The Marxist Leninist, Oct 2009

Issue No.
3 October 2009
Theoretical Journal of the CPI (ML)

The Marxist-Leninist
Contents
1. Editorial 3
2. Atlantic Charter 6
3. Brettonwoods Agreement 7
4. On Dissolution Of The Communist International 10
5. Communist Information Bureau Resolutions (Nov. 1949) 13
6. Marx Against Keynes 24
7. Apologists Of Neo-Colonialism 37
8. India: Show-Case of US Neo-Colonialism 40
9. What Has Happened? 42
10. Intensifying the Revolutionary Struggle and
onsolidating the World Proletarian Solidarity
Against Global Imperialism 80
11. The Devastating Effects of Neo-Liberalism on the
Neo-Colonially Dependent Countries 87
12. On Internationalism and Nationalism 105
13. On Mode of Production in India 117
14. How the Theory of “Protracted People’s War” has
Harmed Marxist-Leninist Movement 132
Editorial Board Umakant

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KN Ramachandran Jangpura-B
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2 The Marxist-Leninist
Editorial
AS LENIN explained so well “Without a revolutionary theory
there can be no revolutionary movement” and “There can be no
strong socialist party without a revolutionary theory”. The severe
setback suffered by the international communist movement (ICM)
from the brilliant height it had reached half a century back
repeatedly underlines the correctness of this Leninist teaching. It
is proved again and again that on the whole it is the theoretical
weakness leading to compromising political positions on the side
of the ICM, in spite of the Marxist-Leninist struggle against it
continuing all through giving rise to instances of great leap forward,
which had led to the weakening of the ICM. So the task of building
a powerful, revolutionary Communist Party in India and the
reorganisation of the Communist International calls for putting
the importance of developing the Marxist-Leninist theoretical
understanding according to the concrete conditions of today in
the forefront. The All India Special Conference of the CPI(ML)
from 7th November concentrate its efforts on this vital question.
The contents of the third issue of the theoretical organ of the CC
of CPI(ML) are selected from this perspective.
The Atlantic Charter of 1941 and Bretton woods
Agreements of 1944 laid the foundation for the launching of the
neo-colonial counter-revolutionary offensive by the US-led
imperialist camp in the post-WW II situation to combat the growing
strength of the socialist camp and national liberation movements.
The Atlantic Charter and a summary of Bretton Woods
Agreements are reproduced to show how cunningly,
conspiratorially the imperialist camp was going ahead with its task.
At the same time the dissolution of Comintern in 1943
and the Resolution of the Cominform in 1949 show that the
ICM could not recognise the gravity of the steps taken by the
imperialist camp to regain their initiative and to consolidate their
strength by replacing the colonial forms of plunder and hegemony
with the neo-colonial forms. Contrary to what Marx and Engels
did by organising the First International and reorganising it soon
after its dissolution in to Second International taking in to
consideration the experience and lessons of Paris Commune,
The Marxist-Leninist 3
and Lenin did after the collapse of the Second International by
reorganising it soon as Third or Communist International, putting
forward the theoretical understanding about imperialism, by
developing the theory and practice of communist struggles in the
era of imperialism and proletarian revolution and leading October
Revolution to victory, no initiative was taken to reorganise the
Communist International in spite of the maddening pace with which
the US-led imperialist camp was uniting their forces and launching
counter attacks against the revolutionary forces. Secondly, the
Cominform Resolution is permeated with the fear of war threats
from the imperialist camp. It overwhelmingly stressed on the peace
movement. It reflected a defensive approach while the prime need
of that historical juncture was a revolutionary offensive at the
international level to overthrow the imperialist system and its
lackeys. The Cominform Resolution as a result did not reflect the
concrete analysis of then existing situation, and diluted the Marxist-
Leninist approach needed in that situation. That is why the study
of these two is of great importance for a correct evaluation of the
weaknesses in the ICM which helped the revisionists, the capitalist
roaders to subvert the movement from within in later years.
The article “Marx Against Keynes” reproduced from Lalkar
(published from Britain, website www.lalkar.org) analyses how
Keynes stood against the Marxist teachings and greatly
contributed in the post Great Depression period to save the global
imperialist system. It will held to understand how opportunist is
the utterances of Amartya Sen and the CPI(M) brand of
economists and intellectuals.
The Quotations from the “Apologists of Neo-colonialism”
and the article in People’s Daily of China in 1968 on transformation
of India into a typical show-case of neo-colonialism reveals
how the CPC under Mao’s leadership had correctly evaluated the
transformation of imperialist plunder and hegemonic efforts from
colonialism to neo-colonialism. Though the CPC could not carry
forward the tasks of developing this theoretical understanding to
develop Lenin’s teachings on imperialism according to prevailing
global situation due to the intensification of the two-line struggle
with it, these contributions are of great importance to develop our
understanding about neo-colonialism.
The evaluation of “What Happened” in 1960s in Indonesia
when the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) was decimated
under a barbarous onslaught by Suharto’s military regime
supported by US imperialism is of great importance to the ICM.
Together with it, the evaluation of Indonesia as a neo-colonial
country by the PKI and the political-organisational tasks it has
now taken up based on the understanding to reorganise the party
work are of great significance.
A chapter from Twilight of the Gods: Gotterdammerung
Over the “New World Order” by com. Stefan Engel, chairman
of the MLPD, gives an overview of the Devastating Effects of
Neo-Liberalism on the Neo-Colonially Dependent Countries, which
will help to deepen the understanding on neo-colonialism.
The article on “Nationalism and Internationalism” by com.
K.N. Ramachandran provides an evaluation of the post WW II
developments, especially the weaknesses in the approach of
Soviet and Chinese leaderships to overcome nationalist limitations
of some of the positions taken by them in which atmosphere it
became easy for the capitalist roaders to usurp the leadership
causing severe setbacks to the ICM.
On “Mode of Production” published in the July-September
1998 issue of Red Flag, the theoretical organ of erstwhile CPI(ML)
Red Flag, provides an overview of the debate on this question
that took place in the Economic and Political Weekly, on the basis
of a neo-colonial understanding during 1960s and early 1970s.
The articles of com. Sanjay Singhiv are self-explanatory. We
hope this issue of The Marxist Leninist shall help to further sharpen
the debate on the question of neo-colonialism and to provide the
basis for developing the theoretical approaches of the
revolutionary movement according to concrete conditions of
today. ●
New Delhi With revolutionary greetings

26-09-2009 Editorial board
ATLANTIC CHARTER
[Joint Statement by President Roosevelt and
Prime Minister Churchill, August 14, 1941]
THE President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr.
Churchill, representing His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being
met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the
national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes
for a better future for the world.
First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;
Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with
the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;
Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government
under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self
government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;
Fourth, they will endeavour, with due respect for their existing obligations,
to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished,
of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the
world which are needed for their economic prosperity;
Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations
in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labour
standards, economic advancement and social security;
Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see
established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling
in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance
that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear
and want;
Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and
oceans without hindrance;
Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as
well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force.
Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue
to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside
of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and perma-
nent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential.
They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will
lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments. ●
Franklin D. Roosevelt Winston S. Churchill
[http://en.wikipedia.org]
BRETTONWOODS AGREEMENT
PURPOSES AND GOALS: The Bretton Woods Conference took place in
July 1944, but did not become operative until 1959, when all the European
currencies became convertible. Under this system, the IMF and the IBRD were
established. The IMF was developed as a permanent international body. The
summary of agreements states, “The nations should consult and agree on
international monetary changes which affect each other. They should outlaw
practices which are agreed to be harmful to world prosperity, and they should
assist each other to overcome short-term exchange difficulties.” The IBRD
was created to speed up post-war reconstruction, to aid political stability, and
to foster peace. This was to be fulfilled through the establishment of programs
for reconstruction and development.
THE MAIN TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT WERE: 1) Formation of the
IMF and the IBRD (presently part of the World Bank). 2) Adjustably pegged
foreign exchange market rate system: The exchange rates were fixed, with the
provision of changing them if necessary. 3) Currencies were required to be
convertible for trade related and other current account transactions. The
governments, however, had the power to regulate ostentatious capital flows. 4)
As it was possible that exchange rates thus established might not be favourable
to a country’s balance of payments position, the governments had the power to
revise them by up to 10%. 5) All member countries were required to subscribe
to the IMF’s capital.
ENCOURAGING OPEN MARKETS: The seminal idea behind the Bretton
Woods Conference was the notion of open markets. In Henry Morgenthau’s
farewell remarks at the conference, he stated that the establishment of the IMF
and the World Bank marked the end of economic nationalism. This meant
countries would maintain their national interest, but trade blocks and economic
spheres of influence would no longer be their means. The second idea behind
the Bretton Woods Conference was joint management of the Western political-
economic order. Meaning that the foremost industrial democratic nations must
lower barriers to trade and the movement of capital, in addition to their
responsibility to govern the system.
THE BANK OF INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS CONTROVERSY:
In the last stages of the Second World War, in 1944 at the Bretton Woods
Conference The Bank of International Settlements became the crux in a fight
that broke out, when the Norwegian delegation put forth evidence that the BIS
was guilty in war crimes and put forth a move to dissolve the bank, which the
Americans, specifically President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Henry
Morgenthau supported, resulting in a fight between on one side several European
nations, the American and the Norwegian delegation, led by Henry Morgenthau
and Harry Dexter White, and on the other side the British delegation, headed
by John Maynard Keynes and Chase Bank representative Dean Atcheson who
tried to veto the dissolution of the bank.
The problem was that the BIS, formed in 1930, and its main proponents of
its establishment, were the then Governor of The Bank of England, Montague
Norman and his colleague Hjalmar Schacht, later Adolf Hitlers finance minister.
The Bank was originally intended to facilitate money transfers arising from
settling an obligation arising from a peace treaty. After World War I, the need
for the bank was suggested in 1929 by the Young Committee, as a means of
transfer for German reparations payments - see Treaty of Versailles. The plan
was agreed in August of that year at a conference at the Hague, and a charter
for the bank was drafted at the International Bankers Conference at Baden
Baden in November. The charter was adopted at a second Hague Conference
on January 20, 1930.The Original board of directors of the BIS included two
appointees of Hitler, Walter Funk and Emil Puhl, as well as Herman Schmitz
the director of IG Farben and Baron von Schroeder the owner of the J.H.Stein
Bank, the bank that held the deposits of the Gestapo.
As a result of allegations that the BIS had helped the Germans loot assets
from occupied countries during World War II, the United Nations Monetary
and Financial Conference recommended the “liquidation of the Bank for
International Settlements at the earliest possible moment.” This task, which
was originally proposed by Norway and supported by other European delegates,
as well as the United States and Morgenthau and Harry Dexter White, was
never undertaken.
In July 1944 Dean Atcheson interrupted Keynes in a meeting fearing that
the BIS would be dissolved by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Keynes
went to Henry Morgenthau to prevent the dissolution of the BIS, or have it
postponed, but the next day the dissolution of the BIS was approved. The British
delegation did not give up and the dissolution of the bank was held up just long
enough until after Roosevelt had died, in April of 1945 the British and Harry S.
Truman stopped the dissolution of the BIS.
Monetary order in a post-war world: The need for postwar Western
economic order was resolved with the agreements made on monetary order
and open system of trade at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference which allowed
for the synthesis of Britain’s desire for full employment and economic stability
and the United States’ desire for free trade.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE ORGANIZATION: The Conference also
proposed the creation of an International Trade Organization (ITO) to establish
rules and regulations for international trade. The ITO would have complemented
the other two Bretton Woods proposed international bodies: the IMF and the
World Bank. The ITO charter was agreed on at the U.N. Conference on Trade
and Employment (held in Havana, Cuba, in March 1948), but was not ratified
by the U.S. Senate. As a result, the ITO never came into existence.
However, in 1995, the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations established
the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the replacement body for GATT. The
GATT principles and agreements were adopted by the WTO, which was charged
with administering and extending them.
John Maynard Keynes represented the UK at the conference, and Harry
Dexter White represented the US.
John Maynard Keynes proposed the ICU as a way to regulate the balance
of trade. His concern was that countries with a trade deficit would be unable to
climb out of it, paying ever more interest to service their ever greater debt, and
therefore stifling global growth. The ICU would effectively be a bank with its
own currency (the “bancor”), exchangeable with national currencies at a fixed
rate. Nations would be the unit for accounting between nations, so their trade
deficits or surpluses could be measured by it. On top of that, each country
would have an overdraft facility in its “bancor” account with the ICU. Keynes
proposed having a maximum overdraft of half the average trade size over five
years. If a country went over that, it would be charged interest, obliging a country
to reduce its currency value and prevent capital exports. But countries with
trade surpluses would also be charged interest at 10% if their surplus was more
than half the size of their permitted overdraft, obliging them to increase their
currency values and export more capital. If, at the year’s end, their credit
exceeded the maximum (half the size of the overdraft in surpslus) the surplus
would be confiscated.
Lionel Robbins reported that “it would be difficult to exaggerate the
electrifying effect on thought throughout the whole relevant apparatus of
government ... nothing so imaginative and so ambitious had ever been
discussed”. However, Harry Dexter White, representing America which was
the world’s biggest creditor said “We have been perfectly adamant on that point.
We have taken the position of absolutely no.” Instead he proposed an
International Stabilisation Fund (now the IMF), which would place the burden
of maintaining the balance of trade on the deficit nations, and imposing no
limit on the surplus that rich countries could accumulate. White also proposed
creation of the IBRD (now part of the World Bank) which would provide capital
for economic reconstruction after the war.
White managed to ensure that the US had special veto powers over any
major decision made by the IMF or the World Bank, meaning effectively that
their “conditionalities” in the way of strict institutional reforms are never
imposed. Furthermore, the IMF insists that the foreign exchange reserves
maintained by other nations are held in the form of dollars, so no matter how
much debt the US accumulates, its economy will not collapse. ●
[http://en.wikipedia.org]
ON DISSOLUTION OF THE
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
[The statement set out hereunder was submitted to all
Communist Parties by the Executive Committee of
Communist International (ECCI) on May 15, 1943. Upon
receiving endorsement by these parties, the Communist
International was dissolved forthwith.]
THE HISTORICAL ROLE of the Communist International, organised
in 1919 as a result of the political collapse of the overwhelming majority of the
old pre-war workers’ parties, consisted in that it preserved the teachings of
Marxism from vulgarisation and distortion by opportunist elements of the labour
movement. In a number of countries it helped to unite the vanguard of the
advanced workers into genuine workers’ parties, helped them to mobilise the
mass of the toilers in defence of their economic and political interests for the
struggle against fascism and the war which it been prepared for support of the
Soviet Union as the main bulwark against fascism. The Communist International
tirelessly exposed the base undermining activity of the Hitlerites in foreign
states, who masked these activities with outcries about the alleged interference
of the Communist International in the internal affairs of these states.
But long before the war it became increasingly clear that, to the extent
that the internal as well as the international situation of individual countries
became more complicated, the solution of the problems of the labour movement
of each individual country through the medium of some international centre
would meet with insuperable obstacles.
The deep differences in the historical roads of development of each country
of the world, the diverse character and even the contradiction in their social
orders, the difference in the level and rate of their social and political
development and finally the difference in the degree of consciousness and
organisation of the workers’ conditioned also the various problems which face
the working class of each individual country.
The entire course of events for the past quarter of a century, as well as the
accumulated experiences of the Communist International, have convincingly
proved that the organisational form for uniting the workers as chosen by the
First Congress of the Communist International, which corresponded to the needs
of the initial period of rebirth of the labour movement, more and more outlived
itself in proportion to the growth of this movement and the increasing complexity
of problems in each country, and that this form even became a hindrance to the
further strengthening of the national workers’ parties.
The world war unleashed by the Hitlerites still further sharpened the
differences in the conditions in the various countries, drawing a deep line of
demarcation between the countries which became bearers of the Hitlerite tyranny
and the freedom-loving peoples united in the mighty anti-Hitler coalition.
Whereas in the countries of the Hitlerite bloc the basic task of the workers,
toilers and all honest people is to contribute in every conceivable way towards
the defeat of this bloc by undermining the Hitlerite war machine from within,
by helping to overthrow the Governments responsible for the war, in the countries
of the anti-Hitler coalition the sacred duty of the broadest masses of the people,
and first and foremost of progressive workers, is to support in every way the
war efforts of the Governments of those countries for the sake of the speediest
destruction of the Hitlerite bloc and to secure friendly collaboration between
the nations on the basis of their equal rights. At the same time it must not be
overlooked that individual countries which adhere to the anti-Hitler coalition
also have their specific tasks.
Thus, for instance, in countries occupied by the Hitlerites and which have
lost their State independence, the basic task of the progressive workers and
broad masses of the people is to develop the armed struggle which is growing
into a war of national liberation against Hitlerite Germany.
At the same time the war of liberation of freedom-loving peoples against
the Hitlerite coalition, irrespective of party or religion, has made it still more
evident that the national upsurge and mobilisation for the speediest victory
over the enemy can best and most fruitfully be realised by the vanguard of the
labour movement of each country within the framework of its state.
The Seventh Congress of the Communist International held in 1935, taking
into consideration the changes which had come to pass in the international
situation as well as in the labour movement, changes which demanded greater
flexibility and independence for its sections in solving the problems facing
them, already then emphasised the need for the E.C.C.I., when deciding upon
all problems of the labour movement, “to proceed from the concrete situation
and specific conditions obtaining in each particular country and as a rule avoid
direct intervention in internal organisational matters of the Communist Parties.”
The E.C.C.I. was guided by these same considerations when it took note
of and approved the decision of the Communist Party of the U.S.A. in November,
1940, to leave the ranks of the Communist International.
Communists guided by the teachings of the founders of Marxism-Leninism
never advocated the preservation of organisational forms which have become
obsolete; they always subordinated the organisational forms of the labour
movement and its methods of work to the basis political interests of the labour
movement as a whole, to the peculiarities of given historical conditions and to
those problems which arise directly from these conditions.
They remember the example of the great Marx who united the progressive
workers into the ranks of the International Workingmen’s Association and after
the First International fulfilled its historical task, having laid the basis for the
development of workers’ parties in the countries of Europe and America, Marx,
as a result of the growing need to create national workers’ mass parties, brought
abut the dissolution of the First International inasmuch as this form of
organisation no longer corresponded to this need.
Proceeding from the above-stated considerations, and taking into account
the growth and political maturity of the Communist Parties and their leading
cadres in individual countries, and also in view of the fact that during the present
war a number of sections have raised the question of dissolution of the
Communist International, the Presidium of the E.C.C.I., unable owing to the
conditions of the world war to convene the Congress of the Communist
International, permits itself to submit for approval by sections of the Communist
International the following proposal:
To dissolve the Communist International as a guiding centre of the
international labour movement, releasing sections of the Communist
International from the obligations ensuing from the constitution and decisions
of the Congresses of the Communist International.
The Presidium of the E.C.C.I. calls upon all adherents of the Communist
International to concentrate their forces on all-round support for, and active
participation in, the Liberation War of the peoples and States of the anti-Hitler
coalition in order to hasten the destruction of the mortal enemy of the working
people – fascism and its allies and vassals. ●
[Signed by members of the Presidium of the E.C.C.I.: Gottwald,

