In the famous painting “The School of Athens” by the Renaissance painter Raphael, we can see Plato and Aristotle as the central figures: Plato points his index finger to the heavens, calling to see beyond matter, whereas Aristotle points down to earth with his hand.

Five hundred years afterwards, we can see that we have the same contradiction between idealism and materialism. The images of the religious barbarians pointing to the heavens with their index to justify their senseless killings staged in sordid videos have caused a terrible trouble in the democratic minds.

The spectre of the Middle Ages, of antiquity with its slavery and its murders, shows his ugly face. It is a challenge to progress, to the cause of humanity advancing in culture, rationality, science. It is an attack against the dignity of civilization.

And it didn’t happen by accident, or because imperialist countries organize “conspiracies” : the roots for barbarity are based on the semi-feudal semi-colonial nature of the majority of the countries in the world today.

Only in a few countries did capitalism manage to develop itself in its natural way, moving from its liberal form to the domination of the monopolies, becoming imperialism, in a complex process, across twist and turn.

In the others countries, where the majority of the people of the world lives, religions and nationalism as strong irrational tools used to mobilize the masses in a reactionary way, because society is driven by a bureaucratic bourgeoisie, born from the submission to imperialist countries, and allied to different feudal forces which maintained their structures.

Hundred years ago, there was the Armenian genocide, and still it is not recognized by the Turkish state despite the fact that its new government is Islamist: it is because the bureaucratic capitalism in this country has become more powerful, but still depends on the alliance with feudal forces made at the very beginning of the secular regime.

We can see the same process in India, with the successes of the Hinduist most reactionary forces taking the control of the government; the urbanization of the country and the development of bureaucratic capitalism do not abolish semi-feudalism, on the contrary!

Semi-feudalism has only change its form. That explains also why Islamism could become such a strong force in countries like Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt : beyond the secular form of the regime previously, the foundation of it is semi-feudal semi-colonial.

Inter-imperialist struggles play here of course a major role, imperialists supporting bureaucratic factions acting to favor them against others,

During the 1960’s-1980’s, the peoples of the world had to struggle against the partition of the world of the two superpowers – the USA and the social-imperialist USSR – now they have to understand in the same way the bloody games played by imperialists, even trying to divide countries, like in Ukraine for example.

The general crisis of capitalism can only bring more inter-imperialist struggles, more imperialist wars. In the imperialist countries themselves nowadays, selfishness and individualism are used to promote nationalism and its desire to transform the country in an aggressive fortress in the context of “globalization”. Despair provokes escape in drugs and alcohol, pogromist postures, trends to merge nationalism and “socialism”.

At the same time, multiple are the aggressions which disfigures the Earth on a global scale: from climate change to tremendous deforestation, from massive urbanization to the acidification of the ocean.

The world masses are aware of this, but they don’t find a way to be united and to choose the path of the red star. The lack of a communist strategic proposal disorients the world masses, which want real democracy, but don’t know how to achieve it.

In this context, such a position of retreat of the world revolution permits capitalism to modernize itself, in particular in the dependent countries, where feudalism change its form, to be more conform to the development of bureaucratic capitalism. In the same way that we find a difference between a superpower like the USA and the imperialist countries of the second category – like France, Germany or England – we find according to that differences among the dependent countries.

Whereas a country like Iraq falls into the horror of feudal murders, a country like Brazil knows an agro-industrial development through a bureaucratic capitalism acting to serve the imperialist interests.

Semi-feudal semi-colonial countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia play an open aggressive policy, helping reactionary forces ideologically and materially to establish factions supporting them; the Arab spring was no “revolution”, but a battle between bureaucratic bourgeoisies. This shows the correctness of Akram Yari and Siraj Sikder’s thesis on the possibility for an oppressed country to be a colonizing force and to have an expansionist character.

Everything obeys to the law of dialectics, and this evolution testifies of the development of the productive forces, in such a manner however that it means more exploitation, more oppression, more imperialist wars, that it’s a threat to the nature on our planet, to the possibility of a happy life, full of joy and culture, for the world masses.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to believe that this negative aspect is the major trend in our world. In each country, they are people working to understand the situation in a scientific way. They try to analyze the current situation, be it on the international level as on the national level.

When they are genuine revolutionaries, as the product of the class struggles of their own country, when they understand that they must be in the tradition of the International Communist Movement, then they do contributions that permit to move in the direction of producing a guiding thought.

This question of the guiding thought is the most important one in each country. As the Communist Party of Peru explained it in the document “On Gonzalo’s thought” :

“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.”

In the famous interview he gave, the leader of the Communist Party of Peru, Gonzalo, tells us here also:

“In Engels’ view, it is necessity that generates leaders, and a top leader, but just who that is is determined by chance, by a set of specific conditions that come together at a particular place and time. In this way, in our case too, a Great Leadership [Jefatura] has been generated. This was first acknowledged in the Party at the Expanded National Conference of 1979.

But this question involves another basic question that can’t be overlooked and needs to be emphasized: there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be.

The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought.

None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility.”

The first of May is an historical day: it is the one of the pride of working class, the one of the honour of the red flag. The word as we know it is full of sufferings and of transformations, the main aspect of our epoch is the production of guiding thoughts, which are carried by revolutionaries to build the revolutionary paths in each country.

Such a revolutionary path consists in People’s War: the armed mass mobilization to break the old state and install the new one, carrying the revolutionary program of New Democracy in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries, of Socialism in the capitalist countries.

It is here to stress the importance of the theory to defend all the communist conceptions, against all the tendencies to make “compromise” with imperialist values, to integrate post-modernist conceptions, to promote ultra-leftist positions, to negate the teachings of the Communist International especially in the lessons of the People’s Front against Fascism.

The epoch of decay of capitalism is a tormented one; only a strong ideological headquarter can face the many faces of opportunism, reformism, fascism, of the counter-revolution. We remember here what happened to the heroic people’s war in Nepal, which was betrayed.

The consequences for the Nepali masses are terrible; their cause was stabbed in the back by revisionism. The terrible earthquake that just happened near Kathmandu brought many deaths that could have been avoid with another social development allowing more robust constructions; we have to remember also here the intolerable and dramatic situation of the Nepali workers working in Qatar.

It is important to note that nowadays, centrists having tried to mask the revisionism in Nepal, protecting its leader Prachanda and his “peace agreement”, do everything they can to avoid any criticism. Genuine Maoists have said as soon as 2006 that there was a major problem in the line of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), whereas centrists still greeted the “people’s war” years afters there was no people’s war any more and when it was clear since long that revisionism had won there.

The position of centrists about Nepal testifies here their negation of the concept of bureaucratic bourgeoisie; this shows the importance of dialectical materialism as a science.

We wish here to emphasize the following elements :

1. Contradiction is the only fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter. Dialectical materialism is the science of understanding this law and the ideological core of the communist movement.

2. Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. Spontaneity doesn’t lead to revolution; there is a need for a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party that firmly applies independence, autonomy and self-reliance.

3. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. The masses make history and the Party leads them through the direction of a guiding thought, application of the communist ideology to the concrete conditions of a given country.

4. Capitalism in its liberal form became imperialism characterized by the hegemony of the monopolies, tending to fascism and imperialist wars. The building of an united antifascist People’s Front, as underlined by the Communist International, forms the condition for the democratic foundation for establishing socialism as dictatorship of the proletariat.

5. Capitalism which is being developed in the oppressed nations by imperialism along with different degrees of underlying feudalism, or even pre-feudal stages, is bureaucratic. The New Democratic Revolution, as a joint dictatorship based on the worker-peasant alliance, smashes the semi-feudal elements, opening the way to overthrow bureaucratic capitalism, as democratic foundation for establishing socialism.

6. The three instruments of the revolution are the Party, the army and the united front, understood in the frame of People’s War as the universally valid military theory of the international proletariat. Invincibility of the People’s War is inevitable as it represents the new against the ancient, as obligatory resolution of an antagonistic contradiction.

7. The communist ideology prevails in all the intellectual and cultural fields, through socialist realism in the arts and literature and Marxist philosophy i.e. the law of contradictions in science. Taking power means to take it at all levels of society, as shows it the masterful example of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Maoism is not a “tool” to support rebellion, but the materialist understanding of a situation and therefore the revolutionary application of the communist cause by the proletariat: class struggle, conquer and to defend power with the People’s War in each country, as part of the world socialist revolution!

On this First of May, 2015, we call therefore again the basic positions of the genuine communists:

Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, long live Maoism as the most develop form of dialectical materialism!

Uphold, defend and apply, principally apply, Maoism !

Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

People’s War until Communism!

Organization of the workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center [Belgium]

Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)

=> documents in English

On the First of May, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) merged with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbari, and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) became practically the center of the international grouping called “Maoist Road”.

Therefore, “comrade Ajith”, leader of the former CPI(ML) Naxalbari, saw its conception of Maoism recognized by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and its position becomes the one of the Maoist Road. Works of “comrade Ajith” were also translated in Italian for the First of May, which was important because the main protagonist, historically, of Maoist Road, is the maoist Communist Party of Italy.

It is interesting to see what Ajith says, because its line struggles precisely with what we have put forward in France those last years.

We have promoted the inevitability of Communism and the necessity of the Thought, following the teachings of Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru. Studying our country, we considered that must be defended Humanism, the absolute monarchy, Enlightenment, as progressive aspect of the contradiction of 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Ajith, on his side, rejects the relativism of Avakianism, which consists in idealism (with communism as a kind of “best option”), but rejects also our position, showing in fact that the substance of his position is in itself the same as Avakianism, or better said, as post-modernism.

What does Ajith says? In the review “Naxalbari”, in August 2013, in a long document called “Against Avakianism”, Ajiths says numerous things that make the things very clear.

For example, he says the following, trying to save post-modernism, which is nevertheless a terrible enemy of our ideology:

“We have noted that Marx and Engels were not totally free of Enlightmentalist influences.

How does Avakian fare in this matter? Today, compared to even Mao’s time, we are enriched with a new awareness of the contradictory essence of Enlightenment and its scientific consciousness.

Post-modernist trends have made significant contributions in this matter. Though their relativism led them to an ahistorical rejection of the Enlightenment and modernisation, the critical insights they offer must be synthesised by Marxism.

The contributions made by theoreticians of the Frankfurt school are also to be acknowledged. The necessity to distinguish the emancipatory aspect of the Enlightenment from its overarching bourgeois, colonial nature and thrust is one important lesson that we must derive.”

Ajith says that Marxism should “synthesize” -he means integrate – the “critical insights” elaborated by the post-modernist trends about Enlightenment and modernisation. We say precisely the contrary:

* Enlightenment is the progressive ideology of the bourgeoisie, which was not unified and therefore there were different trends: for example in France, there was the radical, atheist trend of Diderot, and the deist one of Voltaire. Enlightenment had no “contradictory essence”, but differences reflecting the different fractions of the bourgeoisie;

* The struggle against “modernisation” is the one of romanticism, with all its variants, going from Islam with Khomeini or Sayyid Qutub, to Hinduism, nationalism, etc. – it is not our struggle. On the contrary: we are for “modernisation”, for the integration of the world in a single entity, crushing the elements of the past. We believe in progress.

This last point is important because post-modernism propagates a lot a criticism of “technology”, of the “modern world”, expressing a petty-bourgeois fascination for the small production.

Ajith says something corresponding to this point of view:

“Furthermore, scientific consciousness itself must be critiqued in order to separate its rational content from the influence of Enlightenment values seen in it.

These are particularly manifested in the claim made about modern science as the final word, the disparaging of pre-modern thought and practices on that basis and a utilitarian approach on

the human-nature relation. In the oppressed countries, the belittling of traditional knowledge continues to be a dominant aspect of the comprador modernisation, developmental paradigm.

Mao’s approach on the critical appropriation of Western, modern ideas and technologies, the rich lessons of the attempts made in Revolutionary China to synthesis traditional knowledge with modern sciences and its mass practice during the Cultural Revolution offer a sound starting point for a Maoist synthesis. It has the penetrating observations made by Marx and Engels on the human-nature interaction as guidance.”

On our side, we worked a lot about the “human-nature interaction”, upholding the concept of “Biosphere” developed by the Soviet scientist Vernadsky, but also in defending ecology and a non-conflictual relationship to animals.

But it doesn’t mean that we “regret” the “traditional knowledge”, which in fact has mostly disappeared since long and is now an ideological tool for the nationalist reaction. If we take a look at those who use the concept of “pre-modern thought and practices”, we will find only populists, defenders of romanticism.

In fact, Ajith defends the same path as the populists in pre-Soviet Russia. And indeed, here is what he says about India, his country:

“Finally, the Marxist conception of historical advance doesn’t imply in any way that human societies must invariably progress along the schematic trajectory of tribal-slave-feudal-capitalist social formations.

It has advanced through diverse paths. For instance, though the societies in the South Asian sub-continent had various forms of slave exploitation, they never had a stage of slavery akin to that of Egypt or Rome. (In this context, the concept ‘shudra-holding mode of production’ advanced by the martyred Maoist activist intellectual Saket Rajan of the CPI (Maoist) demands deeper study.

There is also the example of the region that later took shape as Keralam. Here, tribal societies directly became caste-feudal kingdoms, where adiyalatham (slave-like trading and exploitation of Dalit castes and some Adivasi tribes) existed in a symbiotic relation with tenant exploitation.”

What Ajiths says here is totally wrong, and reflects a non understanding of the process which happened in India. It is very significant that he doesn’t speak about Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Because to say that in India there was no “stage of slavery akin to that of Egypt or Rome” is easily understood as false if we see how Brahmanism transformed itself in Hinduism.

In fact, Ajith underestimates India’s history and doesn’t see that Buddhism was the form of pre-bourgeois ideology at that time, closely related to the principle of absolute monarchy (here we find the famous figures of Ashoka and Kautilya). It was a threat for feudalism.

It is therefore just absurd to say that “tribal societies directly became caste-feudal kingdoms”: in fact, the process was organized from the top by “Hinduism” as historical trend in India, the “Aryans” integrating people in new ruling castes in the south, to crush Buddhism.

Let’s quote here our article “Indian Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism – 10 : unification and glaciation of Indian society” :

“Eventually, the ideological vigour of Hinduism led the feudal forces of the south to join Hinduism, through the integration of the feudal lords into the kshatriya caste and the instruction of priests, and a whole history was “written” about all this, to connect it with northern culture.

This was a pure ideological construction, and in reality, the south of India never knew four castes, but only a traditional two level system, with feudal lords and priests on one side, and the oppressed masses on the other.

Another variant was applied to the tribal areas that were integrated; in such cases, Hinduism had to adapt itself, which gave birth to tantricism, i.e. magical variants.”

India’s historical path is absolutely not different of the rest of the world. The position of Ajith can only lead, like Frantz Fanon could have done it in Algeria, to a post-modernist support of the national bourgeoisie in semi-colonial semi-feudal India.

It is logical, when we see the post-modernist position of Ajith, that he rejects both inevitability of Communism and the principle of Thought.

In a strange manner, Ajith rejects the fact that Mao Zedong defends inevitability (a fact that Avakian recognizes, but rejects). But everybody knowing Mao Zedong knows that he upholds dialectical materialism, and therefore inevitability. We must see here that Ajith never speaks about it, he never speaks about the eternal matter, the infinite universe, thought as reflect of the movement of matter, socialist realism, etc. etc.

Like Avakian, Ajith considers “Maoism” as a toolbox, and reduce Marxism to Historical Materialism using a “dialectical” philosophy, “produced” by Mao making a rupture with Stalin. That’s why he just doesn’t understand the principle of Thought.

Here is what he says:

“The Avakianists blame everyone who resists this as opposing the development of proletarian ideology itself. Therefore, in order to complete the repudiation of Avakianism, we must examine the process, dynamics, of ideological development. This also becomes unavoidable in the wider context of views that hold the development of Thought or Path as essential for the success for every revolution.

Recently a concerted attempt is being made to propagate this view within the international Maoist movement. [See ‘The International Project: Guiding Thought Of Revolution: The Heart Of Maoism’, jointly promoted by the OWA (MLM, principally Maoist), CPMLM – Bangladesh and CPMLM – France and supported by the MLM Center of Belgium. An Open letter to the ICM from these parties states, “At our epoch, Maoism, as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, synthesis of the ideology of working class, can only exist as a guiding thought in each country, forging the avant-garde in correspondence with the inner contradiction of the country, unleashing People’s War.”]

It was first advanced by the PCP and later on reiterated by the CPN (Maoist).

Every creative application of MLM, leading to the successful development of a revolution (that is an application tested through practice), will surely give rise to a deeper grasp and insight of MLM. It will even contribute new concepts or ideas, which will enrich MLM. But it is not necessary (inevitable) that these contributions will represent a new ‘Thought’. It is even less necessary that they will represent a leap to a new stage, i.e., an all-round development of MLM.”

It is very clear here that Ajith doesn’t understand at all what a Thought is and even, that he has not study this question. In the document “Guiding Thought Of Revolution”, some Thoughts are presented, with a biography of their biographies.

But it is not said that these Thoughts represent a leap to a new stage. On the contrary even: a Thought represent the correct application to a country of the universal ideology.

The only special case is here Gonzalo Thought, which had such a high level that it helped understanding Maoism.

Nevertheless, it is not a question of “new concept or ideas”, to “enrich MLM” or whatsoever. Thought means: in a given country, history and culture are understood and a path for the revolution is formulated.

The Chinese comrades explain this in saying:

“History shows that the bourgeoisie first took hold of ideology and prepared public opinion before it seized political power from the feudal landlord class. Starting from the period of the “Renaissance,” the European bourgeoisie persistently criticized feudal ideology and propagated bourgeois ideology. It was in the 17th and 18th centuries, after several hundred years of preparation of public opinion, that the bourgeoisie seized political power and established its dictatorship in one European country after another.

Marx and Engels began propagating the theories of communism more than a century ago. They did so to prepare public opinion for the seizure of political power by the proletariat. The Russian proletarian revolution culminated in the seizure of political power only after decades of preparation of public opinion. Our own experience is even fresher in our minds. When the Chinese proletariat began to appear on the political scene, it was weak and unarmed. How was the revolution to start? It started with the propagation of Marxism-Leninism and the exposure of imperialism and its lackeys in China. The struggle of the Chinese proletariat for the seizure of political power began precisely with the May 4th cultural revolution.

In the final analysis, the history of the seizure of political power by the Chinese proletariat is a history of Mao Tse-tung’s thought gripping the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. As the masses have aptly put it: “Without Mao Tse-tung’s thought, there would have been no New China.” By integrating Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution, Comrade Mao Tse-tung, the great revolutionary standard-bearer, changed the whole face of the Chinese revolution.” (Long Live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966)

This is precisely what Ajith doesn’t face, according to us. Maoism is for him Historical Materialism + a toolbox of concepts. According to us, Historical Materialism is only a section of Dialectical Materialism: each country is a part of the World Revolution, and the World Revolution is a part of the whole matter moving to Communism.

=> documents in English

How does the world look, in 2014? Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Mali, Afghanistan, Egypt… In more and more countries, there are attempts to destabilize governments, so that the ruling clique is thrown out, in order that a new one comes. It means here: a governing bureaucratic bourgeoisie is changed, when anyway feudalism remains unaffected.

The reason for that is easy to understand: capitalism can not overcome its internal crisis, owing to the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It means that it will come to more and more imperialist interventions, to more and more inter-imperialist contradictions, which express themselves up to war, and also to always more poverty, more national and social demagogy, and this up to Fascism as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital”.

In the background, it also means that, in essence, barbarism anchors itself more and more. Indifference, subjectivity, individualism, spirit of competition, etc. are the values that are presented as “coherent” and “normal”, while on the other side consolation is given by religions, irrationality, retreat into subcultures, etc.. The culture is also increasingly under attack, in the name of the expansion of the capitalist market, as well as the nature anywhere in the world, on behalf of the urgency of capital accumulation.

Nevertheless, this is only one aspect of reality. We are living a period, which is on the one hand temporarily, and which finds itself on the other side in a context of an “epoch of 50 to 100 years”, because the 21st century will be the one of the world revolution.

“President Gonzalo teaches us that in the process of the world revolution to sweep away imperialism and reaction from the face of the earth there are three moments: 1st, the strategic defensive; 2nd, the strategic equilibrium; and 3rd, the strategic offensive of the world revolution.

He reaches this conclusion by applying the law of contradiction to the revolution since contradiction rules everything and all contradictions have two aspects in struggle; in this case revolution and counter-revolution (…).

Our conceptions is of a long-term process with the conviction of reaching Communism even if it means passing through a series of twists and turns and the reverses that will necessarily occur (…). As Communists, we should see not only the specific moment, but the long years to come.” (Communist Party of Peru: the International Line, 1988)

In this sense, we say that it is a historical necessity to know the history of his own country, to defend the democratic aspects and to synthesize the revolutionary aspects, as a guiding Thought to open the way for the Revolution, until victory in the People’s War, under the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, ideology of the proletariat which can only be worn by the genuine Communist Party.

It would therefore be wrong to let oneself be impressed by things like the canonization, this week, of the popes John XXIII and John Paul II, which intends to spread superstition, or from the current intensive propaganda in Afghanistan about the elections, which only goal is to reinforce the colonial stand.

It is also the case with the false promises about improvements of the work conditions in Bangladesh, one year after the collapse of the Rana plaza building, and the recent elections made by a regime without and with its bourgeoisie opposition with greed for power. Directly and indirectly, those reactionaries are forcing people to take more and more superstition, backwardness and blindness.

This is the same with the next European elections, where the radical reformists will get some success in Belgium, but where in France the far rights will celebrate electoral victories.

These are just attempts to keep a system alive, that is already at the end, which is already condemned historically.

Therefore we call: Proletarians and oppressed people and nations of the world, unite!

PEOPLE’S WAR UNTIL COMMUNISM!

Organization of the workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

Communist Party Marxist-Leninist-Maoist [Bangladesh]

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center [Belgium]

Communist Party Marxist-Leninist-Maoist [France]

First of May, 2014

=> documents in English

The positions of the MPP and the CPMLM [F]

One of the main question in the International Communist movement nowadays, and in fact since the 1960’s, is the one of the reconstitution of genuine Communist Parties.

On this occasion, we never documented or formulated in a clear way a difference of approach between the CPMLM [France] and the MPP, the Communist Party of Peru’s generated organism for the work abroad.

Let’s present it here in four points, easy to see.

1.What happened in the oppressed countries and in the imperialist countries

In the 1950’s, or even earlier, the Communist Parties formed following the wave of the 1917 revolution and then members of the Communist International began to degenerate; with revisionism’s success in 1953 in the Soviet Union, the process was nearly completed.

The word “nearly” plays here an amazing role. Indeed, the anti-revisionists formed in the 1960’s “fractions” in the revisionist Communist Party, considering that the process of degeneration was only nearly completed.

Soon expelled, they formed new parties, mostly called “Marxist-Leninist Communist Party”.

In Asia, Africa and South America, this happened solely in this way.

But in the imperialist countries, some others parties, considered as “leftists” by the others, didn’t follow this approach. They considered that they had to form a Communist Party of the time of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

They considered that a rupture was needed with the precedent revisionism, that a “reconstitution” was not enough, a cultural and ideological leap was needed. 

In the imperialist countries, the result was that there were two kind of parties:

– “ML” parties that followed a legal or a semi-legal way, refusing armed struggle and that very soon became hoxhaists;

– organizations claiming Maoism and developing an approach deeply influenced by spontaneism, practicing armed struggle, before collapsing very quickly, at least ideologically: the French Proletarian Left, the Italian Red Brigades, the (West-)German Red Army Fraction, the US Weather Underground, the Japanese Red Army, etc.

2.Two approaches

The people claiming Maoism in Italy, in Germany (West, but also East), or even in France after some experiences, considered that the communist organization had to be rebuild.

They didn’t form a “fraction” inside the Communist Party, which continued to exist in all the imperialist countries, and continue to exist even today in some countries like France or Greece.

They tried to “revolutionize” the model in the imperialist countries, and didn’t succeed : they collapsed very soon ideologically, or even at the organizational level; only some splitter groups managed to continue their clandestine activities, like for example the Red Army Fraction, but with Maoism having been abandoned. 

So, what appears is the following: either there would be the need to reform a “red” fraction to organize a rupture with the “old” revisionist “Communist” Party, or to recreate an ideological rupture.

3.The French example

In France, at the beginning of the 1990’s and until recently, there were three conceptions that existed in the question of the reconstitution:

– the semi-revisionists tried to recreate a “red” fraction and being expelled they all proceed to a reconstitution of a Party, but it didn’t work, because culturally and ideologically, no rupture was done;

– the spontaneists only proceeded to the valorization of the rupture of the past, mostly on the armed level, but not able to forge a real high ideological level;

– the CPMLM affirmed that the thought is the main aspect, after having considered that it was the key to understand the failures of the reconstitution.

4.Struggle through fraction or through ideology? The positions of the MPP and the CPMLM [F]

During the 2000’s and until today, the positions of the CPMLM [F] and the MPP were always very near.

Nevertheless, the CPMLM [F] didn’t accept that the MPP didn’t criticize openly prachandism, or participated at international conferences with what  would become the center of international centrism: the Maoist Communist Party of Italy.

The line of the MPP was always: let’s be the red fraction, there should be no active rupture, the responsibility must come to the prachandists.

The result was that the prachandists could take easily the control of the Co-RIM, with then the post-prachandists taking the lead, killing softly Maoism.

Why that? Because what counts is not a “tradition” or an “historical current”, but ideology. 

What counts is not a formal reconstitution of a Communist Party who only then works on the question of “thought”, but the dialectic construction of the Party / generation of the Thought.

This is how revolutionary organizations should be evaluated. Do they move in direction of the generation of the thought, or not?

=> documents in English

Chairman Gonzalo, imprisoned since 1992, in a Peruvian military jail, is deeply ill and his life is threatened. It is a moment of an extreme importance; the life of the great Maoist of these last thirty years is in danger.

Therefore, it is necessary to recall: to fight for Chairman Gonzalo means to fight for Communism! It is necessary to study Gonzalo and to apply his masterful understanding of the People’s War, of the Thought, of dialectical materialism!

Here, it is necessary also to stress the importance of the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist), which just made a call to defend the life of Chairman Gonzalo, to mobilize in this sense.

This call is correct, and is the expression of the very important work of the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist) to underline the importance of Gonzalo in our communist identity.

As these comrades of Afghanistan say about Gonzalo: “He is People’s War until communism.” Gonzalo incarnates the ideological leap to Maoism.

The question of Gonzalo is precisely what separates us of new revisionism pretending to be “maoist”!

As these comrades of Afghanistan say:

“Today, it is Chairman Gonzalo and his all-powerful thought that gives the correct formulation of the scientific ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.

The international line, Democratic line, mass line and military line of Communist Party of Peru which has been authored by Chairman Gonzalo, have international importance and great significance for world proletarian revolution. Chairman Gonzalo’s contributions are combat weapons that enables us the smash the rotten “new synthesis of Bob Avakian” and “Kiran-Prachanda twins revisionism of renegades of Nepal”.

So, in defense of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we have to defend the legacy of its major contributions, and those major contributions are those who represent the all-powerful formulation of MLM by Chairman Gonzalo.

The above mentioned LINES are the extract of MLM in our epoch. So, to fight for Chairman Gonzalo’s life means to fight for Communism. We ask for unconditional release of Chairman Gonzalo, and we fight for it.”

The CPMLM of France always defended Gonzalo and is proud of having made a common document with the comrades of Afghanistan and Bangladesh on the concept of thought elaborated by Gonzalo, following the teachings of Mao Zedong.

The CPMLM of France always celebrated Gonzalo, not like the fake Maoists in our country who always rejected him or pretended defending him, only to betray him in a more perverted way.

Gonzalo, our best comrade, kept in total isolation and victim of ideological hoaxes pretending that he became a renegade, must be defended.

And all the reactionaries of the world must be warned: Gonzalo’s lessons are eternally a part of our all powerful ideology ; any attack against him will transform itself in a contribution of the new revolutionary storm coming, the new red wave of the world proletarian revolution.

Gonzalo means People’s War until Communism! Gonzalo means the understanding of the thought necessary in each country to make People’s War! To defend Gonzalo is to defend dialectical materialism! 

CPMLM of France

August, 2013

=> documents in English

Nothing is indivisible ! The universe is eternal !

The law of the unity of opposites is the fundamental law

of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought!

1.

On the contrary to what religions explain, there is not the matter on one side, the soul on the other side. Only matter exists, and it has always existed, and it will always exist. The universe is infinite and eternal; there is neither a beginning, nor an end.

This is the basic conception of materialism, which negates that something “outside” the matter would exist, like a god, the “spirit”, the soul, etc.

In ancient Greece, philosophers like Epicurus and Democritus (or later the Roman Lucretius) supported this materialist thesis. Nevertheless, in their conception the universe was a passive one.

It was so the scientific current opened by the Greek Aristotle and continued by the Islamic philosophers Al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes which developed the conception of an universe which is eternal and in movement.

2.

Later, humanism continued this affirmation, from the the Parisian Latin averroism of the 13th century to Spinoza, which surpassed the conception of God and recognized nature as the sole reality.

Materialism in Europe, carried in different manners through averroism, humanism, the different variants of protestantism, English materialism, the French Lumières, etc., permitted the nascent bourgeoisie to have its own ideology and to transform reality.

The bourgeoisie profited from the Romanesque and Gothic ages, where a centralized state began to form itself, which peak is the absolute monarchy, notably of Louis XIV of France. The nations began to be formed in this process of development of an unified market; in France the national culture was so formed at the 17th century, whose great figures were Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Molière.

The era of the bourgeois revolution was the climax of this process of the growing bourgeoisie; the French revolution was a phenomenon of the greatest historical value. Great philosophers affirmed materialism, like de la Mettrie and Diderot.

3.

The bourgeois affirmation of materialism could not be protracted, because the bourgeoisie was prisoner of the development of Capital itself. Nevertheless, this transformation of reality through the new mode of production produced the working class.

Transforming reality i.e. matter, the working class is historically condemned to materialism; moreover, it understands the contradiction between itself and the reality which is transformed, and between itself and the bourgeoisie which exploits his work.

Therefore, the working class is the most revolutionary class of history, because it carries the understanding of the law of the contradiction, coming from the fact that it transforms reality through work (therefore the symbols of hammer and sickle).

So, with the working class, materialism reaches the level of understanding of how humans are indeed subjected to the process of reproduction of the means of life; their conceptions are only the reflect of this process.

As Karl Marx pointed out in a famous sentence: “In the social production of their life, humans enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material forces of production.

The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society — the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.

The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general.

It is not the consciousness of humans that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters.

Then begins an epoch of social revolution.”

4.

This is not all: the working class understands also the way the matter comes to transform itself. It permits to come back to a total materialism like with Epicurus, but this time with matter in movement, surpassing the idealism opened with Aristotle.

The working class, in transforming reality, acquires the understanding of reality and understands that the contradiction is the motor of movement in history, but also of all phenomena, of matter itself.

According materialism, there is neither a “cause” nor a “consequence”, there is only transformation, the movement from matter itself: the law of contradiction is universal.

Materialism is only genuine materialism when based on dialectics, which is explained by Lenin in this way: “Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical, – under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another, – why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another.”

Dialectics is universal; as Mao Zedong pointed out: “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the fundamental law of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought.”

5.

The fundamental teachings of dialectical materialism are the following:

*the law of the unity of opposites is universal, and therefore:

**nothing is indivisible

**the universe is eternal

*society and thoughts obey to the universal law of contradiction, and therefore:

**the thought is the reflect of the movement of matter

**materialism means following rationally the direction of matter

The fundamental lines of dialectical materialism are the following:

*The masses make history, the Communist Party leads them

*The general crisis of capitalism is unavoidable

*Fight fascism and the romanticist attempt of the ancient to roll back the wheel of history

*Defend the biosphere as the place of living matter

*Struggle for the generation and the application of a guiding thought in each country

*Socialist realism is the guideline for arts, Cultural Revolutions are needed in socialism

*Surpass the contradiction between intellectual and manual labor, surpass the contradiction between cities and countryside, build people’s communes!

*People’s War until communism !

=> documents in English

1st of may 2013: Maoism is the spring of our epoch !

On this first of may 2013, from Afghanistan, Belgium and France, full of revolutionary optimism, we hail all the proletarians and oppressed masses of the world, calling them to unite under the red banner of Maoism!

We call them to understand the two sides of world’s reality. The night is dark, darkness seems to envelop each aspect of reality, but in fact the dawn begins to make shine the red sun.

Yes, this is the call of the time: a new storm is coming, the new wave of the World Proletarian Revolution is emerging! Maoism is the spring of our epoch !

This is why, from Afghanistan, Belgium and France, we say:

Uphold, defend and apply Maoism !

Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought
in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

Inevitably, people’s war will develop in each country, carried by the fire in the heart of the masses, led by the Communist Party based on Marxism Leninism Maoism, forged by the guiding thought!

Inevitably, the masses of the world will unite under the red star, forming the World Socialist Republic, going to the golden Communism!

Our conception is that the world proletarian revolution is in its strategic offensive, the revolution is the main tendency, the revolutionary alternative appears each day more as unavoidable in the eyes of the world masses.

So, they ask for the historical weapon!

Therefore, as a contribution, there is a document, a project from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and France, about the principle of guiding thought, key element of dialectical materialism in each given country.

What is a guiding thought? “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.” (Communist Party of Peru, On Gonzalo thought)

Without a guiding thought, there can’t be no correct resolution of the contradictions in a country; without a guiding thought, there is only reformism, revisionism, a cosmopolitanism which inhibits the release of potential radicalism of the masses toward a successful People’s War.

In each country, communists must understand the development of society, the historical movement giving birth to the New Democratic Revolution, in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries, and the Socialist Revolution, in the capitalist-imperialist countries.

In each country, communists must forge the Communist Party, based on Marxism Leninism Maoism, following the thought born of the historical necessity of the time.

In each country, People’s War is the way to liberation!

It is conform to the requirements of our time. Indeed, capitalism, in its fierce form, in its last stage, is a decayed, parasitic and moribund system.

It can’t bring nothing more than more exploitation, more oppression, more injustice, more destruction of the nature of our planet, nothing more than fascism and imperialist wars.

Capitalism is the enemy of progress, of culture, of democracy, and at its imperialist stage, it is a mortal enemy for all progressive values.

The struggle against fascism is in the front of the eyes of each revolutionary.

But there is more to understand. With capitalism come also reactionary ideologies, which pretend to be “revolutionary”, but are in fact counter-revolutionary in nature, like national-socialism, peronism, chavism, castrism, etc.

They pretend to combine “nationalism” and “socialism”, and in fact that they are the servants of the most reactionary fraction of the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, and of a bureaucratic capitalist fraction in the semi-feudal semi-colonial countries.

This is not all. Imperialism tries also to make penetrate the poison in the ranks of the genuine revolutionaries. This poison takes the form of the conceptions of “peace agreements”, flexibility in strategy, “post-Maoism”, etc.

We uphold Maoist orthodoxy and reject the “modernist” trends, which are nothing more than a bourgeois sabotage. We say: all the bourgeois ideologies, the rightist tendencies, must be rejected.

Without that, there can only failure, as prove it some organizations, which followed “centrist” line around the “Maoist Communist Party of Italy”, refusing the big separation with capitulation in Nepal, and so coming to the point of diffusing a liberal, bourgeois conception of what should be Maoism.

We also say: it is correct to raise an anti-centrist criticism, but dialectically it has to move forward in the elaborated affirmation of Maoism, and assume the principle of the Guiding Thought, which is the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, to the reality of each country.

A real two line struggle against centrism, a new variant of “Maoist” revisionism, necessitates a real rupture with relativism, to assume Maoism as the third stage of Marxism.

It is incorrect to criticize centrism from a point of view limited to the conceptions acquired at the second stage of Marxism, i.e. Leninism.

Therefore, we say:

Combat the liquidation of the learnings of Chairman Gonzalo and the propaganda of the right opportunist line (ROL) in Peru!

Combat armed revisionism, like carried by the left opportunist line (LOL) in Peru!

Combat “post-maoism” of Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA !

Combat centrism of the Maoist Communist Party of Italy!

Combat pseudo anti-centrism, when it doesn’t come to accept Maoism as the third stage of Marxism!

Uphold, defend and apply Maoism !

Struggle for the generation and the application of the guiding thought in each country, to initiate and develop the People’s War!

And in this process will emerge unity, step by step, through the movement to the universal cause of the proletariat: Communism. The generation of the thoughts in each country is the presupposition for mutual recognition under the universal banner of Maoism.

People’s War until Communism!

Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center (Belgium)

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party (France)

=> documents in English

Did Akram Yari, the great historical Maoist of Afghanistan, founded the dialectical materialist approach of psychology? This is a very important question. There are many elements that can let us consider that it is the case. Let’s go back to a sentence written by Akram Yari:

“Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

There is the need to comment further this sentence, as its ideological luxuriousness is extreme.

Poles of opposites

As we can see, indeed, there are two poles of opposites:

Individual’s perpetuity <=====> sacrifice for the [working] class

cause of station and is a passive agent <=====> dynamic and active agent

If we look further, we can see another pairs of opposites, in the opposites:

individual <=====> [working] class

perpetuity <=====> sacrifice

and:

cause of station <=====> dynamic

passive agent <=====> active agent

We begin to have an overlook about the luxuriousness of Akram Yari’s thought. Let’s go further and see which words he used.

The etymology of the words chosen

In particular, we need to see which vocabulary he use for active / passive and cause of station / dynamic.

