Comrades,
This conference is occurring at an historic time in the history of the international communist movement. It is a time when there is a growing unity around the general line of the international communist movement. This unity around Marxism-Leninism is occurring in a direct struggle against revisionism.
This is a joyous occurrence for authentic Marxist-Leninists throughout the world because, after a number of years of relative disunity, during a period when the international communist movement had not completely consolidated the victory over modern revisionism, after a number of grave years of attack by opportunism and anti-Leninism from within, the international communist movement has taken a decisive offensive against all forms of revisionism and reaffirmed the revolutionary content of Marxism-Leninism.
We have seen this unity manifested in a number of ways and it has occurred around the correct Marxist-Leninist line on the present international situation.
It is thus highly appropriate for there to be a conference of the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement on the international situation at this time and it is our hope that the result of this conference will be the consolidation of a closer unity between authentic Marxist-Leninists in Canada with the international communist movement. This unity can only occur, however, on the basis of adherence to the general line of the international communist movement and unity around a single correct line on the international situation.
It was nearly a year ago that the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania was held. It was an occasion when the PLA invited Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations to attend this congress and hear the historic report by Comrade Enver Hoxha. Comrade Hoxha’s Report was a brilliant application of Marxism-Leninism to the present international situation. It was a consolidation and strengthening of the general line of the international communist movement and it was consistent with the single correct Marxist-Leninist line adhered to by the Party of Labour of Albania throughout its history.
Comrade Hoxha’s Report represents a decisive turning point for the international communist movement and has provided most timely and vitally needed leadership to authentic Marxist-Leninists throughout the world.
Although the international communist movement, with leadership by the Party of Labour of Albania and the Communist Party of China, scored many victories against modern Soviet-led revisionism, the unity of the international communist movement was not consolidated to the degree that is necessary. This in part relates to the fact that authentic communist parties had to be reconstructed in most countries of the world. Principally it relates to the pernicious influence of an anti-Leninist theory that has been openly propagated in the international communist movement. This is the so-called “theory of three worlds.”
The “theory of three worlds” was decisively demarcated against as anti-Leninist by the Party of Labour of Albania in the July 7th editorial of Zeri i Popullit.
In the Canadian movement there has been a tendency, unfortunately, to regard the PLA as having advocated a ”new” line, a line that goes against the “norm” of the international communist movement. This could not be further from the truth, because it is the PLA that has adhered most closely to the general line of the international communist movement developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. It is the PLA that bases itself on the general line of the international communist movement in the struggle against modern revisionism.
The Canadian movement did not develop on the basis of the struggle against modern revisionism. It has developed at a time when the pernicious influence of the “theory of three worlds” was actively attempting to subvert the unity of the international communist movement. In fact, in Canada, all groups in the movement adhered to the “theory of three worlds” to one degree or another.
In the Canadian movement there has been a general level of ignorance on the history of the international communist movement and of the international situation in general. This ignorance has been cultivated by the rampant opportunism in our movement that has seen the building of organizational hegemony and economist leadership of the spontaneous economic struggle of the proletariat as the sine qua non of Marxism-Leninism.
These opportunists have heaped every kind of abuse on those Marxist-Leninists who have tried to learn and apply the lessons of the international movement, calling them dogmatists, sectarians, petty-bourgeois intellectualists, book worshipers, trotskyites, etc., etc.
This was the tactic of the modern revisionists against the PLA and the CPC. It is now the tactic of a number of proponents of the “theory of three worlds” against the PLA and those who unite with the PLA in upholding the correct Marxist-Leninist line on the international situation. It is in knowing and in upholding the general line of the international communist movement that revisionism will be exposed, and so it is predictable that revisionism will do everything that it can do to attempt to sabotage knowing and upholding this general line. It is therefore on this general line that we shall speak today.
The general line has developed since the time of Marx and Engels and it has developed in the struggle against opportunist and revisionist deformations. It was the struggle in the Second International that was particularly decisive, because the Second International had become infested with self-proclaimed “Marxists” who in fact were opportunists, social-chauvinists, revisionists and agents of the bourgeoisie whose rallying cry was unity with the imperialist bourgeoisies of the world. The authentic Marxists waged a resolute struggle against this refuse and built the unity of Marxists on the basis of adherence to and defense of the purity of Marxism. It was, of course the Bolsheviks of Russia, led by Comrade Lenin, who were foremost in leading the struggle for Marxism.
It was the Russian Revolution that was the first breach in the imperialist chain, and this revolution decisively changed the course of history, for it was this revolution that divided the world into two irreconcilable camps which would fight to the death against each other: the camp of imperialism and the camp of socialism.
The camp of socialism was led by the Soviet Union and the Communist international and its ideology was Marxism-Leninism. Bolshevism, Leninism, was no longer confined to Russia, because it was a theory for proletarian revolution throughout the world. Leninism based itself on a correct understanding of imperialism and the necessary strategy to defeat it. Marxism-Leninism became the basis for the general line of the international communist movement, and it was around Marxism-Leninism that all authentic Marxists were united into the Communist International. It was a unity that was unprecedented because it was a unity around a single correct Marxist-Leninist line for proletarian revolution.
This line was based on a correct understanding of the contradictions of our era. Leninism understood that imperialism intensified all the contradictions of society, particularly the three main ones: the contradiction between labour and capital in the capitalist countries, the contradiction between the oppressed peoples and nations and imperialism, and the contradiction between imperialisms.
Leninism understood that the intensification of the contradiction between labour and capital and the growing revolutionary crisis in imperialist countries was leading to the explosion of the internal front, the front of proletarian revolution. Leninism understood that the incredible barbarous exploitation of the vast majority of the world by a handful of imperialists was greatly intensifying the contradiction between the oppressed peoples and nations and Leninism understood that imperialism was bringing about a revolutionary crisis within the colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries. A second front of revolution was opening, a national liberation front.
At the same time the frenzied competition between imperialists to divide the world, as Comrade Stalin stated, ”weakens imperialism and facilitates the union of the first two fronts against imperialism: the front of the revolutionary proletariat and the front of colonial emancipation.” (Foundations of Leninism, p.27).
Stalin goes on to say “that under Imperialism wars cannot be averted, and that a coalition between proletarian revolution in Europe and the colonial revolution In the East In a united world front of revolution against the world front of Imperialism Is Inevitable.” (ibid) There is “one general conclusion: ’Imperialism is the eve of socialist revolution’ ” (ibid.).
The Russian Revolution in October 1917 was the first break in the imperialist chain and it created a new contradiction – the contradiction between socialism and capitalism. This contradiction tied all the others into a knot and created two camps, two fronts. On the one hand stood the camp of imperialism composed of the imperialists, capitalists, comprador bourgeoisies, feudalists – imperialism and all world reaction. Opposed to them stood the camp of socialism – the socialist countries, the international proletariat, and the oppressed nations and peoples struggling for liberation.
The October Revolution converted the colonies from a reserve of imperialism to a reserve of socialist revolution. The October Revolution made the contradiction between socialism and capitalism the fundamental contradiction of our era. It is in the struggle between these two camps that sixty years of the glorious and heroic history of the socialist camp have been written.
By the middle of the twentieth century, socialism and the socialist camp stood as the most potent force in the world, the imperialist camp was in retreat, licking its wounds, and planning insidious schemes against socialism. But there was only one way that the imperialists could slow the march of socialism, and that was by trying to destroy it from within. The modern revisionists did exactly this in the Soviet Union and some other socialist countries - a most insidious history that we are all familiar with.
Neither Marxism-Leninism nor the socialist camp were the property of any one country or any one party. They belong to the peoples of the world. They belong to the peoples of the world. Try as they did, the Khruschevite revisionists had the greatest difficulty in trying to revise the general line of the international communist movement. The Soviet Union had to launch an open attack on the general line and on the PLA and the CPC in order to attempt to have the international communist movement follow them into the pit of revisionism.
It was the Soviet Union that went on an insidious campaign to split and wreck the international communist movement and make it an appendage of the new tsars in the Kremlin. The PLA and the CPC led an heroic struggle that saved the international communist movement from the attempts of modern revisionism to destroy it.
Try as they did, the revisionists could not stop the international communist movement from steeling itself in the struggle against modern revisionism, from leading the socialist camp into new battles to topple imperialism and social-imperialism.
But in the period of reconstructing the communist vanguards throughout the world, the imperialists and revisionists did not cease their dirty work.
The imperialists have been trying, unsuccessfully, to bury the socialist camp for sixty years. If they fail by direct methods, they try from inside. The theory of three worlds” is just such a theory. Under the signboard of Marxism-Leninism, it serves imperialism by trying to convince Marxist-Leninists, the international proletariat and the oppressed nations and peoples that the socialist camp no longer exists, that all that is left is to unite with your “own” bourgeoisie against other bourgeoisies. It is nothing in essence but a recycled version of the same social chauvinism that destroyed the Second International.
