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The Counter-Revolutionary Budapest Meeting — A New Treacherous Step of the Khrushchovite Revisionists
The revisionist leaders of Europe and of some other parties which mainly depend on them, will meet on February 26 in Budapest around the Khrushchovite leaders of the Soviet Union to discuss the «preliminary arrangements for the new world communist forums. In a previous article we have explained in detail the counter-revolutionary aims of this meeting and its purposes to oppose the revolutionary and anti-imperialist struggle of the people. Today we shall dwell only on some aspects of the confused, contradictory and desperate atmosphere, characterizing the revisionist pack on the threshold of a meeting for which the Soviet revisionists have not spared either big propaganda words or numerous material means.
The Brezhnev-Kosygin clique has for several years tried through flattery, pressure, fraud and threats, to organize a big revisionist parade that would acclaim its line and recognize it as a supreme guide of the international communist movement». It has pinned great hopes on this meeting which it has regarded as the promised land. In the first place,
being under the constant pressure of the people’s masses and upright communists, because of the incompatibility with its treacherous course of restoration of capitalism at home and of collaboration with imperialism abroad, the revisionist leadership of the Soviet Union is seeking to deceive the Soviet people by telling them that its line cannot but be «Marxist-Leninist», since it has been approved also at a large communist meeting which was attended by so many parties. Thus, as a result, it is the Soviet leadership that is right and not those persons opposing it and whom it jails and brutally oppresses.
Likewise, should the things go smoothly, according to the plans mapped out within the Kremlin walls, the meeting would curb the further dissolution of the revisionist front, it would stop the centrifugal movement which is assuming broad proportions and would establish the hegemony of the Moscow Khrushchovites over the other revisionists.
Above all, they needed this Budapest tribune to try to proclaim the «international condemnation» of the Communist Party of China and of the Party of Labor of Albania, to «isolate» them and to undermine the vigorous process of the growth and development of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary movement in the world.
The revisionist leaders were thinking that not only the meeting, but also the activity for its preparation would be of benefit to them. They were considering the preparatory period as a campaign which would lead to the consolidation of their positions in the international communist movement and in the world public opinion. They were hoping that, on this occasion, by further resorting to demagogy, by raising somewhat their voice against the imperialist «circles», they would gain some credit to pose as standard-bearers of the revolutionary forces and of anti-imperialism.
Aiming at these targets they needed no less than a full forum of the communist parties, the unanimity and readiness of everybody to go to Budapest, the unconditioned support of each party for the Soviet initiative. Only in this way could the impression be created that the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labor of Albania, the other Marxist-Leninist parties were isolated and that the Soviet Khrushchovites were leading the international communist movement.
But what is the situation now, on the eve of the Budapest meeting? What is the result of the great efforts of the Soviet revisionists?
It must be said that the picture appears to be quite dull at the very outset. The Soviet Khrushchovite clique was calling for a «general mobilization» of the revisionist front to intensify the fight against the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labor of Albania and the new Marxist-Leninist revolutionary forces. This constituted the basis and their principal aim for the Budapest meeting, but they were unable to force this basis on their partners. The initial aim failed and the participants of the meeting were divided, not because some were better and others were worse, for all the participants in the Budapest meeting are traitors to Marxism-Leninism, but because their plans and schemes were exposed and smashed by the Marxist-Leninist parties.
The other revisionists were afraid that, by submitting to the designs of the Soviets and by joining the anti-China and anti-Albania campaign, they would meet with stiffer resistance and opposition within their parties, their opportunist line would be further more exposed and condemned. They consider it more suitable and more opportune to wage a separate struggle against the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania, at the time and in the manner they chose. They have resorted to such tactics, of course, not voluntarily but out of necessity, taking into account their sad experience, the failures of the anti-Marxist plans and campaigns, the bankruptcy of their treacherous line.Instead of drawing the revisionist parties together and strengthening the unity of their action, which the Soviet revisionists had hoped, the preparatory campaign further aggravated their division, it led to a further crystallization of the centrifugal tendencies, to the accentuation of the efforts for independence from the Soviet leadership and to making evident the particular aims in each party. The preparations served to instigate, to give a definite shape and to consolidate precisely those attitudes and those lines which the Soviet revisionists fear most.
In the situation that has been created we might say that the Budapest meeting is stillborn. Its sponsors demanded that all the parties that attended the 1960 Moscow meeting should go to Budapest. But thus far almost one-fourth of the 81 parties that were at that time, refuse to attend. This is indeed a scandalous failure. What world communist forum, what unanimity and unity of action can now be spoken of? Important is the fact that the Soviet revisionists threw all the prestige that had been left to them on the question of the participation or not in the Budapest conference, they set in motion all the political means, overt and covert, available to them. Many reports have been published recently in the world press proving that the Soviet revisionists have brought much economic pressure to bear on some recalcitrants to compel them to participate in the meeting and, on some occasion, they have not hesitated to engineer plots for the overthrow of the leaderships of the parties and for their replacement with men that would blindly obey the Moscow baton.
