Proletarians of all countries, unite!
…the law of the unity of opposites, is the fundamental law of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought… Between the opposites in a contradiction there exists both unity and struggle, and it is this that impels things to move and change.
— Mao Zedong. On Contradiction
From the Maoist Communist Party of the Spanish State we want to make public our position on the Proposal Regarding the Balance of the International Communist Movement and of Its Current General Political Line drafted by the Coordinating Committee for a Unified Maoist International Conference.
We want to start from a position of humility. We are aware that our organization is very young and still has much to learn and develop in all aspects, from a higher ideological deepening to a greater link with the deep and profound masses, tasks in which we are immersed in our day to day.
Since we assumed Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the contributions of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo in our Second Congress, our organization follows very closely the debates that are taking place within the International Communist Movement (ICM) regarding the Unified Maoist International Conference (UIMC), a question that, on the other hand, we had already been doing since the struggle to assume Maoism began in our organization. That is why we think that it is our duty to position ourselves in the two-line struggle that is developing today.
We will divide this writing in the points in which we consider that we can contribute the most and in which our party wants to show its position.
We have chosen this point as the first one because it seems to us one of the most important, since it is the one on which the model of the ICFTU is based or whether it is even necessary.
Our party supports the necessary convocation and realization of this Maoist Unified International Conference in the terms proposed by the Coordinating Committee of the UMIC. As the Communist Party of Peru exposed in its I Congress, we find ourselves in the era of the struggle for the imposition of Maoism as the third, new and superior stage of the ideology of the proletariat. This is the reason that underlines the importance of holding this Conference.
To postpone it or to bet on broader models we believe is to conciliate and not to clarify. If we assume that we are in the epoch of the imposition of Maoism as ideology of the proletariat we need to clarify that we assume what Maoism is and that we consider what is contrary to it.
Our party has assumed the definition given by Chairman Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru in defining Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as:
Maoism is the elevation of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third, and superior stage in the struggle for proletarian leadership of the democratic revolution, the development of the construction of socialism and the continuation of the revolution under the proletarian dictatorship as a proletarian cultural revolution; when imperialism deepens its decomposition and revolution has become the main tendency of history, amidst the most complex and largest wars seen to date and the implacable struggle against contemporary revisionism.
— Fundamental Documents
But the fact that we assume this definition does not mean that this is what the totality of the International Communist Movement does. Therefore, it is through a two-line struggle debating the definition and content of Maoism that the correct line will be clarified, just as the CPP exposed:
Taking the above situation into account, the Fourth National Conference of the CPP of October 1986 reaffirmed our intention to develop as a faction within the International Communist Movement in order to place Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, as the command and guide of the world revolution. We call to: Uphold, Defend, and Apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Principally Maoism!, since only through this can the international proletariat, through its Communist Parties, lead the seizure of power and emancipate the oppressed so they can emancipate themselves as a class.
— International Line
When we say that to delay the UMIC or to opt for broader models is to conciliate, we say it because we believe that those models have already existed in the past and do not suppose the least advance, as reality proves. We need to build the New International Organization of the Proletariat (NIOP), that is to say, to reconstitute the Communist International. This International can only emerge from the struggle of two lines within the International Communist Movement. Unless we believe that we are not at the moment to reconstitute the International or that this is not a necessity of the international proletariat.
In our case, we have learned how to really work thanks to the study of the ICM and the help that the Coordinating Committee of the UMIC gives us day by day. This is a fundamental duty of the UMIC and the NIOP, to help create new communist organizations under Maoism that constitute or reconstitute Communist Parties. As happened in the Communist International, the ideological orientation, that there is only one world line, and the formation of cadres, is an indispensable work that only an international organization with a clear and defined ideology can do.
What would we gain by postponing the UMIC? Would it be of any use to continue without debating the axes that generate most debate in the International Communist Movement?
These are the questions to which we answer clearly, saying that the ICEMU is a peremptory necessity of the entire International Communist Movement if it wants to advance in the imposition of Maoism as the command and guide of the world revolution. Just as the Third International was the one that imposed Marxism-Leninism, an assumption that was made unanimously as it was exposed by the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR, which enjoyed enormous international prestige.
We are conscious and aware that the historical task of reconstituting the International and defining Maoism should have corresponded to the Communist Party of China, as in its day happened in the Soviet Union. But the triumph of the right-wing line and the restoration of capitalism in China prevented it. That is why it is our duty to do what Chairman Mao left undone.
We know that this process of imposing Maoism is going to be slow and difficult, but not to take up this challenge and accept it would be cowardly. The masses are crying out for rebellion every day, and we communists must be the ones to lead them with Maoism as the all-powerful ideology.
We vehemently believe that it is necessary to continue dissociating ourselves from revisionism in our days, just as Chairman Mao did when he denounced and broke with Soviet revisionism. Ideological clarification is an indispensable task to separate Maoism from what is revisionism.
We do not intend at this point to give lessons to anyone. There are parties that suffered the ultra-revisionist positions of the “New Synthesis” of Avakian or “Prachanda path.” Undoubtedly, if it was possible to denounce and show to the world how opportunist, rightist and revisionist their positions were, it was thanks to the great work that the proletarian line carried out at the international level, both within RIM and after its end.
But we cannot think that the demarcation from revisionism is something of the past or that when it happens it is something evident. Revisionism is something that is intrinsic in the struggle of two lines of each party and at the level of ICM. When the bourgeois line defends its conciliatory principles and that make the proletariat retreat, they do it because consciously or unconsciously they assume revisionist positions, although they do not constitute as such a defined line.
The Communist Party of China put it this way:
The class struggle in society inevitably has its reflection within the Party, and this appears in a concentrated way in the form of the two-line struggle within the Party, this too is an objective law. The reason why there can be no doubt that the class struggle in society has its reflection in the Party, is that our Party does not live in a vacuum, but in a society in which classes exist, and it is possible for bourgeois ideology, the force of old habits and international revisionist tendencies of thought to affect and poison our Party… The ten major two-line struggles that our Party has gone through in the course of its 50-year history have all been reflections within the Party of the class struggle nationally and internationally…
That all communists have a General Political Line that comes out of the UMIC and that is the one that builds the foundations of the International will mean a definitive advance that will make us advance in the class struggle and empower the New Great Wave of the World Proletarian Revolution, a process that is evidenced by the popular wars that day by day illuminate the world in Peru, Turkey, India, and the Philippines.
Such is the need of the UMIC in these days.
It seems important to us to position ourselves with respect to what is the principal contradiction in our days.
At present, as defined by Comrade Stalin and later completed by Chairman Gonzalo, in our world there are four fundamental contradictions. This is how the Declaration of the Coordinating Committee of the UMIC puts it:
1) the contradiction between capitalism and socialism – the contradiction between the two radically different systems will take this whole period and it will be one of the last to be resolved, it will last even after the seizure of Power; 2) the contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat – it is the contradiction between two opposed classes and will also remain after the seizure of Power, it manifests itself in various ideological, political and economic forms until its solution when we enter communism; 3) the interimperialist contradictions – these are the contradictions between the imperialists for world hegemony, it takes place between the superpowers, between the superpowers and the imperialist powers and between the imperialist powers, this contradiction will be resolved in the period of 50 to 100 years; 4) the contradiction between oppressed nations and imperialism – it is the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed nations to destroy imperialism and the reaction, its solution is also included within the 50 to 100 years, it is the historically principal contradiction during this whole period of time; however, any of the four fundamental contradictions can become the principal according to specific circumstances of class struggle, temporarily, or in certain countries, but the historically principal contradiction will again express itself as such until its final resolution.
Our organization agrees with this definition and assumes it in its entirety.
Now, what is the principal contradiction of all these fundamental contradictions? This question is not trivial, since our strategy and tactics depend on it.
We defend that the principal contradiction is that between oppressed nations and imperialist countries, we consider that this contradiction is the very essence of imperialism, without it it could not exist.
Our world is divided between those countries that are imperialist and those that are semi-colonial or colonial countries. At the level of imperialist countries, we think that U.S. imperialism is the main imperialist power, although there are others, such as Russia or China, these do not have the degree of imperialist development that the United States has.
We say this because the United States is the country that exports the most capital, besides being the one that sustains NATO and allocates the greatest percentage of its economy. The U.S. economy has incredible economic imbalances derived from these issues, since it must allocate a huge cost for its military industry and all that this entails, which ends up generating internal contradictions by the low standard of living of the masses in the United States, while it is the main imperialist power and who sells the life model of capitalist society.
By its imperialist policy and its genocidal actions, the United States has earned the hatred of all the oppressed countries and the masses of the world.
The semicolonial countries are home to the majority of the world’s population and the poorest. Day by day they have to see how they are plundered and assaulted by imperialism, mainly U.S., but not exclusively. They are countries that live in a state of poverty that clashes head-on with the difference in the way of life of the imperialist countries, whether they are of the first or second order. They suffer, also, the imperialist contradiction in their own flesh, being battlefields between different imperialist interests.
In these countries developed bureaucrat capitalism as defined by Chairman Mao, capitalism that develops on the basis of semi-feudalism and is tied to the land, thus generating a form of government that prevents the development of the country by being totally linked to the imperialism that exploits it. The only solution for the emancipation of these countries is the People’s War, which in these countries takes the form of agrarian war. Only in this way will it be possible to put an end to the land problem and destroy the old inherited feudal order, thus putting an end to bureaucrat capitalism and establishing the Republic of New Democracy.
Imperialism cannot but continue oppressing these countries and exporting capital while plundering them, it is its very nature and without it it would be dead. That is why they are constantly looking for new ways to continue their war of plunder, they do not care about the death of the masses, they only seek to continue gaining more and more to survive.
That is why the oppressed countries of the Third World, the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, are the very basis of the World Proletarian Revolution and those where the People’s War will necessarily be unleashed imminently. For this it is necessary to pay special attention to the constitution or reconstitution of authentic Communist Parties based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism,
We see then how, the principal contradiction being that of imperialist countries and oppressed nations, the collision between imperialist countries is the main tendency of our world. Imperialism needs to continue exporting capital, for this it needs new markets, and for this reason it constantly clashes with other imperialisms. The war in Ukraine shows this undeniable reality. If war is inevitable because of the tendency of imperialism to collide, equally undeniable is the revolution in our days. For this reason we need to strengthen ourselves with the UMIC and the creation of the NIOP, which knows how to orient the ICM in a unified way.
As the Coordinating Committee of the UMIC states in its declaration:
Since the beginning of this epoch, the crisis of imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism sharpens in the whole world. Whenever its decomposition deepens, all the contradictions sharpen; which develops further the revolutionary situation in uneven development in the whole world. The situation is expressed by the great activity of the masses, its explosiveness makes all reactionaries and their revisionist lackeys tremble. It is expressed everywhere at great explosions never seen before. The objective situation meets at fast pace with the subjective factor, principally the process of the Communist Parties, as Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist parties of a new type to initiate new People’s Wars. Thus a new moment opens, a period of revolutions as part of this new great wave of the world proletarian revolution, within the period of the “50 to 100 years” in which includes the strategic offensive of the world revolution. This situation determines the tasks, the strategy and the tactics of the Communist Parties in the whole world.
The rest of the fundamental contradictions of imperialism are also of great importance, since in each country we must study the material reality dialectically and see how these act and how we must fight against them, putting the focus on the main one and how the rest necessarily depend on it.
A point that we consider key in this debate is the universality of the People’s War, since on its resolution depends the revolutionary strategy of the Party for the seizure of power and how it is organized, both the Party itself and the three instruments of the revolution.
