Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Note from Red Library: This statement originally had People’s Voice [Voz Popular] issues 6, 7, and 8 attached to it, which were written and originally published throughout the 1970s. People’s Voice 6 is available at RedLibrary.info, and People’s Voice 8 is available at germinalbooks.wordpress.com. People’s Voice 7 hasn’t been translated to English as of writing this.
What is fundamental in Maoism? Power. Power is fundamental in Maoism. Power for the proletariat, Power for the dictatorship of the proletariat, Power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party. More explicitly:
Power under the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution;
Power for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the socialist and cultural revolutions;
Power based on an armed force led by the Communist Party, seized and defended through people’s war.
— First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru
What is Maoism?
Maoism is the elevation of Marxism-Leninism to a new, third, and higher 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.
— First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru
With the publication of the three issues of People’s Voice (6, 7 and 8) dedicated to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China, we join the “Campaign to Celebrate the 130th Anniversary of Chairman Mao Zedong,” called by the International Communist League (ICL) through its declaration for May 1st of this year, and, likewise, we fulfill the commitment assumed in the great solemn opportunity of the “Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Heroic Surrender of his Life by Comrade Ibrahim Kaypakkaya,” a heroic action for the revolution in Turkey and the world revolution.
The key of the party documentation, which we offer in this opportunity, is to see how in the great class struggle on the international scale, the GPCR. Gonzalo Thought considers that a third, new and higher stage of the ideology of the proletariat arises: first as Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought; then, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought; and, subsequently, defining it as Maoism understanding its universal validity; and thus arriving at Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism as the current expression of Marxism.
It is of great importance for communists and revolutionaries of the world to study and embody the party documentation on the GPCR in China, a great struggle personally led by Chairman Mao that is part of the whole of his great theoretical and practical work: Maoism. Studying and embodying the party documentation on the GPCR is of great importance to achieve a unified understanding of Maoism in order to uphold, defend and apply it.
In historical perspective, because the cultural revolution is not the order of the day. Because the majority of countries of the world are the oppressed countries, in which, first the democratic revolution has to be carried out and then pass uninterruptedly to socialism and, in the imperialist countries, first the socialist revolution has to be carried out. The (cultural) revolution is not the order of the day; the order of the day is the problem of advancing in the understanding and embodiment of our ideology, to apply it and transform the world: to understand the definition of Maoism without buts or questions as the third, new, and higher stage of the ideology of the international proletariat; the order of the day is to achieve a unified understanding of Maoism, because not everyone understands the same things; the order of the day is the democratic revolution; the socialist and mainly the democratic revolution by the weight of the masses in history. That is why we say, in historical perspective it is the most transcendental. Today, we already know what we have to do when the opportunity arrives.
Two questions:
The cultural revolution, the GPCR, implies a milestone,
The restoration of capitalism in China is not a negation of the GPCR. The GPCR remains as a granite (i.e., as a granite rock) that all communists will have to raise when appropriate. The Chairman spoke of successive cultural revolutions.
The proletarian cultural revolution is the solution of the great pending problem of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, yes, the pending problem is already solved because if it had not been solved then we would have been unarmed in front of the peaceful restoration. The Chairman, years before, already told us: “we know how to seize power with arms, nobody takes it away from us with arms, but we do not know how to prevent the restoration, we do not know how to prevent capitalism from dominating again, from usurping the leadership of the Party, we do not know that”; well, we already know it, he already solved it. That does not mean that we do not have to deal with restorations and counter-restorations; hopefully the historical perspective will allow us to prevent it in the end, and it is feasible, because if we start from the 70s of the last century, 1971, we already have more than 160 years, then the power of the class has to take root, and it will take root, in these coming decades it will take root, and that is part of our work. But the question is already solved, the continuation is already there, and this is a new problem of transcendental perspective.
Chairman Mao says: “a new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country, a stage which is both broader and deeper.” The Decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) expresses very clearly what the cultural revolution was about; it is concrete and they knew very well what it was about.
The GPCR implies a milestone in the development of the dictatorship of the proletariat towards the consolidation of the proletariat in power. What has been its concretion: Revolutionary Committees. The Commune was not mature and the key problem that was not mature was how the Party led.
Party documents, which we publish today, give testimony of how Chairman Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru (CPP) lived those events and the decisive influence Chairman Gonzalo had in China in the middle of the GPCR and how it was followed by the Party. How those years were lived, we offer it in documentary testimony, which at the time was reported with the publication of these three issues of “People’s Voice” (PV), the theoretical mouthpiece of the Party, dedicated to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China.
Issue 6 of PV included the fundamental orientations of Chairman Mao Zedong, which guided the Chinese proletariat and people in the GPCR, and the basic documents of the CPC, elaborated under the leadership of Chairman Mao, which opened the struggle against the bourgeoisie. Issue 7 was devoted to highlighting the most important milestones of the GPCR process. Issue 8 analyzed the content and significance of the GPCR; as well as the events, at the time they were taking place, in China arising from the right-wing coup d’état, as it was typified at the time. We are not prophets of the past, said the Chairman. Chairman Gonzalo and the Party followed, then, step by step, the development of the greatest class struggle in human history, a great milestone on the road of the world proletarian revolution to seize power. That is why when the revisionist coup of Hua Guofeng, an outsider, behind which was the revisionist “pus sucker” Deng Xiaoping, was carried out and went on to repress the left headed by comrade Jiang Qing, the CPP was the first to denounce it, while others hesitated.
We uphold the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!
The GPCR, in historical perspective, is the most transcendental development of Marxism-Leninism by Chairman Mao!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Long live the International Communist League!