[From The Worker, #2, June 1996.]




MAY DAY STATEMENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE RIM:

People's War from the Andes to the Himalayas
The Only Road to Liberation

The following is the full text of the statement of the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement: Issued on May 1, 1996:

This May First, the revolutionary masses have a new reason to celebrate as the sparks of People's War kindled on February 13th leap across the Himalayas of Nepal and begin to catch fire amongst the workers and peasants. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), a participant in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, has dared to initiate a war which will no doubt be protracted and bitterly fought but that has already begun to transform Nepal from a backward and oppressed country to an advanced outpost of the world proletarian revolution. This inspiring development has great implications for the South Asia region and indeed the whole world by once again reaffirming the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist principle that the masses can liberate themselves only through armed revolutionary struggle.

The revolutionary thunder in the Himalayas come as a welcome reinforcement to the struggling people of Peru, whose vanguard the Communist Party of Peru, also a participant in RIM, has been carrying the struggle forward valiantly despite fierce attack not only from the reactionary Fujimori regime but also from a right opportunist line which has called for ending the People's War through a negotiated settlement. Supporting the comrades of the Communist Party of Peru in pursuing the People's War and in fighting the right opportunist line remains an important task. The issues at stake in the two-line struggle are vital not only for the pursuit of the People's War In Peru but for the advance of the revolution in other countries and on a world scale. We must also continue to fight the outrageous isolation of imprisoned Chairman Gonzalo.

For the great majority of people on this earth, conditions are intolerable. At a time when the capacity to produce has reached previously unimaginable heights, hundreds of millions of people remain prisoners of starvation. The world imperialist system has nothing to offer the immense majority except heightened exploitation, fiercer repression, deeper crises and reactionary war. And this is not only true in the countries oppressed by imperialism: the imperialist citadels themselves are also the site of sharpening class antagonism. History has shown that people will continue to rise up again and again until the conditions which spawn their revolt have been eliminated. But history and contemporary events also show that unless the movement of the masses is led by a vanguard party based upon Marxism-Leninism-Maoism the sacrifice and heroism of the people will be cynically abused by exploiting classes and their political representatives.

Only the class with no stake in preserving any vestige of exploitation, the proletariat, is qualified and capable of leading the struggle of the people forward toward a classless society. Those who remain focused on the final goal of communism and how to get there, the Marxists-Leninists-Maoists, are also those who fight most resolutely in the revolutionary struggles of today. They are waging or preparing to wage People's War against imperialism and reaction according to the concrete conditions In different countries. The revisionist and opportunists who obstruct, compromise, betray, or falter in this task cannot see beyond the narrow horizon of the system of wage slavery - their talk of socialism and communism is but a smokescreen used like the "paradise" of priests and mullahs to befuddle the masses.

The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement is the embryonic center of the world's genuine communist forces and is struggling for the formation of a Communist International of a new type based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Those who are serious about revolution must be serious about supporting, joining or helping to forge genuine vanguard parties, based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and united in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.

Hail the Initiation Of People's War In Nepal!

Rally to the Defence of our Red Flag Flying In Peru! Down with the Right opportunist Line!

Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Long Live the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement!