coming topower of fascism in Germany and the smashing of the German Communist Party,and the establishment of fascism or menace of the same in a number of othercountries. It was necessary and correct for the Communist International totry to develop a tactical line concerning all of these questions.
Because the Seventh Congress of the Comintern has had such a deep influenceon the history of the international movement it is necessary to make a soberand scientific evaluation of the Report of the Congress in the light of theexisting historical conditions at the time. In particular the reasons forthe defeat of the German Communist Party must be deeply studied. Neverthelesscertain conclusions can be drawn now, and must be in light of the presenttasks of today's Marxist-Leninists and three clear deviations must be identified.
First the distinction between fascism and bourgeois democracy in the imperialistcountries, while certainly of real importance for the Communist Parties,was treated in a way that tended to make an absolute of the difference betweenthese two forms of bourgeois dictatorship and also to make a strategic stageof the struggle against fascism. Secondly, a thesis was developed, whichheld that the growing immiseration of the proletariat would create in theadvanced countries the material basis for healing the split in the workingclass and its consequent polarisation that Lenin had so powerfully analysedin his works on imperialism and the collapse of the Second International.While it is certainly true that the depth of the crisis undermined the socialbase of the labour aristocracy in the advanced capitalist countries and ledto real possibilities that the Communist Parties needed to make use of tounite with large sections of the workers previously under the hegemony ofthe Social Democrats, it was not correct to believe that in any kind of astrategic sense the split in the working class could be healed. Thirdly,when fascism was defined as the regime of the most reactionary section ofthe monopoly bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, this left the dooropen to the dangerous, reformist and pacifist tendency to see a section ofthe monopoly bourgeoisie as progressive.
While it is necessary to sum up these errors and to learn from them it isjust as necessary to recognise the Communist International, including inthis period, as part of the heritage of the revolutionary struggle for communismand to beat back liquidationist and
Trotskyite attempts to seize upon real errors to draw reactionary conclusions.Even during this period the Communist International mobilised millions ofworkers against class enemies and led heroic struggles against reaction suchas the organising of the International Brigades to fight against fascismin Spain in which many of the best sons and daughters of the working classshed their blood in an inspiring example of internationalism.
The Communist International also gave, correctly, great emphasis to the defenceof the Soviet Union, the land of socialism. But when the Soviet Union madecertain compromises with different imperialist countries, the leaders ofthe Comintern more often than not failed to understand the critical pointthat Mao Tsetung was to sum up in 1946 (in relation to the compromises thenbeing made between the USSR and the United States, Britain and France): "Suchcompromise does not require the people in the countries of the capitalistworld to follow suit and make compromises at home." Furthermore, such compromisesmust take into account, first and foremost, the overall development of theworld revolutionary movement in which, of course, the defence of socialiststates plays an important role.
In circumstances of imperialist encirclement of (a) socialist state(s) defendingthese revolutionary conquests is a very important task for the internationalproletariat. It will also be necessary for socialist states to carry outa diplomatic struggle and at times to enter into different types of agreementswith one or another imperialist power. But the defence of socialist statesmust always be subordinate to the overall progress of the world revolutionand must never been seen as the equivalent (and certainly not thesubstitute) for the international struggle of the proletariat. In certainsituations the defence of a socialist country can be principal, but thisis so precisely because its defence is decisive for the advance of the worldrevolution.
It is necessary to sum up the experiences of the international communistmovement during the period around the Second World War in the light of theselessons. World War II cannot be considered a mere repetition of World WarI, for, even if the same murderous logic of the capitalist system was responsiblefor it, it was a complex combination of contradictions. At its beginningin 1939 it was, as Mao then pointed out "unjust, predatory and imperialistin character." But a major change with global implications took place whenHitler's Germany turned his troops on the Soviet Union. This just war onthe part of the Soviet Union drew the support and sym-pathy of the workingclass and oppressed peoples the world over who were greatly inspired by theheroic resistance of the Red Army and the Soviet working class and people.This was no mere sympathy for a victim of aggression but the profound convictionthat the defence of the Soviet Union was also the defence of the socialistbase area of the world revolution. Similarly the war waged by the Chinesepeople under the leadership of the Communist Party of China against Japaneseaggression also developed and was most definitely a just war and a componentpart of the world proletarian revolution.
Particularly with the entry of the Soviet Union into the war it took on amore complex character. It became a combination of four component parts:the war between socialism and imperialism; the war between the imperialistblocs; the wars of the oppressed people against imperialism; and thecontradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which in somecountries developed to the level of armed struggle.
These differing aspects led on the one hand to the growth of socialist forces,the defeat of the fascist imperialist powers, the weakening of imperialismand the quickening tempo of the national liberation struggles. On the otherhand they led to a recasting of the imperialist division of the world withthe US assuming the role of chief bandit among the imperialists.
There were great revolutionary achievements in the course of World War II;at the same time it is impossible not to see serious errors and begin thecollective process of deeply summing them up so as to be better preparedfor coming storms. In particular we can note the error of eclectically combiningthe above mentioned contradictions. In practical political terms, the diplomaticstruggle and international agreements of the Soviet Union became increasinglyconfounded with the activities of the Communist Parties making up the Comintern.This problem also contributed to strong tendencies to portray the non-fascistpowers as something other than what they truly were -imperialists who wouldhave to be overthrown. In the European countries occupied by German fascisttroops it was not incorrect for the Communist Parties to take tactical advantageof national sentiments from the standpoint of mobilising the masses, buterrors were made due to raising such tactical measures to the level of strategy.Liberation struggles in colonies under the domination of the allied imperialistpowers were also held back due to such erroneous views.
While cherishing and upholding the monumental revolutionary struggles andvictories that took place in this important period and the years immediatelyfollowing, today's Marxist-Leninists will have to deepen their understandingof these errors and their basis.
The socialist camp that emerged from the Second World War was never solid.Little revolutionary transformation was carried out in most of the EasternEuropean Peoples' Democracies. In the Soviet Union itself powerful revisionistforces unleashed going into, in the course of, and in the aftermath of theSecond World War grew in strength and influence. In 1956, following the deathof Stalin, these revisionist forces led by Khrushchev succeeded in capturingpolitical power, attacked Marxism-Leninism on all fronts and restored capitalismin that country.
The coup d'etat of Khrushchev and the revisionists in the Soviet Union wasalso, it is clear now, the coup de grace to the communist movement as ithad previously existed. The widespread cancer of revisionism had alreadyconsumed many (including some of the most influential) parties that had madeup the Comintern. In many others only the thinnest veneer covered partiesthat were fast degenerating to positions of modern revisionism while therevolutionary elements were being suffocated. In the Soviet Union itselfafter Stalin's death the genuine Marxist-Leninists and the Soviet proletariat,weakened by the war and disarmed by serious political and ideological errors,proved incapable of mounting any serious riposte to the revisionist betrayers.
  Mao Tsetung, the Cultural Revolution and the Marxist-Leninist  Movement
Beginning immediately after the coup d'etat of Khrushchev, Mao Tsetung andthe Marxist-Leninists in the Chinese Communist Party began to analyse thedevelopments in the Soviet Union and in the international communist movementand to struggle against modern revisionism. In 1963 the publication of AProposal Concerning the General Line of the International CommunistMovement (the 25-point letter) was an all-round and public condemnationof revisionism and a call to the genuine Marxist-Leninists of all countries.The contemporary Marxist-Leninist movement has as its origin this historicappeal and the polemics that accompanied it.
In the Proposal and the polemics Mao and the Chinese Communist Partycorrectly

