POLAND
The Revolutionary Road – the Only Road to Salvation and Victory
(Last) Chapter IV of the article:
„The Counter-revolution within the Counter-Revolution“
written by Spiro Dede
published by „Nentori“ - Publishing house, Tiraba, 1983
The only road to ensure the development of the economy, the freedom and independence of the country, and the re-establishment of socialism os through the open resolute struggle of the masss of the people, under the leadership of the working class with a genuine Marxist-Leninist party at its head“
- Enver Hoxha -
The only thing of value that the subsequent fate of the counter-revolution in Poland will bring the Polish proletariat is what Marx and Engels pointed out about the revolution of 1848-1851 in Germany: the gain of the people was that they lost their illusions.
In face of the bitter reality, the illusions which the Polish proletariat had nurtured towards one or the other side of the counter-revolution are being smashed, one after another. The Polish proletariat is faced with the same primary task as the proletariat and peoples of the other bourgeois-revisionist countries:
They must rise, and take to the battle-field themselves to carry out the revolution again with their own forces, that revolution which the modern revisionist betrayed and disgraced.
Of course, this is no easy task. On the contrary, it is one of the most difficult, but also the most essential task which faces the Polish proletariat and people.
Speaking about the great importnace of the subjective factor for launching the revolution and carrying it through to victory, Comrade Enver Hoxha especially emphasized two basic components of this factor:
a) the high level of consciousness and
b) the readiness of the masses for the revolution (Enver Hoxha; „Imperialism and Revolution“, p. 147, Eng. ed).
In the current situation the Polish proletariat has lacked the first component – a given level of revolutionary consciousness, more than anything else. We have seen the reasons for this. The fundamental task which faces it today is precisely the clarification of minds and hearts, imbuing them with the Marxist-Leninist ideology.
„In the preparation of the subjective factor ..., the revolutionary party of the working class, its leadership, education and mobilization of the masses plays a decisive role,“ says Comrade Enver Hoxha (Ibidem, p. 147).
Such a Marxist-Leninist party is still lacking in Poland. In the furious campaign they have waged for nearly 30 years against socialism and Marxism-Leninism, both the revisionist forces and the ultra-capitalist forces have worked to avert the formation of this party. However, now that the truth is coming out and even the last disguise of that propaganda which described the PUWP as communist is being thrown off, the Polish proletariat is becoming counscious that there is nothing communist about that party, that it is not its party, the party of the proletariat. Hence, the conditions and possibilities exist for the most cobscious vanguard elements of the Polish proletariat to organize themselves and work with a sound Marxist-Leninist line and program to win the masses.
Terrified of the possibility of the formation of such a proletarian party, the revisionist forces, under the dictate of the Soviet social-imperialists, have striven to forestall this. In the process of the fragmentation of what was left from the PUWP, along with the emergence of „clubs and forums“ of all shades, the so-called Marxist-Leninist forums sprang up in Poland, grouping those members of the PUWP who were most closely bound to and dependent on Moscow. The „statements“ and „programs“ of these forums, filled with „Marxist“ phrases and demands for a „hard“ line towards the counter-revolution, were published in full in „Pravda“ and distributed everywhere by TASS and the other means of Soviet propaganda. These „forums“ created and directed by the hand of Moscow served a series of aims.
First of all, they served as tools to exert pressure on the Polish leadership to be prudent in the phrases it used, and to preserve the status of a Poland dependent on Soviet social-imperialism in the name of „Leninism“ and „scientific socialism“. But while the PUWP was to fall completely and openly into the lap of ultra-right reaction, the so-called Marxist-Leninist forums were to serve as a ready-made base for a „new party“ which, allegedly, after rejecting the „revisionism“ of the PUWP, would be heir to „everything good“ from the time when the PUWP was in „sound positions“ and which would continue „to lead“ Poland on the socialist road, (i.e., on those rails which were of benefit to the Soviet sociali-imperialists). Moreover, the creation of these so-called Marxist-Leninist forums was and is of interest to the revisionist traitors as a trap to deceive and draw in those sound elements and forces which are becoming aware that all the misfortune of Poland lies in the systematic abandonment of Marxism-Leninism and the total bourgeois degeneration of the Polish United Worker`s Party. In this way Moscow took the measures to ensure that all these elements would fall into its trap, that is, into those „forums“ which are proclaimed by „Pravda“ to be „Marxist-Leninist“ and which are nothing but groupings of agents of Soviet social-imperialism.
