Author `s free, revised and improved translation from the German original text
Part III
(last part)
Appeal
of the
Communist International
(Marxists- Leninist)
decided on the 31st December, 2006
(at our 6th anniversary)
Words which change the world:
"World proletariat - unite all countries! "
Unification - that is to overcome divisive split !
“Proletarians of all countries - unite!" and "World proletariat - unite all countries!" are both the matching formulae to overcome global split of the world proletariat and to overcome the split of the proletarians of all countries, too. At present it is the internationalist solution of the “social and national question” nationwide and worldwide:
“ Separating nations from each other is not our task, but to unify the workers of all countries” (Lenin: volume 19, page 545, German edition, free editor `s translation).
To practice Leninism that means to understand Leninism. If Lenin spoke about “separating nations” he did not mean to ignore the national question. Lenin taught that the international question cannot be solved in disregard of the national question and vice versa. And it is reasonable as well that the question of the internationalist unification of the world proletariat does not leave aside the fate of the nations. “Separating nations from each other” is actually a hindrance for the unification of the workers of all countries and this hindrance has to be ironed out. So what about reversing this citation ? To unify the workers of all countries we communists have to strive for iron out the hindrances of the nations ` separation. Unification of the world proletariat through overcoming nations ` separation: “World proletariat – unite all countries !”
Today, the irreversible unification of the nations towards their socialist unity is a foregone conclusion based on the globalisation of capital. World capitalism itself abrogates nationalism, separatism and splits of nations. Globalisation cuts back the nationalist discordances as a matter of temporary nature (although this will be a matter of utmost painful processes!).
The more national conflicts and enmities, the stronger the internationalist will, the stronger the unity of the revolutionary movement to overcome divisive splits.
The “question of the nations ` unity” is the question of bursting both their nationalist and cosmopolitical chains which are chains of the national and world bourgeoisie. Only the proletariat can shake off the nations` yoke of world capitalism: “World proletariat – unite all countries !”
The global unification question is a question applied to be solved practically and because it cannot be solved beyond the actual conditions of class struggle the question of unification has to be changed into a question of the overcoming of one `s own split thus by the usage of all forms of penetrating, splitting and subverting the antagonistic class enemy. The world proletariat needs its own strategy and tactics of antidote to pave the way for its own unification. With other words we are teaching the world proletariat how to beat the world bourgeoisie at their own game !
The bourgeoisie has known for over 150 years that globally united workers represent a devastating world power.
It is the counter strategy of self-preservation of every opposing class to destroy, to impede and inhibit all the unification processes of the opponent.
If antagonistic classes stand vis-à-vis then their life and death stand vis-à-vis, too. Class struggle shall be finally settled not until the united power of the class enemy is globally destroyed. So the global unification and defragmentation of the world proletariats comes along with the proletarians` systematic efforts to deepen and speed up the global split and fragmentation of the world bourgeoisie to make use of all the contradictions within the counter-revolutionary alliances of the class-enemy. By this the weapons of the class-enemies can be liquidated, in particular their political organisations.
The world proletariat cannot lead the global class-struggle successfully without adding global fuel to the class-enemies` disunity. The success of one `s own unification to obtain / to maintain class-power, respectively the reconquest or restoration of the formerly lost class-power depends on the crucial factor of the class-enemies` disunity. This is one of the well-known basic laws of antagonistic class struggle. Mastering this law is its newly-arranged global stage.
Undoubtedly both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie try hard to make use of this general class struggle law by their own strategy and tactics at most. The world proletariat is doomed if it relies passively on the spontaneous course of the unification of all countries and if waiting sporadically and accidentally for any occasional events in single countries. This can never lead to the success if the world proletariat does n `t actively fight against all those split and fragmentation attempts of the class opponent centralist, internationalistically with which the opponents paralyse and disable the unification will and the unification strength of the proletariat. Mostly, till now, the counter-revolutions didn't win,
" because they destroyed their enemy, but because the strengths were shattered, because the proletariat features a different maturity degree in the different countries. The united enemies of the working classes won by paying the price of the delay of the decision battle, however, in which that source was simultaneously enlarged and deepened – which increases the number of proletarians - maybe more slowly than it ought to be but unstoppable - and which fosters their association, toughens them in the fight and teaches them actions against the united enemy. This source is the capitalism " (Lenin, volume 15, page 465, German edition, free editor `s translation).
So the source for the adjustment of the different maturity degree of the proletarians of the different countries to the highest maturity degree of the united world proletariat is the globalised world capitalism today.
The socialist world revolution doesn't win because it destroys the whole world bourgeoisie at one blow but because the strengths of the national bourgeoisies are shattered by the world capital because the bourgeoisie features a different maturity degree in the different countries.
The united enemies of the world bourgeoisie win by paying the price of the delay of the decision battle between world capitalism and world socialism, however, in which that source will be simultaneously enlarged and deepened – which increases the number of Communists – maybe more slowly than it ought to be but unstoppable – and which fosters their association, toughens them in the fight and teaches them actions against the shattered enemy . This source is communism.
The ruinous competition of the capitalist world powers and their common fear for the socialist world revolution – these are the motive powers of the global counter-revolution. The unity of the proletarian powers and their common fearlessness for the world capitalism - these are the motive powers of the socialist world revolution: “World proletariat – unite all countries !”
If the split and fragmentation tactics of the world bourgeoisie (or the bourgeoisie in this or that country) would be always the same or at least always equally so the world proletariat (or the proletarians in this or that country) would suss it quickly and would counter the bourgeois tactic just by the same or at least equal tactics.
However, carrot and stick alternate the one time and some other time they intertwine as miscellaneous combinations due to the objective conditions of class-struggle and because of the contradictions in one `s own or in the adverse camp.
In this process all the zigzag courses of the bourgeois tactics of the proletarians` split and fragmentation always led to the strengthening of revisionism within the ranks of the labour movement. These revisionist fission fungi thrive and prosper among those representatives of the labour movement who allow themselves to be deceived, who are licked, who are duped, who take the bait, who are open to corruption and who are taken in by all the well-known revisionist false and dummy concessions. The historical experiences of all countries show that the workers were always the dupe when soever they trusted in the demagogic gossip about pseudo- “unity” of the reformists and revisionists ( unity for the sake of unity, reconciliatorish unity with the bourgeoisie etc.).
World proletariat - turn the spear over and this time the reformists and the revisionists will be duped !
As well as the class opponent runs its global agencies in the communist and labour movement, the world proletariat also shall learn to run its global agencies within the opponent class camp. The world proletariat must beat the bourgeois agencies within the labour movement with their own weapons as well.
Let `s take the revisionism as the most dangerous weapon of the class enemy in the rows of the communist and labour movement:
If the class opponent has managed the revisionism to beat the world proletariat with its own weapons, then the world proletariat must just aim those intellectual and material weapons of the revisionism at the revisionists, it must globally learn to turn over the revisionist guns of pseudo-”unity”!
The world proletariat may have neither shyness nor scruple carrying split and fragmentation into the enemies` unity – e.g. by Trojan Horses. The world proletariat must disintegrate and decompose the allies of the world capital from inside, must corrupt it.
How can this be done? Lenin teaches: „Learn from the enemies!” Study and learn from the historical defeats and splits of the internationalist proletarian movement by studying and learning from the documents and writings of the class-enemy!
Who studies the splits and fragmentations of our movement as a history of the counter-revolution, who studies the weapons of the counter-revolution will learn how to turn over these weapons, how to beat counter-revolution with its own weapons. For short:
Nothing confirms more highly the explanation of the political nature of the split and fragmentation of our revolutionary movement than its own judgements of the class-enemies who conduct it. Lenin quotes an opportunist:
"And this opportunist gives away bourgeois secrets, reveals the truth and speaks frankly about the nature of the policy of the complete international bourgeoisie concerning the labour movement of the 20th century.
One cannot reject this movement as irrelevant and one cannot suppress it by brutal violence either any more. One must corrupt it from inside out, by buying over its upper elements" (Lenin, volume 21, page 453, German edition, free editor `s translation).
And just this way the bourgeoisie bred mischief and corrupted the Second International, corrupted the Third International, corrupted the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin, corrupted the socialist Albania of Enver Hoxha, corrupted the Marxist-Leninist movement nation- and worldwide, corrupted the whole first epoch of socialism. The whole secret of this deal simply consists of the subtlety and cunning of the method to let it never come into the open. One of the most perfidious and treacherous methods is cover-up through openness in order to hold duplicitousness in honour. It was definitively a revisionist deal: “Against the corruption of the labour movement of the 20th century (by buying over the labour aristocracy) in words, however corruption of the labour movement (by buying over the labour aristocracy) in deeds”.
The bourgeoisie has been able to generate the labour aristocracy by paying the price for that the masses won `t betray their socialist thoughts and ideals.
In a manner of speaking, the revisionism of the 20th century was nothing else but the corruption of the socialism by the bribery of the revisionist aristocracy. In the 21st century exactly the contrary will take place. Though the whole corruption won't be totally removed it will be administered against the bourgeoisie by that class which will remove even the inevitableness of any class-corruption for ever and ever. It is the ruling world proletariat which will hit the bourgeoisie with its own corruptive weapons. That is the whole point of the nature of the politics of the dictatorship of the world proletariat against the global capitalist restoration movement of the 21st century.