In the debate of our Second Congress, our organization debated and assumed as such the universality of the People’s War, understanding that the People’s War is an integral part of the new, third and higher stage of the ideology of the proletariat, that is, of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Therefore there is no People’s War without Maoism or vice versa. The Communist Party of Peru itself pointed out that they only fully understood and assumed Maoism when initiating and developing the People’s War. That is why we assume and defend the thesis put forward by the Coordinating Committee of the UMIC in its statement when it affirms:
People’s War is the superior form of struggle, through which the fundamental problems of revolution are solved, all that is good comes for the people comes from it; it is the military strategy that correspond to the political strategy (conquest of power) to transform society in favor of the Class and the people; it is the principal form of struggle and the People’s Army is the principal form of organization, an army of a new type that combats, mobilizes, politicizes, organizes and arms the masses, and produces. People’s War is a war of masses led by the Communist Party to conquer the New Power, which is materialized in the people’s committees and base areas for the conquest of Power in the whole country.
In order to carry out People’s War it is necessary to have four fundamental problems in mind: 1) ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, applied to the concrete practice and the particularities of revolution on each country, both oppressed countries or imperialist countries; 2) the necessity of the Communist Party that leads the People’s War; 3) specification of the political strategy for the democratic or socialist revolution and the path of it; 4) base areas. The New Power, or Front-New State that is formed in the base areas are the core of the People’s War.
This question seems to us key because many times the arguments are based on the fact that the People’s War is only applicable to the semicolonial countries or the impossibility of its development in the imperialist countries due to the impossibility of applying the classic thesis “from the countryside to the city.”
The People’s War is above all the war of the masses. Our task in the present phase, of constitution or reconstitution of Communist Parties, is to persist in the mass line, mobilizing, politicizing and organizing the masses. Going from the most local and concrete action to the broadest and most complex, arming them in the revolutionary development, and always having clear the objective that guides us. As the comrades of the Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction) expose in their text People’s War and Revolution:
It is the war which, in basing itself upon the principle that the masses make history, starts from the concrete reality in which the masses are relatively disorganized in general, but in the long run will become organized, going from a powerful disorganized force to a powerful organized force, through well-defined stages of the development of armed struggle, applying relative superiority of forces on the strategic level, and absolute superiority in tactics.
We cannot accept the argument that People’s War is not Maoist because it was not developed by Chairman Mao. It seems to us deeply metaphysical to want to reduce Maoism to Chairman Mao’s life work. This is fundamental and should be studied in detail. But, just as Leninism did not stop with the death of Comrade Lenin in 1924, Maoism does not end in 1976. It is therefore essential to study all the revolutionary experiences that have taken place up to the present day. It is especially important for us the experiences of the struggles that have taken place in imperialist countries, because of our own context, and which always come to reinforce the principle that the masses do not reject violence, they exercise it day by day in their just demands. The duty of the Communist Party is therefore to lead this just rebellion towards the seizure of power by means of the People’s War.
We quote again the Brazilian comrades in their same work to make our position clearer:
Our strong point is that we fight for a just cause, to destroy the rotten machine which oppresses the masses, in destroying and overthrowing the old social relations bit by bit, we proceed with the increasing incorporation of the masses. We make just war upon injust war. In the final analysis, we make war in order to conquer eternal peace. Our weakness resides in the immediate situation of the dispersion and disorganization of the masses.
In addition, we want to show the unfeasibility of continuing to maintain and bet on insurrection as a universal strategy that has only led to the most absolute degeneration of the Communist Parties by ending up assuming bourgeois parliamentarism as a “form of struggle.”
Insurrection is part of the People’s War, we do not disdain it. But we believe that the idealization of insurrection as a process that occurs almost idealistically is precisely that, an idea that has nothing material. The experiences of insurrections, among which the Great October Socialist Revolution stands out, did not achieve power until after the war. The premise of the “accumulation of forces” has always led to the self-destruction of the parties by ending up adhering to revisionism. At present, all the parties that have assumed this thesis in the imperialist countries have always ended up, inexcusably, in revisionism and claudication. Moreover, comrade Lenin himself already exposed that, in the epoch of imperialism, the proletarian revolution would only be possible through war, since imperialism can only be maintained with the development of counter-revolutionary wars.
