From Albania Today, 1977, 5
By Fiqret Shehu –Member of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania, Director of the "V. I. Lenin” Party School. Co-paper read at the scientific sessions on Class Struggle in the Party, organized by the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies at the CC of the PLA.
More than 10 years ago, at its 5th Congress, our Party of Labour declared that one of the strategic aims of modern revisionism was to bring about the degeneration and destruction of the Marxist-Leninist parties, to turn them into social-democratic parties, in order to support the counterrevolution, to undermine socialism, and to defend and restore capitalism. And at the 7th Congress of the Party, while exposing modern revisionism and speaking about the danger which modern revisionists, in general, and the Soviet revisionists, in particular, pose for revolution, socialism, and the freedom and independence of the peoples, Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out that “many communist and workers' parties of the world deviated from, and betrayed Marxism-Leninism, they turned into social-chauvinist or even social-fascist parties”1 and that the pseudo-communist parties, whether in power or not, are no longer parties of the proletariat, but have now turned into parties of the bourgeoisie, that each revisionist party is working to make itself beautiful and attractive in the eyes of bourgeois opinion.
But our aim here is not to show how the process of the degeneration of many communist Marxist-Leninist parties into revisionist parties developed, till they were transformed completely from political parties of the working class into typically counter-revolutionary bourgeois parties, from parties of the revolution into parties of compromise, into tools of capitalism, nor to speak of the causes and factors that led to this result with very grave consequences for the international working class. The problem on which we shall concentrate in this paper is to indicate precisely what it is that determines the counter-revolutionary bourgeois class character of all revisionist parties, those which are in power and those which are operating in the bourgeois capitalist countries, in what it is apparent and how it expresses itself. And to do this, as Marxism-Leninism teaches us, “there are only two means: theory and practical experience".2 Therefore, we shall try to use these two means in order to demonstrate the real class character of various revisionist parties.
It is known that the character of a party, like that of a state, is determined, in the first place, by the policy it pursues, because every political party carries out all its activity for the benefit of the class whose interests it represents; the character of a party is determined by its political ideology, which expresses the orientations, aims, and programmes of its class and its party; it is determined by the ideology which underlies the policy it pursues, because its policy is dependent on its ideology, and every political party builds its strategy and tactics on the basis of the ideology of the class whose interests it defends. And naturally the character of a political party also depends on its social composition, as well as on its forms of organization, etc.
More than as 56 years ago, the leader of the world proletariat, V.I. Lenin, said: “Whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers, but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only the latter determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat.”3
Proceeding from this viewpoint, which is the only correct one, if we judge the revisionist parties by the content of their activities, by the policy they pursue, by the ideology which inspires their policy, strategy, tactics, and all their actions, as well as by those that lead them, we see clearly that the revisionist parties of all countries are simply bourgeois parties which express and defend the interests of the old and new bourgeoisie, which have betrayed the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism, and socialism completely and finally.
In regard to the ideology, which underlies the policy, strategy, tactics and actions of all revisionist parties, it is necessary to point out that, despite their allegedly Marxist theorising, despite the allegedly Leninist slogans they use, the revisionist parties have long since burnt their bridges with the revolutionary ideology of the working class, Marxism-Leninism. Regardless of the varying formulations of the “theories” which they spread, in essence, all these parties are guided and inspired in their actions by the same ideology, by the reactionary bourgeois ideology in the form of revisionism. But that is not all: in order to play the role of defenders of the bourgeoisie and the hated capitalist order, the role of saboteurs of the revolutionary movement of the working class and all working people as effectively as possible, all the revisionist parties, their leaders, as well as the revisionist ideologists, try to portray Marxism-Leninism as "obsolete” and "unsuitable” for our epoch. Under the guise of the implementation of the Marxist-Leninist theory according to the "specifics” of the time and place, in fact, they falsify it in the most monstrous manner, distort and mystify it unscrupulously, endeavour to make a reappraisal of the ideas of the classical writers of Marxism-Leninism and to attack, discredit, and "bury” those ideas which have to do with cardinal problems. In fact, they try to transform Marxism-Leninism from a theory of the proletarian social revolution into a theory of social reforms, into an opportunist, counter-revolutionary theory. Their goal: to leave the working class without the indispensable weapon for the revolution and for carrying it through to the end, to divert it from the class struggle and the socialist revolution, from the struggle for the overthrow of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The revisionist parties of all countries and their chiefs, who are competing among themselves for "first place” in revising the ideology of the working class, are galloping down this road, which was opened by the Soviet revisionists 21 years ago at their notorious 20th Congress. Some of them, as is the case of the French revisionist party and its leader, the new Proudhonist George Marchais, go so far as to declare openly that "democracy and freedom are the principal field of the class struggle today”,4 that “a new epoch of democracy and freedom must be opened, this is the pivot of our battle”,5 that “in France and in our epoch, there is no other way to socialism except on the democratic road”6 and that, in present-day conditions, the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary! There could be no clearer expression of their betrayal of the proletariat and of the counterrevolutionary bourgeois character of the French revisionist party and of its leaders, who, with such reformist “theories" seek to divert the proletariat from the violent revolution, which is the only reliable road to victory, the road that will lead the proletariat to the seizure of political power, to the establishment of its dictatorship, which will ensure real democracy for the majority and will put an end to all social injustice!