Notice the following three rules:
Do not let the class enemies in on it; we don't allow our class opponents to penetrate into our closed room, by no means without any counter performances.
Infiltration of double agents trained by the world proletariat as "opportunists" and "revisionists" within the counter revolutionary movement to ease the restoration of socialism this way and to paralyse and undermine the split and fragmentation on the part of the counter revolution. For the restoration of the socialism we `ll take advantage of our own proletarian agents within the camp of our opponent `s movement. And we shall prove that our proletarian agents are far better and more effective to restore socialism than those agents of the bourgeoisie who restored capitalism once.
socialist internationalism must not corrupt itself - from inside out. Splits caused by ourselves are most dangerous and can end with a break down. This is the reason why our enemies try to “give us a hand” for such faults of our own or why they just allege a net of deceit.
All this will actually happen, will be carried out even more consistently namely the more the contradiction between world bourgeoisie and world proletariat shall be intensified by the globalization of the world capital.
Related to our two formulae of the proletarians` unification it is necessary for the bourgeois strategy and tactics to split the proletarians of all countries and to split the world proletariat: “Capitalists of all countries – split the unification forces of the world proletariat !” - “World capitalists – split the proletarian unification forces of all the countries !”
The whole secret of the bourgeoisie to stand the test of nearly two centuries is keeping the proletarian unification forces at arm `s length by means of split. Private property at the means of production stirs up social disunity and aggravates class-contradictions – Socialisation of the means of production generates social unity. However, the proletarians socialise all production means not until they socialise themselves. The unification forces of the proletariat gather strength not until the proletarians socialise their consciousness – socialising their consciousness strengthens the proletarians` class-consciousness - . To become conscious about the necessity of one `s own unity the proletarians have to become conscious about the necessity of overcoming their own disunity which is caused by the ideological influence of the bourgeoisie.
The class struggle shall have reached a point when the one class will be forced by the other one to transfer its struggle onto the terrain of opponent weapons and to still continue and finally succeed in class struggle under aggravated conditions.
So what does our duplicitous class opponent make?
Our class enemy enters the stage of the Marxist-Leninist World Movement like a “Marxist-Leninist”, like a “world revolutionary”, like a “socialist internationalist”, like a “global communist” or whatever is indicated - and once established on this stage continuing class struggle by snaffling both of our formulae with the purpose to direct them AGAINST us , against the world proletariat and “in the name” of the world proletariat! These subversive activities were once successfully used by the revisionists within the Comintern - for example the revisionist deformation of the popular front (united-front tactics).
The class enemy assumes the role of the “unifier” of the world proletariat and from this position he starts to attack us Communists as “those who split the movement” and therefore as those “elements of diversion” who must be liquidated in the name of the defence of “unity”. Thereby the class enemy avails himself of his own as well as our organisations in combination to feed each others lines.
The revisionists take possession of our Marxist-Leninist positions of politics, of our line, of our world revolutionary ideas to direct them all against us whereby they enter the stage of the ideological class struggle as the “true Marxists-Leninist” who “defend” Marxism-Leninism against us Marxists-Leninist by exposing us and calling us “enemies” of the world proletariat, “enemies” of the world revolution.
So there is a double deceit: 1. Our Marxist-Leninist line of unification is masked as a camouflage of the divisive line of our class enemy (carrying the divisive influence of the bourgeoisie into the world proletariat by misusing Marxist-Leninist unity as a Trojan Horse). 2. The “Stop thief!”- tactics is the famous method of our class enemy to “unmask” our Marxist-Leninist unity as “Anti-Marxist-Leninist” unity and simultaneously to mask his bourgeois divisive politics as “Marxist-Leninist”. For one tactics you slip into the role of the enemy to take over his power position and for the other tactics you “expose” and “denounce” your enemy in public to isolate him and to take over his power position. Often both these tactics are combined or exchanged depending on different conditions. Let `s go into detail:
Unification as a position going in division and split :
1) Unity with the class opponent for the purpose of obtaining one `s own superiority by succumbing unity to superior numbers with the result of forcing the enemy into a minority position (divisive unity achieved by the conquest- of- majorities tactics; unity as a catalyst of the splitting).
And then: fraction ism: clannish minorities unified as a (more or less monolith) block to obstruct the majority with the purpose to take over one `s own majority;
And then: Wearing down the splitters right up to their total liquidation (method of liquidation by means of the [smooth and gentle] unity for the purpose of its strangulation = unity `s liquidation based on the right-opportunist position. This method is preferred if the revolutionary situation increases in prosperity thus when the enemy is strong and the movement active.
2) Frustration of unity precipitated by the fission politics:
The fission-method is used for the purpose to avoid, to hinder or even to make the unification process impossible.
It is frequently used in non-revolutionary situations, in situations of the revolutionary low tide, in situations when the class opponent is not yet bounced back, when he is demoralised, when there is caused confusion in his own ranks, when the opponent is forced to rally his strength respectively when he is forced to renew or change his formation.
It is often used as a pseudo- counter method of the method 1).
You simulate as if you strive for a “principled unity” directed against the pseudo-unity, against unification ism, against unprincipled unity, against unity chaffer y etc.
organisations etc.
You start a dispute on ideological demarcations to justify the maintenance of disunity and split . You put out endless discussions on unity to make unifications complicated and even impossible.
For this purpose you resort to dogmatism and sectarianism. You over-estimate existing dissents about unity or disunity and raise an principle objection though the disagreements have no principle or antagonistic al character.
Hereby both the methods of Trojan Horses and “Stop thief!” are utilised.
The more split groups and the more diverse fractions are “installed” within the opponent camp the better for one `s own class politics and the more difficult for the class enemy to unite or reunite his split or shattered forces.
Both methods come to the success in combination. Notice that you adopt the one method as your primary and the other as your secondary method. In case of changing conditions and circumstances the exchange of major and minor method will be necessary to gain the best results.
So to speak, you must have two strings to your bow, must be quick on the draw and must beat your class-enemy to the punch. The unification of the world proletariat is an indispensable element of the global class struggle and has to be treated like a world revolutionary strategy used as an art of class- warfare which likes to be further developed, studied in theory and mastered in practice.
Our key-watchword for this strategy is : „World proletariat – unite all countries!“
Unity with opportunism equals unification with the class-enemy and leaves nothing behind but a world revolution in shatters.
To avoid all the painful and sacrificial consequences of unprincipled and enslaving unity the world proletariat has to master the Marxist-Leninist strategy and tactics against opportunist unity: Marxist – Leninist unity is not unifiable with opportunist unity. They are both irreconcilable and are antagonistically contradictory! Opportunists strive to reconcile the irreconcilable unity – Marxists- Leninist strive for the irreconciliation against the reconciliators The one unity is a revolutionary unity, thus the unity of the proletariat and the other is counter revolutionary, thus the class-reconciling unity with the enemy ! To get rid of the world bourgeoisie we have to get rid of its divisive politics, doctrines and dogmas in the heads of the workers. Splitting begins in the heads of the workers and consequently the overcoming of splitting, too. Every step of splitting off the bourgeois ideology, of splitting off opportunism, is a step of the proletarians` unification.
Let `s keep in mind that all the various divisive methods of the bourgeoisie – the (right, reconciled) pseudo-unity-tactics as well as the (“left”, sectarian) pseudo-”principled” unity tactics - are combined and modified on all fields and at all fronts of class-struggle.
For example the leaders are split off the masses by this, theory is split off practice, strategy is split off tactics, party is split off class, class is split off masses, unity of the proletariat is split off the unification with the other exploited classes, national unification is split off global unification etc.
There are thousands of valuable experiences and teachings in the history of the anti-revisionist struggle for revolutionary unity to overcome all those harmful open splits and fragmentations of the communist and labour movement caused by the class enemies on the one hand and to overcome those harmful hidden pseudo-unity and pseudo-demarcations on the other hand.
And there are also thousands of valuable experiences and teachings about all the unavoidable and necessary splits and demarcations to get rid of class-strange elements, to purify the ranks of the proletarian united front. The world proletariat shall make many other important distinctions in future to achieve its own unity as well as its global unity with all the anti-world capitalist forces. And with the wisdom of hindsight the proletarians learn better by mistakes, defeats and disappointments than by their successes and victories. The world proletariat will be forces by the class-enemy to defend its unity against its split, will be forced to max out all the possibilities and opportunities to struggle against disunity and will be forced to make sacrifices and concessions for its unity (naturally not the unprincipled ones!) . There is no pure unity down-the-line.
In case of exhausted possibilities and if there is no other way out of committing the unavoidable split, we won `t be afraid to decide it in the interest of obtaining, maintaining or retaining the requested or necessary unity. there where all possibilities really are exhausted where the union is made impossible nevertheless, the split is unavoidable, one mustn't be afraid of this decision because the split is then only left as the only possibility to produce the necessary unity (again).
The world proletariat can be victorious not until it draws the anti-revisionist demarcation line, not until it has purified its own ranks from the revisionists because every revisionist influence within the communist and labour movement is advantageous for the world bourgeoisie and harmful for the world proletariat. In principle there is no unity between revisionism and Marxism-Leninism like there is principally no unity between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Splits and unifications, fragmentations and de fragmentations aren't class neutrally. They are all advantageous for the one and disadvantageous for the other antagonistic al class. Splits and unifications can be harmful for every class which does not apply or combine these strategies and tactics of class-politics correctly.