We will end this section quoting the CPP in its Fundamental Documents:
A key and decisive question is the understanding of the universal validity of people’s war and its subsequent application taking into account the different types of revolution and the specific conditions of each revolution. To clarify this key issue it is important to consider that no insurrection like that of Petrograd, the anti-fascist resistance, or the European guerrilla movements in the Second World War have been repeated, as well as considering the armed struggles that are presently being waged in Europe. In the final analysis, the October Revolution was not only an insurrection but a revolutionary war that lasted for several years. Consequently, in the imperialist countries the revolution can only be conceived as a revolutionary war which today is simply people’s war.
The question of Comrade Stalin is a fundamental question in order to make a correct evaluation of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union and of the work of the Communist International until its dissolution.
Moreover, for communists, defending comrade Stalin is an inexcusable duty, since he is one of the figures most vilified by the bourgeois press on countless occasions, and we must defend him as leader of the first socialist state with the difficult task of building socialism and exporting the revolution.
As the comrades of the Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction) expound in their text Uphold the Red Flag of the Communist International and Its Seventh Congress:
At the end of the 1920 and 1930 years, comrade Stalin had to give great attention to the heating two-line struggle, which was developing itself within the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR through which the great challenge of building Socialism for the first time in history and the preparation of the USSR facing the imminent imperialist aggression. It is false what pseudo-historians and other detractors affirm, that Stalin left the direction of the Communist International aside. The direction of the Communist International and the problems of the International Communist Movement were under growing attention and direction of comrade Stalin, in his condition of acknowledged Great Leader of the world revolution. To separate the role of comrade Stalin from the 7th Congress, from the problems of the Second World War and the Great Chinese Revolution is to negate his acknowledged condition of Great Leader of the World Revolution. Then we ask: after all, the great and glorious triumph over Nazi-Fascism was it or was it not due to the direction of comrade Stalin? And if we agree with the reality that yes, it was due to the magisterial direction of the great general Stalin, with which line was such a glorious triumph achieved? Isn’t it clear that it was with the line of the 7th Congress or was it despite of it? Not having this clear is, in summary, to oppose Stalin against Chairman Mao and to fracture Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
We fully share this view.
After the October Revolution, Stalin faced a left opposition (Shliapnikov, Kollontai) and a right opposition (Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev) which agreed on the impossibility of the construction of socialism in the USSR, as well as fighting against the liquidationist, opportunist and petty-bourgeois positions of Trotskyism. He defended the theory of socialism of a single country and implemented several measures, first with the New Economic Policy for the development of industry and later the socialist industrialization of the country with the five-year plans. Stalin had to deal with bureaucracy and corruption within the Party, as well as leading the country in the face of the fascist threat from Hitler’s Germany.
Stalin demonstrated in his struggle against fascism his ability to mobilize the Soviet masses in defense of the state of our class, he knew how to deal and cooperate with the bourgeois democracies when this was in the interests of the revolution, in short, he knew how to structure a revolutionary strategy where not only the USSR was the country that defeated fascism, but also gave a hard blow to imperialism and the capitalist system with the establishment of popular democracies in Eastern Europe. It managed to win the esteem of the peoples towards the revolution for its great participation in the liberation and defense of the international working class.
Another positive and fundamental contribution of Comrade Stalin was his leading role in the International Communist Movement in the struggle against right and left deviations. There are many examples of his revolutionary vigilance: in the specific case of the Spanish State, we can highlight the struggle against the leftism of the Communist Party of Spain in the 30’s, when the International dismissed the leadership of the Spanish Section due to the problems of sectarianism and leftism that caused the total irrelevance of the PCE; another example would be the struggle against one of the greatest rightists of his time, Earl Browder, who wanted to dissolve the CPUSA within the Democratic Party; In this period the struggle against Tito, his right-wing drifts and his counter-revolutionary attacks on socialism was especially important; finally, another example of special interest for the Spanish communists is the so-called “Stalin Directive”, by which the PCE turned to mass and proletarian work and abandoned the leftist policies that it developed in the anti-Francoist struggle. As we see, from beginning to end Stalin fought against the enemies of the revolution, both in the USSR and outside it, understanding perfectly the international role of the proletarian revolution.