The Polish proletariat has no need for such „forums and parties“, even if a hundred „anti-revisionist“ and „Marxist-Leninist“ labels are plastered on them. The only genuine vanguard party of the proletariat in any country, in this case of the Polish proletariat, will be one that not only fights the treacherous Polish United Worker`s Party with all its might, but also has no links with any revisionist party or current, and first of all with the CPSU of Krushchevite modern revisionism, but on the contrary attacks them. Armed with the Marxist-Leninist theory, with a clear militant program, and with a strong organization of its own ranks, such a party will be able to lead the working class and the working masses in a class-struggle independent of any force or ideology other than Marxism-Leninism.
The great deception by the parties of reaction which hide themselves behind the so-called trade-union movement and „Solidarity“ is a bitter, but unforgettable lesson for the Polish proletariat. Marxism-Leninism teaches that the genuine party of the proletariat does not hide its existence from the masses, does not hide the ideology by which it is guided or the revolutionary program with which it comes before the masses. Through a correct scientific line and unrelenting, tireless work, the Marxist-Leninist party has the task of re-awakening and strengthening in the proletariat and people the belief in the
„corectness and universal character of the Marxist-Leninist theory, which indicates the true road to the seizure of power by the proletariat and the other oppressed masses“ (Enver Hoxha, „Imperialism and Revolution“, p. 164, Eng. ed.).
That great collection of facts about the political-ideological machinations and filth which is simmering in Poland serves as „raw material“ in the hands of the Marxist-Leninist party to expose the falsity of bourgeois-revisionist reaction and the disaster to which it is leading the Polish proletariat and people, even more effectively than it has served reaction for the deception of the masses.
The Catholic Church and religious ideology in general is a powerful bastion in the hands of reaction with great influence among the Polish working masses. The Marxist-Leninist party cannot fail to take this bastion into account in its struggle to win the support of the masses and prepare them for the revolution.
Convinced that the Church and religious ideology have never been and cannot be anything but sworn enemies of the revolution, but aware, at the same time, that the elimination of the religious ideology from the minds of the masses can never be one of the immediate tasks of proletarian revolution, the Marxist-Leninist party must be prudent in making the proper dictinction between the proletarian as a revolutionary and the proletarian as a believer. Just as it is not the religious odeology which arouses the masses in the revolution, likewise this ideology, however inhibiting it may be, cannot permanently divert the masses from the revolution. The Marxist-Leninist party must be skilful enough to win over the masses, both believers and non-believers, while taking over from the Church the banner of the „traditional“ defender of national independence, without mixing its banners or program with those of the Church, for the sake of a great and immediate mission – the seizure of power and liberation from economic and political bondage to internal and foreign capital. After the accomplishment of this major deed, for the working now in power the question of other types of bondage, especially spiritual bondage, is an internal question which cannot be solved through violence or a single act, but which must not be left to spontaneity, either. As the rich experience of our Party of Labour and socialism in Albania shows, the continuation of the revolution, its development in all fields, ceaselessly convinces the masses in power of what hinders and what enhances their forces and energies, what they should embrace of their own will in the society which they themselves will build and enjoy.
This, however, is a question which belongs to the period after the seizure of power. The immediate task in Poland now is to awaken the dulled and confused consciousness of the masses and unite the broad masses under the leadership of the proletariat headed by a genuine Marxist-Leninist party, in a united front which will firmly counter all the attempts and machinations of the counter-revolution.