•     upheld the Leninist position on the dictatorship of the proletariat and refuted    the revisionist theory of "state of the whole people";    
  
•     upheld the necessity of armed revolution and opposed the strategy of a "peaceful    transition to socialism";    
  
•     supported and encouraged the development of the national wars of liberation    of the oppressed peoples; exposing the sham independence of "neo-colonialism"    and refuting the revisionist position that the wars of liberation should    be avoided because they endanger "world peace";    
  
•     made an overall positive evaluation of Stalin and the experience of construction    of socialism in the USSR and refuted the slanders directed against Stalin    of being a "butcher" and a "tyrant", while making some important criticisms    of Stalin's errors;    
  
•     opposed the efforts of Khrushchev to impose a revisionist line on other parties    as well as criticising Thorez, Togliatti, Tito and other modern revisionists;    
  
•     put forward in an embryonic form the thesis Mao Tsetung was developing concerning    the class nature of socialism and carrying through the revolution under the    dictatorship of the proletariat;    
  
•     called for a thorough study of the historical experience of the international    communist movement and the roots of revisionism.

These points, as well as others contained in the Proposal and thepolemics were and remain vital elements to distinguish Marxism-Leninism fromrevisionism. Through these polemics Mao and the Chinese Communist Partyencouraged the Marxist-Leninists to split from the revisionists and formnew proletarian revolutionary parties. The polemics represented a radicalrupture with modern revisionism and a sufficient basis for the Marxist-Leniniststo go forward into battle. Yet, on a number of questions, the criticism ofrevisionism was not thorough enough and some erroneous views were incorporatedeven while criticising others. Exactly because of the important role thesepolemics and Mao and the Chinese Communist Party played in giving birth toa new Marxist-Leninist movement it is correct and necessary to consider thesecondary, negative aspect in the polemics and in the struggle waged by theCommunist Party of China in the international communist movement.
In relation to the imperialist countries, the Proposal put forward the viewthat "In the capitalist countries which US imperialism controls or is tryingto control, the working class and the people should direct their attacksmainly against US imperialism, but also against their own monopoly capitalistsand other reactionary forces who are betraying the national interests." Thisview, which seriously affected the development of the Marxist-Leninist movementin these types of countries, obscures the fact that in imperialist countriesthe "national interests" are imperialist interests and are not betrayed,but on the contrary defended, by the ruling monopoly capitalist class despitewhatever alliances it may make with other imperialist powers and despitethe inevitably unequal nature of such an alliance. The proletariat of thesecountries is thus encouraged to strive to outbid the imperialist bourgeoisieas the best defenders of its own interests. This view had a long historyin the international communist movement and should be broken with.
While the CPC paid great attention to the development of Marxist-Leninistparties in opposition to the revisionists they did not find the necessaryforms and ways to develop the international unity of the communists. Despitecontributions to the ideological and political unity this was not reflectedby efforts to build organisational unity on a world scale. The CPC had anexaggerated understanding of the negative aspects of the Comintern, mainlythose caused by over-centralisation, which led to crushing the initiativeand independence of constituent communist parties. While the CPC correctlycriticised the concept of Father party, pointed out its harmful influencewithin the international communist movement, and stressed the principlesof fraternal relations between parties, the lack of an organised forum fordebating views and achieving a common viewpoint did not help resolve thisproblem but in fact exacerbated it.
If the theoretical struggle against modern revisionism played a vital rolein the rebuilding of a Marxist-Leninist movement it was especially the GreatProletarian Cultural Revolution, an unprecedented new form of struggle, itselfin large part a fruit of this combat against modern revisionism, that gaverise to a whole new generation of Marxist-Leninists. The tens of millionsof workers, peasants and revolutionary youth who went into battle to overthrowthe capitalist roaders entrenched in the party and state apparatus and tofurther revolutionise society struck a vibrant chord among millions of peopleacross the world who were rising up as part of the revolutionary upsurgethat swept the world in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The Cultural Revolution represents the most advanced experience of theproletarian dictatorship and the revolutionising of society. For the firsttime the workers and other revolutionary elements were armed with a clearunderstanding of the nature of the class struggle under socialism; of thenecessity to rise up and overthrow the capitalist roaders who would inevitablyemerge from within the socialist society and which are especially concentratedin the leadership of the party itself and to struggle to further advancethe socialist transformation and thus dig away at the soil which engendersthese capitalist elements. Great victories were won in the course of theCultural Revolution which prevented the revisionist restoration in Chinafor a decade and led to great socialist transformations in education, literatureand art, scientific research and other elements of the superstructure. Millionsof workers and other revolutionaries greatly deepened their class consciousnessand mastery of Marxism-Leninism in the course of fierce ideological and politicalstruggle and their capacity to wield political power was further increased.The Cultural Revolution was waged as part of the international struggle ofthe proletariat and was a training ground in proletarian internationalism,manifested not only by the support given to revolutionary struggles throughoutthe world but also by the real sacrifices made by the Chinese people to renderthis support. Revolutionary leaders emerged such as Chiang Ching and ChangChun-chiao, who stood alongside and led the masses into battle against therevisionists and who continued to defend Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thoughtin the face of bitter defeat.
Lenin said, "Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of class struggleto the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat". In the lightof the invaluable lessons and advances achieved through the Great ProletarianCultural Revolution led by Mao Tsetung, this criterion put forward by Leninhas been further sharpened. Now it can be stated that only he is a Marxistwho extends the recognition of class struggle to the recognition of thedictatorship of the proletariat and to the recognition of the objective existenceof classes, antagonistic class contradictions and of the continuation ofthe class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat throughout thewhole period of socialism until communism. And as Mao so powerfully stated,"Lack of clarity on this question will lead to revisionism."
The Cultural Revolution was the living proof of the vitality of Marxism-Leninism.It showed that the proletarian revolution was unlike all previous revolutionswhich could only result in one exploiting system replacing another. It wasa source of great inspiration to the revolutionaries in all countries. Forall these reasons the Cultural Revolution and Mao Tsetung earned the lastingand vicious abuse of all reactionaries and revisionists and for these samereasons the Cultural Revolution remains an indispensable part of therevolutionary legacy of the international communist movement.
Despite the tremendous victories of the Cultural Revolution the revisionistsin the Chinese party and state continued to maintain important positionsand promoted lines and policies which did considerable harm to the stillfragile efforts to rebuild a genuine international communist movement. Therevisionists in China, who controlled to a large degree its diplomacy andthe relations between the Chinese Communist Party and other Marxist-Leninistparties, turned their backs on the revolutionary struggles of the proletariatand the oppressed peoples or tried to subordinate these struggles to thestate interests of China. Reactionary despots were falsely labeled as"anti-imperialists" and increasingly under the banner of a worldwide struggleagainst "hegemonism" certain imperialist powers of the Western bloc wereportrayed as intermediate or even positive forces in the world. Even duringthis period many of the pro-Chinese Marxist-Leninist parties supported bythe revisionists in the CPC began to shamelessly tail the bourgeoisie andeven support or acquiesce in imperialist adventures and war preparationsaimed at the Soviet Union which was increasingly seen as the "main enemy"in the whole world. All these tendencies blossomed fully with the coup d'etatin China and the revisionists' subsequent elaboration of the "Three WorldsTheory" which they attempted to shove down the throats of the internationalcommunist movement. The Marxist-Leninists have correctly refuted the revisionistslander that the "Three Worlds Theory" was put forward by Mao Tsetung. Howeverthis is not enough. The criticism of the "Thee Worlds Theory" must be deepenedby criticising the concepts underlying it, and the origins must be investigated.Here it is important to note that the revisionist usurpers had to publiclycondemn Mao's closest comrades in arms for opposing this counter-revolutionarytheory.
One of the essential contradictions or features of the epoch of imperialismand the proletarian revolution is the contradiction between socialist statesand imperialist states. While at the present time this contradiction hasbeen temporarily eliminated as a result of the revisionist transformationof a number of formerly socialist states, it is no less true that summingup the experience of the communist movement in handling this contradictionremains an important theoretical task, for it is inevitable that the proletariatwill again find itself in a position where one or a number of socialist stateswill be confronted with the existence of predatory imperialist enemies.
In 1976 shortly after the death of Mao Tsetung the capitalist roaders inChina launched a vicious coup d'etat which reversed the verdicts of the CulturalRevolution, overthrew the revolutionaries in the leadership of the CPC,instituted an all-round revisionist programme and capitulated to imperialism.
This coup d'etat met with resistance from the revolutionaries in the ChineseCommunist Party who have continued to struggle for a restoration of proletarianrule in that country. Internationally, revolutionary communists in many countriessaw through the revisionist line of Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping andcriticised and exposed the capitalist roaders in China. This resistance,in China and internationally, to the coup d'etat is a testimony to the farsightedrevolutionary leadership of Mao Tsetung who tirelessly worked to arm theproletariat and the Marxist-Leninists with an appraisal of the class struggleunder the dictatorship of the proletariat and the possibility of a capitalistrestoration. The theoretical work done by the proletarian headquarters, guidedby Mao Tsetung, also played a major role in equipping Marxist-Leninists witha correct understanding of the nature of the contradictions in socialistsociety and remains an important elaboration of Mao Tsetung Thought. Thisleft the Marxist-Leninist movement ideologically better prepared for thetragic events in 1976 than they were on the occasion of the revisionist coupin the Soviet Union twenty years earlier, despite being forced to face thissituation where there was no socialist country.