Akram Yari says:

« بقای فردی عامل سکون وپسیف است وازخودگذری درمقابل منافع طبقه عامل متحرک واکتیف »

For “station”, he uses “سکون”, pronounced “Sukoun”, it comes from the Arabic language, where it means “calm”; it is also used by the great master of the falsafa, Avicenna, for example in the “Danesh Namé”, the “book of science”.

For “dynamic”, he uses “متحرک”, pronounced “Mutaharek”, which comes from the Arabic « حَرَكَة”. Here it is to note that word is to take in the sense of “mobile”, i.e. dynamic in the sense that it can come to be in motion. The opposition station/dynamic is to understand as calm/mobile.

This is directly in relation with the opposition passive / active, for which Akram Yari uses the words borrowed from the English language (aktif/pasif).

And now, let’s take a last look, at the word “agent”. Akram Yari uses the word “عامل”, prononced “Aamel”. It comes from the Arabic language, and the on-line dictionary wiktionary gives us this useful explanation:

“Noun

عَامِل‎ • (ʕāmil) , plural عَوَامِل (ʕawāmil)‎

1. factor, constituent, element, causative agent
2. motive power
3. (grammar) word that governs another word”

The Falsafa: Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna

Now, let’s take a look at the teachings of Falsafa. Do we find the same poles of opposites?

Let’s take the opposition passive agent <=====> active agent.

To sum up, according the tradition of Aristotle, the second master (Al-Fârâbî) and Avicenna, there is a God which is a “motor”. Because it is “good”, it produces goodness which is already separated from God, giving birth to an “angel” which is an “intellect” (aql).

At the end of this process, there is the Earth, formed of a fusion of the low level of the “intellect” and matter. Matter is merely “passive” and formed by the intellect, which is “active”.

Therefore, what is called the “thought” does not belong to matter. It belongs to the intellect.

Let’s see now the opposition cause of station <=====> dynamic.

According the tradition of Aristotle – Al Farabi – Avicenna, matter is “calm”, in the sense of “receptive”, whereas the intellect is “mobile”, moving to the receptive matter, forming it (= gives forms to it).

According Aristotle, the wise who understands that becomes happy; according Al-Fârâbî, somebody understanding that become the philosoph-king. And according Avicenna, the individual can receive the “light beams” of the “intellect” bringing universal forms of knowledge.

The Falsafa: Averroes

In the amazing conceptions of Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna, people are like computers searching the informations in a big datacenter, which would be “God”, the cables being the intellect putting informations on the screens (here: the “souls”).

But as we know, the “great commentator”, Averroes, modified this system. In the system of Al-Fârâbî and Avicenna, everything comes from the top, from the intellect. The individuals are merely passive.

However, Averroes saw the contradiction: how can the eternal and unique intellect be in relation with the non-eternal and non unique individuals?

This was a major materialist step, which was quickly and harshly crushed by the representatives of Islam, whereas in Europe it became the weapon for the materialists in the struggle against the Church, giving the central impulse for the Renaissance.

How did Averroes change the Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna system?

According Averroes, the “intellect” was not only coming from outside the matter, there was also a part of the intellect directly connected to matter.

Humans were matter, but with an “intellect”, which was opened to the intellect coming from outside (from the top, from God).

The union matter – intellect of a human formed a union الاتحاد – al-ittihad, seeking for a jonction إتصا –ittisal, with the great intellect.

It was a major step, because it was a recognition of the existence of the brain.

A materialist understanding

The system of Aristotle – Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna – Averroes is a static one. But for us, the world is in movement, matter is eternal and follows a dialectical movement. So, the static aspect is opposed to the dynamic aspect, as Mao Zedong said, “the tree may prefer calm, but the wind will not subside”.

So, now, let’s go back to Akram Yari’s affirmation:

“Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

And let’s understand it properly.

What is perpetuity? It is the calm. What is the sacrifice? It is the wind. The individuals live in a given society, but this society evolves. The individual sees and feels this evolution, but without a proper approach, falls in nostalgia.

Here, Akram Yari stressed some very important points, reaching a very high level of understanding of psychology; if we take his quote, on one side, we have the non-mobile side:

“Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent”

On the other side, we have the mobile side:

“sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent”.

If we were with Avicenna, we would say: the intellect (aql) is active and “writes” the passive agent. But as we don’t use the concept of God, but of matter in eternal dialectical movement, then the world is in a process of auto-transformation.

(It is certainly why Akram Yari didn’t use the Arabic words for active / passive that used Avicenna : it would been as if the materialist system was equivalent to Avicenna’s, and this was not the case. Akram Yari probably didn’t knowt Averroes, Titan of the falsafa but largely unknown in the Muslim world.)

Therefore, this transformation is the real active agent. And with Averroes, we know that the individuals are not only like a receptor, they can emit also: humans are turned in the direction of the intellect from the top, but also in the direction of the matter they’re connected to.

So, Akram Yari explains what Averroes, Kant, Lenin observed: people do no think at a greater level than themselves, except some few people understanding the whole system which put everything in motion.

The “thought” of the humans is a reflection, it is late, because not turned in the direction of the general motion. To understand it properly, let’s come back to the opposites presented by Akram Yari.

Individual and sacrifice, a dialectical movement and so, intern

We said that the opposites were:

individual <=====> [working] class

perpetuity <=====> sacrifice

But in fact, this is not correct, it should be:

individual <=====> sacrifice

perpetuity <=====> [working] class

Why that? Because it is the class which is against perpetuity, the class carries communism, which is abolishing the old society.

The contradiction is intern: the class belongs to the society.

And the other contradiction is between the individual, turned in the direction of itself, whereas the sacrifice shows that he turned itself to the general movement of matter.

The contradiction is intern: the sacrifice is the one of the individual itself.

The basis for an understanding of the psychology of the individual

So, the contradiction is intern. But what are the forms of this contradiction?

Let’s, for this, understand what Akram Yari said just before the sentence we quoted:

“the basic principle of an individual’s life is in a superficial manner, nothing more than keeping owns material existence till death, but the situation of life, meaningfully, its social manner, conducts the survival and perpetuity of an individual towards transforming to a contradiction: from one side, material survival is the basis for being alive, but from other aspect, giving sacrifices in favor of the class, is the necessary initiative for individual growth and development of human society.”

When Akram Yari speaks of the “social manner”, the fact of “keeping owns material existence till death”, it is like when Averroes speaks of the “intellect” present in matter and not turned to the great intellect (Averroes calls is the “material intellect”).

And as the contradiction is in society itself, in the reproduction of the means of life (= the mode of production), then the contradiction is in the human directly also. Individual and sacrifice forms a contradiction, but a contradiction not between the human and an intellect as in the religious conception of Aristotle – Al-Fârâbî – Avicenna – Averroes.

It is indeed a contradiction in the human itself. This is why Karl Marx explained us, in its Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843):

“The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.

Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself.”

Akram Yari gave the basis for psychology

In explaining that the individual is in a situation which is passive and non-mobile, Akram Yari upholds the dialectical materialist point of view that the individual thought is the reflect of the movement of matter.

Nevertheless, as the thought is gray matter, is in the brain, and as the brain is matter, the brain is a part of the movement of matter.

Therefore, the individual is in a contradiction. This contradiction is the basis for the dialectical materialist approach of psychology.

The mind of the individuals is at the same time the tool to understand the direct reality of the individual, but also the global reality of the world. This comes from the natural reality of the brain.

This opens a whole field of understanding the individuals. It helps to understand the tension between the global aspect of the class and the reality of the individuals, which are in the class, but also turned, in a relative way, in a direct reality part of the reproduction of the means of living.

=> documents in English

When we look at history, when we see that life is matter in movement, then it is inevitable that we can see a contradiction between the search by each life of its own preservation and the necessity to put its own life in danger in the struggle for progress.

On one side, the general trend of revolution pushes the individual to action. On the other side, the individual is already living, he has a family, he has friends, a love relationship can have begun, kids are maybe already there, etc.

There is so a great tension between the life of an individual which is propelled in one direction, with a culture of its own, individual making project for the future, and the necessity of the revolution.

Of course, genuine revolutionaries are aware of this and all their life is managed so to conform to the necessity of the revolution: this the principle of the professional revolutionaries, like Lenin formulated it.

So, we have to raise the question of the adequacy of one individual’s life and its duty. This is a contradiction. We can see it easily in the process of construction and development of the Communist Party; we can see how people fail, because they are not able to transform themselves. This is also what Gonzalo meant with the question of necessity and historical chance for what makes an individual act like this or like that.

There is a tension between the tendency of the individuals to see in communism the only path for progress in general, and their tendency for self-protection, which must go, if not transformed, in direction of the illusory protection by the past, the reaction, when in fact transformation can’t be avoided.

Therefore, the Communist Party must always elevate its level, so that individuals can directly see that their own development is linked with the progress of communism. No life can be improved in a sense that goes against communism.

And life following the general tendency to communism can only progress, gaining elements for its advance in the cultural fields, finding the positive elements in society, its own life, being able to stay authentic, etc.

So, to sum up, a part of matter can’t anyway go in a direction opposed to the general movement of matter; it is the principle of the universe in onion. All the layers of the universe are in transformation.

Here how the great Maoist of Afghanistan, Akram Yari, explains to us this contradiction:

“…the basic principle of an individual’s life is in a superficial manner, nothing more than keeping owns material existence till death, but the situation of life, meaningfully, its social manner, conducts the survival and perpetuity of an individual towards transforming to a contradiction: from one side, material survival is the basis for being alive, but from other aspect, giving sacrifices in favor of the class, is the necessary initiative for individual growth and development of human society.

Individual’s perpetuity is a cause of station and is a passive agent, but sacrifice for the [working] class is a dynamic and active agent.”

