We are publishing here the speech given by the editors of the magazine Klassenstandpunkt at the celebration to mark the 130th anniversary of Chairman Mao's birth. We would like to thank the editors of Klassenstandpunkt for sending it to us. The speech is also available here in German and Spanish.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Speech by the Editorial Staff of Klassenstandpunkt Magazine at the celebration for the 130th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Mao in South America
Dear comrades and friends,
As part of the vanguard detachment of the international proletariat in Germany we salute all of you with revolutionary fervor and express our immense pride and gratitude to have the possibility to address this magnificent celebration of the 130th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Mao. We salute the efforts made by the comrades traveling wide and far to be present here, in many cases a hazardous undertaking, overcoming many obstacles. We very particularly salute the comrades who have made the painstaking and hard work to organize this event, not sparing any effort to guarantee all the necessary conditions for creating the best possible conditions for this revolutionary festivity, thank you comrades!
We have come together answering the call of the International Communist League (ICL) to develop a mighty international campaign celebrating the 130th anniversary of the birth of the Great Helmsman, the greatest of the greatest, our ever beloved Chairman Mao, under the thunderously resounding slogan “Unite under Maoism!”. We, the communists in formation in Germany, take up this call and pledge to do so ever more, to make our humble, but absolutely dedicated, contribution so that this campaign reaches all the corners of the world and serves as an important impulse to reunify the International Communist Movement (ICM).
The call of the ICL correctly stresses decisive aspects of the theoretical and practical work of Chairman Mao, that is, of Maoism, which the communists of the world must embrace firmly, study and apply more. Still, due to known reasons, the call does not dwell upon the importance of the military theory of the international proletariat, that is, the People’s War. Hence, we consider it even more necessary that we, as well as other comrades, unequivocally put forward our position on this decisive development of the universal ideology of our class, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, and the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, that is, Gonzalo Thought.
To put it very simple, we consider that you can not really grasp Maoism, as the new, third and higher stage of the ideology of the international proletariat, without recognizing fully and without reservation the universality of the People’s War.
In today’s world, when we, inside of the Strategic Offensive of the World Proletarian Revolution, are entering a new intenser period of new revolutions and wars of all types, only those communists who in all aspects of their work, in all their work of construction, regardless of the current particular moment of the development of every Party and Organization, takes as a starting point that the “seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution”1 and hence: “Before the outbreak of a war all organization and struggle are in preparation for the war […]. After war breaks out, all organization and struggle are coordinated with the war either directly or indirectly”2, can and will be in the capacity of fulfilling their responsibilities to the world revolution. This means at every moment putting the Military Line at the center of the General Political Line and grasping the necessity from the very beginning to “build the Party around the gun”.
Any Communist Party that does not hasthe struggle for the conquest of political power for the proletariat, and in perspective its defense, as its main focus at all times, is useless and does not serve the historical mission of our class, to lead humanity to Communism. Hence, to beunclear on the strategy to follow for this purpose means to condemn the undertakings of the communists to political dilettantism and historical irrelevance. So the debate on the universality of the People’s War, the military strategy that must be followed, is not a question of debating problems that may belong to the future, but an all decisive issue of line of today – in every country.
Since most Parties and Organizations, in the ICM – there are some exceptions as we will see – accept the validity of the People’s War in the oppressed countries, the core of the matter is its validity in the oppressing countries – such as Germany – and therefore a life and death issue for us, who develop our work in such a country.
Let us look at what those who oppose the universal validity of the military strategy, developed by Chairman Mao, suggest as “the road to follow” for us, we quote:
“If it is a capitalist country with democratic rights, the proletarian party will take up countrywide general armed insurrection in period of revolutionary crisis, first seize power in vital cities and then spread it all over the country. It takes up open and legal struggles – Parliamentary, Trade Unions, general strikes, political agitations, partial and political struggles and other such activities and prepares the proletariat and its allies for it. At the same time, it strengthens appropriate secret party mechanism and combines secret, legal, semi-legal activities and open and secret activities in concrete conditions.”3
First of all it is worth stating that the Indian comrades, who are very eager to stress the need for creativity and “concrete analysis of concrete conditions” are, in these questions of theory, remarkably lazy and only dogmatically repeat old “Marxist-Leninist” positions, just as these are being put forward by revisionists. The comrades do not see the whole development of the understanding of the Chinese communists under the leadership of Chairman Mao. And even more important, they make no real effort to make any creative and concrete analysis of the historical experience and current situation in the imperialist countries – in this regard they treat Maoism only as a compilation of quotes of what Chairman Mao said and not as a new, third and higher development of the ideology of the international proletariat, which, as a higher stage, necessarily implies a decisive leap and any leap forward (to a higher level) undoubtedly requires a break with the old. There is nothing new in what the Indian comrades put forward concerning the revolution in the imperialist countries, the understanding of the comrades is the same as the one that was predominant in the ICM in the 1950’s.