As to what a united proletariat is capable of doing, this, apart from endless examples from its own history and the history of the revolutions in other countries, the Polish working class is seeing in the experience of the last two years. If the Polish revisionist government was obliged to make concessions in every direction, if the forces of pro-Western reaction were strengthened and captures position after position on the road to power, this came about, because several million workers went into action. The workers are the weapon, the irreplaceable force for the accomplishment of every change or tranformation. The misfortune of those millions of people is that they were united and went into action under alien banners. Precisely on this account, the result of their struggle could not be other than complete defeat, its violent suppression. Day by day, experience is teaching the Polish proletariat that it has no need for such unions under the control of reaction.
Undoubtedly the difficulties are and will be numerous and great. As a result of the treacherous line of the PUWP, Poland has long been turned into an arena in which the interests of many foreign imperialist and revisionist powers and, first of all, the two superpowers, are closely entangled and in conflict. Each of the superpowers bases within Poland and tries to manipulate, strengthen and use them in its own political, ideological and economic interest. Each of them poses as if it is doing everything in its powers to „rescue“ Poland and the Polish people from the misfortunes which have descended upon them, but, as we pointed out above, these imperialist powers and superpowers are among the main factors which brought Poland to such a state. From the first days after the outburst of the recent crisis in Poland the Party of Labour of Albania raised its internationalist voice and, among other things, pointed out:
„In the complex situations which have been created in Poland, the Polish proletariat, which is characterized by a lofty spirit of revolt and determination, needs more than ever to see clearly the speculations which are being made with its struggle and the gains which the revisionists, the social-imperialists and the international bourgeoisie want to achieve. Therefore it must not be deceived by Gierek`s „self-criticism“, or the advice of the Soviet social-imperialists or the false solidarity of the American imperialists and the West German militarists, or by the blessings of the Vatican“ ( Zëri i popullit, September, 7 – 1980).
This clear-cut stand towards the policy and aims of the international bourgeoisie and revisionist reaction in Poland must begin by opposing, in the first place, the internal forces which are contingents of one or the other superpower and playing the game of foreign overlords.
Without reconciling itself to either side of the counter-revolution, the Polish proletariat, led by its Marxist-Leninist Party, will know how to clearly distinguish its internal and external enemies and its natural allies in the revolution. Hitherto, the Polish proletariat has relinquished its leading role to one or the other party of reaction. After decades of efforts and defeats it is time for the bitter mistakes of the past to become a great lesson to it.
In the future revolutionary movement, it will certainly rise, not only as a great fighting force, but also as the leading force in the revolution, without leaving this role in the hands of, or sharing it with, any other force.
„The hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution is decisive for the solution of the fundamental question of the revolution, the question of political power, in its favour and that of the masses of the people,“ stresses Comrade Enver Hoxha (Enver Hoxga, „Imperialism and the Revolution“, p. 220, Eng. ed.).
Together with its natural allies, first of all the working peasantry, the proletariat must rise both against the revisionist clan in power and against the ultra-capitalist clan and all their internal and external supporters.
Between the two big groupings of Polish reaction, between the two fires which each side has kindled for its own counter-revolutionary interests, the proletariat and the masses will find their salvation only when they rise as an independent force and kindle the fire of the revolutionary struggle.
As the PLA has pointed out, the Polish proletariat and people must adopt the same stand, also, towards the foreign reactionary forces which are doing everything possible, each on its own account, to deceive the Polish people. Hidden behind the „Solidarity“, which the most reactionary circles of the capitalist West are displaying with the present Polish „movement“, are the snares of a future enslavement to Western imperialism, just as hidden behind the „concern“ of the Soviet social-imperialists and their lackeys are their feverish efforts to maintain the former oppression and dependence. All the „attacks“, „quarrels“ and „contradictions“ over the „Polish question“ amongst the external allies of each side of the counter-revolution in Poland are only squabbles as they haggle over which side will dominate Poland, who will suck the blood and toil of the Polish proletariat.
