A concrete analysis of the main contradictions in the world and the method for resolving them – that is, the strategy and tactics of the proletarian revolution – are the starting point for determining how to overthrow our “own” bourgeoisie. As Marxist-Leninists in the United States, we study the international situation to help develop the revolutionary struggle against the US imperialist bourgeoisie and lend support to revolutionary forces throughout the world.
Of great significance to the international communist movement is the current two-line struggle for a correct position on the international situation and its application worldwide revolutionary movement. On’ one side stand the revolutionary forces, led by the Party of Labor of Albania, forging ahead in the struggle against the new revisionist line. On the other side is the new revisionist trend, led by the Communist Party of China, and represented most clearly by the theory of three worlds.
The struggle against this new form of modern revisionism is complex and difficult. It must be directed principally against the CPC, which has a long and proud history, which until recently was one of the two main international centers of communism and revolution, and whose degeneration into revisionism is all the more devastating on this account. We consider the current struggle to be at least as significant, if not more so, than the one the CPC and PLA waged together against the Khrushchevite revisionism of the late 50’s and early 60’s.
This new revisionism is much more than an ideological deviation. The CPC’s development and elaboration of the theory of three worlds (TTW), and the People’s Republic of China’s cessation of aid to the People’s Republic of Albania in July of last year, among other things, have helped Marxist-Leninists in this country and abroad determine that revisionists have seized power in China, and at the very least, have undermined the dictatorship of the proletariat. The CPC’s current approach toward the question of what class holds state power, questions of socialist construction, relations with fraternal parties, and many other things, are called into question and demand to be examined in detail. The new revisionism did not spring up full-grown over night or out of nowhere. We will have to trace its roots and see how it has developed over the years.
As Marxist-Lenini3ts in the United States, we know that there is a close connection between taking a correct stand on the international situation and building a genuine Marxist-Leninist party. While not all of the specific implications of the TTW are fully developed yet, and while we only have hints of how the line and practice of groups and parties upholding the TTW are affected by it – we’re thinking of groups like the CP(ML), the League of Revolutionary Struggle, the Bay Area “Communist” Union, and their approach to trade union work, especially around the labor aristocracy, for example – we do know that the line as it ha3 been best expressed by the CP(ML) promotes social-chauvinism and class collaboration, and, if followed consistently, will guarantee defeat for genuine revolutionary forces throughout the world.
There are a number of Marxist-Leninist organizations and individuals in the US who are trying to uphold the TTW, but who are vacillating and inconsistent in defending and applying it. We feel that principled ideological struggle must be waged against these wavering forces in particular, to draw clear lines between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism, and to win them over to the correct position. In this way genuine forces can unite and move closer to forming the vanguard party in the US.
What’s wrong with the TTW? First, the entire concept is undialectical, unscientific, and anti-Marxist. It divides the world solely on the basis of size and technological development, not on the basis of the interests of the working class or the dictates of proletarian internationalism. The TTW deals solely with quantity of technological development, with the quantitative development of the productive forces not with quality, that is, with the question of what class holds state power. It is a blatant liquidation of Lenin’s theory of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism and the eve of proletarian revolution, although the CPC calls it a new “strategy” for revolution.
The practical consequences of implementing the TTW are devastating for the genuine revolutionary forces. The theory and its practitioners, at least the consistent ones, advocate class collaboration all along the line. This means unity between the workers and capitalists of the lesser imperialist countries to defend their “national sovereignty” – what in World War I was called “defense of the fatherland” –against the external threat of the Soviet Union. It means unity of all classes in the colonies and former colonies, regardless of the class character or internal policies of the rulers, provided only that the foreign policy is anti-Soviet. Under the guise of “unity between second and third world countries” it calls on the progressive peoples of the colonies and former colonies to unite with their current and former masters no matter how brutal and reactionary – Iran, Chile, Zaire come immediately to mind – in an unholy alliance with Western imperialism against the Soviet Union.