The grandiose understanding by Akram Yari shows us here that there a passive aspect, and a dynamic aspect, which means that the main aspect is the general aspect, not the individual aspect. It means that the trend which wins is the dynamic aspect.

This is dialectical: as the individual is a component of matter in general, if the system moves, it moves also. And if the individual understands that, he can accompany the general movement of matter. Indeed, he carries then the thought.

And that is why Akram Yari explains that:

“It crucial for a better existence and for a better life, to give sacrifice, because, it is only in this from work, in the frame work of sacrificing for the sake of class, being fully pledged in favor of the class, and neglecting one’s own interest, and being in favor of the class that leads to a better life. It is then possible for an individual to wage a struggle for guaranteeing his/her real eternity.”

This looks like poetry for people not used to the laws of dialectical materialism. But if we look at Engels, didn’t he win his “eternity” by helping Karl Marx and the foundation of Marxism, instead of only “living” as a bourgeois as he could have done?

Basically, this is the question touching every individual: should it try “self-protection”, which can only be an illusion as the past is always weaker, or should it dare the new, which is weak but always stronger, and conform to the general movement of matter in transformation?

We all know people that faced a choice, and that followed the opportunist line, instead of the revolutionary one, for a reason of comfort, exactly like somebody can pretend to negate its own love, because it is not in adequacy with its own bourgeois career project.

But let’s conclude with this masterful lesson of Akram Yari on dialectics, here about the nature of revolutionary politics:

“What form takes the principal work in struggling for the emancipation of the humans in a class society? That form of work, which is really effective in liberation and emancipation of humans. This form of working is a revolutionary politics.

It means that the revolutionary politics of interests of the class at whole, while in progress, and within progression, can break the chains of bondage of the humans {from oppression} and it leads the human beings towards emancipation and liberation. This is the reason why politics is prior to all issues.

This means political aid is the most non-private thing and most unbiased one that an individual can offer to other ones. But all knows that in a class society, there is nothing unbiased, so the politics also cannot be unbiased, and cannot be found unbiased in a class society.

But what is the political bias? Political bias, it is itself a contradiction: from one aspect, it contains all private biases and {represents} each of them, and from another aspect, political bias does not reflect private and personal bias.

Political bias is an image, is an abstraction and contains too much parts of personal or private biases, and contemporarily, does not represent private bias of any individual, and does not fulfill any private bias.

As is the revolutionary proletarian politics the negation of private bias each individual of the class, at the same time, it is the abstracted form and the integration of the whole biases of the individuals [/members] of a class.”

How useful are the lessons of Akram Yari, carried by the Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)!

=> documents in English

The comrades of Bangladesh have translated in English some documents of Siraj Sikder, which is a great contribution to the history of the International Communist Movement, but also to the active field of ideology which is ours.

In particular, the importance of the document called “On some slogans”, from January 1971, is to stress, because in it Siraj Sikder expresses the very fundamental approach of dialectical materialism.

Let’s see here in what it consists.

1.The affirmation of the law of contradiction

Siraj Sikder understood that each nation was build through the development of economy in a concrete situation, and that this was to consider to understand how the social changes take place.

Correctly, he points out:

“Dialectical materialism teaches us “The fundamental cause of development of a thing is not external but internal. It lies in the contradictoriness within the thing”. It further teaches us, “Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society”.

That means, the basic reason why independent democratic East Bengal is the end result of social development of East Bengal lies inside the society of East Bengal. This is dialectical materialism.”

2.Slogans as expression of the thought

Nevertheless, Siraj Sikder wouldn’t be a great leader if he understood only the basic law of contradiction. He understood also the principle of direction.

Here, Siraj Sikder precises us the question of the slogans as the reflection of the necessity of East Bengal’s development.

“Proletariat as class is minority at present East Bengal society and even it will remain so till certain stage in socialist society too.

In that situation, how proletariat will lead whole masses of the country? “First, by putting forward basic political slogans that accord with the course of historic development and by putting forward slogans of action for each stage of development and each major turn of events in order to translate these political slogans into reality.” [Mao, Selected Works, Vol-I, P-274]

So, in order to lead the whole masses of East Bengal society, East Bengal proletariat has to make political strategy and tactics corresponding to the historic development of East Bengal on the one hand, and strategic and tactical slogans as reflection of respective strategy and tactics on the other, and they have to implement those as well.

In this context, they must study and analyze whether or not the slogans raised by different forms of revisionists of East Bengal properly reflect East Bengal society and its development.”

Even if a minority, the working-class, as it is at the avant-garde, indicates the correct way.

3.Matter is dynamic and this dynamism has its own law

So, slogans are expression – through the thought which formulates them – of the necessities of the movement of the social reality, i.e. of matter.

Here is what Siraj Sikder says:

“Dialectical materialism teaches us – matter exists independent of our consciousness.

Matter is primary while consciousness is the reflection of matter in our brain through five perceptual organs. Consciousness is created from matter and is secondary.

It further teaches us, matter is dynamic and this dynamism has its own law.

If there are many contradictions in process of development of a matter, in that case each contradiction has separate existence, they have mutual relations too and matter develops periodically through solution of principal contradiction.

This is the reflection of the law of development of mater that has been included in the law of dialectical materialism and principal contradiction.”

4.The materialization of the program

All this perfect understanding of Siraj Sikder makes him say an affirmation which is non-sense for revisionism and reformism:

“The People’s Republic will materialize the great program of East Bengal Workers Movement”.

Indeed, according dialectical materialism, this sentence means that the realization of the people’s republic is the product of the thought, thought who carried out the synthesis of the necessities of the matter, producing by this the great program.

In the logic of revisionism and reformism, which is idealist, “demands” produce a movement which makes a program. These “ideas” should be “accepted” and bring a “revolution”.

In fact, a revolution doesn’t happen like this. Revolution is the product of matter in movement, and there is a dialectic movement with the thought. The thought reflects this movement of matter, and dialectically, it throws forces in this movement, to accomplish the qualitative leap.

This is why Siraj Sikder raises the importance of the slogans, expression of the necessities of the movement of matter… And why the revolution will materialize the road map synthesized by the avant-garde.

=> documents in English

In the article « Gonzalo and the question of guiding thought, thought in development, People’s War« , we saw that Gonzalo spoke of necessity and historical chance when dealing about the question of why an individual, and not another, carries the thought.

Here is what he said, precisely:

« The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought. 

None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility. »

It is of importance to note that here, Gonzalo alludes to what Engels said. It is important to understand that, because Engels spoke about thought in general, and in particular of the “great men” and their political role in history.

Indeed, if we follow Gonzalo, “thought” is not passive, it is always directly political, revolutionary.

Here is what Engels said, in a letter to Borgius, written in London on January 25, 1894 :

“Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined, given society.

Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and appears under the forms of accident.

The necessity which here asserts itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity.

This is where the so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or bad, but in the long run he will be found.

That Napoleon, just that particular Corsican, should have been the military dictator whom the French Republic, exhausted by its own war, had rendered necessary, was an accident; but that, if a Napoleon had been lacking, another would have filled the place, is proved by the fact that the man has always been found as soon as he became necessary: Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, etc.

While Marx discovered the materialist conception of history, Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, and all the English historians up to 1850 are the proof that it was being striven for, and the discovery of the same conception by Morgan proves that the time was ripe for it and that indeed it had to be discovered.

So with all the other accidents, and apparent accidents, of history. The further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the economic sphere and approaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run in a zig-zag.

So also you will find that the axis of this curve will approach more and more nearly parallel to the axis of the curve of economic development the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt with.”

It is important to note this allusion of Gonzalo. Nevertheless, politically and also because it is useful, we have to quote Karl Marx. A revisionist thesis which comes often is that Engels added some personal conceptions to Marxism.

This assertion is wrong, and let’s quote here Karl Marx himself, explaining the same concept of thought.

In a letter from September 1843, written in Kreuzenach, for Arnold Ruge, our great teacher explains:

“The reform of consciousness consists entirely in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in arousing it from its dream of itself, in explaining its own actions to it.

Like Feuerbach’s critique of religion, our whole aim can only be to translate religious and political problems into their self-conscious human form.

Our program must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form.

It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality.”

What is the consciousness of the world? Of course, it is the thought.

=> documents in English

To say that a thought is necessary, in each country as synthesis of social reality, to make the revolution, is certainly absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, it is useful to make some precisions about the formation of the thought.

As the Afghani comrades pointed out, a thought like Gonzalo thought is a really high developped thought; it is a thought which managed to develop itself until the universal aspect of People’s War.

But some thoughts may exist without being that developped. A thought may also be carried through different steps. This has to do with the fact that the thought is the reflect of the social development of reality.

If we take a look at Gonzalo’s interview given in 1988, we can find two explanations helping us in this question of the levels of the thought.

Gonzalo says:

“It is the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Peruvian revolution that has produced Gonzalo Thought. 

Gonzalo Thought has been forged in the class struggle of our people, mainly the proletariat, in the incessant struggles of the peasantry, and in the larger framework of the world revolution, in the midst of these earthshaking battles, applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of our country. 

Previously we called it the Guiding Thought. 

And if today the Party, through its Congress, has sanctioned the term Gonzalo Thought, it’s because a leap has been made in the Guiding Thought through the development of the people’s war. 

In sum, Gonzalo Thought is none other than the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete reality. This means that it is principal specifically for our Party, for the people’s war and for the revolution in our country, and I want to emphasize that. 

But for us, looking at our ideology in universal terms, I emphasize once again, it is Maoism that is principal.”

