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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

On November 24th, 2012, there was an international conference in Hamburg, Germany, to hail and support the Indian revolution.

Comrades of various Maoist organizations have expressed in a statement that it was not possible to support this conference, because many of those who promote it are “centrists”, i.e. people who have in the past supported Prachanda, without making afterwards their self-criticism .

The comrades ask: how is it possible to support the People’s War in India, when the People’s War in Nepal has not been supported in a proper way? We obviously share this right position of our comrades.

But, in the end, we think that the substance was not seen – first, India, in itself. India is a country of many peoples, various nations live together with many cultural productions for millennia.

From the progressive ideas of Jainism or the Bishnoi concerning nature and animals to the civlizated courtesy of Islam, from the rich cultural events of Hinduism to the historical contributions in philosophy, astronomy, mathematics … India is a country-continent, which has brought, brings and will bring a lot to humanity.

It is not possible to understand the developments in India, without having a complete overview, without understanding exactly culture, nation, ideology, relgion, mode of production. And in fact it’s true for every country, when dialectical materialism is used.

The problem here of course is that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has a pragmatic line, in the tradition of the 1990s, in addition to the TKP / ML in Turkey and the CP of the Philippines; the People’s War is seen as a method and the necessity of thought is clearly rejected.

Therefore the CPI (M) negates – but also the TKP / ML and the CP of the Philippines – the very important question of international ideological struggle. Because of this also, since the 1970s, there was a trend towards a tilt to militarism.

It does not, of course, change the importance of People’s War in India, the heroism of the masses. But if one looks at the history of Maoism in India, one can only be astonished by the weakness of the international contributions in the field of ideology, politics, culture and art. There is a discrepancy, which comes from the line of “retreat” of the CPI (M).

There is another issue of great importance to dialectical materialism: the relationship between semi-feudal and semi-colonialism. The formation of bureaucratic capitalism rests on feudalism, on the absence of the possibility for the national bourgeoisie to develop itself.

The position of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) is also not clear; one does not understand what is the main contradiction, semi-feudalism or semi-colonialism. In the background there is the ideological opposition, in the 1970s, between the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) of Charu Mazumdar and the “Maoist Communist Centre” of Kanai Chatterjee.

Even if these two revolutionary traditions have united with the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the complexity of this issue was never explained. This is a shortcoming, and it brings to the absence of clarity.

From then on, there are people – not our comrades, of course – which use the People’s War in India in a opportunistic way. These people sometimes speak of millions of people in the People’s War, or of the third of the country under the control of the people’s power, they exaggerate everything, they have a militarist-opportunistic standpoint, many of these people had the day before “support” the People’s War in Peru, yesterday the People’s War in Nepal and today the People’s War in India.

For example, it is unfortunate that the poster of the India Conference uses the Hammer and Sickle symbol in the version of the PCP. It is completely incorrect.

And these people avoid to understand the merits, the contributions that the Communist Party of Peru has done, by presenting the “People’s War » as a pragmatic method, instead of explaining it as a dialectical product of the construction of the revolutionary thought in a particular country.

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

When the genuine revolutionary thought is produced, it seeks confrontation with the old society, at all levels. People’s War doesn’t mean only armed struggle, but also the cultural-ideological negation of the values of the old society.” (CPMLM France: CPMLM: Gonzalo’s teaching: from thought to People’s War)

Solidarity with the People’s War in India is so necessary, but often mistakenly India is seen as an abstract revolution, there where People’s War must be understood as a universal – therefore also the influence of non-MLM forces in the “support”.

And also often “people’s war” is seen, rather than understanding India’s reality – which brings to cosmopolitism, to the pragmatic understanding of People’s War, to abstract “Maoism”. The support of the People’s War in India is counter-productive, if it doesn’t lead to the construction of the thought in its own country, because there is then avoiding the real work, the dialectical relationships in the international reality not correctly understood.

It is only in the productive debate about the experience of the CPI (M) and the Communist Party of Peru’s that can be understood the importance of People’s War in India, under the banner: People’s War until Communism!

=> documents in English

Imperialism, the highest and last phase of capitalism, phase of agony and decomposition of the world capitalist system, has been and remains a parasite of society, an obstacle to its progress, a man-eater and a destroyer of nature. To long for a new model of capitalism without imperialism is a petty bourgeois reverie.

To think in defeating imperialism without a world proletarian revolution or to pretend to succeed without defeating opportunism, is anti-imperialism by word of mouth, imperialist apologia indeed.Beyond imperialism just follows the World Proletarian Revolution and the Socialist Society under the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will lead to Communist Society without exploitation of man by man, without class distinctions, without wars and without state.

Against the World Proletarian Revolution –the main historical trend in the age of moribund capitalism- rises the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries in association with the reactionary classes of all oppressed countries, pretending to avoid the burial of the world imperialist system of oppression and exploitation, in spite of being as it is an outdated and incompatible system with the existence of society, a system whose guise of equality, democracy and freedom has been torn by the current economic crisis, revealing the colossal accumulation and concentration of capital and wealth in the hands of the private ownership of monopolistic parasitic groups, in contrast to the accumulated misery in society whose labour produces the wealth. Faced with such dramatic reality, it is not enough to resist: Revolution is needed!

India is a gigantic material example of that situation. It is a hive of exploitation, where the wage slavery is reinforced with old forms of labour exploitation, in a single process in which a billion people produce for a minority of ruling classes, along with their imperialist masters and partners, to take ownership of all the wealth and concentrate it in their hands. India is a huge subcontinental prison, where under the banner of democracy is waged a bloody dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, landlords and imperialism on the working classes, with reactionary military campaigns such as the “Operation Green Hunt” against the righteous rebellion of the working masses of the country’s poorest.

Consequently, the acute social contradictions have turned India into a bastion and advanced stronghold of the world proletarian revolution, where the Communist Party of India (Maoist) leads the People’s War of the oppressed and exploited masses, risen up in arms, against the entire political and economic power of the oppressors and exploiters, both native and foreign ones, willing to overthrow and destroy the reactionary State and build the power of a new state of workers and peasants, whose embryos already emerged in various areas where the military power of the exploiters has been defeated. Instead, were established organs of People’s Government backed in the Popular Militia that is, at the same time, the embryo of the general armed forces of the people in the future state of New Democracy, as a form of Proletarian Dictatorship.

“Operation Green Hunt” is an element of the reactionary and unjust war against the people of India, repudiated not only by workers, peasants, tribes and peoples, but also by democratic and progressive sectors inside and outside India.

The People’s War is, on the contrary, a just revolutionary war and the path of revolution in India against the reactionary state that protects the class privileges of all the exploiters. A war that deserves and requires the support of all the workers and peoples of the world as, little by little, is being proven in the global celebration of May Day.

The People’s War in India requires the support and solidarity of revolutionaries and especially the Marxist Leninist Maoist communists of the world, according to the principle of proletarian internationalism, which is radically different to the support of democrats and progressives, that does not go beyond demanding respect for those human rights touted by the bourgeoisie; that does not go beyond vindicating the bourgeois flags of equality, liberty, fraternity and “democracy”, what means democracy for the rich and dictatorship for the poor; that does not go beyond expressing solidarity within the limits of the democratic bourgeois state.

Proletarian internationalism is diametrically opposed to the opportunistic falsification of internationalism that rises up against American imperialism but folds up and supports its imperialist competitors in Europe and Asia; that, by word of mouth, claims to defend the world proletarian revolution but, in fact, fears imperialism, betrays the People’s War and substitutes it for the stable of bourgeois parliament; that gives up the armed struggle aimed at destroying the reactionary state to prostrate itself before the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; that renounces the revolution under the leadership of the proletariat to become outdated apologist of the bourgeois revolution of the old type. That was the revisionist disgusting traitor role played by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) since 2006.

The essence of proletarian internationalism is the commitment, support and fight for the victory of the world proletarian revolution on imperialism in the necessary historical direction of the global triumph of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Being a fundamental principle of the Leninist theory of imperialism that without defeating opportunism the struggle against imperialism is an empty phrase, any conciliation with opportunism distorts and undermines the true proletarian internationalism.

Soon is to be celebrated in Hamburg an International Conference in Support of the People’s War in India, promoted and headed by the Italian Communist Party (Maoist) which was criticized by its reconciliation stand towards Nepali revisionism. However, far from recognizing and correcting this stand, it refused its self-criticism, persisting in conciliating with the boss of the « new » CPN (m), Kiran’s revisionist fraction, supporter of the tactic theory of the peace agreement, defender of the commitments made in the pact of treason against the People’s War, credulous in the bourgeois democracy and submissive to Chinese imperialism.

To raise the flag of support to the People’s War in India in mutual agreement and conciliation with the positions that have betrayed the People’s War in Nepal and to present it in the name of communism and internationalism is an absurdity and a falsification of the proletarian internationalism: this stand, after the immediate advantage of international solidarity in the framework of bourgeois democracy, sacrifices the revolutionary content of internationalism, because far from uniting, prevents the unity of the Communists before a common and just cause as it is the People’s War in India.

In April 2011, in spite of the discussions and criticism on centrism complacent with the Nepali revisionism, some of us, theoretically and practically, gave support to the Week of Solidarity towards the People’s War in India, promoted by the Communist Party of Italy (m) as well, the one that in those days, on the occasion of May Day promoted a Declaration where conciliation with revisionism was evident, keeping in silence the betrayal in Nepal so as to sign it jointly with the prachandist party.

In that Declaration besides other parties of well-known centrist tendency, was also involved the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Since then, that disguised centrism sheltered itself behind the « antiprachandist » cover of Kiran’s & Cia., being denounced, debated and unmasked by various Marxist Leninist Maoists organizations and especially fought in the centrist positions of the Maoists from Galicia.

Still, the obstinate tendency to conciliate with the Nepali revisionism continued and now, as promoter of the International Conference in Hamburg, it changes itself into an « internationalist » Conference that distorts the true proletarian internationalism because, as the betrayal of the People’s War in Nepal continues to be concealed and the traitors treated as comrades, their support to the People’s War in India will not go beyond the framework of bourgeois democrat solidarity, acceptable to imperialism and sufficient for opportunism, but not for revolutionary communism. This is a divergence of principle with respect to proletarian internationalism that prevents us from adhering to the International Conference in Hamburg.

A divergence of principle that prevents us from forgetting the words of Marx « Past experience teaches us how forgetting brotherly ties that should exist between the workers of different countries and that should encourage them to hold each other in all their struggles for emancipation, is punished with the common defeat of their isolated efforts », and obliges us to reaffirm our internationalist support to the just People’s War in India, to reject the political folly that condemns it as « armed revisionism », to defend that its perspective –as a part of the powerful World Proletarian Revolution and not of an  impotent bourgeois revolution- consists in that the proletarian Marxist Leninist Maoist line prevails in the point saying that politics directs the fusil, in the Communist Party of India (Maoist), to whom we renew our admiration, our support and respect without renouncing Marxist criticism among comrades.

A divergence of principle with regard to proletarian internationalism that urges us to hold strong the commitment of the Joint Declaration of December 26 The international unity of communists requires the defeat of revisionism and centrism! renewing the call to the comrades who signed it to fight for a general line of delimitation with all kinds of opportunism, whose defeat, in spite of sacrificing some immediate benefits, will be the true guarantee of the future victory of the World Proletarian Revolution on imperialism, and of the global triumph of the Proletarian Dictatorship, the only course of genuine Proletarian Internationalism.

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 del Ecuador Sol Rojo

Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) de Panamá

Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia

=> documents in English

The real name of Gonzalo is Manuel Rubén Abimael Guzmán Reynoso. It is indeed a secondary question, but of interest : why did he choose the name of Gonzalo ?

We can maybe think that he gave us a hint. In the famous interview he gave in 1988, he explained the following thing :

« Many times I don’t have time to read what I’d like to. What do I like to read ? I read a lot of biographies. I think that literature is a great form of artistic expression.

For instance, I like to read Shakespeare, yes, and to study him. When you study Shakespeare you find political issues. There are very clear lessons in Julius Caesar for example, and in MacBeth.

I like literature, but politics always wins out with me, and leads me to look for the political significance, what is behind it. After all, behind every great artist there is a political leader, there is a man of his time who is waging class struggle. »

Here, Gonzalo shows his masterful understanding of “thought” as mere reflect of reality. His position, here, is the one of socialist realism; he knew that art is merely a form of expression of the global movement of reality, of class struggle.