It even allows Teng Hsiao-Ping, according to Thursday’s Rocky Mountain News, to urge “the United States, Japan, Western Europe, and the Third World to join China in ’solid, down-to-earth united action’ to thwart Soviet aggression around the globe.”
It is difficult to regard this policy as anything but class collaboration and social-chauvinism.
But some upholders of the TTW are completely unwilling to accept the consequences of their theory insofar as this means they are unwilling to support upfront social-chauvinism such as support of the B-l bomber and neutron bomb, unwilling to repeat the preposterous lie that the criminal Pahlevi dynasty in Iran was “objectively anti-imperialist”, unwilling to support such “heroes” of the third world as Pinochet, Mobutu, Tito and Sadat, credit is due. They may be honest and confused. But, as we told LPR more than a year ago: We agree on refusing to support arms to the Shah, on opposing NATO, on opposing increases in the US defense budget. If you comrades would only bring your theory in line with your positions, we would have a substantial basis to struggle toward higher unity.
Let’s take a moment to go into the development of the terms of the TTW. The idea of a “third world” was originally devised by the US, acting in collusion with British and French imperialism in 1955. It was their intention to use this political line to mobilize several anti-communist blocs: one headed by Tito, which would try to organize a “third force” among socialist countries to destroy the unity of the socialist camp, and another to be organized around Nehru of India, consisting of “non-aligned” nations that were supposedly neither capitalist nor socialist. While Stalin exposed the Titoite bloc, the bloc of “non-aligned” nations made some headway and convened the 1955 Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Nations, which took up the question of the “third world”. The Chinese delegation attacked this idea and maintained that the world was divided into two camps, capitalist-imperialist and socialist, and the only way the newly-independent nations would be completely free from imperialism would be through socialist revolution. In place of the “third force” idea, the Chinese put forward the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which were to become guidelines for the relations between states with different social systems. The Five Principles were adopted at Bandung and the “third force” movement sponsored by US imperialism was defeated.
That was 1955. Even as late as 1972, the Chinese made no mention of the old “third force” idea. The closest they came was a statement that “between these two overlords”, that is, the US and the USSR, “and the socialist countries, there exist two broad intermediate zones.” These two intermediate zones consisted of the developed capitalist countries, with the exception of the two superpowers, and those colonies and former colonies that had not conducted successful socialist revolutions.
As far as we can see, the Chinese first began to use the term “third world” in 1973. We would refer comrades to Chiao Kuan-Hua’s speech at the 28th Plenary Session of the UN General Assembly in October, 1973 and the Report to the 10th Party Congress the previous August, both of which use the term, as well as to our articles in the Workers’ Press, which are available here. However, as most comrades are aware, it was Teng Hsiao-Ping’s speech at the Special Session of the UN General Assembly in April, 1974, that raised the issue of the TTW to the fore. The present Chinese position adheres in all essentials to the ideas Teng put forward, and these are what we would like to address, in a moment.
But first, we want to mention that MLC viewed the 1972 formulation of broad intermediate zones as a tactical compromise with various (mostly national) bourgeois elements, designed to isolate the US and USSR. However, we understand that the governments of countries in these intermediate zones could in no way maintain any independent, or what is today called “non-capitalist” path of development for any length of time. Why not? Because the world was fundamentally divided into imperialist and socialist camps and independence from socialism could only mean gravitating closer and closer into the orbit of one or more imperialisms, while independence from imperialism can only be achieved through socialist revolution.
Whether the concept of two broad intermediate zones was at the root of the TTW or not we haven’t fully evaluated. It deserves further study. But it is clear that the TTW submerges the socialist countries into one of those two intermediate zones.
Instead of using the contradictions among the various imperialist powers to drive a wedge between them, the revisionist TTW liquidates the difference between countries with the dictatorship of the proletariat and countries with the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It denies the leading role of the proletariat and its party. It upholds and defends the leading role of the local reactionaries instead. Thus, while the concept of “broad intermediate zones” recognized that the process of polarization around socialism or imperialism was not complete, the TTW absolutized the division of the world into three parts.