Dimitrov, Zhdanov, Kolarov, Koplonig, Kuusinen, Manuilssky, Mary,
Pieck, Thorez, Florin, Ercoli, and immediately endorsed by the
representatives of the following Communist Parties, who were living
in exile in Moscow: Bianco (Italy), Dolores Ibarruri (Spain), Lehtinen
(Finland), Pauker (Rumania), Rakosi (Hungary)]
COMMUNIST INFORMATION
BUREAU RESOLUTIONS
(NOVEMBER 1949)
I. THE DEFENCE OF PEACE AND THE STRUGGLE
AGAINST THE WARMONGERS
THE representatives of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, the Rumanian
Workers’ Party, the Hungarian Working People’s Party, the Polish United
Workers’ Party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), the
French Communist Party, the Italian Communist Party and the Communist Party
of Czechoslovakia, after discussing the question of the defence of peace and
the struggle against the warmongers, reached unanimous agreement on the
following conclusions:
The events of the last two years have fully confirmed the correctness of
the analysis of the international situation made by the first conference of the
Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties in September 1947.
During this period the two lines in world policy have been still more clearly
and more sharply revealed: the line of the democratic anti-imperialist camp
headed by the U.S.S.R., the camp which conducts a persistent and consistent
struggle for peace among the peoples and for democracy; and the line of the
imperialist antidemocratic camp headed by the ruling circles of the United States,
the camp which has as its main aim the forcible establishment of Anglo-American
world domination, the enslavement of foreign countries and peoples, the
destruction of democracy and the unleashing of a new war.
FORCES OF PEACE GROW STRONGER
Moreover, the aggressiveness of the imperialist camp continues to increase.
The ruling circles of the United States and Britain are openly conducting a
policy of aggression and preparation of a new war. In the struggle against the
camp of imperialism and war, the forces of peace, democracy and Socialism
have grown and become strong. The further growth of the might of the Soviet
Union, the political and economic strengthening of the countries of the people’s
democracy and their embarking upon the road of building Socialism, the historic
victory of the Chinese people’s Revolution over the united forces of internal
reaction and American imperialism, the creation of the German Democratic
Republic, the strengthening of the Communist Parties and the growth of the
democratic movement in the capitalist countries, the great scope of the
movement of the partisans of peace — all this signifies a great widening and
strengthening of the anti-imperialist and democratic camp.
At the same time the imperialist and anti-democratic camp is becoming
weaker. The successes of the forces of democracy and Socialism, the maturing
economic crisis, the further sharpening of the general crisis of the capitalist
system, the sharpening of the internal and external contradictions of that system,
testify to the increasing weakening of imperialism.
The change in the correlation of forces in the international arena in favour
of the camp of peace and democracy provokes mad fury and rage among the
imperialist warmongers. The Anglo-American imperialists count upon changing
the course of historical development by means of a war, to solve their internal
and external contradictions and difficulties, to consolidate the position of
monopoly capital, and to achieve world domination.
IMPERIALIST WAR PREPARATIONS
Feeling that time works against them, the imperialists in feverish haste are
knocking together various blocs and alliances of reactionary forces for the
realisation of their aggressive plans. The whole policy of the Anglo-American
imperialist bloc serves the preparation of a new war. It finds its expression in
the frustration of a peace settlement with Germany and Japan, the completion
of the dismemberment of Germany, the transformation of Germany’s Western
zones and of Japan, occupied by American troops, into hot-beds of fascism and
revanchism and into jumping-off grounds for the realisation of the aggressive
plans of that bloc.
The enslaving Marshall Plan, its direct extension into Western Union and
the North-Atlantic military bloc, directed against all peace-loving peoples, the
unrestrained armaments race in the United States and in the West-European
countries, the inflated military budgets and the extension of the network of
American military bases serve this policy. This policy also finds its expression
in the refusal of the Anglo-American bloc to prohibit atomic weapons despite
the collapse of the legend of American atomic monopoly, and in the fomenting
of war hysteria by all possible means.
This policy determines the whole line of the Anglo-American bloc in the
United Nations organisation, aimed at undermining U.N.O. and transforming it
into a tool of American monopolies.
The imperialists’ policy of unleashing a new war has also found expression
in the plot exposed at the Budapest trial of Rajk and Brankov, a plot which was
organised by Anglo-American circles against the countries of People’s
Democracy and the Soviet Union, with the assistance of the nationalist fascist
Tito clique who have become a band of agents of international imperialist
Reaction. The policy of preparing a new war means, for the masses of the
people of the capitalist countries, a continuous growth in the unbearable burdens
of taxation, an increase in the poverty of the working masses, side by side with
a fabulous increase in the super-profits of the monopolies which are enriching
themselves from the armaments race.
The maturing economic crisis is bringing still more poverty, unemployment,
hunger and fear of the morrow to the working people of the capitalist countries.
At the same time the policy of war preparations is linked with continuous
encroachments by the ruling imperialist circles on the elementary and vital
rights and democratic liberties of the mass of the people. Intensified reaction in
all spheres of social, political and ideological life, the use of fascist methods of
club law against the progressive, and democratic forces of the people — these
are the measures by which the imperialist bourgeoisie are trying to prepare the
rear for a robber war.
Thus, like the fascist aggressors, the Anglo-American bloc is engaged in
preparing a new war in all spheres: military strategic measures, political pressure
and blackmail, economic expansion and the enslavement of peoples, ideological
stupefaction of the masses and the strengthening of reaction.
IMPERIALISTS OVERESTIMATE THEIR STRENGTH
The bosses of American imperialism are making their plans for unleashing
a new world war and for the conquest of world domination without taking into
account the actual relation of forces between the camp of imperialism and the
camp of Socialism.
Their plans for world domination have even less foundation and are more
adventurist than the plans of the Hitlerite and Japanese imperialists. The
American imperialists clearly overestimate their strength and underestimate
the growing strength and organisation of the anti-imperialist camp. The historical
situation today differs radically from the situation in which the Second World
War was prepared, and in the present international conditions it is incomparably
more difficult for the warmongers to carry out their bloodthirsty plans. “The
horrors of the recent war are too fresh in the minds of the people and the social
forces in favour of peace are too great for Churchill’s pupils in aggression to be
able to overpower and deflect them towards a new war.” (Stalin.)
The peoples do not want war, and hate war. They are becoming more and
more conscious of the terrible abyss into which the imperialists are trying to
draw them. The continuous struggle of the Soviet Union, the countries of
People’s Democracy and the international working class and the democratic
movement for peace, for the freedom and independence of nations and against
the warmongers, is daily finding ever more powerful support from the broadest
sections of the populations of all countries of the world.
Hence the development of the mighty movement of the supporters of peace.
This movement includes in its ranks more than 600 million people and is
broadening and growing, embracing all countries of the world and drawing
into its ranks ever more fighters against the threat of war. The movement of the
supporters of peace is a vivid indication of the fact that the mass of the people
are taking the cause of safeguarding peace into their own hands, are
demonstrating their unswerving will to defend peace and avert war.
WE MUST NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE WAR DANGER
However, it would be mistaken and harmful for the cause of peace to
underestimate the danger of the new war that is being prepared by the imperialist
Powers, headed by the United States of America and Britain.
The tremendous growth of the forces of the camp of democracy and
Socialism should not evoke in the ranks of the true fighters for peace any kind
of complacency. It would be profoundly and unpardonably misleading to
consider that the threat of war has diminished.
The experience of history teaches that the more hopeless the cause of
imperialist reaction, the more it rages, the greater grows the danger of military
adventures. Only the most tremendous vigilance on the part of the people, their
firm determination to fight actively with all their might and with every possible
means for peace, will smash to atoms the criminal designs of the instigators of
a new war. In the conditions of an intensifying threat of a new war, a great and
historic responsibility rests with the Communist and Workers’ Parties.
The struggle for a stable and lasting peace, for organising and rallying the
forces standing for peace against those standing for war, must today occupy the
central place in all the work of the Communist Parties and democratic
organisations. For the fulfilment of the great and noble task of saving mankind
from the threat of a new war, the representatives of Communist and Workers’
Parties regard the following as their most important tasks:
THE MOST URGENT TASKS
(1) It is necessary to work still more stubbornly for the organisational
consolidation and extension of the movement of the supporters of peace, drawing
into that movement ever-new sections of the population and converting it into
a nation-wide movement.
Particular attention should be devoted to bringing into the movement of
the supporters of peace the trade unions, women’s, youth, co-operative, sports,
cultural and educational, religious and other organisations, as well as scientists,
writers, journalists, workers in the field of culture, parliamentary leaders and
other political and social leaders who are in favour of peace and are against
war.
Today the tasks loom particularly imperatively of rallying all honest
supporters of peace, irrespective of religious faiths, political views and party
membership, on the broadest platform of the struggle for peace and against the
threat of the new war which hangs over mankind.
(2) For the further development of the movement of the supporters of
peace, the more active participation of the working class in this movement and
the solidarity and unity of its ranks are of decisive importance. For this reason
it is a primary task of the Communist and Workers’ Parties to bring into the
ranks of the fighters for peace the broadest sections of the working class, to
create a firm unity of the working class, to organise joint action of the various
sections of the proletariat on the basis of the common platform of the struggle
for peace and for the national independence of their country.
(3) Unity of the working class can only be won through determined struggle
against the Right-Wing Socialist splitters and disorganisers of the working-
class movement. The Right-Wing Socialists of the type of Bevin, Attlee, Blum,
Guy Mollet, Spaak, Schumacher, Renner, Saragat, and the reactionary trade
union leaders like Green, Carey, Deakin, conducting a splitting, anti-popular
policy, are the bitterest enemies of the working class, the accomplices of the
warmongers and lackeys of imperialism, who conceal their betrayal in pseudo-
Socialist, cosmopolitan phraseology.
The Communist and Workers’ Parties, continuously fighting for peace,
must day by day expose the Right-Wing Socialist leaders as the bitterest enemies
of peace. It is essential to develop and consolidate to the utmost the co-operation
and unity of action among the lower organisations and the rank-and-file members
of the Socialist parties, to support all truly honest elements in the ranks of these
parties, explaining to them the disastrous nature of the policy of the reactionary
Right-Wing leaders.
(4) The Communist and Workers’ Parties must oppose the misanthropic
propaganda of the aggressors who are striving to convert the countries of Europe
and Asia into bloody battlefields, with the broadest propaganda for stable and
lasting peace among the peoples. They must continuously expose the aggressive
blocs and military-political alliances — first and foremost, Western Union and
the North-Atlantic bloc. They must widely explain that a new war would bring
the peoples most profound disaster and colossal destruction, and that the struggle
against war and in defence of peace is the task of all peoples of the world. It is
necessary to ensure that war propaganda, the preaching of racial hatred and
enmity among peoples, which is being conducted by the agents of Anglo-
American imperialism, meets with sharp condemnation on the part of the entire
democratic public in every country. It is necessary to ensure that not one single
action on the part of the propagandists of a new war remains without a rebuff
from the honest supporters of peace.
(5) To make wide use of the new, effective and tested forms of mass struggle
for peace, such as committees in defence of peace in towns and villages, the
drawing up of petitions and protests, ballots among the population, which have
been widely practised in France and Italy, publication and distribution of
literature exposing the war preparations, the collection of funds for the struggle
for peace, the organisation of boycotts of films, newspapers, books, periodicals,
broadcasting companies and of the institutions and leaders propagating the
idea of a new war. All these constitute a most important task of Communist and
Workers’ Parties.
(6) The Communist and Workers’ Parties in capitalist countries consider
it their duty to join in a single whole the struggle for national independence and
the struggle for peace; continuously to expose the anti-national, treacherous
nature of the policy of the bourgeois Governments which have become the
direct agents of aggressive American imperialism; to unite and consolidate all
the democratic and patriotic forces of the country round slogans calling for
abolition of the ignominious subordination to the American monopolies, and
for a return to the path of an independent foreign and home policy corresponding
to the national interests of the peoples.
It is necessary to rally the widest sections of the people in the capitalist
countries in defence of democratic rights and liberties, continuously explaining
that the defence of peace is indissolubly linked, with the defence of the vital
interests of the working class and the working masses, with the defence of their
economic and political rights, important tasks face the Communist Parties of
France, Italy, Britain, West Germany and other countries, whose peoples the
American imperialists want to use as cannon fodder in order to carry out their
aggressive plans. Their duty is to develop still further the struggle for peace
and for the smashing of the criminal designs of the Anglo-American warmongers.
(7) The Communist and Workers’ Parties of the countries of People’s
Democracy and the Soviet Union have, together with the task of exposing the
imperialist warmongers and their accomplices, the task of further strengthening
the camp of peace and Socialism, for the sake of defending peace and the security
of nations.
(8) The Anglo-American imperialists assign a considerable role in the
execution of their aggressive plans, particularly in Central and South-East
Europe, to the nationalist Tito clique, which is employed in the espionage service
of the imperialists. The task of defending peace and struggling against the
warmongers demands the further exposure of this clique which has gone over
to the camp of the bitter enemies of peace, democracy and Socialism — the
camp of imperialism and fascism.
For the first time in the history of mankind there has arisen an organised
peace front, headed by the Soviet Union, the bulwark and standard-bearer of
peace throughout the world. The courageous call of the Communist Parties,
proclaiming that the peoples will never fight against the first land of Socialism
in the world, against the Soviet Union, is being spread ever more widely among
the mass of the people in the capitalist countries. In the days of the war against
fascism, the Communist Parties were the vanguard of the nationwide resistance
to the invaders. In the post-war period the Communist and Workers’ Parties are
the front-rank fighters for the vital interests of their peoples, against a new war.
United together under the leadership of the working class, all the opponents
of a new war — working people and men and women of science and culture —
are organising a mighty peace front capable of frustrating the criminal designs
of the imperialists. The outcome of the developing gigantic struggle for peace
depends to a great extent on the energy and initiative of the Communist Parties.
It rests primarily with the Communists, as vanguard fighters, to transform the
possibility of foiling the warmongers’ plans into an actual fact.
The forces of democracy, the forces of the supporters of peace considerably
exceed the forces of reaction. It is a question of still further increasing the
vigilance of the peoples towards the warmongers, of organising and rallying
the broad mass of the people for the active defence of peace, for the sake of the
basic interests of the peoples, for the sake of their life and liberty.
II. WORKING-CLASS UNITY AND THE TASKS OF THE
COMMUNIST AND WORKERS’ PARTIES
The preparation of a new war which is being conducted by the Anglo-
American imperialists, the campaign of bourgeois reaction against the
democratic rights and economic interests of the working class and the masses
of the people, demand a strengthening of the struggle of the working class to
safeguard and consolidate peace, to organise a decisive rebuff to the warmongers
and to the onslaught of imperialist reaction. The guarantee of success in this
struggle is unity in the ranks of the working class.
Post-war experience shows that the policy of splitting the working class
movement occupies one of the most important places in the arsenal of tactical
means and measures used by the imperialists for the unleashing of a new war,
for the suppression of the forces of democracy and Socialism, and for sharply
lowering the standard of living of the mass of the people.
Never before in the whole history of the international working-class
movement has working-class unity, both within individual countries and on a
world scale, been of such decisive importance as at the present time. Unity in
the ranks of the working class is necessary in order to defend peace, to thwart
the criminal designs of the warmongers and to foil the imperialists’ plot against
democracy and Socialism, to avert the establishment of fascist methods of
domination, to offer a decisive rebuff to the campaign of monopoly capital
against the vital interests of the working class and to achieve an improvement
in the economic position of the working masses.
These tasks can be achieved first and foremost on the basis of rallying the
broad masses of the working class, irrespective of party membership, trade
union organisation and religious faith. Unity from below is the most effective
way of rallying all workers for the sake of the defence of peace and the national
independence of their countries, for the sake of the defence of the economic
interests and democratic rights of the working people. Working-class unity is
fully attainable, despite the opposition of the leading centres of all the trade
unions and parties, led by splitters and enemies of unity.
The post-war period has been marked by big successes in the elimination
of the split in the working class and in the rallying of the democratic forces in
general, an expression of which was the formation of the World Federation of
Trade Unions, the Women’s International Democratic Federation, and the World
Federation of Democratic Youth, and the convening of the World Congress of
Partisans of Peace. The successes of unity are expressed in the strengthening of
the General Confederation of Labour in France, the establishment of a united
trade union association in Italy — the Italian General Confederation of Labour
— and in the militant activities of the French and Italian proletariat.
In the countries of People’s Democracy historic successes have been won
as regards unity of the working class. United parties of the working class have
been set up, as well as united trade unions, and united co-operative, youth,
women’s and other organisations. This working-class unity played a decisive
role in the successes achieved in the economic and cultural advance in the
countries of People’s Democracy, ensured for the working class the leading
role in the State, and ensured radical improvements in the material conditions
of the working masses.
All this points to the tremendous urge of the working class towards
consolidating its ranks, and points to the existence of real possibilities of creating
a united front of the working class against the united forces of reaction, from
the American imperialists to the Right-Wing Socialists.
The American and British imperialists and their satellites in the countries
of Europe are striving to split and disorganise the forces of the proletariat and
of the people in general, placing particular hopes in the Right-Wing Socialists
and reactionary trade union leaders. On direct instructions from the American
and British imperialists, the Right-Wing Socialist leaders and reactionary trade
union leaders are splitting the ranks of the working-class movement from the
top and trying to destroy the united organisations of the working class which
have been set up in the post-war period. They have tried to smash the World
Federation of Trade Union from within, have organised breakaway groupings
— the Force Ouvrière in France, the so-called Federation of Labour in Italy —
and they are preparing to set up a breakaway international trade union centre.
Splitting attempts of this kind have also been made by the leaders of the
Catholic organisations in certain countries. The appraisal of the treacherous
actions of the Right-Wing Socialist leaders, as the bitterest enemies of working-
class unity and the accomplices of imperialism, given by the first conference of
the Information Bureau of Communist Parties, has been fully confirmed.
Today the Right-Wing Socialists act not only as agents of the bourgeoisie
in their own countries, but as agents of American imperialism, converting the
Social-Democratic parties of the countries of Europe into American parties,
direct tools of United States imperialist aggression.
In those countries where the Right-Wing Socialists are in the Government
— Britain, France, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries — they act as the
ardent defenders of the Marshall Plan, Western Union and North Atlantic Treaty,
and all similar forms of American expansion. These pseudo-Socialists carry
out the foulest role in the persecution of working-class and democratic
organisations which defend the interests of the working people. Sliding farther
and farther down the path of betrayal of the interests of the working class,
democracy and Socialism, and having completely disowned Marxist teaching,
the Right-Wing Socialists are now acting as the defenders and propagandists
of the robber ideology of American imperialism.
Their theory of democratic Socialism, of the third force, their cosmopolitan
ravings about the need to renounce national sovereignty, are nothing but
ideological camouflage of the aggression of American and British imperialism.
The wretched offspring of the Second International (which rotted alive) — the
so-called Committee of International Socialist Conferences (C.O.M.I.S.C.O.)
— has become the rallying ground of the vilest splitters and disorganisers of
the working-class movement. This organisation has become an espionage centre
in the employment of the British and American intelligence services.
Only in decisive battle against the Right-Wing Socialist splitters and
disorganisers of the working-class, movement can working-class unity be won.
II
The Information Bureau considers it the primary task of the Communist
Parties to struggle continuously to unite and organise all the forces of the working
class in order to offer powerful resistance to the insolent claims of Anglo-
American imperialism, to frustrate their gamble on a new world war, to defend
and consolidate the cause of peace and international security, to doom to failure
the offensive of monopoly capital against the standard of living of the working
masses.
In the present international situation, it is the direct duty of the Communist
Parties to explain that if the working class do not secure unity in their ranks,
they will deprive themselves of the most important weapon in the struggle against
the growing threat of a new world war and the offensive of imperialist reaction
on the standard of living of the working people.
While conducting an irreconcilable and consistent struggle in theory and
practice against the Right-Wing Socialists and reactionary trade union leaders
and mercilessly exposing them and isolating them from the masses, the
Communists should patiently and persistently explain to the rank-and-file Social
Democrat workers the full importance of working-class unity, should draw them
into the active struggle for peace, bread and democratic liberties, and should
pursue a policy of joint action for the achievement of these aims.
The tried method of achieving unity for the working class is unity of action
on the part of its various sections. Agreed joint action in individual enterprises,
in whole branches of industry, on a town, regional, national and international
scale, mobilises the broadest masses for the struggle for the most immediate
needs which they best understand, and serves to establish permanent unity in
the proletarian ranks. The achievement of unified working-class action from
below can be expressed in the formation in factories and institutions of
committees in defence of peace, in the organisation of mass demonstrations
against the warmongers, in joint action on the part of the workers for the purpose
of defending democratic rights and improving their economic position.
In the struggle for working-class unity special attention should be given to
the masses of Catholic workers and working people and their organisation,
bearing in mind that religious convictions are not an obstacle to working-class
unity, particularly when this unity is needed to save peace. Concrete joint action
in the field of economic demands, co-ordination of the struggle of the class and
Catholic trade unions, etc., can be effective means of bringing the Catholic
workers into the common front of struggle for peace.
A most important task of the Communist Parties in every capitalist country
is to do everything possible to secure unity of the trade union movement. Today
it is of tremendous importance to draw unorganised workers into the trade unions
and into active struggle. In the capitalist countries these workers comprise a
considerable part of the proletariat. If the Communist Parties properly organise
the work among the unorganised workers, they will be able to achieve important
successes in the task of securing working-class unity.
The Information Bureau considers that it is necessary, on the basis of
working-class unity, to establish national unity of all democratic forces for the
purpose of mobilising the broad masses of the people for the struggle against
Anglo-American imperialism and reaction at home. Of extreme importance is
the day-to-day work in the various mass organisations of the working people:
women’s, youth, peasant, co-operative and other organisations.
Unity of the working-class movement and the rallying of all democratic
forces is necessary, not only for the solution of the day-to-day and current tasks
of the working class and the mass of the working people, but also for the solution
of the basic questions which confront the proletariat as a class which is leading
the struggle for the elimination of the power of monopoly capital, for the Socialist
re-construction of society. On the basis of the successes achieved in securing
unity of the working-class movement and rallying all the democratic forces, it
will become possible to develop the struggle in capitalist countries for the setting
up of governments which will rally all the patriotic forces opposed to the
enslavement of their countries by American imperialism, will adopt the policy
of stable peace among peoples, will stop the armaments race and will raise the
standard of living of the working masses.
In the countries of People’s Democracy, the Communist and Workers’
Parties are confronted with the task of still further consolidating the working-
class unity already achieved and the united trade union, cooperative, women’s,
youth and other organisations already created.
***
The Information Bureau considers that the further success of the struggle
for working-class unity and the rallying of the democratic forces depends
primarily on improvements in all the organisational and ideological work of
every Communist and Workers’ Party. For the Communist and Workers’ Parties,
the ideological exposure of, and the irreconcilable struggle against, all
manifestations of opportunism, sectarianism and bourgeois-nationalism, and
the struggle against the penetration of enemy agents into the party milieu, are
of decisive importance.
The lessons which arise from the exposure of the Tito-Rankovic spy clique
imperatively demand that the Communist and Workers’ Parties should increase
revolutionary vigilance to the utmost. The agents of the Tito clique are today
acting as the bitterest splitters in the ranks of the working class and democratic
movements and are carrying out the will of the American imperialists. A decisive
struggle is necessary, therefore, against the intrigues of these agents of the
imperialists, wherever they try to work in workers’ and democratic organisations.
The organisational and ideological-political strengthening of the
Communist and Workers’ Parties on the basis of the principles of Marxism-
Leninism is a most important condition for the successful struggle of the working
class for unity in their ranks, for the cause of peace, for the national independence
of their countries, for democracy and Socialism. ●
MARX AGAINST KEYNES
ALMOST without exception, the bourgeois media have been forced to come
round to the view that the current capitalist economic crisis is going to be at
least as serious as that which started in 1929. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,
International Business Editor of the Daily Telegraph, contemplating the effects
of the economic downturn in Germany and Spain quotes Jacques Cailloux of
RBS as saying that “the pace of contraction in Europe is now disturbingly
close to levels seen in the Great Depression ... Even the worst case scenarios
people talked about now look too optimistic”. But, he adds, “at least the
authorities have done enough to prevent the vicious downward spiral from
accelerating. We haven’t seen the sort of run on bank deposits or mass
bankruptcies that occurred in the 1930s”.
The reason we have not done so (although there is still time!) is the massive
government interventions that have saved major banks from the ignominious
collapse that overtook Lehmann Brothers. The repercussions of that collapse
acted as a lifeline for other insolvent banks and brought national governments
rushing to the rescue. As a result, “We are all Keynesians now”, to quote the
words of Richards Nixon uttered 3 decades ago when he was President, words
that are echoing everywhere in bourgeois circles today.
“The phrase rings truer today than at any time since, as governments
seize on John Maynard Keynes’s idea that fiscal stimulus - public spending
and tax cuts - can help dig their economies out of recession.
“The sudden resurgence of Keynesian policy is a stunning reversal of the
orthodoxy of the past several decades, which held that efforts to use fiscal
policy to manage the economy and mitigate downturns were doomed to failure.
Now only Germany remains publicly skeptical that fiscal stimulus will work ....
“The incoming administration of Barack Obama is preparing a two-year
fiscal stimulus package with a reported price tag of $675bn-$775bn, which
many Washington-based analysts believe could swell to $850bn (£580bn,
€600bn) or even $1,000bn - between 5 per cent and 7 per cent of national
income.
“Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, told reporters in late December that
if monetary policy was impaired - in large part because of problems within the
financial system - ‘then governments have to use fiscal policy, and that has
been seen in every country of the world’.
“Launching France’s fiscal stimulus, President Nicolas Sarkozy said: ‘Our
answer to this crisis is investment because it is the best way to support growth
and save the jobs of today - and the only way to prepare for the jobs of
tomorrow.’ “ (Chris Giles, Ralph Atkins and Krishna Guha, ‘The undeniable
shift to Keynes’, Financial Times 31 December 2009).
Even impeccable right wingers like Roger Bootle, Managing Director of
Capital Economics and economic adviser to Deloittes now proclaims:
“We now find ourselves in Keynesian conditions. So this is the time for
Keynesian solutions. What are the implications? There is nothing anti-
Keynesian about trying to get out of the current position through lower interest
rates. For anyone who believes in markets and is wary about state action, this
must be the first resort. But don’t be surprised if this does not work.
“In that instance, don’t be shy about allowing huge increases in
government borrowing to stave off depression. Finance must not be confused
with economics. Debt has to be serviced all right, and this has costs, but idle
men and machines are real costs which are never recoverable and hence are
borne forever” (‘We now face Keynesian conditions and need truly Keynesian
solutions’, Daily Telegraph, 28 October 2008).
President Obama has jumped right on the Keynesian bandwagon:
“Obama has explicitly drawn on folk memories of FDR’s New Deal, telling
television viewers to “keep in mind that in 1932, 1933 the unemployment rate
was 25%”.
“Obama is probably right to assume that those same memories have it
that the massive state interventionism of the New Deal triumphantly restored
America to full employment. That’s why he felt comfortable in asserting, on
the eve of the launch of a $2 trillion (or so) injection of taxpayers’ money,
‘There is no disagreement that we need . . . a recovery plan that will help to
jump-start the economy’ “ (Dominic Lawson, ‘Obama’s new deal is the same
old blunder, Sunday Times, 15 February 2009).
Let us not forget our own Gordon Brown who has been hailed as the saviour
of the western world through his advocacy of a worldwide coordinated return
to Keynes:
“In a panel discussion [at Davos] of less than an hour, Mr Brown did
something that had seemed impossible only minutes before - he offered a way
out of the crisis. While the oracles and lemming-leaders were unimpressed by
Mr Brown’s message, the lemming-followers had adulation written on their
faces as they filed out of the Congress Hall.
“How did he do it? First, Mr Brown explained that recessions were a
natural feature of capitalism and that they rarely lasted for more than a year
or two. But surely this recession felt different? Yes, but mainly because this one
was “the first crisis of the global age”. As a result, global solutions were
required. He added that a certain British economist had explained why such
recessions happened and how they could be overcome. His name was John
Maynard Keynes, and the Prime Minister described poignantly how he had
seen a document in the Treasury archives in which the young Keynes’s proposals
for saving Britain from the Great Depression were dismissed by the Chancellor
in only three scribbled words: ‘inflation, extravagance, bankruptcy’. Finally,
Mr Brown moved on to a three-stage response from governments around the
world. The first stage was to stabilise the financial system and prevent bank
failures. After Henry Paulson’s catastrophic blunder in bankrupting Lehman,
this had been achieved. The second stage, now in progress, is to counteract
the collapse of private economic activity triggered by the near-failure of every
bank in the world with huge doses of monetary and fiscal stimulus. The third
stage will be to restore the growth of credit by forcing banks to increase their
lending” (Anatole Kaletsky, ‘Why I would back the Prime Minister for a Nobel
Prize, The Times, 2 February 2009).
WHAT EXACTLY IS KEYNESIANISM?
Roger Bootle (op.cit.) has usefully summed up Keynes’ major conclusions
in the following terms:
“I can reduce Keynes’ view to seven essential propositions.
“1. The [capitalist] economic system is naturally prone to periods of
depression.
“2. When one occurs, the system is not necessarily self-correcting.
“3. Such depressions are not the result of individual choice. On the
contrary, individuals en masse can become trapped in a depression which is in
no one’s interest but which, as individuals, no one can counter-act.
“4. This represents pure waste. Unemployed workers want to work, and
businesses want to use their productive capacity. If they did, then the things
they produced would be available for all to buy, and the incomes they received
would enable them to purchase the products of others.
“5. For individuals it may be appropriate to react to difficult times by
saving more. Yet collectively this is a disaster. One man’s saving is another
man’s reduced income. Extra borrowing by the Government, if it encourages
more output, can be self-financing.
“6. The key is aggregate demand. In normal circumstances it is possible
to influence this by changes in interest rates. But there is a level below which
interest rates cannot go and at that point conventional monetary policy is
powerless. Moreover, even if interest rates can be lowered this may have no
effect if people cannot or will not borrow.
“7. At this point, aggregate demand can only be boosted by the Government
borrowing more, either to spend directly or to give to others to spend via tax
cuts or the like.”
To answer this question in more depth, however, and in order to understand
Keynes’ underlying assumptions, we have drawn on a pamphlet by the erstwhile
CPGB’s John Eaton, written in 1950 and entitled Marx against Keynes.
“The pre-Keynesians argued that every product that went to market created
a purchasing power corresponding to its value, since production costs and
other incomes generated in the processes of production and distribution (wages,
cost of materials, rent, interest, salaries, profit, etc.) exactly equaled the total
value of the product sold. (This doctrine is generally known as ‘Says’s Law’...
“Keynes opposed the view that the capitalist system necessarily generated
enough purchasing power, or ... effective demand ... to keep all factors of
production employed.” (pp.30-31)
And further: “The Keynesian theory of employment runs as follows:
“Expenditure takes two forms – investment expenditure and consumption
expenditure. The latter depends upon (i) incomes received, coupled with (ii)
the extent to which these incomes are spent or saved; for example, if incomes
totalling, say, £10 billion are paid out and of these 90% is spent on consumption
and 10% is saved, effective demand arising from consumption is £9 billion.
“But, says Keynes, the mere fact that people aim at saving 10% of their
incomes does not mean that this balance of ‘unspent’ or ‘saved’ incomes ... is
forthwith and necessarily spent on investment goods.
“In fact, the decision to spend income on consumption is quite separate
and distinct from the decision to increase expenditure on capital equipment,
etc. This latter decision is taken by the capitalist ...; and it is taken in the light
of the prospects of making a profit.
“The essence of the Keynesian theory of employment is then this: the
level of employment is determined by the total effective demand, which means
total purchasers of consumer goods plus investment expenditure. In so far as
income not spent on consumption fails to be matched by expenditure on
investment goods, there is a falling off of total demand and therefore of output
and employment as a whole, which, of course, brings with it a reduction in
incomes.” (pp. 33-34)
Also: “It follows from this line of reasoning that to maintain full or high
employment and output it is necessary to maintain investment expenditure at
the right level. If this is not done, economic activity falls, incomes paid out in
the form of profits and the wage bill dwindle. In short, effective demand in the
form of consumption expenditure falls short of the level necessary to maintain
full employment and output.
“Full employment can, however, be maintained – says Keynes – if the
State takes special steps to keep investment expenditure at the right level; this,
he says, it may do by (a) controlling the rate of interest; (b) itself undertaking
investment or public works expenditure; (c) exercising some general control –
about which Keynes is nowhere very precise – over all forms of investment.”
(page 38)
And “Keynes ... also advocates measures designed to increase the
‘propensity to consume’. These measures include (i) increasing purchasing
power ... and (ii) taxation designed to redistribute incomes in favour of the
lower income groups (who save less). However, the emphasis on the second
group of remedies is less marked.” (Page 39).
KEYNES’ FATAL FLAW
The fatal flaw in Keynes is that, having failed correctly to identify the
cause of the crisis, his ‘solutions’ amount to nothing more than the blind treatment
of symptoms. His remedies do not avert crises – at best they ‘manage’ them in
such a way as to enable the bourgeoisie to maintain control over the indignant
masses whose livelihoods are being destroyed. Saving the banks, for instance,
is not just a question of handouts to disgustingly rich bankers. It is also, and
above all, a question of ensuring that ordinary masses continue to receive their
wages from their employers’ bank accounts so long as they remain employed,
and are in turn able to withdraw these wages from their own accounts when
they wish to spend them. It is fair to say that if bank account holders in their
millions suddenly found themselves cut off from the cash that funds their
everyday existence, riots would certainly ensue. It remains to be seen, however,
whether the rescues will work in the long term.
Keynesianism is based on false premises, and cannot therefore lead to
consistently correct predictions. As Eaton says on page 29-30:
“Keynes does not abandon the basic bourgeois premises. He accepts the
subjective value theory of his bourgeois predecessors (the ‘marginal utility
theory’) and rejects the labour theory of value of Adam Smith, Ricardo and
Marx.
“The essential point of the subjective value theories is that they focus
attention on buying and selling – the process of exchange and distribution –
and fail to explain the relationship of men in the process of production. Whereas
the labour theory of value shows how, before goods enter exchange, value has
already been embodied in them by the expenditure of productive labour [a
value expropriated by the capitalist], according to the subjective theories goods
acquire their value only in the process of exchange...
“The practical value of the bourgeois value theories and in particular
their application in the bourgeois wages theory, is, then, that they hide the
nature of capitalist exploitation.”
What is this ‘marginal utility’ theory that Keynes adopts, and why does it
matter that he rejects the labour theory of value?
Keynes agrees with the laissez faire economists that “the wage is equal to
the marginal product of labour”. ... The theory ... seems to say that the worker
is paid for what he produces. If this were so, then the argument that the worker
is exploited would fall to the ground ...
“On closer examination, however, we find that the ‘product’ in the
expression ‘marginal product’ has not got the plain meaning of ‘produced by
labour’. The bourgeois economist argues that a number of ‘factors of
production’ contribute to the productive process, such as machinery, money at
the bank, stocks of materials, the enterprise and imagination of the board of
directors, the factory building, the land on which it stands, as well, of course,
as the workers. ... The reward that each unit of each factor of production
gets, says the bourgeois economist, equals the marginal product, which is the
additional output that would result from adding one unit (the ‘marginal’ unit)
of one factor of production...
“Some bourgeois economists have said in so many words that this marginal
productivity theory shows that the worker gets paid the due value of what he
produces. This is playing with words, for the activity of producing in the
economic sense of the term is nothing but the activity of the human being
engaged in production, namely labour. If labour were really rewarded with
the full value of what it produces, nothing at all would go to the owners of
Capital and Land. ...” (p.44-45)
In other words, the ‘marginal utility’ theory, by refusing to accept that
value is exclusively produced by labour and that capitalist profit arises from
the expropriation of a part of the product of that labour, completely obliterates
the antagonistic contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the working class –
between profit and wages.
This enables bourgeois economists to ignore the fact that the greater the
profits expropriated by the bourgeoisie, the lower the wages (and therefore the
lower the consumption power) of the working-class masses.
THE RESULT OF THIS
“In the period of monopoly capitalism the contradiction between
productive capacity and the purchasing power of the masses becomes more
and more acute, for three basic reasons: (1) accumulation ... becomes
progressively greater; (2) wages and middle class incomes are squeezed by
rising prices; (3) average technique and intensity of work (that is, output per
man) is high and tending to rise, so that the workers’ share in what they produce
in terms of goods tends to fall. Markets are insufficient.
“This leads to desperate struggles between the monopoly groupings which
attempt to establish monopoly domination on a world scale. Two world wars
have resulted from their antagonisms” (p.100-101).
And naturally the bourgeois economists are unable to see that “The cause
of crisis is the contradiction in capital itself, the contradiction, inherent in the
worker-capitalist relationship, between social production and capitalist
appropriation of the product.”(p. 104-5)
Because of this, “Keynes in effect argues that there is no necessary
connection between production for profit and economic crisis. The Marxist
standpoint by contrast is that economic crisis is inseparably bound up with the
profit system.
“The basic cause of crisis is that the personal incomes received by the
masses of the people are continually being reduced relatively to the expansion
of production capacity which takes place in the course of every boom.” (p.87-
88)
As a result of Keynes’ basic theoretical errors – entirely dictated by the
bourgeois class interests he serves – Keynes has no real answers to capitalist
crisis.
Where Keynesian ‘remedies’ have been applied in the past as a cure for
crisis, invariably inflation has intervened, causing the decimation of the
purchasing power of wages, savings, pensions. The winners were the indebted
who found their debt burdens lightened. Generally for the masses of people,
however, living standards fall regardless of the application of Keynesian
remedies. The fact is that:
“More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the
United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The sorry
facts bear this out. The unemployment rate in the US was still 19% in 1939 [as
opposed to 25% in 1933]. Over the following four years the number of
unemployed workers declined dramatically, by more than 7m. This had a very
particular reason: the number of men in military service rose by 8.6m.”
(Dominic Lawson, op.cit.).
Nevertheless, Keynes is still flavour of the month with the bourgeoisie
and its politicians who, like Obama, have all kinds of reasons for ignoring
inconvenient lessons of the 1930s and for rewriting history, even if it is just an
example of the triumph of hope over experience.
The expansion of the boom years has under capitalism to be balanced by
contraction in the recession years. The only problem is that not a single
bourgeois can afford to carry on in business at a reduced scale, allowing losses
to eat away at his profits. Not a single capitalist can resist trying to maintain
some profitability, or at least reducing his losses, by dismissing as many of his
workforce as possible. If the bourgeois state gives these people employment,
not a single bourgeois is willing to pay taxes to finance the state to employ
them, leaving the state with only the options of printing money (leading to
inflation) or borrowing money (leaving it to future generations of taxpayers to
repay the debt – at the expense of their ability to spend money on consumption
and investment alike and therefore delaying the possibility of economic
recovery).
Keynesian remedies theoretically could facilitate a more orderly recession
but in practice contradictions between different sectors of the ruling class and
between different imperialist and capitalist powers become so acute that they
develop into antagonisms, principally because of the uneven impact of crisis
on different capitalists and imperialists.
“In a capitalist boom such as we have been going through, great
disproportions develop between the department of industry devoted to
production goods and that devoted to consumption goods and also between
the various industries in each of these departments.
“The production goods sector is very often developed far beyond the point
that is necessary to supply all the varied sectors of industry with new equipment.
This flows from the fact that the economy is not centrally planned and the
extent to which the various sectors of industry have expanded depended on the
rate at which profits could be made, capitalist speculations, the availability of
supplies to enable expansion to take place in various industries, and other
chance factors.
“These disproportions remain concealed as the boom develops. It is only
when the boom is collapsing that their extent is revealed.
“When these disproportions have been carried to extreme lengths in the
production goods section, no amount of juggling with purchasing power – or
any other central controls – will induce the capitalist class to place sufficient
orders to employ those industries to full capacity.” (Eaton, p.129).
In these circumstances, the bourgeoisie finds it impossible to sing from
the same hymn sheet. No company that is capable of surviving the crisis is
willing to have its profitability reduced by measures designed to save businesses
(and their associated employees) that are less fortunate. In fact every bourgeois
wants there to be high spending capacity so he can sell his products, while
paying his own workers as little as possible and reducing his workforce to the
greatest possible extent. Every bourgeois would like the state to increase its
spending – providing jobs and therefore enhancing workers’ consumption
powers, as well as distributing profitable contracts to bourgeois concerns – but
not if that means he has to provide the state with the finance to do so through
higher taxes!
So while every bourgeois clutches eagerly at the increased consumption
that Keynesian remedies promise to provide, they universally baulk at paying
the cost. As a result:
“Unfortunately, even among those enlightened enough to see the need for
a powerful stimulus, there are internal disagreements between those who
emphasise the monetary and financial side and those who emphasise fiscal
policy. And there are divisions within divisions. There are divisions between
those who emphasise interest rate cuts followed by so-called quantitative easing
and those who call for a reconstruction of the banking system. Among those
who favour a fiscal stimulus there are divisions between those who urge more
public spending and those favouring tax cuts.” (Samuel Brittan, ‘Economic
dominoes are still falling’, Financial Times, 14 February 2009).
This contradiction between what every bourgeois wants for himself and
what he wants for others also explains the agonising of Joseph Stilgitz in ‘Give
us more bangs for our bailout bucks’, The Times, 27 January 2009:
“A strong stimulus is one that delivers a big bang for the buck – and
quickly. Tax cuts work quickly but, in times like these, are relatively ineffective.
With an overhang of debt and asset values declining, most of last February’s
US tax cuts were not spent. Yet, remarkably, some are arguing that a substantial
fraction of the Obama stimulus should take the form of a tax cut. The first
focus should be on preventing further spending cutbacks; with states and
localities limited to spending what they receive in revenues, and with tax
revenues falling precipitously, making up for this shortfall is the natural place
to begin.
“Second, spending should have as positive a long-run impact as possible.
To be sure, the spending will lead to a rise in indebtedness. But if it creates an
asset, whether human capital, infrastructure or new technologies, then the
nation’s balance sheet may even be improved. Tax cuts aimed at promoting
consumption simply increase liabilities, with no asset to match.
“Carefully designed business tax cuts, linked to higher investment, can
provide a big bang for the buck and raise productivity. Unfortunately, some of
business tax cuts being discussed in the US are likely to have minimal effect on
investment.
“It is remarkable how countries can be so penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Politicians squabble for weeks over how or whether to spend a relatively small
amount. Yet, in almost a blink of the eye, a $700 billion blank cheque was
given to bail out banks. We need to put that in proportion: it is greater than all
of the foreign aid from rich to poor countries for seven years. It could put US
social security on a sound footing for a century.
“The hundreds of billions given to the banks have not done what was
promised. Credit is not flowing. Part of the reason is that the bailout was not
well thought through. As we were pouring money into the banks, they were
pouring money out...”
At the end of the day, the Keynesian ‘stimulus’ has to be paid for. The US
stimulus being promoted by Obama “will be expensive, more expensive than
the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined and Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority
leader [sic], has called it a mere ‘down payment’” (Christopher Caldwell, ‘Is
the stimulus Obama’s Iraq, Financial Times, 31 January 2009).
The bourgeoisie does not want to pay for the stimulus. The alternatives
are to borrow money and make the working class repay the loans through a
programme of high taxation on low incomes – cutting future consumption – or
printing money (or “quantitative easing”, to use the current fashionable
euphemism). Indeed, to ‘allow’ a moderate amount of ‘controlled’ inflation
seems to Tim Leunig (‘Coordinated inflation can bail us all out’, Financial
Times, 16 February 2009) the ideal answer:
“It would help government finances by inflating away 10 per cent of total
government debt. This lowers the interest burden for future taxpayers. Since
taxes are levied primarily on income, this has both equity and efficiency benefits.
It is (more) equitable as the cost of recession will be borne by wealth holders
as well as income generators, and it is (more) efficient in that it reduces the
extent of incentive-reducing tax rises on income in the future.
“Companies will benefit in two ways. First, a portion of their debt will
disappear, with the benefit being the largest for those companies that have
debts with fixed interest, such as corporate bonds.
“Second, while real wages seem to be downwardly flexible, nominal wages
are less so. Higher inflation allows more companies and workers to agree to
real wage cuts than would otherwise be the case. This is both useful for those
firms that are currently uncompetitive, and preferable for society, because wage
cuts are more equitable than unemployment.
“A rise in inflation also means that declines in real house prices translate
into less negative equity, freeing up the housing market. This is beneficial for
labour mobility and helpful to the real economy because additional house
sales spur economic activity.
“Banks would gain in three ways. Inflation reduces future bad debts by
making debt servicing easier. It makes defaults less costly because real collateral
is more likely to exceed nominal debt. Finally, it makes existing bad debts less
onerous on the balance sheet. This reduces the need for government
recapitalisations and “bad banks” and increases the ability of governments to
sell recently acquired banks. This, in turn, reduces the debt burden on future
taxpayers.
“An extra 2 points of inflation for five years is not a “get out of jail free
card”. Bank shareholders, rightly, will still lose greatly from their managers’
decisions. Future taxpayers will, inevitably, still bear most of the cost of counter-
cyclical government spending.
“It is not costless. Regrettably, prudent savers will see their assets reduced.
That might be the price society has to pay to keep the banking system afloat
without crippling future taxpayers.”
Tim Leunig’s proposals, however, would certainly draw howls of rage
from companies that are managing to turn a profit despite the recession, who
will certainly not want to find that profit reduced or annihilated by inflation -
not to speak of millions of those living on fixed incomes such as pensions.
Enhanced contradictions lead to war
The bourgeois economists of today, while no longer as triumphalist as at
the time of the collapse of the USSR and the eastern bloc of erstwhile socialist
countries, while no longer as foolish as to jubilantly pronounce the death of
Marxism as they then did, are still unable or unwilling to accept the truth that it
is impossible to get rid of the crises of overproduction while capitalism lasts.
Under this system of production, the expansive force of modern industry comes
up against the resistance offered by the limited capacity of consumption, by the
limited capacity of the market to absorb the products of industry, owing to the
impoverishment of the masses. As the expansion of the markets cannot keep
pace with the expansion of production, collision becomes inevitable and, failing
the overthrow of the capitalist system, these collisions become periodic. This
has been the case since 1825, the year when the first general crisis of capitalism
broke out.
Neither Keynesianism nor monetarism, neither inflation nor deflation, offer
any solution to the problem of the crises of overproduction under capitalism.
They merely offer temporary palliatives, which, far from being the cure they
are presented as by the bourgeoisie and its intellects, only make the malady
worse by “paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and
by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented” (Marx and Engels,
The Communist Manifesto, p.38).
Neither Keynesianism nor monetarism is able, in the final analysis, to do
away with the continuing impoverishment of the masses under capitalism - an
impoverishment which serves to undermine consumer spending and economic
growth, thus inevitably bringing to a shuddering halt any recovery engineered
through a combination of monetary and fiscal tricks and precipitating yet another
crisis, for the “...last cause of real crises always remains the poverty and
restricted consumption of the masses as compared to the tendency of capitalist
production to develop the productive forces as if only the absolute power of
consumption of the entire society would be their limit” (K Marx, Capital, Vol
III, p.484).
The crisis of capitalism is propelling various imperialist countries, on the
one hand to wage wars for domination against the oppressed countries, as for
instance in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, and on the other hand it is serving
to intensify inter-imperialist contradictions to a new pitch. In the end, these
contradictions, which in the final analysis boil down to a struggle for the
redivision of the world, cannot be resolved amicably and peacefully. The leading
powers involved in this life-and-death struggle are bound, unless stopped by a
series of proletarian revolutions, to come to blows with each other.
Capitalism by its very nature is inextricably bound up with crises of
overproduction and with war. Neither crises in industry nor wars in politics
can be eliminated without the overthrow of capitalism.
The productive forces of modern industry long ago outgrew the capitalist
mode of using them. Only the proletariat, through the seizure of state power,
the transformation of the socialised means of production into public property,
the organisation of “socialised production upon a predetermined plan”, can
free the means of production from their character as capital, and thus rid society
of the tyranny of the periodically-recurring crises of overproduction and
imperialist wars. “To accomplish this act of universal emancipation,” to quote
the never-to-be-forgotten words of Engels, “is the historical mission of the
modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and
thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian
class a full knowledge of the conditions and the meaning of the momentous act
it is called upon to accomplish - this is the task of the theoretical expression of
the proletarian movement, scientific socialism” (Anti-Dühring, p.395).
If any proof be needed of the above analysis of Marx and Engels, it is
furnished by a comparative study of the economies of the leading capitalist
countries, on the one hand, and that of the socialist USSR, on the other hand,
during the Great Depression, which started in 1929 and lasted more than 10
years - well into the Second World War. Between 1929 and 1933, the US
economy shrank by a third. Only in 1937 did the physical volume of production
reach the levels of 1929 - only to slide again. In the 10 years between 1930-
1940, only once (in 1937) did the average number of US jobless during the
year drop below 8 million. In 1933, a quarter of the labour force (13 million)
in the US were out of work. The rest of the capitalist world too was in the grip
of an unprecedented depression, suffering from similar levels of economic
contraction and rising unemployment.
In comparison with the doom and gloom, despair and despondency
engulfing the entire capitalist world, the USSR, the land of socialism, alone
stood as a shining beacon of rising production, rising employment and working
class power, beckoning the world proletariat, by its sheer existence, to overthrow
capitalism. As the capitalist crisis wreaked havoc on the economies of all the
major capitalist countries, year by year the USSR registered world-historic
increases in industrial production. From 1929 to 1933, Soviet industrial
production more than doubled, while unemployment disappeared completely,
never to return while the USSR lasted.
In the end, imperialism could find no way out of the crisis other than
through the horrors of the Second World War, which brought untold destruction
and wiped out 55 million workers and peasants, including 27 million from the
USSR, which led, and made the greatest sacrifices in, the successful fight against
Hitlerite fascism.
CONCLUSION
It can be seen that Keynes based his belief that crisis could be averted on
false premises and failure, or more correctly unwillingness, to understand the
antagonism between wages and profits, let alone the necessary implication of
this, which is the relative impoverishment of the working masses and of the
oppressed countries, which will erect a barrier that will sooner or later prevent
the bourgeoisie from selling the products of their ever expanding industries.
John Eaton’s book referred to above explains all this very well, although he in
turn exhibits traces of erroneous understanding in that he seems to believe that
Keynesianism is incapable of increasing the share of the working class in the
national wealth - at least temporarily. From the end of the Second World War
to the mid-1970s, however, what is known as the ‘Keynesian consensus’ in fact
delivered a higher proportion of national wealth to the working masses, in the
form, for instance, of free education and health services and unemployment
and welfare benefits - however grudgingly conceded. It is the extraction of
superprofits by imperialism from the oppressed countries of the world that has
made this largesse even possible - and it was the imperialist bourgeoisie’s fear
of proletarian revolution as long as the living successes of Soviet Russia and
other socialist countries were threatening to lead the working masses to
revolution that motivated the bourgeoisie to distribute that largesse. Even today
in the midst of crisis, benefits still accrue to the working masses in imperialist
countries that are certainly not available to the exploited and oppressed masses
of the third world. In the context of Eaton’s book, this is not a very important
point; but in the wider context of understanding the strength of opportunism in
the working-class movements of the imperialist countries and resisting its call,
then the error is potentially fatal. Even at the time of writing, John Eaton was
unable to see the treacherous and reactionary role of the ‘left’ wing of the Labour
Party, although he was still capable of seeing that the only way out of ☞
APOLOGISTS OF
NEO-COLONIALISM
[Comment By The CPC On The Open Letter Of
The Central Committee Of The CPSU, October 22, 1963]
A GREAT revolutionary storm has spread through Asia, Africa and Latin
America since World War II. Independence has been proclaimed in more than
fifty Asian and African countries. China, Viet Nam, Korea and Cuba have taken
the road of socialism. The face of Asia, Africa and Latin America has undergone
a tremendous change.
While revolution in the colonies and semi-colonies suffered serious
setbacks after World War I owing to suppression by the imperialists and their
lackeys, the situation after World War II is fundamentally different. The
imperialists are no longer able to extinguish the prairie fire of national liberation.
Their old colonial system is fast disintegrating. Their rear has become a front
of raging anti-imperialist struggles. Imperialist rule has been overthrown in
some colonial and dependent countries, and in others it has suffered heavy
blows and is tottering. This inevitably weakens and shakes the rule of imperialism
in the metropolitan countries.
recurrent crisis was to overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist planned

economy under the aegis of a working-class state – ideas that his party, the
CPGB, were gradually to abandon.
With these reservations, however, we do not hesitate to recommend his
pamphlet to the modern reader who will find there many arguments extremely
relevant to the present situation, to explain the attempts by the bourgeoisie to
put Keynesian remedies into effect and to arm the working class against being
deceived into believing that these will safeguard their interests. Our job is to
ensure that Keynesianism is not used to draw the working masses into pursuit
of a futile reformism and away from the road to proletarian revolution – their
only salvation. ●
NOTES
[1.] Notwithstanding its sceptical public stance, the German government
too has poured in a lot of money to prop up and bail out its bankrupt
financial institutions.
[Reproduced from www.lalkar.org]
The victories of the people’s revolutions in Asia, Africa and Latin America,
together with the rise of the socialist camp, sound a triumphant paean to our
day and age.
The storm of the people’s revolution in Asia, Africa and Latin America
requires every political force in the world to take a stand. This mighty
revolutionary storm makes the imperialists and colonialists tremble and the
revolutionary people of the world rejoice. The imperialists and colonialists
say, “Terrible, terrible!” The revolutionary people say, “Fine, fine!” The
imperialists and colonialists say, “It is rebellion, which is forbidden.” The
revolutionary people say, “It is revolution, which is the people’s right and an
inexorable current of history.”
An important line of demarcation between the Marxist-Leninists and the
modern revisionists is the attitude taken towards this extremely sharp issue of
contemporary world politics. The Marxist-Leninists firmly side with the
oppressed nations and actively support the national liberation movement. The
modern revisionists in fact side with the imperialists and colonialists and
repudiate and oppose the national liberation movement in every possible way.
In their words, the leaders of the CPSU dare not completely discard the
slogans of support for the national liberation movement, and at times, for the
sake of their own interests, they even take certain measures which create the
appearance of support. But if we probe to the essence and consider their views
and policies over a number of years, we see clearly that their attitude towards
the liberation struggles of the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin
America is a passive or scornful or negative one, and that they serve as apologists
for neo-colonialism. ..........
What are the facts?
Consider, first, the situation in Asia and Africa. There a whole group of
countries have declared their independence. But many of these countries have
not completely shaken off imperialist and colonial control and enslavement
and remain objects of imperialist plunder and aggression as well as arenas of
contention between the old and new colonialists. In some, the old colonialists
have changed into neo-colonialists and retain their colonial rule through their
trained agents. In others, the wolf has left by the front door, but the tiger has
entered through the back door, the old colonialism being replaced by the new,
more powerful and more dangerous U. S. colonialism. The peoples of Asia and
Africa are seriously menaced by the tentacles of neo-colonialism, represented
by U. S. imperialism.
Next, listen to the voice of the people of Latin America. The Second Havana
Declaration says, “Latin America today is under a more ferocious imperialism,
more powerful and ruthless than the Spanish colonial empire.”
It adds:
Since the end of the Second World War, . . . North American investments
exceed 10 billion dollars. Latin America moreover supplies cheap raw materials
and pays high prices for manufactured articles.
It says further:
... . . there flows from Latin America to the United States a constant torrent
of money: some $4,000 per minute, $5 million per day, $2 billion per year, $10
billion each five years. For each thousand dollars which leaves us, one dead
body remains. $1,000 per death, that is the price of what is called imperialism.
The facts are clear. After World War II the imperialists have certainly not
given up colonialism, but have merely adopted a new form, neo-colonialism.
An important characteristic of such neo-colonialism is that the imperialists have
been forced to change their old style of direct colonial rule in some areas and to
adopt a new style of colonial rule and exploitation by relying on the agents they
have selected and trained. The imperialists headed by the United States enslave
or control the colonial countries and countries which have already declared
their independence by organizing military blocs, setting up military bases,
establishing “federations” or “communities”, and fostering puppet regimes. By
means of economic “aid” or other forms, they retain these countries as markets
for their goods, sources of raw material and outlets for their export of capital,
plunder the riches and suck the blood of the people of these countries. Moreover,
they use the United Nations as an important tool for interfering in the internal
affairs of such countries and for subjecting them to military, economic and
cultural aggression. When they are unable to continue their rule over these
countries by “peaceful” means, they engineer military coups d’etat, carry out
subversion or even resort to direct armed intervention and aggression.
The United States is most energetic and cunning in promoting neo-
colonialism. With this weapon, the U.S. imperialists are trying hard to grab the
colonies and spheres of influence of other imperialists and to establish world
domination.
This neo-colonialism is a more pernicious and sinister form of
colonialism. ●
[SOURCE: by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People’s