So the world proletariat uses the unrestrained tactics of a stick and a carrot for its part against the world bourgeoisie as soon as the dictatorship of the world proletariat will be established. Unification and divisiveness of classes are two sides of a coin.
We must be conscious about the fact that unity and struggle form a dialectical unit. We must be conscious about another fact that the unit of unification and divisiveness means simultaneously the utmost sharpening of the class contradictions.
Harmonise the world proletarian class-unity with the divisiveness of the international bourgeoisie - and you `ll get the victory of the world revolution! This isn't without the objectively necessary conditions such as the world revolutionary situation or a world crisis which causes globally the outrage of the exploited and oppressed classes:
"To initialise the revolution it doesn't suffice that the exploited and suppressed masses become conscious about the impossibility to live on in a previous manner and that they are conscious about calling for a revolutionary change; to initialise the revolution it is necessary that the exploiters cannot live and rule in the previous manner any more " (Lenin, volume 31, page 71, German edition, free editor `s translation).
If the one class cannot yet succeed in preventing the opponent classes from their unification directly by its destructive interferences, then it is forced to influence their unification processes indirectly, firstly by avoiding lateral damages within one `s own class caused by the unification of the adversarial classes and secondly by exerting decisive and subversive influence on the unification of the adverse classes and rather by getting hold of the unification process so that the enemy is hoist by his own petard (for example: the socialist working class – being inducted by the revisionist leaders – unifying the revisionist camp for the purpose of world imperialist annexation).
The bourgeoisie splits the proletariat, destroys its unity by the policy of class reconciliation. So the consistent, firm-principled fight against the policy of the class reconciliation unites the proletariat in the fight against the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie covers the deep gulf between the antagonistic al classes with the purpose just to split the proletariat. The proletariat gives the masses a reality check about the depth of the gulf among the classes with the purpose just to unite them.
To combat and liquidate the world proletarian unity by veiling the disunity and split of the proletarians all over the world, by means of Marxism-Leninism – that is the revisionist method of the world bourgeoisie `s lackeys within the ranks of the communist and labour movement ! This has always to be kept in mind if revisionists open their mouth swearing: “unity”! That `s all revisionist brainwash. If revisionists talk about “unity” then they don `t tell the truth. They only want to mask their true intention by misuse of Marxism-Leninism just to damage proletarians` unity. They want to maintain the split and to paralyse and undermine unity. Unity with the bourgeoisie instead of unity against the bourgeoisie - that is the meaning of revisionist “unity”, that is the bourgeois expression of “unity” - covered by Marxist-Leninist phrases.
Once again
on the famous Marxist-Leninist thesis:
"the removal of the weakest chain-link "
- under today's global conditions:
The question of the unification is solved by the overcoming of the split, subversion and undermining in the class camp of one's own and the split, subversion and undermining within the adverse class camp, at the same time. The strategy and tactics of the unification of the world proletariat is both the strategy and tactics of the overcoming of its split, subversion and undermining caused by the world bourgeoisie and the strategy and tactics for causing splits, subversion and undermining within the world bourgeoisie.
That `s why we must have a good look at this question, we must find the best solution, we must answer the question:
Where is the weakest chain-link in the split making and subversive degrading of the world bourgeoisie `s counter revolutionary chain?
The world bourgeoisie `s biggest problem is a monolith united and r evolutionarily organised world proletariat. Ergo: Facing the monolith unity of the world proletariat is indeed the weakest chain-link of the global counter-revolution.
If we have found this weakest chain-link then we can burst the Bourgeoisie `s chain of split making and therewith the capitalist-revisionist encirclement, the restoration of the capitalism etc.
Of course a global equalisation of the world productive forces has been carried out unavoidably by the reintegration of the restored capitalism in the first run, however the world productive forces cannot continue their mushroom growth in their further development unboundedly. They get in contradiction with the globalisation of the relations of production.
Of course this aggravates the old revolutionary tactics of the Marxists-Leninist to “break through” the weakest chain-link. This traditional form and tactics of the socialist revolution in “one” country is nearly impossible in its event of repetition and global conditions.
However, we may not have been mistaken about the globalization of the world capital.
Its growth, its refreshment - as we have seen - will always be on the world capital `s own behalf and therefore to the advantage of the socialist revolution in each country, but not just directly but indirectly - detouring globally.
The profit seeking doesn't intensify the contradictions only between world proletariat and world bourgeoisie but also the contradictions in the capitalist complete system itself especially its problem to maintain the disunity of the proletariat.
The capitalist contradictions of the globalisation overburden the whole world capitalist system, make the exploitation machinery weaker, more unstably, more vulnerable by using up its reserves, destroying productive resources, financing the management of crises and last not least by growing efforts to uphold the world proletarians ` disunity.
If one deals with the tactics of “breaking through the weakest chain-link”, so one mustn't disregard the decisive role of the world proletariat `s unity which makes the “breakthrough” possible only under global conditions. This is generally underestimated and unpardonably within the Marxist-Leninist world movement.
The Marxists-Leninist were always far too much focussed on the single country which has to be broken out of the imperialist chain. This is the reason why the Marxists-Leninist far too less turned the spotlight on the centralising process of the imperialist chain `s development under global conditions. Its cohesion is less based on the succession of the biggest capitalist countries but more and more on new, global, compound structures. The cohesion and uniformity of the world imperialist chain is anything but static, firmly established or rather immovable.
Over the course of globalisation the imperialist chain really changed, has powerfully got into movement by changing its chain-links ` relations, by degrading its links , by generating increasingly contradictions between chain and links. The strengthening of the chain takes place under the weakening of the links. The chain itself comes under fire, becomes the centre of the global class struggle , so that is not any more the weakening contradictions among the great powers which once enabled and initiated the breakthrough at the weakest link.
Something important was bound to happen to the imperialist chain sooner or later:
Under global conditions the imperialist chain-links were forced to close ranks. The crisis-ridden world imperialist system has to contract and to centralise all its forces by exhausting all the forces from its links. The chain-links themselves are not any longer able to settle neither their own problems nor their common problems. The only way open to the links is their global cohesion and this means their total dependence, the loss of their independence, their inability to cope with their own difficulties. And this is the weakest point of the imperialist chain today. Its strength is based on the de vitalisation of its links.
This is a quite important reason to reconsider the old tactics of “breaking through the weakest imperialist chain-link” critically and self-critically!
The centralization of the world capital causes the centralization of the socialist revolution. The capitalism turns into the global capitalism. The socialist revolution turns into the global socialist revolution - not directly by the socialist revolution in "one" country but over the "detour" of the globalised world capital.
What does this mean for the socialist revolution for “breaking through a weakest imperialist chain-link”?
In principle nothing has changed the necessity of breaking trough the weakest chain-link of the imperialist chain.
However, what changed is merely the globalised form in which the breakthrough will be put in motion.
So it is only about the denial of the former tactics how to break through and not the basic al denial of these tactics in itself.
The world revolutionary character of the socialist revolution in one country remains unchanged, but the form in which socialist revolutions shall take place in future.
The “breakout” assumes a global form and loses its nationally bounded cover, becomes a by-product of the revolutionary world process against the world capital.
Is the the “breakthrough”- theory of Lenin and Stalin disputable under global conditions of today?
We think that the prerequisites really have changed but the theory is in principle correct. So disputable is only the restricted question how this correct theory has to be practised under changing conditions and not the “breakthrough” – theory itself.
We cannot just copy the way how this theory was practised in times of Lenin and Stalin. If one, however, uses the old tactics unchanged and doesn't adapt them to changed conditions, then one still works for this theory in words but in deeds one perishes the effectiveness of this theory in the practice, one converts this valuable theory simply to a revolutionary phrase. And revolutionary phases have to be combated, have to be uncovered and exposed to defend the revolutionary spirit of the “breakthrough” theory of Lenin and Stalin. So what we combat is the phraseologisation of the “breakthrough”-theory and not the theory in itself.
Phrases sound good in one `s ears and this suffices to impress the proletariat, to play up to the proletariat and to curry favour with the proletariat but a fat lot of use that is to the proletariat. So this theory of Lenin and Stalin is defend able not until it is correctly applied to the new conditions ! The theory may not be left foozled by repeating it parrot-fashion. We Marxists-Leninist don `t walk into the revisionist trap transforming Marxist-Leninist teachings unrevised - which were worked out under conditions of the first epoch of socialism. We cannot simply copy the traditional teachings or adopt them easily as the teachings of the second epoch of socialism. Marxism-Leninism has to be further developed otherwise it would wither fall off and die off.
Many teachings of the first period of socialism turn out to be useful, can be taken over unchanged. Other teachings become useless in the second epoch of socialism and have just to be dropped without fail. Most of the useful teachings, however, cannot be taken over without critical and self-critical revisions, modifications and transformations. This has to be achieved unavoidably and as a stringent necessity by those Marxists-Leninist who live now in times of the beginning of the second period of socialism. It is not that the classics of Marxism-Leninism were wrong but the times have changed and Marxism-Leninism has to be changed from time to time – thus from the first to the second epoch of socialism !