Are these three parts in any way consistent with a Marxist-Leninist analysis? Are the three parts the socialist countries, the imperialist powers, and those parts of the world caught in between, as the 1972 formulation put it? No! The three parts are just the big, medium and small; the overdeveloped, somewhat-developed and under-developed. In other words, the TTW divides the world solely on the quantitative basis of differing levels of development. It belittles, no, ignores and passes over the qualitative basis for analyzing the world, namely, what class holds power in each country? What kind of social system exists? What are the relationships between various countries?
Of course, levels of development of the productive forces vary in different places. To ignore this altogether would be to ignore a part of reality. But to absolutize it at the expense of some of the most basic and fundamental concepts of Marxism is a basic hallmark of the newest brand of revisionism. The profound Theorists of Three Worlds will analyze the world on the basis of any criterion but class.
Similarly, the idea that the so-called Third World, meaning countries with various bourgeois elements in power, is the main force fighting against imperialism contains a grain of truth – and a pound of distortion. There have been two standard uses of the term “main force” in the history of Marxism-Leninism. In Foundations of Leninism, Stalin refers to the proletariat and its party as the main force in the revolution, while the peasantry is considered the main reserve and other elements make up secondary or indirect reserves. The Kansas comrades take this question up in some detail in their speech. However, in the course of the Chinese revolution the terms were used somewhat differently. There the peasantry was often referred to as the main force, while the proletariat and its party were considered the leading force.
Now, taken numerically, the peoples of the various colonies and former colonies have provided the most fighters in various battles and wars against imperialism, just as the Chinese peasantry provided the greatest number of fighters against foreign imperialism and internal reaction. That is why, based on numerical strength, they can be called the main force. But the TTW fails to speak to the question of the leading force – not just where the troops come from or the location of the battle, but the class character of their leadership. In the Chinese revolution it made complete sense to describe the proletariat and its party as the leading force, while the peasantry was the main force. Similarly, while the peasantry and urban popular masses in many countries comprise the main force opposing imperialism, the leading force must be the international proletariat, reflected in the leading role of the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties of various countries. But the TTW belittles the leading role of the proletariat, its party, and its dictatorship, and happily hands over the mantle of legitimacy to various petty-bourgeois, burocrat-capitalist, semi-feudal, and comprador cliques. If we use Stalin’s terms, the essence of the question remains the same, but worse. Instead of being “half-right” by taking a half-truth and ignoring the other half, the TTW’s distortion of reality and revisionist negation of the leading role of the proletariat and its party is even more blatant, since “the masses” are substituted for “the party”.
Does our opposition to the class collaboration and social-chauvinism of the TTW mean that we must be some kind of ultra-leftists, some kind of “purists”? Do we say that no compromise or alliance is ever possible with various bourgeois elements, under any conditions?
No! We don’t see anything wrong with making certain tactical alliances and compromises with bourgeois elements where these compromises are dictated by the actual development of the struggle at hand. But we do say it is wrong for genuine Marxist-Leninists to confuse those under their influence by glossing over class differences, or to praise, let alone bolster, reactionary regimes at the very moment the people are rising to overthrow them.
Most comrades are probably familiar with the timing of Hua Kuo-Feng’s recent trip to Iran. Let’s look at China’s trade with the Chilean junta. In October of last year, China signed an agreement to buy 30,000 tons of copper and 20,000 tons of nitrate from Chile. Although trade between the two has been increasing ever since the fascist coup d’etat in 1973, Latin America Economic Report referred to the two recent deals as “significant coups” for Chile, with “a significant effect on Chile’s trade balance.” And all this while a state of siege was in effect in the Chilean copper mines, as scores of Chilean miners were detained while Codelco, the state copper company, refused to meet with them.
