This period presented a variety of challenges to Marxism-Leninism. Almost throughout this period it had to literally wage war against the armies of the bourgeoisie. Imperialism tried repeatedly to crush by military force the first land of socialism. It also tried to divert and destroy the movement through its various agents within the Communist Parties. However despite all the attempts of this powerful enemy, Marxism-Leninism made historic advances in this period. It commenced the process of socialist construction in a relatively backward capitalist country; it adopted the correct tactics in an imperialist world war and utilised the war to the advantage of the proletariat; it guided the upsurge of national liberation struggles in the colonies and semi-colonies and developed the correct strategy and tactics suitable for these countries; and it achieved victory in numerous countries and thus established the socialist camp among one-third of humanity. These victories in practice could only become possible because Marxist-Leninist theory did not stagnate. Despite the early death of Lenin, Marxism-Leninism continued, in the hands of the great proletarian teachers, Stalin and Mao, to develop theory to provide answers to all new questions. Further, it was in this period that the foundations were laid for the future development of Marxism-Leninism to a new stage.

This same period for the world of capitalism was one of continuous and severe crisis. At the start of this period it was still embroiled in a devastating inter-imperialist war; before the end of this period another still more devastating world war had shaken its foundations; and between the wars it had faced its most serious economic crisis and had given to humanity the scourge of fascism. For capitalism, it was, as one author has called it ‘The Age of Catastrophe’.

At the beginning of this period, though an historic victory had been won in Russia, the crucial task of stabilising and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat remained. When the capture of state power was accomplished, the World War I was still on in full swing, and Russia was still a party to the war. Its whole economy was in shambles, industries had closed, unemployment was rampant and there were tremendous shortages of food, clothing and essential commodities.

The first requirement was peace in order that the new Soviet Republic may get some respite to consolidate its forces. Britain, France and the United States refused to agree to the armistice proposed by the Soviet Decree on Peace. Therefore separate peace talks with Germany were started and on December 5, 1917, an armistice was signed and negotiations continued to secure a peace treaty. All those opposed to the revolution, including the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, frantically opposed the peace negotiations as they hoped for the fall of Soviet power in war with Germany. Within the Central Committee too there existed a trend led by Trotsky which wanted continuation of the war on the plea of aiding the revolution in Germany. He formed a bloc of ‘Left Communists’, along with Bukharin and others to oppose the leadership of Lenin. In fact, Trotsky, in his capacity as of the negotiating delegation, broke off the peace negotiations, and the war restarted for a few days before the C.C., under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, took the decision to accept the German terms for peace and signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty on February 23, 1918. The differences on this question were so intense that Lenin was forced within two weeks to call the Seventh Congress of the Party in March 1918-within just seven months of the earlier Congress-in order to decide the question of peace. The Congress voted in favour of the Brest-Litovsk Peace by 30 votes against 12 with 4 abstentions. The Peace was a classic example of the Leninist tactics of how to retreat in good order in the face of an obviously superior enemy.

In these first few months besides securing peace with Germany, the Soviet government had smashed the bourgeois state machinery, seized all key industries, and passed on 400 million acres of land to the peasants. Having completed the ‘expropriation of the expropriators’, the Bolsheviks had now to move to the new stage of socialist construction. The tasks of this stage were outlined by Lenin, in April 1918, in his ‘The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government’. He called for strict and universal accounting, control of the whole of production and distribution, raising labour productivity and developing Socialist emulation. In May 1918, Lenin wrote an article on "‘Left-Wing’ Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality", in which he exposed the left phraseology of the ‘Left Communists’ with regard to the Peace as well as to the tasks of socialist construction. He explained how the ‘defence of the socialist fatherland’ was totally consistent with the interests of the international proletariat.