Nevertheless it was inevitable that the restoration of capitalism in a countrycomprising one quarter of the world's population and the revisionist captureof the Marxist-Leninist party that had been in the vanguard of the internationalmovement would profoundly affect the world revolutionary struggle and theMarxist-Leninist movement. Many parties previously part of the internationalcommunist movement embraced the revisionists in China and their "Three WorldsTheory", and totally abandoned revolutionary struggle. As a result of thisthese parties spread some demoralisation and, on the other hand, lost theconfidence of the revolutionary elements and have undergone a great crisisor collapsed entirely. Even among some other Marxist-Leninist forces thatrefused to follow the leadership of the Chinese revisionists, the loss inChina led to demoralisation and the putting into question of Marxism-Leninism-MaoTsetung Thought. This tendency was further exacerbated when Enver Hoxha andthe PLA launched an all out attack on Mao Tsetung Thought.
While a certain crisis was to be expected in the international communistmovement following the coup d'etat in China, the depth of this crisis andthe difficulty in putting an end to it indicated that revisionism in differentforms was already strong in the Marxist-Leninist movement by 1976. TheMarxist-Leninists must continue to carry out investigation and study intothe roots of revisionism, in both the more recent period and in previousperiods in the international movement, and continue to wage struggle againstthe continuing revisionist influence while continuing to uphold and buildupon the basic principles forged in the revolutionary advances made by theinternational proletariat and the communist movement throughout its history.
  The Tasks of Revolutionary Communists
The task of revolutionary communists in all countries is to hasten thedevelopment of the world revolution - the overthrow of imperialism and reactionby the proletariat and the revolutionary masses; the establishment of thedictatorship of the proletariat in accordance with the necessary stages andalliances in different countries; and the struggle to eliminate all the materialand ideological vestiges of exploiting society and thus achieve classlesssociety, communism, throughout the world. First and foremost communists mustremember and act in accordance with their reason for being, otherwise theyare of no use to the revolution, and worse, degenerate into obstacles inits path.
Experience has shown that proletarian revolution can only be achieved andcarried forward by a genuine proletarian party based on the science ofMarxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, constructed on Leninist lines, capableof attracting and training the best revolutionary elements among the proletariatand other sections of the masses. Today there is no such party in most countriesin the world and even where such parties exist they are generally notideologically or organizationally strong enough to meet the requirementsand the opportunities of the coming period. For these reasons the establishmentand strengthening of genuine Marxist-Leninist parties is a vital task forthe entire international communist movement.
In countries where no Marxist-Leninist party exists the immediate task facingthe revolutionary communists there is to form such a party with the aid ofthe international communist movement. The key to the establishment of theparty is the development of a correct political line and programme, bothas regards the particularities in a given country and the overall worldsituation. The Marxist-Leninist party must be built in close relationshipwith carrying out revolutionary work among the masses, implementing arevolutionary mass line, and, in particular, addressing and resolving thepressing political questions which must be resolved in order for therevolutionary movement to advance. If this is not done the task of partybuilding can become sterile, divorced from revolutionary practice and leadnowhere. On the other hand it is just as wrong to make the formation of theparty dependent upon the rallying of a certain number of members or to insistthat a certain quantitative influence among the masses be achieved beforethe party's formation. In most cases when the party is first formed, it willbe composed of a relatively small number of members; in any event, the taskof rallying the revolutionary elements to the party's banner and deepeningthe influence of the party among the proletariat and masses is a constanttask.
The Marxist-Leninist party must be built and strengthened in the course ofwaging an active ideological struggle against bourgeois and petit-bourgeoisinfluences in its ranks. In building the vanguard party, Marxist-Leninistsshould learn from the experience of the Cultural Revolution through whichMao fought to insure the party's proletarian character and vanguard role.Mao's understanding of the two-line struggle in the party, his criticismsof erroneous ideas of "a monolithic party" and his emphasis on the need forthe ideological remoulding of party members enriched the basic concept ofthe vanguard party developed by Lenin. It is important to create a politicalsituation in which there are both centralism and democracy, both disciplineand freedom, both unity of will and personal ease of mind and liveliness.
Without being guided by revolutionary theory, practice gropes in the dark.The Marxist-Leninist parties, and the international communist movement asa whole, must deepen their grasp of revolutionary theory in the course ofmaking a concrete analysis of concrete conditions in society and the world.Marxist-Leninists must not abandon the field of analysis of new phenomenato others and must actively wage the theoretical struggle concerning allthe vital problems and questions of debate in the revolutionary movementand society as a whole.
The Marxist-Leninist party must be built and organised with the fundamentalobjective of seizing power firmly in mind and undertake the task of preparingitself and the proletariat and revolutionary masses organizationally, politicallyand ideologically. As the Joint Communique of Autumn 1980 put it, "In short,communists are advocates of revolutionary warfare." This revolutionary warand other forms of revolutionary struggle must be carried out as a key arenafor training the revolutionary masses to be capable of wielding politicalpower and transforming society. Even when conditions do not yet exist forthe armed struggle of the masses, communists must carry out the necessarywork in preparation for the emergence of such conditions. This principlehas a whole series of implications for the Marxist-Leninist parties, regardlessof the differences in tasks and stages the revolution will go through indifferent countries, including that the party, the backbone of which mustbe organised on an illegal basis, should be prepared to withstand the repressionof the reactionaries who will never peacefully tolerate for long a genuinerevolutionary party.
While engaging in, or preparing for, the armed struggle for power theMarxist-Leninist party should utilise different forms of legal and/or openwork. History has shown that such work while important and sometimes evencritical in a given period, must be coupled with exposure of the class natureof bourgeois democracy and in no circumstances should the communists droptheir guard and fail to take the necessary measures to insure the continuedability of the party to carry out revolutionary work when different legalpossibilities disappear. Past experiences of handling the contradiction betweenutilising legal and open possibilities without falling into legalism andparliamentary cretinism should be summed up and the appropriate lessons drawn.
To carry out its revolutionary tasks, to prepare the masses for the seizureof power, the Marxist-Leninist party must be armed with a regularly appearingcommunist press, even though the press will have a different role in relationto the tasks posed by the path of revolution in the two types of countries.The communist press must be neither petty and narrow nor dry and dogmatic.It must strive to arm the class conscious proletariat and others with anall-round view of society and the world, principally through analysis andpolitical exposure following close on the heel of events.
The Marxist-Leninist party in every country must be built as a contingentof the international communist movement and must carry out its struggle aspart of, and subordinate to, the worldwide struggle for communism. The partymust educate its own ranks, the class conscious workers and the revolutionarymasses in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, recognising thatinternationalism is not simply the support rendered of the proletariat inone country to another but, more importantly, a reflection of the fact thatthe proletariat is a single class worldwide with a single class interest,faces a world system of imperialism, and has the task of liberating all ofhumanity.
Such internationalist education and propaganda is an indispensable part ofpreparing the party and proletariat to continue to carry the revolution forwardafter political power has been achieved in a given country. The achievementof political power, and even the establishment of a socialist system notbased on exploitation, must be seen not as the end in itself but as one partof a long transition period full of twists and turns and inevitable setbacksas well as advances until the goal of worldwide communism has been achieved.
  Tasks in the Colonial, Semi (or Neo) Colonial Countries
The colonial (or neo-colonial) countries subjugated by imperialism haveconstituted the main arena of the worldwide struggle of the proletariat inthe period since World War II and up until the present day. In this perioda great deal of experience has been achieved in waging revolutionary struggle,including revolutionary warfare. Imperialism has been handed extremely seriousdefeats and the proletariat has won imposing victories including theestablishment of socialist countries. At the same time the communist movementhas obtained bitter experience where the revolutionary masses in these countrieshave waged heroic struggles, including wars of national liberation, whichhave not led to the establishment of political power by the proletariat andits allies but where the fruits of the victories of the people have beenpicked by new exploiters usually in league with one or another imperialistpower(s). All of this shows that the international communist movement hasa very important task to critically sum up the several decades of experiencein waging revolution in these kinds of countries.
The point of reference for elaborating revolutionary strategy and tacticsin the colonial, semi (or neo) colonial countries remains the theory developedby Mao Tsetung in the long years of revolutionary warfare in China.