Daily) and Hongqi (Red Flag), Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1963]
INDIA: SHOW-CASE OF
US NEO-COLONIALISM
THE People’s Daily in a commentary on May 8 exposed India as a show-
case of U.S. neo-colonialism. The commentary says:
India, under the rule of the big landlord class and the big bourgeoisie, has
been lauded by the trumpeters of the imperialists as a “show-case of democracy”.
As a matter of fact, it is nothing else but a typical show-case of U.S. neo-
colonialism.
True, the United States has not put any governor-general in India, but the
Indian Government which represents the interests of the big landlord class and
the big bourgeoisie fulfils the function of a governor’s office of a U.S. colony.
In foreign affairs, the Indian Government is closely following U.S. imperialism.
At home, by utilising its state power to issue all kinds of decrees and
regulations, it has thrown the door wide open to U.S. imperialism’s control
over India’s politics, economy and military affairs. The reactionary Indian rulers
are actually a bunch of agents hired and paid for by the U.S. neo-colonialists.
The weapons and equipments of the reactionary armed forces of India are
supplied by U.S. imperialism and its accomplice, the Soviet revisionist ruling
clique. They are employed by U.S. imperialism and its accomplice to suppress
the Indian people’s revolutionary struggle and to launch military provocations
in Asia.
True, the United States has not formally set up an “East India Company”
in India. Nevertheless, in the past twenty years, the United States’ control and
exploitation of India has been on a scale comparable to that of the British,
which has a history of colonialism in India of three hundred years. The massive
infiltration of U.S. monopoly capital into India has enabled it to grab fabulous
profits while the thousands of so-called American “experts” and “advisers”
who have wormed their way into the economic, political, military and cultural
spheres have stepped up their control and enslavement of the country. India’s
natural resources have been sucked out by the United States in large quantities.
India has become a market for the flooding of American goods. Through the
dumping of “surplus” farm produce alone, the United States controls one half
of India’s currency as well as its finance and banking. The United States has
also been steadily deepening the agricultural crisis in India and aggravating its
starvation for years on end. Each year millions of working people die of
starvations in India. Isn’t this a fact of the bloody and ruthless U.S. imperialist
exploitation of the Indian people?
Our great teacher chairman Mao has pointed out: “The biggest imperialism
in the world today is U.S. imperialism. It has its lackeys in many countries.
Those backed by imperialism are precisely discarded by the broad masses of
the people”.
U.S. imperialism has carried out its neo-colonialist policy of enslaving
India precisely by means of fostering its agents in India. This neo-colonialist
tactics of U.S. imperialism is more sinister and ferocious than that of the old
colonialists!
The Soviet revisionist renegade clique is blabbering enthusiastically about
this show-case of U.S. neo-colonialism. And, on top of that, it is trying its
utmost to rule this “show-case” jointly with U.S. imperialism. The Soviet
revisionist ruling clique is now only second to the United States in the degree
of control over India through its “aid”. It has become the biggest supplier of
military “aid” and the second biggest creditor to India, and it ranks third in
trading with the country. The Soviet revisionist renegade clique, also, is
practicing neo-colonialism in India in collusion with U.S. imperialism.
However, U.S. imperialism and its accomplices of every description can
never fool the awakening broad masses of the Indian people, no matter how
hard they try to hoax them and no matter how painstakingly they try to embellish
themselves. The Indian people will certainly rise to smash this show-case of
U.S. neo-colonialism, break up the cannibal feast of imperialism and Indian
reaction, and build a bright new India. ●
[From June 1968 issue of Liberation]
Document of Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI)
What Has Happened?