The revolutionary striving for still more decided and new fight methods has been appreciated always fully by the international proletariat particularly under the conditions of the increase of the economic contradictions.
So we are certain about the sympathy of the workers to favour new international fight forms of class struggle against the world capital.
If we want to remain faithful to Lenin and Stalin, then we can and may not go out of the way of sincere analyses of changing conditions by acclamations of general phrases. The correct application of their teachings will decide on the world revolutionary question at last instance and finally. The complete tactics of the world proletariat depends on it and consequently that of the proletarians of all countries, too.
One may never insinuate or attribute any abstract considerations to a concrete world historical question.
The revolutionary proletariat of one country is still interested in its own socialist revolution to break through the imperialist chain and to build up socialism in its own country awaiting the internationalist support and sympathy of the world proletariat. The spirit of communism is the spirit of the revolutionary transformation of the world. Only in this spirit we can talk about the revolutionary transformation of one country. The revolutionary transformation of one country is not ending in itself but is - for its part - a further step towards the revolutionary transformation of all countries, of the whole world. To avoid any mechanicallist and metaphysical views of the world `s revolutionary transformation the socialism in “one” country cannot be narrowed by the views of the single country. They cannot be generalized to form the global view of the world proletariat. The proletariat of every country considers the upper global world revolutionary view of the world proletariat and derives and deduces its own views from it. There are two different approaches to the socialist views of single countries with just as different historical results. The one is well known as the restoration of capitalism and the other is that of the restoration of socialism.
The revisionists do not openly deny world socialism, so what we criticise is the revisionist way which does not lead to world socialism but back to world capitalism. To propagate the way towards world socialism by means of outdated methods of the first period of socialism results in bourgeois socialism and does not mean more than the backwardness of capitalist restoration, the capitalist restoration of socialism `s second period. This can only be considered as the last-ditch attempt to save world capitalism. The revisionists turned out to be unable to explicate the unity of the socialist world that emanates from the changeover of the first epoch to the second epoch of socialism. Socialist forms of the first period seem to them as unchangeable and everlasting forms. That kind of Socialism - once and for all restricted to its first period - does not comply to the basic internationalist spirit of Marxism-Leninism. In the contrary, Marxism – Leninism sees the single socialist country as a building block of the global movement and development of socialism. Marxism-Leninism is the ideology which overcomes the backwardness of all those metaphysical thoughts which tend to cut off the socialist development and which refuse to step to the second stage. The revisionists considered socialism in “one” country as to be “materialist” and complemented the lack of world socialism with idealism. With this idealism the revisionists felt superior to world capitalism. They pretended to convert world capitalism but in the contrary they converted socialism to capitalism because they ignored the teachings of Lenin and Stalin concerning the restricted possibilities of socialism within its first period. Marxism – Leninism is the fruits of the historical necessity of socialism to develop from the first epoch to the second epoch. Marxism – Leninism approves the temporary character of socialism, it `s coming to being and its ending – in particular the approval of the replacement of its first epoch by its second epoch (- to pave the way for socialism `s transition into communism) . Last not least the world proletariat could not be successful because the revisionist clung to the immutability of the first period. And therefore they proved to be unable and unwillingly to accept the necessity to leave the first period in support of the second. This is the reason why the Comintern became redundant and why it was dissolved before it could have worked out a comprehensive and deep Marxist-Leninist fundament for the further development towards world socialism, a scientific theory of its transition into the second period. Marxism – Leninism meets the requirements to be guide-line of world socialism by taking sides of the world proletariat, by taking up the position of the world proletariat. Marxism-Leninism develops by its continual process of improvements coming into being and going after they turned out to become needless, by its continual process of ascending from a lower to a higher stage. On a higher stage Marxism-Leninism becomes a monolith ideology of the world proletariat in compliance with the globalisation of the world society. Marxism-Leninism discovers the laws of the global development of socialism. Marxism-Leninism reflects and enlightens the global process of the communist movement. To deliver its judgement on global events and affairs Marxism-Leninism is forced to take the view of a global-type class, the view of the world proletariat. The idea of the globalised revolution can only be derived completely from the reality of globalised capitalism. Marxism – Leninism is the theoretical base of the highest stage of development of socialism. What does this mean, the highest stage ? If socialism changes in the course of its historical development – and the dialectical materialism does not accept any changelessness of socialism – then the following stage displaces the previous stage. Socialism cannot reach its second stage if it is unable or not ripe enough to leave its previous stage. The dialectical materialism teaches that a lower stager is replaced by an upper stage and this applies to socialism `s development, too. The replacement can only take place by unfolding global class-struggle which develops with the class which does it lead towards the world revolution. And this is again advantageous for the socialist revolution in the single countries.
The world capital unites the world proletariat in an enormous speed today. The world capital is faced by a steadily growing world proletariat whose general interest is not directly to support the “breakthrough” of the single country but the dis empowerment of the whole world capital – the destruction of the whole world capitalist chain. This is only possible by means of the socialist world revolution. If the question of the “breakthrough” will be immediately depend on the question of the destruction of the whole imperialist chain then the socialist revolution of a single country becomes a matter of the whole world proletariat and then the nationwide “breakthrough” will develop on a higher stage as a worldwide “breakthrough”. The national form of the “breakthrough” is not any longer the highest form and steps aside to pave the way for the global “breakthrough”. So what we have to do is raising the theory of Lenin and Stalin onto a high-level.
Either the one or the other, but the world proletariat cannot pursue both as its chief purpose simultaneously at the same time. First this, then that form of “breakthrough”.
So our new basic principle is:
At first the world proletariat chooses the formula: “World proletariat - unite all countries!" exclusively for the satisfaction of its own world revolutionary (over-all ) interests, and only then the world proletariat chooses this formula for the satisfaction of the revolutionary interests of each single country.
From the world proletariat `s view the present victory of the socialist revolution in “one” country shall become the by-product and no more the main product as it was once the case in the first period of socialism. That is one of the most important changes of characteristics between the first and second period of socialism.
Today the breakout of the weakest chain-link is not the socialist revolution in “one” country any more but a result of the global class struggle of the whole world proletariat shattering the whole imperialist chain.
Once we assumed that the “breakout” of the weakest chain-link would spark off the socialist world revolution (or would ease its beginning at least). Today, the weakest chain-link breaks out by the centralised class-struggle of the world proletariat with the use of the formula: “World proletariat – unite all countries!” This means nothing else that it is the socialist world revolution which which sparks off the socialist revolutions in the single countries ( at least which eases their beginning) - thus the other way round, because the world proletariat of the second period of socialism is not any more the world proletariat of the first period of socialism. ( All this is possible because the world crises are not mainly caused by this or that capitalist great power like once but by the global world capital itself – lower and upper stage of the development of world crises).
The world proletariat is now ripe enough to take over the position of the proletariat of “one” socialist country which once deputised and led the revolutionary movement of the proletariat all over the world.
The socialist proletariat of “one” country is not any longer in the revolutionary position of the base and lever of the over-all interests of the proletarians of all countries but the world proletariat itself becomes the sustainer of its own global interests under globalised conditions.
Does this mean that Lenin and Stalin were wrong?
Not at all, in the contrary, this confirms rather their thesis of “breaking out” the weakest chain-link and which is therefore still valid.
Their thesis fulfils itself on a higher stage, on the global stage thus by the globalisation of class-struggle. Last not least the historical existence of the socialism in “one” country and later on its capitalist restoration played a decisive role for the opening of possibility of breaking through the imperialist chain globally. The capitalist-revisionist encirclement did not go up in smoke but negated in new forms = transition of the capitalist-revisionist encirclement of socialism in “one” country into the global concentration and centralisation of the counter-revolution against the global world proletariat which opens new perspectives of the centralised and concentrated class- struggle of the world proletariat against the world capital.
For the most part it was the socialist country in the first epoch of socialism which pooled the anti-socialist forces of the capitalist camp which – on its part - concentrated and centralised world capital in form of the encirclement. The restoration of capitalism played a part in contributing to the globalisation and therefore to the unfolding of the world proletarians` revolutionary forces. To raise the world proletariat onto the world stage of history was last not least the merit of the first period of socialism. So the second epoch of socialism originates from the first one, they both interprenetate and merge into each other. Contra position of both the epochs is metaphysically and not Marxist-Leninist.
At that time, Lenin and Stalin couldn't foresee the globalisation and the situation after the first period of socialism. They had to cope with the two world camps which do not exist any more. We live in times of the restoration of socialism in a global capitalist-revisionist world.
That the revolution would continue automatically from the first country to one after another - this was by the way never the teaching of Lenin and Stalin. On the contrary, they have always fought this wrong opinion of the world revolution. That `s all.
Today, all these contradictions within the capitalist world system cannot any more rub against the socialist camp, cannot be influenced and used by the socialist country. The unity and the struggle of contradiction reached a global stage and can therefore only be solved globally by the world proletariat. So there is not that classical type of the weakest imperialist country any more which will be broken out by the weakening conflicts among the great powers but it is assumed that the we have to find out the weakest point of the allied global system itself. The chain-links changed by their subordinated position within the world system.