The target of the revolution in countries of this kind is foreign imperialismand the comprador-bureaucrat bourgeoisie and feudals, which are classes closelylinked to and dependent on imperialism. In these countries the revolutionwill pass through two stages: a first, new democratic revolution which leadsdirectly to the second, socialist revolution. The character, target and tasksof the first stage of the revolution enables and requires the proletariatto form a broad united front of all classes and strata that can be won tosupport the new democratic programme. It must do so, however, on the basisof developing and strengthening the independent forces of the proletariat,including in the appropriate conditions its own armed forces and establishingthe hegemony of the proletariat among the other sections of the revolutionarymasses, especially the poor peasants. The cornerstone of this alliance isthe worker-peasant alliance and the carrying out of the agrarian revolution(i.e. the struggle against semi-feudal exploitation in the countryside and/orthe fulfillment of the slogan "land to the tiller") occupies a central partof the new democratic programme.
In these countries the exploitation of the proletariat and the masses issevere, the outrages of imperialist domination constant, and the ruling classesusually exercise their dictatorship nakedly and brutally and even when theyutilise the bourgeois-democratic or parliamentary form their dictatorshipis only very thinly veiled. This situation leads to frequent revolutionarystruggles on the part of the proletariat, the peasants and other sectionsof the masses which often take the form of armed struggle. For all thesereasons, including the lopsided and distorted development in these countrieswhich often makes it difficult for the reactionary classes to maintain stablerule and to consolidate their power throughout the state, it is often thecase that the revolution takes the form of protracted revolutionary warfarein which the revolutionary forces are able to establish base areas of onetype or another in the countryside and carry out the basic strategy ofsurrounding the city by the countryside.
The key to carrying out a new democratic revolution is the independent roleof the proletariat and its ability, through its Marxist-Leninist party, toestablish its hegemony in the revolutionary struggle. Experience has shownagain and again that even when a section of the national bourgeoisie joinsthe revolutionary movement, it will not and cannot lead a new democraticrevolution, to say nothing of carrying this revolution through to completion.Similarly, history demonstrates the bankruptcy of an "anti-imperialist front"(or similar "revolutionary front") which is not led by a Marxist-Leninistparty, even when such a front or forces within it adopt a "Marxist" (actuallypseudo-Marxist) colouration. While such revolutionary formations have ledheroic struggles and even delivered powerful blows to the imperialists theyhave been proven to be ideologically and organisationally incapable of resistingimperialist and bourgeois influences. Even where such forces have seizedpower they have been incapable of carrying through a thoroughgoing revolutionarytransformation of society and end up, sooner or later, being overthrown bythe imperialists or themselves becoming a new reactionary ruling power inleague with imperialists.
In conditions when the ruling classes exercise their brutal or fascistdictatorship, the communist party can utilise the contradictions this givesrise to in favour of the new democratic revolution and engage in temporaryagreements or alliances with other class forces. However, this can only becarried out successfully if the party maintains its leadership, utilisingsuch alliances within the overall and principal task of carrying the revolutionto completion without making a strategic stage out of the struggle againstdictatorship since the content of the anti-fascist struggle is nothing otherthan the content of the new democratic revolution.
The Marxist-Leninist party must arm the proletariat and the revolutionarymasses not only with an understanding of the immediate task of carrying throughthe new democratic revolution and the role and conflicting interests of differentclass forces, friend and foe alike, but also of the need to prepare thetransition to the socialist revolution and of the ultimate goal of worldwidecommunism.
For Marxist-Leninists it is a principle that the party must lead revolutionarywarfare in such a way that it is a genuine war of the masses. TheMarxist-Leninists must strive, even in the difficult circumstances of wagingwarfare, to carry out widespread political education and to raise the theoreticaland ideological level of the masses. For this it is necessary to maintainand develop a regular communist press as well as to carry the revolutioninto the cultural sphere.
The main deviation in the recent period in the colonial, semi (or neo) colonialcountries has been and remains the tendency to deny or negate this basicorientation for the revolutionary movement in these types of countries: thenegation of the leading role of the proletariat and the Marxist-Leninistparty; the rejection or opportunist perversion of people's war; the abandonmentof building a united front, based upon the worker-peasant alliance and underthe leadership of the proletariat.
This revisionist deviation has taken on in the past both a "left" and anopenly right-wing form. The modern revisionists preached, especially in thepast, the "peaceful transition to socialism" and promoted the leadershipof the bourgeoisie in the national liberation struggle. However this openlycapitulationist, right-wing revisionism always corresponded with, and hasbecome increasingly intermingled with, a kind of "left" armed revisionism,promoted at times by the Cuban leadership and others, which separated thearmed struggle from the masses and preached a line of combining revolutionarystages into one single "socialist" revolution, which in fact meant appealingto the workers on the narrowest of bases and negating the necessity of theworking class to lead the peasantry and others in thoroughly eliminatingimperialism and the backward and distorted economic and social relationsthat foreign capital thrives on and reinforces. Today this form of revisionismis one of the major planks of the social-imperialist attempt to penetrateand control national liberation struggles.
In order for the revolutionary movement in the colonial, semi (or neo) colonialcountries to develop in a correct direction it is necessary for theMarxist-Leninists to continue to step up the struggle against the revisionistsin all their forms and to uphold the work of Mao Tsetung as an indispensabletheoretical basis for further analysing the concrete conditions in differentcountries of this type and developing the appropriate political line.
At the same time it is necessary to take note of other, secondary, deviationsthat have appeared amongst the genuine revolutionary forces who have strivedto carry out a revolutionary line in the colonial and dependent countries.First of all it must be noted that the countries comprising the oppressednations of Africa, Asia and Latin America are not a monolithic bloc and haveconsiderable differences in relation to their class composition, the formof imperialist domination and their position vis a vis the world situationas a whole. Tendencies to fail to carry out a thorough and scientific studyof these problems, to mechanically copy the previous experience of theinternational proletariat or to fail to take notice of changes in theinternational situation and in particular countries can only harm the causeof the revolution and weaken the Marxist-Leninist forces.
In the 1960s and early 1970s Marxist-Leninist forces in a great many countries,under the influence of the Cultural Revolution in China and as part of thegeneral worldwide revolutionary upsurge, joined with sections of the massesin waging armed revolutionary warfare. In a number of countries theMarxist-Leninist forces were able to rally considerable sections of thepopulation to the revolutionary banner and maintain the Marxist-Leninistparty and armed forces of the masses despite the savage counter-revolutionaryrepression. It was inevitable that these early attempts at building new,Marxist-Leninist parties and the launching of armed struggle would be markedby a certain primitiveness and that ideological and political weaknesseswould manifest themselves, and it is, of course, not surprising that theimperialists and revisionists would seize upon these errors and weaknessesto condemn the revolutionaries as "ultra-leftists" or worse. Neverthelessthese experiences must, in general, be upheld as an important part of thelegacy of the Marxist-Leninist movement which helped lay the basis for furtheradvances.
In the oppressed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America a continuousrevolutionary situation generally exists. But it is important to understandthis correctly: the revolutionary situation does not follow a straight line;it has its ebbs and flows. The communist parties should keep this dynamicin mind. They should not fall into one-sideness in the form of assertingthat the commencement and the final victory of people's war depends totallyon the subjective factor (the communist), a view often associated with "LinPiaoism". Although at all times some form of armed struggle is generallyboth desirable and necessary to carry out the tasks of class struggle inthese countries, during certain periods armed struggle may be the principalform of struggle and at other times it may not be.
When the revolutionary situation is ebbing, the communist parties shoulddetermine appropriate tactics and not fall into rash and impatient advances.In such situations, political and organisational preparations necessary tocarry out protracted people's war should by no means be neglected and formsof struggle and organisation suitable for the concrete conditions shouldbe determined in order to hasten the development of the revolution whileawaiting favourable conditions for further advance. It is necessary to combatany erroneous view which would postpone the commencement of armed struggleor the utilisation of any form of armed struggle until conditions becomefavourable for revolutionary warfare throughout the country. This view negatesthe uneven development of revolution and revolutionary situations in thesecountries, in opposition to Mao's statement, "A single spark can start aprairie fire." It is also important to note that the overall internationalsituation has an influence on the revolution in a particular country; nottaking this into account leaves the Marxist-Leninists unprepared to seizethe opportunity when the revolutionary process is hastened by the developmentson the world scale.
Today as the danger of a new imperialist war is rapidly developing, theMarxist-Leninist parties and organisations in the neocolonial countries arealso confronted with the urgent task of devoting attention to the struggleagainst imperialist war. Communists must take into account the possibilitythat many of these countries may be dragged into the imperialist war accordingto the position these countries have in relation to the different imperialistblocs. Communist parties must consider the various concrete situations thatmight arise in the midst of such an imperialist war and develop their thinkingin relation to these situations. Given the objective conditions in thesecountries the masses are generally less aware of the danger and consequencesof an imperialist war and the Marxist-Leninists must educate them. In theevent of an imperialist war the most important task of the Marxist-Leninistsis to utilise the favourable opportunities thrown up by such a war to intensifythe revolutionary struggle and turn the imperialist war into a revolutionarywar against imperialism and reaction.
The Joint Communique of Autumn 1980 pointed out:

•     There is an undeniable tendency for imperialism to introduce significant    elements of capitalist relations in the countries it dominates. In certain    dependent countries capitalist development has gone so far that it is not    correct to characterize them as semifeudal. It is better to call them    predominantly capitalist even while important elements or remnants of feudal    or semi-feudal production relations and their reflection in the superstructure    may still exist.        In such countries a concrete analysis must be made of these conditions and    appropriate conclusions concerning the path, tasks, character and alignment    of class forces must be drawn. In all events, foreign imperialism remains    a target of the revolution.
  

The analysis of the implications of the increased introduction of capitalistrelations in the countries dominated by imperialism, as well as the specificcase of those oppressed countries which can correctly be termed "predominantlycapitalist," remains an important task for the international movement.Nevertheless some important conclusions can be drawn today.
The view that the combination of formal political independence and theintroduction of widespread capitalist relations has eliminated the need fora new democratic revolution in most or many of the former direct coloniesis wrong and dangerous. This view, promoted by various Trotskyites,social-democrats and petit-bourgeois critics of revolutionary Marxism, holdsthat there is no qualitative distinction between imperialism and those nationsoppressed by it, thus eliminating at a single stroke one of the most importantfeatures of the imperialist epoch.
In fact imperialism continues to be a fetter on the productive forces inthe countries it exploits. The capitalist "development" which it undeniablyintroduces to greater or lesser degrees does not lead to an articulated,national market and a "classical" capitalist economic system but to an extremelylopsided development dependent on and in the interests of foreign capital.
Even in the predominantly capitalist oppressed countries foreign imperialismalong with its domestic props remain the principal target of the revolutionin its first stage. While the path of the revolution in these countries willoften be considerably different than those in which semi-feudal relationsprevail, it is still necessary, in general, for the revolution to pass througha democratic, anti-imperialist stage before the socialist revolution canbe begun.
The relative weight of the cities in relation to the countryside, bothpolitically and militarily, is an extremely important question that is posedby the increased capitalist development of some oppressed countries. In someof these countries it is correct to begin the armed struggle by launchinginsurrections in the city and not to follow the model of surrounding thecities by the countryside. Moreover, even in countries where the path ofrevolution is that of surrounding the city by the countryside, situationsin which a mass upheaval leads to uprisings and insurrections in the citiescan occur and the party should be prepared to utilise such situations withinits overall strategy. However in both these situations, the party's abilityto mobilise the peasants to take part in the revolution under proletarianleadership is critical to its success.
Due to the establishment of a central state structure prior to the processof capitalist development, semi (or neo) colonial countries, in the main,have multi-national social formations within them, in a large number of casesthese states have been created by the imperialists themselves. Furthermore,the borders of these states have been determined as a consequence of imperialistoccupations and machinations. Thus it is generally the case that within thestate borders of countries oppressed by imperialism, oppressed nations, nationalinequality and ruthless national oppression exist. In our era, the nationalquestion has ceased to be an internal question of single countries and hasbecome subordinate to the general question of the world proletarian revolution,hence its thoroughgoing resolution has become directly dependent on the struggleagainst imperialism. Within this context Marxist-Leninists should upholdthe right of self-determination of oppressed nations in the multinationalsemi-colonial states.
Thus it can be said that the Marxist-Leninists in the colonial and neo-colonialcountries confront a double task on the ideological and political front.They must, on the one hand, continue to defend and uphold the basic teachingsof Mao concerning the character and path of the revolution in those typesof countries, as well as defending and building upon the revolutionary attemptsthat (to paraphrase Lenin) accompanied the "mad years" of the 1960s. At thesame time, the revolutionary communists must apply the critical Marxist spiritto analysing both past experience as well as the current situation anddevelopments that affect the course of the revolution in these countries.
  The Imperialist Countries
As the Joint Communique pointed out, in the imperialist countries "the OctoberRevolution remains the basic point of reference for Marxist-Leninist strategyand tactics." It is necessary to reaffirm and deepen this point because thebasic Leninist principles regarding the preparation for and waging of theproletarian revolution in the imperialist countries have long been buriedunder an avalanche of revisionist distortion.
Lenin correctly stressed the need for communists to develop an all-roundpolitical movement of the workers capable, when conditions ripen, of leadingthe revolutionary forces in society in an insurrection aimed against thereactionary state power. He correctly pointed out that such a revolutionarymovement could not grow spontaneously out of the day-to-day economic strugglesof the workers and that, further, these struggles were not the most importantarena of revolutionary work. He argued that the revolutionaries must "divert"the spontaneous movement of the masses away from a narrow struggle over theconditions and sale of labour power. In order to do this it is necessaryto bring political consciousness to the workers from "outside" their immediateexperience, above all through political exposure and analysis of allthe major events in society in every sphere: political, cultural, scientific,etc. Only in this way could a class conscious sector of the proletariat beformed - conscious of its revolutionary tasks and of the nature and roleof all the other class forces in society.
Lenin emphasized too that as crucial as agitation and propaganda are, theyare not enough. Only through class struggle, especially political andrevolutionary struggle, could the masses fully develop their revolutionaryconsciousness and fighting capacity. In this way, and together with the all-roundwork of the communists, the masses learn through their own experience andare educated in the furnace of class struggle.
Far from preaching the "monolithic unity of the working class," Lenindemonstrated that imperialism inevitably leads to a "shift in class relations,"to a split in the working class in the imperialist countries between theoppressed and exploited proletariat and an upper section of the workersbenefiting from and in league with the imperialist bourgeoisie.
Lenin was also the vigorous opponent of all those who, in one form or another,sought to identify the interests of the proletariat with that of "its own"imperialist bourgeoisie. He vigorously fought for a line of revolutionarydefeatism in relation to imperialist war and consistently upheld the bannerof proletarian internationalism in opposition to the tattered "national flag"of the bourgeoisie.
Lenin also analysed that the possibility for making revolution in the capitalistcountries was linked to the development of revolutionary situations whichappear infrequently in these countries but which concentrate the fundamentalcontradictions of capitalism. He analysed the error of the Second Internationalof banking everything on the gradual and peaceful accumulation of socialistinfluence among the masses and argued instead that the task of communistsin relatively 'peaceful" times was to prepare for the exceptional momentsin history when revolutionary transformations in these types of countriesare possible and when the activities of the revolutionaries mark the societyand the world for "decades to come."
Despite the clarity of Lenin on these subjects, and their centrality to theoverall body of scientific socialist theory, the Leninists have quite oftenchosen to ignore it.
Early in the history of the Third International, in certain Communist Parties,erroneous conceptions of "mass parties" in non-revolutionary situations andeconomist deviations appeared. These tendencies grew in strength and becamearticles of faith in the communist movement, along with other wrong and extremelydangerous tendencies to champion bourgeois national interests in the imperialistcountries.