[Important questions of our Party Life]
INTRODUCTION
THE September 30 Movement (henceforth: G-30-S), with all its accompanying
sufferings and bitterness, is not an isolated phenomenon. It was an inevitable
result of preceding events, the zenith of a series of preceding happenings.
As communists we have to study, to understand and to evaluate the tragedy
we went through. We have to study it from all angles in order to learn as much
as possible from it.
In studying and evaluating we cannot avoid criticism and self-criticism as
to the mistakes which we have made in the past, because without studying that
event from all possible angles we cannot draw correct and objective conclusions.
Besides, we, as Communists, have to stick to the principle that criticism and
self-criticism are necessary in order to avoid the same mistakes in the future
and to take the correct road towards a correct aim.
To cover up mistakes is not the method of work of Communists and
Communist parties. Lenin said:
“.... The attitude of a party towards its own mistakes is one of the most
important and surest ways to evaluate how serious that party is and how in
practice it fulfils its obligations towards all workers. Frankly admitting mistakes,
establishing its causes, analyzing the conditions which have brought about these
mistakes, that is the basic feature of a serious party. That is the course to be
taken to educate and to instruct the class and then the masses .....” (Collected
Works, XXV, 200)
Lately we often hear that under the present white terror it would not be
proper to level criticism sand self-criticism of our mistakes since that would
help the enemy and stab us in the back.
Such an opinion is of course wrong. Exactly because we have to face such
a savage enemy, we must know and eradicate our mistakes and weaknesses in
order to emerge with new force and energy and to avoid taking the wrong course
again. For the very reason that we desire to live, to grow and to be strong, we
have to pull out all the diseases and poison which are within us. Said comrade
Stalin:
“..... There are people who think that to expose one’s own mistakes and to
make self-criticism is dangerous for the party since that could be used by the
enemy against the party of the proletariat. Such a view was regarded by Lenin
as narrow-minded and completely erroneous.....” (Works, VI, 89-90).
As a matter of fact, already since 1904 , when the party in Russia was still
very weak, Lenin put forward this question of criticism and self-criticism as
something which had immediately to be carried out (Works, VI, 161). Such a
method of criticism and self-criticism is one of the basic features of a Leninist
party.
I
WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF THE SEPTEMBER 30 MOVEMENT?
A Few Words On The Development of Revisionism In Indonesia
1. THE SEPTEMBER 30 MOVEMENT IS NOT A REVOLUTION BUT
“LEFT” ADVENTURISM
The actions of the September 30 Movement (G-30-S) were clearly not a
revolution, the more a revolution led by a Marxist-Leninist party.
The basic problem of every revolution is the seizure of state power, carried
out by force of arms, based on the consciousness, conviction and strength of
the people’s mass in particular of the workers and peasants, under the sole and
all-embracing leadership of the Communist party, with a clear, correct and clean
program, banners and slogan.
The G-30-S was evidently not a revolution, also because the most important
and basic feature of a revolution was absent.
What is this most important and basic feature of a revolution?
The most important and basic feature of every revolution is the transfer
(seizure) of power from one class to another class. (Lenin: letters on Tactics).
The movement, launched by the G-30-S had better be called “left”
adventurism. Right from the start it copied the bourgeoisie with their “council
of generals”. It was Trotskyist, basing itself on intrigues and terror and leaving
its execution to (apart of) the patriotic army, which ought to be not more than a
secondary reserve. As Lenin pointed out: “..... to be successful, a revolution
(uprising) must not base itself on intrigues and on a party, but on the advanced
class. This is the first point. A revolution (uprising) has to base itself on the
zenith of revolutionary insurrections by the people. This is the second point. A
revolution has to base itself on the turning point in the history of a revolution in
development, when the activities of the people’s ranks reach their climax and
when hesitation in the enemy’s ranks and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted
and wavering friends of the revolution (meant is here the small bourgeoisie) is
at its summit. This is the third point” (Collected Works, XXVI, 23)
The experience of all revolutions led by the proletariat, have proved how
correct those words of Lenin are an how inseparable are those three points,
which have to be taken as a single whole. The G-30-S not only did not fulfil
these Leninist conditions at all, it was even the reverse.
First: It was not based on strength and the interests of the people’s masses,
on the advanced class, but on intrigues and terror.
Second: It was not based on the zenith of the revolutionary insurrections
by the people who considered it the right time to take up arms until the last
drop of blood (Stalin: Foundations of Leninism), because in the last 14 years
the people have indeed not been prepared and educated for the seizure of power
by arms.
Third: a) It was not carried out at the moment when the enemy was at the
summit of its weakness and hesitation, but exactly when they were strong and
consolidated, economically (by intensive exploitation via the national
enterprises) as well as militarily.
b) The hesitation of the national bourgeoisie was not at the summit. As
long as the national bourgeoisie is not yet sufficiently exposed before the masses,
it can be regarded by the masses as a leader, and thus can divert the attention of
the masses from its only leader, the Party. (When the G-30-S broke out, the
allies of the revolution could be said to have the same prestige in the eyes of
the masses, because of the propaganda for Nasakom (Nationalism, Religion
and Communism) and the demands of a nasakomization in all fields which put
all parties on a par).
As a matter of course, right from the start it could be foretold that this
adventure would meet with failure.
Never in her 45 years’ history had the PKI suffered such enormous losses
as now, as a result of the G-30-S. Marxism-Leninism is the iron law of the
development of society and of the international struggle of the proletariat. A
deviation from Marxism-Leninism means also a deviation from the iron law
itself and will surely result in damage and suffering in an amount, corresponding
to the amount of the deviation.
2. STRATEGICAL AND TACTICAL MISTAKES
a) Marxist-Leninist strategy, the science of leading the revolutionary
struggle of the proletariat, has long ago been abandoned by the Party
leadership.
This reached its culmination in the G-30-S. As was the case with the parties
of the Second International, the Party leadership too, during the last 15 years,
has never had an integral whole of strategy and tactics, but loose ideas, not
connected with each other.
The greatest deviation of the Party leadership did not lie in the use of
parliamentary struggle, but (though covered will all means and arguments) in
giving an exaggerated meaning, attention and energy to parliamentary struggle
and peaceful means and in actually considering it the only from of struggle.
It is not astonishing that after the forced outbreak of the G-30-S, i.e. when
extra-parliamentary forms of struggle emerged, the Party leadership lost its
head and was not able to lead the struggle in a correct way.
b) Tactics have to be subordinated to strategy
The essence of legal, parliamentary and reformist work
The strategy for certain period of the revolution does not change, but tactics,
being a part of strategy, have to be changed many times, in accordance with the
tide of the revolution.
Tactics deal with the forms of struggle and the forms of organization of
the proletarian struggle in combinations. That means that in a situation when
the Party experiences white terror, tactics too must automatically be immediately
adjusted to it; it has to abandon its former tactics which were proper for the
period of the peaceful road. This change of tactics must be such that during the
period of white terror it has not only the task of safeguarding the Party and the
peoples’ masses from wholesale destruction; it must also guarantee the
continuation of the struggle of the Party and of the people’s masses, immediately
and in a correct way.
This must naturally be prepared long before and this can only be done
when the Party in every situation, the more in a peaceful situation, intensifies it
revolutionary work.
Legal, parliamentary and reformist work in relatively peaceful periods
has to be used to weaken the bourgeois government, to strengthen and to
consolidate the preparations for the revolution. Legal, parliamentary and
reformist work must only be used as an instrument to combine legal and illegal
work, to intensify illegal work in preparing the masses in a revolutionary way,
by actions, for the armed struggle which is sure to come (Stalin: Foundations
of Leninism).
When the revolution has broken out or when white terror rages the Party
can then correctly and immediately adjust itself to the situation, continue the
struggle properly and immediately, and safeguard the Party and the people’s
masses from wholesale destruction.
c) The mistake in using reserves
Marxism-Leninism teaches that there are two reserves of the revolution,
i.e. direct and indirect reserves.
Direct reserves are:
1. The peasant of the middle strata (not the village proletariat or
poor peasants) and other middle strata.
2. The proletariat of neighbour countries.
3. Revolutionary movements in colonial and semi-colonial countries.
4. The victories and the results of proletarian dictatorship.
Indirect reserves are:
1 The contradictions and conflicts between the non-proletarian
classes.
2 The contradictions, conflicts and wars (e.g. imperialist wars can
be used by the proletariat in its offensive or in manoeuvring when
forced to retreat.
Indirect reserves must have our attention, also because those indirect
reserves can sometimes play a big role in the progress of the revolution. But it
must be remembered and always be taken into account that in using those indirect
reserves we must by no means involve ourselves in their controversies and
contradictions, under whatsoever argument. We have to use those reserves to
direct them in order to weaken the enemy and to strengthen our own position.
In this connection the task of the Party as the strategic leader is to use
properly all those reserves in order to achieve the principal aim of the revolution
in a certain period of that revolution.
We know that before and during the G-30-S (up till now) the Party
leadership has wrongly involved itself in the contradictions of non-proletarian
classes and then entrusted itself to the bourgeoisie and her to leader.
What are the other mistakes in using those reserves?
As a further explanation of above we herewith put forward the Marxist-
Leninist conditions for the proper use of reserves. These conditions have been
completely abandoned by the Party leadership.
The necessary conditions, which have been abandoned, are:
a. Concentration of the basic revolutionary forces in places where the enemy
is weakest.
• That concentration has to be carried out at a decisive moment, i.e. when
the revolution is ripe. It must also be done when offensive is at its
fiercest, bringing the uprising right to the door and when bringing reserves
to the vanguard (Party) at this moment is a decisive factor for the victory
of the revolution.
In discussing and analysing the theses of Marx and Engels on Uprising,
Lenin drew the following conclusions on the conditions of strategic use of
those revolutionary forces:
• Don’t play with uprising, but once we start be aware that we have to
bring it to the end.
• Concentrate a great amount of forces at the decisive point; otherwise the
enemy, who is superior in preparations and in organisation, will certainly
crush the uprising.
• Once an uprising has started, we have to act with determination and we
must anyhow be always in the offensive. Defensive means death for every
uprising and armed struggle.
• We have to attack the enemy by surprise and to choose the moment
when the enemy’s forces are divided.
• During the uprising we must have daily successes; in the towns we must
score successes every hour. In any uprising we have to raise continuously
the morale, courage, determination and optimism of the masses on the
uprising and on its victory.
b) In choosing the right moment for a decisive blow, besides the above-
mentioned (1) conditions, Lenin added (Collected Works, Vol. XXV, page 229):
• All forces of the enemy classes are sufficiently twisted, confused, have
sufficiently weakened themselves in a struggle beyond their forces.
• All wavering and unstable elements, small bourgeoisie and national
bourgeoisie, have sufficiently besmirched themselves before the masses
because of their wavering attitude, their trickery and their own bankruptcy.
• In circles of the proletariat emerges and quickly grows the mass feeling
to support the most determined, most daring and revolutionary actions.
To choose the right moment, without undue haste (abandoning the masses),
and on the other hand not tailing behind the masses, but at the right moment,
that is an absolute condition. To ignore this absolute condition means losing
tempo and will certainly result in destruction of the uprising, as we have seen
in the case of the G-30-S.
C) When a decision has been taken, we have to follow unceasingly the
course taken, irrespective of the difficulties and complications to be met. The
Party must not only always pursue the course taken, but has also to establish a
clean, correct and continuous course for the masses. The masses must always
be led to the correct road, have to be gathered around their vanguard and not be
led astray. To determine and to pursue a zigzag course, as has been done by the
Party leadership during the G-30-S, will result in a zigzag of everything; the
masses are left without leadership and without aim. This mistake is called: loss
of direction (loss of course).
d) In calling up the reserves, the Party has always to take full account of a
retreat in good order when the enemy is strong, when the battle, forced upon by
the enemy, is clearly detrimental. The Party has to take proper account of an
orderly retreat for preparing the reserves (under the Party leadership) to strike
back at the right time.
“….. A revolutionary Party must be able to convince – and the revolutionary
class has via bitter experience learned how to convince that victory cannot be
achieved when it does not know how to attack and how to retreat in good order
…..” (Lenin, Collected Work, XXV, 177). The strategic objective is to win
time, deceive the enemy and to regroup its forces for counter-attacks. The Party
leadership has before, during and after the G-30-S forgotten and thrown away
these fundamental Marxist-Leninist teachings on strategy and tactics. The
inevitable results have thus been: destruction and sufferings, new additions to
the arsenal of our struggle.
3. “LEFT” OPPORTUNISM, A TWIN BROTHER OF REVISIONISM
The leftist acts which gave birth to the September 30 tragedy basically
reflects the subjective character and desires of the impatient small bourgeoisie.
It is a twin brother of revisionism which was rampant before, and which for a
long time has been pursued by our Party leadership.
The revisionism pursued by the Party leadership, is essentially based on
the illusion that state power can be achieved by peaceful means and not by
armed force.
On this base were developed and put into practice new “theories” on
revolution, the state and the class struggle. These “theories” not only have no
sources in Marxism-Leninism, but even denied its fundamental principles.
4. HOW HAS REVISIONISM IN INDONESIA DEVELOPED?
On the eve of the general election, the Party leadership stated concretely
that “General elections are the road to a People’s Democratic Government”.
This theory is fully in accordance with the theory of the opportunist leaders of
the Second International, Karl Kautsky and Bernstein. (Lenin: The Collapse of
the Second International). Although this slogan in the election manifesto has
secretly been withdrawn, there were at the same time other factors which
prevented those revisionist theories to be openly and fundamentally corrected
and its sources to be examined. Those “theories” were even “enriched” with
new “theories”, i.e. the “revolution from above and from below”, “two aspects
in state power”, “the stomach is moving to the right – politics to the left”, etc.,
etc.
WHAT WERE THOSE FACTORS?
The first factor: The concept of President Sukarno of February 21, 1957
On February 21, 1957, President Sukarno announced his concept on a
“Mutual Aid Cabinet” in which Communists would take part. The Party
leadership spontaneously agreed to it and mobilised all funds and forces to
achieve this aim. In this connection, together with the new “victories” in the
general elections for the regional parliaments and the appointment of Party
representatives as members of the BPH’s (regional executive bodies), as Bupati’s
(regional district heads), as Mayors, etc., the Party leadership definitely, on a
large and embracing scale (by putting the most important cadres on these posts)
carried out the “revolution from above” — in essence: intrigue — to gain state
power by peaceful means, in conformity with President Sukarno’s concept.
Mass actions were henceforth organised, mobilised and developed to serve
this “revolution from above”, within the framework of the existing laws, and to
create “democratic laws”. The Party developed and revived the legalism of
Tan Ling Djie, who considered that everything could and had to be solved by
means of formal-juridical laws. The difference was that now, the forum of the
Constituent Assembly (later: MPRS = Temporary People’s Congress),
Parliament, Regional Parliaments, National Planning Board, etc. etc., it was
revived on a much larger scale.
With the argument “class interests are subordinated to national interests”,
class struggle and class analysis became increasingly blurred, were removed
and replaced by the “Nasakom” idea of President Sukarno. In its further
development it was this Nasakom idea that essentially directed all activities of
the unity front etc. It is self-evident that we then surrendered the leadership to
the bourgeoisie and the landlords. (It is of interest that the research of Com.
Aidit himself in Java has shown that the majority of landlords in Java belong
mainly to the nationalist and religious groups). All this went so far as to culminate
in our acceptance of the Manipol (Political Manifesto), which actually pulled
down the pillars of Marxism, i.e. the leadership of the proletariat in the
revolution, the class struggle and state power.
In the VIII CC Plenum, 1959, Com. Aidit frankly declared that the
leadership of guided democracy had to be in the hands of President Sukarno.
This was later developed to its zenith in connection with the demands of a
Nasakom cabinet.
Class struggle in Indonesia was thus consciously abolished. All kinds of
arguments on this question have been put forward, of which the essence is
however the same: to achieve power by peaceful means.
The second factor: The tactics of influencing, using and restricting,
employed by the rightists and the middle-roaders.
We all know that rightist and middle-road forces (who have drawn lessons
from history and from negative experiences, especially from Communist parties
aboard) employ the tactics of influencing, using and restricting our Party. This
is in fact no new thing if we want to learn from history.
At the end of the last century, after the bourgeoisie in their attempts to
destroy the Communist movement switched over from armed force to “flexible”
tactics, i.e. influencing, using and restricting them, the damage suffered by the
Communist movement in Europe became much bigger than before, i.e. when
the bourgeoisie used force.
Those tactics gave birth to rightist opportunism on a large scale which
undermined Communist parties. They were also the main reasons of the more
and more receding revolutionary crisis, thus intensifying exploitation by capital
of the proletariat.
Throughout its history, the bourgeoisie has always used complicated tactics
to destroy its enemies. The essence of those tactics is to bestow positions,
facilities and high-sounding promises to Communist leaders and members,
without giving them real state power.
What happened in Indonesia was:
On the one hand: the Party succeeded in entering the cabinet, succeeded
in obtaining “extraordinary” results and facilities by occupying several functions
in government institutes, and other like facilities. The results of parliamentary
struggle, achieved by the Party during the last few years exceeded the results of
parliamentary struggle, achieved by any other fraternal Party outside the Socialist
bloc. This raised the prestige and the standing of the Party within a short span
of time.
On the other hand: the bourgeoisie actually succeeded in:
a. Using the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) as a bumper against
the people
b. Using the PKI to get the support of the people
c. Undermining the PKI from within.
In this way they achieved that the road of the armed revolution was
abandoned and replaced by the fertile growth of revisionism. This fertile growth
was prepared by the creation of a layer of cultured party leaders, with high
positions and high income, isolated from the sufferings of the working masses.
This layer lived in pleasure upon the accumulated profits, drawn from the
exploitation by national capital. (Collected Works, Vol. XIX, page 77)
The G-30-S has shown us how all those “results” of the Party were actually
meaningless and only a bait of the bourgeoisie who purposely trapped us. We
fell into this trap because we were very eager to swallow the bait.
The G-30-S and its “epilogue” has proved clearly how rotten our body
was from within, and how (a big part of) its leadership was “bourgeoisie in
communist clothes”, unable to lead the people and control the situation.
Third factor: The removal of the six conditions for a Leninist type of party
With revisionism rampant in the Party leadership, the six factors for a
Leninist type of party were gradually removed by the Party leadership. The
Party sunk to the level of other non-communist parties, with the result that the
body of the Party rotted away from within. (On the six conditions for a Leninists
type of party, see the chapter “On the Party”).
Under the slogan “Party cadres and Party masses” the doors of the Party
were widely opened for the acceptance of new members. In this way the Party
was invaded and joined on a large scale by non and anti-proletarian elements at
a time when revisionism reigned supreme in circles of the Party leadership.
This accelerated the fall of the Party in the mud of revisionism.
The fourth factor: The failure of the Marxist-Leninist groups
The development of revisionism in Indonesia can of course not be separated
from the failure of Marxist-Leninist elements and groups in the Party to uphold
Marxism-Leninism and to purge the Party from revisionist elements and
ideology.
The principal causes of this failure were:
a. These M-L elements and groups did not master sufficiently Marxist-
Leninist theory so that they had a wrong interpretation of democratic centralism,
of discipline and of “the minority following the majority”.
As we will explain in the chapter on the Party, in the revisionist party
every member has to struggle against the revisionist line and revisionist teachings
and has to refuse carrying them out.
“To submit to discipline” without more, to help implement those ideas,
means to spread them among the masses, to develop them in practice, which
means that, together with tens of millions of people, they draw themselves
closer to wholesale destruction. This fallacy caused the M-L elements and groups
in the Party to submit themselves without more to the decisions, line and
instructions of the Party leadership. This not only meant that they participated
in carrying out and developing the revisionist line, but also that, when the Party
leadership considered them “too dangerous”, they were removed from all
internal positions in the Party by means of “throwing them above” (members
of parliament, national Planning Board, enterprise’s councils, etc.), sending
them abroad (in embassies, representations of the Party and of mass organisations
abroad, etc.) and by actually removing them in the literary sense of the word.
b. Those elements and groups were not well organised because of false
notions (“afraid to be accused of making factions”), which caused them to
struggle sporadically and/or individually. Such a struggle was of course not
efficient and was easily disarmed by the leadership.
c. Being of petty-bourgeois origin, these ML elements and groups inherited
many negative features like soon giving up, voluntarily yielding their rights
(resigning), “averse to kick up a row”, etc. etc. Not a few among them, as a
result of “being thrown above” were enjoying their new jobs and forgot their
high aspirations for the victory of Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.
d. As a result of all these, M-L elements and groups had of course no
organ (magazine, papers, etc.) as a means of co-ordination of these elements
and groups and to spread Marxism-Leninism and to mobilise the masses in
general. Those M-L groups and elements thus failed in their struggle which
further accelerated the rate of development of revisionism in Indonesia.
The fifth factor: Influence of the revisionism of Khrushchev
This influence was from the very outset received with open arms by the
Party leadership, until the end of 1962 (The report of com. Aidit to the CC
Plenum at the end of 1962 still mentioned the CPSU as the leader and centre of
the World Communist Movement). Since that time we were on “bad terms”
with the CPSU, but this was restricted to the question of:
a. peaceful co-existence between capitalism and socialism
b. the state of the whole people in the countries where Communist
Party had already achieved victory
c. the building of a Communist society at the present time
d. peaceful co-existence between colonial countries and oppressor
countries
e. the question of disarmament.
In short: question of external policy.
Internally we agreed completely with Khrushchev on peaceful transfer of
power.
5. THE SPECIFIC FEATURE OF REVISIONISM IN INDONESIA
It strikes us that the modern revisionists in Indonesia have a specific
outward appearance. We still remember that formerly the Party leadership
pretended to be “anti-remo” (anti-modern revisionism), “anti-Khrushchev”,
“genuine Marxist-Leninist”, “siding with the RRT (People’s Republic of China)”,
“firmly waging an anti-imperialist struggle”, etc. etc., despite slogans and masks
they remained revisionists.
Because of the level of fundamental theoretical knowledge of Marxism-
Leninism of the masses of Party members, which was purposely lowered by
the Party leadership (and replaced by remo theories), they could deceive the
masses of Party members and cadres by its pseudo-revolutionary outward
appearance and slogans. The Party leadership thus succeeded in getting almost
unreserved support from the masses of Party members.
Those specific features were caused by the general conditions in Indonesia
which were rather different from conditions in other countries which also gave
birth to modern revisionist theories.
a. After the armed struggle against the Dutch had ended, the Indonesian
working class via its Party took part in peaceful parliamentary struggle; after
the return of the RI (Republic Indonesia) to the 1945 Constitution it even took
part in the government cabinet. The national bourgeoisie, however, who, because
of this legal struggle succeeded in using, influencing and restricting the
Indonesian proletariat and its Party, was by virtue of the semi-colonial and
semi-feudal character of Indonesian society, anti-feudal and anti-imperialist
within certain limits.
b. Small bourgeois elements and peasants formed the majority of Party
members; among them were even lumpen proletariat (those who use improper
means for their livelihood).
These particular conditions caused that on the one hand the Indonesian
remos (modern revisionists) continued to “firmly” wage an anti-imperialist
struggle whereas on the other hand they were characterised by a double faced
attitude, exaggerations (like: “Marxism” as subject in all state universities,
nasakomization of all governmental and social institutions, etc.), superficiality
and vulgarism.
It is thus impossible to know the real nature of he Indonesian “remos”
only by looking at their outward appearance and their slogans: they could make
Marxist-Leninist sounding speeches (actually just loose parts of Marxism-
Leninism), they seemed hard-working, cordinal and friendly toward cadres and
members, etc., etc., but what they feared most was an examination of their
work and their working programme on the basis of criticism and self-criticism,
in a genuine Marxist-Leninist way.
6. F ROM RIGHT TO “LEFT” AND BACK TO RIGHT AGAIN
It goes without saying that such a Party, which was entirely contradictory
to the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, would not be able to accomplish its
historical mission.
It was more and more felt that all its results were void. This caused the
Party leadership on the one hand to drift increasingly closer to the bourgeoisie
whereas on the other hand they tried to protect themselves towards the demands
and revolutionary instincts of the people’s masses, the Party cadres and members,
by fierce and ardent speeches, slogans and phraseology.
In particular on financial and economic questions the Party leadership
tried hard to create “concepts” which would “aid” the people, but which even
more exposed their incapacity. They forgot that this state is a bourgeois state,
where crises are inevitable and incurable. They forgot that one of the main
features of revisionism is exactly the attempt to help the bourgeois state out of
the crisis, thus rejecting the thesis that crises in capitalism are inevitable (Lenin:
Against Revisionism, 117).
The question then arose: What to do?
As they saw that the revolutionary instinct of the masses became more and
more oriented to the correct road, they started delivering speeches on the
“necessity to prepare for the possibility of armed struggle, to build revolutionary
bases”, etc.
But all that needed of course a correct understanding of Marxism-Leninism,
needed preparations which would take long time, full energy, correct strategy
and tactics. The weaknesses in the Party and revolutionary mass organisations
which became known to com. Aidit after his research on the rural areas in Java,
and after twice have made investigations on the spot, was not at all according
to the small bourgeois wishes of the Party leadership which was imbued with
impatience to gain quick victory.
The deteriorating health of President Sukarno and the coup in Algeria by
Boumedienne on the one hand alarmed the Party leadership and caused them
fear that the rightist “council of generals”, in charge of the armed forces (army),
would take the road of Boumedienne. On the other hand it inspired the Party
leadership to hastily agree with the G-30-S and to support their actions, a “left”
adventurist act which they regarded as the easiest and quickest way to accomplish
the revolution.
Revisionist thought thus turned the wheel to the “left” denying Lenin’s
fundamental thesis which runs as follows:
“….. To confirm the dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean,
irrespective of victims, at any time, plunging into attacks as a typhoon in an
uprising. This is madness. For an uprising to succeed are needed long, skilled
and exact preparations which demand many sacrifices ……” (Lenin: Notes of
the publicist).
And after that “left” adventurism failed dismally, they lost their head and
immediately ran into the valley of rightist opportunism, i.e. liquidationism,
surrendering to the attacks of reaction under the pretext of “guarding the legality
of the Party” and guarding the “National Unity Front with Nasakom-axis”.
They put the fate of the party in the hands of another person (President Sukarno),
begging him to “interfere and defend justice and law”.
While white terror was raging, com. Aidit issued an instruction to “uphold
the legality of the Party”, and to “carry out the line of active defence”.
Lenin said that in such a situation, in a situation where the Party has
immediately to move underground, the ultra-rightists always urge to uphold
the legality of the Party, at any cost.
Such a situation is called: crisis of organisation and crisis of politics (Lenin:
Selected Works, Vo. 1, page 616).
That so-called “line of active defence” did not recommend us “to defend
ourselves in order to strike back” (Mao Tse-tung’s words). The Party leadership
meant “defence only” or “total defence”.
It is this line which Mao Tse-tung called the line of “blockheads” and
“fools” (Selected Military Writings, 103).
And so it was.
The G-30-S was launched.
As a variant on Marx’s words in “the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”,
the Party leadership “began tragically and ended as a clown”. It is the
responsibility of all of us to take up the banner of the Proletariat which has
been thrown away by the Party leadership in its flight, and to wave it proudly
from the ranks of the Indonesian proletariat and People in a determined struggle
which will end in victory.
The earth of our fatherland had once again been suffused with the blood
of her sons and daughters. We are determined to see to it that their sufferings,
their sincerity, their Communist courage, will not be in vain.
Has not Lenin said: “Do not bow your heads, Comrade. We will certainly
win, just because we are right….”.
II
THE STATE
In order to know how far the Party leadership has gone in abandoning the
fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, we will look first of all at the deviations
in their theories about the state as well as their attitude towards the state.
The attitude and concept of a Communist Party concerning the state is one
of the main indications of whether that party is Marxist-Leninist or not.
1. The theory on the pro-people’s aspect and the anti-people’s aspect in
state power.
As is known, the Party leadership held a “theory” that in the teachings of
Marx and Lenin themselves, we will first explain some terms within the
framework of that “theory”.
The words “pro-people” and “anti-people” reflect two groups which are
in antagonistic contradiction with each other. With “pro-people” is naturally
meant also the workers’ class and the peasant, who are considered to be
represented by the Communists in the cabinet. In “anti-people” is of course
included the bourgeoisie, the imperialists (or their compradors) and the
landlords.
Everyone knows that the bourgeoisie, imperialists their compradors exploit
the workers, and that an irreconcilable class struggle is waged between them.
In the same way the landlords are the class which exploits the peasantry; also
between them is waged an irreconcilable class struggle.
The conclusion can thus be drawn that the theory on two aspects in
understood as the existence of two some antagonistically contradictory classes
in state power, but who are held together by state power.
What did Lenin say on this matter?
In his “State and Revolution” Lenin said:
“…. The state is the result and manifestation of irreconcilable class
contradictions. The state emerges …. when objectively the class struggle cannot
be reconciled. And the existence of the state automatically proves that the class
struggle is irreconcilable …..” In that book Lenin also quoted Marx’s words
that the state is an instrument of power of one class towards the other. It is thus
impossible that two such antagonistically contradictory classes exist in one
state power. A state of slave owners is an instrument for oppressing the slaves
by the slave owners; the feudal state is the instrument of the landlords to suppress
the peasants; the bourgeois state is the instrument of the bourgeoisie to suppress
the proletariat; the People’s Democratic state/Socialist state is an instrument of
Proletariat to suppress the bourgeoisie/landlords and all other exploiter classes.
“The state”, wrote Lenin in above-mentioned book, “is a state of the class
which is strongest and dominant in economy, and which by means of the state
becomes also the class which dominates in politics and thus has a new instrument
(the state) to strengthen its position and the exploitation and oppression of the
other class”.
It is clear that the Party leadership has distorted the most fundamental
thesis of Marxism-Leninism on the state. Their “theory” is actually a sermon
for class peace and class collaboration, embraced in the state power.
2. What were the consequences of this distorted theory?
It goes without saying that not only theory was distorted; it has also
consequences in political deeds.
What were those political deeds which had their source in that distorted
theory?
First: the attitude to the question of how to seize state power
We know that in this connection the Party leadership has drawn the
conclusion that within the framework of the state at that time (when Communists
took part in it) the principal task of the Party (according to com. Aidit) was not
to overthrow state power but to increasingly enlarge its pro-people’s aspect
and to reduce its anti-people’s aspect, and at last to oust completely the anti-
people’s aspect.
This attitude is in complete contradiction with Marxism-Leninism. Why?
Because they thought that with the ousting of the anti-people’s aspect from the
cabinet would be created a power qualitatively different from the former one,
since a cabinet which entirely consists of a pro-people’s aspect is a cabinet/
state of the People’s Democracy.
A new variant of the standpoint of the opportunists of the Second
International and of Khrushchev, i.e. that the transition in a peaceful way.
Lenin however wrote: “We have said and we will explain further, that the
teachings of Marx and Engels on the inevitability of the revolution by force
points to the bourgeois state ….” (State and Revolution).
At times the Party leadership defended themselves that they did not mean
“not to make revolution” because “completely ousting the anti-people’s aspect”
would mean “revolution”.
This is of course nonsense because Marx, Engels and Lenin meant by
“revolution” a revolution with armed force to seize the entire state power (where
communists do not take part in it) by destroying the entire old state machine.
To discuss state power (and state machine) as two separated parts (this aspect
and that aspect) is an old trick of the opportunists. When the state has to be
seized and the entire old state machine to be destroyed what would then be the
“destiny” of the “pro-peoples’ aspect” in the old state power? Has it to be
destroyed too? That would be a pity.
Lenin taught us: “…. If the problem is to confirm the revolution, everyone
has already confirmed it. It has since long been confirmed by Mr. Struve and
the Ozvobozhdentsi, and is now confirmed by Mr. Witte and also by Nicolai
Romanov (the Czar) ….. All that is illusion, except the power …..” (The situation
reaches its decisive moments, in ‘Proletarii’, No. 25, 1905).
Used Aidit not to say: “The similarity between Marxism and Bung Karno’s
teachings is the fact that both teach revolution …..” Formerly the Czar, now
Bung Karno.
Second: What are actually the attempts to “enlarge the pro-people’s aspect”
and to “oust the anti-people’s aspect”?
The main point of the implementation of that theory was the “peaceful”
road and the total neglection of the preparations for an armed revolution. The
root of all teachings of Marx and Engels however, is, as Lenin said in his “State
and Revolution”, to uncalculate the concept of the inevitability of the revolution
by force.
This “peaceful” road was centred in “cultivating President Sukarno” in
such a way that factually we surrendered ourselves and our masses to him. Our
Agitpop (agitation and propaganda) was for the greater part devoted to those
actions, conducted by the masses which we organised.
What had to be done by the Agitprop in this connection?
In “State and Revolution”, Lenin also said that it is treason (as was the
case with Kautsky) when we do not exclusively in a systematic and continuous
way, propagandise to the masses the necessity to seize power by force.
Third: What are Communist ministers in fact?
As a logical consequence of the above-mentioned theory, the Party
leadership continuously tried to increase the number of Communist ministers
in the cabinet. But, as we know, the Party never succeeded in getting a real
position in government, which proves that Lenin was right when he prohibited
Communists (at that time called “socialists”) to sit in a cabinet, controlled by
the bourgeoisie. “…. That is why we see in all kinds of coalition cabinets in
which socialists have seat, that they (the socialists), though there are among
them really sincere people, in fact proved to be useless ornaments or curtains
of the bourgeois government, the lighting rod of that government, an instrument
to deceive the masses. So it was in the past and so it will be in the future as long
as the bourgeois system exists and as long as the bourgeois bureaucratic
apparatus remains in good order….” (Lenin: On the dictatorship of the
Proletariat, 21).
That is why we saw that our Party via agitation and propaganda as well as
via the position of its representatives in cabinet and in other governmental
apparatus could not possibly educate the masses towards armed struggle because
they themselves were a part of that state. Their position was an instrument of
the bourgeoisie to deceive the masses, to be lighting rod for the fury of the
masses towards the state which exploited and oppressed them.
The party leadership thus made itself an instrument of the oppressors to
oppress and exploit the masses via the state.
As Lenin said: “….. Opportunism is our main enemy…. Practice has shown
us that those who were active in the workers’ movement and were carried away
by the stream of opportunism, became better defenders of the bourgeoisie than
the bourgeoisie itself. Without accomplices originating from the working class
itself (who became opportunists), the bourgeoisie would not be able to maintain
its rule.... (The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Proletarian Revolution,
page 74).
Fourth: “Making this state mouth-watering for the people”, a revisionist
concept
Within the framework of “democratizing” the government, within the
framework of “helping to relieve the economic burden of the people”, the Party
leadership, via the state, has fought for all sorts of “democratic” and patriotic”
laws and regulations, fought for the realisation of “guided economy”, etc. On
this matter the Party leadership not only forgot the fundamental Marxist-Leninist
thesis on the inevitability of crises in the capitalist system and the inevitability
of exploitation of the people by their oppressors via the state, but also that
laws, constitution, etc. are completely useless if they are not in conformity with
reality and if they are separated from its class character/ the state…. (Lenin:
Collected Works, XV, 308). Besides, making these state laws mouth-watering
for the proletariat and the people in general (the laws on agrarian reform, on
crop division, on land reform courts, etc.) and to base mass actions upon them,
is essentially the same as to spread illusions on this state which has to be seized
by force and to be destroyed. (Lenin: The First Congress of the Comintern, in
“Lenin on the Workers’ class movement and the International Communist
Movement, 225).
In particular on the redistribution of land and the abolishment of monopoly
on agrarian produce, Lenin said: “…. Attempts to bring about changes like the
abolishment of land tenure rights without compensation, the abolishment of
the monopoly on flour (think of the Law on Agrarian Reform and on Crop
Division in Indonesia), is the greatest illusion, the greatest self-deception, and
deception of the People…” (Lenin: One of the Fundamental Problems of the
Revolution).
At a certain moment of its history, every Communist party will be faced
with only two alternatives: It seizes the power from the bourgeoisie by force or
it faces white terror. In this connection every Party has to prepare itself, based
itself on the masses and to lead them in preparing the armed revolution in the
genuine sense of the word. Marx and Lenin warned us not to be obsessed by
the existing laws or constitution. In his “Two Tactics” Lenin wrote: “…. The
Conference forgets that as long as state power is in the hands of the Czar, all
decisions achieved by whatsoever representatives, will remain faint-hearted
nonsense, just like the “decisions” of the Frankfurter Parliament, well known
in the history of the German Revolution of 1848. In his “Neue Rheinische
Zietugn”, Marx, the representative of revolutionary proletariat, lashed the
Frankfurter liberals with merciless sarcasm, because they spoke such beautiful
words, took all kinds of “democratic” decisions, “created” all kinds of freedom
while actually they left the power in the hands of the prince. They failed to
organise the armed struggle against the military forces of the prince.
And while the Osvoboshdentsi were engaged in talking, the prince used
his time to consolidate his military forces and the counter-revolution, which
based itself on real strength and which in the end swept clean all those democrats
who had only their splendid “decisions”…..”
Objections could be raised like: “but President Sukarno cannot be
compared with other Heads of State….”
In its polemics with the CPSU on Kennedy, whom Khrushchev called: “a
good man, surrounded by wolves”, the Chinese Communist Party answered
about it like this: “The leadership of the CPSU seems to have forgotten that the
most elementary thesis of Marxism says that the Heads of State is the most
characteristic representative of the class in power….”
Also Lenin said: “The forms of a bourgeois state are varied, from the most
democratic to the most absolute, but in essence they are one: a tool of oppression
and exploitation of the bourgeoisie towards the proletariat….”
When Communist would face white terror, on which side would be
Sukarno? On the side of the counter revolution, i.e. on the side of the state, or
on the side of the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia)? He would have to
choose. There is no middle road. And history has given proof of this.
Fifth: the non-Leninist attitude of the Party leadership towards Parliament,
MPRS (Temporary People’s Congress) and other representative bodies
The Party leadership has used this forum to support the government; it
even took part in consolidating the state.
Indeed, the Parliament has to be used well, every possibility has to be
explored, examined and exploited. A rejection to use this would be childish
and leftist. But this has to be done in such a way that it increasingly pushes the
situation to a revolutionary crisis, to be consolidation of the preparations to
seize power by force.
What were Lenin’s instruction on this matter?
“…. This bourgeois parliament has to be used in a revolutionary way. The
proletariat must also use bourgeois parliament, but with a different aim. As
long as we are not strong enough to destroy the bourgeois parliament, we must
work to oppose it from without and from within. As long as there are workers
— not only proletariat but also semi-proletariat and small peasants — who still
have faith in the democratic instruments of the bourgeoisie, used to deceive the
workers, we have to explain this deceit from that very platform which is
considered by the backward part of the workers, in particular by the non-
proletarian workers, as the principal and most authoritative body. As long as
we, Communists, are not strong enough to seize state power and to hold election
by the workers themselves ... we have to use this forum to explain the relations
between the classes and the Party, the relations between landlords and peasants,
between rich peasants and poor peasants, between big capital and employees,
workers, small bourgeoisie, etc. …” (Letter for the Austrian Communists).
The Party leadership could raise another objection: Our representative
bodies are democratic and reflect mutual aid between Nasakom-partners. This
must not be destroyed but improved.
But that objection was refuted long ago by Lenin: “The higher (bourgeois)
democracy, the more bourgeois parliament bows for the money owners….”
(Selected Works, II/2, 52).
What was put forward by Lenin proved completely true after the G-30-S.
What has been done by Arudji Hartawinata and the Parliament as a whole?
Sixth: The blurring of the class character of the State. The similarity with
the Italian revisionists.
We have seen how the Party leadership for a long time has taken a non-
Leninist road in matters of state and revolution. We will briefly show here that
this non-Leninist road was not something particular but was related and similar
to the road taken by other revisionists, in this case the Italian revisionists.
It looked as if our Party and the Italian Communist Party took different
roads, but the difference was in fact restricted to the external political line
only; the internal line was essentially the same.
It is not surprising when in the Budapest meeting (within the framework
of the Congress of the Rumanian Communist Party) we were countered by the
Italian comrade with a.o. the following words: “…. The Indonesian comrades
have attacked us because of our theory of “structural Reform”. Indeed, it is we
who have made this theory, but the irony lies in the fact that it is the Indonesian
comrades who attacked our theory, who have applied it themselves in
Indonesia….”
What are the most salient features of this similarity? The way of thought
of the Italian Communist Party leadership, known under the name of “Structural
Reform” can briefly be set forth as follows: “…. Politically: in the framework
of bourgeois dictatorship to change progressively the balance of forces and the
structural balance of the state and thus forcing the growth of new classes in that
state leadership via the legal ways of the bourgeois state, bourgeois constitution
and bourgeois parliament.
Economically: in the framework of the capitalist system gradually
restricting and breaking monopoly capital via nationalisation, planning and the
state sector of economy, which has to hold the commanding posts. In short, to
confirm the possibility that in this way socialism can be achieved via bourgeois
dictatorship.”
Literature: The difference between com. Togliatti and us – Peking (Theses
for the Xth Congress of the Italian Communist Party).
Comparing this revisionist line of the Italian CP with the line followed
and practiced by our Party leadership, we cannot distinguish any difference at
all.
Politically, in the state of this bourgeois democracy we have always tried
to Nasakomize the cabinet via legal way as: the 1945 constitution, the parliament,
MPRS, palace-intrigues, change of the balance of forces, enlarge the pro-
people’s aspect, etc.
Economically: trying to anything to “stand on our own feet”, to implement
the “Economic Declaration”, the 1001 movement, to increase the state’s
commanding posts in the economic sector …. as the conditions to accomplish
the national-democratic stage, moving onward to socialism. Nationalisation
was considered as the other “absolute condition” to strengthen the state economy
sector and to abolish monopoly capital. The workers’ class had to take part in
the enterprise’s councils, the managing boards of national enterprises, national
state enterprises, etc. All this in order to accomplish the national-democratic
state, moving onward to socialism.
Was that correct, according to the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism?
By no means; it was their very anti-thesis.
Marxism-Leninism teaches us that each state power must always be
analysed from the class standpoint.
The deviations of the Italian revisionists, headed by Togliatti, and of our
Party leadership are actually the same as the deviations by Kautsky and other
figures of the Second International, who have been clearly exposed by Lenin
in his “State and Revolution”.
Especially in this connection the revisionists have forgotten the principal
difference between a proletarian and bourgeois revolution.
What did Lenin say on this subject?
“…. The difference between a socialist and a bourgeois revolution lies in
the very fact that the bourgeois revolution already contains the ready-made
forms of capitalist relations. Whereas …. the power of the proletariat …. does
not inherit any such ready-made relations.” (Quoted from “The differences
between com. Togliatti and us”, 95).
Every state power has the role to defend and to consolidate the existing
relations since it is a direct manifestation of those production relations. That
means that every state has the role to defend and to consolidate the existing
economic and social structure.
The characteristic feature of capitalist society is the very fact that it cannot
possibly contain seeds of socialism in it. That is why a capitalist (bourgeois)
state cannot possibly contain people who represent the proletarian class —
except the pseudo representatives of that class. Why cannot there exist any
seeds of proletarian relations in capitalist production relation? Because the
proletariat is “the class of modern wage workers who, because they have no
means of production of their own, are forced to sell their labour power in order
to live….” (Note by Engels to the “Communist Manifesto”, English edition,
1886).
When the proletariat in capitalist society already possesses means of
production, it is no proletariat any more.
The courses pursued by both Parties are thus completely revisionist and
deny the fundamental theses of Marxism-Leninism. Because to carry the
national-democratic revolution through to the end, moving onward to socialism,
in fact means the dictatorship of the People’s Democracy, i.e. the dictatorship
of the proletariat at the lowest stage.
To achieve this is need a revolution by force of arms to seize the state as a
whole, to destroy the old state machine, and to replace it by a new one.
Attempts as “National Planning Board”, “Enterprise’s Councils”, “to
participate in the managing boards”, etc. not only have never been proved to be
successful, but have even more drifted the workers’ class away from the real
seizure of state power, i.e. the revolution by force. Attempts at “nationalisation”
and “to strengthen the state sector of the economy” within the framework of
this state means only consolidating this bourgeois state in the economic field.
Consolidating socialism by nationalisation and strengthening of the state
sector of the economy is possible only within the framework of a state led by
the Proletariat, i.e. a People’s Democratic State.
The mistake of principle by the Party leadership in connection with those
nationalisation efforts were: a) It did not take into account the class character
of the state, and b) it considered that with nationalisation, etc. the national
democratic revolution was accomplished, being the beginning of the socialist
path.
To differentiate themselves from the Italian revisionists, the Party
leadership has put forward the “thesis” that the above-mentioned question could
not be separated from the problem of the revolution. But we have already shown
that on the problem of the Revolution, the Party had blurred and obliterated its
real meaning, its essence.
Seventh: Contradictory theses, phraseology and slogans
As Stalin has said, one of the most important features of the opportunists
of the Second International is the continuous quoting of the writing of Marx,
Engels, a.o., but at the same time launching theses, phraseology, slogans and
theories, which are in contradiction with each other. (Works, VI, 83).
The confirmation of class struggle, of revolution, of the state as a tool of
oppression, was mixed up with Nasakom, the revolution from above and from
below, and the pro-people’s and anti-people’s aspects. Almost daily we come
across these conflicting theses in the Party publications and in speeches by
important Party leaders and also in Party standard books such as “Selected
Works of D.N. Aidit”, etc.
Besides those questions there is one important problem whose meaning
has been distorted by the Party leadership, i.e. the problem of state Apparatus.
According to Engels, the features of a state are, a.o.: the formation of its
public power composed of armed forces, police and other organs of force.
In the revolution, the Proletariat must not only seize power by force, but it
has also to destroy the existing state machine and to replace it by a new one.
The army (armed forces) and the bureaucracy are the main parts of the state,
the parasites, bleeding white the oppressed classes.
The Party leadership however considered the Indonesian armed forces as
the “genuine child of the Revolution” and thus patriotic and democratic. Because
the majority originated from the working class and the peasants, it could not
possibly deny its class origin. At a mass meeting of the P(emuda) R(akyat) —
People’s Youth in Cheribon, com. Aidit even said: “…. Our armed forces are
actually armed peasants….”
In his writings from 1959, titled “Back to the ’45 constitution for a change
in politics and in life”, com. Aidit wrote: “…. Our attitude, a priori rejecting
military participation in the cabinet is of course not a correct attitude, because
military as well as Communists and nationalists are also citizens of RI” (Selected
Works of D.N. Aidit, III, 69).
We could ask: How about Soemitro, Kartosoewirjo and Kahar Muzakkar?
Could we accept them into a cabinet because they too are citizens of the RI?
In this connection we read on the cover of the above-mentioned book
(published by a commission of the CC, consisting of 4 people) the following:
“…. The slogan for Democracy and a Mutual Aid Cabinet (from the VIth
Congress of the PKI, 1959) …. Created the conditions in politics, organisation
and ideology to bring the Indonesian People and Nation closer to the strategic
aim of the Indonesian revolution….” That was also the reason why afterwards
the Party leadership launched the slogan: “For workers, peasants and soldiers”.
Is this not all too clear proof of how the Party leadership blurred the class
character of the state and in particular of the state apparatus? This was also the
reason why the Party leadership “forgot” that at a certain moment we would
directly be confronted with these Indonesian armed forces, as has been proved
in the case of the G-30-S event. The G-30-S event has been the unremovable
witness of this absurd attitude trying to place revolution on a par with “left”
adventurism.
Certainly, we must not neglect working in the armed forces of the enemy,
but this must be done with full consciousness that they are only a secondary
reserve: (We could add that in the course of history the majority of the army of
an oppressing ruling class was composed of people who originated from the
oppressed class. The problem is not their class origin but the new class, i.e. the
oppression tool of the state, as a parasite. Since that moment they stop being a
part of their old class, they have definitely entered their new class.)
III
ON THE NATIONAL UNITY FRONT (NUF)
1. Class analysis. Two kinds of alliances
The question of the NUF (as well as of the other problems of society) is
inseparably connected with class relations in society. There are two kinds of
alliances in the NUF:
a. The basic alliance: the alliance of workers and peasants and other
working people, but with the workers-peasants as nucleus.
b. The supporting alliance: the alliance of workers and national
bourgeoisie and other patriotic elements.
Our Party leadership, with its slogan “the NUF with the workers and
peasants as pillars and Nasakom as axis” has actually blurred class interests.
2. The basic question of every NUF is the hegemony (leadership)
The class which has the hegemony in the NUF decides the road of its
development and of the revolution (and thus also decides the outcome and
even the future of the revolution).
That is why the workers’ class with its party, the PKI, has to contend for
the hegemony with:
a. The national bourgeoisie who want to establish a bourgeois democratic
state/a democratic state of old type, by means of the “middle road”.
b. The big bourgeoisie/compradors/bureaucrat-capitalists, who want to
make/retain our state as a semi-colonial state.
The victory of the national bourgeoisie or comprador bourgeoisie means
the defeat of the revolution.
3. The formation and strengthening of a revolutionary NUF must be based
on experience and an understanding of who is friend and who is foe, with
the ability to distinguish between friend and foe.
The enemies of a National Democratic Revolution of new type are:
imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalists/compradors. The main
difficulty in distinguishing correctly between friend and foe lies in the division
of the bourgeoisie in two groups:
a. The big bourgeoisie, dependent on imperialism and making common
cause with feudal forces, and therefore the targets of the revolution.
b. The national bourgeoisie, double-faced and prone to compromise, is
a wavering ally but capable of taking part in the national democratic
revolution.
We do not discuss here the small bourgeoisie as these will be discussed
separately.
These groups are difficult to distinguish because the process of formation
and differentiation of the big bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie results
also in intermediate groups and groups in transition from one group to the
other.
4. The correct stand towards friends and foe is to lead the allies in a firm
struggle against the common enemy and step by step achieving victory.
In order to realise its hegemony in the revolution, the workers’ class has to
prove itself the most consistent and the most courageous group, fighting in the
front ranks of the revolutionary struggle and leading that revolutionary struggle
independently.
To contend itself with being an assistant or a coolie of the bourgeoisie, as
has been the case till now (towards the comprador bourgeoisie as well as the
national bourgeoisie, via National Front organisation led by military/landlords/
national bourgeoisie and to emphasise work in palace-intrigues), is virtually
the same as bringing the national revolution to failure.
The Party leadership was not only a party to the decision to create the
President “Great leader of the Revolution”, it permanently regarded him in
their daily political activities as the unifying figure whose opinions had always
to be respected.
It has been proved in the prologue, in the actual event and during the
epilogue of the G-30-S, that the Party surrendered the leadership to a double-
faced figure whose real face was opposing the dictatorship of the People’s
Democracy.
The Party leadership, with the argument “firm in principle, flexible in its
implementation”, adhered steadfastly to the common program only and
abandoned its own program, in its actions, statements, in agitation and
propaganda, etc.
Three very characteristic events could be chosen as the climax of all this:
a. In the prologue period: In a mass meeting on the occasion of the closure
of the Second MPRS Plenum in 1963 in Bandung, com. Aidit declared something
like this: “May Socialism be realised under the leadership of President Sukarno
within a not too long span of time”.
On another occasion com. Aidit stated that the Pantjasila was a unifying
philosophy, which was not only valid for the national-democratic stage, but
also for the next, socialist stage.
To deal in such a way with philosophy means to recognise the existence of
class collaboration, because philosophy is the expression of class interests and
each class has its own interests which, as a whole, cannot be unified with those
of other classes.
This applies with greater force to a socialist society where there is only
the dictatorship of the proletariat whose philosophy is Marxism. To confirm
the Pantjasila as the unifying philosophy in the socialist phase, is the same as
to confirm the dictatorship of the whole people — Khrushchev’s theory.
On the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the PKI, i.e. at the official forum
of Party life, com. Aidit called the President the Great leader of the Revolution
and said that the Indonesian people could never go hungry since the villagers
used cassava for building dams against floods. Such talk did not only surrender
the leadership to the bourgeoisie but also blurred the class struggle, since
economic problems (starvation, etc.) form the very basis of class struggle, which
must be raised to a political plane.
b. During the G-30-S event, the Party leadership formed a Revolutionary
Council which was not dominated by us; they made thus a fundamental mistake,
not grasping the actual meaning of the revolution. On the one hand the Party
leadership performed leftist acts whereas on the other hand the Party leadership
(in the case of the Unity Front and the power) based itself on rightist thought.
c. In the epilogue of the G-30-S, the Party leadership through leaflets
declared that in conformity with President Sukarno’s orders the PKI would not
put up any resistance, in whatsoever form!
5. On the basis in the Unity Front
Not to understand that the alliance of workers and peasants forms the
basis of the NUF, to contrary, basing itself on the alliance with the bourgeoisie,
is rightist opportunism.
On the peasants: in order to understand and to have a thorough knowledge
on the place of the peasants in the NUF, it would be good to recall what Mao
Tse-tung wrote in his Research on the Peasant Movement in Hunan, in 1927.
He showed that there are three attitudes towards the peasants:
a. To be in front of them and to lead them;
b. To stand behind them and to criticise them while swaying the arms;
c. To stand face to face with them and to fight them.
The only correct attitude is to be in front of them, to go forward, in the
sense of leading their actions.
The Party leadership in the past also “adopted” this correct attitude.
Actually, as was the case with the other parties who officially supported the
Political Manifesto, the Party never put it into practice. The Party did not
continue leading the peasant actions in Bojolali, Kediri, Klaten, etc. …., until
certain results were attained, did not connect them with actions by workers in
the towns, especially transport workers (who are the direct link between town
and village), and did not lift them to actions on a national and political plane.
These one sided actions were even slowed down because of the President’s
order, and were directed into channels of legalism a la Tan Ling Djie; that is to
say by demanding and then establishing land reform courts where representatives
of peasant mass organisations, members of the Unity Front, had a seat; the 3
Ministers’ Committee (in which sat com. Njoto), etc. ….
The attitude of the Party leadership of standing behind the peasant, swaying
their arms and criticise them in a non-Communist way for being “stupid”, making
“big mistakes”, etc. …. was even more lamentable.
6. What is the most fundamental work in the NUF?
The moves and actions of the workers are, at any time, the most fundamental
activities for the Party work. The entire work of the Unity Front has to be built
within the framework of actions by workers and peasants, and also by fishermen
on the coasts.
Those actions must always be lifted to a political plane, in the sense of
bringing the people’s masses under the leadership of the Party, increasingly
closer to the seizure of state power by force.
The policy and acts of the Party leadership in the past however have
virtually driven the masses away from the revolutionary crisis since it caused
the masses to have more illusions about this state and its President, the Great
Leader of its Revolution, and since the actions were not directed to the seizure
of state power by force.
7. On the role of the urban small bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie
The urban small bourgeoisie, large in number and suffering under the
oppression of imperialism, bureaucrat-capitalists and feudalism, is for the greater
part revolutionary. They are on the whole and important force for the national-
democratic revolution of new type and are the trusted allies of the workers’
class.
To unite with the small bourgeoisie is the principal work in the towns. To
attract the national bourgeoisies and other patriotic elements is a task of the
Unity Front in the towns, to be carried out by the workers’ class after the
fundamental works have been accomplished.
8. On the question of influencing, restricting and using
The workers’ class in the NUF endeavours to influence and to attract other
classes and groups. In the same way other classes and groups try to influence
and to shake the workers’ class, or, in other, more usual words: to influence, to
restrict and to use.
The workers’ class must not allow itself to be influenced and shaked by
other classes and groups, thus sinking to the same level as their allies or to the
level of assistant or coolie of their allies. To prevent this, some conditions must
be fulfilled, the main ones, a.o.:
a. Basically, the workers’ class must have a Marxist-Leninist Party,
b. The workers’ class with the Party as its vanguard has to draw a distinct
class boundary with all its allies.
This means, politically, to have an independent program and slogan of its
own and then, on the basis of that program and those slogan, to reach agreements
(on some points, on most points, or on all points), with other classes and groups
in order to forge the Unity Front in different spheres and on different levels,
while maintaining an independent attitude and acting independently on all basic
differences, raising all those allies gradually to their own minimum program.
Not following this line results in a hotchpotch, in capitulationism or in Khvostism
(tailing after the others) in the NUF.
This is what we experienced with the Political Manifesto (Manipol), where
we lowered ourselves to Marxism without its main pillar and abandoned our
own program so that we entrusted ourselves to the bourgeoisie, tailing after
them, and allowing us to be influenced, restricted and used.
9. On the conditions to attract the middle forces.
The role of the armed forces
Mao Tse-tung wrote (in “The question of tactics in the anti-Japanese unity
front”), that the task to attract the middle forces can only be performed under
the following conditions:
a. we are strong enough
b. we appreciate them
c. our firm struggle against the die-hards scores successive victories.
Though the Party leadership professed to implement those conditions, they
were actually only window-dressing.
But let us take a genuinely Marxist-Leninist view of the question: The
condition “we are strong enough” must be more fully explained. From the
practice of the Chinese revolution where the working class and its Party time
and again has felt the bitter experiences of the oppression by the internal and
external enemy, and the betrayal by their allies, com. Li Wei-han drew the
conclusion that without armed forces in the hand, it had been impossible for
the working class and the Communist Party to lead the people’s revolution
independently, to gain and to maintain the hegemony in the Unity Front. Without
armed forces, the working class and its Party could be kicked out by the
bourgeoisie at any time (Li Wei-han, 33).
G-30-S event has taught us the all too bitter lesson: we were not only
kicked out from the National Front which had been boasted on by the Party
leadership, but we also allowed the Party and almost all progressive groups in
Indonesia to be destroyed without any appreciable resistance.
In China — as a result of the local historical developments — the middle
groups have never had armed forces of their own, whereas in Indonesia the
rightist and the middle groups have their armed forces.
That means that to attract the middle forces in Indonesia so much the
more are needed armed forces of the workers and peasants themselves. This is
the condition to attract the middle groups, to criticise their compromising
character and to stimulate their anti-imperialist and anti-feudal character.
IV
ON THE PARTY
In the Past, the Party leadership boasted the PKI to be a Marxist-Leninist
Party and the biggest Party outside the socialist bloc. Is it true that, to be strong,
a Party with the greatest quantity of members is needed? Is it true that with a
big number of members that Party automatically becomes Marxist-Leninist?
The fact that we failed in the Unity Front, and more so, in the question of
the G-30-S, clearly show that our Party was not a strong Party, the more a
Marxist-Leninist Party.
Revisionism, which held sway in the Party leadership, dragged our Party
to the valley of bourgeois ideology and made us forget all conditions for the
building of a Party of Leninist type.
The enormous damage, suffered by our Party because it took the wrong
road, and the fact that without a Marxist-Leninist Party the people cannot
possibly gain a just and prosperous society, oblige us to rebuild our Party on a
genuine Marxist-Leninist basis.
We nee a militant and revolutionary Party, capable to lead the proletariat
in the struggle to seize power, with enough experience to find the correct road
in a complex revolutionary situation, able to withstand any storm — a beacon
for the final victory, in short, a Party of Leninist type.
Analysing all aspects of the G-30-S failure and taking a look into the
future in seeking a way out of the damage, suffered by our society and our
Party, we can draw the basic conclusion that the very essence of this way out
lies, first and foremost, in the rebuilding of our Party. This reconstruction must
embrace the Party throughout the country, clean from revisionist ideology and
elements, with correct strategy and tactics, and implementing all fundamental
Marxist-Leninist teachings, which we have briefly touched upon in the foregoing
pages.
Therefore, in the first stage of our work, all energy, attention and activities
have to be devoted to the building of the Party and, within this framework, we
have to integrate ourselves dialectically with masses of workers, peasants,
fishermen and urban small bourgeoisie in their actions which must progressively
be higher levels.
What are the conditions for such a Party of Leninist type?
First: It has to be the foremost detachment of the proletariat.
As the foremost detachment of the proletariat it must be composed of the
best elements of the proletariat. The proletariat is a class with high discipline,
revolutionary spirit, sepi ing pamrih rame ing gawe (unselfish, imbued with a
zest for work).
From this class, the Party has to choose and to draw the best elements.
The acceptance of members is thus not a question of quantity only but rather of
quality.
The argument always put forward is: Yes, but from that very quantity
emerges quality.
Those who put forward this argument seem to forget that the Party, that
the Party members, must be of a quality, which grows out of quantity of the
working class. From that quality will then grow again a new, highest quality.
This foremost detachment must be armed with correct Marxist-Leninist
theory, because “without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary
movement” (Lenin).
Those revolutionary theories are: Marxism-Leninism, merged with the
objective situation and development in Indonesia. The implementation of
Marxism-Leninism in the specific conditions in Indonesia can by no means be
made a cause for turning Marxism-Leninism upside down.
Marxism-Leninism must be implemented in such a way that it comprises
practice, situation and development in Indonesia on the basis of pure,
fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism.
The struggle of every Communist Party is a very difficult one, more difficult
than whatever kind of war (Lenin). A Communist Party must therefore be capable
to lead the proletariat in a protracted, difficult and complex struggle. It must be
far-seeing, it must know when to attack and when to retreat (if forced to), but it
must always lead the proletariat/people’s masses in whatever situation.
In short, the Party must be the General Staff of the Proletariat. The Party
must be distinguished from the proletariat, but this does not mean that it is
separated from the proletariat. It must be distinguished because it is the
leadership of the proletariat/other non-proletariat masses.
Without this distinction the Party standard is lowered to the level of
common masses, not of chosen quality, and thus cannot possibly take the
command.
The distinction between the Party and the proletariat/other non-proletariat
masses will exist as long as there exist classes.
But if the distinction between the Party and the proletariat and other non-
proletariat masses becomes a ravine which separates them, then the Party is not
a Communist Party any longer.
The Party and the masses must always be connected, as flesh and nails, it
must always and in any situation be accepted by the masses and lead the masses.
The paramount slogan for masses and Party must be “close to the heart and
close to the eyes”.
Did we fulfil this first condition for a Party in the past? What were the
conditions for becoming a member of our Party? Was it not a fact that filling in
a blank was the only condition for becoming a Party member, with the result
that our party became a Party of quantity and was thus flooded by small bourgeois
mud and poison?
The first outside the socialist bloc — in quantity, quantity of members as
well as in quantity of mud and poison inside.
The second feature: The Party is the organised detachment of the working
class.
To be able to lead the very difficult struggle against the enemy, well and
efficiently organised, the Party is not only the foremost detachment of the
proletariat, but must also be its organised detachment. To be able to lead the
proletariat and tens of millions of other masses, the organisation of the Party
must be tight and efficient, united in an iron discipline, binding on every Party
member and every Party organisation. Not everyone can become Party member
because to perform his task well, every Party member must be able to lead the
masses on the lines laid down by the Party.
Every Party member has thus to join one of the Party organisations. Every
Party member and every Party organisation must therefore, at any time and in
any situation, be able to lead, organise and mobilise the masses within the
framework of the preparations for revolution and focussing on revolution.
Ironically, the opposite was true: Party organisation (Factions, resorts,
etc.) was not solid unity, able to lead, mobilise and organise the masses; they
even quarrelled and disputed among themselves. We can answer for ourselves
what were our experiences in this connection.
As an organised detachment, the Party must be a single system of all its
organisations, where the minority submits to the majority, where Party work is
led from one centre (democratic centralism).
It is within this framework that we have to maintain discipline, iron
discipline on the basis of common decisions with a single supervision and
leadership. Such kind of discipline is not dead discipline but self-imposed
discipline based on principle and conviction.
This is possible when:
a. the Party is a Party whose members are of the best quality of the
proletariat;
b. internal democracy within the Party is revived and developed which is
to say that the opinions of all members, without exception, are heard and
discussed in guided meetings;
c. in the leadership who implements and controls the decisions, are
concentrated the best elements of the members, able to creatively develop the
decisions taken;
d. each member, the more the leadership, must master the fundamental
theories and the concrete situation;
e. the inner-party struggle must be based on:
• the pureness of Marxism-Leninism;
• the monolith character of the Party;
• the control of the implementation and elaboration of the decisions;
• the elevation of the ideological and organisational level by means of
criticism and self-criticism at the tight time and always taking in mind
that within this framework unnecessary contradictions and non-
proletarian methods must be avoided.
When all this is correctly conducted without “corruption” of one of its
“pillars”, there will be no feeling of democracy as an unnecessary formality
and of centralism as bureaucracy and commandism.
But in an emergency situation where democracy cannot possibly be
practiced as it should be (e.g. in a revolution, revolutionary situation,
revolutionary crisis, a.o.) and where quick decisions have to be taken to avoid
the hovering and destruction of the Party and the masses, centralism must be
the only permitted way, according to the principle that in any situation the
Party has to lead the proletariat and other people’s masses.
In the past those conditions have been ignored by the Party leadership,
with the result that the Party became an inert body with a leadership who could
only give orders since they had become “a layer of bourgeoisie in Communist
clothes”.
The third feature: The Party must be the highest form of organisation of
the proletarian class.
The proletariat and other people’s masses have also other organisation
besides the Party, like: trade unions, co-operatives, women organisations, etc.
…. The majority of those organisations are non-Party, but are absolutely
necessary for the working class, because without those organisations it would
be impossible to consolidate the Party leadership in several fields of struggle.
The problem is how all those numerous organisations can be led from a
single centre, so that they do not obstruct each other, all serving the proletariat
on the basis of the same principle.
Who must lay out the line and the course?
A Marxist-Leninist Party can and must fulfil such task, because:
a. It is the centre, unifying the best elements of the class, directly
connected with the non-Party organisation concerned, and in general
also leading it.
b. It is the centre of the best elements of the proletariat and is thus the
best school for training its members and other proletarian elements to
lead all kinds of organisation forms of the proletariat.
c. As the best school to train leaders of the working class it is by virtue
of its experience and prestige the only organisation capable to centralise
the struggle of the proletariat. Each non-Party organisation thus
becomes a continuously moving link, connecting the Party with the
class and the classes.
This does not mean that trade union, women, youth, student, peasant
organisations, etc. must officially follow the Party leadership. The point is that
every Party member in those organisations must with might and main fight for
it that in practice the organisation concerned voluntarily accepts the Party
leadership.
In the past, applying the same yardstick to all organisational activities, i.e.
within the framework of the NUF — Nas (Nationalist groups), A (Religious
groups) and Kom (Communist groups) — the Party leadership indirectly caused
the masses with the same class interests to be divided in organisations used on
Nas, A and Kom. The result was that the class struggle and other forms of
struggle were pushed in a direction of struggle which essentially blurred
everything, since they joined the Unity Front on the basis of the common program
under bourgeois leadership, abandoning their own program.
More, the open or secret proclamation of mass organisation, as: trade
unions, youth-student-scientist-women-organisations, a.o. led by Party members,
as Communist organisations (to obtain a place in the Nasakom forum), meant
actually to reduce the position of its cadres from mass leaders who had to bring
the masses closer to the Party (not only those in the mass organisation) to the
level of leaders who only took care of its members who were actually already
close to the Party.
The cadres were thus bound hand and foot and their liberty of action
restricted. In this way the strategic task could not be performed, i.e. the task of
the Party members in that mass organisation to bring broad masses in a position
where it could support the Party, directly or indirectly (for instance, by adopting
a neutral attitude) when the Party launched and armed uprising (revolution) to
seize power. Our bitter experience with the G-30-S has proved this.
The fourth feature: The Party is a tool of the dictatorship of the proletariat
The Party is the highest form of organisation of the proletarian class but it
is not an aim. The aim of the proletariat is to abolish exploitation. The “greatness”
of the Party, the “good reputation” of the Party does not mean anything if it is
not able to perform its task as the general staff for successfully seizing state
power.
The entire work of the Party must therefore basically be directed to the
seizure of power to establish the dictatorship of the people’s democracy.
That seizure of power can be carried out only by an armed revolution. The
task to a Communist Party who has already achieved victory is the same, i.e. it
remains a tool of the dictatorship of the proletariat which must be consolidated
and developed to the highest summit, until the classes in society have been
abolished.
The fifth feature: The Party is the realisation of the unity of thought and
incompatible with factions
The proletariat will not gain victory without a strong party, based on
solidarity and iron discipline. But iron discipline is not possible without absolute
and complete unity of thought and unity of action of every Party member.
This does not mean that there are no differences of opinion within the
Party (see the Second feature). The point is that after those differences of opinion
have sufficiently been discussed and then decided about, after criticism have
sufficiently levelled, all Party members must absolutely abide by the decisions.
The forming of factions must therefore be prevented, i.e. groups of Party
members who do not want to bow to the collective leadership, and follow a line
by themselves which they consider the right one, thus creating a multi-centred
Party system.
In this connection it must be remembered that opportunism and revisionism
are the only reason of faction forming.
In a Party, headed by a revisionist group, the formation of factions is
unavoidable. Revisionism is the manifestation of bourgeois ideology; the
economic basis of the bourgeoisie is free competition. Their ideology with
unhealthy competition is therefore the contrary of proletarian ideology with its
single leadership.
The epilogue, the event and the prologue of the G-30-S have given clear
proofs of how the Party leadership has failed in factionalism with the inevitable
result that the line which were laid out were crisscross and confused.
The sixth feature: The Party can only be strong if it cleans itself of
opportunist elements
As has bee said above, the mainspring of factionalism is opportunism.
What are the other sources of factionalism?
a. The party accepts also members who originate from other classes:
from the small bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie, intellectuals,
peasants, etc. They contain ideological remnants which cannot be
immediately removed.
b. The upper layer of the proletariat in the Party, the Party members in
parliament, the members of representative bodies and members of
government, etc. ….
They are bourgeoisied proletariat who can enjoy living on the profits,
robbed together by the bourgeoisie. It is the source of factionalism, undermining
Party unity.
To fight imperialism, bureaucrat-capitalists and feudalism, to prepare
revolution to seize power with such troops, is similar to being squashed by the
enemy and allow itself to be stabbed in the back. To purge the Party continuously
from such elements is therefore the basic condition for leading the revolution
and to gain hegemony and victory. Com. Stalin has shown that the theory which
would “defeat” opportunist elements by ideological struggle within the Party,
the theory to “overcome” these elements within the framework of one party,
such theory is a putrid and dangerous theory (Works, VI 192). Com. Lenin too
has shown that “at such moments it is not only absolutely necessary to remove
the Mensheviks, the reformists from the Party, but even useful to remove good
Communists who show vacillation and a tendency to “unite” with the reformists,
from all responsible posts …., the slightest hesitation in the Party ranks can
ruin everything, abandon the revolution and tear the power from the hands of
the proletariat. The leave of these wavering leaders at such a moment (the
moments on the eve of the revolution) does not weaken but strengthen the
Party, the workers’ movement and the revolution …” (Collected Works, XXV,
462, 463, 464).
In “Notes from a publicist”, Lenin further said that to feel pity for some
tens of thousands or some hundreds of thousands revisionist/opportunist …..
will harm “the interests of tens of millions of people.”
One of our principal tasks in the future is therefore to steel the Party,
firmly and continuously, in the struggle to destroy and remove reformism,
opportunism and revisionism. There is no other way, there never was anther
way.
V
ON THE ARMED STRUGGLE
The revisionist leadership of the Party spread the fairy tale that the ABRI
(armed forces of the RI) were patriotic and democratic and therefore the child
of the revolution, originating from the workers’ and peasant classes. This made
the Party leadership take the peaceful road by collaborating with the ruling
class and not preparing for the armed struggle.
The G-30-S, though an armed struggle, is clearly not an armed struggle of
Marxist-Leninist type, since it does not fulfill the conditions which we have
elaborated in the foregoing pages.
How is the Marxist-Leninist view of this armed struggle (revolution)? We
must, first and foremost, incalculate the concept that “political power grows
out the barrel of the gun” and that “the Marxist-Leninist principles on this
revolution are general truth, in China as well as in other countries” (Mao Tse-
tung: Problems of War and Strategy, 1-13).
Lenin too said: “…. Who confirms class struggle must inevitably confirm
civil war, which in every class society is a natural continuation, and under
certain conditions an unavoidable continuation, a development and
intensification of class struggle.
All great revolutions have proved this. To avoid civil war, to forget this,
means to sink in extreme opportunism and to deny the socialist revolution”.
(Quoted by Che Guevara in “Guerrilla Warfare, a method”, 8-9).
Is it true that an armed struggle is not possible without a hinterland? The
revolution of Russia, Cuba and Zanzibar have proved that this fairy tale does
not hold true.
A revolution must be based on the strength of the people, led by the Party,
not on geographical consideration or on an already victorious neighbour state.
A hinterland can indeed play a big role but it is not decisive. This was
strategically already established by Lenin and Stalin (Stalin: “On strategy and
tacticss”, in works VI, 161).
What is the meaning of the bourgeois armed forces?
We have explained above that the armed forces of the RI are the backbone
of the state which will defend that state against us and therefore at decisive
moments, will face us. In such a situation we have only two choices. They
destroy us or we destroy them (Che Guevara, op. cit., 2).
But though we must regard the armed forces of the RI as the backbone of
the state whom we have to destroy, we must not neglect working in their circles,
to undermine them from within and to draw as many as possible of their members
to our side.
But those who have gone over to our side are only secondary reserves and
can never be regarded as primary reserves.
What is the essence and the future of this armed struggle?
It cannot be denied that his struggle will be struggle on many fronts and a
multi-various struggle. It will demand many sacrifices from all of us, many
victims and much blood will certainly be shed. In preparing every Party member
and the people’s masses to be ready to enter the battle field, there will inevitably
rise the question: Can these sacrifices, sufferings and blood-spilling not be
avoided? Yes, what can we say?
This armed struggle is a struggle which is forced upon us by the armed
bourgeoisie. To ignore this fact means to let the sufferings of humanity grow
bigger and to increase useless blood-spilling, as has been evident with this G-
30-S.
This armed struggle will sooner or later break out, that is certain. It is a
historical necessity, and we do not want to shift this historical task on the next
generation.
The wounds suffered by our Fatherland, by our people, yes, by the History
of Humanity, will heal in the future, when the working people, led by the Party,
has seized state power, and Socialism will be established, in peace and mutual
affection.
Then people will probably talk about past times, when our Party rose again
from the wounds it suffered and led the proletariat and the people of Indonesia
to eradicate the sores, caused by the past on their oppressors.
People will talk on our Party, the PKI, the Indonesian Communist Party,
who never could be destroyed by defeat and oppression no matter how cruel,
but even rose again as the victor in a fierce decisive battle. ●
[*The experience of revolution and counter-revolution in Indonesia is a

