Enver Hoxha on Revolution in Latin America Part. 2

The following work was taken from a conversation between Enver Hoxha and two leaders from the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Ecuador, later renamed the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador. The advice Enver Hoxha gives the Latin Americans is to analyze the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara and see them for what they were. The state of Cuba, while now a thoroughly anti-imperialist state was in the service of Modern Revisionism headed by Fidel Castro, an open collaborator with Soviet Revisionism. While Che Guevara was a genuine socialist the Focoist theory is one that is incorrect and has led to the demise of this iconic figure. In this second part Enver Hoxha criticizes this anti-masses ideology. This work is the Second Part, and this is the first time it has been publicly posted on the Internet, all credit goes to Marcus Winter for transcribing this work.

The question whenever the Soviet revisionists fail to prevent the masses of the working class and the people from carrying out the revolution, this trend steps in and, by means of a putsch, destroys what the revisionists are unable to destroy by means of evolution. The Soviet revisionists and all the traitor cliques which led the revisionist parties preach evolution, coexistence and all those other anti-Marxist theories we know. From the terms it employs, left adventurism seems more revolutionary, because it advocates armed struggle! But what does it mean by armed struggle? Clearly—putsches. Marxism-Leninism teaches us that only by proceeding with prudent and sure steps, only by basing ourselves firmly on the principles of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine, only by making the masses conscious can victory be ensured in the preparation and launching of the armed uprising, and only in this way will we never fall into adventurism.
The authors of the theory that the “starter motor” sets the “big motor” in motion pose as if they are for the armed struggle, but in fact they are opposed to it and work to discredit it. The example and tragic end of Che Guevara, the following and prorogation of this theory also by other self-styled Marxists, who are opposed to the great struggles by the masses of people, are publicly known facts which refute their claims: We must guard against the people lest they betray us, lest they hand us over to the police; we must set up “wild” isolated detachments, so that the enemy does not get wind of them and does not retaliate with terror against the population! They publicize these and many other confusing theories, which you know only too well. What sort of Marxism-Leninism is this which advocates attacking the enemy, fighting it with these “wild” detachments, etc. without having a Marxist-Leninist party to lead the fight? There is nothing Marxist-Leninist about it. Such anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist theories can bring nothing but defeat for Marxism-Leninism and the revolution, as Che Guevara's undertaking in Bolivia did.
This trend brings the theses of the armed uprising into disrepute. What great damage it causes the revolution! With the killing of Guevara, the masses of common people, contaminated by the influences of these anarchist views, will think: “Now there is no one else to lead us, to liberate us!” Or perhaps a group of people with another Guevara will be set up again to take to the mountains to make the “revolution,” and the masses, who expect a great deal from these individuals and are burning to fight the bourgeoisie, may be deceived into following them. And what will happen? Something that is clear to us. Since these people are not the vanguard of the working class, since they are not guided by the enlightening principles of Marxism-Leninism, they will encounter misunderstanding among the broad masses and sooner or later they will fail, but at the same time the genuine struggle will be discredited, because the masses will regard armed struggle with distrust. We must prepare the masses politically and ideologically, and convince them through their own practical experience. That is why we say that this inhibiting, reactionary theory about the revolution that is being spread in Latin America is the offspring of modern revisionism and must be unmasked by the Marxist-Leninists.
Certain leaders of some Latin-American state put in the odd word in a veiled “opposition” to the Soviet Union, but we cannot infer from this that they are really opposed to it. Those words are only pressure and blackmail for the purpose of gaining some advantage, on the one hand, of deceiving the naive, on the other. If the advocates of these theories were to stop serving the Soviets in their imperialist-revisionist expansion, the latter would cut off all aid to them. We know the Soviets only too well. However, this will not occur, because they serve the Soviets admirably. This is why the Soviet revisionists continue to give them aid and keep them alive.
It is the duty of all the Marxist-Leninists to expose this anti-Marxist trend, the advocates of which style themselves Marxist-Leninists and use Marxist terminology only as a disguise without which they would be lost. We must tear this disguise from them and this can be done only through organized struggle on the Marxist-Leninist course, as you comrades from Ecuador and others are doing.
We were very pleased over the way you have gone about strengthening the Party and the correct views you hold on armed struggle. If we Marxists do not thoroughly understand that the party must be strong as steel and this can be brought about only on the Marxist-Leninist road, we can achieve no victory. Our people fought in the past, too, just like your people, but did not win. Very good and able individuals have emerged from the bosom of our people, persons with clear illuminist views and great revolutionary determination, who fought with rifle and pen against the Turks, and later, against other invaders. But they shed their blood and toiled in vain. The bourgeoisie and the feudal lords exploited the victories of the people and these outstanding individuals to foster their own interests, while the people remained as oppressed as before. They came about because there was not even a progressive party, let along a Marxist-Leninist party, to lead our people forward. Only after the founding of the Communist Party were the Albanian people able to realize their age-old aspirations; it was only under its leadership that their sweat and blood were not shed in vain. Hence, it is the leadership by the Marxist-Leninist party which ensures the victory of the people, and not the actions of a guerrilla “centre,” as some people preach.
We rejoice that you comrades of the Communist Party of Ecuador have purged your Party of elements alien to a genuine Marxist-Leninist party. We are very pleased to see that you are clear about how the party should be strengthened and expanded, with what class elements its ranks should be filled, how it should be extended to the countryside, and in the first place, how it should implant itself more deeply in the ranks of the working class. People are not born communists, but they are born pure, and during their life and in the course of the daily struggle they learn, are educated and become communists who will sacrifice even their lives for their ideals. It is very good that you have opened courses and schools for Marxist-Leninist education. This is what we did, too, during the National Liberation War. The learning and assimilation of Marxism-Leninism are essential for and the salvation of every communist and every Marxist-Leninist party.
Even today, this is the course we follow. We have put lessons, work in production, and physical and military training for the defense of the Homeland in the centre of our activity for the education of the youth...
We assure you, dear comrades, that our Party, closely united with the people, has striven and will strive with might and main and with the greatest loyal to defend the purity of Marxism-Leninism, and will work tirelessly to strengthen proletarian internationalism. The Party will do everything to ensure that its efforts and the efforts of the people are understood and t create conditions, not only for the consolidation of our socialist Homeland, but also for the strengthening of the bonds of friendship with all the fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties, so that our Party, too, makes its modest contribution, devoting all its energies, to our common cause, the triumph of the proletarian revolution.
We are very moved by the high appraisal you make of the modest work of our Party. As Marxism-Leninists, we understand very well everything you, dear comrades, said about our Party and its experience. We thank you for all these things and tell you that they are a great encouragement to us, because we know they come from the clear and realistic judgment of Marxist-Leninist comrades. Of course, as Marxist-Leninists, we assure you that this does not make us conceited. On the contrary, it increases our sense of responsibility to make ourselves worthy of at least one per cent of what you say. Therefore, we must fight even harder, must perform our duty even more honourably, to ensure that every action of ours not only does not harm the great cause of socialism in the world, the cause of world revolution, or even that of an individual Marxist-Leninist party or group, but, on the contrary, serves as an encouragement and example for everybody, so that Marxist-Leninist parties grow in number and strength, because, as a saying of the Albanian people goes, just one or two flowers do not mean summer. For the socialist revolution to triumph everywhere more flowers are and will be needed. This is how we understand our internationalist duty.
For us, too, this meeting with you will remain unforgettable, because you told us about the situation in Latin America. We feel ourselves a hundred times stronger when we see that yours is a true Marxist-Leninist Party, with a clear line and perspective. There is no doubt that such a party will certainly triumph. You say that when our Party was founded it had about 200 members. But this did not prevent us in the slightest from winning the masses, leading them, fighting and, together with them, defeating the internal and external enemies, triumphing and setting up the dictatorship of the proletariat.
What great strength we gain to step up our struggle, when we see that your Party in Ecuador is a party with a brilliant future, since it upholds the banner of Marxism-Leninism!
You say you have made mistakes, that you have not seen some things as you ought to. What party has not made mistakes? Our Party, too, had made mistakes in the course of its revolutionary activity, but not in its general line. The important thing is that we have corrected our mistakes immediately, as soon as we have detected them.
What you say about strengthening the work of the party with the organization of the youth and the women is extremely important to the revolution. I have noticed, and you have said this yourselves in your talks with our comrades, that you are very interested in the question of students. This is very good, but you must keep in mind that students are part of the youth, not the whole of it. Likewise, you attach importance to the problems of the countryside and problems of the working class. If you attach importance to the countryside and the working class, you cannot fail to be interested in the problems of youth and women in the countryside, as well. The question now is that you must concretize these issues better. We shall be very happy if our modest experience is of any help to you.
I want to add this, too: our Party was small, our working class at the time when the Party was founded was exceptionally small. Nevertheless, thanks to the great work carried out by the Party, the youth, in the first place, embraced its ideology, Marxism-Leninism. The Party was quick to organize them, and they threw themselves into the war and played an extremely great role in it; they fought as they did, enlightened by the ideology of the working class.
As for the women, right from the start the slogan of the Party was that the armed struggle could not be waged and carried through to victory without them. The Party stressed that, in the first place, the women themselves must understand that, while fighting for the liberation of the Homeland, they would be fighting for the emancipation of women, too. At that time the Party said: If the women do not understand the great idea of the Party about their participation in the war, there will be no genuine liberation war. We attached major importance to this question, for without its solution the women would have become a hindrance to the war, because they had only to say to their husbands or sons, “where are you going?”, “why are you leaving us?”, “they will kill us!”, “don't go to war!”, “let us mind our own business!”, “what good is the war to us?” etc., and things would have taken another direction.
The Party did its work so thoroughly that the women became ardent propagandist of the line of the Party within their families. “Take the rifle,” they would urge their husbands and sons, “and throw yourselves into the fight for the liberation of the Homeland!” You understand, comrades, what courage this stand on the part of the woman gave the husband or son who seized the rifle and joined the partisans.

Whenever we entered the homes of our people, in city or village, the women gave us every possible help, they linked themselves closely with our war, with the line of the Party. Many of their husbands or sons were fighting in the mountains, and, when we went to their homes for shelter and food, they treated us as their sons, as their closest relatives. See the importance of women and their activity! It was in these conditions that the womens' organization was set up in our country. Of course, the same process will develop in your country, too. In the beginning we came up against many difficulties, everything was not achieved at once, as you see it today. We know what difficulties there are in the capitalist countries, but they can all be overcome when the line is correct and the party determined.
You, my dear comrades, have helped us greatly in another direction too, in further enhancing our confidence in the future victories of the common struggle. We assure you that we will honourably accomplish our tasks as soldiers of the revolution, as loyal soldiers of Marxism-Leninism. We would like you, dear comrades of Communist Party (M-L) of Ecuador, to consider our Party as yours in everything. Weare ready to give you whatever assistance you consider useful, because as internationalists we are duty bound to do so. If we do not do this, we cannot call ourselves internationalists, cannot be Marxists. We have spared and will spare nothing to give you every possible assistance, as our comrades and brothers, because your internationalist assistance to us is also great.
You also help us with your experience, and if you notice that we may be going wrong in some direction, please criticize us, shake us up with your open criticism, and rest assured that we consider and treat your comrades' criticism as the most sacred thing. Our people say that he that criticizes loves you, he that does not love you pats you on the back so that you may continue on the wrong road.
Our Marxist-Leninist dialectics teaches us that not everything goes straight, that people's heads are not all cut into one pattern, that the energies of each individual are not equal, some go straight, others do not. In these conditions, the implementation of the norms of the Party, Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism set people right, keeps the party pure and carries the revolution forward.
These are the relations we want, this is the sincere proletarian love we want to have for one another, and the more we do for one another, for the revolution, the more modest we must be. Therefore, the modesty of communists must be exemplary, like that of proletarians; the efforts and thoughts of communists must be like those of proletarians, the feelings of their souls and hearts must be like those of proletarians. Only thus can our revolution march forward.
We are sorry, dear comrades, that you will be leaving, but rest assured that our hearts are united with yours.
We know that you are very busy. Even greater and more difficult tasks await you in the future, nevertheless, we would be be very happy if you could come more frequently ans stay longer in our country, regardless of the fact that this cannot be done in every instance according to our wishes.
May your great wish be fulfilled, may the day come when we can visit you in your country.