Perhaps Codelco was too engrossed in its negotiations with the Chinese Trade Delegation to meet with its miners.
How about an example of a correct tactical alliance? Sometimes it is possible and necessary to make temporary alliances, even with one section of the comprador bourgeoisie against another. In China this took the form of splitting the US, British, and French-oriented compradors from the Japanese-oriented compradors in order to defeat the main enemy, which at that time was Japanese imperialism. But this was done with full knowledge and adequate warning that, for instance, the Kuomintang (KMT) was an extremely unstable and treacherous ally. The TTW seeks to make alliances with the US or other Western-oriented sections of the comprador bourgeoisies of many countries against the Soviet-oriented sections, but no analysis is put forward that points to the existence of any classes at all, much less of the contradictions within the ruling strata. And the alliances are absolutized. Instead of calling for the tactics of specific alliances for specific purposes, the TTW elevates alliances with Western-oriented compradors to a universal strategy, a principle applicable at all times and places. The result is a series of contributions to the stabilization of comprador regimes at the expense of the people’s revolutionary movements. Again, Chile is only one example.
Let’s touch briefly on another, related question. Do we require that any liberation movement be led by a genuine Marxist-Leninist party before we can give it our support? Of course not’ The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a case in point. In our special issue of the Workers’ Press, February-March 1978, devoted to the TTW and the situation in the Middle East, we clearly put forward our support of the PLO’s militant, anti-imperialist stand at the Tripoli Conference. There they rejected all “imperialist, Zionist, reactionary solutions” to the Arab-Israeli conflict, affirmed “the rights of the Palestinian people to return and control our destiny in our country....”, condemned any forces which would obstruct the establishment of a progressive Arab front, and so on. Their stand reflected the general and immediate interests of the Palestinian people. However, we reserve the right to criticize the PLO when they do not stand in the interests of the Palestinian masses. Is this “ultra-left”?
It is wrong to fail to warn the people of the temporary and unstable nature of certain alliances with a liberation movement. The people, the working class especially, must be conscious and vigilant if they are not to be deceived.
The TTW has important consequences for the workers of Western Europe, Japan and Canada – the so-called “Second World.” It advises them to stop preparing for proletarian revolution and unite with their imperialist bourgeoisies against “the most dangerous enemy”, the Soviet Union. Defense of national sovereignty is substituted for socialist revolution as the primary task of the respective parties. Class struggle is replaced by class collaboration.
This social-chauvinist line is justified first by downplaying or liquidating the imperialist nature of the lesser imperialist powers. It claims that imperialism of the second world variety is just a matter of preferred policy, thus separating economics from politics in the traditional Kautskyist fashion. Second, the TTW claims that the Soviet Union is the main danger, the main source of war, the aggressive, annexationist, hegemonist “Polar Bear”. Should war break out between Soviet Social-Imperialism and some combination of lesser imperialist countries of Western Europe, the three worlds theorists insist that the French, Italian, or, more likely, the German working class should support the governments that today help to keep them enslaved, in wars of national defense and supposed national liberation.
Not surprisingly, what the TWT conveniently forgets is Lenin’s analysis of imperialist wars, namely: who starts the war is of little or no consequence; but the class character of the war, the contradictions that lead up to the outbreak of war, must be analyzed. We see an inter-imperialist war in the making, one in which the proper task of the proletariat in a lesser imperialist country under attack would be to use the opportunity to “turn the imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war”. Here we would encourage comrades to go back and read, or re-read Lenin on Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism” “The Junius Pamphlet”, and “The Collapse of the Second International” and see whether Lenin’s views or those of the TTW revisionists are more correct.
As for the so-called “First World”, that is, the US, here the TTW has been most consistently upheld by the CP(ML)– with the smiling approval of such famous “friends” of the US working class as James Schlessinger, Richard Nixon, and Scoop Jackson, “the Senator from Boeing” who will more than likely show Teng Hsiao-Ping around that giant defense plant today or tomorrow.