Because the Soviet Union and some other socialist countries became capitalist countries, the theoreticians of the “three worlds” tell us that the socialist camp no longer exists. This has been the wild ambition of the imperialists and modern revisionists for sixty years, but it is an unrealized ambition because socialism still exists and is growing.
The theoreticians of three worlds, however, try to cover up the fact that the socialist camp came into existence with only one socialist country. But the theoreticians of “three worlds” would have us believe that the interests of socialist countries do not lie with leading the socialist camp in the struggle to overthrow imperialism, rather with the countries of the so-called “third world”, of which the socialist countries are supposedly a part.
The “theory of three worlds” abandons any class analysis of the so-called “third world” but instead puts forward the view that all these countries have “the same fundamental interests”. The theoreticians of the “three worlds” are trying to tell us that socialist countries have the same fundamental interests as Pinochet, Geisel, Suharto, and the Shah of Iran. Maybe the theoreticians of the three worlds have the same interests as these fascist butchers, but the only interest any genuine socialist country has in these fascists is to help dig their graves!
The imperialists would, of course, love to have socialist countries in the same relationship to imperialism as most of the so-called “third world” countries.
In order to get people to accept this “theory”, its proponents go so far as to say that the imperialist camp, too, no longer exists, that it is only the two superpowers that are imperialist, and in fact since US imperialism is supposedly on the “defensive” we need only worry about Soviet social-imperialism. Soviet social-imperialism is supposedly “the main danger to all the peoples of the world”. This is, of course, something the US imperialists would very much like to have the world believe. After having been so thoroughly exposed in the last thirty years, the US imperialists would like attention focused elsewhere so that they can get on with ensuring “human rights”, that is, the rights of US imperialism all over the world.
But, as Comrade Hoxha states, “Concrete facts and actions, the objective reality, leads us to the conclusion that In the world today the two superpowers, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, are the biggest and most dangerous aggressive Imperialist powers known in history. Each separated or together, the superpowers represent, in the same degree and to the same extent, the main enemy of socialism, and the freedom and independence of nations, the greatest force defending oppressive and exploiting systems, and the direct threat that mankind will be hurled Into a third world war.” (Report Submitted to the Seventh Congress of the Party of Labour of Albania, Tirana, 1976, p. 166).
It is this threat that mankind will be hurled into a third world war that most preoccupies the theoreticians of the “three worlds”. Lenin warned against letting war oppress your thinking, and this is precisely what has happened to the theoreticians and proponents of “three worlds”. Instead of dealing with the threat of war on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, these people tell us that world war between the superpowers is “inevitable and independent of human will”, that people are just deluding themselves if they think they can struggle against imperialist war, that they must get prepared for war.
And how are we to prepare for this war? According to the theoreticians of “three worlds” we prepare for it by having the imperialists of the world who are on the “defensive” arm to the teeth and prepare to take the “offensive”.
This can be seen most clearly in the case of the countries of the so-called “second world”. In the “theory of three worlds” these are the weaker imperialist and capitalist countries that are supposedly “independent” of the superpowers. In reality, all the theoreticians of “three worlds” talk about is the countries of Western Europe, Canada, Japan, etc.
The “theory of three worlds” calls for the economic, political, and military unity of the western European imperialist bourgeoisie. But, as Comrade Hoxha correctly stated, “together with NATO, the Common Market constitutes an organized base and rear area of US imperialism in Its rivalry and contest with the other Imperialist power, the revisionist Soviet Union” (Report, p. 171). Therefore, to call for the unity of Western Europe is to call for the strengthening of the US imperialist bloc. If for some reason it becomes historically possible for a united Europe independent of the superpowers to arise, what would this be but the birth of another superpower? The dream of European imperialists, but certainly not a dream of the workers of Europe or the people of the world, with the exception of the theoreticians of “three worlds”.
The “theory of three worlds” also calls for the “unity” of the “second world” with the “third world” and calls for nothing other than the liquidation of the difference between oppressor and oppressed nations and for the victims of imperialism to “unite” with their victimizers, a precious “unity” indeed – precious for the imperialists!
The PLA says that “this is an anti-revolutionary ’theory’ because it preaches social peace, collaboration with bourgeoisie, hence giving up the revolution, to the proletariat of Europe, Japan, Canada, etc., who have to fight the monopoly bourgeoisie and the system of exploitation in the countries of the ’second world’ because, the interests of the defence of national independence, and particularly the struggle against Soviet social-imperialism, allegedly require this”. (“The Theory and Practice of the Revolution”, editorial in Zeri I Popullit, in LINES OF DEMARCATION no. 6, p. 9)
At least the social chauvinists of the Second International had the “decency”, shall we say, to wait until the war broke out before they openly allied with imperialism. In fact, as the PLA states, ”the so-called theory of ’three worlds’ does not lay down any tasks for the revolution...In the scheme of the ’three worlds’ the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie does not exist”, (ibid., p.5).