Faced with the threat of the revolution, the parties and groupings of the bourgeoisie and reaction put aside their contradictions and squabbles and unite for their fundamental aim – the suppresion of the revolution.
But this does not frighten the Polish proletariat, which is outstanding in history for its revolutionary traditions. The cause for which it will rise is just, and this is the greatest guarantee of its victory over any enemy and the united forces of internal and external enemies.
Comrade Enver Hoxha pointed out at the 8th Congress of the PLA,
„The way for the working class and the people of Poland and of all the other revisionist countries to escape capitalist exploitation and foreign oppression is not through reconciliation with the revisionist regime in power and with Soviet social-imperialist slavery or through uniting with Western capital and reaction. The only way to ensure the developemnt of the economy, the freedom and independence of the country and the re-establishment of socialism is through the open and resolute struggle of the masses of the people, under the leadership of the working class with a genuine Marxist-Leninist party at its head“ (Enver Hoxha, Report to the 8th Congress of the PLA, p. 187, Engl. ed.).
Marxism Leninism teaches us that for the preparation and mobilizition of the working masses for the revolution, the rejection of bourgeois-revisionist theories and practices on trade-unionism, the smashing of trade unions manipulated by capitalist-revisionist reaction, and the organization of the proletariat in new revolutionary trade-unions, in class trade unions of the proletariat, led by the Marxist-Leninist party, has great importance today.
The „creations“ of recent years, the so-called independent unions, have brought about greater confusion, deception and devision in the ranks of the proletariat and working masses in Poland. In the great upsurge of the struggle for power, however, these organisms became more and more exposed as means of political struggle in the hands of clans of reaction. Precisely on this account, the possubility of exposing them and rejecting their yoke is greater today than in periods of „quiet“, “peaceful“ development. Just as the proletariat threw off the yoke of the unions manipulated by the revisionists, it has the task to throw off the yoke of unions manipulated by the Walesas, the Bujaks and the Ruswelks, indeed, as quickly as possible, without giving „the union chiefs“ the possibility to turn themselves into rulers of the state through the strength of the proletariat. The struggle and efforts of the proletariat should serve it, not to change masters, but to eliminate them.
In its efforts to mobilize and organize itself underthe leadership of its Marxist-Leninist party, the Polish proletariat, like the proletariat of any other capitalist-revisionist country, will become more and more clear that the course of the revolution cannot be contained with the bounds and forms of a trade-union movement, even if this movement is completely in the hands of the proletariat and develops correctly. Just as the organization of the proletariat in revolutionary unions is one of the many forms of organization of the masses, the trade-union movement is one of the many forms of the class struggle. Any illusion about this is fraught with harmful consequences. The only possible end for a class movement based on the trade-union movement alone is reformism.
The fundamental aim of the revolution is not to improve the state power through reforms. On the contrary, its aim is to destroy the existing state power and set up in its place the new state of the dictatorshup of the proletariat. This objective can never be achieved through trade-unionism.
„Syndicalism either repudiates the revolutionary dictatorship of proletariat, or else relegates it, as it dies with political power in general, to a back seat“, points out Lenin (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 26,p. 100, Alb. ed.).
Therefore, „we must transform the worker`s movement, which at the moment is only occuoational, unto a political and directly revolutionary movement“, (Lenin, Collected Works, col 13, p. 56, Alb. ed.) was the call which the great Lenin in his time directed to the communist and worker`s parties of countries where capital ruled. The call, which remains valid to this day, assumes a special urgency for the Polish proletariat, brainwashed with theories about reformist syndicalism.