So, in the sense of being creative and making concrete analysis, the comrades should please explain which historical experiences during the last 60 to 70 years in the ICM have proven the usefulness for advancing the struggle for the proletarian revolution by using the tactics of “parliamentary struggle”. In which imperialist country was it really useful? Which examples should we – according to the Indian comrades – follow?
We are convinced that the use of the tactics of participating in parliamentary struggle, in this sense that Lenin lays down in his “Left Radicalism”, was correct at a certain moment, under very concrete historical and political conditions, but the matter in motion moves upwards and so, accordingly, the class-struggle progresses.
We can in Germany very clearly see what are the practical results for those whotoday follow the road proposed by the Indian comrades.
The legalistic and economist reformist creature that calls itself the “MLPD” – imperialist chauvinists who weep for the casualties of the Israeli occupier, call Hamas fascists and in their boundless ignorant arrogance have declared India to be an imperialist country (!) – these are the ones who champion this “road” that the Indian comrades recommend to us. Against the tendency of the masses, particularly their broadest and deepest sections, to reject the parliamentary illusions, the “MLPD” with its characteristic purblind cretinism participates as a puppet in the electoral spectacle of the imperialist bourgeoisie and builds its whole apparatus for this purpose. Against the tendency of the proletariat to reject the leaders of the yellow trade-unions, they center on “conquering” bureaucratic posts in these and other corporative structures and try hard to be “better economists” as their social-democratic equals. In the antifascist movement they fight militant anti-fascism by snitching and denouncing young comrades to the police, in the name of the need to respect the “legality”. And so on and so forth. To follow the proposed line of the Indian comrades for the revolution in the imperialist countries is to end up in the camp of counterrevolution, just as the anti-Maoists of the “MLPD”.
Comrades from other countries most certainly can mention other negative examples – their number is close to endless – but we are fully convinced that no Maoist can mention any positive example from the last several decades of Communist Parties who have followed the road proposed by the Indian comrades.
Among the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists in imperialist countries in Europe there has been for several years an intense discussion on the questions of mass line, how to develop the work of the communists in the trade-unions, how to handle the relation between open and secret work, the relation between strategy and tactics in the class-struggle and so on, that is, on how to creatively apply the ideology of the international proletariat to the concrete conditions of the countries in which we unfold our activity. We would very much like to get some constructive input from the Indian comrades in these discussions, instead of the comrades wanting to prescribe us outdated formulas from afar.
Comrades and friends,
When we criticize the lazy dogmatism of the Indian comrades, we must also take into account that not all “creativity” is of good.
In a recently published document the Revolutionary Communist Party of Nepal wrote:
“In the past few years, there have been spontaneous rebellions in many countries of the world. In the absence of revolutionary party leadership in those countries, all those rebellions have disappeared as the high waves of the sea do. We all witnessed the spontaneous uprising of the people of Sri Lanka last year. The Sri Lankan military and armed police remained mute spectators. It was inevitable for the spontaneous public outcry to subside, and in due course that did. Let us imagine, had there been a genuine revolutionary communist party and even a small but committed army under its leadership, what would have happened in Sri Lanka at that time?”4
Our answer to the question: a putsch.
The revolution under the leadership of a “genuine revolutionary communist party” is not carried out by a “small but committed army” but by the revolutionary masses, organized in the Communist Party, the revolutionary army and the revolutionary front – this should be ABC for all who consider themselves to be Marxist-Leninist-Maoists.
It is not surprising that the comrades come to their, de-facto militarist and adventurist, conclusion ending up negating even the need to apply the strategy of People’s War in the case of the democratic revolution in a case like Sri Lanka. Earlier in the cited text they make a whole argument trying to explain why we, supposedly, should not be advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war.
The Nepalese comrades, among whom there are former outstanding leaders of the heroic People’s War and who therefore should know better, seem to have forgot some of the most important lessons of the epic struggle of which they were very much a part of.
