From: Melbourne, Australia.
I have read with interest your first issue of 'Revolutionary Democracy' and I compliment you for your valuable and encouraging contribution to the cause of political debate in the international Marxist-Leninist movement, particularly in the current situation of ideological disorientation. I wish you success in upholding the principles of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Enver Hoxha in the future issues of your journal.
Fraternal Greetings.
N. Steinmayr.
From: Brussels, Belgium.
Thank you for the resolutions of the international seminar with the theme "Stalin Today". I hereby send you a copy of "Un autre regard sur Staline" (Another view on Stalin). We are making an English translation of it. This has nearly been achieved. I would very much appreciate it, if you could make a review of the English version.
With kind regards.
Ludo Martens
Party of Labour of Belgium.
From: Germany.
Congratulations on the first issue of your journal 'Revolutionary Democracy'. I think it may be an important contribution to the discussion on the Marxist-Leninist movement. I wish you success in your work. It is absolutely necessary to analyse why the first period of socialism failed, in terms of real Marxist analysis. If we cannot achieve this we will not be able to avoid the same errors in the future.
K.Th.
Member of the K.P.D.
From: Ischia-Naples, Italy.
The Editorial Board of the Italian Marxist-Leninist monthly paper 'L'Uguaglianza', on behalf of all the comrades and readers of the paper, and the Coordination Committee of Centre of Marxist Culture and Initiative (Ce.C.I.M.) send best wishes to the comrades of 'Revolutionary Democracy' on the occasion of the publication of the first issue of their journal. The study of Marxist-Leninist theory in the light of the new and changed international situation is of paramount importance and significance today. Therefore it is with enthusiasm that we greet the appearance of 'Revolutionary Democracy'. We are sure that the new journal will make a substantial contribution to the struggle for the cause of socialism and communism on the path traced by our great masters: Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Long Live 'Revolutionary Democracy'!
Long Live Marxism-Leninism!
Editorial Board, 'L'Uguaglianza', Centro di Cultura e Iniziativa Marxista.
From: Moscow, Russia.
We received the first issue of the journal 'Revolutionary Democracy'. We thank you very much.
Have you received the three numbers of the newspaper 'Proletarii'?
We consider that the publication of the journal 'Revolutionary Democracy' and its international circulation is an important step in the further development of the revolutionary science of the working class: Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism.
Your translation of the Programmatic Declaration of the AUCWG(B) into the English language is excellent and fully corresponds to the original text and in some cases the formulations are even better than it.
We will be highly thankful to you if you can possibly print our article "The World Revolutionary Process", which has been published in the first and second numbers of 'Proletarii', in the pages of 'Revolutionary Democracy.'
We are sending you photographs of the Moscow organisation of the Workers' Young Guard - the youth organisation of our Party - taken on the 9th of May 1995 at the demonstration commemorating the 50th anniversary of the destruction of Hitlerite fascism. Following the example of the great Italian revolutionary Garibaldi we wore red shirts - the symbol of the struggle for freedom.
With Bolshevist Greetings,
The All-Union Communist Workers' Guard (Bolshevik).
From: Moscow, Russia.
We have been in touch increasingly over the last few months and years. Our organization has fostered links with your organization as we see an imperative to re-build international links. At this time in the world, when the Marxist-Leninist forces have become so fragmented we feel that it is vitally important to promote principled dialogue.
It was for this reason that we actively participated in the International Seminar "Stalin Today" held in Moscow in November. But, this could only be an initial step for many more meetings. These meetings have two linked purposes: the need to critically discuss our history; and to physically form new organizations for the urgent tasks at hand for the world proletariat.
It is in this light that we recognize the importance of the forthcoming meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, called the "Conference for the Restoration of the Communist Party in Brazil". We feel sure that this meeting will clarify the current problems facing the peoples of Brazil. Upon this basis, we ourselves have sent an official greeting communication to the conference.
The Conference is to be held on May 1995. In the spirit of proletarian internationalism, we write to ask that your organization send a message of solidarity and greeting to the Conference, addressed to Albenzio Dias, Secretary of International Relations for the Provisional Commission of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Fraternally.
International Committee For The Restoration Of The Soviet Union
From: Turkey.
Marxist-Leninist Communist-Foundation sends its greetings and best wishes for Indian revolutionaries in general and the editors of the journal 'Revolutionary Democracy' in particular. We hope it will actively contribute to the formation of a real Marxist-Leninist vanguard of Indian proletariat, which will liberate the long suffering workers and toilers of India from the yoke of imperialism, big bourgeoisie and big landlords and carry India uninterrupted into socialism.
Long live Indian revolution!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party-Foundation.
From: Doimukh (Itanagar), Arunachal Pradesh.
The collapse of Soviet socialism has created an ideological crisis among the large number of left intellectuals of the third world. To the right wingers it has provided an opportunity to denigrate Marxism. Launching of the theoretical journal "Revolutionary Democracy" surely would eliminate this ideological confusion prevalent in the communist movement by focussing on the fundamental questions of theory and practice. This journal also would expose the global capitalism and concomitant cultural imperialism which is not only unsettling the indigenous but also trying to hegemonise it for legitimising a concept of social development modelled on the advanced capitalist societies.
The journal can play a very important role in providing a revolutionary sense of direction to the Dalits of India, especially of the cow-belt whose leadership is hobnobbing with communal parties for short-term gains and thus thwarting the revolutionary consciousness of the Dalits. It is expected from your journal to raise the women's question. I wish the journal a grand success.
Jagdish Lal Dawar
Department of History
Arunachal University.
From: Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.
These are very uncertain and confusing days for those committed to a radical transformation of existing socio-economic systems on the basis of a broadly Marxist vision and Marxist theory of man, his destiny and history. The Russian revolution, which was the first historical articulation and the practical realisation of the vision and the subsequent socialist revolutions around the globe, held out for the masses - the oppressed and the exploited, the doomed and the damned, everywhere - the hope that they, too, might get a chance to live and die like human beings - in dignity, security and community. The enemy of this hope, global capitalism, has been since 1917 kept in perpetual check, and in the shadow of the possibility of its historical extinction. But the so-called collapse of the Soviet Union and the engineered retreat of socialist systems into free enterprise and market systems, since the start of the 1990s have been a grievous blow to every revolutionary hope, at least temporarily. What is worse has been the traumatic impact, disorienting and defusing of revolutionary forces everywhere. The illusions and webs of deception cast over historical events by our enemies and also our own unpreparedness have made the situation seem worse from our point of view than what it really is. In other words, Marxists and communists and other radical forces have no reason to be disheartened, though they have plenty of reason to reflect self-critically on these events.
It is against this background that one should greet most enthusiastically and unequivocally the new journal, 'Revolutionary Democracy', produced with rare courage, grit and political acumen by Vijay Singh and C.N. Subramaniam. The title of this journal is crucial for it couples democracy with revolution, thus preventing the hijacking of democracy by the counter-revolutionary camps. In fact, in the deepest sense, revolution and democracy are indissoluble both theoretically and practically. This inaugural issue is particularly welcome because it tries to expose the lies spread by the counter-revolutionary camps about Russia, especially propagating the utter lie that what is happening there is a collapse of a revolutionary core, and demonstrating through authentic and irrefutable evidence that it is, in fact, not a collapse but a complex re-structuring and reinforcing of the revolutionary core that turned the tides of history in the right direction in 1917. Armed with invaluable documentation, this issue shows that the revolution goes on, maybe in a new historical morphology. One should be grateful to Vijay Singh for providing a detailed historical and theoretical analysis of Stalin's economic policy to shows its essentially communistic-socialistic content. The material assembled here is very important because it has the potentiality for grounding optimism in the revolutionary-democratic historical project initiated by Lenin and sustained by Stalin. So, the spectre of communism continues to haunt the whole world!
Prof. K. Raghavendra Rao
Indian Institute of Advanced Study
From: New Delhi.
The end of the Soviet Union as a formal entity - both in terms of 'Soviet' and terms of 'Union'- came as a surprise to many. Ever since 1917 it was predicted hopefully by all reactionaries be they 'leftists' like the Trotskyites, or be they imperialists; and more so after the death of Stalin when the Marxist-Leninists were unhappy with the situation. But no one was expecting the demise so swiftly and clearly as it appeared on the media.
It is clear that the cancer of revisionism grew more and rapidly after the death of Stalin though obviously its cells were present even before. Both Lenin and Stalin were of the view that the class struggles did not end with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat but grew sharper. With the death of Stalin a dialectical leap backward was made towards the restoration of capitalism in the USSR.
The Stalin question is important today as never before and it is felt so by all Marxist-Leninists, though it is a rare and brave journal that treats this except to denigrate the figure of Stalin in the hackneyed topics of 'purges' and repression', all of which was there and some of it unfortunate and erroneous. It is refreshing to come across a stand that deals with his theoretical position on less quoted but nevertheless important issues like 'the role of commodity production in socialism', 'the reducing of the area of operation of money', 'the forms of property', of 'value categories' and the 'contradiction between the relations and forces of production' in the USSR. That there were lively debates on these issues within the CPSU is heartening to know - I hope the editors plan to bring out full issues on each of these because there is a woeful lack of knowledge and exposure even among the leftists such as do remain on these issues.
That the cancer spread is clear from the smashing of the Machine Tractor Stations under Khrushchev in the name of 'independence'. That they were the links which the Party had with the peasants in the collective farms is often forgotten. These links are vital in a centrally planned system as conduits of a feedback for proper coordination. Independence in operations is all very well for day-to-day activity, but in a vast and unevenly developed country, coordination is the key for equalising the unevenness, without this feedback the false need for independence becomes actual and genuine. This gives rise to unhealthy competition which is wasteful and increases the role of money and with it commodification in production areas - a thing that was sought to be reduced.
It is sad to see that Stalin faced a host of economist comrades who were in error and that these errors were of a cardinal nature. It can be ignored in ordinary laymen but not in those who are at the helm of affairs. The point however is why were they so much and so many in error?
A journal such as this promises to be, will have to plough its lonely path. But it is required. A suggestion I have for the editors. Too often have Soviet and Leftist critics as well as bourgeois theoreticians tailed western criticisms. It is time that principled stands are formulated on important issues like Environment, the Woman question, to name just two.
All in all I found the pieces in the first issue of 'Revolutionary Democracy' to be refreshing and clear.
All power to it!
Tanvir.
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