Unfortunately, the rupture with modern revisionism during the 1960s was notablyincomplete especially regarding the strategy and tactics of communists inthe imperialist countries. While the "peaceful road" was rejected and criticisedand the need for an eventual armed uprising propagated, little effort wasgiven to summing up the historical roots of revisionism in the communistmovement in the capitalist countries and, in general, the Marxist-Leninistforces adopted a course of work based more upon the negative experiencesof some of the Communist Parties during the 1930s than on the "October Road"forged under Lenin's leadership.
In most imperialist countries during this period, a significant section ofnew-born revolutionary forces took wrong turns into policies of adventurismor left sectarianism. But especially as time wore on, the new Marxist-Leninistparties and organisations generally adopted a line of making the centre oftheir work concentrating on the day-to-day struggles of the workers and battlingwith the revisionists and bourgeois trade union officials for the leadershipof these struggles. This worship of the "average worker" and the preoccupationwith the economic struggle led to little in terms of actually winning workersto a revolutionary position and to the Marxist-Leninist parties but didunfortunately have a corrosive effect on the Marxist-Leninist parties themselvesand on their members. The economist line dominating the Marxist-Leninistmovement in these countries stood in sharp contrast to the very revolutionaryprinciples on which it was founded. The young militants who made up the bulkof these parties joined them because they wanted to contribute to the worldwiderevolutionary process, because they wanted to struggle for communism. Thedesire to spread the revolutionary movement of the 1960s to the proletariatand to merge with the workers, inspired to no small degree by the experienceof the revolutionary youth in the Cultural Revolution, was a powerful andcorrect revolutionary sentiment which, however, became stifled and distortedunder the influence of economism. As the worldwide revolutionary upsurgereceded, the Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations tended to move furtherand further to the right in an effort to obtain a mass following on anon-revolutionary basis. The members of these organisations saw less andless connection with the preparation for revolution and the tasks they wereactually pursuing. The results of this were distortion, demoralisation andthe strengthening of opportunism.
All of this was further compounded by confusion among the Marxist-Leninistsregarding the "national tasks" (or more precisely, the lack of them) in theimperialist countries. As was pointed out, the polemics of the Chinese CommunistParty contained serious errors in this regard, errors which were incorporatedby the Marxist-Leninist movement. The correct, internationalist desire tofight against US imperialism (correctly singled out as the main bastion ofworld reaction at that time) increasingly mingled with a promotion of thenational interests of the imperialist states insofar as they came intocontradiction with the US and (especially from the early 1970s on) with theSoviet Union. Increasingly wrong positions were taken by a great manyMarxist-Leninist parties concerning world affairs, positions which went againstinternationalism and objectively aligned the positions of these parties onthese issues with imperialist war preparations and counter-revolutionarysuppression. As pointed out earlier, some Marxist-Leninist parties in theimperialist countries had already adopted a thoroughly social-chauvinistline even before the coup d'etat in China in 1976.
These two serious and related errors, economism and social-chauvinism (includingthe embryonic revisionist "Three Worlds Theory"), were the main subjectivefactors that contributed to the virtual collapse in Europe of theMarxist-Leninist movement following the coup d'etat in China. The communistsin the advanced capitalist countries must give great emphasis to the struggleagainst the influence of these deviations in building and strengthening genuineMarxist-Leninist parties.
As the Marxist-Leninist movement floundered in most of the advanced capitalistcountries some sections of the revolutionary youth attempted to find a "newideology" and a different path. The attraction of anarchism and other formsof petit-bourgeois radicalism for significant sections of the revolutionaryyouth reflected a desire to bring about revolutionary change. Neverthelessthese forces are incapable of playing a fully revolutionary role insofaras they lack the only thoroughly revolutionary ideology, Marxism. In somecountries small numbers of people have turned to terrorism, an ideology andpolitical line which does not rely on the revolutionary masses and has nocorrect perspective of a revolutionary overthrow of imperialism. While theseterrorist movements like to appear very "revolutionary," they have alsoincorporated, more often than not, a whole series of revisionist and reformistdeviations such as "the liberation struggle" in imperialist countries, thedefence of the imperialist Soviet Union, and so forth. These movements sharewith economism the fundamental failure to grasp the centrality of raisingthe political consciousness of the masses and leading them in political struggle,as preparation for revolution.
While the "excavating" of basic Leninist principles is the starting pointfor the elaboration of a revolutionary line in the imperialist countries,it is still only a beginning. The imperialist countries of today differ inimportant respects from turn-of-the-century Russia and other imperialistcountries at that time and a great deal of experience (positive and negative)in trying to build a revolutionary movement in these countries has beenaccumulated since the October Revolution.
The process of imperialist development has led to a number of important changesin these countries - including the virtual elimination of a peasantry insome of them, the rapid growth of new sections of the petit bourgeoisie,and so forth. The most important development, however, is the greatly increasedparasitism of the imperialist states based on the plunder of the oppressednations, and a further polarisation of the working class that goes alongwith it.
There is in the imperialist countries a large, well entrenched and influentiallabour aristocracy which benefits from imperialism and willingly serves itsinterests. Imperialism sharpens the contradiction between these workers anda significant strata of the working class [including its industrial reservearmy - the unemployed) who are impoverished and who desire and are inclinedto fight for a radical change. In the principal Western imperialist statesthis lower section of the working class is composed in no small measure ofimmigrant workers from the dominated countries as well as, in some cases,national minorities and oppressed nations from within t he imperialist statesthemselves. It is this lower section of the working class that is the mostimportant element of the social base of the party of the proletariat in theimperialist countries.
In between these two sections of the workers there is a large number, sometimeseven a majority, of workers who, while not benefitting from imperialism inthe manner of the labour aristocracy, have been greatly influenced by a longperiod of relative prosperity and who are not, in ordinary times, in arevolutionary mood. The fight for the allegiance of the broad masses of theseworkers as they are propelled into motion by deepening crisis and especiallyas a revolutionary situation develops, will be an important element in thestruggle between the revolutionary, class conscious proletarians led by theMarxist-Leninist party and the reactionary labour aristocracy and its politicalexpressions. While not neglecting to carry out work among the bourgeoisifiedsections of the working class the Marxist-Leninist party in the imperialistcountries should principally base its work on the most potentially revolutionarysections of the workers.
It is not possible to build the revolutionary movement and lead it to victorywithout paying attention to the battles for daily existence of the workingclass and masses of other strata. While the party must not direct its ownor the messes' attention mainly to such struggle nor foster the dissipationof its own and the masses) forces and energies on them, neither can the partyfail to do work in relation to them. Leading economic struggles is not thesame thing as economism. The proletarian party should take these struggles,especially those with the potential to go beyond conventional bounds, seriouslyinto account. This means conducting work in relation to these struggles insuch a way as to facilitate the moving of the masses to revolutionary positions,especially as the conditions for revolution ripen.
The Marxist-Leninist party must strive to carry out Lenin's call to turnthe factories into fortresses of communism. This is not only an importantpolitical question for the preparation of the revolution but also has importantimplications for the armed insurrection of the proletariat.
