The following is a translation of an article from Persian, published in Sholajwid # 17, June 2018.

A Glimpse at the Joint International Statement of the Eight Latin American Maoist Parties and Organizations

The Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan did not expect that this year the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations would be unable to come to an agreement on a joint international May Day statement, but unfortunately this was the situation. This year, on international workers day, two separate joint statements were issued, both with the slogan of “Proletariats of the world, unite!” One of these statements was signed by the C(M)PA and the other was the statement of eight South American Maoist parties and organizations. Although both statements have multiple shortcomings, the joint statement by the eight South American Maoist parties and organizations was in terrible shape.

The following is a preliminary review of the latter. In this preliminary review, shortcomings, errors, and deviations have merely been highlighted and a brief commentary has been provided.

A) There is no doubt about the unprecedented ripeness of the objective conditions (social production) for world proletarian revolution. However, the subjective condition for world proletarian revolution is not only backwards but extremely so, therefore we should fight against this subjective backwardness with all our might so that it will be gradually eliminated.
For example, let us examine the formulation of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism in the statement. The signatories consider themselves the most advanced proletarian revolutionaries in the world and they insist so much on this claim that they have justified their sectarianism with the publication of a separate May Day statement, considering themselves to be 100 per cent correct.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is an interconnected totality that illustrates different phases of the construction and evolution of proletarian ideology. Therefore, it is written and put into practice as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism not as Marxism, Leninism and Maoism. Although in other parts of the statement the formulation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism has been observed, this one single case should be criticised because it demonstrates an incorrect understanding of MLM.
B) The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement at its 1993 Expanded Meeting affirmed the international acceptance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Despite that we are far away from its absolute consolidation, far away.
C) At this moment claiming a further evolution of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is baseless, whether these claims are the revisionism of “Prachanda Path” and “Avakian’s New Synthesis” or the deviationism of “Gonzalo Thought.” Our party has always emphasized that premature assertions such as Gonzalo Thought, Prachanda Path, and the Avakianite New Synthesis are historically responsible for the collapse of RIM. Avakian’s New Sythesis at the level of post-MLM revisionism carries the primary burden, Prachanda Path at the level of Prachanda’s revisionism is secondary, and Gonzalo Thought is the third deviation that bears the historical responsibility for this collapse. Although the first and second errors have done their damage and then pursued their own affairs, the third error is continuing to play a negative historical role and was even behind the composition of a joint international statement in celebration of international workers day to promote sectarianism.
Therefore, it is necessary that––alongside the principled theoretical, ideological and political struggles based on MLM against Avakian’s New Synthesis and Prachanda Path revisionisms––a struggle should also be waged against the deviation that has emerged as Gonzalo Thought. The C(M)PA is no longer obliged to keep the struggles against the latter internal but deems it totally necessary to begin carrying out such a struggle at the international level.
D) Arming the working class with MLM is a task that remains and needs to be deepened and expanded in the entire different phases of the struggle: i) the struggle for the formation of MLM parties and organizations; ii) the preparation for initiating and carrying forward people’s war; iii) the initiation and promulgation of people’s war and its different phases of strategic defensive, strategic equilibrium, and strategic offensive; iv) the New Democratic Revolution and its transition to socialism or Socialist Revolution; v) the construction of socialism; vi) the continuation of revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat through multiple cultural revolutions until the establishment of a classless communist world.
Now the international MLM movement in different countries is mostly in the first and second stages of the struggle (struggle for the formation, or re-formation, of MLM parties and organizations; preparation for initiating, or re-initiating, and carrying forward people’s war) and is facing serious challenges and dangers in their struggle. Even the Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction) which is the largest force among the signatories of the statement in question, is at the stage of preparation for initiating the people’s war and is distant from arming the working class with the proletarian revolutionary ideology (MLM) even at the level required to initiate people’s war in Brazil. In this situation how can one declare that the task of arming the working class with MLM as a task that has ended? This kind of understanding would lead to nothing but negligence in the task to increasingly connect MLM with the struggles of the workers and the masses around the world.
On the other hand, internationally and in relation to re-establishing a new MLM international organization to fill the gap of RIM, at least a decade has passed, and we have not succeeded.
A serous step towards this re-establishment was the Special Meeting of member parties and organizations of RIM. Unfortunately, the meeting remained limited to three parties (Maoist Communist Party of Italy, C(M)PA, and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbari). But the resolutions of this meeting about the necessity of holding a new international conference of MLM parties (including parties and organizations that were members of RIM as well as parties and organizations who had not been RIM members) for re-establishing RIM or forming a new Maoist international organization replacing RIM was a progressive and timely step that was further strengthened with the merger of the two Indian Maoist parties into a single party (CPI-Maoist). The unpleasant incident of the arrest of comrade Ajith by Indian police was not only a serious blow for CPI-Maoist but was also a serious blow for struggles in implementing the resolutions of the Special Meeting of RIM.
In these circumstances at least, the publication of the joint international May Day statement of the Maoist parties and organizations should have continued. But this joint international Maoist effort has, for many years, dealt with the occasional challenges by parties and organizations that tend towards Gonzalo Thought. This challenge was amplified this year as it was widened to include the eight parties and organizations in Latin America. How can this short-sighted sectarianism at the international level be justified?
Therefore, the struggles for arming the working class with MLM and the struggle to formulate a line and orientation for the international communist Maoist movement––forming an international Maoist conference and forming an international communist Maoist organization––is a task that needs to be pursued and should not be considered to have ended.
We are speaking of MLM, not of MLM-Avakian’s New Synthesis, not of MLM-Prachanda Path, not of MLM-Gonzalo Thought. Deviationist efforts to impose formulations based on Gonzalo Thought over the entire international Maoist movement will not have a positive outcome. Previously the revisionist efforts to impose formulations based on Prachanda Path and, particularly, Avakian’s New Synthesis over the entire Maoist movement did not have positive results and reached nowhere. These negative efforts more than others have harmed the perpetrators and will also continue to do so in the future.

Absolute and unconditional mechanical determinism does not exist in MLM. In fact, not only is constant failure not the unconditional, mechanical, and absolute fate of imperialism, but an unavoidable, historically determined, and absolute mechanical and unconditional victory of the people cannot exist either. Indeed, the aforementioned failure and victory, based on the assertion of the statement itself, “needs the proletarian vanguard to make it true as soon as possible.”
Hence, in one sentence the statement asserts unconditional, mechanical and absolute determinism, but in the next makes this determinism relative, dialectical, and conditional.
Currently, the irrevocable task of the international MLM movement is to struggle to eliminate the subjective backwardness of revolutionaries in relation to the revolution’s objective factors. Clearly this struggle is a conscious effort based on the principal importance of revolutionary consciousness for the revolutionary transformation of the world, that in the current circumstance should consciously be carried out by MLM revolutionaries. In such circumstances drumming up unconditional, mechanical, and absolute determinism either would lead to rightist economism or leftist adventurism.

There is no doubt that in countries under imperialist domination that are colonial/semi-feudal, or semi-feudal/semi-colonial, the peasantry is the principal force of revolution, part of the New Democratic Revolution. But in other countries dominated by imperialism, in which comprador capitalism has become dominant, in which semi-feudalism is not the dominant condition, the peasantry is not the principal force of revolution. Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Iran, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and all the republics in Central Asia and Caucasus that have emerged after the dissolution of Soviet social-imperialism and found themselves in semi-colonial domination could be counted in this category.
Moreover, revisionist China has become a social-imperialist power and is moving towards becoming a global superpower. This country is currently the second economic power after the US, is the biggest economic power in Asia, is the biggest investor of foreign capital in Africa, and is moving towards becoming the biggest investor of foreign capital in Asia. China is second to the US in terms of military spending. Therefore, the economic system in this country is social-imperialist capitalism with strong streaks of compradorism coupled with remnants of semi-feudalism/semi-feudal relations. The dominant social relations of production in China are not semi-feudal. Thus, not only in the cities of China but also in the countryside social-imperialist capitalist relations of production are dominant and the semi-feudal relations of production have either been eliminated or have been pushed to the margins. For this reason, in today’s China, the peasantry is not the principal force of revolution, and the revolution in that country would be a direct socialist revolution, which would at the same time eliminate the remnants of semi-feudalism, and the strong streaks of comprador capitalism that is represented by the relative domination of Western and Japanese imperialist economic domination.
Therefore, it could be said that the peasantry does not form half of the world’s population and is not forming the principal force of revolution at the global level. It was more than a decade ago that city dwellers overtook country dwellers for first time in human history, and undoubtedly this global trend has continued. Therefore, currently the peasantry does not form half of the world’s population.
Despite this the role of the peasant class in New Democratic Revolution in all colonial/semi-feudal and semi-feudal/semi-colonial countries is of prime importance and should be considered the principal force of revolution in these societies.

Yankee imperialism (“The fat dog”) is the sole global superpower but only the principal enemy of the majority of the peoples of the world, not the principal enemy of the all the peoples of the world, because it is in a situation of aggressive war against the majority of the oppressed peoples and nations of the world and not in a position of aggressive war against all of them. This sole superpower is the principal enemy of the oppressed nations and peoples of the world that it has invaded and occupied. But the principal enemy of the oppressed peoples and nations of other countries, that this sole superpower is dominating in semi-colonial manner, is the domestic reactionary forces. For example, the principal enemy of the people of Brazil and similarly the principal enemy of the people of India is the reactionary feudal-comprador ruling classes in those countries and the contradiction with imperialism, particularly the contradiction with Yankee imperialism, does not constitute the current principal contradiction in those countries.
Moreover, Yankee imperialism is not at the helm of all wars of aggression against the oppressed peoples and nations of the world. For example, the foreign imperialist military bases present in Tajikistan are not Yankee because they belong to Russian imperialism. These forces have a presence in Tajikistan with the agreement of the government of Tajikistan but are in a situation of aggression against the people and nation of Tajikistan. Yankee imperialism is not at the helm of the imperialist war imposed on the peoples of Syria to the extent that it is related to the aggressive occupying Russian military bases in Syria; it even could be said that recently the Russian imperialist aggression compared with the American imperialist aggression has been heavier. Similarly, there are many aggressive occupying European imperialist forces in countries in the African continent.
Russian imperialism (“the skinny dog”) is the principal enemy of the oppressed peoples and nations that belonged to the sphere of Soviet social-imperialism which are under actual Russian forces occupation. The “skinniness” of this imperialist “dog” can be verified by the fact that currently the annual military budget of China is more than the annual military budget of Russia, and the annual military budget of Saudi Arabia—after its aggression against Yemen—is more than the annual military budget of Russia. In this way, based on the annual military expenditure in the world: Yankee imperialism is number one, Chinese social imperialism is number two, the reactionary Saudi state is number three, and Russia is number four.
In this regard, the statement is silent about the role of Chinese social-imperialism, the “fat dog” number two which is becoming a global superpower. This “fat dog”, and the biggest atomic power of the world after Russia, has recently invaded a big region in the South China Sea and occupied all its islands. In fact, the statement still considers Chinese social-imperialism as part of the “third world.”
Anyhow, according to the statement, Yankee imperialism is the first world and the principal enemy of the people of the world; Russian imperialism along with other imperialist powers is part of the second world, and the rest of the countries, including China, are considered part of the third world. This understanding has been described in detail in a document of the Communist Party of Brazil-Red Faction, published earlier. On the other hand, declaring the Yankee imperialism the principal enemy of the people of the world, is in reality repeating the mistake of the anti-Fascist popular front during the second world war, which declared Nazism and Fascism as the principal enemy of the people of the world.
We will postpone a detailed discussion of this issue for a later date.

When does a revolutionary situation come into being? When the authority of the old reactionary ruling classes is in crisis and the masses of the people are no more willing to accept that authority. In other words, a revolutionary situation comes into being when the subjective and objective conditions of revolution have materialised. In fact, since the subjective conditions of revolution are lagging the objective conditions of revolution at the global level and at the level of different countries, a revolutionary situation will not emerge globally nor in different countries of the world.
If we merely conclude by observing, in this situation, “that the old reactionary States have already reached an advanced stage of decomposition and sinking,” therefore, a “revolutionary situation develops unevenly and persistently,” then we should ask what is the role of revolutionary consciousness in creating a revolutionary situation, and at what time does it begin? Indeed, it should firmly be stated that the emergence of a revolutionary situation, besides favourable objective conditions, requires the favourable subjective conditions for the growth of the revolutionary movement. As Lenin has stated a revolutionary movement cannot come into being without revolutionary theory.

The “exhaustion of the general offensive of the counterrevolution” is clear, but this offensive exists and continues and, in relation to this situation, the revolution is in general defensive, and is even in the situation of preparation for the defensive. Years ago, the Communist Party of Peru saw the people’s war under its leadership at the stage of strategic equilibrium, which was the most advanced in the world, but was announcing the trend of revolution at the stage of strategic offensive. Now this statement, based on observing the de-legitimation of bourgeois elections, is announcing the “exhaustion of the general offensive of the counterrevolution” and the crisis of the ruling classes, and the unprecedented and persistent growth of the revolutionary situation, without noticing that no matter how rotten the reactionary old system has become it will not go away until it has been defeated. We should not forget Lenin’s maxim on this.

“The USA…through its war of aggression for the partition and new repartitions of the so-called Extended Middle East” is not alone; several European imperialist powers are active participants as the USA’s close allies. For example, the aggressive British and French imperialist forces in recent missile and air strikes on Syria, the British forces in the war of aggression and occupation of Iraq, and also the imperialist forces of Britain, French and Italy with their missile and air strikes on Libya. However, the widest western imperialist alliance under the leadership of Yankee imperialism was and still exists in the aggressive war and occupation of Afghanistan.
Moreover, part of America’s aggressive imperialist war for the partition and new repartitions of the greater Middle East, that benefits its allies and satraps, is carried forward by the Israeli Zionist state against Palestine and Syria, the reactionary Saudi state against Yemen, and the reactionary Iranian regime against Iraq. In addition, the aggressive war of Russian imperialists upon Syria is part of this process of the greater Middle East’s partition/repartition. The military role of aggressive Iranian forces alongside equally aggressive Russian imperialism in the war upon Syria is clear.
These issues have also been underscored in the later sections of the statement.
Given this entire situation, it should be stated that Yankee imperialism is not the only principal enemy of the people of the world, and that the principal contradiction in the world is between the oppressed peoples/nations and the imperialist powers––not merely between the oppressed peoples/nations and Yankee imperialism.

As part of this war of aggression and genocides we are witnessing the use of reactionary nationalist movements to deviate the struggles of national liberation, like the one headed by the opportunist landlord-bourgeois leadership of PKK, which dragged part of the Kurdish masses into becoming pawns and cannon fodder for the imperialist plans of occupation and plunder of the region, serving the imperialist goals of the partition of Syria into areas of influence.
We need to pause to consider a few issues raised above…
First:  At least the last military failure of the US and its allies in their aggression against Syria was mainly due to the direct military confrontation with Russia. This fact indicates that Russian imperialism should also be considered an effective force in the entire imperialist aggressive and occupying war in the greater Middle East.
Second: The Theocratic Republic in Iran has so far been able to side with the American imperialists in the war and occupation of Iraq as well as side with the Russian occupying forces in Syria.
Third: The stance of the statement against the Kurdistan Workers Party and Kurdish forces allied with it in Syria, that is their caputulationist politics in regard to the Yankee imperialist war in Syria, is clear and defensible. What is unclear and indefensible is the joint international May Day statement of 2017 and 2018 on this issue, which the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan did not agree with, though in general supported both statements and signed them.
 Fourth: The reactionary pan-Islamist forces such as ISIS, al-Qaida, Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Taliban, as well as Islamist movements reliant upon and close to these forces in other countries in the greater Middle East, including in north Africa, elsewhere in Africa and in central Asia representing the interests of feudalism, and bourgeois comprador, either at war with imperialist occupying forces or in connection with reactionary states in the region, are also major players in the greater Middle East. However, both joint Maoist international May Day statements this year were either silent or unclear and ambiguous on this issue. Our party has an obligation on this matter, which we will carry forward as soon as possible.

Here three points are worth examining:
First: We should not only talk of “forging the instrument capable of developing the New Democratic Revolution” but we should talk about the instruments capable of developing the New Democratic Revolution. These three instruments, or three weapons, include: the communist party, the people’s army, and the revolutionary united front. It is not entirely clear which of these instruments the statement refers to. Does it mean forging the communist party as the most important weapon out of the three weapons of revolution, forging the people’s army, or forging the united front?
However, currently there is no people’s war in Turkey. The C(M)PA did not agree with the joint international May Day statement about the existence of a people’s war in Turkey, neither previously nor this year. Raising such baseless claims in an international statement will damage the reputation of the statement and its signatories and benefits no one. There is an Afghan proverb which says: “you cannot sweeten your mouth by uttering/saying halva, halva…”
Second: Proposing the unity of the Turkish and Kurdish people only within the revolutionary united front is incorrect. Firstly, the entire revolutionary movement of Maoists in Turkey–– including Turkish, Kurdish, and Maoists of other nationalities, as representatives of all the working class in Turkey––should unite in an MLM communist party for all of Turkey. Following this, it is necessary that a revolutionary army for all of Turkey should be established. Thirdly, the oppressed peoples in Turkey, including Kurdish and other oppressed peoples, should unite the Turkish people in the revolutionary united front. In this regard the unity of the entire revolutionary Maoist movement in Turkey in a unified MLM communist party is of primary importance and only on this basis can the people’s army and the revolutionary united front for all of Turkey be established. 
Third: Absolute leadership of the communist party over the revolutionary united front is unachievable, because all social classes join the revolutionary united front for securing their class interests and will never let go of their class interests. Thus, there is always a struggle over the leadership among different political and class forces within the revolutionary united front and the communist party, from the beginning until the end, should strive to ensure, develop, and expand proletarian leadership.
Even absolute proletarian leadership over the communist party cannot always exist, because this leadership is condemned/forced to constantly engage in two-line struggle to strive for retaining and strengthening proletarian leadership over the party against deviationist lines within the party. Indeed, since there cannot be a monolithic party, a monolithic revolutionary united front will definitely not exist.
There are two problems with the theoretical formulation of the “unified/centralized leadership of the party, army and revolutionary united front” in the theories of the Communist Party of Peru, as part of Gonzalo Thought:
Firstly, this formulation considers the method of the leadership over the people’s army applicable to leadership over the revolutionary united front and over the party. In reality, ensuring proletarian ideological and political leadership over the party, ensuring the political leadership of the party over the revolutionary united front, and ensuring the political-military leadership of the party over the people’s army are essentially different from each other. We cannot call the essence and form of the three levels of leadership in parity and at the same level.
Secondly, this formulation is related to the theory of Jefatura in the Communist Party of Peru.

Here it is worth pausing to consider the existence of the people’s war in Peru. C(M)PA does not agree that there currently exists a people’s war in Peru, a claim made in both the previous Joint May Day statement and the two of this year. In fact, it should be stated that the people’s war in Peru ended with the arrest of Fylisano in 1999. Two decades have passed since then. During these two decades to claim that there exists a people’s war in Peru, as both May Day statements this year have done (the statement that we signed and the statement under discussion), is erroneous. The fact is that what exists in the “heights of Vizcatan” in Peru are party and non-party armed groups. Such armed groups, either publicly or underground, still exist in Nepal, but there is no people’s war in that country.
It appears that the Communist Party of Peru after two decades since the arrest of Gonzalo—which was the beginning of the end of the people’s war in Peru, causing the serious weakening and then fragmentation of the party into multiple factions—has not been able to carry its principal duty of reorganizing the party. Such a reorganization should be based on a deep evaluation of the ideological-political and organizational factors for the victories of the party and the people’s war in the 80s and then the subsequent defeats of the party and the people’s war in the 90s. Without such a deep and comprehensive evaluation/scrutiny the PCP cannot reorganize and reverse its collapse. Therefore, how can it give “a new powerful impulse” to the defeated people’s war and restart it? When, after the passage of many years since the aforementioned defeats, such an evaluation has not yet taken place, it could be said that the party has been unable to fulfil this task.
C(M)PA is hopeful that the PCP will quickly change this weakness into strength and firstly fulfil the task of reorganizing the party so that it can give a powerful impulse to the people’s war by relaunching it.
It should strongly be stated that without a comprehensive evaluation of its past, including both the victories and failures of the party and the peoples war, the PCP cannot reorganize itself and cannot restart the people’s war. Towards this end the PCP should rely on the positive achievements of the first congress of the party in 1986, but this alone is not enough. The party should identify the shortcomings of the congress. Based on the comprehensive evaluation of the positive and negative experiences of the past and deploying the outcomes of this evaluation in revolutionary practice and formalizing their results in the second congress of the party, the party should form a new ideological-political and organizational basis for itself. Relying on a 32 years old congress is clearly insufficient.

We think the theory of continental revolution was wrong even during the time of Marx and Engels. The short lifespan of the Paris Commune, since it remained alone, adequately demonstrated this fact. Furthermore, the theory of continental revolution is also wrong about Latin America. Two decades of the people’s war in Peru, which remained alone and was finally defeated alone, is clear evidence of this.
On the other hand, the theory of general insurrection leading to a New Democratic Revolution is also incorrect. We should not ignore the protracted nature of people’s war even at the level of a single country. Mao Zedong has stated that a single spark can start a prairie fire, but he did not mean that a single spark could ignite the fire of people’s war across China. Mao Zedong insisted on the protracted nature of people’s war, considering it an important characteristic.
As we noted above, currently there is no people’s war in Peru. For this reason, if the if a people’s war starts in any other Latin American country, it would not be counted as the second people’s war in Latin America.
Latin America includes many countries, and despite most of it being Spanish speaking, each country has its own particular political, economic, social, and cultural conditions. Moreover, the biggest country in Latin America (Brazil) is Portuguese speaking and this characteristic makes it different from the rest of Latin America. The Maoist forces in other countries of Latin America all have their own characteristics. Given this situation the “great fires of people’s war” that will burn the entire prairie will not immediately occur. The start of a people’s war or people’s wars in Latin America will not eliminate the uneven political, economic, social, cultural––and particularly will not eliminate the uneven military development––that exists between the countries of that continent, nor will it transform the latter into a single country.  
Here it is worth examining the situation in the Indian subcontinent. The countries in this region have many historical, cultural, economic and political similarities with countries in Latin America, as well as their own particular characteristics. There have been several decades of people’s war in India and also there was a people’s war for several years in Nepal. However, even in Bangladesh, which had a strong Maoist movement and for several years armed revolutionary activities existed there, the fire of people’s war did not ignite, nor has this fire even started in Pakistan that, unfortunately so far, has lacked a genuine Maoist movement.

Essentially victory in a demonstration, though, is not a victory that can be considered “a complete victory of the international communist movement,” even if the demonstration takes place under the leadership of the communists. Clearly raising the flag of Maoism in a demonstration and preventing it from being taken down is a victory that should not be ignored, but it should not be exaggerated and declared “a complete victory” for the international proletariat. Whether the German imperialist state can stop the march of the proletariat in Germany for the reconstitution of a communist party or not depends on many factors, including the maturity and enlargement of the communist Maoist movement, as well as the preparedness or lack of preparedness of the working class in Germany. Prevention or progress of this march is not an immediate, absolute, mechanical and unconditional objective determination of revolutionary victory. We hope this historical march will succeed soon and all should strive to aid in its advance.
Advancements in the implementation of Maoism within the bellies of the imperialist beasts in Europe, for establishing or re-establishing Maoist communist parties, exist in several European countries. However, the great theoretical hurdle preventing their rapid progress is not the issue of the strategy of people’s war in general, a strategy that should be accepted by the entire international Maoist movement, but in fact the problematic of the modality of people’s war in imperialist countries that so far has not been resolved by the international Maoist movement nor by the Maoist forces in imperialist countries. What has been expressed at the level of the international Maoist movement, as well as particular Maoist forces in imperialist countries, is to question the 1917 October Revolution as a general model applicable to imperialist countries, but without sketching a concrete theoretical model of implementing people’s war in opposition to the October 1917 model.
We believe that providing such a clear theoretical model is the task of an international Maoist conference and it should be resolved at the international level. Sectarian formulations and actions that result in the further dispersion of the international Maoist forces will also not result in anything and will go nowhere practically.

The re-flourishing of Maoism in the US is a positive development. This positive development at the level of the reappearance of the communist movement in the US, the understanding of the necessity to form an MLM communist party by this newly emerged Maoist movement, should principally and rapidly grow to the level of a party. Naturally this progress in its own way is a blow to Yankee imperialism and post-MLM Avakianite revisionism.
But the real challenge in the path of forming a Maoist communist party in the US, as well as other imperialist countries, was stated earlier: to achieve at least a particular theoretical framework for the strategic implementation of people’s war in these countries. Here two points should be considered separately:
First: The Petrograd insurrection as a successful example of revolution has not been repeated in the world, and the Russia October revolution of 1917 until now is the only successful model in an imperialist country.
Second: While it is a certain fact that the general path of the strategy of people’s war applies to imperialist countries, and particularly in an imperialist country like the US, the particular strategic path of encircling the cities by the countryside is only pursuable in colonial/semi-feudal or semi-feudal/semi-colonial conditions.
For the formation of real Maoist communist parties in imperialist countries, adopting only the general framework of people’s war is not enough; the particular strategic path of people’s war should be highlighted, otherwise the slogan of people’s war in these countries would only remain a mere slogan, and the party or parties would remain without a strategy to make people’s war.

The issue of transforming “the current armed struggles of national liberation into people’s wars” is worth pondering. The C(M)PA does not consider the armed struggles of the Taliban against American occupiers and their puppet regime as armed national liberation struggles but sees them as a reactionary war of resistance that seeks to end the colonial situation of the country so as to preserve a semi-colonial situation.
Therefore, it has never occurred to us “to transform the current armed struggles of national liberation into people’s wars.” Rather, we are carrying forward the struggle for preparation and initiating a people’s revolutionary war of national resistance as the current particular form of people’s war in Afghanistan.
A people’s revolutionary war of national resistance against imperialist occupiers, the puppet regime, and the reactionary ISIS occupiers is not and should not be an armed struggle on two fronts––one front of armed struggle and war against imperialist occupiers, the puppet regime and ISIS occupiers, and the other front an armed struggle and war against Taliban’s reactionary resistance––but should be attentive to active defence against the aggression of Taliban.
It is obvious to us that the armed struggles waged by the different groups of al-Qaeda and ISIS against American and Russian forces in a number of Arab countries are not “national liberation armed struggles” but, rather, are reactionary resistance against them. Moreover, we do not consider ISIS’s war in Afghanistan and similar countries even as a reactionary war of resistance; we consider it an aggressive reactionary and occupying war.

The international proletariat needs to fully overcome the current dispersion of forces –  which began with the counterrevolutionary coup of Teng Xiao-pings clique in China after the death of Chairman Mao, sharpened by the liquidation of the RIM by the new revisionism of Avakian, Prachanda and their adulator –, to realize a Unified Maoist International Conference, to advance the formulation of the General Line for the International Communist Movement and the formation of a New International Organization of the Proletariat, which serves the struggle to put Maoism in the command and guide of the World Revolution.  
The current dispersion of forces did not come about as only the result of the disjunction between the working classes of different countries, but it has also come about as a result of the disjunction between the communist movements in majority of each particular country.
The dispersion of the forces of the international communist movement started with Khrushchev’s revisionist coup and was intensified by the revisionist coup of Deng Xiaoping. Later the revisionist deviation of Envar Hoxha intensified this dispersion on another level. There is no doubt that the liquidation of the RIM further intensified this dispersion.
This liquidationism began with the RCP-USA’s post-MLM revisionism, under the name of “Avakian’s New Synthesis,” because this party was practically at the helm of the committee of RIM. The second order negative role was played by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) which, by adopting Prachanda’s revisionism in the framework of Prachanda Path, also adopted a counter-revolutionary path which lead the people’s war towards defeat. Next, the Communist Party of Peru played a third role in this liquidationism. The PCP adopted Gonzalo Thought where, despite some correct ideas, there was raised a number of deviationist and incorrect ideas as the application of MLM in the particular circumstances of the revolution in Peru, even declaring some of them to possess universal applicability. The creative application of MLM in the particular circumstances of the revolution in Peru resulted in victories for the PCP and the people’s war under its leadership and lead to the formation of a “guiding line” in the PCP. However, later incorrect formulations in the framework of Gonzalo Thought found their way into the party, and practically lead the party and the people’s war under its leadership towards failure.
We will pursue a detailed discussion on this issue at a later date.
Moreover, all other participants of RIM, their strengths and weaknesses notwithstanding, are responsible for this liquidationism. No one should raise the finger of criticism solely towards others. Only by employing the principle of “criticism/self-criticism” can we sum up and utilize the experience of a quarter of century of the struggles of RIM.
Adulation of the deviationist views of the RCP-USA, CPN(Maoist), and PCP have existed in particular periods amongst Maoist organizations and parties within and outside of RIM. This was partly due to the backwardness and lack of experience of these organizations and parties, not to mention the fact that, among all the Maoist parties and organizations of the world, the three parties being adulated performed different leading roles at points in their history and the history of the RIM. Now, amongst all Maoist organizations and parties of the world, there is no adulation left for the CPN(Maoist) or the RCP-USA. Only a one-dimensional/uncritical adulation of the PCP still exists amongst some Maoist parties and organizations, particularly Latin American parties and organizations, and this should also be eliminated by ideological-political struggles.

Marxism, precisely MLM, is opposed to all forms of imperialist chauvinism and narrow nationalism. However, in grasping the extent of this opposition its principal aspect and non-principal aspect should be viewed separately and id does not suffice to make general assertions in this regard. Such general statements lead to an ultra-left behaviour against national movements.
Proletarian internationalism is an important principle of MLM for the international communist movement, but the international communist movement does not only rely on this one single principle at the expense of other principles. MLM possesses multiple principles in its three aspects: philosophical principles, economic principles, and political principles. Proletarian internationalism is indeed one of its principles, and indeed an important principle, with philosophical, economic, and political aspects: in philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism. Has the statement under discussion only emphasised proletarian internationalism without regards to MLM principles as whole? Those who are writing an important statement, particularly at the international level, should carefully review what they have written.
It is true that Mao Zedong emphasised that “[Proletarian] internationalism is the spirit of communism.” But why should Mao Zedong’s this qoute become the basis of an incorrect understanding of proletarian internationalism, an understanding based on which proletarian internationalism be declared the only principle of MLM for international communist movement?

The need for an international proletariat mobilized for an ICM and Maoist communist international organization, beside the need for Maoist communist movements and Maoist communist parties in different countries, is not only a principled necessity, but is also an immediate necessity.
Conquering political power through people’s war, for the military and revolutionary strategy of the conquest of political power by the masses under the leadership of the communist party, is an unavoidable MLM principle that is primary. This conquest of power necessitates other revolutionary instruments such as the revolutionary united front, and this issue should not be forgotten.
Moreover, the defense of revolutionary political power achieved through people’s war, and only through people’s war, is not enough. In the revolutionary conditions that allow a proletarian dictatorship to exist, the need will not emerge to defend this proletarian dictatorship through people’s war. Indeed, in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution under the leadership of CPC, that is under the leadership of Mao Zedong, this defense took place through the proletarian Cultural Revolution, which was a massive political and ideological mass movement, and not through people’s war.
However, in situations when domestic counter-revolution promotes wars to overthrow revolutionary political power, revolutionaries should rely on people’s war to defend revolutionary political power. This necessity emerged in confronting the 1976 revisionist coup, but the revolutionary faction within the Communist Party of China could not launch an effective people’s war against the revisionist coup. Thus, the revolutionary faction was defeated, and the revisionists took political power.
In a situation when revolutionary power is faced with foreign imperialist aggression, the new democratic or socialist revolution should be defended through people’s war. Such a necessity emerged during World War II with the aggression of Nazi Germany against the USSR, the latter being a socialist state under the leadership of the Communist Party of Soviet Union itself under the leadership of Stalin. The USSR engaged in a war against Nazi aggressors that was people’s war in a real sense of the world.

Currently revisionism is not the principal danger for world revolution and the international communist movement. The principal danger facing world revolution and the international communist movement is that which is posed by the principal enemy; revisionism, though a dangerous enemy, is currently not the principal enemy.
However, we do agree that between the two dangers of revisionism and dogmatism, revisionism is the main danger for world revolution and the international communist movement. In the experience of the struggles of RIM, Avakianite and Prachanda revisionism in theory and practice demonstrated the main danger of revisionism. At the same time, though, it is also clear that the dogmatism of Gonzalo Thought and the PCP, and to a lesser extent the dogmatism of other parties and organizations within RIM, demonstrated itself to be a non-principal danger, in comparison with the main danger of revisionism, during the old days of the RIM. Dogmatism remains a danger confronting the efforts for the formation of a new Maoist international organization, and it showed itself to be thus with the sectarianism behind the publication of this year’s international May Day statement. It should be noted that the incorrect formulations of the PCP are not based on old/past formulations of the international communist movement in opposition to real and new developments in the ICM, but they are formulations based on “new” and incorrect ideas that have been presented in opposition to principled and correct ideas present in the ICM.
Certainly, it should be emphasised that only based on the ideological and political unity of the proletariat, at the level of different countries and at the international level, can we reach organizational unity of the proletariat, at nationally and internationally. Only by achieving ideological-political and organizational unity at both levels can we channel all the streams of peoples’ discontent that emanate from exploitation, imperialist and reactionary oppression, towards the roaring sea of revolution.

The Communist movement needs a new International Organization, strongly unified around Maoism and the People’s War, that serves to put Maoism at the command and guide of the world revolution, initiating and developing more People’s Wars.
“Broad unity, independently of ideological and political unity” is an opportunist plan that “must be rejected.” At the same the international Maoist movement for creating a broad political alignment and unity with non-Maoist anti-imperialist and anti-reactionary forces needs to strive based on their own strong ideological and political unity. As much the ideological and political unity of the international Maoist movement on the question of Maoism, including people’s war, would be stronger to that extent the movement can  put Maoism at the command of world revolution, through helping the formation of new Maoist parties in different countries and initiating more peoples wars in the world, and at the same time can form broad political alignment and unity with the non-Maoist anti-imperialist and anti-reactionary forces in different countries of the world and lead them.

The realization of a Unified Maoist International Conference should be based on these ideological and political principles, to advance the formulation of the General Line for the International Communist Movement and give birth to a new International Organization of the Proletariat capable of fulfilling these tasks and goals that the World Proletarian Revolution demands, serving as a great step forward in the reunification of the communists in the whole world.
There are six points worth discussing briefly, though we will leave a detailed discussion for later.
First: The notion of the defense of Maoism.
Second: The notion of struggle against all forms of old and new revisionism.
Third: The notion of the defense of people’s war.
Fourth: The notion of the Maoist International conference.
Fifth: The notion of formulating a general line for the international communist movement.
Six: The notion of proletarian international organization.
1—The C(M)PA, in defence of Maoism as a new, third and highest stage in the evolution of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (scientific communism), currently does not see the entire ICM, and none of the communist parties, in a position to either explicitly or implicitly claim to have further developed the ideology and science of proletarian revolution.
2—The right opportunist line in Peru is a revisionist line, in the way Avakian’s new synthesis and Prachanda Path are only openly revisionist lines. The right opportunist line in Peru and Gonzalo Thought, despite its particular deviations, are not the same. At the same time, we should note that all of the factions that came from the original PCP have similar views on particular issues.
3—The question of the defense of people’s war currently, “defense of the People’s War as superior military strategy of the class, the Military Line of the Proletariat, center of the General Political Line for the International Communist Movement” is correct and principled. However, defense of people’s war under the slogan of “people’s war until communism” is incorrect and unprincipled. People’s war cannot replace the multiple proletarian cultural revolutions in a socialist society.
4—Currently what is principled and possible is holding an international conference for writing and ratifying a new international declaration/statement to replace the previous RIM declaration, creating a new international to replace RIM and electing a new leadership committee instead of the previous coRIM.
5—The international statement/declaration can—and must—lay the foundation for formulating the general line of the international communist movement. However, the ICM currently is not in a position to formulate and ratify a general line in its first conference.
6—The new Maoist international organization that can and should be established cannot be a fully formed new Maoist International, but can only be pre-International international organization. This does not mean broader unity without Maoist ideological and political unity, but it does mean realizing the actual ideological-political and practical condition of the Maoist communist international movement.

In ratifying Maoism at the international level the PCP indeed played a leading role. Later other members of RIM, and finally RIM itself, approved this leading role, following and ratifying MLM. In fact it was because of this leading role played by RIM that today several parties and organizations in Latin America call themselves Maoist. During the Expanded Meeting of RIM in 1993, which ratified/accepted Maoism instead of Mao Zedong Thought, the PCP and two factions of the Revolutionary Groups of Columbia were present at the meeting as observers, and in that position took a role in the ratification of Maoism.
On the fact that “today the objective and subjective situation for a Unified Maoist International Conference and the formation of an International Organization of the Proletariat are far better than when the RIM was founded” there is no doubt. But the present subjective situation is in reality the result of RIM’s role mentioned above, not only the result of the positive role of the PCP.
This claim that ratifying Maoism at the Expanded Meeting of RIM 1993 was merely formal is baseless. The fact is that the Expanded Meeting of RIM in 1993 was an unprecedented historic achievement in which Maoism was ratified with the vote of the overwhelming majority of the representatives of Maoist parties present, including the observer-participant representative of PCP. The later negative developments in RIM including the negative developments within the PCP––whose seeds had existed in members of RIM, including the PCP, previously––cannot and must not be the reason for denying the above discussed leading role.      
        

 

 

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