But even those parties going to the meeting do not represent a compact mass, willing to submit to the Soviets and to serve their political aims. This is quite well noticed in the impossibility to formulate an agenda of the meeting acceptable to all and to determine what aims the meeting of the leaders must have. Almost every party judging from the official statements published in the press, has presented a separate programme of its own which, according to it, should be the only one to be examined at the meeting. Thus, for instance Tito’s friends demand the official annulment of the 1957 and 1960 Moscow documents, in which the Yugoslav revisionism is condemned, and not to attack directly U.S. imperialism. Some others who are flirting with West Germany set forth as a condition that German revanchism should not be attacked and the meeting should not discuss any concrete question that would directly or indirectly affect the policy which they are pursuing with regard to certain states or political groupings. On this question insist especially those who have made the rapid approach to the West the cardinal question of their foreign policies.
The Italian and French revisionists who have concentrated all their efforts on the merger with the Social-Democratic parties, wanting the Budapest meeting to serve their aims, ask that it should discuss and approve the approach and merger with the Social-Democrats. Many others claim that the Budapest meeting should not be attended only by the «communists«-, but also by the bourgeois progressive parties of Africa and of the other newly-liberated countries .and that the meeting should not take up the question of the struggle against imperialism, but the aid of the developed countries to the underdeveloped ones. The revisionists of Latin America, to whom the creation of the Marxist-Leninist parties and the beginning of the armed struggle in their countries have dealt a heavy blow and who no longer see any prospect of salvation, desire that the meeting should mainly engage in the condemnation of the revolutionary line of the Chinese Communist Party, of the Party of Labor of Albania and of the other Marxist-Leninist parties.
Having all these requirements and setting forth so many conditions, one understands how difficult is for the organizers of the meeting to find a formula for the agenda that would please everybody and would guarantee them that the particular interests of each one of them would not be impaired. To ensure participation, be it even conditioned, the organizers of the meeting tried at the last minute to formulate an entirely vague agenda, which gives to understand that during the debates they will talk at random. Every participant of the revisionist meeting wants that everyone at the Budapest meeting should force his viewpoint upon the others, preserve complete freedom of action, not assume any pledges and, in order to guard against being compromised, the meeting should not create the impression that it gave preference to this or that line of this or that revisionist grouping.
But it is difficult to reconcile these entirely irreconcilable things. The Soviet revisionists, too, understand this, but now they are not in position to disentangle the tangled ball of contradictions with their allies. The machinery of the meeting has been set in motion and cannot be stopped anymore, a further postponement of the meeting to better times would mean a still greater bankruptcy. The endless postponement would be a capital discredit for the Soviet leaders, an irreparable exposure before the eyes of the domestic and foreign public opinion. This would be tantamount to publicly and officially admitting that they failed in their efforts to convene the promised meeting, that nobody listens to them anymore, not even their most obedient followers, that they ceased to be the center of world communism, which they are publicizing on all parts.
Therefore, better half a meeting than none. They still have a ray of hope that in coulisses, as usually, they will exert pressure and blackmail to compel others to renounce particular interests and to join Moscow’s hegemonic line and plans. They think that they can keep this stillborn child alive, at least for some time, through many hardships and injections, that they can swell the meeting, noisily publicize it as a success of «compactness», of «unity», etc.
At this meeting the revisionists will prattle against imperialism and, no doubt, they will not spare their insults and curses against it. But this noise of an empty tin is sheer demagogy, which is aimed at concealing the revisionist plots and at deceiving naive persons. Behind these idle talks and noise there exist the Soviet-U.S. alliance and all the other alliances of the revisionist countries with various imperialist states, there exist the imperialist-revisionist agreement and collaboration to strangle revolution and suppress the national-liberation movements of the peoples.