It is not the consecutive breaking of single links out of the imperialist chain what leads to the world revolution but vice versa the centralized international class struggle of the world proletariat against the world capital causes the breaking out of the single chain-links. This brings about the durable victory of the socialist revolution in every country because by this the capitalist-revisionist encirclement and the restoration of capitalism can be avoided.
The breakthrough of the imperialist chain was neither directly nor at once the road to the success of the world revolution. However, by the active intervention of the world proletariat against the world capital the breakthrough in the single countries will be eased and accelerated and finally crowned with success.
The world proletariat doesn't any more follow the country with the most revolutionarily developed proletariat. Vice versa, today all the proletarian detachments of the country shall follow the revolutionary world proletariat with its strongest detachment ahead. The subordination under the world proletariat decides on the success or defeat of the revolution in the own country. The success of the proletarian detachments of the countries is determined by the global success of the world proletariat.
If so the strength of the world imperialist chain is determined by the globalisation, the strengthening of the breaking out of the weakest chain-link must be determined globally, too.
If the world imperialist chain comes out to be still too strong, if the links have to be closer subordinated under the global interests of the world capital then the repetition of the breakthrough of the weakest link is aggravated. In this case the chain has to be treated and weakened on a global stage by the unification of the countries, by the centralisation and coordination of the global class struggle.
Once the breaking out of the weakest chain-link was a matter of a single, the strongest proletariat which was supported (more or less assisted) by the proletarians of other countries. The fate of socialism in “one” country was to be at odds with capitalist countries all around. The overcoming of revisionism took a whole period from the first to the second stage of socialism. We cannot foresee the course of the further development of the imperialist chain-links but just a simple repetition of history seems to be rather unlikely even if not impossible in a certain modified form. Nobody can nail us down to any ready receipts . Changing strategy and tactics are open and depend on opportunities which may arise out of a world revolutionary situation. Waiting of the world revolution means preparing and arranging the world revolution. The world revolution cannot be “made”, cannot be "constructed ". This is all well known.
However we can state for sure that we shall centralise our forces against all the centralised anti-forces of the world capital to - THEN - break out the weakest chain-link finely and smoothly as its own volition – by and after that global class struggle which will follow own characteristic antagonistical contradictions between world bourgeoisie and world proletariat. If these global contradictions come nearer to an end then the breakthrough causes not too much blood, damages. The establishment of socialist countries shall take place easier and at a forced rate in the second epoch of socialism. The collectively centralised solution of the worldwide contradictions shall ease the single solutions of the nationwide contradictions. The collectively centralised global breakthrough of the chain eases the breakthrough of each chain-link.
The weakest chain-link will not secede from outside, from a single country, but from inside of the united countries, secede by the conquest of the world proletarian `s political power. It is without saying that this coherent process of the global and the nationwide breakdown of the capitalist society does not need the same time gap like in times of socialism in “one” country which ended with socialism in its first stage. The break out of single countries begins as soon as the world capital is weakened enough by the whole world proletariat.
The lever of the centralised world proletarian forces has to apply from inside, while the proletarians of a single country can only apply the lever inside of its own country and impossibly from outside against the world capital. To break out the weakest chain-link the world proletariat could only take effect from outside the country. In a manner of speaking the proletarians from outside were more or less actively assisting and supporting the single revolutionary proletariat of a country who were lumbered with the whole imperialist world system ( whilst the socialist proletariat of the Red October was the third person who benefited from the disputes and conflicts of the imperialists).
To solve the contradiction of the breakthrough - which could not be solved under conditions of the first epoch of socialism - we need a new basic formula, and that is “World proletariat – unite all countries!” This is indeed the breakthrough-theory of Lenin and Stalin applied to the epoch of world socialism. The first epoch of socialism has gone with pains and the second epoch of socialism shall come with pains. However, we are looking forward to the better times. Let us always have in mind that the first period of socialism was great. Though the first epoch has gone and the second is still not there – we Marxists-Leninist are the lively proof of those who support the final breakthrough of socialism, we know how great a socialist world society will be ! Socialism is not coming and capitalism is not going – this is the painful, incessant situation of today. But the process of its solution shall come to that point when the world society will be forced to decide whether to die together with world capitalism or to survive together with world socialism. The question is: Can the society survive together with capitalism ? The answer is: No, capitalism cannot save mankind in the contrary, capitalism destroys mankind. The time of world socialism begins as soon as the people all over the world will be forced to decide whether to get rid of the life of capitalism or to die together with capitalism. Without socialism both would die. The issue is survival. At first the people decide on their own life and death and at second they decide on life and death of political systems. Class struggle is being caused by the classes` necessity to survive. If the world proletarians cannot survive as long as there is the world bourgeoisie, then they shall stop fighting not until the world bourgeoisie is completely removed. If they are really conscious about the fact that the removal would be necessary to survive then they shall absolutely remove the world bourgeoisie. The world revolutionary situations are coming soon and we have to prepare the people fighting for the right way. The historical form of the socialist revolution in “one” country is exhausted but not the socialist revolution itself. It looks for other forms how to break out easier.
Absorbed by the socialist world revolution the elder spirit of the socialist revolution in “one” country is revived, is restored. It will die not until it has finally reached its higher, qualitative level of its own negation and this means to make way for giving birth to the world revolution.
And this greater strength of the restored socialist revolution is absolutely required because the socialist world revolution shall claim many national victims – much more victims than in times of the socialist revolution in “one” country. Once the socialist nation had to cope with the whole international bourgeoisie ( of course not without the support of the proletarians of all countries). Why are there far more victims ?
That `s why because the socialist world revolution challenges a thousand times more evoking powers of resistance of the global bourgeoisie than in comparison with even the amount of all counter-revolutionary forces in the first epoch of socialism.
All that unites the world proletariat on the one hand helps weakening the world imperialist chain on the other hand to (not before!) ease the break out of the weakest chain-link. Enabling the breakthrough of a single chain-link in one `s own country is possible not until the contradictions of world capital are ripe to be split, degraded and finally burst by the class-struggle of the world proletariat.
This shall happen only in the advanced course of the world revolutionary over-all process so to speak as a crowning completion of the world revolutionary process. This world revolutionary over-all process will grant the proletariat `s revolutionary liberation in every country even faster and more thoroughly and this all the more if the proletarians take part as a detachment of this over-all process of the world revolution actively and self-sacrificing!
So it isn't all about a couple of solidarity resolutions to the anonymous, abstract "world proletariat", it isn't done with the appeal put into solemn words of "proletarian inter nationalism" . With this all the Communist parties cannot invoke the world revolution. That `s not the end of that. At first all united communist forces have disciplined to act in concert ideologically, politically and organisationally.
Overthrow of the political power of the world bourgeoisie ! This is our political main enemy now. To wrestle this main enemy down – that `s the main task, that `s our common main task - not theoretically abstract but concretely. Victory or defeat of the socialist revolution depends mainly on it in every country today.
This is a hard piece of work which is not to be done by itself. But not unless this mainly global work is done the proletariat of a country can "afford the luxury" to care about socialism in its own country. At first, each for all - and then all for each! We must not make it harder as it it.
The successful participation in the socialist world revolution is (and the world proletariat won't be able to pay any compensation for a failed participation !) – so to speak - the input of the proletariat of every country which must be performed if the socialism shall not be endangered to disappear in the stomach of the capitalism once again. World capital does not allow any nationwide output without worldwide input of all the socialist forces. Is there another way?
Actually, the proletarians of all countries don't have any choice but to come together and to care commonly about the victory of the socialist world revolution because the world imperialism will otherwise thwart the proletarians` revolution even in the last country.
The way of the victory of the socialist revolution in one country leads at all events over the way of the victory of the socialist world revolution under today's concrete global conditions. It is a simple fact that the chain-link cannot secede by itself in a globalised world.
The socialist revolution in every country has become a global task.
In turn: related to today's concrete global conditions the way of the dictatorship the proletariat in one country leads only over the way of the establishment of the dictatorship the world proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat without the political power of the world proletariat is unlikely. That does not exclude but requires the necessity of the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in one `s own country by the proletariat. This revolutionary task will not be done by the world proletariat all alone.
The greatest nationwide victims which have to be expected by the socialist revolution of the proletarians in one country are the victims for the socialist world revolution as a start.
In the past, the international proletariat was simply only the "ally" of the revolutionary proletariat of one country. With their class struggle in the country of one's own the proletarians of the western capitalist countries tried to stop the imperialists to attack the comrades in Russia while the proletariat in the Soviet Union was the base and lever for the own revolutionary liberation in every capitalist country.
Also the national struggle for liberation of the suppressed nations benefited from this, which for their part made the fight easier in the metropolises of the imperialists and at the same time they became an important reserve for the socialist country in the fight against the capitalist-revisionist encirclement.
All this was caused by the victory of the October Revolution, with which the workers of one country broke out a piece from the imperialist world and therewith the Red October established the historical fact that capitalism was faced by a socialist world henceforth.
All these international class connections and class alliances, the whole international class struggle was in generally beginning in the capitalist nations and both in character and forms these nations left their mark on the proletarian internationalism before and within the first epoch of socialism.