Comrades, there are many problems with the TTW. But we do want to touch upon a few other points.
Assuming that people are honest and have some grasp of the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, how could they uphold this revisionist theory, at least for any length of time? Only by having incorrect views on the question of the Main Danger, the inevitability of world war, the exact nature of the Soviet Union today, or by trying to combine the TTW with Lenin’s teachings on imperialism – with which, of course, it is incompatible.
Let’s take a brief look at these questions.
Much has already been said on the question of the Main Danger, and we refer comrades again to our Worker’s Press articles. We have unity with the Albanian view that the two superpowers together are the main enemy of the peoples of the world. We see the imperialist system itself as the main cause of the continued existence of wars, whether inter-imperialist rivalries, other forms of imperialist predatory war, wars of national liberation, or revolutionary civil wars. But as far as which country’s armed forces, intelligence services, or financial interests pose the main danger to the people of a particular country or region, this must be examined in detail, case by case.
For instance, we have done considerable research on Soviet penetration of Argentina, where Soviet influence is greater than in the rest of Latin America (except Cuba). We point out, in our Special Issue on Latin America: “Certainly, relative to US imperialism, the penetration of Soviet social-imperialism in Latin America is fairly limited and weak. But it would be undialectical to overlook the motion of that penetration, which is one of rapid acceleration, and it would be mechanical to measure that penetration only in terms, say, of trade, or the export of Soviet finance capital, or for that matter, only in terms of the Soviet Union. Social-imperialism spreads its tentacles in many forms: through the military of a given country; through the revisionist “communist” parties throughout Latin America; through its Eastern European satellites, which march to Moscow’s tune; through Cuba and its market; through sectors of the comprador bourgeoisie of various countries.
But even given all these considerations, we believe it would be incorrect to consider the USSR the main enemy of the Argentine people, nor would it be correct to say that the USSR is the main enemy or main danger to Latin America in general. US imperialism remains the main enemy of the peoples of Latin America today. On the other hand, could any serious Marxist-Leninist suggest that US imperialism is the main threat today to the people of Angola, or Eritrea?
The main objection we are aware of to the analysis that the US and USSR together are the main enemy of the people of the world is a purely formalistic one: namely that there can never be two main enemies or main dangers, only one; and that to claim otherwise is somehow undialectical. People who put this argument forward don’t seem to be affected by the fact that our analysis reflects the actual conditions, and actual relations between forces, in the world. We don’t think that the Three World Theorists have proven that the Soviet Union should be considered the main danger or main enemy by doing the necessary calculation of overall economic, military and political strength of the two superpowers. Instead of concrete investigation and analysis, they throw together a hodgepodge of facts, falsehoods, and figures, comparing apples to oranges, and so forth. Our investigation has shown that the two superpowers have relatively equal strength and pose a relatively equal danger when compared with any other forces in the world. However, whether the two are “absolutely equal”, or which one is dominant in which area, is something that must be subjected to close examination. Further, to claim that the relation between the two superpowers is static would be undialectical, not to say false. But this only further indicates that we must constantly strive to keep abreast of changes in the world situation as they occur. To make our general position clearer, we should note that we agree that the motion of the USSR is on the incline, while that of the US is on the decline. But, in our view, the situation does not really indicate Russian superiority.
For instance, in our WP article on the Middle East, we polemicized at some length with the Three Worlders of Workers Congress and Workers Viewpoint, who were essentially following the line of the CPC. These people claimed that the US was losing its hold in the Middle East. But our research showed just the opposite, and we supported our position with documentation of the increasing penetration of US capital especially in Egypt and Syria. At the present moment, with Iran ’destabilized’ the US may lose one of its major outposts in Western Asia. Then again, it may not. Our point is: just because the US is in a general process of decline does not mean it can’t be the main danger in many specific instances and places for a relatively long time to come, even if and when it is surpassed by the Soviet Union as a bigger or more powerful enemy of the peoples of the world.