Enver Hoxha on Revolution in Latin America Part. 1

 The following work was taken from a conversation between Enver Hoxha and two leaders from the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Ecuador, later renamed the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador. The advice Enver Hoxha gives the Latin Americans is to analyze the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara and see them for what they were. The state of Cuba, while now a thoroughly anti-imperialist state was in the service of Modern Revisionism headed by Fidel Castro, an open collaborator with Soviet Revisionism. While Che Guevara was a genuine socialist the Focoist theory is one that is incorrect and has led to the demise of this iconic figure. This work is divided into two parts, and this is the first time it has been publicly posted on the Internet, all credit goes to Marcus Winter for transcribing this work.

The Fist of the Marxist-Leninist Communists Must Also Smash Left Adventurism, the Offspring of Modern Revisionism

From a conversation with two leaders of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Ecuador

October 21, 1968

We are very glad to meet you comrades from Ecuador. Of course, we would like to have more frequent and longer talks with you, because the struggle of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Ecuador, as well as the Marxist-Leninist parties of Latin America, has great importance for the revolution. We consider your struggle as a great assistance to the world revolution and to our Party which always feels the need to learn and profit from the experience of fraternal parties.

Marxism-Leninism, our universal doctrine, applied in the conditions of every country, is enriched with the new experience of all revolutionary parties. The experience of each Marxist-Leninist party gained in the course of its work and struggle against the common enemies, imperialism and revisionism, helps the other parties at the same time. Without this experience we would be limping along.

You comrades, with your revolutionary activity and struggle on the continent of Latin America, with a large population and with wonderful ardent people, are in permanent insurrection, in revolution, in the full meaning of the term. At the head of the people of this continent today there are fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties. Their realistic Marxist-Leninist understanding of the situation of your continent fills the true Marxist-Leninist parties of Europe, Asia and Africa with boundless enthusiasm and inspiration and helps all of us to carry the revolutionary actions of every country through the end on a national, continental or international scale against our common enemies: the imperialists, with the U.S. Imperialists at the head, the modern revisionists, with the Soviet revisionists at the head, and reactionaries of every hue.

The Party of Labour of Albania, the Albanian communists feel very greatly the need for contacts in order to exchange experience with all the fraternal parties, because close co-operations strengthens us reciprocally. Although we are very far apart geographically, in our minds and our hearts we are very close to each other, and the “distance” factor does not constitute an insurmountable difficulty today.

As you may have seen for yourselves during our visits, many changes have been made in our country since the triumph of the revolution. This is due to the correct Marxist-Leninist line of the party and the revolutionary spirit of our people. In order to form a more precise idea of Albania's state in the past, as the Marxist-Leninists you are, you must compare it with one of the most poverty-stricken, most backward and oppressed regions of present-day Ecuador. Just like your country today, before Liberation Albania suffered greatly under savage feudal oppression. We had no schools. The people were in want of food, clothing, and every vital necessity. Most of the plains you have seen were swamps and marshes before Liberation. Malaria, tuberculosis and many other diseases took a heavy toll of the population, especially of children. But as a result of the peoples' revolution which our party led, transformations have been carried out on such a vast scale and so rapidly that without boasting we can describe them as colossal by our Albanian standards.

However, as Marxists, taking a realistic view of the situation, we are fully aware that, along with the very great successes that have been achieved, we also have weaknesses and a great deal more remains to be done in the future, in the first place, to raise the level of the working masses still higher, especially their political and ideological level, as well as their economic level; we must work hard to make our country even stronger militarily, to raise the educational and cultural level of our people still higher, and all this only on the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist road.

Our Party is working in these directions. We can say that now we have created a sounder, more powerful base, but the main thing is that everything we have done, everything we have created, we have achieved in unrelenting struggle against the difficulties of growth, encircled by rapid enemies, in such conditions the independence, freedom and sovereignty of our Homeland and socialism were in danger at every moment. We have created these things through struggle to defend and strengthen the Marxist-Leninist unity of the Party and the people, which is a special target for enemy attacks. We have worked ceaselessly to temper this unity. Our strength lies in the ever greater steeling of the party-people unity. This is of vital importance, because the dangers of intervention by means of armed force and every other possible means against our country have been and remain great and unrelenting, both from the imperialists and from the Titoite renegades and the Soviet revisionist militarists who, as the occupation of Czechoslovakia showed, excuse any action of theirs with the interest they allegedly have in the consolidation of “fraternal” states.

In the present revolutionary situations, the Marxist-Leninist parties throughout the world must fight continuously to strengthen their ranks and their Marxist-Leninist unity, to link themselves closely with the masses of people and with one another, because the communist and workers' movement throughout the world is one of the fundamental factors frustrating the plans concocted against the people by both the Soviet revisionists and the US imperialists, who from day to day are strengthening their fascist dictatorships in order to dominate the world. These Marxist-Leninist parties must increase their vigilance, too.

At all times, but especially in the situations we are living through, our country consistently has enhanced and will enhance its unity and vigilance. To this end, as always, we have taken ideological, political, economic and military measures. All our people are armed in the full meaning of the word. Every Albanian city-dweller or villager, has his weapon at home. Our army itself, the army of a soldier people, is ready at any moment to strike at any enemy or coalition of enemies. The youth, too, have risen to their feet. Combat readiness does not in any way interfere with our work of socialist construction. On the contrary, it has given a greater boost to the development of the economy and culture in our country.

At these moments the Soviet and Yugoslav revisionists, the Greek and Italian fascists know full well that if they dare embark on any adventure against Albania, they will never succeed, but will be dealt mortal blows instead. This we have made clear to everybody at all times. Thus, in general, the situation in our country is sound, secure and with brilliant prospects. However, we must not rest on our laurels on this account, but must work more and more every day.

It is clear to all that a militarist fascist dictatorship exists in the Soviet Union today. But, as is known, where there is oppression there is also movement, therefore, both in the Soviet Union and in the satellite countries, there is revolutionary movement that is steadily mounting. Great pressure is being exerted on the Soviet Union today by imperialism, too. On the one hand, imperialism aims to defeat it as a rival imperialist power, and on the other hand to prevent the emergence of revolutionary movements at all costs, or to put them down immediately if they do emerge, not only in the Soviet Union but also in its satellite countries.

For its part, the Soviet Union is trying to attain two objectives: first, to crush any revolutionary movement which might arise, and second, unable as it is to defeat the United States as a rival imperialist power, it is striving to retain its positions and to ensure that together with US imperialism each of them will rule in the areas which fall within its sphere of influence.

We are very glad to learn that the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Ecuador is making progress. The comrades whom you have met immediately informed me about the talks you held and the experience you exchanged. We hold special meetings to keep the Political Bureau of the CC continually informed about the very useful and fruitful exchanges between our Party and other fraternal parties. We are very happy that your Party is ceaselessly tempering itself and advancing on the Marxist-Leninist road. Likewise, we are in complete agreement with the views of your Party and are convinced that the road you are following is the right one. There is no doubt that you know better than anybody else the problems that concern you and the most correct way to solve them, always basing yourselves on our ideology, Marxism-Leninism.

Only your Party is in a position to work out your tactics properly, based, of course, on the Marxist-Leninist strategy, because, as the heart of the proletariat and people of Ecuador, it knows better than anyone else the situation in the country and the legitimate aspirations of your people. For this reason, as long as your Party has a correct strategy based on Marxist-Leninist theory and the real practice of the country, the tactics it works out will be correct and revolutionary, too. During our National Liberation War we, too, employed varied tactics, just as you are doing.

Our parties should try to learn and profit from one another. But every party must bear in mind that some things from the experience of other parties are suitable only in the conditions of their respective countries, and many of them may not be suitable in the conditions of other countries. They must elaborate and adopt the experience of other parties when they find they need it and it suits their concrete conditions, otherwise they fall into stereotypism. As for our experience, we cannot tell you whether or not many of our tactics are appropriate for you. It is up to you to study it and choose what you want from it, but we think that you should bear in mind that Marxism-Leninism, the general laws of the proletarian revolution provide the compass which prevents us from erring on this question. Only these laws guard a genuine Marxist-Leninist party against mistakes.

We are clear about these laws and try to acquaint ourselves with them more and more each day, and that is why we have never slid into revisionism, or into Trotskyism, left adventurism, or other anti-Marxist trends.

With these theories, with the dangers and damage they cause, you are better acquainted than we.  For instance, Che Guevara was killed. Such a thing is liable to happen, because a revolutionary may get killed. Che Guevara, however, was a victim of his own non-Marxist-Leninist views.

Who was Che Guevara? When we speak of Che Guevara, we also mean somebody else who poses as a Marxist, in comparison to whom, in our opinion, Che Guevara was a man of fewer words. He was a rebel, a revolutionary, but not a Marxist-Leninist as they try to present him. I may be mistaken—you Latin-Americans are better acquainted with Che Guevara, but I think that he was a leftist fighter. His is a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leftism, combined with some ideas that were progressive, but also anarchist which, in the final analysis, lead to adventurism.

The views of Che Guevara and anyone else who poses as a Marxist and claims “paternity” of these ideas have never been or had anything to do with Marxism-Leninism. Che Guevara also had some “exclairicies” in his adoption of certain Marxist-Leninist principles, but they still did not become a full philosophical world-outlook which could impel him to genuinely revolutionary actions.

We cannot say that Che Guevara and his comrades were cowards. No, by no means! On the contrary, they were brave people. There are also bourgeois who are brave men. But the only truly great heroes and really brave proletarian revolutionaries are those who proceed from the Marxist-Leninist philosophical principles and put all their physical and mental energies at the service of the world proletariat for the liberation of the peoples from the yolk of the imperialists, feudal lords and others.

We have defended the Cuban revolution because it was against US imperialism. As Marxist-Leninists let us study it a bit and the ideas which guided it in this struggle. The Cuban revolution did not begin on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and was not carried out on the basis of the laws of the proletarian revolution of a Marxist-Leninist party. After the liberation of the country, Castro did not set out on the Marxist-Leninist course, either, but on the contrary, continued on the course of his liberal ideas. It is a fact, which nobody can deny, that the participants in this revolution took up arms and went to the mountains, but it is an undeniable fact also that they did not fight as Marxist-Leninists. They were liberation fighters against the Battista clique and triumphed over it precisely because that clique was a weak link of capitalism. Battista was an obedient flunky of imperialism, who rode roughshod over the Cuban people. The Cuban people, however, fought and triumphed over this clique and over American imperialism at the same time...

In our opinion, the theory that the revolution is carried out by a few “heroes” constitutes a danger to Marxism-Leninism, especially in the Latin-American countries. Your South-American continent has great revolutionary traditions, but, as we said above, it also has some other traditions which may seem revolutionary but which, in fact, are not genuinely on the road of the revolution. Any putsch carried out there is called a revolution! But a putsch can never be a revolution, because one overthrown clique is replaced by another, in a word, things remain as they were. In addition to all the nuclei of anti-Marxist trends which still exist in the ranks of the old parties that have placed themselves in the service of the counterrevolution, there is now another trend which we call left adventurism.

This trend, and that other offspring of the bourgeoisie, modern revisionism, constitute great dangers to the people, including those of the Latin-American countries. Carefully disguised, modern revisionism is a great deceiver of the peoples and revolutionaries. In different countries it puts on different disguises. In Latin America, Castroism, disguised as Marxism-Leninism, is leading people, even revolutionaries, into left adventurism. This trend appears to be in contradiction with modern revisionism. Those who are ideologically immature think thus, but it is not so. The Castroites are not opposed to the modern revisionists. On the contrary, they are in their service. The separate courses each of them follows lead them to the same point.

ICMLPO: To the Working Class, the Working People and the Oppressed Peoples Around the World!

The International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations is an international network of Communist Parties that uphold the line of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania. The ICMLPO meets every year in Quito, Ecuador with twenty parties and organizations participating. It also releases the journal Unity and Struggle.

ICMLPO: To the working class, the working people and the oppressed peoples around the world!

November is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the bourgeoisie is carrying on its umpteenth attack on communism and the working class, peppered with the stalest historical falsifications.
It has been 20 years in which the ruling class has tried to divert the aspirations for change of the working class and peoples with demagogic promises of a “new world order” and lies about the “end of socialism,” to prevent any attempt at resistance, revolt, discussion of or doubt in the capitalist system.
As a result of the events of 1989, the imperialist propagandists announced the end of history, that ideologies were finished, obsolete (except obviously those of the bourgeoisie), that the revolution is a thing of the past, and that therefore there is only one direction for humanity: the one based on private property of the means of social production.

Since then, together with presenting the developments in Eastern Europe as the "defeat of communism," they have imposed the neoliberal policy, the "right to interference," "preventive wars" for the reconquest of the world by the U.S. imperialists. The bourgeoisie has strengthened its offensive against the working class and popular masses to increase their exploitation and the looting of the peoples by imperialism.
The revisionists and social-democrats are currently divided between those who cover themselves with ashes and those who alter and distort the facts that led to the fall of the Wall. In recent years many of them have shifted further to the right, showing their ideological and political weakness, and others have gone directly over to the enemy camp. Others advocate that it is no longer time for revolution, that one must go along with the rules imposed by the bourgeoisie, or must limit oneself to reforms, and they condemn the communist and revolutionary forces who oppose the situation that has been created and are reorganizing and retaking the road of struggle.

The communists know that the fall of the Berlin Wall has not meant the collapse of proletarian socialism; it has been the final stage of a process of destruction of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of capitalist restoration by the revisionism that began in the 1950s and 1960s in the USSR and in most countries of the East. The collapse of the so-called "real socialism" has meant the collapse of a superstructure which did not correspond to the existing relations of production, but because of its external features in "socialist" theory it has helped to sow confusion, leading to an ebb and the loss of positions of the working class.
The fall of the Wall does not overturn the validity of Marxism-Leninism as a revolutionary theory, but has completed the parabola of the revisionist ideology in Eastern Europe. It has not resolved the principal contradictions of our time but has led to their worsening, as evidenced by today's reality.
What have we actually seen in the last 20 years?

Instead of overcoming the economic, social and political obstacles that hold back the emancipation of mankind, we have seen even higher walls raised against the exploited and oppressed.
Walls that separate the financial oligarchy, which lives in luxury and wastefulness, from the great masses of men and women who create all wealth with their labour, without benefitting from it because they are forced to suffer the yoke of intense exploitation, unemployment, precariousness and poverty, only receiving charity from the bourgeois governments.

Walls between a handful of imperialist powers and the dependent countries subjected to brutal looting of their resources, forced into underdevelopment and condemned to hunger.
Walls represented by obscurantism, ignorance, religious oppression and bourgeois cosmopolitanism, which serve to keep the workers submissive and ignorant.
Walls such as the one raised against migrants between the U.S. and Mexico, in Europe, in the Mediterranean, or the one built by Zionism in Palestine, the one maintained by imperialism in the Korean peninsula and many others.

What has been the result after two decades of promises thrown to the four winds by the ruling class?
They promised "economic growth," but we have seen the unprecedented extension of parasitism and speculation, economic and financial crises that are more and more frequent and deeper, up to the present one, the most serious and destructive crisis of the last 80 years, which is the manifestation of all the problems accumulated previously.

They guaranteed "freedom and democracy", but these hypocritical words were soon transformed into the enhanced dictatorship of a group of imperialist countries and financial monopolies, into an even fiercer neo-colonial domination to which hundreds of dependent countries and nations are subjected, into coups d'état such as the ones that took place recently in Honduras and in Africa, into the suppression of the rights of the workers and of democratic liberties in many countries, into police States that are increasingly authoritarian and fascist.

They promised a "world of peace," but the imperialist powers, headed by the U.S., have re-enforced their arsenals and military apparatus, they have unleashed a succession of wars of aggression and acts of real terrorism that have cut down hundreds of thousands of victims, and they have intensified the rivalries between the imperialist countries and monopoly groups for a new division of raw materials, of markets and spheres of influence, thus increasing the risk of a new world conflict.

They spoke of "protection of the environment," but we see that the search for maximum profit has devastated the ecosystem and made evident that capitalism, with its desire for pillage, is incompatible with the very existence of humankind. And what about the situation of the countries of East European who have “returned to freedom”? Starvation wages, mass unemployment, the elimination of social gains, economic catastrophe, increased mortality, crime, prostitution, most servile subordination to the interests of Western imperialism or, in the case of Russia, affirmation of the most reactionary chauvinism in order to assert the same imperialist interests. Is it to be wondered if in these countries today there is a growing "nostalgia for socialism," that is for a social system superior to capitalism, which made great achievements in spite of the continuous imperialist aggression, until revisionism undermined it from within and then caused it to collapse?

In these 20 years the working class, the working people and the majority of the peoples have not surrendered in spite of the blows they have suffered, they have not accepted wage slavery and imperialist oppression in silence. The ebb in the class struggle has gradually given way to a greater resistance and a new rise in the political and social struggle, which is expressed in different ways in different countries. In particular in the last decade we have seen an important process of renewal of the struggles, significant advances of the workers and peoples, despite the increasing aggressiveness of the bourgeoisie.

History did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall; on the contrary there has been an evident acceleration. The struggle of the social classes, which is the motive force for the achievement of communism, is advancing together with the communist and international workers movement. The protagonists of the struggle for social transformation are arising and are prepared for battle! This also concerns the bourgeoisie which, twenty years after the proclaimed “death of communism," has to exorcise it continuously, to denigrate and criminalize its ghost, in order to prevent the proletariat from recovering its revolutionary theory.
All this shows that the alleged superiority and invincibility of capitalism is a lie, that the reasons for the revolution and socialism continue to be as present and valid as ever.

Today we are in an international situation that is very different from that of 1989. The bourgeoisie is in a disastrous economic crisis as a result of the laws of capitalism, and it does not have answers for the needs and aspirations of the workers and peoples. It is more vulnerable than before, and there are many weak links in the chain of its rule. The current crisis of relative overproduction, interrelated with the general crisis of the imperialist-capitalist system, will last for a long time, revealing to the masses the true face of the bourgeoisie: a class which has long ago exhausted its historic role, but which is still calling on the workers and peoples to make the "necessary sacrifices" to ensure its survival and privileges.

While the governments are taking huge sums of money from the public treasury to serve the capitalist monopolies and the banks, unemployment is constantly growing, wages, pensions and social services are being dismantled, and therefore the workers are falling into misery and hunger. The offensive of the capitalists is taking ever sharper forms, the bourgeoisie and their governments are launching their attack against the political and economic gains achieved at the cost of hard struggles. Fascism is advancing in many countries, promoted by the most reactionary groups of financial capital. New robbers’ wars are being prepared.
This situation shows the incompatibility of interests between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and places before the working class and the working masses the urgent need to form a united front of struggle against the capitalist offensive, political reaction and imperialist aggression.

The main obstacle that today is hindering the formation of the united front is the policy of class collaboration followed by the social democratic parties and the yellow unions, the real social props of the bourgeoisie. They promise the masses a "reformism" already put out of use by the inexorable laws of capitalism, they put a break on and divide the workers’ and trade union movement, they divert it towards parliamentary cretinism and they open the doors to the reactionary forces. To remove this obstacle, to fight effectively, the workers need to unite in order to intransigently defend their economic and political interests, advancing a concrete program of action against the bourgeoisie: against layoffs, the decline in wages, cuts in social spending, so that the consequences of the crisis fall on the bosses, the rich, the parasites. They must intensify the fight against the capitalist offensive in the factories, the countryside and the streets, organizing a broad international counter-offensive, so that the proletariat and peoples will not be sacrificed for the economic interests of the capitalists!
At the same time, the communists and revolutionaries must unite all the genuinely democratic, progressive and left-wing forces, to give impetus to the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggle, to encourage the trend towards change that is developing in the world, particularly in Latin America and Asia, to develop solidarity between the peoples.

The parties and organizations of the ICMLPO, together with the political and social forces that support the present call, put forward to the masses the problem of the revolutionary solution to the crisis of capitalism. Faced with the measures taken by the bourgeois governments, with the illusions sown by those who propose to "regulate" a social order in decomposition, the communists state that the evils of imperialism have no cure, that the only solution to the general crisis of capitalism is proletarian socialism, a planned society of the producers. Therefore, while we take part and in and support the increasingly acute forms of struggle under the blows of the crisis, while we cooperate in their organization, pointing out that the workers must refuse to bear the consequences of the crisis, we say that the situation will get worse if the proletariat and peoples fail to accumulate forces to respond to the attack and to fight to overturn the dictatorship of the exploiting classes, for a new and higher social order. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the socialist revolution has once again become a problem that must be solved by the consolidation and the formation of strong communist parties that raise the banner of Marxism-Leninism, the flag of the October Soviet Revolution, the flag of the world proletarian revolution!

October 2009

International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO)

Anniversaries of two revolutions and one sham, November 7-9

This article is from the Durham Spark on the Anniversary of the Great Ocotober Revolution, the first successful Socialist Revolution in the world, as well as the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Albania(later known as the Party of Labour of Albania). Included is a well done propaganda video from the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, of which the first few minutes are images from the October Revolution.



Anniversaries of two revolutions and one sham, November 7-9

Today in 1917 the Bolsheviks drove out the Kerensky government, putting all power in the hands of the soviets and beginning the socialist stage of the Russian Revolution. That night the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets started, and the next evening it passed decrees on peace and land, and established the Council of People's Commissars, led by Lenin and other Bolsheviks, in coalition with the Left Socialist-Revoluntionaries after the Congress of Peasant Soviets. The Decree on Peace called for a three month armistice to negotiate an end to World War I, and called for the international working class to work for peace and the end of exploitation. The Decree on Land nationalized the land, without compensation, ended rent to landlords, and freely gave more than 400 million acres seized from the monarchy, aristocracy, capitalists, and religious institutions to the peasantry. Forests, waterways, and natural resources were also nationalized. The revolution quickly triumphed in Petrograd, but it took a few more days in Moscow and it took several years to defeat all of the White forces and the imperialist intervention, including US soldiers.

Thanks to the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and socialism, the USSR industrialized and continued to develop at a rabid pace and guarantee social welfare while the capitalist countries suffered through the Great Depression. Counterrevolutionary revisionists were exposed and Nazi collaborators were uncovered, so the USSR did not collapse when the Germans invaded, unlike the countries of Western Europe. The outcome of World War II in Europe was decided by the superior strength of the USSR, and fascist aggression gave way to revolution across Europe and Asia.

Unfortunately the fierce class struggle of the 30's did not defeat revisionism in the Soviet Union, and in fact revisionists seem to have gotten the upper hand, and when they could, persecuted people unjustly and undermined the government. After Stalin died, or was assassinated by the revisionists, in March 1953, they gained complete power and carried out a counter-revolution during the 50's and 60's, and persecuted the real communists. The USSR probably was a useful counterweight to US influence during the Cold War, but it was still led by counterrevolutionaries who staged a coup in the Greek Communist Party in exile, betrayed the Vietnamese Revolution, staged a counterrevolution in Afghanistan, and enabled the first Iraq War.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Albania in 1941, later renamed the Party of Labor of Albania. It formed through the merger of three regional communist groups and was led by Enver Hoxha (born October 16, 1908). Albania was occupied by fascist Italy in spring 1939, and the CPA began in struggle against Italy and later Germany, and their Albanian allies and revisionists, freeing the country and parts of Yugoslavia in late 1944. Then the Albanian communists had to fight British and American intervention, invasion by Greece, and prevent Albania from being swallowed by Yugoslavia and Tito's pro-capitalist Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Ironically, Albania was friendly to the UK and USA, but was rewarded with provocations and paramilitary attacks similar to the "Bay of Pigs" operation in Cuba until 1953. They thought Albania was the weak point of the Warsaw Pact, but Albania uncovered and defeated all of the attacks.

Under the PLA, the severely war damaged economy began to recover and the economy was industrialized. Foreign aid, especially from the USSR, was vital for development, but the revisionist Soviet government under Khrushchev gained power and tried to push its revisionism on Albania. Khrushchev succeeded in undermining most of the communist parties, and all of those with state power in Europe, except Albania, which openly criticized Soviet revisionism in 1960. Later Albania was a leader in the fight against Chinese revisionism. Despite Albania's small size, the Albanian communists upheld Marxism-Leninism and were a progressive, revolutionary force in the world. Revisionism still triumphed there in the late 80's, but the PLA has been rejuvenated, though there is still a lot of work to do, given the embarrassing popularity of GW Bush and Bill Clinton in Albania.

For about a month BBC radio (carried on the local NPR station every day) has been crowing about "Europe's Revolution" in 1989. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, and ironically Stalin was probably for reunifying Germany, but was opposed by the East Germans. To a revolutionary communist, those events don't have the power the BBC thinks, because the governments that were toppled were led by revisionists, presiding over capitalistic economies. In the USSR, the leadership decided it no longer needed to pretend to be socialist, while China has kept up the sham that it is a socialist country led by a communist party. The European "Socialist Bloc" was toppled from within or fatally weakened by revisionists and the influence of Gorbachev, and to call counterrevolution a collapse is to buy the lie that capitalism, and not just any capitalism, but "free market" neoliberal capitalism, is the natural order of the world. Ironically, in many of these countries there is wide nostalgia for the past (of course decried as a result of lack of education and desire for faded glory by the UK's radio propaganda). Capitalism, bourgeois democracy, and following advice from Western imperialists has brought corruption, unemployment, poverty, and the other ills of capitalism. Thanks to Yeltsin, Russia is run by imperialist autocrats and profiteers and has declining life expectancy and is losing population, while racism is increasing.

The end of the Cold War has not frozen history, and class conflict is spontaneous and inevitable under capitalism, and won't end because the capitalist media says it has. Contrast the change in the revolutionary USSR and Albania with the fraud of Obama. The Bolsheviks got Russia out of WWI, while Obama continues all of Bush's occupations and sanctions and is widening the war in Pakistan, may attack Iran, and continues the attacks on Palestine, Cuba, and other countries, as well as Bush secrecy and cover for torture. We face an economic crisis, and Obama helps the companies that caused it to get richer, while unemployment rises and credit dries up. The Democrats' idea of health insurance reform is to help the private insurers get more customers, and their idea of fighting climate change is making carbon pollution another way to get rich without doing much about greenhouse gas emissions. The US desperately needs to find its communist party and socialist revolution, while the supposedly socialist countries that suffer under revisionism need to renew their revolutions, watering the tree of liberty with blood if necessary, not follow their Gorbachevs and Yeltsins to capitalist poverty, autocracy or virtually meaningless elections (like ours in the USA), and subservience to foreign and domestic imperialism.

Unemployment Is at Its Highest Since April of 1983

Unemployment Is at Its Highest Since April of 1983

As we look at the crisis today we see more and more that rings true of what Karl Marx said on the Double character of capitalism. That is when "wealth is produced, poverty is produced also". In the month of October, Americans have witnessed the highest unemployment in decades, at 10.2%, while stock values continue to rise along with a 3.5% increase in GDP. The total job loss for the month of October according to the Labor Department was 190,000, that’s 15,000 more job losses than predicted by capitalist economists. Meanwhile, the talking heads on the Right try to tell us that all is calm that things will get better, where all signs point to the fact that unemployment is expected to rise to 10.5% next year. As of now, we can say that one in ten working people in the United States is left without a job. A paradox present in this whole conundrum is that while we have the highest unemployment rate in 26 years, workers have showed a 9.5% increase in production in the Third quarter of 2009. This is due to the fact that as fear of unemployment grips the working person they are instilled with a desire to keep their job and cater to management’s whim. While we may look at the statistics and see the high numbers, we must also realize that they are much higher than the government is telling us they are. The Labor Department before Ronald Reagan used to calculate those with temporary employment and part-time jobs as those in the same lot with the workers on the unemployment line, and rightly so! A worker on a part-time or temp job does not do so as a means to make a career but to merely survive. If we calculate these numbers we arrive at much higher unemployment rate in this nation. California, the largest state in the union, had a higher unemployment rate than the nation at 12.2%, this is expected to rise higher as the State calculates its statistics in two weeks. The real numbers again would be even higher than this since once again part-time and temporary workers are not placed into the mix. The solution to this problem should not be for us, the working people of America, to sit on our hands and watch as unemployment continues to rise. We should demand with a clear and unified voice that we demand a “Working People’s Stimulus”, we must demand on Obama to deliver on his promise of employing America with well paying “Green Jobs”, we cannot just “expect” those who run the nation to give us what we want and need, we must demand from these people, if they do not answer our calls then there are consequences to these actions. As of now, 90% of black children must eat from government funded food stamps, the nation is involved with two losing wars and while the rich get richer more and more of the working class are escorted to the long lines of unemployment. This much is clear, we must not look to a “messiah” to come to deliver us from the peril which befalls us, rather we must lift ourselves up and set this path ourselves, by any means necessary.

Revisionist Quotes from the CPUSA

 The CPUSA used to be a revolutionary party for the working class. Despite a history of revisionism infecting the leadership, the Communist Party from its beginnings in 1919 to the depression was key on organizing the working class along revolutionary Marxist-Leninist lines. After the "destalinzation" that occurred in many world parties after Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech", the Party adopted a reformist and anti-revolutionary strategy to achieve socialism, needless to say this was not and has not been successful. From 1956 until the present the Party has slid down a slippery slope of the most disgusting and appalling social-democratic nature. American Marxist-Leninists should deeply mourn the loss of such a wonderful party with such a rich militant history of fighting for the workers and the oppressed peoples of the imperialist USA. Genuine Communists must be unmerciful on exposing the CPUSA's anti-worker and anti-people's politics while simultaneously building the genuine Party for the working class! The following quotes are taken from Sam Webb, the current National Chairperson of the "Communist" Party, USA and one from Political Affairs the "theoretical" organ of the CPUSA.


Sam Webb, National Chairperson of the CPUSA

"Two “lions” died last week. One was known, adored by millions, and a life-long Democrat. Born to a privileged life, he could have done anything, including choosing a life of relative leisure. Instead, he turned into a tireless liberal warhorse for justice in all its many forms.
On Saturday a Catholic mass, included a eulogy by President Obama, celebrated his life of public service to the commonweal. I am obviously speaking about Senator Ted Kennedy."

"President Obama is a brilliant politician, but his election victory was as much the doing of the broad coalition that supported him, as it was his own brilliance. The alliance of candidate and coalition was mutually dependent, dynamic, and decisive in the end."

"Both in the transition to socialism and in its construction, I don’t foresee Communists being the sole decision makers. We will be one political force within a much larger coalition. We are getting away from the notion that the Communists are the "top dog" in the struggle for socialism while other political forces will either merge or come in behind us. In our view, we will be one component of a very diverse coalition, at the center of which is the working class, the racially and nationally oppressed, and women. Of course, in such a varied coalition, there will be competing views and we will forthrightly express ours, but our emphasis will be on cooperation, on finding common ground, on unity. "

"I don’t think that the political structures that currently exist will be dismantled. Nor do I think that a socialist movement will sideline the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or a system of checks and balances on concentrated political power. It may want to extend, deepen or modify them based on both experience and the needs of socialist construction."

"PA: Many countries that have a socialist orientation are in the developing world: China, Vietnam, Cuba. Several have adopted a concept of socialism called market socialism. I know we have said there are no models, but is the socialist market economy the new model?

Webb: These countries are in the early stages of socialism – they are developing countries and the productive forces are at a low level – so they are employing market mechanisms to assist in their economic development. This doesn’t contradict the thinking of Marx, Engels or Lenin. Even if we were dealing with more advanced countries – take our country for example - if this were the day after, the week after, the year after, the decade after the socialist revolution, we would employ market mechanisms in the construction of the socialist economy."

"Slightly over a year ago, the American people elected a young African American to the presidency and increased the Democratic majorities in the Congress. President Obama's victory represented a repudiation of the right-wing ideology, politics and economics. It constituted a serious setback for neoliberalism in both its conservative and liberal skin.

The defeat of right-wing extremism was a long time in coming, but when it finally happened it did so not only because of the brilliance of the candidate, now president, but also due to the broad wings of a people's coalition. Not in our lifetime have we participated in such a movement."

"The notion of the capitalist class on the one side and the working class on the other may sound "radical," but it is neither Marxist, nor found in life and politics."