The respite from the Brest Peace however did not last long. In the second half of 1918 the imperialists of Britain, France, Japan and America started military intervention directly, and indirectly, through aid to domestic reactionaries. They financed the various counter-revolutionary White armies, and even sent British, French, American, Japanese, Polish, Serb, Greek and Rumanian troops on to Russian soil. In order to face this all-round attack, the Party had to mobilise the whole country to fight the enemy. The Soviet government introduced a policy of ‘War Communism’. It took over control of middle and small industries, in addition to large-scale industry; it introduced a state monopoly of the grain trade and prohibited private trading in grain; it established the surplus-appropriation system, under which all surplus produce of the peasants had to be handed over to the state at fixed prices; and finally it introduced universal labour service for all classes, making physical labour compulsory for the bourgeoisie, thus releasing workers required for more important responsibilities at the front. This policy of ‘War Communism’ was however of a temporary nature to fulfill the needs of war. It helped mobilise the whole people for the war and thus resulted in the defeat of all the foreign interventionists and domestic reactionaries by the end of 1920 and the preservation of the independence and freedom of the new Soviet Republic. The other factor that helped preserve Soviet power was the revolutionary wave that was then sweeping Europe. The impact was such that the imperialists knew that pushing their own soldiers and sailors to war against the Red Army would most probably result in a mutiny.

This period at the end of the World War I was a time of extreme revolutionary ferment throughout the world. The success of the October Revolution had impact in numerous countries, even where Marxism yet had little or no influence. ‘Soviets’ were formed by tobacco workers in Cuba where few knew then even where Russia was. In Spain the years 1917-19 came to be known as ‘the Bolshevik biennium’ though the local left then was mostly anarchist. Revolutionary student movements broke out in Peking in 1919; and in Cordoba (Argentina) in 1918, which soon spread across Latin America and generated local revolutionary Marxist leaders and parties. The revolution in Mexico entered its most radical phase in 1917 and immediately built a relationship with revolutionary Russia. The October Revolution also immediately had its impact on the Sarekat Islam, the Indonesian national liberation movement’s main mass organisation.

Europe, the main arena of the War, was in the deepest revolutionary crisis. The war had resulted in the overthrow of four feudal autocrats and the break-up of their four great empires - the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg), and Turkish (Ottoman). The state structures were in shambles and the masses were in the mood for revolt. The mass protests started even before the completion of the war. In January 1918, a wave of mass political strikes and anti-war demonstrations swept through central Europe, starting in Vienna, spreading via Budapest and the Czech regions to Germany, and culminating in the revolt of the Austro-Hungarian navy’s sailors in the Adriatic Sea. In September Bulgarian soldiers revolted, proclaimed a Republic and marched on their capital Sofia, before being disarmed with German help. By October the Habsburg monarchy collapsed after losses in battles against Italy. This set off a massive national upsurge which finally led to the formation of numerous new states from the remains of the old empires: Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

In Germany and Hungary however the crisis led to revolution. In November 1918 the German sailors mutinied and this immediately spread a wave of revolt throughout Germany. Soviets were immediately established in Berlin and other cities. These were however crushed in January 1919 after two weeks of street fighting against the reactionary military which had been reorganised by the Social-Democrat government which had succeeded the Kaiser. It was during this period on January 15th that Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by the German White guards. Later a Soviet Republic was formed in Bavaria in April 1919 but this too was crushed.

In Hungary the Communists led a coalition with the Social-Democrats and took control of the government in March 1919. They were however thrown out within five months by military pressure from Allied governments. The struggles of the workers continued for at least four more years but both these revolutions finally ended in failure.

In both cases, though there had been mistakes due to the inexperience of the revolutionaries, the main reason for the failure was the betrayal by the Social-Democrats. In Germany in particular the right Social-Democrats were ministers in government who led the attack on the revolution while the centrists like Kautsky provided round-the-corner assistance. The Communists on the other hand were not strong enough to mobilise and lead the working class in the face of the many difficulties of the time. In Hungary the Communists made the mistake of merging into one party with the Social-Democrat revisionists which affected their ability to lead. Further, though they controlled state power they did try to win over the peasantry by the distribution of land. Also they did not follow the Soviet example of establishing peace with the Allies at any cost.

The ideologue of the Social-Democrat betrayers was Kautsky, who, in 1918, launched a systematic attack on the Soviet government through a booklet, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. His vicious attack on the Bolsheviks, for suppressing the counter revolution, was presented as a question of dictatorship versus democracy, and has since become the catchphrase for the imperialist bourgeois propaganda attack on socialism. Lenin, immediately, in October 1918, gave a fitting reply through his classic The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. While establishing a complete defence of the absolute necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the infinite superiority of proletarian democracy over bourgeois democracy, Lenin further developed on the Marxist understanding of the State which he had presented in his earlier book The State and Revolution.

Due to tremendous preparatory work put in and the world-wide enthusiasm generated by the success of the October Revolution, the Second Congress of the Communist International held in July 1920 was a major success with a wide representation from 21 countries. In particular, Lenin made major contributions to Marxist theory in connection with this Congress. He prepared what he intended as a handbook of Communist party strategy and tactics, which was distributed among the delegates of the Congress. It was called "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder, and concentrated on correcting the ‘leftist’ errors then prevalent in many parties who had joined the International. Lenin also prepared the Theses on the National and Colonial Question adopted at the Congress. It was a landmark document which laid the Marxist-Leninist theoretical foundations for understanding and leading the national liberation struggles then gathering momentum in all the colonies and semi-colonies. Besides, Lenin outlined the basic tasks of the Communist International and the theses on the Agrarian Question adopted at this Congress. The Congress also adopted theses on the role of the Communist Party in the proletarian revolution, on the trade union movement, on Communist Parties and parliament, and the Statutes and Conditions of admission of the Communist International. Besides these theoretical formulations, the International, through its Executive Committee started playing a prominent role in guiding the parties and movements in the various member countries. In particular, it tried to make the utmost of the post-war revolutionary situation in the capitalist countries which continued till 1923. However primarily due to the betrayal of the Second International Social-Democrats, as also the ideological and organisational weaknesses of the Communist Parties in these countries, revolution could not be successfully completed in any other capitalist country.

From 1921 there was another turn in the situation in Russia. After completing victory in the war against the foreign and domestic reactionaries, the task had to shift to the peaceful work of economic restoration. For this a policy shift was made from War Communism to the New Economic Policy(NEP). According to this, the compulsory surplus appropriation from the peasants was discontinued, private trade was restarted and private manufacturers were allowed to start small businesses. This was necessary because the measures had gone too far ahead and were being resented by certain sections of the mass base of the party– particularly the peasantry. However the Trotskyites strongly opposed the NEP as nothing but a retreat. Lenin, at the Tenth Congress of the Party, in March 1921, countered the Trotskyites and convinced the Congress of the policy change which was then adopted. He further gave a theoretical substantiation of the correctness of the NEP in his Report on the Tactics of the Russian Communist Party presented before the Third Congress of the Communist International in July 1921. The NEP continued till end 1925, when the Fourteenth Party Congress took the decision of moving to the next phase of socialist construction, that of socialist industrialisation.

During this period, Lenin fell seriously ill towards the end of 1922 and remained relatively inactive till his death on January 21, 1924. Taking advantage of Lenin’s absence due to illness, the Trotskyites and various opposition groupings within the Party got together to issue a declaration of the Forty-Six Oppositionists. Their platform was a demand for freedom of factions and groups within the Communist Party. They circulated their declaration and a letter from Trotsky throughout the Party and gave a challenge for a discussion. A discussion was held throughout the Party but the Oppositionists viewpoint was thrown out by all except some cells in the universities and offices. The Thirteenth Party Conference held in January 1924, summed up the discussion and condemned the Opposition as a petty-bourgeois deviation from Marxism. The whole discussion was guided and led by Stalin who had by then taken up the prime leadership and responsibility of the Party.

Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin), was born on December 21st 1879, in Gori, Georgia. His father, a shoemaker, as well as his mother, came from families of peasant serfs. Stalin’s parents, poor and illiterate, came from the toiling masses. He spent five years at the Gori ecclesiastical school, from where he was recommended as the ‘best student’ for entrance to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, the most important institution of higher learning in Georgia, as well as a centre of opposition to Tsarism. At the age of 15 he first came in contact with secret Marxist circles, and at the age of eighteen joined the first Socialist organisation in Georgia. In 1899, he was expelled from the Seminary and from then he became a professional revolutionary. He soon led major struggles and built a strong political organisation among the workers. He was arrested in 1902 and banished to Siberia in 1903 for three years. He however escaped within a few months and again involved himself in the activities of the RSDLP. He took a clear position against the Menshevik leadership of the Party in Georgia. He attended the December 1905 Bolshevik Congress where he met Lenin for the first time. It was at this time he wrote his booklet Anarchism or Socialism. He was arrested again in 1908, 1910, and 1912 and banished to Siberia, but each time escaped and returned to activity. During a major part of his time out of exile he played the role of editor of Pravda. Finally when he was arrested in 1913 he was sent to the remotest parts of Siberia from where he could only return after the February 1917 Revolution.

At the end of the period of the NEP, when the decision for the next phase had to be taken, there was again a major debate at the Fourteenth Congress of the Party held in December 1925. Zinoviev and Kamenev, had formed a ‘New Opposition’ which proposed an agrarian oriented economic plan for Russia as opposed to the socialist industrialisation plan of the C.C. which focused on heavy industry. This would have meant making Russia dependent upon, and thus an appendage of, the imperialist countries. The Congress thus firmly stood by the C.C. plan. Following this direction rapid progress was made in the sphere of industry with production rapidly crossing pre-war levels.

In fact throughout this period the Party had to continue to wage the class struggle against various factions and groupings representative of the bourgeois and kulak viewpoints. Thus after a long struggle against the Trotskyite opposition, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Party in1927. The struggle with the Bukharin-Rykov clique continued until it was discovered that they were playing the role of agents of foreign espionage agencies. They were brought to trial and sentenced to death in 1937.

For most of the period between the wars the world capitalist economy seemed to be in a state of collapse. World industrial production in the twenty five years from 1913 to 1938 rose by only eighty per cent as compared to double this rate in the earlier twenty five years. The situation in world trade was worse where the total for 1948 was almost the same as for 1913; and this was compared to a doubling of trade between the early 1890s and 1913. The period started with the spectacular collapse of the monetary system in one of the largest capitalist countries – Germany – with its currency in 1923 falling to one million millionth of its 1913 value. It reached a so-called boom (which was correctly analysed by Stalin as merely a relative stabilisation) in 1924-29 when unemployment averaged between 10 to 12 per cent for Britain, Germany and Sweden and 17-18 per cent for Denmark and Norway – extraordinarily high as compared to the pre-1914 years.

However the worst phase was what was called the Great Depression of 1929-33, from which capitalism never really recovered even up to the Second World War. It was a crisis affecting practically the whole globe, from the most industrialised to the most backward. During the first two years -1929-31 - the US and Germany, the foremost manufacturers, saw industrial production fall by one third. For 1932-33, the worst year, unemployment figures for the most advanced countries ranged from 22-23% for Britain to 44% for Germany. The price of tea and wheat fell by two thirds, and the price of raw silk by three quarters. Even the price of rice crashed. Some of the countries badly affected by these price failures were Argentina, Australia, the Balkan countries, Bolivia, Brazil, British Malaya, Canada Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Ecuador, Finland, Hungary, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Indies (present Indonesia), New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. In short, practically the whole globe was in the grip of the crisis.