Once talking about the “international proletariat” meant talking about the cooperation of English, French, German, American proletarian movement etc., talking about those proletarians who struggled commonly within the imperialist great powers and other capitalist countries. These labour movements can be traced back to the 19th century, thus back to the time when the bourgeois nations came into being. At that time the “international proletariat” had to cope with various nationalist ideologies which tried to creep into the ideology of proletarian internationalism. Even the socialist country was not untroubled by nationalist influence and until today we have to argue with various kinds of “globalising” nationalisms (“national Bolshevism”, “socialist nationalism”, social-fascism” etc.) which try to undermine and paralyse proletarian internationalism. It cannot be excluded that these fascist ideologists also try to capture our formula: “World proletariat – unite all countries!” in this or that way.
The class-solidarity between the proletariat and the then(!) progressive bourgeoisie dates from the years of the bourgeois nations` childhood. There was really a historical period of a kind of “class-solidarity” for the purpose of bourgeois liberation from feudalism. The traditional roots of class reconciliation can be traced back to that time. And the workers were cheated by this especially in the epoch of imperialism. This formation of the labour movement which was stamped by the up coming of the bourgeois nations is over but the influence of bourgeois class-reconciliation is still existing for the purpose of dividing proletarian calls unity.
Today, one cannot talk about an "proletarian ally from this or that country" in its classic meaning any more.
The homogeneity of the class of the world proletariat is not determined by the uniform affiliation to the nations but by the uniform organization of the world production. The workers working place, ethnic roots, birth, culture, language, etc... are not decisive any more as it was in that time when the bourgeois nations played their decisive role in history before the period of globalisation.
Decisive isn't the old traditional national root of this or that communist and labour movement any more which once put the whole internationalist movement ahead even though for a limited historical period only. This nation `s leading position before all others was applicable until the end of the first period of socialism, however this will not work in the second period any more. Today, the tradition of the international communist and labour movement is not measurable against an amount of different, national flags. The former role of representatives of nations will be replaced gradually by the role of the representatives of the world proletariat `s own global organisations (with its own democratic centralism) and what does not at all harmony further necessary interactions between the worldwide and nationwide proletarian organisations (again with its own democratic centralism). This is due to the question of states, too.
The world proletariat lays claim to develop its own tradition of the communist and labour world movement independently from the former nationwide historical traditions of the communist and labour movements. For today's world proletariat it is at most important to support the heritage of the nationwide traditions of the communist and labour movements, to cultivate and share globally their treasures and to learn all the achievements from them, particularly from the socialist achievements of the first epoch of socialism, from the Soviet Union and Albania etc.
Just taking over and covering with the additive different traditions of the communist and labour movements of the countries this won `t serve the world proletariat `s turn as the sustainer of the world movement.
The world proletariat of today will stand out due to completely new traditions of the international labour movement, which arise from the overcoming of the national bounds of the countries` traditions.
To a greater degree the most important distinguishing characteristic will be a certain “extraneousness of national non-membership”. This term looks confusing and to get our drift we neither mean something “above the nations” and “a-nationally” nor some kind of “ national vacuum” or “cosmopolitanism“ but we do mean the genuine internationalist spirit of the global merger of the communist and labour movements of all the countries, the fusion of all the movements to such degree that single significant national elements shall disappear so that they can hardly be filtered out from the merged world movement. If the national elements merged then they lose their original identity and assume their new global identity. The merged world movement is not affected by this or that nation but by all the nations.
The world revolutionary distinctive mark of the future internationalist communist and labour movement will be its global self-determination thus an internationalist independence which is unattached from any national conditioning. Beyond doubt this is a quantum leap of proletarian internationalism – it is really getting a proletarian globalism. The internationalist world movement of the first epoch of socialism is in so far substantially different from the global world movement of the second epoch of socialism.
We don `t say-along this easily but this corresponds completely to the rules of the permanent further development of the internationalist nature of the working class, how the internationalist communist and labour movement changes its forms and qualities in different historical periods and how they shall still go on changing.
At first there were the new strong labour movements of the big capitalist nations which changed gradually into strong bourgeois reformist and revisionist labour movements in those nations, also. - primarily under the strong influence of the bourgeois cultural slavery.
And in future there will spread strong world proletarian movements all over the world thus always there, where the "strong" world capital is also spreading - and to be more precise beyond all national bounds - or, what is the same: under inclusion and under cooperation of more and more countries, of all countries. If the international labour movement developed in national frames on its first step, then it will develop by the overcoming of these national frames on its second step .
Who are the future world revolutionaries ?
What makes a world revolutionary different from all the other revolutionaries ? Is it because of the international division of labour, so to share both the global competences and affairs on the one hand and national (“residually lower”) affairs on the other hand ?
Only the uppish and so called “world revolutionaries” think and act like this. These arrogant guys only like to play with the world revolution and regard it as an adventure. To be a true world revolutionary is a serious matter.
If the international working class isn't divisible, the international proletarian revolution is indivisibly either and therefore the proletarian revolutionaries are not divisible either. Of course this doesn't mean that all revolutionaries of the world might not specialize, might not proceed under each other on the principle of the division of labour. On the contrary, today's world revolution presupposes a much bigger (an international) specialisation and division of labour than all previous revolutions put together!
The indivisibleness of the world revolution and its world revolutionaries, of which there is the talk of it , merely refers to their materialistic character of monism in in contrast to the dualism. There is not any dualism between the revolution in the national and international scale.
There isn't world revolution here and there the revolutions of the countries . The world revolution and the revolution in the countries are not quite incoherent values and cannot be delt arbitrarily with each other. They aren't dualistic, meaning: they are neither adverse nor equated. The world proletariat performs its revolution in a global scale and not in this or that country and vice versa the proletariat of one country performs its revolution in its own country and not in a global scale.
The one doesn't exclude the other but causes each other like "parts and a whole". So the ideology of the proletariat proceeds on the assumption of the monistic unity of the world revolution and not of the dualistic one - whereby the socialist revolutions and their manifoldness derive from it and are traceable to it -
- just as parts of a whole.
Its full strength and the whole intensity of its parts` movement comes into effect not until the whole is completed and matured. This intensity can never be achieved if the parts are on their own, if they are kept apart from the whole. To achieve the necessary intensity of its revolutionary movement the parts strive for its unification to become parts of and merge as a whole, to complete the formation of the whole. Vice versa all the parts share their strengths to enable the full strength and movement of the whole. Without its parts the whole is nothing and the whole is not a whole without its parts. Otherwise it would be impossible for the whole to serve as a basis and lever for all its parts.
Without the strength and the movement of the whole the strength and the movement of the parts would work blindly scattered and without the strength and the movement of the parts the whole would remain powerlessly and motionlessly.
So to avoid that this happens, the strengths and movements of the parts have to be brought into line and into accord so that they can harmonise finally. The optimal harmonisation of the whole with its parts – that's the whole secret of the world revolution `s success !
However, the essence of the socialist world revolution is not only the statement that parts and the whole interact at all ( for instance as a completed, non-recurring process) but the movement how they interact, namely the movement of the parts` transition into the whole by means of a qualitative leap, which again is starting-point for the movement of the whole `s transition into its parts to bind them closer to itself and therefore to bring them shelter - what is again completed by a qualitative leap (mergence).
So the nature of the transitions in the world revolutionary movement is writ large in the approach of the parts towards the whole – right up to their mergence.
But this doesn't take place in the abbreviated move of reversion.
In between there are the inevitable periods of time of the "revolutionary low tide" lie (change of low tide and high tide; see: Stalin).
So there is no standstill movement but time which is unavoidably needed to deal with issues of the previous movement. There is no qualitative leap if the previous process is still not ripe to be replaced. Transition of quality into a higher stage of quantity in the interim period: Once created the conditions have to be used to full capacity, must tap the full potential, have to get highest standards, have to be stabilised far-reaching and intensively - including all the efforts which are needed to cope with some unavoidable processes of degeneration and retrogression - and last not least the time is needed to divert, to accrue and to build up surplus forces – so to speak, necessary potentials for creating new conditions for the next qualitative leap ( towards a higher stage of the revolutionary development).
Any new world revolutionary movement (which consists of the innumerable revolutionary movements in the whole world) is product and result of all previous world revolutionary movements and requires not only the high tide of any previous world revolutionary movement but its low tide as well.
The socialist world revolution doesn't exhaust itself in its succession, not in the order of the previous revolutions, but presupposes it merely, maxes it out, overcomes its errors and weaknesses etc.
The essence of the socialist world revolution is the permanence of its movement, its transition to a higher and higher step of its development -
namely as long as and as far as its last transition step has changed into the last transition step from the capitalist countries to the world communism, as it got identically and consequently its historical existence, as its purpose is fulfilled, not needed any more and as it becomes redundant in the end.
Countries and world get identically by merging completely all parts to the whole – whereby the nature of the whole shall change essentially. Now the whole is completed and can exist without its parts, can do without them. And the whole has rather unavoidably to renounce it parts at all - just to be able to meet its higher stage of quality. And all this happened because of the parts which initially determined its growth. Without the parts the whole could not complete its development; voilà: the national question solved by the merge of the countries
Assumed that the capitalist countries could merge themselves, then all the socialist revolutions of the countries would be dispensable and we could get along with a “merged” - and maybe with one and only - world revolution. World imperialism would quickly find its death. But who would speak up for the poor in the manner of the prophets ?