In addition to his contributions on the national question, we must mention two of his greatest theoretical and practical contributions: the synthesis and definition of Marxism-Leninism we owe to comrade Stalin, and perhaps this is one of the greatest gifts given to the communists of the whole world. Stalin knew how to condense, synthesize and popularize Lenin’s theoretical and practical legacy, and this is an incalculable contribution to the World Proletarian Revolution. Thanks to works such as Foundations of Leninism (1924) or Concerning Questions of Leninism (1926), a great part of the revolutionaries of the world have entered into the revolutionary science, we have banished multiple deviations or initial erroneous ideas and we have understood a great part of the greatness of Lenin’s contributions.
The other great theoretical and practical contribution is the main struggle that Stalin had to tackle within the revolutionary movement: the struggle against Trotskyism was the principal contradiction for decades for the Soviet and International Communist Movement. The fight against this counter-revolutionary, ultra opportunist and ultra leftist tendency was one of the greatest difficulties and one of Stalin’s greatest achievements. This revolutionary leader knew how to differentiate and explain to us perfectly the antagonism of Trotskyism with Lenin’s theses, and at the same time he annihilated its importance in many places of the world.
Finally, it is worth mentioning other interesting contributions of interest: to deepen in the role of self-criticism and how to apply it correctly by each comrade within the Party; contributions that can be very useful to us today regarding the role of the Youth of the Masses and its link with the Party; special attention was also paid to the struggle against the left and right deviations in the Communist Movement, with numerous texts against both the right-wing and left-wing deviations, which seriously affected not only the Communist Party (Bolshevik), but the whole of the International Communist Movement.
In spite of the deficiencies that Stalin may have had and that his contributions did not qualitatively surpass Marxism-Leninism, his role in the International Communist Movement was mostly positive, and so we must claim it. Comrade Stalin defends the Leninist legacy before the contemporary revisionism and undertakes the great task of building socialism, and as we have exposed, he makes important theoretical contributions in the national question and in the right of self-determination of the nations. But Stalin does not develop Marxism qualitatively, because he does not develop theoretical questions which establish a paradigm to be applied in revolutionary practice -as Lenin does and as Chairman Mao Tse Tung will do- nor does he establish a method and style of revolutionary work. There is no Stalinist method of work nor is there a Stalinist party; Stalin developed and applied the Leninist conceptions of the Party, the State and the revolution. Stalin was a staunch defender of Marxism-Leninism, but he did not evolve Marxism to the next stage. The defense of comrade Stalin is a fundamental task of the International Communist Movement, not only for being one of the most attacked communists in our country, but for the work he did in favor of the emancipation of the working class.
After recognizing that it is obvious that there were mistakes in Stalin’s leadership, it is necessary to contextualize them: we must understand that he was not the great culprit of the debacle of the International Communist Movement, since a great personality does not make history.
As Chairman Gonzalo masterfully exposed:
Comrade Stalin has been a great Marxist-Leninist. Did he err? Yes, but he never sold the revolution, he could have made a mistake, he could not understand; as the Chairman has taught, his mistake started from an insufficient understanding of dialectics, from dragging metaphysics, from this derives the problem of comrade Stalin; but nobody can deny his enormous role nor can anybody take away his condition of leader of the international proletariat for decades, facing for the first time the construction of socialism, without precedent, nor the great effort he led in the Second World War. He has contributions, of course he has them, we cannot deny him, we must know how to value them. So there are already five of them, the three added up to five; but it is a pleiad, a considerable group of great figures, of titans of thought and action. So, this is enclosed. Why have we not listed them? To make it clear that there are three great figures: Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao Zedong, that is the reason.
This is fundamental if we really want to make a dialectical analysis of the historical situation, of the two-line struggle existing in Marxism from its birth to the present day, and an analysis that puts the masses and not only the great historical figures at the center of the debate. On the other hand, the internal political and ideological struggle is not born with Stalin, but is found in the Soviet and formerly Russian revolutionary movement, from its birth, since the two-line struggle is in everything, it is born with the beginning of Marxism and of all revolutionary struggle. Continuing with this line of argument, it is fair to recognize that it also had to face a great problem: the confrontation against fascism, prevented the possibility of holding congresses in the CP(b) of the USSR from 1939 to 1952, and in turn caused the loss of thousands of communist cadres, who fought and died against fascism, which undoubtedly caused an imbalance and a serious lack of intermediate cadres, which allowed opportunists and careerists to climb the ladder. This undoubtedly contributed to facilitate the triumph of the revisionist line that had strengthened during these years.
We subscribe to the following words of the Chinese Communist Party:
Stalin led the CPSU and the Soviet people, after Lenin’s death, in resolutely fighting both internal and external foes, and in safeguarding and consolidating the first socialist state in the world.
In his way of thinking, Stalin departed from dialectical materialism and fell into metaphysics and subjectivism on certain questions and consequently he was sometimes divorced from reality and from the masses. In struggles inside as well as outside the Party, on certain occasions and on certain questions he confused two types of contradictions which are different in nature, contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and contradictions among the people, and also confused the different methods needed in handling them.
(…)
Stalin’s merits and mistakes are matters of historical, objective reality. A comparison of the two shows that his merits outweighed his faults. He was primarily correct, and his faults were secondary. In summing up Stalin’s thinking and his work in their totality, surely every honest Communist with a respect for history will first observe what was primary in Stalin. Therefore, when Stalin’s errors are being correctly appraised, criticized and overcome, it is necessary to safeguard what was primary in Stalin’s life, to safeguard Marxism-Leninism, which he defended and developed.
— On The Question Of Stalin, Second Comment on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi
With this document we want to show in a decisive way our positions and our subscription to the Declaration to the Coordinating Committee of the UMIC. That is why we accept and submit to the principles published in the document:
Contradiction, the only fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter;
The masses make history and it is right to rebel;
Class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat and proletarian internationalism;
Integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism with the concrete practice of the revolution in each country;
Necessity of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party that firmly applies independence, self-decision, and self-sustainability;
To fight imperialism, revisionism, and reaction indestructibly and relentlessly;
Seize and defend the power with people’s war;
Two-line struggle as the driving force of party development;
Constant ideological transformation and always putting politics in command;
Serve the people and the world proletarian revolution;
Absolute selflessness and just and correct style of work;
To swim against the tide.
We consider essential the honest two-line struggle within the ICM, since only in this way can we advance in the realization of the UMIC and the construction of the NIOP.
We are aware that there are many things in the ink that we have left to expose or explain, we plan to continue publishing documents depending on the development of the debate and how the parties and organizations of the ICM are positioning themselves.
At this point it seems to us absolutely necessary to recognize and emphasize once again that our party is very young and needs to continue developing in all aspects, from the international sphere to the mass line itself in the Spanish State. Our party did not live the RIM, we have not lived nor participated in the Meetings of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties and Organizations at any level, so our degree of development is much lower than other parties with much more experience and knowledge at all levels.
However, this is not an impediment for us to express ourselves and recognize ourselves as heirs of the best of the Spanish Communist Movement and the ICM. Precisely today we are seeing how in all parts of the world parties and organizations are emerging that claim to be Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which shows how the revolution is the main trend and how necessary is a NIOP to guide them in their work.
We would like to end this document by recalling Chairman Mao’s statement that we are in the period of 50 to 100 years. We must not forget this and recognize that if we are in that period, the UMIC and the reconstitution of the Communist International is more necessary than ever.
The next 50 to 100 years or so, beginning from now, will be a great era of radical change in the social system throughout the world, an earth-shaking era without equal in any previous historical period. Living in such an era, we must be prepared to engage in great struggles which will have many features different in form from those of the past.
Long live the Unified Maoist International Conference!