Unless the Marxist-Leninist parties in the imperialist countries strike deeproots among the revolutionary masses through evolving and implementing arevolutionary mass line, then efforts to utilise revolutionary situationswill be seriously weakened. In all this the tactics and style of work developedby the Bolshevik Party and summed up by Lenin still remain the basic guideline.However, in order to develop a revolutionary mass line and style of work,Marxist-Leninists in the imperialist countries must put aside conventionalwisdom about 'proper" forms of struggle and organisation and all such dogmas,analyse the specific characteristics of contemporary imperialism and thenature of struggles being waged by the masses and seek out favourable newgrounds for revolutionary practice and develop new forms of struggle andmass organisations.
As Lenin so vividly expressed it, the communist ideal "should not be a tradeunion secretary, but a tribune of the people."
The Marxist-Leninist party, while principally basing itself on the mostpotentially revolutionary sections of the proletariat, must strive to carryout revolutionary work among other sections of the population including elementsof the petit bourgeoisie.
Another factor potentially very favourable to the proletarian revolutionin more than a few of the imperialist countries is the existence of oppressednations and national minorities within the bellies of these beasts. Often,as noted above, large numbers of proletarians from these nationalities forman important part of a single, multi-national proletariat there. But, inaddition to this, there is also a broader national question involved,encompassing other classes and strata of these oppressed nationalities. Suchsituations have often given rise to sharp national struggles within theseimperialist states, and if they are properly handled by the proletarian partiesthere, which should support such struggles and uphold the right ofself-determination where applicable, these struggles can play a significantrole in the struggle to overthrow imperialist states.
In the countries of Eastern Europe Marxist-Leninists face the task of formulatingcorrect strategy and tactics for the socialist revolution, taking into accountthe domination of Soviet social-imperialism and the concrete tasks it poseswithout minimising or overlooking the central task of overthrowing the statepower of their own bureaucratic bourgeoisie.
The current developments toward world war and both the dangers and revolutionaryopportunities that presents require that the Marxist-Leninist parties inthe imperialist countries place great importance on the question of worldwar and revolution. The Marxist-Leninist party must expose imperialist warpreparations and especially the interests and manoeuvres of its "own" imperialistruling class. It must demonstrate to the masses that such a war flows fromthe very nature of capitalist exploitation and is a continuation of imperialisteconomics and politics, and that only the advance of the world revolutioncan stop the war in preparation and attack its source. The communists mustconstantly struggle against every effort to identify the interests of theproletariat with those of the imperialist bourgeoisie and must train theclass conscious proletariat and others to see through the bloody imperialistnature of the national flag.
The communists must build support among the masses for the anti-imperialiststruggle of the oppressed peoples and nations, even where such strugglesare not led by Marxist-Leninists. The party must consistently and concretelytrain the proletariat in internationalism.
The increased danger of world war is now being felt sharply by the massesin the imperialist countries and communists must pay great attention to themass movements against war preparations and to addressing the questions posedby these movements. The Marxist-Leninist party must support the revolutionaryelements in these movements and strive to win them to its ranks. The partymust unite with the anti-war sentiments of the masses while at the same timecombatting illusions that a "peace movement" can stop the imperialist warand especially the national chauvinist views that seek to avoid the devastationof war for one imperialist nation or another at the expense of the rest ofthe world.
While uniting with the masses in struggle against imperialist war preparationsthe Marxist-Leninist party should not put forward or support demands for"nuclear free zones", illusory notions of abolishing imperialist blocs andso forth in the imperialist countries. Even in the lesser, non-nuclear statesthe communists must constantly stress to the masses that imperialism breedsworld war, that all imperialist ruling classes are implicated in preparingthis crime against humanity, and that the only real solution lies in revolutionand not in illusory, and ultimately reactionary, efforts towards "neutrality."
The Marxist-Leninist party must prepare itself and the revolutionary proletariatso that if revolution is not able to prevent the world war it is in the bestposition to take advantage of the weakness of the imperialists, to buildon the inevitable widespread hatred of war and direct it against the imperialiststhemselves and strive to turn the imperialist war into a civil war. Therevolutionary defeatist position must be adopted by the Marxist-Leninistsin all the imperialist countries. In the imperialist countries the communistpress plays a particularly important role in the preparation of the proletarianrevolution. The press must be built as the collective propagandist, agitatorand organiser of the party.
The Marxist-Leninists in the advanced capitalist countries face the taskof continuing to combat the pernicious influence of revisionism and reformismin their ranks. The key to doing this remains the fight for principles developedby Lenin in the course of preparing and leading the October Revolution. Atthe same time the Marxist-Leninists must sum up past experience, fight againstdogmatism, be firm in principle and flexible in tactics, and undertake ascientific study of the developments in the imperialist countries over thelast several decades and the further development of revolutionary strategythat flow from them.
  For the Ideological, Political and Organisational Unity of  Marxist-Leninists
The communist movement is, and can only be, an international movement. Indeedthe very launching of scientific socialism, the Communist Manifesto,declared "Workers of all countries, unite!" With the success of the OctoberRevolution, the formation of the Communist International and the subsequentspreading of Marxism-Leninism to every corner of the globe, the internationalunity of the working class took on an even more profound meaning.
Today, in the midst of profound crisis in the ranks of Marxist-Leninists,the need for international unity and the need for a new internationalorganisation are urgently felt.
In building up its own organisation on a global level, the internationalproletariat has accumulated both positive and negative experience. The conceptof world party and the resultant over-centralisation of the Comintern shouldbe evaluated so that appropriate lessons from that period can be drawn aswell as from the positive achievements of the First, Second and ThirdInternationals. It also is necessary to evaluate the overreaction of theCommunist Party of China to the negative aspects of the Comintern that ledthem to refuse to play the necessary leading role in building up theorganisational unity of the Marxist-Leninist forces at the internationallevel.
At the present juncture of world history, the international proletariat hasto take up the challenge of forming its own organisation, an Internationalof a new type based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, assimilatingthe valuable experience of the past. And this goal must be boldly proclaimedbefore the international proletariat and the oppressed of the world withthe same revolutionary daring of our predecessors from the Communards ofParis to the proletarian rebels of Shanghai who dared to storm heaven andresolved to do the "impossible" - build a communist world.
The process of forming such an organisation will, in all likelihood, be aprotracted one.
The most crucial task the Marxist-Leninists face, in this respect, is toevolve a general line and a correct and viable organisational form, conformingto the complex reality of the present-day world and the challenges it poses.
The function of such a new International will be to continue and deepen thesummation of experiences, develop the general line on which it is founded,and serve as an overall guiding political centre. These tasks necessitatea form of democratic centralism based on the ideological and political unityof Marxist-Leninists. But it cannot be of the same nature as the functioningof a party in a single state, since the components of such an internationalorganisation will be different parties having equality of right andresponsibility of leading the revolution in each country in the sense ofeach party's share in the preparations and acceleration of the world revolution.
Considering the level of ideological and political unity and maturity achievedby the Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations at the Second Conference,they must take the following preliminary steps in the direction of fulfillingthe higher tasks mentioned above:

1.     An international journal must be developed as a vital tool in reconstructing    the international communist movement. It must be at once both an organ of    analysis and political commentary as well as a forum for debating the questions    of the international movement. It must be translated into as many languages    as possible, vigorously distributed in the ranks of the Marxist-Leninist    parties and among other revolutionary forces. The Marxist-Leninist parties    must correspond regularly with the journal and contribute articles and criticism.    
   
2.     Helping the formation of new Marxist-Leninist parties and the strengthening    of existing ones is the common task of the international communist movement.    The ways and means must be found for the international movement as a whole    to assist Marxist-Leninists in different countries in carrying out this crucial    task.    
   
3.     Joint and coordinated campaigns should be conducted by the Marxist-Leninist    parties and organisations The First of May activities should be carried out    under unified slogans.    
   
4.     The different Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations should carry out    the political line and decisions adopted by the International Conferences    and agreed to by these parties, even while continuing to carry out principled    struggle over differences.    
   
5.     All Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations should, within the measure    of their capacity, contribute financially and practically to the tasks involved    in furthering the unity of the communists.    
   
6.     An interim committee - an embryonic political centre must be set up to lead    the overall process of furthering the ideological, political and organisational    unity of communists, including the preparation of a draft proposal for a    general line for the communist movement.

The constitution of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, based onthe higher level of ideological and political unity of Marxist-Leninistsachieved through principled struggle, represents an extremely important stepfor the international communist movement. But the need to race to catch upwith the objective developments in the world is still apparent. The revolutionarystruggle of the masses of the people in all countries is crying out for genuinerevolutionary leadership. The genuine Marxist-Leninist forces, in individualcountries and on a world scale, have the responsibility to provide suchleadership even as they continue to struggle to solidify and raise the levelof their unity. In this way the correct ideological and political line willbring forward new soldiers and will become an ever more powerful materialforce in the world. The words of the Communist Manifesto ring outall the more clearly today: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but theirchains. They have a world to win."
March 1984