In recent years, as throughout its history, the Polish proletariat has shown that it will not long put up with oppression and ruin, that its spirit of revolt and insurrection against socio-economic injustices is well developed. The widespread strike movement into which it threw itself was an expression, not only of the grave and intolerable situation that existed and still exists in Poland, but also of the readiness of the masses to hurl themselves into concrete actions against zjis situation. The task of the Marxist-Leninist party is to channel and direct thus spirit of revolt, this readiness of the masses to rise in insurrection, on the rails of the revolution. The fact is that up till now, the Polish proletariat is attacking the revisionists in power from the right, attacking them with its own hands, but from the standpoint and spirit of pro-Western counter-revolutionary forces. Herein lies the misfortune of the movement. The working class and the working masses have to understand that their readiness to go into action must be directed not only against the modern revisionists and their social-imperialist allies, but equally against the internal ultra-capitalist forces, against the destructive influence of the Catholic Church, and against links with Western capital, reaction and the Vatican. Without a frontal radical attack against all these counter-revolutionary forces, the readiness of the masses to go into action is olaced under the control of clans of the bourgeoisie and serves the advent ti power of one clan or the other, but never of the proletariat.
The party of the proletariat makes the masses conscious that in the course of the protacted struggle for the revolution, the strike movement is only one form of the class-struggle, and neither the main, nor the final one. As the Polish reality is proving, confining the working class to a strike movement, carefully manipulated by reaction, not only brought the proletariat no benifit, but even worse, exhausted its energies in vain, and in this context, discredited the revolutionary essence of the strike movement itself. The task of the revolutionary proletariat is that, whule using the powerful strike movement to gain whatever can be gained within the framework of the existing order, to ensure above all that thus movement is used as the first step towards higher forms of the class struggle, as training for the revolution, as an elementary form in which the masses are trained, organized and mobilized for the stern but decisive battles of the future.
Otherwise, the readiness of the Polish working masses to hurl themselves into action will remain merely a readiness that takes small steps, readiness to force a few reforms, a few momentary improvements. This position of the proletariat keeps alive the deception that it is fighting, but „it`s no use, beating your head against the wall“. The violence of the Jaruzelski government, after December 13, 1982, could reinforce such a defeatust and fatalist view. If the so-called worker`s movement in Poland was suppressed by this violence, it was suppressed because it was not a genuine worker`s movement, not a revolutionary movement. When the proletariat is made conscious about the struggle in which it is to rise, when it is led by a genuine party of the working class, when it has a clear revolutionary strategy and tactics, undoubtedly it correctly foresees the steps it will take, forsees both the successes and the temporary defeats, and so on. As a result, it takes all measures to ensure that even from the defeats it emerges more organized and more determined to carry the struggle through to the end successfully. The great ecperience of all revolutions carried out hitherto, including the experiences of the triumphant revolution in Albania, confirms this.
On the other hand, throwing the proletaruat into minor actions for minor gains, with the bourgeois idea that the bastion of the ruling order is impregnable, keeps the proletariat in permanent bondage. This is the readiness of the petty-bourgeois who shouts about his great „valour“, but who loses his bearings, is confused and satisfied with a bone tossed at his feet.
Through its powerful movement, the Polish proletariat has proved that, irrespective of the counter-revolutionary inspiration that characterized those movements, it does not tolerate oppression, is not satisfied with and does not accept „minor victories“ or, even less, charity squeezed out of the ruling bourgeoisie. As the PLA said in „Zëri u popullit“ on February 13, 1981,
„the Poland of the revolution has not died, and will not die, it has only lost its way“. And now, bitterly disillusioned, but also deeply revolted by the bitter reality, the Polish working class is left no other way, but to take its true revolutionary road.
„This“, says Comrade Enver Hoxha, „undoubtedly demands determination, courage, sacrifice, revuval of the revolutionary spirit and traditions of the time of Lenin and Stalin. Above all, this demands the organization of genuine revolutionaries in new Marxist-Leninist parties, which will mobilize, organize and lead the general uprising of the proletariat and the other working masses to victory“ (Enver Hoxha, „Against Modern Revisionism 1968-1970“, pp. 84-85, Alb. ed. )