rich experience for the ICM. The counter-revolutionary coup in which
over half a million communists and sympathisers were assassinated by the
reactionary army led by the hated army general Suharto is one of the worst
black events in the entire history of mankind. What were the mistakes of
the leadership of the Communist Party of Indonesia which gave ground
for the fascist army to launch such ghastly massacre?]
INTENSIFYING THE
REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE AND
CONSOLIDATING THE WORLD
PROLETARIAN SOLIDARITY
AGAINST GLOBAL IMPERIALISM
Dear comrades,
IT IS an honour for us to be with you all for participating this forum which is
to come to terms in uniting our actions and intensifying our struggle and
solidarity amongst Marxist-Leninist parties and revolutionary organisations all
over the world, especially Asia, in order to fight against all forms of injustice,
oppression and exploitation conducted by imperialism and reactionary ruler in
the country.
In Indonesia, the reactionary regime intentionally oppresses in a colossal
way all Communists and revolutionary progressive democratic movements.
These prove only as an initial step in destroying all political system and the
democratic foundation throughout Indonesia. These are done by the existing
regime in order to pave the path for the world monopoly capitalist in exploiting
systematically the workers and simultaneously plundering the economic wealth
of the country.
INDONESIA IS A NEO-COLONIAL COUNTRY WITH THE WELL-CONSOLIDATED RESIDUE
OF FEUDALISM
The global imperialism, controlled fully by the world monopoly capitalist,

has resulted in destroying the Indonesian economy and impoverishing the people
which today known as one of the poorest in the world. All aid and assistance
from IMF, World Bank, ADB which are institutions controlled by world
capitalists, apparently are not able to lift Indonesia from its worsening economy.
Moreover, the national economy of the country becomes more dependent on
the world monopoly capitalist by imposing privatisation programme concerning
the assets of national economic wealth and by interfering for the sake of
efficiency and free market economic globalisation. By the assistance of those
institutions, the reactionary regime formulates “new development strategy”
called “structural adjustment programme”. What happened then? The regime
that follows such economic policies in fact cannot lift itself from the deepening
debt trap. Instead, the living standard of the people becomes down-grading. It
becomes crystal clear that those advices deriving from the above mentioned
institutions are not able to solve the crises in Indonesia. On the contrary, almost
all initiatives taken by the government are ruining the people. This shows the
doctrine “free market” of neo-liberalism is a trick. Up to 31st of January 2009
the total debt of the country reaches US $ 166.7 billions, or 32% of GNP,
consisting actually foreign debt as much as US$ 74.6 billions and internal debt
in the form of certificate from security payments climbs to the amount of US$
92.1 billions.
Since the enforcement of Foreign Capital Investment Law, huge foreign
capital belonging to the world monopoly capitalists flows into Indonesia. Almost
all economic sectors have been penetrated and controlled by foreign companies
such as oil, gas, minerals, telecommunications, retails, banks, cement, chemical
industries, water, plantations, service and industrial manufactures.
The power as shaped by the reactionary of the country is the power of
bourgeois dictatorship which is fascist in character, undertakes open terror
against working class and communist, so that they can freely launch political
and economic repression in order to take super-profit maximally by opening
the door so widely to foreign capital, and the Indonesian economy becomes
dependent on imperialism financially speaking, also on trade and technology
which in the end also dependent in political and military terms.
Economic policies which are in any way relying on the foreign capital
bring in fact about the worsening of the economy of our country and cause the
continuing deepening of “economic crisis”. Economic dependency and the huge
debt have shaped Indonesia as a neo-colony for the world imperialist/monopoly
capitalists.
Beside the neo-colonial character of Indonesian economy, there is some
residue of feudalism which in fact exists firmly in countryside. Indonesian
population is made of 60% peasants whose lives are relying on agricultural
products. There is only slightly different with the fate of workers, the peasants
too are impoverished in the countryside. The penetration of capitalism
throughout villages in the country is bringing out significant change in
production relations in villages. However, one character is land monopoly by
landlord, which still exists firmly. The feudalistic exploitation in now
transformed into capitalist one. The landlord that earlier used share crops system,
partly is transformed to wage-system in exploiting the landless peasants. That
is why, in the countryside, we can still find exploitation according to feudal
system, also land monopoly by landlords. To understand such a condition is
very important, as it shall define the character of the change we should undertake
through Indonesian revolution.
The assessment saying that there exists strong residue of feudalism is very
significant, because it defines the revolutionary character. Here conclusion can
be drawn: the country remains a neo-colonial one with strong residue of
feudalism. These are the causes of poverty, under development of the people
that live in a country which has fertile soil and provided with prosperous natural
resources. It is wrong to say that the cause of poverty and under development is
lack of capital or corruption as propagated by the exploiting class. Imperialism
maintains the feudalist system and uses it as the base for the capitalist
exploitation in the countryside.
THE ONLY WAY IS THE REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE
Through empirical practice that we have so far, we can say that the ruling
class power derived from the neo-colonial economic system will no other way
dedicate to the economic system which has given birth to said power, and will
maintains and develops it. General elections done by the bourgeois ruling class
disappointed the people and the mass, as they saw intrigues, competitions
between representatives of bourgeoisie in fighting for positions of their own
clique, which is in essence the division of position and gaining power for
contributing the repression of the already oppressed classes in the country. In
the recent legislative elections, about 40% of legitimate voters did not
participate. The solution as given through general elections and exhibited by
bourgeois political parties, do not offer anything to deconstruct the system that
brings about the worsening economy. The fundamental change can only be
achieved by destroying the existing economic and political system and this
need real forces, the driving forces and the principal forces that lead the change
under consideration. Therefore, it is the duty of the Indonesian proletariat to
rise, mobilise and organise the oppressed mass, the workers, the peasants, and
the non-peasants little bourgeoisie to make fundamental social change in
Indonesia which is a neo-colonial country by character to become a free and
democratic one. Indonesian proletarian should pay attention solely to create
the conditions for leading the agrarian revolution by the armed peasants, which
is to be the principal struggle in achieving the Indonesian People’s Democratic
Revolution.
World history has taught us for underdeveloped countries, especially in
the countries where peasants form the majority of the mass who suffer mostly
from oppression and those whose rights are so severely violated or completely
taken away, then the only valid way out is the revolutionary way. Such a path
need an objective revolutionary situation for commencing the revolution, but
we should not only wait the objective situation in the whole country. The
revolution can be started by launching the struggle from the countryside to
encircle the towns and cities.
US imperialism is the main force of imperialists as it shows through its
economic, political and military power. So our joint struggle all over the world
should be mostly emphasised towards US as the no. one imperialist power in
today’s world.
Within the imperialist countries, each ML party should exercise the struggle
of the working class and its alliance against imperialist bourgeois in the country
and support revolutionary struggle and anti-imperialist actions of the oppressed
people and nations. In the oppressing countries, on the other hand, ML parties
and organisations should study particular concrete situation and lead the
revolutionary struggle against imperialist forces which oppresses mostly in the
country and last but not least the ruling class in the country. ML parties and
organisations from oppressed countries are obliged to educate the proletarian
and people in their country with the spirit of proletarian internationalism so
that they can unite with the proletarian of the imperialist countries.
In the countries occupied by imperialism, the most urgent tasks ahead of
communists are to create unity as broad as possible in mobilisation against and
driving away the occupying power. They should also take historical
responsibility to lead the national liberation movement towards revolution and
socialism.
As Lenin teaches us, there is only one solution for the people all over the
world under imperialism: socialism!
In the coming future, ML parties and revolutionary organisations should
coordinate closely neatly. With the spirit of proletarian internationalism, we
must strengthen the ideological, political and organisational line within the
framework of the consolidation of the International Communist Movement, so
that we can break the chains of the imperialist oppression and also eliminate
the revisionist ideological penetration.
PARTY BUILDING
To understand the problem and obstacles we have in building the party,
we need to explicate in a general way the history of the Party.
The Party is established on the 23rd of May 1920, which is the oldest
communist party in Asia. In her still young age, in 1926, the Party had led the
first armed struggle at a national scale, against the Dutch colonial government.
It seems that this is the first party in Asia, which has led the armed struggle
against colonialism. Thus, starting from her birth, the Party has not taken
compromises as the way to fight against oppression of a nation to other nation,
of human being to other human being, and has traditionally launched the
revolutionary struggle by arms.
However, the Party has experienced three severe bloody attacks. We noted
them as white terrors, since they were launched by subsequent reactionary ruling
class of the country. These terrors reflect the degree of the fierce class struggle
in the country.
Our Party has also noted that each time it experiences the terror, we loose
our leader, even the whole members of leadership, through murder or put in
concentration camp. This shows not only the how savage the class enemy is,
but also the weakness in the building the organisations of the Party. This implies
to the continuing the revolutionary movement, the Party has to give birth new
cadres who should build the Party from the beginning.
The first White Terror launched by the Dutch imperialist following the
failure of 1926 revolt. The government forbid the Party and all members of the
leadership have been arrested and put in the camp concentration at a remote
and isolated area called Boven Digul, Papua, which is populated by backward
people. Not until 1935, the Party found a momentum to be built illegally by
young cadres. They operated underground for a decade an found its way to
appear after the Indonesian people has succeeded in seizing the political power
from Japanese fascists in 1945.
The second White Terror (1948) launched by reactionary bourgeois of the
country in a conspiracy with US imperialist, have provoked the communist
leadership of the armed militia in Madiun, an important town in East Java. This
forced the militia to defend and protect themselves from the provoked
aggression. This act of defensiveness is seen as an act of revolt by the communists
against the bourgeois government by establishing ‘Soviet’ government in
Madiun. This provocation is launched by the reactionary to prevent the
communists in consolidating their forces following self-criticism as they made
some political mistakes for the last two years. The Party had released a resolution
called ‘New Path for the Republic Indonesia’. The incident is then known as
“Madiun Provocation (1948)” and is used by the reactionaries of the country to
launch the terror against the communists throughout the country. Thousands
communists and cadres were killed. The principal leadership were caught and
without any process, have been executed. Once again, Party leadership has
been cut off. However, there were some young leaders who escaped from the
terror and through 1950s have succeeded in (re)building the Party throughout
the country. Starting with some 10,000 members, the Party through 1950s had
become almost 3 million in 1960s, which were spreading throughout the
archipellago and consisted all ethnical groups. In the mean time, the Party was
said as the biggest one outside the CPC and CPSU.
The third White Terror, repeatedly the Party experienced the severest attack
from the reactionary class of the country, which seemed not only in national
terms but international one. This time the reactionary used the incident of G-
30-S (30th September Movement) as a raison d’être. G-30-S was a movement
of young army officers which took place on 30th September 1965 to abduct
some generals belonged to the right-wing army leadership, to be brought to
President Sukarno. Few leadership of the Party have been involved in the above
mentioned movement outside the regular mechanism of Party organisation. For
the army, the involvement of few Party leadership in the movement, was more
than enough to launch fierce attack against the Party. The Party and all
revolutionary mass organisations were dissolved and banned. The chasing in
physical terms, then took place throughout the country and conducted by the
army by mobilising uninformed masses. And communists and their sympathisers
became victims. Within one and half months, thousands of dedicated and well
experienced cadres have been killed, and other hundreds of thousands have
been arrested and detained for some decades without any legal process. The
chief leadership was murdered. Within a very short time, Party organisation
was completely destroyed and paralysed.
A big question should be raised somehow: Why could the Party with its
organisations spread throughout the county be destroyed within such a short
time and without any revenge at all? How was it possible that cadres and
members were passively killed?
Rest of the Party leadership who escaped in the mean time has made self-
criticism on the serious mistakes made by the Party concerning the political
line. All answers regarding the above mentioned questions were found in the
Self-Criticism of the Polit Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of Indonesia, dated 1966. This document explicates all weaknesses of
the Party during her 20 years of (re)building process. These covers:
• In the field of ideology: the leadership suffered from subjectivism,
which according to the sister parties formulated as petty bourgeois
method of thinking, not the proletarian mode of thought;
• In political field: the leadership took the opportunist and revisionist
way such as parliamentary and peace, instead of revolutionary way in
achieving the revolution in Indonesia;
• In the field of organisation: the leadership has adopted the liberalism,
which meant that organisation was open widely for new membership,
even without any ideological qualifications.
The above mentioned Self-Criticism has pointed out solutions, which were
formulated in the following Three Banners of the Party, namely:
1. Party building according the ML principles, free from subjectivism,
opportunism and revisionism;
2. People’s Armed Struggle which is in essence the peasant armed struggle
from arming the agrarian revolution, whish is anti-feudal under the
leadership of working class;
3. Revolutionary United Front on basis of an alliance between workers
and peasants under the leadership of working class.
In 1967, the Party leadership has made serious endeavour to rebuild the
Party through selection and organising former cadres and members and tried to
transform the open and legal Party to be completely illegal and closed one;
form parliamentary struggle to made preparation for armed struggle as shown
in the Self-Criticism document dated from 1966. Revolutionary bases have
initially built in some places for preparing the armed struggle.
Somehow by the end of 1967, the reactionary forces launched attack in
several revolutionary bases. This was the second phase of effort in destroying
the Party, which has been declared to be dissolved up to its roots. The diminishing
of communists had taken place not only in base-areas, but also throughout the
country. Intensive chase to communists and their sympathisers who have not
been caught through the saying “arrest first, and the reason follows. Indonesian
Armed Forces will not take a risk for the existence of communists outside the
detention places”. Party leaders were killed or arrested and sentenced to death
or to life-long imprisonment. Repeatedly the Party lose all leaders, and all cadres
who have much experience in building the Party. Since the destroying of all
prepared revolutionary base-areas (1968), the effort to rebuild the Party has
been halted completely.
Throughout 1970s, as international pressure increased, the military regime
in Indonesia was forced to release tens of thousand communists and their
sympathisers from some concentration camps. However, their space of physical
movement was restricted. They received specific mark in their ID, and they
were not allowed to take any function in social organisations. They were not
allowed to work as a teacher, become a civil servant, in army, etc.
However, at the beginning of 1980, some small number of Party cadres
who took responsibility to continue revolutionary works, have made serious
efforts to rebuild the Party by establishing an interim Central leadership. Party
building has been done by combining the building process from above and
from the below. This is not an easy work. Major cadres still suffer from trauma
and are forced to work underground amongst the people who have been educated
and drilled to be anti-communist for some decades during the military regime.
After some 20 years of working, then the above mentioned interim central
leadership in 2000 has succeeded in organising Party Congress, which was the
8th one. The Congress has adopted new Constitution and Programmme, and
reaffirms the Self-Criticism dated 1966 as the principal way to rebuild the Party
and nominate new members of Central Committee and Executive Committee.
While it carried out continuously the rectification movement in the whole
Party, by the end of 2005, the Party carried out the 9th Congress. The Congress
decided to uphold firmly Marxism-Leninism and Maoism principles, to realise
the three banners of the Party especially the second banner through preparations
of the revolutionary bases concretely. ●
Let us intensify the revolutionary struggle and consolidate the world
proletarian solidarity against global imperialism!
[Communist Party of Indonesia, June, 2009]
THE DEVASTATING EFFECTS OF
NEO-LIBERALISM ON THE
NEO-COLONIALLY DEPENDENT
COUNTRIES
STEFAN ENGLE
After the Second World War, the people’s liberation struggle smashed the old
colonial system. A strong ally of the liberation struggle was the socialist camp.
In this situation, imperialism was compelled to develop new forms of
colonialism. The book, Neo-colonialism and the Changes in the National
Liberation Struggle, explained this as follows:
As long as imperialism and its law-governed striving for elimination of
competition, for world domination exist, there will also be colonialism.
The division of nations into oppressing and oppressed constitutes the
essence of imperialism.
The forms and methods of imperialism, however, have changed
considerably since the Second World War. (Klaus Arnecke and Stefan Engel,
Neo-colonialism and the Changes in the National Liberation Struggle, p.
68)
The imperialists take advantage of the economic and political weakness
of the former colonies and semi-colonies in order to restore their influence.
Willi Dickhut wrote in his book, State-Monopoly Capitalism in the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG), about the new method of neo-colonialism:
Through neo-colonialism, the developing countries become “open” to
plunder by the imperialist countries. The developing countries fall into
dependence and acquire the character of semi-colonies. The imperialists
increase capital export to these countries to further deepen their influence.
This lets the proletariat grow and gain strength, on the one hand; on the
other hand, it weakens the ruling national bourgeoisie in these countries.
Through the economic dependence they become more and more politically
dependent, to the point that the ruling forces of these countries become
puppets of imperialism. The competition between the monopolies reflects
in the power struggle between the various factions of the puppets. (Vol. II,
p. 375)
The imperialist countries do not display any particular scruples in their
neo-colonial exploitation and oppression: economic blackmail, diplomatic
interference, use of agents, subversion going as far as overthrow of governments,
dependence through military training programs and sale of weapons, also
interference by force — all this belongs to the instruments of neo-colonial rule.
THE CRISIS OF NEO-COLONIALISM
In the 1980s, a deep crisis of neo-colonialism developed. World trade
shrank and investments in the developing countries dropped dramatically. Many
developing countries could service their debts only in a limited way or not at
all, with the consequence of a sharpening international debt crisis. This had
significant repercussions on the finance of the imperialist countries.
The imperialist answer to the crisis of neo-colonialism was the policy of
neo-liberalism with its propaganda of unrestricted flow of capital, privatisation,
deregulation and a changed role of the state. The governments of the neo-
colonially dependent countries were to guarantee the international monopoly
free trade in goods and services, a free flow of capital and the freedom to
invest. The book, Neo-colonialism and the Changes in the National Liberation
Struggle, comments this:
Since the beginning of the nineties, the imperialists and their puppets in
the dependent countries have been promising the masses the big change
through an economic policy of so-called neoliberalism.
The term “liberalism” conveys the illusion of free competition, of free
development of economic forces. Its tru content, however, consists in the
liquidation of competition in the dependent countries and in the
endeavour to integrate their economies ever more fully in the
international production and distribution of multinational corporations.
(p. 271; emphasis added)
The economic expansion of the international monopolies could only
succeed if the masses in the neo-colonially dependent countries were won for
this policy. The masses were rightly outraged about corruption, the overblown
state apparatus, many forms of bureaucratic harassment, hyperinflation,
technological backwardness and the inefficiency of the state-owned enterprises
as well as the oppressive tax burden. Populist politicians like Manem in
Argentina or Fujimori in Peru demagogically too up this criticism and — with
the slogan of neo-liberalism — temporarily succeeded in creating a mood of
going forward, by which they were able to win elections and tackle the neo-
liberal project.
The “Brandy Plan”, devised by the former US Treasury Secretary Brady
in 1989, undertook to centrally steer the policy of neo-liberalism in the interest
of international finance capital. The book Argentinien — Leben, Sehnsucht
und Kampf am Rio De la Plata (Argentina — Life, Longing and Struggle on
the Rio de la Plata) explained this as follows:
The Brady Plan was imposed on more than 60 countries in Asia, Africa
and Latin America for the purpose of “re-scheduling” their debts. This
plan was the beginning of a turn in the economic policy towards the
dependent countries.
To repay their debts, the developing countries’ national resources were to
be sold to the highest bidder on the international finance market. This
means debts are changed into equity participation by the international
monopoly capital. The capital of the developing countries is drastically
devalued, allowing the multinational corporations to by up factories, stocks
of raw materials and agricultural projects dirt-cheap and put the central
sector of these countries’ national economies under the direct control of
international monopoly capital. Stefan Engel, Argentinien: Leben,
Sehnsucht und Kampf an Rio de la Plata, S. 108)
Neo-liberalism created decisive prerequisite for the reorganisation of
international production in the neo-colonial countries. It subjugated the national
economies of the neo-colonial countries to the international process of the
production and reproduction of the international monopolies. In the process it
demonstrated a single-mindedness and unscrupulousness the eclipsed everything
that had been practiced by neo-colonialism in the past.
S ELLOUT OF THE C HOICEST P RICES OF N ATIONAL E CONOMIES TO THE
INTERNATIONAL MONOPOLIES
Since the middle of the 1980s, the most important method for subjugation
has been the privatisation of state-owned enterprises. Peter Rösler, the deputy
managing director of the Ibero-American Association, summed up in a dossier
for the foreign trade portal iXPOS in 2001:
The results of privatisation in Latin America are absolutely impressive:
the sale of more than 1,000 state-owned enterprises during the past ten
years yielded revenues totalling about US$150 billion. (Peter Rösler,
“Ausländische Direktin-vesstitionen in Lateinamerika” [Foreign Direct
Investment in Latin America], www.exposlde, March 29, 2002)
In the countries at which the spearhead of the privatisation offensive was
directed, the state-owned enterprises’ share of the gross national product dropped
drastically: in Bolivia from 16.65 percent in 1980 to 5.22 percent in 1997, in
Brazil from 10.81 percent in 1992 to 5.90 percent in 1996, in Chile from 17
percent in 1985 to 6.79 percent in 1996, and in Peru from 19.59 percent in
1983 to 3.1 percent in 1997.
Another focus of privatisation was in the former CMEA countries in Eastern
and Central Europe. Expressing satisfaction, a “Top Information Leaflet for
Business” praised the development in Bulgaria:
Under the Kostov government, the reform forces brought Bulgaria a
structural reform in 1997 encompassing all spheres. The privatisation of
industry, trade and services was accelerated. A currency council was
established and the Bulgarian Lev firmly linked with the Deutsche Mark.
The government succeeded in achieving a rapid political and economic
stabilisation and a speedy renewal of legislation with an eye to the desired
EU membership…. Four fifths of the industrial assets could be privatised.
(East-West-Institute at the University of Koblenz-Landau [ed.], “Bulgaria
Top Information Leaflet for Business”, No. 3, 2002)
The privatisation and sell-out of state-owned enterprises to the
international monopolies reveal what is the core of the reorganisation of
international production in the neo-colonial countries. The extent of this sell-
out is expressed by the gigantic growth of foreign direct investment. The
international monopolies increased their investments in these countries from
US$115 billion in 1980 to US$1,2.6 billion in 2000, that is by more than tenfold.
The massive penetration of the international monopolies into the process
of the production and reproduction of the neo-colonially dependent countries
triggered a structural crisis there, whose consequences above all the working
class and the broad masses had to bear. It destroyed to a great extent the industrial
base, so far so it did not fit in with the structures of the globally organised
system of production of the international monopolies. The delegate of the
CPI(ML) New Democracy gave a report at the Seventh International Conference
of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations in the fall of 2001 about the
consequences of this process for India:
In the industrial sector, already 4 lakh (400,000) of industries are closed
or locked out, rendering millions of workers jobless. Their trade union
rights are curtailed. Due to the dictated policies of the World Bank,
privatisation is taking place rapidly….. Already 40 million unemployed
workers are registered in employment exchanges. Thus, the unemployed
army is increasing day by day sharpening the contradiction between the
workers and the bourgeoisie. (Country Report India, 2001)
In the August 1998, the Peruvian magazine Eureka analysed the destruction
of jobs in important sectors of the Peruvian economy:
• Mining: of the former 75,000 miners, there are only 32,000 still employed.
• Fish processing: of the 35,000 workers in the former 21 fish factories,
there are only 400 to 500 left.
• In the harbour, there used to be 4,898 workers with unlimited contracts
and 5,300 fixed-term workers. After privatisation there remained 1.070
workers.
• Petro Peru had 11,300 employees in 1990; after the company was
privatised and broken up, there were only 1,600 left.
• Construction: of the former 300,000 employees about 60 percent are
unemployed.
(Source: Eureka, publication of the Centre for Social Research, AMARU,
Lima, Peru, No. 2, August 1998)
The business journalist Harald Stück analysed in 1996 which prime pieces
of the economy interest the international monopolies most:
Affected are mainly the economic sectors petrochemicals,
telecommunications, water, gas and electricity production, banks, the steel
industry, transport, harbour and mining. (Harald Stück, “Privatisierung in
Lateinamerika, Die Rolle der deutschen Industrie” [Privatisation in Latin
America: The Role of German Industry], Matices, No. 2, winter 1996/97)
In fact, direct investment rose sharply in the course of the 1990s in these
sectors in particular, for instance in Latin America fro US$65.124 billion to
US$237.156 billion, which was an increase of 264 percent. In the Central and
Eastern European countries, such investments even rose nine-fold in the period
between the first and the second halves of the 1990s; in East Asia/Pacific by
246 percent. In Europe/Central Asia, too, there was an eleven-fold increase to
US$76.8 billion.
To make this sell-out profitable for the international monopolies, the IMF
and the World Bank frequently demanded price increase for water, energy and
other services before they granted these countries the re-scheduling of their
debts and new credits.
Not only economic measures, but also political and military interference
are used by the international monopolies to assert their claim to dominance. At
the Seventh International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and
Organisations, the delegate from Bangladesh reported:
Very recently the US government demanded that our air space, land and
sea ports be allowed to be used by the US army if necessary in order to
fight Afghanistan, which is far away from Bangladesh. Government and
all the bourgeois parties gladly agreed to it…. Us interference is very
open in our country. For example, the US ambassador openly proposed
before our national election what should be the program of the first one
hundred days of the newly elected government. The ambassador had the
audacity to demand that political parties should include her proposals in
their election manifesto, and the major bourgeois parties met the
ambassador and agreed to her proposal. The government of Bangladesh
has nearly completed a contract with a US company to lease out land for
198 years to construct a new seaport by the side of our old port… Our gas
fields have already been handed over to several US an done British and
one Irish company on terms highly detrimental to our national interest.
(Country Report Bangladesh, 2001)
Table 54
Investments in sectors of the infrastructure with private participation
(in millions of US dollars)
Latin East Europe CEE South Middle Sub