The revisionist participants of the Budapest meeting are seeking to convince public opinion that the aim of their meeting is allegedly to «defend and support» Vietnam in her struggle against the U.S. aggressors. But all this is a clumsy bluff, a base demagogical means to camouflage the real support and aid which they give to the United States to bring the Vietnamese people down to their knees and to turn Vietnam into a place d’armes against revolution and socialism in Asia. How much false and demagogic is the anti-imperialist posing of the revisionists and that of the aid and support to Vietnam is indicated by the fact that the parties and states that are in direct clash with and fight against the imperialists will not go to Budapest. This shows that they have no faith in the «anti-imperialism» of the Soviet revisionists and their followers, and that is why they rejected the invitation /of the organizers of the meeting. Very characteristic and significant is the fact that none of the parties and states of Asia, with the exception of the Indian bankrupt clique of Dange, despite the efforts and pressure of the Soviet revisionists, takes part in the meeting. This alone would suffice to see through the revisionists’ lies and bluff of anti-imperialism.
All the calculations made by the revisionists were mistaken, the Budapest meeting is doomed to fail, irrespective of what the agenda will be and Of what they will discuss there, whether the meeting will be called a consultative or deliberative one, small or big, a lower or summit meeting. It is nothing else but an expression of the deepening of the revisionist degeneration, of the impasse in which the revisionist clans have landed, of their capitulationist and treacherous policy. There is no doubt that it will still more instigate the centrifugal and polycentrist tendencies between the revisionists and will deal a fresh blow at the hegemony of the Soviet leadership in their camp. The disputes and divisions in the revisionist basketful of crabs will without fail increase.
As far as the Marxist-Leninists are concerned, they look at the situation with radiant optimism. The present meeting of the revisionists has been organized to attack Marxism-Leninism, but it is being directed against its organizers themselves. The ‘revisionists trumpeted their meeting as a measure that would serve the unity of the communist movement, but they showed that they are its greatest splitters. They claimed that the meeting would serve the struggle against imperialism, but reality shows that they are sabotaging it by all their means and ways. The peoples of the world cannot help seeing that the revisionists are doing their utmost to put out the flames of revolution and of the liberation struggles, to attack Marxism-Leninism and to disseminate their poisoning ideology of submission to and kneeling before the bourgeoisie and reaction.
It is incumbent upon the Marxist-Leninist and the other revolutionary forces to take advantage of this situation, to show the masses that are still deceived by the revisionists, the state the communist parties have been reduced to by their revisionist leaders, to show the workers and peasants that the Khrushchovite chieftains do not defend their interests, but those of the old and new bourgeois class, that they have now turned into tools of the capitalist policy.
The situation created toy the preparations for the Budapest meeting revealed the revisionist rottenness and degeneration.
The peoples must see and understand what this meeting is like to become better acquainted with the counter-revolutionary and treacherous features of the revisionists, to realize still better the danger they pose so as to be vigilant and, consequently fight them with 'more courage and determination.
Reproduced from the «Zeri i Popullit» daily, dated February 21, 1968.
During the month of February carnivals are organized in some countries. Individuals wearing all sorts of masks for their amusement interpret roles of the most different kinds. The sponsors of carnivals draw large profits from these manifestations. History, however, records different kinds of carnivals.
Voltaire, an outstanding French thinker and author of the 13th century, has written about the carnivals of Venice. The writer has placed in the role of clowns various dethroned kings and makes fun of their ridiculous dreams and desires.
In our days the world became acquainted also with another kind of carnivals, the Budapest carnivals. Precisely in the month of February, during the carnival week, the modem revisionists met in the Hungarian capital, wearing different masks.
The revisionist meeting of Budapest was prepared with much toil by the Khrushchovite revisionists. Right before its opening, the first signs appeared indicating that this meeting would not serve the much-coveted hegemony of the Soviet revisionist leaders. On the eve of the meeting and compelled by their partners, the Soviets made some opportunist liberal concessions and publicly declared, through a speech delivered by Brezhnev in Leningrad, that Moscow is no longer «the leading center of world communisms, that the unity which the Soviet leaders are seeking is allegedly based on the idea of «proletarian internationalism», on the «struggle against U.S. imperialism» for the general interests of «socialist construction».
Of course they covered all this with the «fig leaf» so as to present themselves as real bearers of Marxism-Leninism which they will carry out according to the interpretation and «specific» conditions of each revisionist party. These were also the «conditions» set to the Soviet revisionists for participation in the meeting by a group of revisionists who pose as autonomous and (allegedly as the most «revolutionary» from among the revisionists. This group, indeed, proclaiming the decision to attend the meeting, presented also its own theses: no party should interfere with the internal affairs of other parties, no party has a right to criticize the actions of other parties which are «fully entitled» to interpret and implement Marxism-Leninism the way they like, to suit their own fancy.
These ideas, not only surpass the revisionist idea of Togliatti’s polycentrism, but suggest that each party should become a center in itself. In other words, this means to allow not only one and two interpretations of our revolutionary theory, but tens, if not hundreds of them. It is obvious that such ideas are aimed at attacking Marxism-Leninism on all sides, at sowing a great ideological confusion, at disorientating the political, ideological, military and organizational struggle of the peoples, at discrediting the socialist system and communism.