And here we see that he spoke of Shakespeare. Let’s take a look at Shakespeare’s work. Do we find a “Gonzalo” ? Yes, we do, and we got a famous one, in the play “The tempest”.

But of course, we have to take a look further, to understand if he took possibly his name from this play. And what do we have? A Gonzalo making a famous political speech – which is conform with the spirit of what Gonzalo spoke of.

In the play, Gonzalo is an adviser to King Alonso of Naples, full of honesty. At a moment, he makes a speech in the spirit of Thomas More and Montaigne.

In fact, the Gonzalo of Shakespeare’s play even directly paraphrases Montaigne’s view of the inhabitants of America, in the in France hugely famous passage “On Cannibals“.

Let’s quote Shakespeare’s play :

GONZALO.My lord Sebastian,The truth you speak doth lack some gentlenessAnd time to speak it in; you rub the sore,When you should bring the plaster.

SEBASTIAN.Very well.

ANTONIO.And most chirurgeonly.

GONZALO.It is foul weather in us all, good sir,When you are cloudy.

SEBASTIAN.Foul weather?

ANTONIO.Very foul.

GONZALO.Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,—

ANTONIO.He’d sow ‘t with nettle-seed.

SEBASTIAN.Or docks, or mallows.

GONZALO.And were the king on’t, what would I do?

SEBASTIAN.‘Scape being drunk for want of wine.

GONZALO.I’ the commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things; for no kind of trafficWould I admit; no name of magistrate;Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,And use of service, none; contract, succession,Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;No occupation; all men idle, all:And women too, but innocent and pure;No sovereignty,—

SEBASTIAN.Yet he would be king on’t.

ANTONIO.The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

GONZALO.All things in common nature should produceWithout sweat or endeavour; treason, felony,Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,To feed my innocent people.

SEBASTIAN.No marrying ‘mong his subjects?

ANTONIO.None, man: all idle; whores and knaves.

GONZALO.I would with such perfection govern, sir,To excel the golden age.

SEBASTIAN.Save his Majesty!

ANTONIO.Long live Gonzalo!

If Abimaël Guzman has chosen Gonzalo because of he play, then he had a great sense of humor, a sense of distance which is great. Gonzalo is a name like a symbol, a symbol of an “utopia” – and in the play the utopia concerns South America, as the words are taken from Montaigne’s words on the inhabitants of the colonized areas.

As Peru is in South America, we may think that Gonzalo’s name is a hint to Shakespeare’s Tempest.

And even if it is not the case, it sounds at least like a revolutionary echo of the revolutionary figure of Abimaël Guzman, Gonzalo, historical leader of the People’s War led by the Communist Party of Peru.

Culture calls culture.

Revolution calls revolution.

And so we do, like in Shakespeare’s Tempest, say « Long live Gonzalo » !

=> documents in English

1.Gonzalo and revolutionary optimism

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

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

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

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

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

2.Each revolutionary class calls to epic struggle

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

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

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

3.Thoughts as expression of the movement of matter

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

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

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

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

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

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

4.Individuals do not think

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

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

These theses are correct and an expression of materialism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6.Thought as synthesis of a society

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7.People’s War as product of the thought

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

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

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

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

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

8.“Principally apply”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10.Our horizon: producing thoughts and reject fascism

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

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

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

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

=> documents in English

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

Let’s Struggle for the Triumph of

The World Proletarian Revolution!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Down with imperialist exploitation and domination!

Long live the World Proletarian Revolution!

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

Against Revisionism and Centrism: Long live Marxism Leninism Maoism!

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

May Day 2012

Centre Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – Belgique

Unión Obrera Comunista (MLM) – Colombia

Colectivo Odio de Clase – Estado Español

Communist Party Marxist-Leninist-Maoist – Bangladesh

Grupo Reconstrucción – PERUCRPM – Estado Español

Parti Communiste Marxiste-Léniniste-Maoïste – France

Partido Comunista (Marxista-Leninista) – Panamá

=> documents in English

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

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

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

Let’s begin with the first point.

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

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

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

Reading it as a subjectivist approach was a common error.

Here is what Gonzalo says:

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

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

Nothing is permanent.

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

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

(…)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s see now how this was misunderstood sometimes.

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

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

Let’s see what the MPP says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not seeing this would bring a mechanical thought.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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