We know for sure:
If – in general – labour unites and private property separates, then the world labour unites even more and the globalised private property separates the countries to the utmost namely in more and more poor and rich countries. The countries and their cohesion get destroyed by the increased struggle for profits.
According to this such a “unity and merging of the nations" on the basis of a capitalist property is definitely a fiction, a definite world deceit, definite world hypocrisy. Ideas of merging capitalist countries – merging the socialist world revolution - toing and froing – such conditions cannot be constructed – this is all production of the brain. We must observe the short-term rules of the game of that form of the socialist world revolution which are dictated to by the actually available conditions:
the way of the world revolution still leads across the way of the revolution of the countries as well as the way of the revolution of the countries still leads across the way of the world revolution.
Who doesn't understand this necessary unity doesn't understand the dialectic of the uniform world revolutionary process between the whole and its parts - as seen above. The same can by compared with the the general relationship of the proletarians of the countries and the world proletariat. And this is also valid concerning the general relationship of the international communist labour movement and the communist labour movement in the single ...
... and last not least this is applicable to the...
Solution of the question of the identity of the unification (see: the law of the unification)
the unification of all parts to the whole must absolutely be harmonised with the unification of all parts by the whole
= a perfect creation of the identity of the unification (rung by rung) !!
= “Proletarians of all countries - unite!” + (plus !!!!) "World proletariat - unite all countries "!
There is no unification raised on a higher level without this identicalness, without this accordance;
Without this unification on a higher level = neither victory of the socialist world revolution nor victory of the socialist revolution in a country.
Identicalness/ accordance on the highest level = merged unification = abolition of the unavoidableness of any class-unities (of course on a global stage)
The socialism in “one” country was main motive power of the socialist world revolution under capitalist conditions.
Under conditions of world socialism socialism in “one” country would be a brake shoe for the transition to world communism.
Consequently: Not the direct transition of the socialism in "one" country to communism was possible (and we do repeat this another hundred times that we understand the term of socialism in “one” country expressively as the conditions of socialism under the word rulership of capitalism!). The communist society emerges through the transition of world socialism necessarily.
Unification of the proletarians of all countries to attachments of the world proletariat for the purpose of the world imperialism `s overthrow;
Unification of the world proletariat `s countries for the purpose of creating world communism (at first and mainly the solution of the social one and finally the solution of national class question in the world scale (the national question of the countries as a lever to solve the social question - the social question as a lever to merge the nations – to abolish the nations).
Dissolving of the class character of the unification process = (divisiveness process), it `s getting antediluvian and unnecessary in the classless society.
Class unification as unity of contradictions as the motive power in the class society, however a brake shoe in the classless society.
If the necessity of the class unification – thus why the proletarians were forced to unify their worldwide class-struggle -
begins to be superfluously by its transition into the classless society, then the motive power of the class unification peters out and unification gets rid of its class-character to turn into its contrary – into a
brake shoe of the voluntary unification – the association - of the classless society.
The motive power of the classless society generates from the brake shoe of the class-unification.
From then on mankind enters finally the realm of the voluntary association of members of the society, from then on people are free to unify themselves.
The proletarian unification for the only purpose of overcoming the class society stops being an arduous, gruelling fight of the communism against the capitalism.
The communism can finally take off that straitjacket of being primarily the ideology of a class. In its future development Communism shall discontinue to be primarily a class- ideology and becomes a classless ideology finally, thus it was originally from the very beginning and thus what it will always be to all intents and purposes.
However without excluding the principle of unity and struggle of the communist development `s own further contradictions and this means: Compared with the struggle for the global socialisation of private property at the means of productions, compared with the struggle against capitalist restoration (with all the revisionist calamitous illusions about realising a “classless” society in the first period of socialism already!) the struggle for getting rid of the strait jacket of class-ideological narrowness will be much harder because there is no place for such communist forms of class-ideology in a classless communist society. In a classless society the class-ideology of the proletariat is obviously a dangerous brake shoe. The most difficult and hardest task of us Communists will then be to struggle against our own proletarian class-character ( we have unavoidably to use communism as the class-ideology of the proletariat because this is the only way left to establish a classless society where there is no exploitation and oppression of mankind any more). To make communist matters dispensable which were once indispensable – that is not easy however unavoidably necessary for the communist development of the society ( conversely it is not easy again to stick to principles which are n `t yet dispensable). So the permanent struggle against revisionism will never end because it is an ideology which shall survive its class-character to hinder the communist development of the society always “in the name of” the society `s further communist development. That means, if we would have succeeded to get rid of revisionisms class-character revisionism does not at all disappear by itself but shall go on struggling inescapably against communism – no matter what state it is in. If we Communists would not succeed in coping with this task, then we Communists ourselves would become our own enemy, moreover we Communists ourselves would erase Communism `s future and we would become our own revisionists. Criticism and self-criticism is a principle of Marxism-Leninism. It does not lose its meaning after the liberation from its class-character. In the contrary, this Marxist-Leninist principle – together with many others - gets a more important meaning in the Communist society namely as the method in the hands of the whole society to struggle against classless revisionism. Many Marxist-Leninist methods are valid forever. All that created by Communism in the previous periods of the Communist society – including the teachings of Marxism-Leninism - doesn't get lost. Only its class-character gets lost. Other than that pass over as a traditional treasure, as the Communist heritage which then can be used and applied by the whole society and not by only one class any more.
Of course, those who were always used to go ahead with class-struggle through the centuries will be unaccustomed to lead the struggle against one `s own former class-struggle-ideology. However, it is a dangerous illusion to believe that the transition into the classless society would be an easy matter of self-fulfilment. Nevertheless we have always been optimists and we are neither afraid of our enemies nor afraid of our own mistakes: If we mastered communism to get rid of capitalism, if we mastered the socialist transition into communism, then we shall certainly master communism with all its new forms of a classless science, too. The future of Communism is as great as non-terminating. It is strong because it is true, but it `s development is utmost contradictory in relation to its absolute truth. Last not least Communism itself is absolutely subjugated under its own dialectical principles of development which are waiting to be mastered by us Communists .
Communism shall reach such degree of its development that it would be strong and ripe enough to burst all its former characters of class-armours.
The whole thinking of mankind is liberated from its brake shoe – its class-character, leaves the realm of class-necessity to enter the realm of classless freedom. Without this Communism would fail to develop.
And finally the communism himself is the “last” who leaves the sinking ship of class-society. Communism leaves the realm of class-necessity and enters the realm of freedom - more precise in form of the liberated science of the liberated world society, as a free science of a free mankind.
The law of the world proletarian unity derives from the law of proletarian internationalism
What is a proletarian internationalism?
The definition isn't easy and has to take into consideration its historical dimension. Proletarian internationalism is as old as the proletariat itself and changed in the course of its development. Just as the proletarians developed their labour movement the proletarian internationalism developed by the 5 classics of Marxism-Leninism, too. Proletarian internationalism is the ideology of the world proletariat for the purpose to liberate from capitalism collectively and globally. Proletarian internationalism is the key to make world socialism and communism accessible to the world proletariat. Proletarian Internationalism is a cornerstone of Marxism-Leninism. Proletarian internationalism was worked out by Marx and Engels scientifically. Proletarian internationalism was expressed by their co-formula: “Proletarians of all countries - unite!" Moreover proletarian internationalism expresses Marxism-Leninism `s internationalist nature. Finally proletarian internationalism was worked out scientifically as a separate Marxist-Leninist branch of science. This branch of science was further developed by Lenin, Stalin and finally by Hoxha. The Comintern (ML) continues the further development of proletarian internationalism at present.
So one can say that proletarian internationalism is one of the most essential components of the teachings of the 5 classics. The discovery of the internationalist roots of the proletarian class struggle is important in the capitalist society. Proletarian internationalism is the theoretical reflection of the cohesion of all class struggle experiences of all proletarians all over the world, the generalisation and systematic draft for the Marxist Leninist teachings of the international class solidarity of the world proletariat in the fight for the overthrow of world capitalism and for the establishment of socialism in all capitalist countries.
In the beginning of the germinal proletarian internationalism there was only the solidary feeling of international togetherness which brought the proletarians together sharing their equal destitution and supporting each other beyond all bonds. In this situation the proletarians of various countries in Europe and North-America created their internationalist self consciousness, their common hopes, convictions and strengths and their courage to resist all pains of their proletarian being. The national influence on the social situation of the proletarians was more significant in that time. The mutual internationalist help was immediately and concretely and very often contained personal fortune of proletarian families and relatives, emigrations, and life in exile. It lasted for a while until the proletarians could organise their struggle against the capitalists beyond national borders and finally to develop their common political fight against their governments . So at the beginning proletarian internationalism was the ideological banner of the solidarity of the workers against their capitalist countries which exploited and suppressed the proletarians (of course connected with the ultimate goal of communism). This was the era of the First International (when the "Communist Manifesto" was translated into different European languages and when the ideas of proletarian internationalism could not be proclaimed in public but mainly exchanged in certain kinds of workman `s clubs and associations). The proletarians of several countries read the ideas of proletarian internationalism in several ways but in general the communist and labour movement of several countries were all inspired by proletarian internationalism and led off the fight against dividing nationalist and anarchist influences within the Labour Parties in their country and finally within the First International itself. In this ideological fight proletarian internationalism could be further developed and prosper especially by the activities of Marx and Engels.