Thus, right before the meeting, on the back stage, in principle and in practice, the following main question was laid down: should we fight Marxism-Leninism resorting to classical methods and under the hegemony of the .Soviet revisionists or should we reject both the classical methods and the Soviet hegemony and adopt «newer, more urgent and more reliable» methods to fully smash and dissolve the communist movement. The last viewpoint was forcefully supported by Tito, Longo and by the «autonomous». It was apparently quite attractive also to new liberal groups of revisionists who have just come to power. The partisans of the one or the other thesis had their own supporters who acted as marketeers in lobbies and on the Budapest stage, during the carnival week from February 26 to March 5.
The Soviet revisionists failed in their fundamental aim — that the Budapest meeting should take up the main problem that preoccupies them more than anything else: the full and obedient mobilization of all the revisionist parties in the fight against the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labor of Albania and the other Marxist-Leninist parties. Only the solution of this problem could rid the Soviets of that heavy weight resting on their shoulders and which constitutes the main cause of the further deepening of the split in the ranks of the revisionist front.
According to the Soviet revisionist leaders, the fight against the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labor of Albania and the other Marxist-Leninist parties can by no means be successful without the unity of all the revisionists and without the hegemony of the Soviet leaders to guide this fight. Khrushchov sought to achieve this through the meeting of the communist parties proposed by him as far back as in 1964 and which failed; his successors also tried to achieve this at the revisionist meetings of Moscow in March 1965 and of Karlovy Vary. They failed in both directions and their business went from bad to worse. Therefore, to extricate themselves from this situation the Moscow revisionist clique moved all the pawns in Budapest to force upon others the holding as soon as possible in Moscow of a meeting of the revisionist parties where they hoped for the adoption of the «decisions» most cherished by them, that is the coordination of the fight of the modem revisionists under the leadership of the Soviets against Marxism-Leninism, against the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania.
The Budapest meeting, which according to the hopes of its sponsors should have been a meeting of the revisionist unity, became a meeting of the split, of disputes and of their further degeneration. The Budapest discussions publicly showed that not everybody conceives the future meeting in Moscow such as the Soviet revisionists desire it, and that the various opponents, although they gave their approval, have not renounced their aim to defend their narrow interests, to fight the Soviet leaders and to force their own viewpoints on others. The preparatory period up to the end of this year will witness still deeper and more spectacular divisions. The Soviet revisionists will encounter most diverse oppositions because the other opposing revisionists do not want and are not in a hurry for such a meeting. The participation of the so-called great revisionist parties is more than indispensable to the Soviets, although in words they say that they will hold the meeting irrespective of who will be missing. It is clear to everybody that they cannot go to the meeting they desire with the «party» of Guadeloupe, with Larbi Buhali, Koliaynnis or with some other permanent resident of the Moscow hotels, for this would be for them an irreparable catastrophe.
Some revisionists who have interests opposed to those of the Soviet revisionists, have other objectives, they want to intensify the fight against the Communist Party of China, against the Party of Labor of Albania through their forms and methods and without the Soviet hegemony, to strengthen the ties and relations with the capitalist bourgeois states, to come to terms with the social-democrats and the other bourgeois parties, to take direct part in the government of the country on the road of capitalist exploitation, etc. Therefore, these revisionists do not stand for the meeting such as the Soviet revisionist, leaders are preaching but for a meeting without definite aims, allegedly to «exchange views», to become better acquainted with what the one or the other thinks about one or another problem, and all this should be openly publicized, allegedly, in the most «democratic» forms.
These «democratic» and «open» forms of debates, in the eyes of these revisionists, express in reality the concrete plans of their daily work for the achievement of the objectives we mentioned above. On these questions, too, they want to officially assert that the bourgeois democracy, the bourgeois «free and well — informed press» constitute the aim of their efforts, they are, so to speak, the adornment of their line of the «special, democratic», parliamentary road to strike up friendship with the capitalist bourgeoisie and to come to power.
On the other hand, the «independence» of these parties is by no means to the liking of the Soviet revisionists who, leaving aside the hypocritical statements imposed by the circumstances, will do everything in their power, will exert all and every pressure and blackmail to restrain the dissidents. Blackmail and economic pressure, the creation of disturbances within disobedient parties and countries, the instigation of territorial claims in those countries where they exist, etc., are the usual weapons which the Soviet revisionism sets in motion in order to intimidate and force its viewpoints upon the others.
Of course these weapons are not always ineffective, the results however cannot be everywhere and always favorable to the Soviet revisionists. The general trend which is noticed is unfavourable to them; the number of dissidents and opponents to the Soviet hegemony in the revisionist camp is growing with every passing day. But in spite of the failures they have suffered and are suffering, the Soviet revisionists will continue to use these favourite weapons of theirs whenever they can. In this respect they take advantage also of their economic potential, of the ties and chains which they have forged for their satellites, of their military potential which scares the cowards, of their espionage network which they have set up in the revisionist parties and in the countries where they are in power.
The Soviet revisionists behave towards their satellites and clients in the same way as U.S. imperialism behaves towards its satellites and clients whom it keeps in chains. Just as the United States acts in the United Nations when it sets the voting machine in motion so do the Soviet revisionists set in motion the voting machine in their own «United Nations» which they are seeking to call «international (communist movements But just as capitalist cliques detach themselves from the U.S. dictate, just as there are those that sometimes kick at U.S. imperialism, so there are also revisionist cliques that detach themselves from the Soviet revisionists. There are also those who, being unable to detach themselves, kick at them at times (and there are also those who are permanently subservient to them.
The Budapest carnival-like conference was such a basketful of crabs. And the Soviet revisionists sought to establish order precisely where order can never be established.
Now, after the preparatory campaign and the Budapest meeting, when the centrifugal, nationalist and dissident tendencies in various revisionist groupings were further crystallized, the risks for the Soviet revisionists are more numerous and more comprehensive.
The main danger preoccupying them most and which has opened to them a new serious wound, comes from the revisionist cliques who are in power. It must be said that now none of them wants and tolerates the yoke of the Soviet revisionists any longer. In one way or another they all seek to get rid of it as soon as possible, but by preserving the appearance of «friendship» and «alliance» in so far as it can be preserved and by aiming at drawing as much economic and political advantages as possible from the created conjuncture which compels the Soviet revisionists, finding themselves under all-round blows and in weak positions, to make concessions after concessions in order to calm the «disobedient children».
However, as the centrifugal tendency is rapidly mounting, the revisionist cliques in power do not present a single and united front in their opposition to the Soviet hegemony and in their claims for independences from it. At present, the most aggressive wing, the detachment and the open corroding of the Soviet hegemony in the revisionist herd are represented by the Tito clique and their close friends. The latter, enjoying also the support and the visible instigation of U.S. imperialism and of the western upper bourgeoisie which are interested in further weakening the Soviet positions in Eastern Europe and in concluding the old alliances with these countries, openly challenge the Soviet leadership and counterpoise themselves as a new claimant to hegemony, if not comprehensive, at least political and ideological, over the revisionist parties of this area.
Other new followers of Tito’s example have begun also to advance on this road, but for the time being they prefer not to exasperate their differences with the Soviet revisionists because this would open to them a new front at a time when they have not yet consolidated their own internal positions.
The Gomulka clan is anti-Soviet to the extreme, but for immediate interests of the conjuncture, which stem especially from the policy towards Germany, it stands closer to the Soviet revisionists, trying to preserve the authority of a partner «equal» to them. In the same way, the Germans cannot; help being firmly opposed to the Soviet and all the other revisionists, but the issue of German Democratic Republic within the European framework is at the mercy of the Soviet revisionists and of their satellites. The other revisionist cliques of Eastern Europe are swimming in more or less similar waters.
The second danger, less grave than the first one, comes to the Soviet revisionists from the great legal revisionist parties in the capitalist countries. The Brezhnev-Kosygin clique is making every effort and resorting to all means to keep them attached to itself and to have their support. But in these parties, too, there is no identical conviction about the question as to what extent they should follow the Soviet revisionists, where they should part with and where they should be opposed to them. The French Communist Party of Waldeck Rochet, for well-known reasons, stands nearer to the Soviet revisionists and spares no pains to place itself at their service somewhat more than the others, meanwhile, the Italian revisionist party, which in comparison with the French is like a poor cousin to the Soviets, gives more kicks, in trying to appear more «independent», feigning to adopt an attitude of its own, a «special one». It is, so to speak, the Titoite party in capitalist countries.
The rest of the legal revisionist parties in capitalist countries, which live at the mercy of Moscow, make up the large part of the revisionist «UNO».
As far as the other illegal revisionist parties in capitalist countries are concerned they do not cause the least uneasiness to the Soviet revisionists. The leaders of these parties represent a mere agency of the Soviet revisionists, they are in their full service and they yield the complementary and obedient number of the votes in the Soviet «assembly». The immediate and ultimate objective of these revisionist parties is their legalization, pleading with the capitalists of their respective countries to allow them to act in the known forms of the bourgeois legal petty opposition.
Like all the other fellow revisionist parties, these parties have abandoned the revolutionary road, the class struggle, the armed struggle and they have adopted Khrushchov’s peaceful road of coexistence. Having betrayed Marxism-Leninism and having lost all ties with the masses, they have pinned all their hopes on the support which the Soviet revisionist policy and its alliance with U.S. imperialism and world capitalism can give them. They have now reduced themselves to the status of hooligans of revisionism, into a revisionist «bohemia», willing to sell itself out for a penny. The Soviet revisionists desire to legalize as soon as possible this contingent of agents with whom they act as they please. This was the aim of the directive of the Soviet and Greek revisionists — that all the Greek emigres, communists or not, should openly go to Greece at the time when that country was ruled by Venizelos and Papandreou. A similar policy has been and is being pursued by the revisionist party of Spain. The Soviet revisionists achieved this by sending Bugdash to Syria. This policy of legalization and renunciation to the struggle against imperialism and the ruling oligarchies has been suggested also to all the revisionist parties in Latin America.
In this trouble and unstable situation of the revisionist herd the Titoite trend, which is seeking to gain time so as to fully consummate the division, openly opposes the Soviet aims to convene as soon as possible a meeting that would support their plans. The clan of the old and young Titoites think that time is working for them, and that is why they have enough courage to challenge the Soviet revisionists at their most vulnerable points. For the Soviet clan the affair brooks no delay, they are trying to escape the sinking of the ship, to conclude something as soon as possible, before it is too late. They think, and practice has confirmed it to them, that through bilateral meetings of revisionist parties they can achieve but temporary bargainings, transactions and intrigues of small proportions. For home and foreign consumption, they have to organize from time to time, and the more often the better, some broad meeting of the revisionist parties to see how far they have got and to patch-up any rents. Therefore, the Soviet revisionists, despite the obstinate opposition of the Titoite trend, adopted in Budapest the decision that the coming meeting of the revisionist parties should be held in Moscow at the end of the current year. At this meeting they should discuss, under the smokescreen of the unity of the struggle against imperialism, the real problem preoccupying them — the coordinated fight against Marxism-Leninism,, against the Communist Party of China and the Party of Labor of Albania.
This objective of the coming meeting was quite categorically expressed by Suslov not only behind the scenes and in lobbies, but also in his official speech in Budapest. The agenda and the aims of the meeting, so much desired by the Soviet leaders, were still more clearly defined by the Polish representative Klishko. The crowd of the revisionist «hooligans» that constituted the majority of votes at the Budapest «UNO» acclaimed with a great zeal the meeting proposed by the Soviet leaders, for only at such a place can they deliver some speech or other just to have their voices heard. They should at least bark at times for the bones thrown to them.
In this way, the obstacles raised by the neo-Titoites on the road to the coming meeting could not overcome the obstinacy and pressure of the Soviet revisionist leaders. The condition laid down by them in order to support the Moscow meeting was a mere tactical manoeuver and that is why it could not be very effective. When they said that all the parties should be invited to the coming meeting, everybody knew that they did not mean either the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labor of Albania, or the new Marxist-Leninist parties, but they meant the Yugoslav Titoite party which has set forth as a first condition to «deign» to sit down at a revisionist general meeting, among other things, that of repudiating all what has been said about it in the documents of the 1957 and 1960 Moscow meetings. Tito demands now that not only the Soviets should publicly make self-criticism as Khrushchov did when he went to Belgrade in 1955, but everybody should kneel down before them. The Soviet revisionists, on their part, have in practice and on principle accepted such a thing, but as it seems, due to complicated conjunctures which they themselves have created they are not yet ready to consent that this be officially and noisily removed from the said documents and from the meeting to be held.
The Italian revisionists, too, who are not very enthusiastic about the coming meeting, sought to place before it their barricades, although of a different nature.
They want the corning meeting to be a bazaar to which all kinds of parties with their lock stock and barrel should be invited to take part, provided they bear a label inscribed with the words «democratic», «progressive», etc. They want this meeting to serve as a testimony to their first and sincere step towards integrating themselves into capitalism and to serving the capitalists of their country with devotion. The French supported this «genial discovery», provided such a meeting should take place after the one proposed by the Soviet revisionists.
All this shows that the Titoite trend was disposed not only to hinder the Soviet revisionists in their work in Budapest, but also to strive that the coming meeting demanded by the Soviet leaders should not take place. This revisionist wing is thus seeking to play in two fields: to exert pressure and blackmail on the Soviet revisionists, threatening them with a new revisionist grouping in the fold of modem revisionism and, at the same time, to gain still more credit and support of all kinds from the various capitalist groupings.
The cracks that took place in Budapest will cause further and great troubles to the Soviet revisionists. But, of course, the latter, too, will not remain with their arms folded. The consensus of revisionist opinion is that efforts must be made so that the «lost sheep» should return to the flock, either through lenient measures or through all sorts of pressure that the time could suggest and which would serve the preparation of the sham conference of «international communism» in Moscow.
It is a fact that the so-called «third position» that appeared in Budapest and which has Tito behind it, seems to have divided the roles with its Belgrade boss to act in two special directions: one towards the camouflaged revisionists and the other towards the intermediate capitalist forces.
The Yugoslav Titoites who were not in Budapest, but as a Yugoslav commentator wrote, «many communist parties that will be represented in Budapest have views identical to ours», in spite of their great joy and broad publicity which they devote to similar occasions, this time are not making much noise about the new cracks of Budapest. This is not accidental, they do not want to jeopardize and embarrass their followers. Having compromised themselves as open agents of U.S. imperialism), they left it to the neo-Titoites to approach and win over the so-called «neutrals»-, «independents» and all the camouflaged revisionists in the «international communist movement». And now it is beyond doubt that the neo-Titoites enjoy the support of these so-called «neutrals» when they raise the question of and cry out loud for the cessation of polemics, against holding a meeting which would encourage attacks on China and Albania, against allowing the Soviet leaders to decide what direction they pursue under whatever form it may be». They raise precisely the banner of these «neutrals», when they oppose the Soviet revisionists and demand that there should be held a conference but its aim should be the creation of a «broad anti-imperialist front» including the revisionists, communists, socialists, democrats, pacifists, etc., etc. In this way they come to the assistance of China’s Khrushchov who used to support these viewpoints.
Finding themselves under blows from all sides and seeking to avoid a further deepening of the cracks on the revisionist front, the Soviet revisionists were compelled to assent to the invitation later on to an open meeting of all the parties of all shades, provided it is not mixed up with theirs, or does not eliminate the former as the Titoites, the Italians and others are demanding.
In this way, two general tendencies were crystallized in Budapest: one to hold the meeting proposed by the Soviet revisionists, and then, to probably, hold the other. The second tendency is that they should not hold the meeting proposed by the Soviets, but hold another one without polemics, without ideological questions, only one of pure form, against imperialism, a meeting to which everybody may come, even the Pope of Rome if he likes. The thesis of the Soviet revisionists prevailed and upon this the Budapest fair came to an end. But this does not mean that the problem of the coming meeting, its character, its agenda and the question as to who will participate in it has been definitely settled. Until it is convened, if it will take place at all, it is very possible that mutual concessions and compromises will take place again between rival groups, that it will have an entirely different aspect and direction from what its designers are now thinking.
Now, following the Budapest meeting, some of its participants who, being not fully at one with the Soviet revisionists on all questions, are throwing out their chests and posing as the «brave men of the fair» making endless statements, writing articles and adopting decisions to convince public opinion that their action and line are allegedly purely Marxist-Leninist. According to them the polemics against the class enemies and parties must cease, the revisionists must not be criticized either for their foreign policy or for their home policy, they should be left in peace to act as they like, whatever they do is their own business. And all this theory, you see, is «living proletarian internationalism». In reality nothing can be more opportunist, more anti-Marxist and more anti-internationalist than this line of ceasing polemics. Lenin and Stalin, just as Marx and Engels, could not live even one minute without struggle, without polemics, without fighting most fiercely against the deviators and traitors to the cause of the proletariat and revolution. Their whole lives were nothing but an uninterrupted struggle, a polemics of the sharpest kind, of the most principled ones, against all the foes of communism.
It is an axiom for all the genuine communists that without struggle, without polemics there is no revolution, there is no Marxist-Leninist party, there is no socialism, there is no communism. But here are some gentlemen who pose as Leninists, and what Leninists indeed! Of the «purest» ones, who claim that there should be no more polemics, there should be no more criticism. This thesis was defended once also by Tito, when he was driven to the comer by the Informbureau for his treachery. At that time he rose allegedly against «interference» in the affairs of his party. By this he meant cleave me in peace to call myself a communist and to betray communism, leave me alone to become an agent of imperialisms as he in fact became.
Khrushchov, too, sought to pursue this road but could not do it. His anti-Marxist mask of «ceasing the polemics» burned in his hands and his successors no longer try to use it. They prefer other tactics and means to reduce some people to silence, but their old tactics which are presented by some as new, do not work anymore. One cannot sit on two chairs for a long time. There cannot exist Marxist-Leninist communists that should cease the fight against the modem revisionists, in the same way as there cannot exist revisionists that should not fight against the Marxist-Leninists. Those who are now demanding to cease polemics and who preach the peaceful line are scared to death by the other revisionists and want at all costs, treason not excluded, to have the aid and support of the capitalists. And the latter will give them this support because this «tactics», that is, the «middle line» in the labor movement serves their aims better.
The revisionists say that the aim of their meeting is the union of all the possible forces in struggle against imperialism, its aggressions, its threats, etc. but this is a deception of the most shameful ones, a base demagogy and a crude bluff. Of what fight against imperialism can the Soviet revisionists speak when they have made their alliance with the United States of America foil the division of the zones of influence and the establishment of the domination of the two great powers of the world the most fundamental basis of their entire policy? Do they perhaps fight imperialism by undermining the struggle of the Vietnamese people and supporting the U.S. overtly and covertly for the enslavement of the Vietnamese people? Did they perhaps defend the Arab people against the imperialist aggression when they left them in the lurch at one of the most critical ’moments and by making bargainings behind the scene with their avowed enemies? Or do they claim to support the liberation of the peoples when they approve in the UNO the U.S. armed intervention to suppress the Dominican insurgents, or when they grant credits and sell arms to the Indonesian hangmen, the murderers of hundreds of thousands of communists and upright patriots?
The series of betrayals of the supreme interests of revolution and liberation of peoples committed by the revisionists is endless. The world is witnessing everyday hundreds of thousands of acts of rapprochement and collaboration of the Soviet revisionists with U.S. imperialism, but it has not witnessed a single action of theirs, be it detached, opposed to its aggressive policy. Let us not go too far in search of examples. While in Budapest the Soviet revisionists were making demagogical appeals to unite on behalf of the fight against imperialism, their representatives in Geneva presented jointly with their U.S. colleagues at the 17 Nations Conference for the treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons a joint declaration in connection with the guarantees which the Soviet Union and the U.S.A. allegedly give to non-nuclear countries that will sign the treaty. The anti-China direction, the efforts to preserve the monopoly of the nuclear weapons and to exert atomic blackmail on the peoples, is something obvious. Of what anti-imperialism can one speak under these conditions?
«The anti-imperialism» the revisionists has never been substantiated, it is an empty word, a mask to camouflage the collaboration with imperialism. It is a demagogy with which they want to speculate, to deceive the peoples, to put out the flames of the war against imperialism which are spreading to all the continents.
At the Budapest meeting the Soviet revisionists could wrest from their partners the approval to go to Moscow for the meeting fixed to be held at the end of this year. The Kremlin leaders are now making a great fuss and furry and are beating all their propaganda drums presenting this as a great success. But this «success» is a victory like that of Pyrrhus. Many of the revisionists, for one reason or another, do not like the meeting, but they are obliged to hold it, for they have been compelled under the pressure of our fight, of the fight of the Chinese Communist Party, of the Party of Labor of Albania, of the triumph of the great proletarian cultural revolution in China, of the creation of the new Marxist-Leninist parties, of the upsurge of revolution and the national-liberation struggle of the peoples. They are compelled to place a cardboard barricade, a smokescreen, before these successes and this powerful march of Marxism-Leninism.
But every effort of theirs will be in vain, other greater defeats lie in store for them, still deeper splits will take place. The forthcoming Moscow meeting, too, will go to the waste basket as did the March 1965 meeting, that of Karlovy Vary and the Budapest meeting which just wound up its proceedings.
The decision of the revisionists to hold a general meeting of theirs is one thing, but what to raise there, how to raise it, what to decide, how to decide and communicate it, let alone how to implement it, is another sad story for the modern revisionists and, in the first place, for the Soviet revisionists. There are those who decided in Budapest, but there are also those who did not go there. In the first place there is Tito whom the Soviet revisionists need very much, because if he remains outside he spoils their affairs, if he comes in he claims great concessions. The Soviet revisionists are compelled to make concessions to him, but not as many as Tito likes, for the latter demands both the keys and the house, mother and father and the title deed.
The not distant future will again confirm what our Party has stated — that the division, degeneration and failure of the modem revisionists are inevitable. There has not existed and can never exist unity between them. They can never restore order in their herd. History has shown that who raises his hand against Marxism-Leninism, who joins the enemies of the working class and the bourgeoisie against revolution and the liberation of the peoples is faced with utter defeat, with the shameful end of all the traitors. The revisionists are seeking to turn back the wheel of the historic development of society, but that wheel is ruthlessly smashing and crushing them under its heavy weight.
Reproduced from the «Zeri i Popullit» daily, dated March 15, 1968.
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