For the “theory of three worlds”, the only task of the proletariat is to be cannon fodder for the imperialists. In fact, the theory of “three worlds” goes so far as to remove the proletariat and the rest of the socialist camp from the stage of history and instead substitutes the so-called “third world” as “the motive force propelling history forward”. This is not to be confused with national liberation struggles because to the “theory of three worlds” it is the countries of the “third world”, without distinction, that are this motive force. For our part, bloody fascist dictators like Pinochet, the Shah of Iran ant Suharto are propelling forward only one history: the history of imperialism and the savage exploitation and oppression of the masses of people in the countries they rule.
The PLA says that “to speak in general terms about the so-called ’third world’ as the main force of the struggle against imperialism and the revolution, as the supporters of the theory of the ’three worlds’ are doing, without making any distinction between the genuine anti- Imperialist and revolutionary forces and the pro-imperialist, reactionary and fascist forces in power In a number of the developing countries, means a flagrant departure from the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and to preach typically opportunist views, causing confusion and disorganization among the revolutionary forces. In essence, according to the theory of three worlds’, the peoples of those countries must not fight, for Instance against the bloody fascist dictatorships of Gelsel in Brazil and Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, the Shah of Iran or the King of Jordon, etc., because they, allegedly are part of the ’revolutionary motive force’ which Is ’driving the wheel of world history forward’. On the contrary, according to this theory, the peoples and revolutionaries ought to unite with the reactionary forces and regimes of the ’third world’ and support them, in other words, give up the revolution”, (ibid., p.7).
The example of recent events in the country of Zaire gives concrete exposure of the “theory of three worlds”. The theoreticians of “three worlds” claim to oppose both superpowers, but the facts are that when Zaire was invaded, did these “theoreticians” have anything to say in condemnation of the role of US imperialism? No, they only denounced the Soviet Union. Did they denounce the US for giving aid to Mobutu? Did they condemn Mobutu’s long-standing subservience to US imperialism and the CIA? Did they condemn Mobutu for the fascist reactionary that he is? No, No, and No again. Instead they praised the French imperialists for showing great “unity” with the “third world” by arming Mobutu. They praised Morocco for providing arms and thus “unifying” the “third world”. They, of course, mentioned nothing about the fact that France and Morocco did this because of pressure from US imperialism. And we might ask, what did the ”theoreticians of three worlds” do for the Revolutionary Marxist Party of Congo-Kinshasa?
The PLA states quite correctly that “the partisans of the theory of the ’three worlds’ call for an alliance of the ’third world’ with these imperialist countries and with US imperialism against Soviet social-imperialism”, (ibid., p.8).
The theory of “three worlds” completely abandons the united front of the socialist countries, the international proletariat and their natural allies and seeks to substitute a “united front” of the countries of the world, including US imperialism, against Soviet social-imperialism. This theory call for the ”unity” of the peoples of the world with the US-led imperialist bloc.
The PLA correctly states that “Today the modern revisionists, the supporters of the theory of ’three worlds’ and the theoreticians of ’non-alignment’, while saying nothing about the revolution and preparation for it, in fact are trying to sabotage it and to keep the status quo of the capitalist order in existence.” (ibid., p.10). The PLA adds that “to preach the division into ’three worlds’, to Ignore the fundamental contradiction of our times, to call for alliance of the proletariat with the monopoly bourgeoisie and of the oppressed nations with the imperialist powers of the so-called ’second world’, is not to the advantage of the international proletariat or socialist countries. It is anti-Leninist.” (ibid., p.10).
All Marxist-Leninists owe a special debt of gratitude to the heroic Party of Labour of Albania and the heroic people of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania who once again are standing up to revisionism and leading the struggle for the purity of Marxism-Leninism.
Even though Albania is a small country, its ideas are large because they are the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, they are the ideas of the international communist movement. It is Comrade Hoxha and the PLA that are struggling for the unity of the international communist movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, on the basis of the general line of the international communist movement. They are struggling for unity on the basis of a single correct Marxist-Leninist line on the international situation.
It is the proponents of the “theory of three worlds” that are trying to split the international communist movement. The theoreticians of “three worlds” recognize nearly any collection of opportunists as long as they sing the praises of the ”theory of three worlds”. The “three worldists” are using the tactics of the Soviet revisionists in a frantic effort to hide behind a mask of Marxism-Leninism. But the PLA has torn the mask from their faces, exposing the cancer of anti-Leninism which it covered.
