Let the Inevitable Struggle Begin!

"The development of the proletariat proceeds everywhere amidst internal struggles. And when, like Marx and myself, one has fought harder all one's life against the alleged socialists than against anyone else (for we only regarded the bourgeoisie as a class and hardly ever involved ourselves in conflicts with individual bourgeois), one cannot greatly grieve that the inevitable struggle has broken out." -- Frederick Engels, "Letter to August Bebel", 28 October 1882.

In the past several years, and with a crescendo, the imperialists, reactionaries and their apologists the world over have been engaging in an orgy of self-congratulation over the so-called death of communism. Not only have they boasted of the defeat of their Cold War rivals of the USSR and East Europe (falsely portrayed as communists), they have even raised the claim that the ideology of communism (Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought) has been "defeated" by the ideology of liberalism and (bourgeois) democracy as it has emerged in the West, along with the development and growth of capitalism.

This preposterous claim has been lent great credence by the fact that the former revisionist chieftains of the East Bloc (Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and others) have joined the yelping dogs of the West in denouncing the "entire experience" of the proletarian revolution in the former socialist world. The focus of the bourgeois ideological offensive has been on the very idea of the proletarian revolution, the idea that the working class must violently overthrow the existing state power and establish its own rule, its dictatorship of the proletariat, and wield this weapon of state power to bring into being a whole new type of society, socialist society, which is itself a transition to the final abolition of classes altogether, communism.

This question of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" lies at the very heart of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. And the most important ideological struggles through which this revolutionary science has developed have been focused precisely on this question of the proletarian dictatorship. Marx first put forward the slogan of "dictatorship of the proletariat" on the basis of summing up the experience of the short-lived Paris Commune of 1871, the first revolution in history led by the working class. He did so in sharp opposition to different types of false socialists, anarchists and reformers of his day who could not see, or who opposed, the necessity of the working class to impose its own rule through force.

Of Lenin's many great contributions in his development of Marxism, the central one was his defence and theoretical advance of the Marxist understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the translation of this understanding into practice through his leadership of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. He had to fight tooth and nail against those who argued that the proletariat of Russia had no "right" to make revolution. It should be remembered that at the time of the Russian Revolution Lenin was in a small minority in the international socialist movement, and he was opposed by the most "learned Marxists" of his day (the German Karl Kautsky, most notably) who attacked his thesis on the dictatorship of the proletariat and accused him of deviating from Marx's actual teachings on the subject.

This great struggle of Lenin was no mere scholastic quarrel. It was the reflection in the battle of ideas (or theory) of the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie that was taking place on the streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow, on the battlefield of the Civil War in Russia and then in the fight to transform society. It was largely through this struggle that Leninism developed as the new stage of Marxism.

The essential kernel of Mao Tsetung's development of Marxism-Leninism also concerned the proletarian dictatorship. He led the revolutionaries in the international communist movement in defeating the theses of Khrushchev who had attacked the dictatorship of the proletariat and declared it outmoded. Mao also summed up the many decades of experience of proletarian dictatorship, positive and negative, in the USSR under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, as well as the experience of socialist revolution in China itself, and developed the theory of "continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat".

Mao's defence and development of the communist understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat was thoroughly connected with his ability to carry the revolution in China to new heights. It provided the theoretical underpinning of the historic Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in which he led millions in overthrowing those portions of the state power which had fallen into the hands of the capitalist roaders. The Cultural Revolution reached a whole new peak in the struggle of the revolutionary masses in their hundreds of millions, led by the proletariat and its communist vanguard, to exercise political power (their dictatorship) and use this power to carry forward breathtaking transformations of society.

It is not surprising that today, given the great changes taking place in world politics and with the strong anti-communist wind blowing, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is once again a subject of fierce debate in the ranks of revolutionaries. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement has a clear and firm position upholding the need for such a proletarian dictatorship, as expressed in the Declaration of the RIM, and this understanding is a basic cornerstone of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Nevertheless, in the ranks of RIM itself an important struggle has developed around the fundamental question of the proletarian dictatorship.

Specifically, a participating party of RIM, the Central Reorganising Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), referred to hereafter as CRC, issued a draft document prepared under the leadership of its Secretary K. Venu entitled "On Proletarian Democracy" which represents a serious attack on the basic teachings of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on the dictatorship of the proletariat. While the document claims to uphold Marx's teachings of the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, it goes on to claim that the entire experience of the international communist movement from Lenin onwards has been one in which the "dictatorship of the party" has been established over the masses.

This charge of "dictatorship of the party" becomes a battle cry to attack the "entire experience" of hundreds of millions of workers and peasants in building a socialist society and carrying forward socialist revolution first in the Soviet Union and then in China. In place of the Marxist understanding of the class nature of every state as a dictatorship of one class over another, K. Venu develops a thesis of the "non-class aspect" of bourgeois democracy which allegedly addresses in a positive way "the contradiction between the individual [regardless of his or her class position] and society".

Of course, readers familiar with the diatribes of the imperialists, Trotskyites, social democrats and so forth will recognize that this "new thinking" on the part of K. Venu is not original in the least. Still, these very old and threadbare ideas have gotten a new lease on life recently as a result of the anti-communist storm and, furthermore, such ideas also have material roots in bourgeois society. For these reasons, the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement had announced its decision to unfold a sharp struggle against the line expressed in "On Proletarian Democracy".

As an initial step, a response to the CRC was solicited from Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA. The response was written as part of a book Phony Communism is Dead, Long Live Real Communism! After consultation between the RIM Committee and the RCP,USA, this article, entitled "Democracy: More Than Ever We Can and Must Do Better Than That", was submitted to AWTW for publication (page 32).

AWTW has also published the K. Venu document, "On Proletarian Democracy", in order to assist the reader in understanding the debate, and in keeping with the long-standing tradition within the international communist movement of publishing the polemics of one's opponents - a policy, we should point out, rarely followed by the advocates of (bourgeois) "democracy".

As we were preparing this issue, we received notification that the All-India Leading Committee of the CRC had taken a decision to dissolve the CRC at the all-India level (see p. 75 ). This decision took place without any prior discussion in the ranks of the CRC.

This organisational liquidationism is, unfortunately, the logical outcome of the political and ideological liquidationism expressed in "On Proletarian Democracy". It underscores the life-and-death nature of the questions under discussion and the urgent necessity of thoroughly and deeply criticising and repudiating the line of K. Venu. We are happy to note that this liquidationism has met opposition on the part of comrades within the CRC (see p. 72).

The struggle against K. Venu's liquidationism is part of the worldwide struggle which must go on to defend and carry forward the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. This struggle, like other great battles on the ideological and theoretical front, grows out of and, in turn, reflects back on the class struggle on other fronts as well. It is nothing less than the struggle to establish in theory what the proletariat must accomplish in practice - its "right" to violently overthrow the existing social conditions, establish its own rule, and proceed to revolutionize the world until the future communist society is eventually achieved. This ideological struggle of today is the precursor of great battles of tomorrow.

The questions involved in the debate are at once both simple and complex. "Simple" in the sense that they are focused on basic, long-established principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, but complex in that these questions are integrally connected with summing up the rich and varied experience of the proletarian revolution in the Soviet Union and in China, the tremendous achievements but also the difficulties, weaknesses and, in the case of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, even serious errors, in carrying out this revolution.

We are sure that the publication of Bob Avakian's article will, in addition to furthering the struggle against K. Venu's liquidationism, help enrich the ongoing discussion in the international movement on these vital questions, and we hope to publish other contributions on these subjects in coming issues of our journal. This process will illustrate once again that Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is a living and vibrant science, which welcomes every opportunity to defend its basic principles and which constantly responds to new questions posed by the development of the class struggle in every arena.

In this way, as Mao Tsetung pointed out, "a bad thing can be turned into a good thing". The "bad thing" - the liquidationism of the leadership of the CRC, and more generally the multi-directional attack on revolutionary communism can be transformed into a great school of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. So we say with enthusiasm, let the inevitable struggle begin!

Editorial Board, AWTW