As economic hardships increased, contradictions sharpened and many countries faced renewed waves of social and political unrest. Chile overthrew its military dictator in 1931, Brazil ended its oligarchic ‘old Republic’ in 1930, Cuba threw out a corrupt President, Peru failed in an attempt at revolution during 1930-32, Colombia changed over from Conservative rule to the reformist Liberals; in Egypt and India there was an expansion in the independence struggles; in West Africa and the Caribbean too mass social unrest made its first appearance. Thus throughout the colonies and semi-colonies the Depression period saw struggles and a shift towards the left. In the imperialist countries, the ruling classes tried desperately to contain the social consequences of the crisis. It was by then apparent that the free market economics of the pre-war period did not offer any solution. Some like Sweden with its social-democratic reforms, and the US with Roosevelt’s New Deal introduced welfare economics for the first time. They were however exceptions. The more attractive solution for the ruling class was to move to the right or to fascism. Italy by then was already fascist; Japan shifted from a liberal to a national-militarist regime in 1930-31; Germany brought the Nazis to power in 1933. Many other imperialist countries saw a shift to the right and a retreat of the social democratic left. As fascist Germany rapidly built up its industrial and war machine and drastically cut unemployment it seemed to have more and more, an increased attraction for sections of the imperialist ruling classes.

As major industrial nations set up fascist governments, they aggressively initiated local wars in preparation for a new world war for the re-division of the world. The milestones on the road to world war were the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931; the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935; the German and Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39; the German invasion of Austria in early 1938; the German crippling of Czechoslovakia later the same year; the German occupation of what remained of Czechoslovakia in March 1939; the Italian occupation of Albania; and the German demands on Poland which actually led to the outbreak of war. Throughout this period the other imperialist powers like Britain, France and the USA were adopting a policy of appeasement towards the fascist aggressors and attempting to use them to destroy the Soviet Republic. It was in such dangerous conditions that the international proletariat had to draw up its tactics.

During the twenties the Third International continued to unite many more forces, particularly from the colonies and semi-colonies. It also attempted to help the movements there, particularly China (which we will refer to later). In 1928 it held its Sixth Congress which adopted the Programme and Statutes of the International and Theses on the International Situation and on the Revolutionary Movements in colonial and semi-colonial countries. It then itself warned of the danger of a new world war and drew up the tactics to be followed. These tactics basically followed the understanding of turning the war into civil war.

The Third International while not being able to combat these revisionist tendencies, had also lost its effectiveness in providing guidance in the vastly differing conditions faced by the various member parties. Except for the regular publication of its periodicals, Comintern activity had greatly reduced from 1940 and even the customary May Day and October Revolution Manifestos were discontinued between May 1940 and May 1942. It was finally decided to dissolve the Comintern. Since a Congress could not be convened in the conditions of war the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) sent out a resolution recommending the dissolution of the International to all its sections. The resolution was sent out on 15th May 1943 and after receiving approval from most of the sections, including all the important sections, the Comintern was dissolved on 10th June 1943.

The resolution stated among other things that, "The deep differences of the historic paths of development of various countries, the differences in their character and even contradictions in their social orders, the differences in the level and tempo of their economic and political development, the differences, finally, in the degree of consciousness and organisation of the workers, conditioned the different problems facing the working class of the various countries.

As soon as the Comintern was dissolved the journal Communist International ceased publication. Shortly afterwards a new periodical, in Russian and other languages, appeared, entitled The War and the Working Class (after the war its title was changed to New Times). Soon after the completion of the war, the Information Bureau of Communist and Workers’ Parties (Cominform) was set up through a founding conference in September 1947. This too was soon dissolved in 1956.

During this period a major centre for the development of Marxism was the advancing class struggles of the Chinese Revolution. For 28 years, the Communist Party of China had led the Chinese Revolution through many ups and downs, and a protracted war and had finally succeeded in seizing state power in the most populous country in the world in October 1949. Its Chairman, Mao Tse-tung had, through a struggle against numerous deviations, developed Marxist theory in diverse spheres. He had charted out the path for the advancing revolutions in the colonies and semi-colonies. Though till then he had not played such a prominent role at the international level, his contributions to Marxism-Leninism would be the invaluable weapons in the hands of the international proletariat in the years to come.