Says the PLA: “The present day anti-Leninist theories of the ’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.” (ibid., p. 12)
Canada has just such “groupings of anti-Marxist elements” that are doing their best to try to cover the opportunist revisionist essence of the “theory of three worlds” by attacking those Marxist-Leninists who are struggling for the unity of the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement around a single correct Marxist-Leninist line. These groupings of anti-Marxist elements, these neo-revisionists are walking in the footsteps of Tim Buck, the “father” of modern revisionism in Canada.
Tim Buck was used by the Soviet revisionists to make the first open attack on the PLA. There are those in Canada who seem to desire to do the same dirty work for the theoreticians of “three worlds”. Although thieves may quarrel, they are united around one thing: their opposition to Marxism-Leninism. It is, of course, not surprising to see those who have never supported the October Revolution, those who have openly attacked Lenin and Stalin, be pressed into service by the theoreticians of “three worlds” to spread more anti-communism.
Some of these groupings of anti-Marxist elements are afraid of attacking the PLA because it would expose them. Instead they denounce those who unite with the international communist movement as counterrevolutionaries and denounce those who publish the Zeri i Popullit editorial as opponents of socialist China. They accuse the real Marxist-Leninists of trying to split the international communist movement. But it is these neo-revisionists who are trying to split the international communist movement by promoting the international unity of neo-revisionists for the purpose of opposing the real Marxist-Leninists, it is these neo-revisionists who have attacked socialist China in deed.
These elements like to talk of their “correct line”, but they cannot defend it, they are hiding, they are afraid to be confronted with the criticism of Marxism-Leninism. They are paper tigers that will be swept away with the refuse of history, with the Bernsteins, the Kautskys, the Plekhanovs, and the rest of the social-chauvinist scum who have tried to infect the international communist movement with their festering opportunism.
In the history of the international communist movement, whenever there has been a decisive struggle against revisionism, there emerges a stratum of “centrists” who try to take up the middle, who try to conciliate Marxism-Leninism with revisionism, with opportunism, and with social-chauvinism. This is always a stratum of petty-bourgeois, along with the labour aristocracy, who vacillate between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie but whose objective function is to serve the bourgeoisie. These “centrists” exist in Canada as well.
They, of course, reject the “three worlds” as a “strategic concept”, deny that it is even a “theory”, but give it support as an “analysis” and other such nonsense. They talk of “debate” over the correct line of the international communist movement rather than firmly upholding it.
In the interests of an opportunist unity within the international communist movement, they refrain from a complete break with the “three worlds”, they refrain from a complete exposure of the “three worlds” as revisionism. They prefer to “follow the debate” which is of course “of great interest and importance to us all”. They claim to oppose Canadian imperialism but they refuse to recognize the right of self-determination for Native Canada, the colony oppressed by their “own” bourgeoisie. In refusing to defend the correct line, the “centrists” have revealed their lack of leadership in the movement.
Comrade Stalin clearly warned that “besides overt opportunism, there is covert opportunism, which fears to show its true face. And this is precisely the opportunism of conciliation towards the Right deviation. Conciliation is craven opportunism”. (“Combatting Deviations and Conciliation Towards Them”, Works, v. 11, p.308).
The Bolshevik Union will not conciliate with the “three worldists” in Canada. The correct Marxist-Leninist line on the international situation is not up for endless “debate”, it is up for adoption by the authentic Marxist-Leninists. We have no ”debate” with the proponents of the “theory of three worlds”, rather it is our revolutionary duty to purge the “theory of three worlds” from the Canadian Marxist-Leninist movement and to build the unity of our movement around a single correct Marxist-Leninist line. It is only on this basis that an authentic Communist party will be reconstructed in Canada; it is only on this basis that the Canadian proletariat will be led to socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Despite the splitting efforts of proponents of the “theory of three worlds” in Canada, despite the attempts of centrists to conciliate with the “theory of three worlds”, building this unity will not be stopped. The unity of the International communist movement is growing all over the world. The international conferences in Italy, Portugal, Germany and Greece, the joint statements of six Latin American Parties, and other such concrete manifestations of unity are the growing evidence of this.
The proponents of the “theory of three worlds”, the modern revisionists, their conciliators and the imperialists, whose interests they serve, can quiver in fear because the international communist movement is steeling itself in unity around a single correct Marxist-Leninist line, and it is this unity that will be their destruction.
WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITEI WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES AND OPPRESSED NATIONS AND PEOPLES UNITEI LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM! LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM!