1.Gonzalo and revolutionary optimism

When a class moves in the direction of taking power, it must build strong abilities in all fields, and of course it is more true than ever in the case of the working class, which must have an all powerful cultural and ideological system, permitting to understand all aspects of a society and to revolutionize it.

Gonzalo played a historical role in permitting to understand this. He stressed that the revolutionaries must uphold absolute optimism; in the document “ILA-80” that explains the launching of armed struggle in Peru in 1980, he explained:

“We need a great deal of optimism and there is a reason for it. We are the makers of tomorrow, we are guides, the garrison of the invincible triumph of the class. This is why we are optimists.

We are enthusiastic by nature. We are nurtured by the ideology of our class: Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse-tung Thought. We live the life of the class. We participate in its heroic deeds. The blood of our people flow and burns within us.

We are like a powerful and palpitating blood. Let us take the unbendable iron and steel, the class, and mix it together with the unwithering light of Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse-tung Thought.”

2.Each revolutionary class calls to epic struggle

When the French bourgeois revolution stretched out at the end of the 18th century, there was the historical need for an epic mobilization of the masses. The bourgeoisie dived in the past, looking for something that could appeared as near as possible to their own needs and took what could be a design to galvanize the struggle: the Roman republic.

Napoleon, moving from the figure of a Roman general to an imperial Cesar, was the toy of a historical process where he led international changes needed by the French bourgeoisie to fully develop itself in the conquest of power.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have explained this ideological question, removing the ideological mists and bourgeois pretensions of making the last and total revolution. But they did not integrate this ideological-cultural question in scientific socialism, because at their time there was no new democratic / socialist revolution in the world.

3.Thoughts as expression of the movement of matter

With the socialist revolution in Russia in October 1917 and the new democratic revolution in China winning in 1949, dialectical materialism formulated scientifically the question of avant-garde, of the revolutionary party.

Revolutionary ideology leads the revolutionary process; in the revolutionary party itself, two-line struggles arise in the process: the life of the Communist Party obeys also to the rules of dialectical development.

And so do thoughts, as they are the reflect of the world, of matter in dialectical movement, at the dimension of the universe itself.

In the document “Life, Matter, the Universe, part 7: What is a thought?” promoted by the CPMLM [France], it is explained:

“Thought consists in molecular and chemical motions in the brain, motions that are matter and that are the consequence of the movement of matter outside the body – the exterior movement is perceived.

In this movement of perception, gray matter develops itself – it comes to synthetic understanding of the dialectical movement of matter. Then, it becomes openly an expression of matter in movement.”

4.Individuals do not think

In the 13th century, French reaction had to struggle against materialist theses in the University of Paris. These theses were the logical conclusions of the thought of Averroes (1126-1198), the great thinker of the Falsafa, the arabo-persian philosophy.

The Church had forbidden 13 theses in 1270, and among them: “The proposal: ‘man thinks’ is false or incorrect”, “Freewill is a passive power, not active, which is driven by the need of desire”, “Human’s will wants and chooses by necessity”, “There has never been a first man”, “The world is eternal”, “There is only one intellect numerically identical for all men”.

These theses are correct and an expression of materialism.

When is spoken about a thought, it is not spoken about the thought of an individual, even if an individual expresses it. Individuals do not think. Humankind is matter in movement, thought is merely a reflect of the movement. There can not be individual thought, what indivuals thinks is the expression of desire and necessity.

5.Thought as cultural-ideological weapon for revolution in each country

Gonzalo did not only call to revolutionary optimism because there was the need of epic struggles. This would be subjectivist and not conform to communist ideology, that tends to the future and not to the past.

So, along the call for enthusiasm, he formulated the conception that in each country arises a revolutionary thought, synthesizing society and affirming the correct way to resolve the social contradictions.

History in motion produces enthusiasm and the correct understanding of reality in the thoughts of the masses, of the avant-garde, of the revolutionary leadership.

In the document “On Gonzalo’s thought” of the Communist Party of Peru, it is explained:

“Revolutions give rise to a thought that guides them, which is the result of the application of the universal truth of the ideology of the international proletariat to the concrete conditions of each revolution; a guiding thought indispensable to reach victory and to conquer political power and, moreover, to continue the revolution and to maintain the course always towards the only, great goal: Communism.”

6.Thought as synthesis of a society

Each national society knows contradictions, that the communist thought analyzes, producing the revolutionary synthesis that consists in the revolutionary program and the methods to realize it.

In Russia and China, Lenin and Mao Zedong knew not only the political situation, but also precisely the economical situation and the cultural-ideological aspects. They often quoted literary works and made references to their own culture, of the cultural-ideological situation of the masses (for example the relationship of authority in the countryside, the emergence or not of capitalism in the countryside, etc.).

In numerous others situations, revolutionary leaders produced a thought, a synthesis of their own reality.

In Peru, José Carlos Mariátegui wrote in 1928 a full analysis of the history of his country: “Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality”, which explains the history of the process of colonization, the situation of the countryside and of the Quechua Indians, etc.

In Italy, Antonio Gramsci, one of the founder of the Communist Party in 1926, studied in the same way the culture and the history of its country, understanding the nature of the Italian state and the historical contradiction between the north and the south (mezzogiorno) of the country.

Alfred Klahr was the first theoretician to explain that his country Austria was a nation (“On the national question in Austria”, 1937) and how German nazism was not only under control of the imperialist capital, but also of the Junkers.

Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, born in 1949 and killed by the Turkish state in 1973, produced a comprehensive study of the “revolution” made by Mustafa Kemal and the kemalist ideology, paving the way to a correct understanding to Turkey’s economical, political and cultural-ideological nature.

Ulrike Meinhof studied the nature of dependency of West Germany, which was under control of the United States; seeing the process of economical reprise after 1945, she proposed a long term strategy of People’s War based on the poorest elements in the youth and the struggle against the US imperialist presence. She was murdered in prison in 1976.

Another great revolutionary producing a thought was Siraj Sikder, in East Bengal. Born in 1944, he understood both the Pakistani and the Indian expansionism, proposing the path of agrarian revolution to obtain national independence. He was murdered in custody in 1975.

7.People’s War as product of the thought

Following the dialectical materialist lesson of Gonzalo, the communists have in each country the task to produce a synthesis of their own national situation, as the revolutionary contradictions are to be resolved in this frame.

People’s War is not a “method” or a style of work, it is the material production of the thought, i.e. the revolutionary confrontation with the old state and the reactionary ruling classes, according a strategy based on the thought, on the revolutionary synthesis made in the practical study of a country.

When the genuine revolutionary thought is produced, it seeks confrontation with the old society, at all levels. People’s War doesn’t mean only armed struggle, but also the cultural-ideological negation of the values of the old society.

If the revolutionaries don’t have the level to lead the struggle in all fields, they won’t be able to make triumph the revolution and to fight the attempts of restoration of the old society.

This understanding is the direct consequence of Mao Zedong’s teachings about culture and ideology and of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

8.“Principally apply”

Gonzalo considered that our ideology was not only marxism-leninism-maoism, but marxism-leninism-maoism principally maoism. He wanted to show that our ideology is a synthesis and not an assembly of teachings.

In the same way, he considered that in each country, the ideology was marxism-leninism-maoism and the thought, principally the thought (for example in Peru: marxism-leninism-maoism Gonzalo thought, principally Gonzalo thought).

The reason for that was the thought means the synthesis in a concrete situation, with its application. In the same way, one principle is to “uphold, defend and apply, principally apply.”

The “thought” is genuine and correct only if it means a real confrontation on all aspects of old society, the practical aspect being on the forefront.

9.Thought and People’s War are not independent concepts

During the 1990’s-2000’s, the Peru Popular Movement (MPP), organism generated by the Communist Party of Peru for the work abroad, led an important work to promote marxism-leninism-maoism.

Unfortunately, when moving to the practical national aspects, the MPP only called to follow Peru’s example and has never been able to help communists to produce a synthesis of their own situation.

The MPP never called to study the national realities, and instead of this promoted a cosmopolitism consisting in reproducing a style of work in a stereotyped manner. Instead of accompanying genuine revolutionary forces to marxism-leninism-maoism, the MPP came the point to support centrists, as they were recognizing maoism in words.

This is an example of misunderstanding the main aspect. What counts is not to assume People’s War in an abstract way, but People’s War based on Thought. Revisionism in Nepal is a good example: despite of assuming “People’s War”, what was called “Prachanda’s path” never had a high cultural-ideological level, whereas it contained already numerous errors concerning the basic principles of dialectical materialism.

10.Our horizon: producing thoughts and reject fascism

Our horizon is the following: in each country, a communist thought must be produced, synthesis of the society, showing the way to resolve the contradictions. Communists can not make a revolution in their own country without having a high level on the cultural-ideological fields.

The masses live in a culture full of music, movies, literature; the teachings of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution remember us the importance of the struggle in this field. The communists in the world must exchange their experiences and their knowledge; on many fields, they have the same struggles to lead.

If the communists are not able do this, the reactionary ruling classes will produce an ideology diving in the past to “regenerate” society, a false “socialism”, which is fascism.

Each thought is so of historical significance; it is the basis of People’s War. Each thought permits to launch the People’s War, that destroys the old state, and as this process generalizes itself, it becomes a world People’s War. The thought becomes then the synthesis of the world society that emerges on the rubbles of imperialism, paving the way for the building of a world communist society.

=> documents in English

First of May 2012
Joint Message to the Workers of All Countries

Let’s Struggle for the Triumph of

The World Proletarian Revolution!

As every year, on this May Day the workers of all countries honor the memory of the martyrs of Chicago, narrow ties of solidarity, review their ranks and reaffirm their goals of abolishing all forms of exploitation and of oppression on Earth. A day where the world proletarian army takes the streets in front of the popular masses, their voices joined in the battle against imperialism and reaction, and in support of the revolutionary struggle of their brothers in all countries and of the peoples of the world.

And it can not be otherwise, since the world capitalist crisis continues to rage everywhere, bringing the terrible sufferings of hunger and misery to the laboring masses, leaving a trail of death, of destruction of nature and of desolation for the peoples, increasing the danger of a new world war for which the imperialists are preparing, highlighting the decline of a agonizing system violently opposed to the progress of society.

The pretension of the imperialists and their lackeys regimes in the oppressed countries of saving themselves from ruin and of their inevitable destruction intensifies the exploitation and the oppression of the proletariat and of the peoples, increases the resistance and rebellion of the dispossessed.

The antagonistic contradictions between exploiters and exploited, between oppressed and oppressors, exacerbated to the limits by the greed of the parasite minority that lives the work of others, give the impulse to the forces of society, especially those of the proletariat of all countries, for the revolution: powerful demonstrations and strikes in the bowels of the imperialist countries, countless uprisings and even popular insurrections against the consequences of the crisis in the oppressed countries, armed resistance of the peoples in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, attacked by imperialism and its mercenaries… events that are undeniable signs of the revolutionary storm.

However, the spontaneous struggles and rebellions of the workers are not enough, they are not enough to overthrow the tyrants or rulers, not enough to alleviate the sufferings, not enough to stop the imperialist aggression; we must decide to radically change the world situation.

This makes necessary to transform the spontaneous struggle in conscious struggle, to move from rebellion to revolution, taking the fight to overthrow the power of the enemies of the people, destroying the old reactionary state of the exploiters with the People’s War, with the revolutionary violence of the masses, to establish on its ruins the new state of the workers and peasants, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, that have in sight the peoples of India, Turkey, Peru and the Philippines, elevated in People’s Wars led by the Communists, marxists leninists maoists.

The proletariat, the class that in the revolution has nothing to lose but its chains and therefore the most revolutionary class of this era, obtains each day more importance in the struggle against exploitation and imperialist domination. And its responsibility to lead the revolutionary struggle of the popular masses is supported in the efforts of the marxists leninist maoists who persist in building their independent political Party in each country, as part of a Communist International of a new type; indispensable instrument for the triumph of the World Proletarian Revolution, only solution to the catastrophe that imperialism has caused to entire society.

But in opposition to this purpose raises itself not only the persecution and the state terrorism of the exploiters, but also opportunism, the bourgeois ideology and politics in in the very heart of the worker movement itself, that deviates the proletariat, in the seeking of perpetuating imperialist capitalism.

Such is the current role of trotskyists and hoxhaists, of which some call themselves marxists leninists and even marxists leninists maoists, whose theories and practices, as in the case of United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), lead to the betrayal of the revolution, to capitulation before imperialism and the lackeys ruling classes, and to the disarmament of the People’s War and People’s Liberation Army of the heroic people of Nepal, whose experience of struggle will be a fertile ground for the reunion with the correct line of a new Party built on the total defeat of the old party and its revisionist line.

An attack supported by the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which under the name of “Avakian’s new synthesis”, pretends to replace the theory of scientific socialism, Marxism Leninism Maoism, for bourgeois theories of social reform. The attack of these revisionist parties, members of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement-RIM, and the accomplice silence of its leading Committee, caused the debacle of this movement as embryonic center of the world proletariat.

Today, given the undeniable collapse of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the centrist position that legitimizes the accomplice silence hides the main danger that represents revisionism to the unity of the International Communist Movement, minimizes its betrayal of the world proletariat and its outrages against the people of Nepal, obscures the view of the Communists and prevents workers to clearly understand the role of revisionism in the defeats of their political movement, contributing to keep them away from the political problems of their revolution.

Now, on that basis of conciliation with the enemies of the proletariat, centrism proposes to revive the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement in what they call “Expanded Conference of the RIM”, based on ignoring the knowledge of its bankruptcy and the revisionist causes of it, thus aggravating with this further confusion, dispersion and impotence of the revolutionary communists.

But contrary to the pessimism and despair of the old and new revisionists, and also to the eclecticism of the centrists conciliators, the contradictions of imperialism in its advanced state of agony unleash the world forces of work against imperialist parasitism, urgently calling for the international unity of proletariat.

Unity in which the proletarian revolutionaries strive now to demolish the false revisionist theories and the eclectic positions of centrism. Unity that must materialize itself in a proposal for a General Line of the International Communist Movement, that draws a deep demarcation between marxism and opportunism, and is the firm basis of unity to forge the new International which will lead the grandiose battles of the World Proletarian Revolution against imperialism and all its lackeys.

The powerful revolutionary forces unleashed by imperialism – moribund capitalism – demand the direction by the proletariat and the Communists. So, this May Day, the marxists leninists maoists call the proletarians of all countries to fight for the triumph of the World Proletarian Revolution, to march under the banners of proletarian internationalism and to unite their battle cries and political struggle for Socialism and Communism.

Down with imperialist exploitation and domination!

Long live the World Proletarian Revolution!

Long live the People’s Wars in India, Peru, Turkey and the Philippines!

Against Revisionism and Centrism: Long live Marxism Leninism Maoism!

For a New Communist International Based in Marxism ELeninism Maoism: Let’s Go Forward!

May Day 2012

Centre Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – Belgique

Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia

Colectivo Odio de Clase – Estado Español

Communist Party Marxist-Leninist-Maoist – Bangladesh

Grupo Reconstrucción – PERUCRPM – Estado Español

Parti Communiste Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – France

Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) – Panamá

=> documents in English

We have seen what means the concept of “thought”, let’s see here some important points about Gonzalo Thought.

The first point is the origin of the poetical prose used by Gonzalo. It is here not a question of style; using poetical prose, he wanted to show that what he says, his mind, is a product of the movement of matter, not a product of his mind alone.

The second point is the subjectivist understanding of Gonzalo Thought, that brought a lot of problems on the practical level.

Let’s begin with the first point.

When reading or hearing Gonzalo, it is impossible not to notice that there is a really strong emphasis on the style. Gonzalo uses openly a poetical prose.

The document “ILA 80” – Initiation of the Armed Stuggle – 1980 is really famous for this and let’s quote here another document, “We begin to topple the walls and unfold a new dawn”, which explains his conception.

Indeed, Gonzalo stresses the importance of enthusiasm. But this enthusiasm must not be brought from the outside, it must exist as an expression of the movement of matter.

Reading it as a subjectivist approach was a common error.

Here is what Gonzalo says:

“Engels taught us that there are two forces in the world, the armed force of reaction and the disorganized masses. If we organize the powerful force of the masses, their potential develops into actions, what was a possibility becomes a reality.

What is a law and a necessity becomes forceful deeds which sweep away all that is believed to be firm.

Nothing is permanent.

Everything is a house of cards, if it is not sustained by the masses.

And when the masses speak up everything shudders, the order begins to tremble, the high summits stoop and the stars change their course, because the masses are capable of anything.

(…)

We are Communists of a distinct temperament and special material, we are Communists ready for everything and we know what needs to be fought. We have already fought it and will fight it again tomorrow.

What will be confronted tomorrow will be the child of the present, it will be harder but by then we will be tempered by the past and as we forge ourselves today. We will temper our souls in the revolution, this is the only flame capable of forging us.

We need a great deal of optimism and there is a reason for it. We are the makers of tomorrow, we are guides, the garrison of the invincible triumph of the class. This is why we are optimists.

We are enthusiastic by nature. We are nurtured by the ideology of our class: Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse-tung Thought. We live the life of the class. We participate in its heroic deeds. The blood of our people flow and burns within us.

We are like a powerful and palpitating blood. Let us take the unbendable iron and steel, the class, and mix it together with the unwithering light of Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse-tung Thought. Enthusiasm means to participate in the force of the Gods, therefore, we are full of enthusiasm. We participate in the divinities of the real world: The masses, the class, Marxism and the revolution. That is why we have inexhaustible enthusiasm. That is why we have strength, optimism, and a vigorous spirit overflowing with enthusiasm.

And what have we seen here? Militants and leaders without optimism. Dead spirits and deciduous wills with fleeting passions. This is unacceptable. We know well their roots: Their support is not Marxism, the class, nor the masses, rather it is the corrosive individualism, the reactionary rot that makes them fearful, the sewage mold of the old order, the expression of the dying world, the lethal swamp gasses of reaction. This is why their spirits are broken, their hearts tremble, their thoughts forsake them, their nerves are destroyed, and their actions disturbed.

This has to be uprooted, it can not nest among us. It is unacceptable, inadmissible, let us burn it and blast it. This cannot be allowed in the Party, much less prevail. What have we seen in this moment? Leaders with these positions and attitudes. It is despicable. Never again should this happen. And precisely today, when we need to unfurl optimism and enthusiasm, now? That is unacceptable. It is corrosion, pure gangrene, and it should never have taken place, today it is much more unacceptable.

If the comrades don’t uproot these weaknesses what type of cadres are they going to form? What kind of militants are they going to form? Apply the following: a company always reflects its leadership. To lead a company without optimism results in a company without optimism. A pusillanimous leadership makes a pusillanimous company. It will be defeated and broken before it engages in battle.

We need to unfurl optimism and overflow enthusiasm. Our powerful ideology, incisive line and Communist will must be manifested above all in the leaders.

The order of the day is: Unfurl optimism and overflow enthusiasm! May it be shared with others, with our cadres and bases not present in this meeting. May this enthusiasm manifest itself in action and motivate us in order to eliminate the crust that impedes our advance and serve to others as an example to uproot these weaknesses. May the optimism shine, and manifest in us a powerful enthusiasm. It is practical and necessary in as much as we carry it out.

No one can deny that this is a struggle between positions. We have recorded right here and the summary will be the expression of what we have seen. But in the first place, what was important in our Party? What is important now? What will be important tomorrow? It is the Left. Who cries about its defeat? The Right. They should understand that its cry is useless. They must burn their old idols, burn the old and decrepit, and place their spirits up to the these times.

The spirit of the times is owned by the Left. It is consistent with the needs of our country, our people clamor for revolution. We cannot fail. If our blood and lives are claimed, our response is: we carry our lives in our hands to give them up, we put them at the service of the greatest and most just cause.

Our death for the good cause should be the seal of our revolutionary action. The constant and firm actions for our cause will be the hallmark of our lives as Communist combatants. This is what we have understood the best. That is why the positive weighs so much more in us.

We have advanced, but some think that their weaknesses have been overcome. That is a loss of vigilance, there could be a thousand « reasons », but it is only sewage. Elevate your vigilance and sweep away the errors with determination, destroy the old and decrepit through armed actions which will be the real and effective seal.

Perhaps some people think that we should only speak about the positive, but there exists light and shadow, a contradiction. We should summarize and learn lessons. This meeting is a great lesson. We will not forget it. We have an obligation to preserve the Left so that the Party can meet its objective. With the actions we are undertaking and with this excellent meeting, we begin to topple the walls and unfurl a new dawn. »

We already saw how Mariategui understood the question of romanticism and culture (see Learning the lessons of Mariategui about french fascism’s romantism).

Now we understand why Gonzalo discovered Mariategui after he understood Maoism. He saw an aspect that Mariategui could not develop scientifically at that time – and he converted it practically – politically in poetical prose.

Enthusiasm is logical because the movement of matter goes to communism; so real communists must express this movement on the cultural level. Enthusiasm reflects the movement of matter.

Let’s see now how this was misunderstood sometimes.

In the article “The internal is decisive – Chairman Gonzalo is inseparable from Gonzalo Thought ”, published in 2000 (Red Sun number 19), the Peru’s People Movement (organism for abroad work of the Communist Party of Peru) gives its interesting point of view.

For the Peru’s People Movement (MPP), Gonzalo thought has reached such a level, as matter in development, that it can not come back. There was a leap, so Gonzalo’s thought (as the thought of an individual body) can not turn revisionist. The brain of Gonzalo might be destroyed by its reaction, but Gonzalo, as long as he thinks, can not betray.

Let’s see what the MPP says:

“There is nothing that does not contain a contradiction.” Then one has to see which the contradiction is in Chairman Gonzalo: is it between treason towards revolution, or continuing the road of revolution? Or which is it?

He, himself, in the Interview pointed out that: “Nevertheless, there is always a contradiction between the revolutionary line that is principal in our thinking and the opposing line. Both lines exist, since no one is a hundred percent communist. In our minds a struggle between two lines is waged, and this struggle is also key in forging the cadre, aiming always at keeping the revolutionary line principal. This is what we strive for.”

It is evident that Chairman Gonzalo cannot, either, be considered a monolithic being without contradictions, understanding this is fundamental. But one, likewise, has to see the particular contradiction that he has – this is that of being Great Leadership – and understand that therein lies the contradiction, observe that we are not dealing with a formal post but a condition that has come up and been proven in revolutionary practice during various decades that has come to develop to a higher level.

Therefore, within Chairman Gonzalo, the contradiction is no longer between treason against revolution or continuing the road of revolution, it is not between applying Marxism or revising it, but the contradiction is between making a completely correct application or having errors due to confronting new problems.

This is not strange, it is not because Chairman Gonzalo is a superhuman or anything like that, it is the result of the development of class struggle, an objective result of the development of matter. Communism will inevitably impose itself in the world, this is a fundamental position that every Marxist-Leninist-Maoist necessarily assumes, it is a precondition of being Marxist; this due to, in the final analysis, that the tendency of matter is to advance; history does not develop in closed and eternal circles, history goes forward and it is impossible to turn its course backwards.

Communism cannot develop into a class society, for in communism, the classes have ceased to exist along with all the prerequisites for their existence; it is impossible for a human being to foretell how the economical, political, cultural and social relations between people will be in communism, but, it is possible to affirm with complete certainty, that there will no longer, never more, be social classes in human history when the forever golden Communism has been born.

This does not mean that there will not be contradictions in communism, evidently there will, but the contradictions that will drive the development of human society forward will no longer be between classes, but of another type. Then, if the Marxists understand it so, as we have seen in the example of how we understand Communism, the development of society: why are some not capable of understanding that the Great Leaders of the proletariat, titans like Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao, as products of the development of class struggle, have reached a level of development in which it is impossible that they can become revisionists?

Or do the gentlemen who argue that it is possible that Chairman Gonzalo may be the author of the “peace letter” because everything divides into two, also believe that the founder of Marxism, of the entire International Communist Movement, Karl Marx, would have become a partisan of Bakunin if he had been held isolated for a year and received false information from German reactions butchers?

Do these gentlemen believe that the great Lenin would have become one of the treacherous rats of the II International if he had been held isolated for a year and received false information from the gendarmes of the Czar? Do the intellectualoids believe that Chairman Mao would have transformed into a capitulator if he had been held isolated for a year and received false information from the genocidal forces of Japanese imperialism?

It is evident that no one who knows the work of these three unfading peaks can consider the mere speculation on their firmness and absolute dedication to the World Leadership Proletarian Revolution as anything but coarse and stupid; for Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao, are Great Leaderships, and even though we do not say that Chairman Gonzalo may be the fourth sword of Marxism, he too, is Great Leadership.

But, like a drunkard grasps for something in order not to fall, our “Maoist theoreticians” also come with their “argument” on torture and “brainwash” in order to give their coarse position foundations; this is too much!

It is impossible that a comrade who has understood a pinch of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism could think that a human being, through brain- wash, can change his way of thinking and elaborate a new ideological-political line without having the antecedents beforehand.

What they can do with torture and brainwash is to kill a persons brain, producing a vegetal state in him, but it is not possible to achieve that the person begins to, on his own, build up a new ideological-political line.

If the foundation for the coarse position that “Chairman Gonzalo may be behind the letters” is that imperialism and reaction, with the support from the rats of the ROL, have “brainwashed” Chairman Gonzalo, this means, in other words, that they have assassinated him; all this, then, are speculations that only serve the enemy’s plans and it is necessary for the Maoists of the world to unmask and crush them because they are based on “the external motive force” not on the fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing and as a consequence they do not understand the correct interrelation between the internal and external causes which is that: “external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes.”

Therefore the philosophical foundation for the position that it is possible that Chairman Gonzalo may be is anti-Marxist, it is an utterance of a metaphysical conception that gives room to subjectivism, one-sidedness and superficiality. »

We have here to note that this idealist misinterpretation – the idea “orders” the matter, which is the same conception as Hegel – played a great role in the bend in the road in Peru. One aspect of it is the concept of “Great Leadership” focused on the political person instead of the ideological content of the person as a method that can continue without the person and continue analyzing the world.

The MPP, for example, considers here that it is materially impossible that Gonzalo, as a person, changes his thought, even in new situations. Gonzalo could her not change at all, like Lenin could not change if he would been arrested, tortured, etc.

But “if” is not marxist. In France, it is said: “with if, you can put Paris in a bottle.” It means that with “if” it is possible to pretend anything.

But the fact is that Lenin was not arrested, tortured, etc. If it happened, than leninism would have look differently. Because the mind reflects the matter, and because rationality is founded on reality. No “if” exist here.

We must see that there is a confusion of the person – with his brain – and the thought, even if of course it is to stress that Gonzalo did not, for what we know, change his thought.

The MPP considers that the brain of Gonzalo in jail either still defends the thought or became vegetative: this is idealistic: a thing can transform itself in its contrary if the dialectical situation is not correctly understood. In France, we can count two main leaders of the Maoist movement in the 1960’s-1970’s whose thought became its contrary.

The first went insane, the second a rabbi. Does it mean that they were reactionary before? No, but the problems in their thought is also a reflection of a specific situation in France, and a lack of dialectical materialism to face the complexity.

Nothing is static. Nothing is indivisible. Of course that Gonzalo’s thought – as a thought of a body – changed. It has maybe changed in an intellectual-cultural way, like Gramsci did in jail, with his amazingly interesting analyzes. Maybe it went in another direction. But it changed.

And can there be a settle back? Not pretending that yes would mean reject the two line struggle. Any communist can turn a revisionist – it is only in seeing that that it is possible to avoid mistakes.

It is the same with the fact that the MPP says that the PCP is still in “strategic equilibrium” even after numerous defeats. This is unilateral and it considers progress as unilateral, with no turning back – which it is not true until the big revolutionary leap. A revolutionary party can progress and be des troyed due to anti-dialectical errors – when destroyed, it is destroyed and it doesn’t stay at the last level reached, like for example somebody in a video game.

In Nepal for example, the revolution will not simply stay at the same level it was when the People’s War stopped.

Not seeing this would bring a mechanical thought.

So, the concept of Great Leadership is totally correct as a conclusion of the thought, but with a slight error it can turn in an obligation to be politically stuck in the past, to the person in the past carrying the thought, which is ideologically correct but doesn’t mean that time stood still.

Gonzalo’s Thought is correct for Peru, but Gonzalo itself is a secondary aspect of it. Certainly, he did not change his mind in jail. But even he did, this would not mean at all that Gonzalo Thought would be wrong. The movement of matter reflects itself ideologically in thoughts, but the thought is not the movement of matter.

=> documents in English

One issue is important for understanding of Maoism: to what extent has Gonzalo positions with conform to the teachings of Mao Zedong that « nothing is indivisible »? Should we consider Gonzalo as the one who carried the flag of Maoism after the counter-revolution in people’s China in 1976?

Let’s look at the different points here. Already, we must see that, in the well-known Interview, Gonzalo sees his travel to China as the starting point of his understanding of ideology.

“I’ve been to China. In China I had the chance, which I’d like to see many have, of being in a school where politics was taught, from international questions to Marxist philosophy. They were masterful lessons given by proven and highly competent revolutionaries, great teachers.

Among them I can remember the teacher who taught us about open and secret work, a man who had devoted his whole life to the Party, and only to the Party, over the course of many years–a living example and an extraordinary teacher. He taught us many things, and he wanted to teach us more but some didn’t accept it–after all, there are all sorts of people in this life.

Later, they taught us about military questions. But here they also began with politics, people’s war, then the forging of the armed forces, strategy and tactics. And then the practical part that went with it, like ambushes, attacks, military movements, as well as how to assemble explosive devices. When we were handling delicate chemicals they urged us to always keep our ideology first and foremost, because that would enable us to do anything, and do it well.

We learned to make our first demolition charges. For me it is an unforgettable example and experience, an important lesson, and a big step in my development–to have been trained in the highest school of Marxism the world has ever seen.

Well, if you’d like an anecdote, here’s one.

When we were finishing the course on explosives, they told us that anything can explode. So, at the end of the course, we picked up a pen and it blew up, and when we took a seat it blew up, too. It was a kind of general fireworks display. These were perfectly calculated examples to show us that anything could be blown up if you figured out how to do it.

We constantly asked, « How do you do this? How do you do that? » They would tell us, don’t worry, don’t worry, you’ve already learned enough. Remember what the masses can do, they have inexhaustible ingenuity, what we’ve taught you the masses will do and will teach you all over again. That is what they told us. That school contributed greatly to my development and helped me begin to gain an appreciation for Chairman Mao Zedong.

Later, I studied some more and I have tried to apply it. I think I still have a great deal to learn from Chairman Mao Zedong, from Maoism, as well as from Mao’s practice. It isn’t about trying to compare myself to him, it is simply using the highest pinnacles as a reference point for achieving our objectives. My stay in China was an unforgettable experience.

I was there on another occasion as well, when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was beginning. We asked them to explain what was then called Mao Zedong Thought. They taught us some more and that helped me understand more, a little more I should say.”

There are three elements that might go unnoticed, but which are of paramount importance:

– “they told us that anything can explode”: hint that everything is divisible;

– Gonzalo speaks of “the highest school of Marxism the world has ever seen”;

– It is emphasized that the GPCR provides a deeper knowledge of the teachings of Mao Zedong: “when the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was beginning… They taught us some more and that helped me understand more, a little more I should say.”

The “little more” is of great significance, because it is a little more precisely permitted by the GPCR!

We find further this issue of non-indivisibility, “I believe that fear and lack of fear form a contradiction.” This is clearly an allusion to the fact that everything divides.

There is another allusion, extremely subtle, where Gonzalo begins with human history and ends with the universal movement of matter through a metaphor that is not one:

“I think that the worst fear, in the end, is not to have faith in the masses, to believethat you’re indispensable, the center of the world. I think that’s the worst fear and if you are forged by the Party, in proletarian ideology, in Maoism principally, you understand that the masses are the makers of history, that the Party makes revolution, that the advance of history is certain, that revolution is the main trend, and then your fear vanishes.

What remains is the satisfaction of contributing together with others to lay the foundation so that some day communism may shine and illuminate the entire earth.”

When Gonzalo says: “What remains is the satisfaction of contributing together with others to lay the foundation” – in spanish “de ser argamasa y, junto a otras argamasas, servir a poner cimiento” which means “to be mortar and, along with other mortars, to lay the foundation” – it is not voluntarism, but an allusion to the general and inevitable transformation of matter.

In the same way, Gonzalo explains in a subtle manner that communism will “shine and illuminate the entire earth.”

But what “shines and illuminates”? The sun, of course! Gonzalo is referring here to the sun, bringing energy and allowing the Earth to gleam!

This is the famous sun illuminating the planet earth strucked by the hammer and sickle that is found in all Soviet emblems, the “red sun” put forward by the communists in China!

Let’s continue even further in the interpretation of what Gonzalo says. He said, seemingly innocuous, that “many times I don’t have time to read what I’d like to”.

Apparently, this is a simple observation – nevertheless, dialectical materialism oozes from every pore of this sentence. Gonzalo speaks of reading, something that takes place in space, and he opposes time to it!

Gonzalo, with this simple sentence, refers to the contradiction between space and time, we must here remember that he did his doctoral dissertation on the concept of space in Kant, Gonzalo also alludes to a little further : “This inclination for science can be seen in the thesis that I wrote for my degree in philosophy. It is an analysis of time and space according to Kant, from a Marxist point of view, using mathematics and physics.”

All this clearly shows that Gonzalo always explains and explains himself based on the principle, our principle, that nothing is indivisible.

=> documents in English

Origin of the two cultural paths

The question of Bengal is a case that is very near from the German question, the German countries splitting in two nations: Germany and Austria. Basically, in history Bengal was cut in two parts, sharing the same language, but divided in what concerns the main ideology, which was, at this feudal time, religion.

Because of this and following the Marxist definition of nation, the separation of West and East Bengal is more near to the Germany/Austria split than to the West/East Germany separation of 1945-1989.

Let’s see here how did the Bengali people evolve.

Bengal: the impossibility of Islamic mass conversion brought from outside

The reason of such a separation like the one that occurred in Bengal – with the formation of Bangladesh- can not be simply explained by mass conversions in the East Bengal brought by Islamic missionaries.

Islam arrived at the 12th century, through conquest on one side, through trade on the other, especially on the coastal area, with the port of Chittagong for example. Then, a lot of missionaries came to propagate Islam.

But this can not have made that, today, 90.4% of the population is of Islamic culture in Bangladesh.

Why that?

a) First of all, we can see that this Islamic culture did not spread in that extend in the western part of Bengal. Yet, Islam did not begin as a stream trying to turn mainstream. It never had the particularities of a subculture, like it had in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, where it is a kind of Islamic “Island”.

Because of this, the explanation that give a central role to Muslim Governors, Kings, Nizams, etc. and missionaries is not valid.

Islam was simply just accepted by the masses of eastern Bengal, and this in a massive way, from one day to another. The Bangla language was so left nearly untouched, staying strongly based on Sanskrit origin and by Aborigines borrows.

There was absolutely no process of building of a language like Hindustani, where what is today Hindi and Urdu borrowed massively Persian vocabulary and expressions, because of the major influence of Islamic culture.

The masses of Bangladesh even took this language question as a main weapon in their struggle against West Pakistan, a country where Islamic culture has the hegemony.

b) Then, we can see that Islamic Bengal was and is still today a small pocket, in a area of the world where Hinduism is still a main component of the ruling ideology: India.

Bengal was far away from the Islamic cultural centers; it was separated by numerous peoples and cultures; it was not in direct contact.

The British Empire tried to understand this reality, and the census made in 1872 showed that the Muslim pockets in Bengal were in the alluvial plains.

Seeing this, and that only a bit more than 1% of the asked people affirmed to have foreign origin, the British cadres thought that they were coming from the low castes, that converted to Islam to escape the rule of Hinduism.

But this explanation is mechanical. Bengal was before Islam indeed under Buddhist influence, and Buddhism knew no castes. There was also Jainism that existed in ancient India, where castes are not recognized.

Why should have the most oppressed masses chosen a religion coming from far away, if it was only for a question of caste, as they could just uphold Buddhism, like they did before?

The particular situation of Bengal

Dialectical materialism teaches us that the contradiction is in an internal process. So, the reason for the triumph of Islam in the eastern part of Bengal must come from Eastern Bengal itself.

Islam in Bengal can not have been “imported”.

So, let’s take a look at the history of Bengal. We can see these interesting particular features:

a) Following the Manusmṛti, known in Europe as the Laws of Manu (between 200 BC and 200 AD), Bengal was not a part of Āryāvarta (Sanskrit: “abode of the Aryans”).

b) It was only under the Maurya Empire (321 to 185 BC) that the western part of Bengal was joined for the first time to ancient India, the eastern part forming the extremity of the empire.

c) It was merely during the Gupta Empire (320 to 550 AD) that the local chiefs were crushed in Bengal.

What does it mean? That under the Maurya Empire, (mainly western) Bengal knew a leap of civilization, notably through the great Buddhist emperor Asoka. Then, with the Gupta Empire and its extermination of Buddhism in India, Bengal became the last place of confrontation between Hinduism and Buddhism. Followed then a policy of missionaries promoting Hinduism.

It is clear that the Maurya and Gupta Empires changed the reality of western Bengal, developing its society to a higher stage, with a state administration produced by the high development in West India.

Because of this, the collapse of the Gupta Empire brought a situation of chaos in Bengal, a situation called “matsyanyaya”. A new dynasty knew locally a birth, the Palas, that put forward Buddhism – clearly to have a stronger balance of power with ancient India, that was under Hinduistic rule. Even in South East Bengal, local kings followed this pro-Buddhism policy.

But the Palas tried to invade some parts of ancient India, especially Bihar, on the West of Bengal. The center of gravity went to the west, sweeping away more and more from East Bengal. This should have had fatal consequences for Bengal’s unity.

The source of the Bengal Split

At this thime, a Buddhist Bengal that would be a part of ancient India was not possible; the Hinduistic forces controlled the most of India, Bengal was dependent on it, and so the Hinduistic culture spread in all the Pala’s culture.

The Palas kings were surrounded by a Hinduistic state apparatus (from poetry to ministers), married to women from Brahmin’s families; in this process Western Bengal was attracted to ancient India, this time in a decisive manner. Buddhism was only maintained under the Palas, so that a distinct identity was kept, the rule of the Palas justified, and also because it was an expression of the Bengali culture of this time.

Indeed, the Bengali Buddhism was characterized by a massive presence of Goddess. We find for example these important figures, present in the Palas version of Buddhism

• Tara
• Kurukullâ
• Aparâjita
• Vasudharâ
• Marîchî
• Paranùabari
• Prajnâparamitpa
• Dhundâ

We will see that this massive presence of Goddess in the Bengali culture will help us in a significant manner.

Nevertheless, what counts here in this process, it was only a question of time until feudal forces – connected to hinduistic India – overthrew the Palas dynasty. This happened with Vijayasena, a Brahmine-Warrior from the south of India, that established an Hinduistic dynasty, integrating Buddha as an (evil) avatar of Vishnu.

The dynasty of the Senas pushed Hinduism forward in a massive manner, bringing Brahmins from the rest of India to build a new feudal ruling class, with the grants of land also. The Senas installed a small minority as a mere religious “elite”, in a very strong hierarchical way.

Bengal was basically colonized by Hinduistic ancient India; the impact of this colonization had of course a center of gravity in the western part of Bengal.

The dynasty of the Senas meant the ruin of trade of merchants, that upheld Buddhism – here the “equal” aspect of Buddhism shows his pre-bourgeois aspect, very near from protestantism, with also the stress on a global civilization and an unified administration.

For this reason, Bengal turned feudal, from the top of society, because of ancient India’s influence.

We have here the main key of the split. Indeed, we can see here:

a) The Maurya and Gupta influence brought western Bengal to a higher stage of culture, whereas the eastern part remained back-warded but still influenced by aborigine culture and matriarchy;

b) Then, there was a historical chance for Bengal to unite – under the banner of Buddhism, like what happened in the countries at the East of Bengal (Burma, Laos, Thailand…). This unification would have been made by a kingdom mostly based in the western part and the generalization of trade.

c) But the Sena dynasty collapsed, because of the expansion of ancient India, and west Bengal became a part of it on the cultural and economical levels, which means that the feudal aspect triumphed over the pre-bourgeois aspects carried by Buddhism and the towns.

d) The Eastern part needed a qualitative leap, that was quite missed under the Maurya and Gupta empires, but it could not be bases on Buddhism, as it was the ideology of the Palas dynasty, whose foundation was in the western part or even in Bihar.

e) The Islamic invasion arrived exactly at this time of a general need of an anti-feudal movement.

f) Nevertheless, the anti-Brahmin pre-bourgeois movement will then not only present in the East, with Islam – it will exist also in the westen part of Bengal, through Goddess worship that was already present in Buddhism, and that was put in Hinduism.

A new dynamic

Bourgeois historians think that mass conversion of Islam was a peasant reaction to the aryan penetration in Eastern Bengal; in fact, Islam in the East and Aborigines – influenced Hinduism in the West were both pre-bourgeois expression against feudalism.

The bourgeois historians noticed that the peasants were too weak on the economical level, but think they tried to fight on the ideological and cultural fields, through the weapon of Islam borrowed from the outside.

It would mean that the peasants were an unified and conscious class – what never was the case in history. In fact, pre-bourgeois classes build an ideological weapon to counter-attack against the feudal penetration in Bengal.

The Islamic invasion – which was not an invasion but a conquest – was the detonator of this historical moment of class struggle.

In Eastern Bengal, Islam was massively accepted. But this Islam was specifically Bengali. There was an overemphasizing on the magical aspects of the missionaries that brought Islam. Those “Sufis” were considered to cure illness, walk on water, etc.

Even if Islam in Bangladesh is Sunni, in a unique manner it celebrates saints, tombs are occasion of pilgrimages, etc.

In the same way, Hinduist and Buddhist sites were simply adapted to the Islamic cult.

In Western Bengal, hinduism became hegemonic, but it was also altered. The main manner to consider Hinduism is kali-kula – the cult of the great goddess (Mahadevi) or of the goddess (Devi), also known as shaktism.

Satyajit Ray’s movie “Devi” depicts this reality; in Bengal, the goddess Kali is revered, and shaktism can be considered stronger as Saivism and Vaishavism, that represent much more typical aspects of the Indo-Aryan patriarchal culture and ideology.

So, in West and Esat Bengal, Hinduism celebrates goddess like Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Manasa, or Shashthi, Shitala, Olai Chandi.

But this is not all. Syncretism appeared here as the Bengali national tendency to unite.

As West Bengal turned into a variant of Hinduism and East Bengal turned to a variant of Islam, and because the unity was still great between those two parts of the world, a syncretic tendency developed itself.

It was clearly an expression of the pre-bourgeois elements, that tried to unite and not to divide; because of this bourgeois aspect, the expression was universalist.

In the western part, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534) developed a cult of Krishna as only real god and above the casts, based on “love” in a mystical union with the absolute truth ; in East Bengal, the sufis taught the central character of love to join God, beyond the formal aspects of religion.

In this Islamic case, the sufis adopted the position of the gurus in Hinduism and Buddhism, teaching the way of truth to the disciple, through meditation in particular.

The main question was then: would both tendency finally join themselves? Or would these tendencies follow particular paths, modifying the psychological characters in two divided parts, giving birth to two different nations?

The split

If we are right about our thesis on the situation of Bengal at the arrival of Islam, then the following points need to be verified:

• first of all, fierce class struggles must have taken place with the new ideological weapons (shaktist Hinduism and Islam);
• these weapons, if they were real weapons, must have proven their efficiency, if not then another weapon would have been raised;
• the ruling class in Bengal must have necessarily also reflected this situation of “two cultural paths” in Bengal.

Bengal succeeds in protecting itself

Indeed, Bengal flourished and could defend its new situation. Two main points are to notice:

a) Under Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, who reigned from 1342 to 1358, Bengal became unified. The newly formed Sultanat was even able to resist under Hindu and Muslim generals to the attack of the Sultanat of Delhi, led by Firuz Shah Tughlaq.

Bengal was then known as Bangalah, and the state was the Muslim Sultanate of Bengal. The Sultan was called Sultan-i-Bangalah, Shah-i-Bangalah, or Shah-i-Bangaliyan.

The word came to Europe through Marco Polo, giving birth to the word “Bengal” (Marco Polo was never in Bengal and even did a confusion, thinking in fact of a part of Burma!).

The new Islamic state modernized the country and its administrative system. The ideological culture, based on the popular culture of Bengal, was putting forward Islam but in a local manner. Numerous elements were taken from the Buddhist and Hindu arts (open lotus in profile, floral elements, the lotus and the diamond, the lotus petal frieze, the trefoil, the rosette, the finial, the festoon, the twisted rope, chequered squares, the diamond criss-cross, etc.).

Husain Shah had even Hindus as prime minister (wazir), physician, chief of the bodyguards, private secretary, superintendent, etc.

b) Ala-ud-din Husain Shah, who reigned from 1494 to 1519, defended the Bengali literature, promoted religious coexistence in Bengal, giving Chaitanya Mahaprabhu full possibility to make diffusion of his mystical version of Vaishnavism (no castes, cult of love, universality, etc.).

This was the positive aspect of the new situation. Bengal existed as a structure, with a solid inner base, which would have not possible:

• if Bengal was Buddhist, because the Muslim conqueror would have totally rejected any compromise with the local elites, and mainly plundered the land;
• if Bengal was traditionally Hindu, because then it would have ideologically submerged by ancient India, and would have become a simple eastern region, without real possibility of local development.

Hindus were integrated in the Bengali nobility, appointed by the Muslim rulers. Bengal existed and could develop itself. It shows that a pre-bourgeois resistance could structure itself through a certain variant of Hinduism and a certain version of Islam.

Let’s look now at the negative aspect. The fact that two religions existed in Bengal was an ideological problem. To make a strong national unity, the existence of one single religious unity in the country was necessary for the pre-bourgeois element, allied to the local conqueror establishing its authority.

We will see that this goal will be found again a lot of times even in modern Bengal history.

However, at this time, the problems were the following:

• – there was necessarily two factions upholding Islam or Hinduism as the main ideological center;
• – these factions would necessarily be in struggle and trying to win importance within the state power, which was dominated by the Muslim conquerors.

The episode of the Ganesha dynasty in the 15th century was an expression of this: the Hindu landowner Raja Ganesha overthrew the Muslim dynasty, put his son as a Muslim ruler to overthrow him as soon as the Muslim invasion was away, tried the trick even a second time, but then was killed.

This shows how weak the position of the local elite was. This would have a fatal consequence.

The Mughal era

Bengal had from the 12th century to the 16th century to make unity. It succeeded in protecting itself and maintaining its national culture, but it failed to unite in a stronger national sense, with a unified pre-bourgeois culture on the level of all the nation.

This had a terrible consequence when the Mughal emperor managed to invade Bengal. From this moment on, Bengal was ruled from the top – a top far away from Bengal itself, based in northern India.

From 1574 to 1717, Bengal was ruled by 32 subahdars – a subah being a Mughal province and the word subahdar designating the governor, of course chosen by the Mughal or the highest officers.

Bengal was considered as a wealthy place, which wealth had to belong to the Mughal in Northern India, and especially the army. Because of this, cadres of the Mughal empire were sent to Bengal.

The Mughal ruler Akbar even implemented a new calendar, still used today. The goal of this calendar was to improve the collect of the land taxes in Bengal. Like elsewhere under Mughal rule, the language used for justice and the administration was Persian.

The country was not able to produce its own ruling class any more. The ruling class was a construct made by the Mughal, and composed of Muslim aristocrats, speaking urdu like in nothern India, and separated culturally from the others Muslim.

End of the Mughal era: the Nawabs

When the Mughal empire declined, the situation did not change. Bengal began to be ruled by a dynasty of governor, and the Bengali subahdar was henceforth known as the Nawab of Bengal (the word giving the french word “Nabab”).

It means that the feudal model of the Mughal empire was imported to Bengal, and even modernized.

Murshid Quli Khan, first Nawab (from 1717 to 1727), abolished the system of jagirdar, land that was given for life to someone that was considered as meritorious for his military service (with its death the land coming back, theoretically, in the hands of the monarch).

Instead of the system of the jagirdar, that was adapted to the military state of the Mughals, Murshid Quli Khan installed the mal zamini system. In this system, land was rented to ijaradar – revenue farmer.

It was more adapted to an economy were an autocrat needed wealth to be locally produced, in the same way as the French declining monarchy with the “fermiers généraux”. As the revenue farmer paid the Government nine-tenth of the production, he was very engaged to make a better production.

But Murshid Quli Khan faced the fact that in doing this, he could not base this system on Muslim ijaradar, because he needed to go against the Mughal culture, and anyway he did not receive any more cadres from the Mughal empire to put as revenue farmer.

Murshid Quli Khan organized therefore his ijaradar system this way: he divided the province into 13 administrative divisions called chaklahs, the largest revenue farmers were put as chaklahdars, and he chose mainly Hindus. From the 20 biggest revenue farmers chosen by Murshid Quli Khan, 19 were Hindus.

The British colonization: first period

In an interesting manner, the British empire that colonized Bengal continued in the “same way”. The Permanent Settlement act of 1793 made hereditary the positions of the revenue farmers.

Therefore, Murshid Quli Khan’s revenue farmers system must be considered as a parasitic system, of a feudal type. Karl Marx, in The British Rule in India (1853), described it as “European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism”:

“There cannot, however, remain any doubt but that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before.

I do not allude to European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism, by the British East India Company, forming a more monstrous combination than any of the divine monsters startling us in the Temple of Salsette [Island of Salsette in the north of Bombay and famous for its 109 Buddhist cave temples]. This is no distinctive feature of British Colonial rule, but only an imitation of the Dutch (…).

All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action in Hindostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindostan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past history.”

Karl Marx saw perfectly this question of melancholy, so present in the oppressed countries, a melancholy giving birth to numeros romantic fundamentalism.

Anyway, from the British side, this followed also clearly the traditional imperialist logic of “divide and conquer”. From the merchants working with the East India Company in the 1736-1740 periods, all of 52 Bengali were Hindus in Calcutta, 10 from the 12 in Dacca, all from the 25 in Kashimbazar.

Then, the British empire defeated the Nawab at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, creating the Bengal Presidency and ruling finally directly Bengal and India.

The British colonization: second period

The submission of Bengal by British imperialism brought a new situation, in the sense where to the post-Mughal feudalism must be added British colonialism.

This was not understood because of the lack of dialectical materialist analysis. Imperialism was understood as the one and only responsible of the situation. This was helped of course with the fact that British imperialism used Hindus as revenue farmers.

Because of this, class struggle developed on a religious basis: as the big land owners were Hindus in Bengal, and as the British imperialism was working with them, then logically Islam had to be taken as a revolutionary flag.

It was also caused by the fact that the former rulers – the ones before the (Mughal) semi-independent and independent and again (British) semi-independent Nawabs, i.e. the aristocrats formed bu the Mughals – seemed like a romantic ideal.

A very important expression of this romantic conception until today in Bangladesh is the very high appreciation of the Taj Mahal, that can be found in numerous drawings, especially on the rickshaws.

Because of this, ideologically “pure” Islam – the one of the Mughal, that looked “anti-imperialist” – was taken as a weapon.

This happened with the Faraizi movement, founded by Haji Shariatullah (1781–1840). He went to Arabia and used the version of Islam there – Wahabism – as a fundamentalist weapon in Bengal, promoting an Islam “purified” from the Hinduistic influence, i.e. from the British presence.

“Fairaz” designates the obligation due to God; of course, Bengali Islam was very far away from the Arabian Islam, with all his magical thinking and its open-mindedness to the Hindu goddesses.

But this movement of “purification” was perceived as a romantic way to, at least, affirm the nation of Bengal.

Nevertheless, this was romantic, and understanding in a non dialectical way Hinduism as a mere ally of imperialism. So, this process of “purification” of Islam, even if not generalized – killed for good the possibility of a union of Bengal under the bourgeois flag. Bengal could have been unified only if its cultural national element could be taken as a common denominator.

Fundamentalism killed this possibility. Wanting to fight against imperialism, the peasant masses rejected Hinduism as much as they could, not seeing that the problem was the agrarian question.

Haji Shariatullah did put forward a anti-national cosmopolit struggle – but it looked revolutionary, because it sounded anti-imperialist (and so anti-feudal).

Nonetheless, for this reason, the Fairazi movement was taken by the masses as anti-imperialist (and so anti-feudal); a state in the state was created in Bengal, forming a huge opposition to the British empire.

The masses did not see that the problem was the agrarian question, but they felt that upholding the Fairazi movement – not so much in the religious purification as socially – was in their interest.

In this sense, the Fairazi movement was a anti-feudal movement, but led by intellectual circles and not a bourgeoisie that was terribly weak because of the Mughal and the post-Mughal type of economy.

Because of this, the Fairazi movement turned into a utopian peasant movement and came to even put forward the doctrine of the proprietorship of land as due to the labour.

Logically, the same process happened with Hinduism, naturally with a center of gravity in West Bengal. Bourgeois elements tried to build a new ideology, a Hinduism able to mobilize the masses, putting aside the caste systems and the religious hierarchy.

So came to birth the Brahmo Samaj, founded by the Brahmin and bourgeois Dwarkanath Tagore (1794 – 1846) and the Brahmin and intellectual Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772 – 1833).

But more than the Fairazi movement, it failed to mobilize the masses in a revolutionary way – both were carried by intellectual circles trying to find an universal exit of the situation in Bengal then, but at least the movement in East Bengal did manage to have a strong popular identity.

So, both were progressive in the sense that they were criticizing and rejecting feudalism, both took an universal stance, but both looked in a idealized past to find the nucleus of the ideology that should have been found in the present.

Both were petty-bourgeois, romantic movement. Their failure was inevitable because thie bourgeoisie was weak, coming too late in history, and could not brake the advance of imperialism.

But there was a difference: in West Bengal, the process was organized around petty bourgeois and grand bourgeois circles, what is called until today the “Bhadralok” i.e. the “better people”.

The “bhadr alok” were culturally westernized, but ideologically wanting a bourgeois society and so rejecting Western culture (exactly like the founder of Pakistan did not speak urdu and was one the “best” dressed man in the world i.e. in the english style).

In Eastern Bengal, the movement managed, on the contrary, to deeply influence the masses, failing on the other side to mobilize them in a revolutionary way.

The British colonization: third period

After the Brahmo Samaj and the Fairazi movement, there was no forces to unite Bengal any more; the bourgeoisie came too late, and the petty bourgeois elements were weak and ideologically divided in the two parts of Bengal.

On the contrary, the forces to split Bengal were strong. The British empire played a significant role in splitting Bengal for administrative reasons in 1905. It did not succeed in it – Bengal was unified again, in 1919.

But it pushes the contradiction between West and East Bengal. The Hindus, that won points with colonialism and then thought they would profit from an independent India as it would be mainly Hindu, carried a struggle against the 1905 partition.

The petty bourgeois forces in Bangladesh, fearing the hegemony of the Hindu part, accepted for their part this partition, because they thought it would permit the strengthening of the Bengali nation.

This process, once engaged, was not to stop any more: in 1919, the British divided the Bengali people with separate elections for Hindus and Muslims. Again, the petty-bourgeois forces in East Bengal thought it was favorable for their affirmation.

British colonialism went very far in this policy, even using famine. The 1770 famine killed approximatively the third of the population (so, around 10 million people); there was afterwards famines in 1783, 1866, 1873-74, 1892, 1897. British colonialism preferred to block the supplies, that were to serve its profit, even if it meant the starvation of millions of people.

When the Japanese conquered Burma, British colonialism continued this politic in a extreme way, giving death to nearly 5 millions of people of Bengal in 1943-1944. Famine was not even officially declared. Satyajit Ray made a famous movie about this event, Distant Thunder.

The situation was therefore unacceptable and it was necessary to make a leap, at any price. This drove to the Bengal split, in West Bengal and East Pakistan.

West Bengal and Bangladesh

In 1947, India became independent, but of course it was not possible for the bourgeois elements in Eastern Bengal to struggle against India for open ties with West Bengal; anyway the West Bengal (Hindu) bourgeoisie thought – because of its own strength – that it would be more interesting to be a part of India.

Therefore, East Bengal ran into the hands of “Pakistan”, becoming “west” Pakistan. West and East Pakistan were 1,600 kilometers away, there was no real economical, psychological and cultural ties between West and East Pakistan.

But it was a practical option to, at least, having what seemed an independent Bengal. “East Pakistan” was a way to free Bengal from “Hinduist” India. Pakistan was seen as a return to the era of the Mughal.

Basically, it is easy to see that the choice of Pakistan was indeed not a religious definition, but a national one. A proof for this was the taking of the song Amar Shonar Bangla (“My Golden bengal”) written by Rabindranath Tagore as a national anthem.

We have here amazing elements: first of all, it meant that East Pakistan understood itself as the real Bengal.

In the same way, we have to see that India took also a song of Tagore as a national anthem – this can not be by chance and was clearly connected to the Western Bengal question, that India wanted to keep at any price.

And, finally, we have to see a strange fact: Amar Shonar Bangla was originally written against the 1905 partition, that the Eastern Bengal Muslim leaders accepted. It should have been not logic to choose this song – unless we understand that the goal was a unified Bengal, separated from India.

East Bengal becoming East Pakistan

When East Bengal joined Pakistan, the hope was that the country would be ruled in a manner that would permit the East Bengal bourgeoisie to develop. For the bourgeoisie that adopted Islam as an identity, this should have be a logical consequence.

But the Islam was not the one of Bengal historically; it was a construction of imperialism, theorized by Indian students in England, inventing a “Pakistan” like Zionists invented the “state of Israel”. It has nothing to do with an idealized “return to the Mughal” conception.

It was an illusion to think that the Pakistani state would be a development in terms of history. And the situation became soon terrible.

Pakistan had 69 millions of people, 44 millions being in East Pakistan. But West Pakistan had a total hegemony: it had the Federal Capital, the Military Command, the Supreme Court of justice….

Since the beginning, priority was given to West Pakistan that had the ¾ of the development founds. East Pakistan was producing most of the export (jute, tea…), but had only ¼ of the earning.

And the situation was not only unbearable for East Pakistan. Pakistan was born as a British semi-colony, and it became more and more a US semi-colony.

The masses, in the general world revolutionary atmosphere, began to protest through the students in 1968, followed afterwards by the peasants and the workers, in a common front against the military dictatorship.

A rural intellectual managed to unite the peasant democratic movement in Bengal: Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani. Deeply influenced by China, he even separated himself from the pro-bourgeois Awami League (Awami meaning people), to form the National Awami Party.

But Bhashani was a democrat, in a period where the democratic revolution could only be carried by the Communist Party. For this reason, he made several errors, particularly in 1970 in letting the Awami League be alone present in the elections.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the bourgeois (or better said petty bourgeois) Awami League, received a triumph, becoming for the masses the leader of the democratic struggle. 167 of the total 169 National Assembly seats in East Pakistan were so held by the Awami League.

The Awami League was certainly not ready for secession – but the masses awakened, notably by the National Awami Party, pushed to a liberation from the hegemony of West Pakistan.

Played also here an important role the cyclone of 1970, where 200 000 people died, and where the Pakistani state was not able to organize a serious relief. A this time, the Pakistani official army – where officers were mostly from West Pakistan – began to be considered by the broad masses as an occupation army.

Because of this, on March 25 in 1971, the Pakistani army made an intervention, that became a true genocide.

The goal of the Pakistani army was to crush all Bengali speaking intellectuals, to rape as much women as possible (around 200 000), to kill as many Hindus as possible. The Bengali language and the Hindus were considered as an obstacle to the Islamic unification, and therefore, as targets.

But this was not only a tactic from the Pakistani army. It was conform to the ideology of a part of the Bengal petty bourgeoisie.

Therefore, the party Jamaat-e-Islami helped in the massacres, as volunteers (the “Razakars”) and the build up of militias – Al-Badar and Al-Shams. This fraction of eastern Bengal transformed therefore itself in a bureaucratic bourgeoisie serving the Pakistani interests.

The results of this process was three millions of deaths.

The birth of Bangladesh

The mass uprising, the general strike, the generalized armed struggle permitted to defeat the Pakistani offensive.

But the total defeat of Pakistan would have also meant the defeat of India. India could not accept an independent Bangladesh, that would mean the loss of West Bengal at middle term.

This was especially clear as workers and peasants councils spread in all the country, a people’s war being also initiated by different organizations, especially the Purba Bangla Sarbohara Party (Proletarian Party of East Bengal) led by Siraj Sikder.

Peter Hazlehurst of the Times commented then: “Red Bengal would alarm Delhi even more than Islamabad.” It is to note that the french philosopher Bernard Henri Lévy, publishing his first work about the Indian and Bangladesh question, did not understand this process and thought that the people’s war initiated had not as an objective the Democratic Revolution in Bengal, promoting so pessimism and confusion.

Because of the situation, the Indian army began an offensive against Pakistan and organized since the beginning at large scale the “Mukti Bahini” i.e. the “liberation army” under control of the Awami League. The goal was the formation of a eastern Bengal, under control of India and its master, the Russian social-imperialism.

The situation was very complicated for the revolutionaries. They had to fight against Indian expansionism and Pakistani colonialism, but also against the feudal forces. And the US imperialism and the Russian social-imperialism were backing some fractions to transform them in a bureaucratic bourgeoisie.

The massive intervention of India brought a lot of tactical problems, as the main enemy changed in such a quick manner. That permitted the formation of Bangladesh, under Indian control. The leader of the Awami League, Sheikh Mujib, became the first minister and then the president.

Representing the pro-India and pro-social-imperialist USSR bureaucrat bourgeoisie, Sheikh Mujib began to give the same ideological orientation. He put forward, as fundamental principles, “nationalism, secularism, democracy and socialism. »

He made that only one party was tolerated in the country, the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League-BAKSAL, and put himself as president for life.

This was of course unacceptable by the masses, and it was used by the imperialists. After the famine from 1974, that killed 1,5 millions of people, US imperialism pushed to a military coup d’Etat, on August 15 in 1975.

The leader became army officer Ziaur Rahman, who established a political party expressing the interests of US imperialism and the bureaucratic bourgeoisie submitted to it : the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Ziaur Rahman made a policy that was the opposite of the one before; the state made privatizations; Islam was given a national role; Golam Azad, exiled chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, was authorized to come back in July 1978 with a Pakistani Passport and could stay even after the expiry of the Visa, etc.

Ziaur Rahman suffered some different coup d’Etat, that all failed, even if he was killed in the one of 1981. His successor, Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, followed his policy but formed his own political party, the Jatiya Party.

Ruling in a autocratic way, Ershad paved the way for a “democratic” Bangladesh – a “democracy” under control of the two fractions of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie.

Awami League and BNP domination

Under Ershad’s rule – that served like a Bonaparte in a situation of crisis – the Awami League and the BNP reorganized themselves.

Zia’s widow Khaleda Zia became the leader of the BNP; it was (and is) a pro-American force, it formed the 7-party alliance.

On the other side, the Awami League was led by Mujib’s daughter Sheikh Hasina; it was (and is) a pro-Indo-Soviet force, forming historically the 15-party alliance.

The BNP and the Awami League united against the martial law of Ershad. They allied also with the Jamaat-e-Islami, and a “Democratic League (DL)” that was also pro-US.

In 1987, the Awami League boycotted the elections, in 1988, it was joined in its boycott by the BNP. The general pressure against him – from the bureaucratic fractions but also from the masses, where the revolutionaries were playing an significant role – brought Ershad to resign, in 1990. His political party became then an ally of the Awami League.

Since 1990, the BNP and the Awami League are so the main institutional political parties, representing the two main bureaucratic bourgeois trends, along with the Jamaat-e-Islami.

In 1991, both parties were kind of equal; then, the BNP won in 1996, the Awami League in another election in 1996, the BNP winning again in 2001, the Awami League again in 2008.

From 1991 to 1996, Khaleda Zia was the prime minister, then Sheikh Hasina dominated from 1996 to 2001, Khaleda Zia coming back from 2001 to 2006, and after a transition government in an unstable situation with even a emergency law, Sheikh Hasina came back in 2009

Bangladesh: oppressed country

To understand the situation of today, let’s take a look at what it is possible to read on a website against the war criminals from 1971:

“In 1971, two supreme power US and China were with them. But Allah was with unarmed Bangali. So we won the war. Though we lost our beloved ones but we got our desired Bangladesh.”

What is here written helps a lot to understand the illusion that prevails in a lot of sectors of the masses.

Because it was not “Allah” but the Indian army that gave weapons and fought against the Pakistani army on one side, the masses that armed themselves on the other, with a strong communist influence.

But because of the weakness of the communist avant-garde, Bangladesh, at its foundation, became a puppet of India and the social-imperialist USSR. This gave strength again to the “return to the Mughal” ideology, that was again used by the pro-US bureaucratic bourgeoisie. And it permitted to the ex-Razakars to “justify” themselves.

We have here an ideological key. Bangladesh was born as a country on a genocide of 3 millions of people which only fault was to be Bengali and this new nation was not able until yet to preserve their memory and punish the criminals.

How is it possible?

It is because the religious aspect is so strong that even just after the 1971 independence, the new state of Bangladesh was not able to repress the razakars, that helped the Pakistani army in its massacres. Even Mujib used Islam as an ideology weapon.

And more and more Bangladesh knows a greater influence of Islam. In June 1988, the constitution was even amended to establish Islam as the state religion, abandoning state secularism. The Awami League accepts this – because it is has absolutely no bourgeois aspect any more, it is merely bureaucratic.

This is logic: Bangladesh, rejecting a democratic path, is more and more using Islam in a abstract national-bureaucratic way, to maintain Bangladesh as it is. Even the pro-India forces need this Islam to maintain Bangladesh as it is, to be able to exist.

The option of the Maoists at the beginning of the 1970’s was correct: organizing the agrarian revolution would spread like a fire in Bangladesh, in India, in Pakistan, it would unify the masses that have already a lot of cultural connections. And it would permit to oppose both pro-US and pro-USSR forces.

But Bangladesh has now more and more a bureaucratic capitalism organized from the top, with thousand of factories where even great rebellions are organized. It is not possible to negate this evolution.

The country turns or turned, like a lot of countries, in a semi-colonial semi-bureaucratic capitalist country, with massive semi-feudal elements on the cultural and ideological levels. There is even one unified ideological system to justify the state: an Islam influenced by a “return to the Mughal” romanticism.

Bangladesh: unfinished nation of Bengal

Nevertheless, this state ideology, more and more influenced by Islam, has a very weak basis. It is not conform to the national basis. The new democratic revolution raises this flag, to unify the masses against those who invents fake principles to maintain their domination.

But the main revolutionary question is: where is the main support of the new democratic revolution?

Yesterday, it would have been mainly the agrarian revolution. Today, as the nation has advanced but on a erroneous way, it is must be still the democratic aspect, but on a popular basis. The struggle against fascism and fascist forces have indeed been really strong since 1971.

And certainly, the question of the Bengali culture plays a central role. A democratic revolution carries an universal aspect, and as there is a neighbor really near on the cultural level – West Bengal – the question of the democratic revolution carries again the question of the Bengali nation.

It is not only that socialism unifies peoples; it is also that a federation of both Bengal has an ideological democratic value. Both West and East have lived experiences of submission to forms that did not permit their development. They need to find another way – their democratic meeting, in a way or another, is unavoidable.

=> documents in English

 

The impetuous rise of class struggle in the world has exposed the subjected capitulation of prachandist revisionism in Nepal and the disappearance of the leading role of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement – RIM.

It has appeared that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – CPN (M), being a RIM member, has raised in the name of Maoism against Marxism Leninism Maoism, clutching a revisionist platform of renunciation of destroying the old reactionary state, of betraying the People’s War by renouncing to it, by disarming the people, by dismantling the bases of popular power already conquered and by dissolving its People’s Liberation Army in the reactionary army of exploiters, and finally by merging with the revisionist party Mashal in the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – UCPN (M), and by compromising with all others opportunist parties to defend the class dictatorship of the landlords, the bourgeoisie and imperialism, and to serve to run over the people.

It is likewise evident that the Committee of the RIM has, remaining silent facing the revisionist line and the betrayal carried out by the CPN (M), resigned in practice the role of being the international leading center, and compromising the prestige of the RIM. It has cost a high price to the world revolution and the international unity of the communists, allowing the coexistence of opportunistic trends within the RIM, by the incorrect method of restrict the lines struggle, and hiding the discussions to the International Communist Movement – ICM and to the world proletariat.

Hence, facing the new problems caused by the deep world contradictions of imperialism in the last decades, both the CPN (M) and the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States, seeing only the living appearance of imperialism without going to the very agonizing core of capitalism, have reached to the same revisionist conclusion: to declare null and void the principles of revolutionary Marxism, and insufficient the universal theory of Marxism Leninism Maoism to solve the problems of the revolution in this century and, therefore, declared it overstepped in its « novel » revisionist theories, made today under the ostentatious name of « Avakian’s new synthesis ». Contrary to its hopelessness pessimism in the proletariat and in the revolution, the new problems of our times have unleashed the world forces of work against the imperialist parasitism, showing the orphanhood of a world communist leadership, and with it the urgency for the international unity of the marxist leninist maoists.

Against such a need that requires to differentiate and to break completely with opportunism, rises again the familiar centrist tendency known in the history of communist movement for its « conciliator » role between Marxism and revisionism. A centrist tendency, headed today by the Communist Party (Maoist) of Italy, direct continuation of the centrism in the RIM yesterday, and mainly in its Committee.

In the open bourgeois degeneration of prachandism, the centrists, who yesterday praised his theory, ignored the treason in Nepal and supported bourgeois parliamentarism of the PCNU (M), declare today themselves to be against Prachanda, but actually without breaking with prachandism.

They remain supporters of a fraction of prachandism that no longer recognizes Prachanda as leader, but Kiran. They repudiate the current symbolic acts of Bhattarai and Prachanda in the surrender of the revolution, but deny the revisionist nature of the party and escape its responsibility in the real political betrayal of People’s War conducted in the Peace Agreement of 2006.

Centrism both reconciles and calls « red » a fraction of the revisionist right in Nepal, and fights angry against the revolutionary communists whom are called « dogmatic-revisionists » and « opportunistic liquidators » for their struggle against revisionism and centrism.

It fears the complete rupture, ideological, political and organizational, with the revisionist line of the UCPN (M), a condition without which it is not possible to conceive a true revolutionary line in Nepal, able to return to the People’s War and lead it, to conquer the triumph of the Revolution of New Democracy in the whole country.

Before the visible collapse of the RIM, centrism that yesterday gave legitimacy to the silent complicity, now denies that the RIM was defeated by the revisionist line which it was unable to fight in their midst, and attempts to revive it with the support of UCPN (M), but without the hegemony of the RCP, USA.

Thus, centrism hides the main danger that represents revisionism for the unity of the ICM, minimizing its treason to the world proletariat and its outrages against the people of Nepal, opaque the vision of the communists and prevents the workers of the world to clearly understand the role of revisionism in the defeat of their political movement, contributing to keep them away from the political problems of their revolution.

It is our unwavering commitment to fight for the international unity of the Marxist Leninist Maoists, which requires the demolition of the false revisionist theories and the eclectic positions of centrism, drawing a deep demarcation between Marxism and opportunism in the whole general line of the International Communist Movement, as firm foundation of unity to build the new International that has to lead the grandiose battles of the world proletarian revolution against imperialism and all its lackeys.

¡AGAINST REVISIONISM AND CENTRISM: LONG LIVE MARXISM LENINISM MAOISM!

¡FOR A NEW COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL BASED ON MARXISM LENINISM MAOISM: FORWARD!

December 26th – 2011

Arab Maoists

Colectivo Odio de Clase – Estado Español

Parti Communiste Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – France

Partido Comunista del Ecuador Sol Rojo

Partido Comunista del Perú – Base Mantaro Rojo

Partido Comunista Popular Maoísta – Argentina

Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) de Panamá

Proletarian Party of East Bengal (PBSP) (Maoist Unity Group)/Bangladesh

Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia

=> documents in English

It seems that revisionist are so bad in political economy that they are not able to formulate even a joint statement about the murder of the indian maoist leader Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji.

As we can see here in a easy manner, the « joint statement » promoted by the revisionists calling themselves “Maoists” is on many points a direct copy of the joint statement made by the PCMLM of France and the Proletarian Party of East Bengal (Maoist Unity Group)/Bangladesh.

What a shame! What a shame to copy a statement of others organizations to express sadness ! What a total lack of dignity ! What an opportunism !

These people have absolutely no political economy, they misuse marxism-leninism-maoism for a revolutionary syndicalism, as based on the reactionary ideology of Georges Sorel, with his “myths” and his idealist conception of “violence”.

These people are assassinating dialectical materialism and promoting anarcho-maoism.

Here the following points :

1- the comparison of both statement

2 – the statement of the revisionists, published by “Maoist road”

1.Here we quote first the joint statement made by the PCMLM of France and the Proletarian Party of East Bengal (Maoist Unity Group)/Bangladesh, on the 28th of November 2011 (a).

Than we quote the revisionist statement made on the 3rd of December 2011 (b).

a)This murder hurts us in our minds, in our flesh (…). That is why all the genuine communists never forget India, and that is why the murder of Comrade Koteshwar Rao Kishenji appears as a terrible pain, not only for the Indian revolution, but also for the World Proletarian Revolution.

b)This murder hurts us in our minds, in our flesh (…) and so all the genuine communists never forget India, and that is why the murder of Comrade Koteshwar Rao Kishenji appears as a terrible pain, not only for the Indian revolution, but also for the World Proletarian Revolution.

a)The Indian People’s War is facing a huge counter-insurgency, pushed by the international counter-revolution.

b)The Indian People’s War is facing a huge counter-insurgency pushed by the Indian counter-revolution and supported by the Imperialist countries.

2.The joint statement of the revisionists:

The movement will continue, the revolution will continue

Joint Statement signed by the Association for Proletarian Solidarity, Italy (ASP)-Maoist Communist Party of France (MCF), Maoist Communist Party of Manipur (MCP), Partito Comunista maoista (PCm) Italia , Party of the Committees to Support Resistance – for Communism (CARC) An International group,  Revolutionary Communist Party, Canada (PCR-RCP Canada)  – Struggling Workers Union, Italy (SLL) Socialist Party, Malaysia .

We the Communist party of this planet strongly condemned the brutal killing of Comrade Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji in the Jangalmahal region of West Bengal, in India. This murder hurts us in our minds, in our flesh. Communist party of India (Maoist) have play an important role in world proletarian revolution and so all the genuine communists never forget India, and that is why the murder of Comrade Koteshwar Rao Kishenji appears as a terrible pain, not only for the Indian revolution, but also for the World Proletarian Revolution. We the Communist believed that the demise of Comrade Kishenji will make a new approach to unite all the oppress people of this universe. In a famous article” serve the people”,

Comrade Mao has mentioned: “Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather. To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiter is lighter than a feather”.  Yes, it is true Comrade Kishenji died for the people, in his death is indeed weightier than Mount Everest. From the bottom of our hearts we expressed our red salute to the hero of Indian proletariat Comrade Kishenji. The Indian reactionary has murdered Comrade Kishenji but not his Ideology. They can’t kill Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

The movement will continue, the revolution will continue.  The Indian People’s War is facing a huge counter-insurgency pushed by the Indian counter-revolution and supported by the Imperialist countries. Manipur and its neighboring sisters states has been brutalized by imposing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act,1958 which a non commission officer empower to kill anyone in suspicion and no state body have the right to institute a commission without the permission of Indian Home Minister. The act only imposed in North Eastern states where Indian forcibly annexed into their union and well known Jammu and Kashmir discriminately. Now India have started war against its own people in the name of Operation green hunt at Maoist affected area. The degree of the brutality in North east states is too much if anyone compares with any mainland Indian state. The Indian Army racially oppresses the Mongolians race of North East states and Kashmir for being as Islamist people.

=> documents in English

Joint Statement

November 28, 2011

Proletarian Party of East Bengal (Maoist Unity Group)/Bangladesh

Communist Party Marxist Leninist Maoist (France)

“One day a free India will appear in the world!”

It is with deep sadness that we learnt the brutal killing of Comrade Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji in the Jangalmahal region of West Bengal, in India.

This murder hurts us in our minds, in our flesh. Because we are communists, because India is a big country, where an important part of the world masses are living. Numerous are the contributions of the Indian culture to the history of the world, and this will continue.

India’s importance can not be stressed enough; as Mao Zedong did it himself:

« One day a free India will appear in the world as a member of the great family of socialism and People’s Democracies, just as free as China has.

That day shall end the epoch of imperialism and reaction in the history of humanity. »

(Mao Zedong, Telegram to the Communist Party of India, november 19, 1949, to B.T. Ranadive, general secretary of the Communist Party of India, signed by Mao Zedong and dated).

That is why all the genuine communists never forget India, and that is why the murder of Comrade Koteshwar Rao Kishenji appears as a terrible pain, not only for the Indian revolution, but also for the World Proletarian Revolution.

And when we hear so few about India, we think it is not conform to reality, it doesn’t correspond to what the masses of India are carrying, in culture, in politics, in ideology, especially with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the people’s war led by this Party.

We hope the CPI (Maoist) understands the great value that all over the world we, communists, give to it. We hope the CPI (Maoist) understand its international importance.The international reaction wants to crush the Indian People’s War, at any price. We hope the CPI (Maoist) understands well the dimension of its struggle.Even if the CPI (Maoist) is the product of the working class of India, even if the struggle is a national one, the revolution / counter-revolution contradiction at the international level plays here a central role.

In this difficult situation for Marxism-Leninism-Maoism since the arrest of Comrade Gonzalo, leader of the Communist Party of Peru, and the revisionist turn in Nepal, the Indian People’s War appears as a torch in the world.

If yesterday were only a few that knew really about the People’s War in India, today the impact of it is so big, it shines all over the planet.

Because of this, the CPI (Maoist) can not be able to carry negotiation with the Trinomul Congress government of West Bengal, like it was made; no guarantee can ever be made by the state of India or one of the local state governments, as they are totally submitted to the international counter-revolution.

In the same way, the CPI (Maoist) can not be silent any more in what concerns the International Communist Movement, and must assume its tasks, for example what concern the Nepali failure… and also about such important questions as the city and land contradiction, ecology, the defense of our planet against the greed of the Multi National Companies.

As on many points here, the CPI (Maoist) is on the forefront of the struggle, and it must express this on the cultural, ideological and political levels.

The Indian People’s War is facing a huge counter-insurgency, pushed by the international counter-revolution. To overcome this, the Indian People’s War must also feed the revolutionaries in others countries, giving them ideological, political and cultural weapons to support it.

As said in the joint document of the Proletarian Party of East Bengal (Maoist Unity Group) of Bangladesh and the Kangleipak Communist party (KCP) of Manipur:

“We believe that correct tactics flow from correct strategies, which flow from a correct ideological and political line. We believe that the fight against imperialism, capitalism and colonial ruler hand in hand with the fight against revisionism, chauvinism, and opportunism.

We believe that the ruling colonial bourgeoisie will never give up its power without a fight. Putting an end to the colonial ruler is only possible by building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

We believe, however, that any armed insurrection on the territory of South Asia will be inevitably crushed until an arising of objective conditions for its mass support of the potentially revolutionary strata of the population.”

The time where arise the objective conditions is coming, and the possibilities will be used only if Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is understood as the international ideology of the working-class, if the dimension of the struggle is understood as a national one, but also as an internationalist one in the epoch of the World Proletarian Revolution.

Victory to the People’s War in India, as part of the World Proletarian Revolution!

Let us build a new International, based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Proletarian Party of East Bengal (Maoist Unity Group) [Bangladesh]

=> documents in English

The struggle against centrism has shown difficulties, for two reasons that have the same origin.

The first reason is that the centrists quite never take position on the fields of political economy.

The second reason is that they never answer to the content of the criticism made of them.

Those two reasons have the same orign: the sorelian way. Georges Sorel (1847-1922) is an “intellectual” of importance, as he negated marxism in favor of revolutionary syndicalism, putting forward two things:

a)in his “Reflections on Violence” he expresses the necessity of violence as a transcending act;

b)he thinks that “myths” are necessary so that there is determination in acting.

The centrists are sorelian; they don’t think in an ideological way; for them, maoism is a style of work.

Because of this, centrists think practice is the only thing that counts; that is why, on the fields of political economy or classical marxist analysis, they don’t work; here also the explanation of their insults : those who criticize have no practice, are intellectuals, this is criticism from internet café, etc.

And so, centrists think they are above criticism: for them, they uphold people’s war and that is enough. Here, people’s war is a “powerful myth”, any criticism to any people’s war (or what should be people’s war) is for them “against the trend.”

This use of a political myth is itself a romantic conception, where there is no science in general, but only a “science of revolution”, that would be mastered only by parties practicing people’s war.

This anti-theoretical and totally militarist conception – in a romantic way, as centrists want everybody to follow them, in the name of others fighting! – has a good expression in this excerpt of the second congress of the “Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada”, from this mid-november 2011:

“After the discussion on the political report, the Congress passed several motions related to the development of a new international revolutionary movement.

It reaffirmed our will “to contribute to such a regrouping of forces although we think it must be ruled by Maoist parties leading PW or seriously engaged in it.

We think that such a movement must recognize: a) Peoples’ War as being universal; b) MLM as the current stage in the science of revolution; c) The idea of the pursuing of class struggle under socialism and the fact [in the french version: “probability”] that the bourgeoisie could use the party in order to reinstall capitalism; d) The need for the two-line struggle so the revolutionary proletariat can triumph.””

If these Canadian revisionists – that reject Stalin – really thought that people’s war is universal, then they would uphold the dialectic of nature. Of course, they don’t. That’s why they say the bourgeoisie “could” use the party – when in fact it is a law of socialism that the bourgeoisie will try everything it can to control the Communist Party.

In the same way, they say there is a need of the two-line struggle – when in fact the two line struggle is a law.

But the most interesting aspect here is the following: “a regrouping of forces although we think it must be ruled by Maoist parties leading PW or seriously engaged in it.”

“Ruled”? What does this mean? That there is a avant-garde of an avant-garde? That the communist parties are a “working class” producing an avant-garde?

It is merely non-sense.

And it is militarism. Science is science, no matter if it is the expression of a tiny party in a small country or a strong party in a big country; one can be marxist in a wheelchair like in the guerrilla in a forest. What counts is science.

Of course, a revolutionary party in a revolutionary process will produce more science than a small party in a country where few things happen yet for historical reasons (like some imperialist countries, like Canada by the way).

But it doesn’t mean that some parties must “rule” some others, it is even in contradiction with the law that say that a Communist Party is the expression of the working-class in a nation (nation as defined by Stalin).

Why does the RCP Canada upholds such a militarist vision? Because it uses people’s war as a myth, and maoism as a “style of work.”

That’s why these people can say: Stalin? Well we don’t like him, and one day when we got time, we’ll work to see what to think about it.

This is just not marxist.

In the same sense, the fact of saying, like the maoist communist party of Italy, that only counts the forging of the party in the “fire of the class struggle”, is merely revolutionary syndicalist.

This is undialectic. Centrists use a sorelian approach of all these questions.

=> documents in English

To the communists of all countries in this International Day of the Working Class.

The Imperialist Capitalism is in Crisis – Long Live Socialism and Communism!

On this First of May, millions of proletarians of all countries on the five continents, without discrimination of nationality, origin, political filiation, beliefs, sex and language, raise the red flags of fraternity, international solidarity and struggle against all forms of exploitation and oppression on the planet, thus fulfilling the mighty orientation of the Communist Manifesto: “Proletarians of all countries, unite!”.

On this 1st May, in every place resounds the war cry of the proletarian world army against the imperialist capitalism which became a worldwide system of exploitation and oppression, and is today torn up by an economical crisis of overproduction, wrenching for all the society and provoking dreadful consequences for workers of all countries. This crisis shows the lapsing of imperialist capitalism, before the violent shock between the powerful productive forces created by the social work and the narrowing capitalist social relations made of wage-earning slavery, demonstrating that the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, between the more and more social worldwide production and the more and more private worldwide appropriation, is mature to be solved by the World Proletarian Revolution and Socialism.

The recent years have seen the birth, growth and expansion of powerful economic empires that have devastated frontiers, people and cultures, incorporating in a single productive process and a single chain of exploitation billions of proletarians, whose conditions of life, work and existence, became even more unbearable in the present time of economical crisis, which is not the crisis of a young and ascending system, but the one of a declining system in a state of profound agony ; it is neither the crisis of a few developed countries nor of a few branches of production, but the crisis of a worldwide system of oppression and exploitation that sharpens like never before the worldwide contradictions of imperialism: between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between the imperialist countries and the oppressed countries, between the imperialist countries themselves and between the big monopolistic groups.

The present crisis of imperialist capitalism shows that the system of wage-earning work no longer serves nor is needed by the society, because in spite of the gigantic wealth produced by the workers, they are condemned to the most dreadful starvation and misery.

The parasites of imperialist countries and big monopolies, which take control of all the wealth in the society and nature with the complicity of their lackeys in the oppressed countries, are not necessary and useful anymore. The prívate ownership of means of production, which remained the usufruct of the oppressing classes for centuries, has to be abolished by the revolution of the proletariat and changed into collective property of the direct producers of all the society.

The inhuman conditions caused by this crisis are the fertile land which awakens, in the consciences and hearts of people, the necessity and esteem for Socialism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; and what better occasion than this First of May to tell millions of proletarians and workers around the world that supreme rescuers do not exist in front of catastrophic conditions of ruin, misery, shame and suffering caused by imperialist capitalism.

The solution is not either in what some calls “socialism” and “democracy” of the 21th century, potion easing the sores of capitalism which have only been used to divert masses of the workers’ attention of the true way to Socialism and Comunism, the way of the Worldwide Proletarian Revolution, the only one able to emancipate exploited people in imperialist countries as much as in the oppressed ones, and also in the semifeudal countries where they can succeed in making the Revolution and establishing the State of New Democracy as a form of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

The world is mature for the revolution! As much in the imperialist countries where the labor movement, in which the migrant proletariat immigrant constitutes a powerful force, made a rush with with great uprising, strikes and demontrations in France, the United States, Germany, England, Italy… as in the oppressed countries, where the imperialist wars of aggression and the worldwide crisis of capitalism itself, multiply the opportunities to fight and resist the claws of the imperialist beast and the savage capitalist and semifeudal exploitation, as shown by the heroic struggle of the peoples in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, the demonstrations, strikes and rebellions all over Asia, Africa and Latin America.

And not only to resist, also to remove with the revolution all the relations of oppression and exploitation, as the intensification of social contradictions puts on the agenda the question of political power and revolutionary violence of the masses, and its resolution by the People’s War which – today – is advancing in a victorious way in countries like India, is re-appearing in Peru, and is getting ready in others, in agreement with the level of organization of the proletariat’s party.

In their international day, the proletarians must also understand that the imperialist hyenas are getting ready for another war, unfair, of imperialist plunder, which appears in a visible way in their proposals of cooperation summits to put an end to the crisis and “fix for good” their expansionist aspirations. As much the wars of aggression against the oppressed countries and people as the acceleration of the arms race, the war trainings and joint operations between the countries in order to show their capacity, are all signs of the preparation of a major war between imperialist countries. Because of the impossibility of solving the crisis problem by other means, the bourgeoisie is launched in the imperialist war to destroy most of the productive forces, to deal the world again and to tear off with the competitors the sources of raw materials, the markets and the labour force, an event to which the proletariat must be prepared: either to prevent the war by the revolution, or in case of a new world carnage arises, to transform this reactionary war into a revolutionary class war, in revolutionary civil war of the world proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

The dispute inter-imperialist for economical, political and military control on all the planet refutes in practice the reactionary kautskyst theory of “ultra-imperialism”, equivalent to the label of unbeatable power of the “total State of American imperialism”, serving as a pretext for revisionism to betray and disarm the revolution of New Democracy in Nepal.

The imperialist capitalism is in crisis – Long live Socialism and Communism! must be the world cry of the proletariat in its international day, affirming the validity of the World Proletarian Revolution and the necessity of a new and strong socialist system whose material premises were already created by the imperialism, and who has today the possibility of covering all the planet and transforming itself into a transitional period towards Communism, the future classless society, without private property caused by the exploitation between human beings, and without State to submit the enemy classes by the mean of dictatorship.

And with this reality showing a luminous prospect, the proletarians in the world must know a bitter truth : in Nepal, where the victorious advance of People’s War and the working and peasant masses were about to conquer power in all the country, the direction of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), signed a peace agreement with the bourgeoisie and the landlords with the support of the imperialists, dismantling people’s power in the bases of support and confining the People’s Liberation Army under the supervision of the UN. A renunciation of the revolutionary path which constitutes in the facts a treason of the revolution of New Democracy in Nepal and the World Proletarian Revolution, producing in the International Communist Movement a great confusion to the point that the RIM – Revolutionary Internationalist Movement remained tied up and quiet confronted to treason and to phenomenons which, as the crisis, are of decisive importance in the world situation and the international struggle of the proletariat.

Is necessary a thorough delimitation and a rupture with those which gave up the way of revolution. Is necessary to make of this fight the motor to conquer a new great grouping of authentic Communists.

It is necessary to demolish the new revisionism of the 21st century, rescuer of dying capitalism and principal obstacle to the unit of the International Communist Movement, and to the advance of the World Proletarian Revolution, as “… the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism. ” (Lenin)

The same manner we arm ourselves with courage to confront with the truth like the treason in Nepal, we announce to the proletarians that its most conscious detachments, the best sons and the best daughters including in Nepal, recover today from this hard blow and raise high the banner of the fight against the new revisionism, facing political criticism, breaking – with the scientific force of the Marxism Leninism Maoism-, all their theoretical lies on the omnipotence of the imperialism, the peaceful transition, the “multi-party democracy”… and making a huge sacrifice to come to the front of the revolutionary struggle of the masses, to accelerate the plans of construction and fortification of the authentic Communist Parties and to stick with enthusiasm to the most immediate and important international task: the union of the Marxist Leninist Maoists to untie together revisionism and take again the road of the construction of the Communist International of a New Type, ideological center, political and organizer of the workers in the world, essential to organize the triumph of the World Proletarian Revolution on imperialist capitalism, the world triumph of Socialism and Communism.

Long live the red First of May, International Day of the Working Class!

The Imperialist Capitalism is in crisis – Long live Socialism and Communism!

Down with the Revisionist Treason in Nepal!

Go forward in the Construction of Communist Parties and in the direction of New International Conference of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists!

May 1st 2009

Signatories:

• Union Obrera Comunista (Marxist Leninist Maoist) – [Colombia]
• Marxist Leninist Maoist Communist Party – [France]

=> documents in English

In the world today, revolution is confronting counterrevolution.

In the imperialist centers, everything is monitored and calmed down, neutralized by the pressure put on the masses in order to isolate the revolutionnaries; the organizations having upholded that « Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun » have been hunted down and annihilated, militarily and ideologically, in a very accurate way in order to avoid any spreading.

The imperialist exploitation of Asia, Africa and Latin America has allowed this policy, massively breeding opportunism, such as those « maoists » advocating people’s war while marching bareheaded and meeting « publicly », thus strictly complying with the bourgeois lawfulness and obeying to the imperialist surveillance.

In the oppressed countries, the counterrevolution tries to isolate the revolutionnaries as well, but does not hesitate to napalmize whole villages if necessary; the imperialist intelligence services monitor, infiltrate, disorganize, strike, kill; the reactionary armies are always in action.

In Peru, Turkey, the Philippines, India, the marxist-leninist-maoist communists face not only those armies, those intelligence services, but also the counter-guerilla units, mostly directly led by the CIA.

Those counter-guerillas command the most modern equipment, are trained by specialists, are used to psychological warfare.

They can disguise as guerillas or paint their dejections not to be located; strategical hamlets are created, communities are incited to clash; the reactionary army operates largely and brutally, armed militias are trained in the villages, etc.

In this international situation of confrontation between revolution and counterrevolution, Nepal is an exception, since the people’s war never faced any imperialist genocidal policy; it is a fundamental and great difference, it is an exception.

The Communist Party of Nepal (maoist) was thus fundamentally wrong while broadcasting videos showing mass meetings being flown over by army choppers: in most oppressed countries, it would have been a bloodbath.

Shall we call to mind that the last illegal meeting of the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey / Northern Kurdistan was attacked with chemical warfare?

Shall we call to mind that in Palestine, the zionist State uses drones to « eliminate » leaders of the Palestinian resistance with choppers?

Shall we call to mind that rape is a classical warfare of imperialist war?

This remarkable situation of Nepal certainly led the CPN(m) to the delusion that « legitimacy » on its own is enough to overcome. That party even made a whole ideology of it, which Prachanda summarized this way in an interview granted to The Worker #10, the review of the CPN(m):

« When an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist state is formed, in such a situation, the political parties that represent various classes and ideological beliefs will not need to set up separate armies because there interests will not be antagonistic.

Instead, there begins a people’s democratic competition under people’s dictatorship, which only further strengthens people’s state.

The issue of forming an army might arise only in two completely different situations. The first situation is, if the Party that leads the people’s democratic state turns counter-revolutionary and starts exploiting, suppressing and torturing people, any of the competing political forces using people’s right to revolt can and should form an army.

The other situation is, if a political Party competing in the name of people stoops to the level of advocating feudalism and imperialism and starts armed activities under their support and instigation, in such a situation the people’s state will certainly impose dictatorship on them and solve the problem. »

As you can see, Prachanda explains that an armed clash is won because one is « right ». If anything is unfair, it is « enough » to « rebel » and all will be cleaned up.

Obviously, such an idealistic argument directly originates from the dramatic spread of people’s war in the specific conditions of Nepal.

It goes so far that Prachanda « forgets » the whole issue of the role of ideology, culture, the burden of traditions. He thinks that classes and parties can genuinely be let to compete.

Does he really imagine that the reactionaries openly admit their nature or uphold exploitation and tyranny as a program? Is he so gullible?

Didn’t he understand anything about the concept of fascism, a reactionary ideology seeming ultrarevolutionary in order to deceive the masses?

Did he forget all the lessons about the importance and necessity of cultural revolutions?

Of course, his idealistic viewpoint is based on the objective situation of the people’s war in Nepal, which is approximatively the same as the situation of the communists of France in 1944-1945, with a dual power and a dual army; Thorez, the leader of the French CP, highlighted the same idea as Prachanda and released a statement summarizing their common position very well: « Democracy, a continual creation, will conclude under socialism. »

Eliminating the principles this way and blurring every limit for democracy’s sake allowed to defend the surrendering before the French bourgeoisie, to annihilate the structures of the new power originally from the armed resistance, to compete loyally and peacefully with gaullism for over twenty years, to fit into the mould of social- imperialism and then of social-democracy.

Prachanda says almost verbatim the same: « In this way, only the dictatorship based on the development of democracy can finally prepare necessary preconditions for the withering away of the class, Party and the state. » (interview granted to The Worker #10).

What Prachanda stands for is thus not new, for anyone having studied but a bit the international communist movement.

Thorez in France, Togliatti in Italy, Browder in the USA, Tito in Yugoslavia, Pieck in the German Democratic Republic, etc., all of them expressed conceptions of « national paths to socialism » based on ultra-opportunist interpretations of people’s democracy.

Thereafter, those revisionists dropped sooner or later the classics, and besides, Prachanda is historically moving away similarly from the classics; he even openly attacks those refusing it by calling them « dogmato-leftists » wanting to « vulgarize marxism as an inert entity ».

Always in the same historical prospect, he plays off, like Thorez, democracy against imperialism, and considers imperialism as one bloc, without any internal contradiction: « The main specificity of today’s imperialism has been to exploit and oppress the broad masses of people of the earth economically, politically, culturally and militarily in the form of a single globalized state. » (interview granted to The Worker #10).

One could confuse it with an antiglobalization work, such as Toni Negri’s « Empire ».

And there is no doubt that Prachanda’s understanding of imperialism is not deeper than Hassan Nasrallah’s from Hizballah or Hugo Chavez’s, and that he likewise  » forgets  » the France-Germany-Russia bloc.

Yet all of this can have nobody convinced, because the petty bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries and the national and middle bourgeoisies of the oppressed countries already have their ideologists and lackeys: Chavez, Morales, Lula, etc.

Therefore, Prachanda has to break with the main hurdle against liquidation and pacification: people’s war in Peru.

Thereby, one can doubtless play off the hysterical frenzy of the imperialist propaganda having aimed at the « shining path », a concept launched by the CIA to attack the Communist Party of Peru, against the comparatively well-pleasing image of people’s war in Nepal in the imperialist media.

It is thus very telling about Prachanda, that he charges the marxists- leninists-maoists of Peru, who lead people’s war in Peru and take part in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement just like the CPN (m), of « idealizing Comrade Gonzalo as a supernatural leader who never makes a mistake and of placing him above the whole Party and the Central Committee by asserting his leadership as Jefetura. »

Under the pretext that the CPP never spoke about Gonzalo as an individual (with details about his age, pictures, i.e. all that apolitical and fascistic shit), under the pretext that the CPP does precisely not set Gonzalo above the party by individualizing him (whereas Prachanda’s picture is everywhere), Gonzalo is said to be considered as a « supernatural » being!

Therefore, Prachanda has understand nothing, since Gonzalo himself spoke about « Gonzalo thought » without any connection with a personal issue; on the contrary, Gonzalo’s analyses and the directions he stated to be followed to lead the revolution were always pointed up.

One year before Gonzalo’s arrest, the PCP clearly said : « The leadership could be wiped out, in part, not all, but the leaders who remain must and will follow the plans, the struggle, the People’s War. We are forged in the struggle and resolutely believe that the revolution can’t be stopped (…).

Any of us can fall, but the Party will continue, our immolated lives will encourage those who remain, and the path will continue until communism is imposed on Earth. This is our conviction. » (Communist Party of Peru, Building the conquest of power in the midst of the people’s war)

Prachanda shows no respect for a comrade haing been shown off in the guise of a convict in a cage, and who, despite abasement and torture, delivered a genuinely revolutionary speech, calling of course to continue the struggle until victory.

Much more seriously, Prachanda, as well as this criticism, repeated the imperialist mudslinging about Gonzalo’s betrayal.

Gonzalo has been held in total isolation since September 1992, when he made his last TV appearance and precisely stated that people’s war would continue, that his arrest was but a bend in the road. From that time on, nobody has heard of him, except people linked to the CIA, it is only known that he is held in a tiny cell in a military jail on a naval base.

The fascistic Peruvian rulers thereafter pretended that Gonzalo advocated peace agreements, that he held hunger strikes (a practice always rejected by Gonzalo), but there is no evidence at all, nothing, nothing but a few renegades sold to reaction.

However, Prachanda cannot help saying that « sufficient indications that Chairman Gonzalo himself is the main spokesperson of the two- line struggle developed within the Party after his arrest, as well as of the right opportunist line that argues for peaceful conciliation with the enemy by abandoning war. »

This is an open attack against the campaigns led by the comrades of Peru against the CIA propaganda.

It is an obvious support for the capitulationists of Peru who say that Gonzalo sold himself, but mainly sold themselves to reaction.

It is a clear contribution to counterrevolution.

Let us be straight: Gonzalo first defined the notion of « marxism- leninism-maoism », the Communist Party of Peru first opened people’s war, based on this ideology.

By attacking the marxists-leninists-maoists of Peru and Gonzalo, Prachanda wants to resolve marxism-leninism-maoism into an « anti- stalinian maoism », the very banner under which all the phoney maoists of Europe operated during the 1970s to liquidate all, to transform within the Greens party (bourgeois environmentalists), into intellectuals, journalists, officials, etc.

Those phoney maoists did the same as Prachanda is doing today, they extolled relativism: Lenin was not so good, Stalin had no concrete outcome, the cultural revolution got nowhere, all must be begun anew, ideology is often redundant regarding to the democratic principles, etc.

It is the classical idea of the intellectuals playing at « applying maoism to maoism », dialectics to dialectics, splitting hairs to eventually liquidate all.

How many leaders were there in Europe, who thought themselves to be new theorists, new Hegels, new Lenins, new Maos?

Prachanda has the same pretension, when he states that « [he does] not think time has come to polemicize or debate the terminology ‘Thought’ or ‘ism’ right now. »

With his relativist and ultra-democratic talk, Prachanda prevents any scientific analysis of revisionism by suggesting a « miracle drug », he stops any serious study of the existence of a black line in socialist countries, of its ability to conduct subversive activities and to fudge the communist positions(socialist realism transformed into formal propaganda in the USSR, people’s democracy transformed into class alliance in Eastern Europe, analysis of the differences between imperialisms transformed into the « three worlds theory » in People’s Republic of China, etc.).

He ideologically strengthens the hoxhaist current (which is, just like trotskyism, a much more present ideology than maoism in the imperialist countries) which has always pretended that the maoists were « leftist revisionists », that they conducted armed struggles with no vision, with no will to win, that they stood for the left-wing national bourgeoisie, etc.

He subjectively contributes to the pacification of armed struggles and people’s wars in the oppressed countries, by giving value to talks with elements of the old State; he even openly advised the marxists-leninists-maoists to take advantage of the Nepalese example.

He objectively supports the « antiglobalization » and « popular democratic » plans of Chavez, Morales, Lula, of all those national and middle bourgeoisies which want to take the power and eventually quickly transform into compradore bourgeoisies serving the imperialist France-Germany-Russia bloc, the everyday competitor of the USA in the framework of the confrontation between imperialisms.

Prachanda’s line serves modern revisionnism and imperialist pacification.

Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) [France] August 2006

=> documents in English

In a press statement on April 22, Prachanda did say that :

« In the historic period of today, when people’s republican movement has been marching towards its climax, our party again appeals specially the soldiers of « royal » army and police to display real patriotism by standing on the side of the people and against the national traitor & feudal butcher. The feudal butcher’s defeat and people’s victory is imminent and assured. »

But it was enough for the so called « republican alliance » to collapse that two days later the king put back the parliament; the « 7 democratic parties » accept the invitation of the King to come back to take theirs seats in the parlimant, without the CPN(m).

All the strategy of the Communist Party of Nepal (maoist) has collapsed as a card castle – not even two days after Prachanda said the « people’s victory is imminent and assured. »

This happened exactly like we forecasted and analyzed it in the documents :

–The nepalese revolution at a turning point : dare the new or « reform » the country?
–Nepal : lead the revolution till the end or be defeated by sugar-coated bullets?
— Nepal : Prachanda, follower of modern revisionnism

We did explain that Prachanda’s line was a « all for the front, all by the front » line; we showed of this line explained a reject of the principles of leadership of the Communist Party; how there was huge political economy problems for having considered possible an alliance with the « 7 democratic parites », historical fierce enemies of the revolutionaries.

Some did not want to listen, they thought they were stronger than the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong; they were so proud of themselves that they even worked out a new ultra democratic ideology.

All these illusions have been sweeped by history. The only thing that remains for them is autocriticism or the collapse and the fall in the garbage of history.

These people claimed also through their organ, the « World people’s Resistance Movement », that there were no maoists in France, they pushed the constitution in France of a « communist party » that would be the lackey of these conceptions and that would serve as an international foil for the Rvolutionary CP of USA and Canada, for the Committtee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.

They thought they were the witch doctor managing the world revolution from their control tower – they only have been ideological smugglers.

Prachanda wanted to play Lenin, or at least Kerensky – he won’t be neither of them because history has no time for phantasmagoria.

History has never time for it.

Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) April 2006

=> documents in English

At the occasion of the 10th birthday of People’s War initiation in Nepal, Prachanda granted an interview to the reactionary newspaper « The Hindu », which published it on February 10.

Prachanda explains there at length the new positions of the CP of Nepal (Maoist), which go against Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, as Prachanda himself recognizes : « We feel we have contributed to the ideological development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. »

This « development » consists of the conceptions that the guidance by the sole Communist Party must be abolished and that Socialism must yield the place to Democracy. Let’s study them.

***

1. According to Prachanda, the Communist Party does not have to lead and should compete with the other political parties.

« We want to analyse the experience of revolution and counter-revolution in the 20th century on a new basis.

Three years ago we took a decision in which we said how are we going to develop democracy is the key question in the 21st century. This meant the negative and positive lessons of the 20th century have to be synthesised in order for us to move ahead.

And three years ago we decided we must go in for political competition. Without political competition, a mechanical or metaphysical attitude will be there. So this time, what we decided is not so new.

In August, we took serious decisions on how practically to build unity with the parliamentary political parties. We don’t believe that the people’s war we initiated was against, or mainly against, multiparty democracy. It was mainly against feudal autocracy, against the feudal structure. »

This thesis opposes the communist conception. The communist ideology wants to abolish the State and its approach is scientific, there is no time for « competition ».

On the other hand, Prachanda’s thesis links with Thorez’s one in his revisionist interpretation of People’s Democracies in Eastern Europe:

« There was no abrupt nor brutal transition to another system. There is a phenomenon which we have to study and think about: the working class power, the power exerted in the name of the working class and of the people, by a Communist Party which would not be alone, but which could unite other parties; that also appeared in our Xe Congress theses.

Like in Poland, like in Yugoslavia, this power is exerted as the parliamentary forms remain. »

2. Acoording to Prachanda, the principle of « communist direction » is wrong.

« That when we go for state power and are in power, then we will not do what Stalin or Mao did. Lenin did not have time to deal with issues of power. Although Stalin was a revolutionary, his approach, was not as scientific as it should have been, it was a little metaphysical, and then problems came.

We also evaluated Mao in the plenum. If you look at his leadership from 1935 to 1976 – from when he was young to when he was old and even speaking was difficult – must he remain Chairman and handle everything? What is this? »

Prachanda explicitly blames Mao for having been a potentate. He denies that Lenin wrote great works about the Soviet power and denies any role to Stalin in the Socialism edification in the USSR. In an interview granted to the review Kantipur Publications on February 7, he repeats the same charge:

« The people started to become monotonous in the 20th century communist movement, especially after the demise of Lenin ».

All that is but complete revisionism, and complete submission to the bourgeoisie propaganda, as well as to the revisionist myth of a so-called « personality worship » among Communists.

3. According to Prachanda, the Communists in Nepal should not aim at the Democratic Revolution any longer, but only at « Democracy ».

« Earlier, we were saying people’s democratic republic but this does not mean we have dropped that goal either. It’s just that according to today’s power balance, seeing the whole situation and the expectation of the masses, and that there [should] not be bloodshed, we also responsibly believe that to get there too we will do so through peaceful means. »

In his interview to Kantipur Publications on February 7, he expresses the impossibility of revolution in one country:

« Since we belong to a communist party, our maximum goals are socialism and communism. Those are the maximum goals of all those accepting Marxism, Leninism and Maoism as philosophical and ideological assumptions. Given the international power balance and the overall economic, political and social realities of the country, we can’t attain those goals at the moment.

We must accept this ground reality. We have mentioned democratic republic and constituent assembly, with the understanding that we should be flexible given the balance in the class struggle and international situation. This is a policy, not tactics. This is a necessary process for the bourgeoisie and the national capitalists alike, let alone the middle-class. »

This conception is basically wrong; it is completely similar to the trotskyist thesis of the impossibility to carry out revolution in one country.

It is a capitulation, which opposes the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line, for which: « If the obstacle is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue till the aim is fully accomplished…. It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. » (Mao Zedong)

Here again, Prachanda joins Thorez’s theses: « Democracy’s progress throughout the world, in spite of rare exceptions which confirm the rule, makes it possible to consider other ways to walk towards socialism than those followed by the Russian Communists ».

4. According to Prachanda, the sole establishement of « Democracy » is enough to be « revolutionary ».

« In the overall sense we feel that in Nepal there is going to be a great leap forward in the socio-economic condition because we are going to lead the country to a democratic republican structure. »

Maurice Thorez also said that « democracy, an ongoing realisation, will be completed within socialism. »

Prachanda’s thesis denies that, when the power is seized in all the country, the Democratic Revolution turns into a Socialist Revolution; « The party’s purpose is the establishment of the political power of the proletariat, even under New Democracy where it is the leading class, and principally the establishment, strengthening and development of the dictatorship of the proletariat so as, through cultural revolutions, to win the ultimate goal, communism. This is why the proletariat must lead in everything and in an all-around way. » (Gonzalo)

5. According to Prachanda, the Red Army does not prefigure the new State and must dissolve into a « democratic army ».

« In the multiparty democracy which comes – interim government, constitutional assembly and democratic republic – we are ready to have peaceful competition with you all. Of course, people still have a doubt about us because we have an army.

And they ask whether after the constitutional assembly we will abandon our arms. This is a question. We have said we are ready to reorganise our army and we are ready to make a new Nepal army also. So this is not a tactical question. »

This thesis completely opposes Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and People’s War principles. Besides, Prachanda affirms it also very clearly in his interview to Kantipur Publications:

« The weapons of both sides should be put together and both the armies should be transformed into one under the supervision of the United Nations or another reliable agency. (…)

The army will be formed according to the results of the election. This is what you should be clear about. We will accept it if the constituent assembly says we want monarchy. We are flexible even that far. We will accept it even if the people say we want an active monarch. »

6. According to Prachanda, People’s War originates from the parliamentary struggle.

« For three years we struggled inside Parliament. For three years we were there. Our 40-point demands were placed but there was not even any discussion on this. So the seeds of our armed struggle were sown inside Parliament, in a manner of speaking.

This is a very big difference between us and, say, those in India who say they are waging a people’s war. They didn’t begin from inside Parliament. We were inside Parliament, so we had good relations with the parliamentary parties for a long time. »

This thesis was inevitable, since Prachanda wants to seem the true democrat, just like Thorez did at his time: « Communists are democrats. They are, among all democrats, the most consistent democrats, because they intend to substitute for a still legally and actually limited democracy, a boundless democracy. »

7. According to Prachanda, the imperialist European countries can play a positive role.

« We also wanted to send a message to the international community that we were different from the way we were being projected ideologically. For example, right now we are having discussions with the European Union and with others, but among all the international forces, U.S. imperialism is the most dogmatic and sectarian element.

The U.S. ruling classes are dogmatic. They don’t understand what is happening. We are trying to look at the world in a new way, to change in a new way, and we wanted to send out this message. And in this regard, during the ceasefire, we were quite successful. »

Characterizing the US imperialists as « dogmatic » means nothing, neither do negotiations with others imperialist forces. Prachanda’s thesis clearly links with the Three Worlds theory, a Chinese revisionist theory stating that the Third World can lean on the Second World (the medium imperialist powers such as France, Canada, etc.) to oppose the First World made of the superpowers (the USA and, at its time, the USSR).

8. According to Prachanda, fascistic China and expansionist India are interested in democracy in Nepal, to oppose the USA.

« We are glad with the new situation that is emerging after Shyam Saran went to China, it seems the situation can change. Our movement is also going forward and I think in 2-3 months, if the struggle continues, then there is a real chance of ending the kingship once and for all and making a democratic republic in Nepal.

This is the best outcome for China and India, and everyone else. The U.S. does not want this. They want to maintain the monarchy at all costs. »

Prachanda thus considers that, instead of « resting on our own strength » and serving the world revolution, he would rather reassure India and China and have no revolutionary program. That is logical in regard to the Three Worlds theory.

9. According to Prachanda, the Maoists of India must negotiate with the old Indian State:

« And if you feel the Naxalite movement in India is a problem for you, we feel we are trying to deal with the problems in Nepal in a new way, so if you release our comrades and we are successful in establishing multiparty democracy in Nepal, then this will be a very big message for the Naxalite movement in India. In other words, the ground will be readied for them to think in a new political way. »

That is straightforwardly a proposal for an alliance with the Indian expansionism!

As we can see, Prachanda’s theses are in a direct line with the revisionism spread since a few time by the CPN(m); this revisionism, hiding behind « democracy », had already been used by Thorez in France, and is now mainly embodied by the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA.

The RPCUSA, by means of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, certainly influenced the CPN(m).

The CPRUSA leader, Bob Avakian, defends more and more openly his revisionist and « democratic » theses.

According to him, Communism is one « possibility » among others, that is why he rejects the principle of « inevitability », saying that « the world didn’t turn out the way Marx and Engels anticipated. » (January 2005, Revolutionary Worker n°1266).

He pretends that « in some instances, the Bolsheviks had a kind of « Mafia » approach in some areas, especially during the civil war that followed the October 1917 Revolution. » (December 2004, RW n°1262), that there was among Communists an « autocratic » tradition in a way.

That is why the RCPUSA focuses on Bush the « antidemocrat », just like the Nepalese revisionists fight for a « genuine Democratic Republic ».

That is also why Avakian claims to found a « new internationalism », which is actually but a pretext not to fight in one’s own country: « There is a call to combine Lenin’s stance on and definition of internationalism with an approach of proceeding first and above all from the world level, and looking at the world as a whole at any given time to determine where it is that, through a combination of objective and subjective factors, the most important breakthroughs for the whole international struggle can be made”and for parties in particular countries to act accordingly, to give political support in relation to those « breakthroughs, » even at the cost of some sacrifice on the part of particular parties and in terms of the struggle in « their » countries. »

That is revisionism, no more no less, denying the fact that, as part of world People’s War, it is on the contrary necessary to open more battlefronts.

We understand, while seeing the RPCUSA revisionism, why the Canada RCP speaks so much about Nepal, whereas it is supposed to want People’s War in its own country, and as social contradictions within Canada are supposed to be the main aspect.

The « Democratic Republic » in Nepal became the new ideal of those who already rejected Stalin and who will tomorrow exchange even the usurped flag of Marxism Leninism-Maoism against an « ultrademocrat » flag.

Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist Maoist) [France] February 2006

=> documents in English

The Revolution in Nepal is better and better known all over the world, the hope is great to see it triumphing.

Initiated on February 13, 1996, People’s War has kept expanding.

The freed areas consist of almost all Nepal, there are even great projects in progress like the construction of a main road Nuwagaun – Thawang – Chunwang.

The moment is historical. Will Revolution dare to triumph?
***
In September we worried about the decisions of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to negotiate at all costs with the traditional political parties, to push them to join the fight against monarchy, thus even declaring a ceasefire, i.e. ceasing People’s War.

We explained in the document « Nepal : lead the Revolution till the end or be defeated by sugar-coated bullets?  » that the comrades in Nepal seemed to backpedal before the seizure of power and advocate from now on a « Democratic Republic », instead of carrying out a Democratic Revolution transforming into Socialism when the old regime completely collapses.

The recent statements and decisions of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) confirm our concerns.
***
For instance, in mid-October, a Regional Bureau member of that Party, Prakash Subedi, asked the traditional political parties to enter villages in the freed areas and to expand their organizations there.

« Maoists will not put hurdles for the expansion of their organization » he inter alia said. « Political parties and civil society should pressurize the government to extend the cease-fire. »

This concept of « civil society » above classes, which belongs to Subcommandante Marcos’ lexicon and certainly not to Lenin’s or Mao’s, is also asserted by the PCN(m) leader, Prachanda.
***
In the interview granted to the newspaper Janadesh (September 6, 2005), to the question « Comrade Chairman, why did you declare unilateral cease-fire all of a sudden? », he answered:

« To create an environment at both the national and international level for a forward-looking political way out, to inspire the seven political parties to come in cooperation by clarifying their immediate slogan, to reinforce the movement of civil society, to increase political intervention upon the old State and to consolidate Party’s relation with the broad masses by honouring their sentiment and aspiration etc. are the main motivating reasons behind the declaration of cease-fire. »

Prachanda thus explicitly explains that it can exist a form of fight against the old State which is not also political-military.

And what does this fight consist in? In uniting parties having always supported the Nepalese State, until, about to be overthrown, it centralized its leadership by a coup d’etat among the royal family in 2005 and an increasingly present imperialist leadership (particularly the USA and England).
***
And why does the CPN(m) want to unite? To oppose « fascism ».

But what is fascism? Is it the Nepalese State open reign of terror since 2005?

No, the Nepalese State has always been a fascistic State, even before 2005, even when there was a constitution.
***
In most of the « Third World » States, there is a more or less « democratic » constitution, which does not prevent the State from being a fascistic State, dominated by imperialism, bureaucratic bourgeoisie sold to that imperialism and great landowners.

What does uniting traditional political parties then mean, since those parties are useless, discredited as pretending to be progressist but having done nothing against the fascistic State that they even characterised as democratic, and having always opposed People’s War?

Should they be given any credit, under the guise of those puppets’ dismissal by their previous owners?
***
The tactic now followed by the CPN(m) is thus the Antifascist « Popular Front » used in the 1930s in capitalist countries, it has no relevance in a « Third World » country.

Prachanda’s will to « inspire to change the vacillating and unclear character of the seven parliamentarian political parties » (Janadesh) by ceasing fire is but opportunism.

One cannot speak of « vacillating » parties whereas those parties always supported the fascistic State, against People’s War.

The CPN(m) is a Vanguard, it built on its fight against those traditional political parties’ opportunism, what is the point of reviving them whereas they are historically supplanted?

It is not possible to assert on the one hand that People’s War in Nepal has entered the strategic offensive phase, and on the other hand to stop the armed struggle precisely while the old State has to be destroyed.
***
The CPN(m) questions the fact that the Party leads the Army and the Front, after having built those three forms in turn.

It places the Army under the guidance of the United Front, and subordinates the Party’s policy to the United Front, which is a questioning of the revolutionary principles.

This conception can only bring the victory of revisionism and the defeat of People’s War, because « without a People’s Army, the people have nothing. ».

This conception is the opportunists’ one, who opposed the edification of Socialism just after the victory of the Democratic Revolution in China in 1949, with the slogans of « consolidation of the New Democracy State », « reinforcement of New Democracy Economy », etc.

This conception is the source of the support now brought to the Nepalese Revolution by organizations which so far supported neither Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, nor People’s War.

Yet it is Prachanda’s conception:

« The Democratic Republic, which we are saying, is the transitional Republic that can address the problems related to class, nationality, region and sex in today’s Nepal. Transitional means, it is a Republic in between a New Democratic Republic and a parliamentary Republic with Nepalese specificity. »(Prachanda, Interview with Janadesh).

This conception opposes the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
***
« War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions, when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states, or political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes. » (Mao Zedong, Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War )
***
« Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society and that without them, it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power. » (Mao Zedong, On Contradiction)
***
« The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of Revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of Revolution holds well universally, for China and for all other countries. » (Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy)
***
« In synthesis, we must defend Marxism, Socialism, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Party, seeing the great things they have generated, whose interests they served, and counterpoise them to the interests served by capitalism, imperialism, the bourgeois dictatorship and the ridiculous petty parties.

We are not living in ambiguous times. For the Revolution to advance, it requires struggles with violence for great ruptures. Chairman Mao said, ‘Only a great chaos can generate a new order’. We have had insufficient chaos, we must generate more, do it at the level of ideas; moving ideas is vital to shape public opinion; without this we cannot conquer power… » (Communist Party Peru, September 1999)

CPMLM of France, October 2005

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INTRODUCTION

1. If no one thinks of contesting the general affirmation that theories are mortal and that science can only advance on its own ruins, it is not possible to have its representatives ascertain the death of a present theory.

The majority of scientists consists of researchers who, having neither a sense of life, nor of truth, can only work in the shadow of officially recognised principles: we cannot ask them to recognise a fact that is not “given,” but that has to be created. For their historical role is quite different: it consists of the work of expansion and exploitation; it is through them that the “principles” spend their vital energy; respected instruments of science, they are incapable of renewing it and renewing themselves.

And so they recognise the mortality of all theories, even theirs, but only in the abstract: that the moment of death has already arrived still seems incredible to them.

2. That is why psychologists are outraged when they are told of the death of official psychology, of this psychology that proposes to study psychological processes, either by wanting to grasp them in themselves, or in their physiological concomitants or determinants, or in the last resort with “mixed” methods.

It is not that psychology possesses fruitful and positive results that we could doubt only by denying the scientific spirit itself: we know that for the moment there are only “lost” researches, on one hand, and, on the other hand, promises, and that a lot is to be expected from a mysterious improvement that the future will generously bring.

It is not even as if there is, at least with regard to what has already been done, a unanimous agreement among psychologists, an agreement that can discourage “fanatics” in advance: we know that the history of psychology in the past 50 years is just an epic of disillusion and that, even today, new programs are launched each day to focus hopes that are once again available.

If psychologists protest, and if they can protest with a certain appearance of good faith, it is because they have succeeded in taking refuge in a convenient position.

Their scientific needs being satisfied by the handling of devices, even when without results, and by obtaining a few statistical averages that do not usually survive their publication, they proclaim that science is made of patience, and they reject all control and all critique using as an excuse that “metaphysics” has nothing to do with science.

3. This 50-year history, of which psychologists are so proud, is only the history of a “frog pond.” Psychologists, unable to find the truth, wait for it every day, from anyone and from anywhere, but as they have no idea of what the truth is, they do not know how to recognise it or seize it: thus, they see it in anything and become the victims of all sorts of illusions.

Wundt appears first on the scene to advocate a psychology “without soul,” and starts the migration of devices from physiology laboratories into those of psychologists. What pride and what joy!

Psychologists have laboratories and they publish monographs … No more verbal disputes: “calculemus!” We invent far-fetched logarithms, and Ribot has even calculated the number of brain cells to find out if they are capable of containing every idea possible. Scientific psychology has been born.

But in fact, how miserable: it is the most insipid formalism that has won a universal complacency and with the applause of all those who, of science, only know the common grounds of methodology.

To be sure, in appearance, the psychologists in question helped psychology by fighting the eloquent outworn ideas of “rational psychology,” but, in reality, they built a refuge where, sheltered from criticism, it still had a chance of survival.

Once we could measure to a thousandth of a second the associations, we started to feel some fatigue. The “conditional reflexes” came, fortunately, to revive the faith. What a discovery! And to the astonished psychologists, Bechtherev presented Psycho-reflexology. But this movement fell asleep, too.

Next, it would be aphasia renewing the disappointed hopes, then the physiological theory of emotions, and then glands with internal secretions, but the only result was a tension and an easing of a powerless desire, because it was visionary, and, at the same time, after each period of “objectivist” agitation, the vindictive monster of introspection reappeared.

4. Thus, the arrival of experimental psychology, far from representing a new triumph of the scientific spirit, was really a humiliation.

For, instead of being renewed by it, and serving it, in fact, some of its life was borrowed for old traditions that no longer had any, and for which this operation was the last chance of survival.

This is what explains the recognised fact today that all the “scientific” psychologies that came after Wundt are only disguises of classical psychology.

Even the diversity of tendencies only represents the successive rebirths of this illusion that consists in believing that science can save scholasticism. For psychologists looked for this in every fact, physiological or biological, that they could lay their hands on. And that also explains the powerlessness of the scientific methods in the hands of psychologists.

5. As for the seriousness of the scientific method, there exists a veritable hierarchy of scholarly conceptions. The world of quantity being the mathematicians’ own world, they move in it with natural ease, and they are the only ones who do not display their rigour on a parade.

The use physicians make of mathematics has already been felt sometimes due to the fact that it represents only a rented costume; the pure span of mathematicians is inaccessible to them and they are often narrow-minded.

But all this is nothing in comparison to what is going on at the next level below. Physiologists are very much into the magic of numbers, and their enthusiasm for the quantitative form of laws is often the adoration of the fetish.

This awkwardness, however, cannot make us forget the fundamental seriousness that it covers. As for psychologists, they receive mathematics third-hand: they get it from physiologists, who got it from physicians, who get it from mathematicians.

Thus, at each stage, the level of the scientific spirit drops, and when, at the end, mathematics gets to psychologists, it is “a little brass and glass” that they take for “gold and diamonds.” And it is the same for the experimental method.

It is the physician who has a serious view of it; he does not play with it, and it is uniquely in his hands that it always remains a rational technique without ever degenerating into magic.

The physiologist already has a strong tendency to magic: with him the experimental method often degenerates into experimental “display.” What about the psychologist? With him everything is “display.” In spite of all his protests against philosophy, he sees science only through the common grounds that philosophy has taught him.

And as he was told that science is made of patience, that hypotheses were built on studies of detail, he thinks patience is a method in itself, and that it is enough to look blindly for details to attract the synthetic Messiah.

He wallows among devices, throws himself into physiology, then into chemistry, biology; he accumulates statistical means and is convinced that, to acquire science, as to acquire faith, “one must become a half-wit.”

We need to understand that psychologists are scientists like evangelised wild tribes are Christians.

6. Whether introspectionist or experimental, the radical negation of classical psychology found in Watson’s behaviourism is an important discovery.

It exactly signifies the condemnation of that feeling of believing in the magic of form without understanding that the scientific method requires a radical reform of understanding. Indeed, we cannot, no matter how sincere our intentions and our desire to be precise, transform Aristotle’s physics into experimental physics.

Its own nature refuses, and it would be entirely unwarranted to trust any future improvements based on an attempt of this kind.

7. The history of psychology in the last 50 years is not, as we are wont to assert at the beginning of psychology manuals, the history of an organisation, but one of dissolution. And in 50 years the authentically official psychology of today will appear to us as do now the alchemy and the verbal fables of Aristotlelian physics.

We will still smile about the resounding formulas with which the “scientific” psychologists began, and about the painful theories they developed; static schemes and dynamic schemes, and the theology of the brain will constitute an interesting study, like the old theory of temperaments – but afterwards all will be relegated to the history of unintelligible doctrines, and we will be amazed, as we are today by Scholastic philosophy, of their persistence.

We will then understand what now seems incredible, that the contemporary psychological movement is only the dissolution of the myth of the double nature of man.

The establishment of scientific psychology precisely supposes this dissolution.

All the articulations that a notional elaboration has introduced in this primitive belief must be obliterated one by one, and the dissolution must proceed by stages, but by now it should already be finished.

Its duration, however, was considerably prolonged by the possibility given to the dead theses to be renewed by means of the respect that surrounds scientific methods.

8. But at last the moment of the final liquidation of all this mythology has arrived.

Today, the dissolution can no longer affect the form of life, and we can now recognise with certainty the end within the end.

Indeed, psychology is now in the state where philosophy was at the time of the elaboration of the Critique of Pure Reason. Its sterility is evident, its constitutive steps are exposed, and while some confine themselves in a Scholasticism that despite the impressive appearance of its production is not advancing at all, others throw themselves into desperate solutions.

A new idea can be perceived as well: we would like already to have lived this period of the history of psychology, but we constantly fall back into Scholastic fantasies.

Something, then, is missing: the clear recognition of the fact that classical psychology is nothing else but the notional elaboration of a myth.

9. This recognition should not be a critique of the same kind as those that proliferate throughout psychological literature, and which show the failure of either subjective or objective psychology and that periodically advocate the return of the thesis to the antithesis and of the antithesis to the thesis.

We cannot, consequently, start a controversy that can, once again, remain inside classical psychology, and whose only benefit is to make psychology spin in place.

We need a renovating critique, one which, by going beyond the standstill where psychology is now found, through the total elimination of all that has been creates the obvious facts that must be communicated.

10. Contrary to all hope, this vision of the new psychology which the critique in question supposes does not emerge from the practice of the new psychology.

The result of this exercise is entirely negative: it resulted, in fact, in behaviourism. Watson recognised that classical objective psychology is not objective in the true sense of the word, since he asserted, that after 50 years of scientific psychology it was time for psychology to become a positive science.

Now behaviourism is at a standstill, or rather a greater misfortune has happened to it.

The Behaviourists, at first charmed by the notion of behaviour, finally realised that the following behaviourism, i.e. Watson’s, had no future, and missing the bubbling cauldron of introspective psychology, they returned, with the excuse of non-physiological behaviourism, to introspective notions, or else simply limited themselves to translating in terms of behaviour the notions of classical psychology.

We then state regrettably that, at least with some people, behaviourism served only to give a new form to the illusion of objectivity.

Behaviourism thus presents the following paradox: to assert it sincerely, we must not develop it, and to be able to develop it, we must not assert it sincerely, thus taking away its reason for being.

All this is not surprising. The truth of behaviourism is established by the recognition of the mythological character of classical psychology; and the notion of behaviour is valid only when it is considered in its general scheme, prior to the interpretation that the Watsonsians and others give it.

Fifty years of scientific psychology has simply resulted in the affirmation that scientific psychology is only beginning.

11. Classical objective psychology could not have had any other result.

It has never been anything else but the impossible wish of introspective psychology to become a science of nature, and it only represents the tribute of the latter to the taste of the day. There was a time when philosophy, even metaphysics, wanted to become “experimental,” but this was not taken seriously. Psychology managed to allay suspicion.

In fact, there has never been an objective psychology different from this psychology that we pretended to deny. Experimental psychologists never had new ideas of their own; they always used the old supply of subjective psychology.

And each time we found out that a certain tendency fell victim to this illusion, we started from another direction thinking we could do better even though we started from the same principles.

That is why these researchers to whom the scientific method was to give wings always found themselves behind in comparison to the introspectionist psychologists, for while the former were busy translating into “scientific” formulae the ideas of the latter, the introspectionists could do nothing else but recognise their illusions.

And now experimental psychology is only beginning to recognise its own nullity, and introspectionist psychology is still at the stage of its marvellous and moving promises, whereas with psychologists who are not interested in the physiology of sensations, in classical laboratories and in the “emotional change” of consciousness, there appears the indication of a very productive direction, with a clear vision of its errors.

12. It is in the light of tendencies that are trying to separate from the influence of the problems and traditions of subjective as well as objective psychology, that the positive and negative aspects of the critique that we are undertaking must be defined.

For, if it is understood that this critique is not to be the result of a purely notional work, it is not required, either, to start it from the bottom for it to be valid. It must strike at the trunk, the central ideology of classical psychology.

We are not cutting off the branches but cutting down the tree. We are not condemning the whole, either; some facts will survive the death of classical psychology, but only the new psychology will give them their real signification.

13. What is really remarkable in the whole history of psychology is neither this oscillation around the two poles of objectivity and subjectivity, nor the lack of genius characterising the manner in which psychologists use the scientific method, but the fact that classical psychology does not even represent the false form of a true science, for it is science itself that is radically false and all question of method notwithstanding.

The comparison of psychology with Aristotle’s physics is not accurate, for psychology is not even false in the same way, but it is false, as are the occult sciences of spiritualism and theosophy, which also affect a scientific form, are false.

The natural sciences that deal with man never exhaust what we can learn about him. The term life represents a biological fact, as does properly human life, man’s dramatic life.

This dramatic life presents all the characteristics that render a domain eligible for scientific study. And even if psychology did not exist, for the sake of this possibility it would have to be invented in the name of this possibility.

The reflections on this dramatic life have succeeded in finding their place only in literature and theatre, and although classical psychology asserts the necessity of studying “literary documents,” it has never, in fact, been truly put to use outside of the abstract aims of psychology.

And so instead of transmitting to psychology the concrete theme it harboured, it is literature, instead, that underwent the influence of false psychology: writers felt obligated, in their naivete and ignorance, to take the “science” of the soul seriously.

Nevertheless, official psychology owes its birth to inspirations that are radically opposed to the ones which alone can justify its existence, and to make matters worse, it is nourished exclusively from these inspirations.

It represents, in fact, to use crude terms, only a notional expansion of the general belief in demons; that is, the mythology of the soul, on one hand, and, on the other hand, the problem of perception as it is asked in terms of the old philosophy.

When behaviourists assert that the hypothesis of inner life represents a leftover of animism, they have hit upon the true character of one of the tendencies whose merging gave birth to current psychology.

This is a very informative history, but its narrative goes beyond the framework of the present study. On the whole, the mystic and “pedagogical” attitude facing the soul, the scatological myths, incorporated into Christianity, found themselves suddenly reduced to the level of a dogmatic study inspired by a barbarian realism, thus encountering the inspiration of the Aristotelian treatise of the soul.

And while this study was to serve theology, it tried, also, to establish a content, by drawing indistinctly from the theory of knowledge, from logic and from mythology.

Thus a web of themes and problems was formed, defined clearly enough to form an identifiable part of philosophy.

We can say that right from its formation it was complete, and no psychological discovery worthy of this name has been made until nowadays: the psychological work since Gocklen, or, if we prefer, since Christian Wolff, was only notional, a work of expansion, of articulation, in a word, the rationalisation of a myth, and finally its critique.

14. The Kantian critique of rational psychology should already have ruined psychology.

It could have determined an orientation toward the concrete, toward the true psychology which, under the humiliating form of literature, was excluded from “science.” But the Critique did not have this effect.

To be sure, it eliminated tile notion of the soul, but since the refutation of rational psychology was only an application of the general critique of things in themselves, the result for psychology seems to be an empirical realism, parallel to the one that imposes itself in science after the destruction of the thing in itself.

And as current interpretation drops this extraordinarily productive idea of the priority of external experience over internal experience, retaining only the parallelism, the Critique of Pure Reason seems to sanction the hypothesis of inner life.

The old stock of psychology was survived, and upon it fell the nineteenth century in fashion: experience and calculation. That was the beginning of the deplorable story, the Carmen Miserabile.

15. The worship of the soul is essential for Christianity. The old theme of perception would never have been enough to produce psychology, for its strength comes from religion.

The theology of the soul, once established in tradition, survived Christianity, and continues today feeding from the ordinary sustenance of all the scholastics.

The respect with which it succeeded in surrounding itself, thanks to the scientific disguise, allowed it to vegetate a little longer, and it succeeded in surviving because of this disguise.

It would be wrong, then, to say that classical psychology only feeds on the past. It succeeded, instead, in joining some modern exigencies, and the inner life, in the “phenomenist” sense of the word, succeeded in becoming a “value. »

The ideology of bourgeoisie would not have been complete if it had not found its own mystique.

After several tries it seems now to have found it in the inner life of psychology. The inner life is perfectly suited to that destination.

Its essence is that of our very civilisation, that is, abstraction, for it only implies that life in general, and man in general, and the “wise men” of today are happy to inherit this aristocratic conception of man with a cluster of costly problems.

The religion of the inner life seems to be the best defence against the dangers of a real renovation.

As it implies no linking to any determinate truth, but simply a disinterested game with forms and qualities, it gives the illusion of life and “spiritual” progress, whereas abstraction, being its essence, puts a stop to all real life; and as it is affected only by its own expansion, it is only an eternal pretext to ignore the truth.

That is why inner life is preached by all those who want to win over those desirous of improvement before they can attach themselves to their real object, so that their greed for qualities replaces their comprehension of truth.

That is also why those who are too weak to show themselves as being “difficult” grasp the outstretched hand for this offer to be saved while contemplating their navel seems really irresistible….

16. Classical psychology then is doubly false: false with regard to science and false with regard to the spirit.

What fun it would have been to see ourselves stand alone with our condemnation of inner life!

And with what pleasure we would have been shown the “scientific bases” of false wisdom! All these “philosophies of consciousness,” which play with notions borrowed from psychology, all these wisdoms which invite man to deepen, whereas in point of fact he should get out of his current form, could have continued, with great effect, to realise the affirmation of the legitimacy of their basic thought processes in psychology.

But, in fact, both condemnations concur. False wisdom will follow false science to its tomb: their destinies are linked and they will die together, because abstraction dies. It is the vision of concrete man that chases it out of both domains.

17. This agreement should not, however, be a reason for confusing the two condemnations. It is much more efficient to separate them and to isolate the condemnation of the abstraction by psychology first.

But this condemnation appears in the most technical part of psychology, and it is made by authors who ignore all our requirements. This meeting, however, to be successful, is not an accident: truth works on all areas at a time, and its different flashes end up by merging into a unique truth.

Since we want to separate the two condemnations in question, theoretically, we also need to separate them materially.

That is why we need to start by establishing the sense of dissolution of classical psychology while adhering to the study of tendencies which, at the same time as they complete the dissolution, announce the new psychology.

18. Three tendencies can be taken into account here: psychoanalysis, behaviourism, and Gestalt theory.

The value of Gestalt theory is especially great for its critical point of view, it implies the negation of the basic thought processes of classical psychology that breaks down the forms of human actions so as then to try to reconstruct the totality of meaning and form, from shapeless elements without significance.

The consequent behaviourism, Watson’s, recognises the failure of classical objective psychology, and brings, with the idea of behaviour, whatever its final interpretation, a concrete definition of the psychological fact.

But the most important of the three tendencies is unquestionably psychoanalysis. It gives us the truly clear vision of the errors of classical psychology, and shows us from this time forth the new psychology in life and in action.

But as with the truth, these three tendencies still contain the error under three different aspects and thus lead their followers along paths that once again move psychology away from its true direction.

Gestalt theory, in its broadest sense (including Spranger’s definition), on one hand, like Spranger is devoted to theoretical constructions and on the other hand, cannot seem to be freed of preoccupations of classical psychology.

Behaviourism is sterile, or falls back into physiology, biology, and even introspection in a more or less disguised form, instead of forgetting everything to wait only for the surprises of experience.

As for psychoanalysis, it has become so overwhelmed by experience that, when at last consulted was bursting to speak, that it did not have time to notice that deep within its heart it was concealing the old psychology that it was mandated to eliminate, and, on the other hand, its strength feeds an unimportant romanticism and speculations that solve only obsolete problems.

Moreover, it is generally either implicitly, or with a certain timidity that most authors dare pronounce the condemnation of classical psychology.

They seem to want to prepare the work of those who see safety in the conciliation of opposites, without realising that here again there is only an illusion, since it is impossible to place side by side tendencies in which each of them raises the previous question about the other or the others.

As for those who, like Watson and his followers, dare pronounce the frank condemnation, their assertions about the falsehood of classical psychology and the reasons for this falsehood are so vaguely articulated that they could not even prevent their own authors from falling back into the condemned attitudes, and so their declarations are to a real critique of the foundations of psychology what the general reflections on the weakness of “human understanding” are to the Critique of Pure Reason.

19. The critique of psychology, to be efficient, must be blunt, and it should respect only what is really respectable: false considerations, the fear of being wrong by declaring what one thinks or what one’s thought implies, only make the way much longer with no other benefit than confusion.

This timidity can be explained by the fact that it is very difficult for us to tear away from this psychology that kept us prisoners for so long.

The schemes it gives us do not only seem indispensable in a practical way; they are, also, so deeply rooted in us that they reappear in the midst of our most sincere efforts to free ourselves of them, and then we can easily take this stubbornness with which they pursue us for insurmountable evidence.

It is thus, for example, that the affirmation that states that inner life does not exist any more than animal spirits do, and that the notions which are borrowed from inner life are so scarce that it is even useless to translate them in terms of behaviour, seems, at first, impossible to conceive.

But let’s be careful: this is only the temptation peculiar to old evidences. The critique consists precisely in taking them apart piece by piece to expose their thought processes and the implicit postulate that they contain.

That is why, under penalty of inefficiency, it cannot stop at general affirmations that only condemn without executing: the critique must go all the way to the execution.

There are, however, still problems. At each step, we will wonder if we have the right to get rid of a piece of evidence or a given problem. But we must never forget that, for now, our “sensibility” has been falsified, and that it is precisely in going on that we will acquire a true vision allowing us to recognise what should be salvaged, and we will see then to what extent the evidences which, at first, seem insurmountable are less so later.

20. To come back to those tendencies we were talking about, the teaching that they contain for psychology risk collapsing because of the nostalgia which calls its followers to return to it, and because a radical liquidation of classical psychology does not allow them to be free of it forever.

That is why, in order to bring out all the rigour and significance of this teaching, we are going to devote a study to each of the tendencies that we have mentioned.

These will be preliminary studies that will prepare the critique by shedding light on the plan of its components and in bringing in essential elements; they will form the “Materials for the Critique of the Foundations of Psychology” [Materiaux].

The critique itself, in which the problem that we just talked about will be treated separately and systematically, will be in the “Critical Essay on the Foundations of Psychology” which will follow the Materiaux. This preparatory and consequently provisional, character of the Materiaux. must never be forgotten; it still does not include the critique, but only represents the first rough tools that will help forge the instruments themselves.

21. This research that we undertake in the Materiaux cannot, of course, no more than any other, be carried out in a vacuum. We do not pretend to examine the tendencies in question “naively” with no preconceived ideas.

Affirmations of this kind can be sincere, but never true, because a true critique does not exist without a feeling of truth. The whole point is to know the source of this feeling.

As far as we are concerned, it is by reflecting on psychoanalysis that we have perceived true psychology. This could have been an accident, but it is not, because today only psychoanalysis can rightfully give a vision of true psychology, because it is already its unique incarnation.

The Materiaux must therefore begin with the examination of psychoanalysis: by looking for the teaching that psychoanalysis entails for psychology, we will obtain exactitudes that will permit us to remember the essential in the examination of the other tendencies.

22. The first wave of protest that the appearance of psychoanalysis unleashed now seems to have levelled off, although it was recently seen reviving furiously in France, and the situation between classical psychology and psychoanalysis is now not as tense.

This change of attitude, which we can interpret as a victory for psychoanalysis, only represents a change in tactics by psychologists.

We realised that the first way of fighting psychoanalysis in the name of morality and propriety was to surrender the field to the psychoanalysts without a fight, and that it is much more tasteful, and also more efficient, to acquire by a proof of liberality – which consists in assigning Freud his place in psychology, in his treatment of the unconscious – the right to have the reserves about psychoanalysis that “science” demands.

So, thanks to a certain number of assimilations, we have passed on to Freud all the contempt that we now have for certain tendencies, and we assert then that psychoanalysis is only a rebirth of the old associationist psychology; that it is entirely based on the psychology of the Vorstellung, etc.

23. As to its followers, in psychoanalysis they only see libido and unconscious.

Freud is for them the Copernicus of psychology, because he is the Columbus of the unconscious, and psychoanalysis, according to them, far from reviving the intellectualist psychology, is instead connected to this great movement which became apparent starting in the nineteenth century and which stresses the importance of emotional life; psychoanalysis, with its theory of the libido, the primacy of desire over intellectual thought, and, in short, with the theory of emotional unconscious, is indeed the crowning of this whole movement.

24. It is not hard to see that the picture, which has become classic, that its followers give psychoanalysis, goes exactly in the direction of the wishes of classical psychology by helping it to recover its balance after the shock received from psychoanalysis.

For by attributing to Freud only the classic merits of Columbus and Copernicus, psychoanalysis simply becomes progress made within classical psychology, a simple reversing of the values of old psychology, but only a reversing of the hierarchical order of its values; a group of discoveries that the categories of official psychology can accept, provided it expands to fit in so much material. Indeed, what the discussion thus directed is questioning are theories and attitudes, and not the very existence of classical psychology.

In fact, it is not evolution that is taking place, but revolution, only a revolution a little more Copernican than we think: psychoanalysis, far from being an enrichment of classical psychology, is actually the demonstration of its defeat. It constitutes the first phase of breaking away from the traditional ideal of psychology, with its inspiring occupations and strengths; the first escape from the field of influence which has held it prisoner for centuries, the same as behaviourism is the premonition of the next break with its notions and fundamental conceptions.

25. If psychoanalysts are collaborating with their enemies in the canalisation of the psychoanalytic revolution, it is because they have kept, deep down, a fixation on the ideal, on the categories, and on the terminology of classical psychology.

It is, also, unquestionable that the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis is full of elements borrowed from the old psychology of the Vorstellung.

Nevertheless, the followers of classical psychology should not have exploited this argument.

Because by confusing the essence with the appearance, they only draw attention to the incompatibility in psychoanalysis between fundamental inspiration and the theories in which it is embodied, and thus digging their own graves.

Indeed, in the light of this fundamental inspiration the abstraction of classical psychology bursts forth, and then the true incompatibility appears not that between psychoanalysis and a certain form of classical psychology, but between psychoanalysis and classical psychology in general.

Also, because of the very nature of this incompatibility, each step forward in the comprehension of the concrete orientation of psychoanalysis has for a counterpart the revelation of a constitutive step of classical psychology; thus, the way Freud expresses his discoveries in traditional language and outlines is only a special case that allows us to observe how psychology makes up its facts and theories.

In any case, it is not enough vaguely to reproach Freud of intellectualism or associationism: we need to reveal exactly those thought processes that justify this reproach.

Only, then we will be forced to recognise in light of the true sense of psychoanalysis that these processes whose errors we celebrated with so much pride are, in reality, only the constitutive steps of psychology itself, and the reproach in question will be revealed as a particular case of this illusion that does not stop persecuting psychologists, and that consists in believing that we have changed our essence, when in fact we have only changed our dress….

26. We want to look for the teaching that psychoanalysis brings to psychology by demonstrating the preceding affirmations.

We will need then, on the one hand, to release psychoanalysis from the prejudices of followers and adversaries by seeking its inspiration, and by constantly opposing this inspiration to the constitutive steps of classical psychology of which it implies the negation, and, on the other hand, to judge Freud’s theoretical structures in the name of this inspiration, which will allow us, at the same time, to catch, red-handed, the classic thought processes. Thus, we will obtain not only a clear vision of that incompatibility that we just spoke of but also important indications of the psychology to come.

But as the analysis must be precise, and as it must grasp the way in which psychoanalysis is elaborated and built, we thought that the best thing to do would be to study the dream theory.

Freud himself says: “Psychoanalysis rests on dream theory; the psychoanalytic theory of the dream represents the most complete part of this young science.” Besides, it is in the Traumdeutung that the best sense of psychoanalysis appears and that the constitutive steps are exposed with care and an extraordinary clarity.

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