America/ Asia/ Central Countries1 Asia East/North Saharan
Caribbean Pacific Asia Africa Africa
Telecommunications
1990-1994 32954 9434 3120 2988 838 118 586
1995-2000 99165 46365 52508 41791 12131 6729 10681
Change
in percent 201 392 1583 1299 1348 5602 1724
Energy
1990-1994 13026 16698 2174 1456 3909 3132 139
1995-2000 82102 46980 18448 9404 16181 7794 4092
Change
in percent 530 181 749 546 314 149 2846
Transport
1990-1994 14634 10095 1089 1089 127 — 49
1995-2000 43105 35946 258 2533 1714 1220 1937
Change
in percent 195 25 6 199 133 1251 — 3869
Water and sanitation
1990-1994 4510 4023 16 16 — — 24
1995-2000 12784 9902 2578 1596 216 4106 1595
Chage
in percent 184 146 16009 9872 — — 6544
1
Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary, Russia, Czech Republic,
Romania, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine,
Belarus, Bulgaria, Moldova.
Source: World Development Indicators 2002
The imperialist appropriation of the means for serving the masses’ basic
needs and of the natural resources characterises most clearly the establishment
of the all-round rule of the international monopolies over the whole society in
the neo-colonial countries.
THE STRUGGLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONOPOLIES FOR DIRECT CONTROL OVER
RAW MATERIALS
Safeguarding the raw material base is the primary interest of the
international monopolies. After the collapse of the old colonial regimes, the
control over raw material regions passed to the countries that had become
independent. At first, the international monopolies adopted a policy of beating
down the prices for raw materials and increasing the prices for industrial goods,
both measures carried out at the expense of the developing countries. This
price gap resulted in a considerable increase in debt mainly in those countries
where raw material export was the most important or even decisive source of
income. In 1998, for example, the proceeds from mineral oil made up 97.7
percent of Nigeria’s export revenues, 95 percent of Kuwait’s, 90 percent each
of Libya’s and Saudi Arabia’s, 85 percent of Iran’s and 72 percent of Venezuela’s.
Guinea depends to more than 70 percent on the export of bauxite, Jamaica to
more than 50 percent. Zambia receives more than 80 percent of its export
revenues from copper, Chile 30 percent. According to a survey by the UN
development organisation, UNCTAD, as many as 83 developing countries obtain
50 percent of their export earning from only tow or three raw materials (mining
and/or agriculture).
But this dependence did not alter the fact that the neo-colonial countries
continued to have the direct control over their raw materials. In the eyes of the
international monopolies, this was an element of uncertainty. In reference to
mineral oil — the world’s most important energy raw material with a 40 percent
share of primary energy consumption — a study of the German Federal Institute
for Geo-science and Raw Material Research expressed clearly what they are
most afraid of:
A reason for concern is the fact that almost two thirds of the world’s reserves
are concentrated in only five countries of the Middle East, with around
three fourth under the control of OPEC. (Bundesanstalt für
Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, Hanover [ed], Commodity Top News,
No. 13 of January 2001)
In the 1990s, a large number of mines in neo-colonial countries were
privatised, as envisaged by the Brandy Plan. The international monopolies had
the state property transferred to them and, in return, redeemed debts of the
developing countries. Between 1987 and 1998, in the sector of non-ferrous
and steel-refining metals there were 176 cases of privatisation, takeovers and
mergers worldwide worth a total of US$53.6 billion. In gold mining, a domain
of Anglo-American, in the same period there were 182 mergers, takeovers and
cases of privatisation involving capital totalling US$39.9 billion. The systematic
acquisition of enterprises exploiting raw materials led to the concentration of
the world market shares for iron ore in the hands of just a few corporations in
2000.
Among the 500 large international monopolies in 2001, BHP Billiton held
rank 281, Anglo-American rank 341, and Ruhrkohle AG rank 365.
Table 55
World market shares of non-ferrous metals
Non-ferrous metals No. of corporations World market shares in %

Copper 6 50
Niobium 3 100
Tantalum 2 75
Titanium 4 561
Vanadium 3 92
1
Share refers to “Western world”
Source: DIW-Wochenbericht, No. 3, 2000
The monopolies also subjugated the international trade in agricultural
products. Purchase and sale of agricultural raw materials were concentrated in
the hands of three to six of the largest international monopolies.
Table 56
Market power of multinational corporations in agriculture
Concentration of the international trade in agricultural products
(Share of three to six of the largest international corporations in the
worldwide trade in these products)
Product Share of world export of agricultural product in %
Wheat 85-90 Maize (cron) 85-90
Sugar 60 Coffee 85-90
Rice 70 Cocoa bean 85
Tea 80 Bananas 70-75
Timber 90 Cotton 85-90
Hides and skins 25 Tobacco 85-90
Natural rubber 70-75 Jute and jute products 85-90
Source: Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry on “Globalisation of the
World Economy – Challenges and Answers”
The neo-liberal policies organised the transition from indirect to direct
control of the resources by the international monopolies. No longer content
with controlling the raw material markets, they now also took charge of
extraction and trading. In a way, this meant a return to the old method of
colonialism — but on a new basis. The control of raw material sources and
production facilities lies directly in the hands of the imperialist powers and
their monopolies. New is only that the neo-colonies possess political
independence, formally at least. For outward appearance, the governments bear
the political responsibility; behind this façade, however, the international
monopolies hold sway. So the novelty is a comprehensive system of deception
and manipulation. That fact that, in reality, the international monopolies
determines the policy of the neo-colonial countries is covered up to avoid an
open confrontation with the working class and the broad masses and to retard
the anti-imperialist liberation struggle.
The more the masses see through this system of deception and manipulation
and understand the imperialist essence of the new relations of exploitation, the
more the class struggle in the neo-colonial countries and the struggle for national
and social liberation will turn directly against the organs of international finance
capital. Then these masses will fight under the leadership of the international
working class to overcome the imperialist world system.
THE EXPANSION OF WORLD TRADE AND THE INTERNATIONAL INTRODUCTION OF
MONOPOLY PRICES
The international monopolies let the production facilities acquired in the

neo-colonial countries produce mainly for export. On the other hand, the forced
takeover of trade barriers was used to flood the markets with imported goods.
Trade monopolies like Wal-Mart destroyed the national food markets and
monopolised the supply of food to the population — initially at dumping prices,
but after eliminating the competitors, at monopoly prices. Willi dickhut
commented:
A consequence of the monopoly price noticeable to everyone is the
tremendous upward trend of prices which is characteristic of the economic
life of all the highly developed capitalist countries. Lenin already mentioned
“the rise in the cost of living ….. due to the growth of capitalist monopolies”
(Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 459). (Economic Development and
Class Struggle, Part II)
The cost of living rose particularly in the countries to which the most
capital flowed during the reorganisation of international production. In Brazil
the price index climbed to 1,741 times the 1992 level in 2001. In Argentina it
rose between 1990 and 1995 fourfold, in Mexico between 1990 and 2001 by a
factor of 5.7, in South Korea by more than two thirds, in Chile and South Africa
by a factor of 1.5. In Indonesia the price index almost quadrupled over this
period, in the Philippines it increased by a factor of 2.5. In Peru it even rose by
a factor of 25.8. Not that this tremendous increase in the cost of living was just
an ugly side effect of the reorganisation of international production, it was
rather a deliberately pursued policy to make the markets especially of the
industrially more developed of the developing countries attractive for
investments of the international monopolies. An often dramatic curtailment of
buying power was imposed upon the masses, frequently combined with a
complete change in their previous life circumstances.
Table 57
Cost of living index
Cost of living index in countries receiving the most capital in the course
of the reorganisation of international production (index 1995 = 100)
Country 1990 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Brazil 0.11 100 111.1 119.9 124.5 138.6 157.7 1714.1
Argentina 24.7 100 100.2 100.7 101.6 100.4 99.5 98.4
Mexico 44.5 100 134.4 162.1 187.9 219.1 239.9 255.1
Chile 52.2 100 107.4 113.9 119.8 123.8 128.5 133.1
Peru 5.5 100 111.0 121.2 129.8 134.3 139.4 142.1
South Korea 74.0 100 105.0 109.6 117.9 118.8 121.5 126.5
Indonesia 65.3 100 107.9 114.6 181.6 218.8 217.7 253.0
Malaysia — 100 103.5 106.3 111.9 115.0 116.7 —
Thailand 79.0 100 105.8 111.4 120.1 120.6 122.4 124.4
Philippines 58.2 100 108.3 115.4 126.6 135.1 140.9 149.5
Taiwan 81.9 100 103.1 104.2 106.1 106.4 107.8 107.8
India 60.7 100 109.0 116.8 132.3 138.4 144.0 149.4
Czech
Republic 91.72 100 108.9 118.1 130.7 133.5 138.7 145.2
Hungary 32.3 100 123.6 146.2 167.2 183.9 201.9 220.2
Poland — 100 119.9 137.7 153.7 164.9 181.6 191.5
South Africa 58.6 100 107.4 116.6 124.6 131.1 138.1 146.0
Egypt 56.0 100 107.2 112.1 116.1 122.2 125.6 —
1 Figure for 1992
2 Figure for 1994
Sources: Statistiches Jahrbuch für das Ausland; OECD
Monopoly prices can only be obtained if the monopolies do in fact control
the internal market, i.e., competition has been eliminated. The monopoly prices
in the developing countries are a sure sign that international monopolies have
established their rule over the national markets. Willi Dickhut wrote:
As long as he can maintain his monopoly, that is, as long as he can prevent
the “inflow” of outside capital into his sphere, he can, by the method of
fixing a high monopoly price, gain profit that goes beyond the average
profit, in brief, he can gain monopoly profit. However, the same thing
happens if several capitalists take joint measures to keep away competition
…. Therefore, the monopoly price is predatory price determined not by
economic laws but by the rapacity of the monopolies. The monopoly
capitalists use their monopoly for excessive price increase and for wilful
exploitation of the customers dependent on them. (ibid).
To push through monopoly prices, in certain countries like Peru and
Argentina, or also in Thailand, South Korea and in Philippines, the national
currency was directly linked to the imperialist currency, the dollar or euro. In
March 2000 Ecuador replaced its previous national currency, the Sucre, by the
dollar. The reason cited were loss of confidence in the local currency, continued
high inflation, and the hope of easier access to international technology and
international know-how. A broadcast on Deutschlandfunk radio on April 28,
2002, clearly pointed out the real beneficiaries of “dollarization” in Ecuador:
Ecuadorian monetary policy now is formulated in the USA …. Dollarization
is good probably for those companies that invest here themselves. That is to
say, that invests a dollar in machines and the like. They now, of course, no
longer face the risk of losing that dollar due to inflation. Foreign firms have
indeed invested more in Ecuador since dollarization, albeit on a low level and
mainly in the ecologically controversial heavy oil pipeline OCP. (Kerstin Fischer
and Johannes Beck, “Aus Argentinien nichts gelernt? Dollarization in Ecuador”
[No Lessons Learned From Argentina? Dollarization in Ecuador], manuscript
of broadcast, pp. 3 and 4)
HARBINGERS OF FUTURE BREAKDOWNS OF NEO-COLONIALISM
The Asian crisis of 1997-98 was chiefly triggered off by the conduct of
big European and Japanese banks. Hardest hit by the crisis were Indonesia,
South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Since more attractive
loan transactions were not to be had in Europe and Japan, the banks had veritably
swamped these five countries with credits, the sum of which rose from $6.1
billion in 1993 to $40.6 billion in 1997, i.e., more than six-fold. Economist
Jörg Huffschmid commented:
Prospect of high profit, stable exchange rates, and unimpeded movement
of capital — these were the constellations that emerged in the Asian
countries, partly developing on their own, partly created at the insistence
of third parties, and that made these countries the ideal haven for frustrated
capital from the metropolises…. The weakness of the Asian finance sector,
criticised by the IMF, if anything was that it led itself be drawn in and took
these credits — and then had to somehow put them to further use in the
country. Since a sufficient number of sound investment projects were not
available, the funds simply went to unsound projects, and a considerable
part just circulated in the finance sector. The result was a meteoric rise in
stock prices. (Politische Ökonomie de Finanzärkte, p. 181)
The speculation also accelerated the general price rise. Asian goods became
more expensive and were thus harder to sell in the world market. Exports
declined relative to imports. The export proceeds now no longer sufficed to
repay the loans. Compounding the situation was the linkage to the US dollar of
the currencies of Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines and
Indonesia. When exchange rate of the dollar rose in relation to most other
currencies in 1995, the exchange rates of the Asian currencies pegged to the
dollar increased accordingly. This further raised the world market prices of the
goods from these countries.
At the beginning of 1997 the international banks and currency dealers
became convinced that the Asian currencies in question were overvalued. For
this reason, linking with the US dollar had to be abandoned and the currencies
devaluated. The national governments resisted devaluation at first, selling foreign
currency, for they knew that devaluation would make the repayment of the
loans, denominated in US dollar, must more difficult and that it would be the
death of many companies. But the foreign exchange reserves were limited. In
early July 1997 the Thai government had to give up the fight and unlinked its
currency from the dollar. Just two weeks later Malaysia followed, and a month
later Indonesia. Many banks and enterprises were imperilled, and the prices of
stocks from these countries took a nosedive.
After reverting to flexible exchange rated the East Asian currencies lost
substantial value by the spring of 1998. the devaluation relative to the US dollar
came to about 50 percent in Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea and Philippines,
and even 84 percent in Indonesia.
This called international currency speculation into action, which had banked
on the devaluation of the Asian currencies. International banks instantly withdrew
US$32.3 billion in loans — and the economies of the countries concerned
collapsed forthwith. Jörg Huffschmid aptly commented:
The prosperity one had worked hard to gain for many years was gone
within a few weeks. Strictly speaking, it was not destroyed but transformed
into debts: to the IMF, to Western governments and Western enterprises.
(ibid, p182)
This devaluation expropriated a large part the wealth of entire countries,
and that on a previously unknown scale. The ones who suffered most from the
consequences of this financial speculation were the broad masses. Their hard-
earned money, their savings all of the sudden were worth less. The IMF estimated
that, due to the crisis, poverty doubled in Indonesia and rose by 75 percent in
Thailand and South Korea. In these three countries alone, at least 22 million
people were thrust into misery, suffered hunger, were made homeless and
threatened in their very existence.
The international monopolies took advantage of the situation to buy up
enterprises in these countries at give away prices and so carry on their policy of
the reorganisation of international production at the expense of these countries
yet more aggressively.
In 1998 the crisis spread to Russia, and in 1998-1999 to the entire Mercosur
(Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguary), ruining millions of people there
too. Brazil managed at first to pass on the effects of the economic crisis to
Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. The devaluation of the Brazilian currency
cheapened the production of Brazil’s exports, and the neighbouring countries
suddenly lost their ability to compete. This plunged them into deep economic
crises. But that provided only temporary respite to Brazil before Brazil too was
afflicted by a deep economic crisis.
ARGENTINA’S ROAD TO NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY
The breakdown of Argentina was a lesson in the future developments of
neo-colonialism. International finance capital quickly and fully subjugated one
of the industrially most highly developed countries of Latin America. The stock
of foreign direct investments increased from US$6.6 billion in 1985 to US$73.1
billion in 2000. This put Argentina at the top of the neo-colonially dependent
countries, second only to Brazil, Mexico and Singapore.
Most of Argentina’s 20 biggest monopoly groups are in the possession or
under the control of international monopolies from other countries. In 2000,
according to the analyses of the Argentinean Marxist-Leninist scientist Carlos
Echagüe, these were
• Repsol YPF, petroleum: Spain
• Techint, steel: formally Argentina, but in reality Italy
• Telefónica: telephone, television: Spain
• Carrefour, supermarkets: France
• Telcom: Italy and France
• Disco/Americanos, supermarkets: Netherlands/Argentina
• Péres Companc, foods: Argentina
• ENDESA, electricity: Spain
• SHELL, oil: Netherlands/United Kingdom
• Clarin, mass media: Russia/Argentina
• Cargill, agriculture: USA
• Ford, automobiles: USA
• Philip Morris, tobacco/foods: USA
• Macri, conglomerate: Argentina
• Esso, oil: USA
• Fiat, automobile: Italy
• Coca Cola, foods: USA
• Renault, automobiles: France
• Volkswagen, automobiles: Germany
• Arcor, foods: Argentina
The chemical and petrochemical industry and the oil refineries in Argentina
officially are 80 percent foreign-owned, but in reality almost wholly in foreign
hands. Sixty percent of the food industry and entire automobile industry belong
to foreign corporations. Even the iron and steel industry, thought to be entirely
national, is dominated in reality by Russian and Italian capital.
DECEPTIVE HOPES IN PRIVATISATION POLICY
The sell-out of the Argentine economy to foreign monopolies did not
immediately meet with the resistance of the masses, even though it entailed
bankruptcies and massive job destruction from the start. The reason was that
the proceeds of privatisation temporarily took the strain off the state budget.
For a short while it appeared as though the debt could be gotten under control.
Wages also rose for a time. In the book, Argentinien — Leben, Sehnsucht und
Kampf am Rio de la Plata we read:
Many Argentinean working people pinned great hopes on Menem. In fact
when Menem took office the average monthly wage rose. In 1989 they
were $175. in the first quarter of 1990 they increased to $190, in the second
quarter to $271, in the third quarter to $349 and in November/December
1990 even to $490.
Naturally this wage increase was accompanied a depreciation of the dollar.
But at any rate the real wage rose. (p.100)
Argentina’s growing indebtedness was indeed slowed between 1990 and
1993. In 1993 it even temporarily declined a bit, but then rose again sharply
after 1994 and soon reached new dimensions. Between 1993 and 2000 the
amount that had to be put up for annual debt service nearly quintupled: from
US$5.9 billion to the record level of US$27.3 billion. In spite of this, overall
indebtedness more than doubled, from US$64.7 billion to US$146.2 billion.
The illusory hopes of gaining prosperity from the sell-out of national wealth
to the international monopolies were dashed after just a few years. For the
credits of the IMF and World Bank, interest and principal had to be paid, but at

the same time the country was bereft of major sources of income following the
sale of the state-owned enterprises. The international monopolies made ever
greater demands on the infrastructure, demanded government investments, but
did not even dream of paying taxes in Argentina to strengthen the state. On the
contrary, the state treasury was increasingly plundered.
Linkage of the Argentine Peso to the US dollar could not save the country
either. In 1991 economics minister Domingo Cavallo boasted that this would
give his country “at least six decades of stability”. But with the economic crisis,
Argentina encountered growing difficulty repaying the loans. Thereupon the
IMF in December 2001 stopped the disbursement of already pledged credits.
Loans could still be obtained on the international capital markets, but there
Argentina had to pay a 40 percent risk premium. When the government leaked
out its intension to discontinue the linkage of the Peso to the US dollar, a mass
run on the banks occurred on November 30, 2001. Justifiably, savers feared the
drastic devaluation of their savings. On that day alone over US$2 billion were
withdrawn from accounts.
On December 1, 2001, the government curtailed the rights of savers to
draw on their bank deposits, which gave rise to enraged protests particularly
from the petty-bourgeois intermediate strata. On December 5 the IMF announced
that Argentina could not expect to get any further loans and that the previously
agreed loan of US$1.26 billion would not be paid out. This was designed to
force the government to lop $4 billion off its budget, but that exacerbated the
protests, of course. A new general strike took place on December 19, 2001,
which led to the national popular rebellion called the Argentinazo.
On December 20, 2001, President De la Rua had to resign. On January 1,
2002, Eduardo Duhalde was instated as President. The US government
demanded that the new government present a credible economic program before
US funds could again flow to Argentina. As first measures, therefore, the linkage
of the peso to the dallor was in fact annulled and the government was granted
extensive powers to combat the economic crisis. But that did not help either. In
May 2002 the peso had to be devalued by 70 percent, which heated up inflation
and further reduced the income of the masses.
These developments evidenced the close interaction between debt crisis
and economic crisis. Both crises deepened, and when the imperialist countries,
with the help of the IMF passed on their own economic problems to Argentina,
a hopeless situation arose there. By June, mass unemployment reached the
official level of 30 percent, and the prices of food rose 50 percent.
REPERCUSSIONS ON INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CAPITAL
In the first quarter of 2002, the production of goods in Argentina fell by
20.1 percent, construction activity by 46.1 percent. Every tenth employee lost

his or her job in 2001. Private consumption declined 21 percent. Argentina
experienced the deepest economic crisis in its history. Of Argentina’s 36 million
inhabitants, almost 15 million had to subsist below the poverty level.
This had repercussions on the international monopolies. In the first seven
months of 2002 the automobile industry cut back output by 45 percent. Argentine
production was exported to 80 percent in the past, mainly to Mexico and Brazil.
The peso devaluation did benefit exports, but due to the world economic crisis
the international markets had shrunk too.
In 1998 Volkswagen, Daimler Chrysler, Ford, GM, Renault, Peugeot-
Citröen, Fiat and Toyota still employed 27,000 blue and white-collared workers
in Argentina; in August 2002 it was only a little less than 15,000 — and more
than 5,000 of them were temporarily laid off.
Other sectors were heavily affected too. The oil company Repsol YPF had
to take losses of almost a billion US dollar, France Telecom and the Spanish
Telefónica, both stakeholders in Telecom Argentina, reported losses of US$318
million and US$328 million in their annual financial statements.
Banks and financial institutions experienced massive setbacks because of
the losses from “peso-ization”, the decline in the value of government bonds,
and as a consequence of default due to mass unemployment and pauperisation.
Foreign banks held a market share of 73 percent in Argentina in 2000; it has
just been 15 percent in 1994. they “mastered” the crisis by writing off the losses
and thus destroying capital.
Table 58
Write-offs and valuation adjustments of international banks for losses in
Argentina (in millions of US dollars)
Bank Year 2001
Citigroup/USA 2200
Banco Santander Central Hispano/Spain 1200
Fleet Boston Financial Corporation/USA 1100
Banco Bilbao/Spain 947
Crédit Agricole/France 934
Intesa BCI/Italy 661
Source: Die Welt of April 26, 2002, and January 31, 2003
The IMF demanded the privatisation by Argentina of the last state-owned
banks, including the National Bank. This would give the international
monopolies direct access to 20 million hectares of land for which these banks
have extended mortgage loans.

At the end of 2002, one year after the cessation of debt servicing, no new
agreement had been reached yet between the government of Argentina and the
IMF; merely the deferral of due payments had been conceded. The measures
demanded by the IMF, which boiled down to still more drastic plundering of
the Argentine working people, could not be implemented at that time — so
strongly had the mass resistance shaken the state apparatus.
THE NEO-LIBERAL POLICY DISASTER MAKES THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES A FOCAL
POINT OF THE INTERNATIONAL CLASS STRUGGLE
Neo-liberalism started out claiming to be able to resolve the crisis of neo-

colonialism. But the balance of ten years of neo-liberal policies has been
devastating. The budget and debt crises could be dampened only for a time,
then broke out anew and all the more violently. Admittedly, there were short-
rum company formation and job creating drives, but the complete subjection
of the economies of the dependent countries to the international monopolies
destroyed the national industries and ended in catastrophic mass unemployment
and mass poverty. And new President could raise the hopes of the masses only
for a short period; then they turned out to be true vassals of the imperialists,
subordinated their countries to the dictates of IMF and World Bank and gave
up any remnant of national independence and sovereignty.
Neo-colonialism slid into a new crisis, deeper and more comprehensive
than that at the beginning of the4 9980s. This crisis operates on the basis of the
reorganisation of international production and, above all, affects all sides of
the entire system of world economy, all the way to the imperialist centres.
Mass struggles develop exactly around central issues of neo-liberal policies.
The bourgeois weekly Die Zeit reported about struggles over water in South
Africa, Argentina, Ghana, Paraguay, India, Canada and Bolivia which
successfully targeted the international energy monopolies:
The UN has long been warning that in future wars would no longer be
waged for scarce oil but for scarce water; in Porto Alegre one meets people
who already fight out such wars today. They come from Bolivia and
Argentina, from Ghana and India, from the USA and Paraguay. They fight
against the privatisation of water supply in their countries and communities.
In Cochabamba, the third largest city of Bolivia, in the spring of 2000 the
municipal water company was sold to the US corporation Bechtel. Here,
too, prices rose drastically. Here, too, resistance formed. Mass protests
occurred, the police responded with teargas, rubber projectiles and finally
live ammunition. The government declared martial law. Unionists and
community spokesmen were arrested and banished. According to Amnesty
International, five people died in this war over water, which lasted several
weeks. In the end the “Coordination for the Defense of Water and Life”

won out. (Toralf Staud, “More Important Than Oil”, in: Die Zeit of February
3, 2002).
One effect of the neo-liberal policies which is important for the future is
the extreme weakening of the state apparatuses in the neo-colonially dependent
and oppressed countries. The class contradictions intensify, in the Latin
American countries a transnational revolutionary ferment is developing, but
the state and military machines are hardly able anymore to act against this
movement. A Bolivian Marxist-Leninist summed up the ‘water rebellion”:
The success of this struggle was an enormous encouragement to the masses
in Bolivia. It became evident: neo-liberalism is not an all-powerful force!
…. The masses are beginning to recover from the defeat of the past years,
they have lost their fear of the government. The international monopolies
fear this. (Rote Fahne, No. 45, 2000)
The strength of the mass movements and the weakness of the neo-colonial
states also explains the increasing militarisation of the relations between
developing countries and imperialist countries. More and more often the
imperialists find themselves forced to maintain a military presence in the neo-
colonial and semi-colonial countries in order to sustain the relations of power
and exploitation. This tendency is an expression of the aggravated crisis of
neo-colonialism. The crisis of neo-liberalism made the class struggle in the
neo-colonially exploited and oppressed countries a focal point of the
international class struggle. ●
[From “Twilight of the Gods – Götterdämmerung over the “New

World Order”, by Stefan Engel]

On Internationalism and Nationalism
K.N. Ramachandran
THE International Situation and Our Task (Draft document for the All India
Special Conference) points out that the dissolution of the Comintern “should
be seen as a strategic error in this background. Lack of an international
leadership on the part of world proletariat at this critical juncture led to severe
setbacks in scientifically evaluating the laws of motion of finance capital and
putting forward the concrete programme of action against imperialism in its
neo-colonial phase. The dissolution of the Comintern in the name of defending
“fatherland” and for the success of the anti-fascist front, in fact, did immense
harm to the world proletariat as it denied the decisive role of the communist
party and the Communist International, the only weapons before the working
class and oppressed people in their fight against capital and imperialist
domination. In brief, in juxtaposing the defence of Soviet Union against the
interests of the international socialism and relegating the latter to the
background, the international proletariat lost an authoritative organisation to
lead the world people against the neo-colonisation process unleashed by US
led imperialism in the post WW II phase”. To make this point more clear an
analysis of the approach of Soviet Union and China vis-à-vis this dissolution
and their approach towards the inter-relation between nationalism and proletarian
internationalism is necessary.
Lenin had put forward a well defined Marxist approach towards bourgeois
nationalism and proletarian internationalism, distinguishing them from each
other. Explaining this aspect it is stated in the 1997 international document:
“Lenin’s approach to this subject itself was different. What is hidden in these
two basically different positions is the basic class difference between the
bourgeois chauvinism of the social imperialism and proletarian
internationalism. Lenin saw the contradiction between socialist bloc and
imperialism, between labour and capital, and between national liberation
struggles and imperialism not as isolated ones. On the contrary he saw them
as a single whole. For Lenin the proletarian internationalism and the national
interest of Soviet Union were not in contradiction. For, Russian state was not
an exploiting, bourgeois state as it was till the revolution, but a proletarian
state which has taken up the goal of world revolution, its basis itself is
international interests of revolution; bourgeois chauvinism is alien to it and
belong to its enemy category. Instead of this comprehensive proletarian
approach put forward by Lenin, the bourgeois mechanical materialism and
sectarianism which got strengthened within the international working class
movement in the later period led to seeing the subject isolated, separated from
each other as the bourgeoisie always do.” (On International Developments

and Tasks of Marxist-Leninist Parties, see The Marxist-Leninist, July 2009)
Explaining this aspect Mao wrote: “It is an era in which the world capitalist
front has collapsed in one part of the globe (one-sixth of the world) and
has fully revealed its decadence everywhere else, in which the remaining
capitalist parts cannot survive without relying more than ever on the
colonies and semi-colonies, in which a socialist state has been established
and has proclaimed its readiness to give active support to the liberation
movement of all colonies and semi-colonies, and in which the proletariat
of the capitalist countries is steadily freeing itself from the social-
imperialist influence of the social-democratic parties and has proclaimed
its support for the liberation movement in the colonies and semi-colonies.
In this era, any revolution in a colony or semi-colony that is directed
against imperialism, i.e., against the international bourgeoisie or
international capitalism, no longer comes within the old category of the
bourgeois-democratic world revolution, but within the new category. It is
no longer part of the old bourgeois, or capitalist, world revolution, but is
part of the new world revolution, the proletarian-socialist world revolution.
“ (Mao, On New Democracy, Vol. II)
The CPC’s letter on General Line in connection with the Great Debate of
1963 which later became the General Line of the world revolutionary Marxism,
in general repeatedly stress upon this Leninist approach. It sums up the
revolutionary principles of 1957 Moscow Declaration and 1960 Moscow
statement as follows : “Workers of all countries unite, workers of world, unite
with the oppressed people and oppressed nations; oppose imperialism and
reaction in all countries; strive for world peace, national liberation, people’s
democracy, and socialism; consolidate and expand the socialist camp; bring
the proletarian world revolution step by step to complete victory; and establish
a new world without imperialism, without capitalism and without exploitation
of may by man”.
How was this Marxist-Leninist approach towards the relation between
nationalism and proletarian internationalism, between building socialism in a
country where the proletariat and its allies have succeeded to capture political
power and fulfilling the tasks of proletarian internationalism was applied in
practice in Soviet Union and in China under the leadership of the CPSU and
CPC calls for a close examination in the context of the severe setbacks suffered
by the ICM.
SOVIET EXPERIENCE
Exposing and uncompromisingly struggling against the social democratic
line of Kautsky and company who opposed the revolutionary socialist
transformation initiated in Soviet Union and the pseudo-internationalist
approach of Trotsky which was later put forward as the concept of ‘permanent

revolution’, Lenin always stressed that Soviet Union should remain as the
revolutionary base area of World Proletarian Socialist Revolution. It is in line
with this proletarian internationalist approach Lenin gave leadership to
reorganize the Second International as Third or Communist International in
1919, struggled against all hues of social democracy and sectarian views in the
then existing workers’ parties of Europe and North America in order to give
them a revolutionary orientation, put forward the Colonial Thesis calling for
completing the tasks of national liberation and bourgeois democratic revolution
in the Afro-Asian-Latin American countries subjected to colonial domination
under the working class leadership and develop the theory and practice of
revolutionary Marxism in all spheres.
Even when calling for launching the New Economic Policy (NEP)
immediately after the October Revolution to recover the Soviet Union from the
disastrous consequences of World War I, from the sabotages by the bourgeois
elements and from the economic blockade and aggression launched by the
combined imperialist forces, Lenin emphasized that it is only a tactical step to
overcome present difficulties and to save the revolution in order to leap forward
in coming days. Lenin was not mincing words in his support to the national
liberation movements in colonial, semi-colonial and dependent countries and
in calling for the proletarian revolutions in the imperialist countries.
In continuation to these, in Colonial Thesis Lenin pointed out the
determining contradiction in the then concrete situation, and explained the
relationship between the Soviet system’s victory over world capitalism and the
Soviet movements of various countries along with the advancement of all
national liberation movements as follows: “The world political situation has
now placed the dictatorship of the proletariat on the order of the day. World
political developments are of necessity concentrated on a single focus, the
struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Soviet Russian Republic, around
which are inevitably grouped, on the other hand, the Soviet movements of the
advanced workers in all countries, and on the other all the national liberation
movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities, who are
learning from bitter experience that their only salvation lies in the Soviet
system’s victory over world capitalism”. This contradiction between world
imperialism and socialist system was not seen by Lenin as the contradiction
between Soviet Union and US alone as the Khrushchevites interpreted it in a
very narrow, chauvinistic sense later.
LENIN ATTACKS THE SLOGAN OF ‘DEFENCE OF FATHERLAND’
Declaring that the collapse of the Second International is the Collapse of
opportunism, Lenin said: “The question of the fatherland — we shall reply to
the opportunists — cannot be posed without due consideration of the concrete
historical nature of the present war. This is an imperialist war, i.e., it is being
waged at a time of the highest development of capitalism, a time of its

approaching end. The working class must first “constitute itself within the
nation”, the Communist Manifesto declares, emphasising the limits and
conditions of our recognition of nationality and fatherland as essential forms
of the bourgeois system, and, consequently, of the bourgeois fatherland. The
opportunists distort that truth by extending to the period of the end of capitalism
that which was true of the period of its rise. With reference to the former period
and to the tasks of the proletariat in its struggle to destroy, not feudalism but
capitalism, the Communist Manifesto gives a clear and precise formula: “The
workingmen have no country.” One can well understand why the opportunists
are so afraid to accept this socialist proposition, afraid even, in most cases,
openly to reckon with it. The socialist movement cannot triumph within the old
framework of the fatherland. It creates new and superior forms of human society,
in which the legitimate needs and progressive aspirations of the working masses
of each nationality will, for the first time, be met through international unity,
provided existing national partitions are removed. To the present-day
bourgeoisie’s attempts to divide and disunite them by means of hypocritical
appeals for the “defence of the fatherland” the class-conscious workers will
reply with ever new and persevering efforts to unite the workers of various
nations in the struggle to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie of all nations.
“The bourgeoisie is duping the masses by disguising imperialist rapine
with the old ideology of a “national war”. This deceit is being shown up by the
proletariat, which has brought forward its slogan of turning the imperialist war
into a civil war. This was the slogan of the Stuttgart and Basle resolutions,
which had in mind, not war in general, but precisely the present war and spoke,
not of “defence of the fatherland”, but of “hastening the downfall of capitalism”,
of utilising the war-created crisis for this purpose, and of the example provided
by the Paris Commune. The latter was an instance of a war of nations being
turned into a civil war......
“Down with mawkishly sanctimonious and fatuous appeals for “peace at
any price”! Let us raise high the banner of civil war! Imperialism sets at hazard
the fate of European culture: this war will soon be followed by others, unless
there are a series of successful revolutions. The story about this being the “last
war” is a hollow and dangerous fabrication, a piece of philistine “mythology”.
The proletarian banner of civil war will rally together, not only hundreds of
thousands of class-conscious workers but millions of semi-proletarians and
petty bourgeois, now deceived by chauvinism, but whom the horrors of war
will not only intimidate and depress, but also enlighten, teach, arouse, organise,
steel and prepare for the war against the bourgeoisie of their “own” country
and “foreign” countries. And this will take place, if not today, then tomorrow, if
not during the war, then after it, if not in this war then in the next one.
“The Second International is dead, overcome by opportunism. Down with
opportunism, and long live the Third International, purged not only of
“turncoats”, but of opportunism as well.