The main argument, at least the one which was communicated to the ICM, by Prachanda and Company to justify their national and class-capitulation, was that the revolutionary forces in Nepal, even after ten years of fearless and bold People’s War, could not resist a possible Indian invasion. This situation can only be understood if you consider two important aspects: the very construction of the organs of New Power in the country-side, in which the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) allowed members of reactionary parties (for example the Congress Party and the UML) to continue their activities, and the rejection of developing the People’s War in a unified manner (with the country-side as the main theater of actions and actions in the cities as a necessary complement) in pro of developing the revisionist “fusion theory”. Both of these concepts were incompatible with the creative application of the military strategy developed by Chairman Mao and it would be very interesting to learn about what connection the Nepalese comrades see between the material base for these ideas inside the CPN (Maoist) and the notable parliamentary practice of the Party before the initiation of the People’s War.
Another trick of the Prachandaites was to promote the fairy-tale that the so-famous 100.000 knives of the Communist Youth League should make up for the arms of the Peoples Liberation Army, which are looked after by the United Nations – everyone knows how that brilliantly turned out in practice. How can the comrades with this in mind tell us that we should not insist on the omnipotence of the revolutionary war, the People’s War, and instead be “creative”? It was not dogmatism that led to the capitulation in Nepal, it was right-opportunism, revisionism. The comrades talk about logic – we think it is a logical conclusion that if the Nepalese communists would have been more convinced about the omnipotence of revolutionary violence and trusted their own strength and the masses, the situation in their country today would have been very different and instead of associatingtheir name with bitter betrayal, the communists and revolutionaries of the world would see the Nepalese revolution as a beacon of the world proletarian revolution.
Comrades and friends,
Nowadays several documents and articles exist that thoroughly show how the principles of the People’s War are valid in every type of country – be it oppressing or oppressed. The document “People’s War and Revolution” written by Brazilian comrades, articles by Norwegian comrades and even a humble contribution by us, just to mention some of what we consider the most important recent publications. All of them serve this purpose very well and since they are translated to languages such as English and Spanish many comrades would have no difficulty to read them. Of course all of these documents and articles, could (and in the case of our text, should) be more developed, more illustrative and give more examples, and so on and so forth, but for the ones who have studied the works of Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China well, the definitions made by Chairman Gonzalo concerning the People’s War being the military strategy of the international proletariat, being applicable to the conditions of all countries, are perfectly understandable anyhow. Different forces have developed their stand on these documents, for example the late José Maria Sison vehemently insisted in trying to negate the universality of the military theory of Chairman Mao; some comrades have taken a position of developing a constructive discussion based on principles, even if they do not agree with saying that the People’s War is universal.
We consider it absolutely necessary that we deepen the study and the debate in the ICM on this issue, taking as a starting point what is said in the Declaration of the ICL:“In order to carry out People’s War it is necessary to have four fundamental problems in mind: 1) ideology of the proletariat – Marxism-Leninism-Maoism – applied to the concrete practice and the particularities of revolution on each country, either oppressed countries or imperialist countries; 2) the necessity of the Communist Party to lead the People’s War; 3) specification of the political strategy for its path; 4) base areas. The New Power or Front-New State – that is formed in the base areas – is the core of the People’s War.”5
The main documents for this study must be the documents approved by the First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), in particular the Basis of Party Unity. It is the highest systematization of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, existing in the world. Other documents of Chairman Gonzalo of the PCP are also indispensable, but the ones mentioned are the highest expression of the proletarian truth of Maoism and its development through the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo. Just as you can only full understand Marxism by only studying the works of Marx himself but also Engels, you can not understand Maoism fullyby only studying Chairman Mao but also Chairman Gonzalo. So, in our view, to“learn from Chairman Gonzalo”must be an inseparable part of the campaign for the 130th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Mao, this goes particularly for the understanding of the military theory of the international proletariat, applicable in all countries without exception: the People’s War.
Dear comrades,
We would have liked to have been able to use this occasion to not only develop our criticism on what we consider wrong stands but also to expound more in detail on the particular ways we are developing our strategic and tactical work with the perspective of initiation of the People’s War in our country, but since we want to respect the limitations of time set by the organizers we must refer you to the published documents for now, in other moments we will most certainly come back to the subject.
Once again we salute the work of the organizing comrades and all of you here present.
Long live the International Communist League!
Unite under Maoism!
People’s War until Communism!
Editorial Staff of Klassenstandpunkt Magazine
December 2023