To tell the truth, comrades, even if the US should become a 3rd rate power, our main task, our main internationalist duty, as communists in the US, is to prepare the conditions for the overthrow of the US monopoly capitalist bourgeoisie–not to call for increases in the defense budget so that “we” (meaning the bourgeoisie) can “defend ourselves” against the “Soviet menace”.
So does the formalist objection to the US and USSR together constituting the main danger to the peoples of the world make any sense? No.
But there are other reasons why honest people could be confused about the TTW. One is the extravagant revisionist claim, clearly articulated in Peking Review #45 (1977), that world war is inevitable. This is in flagrant contradiction to what we had always accepted as the standard Marxist formulation of the question, namely: regarding the possibility of a new world war there are two alternatives. Either revolution will prevent the war, or the war will give rise to revolution. It seems to us that PR #45 puts forward a major deviation on this question. Its consequence is the same as Khrushchev’s attempts to stem the tide of revolutionary peoples’ struggles on the pretext that “some madman” might set off a world conflagration.
Another cause for confusion is the analogy between the Soviet Union today, or in 1977, and Hitler Germany in 1938. There are three points to the analogy, first, that the Soviet Union is a fascist state, and second, that its position in the world is exactly equivalent to that of Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II, and third, that China is not only a socialist country, but it occupies exactly the same position in the world today as the SU did in 1938.
Let us mention only a few features that contrast this analogy.
Although we have no doubt concerning the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, and, consequently, the correctness of the term, ’Soviet social-imperialism’, we do not see sufficient evidence at this point to classify it as a ’fascist dictatorship of the Hitler type’. We don’t see a widespread, popular fascist movement nor a systematic genocidal policy. And there doesn’t appear to be a declaration widely supported by the Soviet people to wage a conscious, predatory war against socialism.
But even if we’re wrong and the USSR is a fascist dictatorship of some kind, this does not automatically mean that it occupies an equivalent place in the world to that Nazi Germany occupied in 1938. Does the USSR present a danger to socialism? Of course. But so does the US, and so does China. This raises another point. Is it possible for a socialist country to be ruled by revisionists without becoming transformed into capitalism? Even Teng said in 19 74, “If capitalism is restored in a big socialist country, it will inevitably become a superpower.” But regardless of whether Teng’s and the revisionists’ aims for China’s future are realized, we think there is ample evidence to show that China today and in the recent past has not been following a foreign policy that is at all consistent with proletarian internationalism, and is not at all analogous to the foreign policy of the Soviet Union on the eve of WWII.
To continue on the analogy: Are the policies of the US and its NATO allies in any way similar to Chamberlain’s 19 38 concessions to Hitler at Munich? (The British at that time thought they could ’appease’ Hitler by allowing the annexation of Silesia and the Sudetenland–it didn’t work.)
We think that close examination will show that the situation is different today.
Finally, some honest and well-intentioned revolutionaries buried their heads in the sand a few years ago and persistently refuse to extricate themselves. We are referring to those who claim that the TTW, by itself, is not a complete analysis, but is somehow useful in combination with the four major contradictions in the world, or who uphold the theory while rejecting its consequences. In this category we have the unlikely assembly of WC, WVO, LPR, and until recently, the RWC in the Bay Area, among others.
Comrades, we do hope to see those who uphold one of these views attempt to justify it. So far, the attempts we have seen have been feeble indeed. That is not because the comrades are not capable or intelligent people, but because the views themselves are unjustifiable. They are completely inconsistent with revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. Further, these comrades are not even consistent in upholding their views. Even the Chinese revisionists and the Klonskyite class traitors shrink from such inconsistent combinations of two into one.
We call on the comrades once more: you have taken proletarian internationalist stands in the past. You have refused to support the obvious social-chauvinist and class collaborationist consequences of the TTW. If you will only bring your theory in line with your practice, comrades, we can work more consistently together on our main task – preparing the socialist revolution in the US.