In the struggle towards the growing unity of the international communist movement around a single Marxist-Leninist line, a firm and definite line of demarcation is being drawn against the theory of “three worlds.” The Party of Labour of Albania took leadership in drawing this line of demarcation, when in its July 7th editorial entitled The Theory and Practice of the Revolution it identified the theory of “three worlds” as anti-Leninist, anti-Marxist and anti-revolutionary.
Since that time a growing number of Parties and groups in the world have joined in this demarcation against the counter-revolutionary theory of “three worlds.’’ The Joint Declaration of five European Parties, signed in October 1977, has clearly underlined the counterrevolutionary strategy which follows from the theory of “three worlds” and has explicitly noted it as being in antagonistic contradiction with Marxism-Leninism. In addition, the Communist Party of Brazil, the Communist Party of Japan (Left), and the Communist Party of Germany (M-L) – the KPD(ML) – have all issued statements labelling the theory of “three worlds” counter-revolutionary.
The Party of Labour of Albania has been careful to emphasize that there is no fundamental or significant distinction between the newest form of revisionism embodied in the theory of “three worlds” and the various other forms of revisionism which have preceded it, including Khrushchevite modern revisionism. On the occasion of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, the PL A stated:
Other revisionists, supporters of “Eurocommunism”, who have completely degenerated into the most narrow-minded social-democrats, are furiously rising against the violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, coming out openly with the anti-Marxist theses of the reformist “democratic” road, “historic compromise” with the parties of the bourgeoisie and even the Vatican, the bourgeois police and army, preaching “socialisms” of all colours, except for the proletarian one, and trying with all the manners of means to turn down the historic experience of the October Revolution.
The anti-Leninist and counter-revolutionary theory of the “three worlds” also has the same aim, the extinguishing of the revolution and the preservation of the status quo of the capitalist order. To defend the theory of “three worlds” means to become an advocate of the interests of US-led imperialism, the bourgeoisie and international reaction. The bearers of this anti-Marxist theory speculate with the cause of the struggle for national independence, separate it from the cause of the victory of the revolution and make use of it to justify their pragmatist policy of unprincipled alliances with US imperialism and with the other imperialist powers or with various reactionary forces. (Hysni Kapo, The Ideas of the October Revolution are Defended and Carried Forward in Struggle Against Modern Revisionism, Tirana 1977, pp. 39-40)
And, on the occasion of the celebration of the independence and liberation of the Albanian homeland, the PLA further emphasized:
Yugoslav revisionism was the forerunner of the 20th Congress and the first to establish its rule in its own country. For all this, Tito has the full right to boast of being the father of modern revisionism. Therefore all the revisionists, wherever they happen to be, render great honours to, and pompously welcome, him, consider him as their Saviour and God. But the stand towards Yugoslav revisionism has been and remains a touchstone which distinguishes the genuine Marxist-Leninists from the revisionists. The Albanian people say: “Birds of a feather flock together”. To make common cause and reconcile ideologically with the Yugoslav leadership means not to be Marxist, but revisionist.
We see that in the revisionist and anti-Marxist jungle another theory has emerged – the theory of “three worlds”, which is presented as a new theory, but which in fact is very old. We find the ideological roots of this theory in Bernstein, Kautsky, Trotsky, Bukharin. The theory of “three worlds” constitutes a very great danger for the international communist and workers’ movement; it is the theory of the extinction of the revolution, the theory of unconditional capitulation before the bourgeoisie and allround alliance with US imperialism, it is the theory of the suppression of the liberation struggle of the peoples. (Mehmet Shehu, Socialist Albania Will Never Budge from its Revolutionary Positions, Tirana 1977. p. 18)
The link between Yugoslav revisionism, Khrushchevite revisionism, and the theory of “three worlds” can in fact be made quite directly. The theory of “three worlds” is really only a warmed-over form of the theory of “non-alignment” which Tito first used to pollute and infest the international communist movement with opportunism and counter-revolution. Renegade Nikita Khrushchev, who befriended and conciliated renegade Tito, was the first to speak of the “third world” as if it were the world’s principal “non-aligned” force. But these traitors were not able to wreck or destroy the international communist movement; those faithful to Marxism-Leninism were able to expose their plots and intrigues. Thus, for example, the PLA never accepted the concept of a “third world” and stated as early as 1964, in reference to the Togliatti extreme right-wing of contemporary revisionism:
In his “testament” Togliatti urges the revisionists, wherever they happen to be, to step up their efforts against the Marxist-Leninist parties and their authority and influence in the world. He is especially worried about the ever-greater influence of Marxist-Leninists, particularly of the CP of China, in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, or the “third world”, as Togliatti calls these zones. Therefore he recommends that the revisionist groups must intervene more actively in these zones, with the aim of combating the positions of Marxist-Leninist parties there and liquidating their influence. He proposes “...an international meeting called by a number of western communist parties, with a wide-range of representatives of democratic countries of the ’third world’ and their progressive movements, for the purpose of working out a concrete line of collaboration with and aid for these movements. This would be one way to combat the Chinese with facts and not just with words”.