We find also this, in the interview:

“In Engels’ view, it is necessity that generates leaders, and a top leader, but just who that is is determined by chance, by a set of specific conditions that come together at a particular place and time. In this way, in our case too, a Great Leadership [Jefatura] has been generated. This was first acknowledged in the Party at the Expanded National Conference of 1979. 

But this question involves another basic question that can’t be overlooked and needs to be emphasized: there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be. 

The reason that a certain person has come to speak as the Leader of the Party and the revolution, as the resolutions state, has to do with necessity and historical chance and, obviously, with Gonzalo Thought. 

None of us knows what the revolution and the Party will call on us to do, and when a specific task arises the only thing to do is assume the responsibility.”

Here, Gonzalo explains two things interesting us for the question of the level:

* first, there was a guiding thought, that knew a leap (with People’s War);

* then, there is this very important sentence:  “there is no Great Leadership [Jefatura] that does not base itself on a body of thought, no matter what its level of development may be.”

So, we can make a hierarchy of the development of the thought:

1.Applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of a country gives birth to the guiding thought.

2.This guiding thought knows different stages.

3.At its highest stage, it knows a final leap with people’s war, elevating itself to the question of the universal.

Here, we must stress the importance of the fact that Gonzalo explains that to build a direction – and without a direction, there is nothing practically, all efforts are vain – there is the absolute need for a “body of thought”.

And he tells us also that this body of thought must not be really or fully developed to already exist. It can exist at a low level of development.

There are two aspects. First, this is all a reminder of the correct lessons of Kautsky and Lenin on the absolute need for a theory, a direction, based on the correct ideology. This is the correct point of view opposed to all liquidationist trends (“communism of council”, revolutionary syndicalism, spontaneism even disguised as “Maoism”, etc.).

The second aspect is that it gives an indication to the first tasks that communists must do. In a given country, to make the revolution the communists need people’s war, and to have people’s war they need the developed thought.

To have this developed thought, they need a guiding thought, and to have this guiding thought, they need to forge it.

Without this, they have nothing. That’s the central point: the forging of the thought, of the correct ideology in a given country, is the main battle – without this, there can be no development of communism.

=> documents in English

What is the revolutionary path? Is it to manage the transformation of reality, to require it to be transformed in a revolutionary way? Or is it to follow the revolutionary nature of reality itself, to correspond to it?

The question raised here is the one of the nature of dialectical materialism. Either reality exists “outside us” and, in a way, we can choose to transform it, or the contradiction is inside reality and we are a part of reality, transforming ourselves in an adequate manner.

This is a very important question, the basic question of the nature of materialism, of reality. And it plays a very important role also – or even a central role – nowadays in the debates in the International Communist Movement about Maoism.

To understand that we need to see the main ideological proposals that exist. We can see that these two conceptions are expressed and are the source of the main differences.

The main Maoist conceptions nowadays

There are nowadays four main Maoist conceptions. Here is a short presentation.

a) The avakianist conception

This conception is that revolution is not something coming “mechanically” from reality, but the best choice of humanity. Communism is the best “option” for a rational thought. There is no scientific affirmation, only a will, a choice, an option. Communism won’t be established unless humanity “chooses” it.

Carried by Bob Avakian of the Revolutionary Communist Party (USA), it was accepted by all the organizations involved in different ways in the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement – RIM (Sarbedaran of Iran, Revolutionary Communists and TKP(ML) Maoist Merkezi in Germany i.e. Berlin, etc.).

b) The Co-RIM second generation conception

As the avakianists abandoned the RIM, this structure came under command of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Maoist Communist Party of Italy and the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey North Kurdistan.

The conception put forward by these organizations is that Maoism is the science of revolution. Nevertheless, Maoism gives mainly the main indications; practical flexibility is needed because of the numerous situations. Therefore, good choices must be made, with a flexible mind and there is no place for dogmatic views.

c) The intermediary conception

Some organizations rejected clearly the avakianist conception as idealist and the Co-RIM second generation as opportunist.

Therefore, they produced anti-Centrist calls, against the Nepali betrayal at the beginning, which brought them in ideological conflict with the organizations defending the “flexible approach”.

The understanding of Maoism of these organizations is quite different, but the common basis is that Maoism is the science of revolution with principles that are not “flexible”.

d) The conception of Gonzalo – two interpretations

According to Gonzalo, communism is unavoidable and therefore thoughts are produced, synthesizing a national reality with dialectical materialism and being a guiding light for the revolutionaries. In this sense, a thought is all-powerful.

But there can be and there are two interpretations of this all-powerful feature.

a) either this thought is all powerful because it shows the way and gives the correct methods; then following the thought means victory;

b) or this thought is all powerful because it corresponds to the movement of reality; being conform to the movement of matter, and expression of it, the thought is all power full, because conform.

The position of the MPP and its consequence

It is very clear that the Peru People’s Movement, generated organism of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) for the work abroad, upholds the first conception mentioned about the Gonzalo conception (the thought shows the way and gives the correct methods).

For the MPP, Maoism must be “put in command”, it is spoken of “imposing Maoism” ; some organizations near from the MPP call to “accelerate” the constitution or reconstitution of the Party in their own country, and there is also the call for two-line struggle.

The CPMLM of France does not accept this conception. Two-line struggle is not a “choice” but a practice which is made when in the reality itself the conditions exist for it. It is not possible neither to “accelerate” or “brake” the revolution; reality is one and no “choice” is possible.

The consequence of this difference can be seen in the attitude about Nepali revisionism. When Gonzalo was captured by the reactionary Peruvian army, the PCP considered itself as the red fraction within the RIM.

The MPP maintained this in the years following. The MPP spoke for long of “comrade Avakian”, trying not to criticize him openly directly, and the same happened with “comrade Prachanda”. When in 2007, for the CPMLM of France, Prachanda was already considered openly serving modern revisionism and the line of an imperialist peace agreement, the MPP criticizes him but was still speaking of “comrade Prachanda”.

The reason for the position of the MPP, that can be summed up with “no open criticism until the other decides a split”, is a direct product of the subjectivist conception of “managing matter”.

The MPP tried to “manage” the reality of the RIM, whereas the inner contradiction of the RIM was absolutely not considered, thus permitting the avakianists to organize and then the centrists to organize.

It is so to note that the MPP signed numerous documents with the Maoist Communist Party of Italy, participating in numerous “conferences”, for example in Paris, organized by the Maoist Communist of Italy.

The position of the CE-PCR and its consequence

In the last weeks, the PCE-CR – Reconstruction Committee of the Communist Party of Ecuador called for two line struggle and criticized sharply some organizations of what we called here the intermediary conception.

The paradox is that the PCE-CR criticized them for not recognizing Gonzalo’s teachings, whereas on the other side the PCE-CR does not criticize the centrists, who clearly reject Gonzalo’s teachings!

The reason for that is that the PCE-CR seems to move in the same subjectivist conception of “managing reality”. Its call for “two line struggle” exists as nothing would have happened in the RIM those last 15 years.

It is as the RIM would exist, with problems – the PCE-CR and the MPP certainly not agree with Centrism – but that the anti-centrists would be “outsiders”, with an ideological level “under” the value of the RIM.

Therefore, with such a vision, the PCE-CR can come and make a subjectivist call of two line struggle with its own criteria – even if the criteria are of the greatest value, they do not correspond to the question of the moment, they are not articulated politically.

The positive example of the first of may 2009

When there was the betrayal of the Nepali revolution, in 2005-2006, few organizations explained it openly and express that it was a terrible revisionist danger. Among them, there was the Communist Worker Union (Marxist Leninist Maoist) of Colombia.

On the first of May 2009, the joint document called “The Imperialist Capitalism is in Crisis – Long Live Socialism and Communism!”, signed by the Union Obrera Comunista (MLM) – [Colombia], the Marxist Leninist Maoist Communist Party – [France] and the Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun expressed in a correct manner:

“The world is mature for the revolution! (…) 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 (…).

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 (…).

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”

We find here four points: supporting the People’s War in India, greeting the People’s War in Peru, rejecting the imperialist peace agreement in Nepal, calling for a New MLM International Conference.

Was this correct? Indeed – it was not “managing” reality, but corresponding to it. It was not subjectivism or will in command, it was a synthetic understanding of reality, and an expression of reality.

Managing or corresponding to the transformation of reality? A major question of Maoism

Communism is unavoidable, because matter is eternal and obeys to the dialectical law of transformation. Communists are humans corresponding ideologically to the new, being a part of the tendency triumphing over the past.

From this conception come the theory of reflection, the conception of the thought, socialist realism in the art (i.e. typical representation corresponding to the new reality being born, assuming the heritage of the past).

Mao Zedong, in explaining that nothing is indivisible, permitted to understand this in the most perfect way.

Mao Zedong permitted us to go over the mistakes of our great comrade Stalin, that moved towards the idealist approach of changing matter from “outside”, forgetting the inner contradiction (mistakes producing the “Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature” in the 1948, opening the way to idealism and revisionism).

The Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution (GPCR) was launched not only against the counter revolutionaries, it was also there to generalize the conception that nothing is indivisible.

All over the world, thoughts were produced, following the call of the GPCR: Gonzalo in Peru, Akram Yari in Afghanistan, Siraj Sikder in Bangladesh, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya in Turkey…

And these thoughts were not an idealist “Mao Zedong thought” pretending to change reality with the revolutionary “will”, there were the best product of Mao Zedong’s understanding of Marxism-Leninism, brought to a new stage.

It was not a question of “managing” reality, but to be conform to it! That is why subjectivism must be rejected; even the best revolutionary “will” converges with opportunism because it is not able to follow reality and its incessant transformation.

Adequacy must be our great concern, we must always correspond to the transformation of reality.