“The Second International did its share of useful preparatory work in
preliminarily organising the proletarian masses during the long, “peaceful”
period of the most brutal capitalist slavery and most rapid capitalist progress in
the last third of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. To
the Third International falls the task of organising the proletarian forces for a
revolutionary onslaught against the capitalist governments, for civil war against
the bourgeoisie of all countries for the capture of political power, for the triumph
of socialism!”
Though it was during the years of the World War I that Lenin wrote these
words and led the revolutionary practice based on them, his call that the working
class should raise themselves from bourgeois nationalist positions based defence
of fatherland like slogans and direct their struggles for a higher form of society
is of universal importance and was relevant even during the years of World
War II. The correctness or otherwise of raising of defence of fatherland slogan
and dissolution of Comintern by the Soviet leadership should be analysed based
on Lenin’s teachings.
FROM ANTI-FASCIST UNITED FRONT TO COMINTERN’S DISSOLUTION
Though the World War I was fought for re-division of the world among
the imperialist powers, it did not lead to resolution of this problem. On the
contrary, the defeat of the Germany-led imperialist powers and imposition of
UK-US dictates over them only led to aggravation of the inter-imperialist
contradiction. Combined with the fall out of the outbreak of the unprecedentedly
sharp economic crisis in the imperialist countries in 1930s, these countries,
especially Germany and Italy went under fascist rule throwing up a new and
most serious challenge to the proletarian revolutionary movements and the
national liberation struggles. It was by analysing the new situation that the 7th
Congress of the Comintern in 1935 called on the ICM to build a powerful anti-
fascist movement at international level.
The Resolution of the Seventh Comintern Congress on Fascism, Working
Class Unity and the Tasks of the Comintern stated: “The Communists, while
fighting also against the illusion that war can be eliminated while the capitalist
system still exists, are exerting and will exert every effort to prevent war. Should
a new imperialist world war break out, despite all efforts of the working class
to prevent it, the communists will strive to lead the opponents of war, organised
in the struggle for peace, to the struggle for the transformation of the imperialist
war into civil war against the fascist instigators of war, against the bourgeoisie,
for the overthrow of capitalism….
“At the present historical juncture, when on one-sixth part of the globe
the Soviet Union defends socialism and peace for all humanity, the most vital
interests of the workers and toilers of all countries demand that in pursuing
the policy of the working class, in waging the struggle for peace, the struggle

against imperialist war before and after the outbreak of hostilities, the defence
of the Soviet Union must be considered paramount
“If the commencement of a counter-revolutionary war forces the Soviet
Union to set the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in motion for the defence of
socialism, the communists will call upon all toilers to work, with all the means
at their disposal and at any price, for the victory of the Red Army over the
armies of the imperialists.”
In order to carry out the anti-fascist tasks in the context of a fascist
aggression on USSR and in order to wipe out the fascist forces, explaining the
need for strengthening of the Communist Parties, the Resolution stated: “The
Congress emphasises with particular stress that only the further all-round
consolidation of the communist parties themselves, the development of their
initiative, the carrying out of a policy based on Marxist-Leninist principles,
and the application of correct flexible tactics, which take into account the
concrete situation and the alignment of class forces, can ensure the mobilisation
of the widest masses of toilers for the united struggle against fascism, against
capitalism.”
The Comintern’s call for building the Anti-Fascist United Front was well
explained in the 1935 Resolution as a part of the General Line of the ICM in
the concrete situation when fascism emerged and posed grave threat not only
to the national liberation movements and to the socialist forces led by Soviet
Union but even to the bourgeois democratic institutions. So far as it was limited
to the needs of the situation during the World War II, even the tactical alliance
forged by the Soviet Union with the imperialist powers, US, UK and France,
against the fascist axis forces of Germany, Italy and Japan after the fascists
attacked on it was a positive step. But the weakness in the approach towards
implementing the Comintern’s call started surfacing soon when the Soviet
leadership started to turn this tactical step into a strategic one.
The division of the imperialist camp in to the fascist axis forces and the
allied forces of US, UK and France had taken place basically on the question
of re-division of the world between them. Both were pursuing imperialist policies
and had colluded for many years in opposing the national liberation movements
and socialist forces led by Soviet Union. Both blocs had their own blue-prints
about the post-WW II situation. Both were opposed to Comintern and calling
for its dissolution. And the US-UK forces had put forward the Atlantic Charter
in 1941 in order to dominate the post-WW II situation through new forms of
hegemony and plunder. Even after forging alliance with the Soviet Union, the
US-UK forces had delayed opening of the promised second battle front against
the fascist forces indefinitely. As far as the US-UK forces were concerned they
scrupulously limited the alliance with Soviet Union to tactical level and utilised
all possibilities to gain initiative over Soviet Union. In spite of all these facts,

that the Soviet leadership was influenced by the weakness of considering the
tactical alliance increasingly as a strategic one was a serious error.
This erroneous approach started with the approach of focussing entirely
on ‘defence of fatherland’ even when Lenin had severely condemned this
approach pursued by the social democrats during WW I leading to the collapse
of the Second International. Soon after forging the alliance with the US-UK-
French powers, the decision of the Soviet leadership to sign the Atlantic Charter
showed that it did not recognise its counter-revolutionary character. When US
organised the Brettenwood Agreements in 1944 leading to the formation of
IMF and World Bank as another step towards transforming the colonial phase
of plunder to neo-colonial phase, the gravity of the challenge posed against the
ICM by the US-led imperialist forces through this step was again not recognised.
It led to Soviet Union joining IMF and World Bank later. And the decision to
dissolve Comintern in 1943 in the name of strengthening the Anti-Fascist United
Front was the most crucial decision which turned out as a serious compromise.
This error was compounded when the promised reorganisation of the Communist
International in the 1943 dissolution statement was never taken up.
The dropping of nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US
imperialism in August 1945 even when the total rout of the fascist axis forces
was abundantly clear with the victorious march of the Soviet Red Army to
Berlin, with the liberation of the East European countries, with the surrender of
Mussolini and Hiterite forces and with Japan agreeing to surrender was an
arrogant declaration of Cold War against the socialist camp led by Soviet Union
and of the launching of neo-colonisation at global level by the imperialist camp
under US leadership. When this consolidation of the imperialist camp and its
launching of neo-colonisation which is more sinister and pernicious than the
old colonialism challenging the growing socialist camp, the national liberation
forces and the world proletariat, oppressed peoples and nations was taking
place, in spite of mentioning about the necessity for combating imperialist
challenges in the central organ of the Cominform, For Lasting Peace and For
People’s Democracy, the Soviet leadership and Cominform in the main failed
to come forward to deepen the ideological and political struggle against
imperialism and its lackeys.
On the contrary Soviet Union signed the Potsdam and later Yalta
agreements with the US-led forces which led to a compromise determining the
areas of influence of both sides in Europe. Whether such a ‘line of control’
shall help the world Proletarian Socialist Revolution was not given any serious
consideration. This compromise led to Soviet Union calling on the Communist
Parties in Western Europe, especially in France, which had led powerful guerrilla
struggle against the Nazi occupying forces, to surrender arms. Only because of
these agreements and Soviet Union failing to extend support, the revolution in
Greece on the verge of victory failed. As a result of these agreements, in the

absence of a Communist International to extend solidarity to the revolutionary
movements which were fighting against new pernicious offensive of the US-
led imperialist forces and in the atmosphere of a compromising situation created,
the rightist trends started getting strengthened in the Communist Parties of
Europe. Though Yugoslavia under Titoist leadership which had started openly
collaborating with the imperialist powers was expelled from Cominform, as a
result of the failure to develop ideological and political understanding about
the Cold War and neo-colonial offensive launched by the US-led imperialist
camp, the rightist trend in Europe went on getting strengthened.
In West Asia and North Africa, which had already become the main region
of petroleum production, and which had become strategically crucial for the
imperialist camp, following the WW II national liberation movements and
Communist Parties were getting strengthened. Anti-imperialist movements were
coming to dominance along with leftist, radical political forces. In this
atmosphere, it was a well calculated conspiratorial move of the imperialist
camp to impose Israel, a Zionist state, on the soil of Palestine. Israel was an
imperialist outpost in West Asia to sabotage the national liberation movements
and to help tightening of the imperialist stranglehold over this strategic region.
Without recognising the gravity of this imperialist move Soviet Union recognised
Israel, even though formation of it was contrary to the Leninist teachings on
nationality question which Stalin had well explained in 1920s. This compromise
by the Soviet Union with the imperialist camp started causing immense harm
to the Arab people’s national liberation movements.
On the whole in the post WW II situation, in spite of these weaknesses,
the East Wind of socialist countries and national liberation movements had
become so powerful that they looked like prevailing over the West Wind of
imperialism and its lackeys internationally. It was by recognising this fact that
right from the time of the WW II itself the think-tanks of US imperialism had
started developing its strategy and tactics to combat this mortal challenge by
launching the neo-colonial offensive. What was required from the side of the
socialist forces, especially Soviet Union which was looked upon as the
undisputed leader of the ICM was a serious initiative to develop the
understanding about the new imperialist offensive through neo-colonialism,
reorganisation of the Communist International according to the needs of the
concrete conditions then and an uncompromising struggle against the US-led
imperialist camp and its lackeys, with a clear cut proletarian internationalist
approach. But when US-led imperialist camp launched the United Nations
Organisation (UN) to consolidate the so-called ‘de-colonised’ or ‘newly
independent’ countries around the imperialist countries, without recognising
the long term perspective of imperialists, Soviet Union became part of it. Even
when North Korea was attacked under UN flag by US imperialism this mistake
was not rectified. The need for organising and developing a parallel UN against

the US-led UN was never even thought of. All these developments show that in
continuation to the ‘defence of the fatherland’ approach of the WW II years,
Soviet Union continued to give priority to its own preservation even by making
serious compromises with the imperialist camp. These policies amounted to
subordinating proletarian internationalism to nationalist needs of protecting
Soviet Union. It can be seen that it was this weakness which was getting
manifested more and more during and after WW II years which weakened the
Bolshevik positions and created a favourable situation for the capitalist roaders
led by Khrushchev to usurp power and to put forward the ‘theory of three
peacefuls’, or ‘theory of peaceful co-existence and competition with imperialism
and peaceful transition to socialism’ in the 22nd Congress of CPSU.
WHAT HAPPENED IN CHINA
In the course of Chinese revolution, it is a fact that some of the advises
given by the Comintern leadership without correct cognizance of the concrete
conditions including the balance of forces in China had caused harm to the
revolutionary movement there. Based on these experiences the CPC had
endorsed the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. But that it also failed to
take the initiative to influence the ICM for reorganising the Communist
International according to the demands of the new situation cannot be ignored.
It should be seen in the light of the earlier quoted approach of Lenin who
worked hard for a new international immediately following the collapse of the
Second International in 1913-14 period.
In spite of it, the Proposal Concerning the General Line of the ICM put
forward by the CPC in 1963 as part of the Great Debate launched against the
revisionist line of Khrushchev which had come to dominate Soviet Union and
the summing up of the positions of the 1957 Moscow Statement and 1960
Moscow Communiqué as already quoted were major contributions to the ICM.
This General Line along with the Nine Comments published by the CPC
then had provided a necessary foundation to reorganise the Communist
International. If this reorganisation was taken up, it would have provided
tremendous enthusiasm and support to the newly emerging Marxist-Leninist
parties around the world to develop their revolutionary line according to the
concrete conditions in their own countries and to march forward. But neither
any effort was made to develop the ideological, political understanding about
imperialism and its neo-colonial offensive based on Leninist positions and in
continuation to the explanations provided in the Great Debate documents, nor
to reorganise the Communist International. As a result, all the newly emerging
Marxist-Leninist parties started upholding whatever is said and done by the
CPC blindly. This mechanical approach led all of them to become victims of
whichever line was coming into dominance in the CPC during the period of
intense inner-party struggle in it.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE INNER-PARTY STRUGGLE WITHIN CPC
As Mao explained later, the ‘theory of productive forces’ had come to
dominance during the Eighth Congress of the CPC in 1956 against the Marxist-
Leninist teachings on the tasks during the socialist transformation period. Like
the revisionist line which had come to dominate the CPSU, the advocates of
this capitalist road in China also had no perspective about reorganising the
Communist International. They were actually against it. In 1961 even in an
article of Chou Enlai, though he was not part of the capitalist roaders, the
necessity for reorganising the Communist International was questioned.
In this situation, though the Proposal Concerning the General Line of the
ICM and documents explaining its various aspects were published in 1963, as
the struggle against the capitalist roaders had become the central agenda, the
question of rebuilding the Communist International was not even a subject of
serious discussion. The international contacts of the CPC were limited to visits
of the newly emerged ML parties and leaders of the ‘third world’ countries.
Even when the Chinese arguments on the border dispute with India in the main
were correct, the border war with India, and later the border skirmishes with
Soviet Union when the ideological struggle between them had become fierce
had started manifesting the influence of nationalism superseding the proletarian
internationalism, adversely affecting the ideological struggle then going on.
The ‘left’ sectarian line started exerting its influence in the CPC with the
publication of the “Long Live the Victory of People’s War” in 1965 by Lin Biao
calling for a mechanical application of the line of the ‘protracted people’s war’
that was practiced in China during the liberation struggle all over the world
irrespective of the concrete conditions of other countries. In 1969, in the Ninth
Congress of the CPC this line came to dominance within it replacing the Leninist
concept of the present era as that of imperialism and proletarian revolution
with the concept of an era of total collapse of imperialism and world-wide
victory of socialism. Like Khrushchev, Lin Biao also under estimated the strength
of the imperialist forces. But contrary to the former’s line of class collaboration
and compromise with imperialism, Lin Biao called for a ‘left’ adventurist line
of surrounding the ‘cities’, that is the imperialist countries, with the
‘countryside’, that is, the national liberation movements. In spite of it Lin Biao
did not call for reorganising the Communist International. On the contrary, his
internationalism was limited to mechanical bowing down of all the ML parties
to this adventurist line. Within this approach what was concealed was an
overdose of nationalism.
Though the socialist roaders were apparently in control in the Tenth
Congress of the CPC in 1973, a thorough rectification of the line adopted in the
Ninth Congress was not taken up. Besides as a result of the damage caused by
his adventurist, sectarian line, as soon as Lin Biao was overthrown in 1971, the

rightist line started dominating in the CPC and in Chinese state apparatus. At a
time when a threat of Soviet invasion of the nuclear centres of China was being
discussed, the Chinese government went for ‘ping-pong diplomacy’ and the
visit of US state secretary Kissinger followed by US president Nixon’s visit in
1972 when the US imperialists were intensifying their aggression against North
Vietnam, bombing even areas very near to Chinese border. Once again the US-
led imperialist were arrogantly declaring that they are not ready for any sort of
compromise. Once again it was the socialist China which started compromising
like Soviet Union earlier, providing opportunity for US to utilise the
contradiction between China and Soviet Union, thereby weakening the support
both the countries had pledged to Vietnamese people.
This weakness of counter posing nationalism against proletarian
internationalist approach and making the latter increasingly weak led almost to
the obliteration of the fundamental contradiction between imperialism and
socialism and projecting “the awakening and growth of the third world is a
major event in contemporary international relations”, as Chou Enlai did in his
report to the Tenth Congress. It should be remembered that this analysis was
made and Deng Tsiaoping who was reinstated made his UN speech in 1974
which marked the attempt of the capitalist roaders to smuggle in the class-
collaborationist ‘theory of three worlds’ when contrary to what Deng said then,
and in spite of the advance of the national liberation movements in Vietnam,
Laos and Kampuchia, under the neo-colonial offensive the Latin American
countries were falling in debt trap. More and more Afro-Asian countries were
coming under increasing control of IMF-World Bank and MNCs. There was
no attempt to recognise the neo-colonial plunder getting intensified day by day
under imperialist capital-market control.
The contradiction with the Soviet social imperialism was also taken by
the Chinese government to the level of compromising with the US supported
forces in Angola and Mozambique who were trying to sabotage the national
liberation movements there supported by Soviet Union. There was no noteworthy
attempt to develop the ideological-political understanding about the neo-colonial
strategy and tactics of the imperialist camp and to combat it. While US
imperialism and Soviet social imperialism were contending and colluding for
world domination, there was a tendency in China of compromising with the
former, by depicting the latter as the principal enemy. The proletarian
internationalist approach was becoming weaker while nationalist tendencies
were gaining strength. An analysis of the experiences of the two decades from
the 1956 Eighth Congress of the CPC shows that in spite of the Great Debate
against Soviet revisionist line, in spite of the contributions of the Cultural
Revolution, and in spite of the great strides in socialist construction, the inner-
party struggle went on intensifying with first the rightist trend, then the ‘left’
trend and once again the rightist trend coming to domination, continuously

weakening the proletarian internationalist approach. It is these weaknesses which
provided a favourable atmosphere for the capitalist roaders to usurp power as
soon as Mao died and to degenerate China in to capitalist path.
CHALLENGES BEFORE THE ICM TODAY
During the last five decades the ICM is reduced from a position of great
strength to a very weak one today. In this situation, any analysis which states
that so long as Stalin was there everything was OK in Soviet Union or as long
as Mao was leading everything was OK in China will be mechanical. It will
amount to overlooking the fierce class struggle which was continuing under the
dictatorship of proletariat there and in other socialist countries, overlooking
the inevitable inner-party struggle taking place in a communist party as a
reflection of the class struggle going on in the society. Failure to grasp this has
led almost all the communist parties formed under the guidance of Comintern
and a large number of Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations that have
emerged in the 1960s and their splinter groups to metaphysical positions
abandoning the essence of dialectical materialist approach.
With the emergence of the capitalist system which was “recreating the
world in its own image”, the internationalisation of production and the
internationalisation of the class struggle also started intensifying. That is why
Marx and Engels called in The Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the World,
Untie”. They declared that working class has no nation, and they launched the
First International, which was reorganised as the Second International taking
the experience of the Paris Commune after a brief gap. Continuing the basic
understanding, immediately after the collapse of the Second International Lenin
envisaged its reorganisation and soon put it in to practice following the victory
of October Revolution. After the great contributions made by the Communist
International, after its dissolution in 1943, if it is not reorganised even after
more than 66 years, it is not due to any temporary aberration. It is basically due
to the basic weakness of the ICM to recognise the cardinal importance of
proletarian internationalism, as a result of the nationalist thinking superseding
the proletarian internationalist spirit. It was this cardinal weakness, this
fundamental error which played the most important role in leading the socialist
countries to capitalist restoration and such a large number of communist parties
and groups to social democratic degeneration or to the anarchist path.
The challenge before the ICM is to recognise this weakness, develop the
Leninist teachings on imperialism to recognise and to combat it in its neo-
colonial phase, to uphold proletarian internationalist positions
uncompromisingly, and to march toward reorganising the Communist
International according to the present concrete conditions, firmly declaring
that socialism is the only alternative to imperialism. ●

On Mode of Production in India
Observer
The Naxalbari peasant uprising led by Communist Revolutionaries, and the
formation of CPI(ML) in 1969 rejecting the Khrushchevite revisionist path
and putting forward a programmatic approach for advancing the New
Democratic Revolution (NDR) were momentous developments in the history
of Indian communist movement as well as of our country in general. The
rejection of Khrushchevite concepts of peaceful co-existence and peaceful
competition with the imperialist system and peaceful transition to socialism,
and the revisionist-reformist line pursued by the CPI-CPI(M) leaderships, and
upholding the revolutionary path of NDR along with countrywide revolutionary
struggles gave a new impetus to the Communist movement. In continuation to
great Telengana and Tebhaga and other glorious movements led by the undivided
CPI, Naxalbari enthused the toiling masses all over the country.
When we are evaluating the experience of the last three decades and the
present situation, it is becoming all the more clear that, in spite of all the setbacks
and splits suffered by the Naxalbari movement, only around its basic positions
a polarisation of all the Communist forces all over the country and building up
a united and countrywide anti-imperialist, anti-state movement is possible, the
intensifying neo-colonial slavery and growing fascist threats can be effectively
countered.
But for realising this, the revolutionary forces should be strengthened at
both ideological-political and organisational planes. That is, by rectifying present
shortcomings the ideological-political line should be developed based on the
Third International and 1963 Great Debate positions and as a continuation of
the position of the undivided Communist movement and of 1970 programme.
Also, by settling accounts with the sectarian approaches the party should be
reorganised and class/mass organisations built up based on Bolshevik lines.
The decision of the 1997 Fourth All India Conference of CPI(ML) Red Flag
was an important step forward in this direction. The amended Programme
adopted by this Conference has given a qualitatively developed orientation to
the mode of production debate taking place in thes country by rectifying the
earlier erroneous approach towards feudalism in the 1970 Programme.
The 1997 amended Programme states: “16. Even five decades after the
transfer of power semi-feudal, pre-capitalist relations still continue in vast areas
of the country. Along with this, under the new economic policies land
accumulation is promoted for agri-business, for integrating the agrarian sector
to international market. A new rich peasant class emerging from continuing
state policies including the new economic policies are serving imperialist

interests. The number of agricultural workers is swelling with the devastation
of landless and poor, and even a section of middle peasants. The removal of
subsidies and increasing cost of agricultural inputs have also further sharpened
the contradictions in this sector.” Following this it is stated: “So the basic task
of Indian revolution is to overthrow the rule of comprador bourgeois-
bureaucratic bourgeois-landlord classes serving imperialism”.
This Programmatic approach is further explained in the approach paper
adopted by the CRC “On Organising Agricultural Workers and Peasant
Movement” (see Red Flag, September 1997 issue) as follows: “As a result of
opening the agrarian sector to international market in more and more areas,
significant changes are taking place in this sector. Capitalist relations are getting
strengthened. But this is not leading to the development of independent capitalist
relations, to the ever increasing agricultural bourgeoisies or rich peasants
becoming national bourgeois in character, or to India becoming a capitalist
country as some of the petty-bourgeois trends try to explain. On the contrary,
what is happening is that the agrarian sector has also come under increasing
hegemony of the imperialist forces. Whatever self-reliance was existing is also
disappearing. The agrarian sector is also reduced to an appendage of the
imperialist industrial trade interests. It is reduced to a source of resources for
the imperialist capital.
“The rich peasant or agricultural bourgeois class which is getting richer
and more powerful under increasing neo-colonisation is in the main closely
linked with and serving the interests of imperialism. While this class along
with the MNCs are reaping huge profits, the agricultural workers are getting
increasingly pauperised, the poor and marginal peasants are mostly loosing out
and getting transformed into agricultural workers, and even a section of middle
peasants are also getting reduced to marginal peasants. This has intensified the
contradictions between the agricultural workers, poor and middle peasants and
a section of rich peasants having patriotic and democratic outlook on the one
hand, and the rich peasants and landlords who are increasingly becoming
comprador in character and the Indian state led by comprador bourgeois-
bureaucratic bourgeois-big landlord classes serving imperialist interests on the
other hand”.
These long quotes are given here to show that following two decades long
studies and practice linked to these studies the Fourth Conference has basically
changed the 1970 position which stated that “the contradiction between
feudalism and broad masses of people is the principal contradiction, the
resolution of which will lead to the resolution of all other contradictions” and
that “feudalism serves as the social base of imperialism”. While this position
helped to reduce the target of NDR to feudalism simplistically, and to evolve a
tactical line based on the “line of annihilation of the class enemies”, it went
against all the teachings and experiences of the Third International and those

of all the Communist Parties, including the CPC and undivided CPI, built up
under the guidance of Third International. It refused to see the changes that had
started taking place in the pre-capitalist relations existing in the country during
the colonial period itself, and later during the post-colonial period at a faster
pace. Along with this it refused to recognise the inter-relation and inter-
penetration of all the major contradictions and one-sidedly emphasised the
contradiction with feudalism. The latter aspect is already discussed in detail in
the article “On the Question of Principal Contradiction” (see Red Flag, April-
June 1998). Here we are focusing on the former aspect which asserted that
feudalism is the social base for the domination of imperialism, that still feudal
or semi-feudal relations are the predominant trend in India, and that capitalist
development is not at all a significant trend here. In the years following the 9th
Congress of CPC held in 1969, when sectarianism dominated the entire approach
towards the strategy and tactics of the newly emerging ML parties including
CPI(ML), one can understand the taking up of such an erroneous approach
towards feudalism and the so-called predominance of feudal, semi-feudal
relations, and categorisation of Indian society as semi-feudal. But in the concrete
conditions of today, when still more significant and fast changes have further
transformed the agrarian scene, when all productive and service sectors in all
the countries under imperialist domination are brought under ever-expanding
globalisation, and when all the ML organisations are claiming that they have
settled accounts with the sectarian past, if the same old approach towards
feudalism and the mode of production is maintained by these ML organisations,
it should be a matter of great concern. It is the responsibility of the ML forces
to develop a healthy ideological polemics focussing on this vital question as a
part of overall struggle to develop the ideological-political line.
MODE OF PRODUCTION DEBATE IN THE 1970S
In the early 1970s after the formation of the CPI(ML) there were three
well-defined positions on mode of production in India among the broad spectrum
of the forces who are termed as ‘left’. A small section including RSP, SUCI like
forces continued to argue that with the transfer of power in 1947 the bourgeois
democratic revolution is completed and India became a capitalist country with
the Indian state transformed to a bourgeois democratic state. The CPI and
CPI(M) took the position that capitalism is the growing trend though the
democratic revolution is still not completed. According to CPI the dominant
bourgeois class including the emerging bourgeoisie in the agricultural sector
are national bourgeois in character. It also envisaged the completion of the so-
called ‘national democratic revolution’ under the leadership of this ‘national
bourgeoisie’. The CPI(M) with the characterisation of big bourgeois-big landlord
classes as the ruling classes also emphasised growing capitalist relations and
termed the big bourgeoisie as having dual-character, national as well as
collaborating with imperialism. Both were violently opposed to the stand of

the CPI(ML) that this big bourgeoisie in India is comprador in character, and
both in effect rejected the increasing imperialist domiantion.
In the characterisation of the mode of production in India, in the course of
rejecting the positions that India is capitalist, or that capitalist relations are the
growing trend and that they have become the predominant trend in the agrarian
sector, CPI(ML) forces went to the other extreme by analysing that feudal,
semi-feudal relations are dominating, and that feudalism remains the social-
base for imperialist domination. CPI(ML) Programme of 1970 as pointed out
earlier also analysed that the contradiction between feudalism and broad masses
of people is the principal contradiction, the resolution of which will lead to
resolution of all other major contradictions.
It was in these circumstances a debate on mode of production in India was
initiated and carried forward by some of the well-known left economic scholars
during 1970-78 in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) which is now
collected and edited by Utsa Patnaik in a Sameeksha Trust publication titled
“Agrarian Relations and Accumulation: the Mode of Production Debate in
India”. Starting by an article by Ashok Rudra based on his studies in Punjab, it
was an inquiry into whether the capitalist relations are developing in agrarian
sector, whether it is a growing trend, and if so its character. One important
feature of this debate was that all the participants in the discussion rejected the
position that India is an independent capitalist country. All the studies revealed
that it is a basically erroneous stand totally contradicting the concrete analysis
of the concrete situation.
Replying to Ashok Rudra’s 1970 stand (which he has amended later) on
Indian agrarian scene, Utsa Patnaik in her 1971 rejoinder wrote: “A new class
of capitalist farmer is emerging: this is a phenomenon common to every region,
insofar as every area has been subject to the same forces – albeit operating with
varying intensity – of an expanding market and enhanced profitability of
agricultural production. The rate at which capitalist development is occurring
varies widely in different regions depending on many historical and current
circumstances; it may be near zero in some, but the reality of the process cannot
be denied.
“The development of the capitalist form of organisation must be looked at
as a historical process, not as a once-for-all event. The capitalist does not
suddenly appear out the blue as a clearly defined ‘pure’ socio-economic type,
he develops within the pre-existing non-capitalist economic structure…..”
She concluded: “….. analysis of the agrarian structure today and
particularly of its class nature, is bedevilled by the prevalence of pre-conceived
formulae, e.g., that the dominant relations of production are ‘semi-feudal’. In
fact the post-colonial structure with its inter action of developing capitalism
with pre-capitalist organisation is a great deal more complex than can be summed

up in a single unqualified phrase. Not least important is the immensely uneven
development of different regions, which is inevitable, given the vase size of the
country. It is necessary to analyse this complex reality concretely and not evade
the job by falling back on convenient formulae. Secondly, to recognise and
analyse the reality of limited capitalist development which is taking place today
is very different, in my view, from putting forward the thesis that anything like
a successful capitalist transformation of Indian agriculture is at all possible. On
the contrary, it is necessary to analyse the nature of the capitalist development
now taking place, precisely to identify its limits. People who profess to be
more interested in the ‘red revolution’ than in the ‘green revolution’ tend, quite
incorrectly, to regard the recognition of the fact of limited capitalist development
as identical with a conceptual shelving of the ‘red’ revolution in favour of the
‘green’. Hence, their eagerness to deny the reality of the process taking place.
The causality of such misconceived radicalism is concrete analysis. (emphasis
added).
In his rejoinder Ashok Rudra, while agreeing that changes have taken place,
argued that “they are largely of a quantitative order, within the framework of
the production relations and class structure as has been existing from before.
The emergence of a new class would imply that the transformation of quantity
into quality has taken place”. Yes, such a transformation is yet to take place,
but the fact that capitalist relations were developing could not be denied.
Participating in this debate Paresh Chattopadhyay wrote: “….. After
asserting that “peasant industry, in spite of its incomparatively tiny
establishments and low productivity of labour, its primitive technique and small
number of wage workers, is capitalism” Lenin observed that the Narodniks
“cannot grasp the point that capital is a certain relation between people, a relation
which remains the same whether the categories under comparison are at a higher
or lower level of development”. The fact is that, capital and wage labour always
go together, they are inseparable. As Marx showed “wage labour and capital
are two forms constituting, at different moments, one form and stand and fall
together” (Grundrisse). The problem with his intervention was that he could
not differentiate the development of capitalism in Western Europe and North
America from its development in Tsarist Russia, or later in the colonial and
post-colonial conditions in a country like India. So he could not contribute to
the debate and jumped to mechanical conclusions. It is to be correctly analysed
how Marx’s and Lenin’s analysis is operating in a country under imperialist
domination.
In response to his arguments Utsa Patnaik replied: “Marx applied a
particular method of historical materialism to a systematic analysis, in particular,
of the genesis and development of the capitalist mode of production in the
concrete historical experience of West Europe. Marx’s model (as elaborated in
Capital) uses abstractions of feudalism to establish at the theoretical level the

laws of movement of the capitalist mode once it has emerged out of the
contradictions of feudalism. In my view, our task is to apply the Marxist method
to the concrete historical experience of India. This experience is a highly specific
one: namely, the subjugation of a country with pre-capitalist mode of production
by a capitalist power. Therefore, we cannot simply take over in a mechanical
fashion the propositions proven or demonstrated to hold for the classical ‘model’
of Marx and assume that they hold in the historically specific situation of a
colonised country. We must rather try to apply the Marxist method to the specific
data of Indian experience. (The starting point of such an attempt has to be a
theory of imperialism)”.
According to her what happened was that an interaction took place between
the externally introduced juridical forms and property relations – which however
modified in their application, were in their basis and origin bourgeois – and the
existing pre-capitalist production relations. We can concur with this argument
to a great extent. This point becomes clearer when Utsa Patnaik later added:
“India never saw an integrated development of capitalist production relations
and generalised commodity production, out of the internal contradictions of its
pre-capitalist mode. Whatever the possibility which might have existed for such
a independent integrated development, it was made historically irrelevant by
imperialism. We find that generalised commodity production was imposed from
outside in the process of imperialist exploitation itself. India was forced to
enter the network of world capitalist exchange relations: its pre-capitalist
economy was broken up and a fair section of the peasantry was pauperised into
landlessness.
From this position Utsa Patnaik attacked Andre Gunder Frank type of
positions, namely, all countries dominated by imperialism entered the network
of world capitalist exchange relationships (and also thereby experienced
generalised commodity production to a greater or lesser degree). Therefore all
these countries are ‘capitalist’. Therefore the only possible immediate
programme of a revolutionary political party in each of these countries must be
socialist revolution. It failed to distinguish between capital in the sphere of
exchange and capital in the sphere of production and therefore the implicit
assumption that the first always implies the second. In other words, this school
reduced the relation between the imperialist countries and the countries under
imperialist domination to one of unequal exchange between the centre and
periphery. This dependency theory led all those who came under its influence
to basically erroneous positions.
These discussions lead us to the conclusions that capitalism as a trend
started appearing in the agricultural scene from the colonial days, particularly
during the imperialist epoch of the colonial period roughly beginning with the
latter half of the 19th century itself. It was happening when imperialism was
smothering the indigenous enterprises and subjugating the country. But as Lenin

said, “the export of capital greatly accelerated the development of capitalism
in the countries to which it is exported” and that “capitalism is growing with
the greatest rapidity in the colonies”. So however truncated in character,
capitalist relations started developing during colonial days itself because of the
very nature of imperialism. This process was well explained by Marx and Engels
in the oft-quoted passage of The Communist Manifesto as follows: “All old
established national industries have been destroyed or are being destroyed.
They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and
death question for all nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous
raw materials, but raw materials drawn from the remotest zones; industries
whose products are consumed not only at home, but in every quarter of the
globe. In place of the old wants satisfied by the production of the country, we
find we find new wants requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant
lands. We have universal inter-dependence of nations. All nations, on pains of
extinction (are compelled) to adopt the bourgeois mode of production: it compels
them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become
bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world after its own image”.
Presently when globalisation has reached unprecedented levels, it is not at
all difficult to see how correct was this great observation. To analyse that society
remained stagnant with pre-capitalist relations of production during the colonial
and post colonial periods, and to conclude that capitalist relations are not
developing under imperialist domination during these periods according to the
concrete conditions of each country will be going against the Marxist teachings,
and the concrete developments in all Asian, African, Latin American countries.
ON COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL M ODES OF PRODUCTION
Participating in this debate Hamza Alavi stated (1975): “The colonial
regime transformed the existing feudal mode of localised production and
localised appropriation by a complete transformation of the agrarian economy
in the second half of the 19th century, when railway and steamships were to
carry raw materials like cotton, indigo, jute and other commodities, which were
now to be grown by Indian farmers, to England. That was against the background
of destruction of Indian industry and the pauperisation of the artisans who went
to swell the ranks of the destitute on the land. Instead of a local exchange
between Indian artisans and Indian agriculturists, the produce of the agriculture
was to be carried to distant shores and manufactured goods were to be imported.
The Indian economy was disarticulated and subordinated to colonialism. Its
elements were no longer integrated internally and directly but only by virtue of
the separate ties of its different segments with the metropolitan economy. It
was no longer a feudal mode of production. It had already been transformed
into a colonial mode of production. Generalised commodity production in the
colony did not have the same character as that in the imperialist centre itself
because of that disarticulation as pointed out by Samar Amin. It was a

disarticulated generalised commodity production – precisely, a colonial form
of deformed, generalised, commodity production.
“Further, unlike the feudal mode of production that had preceded it, the
colonial mode of production was no longer one of simple reproduction, but
one of extended reproduction. But here again its disformity arising from the
colonial status should be seen. The result of the internal disarticulation of the
colonial economy, and the extraction of the surplus by the colonial power meant
that the extended reproduction could not be realised within the economy of
colony but could be realised only through the imperialist centre. The surplus
value extracted from the colony went to support capital accumulation at the
centre and to raise the organic composition of capital (i.e., higher capital intensity
of investment) at the centre while destituting the colonial economy.” Thus
according to Hamza Alvi the colonial form was a deformed extended
reproduction.
The historical process of development of the colonial mode of production
is further explained by Hamza Alvi: “Colonial conquest not only displaced the
crumbling power of the Mughal Empire and set up the colonial state. It also
transformed the structure of power at the local level, concomitantly with the
creation of ‘bourgeois landed property’ whereby land became the property of
the zamindar, dispossessing the cultivator. Whereas before the change, he peasant
sharecropper was unfree and the surplus was extracted from him by the zamindar
by virtue of the jurisdiction and coercive force that he directly exercised over
him, now it was to be on a new basis. The ‘petty sovereignties’ of the zamindars
were abolished under new colonial dispensation that separated political power,
now vested in the colonial state, from the economic power of the zamindars.
The latter who were ‘landlords’ now became ‘landonwers’. On the surface,
their relationships with their sharecroppers do not appear to be very different
from what they were before. An empiricist reading of history could easily lead
one to suppose that this was unchanged. But the basis of that relationship was
fundamentally altered. The peasant was now legally free to leave his zamindar.
But being dispossessed, he could have no access to the means of his livelihood
without turning to the landowner for whom he now worked out of economic
compulsion, ‘freely’. The peasant became a seller of labour power due to his
dispossession.”
So it can be concluded that as a consequence of a series of changes
implemented by the colonial state social relations of production in the
agricultural sector started getting transformed. The pre-colonial feudal structure
stated dissolved, the peasants were separated from the means of production
and livelihood, land, which became property in the hands of landowners, their
localised structures of power having been dissolved and incorporated into the
structure of colonial state. Economic compulsion was substituted in place of
direct political compulsion to draw a surplus from the ‘free’ labour. Based on