Why are P. Togliatti and his henchmen so worried about the situation in the socalled “third world”? (“Togliatti’s Testament, the Crisis of Modern Revisionism and the Struggle of the Marxists-Leninists.” October 1964, in Enver Hoxha, Speeches and Articles 1963-1964, Tirana, 1977, pp. 277-278)
It is clear, then, that the theory of “three worlds” has never been a legitimate part of the international communist movement. What it represents is a newer form which the bourgeoisie is using to undermine and subvert the unity of the international proletariat in its revolutionary struggle to abolish exploitation and oppression. But as the Communist Party of Brazil has correctly stated:
It is an unquestionable fact that theses and conclusions alien to Marxism-Leninism are long since circulating in the communst ranks. They are preented as new truths and the fruit of a long study but in reality they have absolutely no foundation and nothing in common with a class analysis of the present-day society. One of them is the so-called “theory of three worlds” which was brought up in 1974 at the General Assembly of the United Nations. It was a rash manifestation which ignored the opinions existing in the revolutionary movement on international questions.
The authors and supporters of the “theory of three worlds” were forced to declare that they considered it neither more nor less than the strategy of the revolutionary movement, a strategy which was discussed neither at a party congress nor looked into in detail by the communists. From all the vociferating against those who did not accept the thesis of relying on one of the two superpowers, it became clear that this strategy included precisely this thesis. By using the erroneous method of imposing a definite line on all the parties, without conducting any consultations, they took offence at the stands of those who disagreed with them and considered these stands as attacks on their party. (A New Step in the Struggle Against Opportunism, Tirana 1977, pp. 4-5)
As the theory of “three worlds” has forced itself into the ranks of communists in a heavy-handed and unprincipled manner; as it is a theory which attemps to subvert and undermine the steel-like unity of international communism, around a single general Marxist-Leninist line, it follows inevitably that this theory will be used by anti-Marxists and counter-revolutionaries the world over to seek to sabotage the proletarian revolution wherever they can. From the beginning this has been an outstanding feature of the theory of “three worlds.” The PLA has correctly noted this fact when it stated:
The present-day anti-Leninist theories of of three worlds, “non-alignment”, and so on, are also aimed at undermining the revolution, extinguishing the struggle against imperialism, especially against US imperialism, splitting the Marxist-Leninist movement, the unity of the proletariat advocated by Marx and Lenin, creating all kinds of groupings of anti-Marxist elements to fight the true Marxist-Leninist parties which stand loyal to Marxism-Leninism, the revolution. (“The Theory and Practice of the Revolution”, Albania Today, no 4 (35). p. 29)
And the five-Party Declaration affirmed the danger of the creation of these “groupings of anti-Marxist elements” when it stated:
It is a fact that there are people who are following in practice a policy directed against the unity of the communist movement. With the aim of imposing the “theory of three worlds” and other opportunist concepts, efforts are being made to exert pressure on various sister parties, to split them and create factions in their ranks. In a series of countries, groups of opportunists and provocateurs are supported against the existing communist parties and the creation of such groups is encouraged. On the other hand, in practice relations are severed with the sister parties for the sole reason that they do not accept this opportunist line, at a time when the above mentioned groups of opportunists and provocateurs, which are completely isolated from the masses, are described as “communist parties”, for the sole reason that they mechanically repeat the opportunist stands. (Joint Declaration, Tirana, p. 30)
In Canada there is no authentic communist party at this period in history. But there is a Marxist-Leninist movement of struggle to create this party, a movement which recognizes that building the party is the principal task of Marxist-Leninists. The theoreticians of “three worlds” have therefore assigned themselves as a top priority the destruction and sabotage of the movement to reconstruct an authentic party of the Canadian proletariat.
The leading representatives of the theory of “three worlds” in Canada is the so-called “Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist)”. The “CCL(ML)” is precisely one of those “groupings of anti-Marxist elements” which have been created by the bourgeoisie to undermine and sabotage the socialist revolution in Canada. The “CCL(ML)” is precisely a group of “opportunists and provocateurs”, “completely isolated from the masses”, but which is achieving an increasing amount of international kudos because it “mechanically repeats the opportunist stands” of the revisionist theory of “three worlds”. To split, wreck, disorient and confuse the primitive but growing revolutionary movement in Canada, the League has from the beginning objectively conceived of itself as the next “party of the proletariat”, and will openly declare the party in a matter of time, standing in line behind the discredited counter-revolutionary Bainsites (the so-called “CPC(ML)”), mechanically repeating a counter-revolutionary political line and organising a whole line of goons and thugs to enforce the hegemony of its political line amongst progressive and advanced elements. Those who do not capitulate to the League’s goons and thugs are denounced, those who do not tail behind the League as it spreads its reign of terror and fascism amongst the masses are seen as “anti-communist“ and “reformist”, those who do not go along with the League’s plots to force the Canadian working class into its class-collaborationist strategy are forced to flee under penalty of assault and violence.
Such is the dirty work of the theoreticians of “three worlds” in the context of the struggle to reconstruct an authentic party of the Canadian proletariat.