Today the communist movement is experiencing a grave but glorious moment of historic significance. Hardly two years have passed since the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union when Khrushchev launched his public attack on a Marxist-Leninist party, the Party of Labour of Albania, but how far he has gone along the path of splitting the unity of the socialist camp and the communist movement!
Life has confirmed that the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania was justified in issuing its statement on October 20, 1961, in which it drew attention to the fact that “by publicly denouncing the Party of Labour of Albania, Khrushchev has actually started an open attack on the unity of the international communist and workers’ movement”. Now we are witnessing the frontal attack which the modern revisionists, Khrushchev and his group are launching against Marxism-Leninism, the socialist camp and the communist and revolutionary movement in general.The July 14 Open Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union provides new facts to prove that, having failed in its plan to isolate the Marxist-Leninist parties of China, Albania and other socialist countries which did not submit to its dictates, the Khrushchev group has launched open attacks also on the revolutionary Communists in the Communist Parties of other countries such as Brazil, Belgium, Italy, the United States of America, Australia, India, Ceylon, and indeed, on all true revolutionary Communists.
The Khrushchev group justifies its attack upon revolutionary Communists with the slanderous charge that these revolutionaries are “incited”, “supported” and “organized” by the Marxist-Leninist parties. The Khrushchev group slanders those parties which defend Marxism-Leninism as if they organize and support the various anti-Party and renegade groups which carry on activities against the Communist Parties of the United States, Brazil, Italy, Belgium, Australia, India and others, as if they are carrying on disruptive work especially in the Communist and Workers’ Parties in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is clear that Khrushchev judges others by himself, applying his own revisionist yardstick to all. Thus, since he himself has engaged and is engaging in plots and splitting activities, he accuses others of being plotters and splitters; since he himself has found supporters among the enemies of communism and renegades from Marxism-Leninism, he accuses others of being supporters of renegades and of anti-Party elements; since he has built up his relations with his partners on a patriarchal basis of unconditional subservience to him, he accuses others of having violated the principles of proletarian internationalism or having become “tools” of others, etc.
By directing his blows against the revolutionary Communists in various Communist and Workers’ Parties, and trying to discredit them in the eyes of all Communists as “renegades” or “anti-Party” elements, Khrushchev hopes to curb the opposition which revisionism is meeting everywhere, and to eliminate the many obstacles which his revisionist line is facing. But the wrath, vile slanders and insults of the revisionists cannot stop the Communists, or curb their fighting will; on the contrary, these insults will boomerang onto the slanderers themselves. The Khrushchev group only strengthens the conviction of the revolutionary Communists in Brazil, Italy, Australia, Belgium, France, the United States of America and the other countries that they are on the right path, that they are defending a just cause, and that they are fulfilling a lofty, internationalist, proletarian and communist duty.
The revolutionary Communists of Brazil, France, Belgium, Italy, Australia and Britain, not to mention those of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries in Europe, have raised and are raising their voice of protest, have waged and are waging a battle to defend the purity of Marxism-Leninism. They see that the present leaders of their Parties have turned their backs on Marxism- Leninism and their revolutionary duties, submitted on bended knee to Khrushchev’s dictates and his anti-Marxist views, betrayed the historic mission of the proletariat and of the revolution by plunging into the mire of bourgeois pacifism and of utopian illusions about ascendency to power, grossly violated the programmes of their own Parties, broken the Leninist norms which guide internal Party life, unscrupulously violated the basic stipulations of their Party constitutions and infringed upon the most elementary prerogatives of Party members.
Acting on instructions from Khrushchev, the revisionist leaders of certain Communist and Workers’ Parties have striven and are still striving to keep the communist masses away from all debates by giving them no opportunity to become acquainted with the documents of the Communist Party of China or of the Party of Labour of Albania. Moreover, violating the rules governing internal Party life, these revisionist leaders have tabooed all serious discussion in the ranks of their Parties, threatening the Communists who dare to demand such a thing with disciplinary measures, even their expulsion. In fact, the revisionist leaders of certain Communist and Workers’ Parties have expelled many Communists from leadership and from their Party just for the “crime” of demanding the right to express their opinions freely in the organizations of the Party about the debate that is going on in the communist movement, or because they have asked that the leadership of the Party organize discussions in the Party on this matter. This is what the leadership of the Brazilian Communist Party and of the Belgian Communist Party have done. This is also what is being done by certain Parties in the socialist countries of Europe, where such acts are legalized by the Khrushchevian label: “struggle against the consequences of the cult of the individual”.
Modern revisionists claim for themselves the right to persecute Communists, to spread revisionist views, to sow dissension in the communist movement, whereas revolutionary Communists are denied the right to criticize carriers of opportunist views and those who stifle inner Party democracy, and are deprived the right to defend the revolutionary traditions of their working class and to demand the observance of the norms, constitutions and programmes of their Parties.
Modern revisionists consider it their right to betray the cause of the working class, to encroach upon the aspirations and sap the will of the masses of the Party, whereas they deny revolutionary Communists the right to defend Marxism-Leninism, under the absurd pretext that this is an expression of factionalism, dissension and plotting.
The terror imposed by modern revisionists, and their oppressive measures against Marxist-Leninists cannot prevent the latter from fulfilling their imperative internationalist task which is to wage a determined, principled struggle against modern revisionism. The legitimate demand of the communist masses to freely express their ideas in defense of Marxism-Leninism is growing stronger from day to day and is placing the revisionist leaders of various Parties in an ever more critical position. Opposition to the opportunist views of the revisionist leaders, the exposure of the U.S. imperialists’ policies of aggression and war, and the exposure of the anti-Marxist views and divisive deeds of the Khrushchev-Tito group — this is a just battle which the revolutionary Communists are waging, in a united front with the Marxist-Leninist parties which openly defy modern revisionism, to destroy the positions of the treacherous groups which hold sway now.
Khrushchev and his followers wish the poniard with which they are stabbing the communist movement and Marxism-Leninism would pierce as deeply as though it were going through butter and the revolutionary Communists would be mere onlookers. The Khrushchev group would like Communists to simply look on when they trample the Moscow Declarations underfoot; to applaud when they make peace and collaborate with the Belgrade renegades; to congratulate them for turning the congresses of the Communist Parties into platforms from which to split the unity of the international communist and workers’ movement; to embrace them when they collaborate with the imperialists to the detriment of the vital interests of the revolution, the Soviet Union, the socialist camp and the liberty and national independence of the peoples; and to hail them when they take the side of Nehru and help and support him politically, morally and militarily in his aggressive plan against a socialist country. Khrushchev would like Communists to lavish praise on him and call him the “Lenin of our day” when he and his group scatter far and wide the seeds of revisionism, when they quell the revolutionary fervor of the proletariat, when they strive to paralyze the struggle of the working class against the imperialist bourgeoisie and capitalism, when they strive to lay an embargo on the revolutionary and national liberation movements, when they undermine peace in the name of peace, when they encourage the imperialists’ plans to restore capitalism in the socialist countries through “evolution” and the spread of the “ideal” of the free world.
But Communists cannot stand with folded hands before a betrayal of this kind. The teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, Marxism-Leninism, the objective reality of our day all call upon Communists and proletarians to unite in battle against their class enemy, the imperialist bourgeoisie, against opportunism and betrayal. This vital call is finding a ready response among revolutionary Communists both in the socialist as well as in the capitalist countries. They are organizing themselves, establishing connections among themselves, and, in a revolutionary way and in conformity with the specific conditions of their own countries, they are carrying on their struggle in various legal and illegal forms through publications, petitions, etc. They are doing this in order to rescue the Parties of the working class from revisionist degeneration, revisionism and smash the attempts of the revisionists to stay in power against the will of the masses in their Parties.' Revolutionary Communists are fighting and will shatter the attempts of the revisionists to bend the members and organizations of the various Parties one after another in order to transform the Communist Parties into social- democratic parties which collaborate openly with reaction.
According to the teachings of Marxism- Leninism, the Communists must form revolutionary organizations in the heat of battle against the imperialists and revisionists to meet the grave situation which the imperialists and their lackeys, the revisionists, have created. They must set up organizations which will know how to keep clear of opportunist betrayal. They must know how to get rid of revisionist leaders who are stifling the revolutionary energy of the people and who, though formally adhering to the Workers’ Parties, are objectively becoming political detachments of the imperialist bourgeoisie, disseminators of its influence and finally its agents in the ranks of the workers’ and communist movement, just as the Tito clique is.
In the face of the plot of the modern revisionists and imperialists, the hour of the great call has come for international communism and all revolutionaries in the world: Proletarians of all countries, unite! Oppressed peoples and nations, unite, to struggle against imperialism and revisionism!
The international Communists who have risen to wage the struggle against revisionism are well aware of the hardships and sacrifices it entails; they are well aware that it is not a single battle but a long and intricate struggle, for they find themselves under the cross-fire of the bourgeoisie and the revisionists.
The revolutionary Communists whom Khrushchev attacks are not alone in their just fight against revisionism. They are the Marxist-Leninist nucleus; they will grow and wax strong as a just, natural and irresistible counter-action. Like an avalanche which constantly gathers momentum, they will sweep away every obstacle which the modern revisionists try to place in the path of the proletariat in its historical development towards socialism and communism. These revolutionary Communists enjoy the full respect and fraternal solidarity of all Communists and proletarians in the world. A true internationalist cannot fail to consider their struggle as his own, or to feel a member of the Marxist-Leninist front against revisionism. No true Communist today can stand aloof. It behoves every Communist to fight selflessly and with fervor and determination in defense of the lofty ideals of his cause, the cause of the working class, of his people and of Marxism-Leninism. This great and glorious class battle will end with the triumph of Marxism-Leninism and the inevitable and complete defeat of modern revisionism.
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