Mao Tse-tung was born on 26th December, 1893, in a peasant family in Shaoshan village of Hunan province. He had his primary education in a private school, and then in the higher primary school of Xiangxiang county and in the middle school at Changsha, the provincial capital. After the 1911 bourgeois Revolution he served for half a year in the insurgent New Army. He joined the Hunan Fourth Provincial Normal School in 1913 and completed his school education by 1918. His early thinking was varyingly influenced by classical philosophical writings from Confucius to neo-Hegelianism. From his childhood Mao had a fervent love for his country and a boundless urge for revolutionary truth.

In April 1918, he set up the New Peoples Society in Changsha with the aim of finding out new ways to transform China. By the time of the May Fourth Movement in 1919 Mao already came in touch with Marxism and began embracing it. In July 1919 he started a magazine called Xiangxiang Review in Hunan to spread revolutionary ideas and the following year he organised a Cultural Reading Society to study and propagate revolutionary ideology. In 1920 he started communist groups in Changsha. As one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao attended the First National Congress of the CPC as one of its 12 delegates in July 1921. He became the Secretary of the Hunan Regional Party Committee and led the worker’s movement in Changsha and Anyuan. In June 1923, the Third National Congress of the CPC, attended by Mao, decided to promote an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal national front in co-operation with the Kuomintang Party led by Sun Yat-Sen and directed its members to join the Kuomintang Party as individuals. The First and Second National Congresses of the Kuomintang held in 1924 and 1926 elected Mao as an alternate member of its Central Executive Committee. He worked as Head of the Central Propaganda department of the Kuomintang, edited the Political Weekly and directed the Sixth class at the Peasant Movement Institute.

While fighting these two deviations, Mao made his first major contributions to the development of Marxist theory. In March 1926, he brought out his famous Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society and in March 1927, he presented his Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan. In these works, while basing himself on the correct Marxist-Leninist standpoint and method and on the Leninist theses on the national revolution in the colonies, Mao developed the fundamental ideas of the New Democratic Revolution. He answered the questions of who were the friends and enemies of the Chinese revolution, who was the leading force and who were the reliable and vacillating allies. He also pointed the path along which the masses were to be mobilised, a revolutionary government established and the peasant armed forces organised. This was Mao’s clear perspective for the direction the revolutionary forces should take during the Northern Expedition-a critical stage of the First Revolutionary Civil War in China. However, though these ideas were forged in the crucible of the advancing Chinese revolution, they held tremendous significance for the storm of revolutions then rising in the countries oppressed by imperialism.

The Third International at that time also paid considerable attention to the questions facing the revolutions in these countries, particularly China. Stalin too, while correcting the wrong directions being proposed by Zinoviev, Trotsky and others, gave broadly correct directions to the Chinese revolution. He too however could not develop, specifically and sufficiently, the Marxist tools of New Democratic Revolution and Protracted People’s War necessary to understand and lead the revolutions in the colonies and semi-colonies. Thus the International could not rectify in time the various incorrect Right and ‘Left’ lines that at various times dominated the Chinese Party until Mao’s leadership was established in 1935.

The Right line of Chen Tu-hsiu dominated throughout the period of the First Revolutionary Civil War and was one of the main reasons for the failure of the revolution during this period. In August 1927, at the start of the next period– the Second Revolutionary Civil War Period– Chen Tu-hsiu was removed as General Secretary after a firm criticism of his Right capitulationism. However the correct criticism of the Right line gave way almost immediately to the domination of a ‘Left’ line in the Central Committee. This line erroneously appraised the Chinese revolution as being on a ‘continuous upsurge’, and therefore called for armed uprisings in many cities. This led to heavy losses and the abandonment of this line by April 1928. The Sixth Congress of the CPC held in June 1928 rectified this first ‘Left’ line and adopted a basically correct understanding, repudiating both the Right and ‘Left’ positions. It was while implementing this understanding, and while building up the Red Army after the failures of the Northern Expedition and the city uprisings, that Mao made his further contributions to the development of Marxist-Leninist theory. He wrote Why is it that Red Political Power can exist in China? in October 1928, and The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains in November 1928. These historical works provided the theoretical basis for the historical process of building and developing the Red Army then under way. They also laid the initial foundations for the development of the Marxist-Leninist understanding regarding the Path of Protracted People’s War– the path for the revolutions in the colonies and semi-colonies. Implementing this understanding Mao led the systematic building up of revolutionary base areas in large areas. Soviets were built and a Provisional Government of the Chinese Soviet Republic established.