=> documents in English

January 2013

Today, the International Communist Movement faces many challenges, like the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, the tendency to imperialist war and the sharpness of imperialist powers concurrence, climate change.

And because of the uneven development existing in the International Communist Movement, there are many differences about how to understand reality; there are indeed no sufficient unity, no sufficient exchanges among the International Communist Movement.

According to us, this situation must change, in fact it is already changing, the requirements rise, the world masses want answer, they want a way to shine in front of them. They are hungry for a way to break their chains, to build a new society, far from exploitation, oppression and decadence.

We must answer this: the level of ideological, theoretical and cultural exchanges among communists must be developed. This means building an international platform, a democratic platform for the communists, which would be a step for the ideological unity in the future.

Nevertheless, such a platform can exist if it really corresponds to the requirements of the masses, which is the World Proletarian Revolution, to build the world socialist Republic, bringing us to Communism.

That is why, according to us, to understand what is happening and to transform reality, we need science, dialectical materialism, which means at our epoch: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, applied to each national reality, because each nation is the framework of social transformation.

At our epoch, Maoism, as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, synthesis of the ideology of working class, can only exist as a guiding thought in each country, forging the avant-garde in correspondence with the inner contradiction of the country, unleashing People’s War. In this process, all the People’s War unite and combine themselves, forging the path to the World Proletarian Revolution.

Because of the uneven development, thoughts have been developed in some countries, like Gonzalo in Peru, Akram Yari in Afghanistan, Siraj Sikder in Bangladesh, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya in Turkey.

These thoughts must be studied, compared also with others thoughts that may be appeared, like Charu Mazumdar and Kanai Chatterjee in India, Ulrike Meinhof in Germany, Alfred Klahr in Austria. In each country, communists must study and understand if and how a thought may have been developed.

We know that there are Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organisations that did not understand this question of the thought, or that may even reject it. It was and is historical understandable, it comes from the law of uneven development.

We are so fully aware of it but we think the question is unavoidable, and that history will make these organisations either jump to the thought, or fail. In our eyes, genuine communists can only recognize the contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, who synthesized the lessons of the Great Cultural Proletarian Revolution, summing it up in the slogan: “People’s War until Communism!”

For this reason, we are for an open, democratic discussion among Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organisations wanting the International Communist Movement to move forward.

We are for unity, we are not afraid neither of discussions nor of a common struggle against counter-revolution, capitulation and revisionist ideologies like Prachandism and Avakianism.

Comrades, let’s dare unity. Let’s build an international platform, to show our spirit of unity, to be able to exchange about our experiences and our lessons, to show to the world masses that, despite the uneven development, despite our differences, we are guided by the same red star, we are full aware of our duty.

Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan
(Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist)

CPMLM Bangladesh

CPMLM France

=> documents in English

Joint Declaration, December 2012

THE INTERNATIONAL UNITY OF THE COMMUNISTS REQUIRES THE DEFEAT OF AVAKIANIST REVISIONISM, CENTRISM AND ALL FORMS OF REVISIONISM!

A year ago, nine parties and organizations communist of several countries proclaimed in a joint statement: The International Unity of Communists requires the Defeat of revisionism and centrism! [1]

Once again they denounced the revisionist betrayal of the revolution in Nepal, they recognized the collapse the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement as leading center, rejecting the revisionist theory of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA that they led that movement to bankruptcy.

They called the Marxist Leninist Maoists to fight for the international unity of the communists demolishing the false revisionist theories and eclectic positions of centrism, tracing a deep demarcation between Marxism and opportunism across the general line of the international communist movement as a firm basis for unity to build the new International.

Following that correct line today in this new birth anniversary of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, teacher in an irreconcilable struggle against opportunism, we denounce the so called Avakian’s new synthesis, adopted in 2008 by the Revolutionary Communist Party, United States (RCP,USA) as a form of revisionism, the main danger in our time for the unity of the International Communist Movement.

It is a revisionist line even more dangerous than the revisionism prachandist, so far as it presents itself as “A more radical vision of communism.”

According to the RCP,USA: “In philosophy and method, the new synthesis, in an important sense, is founded the Marxism of manner more global on its scientific roots”. In the own words of Avakian, referring to the whole experience of the International Communist Movement: « I also thoroughly analyzed the errors, as well as the weak points as far as conception and method that led to those mistakes. On that basis, I have forged a cohesive theoretical framework, integral and global, that is, a synthesis. Although this development certainly arises from what have come before and after of it, also implies, as crucial element, genuine break with the conception and prior experience, whereby we call it a new synthesis.”

It is a dangerous revisionist theory that abandons the Marxist dialectical materialist method, disowns the historical experience of the proletariat in the struggle for socialism and communism and repudiates the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, touchstone to differentiate between Marxism and opportunism.

It is a dangerous revisionist theory because it appears as an overcoming of the alleged errors of Marxism and as his successor, being in reality a break with Marxism Leninism Maoism, a post theory Marxist Leninist Maoist – new form of revisionism with the old and rotten opportunist content.

The « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA has abandoned the scientific method of thinking of revolutionary Marxism to embrace the subjective idealism, ignoring the determinism in the motion of matter, where capitalism in its dying phase imperialist is determined historically to be replaced by socialism throughout the world. Rejects the decisive nature of the internal contradictions of society and the revolutionary processes in different countries, which leads to ignoring the real forces of the revolution and to the impotence to draw a strategy and tactics revolutionary. 

The subjective idealist method of “new synthesis” carried to its followers to despise the objective existence of the proletariat, today only consistently revolutionary class, reducing it to a mere ideal, that in the best of cases would be represented by the petty bourgeois intelligentsia, the social basis of interest to the “new synthesis” for which the proletariat has been “reified” by Marxism since Marx himself, and especially by the Communist International. Consequently, the necessity of the proletarian party is a mere formality, being diluted in “a movement for revolution” indoctrinated in the commandments of the “new synthesis”.

The « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA is a dangerous revisionist theory that under the pretext of not “Cling religiously to all previous experience and the theory and the method associated with it” waives to the rich experience of struggle of the world proletariat, discarding the glorious past of the Communist International and the construction of socialism in Russia and China. Thus renounces to Marxist Leninist Maoist theory, since “The theory is the experience of the workers movement in all countries, taken in its general appearance.” [2]

Hence, the RCP,USA divide the history of the International Communist Movement in a first stage that starts with the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels and ends with the defeat of the proletariat in China in 1976; and a second stage corresponding to the “new synthesis” and “new manifesto” of the RCP, USA, presented as superior to the old Marxist and the old Manifesto considered lapsed. [3]

Not by chance the prachandist revisionism and revisionism avakianist coincide in declaring insufficient to Marxism Leninism Maoism to resolve the problems of the revolution in the 21st Century, and hence they declare groundless the Leninist theory on imperialism, capitalism in decomposition beyond which only follows the world proletarian revolution and socialism. Against Marxism of the era of imperialism, the “new synthesis” of the RCP,USA revives and dusts old revisionist theories related with the ultra-imperialism Kautskyist; takes the bourgeois wordiness of “globalization”; rises submissive against the Yankee imperialism before whose supposed invincibility, the proletariat and peoples of the world can only resist.

Against the inevitable development of the class struggle towards the dictatorship of the proletariat and against the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China that taught in theory and in practice the need of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat affirming it as the cornerstone of Marxism, the « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA opposes the bourgeois theory of “right to dissent” taken from reactionary John Stuart Mill and presented in a refined version of the prachandist “multiparty democracy” to give the bourgeoisie under socialism complete freedom, media propaganda and free political organization.

For the « new synthesis » of the RCP,USA, under socialism the proletarian dictatorship is just a “buzzword” as Kautsky called it, where there is only « people » and not classes in struggle antagonistic, and the continuation of the revolution is reduced to fantasies and intellectual exercises of petit bourgeois while the workers and peasants remain wage slaves appendages of machines and earth. [4]

The “new synthesis” ostentatiously presented by the RCP,USA as “the communism of the new phase,” is actually an abjuration of revolutionary Marxism a betrayal of the Declaration itself of MRI in 1993 Live Marxism Leninism Maoism!; is revisionism post Marxist Leninist Maoist unsuitable to lead the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, and main danger of the international unity of the true Marxist Leninist Maoists forced to wage a ruthless struggle to destroy their arguments, demonstrating its reactionary character, discover its ties to old ideas bourgeois, and its identity with the stale theories opportunistic.

We reaffirm the validity of Marxism Leninism Maoism as the science of the world proletarian revolution. We defend the legacy of our teachers Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao; the historical experience of the international workers movement, learning from their victories and defeats in the great battles to build the organization International of the Communist, to lead the masses to the triumph of the Revolution of New Democracy and Socialism, and to build the new State of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. We reaffirm our unwavering determination to fight for the unity in a new Communist International based in Marxism Leninism Maoism absolutely necessary to lead the world proletarian revolution to victory over the imperialist system.

AGAINST THE REVISIONIST “NEW SYNTHESIS” OF THE RCP: LONG LIVES MARXISM LENINISM MAOISM!

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

December 26, 2012

Arab Maoists

Centre Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – Belgique

Colectivo Odio de Clase – Estado Español

Grupo Reconstrucción – PERUCRPM – Estado Español

Organización Comunista Bandera Roja – Estado Español

Partido Comunista de Ecuador – Sol Rojo

Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) de Panamá

Partido Comunista de Perú – Comité Base Mantaro Rojo

Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia

———-

[1]Joint Declaration signed by 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.

[2] J. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism.

[3] See “Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage”.

[4] See Critical thinking and the search for truth: Today and in Socialist Society – Raymond Lotta.

=> documents in English