The Italian revisionist party and those who lead it, are in the same positions as the French revisionist party. With their "strategy of the historic compromise” among the various social, political and ideological forces, and with such openly anti-Marxist and counter-revolutionary declarations as “we are a great socialist party, because we are a party of reforms”,7 with their assurances, such as those of Berlinguer, that the Italian revisionists “are far from” making "indiscriminate accusations or criticisms of the state organs and apparatuses",8 as a whole, including here even the police and the armed forces, and not only the rank-and-file soldiers, but also their officers, or with such pathetic statements as “... the Italians have never been so well off as they are today...”, “to be honest, in Italy there has never been so much freedom”9...!, they are rendering to the bourgeoisie an incalculable service.
Once again: there could be no clearer expression of the betrayal of the interests of the proletariat and of the counter-revolutionary bourgeois character of a party than that which, in flagrant opposition to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism on the absolute necessity to smash the bourgeois state machine, as the fundamental condition for the seizure of political power by the working class, appeals to the workers' movement and to the "democratic” political forces “to establish more extensive contacts with the courts”, as well as with the police and the armed forces of the bourgeoisie. If we also mention the fact that the Italian revisionist party has gone so far that its central organs have adopted resolutions which stress "the vital need for unity of all democratic forces, with the aim of ensuring the security of the country and its democratic and republican development, and overcoming the present political and economic crisis”,10 which has gripped Italy, it is quite obvious that the Italian bourgeoisie cannot possibly find more zealous apologists and better defenders than the Togliattist revisionist party and its chiefs. With the illusions they spread about the bourgeois social-economic order, about the present-day bourgeois state, about the main parties of the bourgeoisie, with their propagation of the idea of "democracy for all” and of the "democratic” and "popular” spirit of the reactionary Christian Democrat party, they are very effectively performing their role as extinguishers of the flames of revolution and the revolutionary actions of all the masses of working people, aimed against the capitalist order, which is oppressing them and exploiting them to the bone. Thus, as comrade Enver Hoxha said at the 7th Congress of the PLA, the Italian revisionists are turning “from peaceful travellers on the road of socialism... into armed soldiers of capitalism”.11
All the "theories”, resolutions, declarations, stands and actions of the revisionist parties of the capitalist countries, especially of the Italian, French and Spanish parties, which are playing the role of the vanguard in revising Marxism-Leninism, in the propagation of reformist illusions, which spread the idea of going “to socialism by reforms”, all together – bourgeois, capitalists, workers, the police, the bourgeois army, etc. – which present the issue as though the bourgeoisie has given the working people “pure democracy”, as though the bourgeoisie has given up its resistance, and is ready to obey the majority of the working people, as though the state machine for the repression of labour by the capital does not exist in their countries, etc., etc., – show that such parties are nothing but counter-revolutionary parties, parties of the bourgeoisie, and that their leaders are nothing but inveterate betrayers of the interests of the proletariat and socialism.
The falsity and hypocrisy of the "arguments” which the revisionist parties and their chiefs use to condemn the dictatorship of the proletariat and to defend "democracy”, are clear to anyone who is not seeking to betray the fundamental principles of scientific socialism. Marxism-Leninism teaches us that there is no such thing as "universal democracy” or “universal dictatorship”, that there is no democracy or state outside classes or above classes, allegedly from the viewpoint of the entire people, that to present the problem in this way means to ridicule the fundamental theory of socialism and precisely the theory of the class struggle. "The present-day defence of bourgeois democracy in the form of palaver about 'universal democracy' and all the current screams and cries against the dictatorship of the proletariat... are outright betrayal of socialism, and indicate the actual going over to the side of the bourgeoisie,”12 said V.I. Lenin almost six decades ago, “because from a society in which one class oppresses another there is no way out other than through the dictatorship of the oppressed class.”13
And in fact, even without mentioning the other absurdities of the “theories”, views and political tactics of the revisionist parties of the capitalist countries, of France, Italy, Spain, etc., of their traitor chiefs, Marchais, Berlinguer, Carillo, and so on, even without mentioning that, out of their fear of the proletariat, or its role in present-day society, its historic mission as the gravedigger of capitalism, of the unity of revolutionary thought and action of the proletariat of every country and of the world proletariat, they attack the great slogan, "Proletarians of all countries, unite!”, launched by the founders of the theory of scientific socialism, and even go so far as to negate the very existence of the proletariat as a class, which has the mission of destroying the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie to its foundations and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat – even without dwelling on all these things, and restricting ourselves simply to what we have said, it is clear that the revisionist parties of the capitalist countries have now been transformed into counter-revolutionary bourgeois parties, which render the bourgeoisie a great service precisely because they pose as parties of the working class, as communist parties, although there is no longer anything communist about them, and they are nothing but betrayers of the interests of the proletariat.
The revisionist parties in power are marching steadily, with determined steps, down the road of betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, socialism and the interests of the world proletariat, the freedom and independence of the peoples but in a more camouflaged way, trying harder to maintain their Marxist-Leninist facade. And the revisionist party of the Soviet Union is outstanding above all others, for its "theories” and practices, and its counterrevolutionary strategy and tactics.
It is already known that it was the Soviet revisionists who drew from the arsenal of the Bernstein revisionists and loudly propagated the idea of "the peaceful road”, the "parliamentary road” to socialism, which was eagerly embraced by the revisionists of all countries; it was the Soviet revisionists who revised the most cardinal question of Marxism-Leninism, who fabricated and brought out the "theories” about “the party of the entire people”, “the state of the entire people”, and so on. And again it is the Soviet revisionists, who, doing their utmost to bring about the complete merger of the revisionist parties with the social-democrat parties, have declared recently that "concerning the communists, their line of unity of action with the social-democrats, is not a tactical method... They consider collaboration with the social-democratic parties... a strategic line”, that this policy “is their decided long-term policy, up till the sanctioning of socialist society”. It is precisely the traitor Brezhnev, who, on behalf of the revisionist party he commands, has expressed his readiness "for the development of collaboration with the social-democrats, in the struggle for peace and democracy, as well as in the struggle for socialism”. Finally, it is precisely the leaders of the Soviet revisionist party who, in the present situation, are proposing a "historic solution” to the social-democrat parties, appealing to them for unity of action between the socialists and the “communists”, on a national and international level, so that together they will be able to achieve "radical social transformations in the interest of the working people”, and together put an end to "the social inequality and injustice which are engendered by capitalism"14 (!).
There is no need to point out here what the social-democrat parties and their chiefs stand for, the class of which they are parties, or to speak of their counter-revolutionary character, because this whole problem is very well-known: the social-democrat parties are loyal watchdogs of capitalism and bourgeois domination. However, judging the Soviet revisionists by the Marxist criterion, not by the names and “the labels they give themselves, but by the manner in which they actually settle the fundamental theoretical questions, by their associates”,15 it emerges clearly that, despite the name "communist party" which it bears, the revisionist party of the Soviet Union and its chiefs are ardent defenders of the bourgeoisie on a national and international level, and betrayers of the interests of the Soviet working class and the world proletariat.
The forms which the Soviet revisionists employ for the further distortion and deformation of the revolutionary theory of the working class, even of those most fundamental problems of Marxism-Leninism which have long been distorted by them, have not exhausted themselves. Such, for example, is the problem of the roads of transition from capitalism to socialism. Not long ago, on March 1, 1977, “Pravda” again carried the revisionist thesis, served up at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, and declared that “the working class in a series of capitalist countries can win the majority in parliament and transform it into a tool to serve the working people, a means capable of overcoming the resistance of the oppressing classes and ensuring the transition from capitalism to socialism” (!) And immediately after this thesis, it supported the programmes of the revisionist parties of the capitalist countries of Europe and various other regions of the world “for the thorough-going transformation of the structure of society, for the creation of states of democratic unity", which, according to the Soviet revisionists, “are intended to play the role of... transitional forms on the road to socialism". In propagating abandonment of the road of violent revolution, the Soviet revisionists go so far that their chief Brezhnev, realising that the tragedy which occurred in Chile is an irreparable defeat of the opportunist theory of “the peaceful road of transition to socialism”, considers it necessary to defend that traitorous theory by cynically stressing that “the Chilean tragedy can never wipe out the conclusion of communists about the possibility of various roads of the revolution, including the peaceful road”. However, it is Marx himself, who in his time, condemned the idea of “parliamentarianism” as the road to socialism, when he issued the call, "do not slip into parliamentary cretinism!” And Lenin, too, said “The very idea... of a peaceful, reformist transition to socialism is not merely sheer philistine stupidity, but also downright deception of the workers, embellishment of capitalist wage-slavery and concealment of the truth”, ... "Only the forcible overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the confiscation of its property, the destruction of the entire bourgeois state apparatus from top to bottom – parliamentary, judicial, military, bureaucratic, administrative, municipal, etc. apparatus,... only such measures can ensure the real submission of the whole class of exploiters”,16 and make the proletariat the ruling class, therefore, in a position to wipe out all social injustices, a thing which can be achieved only through violent revolution and never through the reformist road.
Hence, it is clear that the views of the modern revisionists on the road of the transition to socialism in a peaceful manner, through gaining the majority of votes in the bourgeois parliament, are denial of the right of the world proletariat to carry out its proletarian revolution, they are purest reformism, defence of bourgeois reformism precisely at the moment when bourgeois reformism has gone bankrupt all over the world, precisely at a moment when the upsurge of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in all bourgeois, and revisionist-capitalist countries is impelling the bourgeoisie and its agents and lackeys, who are keeping up their disguise as parties and organizations of "the working class”, to try to find theoretical and ideo-political “arguments” to defend the rule of exploiters. The counter-revolutionary bourgeois class character of the revisionist party of the Soviet Union, its betrayal of the working class and the world proletariat, is clearly displayed also in those statements, "theories" and practices which are intended to divert the proletariat from the proletarian revolution, from its historic mission, by stressing that “the working class is the most humanitarian class, the most humane class”, whereas the great teacher of the world proletariat, V.I. Lenin has pointed out that essential aspect, which constitutes the fundamental characteristic of the proletariat in our present-day society, describing the proletariat as the most revolutionary class.
The counterrevolutionary bourgeois class character of the Soviet revisionist party is clearly displayed also in those "theories” which seek to present the present Soviet party and state as "above-classes” and "non-class” such as the “theories” about "the party of the entire people” and “the state of the entire people”, which were used and are still being used by them to cover up the true character and the real bourgeois class content of the present Soviet party and state. But, since even the “inventors” of such "theories” themselves understand how absurd they are, because the Marxist-Leninist teachings – completely confirmed by practice – that there is not and cannot be any non-class or above-class political party, because the political party and the state are weapons of the class struggle and express and defend the interests of a definite class, are now very well-known, the Soviet revisionists are trying to perfect their notorious "theories”, which aim at the liquidation, in theory and practice, of the proletarian party and state, by adopting and defending the other absurdity that although “the state, which was born as the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is transformed into the state of the entire people, while its vanguard (the party of the working class – my note, – F.Sh.) into the party of the entire people, the socialist nature of the state does not alter and the working class maintains its leading role in society”17 (!). Hence it seems we allegedly have a state and a party of "the entire people”, whereas the nature of the state bears the class seal, and the leading role in this party and in this state of "the entire people” is played by a given class! But such sophistry and machinations cannot deceive anybody who sees and judges things objectively with his thinking unclouded by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois class prejudices, or by predisposition to betrayal, and they cannot stand against the Marxist-Leninist doctrine on the party and the state, or historical experience. On the other hand, it is known that when the Marxist-Leninists speak about the proletarian state, they have in mind “the recognition of the political domination of the proletariat, its dictatorship, i.e., a power which it does not share with others”,18 that the Marxist-Leninists adhere to the thesis that the state of the working class can be only a dictatorship of the proletariat and “the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat... has meaning only when one class knows that it is taking political power into its hands alone, and docs not deceive others or itself with talk about 'popular' government...".19 Whereas, when they speak of the communist party, the Marxist-Leninists have in mind the political party of the working class, which is guided by the revolutionary ideology of the working class, which expresses and defends the interests of the working class as well as of all the masses of working people, who associate themselves with the views of the working class.
In reality, the party which is in power in the Soviet Union and the present Soviet state are not at all of “the entire people”, but, like every other political party and state, of whatever type, they have a class character. Though it preserves the name "communist", the revisionist party of the Soviet Union is nothing but a bourgeois, fascist party, which expresses and defends the interests of the new, bureaucratic Soviet bourgeoisie, which is guided by the bourgeois ideology, in the form of revisionism, which follows a counterrevolutionary strategy and tactics, which inspires and works out the internal and external policy, which sanctions the thoroughly reactionary actions of the social-fascist and social-imperialist state, a policy and actions which are, and cannot fail to be, against the interests of the working class and all the working people of Soviet Union and the other former socialist countries, as well as against the interests of all the workers and peoples of the world.
There is no secret now about the hegemonic, expansionist and aggressive, typically imperialist, policy of the present-day Soviet Union, which has been transformed into a neo-colonialist and warmongering power; it is a recognised fact that Great Russian chauvinism has been raised to a dominant ideology and that national oppression has become part and parcel of the bourgeois class policy, which the clique ruling the Soviet Union today pursues, just as there is no secret about the "theories” of "limited sovereignty”, "the vital interests of the socialist community”, etc., or the "theories” which incite the policy of "great power” megalomania and omnipotence which is pursued by the social-imperialist Soviet Union. In this direction, a typical statement was made recently in the central organ of the Soviet revisionist party “Pravda”, a statement which reminds one of Nietzsche's philosophies and his notion of the "superman”, which cultivates the idea of the elite of “the chosen” and which was widely exploited by the ideologists of nazism. According to this Nietzschean statement of “Pravda”, "thanks to the existence of the Soviet Union in the world, the European peoples were able to liberate themselves from the yoke of the fascist occupiers, from total enslavement and physical annihilation”20 (!). Of course, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries highly evaluate the great role that the Red Army, led by the Communist Party (bolshevik) of the Soviet Union and by J. V. Stalin, played in the defeat of fascism. But to declare, as the betrayers of the Soviet peoples themselves are doing today, that the peoples of an entire continent were saved from "physical annihilation” thanks to one state, be it a socialist state, such as the Soviet Union was at that time, and, moreover, that "the freedom and victories of the working people in the entire world” were saved precisely thanks to this state, this is extraordinary, extreme megalomania and utterly reactionary. It is understandable that the aim of such an openly anti-Marxist, anti-proletarian, anti-popular, idealist statement, as well as the aim of the other, entirely similar statement, that “without the existence of the Soviet Union it is impossible for the national liberation movements to succeed”,21 as well as all the "theories” of this kind, elaborated by the leadership of the revisionist party of the Soviet Union and its chief Brezhnev, are meant to pump the Soviet working people full of aggressive nationalism and to line them up for the realization of its hegemonic aims, by cultivating among them the idea of the Soviet “superstate”.
After the foregoing, which is very clear evidence of the bourgeois, fascist class character of the revisionist party of the Soviet Union, mention here of the anti-Marxist "theories” about the “non-capitalist road” of development and the “road of socialist orientation", which are allegedly being followed by many developing countries and which are propagated by the Soviet revisionists, as well as mention of the ulterior aims hidden behind them, seem somewhat pale as arguments to show the real, counter-revolutionary bourgeois class character of the Soviet revisionist party. Nevertheless, if we take into account that in his life-time V. I. Lenin fought similar views and stressed "the need for a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries”,22 then the real aim of the revisionist party of the Soviet Union, which with such "theories” intends to drive the developing countries into economic and political dependence on the social-imperialist state and to transform them into its vassal regions, can be understood. Not wishing to prolong this, we think we may draw the conclusion: as can be seen clearly from all that has been said, all the revisionist parties, whether in power or not, are typically counterrevolutionary bourgeois parties, parties of national and social betrayal, social-chauvinist and even social-fascist parties.
This conclusion emerges, first of all, from the ideology that inspires them, which is the bourgeois ideology, in its revisionist variant, and from the strategy they follow, which is intended to perpetuate the capitalist order where it is in power, in the bourgeois and in the revisionist countries (in regard to the Soviet Union also to extend its domination and secure its hegemony all over the world), and also to restore capitalism where the dictatorship of the proletariat exists. This conclusion emerges also from the policy pursued by all the revisionist parties, of which one group, the parties which are not in power, seek to occupy a place in the state power together with the other parties of the bourgeoisie, and to become administrators of the affairs of the bourgeoisie, trying to give it the maximum proofs of its loyalty, going so far as to assure it that, if they are represented in the government, they will follow the same internal and external policy which the existing governments are following; while among the other group, the parties which are in power, some are trying to hang on to the positions they have gained in the bourgeois state they run, although they have turned their countries into vassals of Moscow (as in the case of the former socialist countries which are building their policy under the dictate of their Soviet bosses), while the revisionist party of the Soviet Union, in particular, is striving by means of the social-fascist and social-imperialist state to exert class and national, political and economic oppression and exploitation on the peoples and nations of “its” country, as well as on the peoples of the whole world, in order to ensure maximum profits for the class in power, for the new bureaucratic Soviet bourgeoisie. Finally, this conclusion emerges also from all the activity and all the attitudes, of the revisionist parties, on a national and international plane, activities and attitudes that only counterrevolutionary bourgeois parties could adopt.
The bourgeois character of the revisionist parties of all countries is obvious also from the social composition of these parties and their leaderships. And this is quite understandable: opportunism in the ideological and political field is always associated with opportunism in the organizational field.
And, in reality, this is what happened in all the revisionist parties, which violated all the principles and norms on which a true Marxist-Leninist party is built, stripped them of their Leninist, revolutionary spirit and content, and having distorted and transformed them into their opposite, into reactionary bourgeois, fascist principles and norms, used them, and still use them, as weapons to carry on their revisionist course and their counterrevolutionary policy and aims. Besides this, they also abandoned the teachings of Lenin in connection with care for the improvement of the quality of the members of the political party of the working class, which, in order to carry out its role as the revolutionary vanguard of the most revolutionary class, in order to lead the proletariat in the struggle against capitalism and in order to built communism, must include in its ranks the finest representatives of the class and masses oppressed in the conditions of capital, those and only those who are sincerely devoted to communism. Thus, the revisionist parties opened their doors to all sorts of elements, to non-proletarian, white collar, intellectual and other elements, while at the same time, expelling revolutionary militants and workers.
Some revisionist parties which are not in power took from the revisionist arsenal of the past the idea of one big democrat party, open to all and to everybody, of a party which must follow the road of reforms and class collaboration, and in order to win as many votes as possible in the parliamentary elections, they admitted anybody of all into their ranks!
Let us take, for example, the revisionist party of France, from among the parties which are not in power, and see to what plight it has been reduced in theory and practice in regard to the social and ideological composition of its membership. Let us mention here, first of all, some theses and statements by George Marchais, from which it is obvious how the French revisionists conceive their party. Speaking of the need for a "strong” and "influential” party, Marchais says that this "presupposes... a very considerable increase in the ranks of the party”, that “to carry out a great policy (implying: a policy of class compromise – my note – F.Sh.) requires a great party”, that this will be achieved through "pluralism”, which “is not only social”, but also “philosophical and political”, and, in this context, “the rapprochement between communists and Christians assumes great importance”,23 that “already a significant number of these people (Christians – my note – F.Sh.) who... have not given up any of their beliefs, or their religious practices”, as G. Marchais boasts, “are militating in the party...”.24
Hence the party of the “working class" is conceived by the revisionists not as a party with perfect organization, with steel discipline, with strong unity of thought and action, irreconcilable with the existence of factions and opportunist elements in its ranks, consisting of revolutionary elements, with a single ideology and philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, but as an amorphous party, as an assembly, in which “workers, office-employees, technicians, peasants, teachers, a growing number of engineers, artisans and people of the cultural sector are united",25 as an "assembly in which freedom of expression of... many trends of opinion is respected”.26 And these anti-Marxist concepts about the party find their expression in practice, apart from other things, in the composition of the party. Let us refer to some recent data on the composition of the French revisionist party. It seems of interest at this point to mention the fact that, though this party is not in power, hence it directs neither the state, its various organs and institutions, nor the state administration, etc., at its 22nd Congress 42 per cent of its delegates were from among the ranks of officials and office workers, and if the number of self-employed professional people and students is added, they amount to 45 per cent. It must be stressed that this percentage does not include the delegates from all the strata of the petty-bourgeoisie. Of course, the Marxist-Leninists do not negate the admission to the party of elements from various petty-bourgeois strata, but, according to Marxism-Leninism, they can join the ranks of the party of the working class only if they put aside their interests as a class and embrace and defend the interests of the proletariat, if they fight for the interests of the proletariat and under the banner of the proletariat. But this is not the case with the French revisionist party which we mentioned above: it admits the strata of the petty-bourgeoisie en masse, and as they are, as strata of the-petty-bourgeoisie, “they have even the right of a Constitution”.27 Here is another interesting fact concerning the composition of the French revisionist party, this time about the length of party membership of the delegates to the 22nd Congress of the party: 61 per cent of the delegates to this Congress had been admitted to the party from 1968 onwards, 83 per cent since 1958.28 This means that almost all the delegates were elements educated and formed not on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist theory, but on the basis of the revisionist theses and the practice of the revisionist betrayal of the proletariat. And- this is quite understandable. It was not for nothing that, at the 21st Congress of his party, the anti-Marxist Marchais had declared: “Our party has never demanded of Frenchmen and women, who wished to become communists, whether they had read and assimilated Marx, Engels, Lenin. It would be absurd to do such a thing today” (!).
Many other interesting facts could be brought up about the composition of the French revisionist party, as well as about the concepts about the party and the composition of the revisionist parties in the other bourgeois capitalist countries. But we think that what we have mentioned is sufficient to indicate that, from this viewpoint, too, all the revisionist parties of the capitalist countries are bourgeois parties, of the social-democrat type, such as to serve the implementation of their reformist, counterrevolutionary policy, the implementation of the policy of sacrificing the interests of the proletariat in favour of the interests of “their own” bourgeoisie, and the international bourgeoisie.
The situation in the revisionist parties which are in power, in regard to their concepts and practices on the organization of the party and the social composition of the party as a whole and of the leadership, in particular, is essentially the same as that of the revisionist parties which are operating in the bourgeois capitalist countries.
It must be said that in these directions, too, among the revisionist parties in power, the Yugoslav and Soviet revisionists hold first place in revising Marxism-Leninism and the use of anti-Leninist practices. In order to justify and disguise the practices which led to the degeneration of the political parties which are in power in these countries and their transformation into bourgeois parties, both the revisionist party of Yugoslavia and the revisionist party of the Soviet Union have invented many “theories”, which were and are intended to deny in practice the proletarian class character of the party of the working class.
In regard to the organization of the party, the Yugoslav revisionists have brought out the most varied anti-Leninist versions. We need go no further than to mention here that the 4th Plenum, following the 7th Congress of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, speaking about what this revisionist party represented, said:
“Now its basis has changed to the point that we can say: no longer the representative of the working class, but the working class itself". It is obvious that this is a thoroughly liquidatory thesis, because it completely eliminates the distinction between the party of the working class, as its organized vanguard, and the working class itself. And liquidatory views are bound to lead to liquidatory practices. In fact, a good 20 years ago in stigmatizing the views of Kardelj and Tito, that the role of the party was simply an educational one, as hostile and liquidatory views, comrade Enver Hoxha said: “There (in Yugoslavia – my note – F.Sh.) they have a central committee, and a few officials, while all the party apparatuses have been abolished".29 In fact this situation existed in Yugoslavia long before the 7th Congress of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, at which all the views and practices of the Yugoslav revisionists, including those about the party, were summed up and codified in the notorious programme of the Communist League of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, at its 8th Congress, an openly anti-proletarian thesis was launched, and it was said that, “we do not idealize the workers”, “but they interest us as banner-bearers of class interests”; in other words, the phrases about the working class are used by the Yugoslav revisionists for the sake of demagogy, in order to preserve their proletarian disguise. And at the 9th Congress it was declare openly that the revisionist party of Yugoslavia “also began the process ofchange and transforming itself from a classical party into an ideo-political leadership organization of a new type”. There is no need to explain what the Yugoslav revisionists imply with f term "classical party”, because everybody now knows that for them the "classical party” is the party of the Leninist type, which requires, among other things, the preservation of the class criterion in the structure and composition of the party, but which, according to the Yugoslav revisionists, “has become obsolete”. Therefore, to confront the party of the Leninist type, they bring up the “new party” of the type of the Communist League of Yugoslavia, which they propagate as the example of the true “communist” party.
In keeping with these anti-Marxist concepts on the structure of the party the Yugoslav revisionists began to flood the party with “cultured” people, with technocrats, bureaucrats, careerists etc., who now rule the roost in this party of the bourgeoisie, whose members, as Tito himself has admitted, "hanker after the Dinar”. And as a result of these “theories” and practices, the so-called Communist League of Yugoslavia is nothing but an amorphous party, in which even one of the fundamental requirements of being member of the communist party, such as the payment of membership dues, over which Lenin waged a great struggle with the opponents of Marxism-Leninism nearly three-quarters of a century ago, is not observed. Thus, for instance, in 1969, in Croatia 34 per cent, and in Macedonia 74 per cent of the members of the Communist League did not pay their membership dues. And this phenomenon continues: in 1972, in Croatia 25 per cent and in Macedonia 40 per cent of the members did not pay their dues. Besides this, the Yugoslav revisionist party is being eroded by factions, which, as Tito himself was obliged to admit at the 10th Congress of the League, “were becoming consolidated organizationally” and striving to instigate “the struggle for power”, just as he was obliged to admit, also, the tendencies to “the transformation of the organization into a sort of debating club”.
We deem it important to mention also the class concept of the Yugoslav revisionists concerning the role of the intelligentsia in the party, a concept which was expressed at their 10th Congress. “We must also liquidate the tendencies to the division of the workers from the intelligentsia, which ... is a constituent part of the working class. The intellectual creators... have always had an important and distinguished place in the Communist League...”, said that Congress.
Now, on the basis of the data from the 10th Congress, let us see what place the workers occupy in the Yugoslav revisionist party: in the end of 1960, workers occupied 36.1 per cent, by the end of 1970 – 29.9 per cent, and by the end of the year 1972 – 28.7 per cent. This decline is caused not only as a result of the fewer admissions of workers, but also as a result of expulsions and of workers resigning from the party, and there are many resignations. Thus, the percentage of workers expelled or resigning voluntarily has been: in 1969 – 51.3 per cent, in 1970 – 47 per cent, in 1972 – 40 per cent of the total expulsions. As for the peasant members (“agricultural producers” as they are called in Yugoslavia), in 1960 they represented 13 per cent of total membership of the League, and in 1970 – 6.5 per cent.
While not wishing to dwell at greater length on other such figures, which are a very significant indication of the policy in connection with the social composition and class character of a political party, we want to stress that even the many resignations of workers from the CLY, which according to the figures of the Yugoslav revisionists themselves, up till 1973, reached ten to fifteen thousand workers per year, are an indication of the bourgeois class nature of the League, because it is evident that nobody has reason to leave a party which expresses and defends the interests of his class. But in reality, from every viewpoint, the CLY has long been a political party of the Yugoslav bourgeoisie and expresses the interests of this class, while barbarously oppressing the working class and the other masses of the working people of Yugoslavia and exploiting them to the bone.
In regard to the revisionist party of the Soviet Union and the other revisionist parties in power, it is important to stress that their proletarian social composition has been changed in favour of the new bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the other exploiting strata by following an anti-proletarian policy of admissions and expelling revolutionary militants and workers from the party en masse, under the cloak of the renewal of party cards, and so on. The “theory” which they invented about the “party of the entire people”, which was intended precisely to negate the proletarian class character of the workers' party, assisted the Soviet revisionists to admit the maximum number of non-proletarian elements and to transform the party into a party of officials, bureaucrats, and technocrats. Thus, abandoning the teachings of Lenin, who said that, “We shall never rely on the intellectuals, we shall rely on the vanguard of the proletariat that leads all the workers and poor peasants”30.... “we say the proletariat will set the pace”,31... “we are apprehensive of an excessive growth of the Party, because careerists and charlatans, who deserve only to be shot, inevitably do all they can to insinuate themselves into the ranks of the ruling party”,32 the revisionist party of the Soviet Union stresses the major role of the intelligentsia, the technocrats, and the bureaucrats in the development of the present-day Soviet society, in the “phase of the construction of the developed socialist society” of the Soviet Union, and this also finds expression in the social composition of the party, and especially of its leading organs.
In fact, one of the chief characteristics of the Soviet capitalist society is that the present Soviet Union is ruled by a caste of bureaucrats and technocrats, which has all the links and leading levels of the party, the state, the economy, culture, etc., firmly in its grasp. The figures given at the 25th Congress of the Soviet revisionist party, speak very clearly about this, as well as about the non-proletarian composition of the party. Thus, in the total membership of this party, white-collar workers make up 44.5 per cent, whereas the specific weight of students admitted to the party between the 24th and 25th Congresses increased 2.3 per cent. If we mention that, according to figures provided by the Soviet revisionists themselves, the overwhelming majority of those admitted to the higher schools are the children of city intellectuals, including state officials (in the Novosimbirsk region, for example, 82 per cent of the students who graduate from the middle schools come from this category, while only 18 per cent are children of collective farmers, or state farm workers), the trend to increasing intellectual technocrat influence in the Soviet revisionist party becomes even more obvious. Technocratism and the bourgeois class character of this party is still more clearly seen in the social composition of its leading organs: 99.5 per cent of the secretaries of the CC's of the Republics, regions and districts are intellectuals, of whom 70 per cent are engineers, agronomists, or technicians.33 According to official figures, only 41.6 per cent of the members of the Soviet revisionist party are workers. But here we must remember the fact that the Soviet revisionists, like the Yugoslav, Polish, and other revisionists, consider and reckon as workers also the chiefs of factories and various other managers of production, in general that stratum which, according to the Marxist-Leninist concept, constitutes the worker aristocracy in the capitalist countries. And it must be said that the renegade Brezhnev is trying to present this situation, which is evidence of the fact that the working class in the Soviet Union has ceased to be the ruling class and a very clear confirmation of the leading role of the bureaucrats and technocrats, as a "qualitative improvement” of the party, which, in reality, from the aspects of its composition, too, has been transformed completely into a bourgeois party, just as the whole of Soviet society has become bourgeois down to its tiniest pores, as comrade Enver Hoxha put it at the 7th Congress of the PLA.
The same phenomena has been and is observed in the revisionist party of Poland, too, in which within 20 years the percentage of the workers in the party dropped from 60 to 40, and in which in just three years, from 1956 to 1959, the Gomulka clique expelled 47.6 per cent of the party membership of the year 1956.
On the basis of figures from the 7th Congress of the Polish revisionist party it emerges that its composition has undergone great changes, which have lead to the increase of bourgeois and counterrevolutionary elements in its ranks. In the period between the 3rd and 7th Congress, 2,300,000 new members were admitted to the ranks of the Polish revisionist party, of whom 40 per cent were workers, but at the same time 600,000 workers were expelled.34 All this movement has brought about that the bourgeois element prevails in this party. The main method for the transformation of the proletarian composition of the Polish party has been the expulsion en masse of, and the very few new admissions from among, the workers. Moreover, it must be stressed that even those workers admitted have been chosen from among those who may follow the revisionist policy, untested workers with petty-bourgeois views, whereas the revolutionary workers who have understood the bourgeois character of the Polish revisionist party are leaving this party which has betrayed the interests and ideals of the working class. Since mass expulsions and mass admissions have been carried out in this party, proceeding from criteria alien to the proletarian party, and since many revolutionary workers have resigned from the party, it is clear that the Polish revisionist party has become a completely “new” party, a typically bourgeois party, in which even the worker aristocracy, or the untested workers with petty-bourgeois concepts, constitute a minority. Technocrats, intellectuals, rich and middle peasants predominate in the composition of this party. Let us quote an example here to illustrate this reality of the present state of the Polish revisionist party. At the 7th Congress of this party, amongst the delegates there figured a certain Zigmund Stankowsky, a delegate from the countryside, who was considered to be the poorest among the delegates. This delegate, “thanks to his work”, has equipped his home with a TV set, a refrigerator, two modern electric kitchen-ranges, a radio, a tape recorder, a telephone, a truck and a trailer. At that time, he was in the process of building a 6 roomed house as well asstables for his livestock, and he has 9 hectares of land as his private property. We think this needs no comment, because the significance of this case is self-evident: when the poorest of the delegates to the Congress lives in such conditions, which even give him the possibility to exploit others, it is clear that the party which is holding the congress is nothing but a party of the bourgeoisie of town and countryside, which savagely oppresses and exploits the workers and poor peasants.
This is also borne out by the strikes
and protests of workers, such as the events of last June in the cities
Radom and Ursus, which developed into bloody clashes and were directed
against the bases of the existing state, as were the clashes of the
year 1970 in the Baltic ports, etc., because it is understood that the
working class does not rise in strikes, revolts, and protests against
the state, if it is its own state and if it is led by its own party.
Therefore, the uprising of the workers in strikes and revolts against
the savage exploitation of the new bourgeoisie in Poland, as well as in
the various Republics of the Soviet Union and in the other revisionist
countries, iS a clear testimony to the fact that the revisionist
parties in power in all these countries are typically
counterrevolutionary bourgeois parties.
To conclude: it is known, but we underline it, that all the revisionist parties, whether or not in power, are doing their utmost to preserve their disguises at all costs and style themselves parties of “the working class”, and "communist” parties. They need their disguises and demagogy in order to blunt the vigilance of the working class, to lull it to sleep, to paralyse its revolutionary thinking and action. Therefore, the task of the Marxist-Leninist parties and of all Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries is to uncover and expose the real counterrevolutionary bourgeois content of the revisionist parties, to wage consistent struggle against them; therefore, as comrade Enver Hoxha put it at the 7th Congress of the PLA, “... the deepening of that great polemic which began after the 1960 Moscow Meeting, constitutes an important and imperative duty for all Marxist-Leninists, for all true revolutionaries”.35 In the present conditions, when the revisionist parties are striving in every way to preserve their Marxist-Leninist facades, it is necessary to make it clear to the proletariat in all the bourgeois and revisionist capitalist countries that its unity, which is indispensable for the proletarian social revolution, can be realized only by the truly revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist party, only in determined struggle against all other parties, bourgeois, social-democrat, or revisionist; the proletariat must be shown that the revisionist parties are betrayers of its interests, the revolution, and socialism, and that the leaders of these parties, who seek to safeguard their reputation as Marxist-Leninist and communists in the eyes of the workers, are the greatest traitors and renegades history has ever known. In the present conditions, especially, when the question of the proletarian revolution has been put on the agenda in practice and is not just an aspiration of the working class, it is essential to show the workers that “the working: class cannot achieve its revolutionary world aim without waging merciless struggle against this apostasy”;36 the urgent need to break with revisionism and every kind of opportunism, must be explained to the masses of workers as well as the absolute necessity of placing themselves under the leadership of genuine communist parties. Because, as comrade Enver Hoxha said at the 7th Congress of our Party, in the great and difficult struggle against world imperialism, social-imperialism, the capitalist bourgeoisie, and world reaction, the proletariat "must act in close unity, but the unity of its ranks is achieved only by faithfully following and applying the Marxist-Leninist doctrine”,37 only by placing itself under the leadership of revolutionary political parties of the working class, true Marxist-Leninist parties, which base their line, policy, and all their activity on the revolutionary ideology of the proletariat.
1. Enver Hoxha, Report at the 7th Congress of the Party, p. 236
2. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 62
3. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 258
4. 5, 6. George Marchais, Report at the 22nd Congress of the French revisionist party
7. G.C. Payetta, “Europeo” magazine, N° 24, 1974
8. E. Berlinguer, “Unitä” newspaper, June 4, 1974
9. G. Amendola, “Europeo” magazine, N° 4, 1974
10. TASS Agency, March 17, 1977
11. Enver Hoxha, Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, page 221
12.V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 458
13. V. I. Lenin, ibid., p. 371
14. All quotations on the necessity for the unity of revisionists with social-democrats are taken from B. Ponomariov's article "Facing an Historic Alternative", published in the Soviet magazine “Kommunist”, N° 17, year 1976.
15. V. I. Lenin, "Materialism and Empiriocriticism”, 1955, p. 222
16. V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 186-187
18. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 404
19. V. I. Lenin, Collected, Works, Vol. 32, p. 274
20. A. Viktorov's article “The historic Mission of the Working Class", “Pravda”, March 1, 1977
21. B. Ponomariov's article in the magazine “Kommunist”
22. V. 1. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 149
23, 24, 25, 26. George Marchais, Report to the 22nd Congress of the French revisionist party
27. Bernard Lisbonne, Revisionist “Defenders" of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, p. 43
29. Enver Hoxha, Works, Vol. 14, p. 330
30. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 214
32. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 47
33. Magazine "Partijnaja zhiznj", No 14, year 1976, p. 17
34. All data concerning the Polish revisionist party are taken from the magazine "The Red Flag", N° 1, February 1976
35. Enver Hoxha, Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 226
36. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 233
37. Enver Hoxha, Report to the 7th Congress of the PLA, p. 239.
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