these arguments Hamza Alvi proceeded to establish that a peripheral capitalist
economy started developing during the colonial phase itself through a long
process – which he has explained in the following way:
Indian cotton and silk textile industries as well as other industries based
on domestic production were destroyed in the early phase of colonisation. With
the development of railways and a general improvement in the means of transport
and communication Indian agriculture was progressively turned towards the
production of crops for the metropolitan markets, especially cotton, jute and
indigo; some crops such as tea were produced in plantations owned by
colonialists. Elsewhere, peasants started producing food crops as cash crops to
feed not only the newly emerging towns as bases of colonial trade, but also the
peasants in other areas who had turned into production of export crops. Thus
the old pattern of localised production started getting broken and production of
commodities for an international market as well as for an expanding domestic
market was taken up in hand. Likewise, with the progressive destruction of
local manufacturing production, a market was established for imports from
England. Thus there was a movement towards generalised commodity
production. But, as was stated earlier, this was a form of generalised commodity
production that was not giving rise to independent capitalist development but
was specific to peripheral capitalism, the circuit of commodity circulation being
completed via the link with the metropolis, through exports and imports. The
surplus extracted by colonial capital, likewise, created a form of extended
reproduction of capital which was generated in the colony, but accumulated by
the colonialists.
In his analysis of the manner in which the rise of capitalism was caused
‘disintegration of the peasantry’, Lenin did identify two aspects of the process
which provides leads into the problem and illuminates the contemporary
processes too which are visible in peripheral capitalist societies. He recognised,
first, according to Hamza Alvi, the effects of the impact of capitalism in breaking
down the self-sufficiency of the peasant economy and drawing them increasingly
into the circuit of generalised commodity production generated by the capitalist
economy, and secondly, on the increasing migration of the peasant who, as a
consequence of the disintegration of peasant economy, had to look for outside
employment to supplement the bankrupt farm economy and to subsidise the
livelihood of those depended on it. According to Hamza Alvi, many
contemporary writers like Bernstein (1977) has concluded that ‘peasant have
to be located in their relations with capital and the state, in other words, within
‘capitalist relations of production’ mediated through forms of household
production which are a site of a struggle for effective possession and control
between the producers and capital/state”. All these leads in the direction that in
the aftermath of the impact of the colonial capital and the transformation that
follows in the colonial and later in post-colonial decades, the peasant economies

have ceased to be ‘pre-capitalist’. While some old forms are still persisting, the
underlying structural basis is transformed, according to Hamza Alvi. But it is
capitalist development of a specific character that distinguishes it from that in
metropolitan societies or in the imperialist centres – one that does not allow
forces of production in these societies to grow rapidly as in classical capitalism.
This is capitalist development under imperialist domination. Under
liberalisation/globalisation this capitalist development in the agrarian sector is
integrating this sector more and more to international market system under the
domination of imperialist capital and MNCs through the class of big landowners
who are becoming predominantly comprador agricultural bourgeoisie.
ON FEUDAL AND CAPITALIST M ODE OF PRODUCTION
In the mode of production debate there is a major trend that still analyses
the agrarian sector as still dominated by pre-capitalist or semi-feudal
relationships. A Bhaduri (EPW, 1973) has explained the basic features of semi-
feudalism as: “(1) An extensive non-legalised share-cropping system, (2)
Perpetual indebtedness of the small tenants, (3) (Rural exploiters) operating
both as landowners and lenders to the small tenants and (4) Tenants having
incomplete access to the market.” According to the critique of Jairus Banaji
(EPW, 1977), Bhaduri describes a system of production in which the power of
money is clearly of fundamental importance; the small producer who may, for
example, be a sharecropper, is ‘indebted’ to his landlord, who extorts surplus
labour from him on the basis of a relationship that is fundamentally one of
economic dependence. The ‘consumption loans’ through which the small
producer is bound to his landlord-moneylender, form advances for the
reproduction of his labour power. The small producers bear no direct relationship
to the market, because his landlord-moneylender intervenes in the process of
reproduction to realise the surplus labour extorted from his on the market. Even
accepting that such an ‘ideal’ concept of semi-feudalism existed once, can one
state based on both macro and micro studies that such a system is dominating
the rural scene today?
Besides, as Ashok Rudra explains (EPW, 1978), it will be fallacious to
treat institutions like share-cropping or tenancy, money lending, attached labour,
etc. only as expression of feudal relations of production. It is true that similar
institutions have functioned in pre-capitalist social formations and have acted
as fetters to the development of capitalist forces and relations of production.
But there is no justification to treat them as unchangeable or unadoptable to
new conditions.
First let us take the case of tenancy. A. Rudra explains: “As long as the
owner of the land is a pure rentier who takes no interest in production decision
and does not perform any entrepreneurial functions and who uses up the rent
for purposes of consumption or unproductive investment, the tenancy could be

regarded as a feudal institution. It is more so when there is a relation of
domination and subordination between the landlord and the tenant which is
extra-economic in nature. Such a relation may pervade all parts of the tenant’s
private and social life. The whole village society may be dominated by a handful
of neo-cultivating landlords. In such a situation the village society can be
characterised as feudalistic and tenancy can be treated as part of it.
But during last decades this situation has undergone major changes in vast
areas. Tenancy do not occur today in many areas as an integral part of social
organisation involving domination based on direct compulsion or extra economic
coercion, nor does the tenancy contract necessarily involve such feudalistic
features. Tenancy arrangements can be straight forward contracts between two
parties. Then it can fit well into a vehicle for emerging capitalist tendencies.
This is more so when the landlords takes interest in production to the extent of
sharing costs and making advances to the tenant as part of cost of production.
Again tenancy can be a full-fledged capitalist institution when the tenant
is the dominant party and the lesser is a small landowner. It is an emerging
trend in different part of the country that enterprising famers are leasing from
poor small landowners. So tenancy as an institution can accommodate capitalist
relations also.
Then the institution of money-lending, A. Rudra points out that is has
been regarded as an institution that has been an obstacle to the emergence of
capitalist forces and relations of production due to its dual role. Firstly, it has
been one of the ways in which capital has been diverted away from productive
channels. Secondly, usury has the role of preservation of a power structure
where a few rural rich maintaining a dominating control over the lives of the
rural poor. Though this was the condition till few years back, it has been changing
fast in recent times.
Credit plays an essential part in the productive process and some part the
loan taken, and increasingly a major part of it is for purpose of production.
Many rich farmers who engage in money lending for whom it is neither a
principal nor a subsidiary occupation give loan for consumption as well as
production. So lumping together all kinds of loans to make estimates of
indebtedness of the peasantry and to treat it as an indicator for showing the
existence of feudalism is wrong. If this method is adopted one might confuse
highly advanced areas where lot of inputs and for them loans are utilised with
the areas which are still under remnants of feudal relations. In the areas of
intensive cultivation extent of indebtedness of peasantry can be an index of the
development of capitalist forces.
Now let us turn to the criterion of non-free labour or the insufficient
development of labour market as an indicator of the continued prevalence of
feudalistic relations. As A. Rudra says, while interpreting lack of freedom of

labourers in many studies, it is very often forgotten that for Marx a free labour
market is one which is free from constraints arising out of extra-economic
factors. A non-free labourer is one who is prevented by extra-economic coercive
forces to sell his labour power to the maximum bidder.
While analysing this, one should not forget extra-economic factors like
caste, traditions, etc. which is preventing some sections from engaging in labour
or some type of labour. Similarly, many of the examples cited to show lack of
freedom in the labour market can take place under capitalist or any other relations
of production also. Extreme destitution of landless and poor peasants and
agricultural workers cannot be cited as example for feudal relations. As explained
by Marx in first Volume of Capital, living conditions of industrial proletariat
during the early days of capitalism was not different. The condition of
unorganised workers, who are most numerous today and who live in slums or
ghettos is also not different. Workers whether in rural or urban areas are now
loosing even the bargaining power that existed so far due to the existence of an
increasing ‘reserve army’ of unemployed.
Regarding ‘bonded’ labour all studies show that in quantitative terms their
number is very limited. Again if a farm servant or tenant who has taken loan
from the landlord or employer may not be free to leave him, the same is
applicable to one who is employed under a capitalist type farm or government
enterprise also. We should recognise that all debt-relations in agrarian sector
do not constitute bonded labour system.
Similarly, annual farm servants are also considered by some as an indication
of feudal relations. In is fallacious to say that daily contract with casual workers
is capitalistic and annual or long-term contracts as feudalistic, especially when
outside agriculture long-term contract is treated as perfectly normal and when
long-term or permanent contracts are preferred.
So by citing such institutions one cannot define a mode of production
feudal or capitalistic as these institutions themselves are subject to changes
and the same institution can exist under both with necessary changes. Only
dependence arising out of extra-economic factor can be termed feudal. In a
society where vast majority are poor and only minority are rich, and where the
institutions are meant to buttress the strength of the rich, as Rudra writes, the
poor cannot but be dependent on the rich in various ways. This cannot be taken
as an indicator of feudal relations.
From here Rudra goes to put forward certain criteria to characterise pre-
capitalist production relations. They are, according to him, (1) surplus extracted
through extra economic coercion of ‘unfree’ labour, (2) surplus appropriated
directly without intervention of any market, (3) surplus dissipated in luxury
consumption as well as in different unproductive investments, leaving stock of
productive capital unchanged and production in a cycle of simple reproduction,

and (4) technology remains unchanged. All macro and micro studies conducted
by numerous agencies and institutions during the last decades in all regions
show that all these conditions are fast changing and the areas under pre-capitalist
or semi-feudal relations are fast decreasing. It is a decreasing trend.
Now let us see the characteristics of capitalistic relations pointed out by
Rudra: They are (1) surplus extracted from ‘free’ sellers of labour power in a
commodity production process, (2) surplus realised exchange in a commodity
exchange process, (3) surplus reinvested giving rise to a continued process of
accumulation of capital and ever-expanding reproduction, (4) pursuit of profit
leading to changes in the organic composition of capital and a continuous process
of technological advancement.
The most serious flaw in the analysis of A. Rudra here is that he only see
two possible modes of production, either feudal or capitalistic. He does not
bother to give cognizance to the analysis made by Hamza Alvi about colonial
and post-colonial changes in the mode of production and the role of imperialism
in this. If Hamza Alvi defined these capitalistic changes as peripheral, Rudra is
explaining the characteristics of independent capitalist development as happened
in West European countries and explained by Marx in Capital, as if it can
happen in a country like India which is under intensifying neo-colonial
domination following two centuries of colonial domination. Once this aspect is
also seriously considered, it is not difficult to see that all the four characteristics
of capitalistic relations as pointed out by Rudra are becoming more and more
visible in India, of course, under the domination of imperialist capital and market
system.
APPROACH TOWARDS CLASS ANALYSIS IN THE RURAL AREAS
Lenin discussed the following classes in the context of the European
capitalist countries in 1920 in the ‘Preliminary Draft Thesis on the Agrarian
Question’ presented to the Second Congress of the Comintern.
1) First, the agricultural proletariat, wage-labourers (by the year, season,
or day) who obtain their livelihood by working for hire at capitalist
agricultural enterprises.
2) Second, the semi-proletariat or peasants who till tiny plots of land,
that is, those who obtain their livelihood partly as wage labourers and
partly by working their own or rented plots of land, which provide
their families only with part of their means of subsistence.
3) Third, the small peasantry, i.e., the small-scale tillers who either as
owners or tenants, hold small plots of land which enable them to satisfy
the needs of their families and their farms, and do not hire outside
labour.
4) In the economic sense one should understand by ‘middle peasants’

those small farmers who, (i) either as owners or tenants hold plots of
land that are also small, but under capitalism, are sufficient not only
to provide, as a general rule, a meagre subsistence for the family and
the bare minimum needed to maintain the farm, but also produce as
certain surplus which, in good years at least, be converted into capital;
(ii) quite frequently …. Resort to the employment of hired labour.
5) The big peasants are capitalist entrepreneurs in agriculture, who as a
rule, employ several hired labourers and are connected with the
‘peasantry’ only in their low cultural level, habits of life and the manual
labour they themselves perform on their farms.
6) “…. The big landowners, who, in capitalist countries, directly or
through their tenant farmers, systematically exploit wage labour and
the neighbouring small (and not infrequently part of the middle)
peasantry, do not themselves engage in manual labour, and are in the
main descended from feudal lords”.
The main difference between Lenin’s characterisation of classes in Europe
and of Mao Tsetung in China is that while the former analyses the classes in a
region where capitalist development has taken place to a great extent, latter
dealt with a semi-colonial country where imperialism had not succeeded in
establishing total colonial domination and where, as a result, feudal relations
were till then predominant. According to Mao’s analysis the classes in the rural
areas in China were; (i) the landlords, (ii) the rich peasant, (iii) the middle
peasant; (iv) the poor peasant and (v) the agricultural workers. Compared to
China’s agrarian structure when Mao analysed it in the 1930s, the agrarian
sector in India has undergone many changes in the colonial period itself. In the
post-colonial years changes took place very fast. Under liberalisation/
globalisation these changes bringing in capitalistic relations under imperialist
domination are taking place faster.
The agricultural workers are increasing in strength among the agrarian
classes. With the intensification of neo-colonisation, growing integration of
agrarian sector with international market system and the consequent peripheral
or neo-colonial form of capitalist development more and more sections of
peasantry are getting pauperised and they are also getting reduced to agricultural
workers. Thus the agricultural workers are the most numerous, most organised
and biggest class in the agrarian sector. They get their livelihood wholly or
mainly by selling their labour power.
The poor and marginal peasants till tiny plots of their own land and land
taken on rent and obtain part of their livelihood as wage-labourers. Under
mounting pressure of liberalisation/globalisation this section, by and large, is
getting reduced to the status of agricultural workers.

The middle peasants own their land, or own part of their land and rent
some more land. He earns his income mainly from his own or his family’s
labour. But at times he has to hire some labour also. While the lower/marginal
sections undergo impoverishment fast under liberalisation/globalisation and
are forced to resort to even suicide as happened in large numbers recently, only
a small upper section make an upward movement.
All the exploiting sections in the agrarian sector can be included in the
class of landlords which include the rich peasants. The growing force within
this class is the comprador agricultural bourgeoisie who are through various
ways connected with imperialist capital, MNCs and the market system. This is
the dominant ruling class in the rural area. They employ several hired labourers
and utilised modern technological equipments and facilities.
CONCLUSION
Peripheral, post-colonial, neo-colonial, or stunted, however one may call,
it is a fact that in continuation to the efforts initiated by British imperialism
during the colonial phase, in the post-colonial phase significant capitalist
developments have taken place in the agrarian sector under the domination of
imperialist capital and market system. As a result, through the ruling class
policies the agrarian sector is also increasingly getting integrated to the
international market system. MNCs are increasingly penetrating into this field
also.
All these developments prove the fallacy of the stand earlier taken by the
ML movement in the 1970s that feudalism is the principal contradiction, the
resolution of which will resolve all major contradictions and that feudalism
serves as the social base for imperialist plunder. Only by rejecting this so-
called ‘theory of feudalism’ or semi-feudalism, recognising the correct relation
between the anti-imperialist, anti-comprador, anti-feudal struggles according
to present concrete conditions, the struggle of NDR can be carried forward. A
scientific analysis of the changes taking place in the rural areas will help to
develop an agrarian programme, to develop the tactical line for intensifying
class struggle and to concretely explain the agrarian revolution in present
situation.
It is in this context the Marxist-Leninist forces should take initiative to
develop the debate on the mode of production and characterisation of the Indian
state so that all previous erroneous, sectarian positions can be rejected, and the
general line for the NDR can be developed concretely based on a scientific
class analysis. ●
[The Red Flag, July-September 1998]

HOW THE THEORY OF
“PROTRACTED PEOPLE’S WAR”
HAS HARMED THE MARXIST-
LENINIST MOVEMENT
Sanjay Singhvi
TODAY, almost all the Communist parties all over the world, who profess
“Maoism” and many who profess “Marxism-Leninism-Mao Dze Dong Thought”
state that the path of revolution that is required to be followed in all countries,
which are under the domination of imperialism, including countries that are
variously referred to as “semi-colonial” and “neo-colonial” is the path of
“Protracted Peoples’ War”. It may be true that this phrase has today come to
mean different things to different people. Some people use the term to describe
what is, in essence, an application of the “foco” concept put forward by Che
Guevara. Yet others use it to describe nothing more than a strategy of building
up a people’s movement. Many use it as a mere slogan to testify to their
“revolutionary” credentials without ever leaving their armchairs. We propose
that, in all these manifestations, this term is being brutally abused and has misled
the revolutionary movements all over the world and has been the cause of
tremendous harm to the revolutionary movement all over the world.
Till 1965, in Communist literature, the term “people’s war” was never
used to describe revolution or even a strategy for revolution. It was commonly
used only as a category of war – war between countries, or at least between
armies. It was used to distinguish a just war from a predatory imperialist war. It
was used to signify a war which had the support of the people and in which the
people were enthusiastically taking part. It was never used to signify a strategy
for revolution.
The term was first used by Com. Lenin during the time of the First World
War in the course of his polemics against Kautsky and the other class
collaborationist renegades of the Second International. He first used the term
in 1914 in his writing, “Positions and Tasks of the Socialist International”
published in the Sotsial-Democrat No. 33 of 1st November 1914. Here, while
answering the argument of the renegades that internationalism consists of the
workers of one country shooting down the workers of another, allegedly in
“defense of the fatherland”, he refers to the 1st World War as a “People’s war”.
What he means by this term is merely that the war enjoys “popular” chauvinist
support. He says:

“War is no chance happening, no “sin” as is thought by Christian
priests (who are no whit behind the opportunists in preaching
patriotism, humanity and peace), but an inevitable stage of capitalism,
just as legitimate a form of the capitalist way of life as peace is. Present-
day war is a people’s war. What follows from this truth is not that we
must swim with the “popular” current of chauvinism, but that the
class contradictions dividing the nations continue to exist in wartime
and manifest themselves in conditions of war.”
Lenin goes on to clarify the meaning of People’s War in his writing “The
Collapse of the Second International” published in the journal Kommunist
Nos. 1-2. This was written in May-June 1915, by which time the true nature of
the war as an imperialist war for colonies stood revealed. Here Lenin asserts
that the 1st World War was not, then, a people’s war. While explaining how
Kautsky and Plekhanov are misleading the people by comparing the present
imperialist war with certain just and revolutionary wars of the earlier century
(like the peasant wars in Germany) and while relying upon the Basle resolution
of the Second International (where it had been resolved to oppose the present
imperialist war), in his defense, he says:
“The Basle resolution does not speak of a national or a people’s war
— examples of which have occurred in Europe, wars that were even
typical of the period of 1789-1871 — or of a revolutionary war, which
Social-Democrats have never renounced, but of the present war, which
is the outcome of “capitalist imperialism” and “dynastic interests”,
the outcome of “the policy of conquest” pursued by both groups of
belligerent powers — the Austro-German and the Anglo Franco-
Russian. Plekhanov, Kautsky and Co. are flagrantly deceiving the
workers by repeating the selfish lie of the bourgeoisie of all countries,
which is striving with all its might to depict this imperialist and
predatory war for colonies as a people’s war, a war of defence (for
any side); when they seek to justify this war by citing historical
examples of non-imperialist wars.” Here Lenin opposes people’s war to
the present imperialist war. In any case, it is clear as crystal that Lenin is
not using the term “people’s war” as a strategy for revolution but is using
it to define a particular kind of war. He is using it as a category of the
universal term “war” which is also used as a war between countries.
Stalin also used the term “people’s war”. In his Order of the day issued on
1st May 1943, in the thick of the Second World War, he asserts that the
participation of the whole of the people in the war effort on the part of the
Soviet Union has made the war a “people’s war”. He says:
“Comrades! The Soviet people display the greatest solicitude for their
Red Army. They are ready to devote all their strength to the task of

still further increasing the military might of our Soviet land. In less
than four months the peoples of the Soviet Union contributed over
seven billion rubles to the Red Army Fund. This is further proof that
the war against the Germans is indeed a people’s war of all the nations
inhabiting the Soviet Union. The workers, collective farmers and
intellectuals are working tirelessly in factory, office, transport system
and collective and state farm, staunchly and bravely bearing all the
privations caused by the war. But the war against the German fascist
invaders demands that the Red Army should receive still more guns,
tanks, aircraft, machine guns, automatic rifles, mortars, ammunition,
equipment and food supplies. Hence the workers, collective farmers
and the entire Soviet intelligentsia must work with redoubled energy
to supply the needs of the front.
All our people, and all our institutions in the rear, must work with the
smoothness and precision of a well-made clock. Let us recall the behest
of our great Lenin: “Since war has proved inevitable — everything for
the war, and the slightest laxity or lack of energy must be punished in
conformity with wartime laws.””
Here too Stalin does not use the term “people’s war” in the nature of a
strategy for revolution but only as a category of war between nations.
Mao talks of people’s war only in terms of actual war. He has never
mentioned it in terms of a strategy for making revolution or in the nature of a
“path for revolution”. He talks of people’s war during two phases of the Chinese
revolution. The first phase is during the fight against the Japanese aggressors
during the period from 1935 to 1945 or so. Almost inevitably, during this period,
he uses the phrase “people’s war” only in the form “people’s war of resistance”.
This can be seen in various writings of Mao like “Situation and Tasks in Anti-
Japanese War After the Fall of Shanghai and Taiyuan”. This is the outline for
a report made by Com. Mao Dze Dong to a meeting of party activists in Yenan
in November 1937. Here, for the first time Mao puts forward his understanding
of what is a people’s war. The first four points of the report read thus:
“1. We support any kind of war of resistance, even though partial,
against the invasion of Japanese imperialism. For partial resistance
is a step forward from non-resistance, and to a certain extent it is
revolutionary in character and is a war in defence of the motherland.
2. However, a war of partial resistance by the government alone
without the mass participation of the people will certainly fail, as we
have already pointed out (at the meeting of Party activists in Yenan
in April of this year, at the Party’s National Conference in May, and
in the resolution[1] of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee

in August). For it is not a national revolutionary war in the full sense,
not a people’s war.
3. We stand for a national revolutionary war in the full sense, a war in
which the entire people are mobilized, in other words, total resistance.
For only such resistance constitutes a people’s war and can achieve
the goal of defending the motherland.
4. Although the war of partial resistance advocated by the Kuomintang
also constitutes a national war and is revolutionary in character to a
certain extent, its revolutionary character is far from complete. Partial
resistance is bound to lead to defeat in the war; it can never successfully
defend the motherland....”
Thus it is again clear that when talking of “people’s war” Mao is using the
term to describe an actual war. One in which the Japanese imperialists, with the
help of the German and Italian Fascists, had actually invaded China. In fact, in
his writing “On Coalition Government” (1945) Com. Mao has stated that the
People’s War of Resistance started in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of China.
Thus Mao does not refer to the earlier period from 1927, though the long march
had started, as a “people’s war”.
Again, in the period from 1945 to 1950, Mao again used the term “people’s
war” almost always only in the form of “people’s war of liberation”. In his
“Address to the Preparatory Meeting of the New Political Consultative
Conference” (15th June 1949) he has clearly stated that the People’s War of
Liberation began in 1946. In various writings written around 1949, like “On
the People’s Democratic Dictatorship” he has referred to the “people’s war of
liberation” as going on for three years. This shows that Mao was not referring
to the whole of the strategy from 1927, when the long march began as a “people’s
war”.
In understanding the concept of “people’s war” as put forward by Mao, it
is also necessary to understand the history of the Chinese Revolution. In 1924,
the Communist Party had aligned with the Kuomintang under the leadership of
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen and had formed a common united front. Together they had led
such important campaigns as the Northern Expedition. However, after the death
of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the Kuomintang, under the leadership of Chian Kai-Shek
undertook a purge of the party and the army. It broke relationships with the
Communist party and subsequently, after the Japanese invasion in 1931, took a
line of partial resistance to the Japanese. Due to all these factors, it was left to
the Communist party to take the brunt of the fight for resistance to the Japanese
invasion. The Communist party adopted the strategy of converting this war
into a people’s war, where the whole population is mobilised to fight against
the Japanese invaders. In 1937, they again entered into an alliance with the

Kuomintang against the Japanese invasion. Though this alliance was fragile
and suffered many setbacks because of the treachery of the Kuomintang, it
lasted for the period of this war against the Japanese, that is, until the end of the
2nd World War in 1945, when the Japanese invaders were finally driven out.
By this time, the Red Army was in occupation of vast areas of land. The
liberated areas of China extended from Inner Mongolia in the north to Hainan
island in the south and accounted for a population of 95.5 million. It was like a
separate country from the Kuomintang ruled China. From the end of the 2nd
World War in 1945, an attempt was made to make peace with the Kuomintang
and concentrate on the progress of China. However, again the Kuomintang
broke its truce and from June, 1946, the Red Army launched a second “people’s
war”, the “people’s war of liberation”. As mentioned above, in this period Mao
talks of the “people’s war of liberation” in many writings, but he sees it as a
distinct war started in 1946. He is again referring to an actual war being fought
between the Red Army and the Kuomintang army as is clear from the context
of all the writings of this period. He is referring to “people’s war” as a form of
warfare and not as a path of revolution.
In various writings he refers to methods to be used “...in our people’s war
of liberation and the agrarian revolution...” (“Cast Away Illusions Prepare for
Struggle” (1949)). Similarly in “The Chinese People Have Stood Up” (1949)
Mao writes, “In a little more than three years the Chinese people, led by
the Chinese Communist Party, have quickly awakened and organized
themselves into a nation-wide united front against imperialism, feudalism,
bureaucrat-capitalism and their general representative, the reactionary
Kuomintang government, supported the People’s War of Liberation,
basically defeated the reactionary Kuomintang government, overthrown
the rule of imperialism in China and restored the Political Consultative
Conference.” Here he sees the revolutionary struggle of the people as
supporting the People’s War of Liberation. Once again he differentiates between
the revolutionary struggle of the people and the People’s War of Liberation. In
“Eternal Glory to the Heroes of the People” (1949) he says,
“Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in
the people’s war of liberation and the people’s revolution in the past
three years!
Eternal glory to the heroes of the people who laid down their lives in
the people’s war of liberation and the people’s revolution in the past
thirty years!...”
Again, he differentiates between the people’s war and the people’s
revolution. He makes a similar differentiation in “The Bankruptcy of the Idealist
Conception of History” (1949) when he says:

“Well, then, if Sun Yat-sen could learn from the Soviet people and the
Soviet people are not imperialist aggressors, why can’t his successors,
the Chinese who live after him, learn from the Soviet people? Why
are the Chinese, Sun Yat-sen excepted, described as “dominated by
the Soviet Union” and as “the fifth column of the Comintern” and
“lackeys of Red imperialism” for learning the scientific world outlook
and the theory of social revolution through Marxism-Leninism, linking
these with China’s specific characteristics, starting the Chinese
People’s War of Liberation and the great people’s revolution and
founding a republic of the people’s democratic dictatorship? Can there
be such superior logic anywhere in the world?”
Here again he differentiates between the “People’s War of Liberation”
and the “...great people’s revolution...”.
In an interesting passage in “Farewell to Leighton Stuart” (1949) he
describes a historical war of Chinese legend of the 8th Century as a “people’s
war of that time”. This shows that he could not have meant “people’s war” to
mean a strategy for revolution for semi-colonial and colonial countries.
All these writings of Mao make his understanding clear. The specific
historical conditions China of that time foisted a war upon the Communists
there, first against the back-stabbing of the Kuomintang in 1927, then against
the Japanese invaders from 1931 and finally against the Kuomintang for the
liberation of China from 1945. In all these periods, it must be remembered that
the Chinese Communist Party started with an army of over 50000 which had
broken away from the Kuomintang in 1927. Mao says consistently that the Red
Army fights the war. On the other hand, he says that the people make revolution.
When the whole of the people support the war, then the nature of the war changes
and becomes a “people’s war”.
This cannot however mean that “war” is necessary for revolution. If, as
and when, imperialism may foist a war upon the people, the Communist Party
must be ready to fight it and turn it into a “people’s war”. There may also be
situations when the Communist party of a certain country reaches a stage where
it is capable of launching a war and defeating the ruling classes. No communist
party can escape the reality that today, peaceful transition to socialism is not
possible anywhere in the world. However the form of violent seizure of power
may be insurrection or war or some other form. It is especially true that no
writing of Mao says that “people’s war”, or indeed “war”, is the only form in
which semi-colonial or neo-colonial countries can make revolution. This
assertion was left for Lin Biao to make in 1966 as we shall see below.
Even after 1950, Mao has used the term “people’s war” only in the sense
of an actual war. He talks of the people’s war in Korea in “Order to the Chinese

People’s Volunteers”. Similarly, the Central Committee of the CPC also used
the term “people’s war” till 1965, only in the form of referring to an actual war.
They referred to the people’s war in Algeria during the great Debate in the
“General line document”. Even in 1965, in an Editorial of the People’s Daily,
commemorating the 20th anniversary of the victory against Fascism, there is a
reference to the “Soviet People’s War” against Fascism.
In 1938 Mao wrote on his most important writings on War ca led “On
Protracted War”. In this he explains why China was bound to win the war and
the Japanese were bound to lose and also why the victory was not possible in a
short time and that how, therefore, the war would be protracted. However, in
this writing Mao conciously never used the term “people’s war” since the
Communist Party was then fighting the war in alliance with the Kuomintang
and other political forces. Thus, Mao has never actually used the phrase
“protracted people’s war”. This however, is not the point. The point is that
whether talking of “people’s war” or “protracted war” Mao was always referring
to an actual war and not to a path for revolution.
Then, in 1966, came Lin Biao’s writing “Long live the Victory in the
People’s War”. In this he has repeatedly stated that the Chinese path of revolution
is applicable to all the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. He said:
“It must be emphasized that Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s theory of the
establishment of rural revolutionary base areas and the encirclement
of the cities from the countryside is of outstanding and universal
practical importance for the present revolutionary struggles of all
the oppressed nations and peoples, and particularly for the
revolutionary struggles of the oppressed nations and peoples in Asia,
Africa and Latin America against imperialism and its lackeys.”
In the same writing, he has stated,
“Many countries and peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America are
now being subjected to aggression and enslavement on a serious scale
by the imperialists headed by the United States and their lackeys. The
basic political and economic conditions in many of these countries
have many similarities to those that prevailed in old China. As in China,
the peasant question is extremely important in these regions. The
peasants constitute the main force of the national-democratic
revolution against the imperialists and their lackeys. In committing
aggression against these countries, the imperialists usually begin by
seizing the big cities and the main lines of communication, but they
are unable to bring the vast countryside completely under their control.
The countryside, and the countryside alone, can provide the broad
areas in which the revolutionaries can manoeuvre freely. The
countryside, and the countryside alone, can provide the revolutionary

bases from which the revolutionaries can go forward to final victory.
Precisely for this reason, Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s theory of
establishing revolutionary base areas in the rural districts and
encircling the cities from the countryside is attracting more and more
attention among the people in these regions.”
Here, Lin Biao has wrongly analysed the situation in the former colonies
as one in which “war” is inevitable and the only form of making revolution. On
this basis he has gone further, and put forward that the strategy to be followed
in such a revolutionary war will have to be the same as was followed in China,
completely losing sight of the changes that had taken place in the world since
the Chinese revolution, following on imperialism adopting the neo-colonial
form of exploitation as opposed to the former colonial form of exploitation.
In certain situations, even under neo-colonialism, there may be situations
where war is thrust upon the people, as is the case, presently, in countries like
Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, etc. In such situations, the lessons
learnt during the course of the people’s war in China may well prove invaluable,
though, here also the actual strategy and tactics will have to be worked out on
the basis of the concrete analysis of the concrete situation. However, Lin Biao
is clearly mistaken when he calls for the adoption of the Chinese path universally,
particularly in countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This mistaken
understanding stems from his mistaken assessment of imperialism at that time
which itself stems from a refusal to understand the changes that had taken place
from the colonial system to the neo-colonial system.
In 1966, this mistake was worse confounded with the publication of the
“Red Book” otherwise known as “Quotations from Com. Mao Tse Tung”. Lin
Biao was responsible for the arrangement of the quotations as well as for writing
the foreword. There is a chapter in this book which is on “People’s War”. In
this chapter, disembodied quotations from Mao’s writings do not make it clear
that he was referring only to a strategy and tactics for war and make it seem as
it he was referring to tactics and strategy for revolution.
Mao never talked of “protracted people’s war”. Mao did say in “On
Coalition Government” that “The Chinese people’s War of Resistance has
followed a tortuous course.”. However, he never used the phrase “protracted
people’s war” much less used it to describe a strategy for revolution and even
less insisted that it must be the only form of making revolution in the current
times, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In fact, in one of his most popular military writings, “On Protracted War”,
written in 1938, Mao is careful not to refer to the war of that time as a “people’s
war” since it was being fought in alliance with the Kuomintang and other political
parties of China.

With the popularisation of the Red Book, many ML parties all over the
world took it for granted that the only path for revolution is the path of
“protracted people’s war”, i.e. the establishing of rural base areas and the
encirclement of the cities from the countryside. While insisting that this was
the only path for revolution, many of the ML parties did not realise that they
were restricting them to fighting a war as the only path for revolution. Particulary
in the neo-colonial period, when there has not been any world war for such a
long period, this strategy was eminently ill-suited to the situation. Thousands
of the youth, drawn to this line by their eagerness to fight the right revisionist
line of Khrushchov – the most dynamic and vivacious of the revolutionary
youth all over the world, fell prey to this mistaken understanding.
The net effect of this line was not only the waste of the youth of almost
two generations, but also the divorce of the communist revolutionaries from
the masses. Though, in words, this line called for “people’s war” in effect it led
to communist revolutionaries trying to foment a war where none existed, merely
so that they could turn it into a “people’s war”. Many of the groups which tried
to foment such wars were only tiny miniscule groups which indulged more in
adventurist heroics than in any real war. It became fashionable for all communist
revolutionaries to organise themselves more in the form of armies than in the
form of a party. This line led to the abandonment of the struggle of the workers
and the trade unions to the reformists and the revisionists. It led to the decimation
of the communist youth and students’ movement all over the world and to
isolationist and anarchist slogans like “Boycott of elections”. To live in the
delusion that they were fighting a war, such groups are even willing to abandon
all democratic norms, all communist morals and decency and even the masses.
For two generations now, the communist revolutionaries, under the
influence of the line of “protracted people’s war” have been torn away from the
masses. We have to boldly and unhesitatingly reject this line. A severe struggle
will have to be waged against the many overt and covert manifestations of this
line. Only a very thorough rectification will be able to bring the revolutionary
movement back on the path of socialist and New Democratic Revolution. ●

The Marxist Leninist, Oct 2009

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Issue No.

Theoretical Journal of the CPI (ML)

Editorial Board Umakant

Umakant Contribution : Rs. 25

Printed and Published by Umakant, R-8, Pratap Market,

New Delhi With revolutionary greetings

[Signed by members of the Presidium of the E.C.C.I.: Gottwald,

recurrent crisis was to overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist planned

[SOURCE: by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People’s

[From June 1968 issue of Liberation]

What Has Happened?

[*The experience of revolution and counter-revolution in Indonesia is a

The global imperialism, controlled fully by the world monopoly capitalist,

Latin East Europe CEE South Middle Sub

Non-ferrous metals No. of corporations World market shares in %

The international monopolies let the production facilities acquired in the

100 The Marxist-Leninist

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102 The Marxist-Leninist

Neo-liberalism started out claiming to be able to resolve the crisis of neo-

The Marxist-Leninist 103

[From “Twilight of the Gods – Götterdämmerung over the “New

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106 The Marxist-Leninist

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130 The Marxist-Leninist

[The Red Flag, July-September 1998]

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