However ‘left’ ideas again started gaining ascendancy and from 1930 took over the leadership of the party. Two ‘Left’ lines led by Li Li-san in 1930 and Wang Ming in 1931-34 dominated the party and caused incalculable harm. Chiang Kai-shek meanwhile organised repeated campaigns of encirclement and suppression against the Red base areas. In order to break through Chiang Kai-shek’s encirclement and win new victories it was decided from October 1934, to undertake the world-shaking strategic shift, known as the Long March. It was during the Long March, at the Tsunyi Plenum of the CPC, in January 1935, that leadership of the party moved into the hands of Mao and his policies. It was then decided to continue the Long March in the northward direction to be able to better co-ordinate the nation-wide anti-Japanese movement which had been growing continuously since the Japanese attack and occupation of North-eastern China in 1931.

Thus immediately after the completion of the Long March, Mao concentrated on the adoption and implementation of a new tactical orientation in order to end the Civil War and unite the maximum forces for a War of Resistance against Japan. His presentation On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism was a major development of Marxist-Leninist United Front tactics. This was later further developed in his May 1937 Report on The Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party in the Period of Resistance to Japan. Giving a brilliant exposition of the stage of development of China’s internal and external contradictions, Mao explained the change in the Principal contradiction caused by Japan’s aggression and therefore the change in the United Front tactics necessary to face the new situation. It was a classical example of the use and development of Marxist philosophy to solve the problems of the revolution.

Around the same time, Mao made outstanding contributions to the Marxist theory of cognition and dialectics through his philosophical essays, ‘On Practice’ and ‘On Contradiction’. They were written as an attack on subjectivism and dogmatism then rife in the Chinese Party, but served also to present and develop universal Marxist philosophical concepts in a simple manner for the international proletariat.

This is also the time when Mao wrote Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War, a systematic Marxist-Leninist presentation of military science and its application to China’s revolutionary war. This, combined with his later works (in May 1938) Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War against Japan and On Protracted War, raised Marxist-Leninist military science to a new plane. They not only gave the direction for the victorious Chinese Red Army but laid the theoretical foundations for waging wars of national liberation throughout the world.

The other major development of Marxist science of this period was Mao’s comprehensive presentation of the theory of New Democracy. This is contained particularly in his works On New Democracy, ‘The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party’ and ‘Introducing The Communist’ during the years 1939-40. While firmly establishing the ideological basis of New Democracy and outlining the revolutionary motive forces and tasks, Mao also brought to the forefront the necessity of developing the three magic weapons– United Front, People’s Army and Communist Party– for the successful completion of revolution.

The end of the Second World War saw the world of Imperialism engulfed in one more serious revolutionary crisis. The War which massacred an estimated fifty-four million lives had also destroyed the economies of all the leading imperialist countries except the USA. The old colonial powers were in no position to hold on to their colonies. An upsurge of national liberation struggles thus saw the collapse of all the empires of the imperialist world. As it became clear that direct rule would not be possible for the imperialist ruler the old colonial systems of England, France and the Netherlands quickly gave in. The Japanese empire collapsed in 1945 itself with defeat in the war. The countries which immediately went through the process of decolonisation and were given formal independence were Syria and Lebanon in 1945, India and Pakistan in 1947, Burma, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) in1948. Meanwhile popular movements and armed struggles for national liberation continued through out the colonies.