When imperialism came up proletarian internationalism developed on a higher stage. The international capital involved all the people in the colonialised countries as allies of the proletarians in the capitalist countries. This was the time of the Second International. This was the time of struggling against the division of the proletarians in the capitalist countries and the people of the exploited and suppressed colonies.
A further increase of the proletarian internationalism `s prosperity took place resulting from the victory of the Red October thus the beginning of the first epoch of socialism, the establishment of socialism in “one” country and the division of the world into two antagonistic camps. The proletarian internationalism reached its highest standard with the beginning of the Third International.
When socialism was established in “one” country the definition of proletarian internationalism referred to the mutual solidary support and strengthening of the proletariat of the socialist country on the one hand and the class-struggle of the world proletariat and the anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of the colonialised countries on the other hand to break through the capitalist-revisionist encirclement of world imperialism from inside and outside the socialist country.
Today when the Comintern (ML) was founded proletarian internationalism develops globally with new global forms of class solidarity, forms which will be created by the world proletariat itself and “for itself”. Proletarian internationalism develops as the ideology of the world proletariat to lead its own class-struggle against the global world capital by uniting the proletarians of all countries and trooping up all the anti-imperialist world forces for the coming global battles of the socialist world revolution, the overthrow of the whole world capitalist system of exploitation and oppression.
In connection with the socialist world revolution one should anticipate with the definition in the future.
The definition of proletarian internationalism then would be directed to the unity of the thinking and action of the proletarians of all countries for the common establishment and strengthening of the dictatorship of the world proletariat which serves the liberation not only of the world proletariat but the global liberation of all suppressed classes all over the world.
Lenin `s definition of proletarian internationalism was valid in the first period of socialism. Then the world proletariat just consisted only of the sum of the proletarians of all countries led by the Comintern. Their internationalist fight was marked by the world imperialist situation at that time. At that time, the world proletariat still didn't exist as an uniform globalised and monolith class. With other words: The world proletariat goes through a change of its development from a class "of itself" to a class "for itself." Today, the world proletariat grows up for the second epoch of socialism, as a world socialist class.
In the period of socialism in “one” country the nature of proletarian internationalism consisted of the mutual solidary support of the proletarians of all countries without exception to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in every single capitalist country in general and in particular to support solidarily the socialist countries. Today the world proletarian internationalism is faced by the world bourgeois internationalism.
Compared with the proletarian internationalism of the first epoch of socialism the proletarian globalism of today consists of the global struggle for the world dictatorship of the proletariat which is solidarily supported by the detachments of the proletariat in every single country – without exception. Coming into power the world proletariat supports unconditionally and without exception the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in every single country.
Compared with the nature of socialism in “one” country the nature of world socialism consists of the fact that the one is built up by the proletariat of the socialist country with the help of the proletarians of all countries and the other is built up by the world proletariat with the help of each country. It is the world proletariat which educates and teaches the proletarian internationalism in the second period of socialism. In the first period the world proletariat learnt from the socialist proletariat of “one” country. And in the second period the proletarians in the single countries learn from the world proletariat.
As can be seen Leninism of proletarian internationalism in the first period of socialism is quite different from the Leninism of the coming second one – that `an inter-period of nearly a hundred years. Both these periods may not be mixed up. If one really wants to defend the Leninism, one must develop further proletarian internationalism otherwise we would kill Lenin `s definition which would not serve the communism any more. In the contrary our proletarian internationalism would be sacrificed to the revisionism inevitably, becomes a world imperialistic weapon against proletarian inter nationalism itself. We set against the definition of old proletarian inter nationalism the definition.
Lenin `s definition was worked out in 1917:
"There is only one actual internationalism: the devoted work on the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary fight in the country of one's own, the support (by propagandas by moral and material help) of such a fight, of such a line and only such one in unanimously all countries."
The Leninist definition of 2007 could be ( 90 years later):
"There is only one actual internationalism: the devoted work on the development of the world revolutionary movement and the world revolutionary fight of the world proletariat, the support (by propagandas by moral and material help) of such a fight, of such a line and only such one in unanimously every country."
If one generalizes the whole historical development of proletarian internationalism now, one could define proletarian internationalism perhaps as follows:
The teaching of proletarian internationalism is (spoken very generally) the internationalist teaching of the world proletariat on the solidary class struggle of the unified proletarians of all countries against the capitalist and every other exploitation and oppression in the whole world and for a socialist world.
Very general -- as well [ and admittedly a little bit confusing ]-
only those prove to be genuine proletarian internationalists, who ....
perceive, recognise and understand the global causes of exploitation and oppression,
who are guided by Marxism-Leninism in the daily class-struggle,
who unite all social and national forces under the leadership of the world proletariat,
who organise the overthrow of the capitalist world system nationwide and worldwide
who struggle for the dictatorship of the world proletariat and who...
... fight always against every exploitation and oppression – no matter where and in which situation ever.
more exact:
Proletarian inter nationalism is ...
"... the unity of the thinking and acting of the proletariat of every country in particular and the world proletariat generally (Enver Hoxha, report on the 7th party convention of the PAA, 1977, Ger. version, page 242).
The principle of the proletarian identity
The principle of the proletarian identity is the principle of the absolute coincidence, accordance of the one unity of the proletarians to enforce their revolutionary interests in every single country and the other unity of the world proletariat to enforce its global interests.
The way to the victorious liberation of the proletariat ( in one country as well as in the world scale ) is only possible if this principle of the proletarian identity, if the proletarian internationalism, is observed and completely and correctly applied by the proletariat.
Use this principle means to bring the necessary fight for the unconditional accordance of the unification of the proletarians of every country with the unification of the world proletariat to an end. It is here an objective law, which can neither be abrogated just like that nor considered as nihilism which would condemn the proletarians to its spontaneous subjugation. It is a law in the hands of the proletarians to so ease their unity. The laws of the unification of the proletariat to an international class take place as a process of the capitalist class society, reflect these and take place independently of the will of the proletariat. We can discover, recognize this law merely but use it also with a political expertise in the interest of the socialist world revolution. Adopting, controlling and mastering this law means supporting, spreading and deepening the consciousness of proletarian internationalism. To control this law masterly is only able a world proletarian class organization which is guided by the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha thus the Communist International (Marxists-Leninist) and to be more precise with the help of its sections, the Marxist-Leninist parties in every country, and this only by mastering the method of the democratic centralism.
The basic tactics which must be used by the world proletariat for the effective development of the law of the proletarian unity today are: “World proletariat - unite all countries!"
The purpose of the application of the law of the proletarian unity is the capture and establishment of the international dictatorship the proletariat by the overthrow and the elimination of the international dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The expedient is the unification of all countries for the socialist world revolution.
The whole point of the nature of proletarians internationalism is that of the formula of the historical mission of the world proletariat:
"World proletariat - unite the socialist revolutions of all countries - unite all countries to the socialist world revolution!"
This is the concrete watchword for the effective development of the law of proletarian internationalism under today's conditions of the world domination of the globalised capitalism.
What is the Marxist-Leninist method for the transition of proletarian internationalism ?
How applying to the formula “World proletariat – unite all countries” ?
It is Lenin `s "tactics for everyone". It is the tactics of world Bolshevism!
Which criteria have to be fulfilled?
1st organisational independence
The world proletariat needs its unity and therefore the unity of its class organisations. Lenin taught us that the world proletariat doesn't own another weapon for coming into world power than the weapon of its international organisation, the globally centralised organisations of all countries. The world proletariat must reorganize all its class forces on a global stage. There is no world revolutionary organisation, if the world proletariat is not guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory, if the world proletariat is not armed with the internationalist consciousness and knowledge about the principles of building up one `s own global class-organisations.
Today, the task of the world revolutionaries consists therefore in developing proletarian self-consciousness, communist class-conscious, consists in the systematic organisation of passing on the knowledge of all the necessary Marxist-Leninist organisationalising, consists in helping the world proletariat to protect all its own class-organisations from being undermined, split and degenerated by revisionism, opportunism and other bourgeois influences, consists of teaching how to organise self-contained and independently the coming socialist world revolution, to prepare the taking over of its political power and the establishment of its dictatorship. This doesn't go without:
a) establishment and build up of the highest form of its class unification - namely the construction of the Communist International (Marxists-Leninist). The world proletariat needs absolutely its vanguard `s operational headquarters to unify all countries for the world revolution. Without their political world party the proletarians of the countries would not be able to throw over world capitalism. To do without the world proletariat `s leadership means giving the proletarian class organisations to the world bourgeoisie and its lackeys on a plate. So the world proletariat forges its revolutionary avant-garde of world revolutionaries to support and to accelerate the unification of the avant-garde of the proletarians of all countries. The unity of the world proletariat only can be made come true by a uniform and centralised international organisation whose decisions will be carried out by all communist parties in all conscience. Advising a question, expressing and listening to the different opinions, finding the view of the majority of the organized sections out, expressing this view in a resolution, carrying out this resolution conscientiously – all this can be described as an expression of global unity of the proletariat. And such a unity is infinitely valuably, infinitely important and indispensable to the world proletariat. Shattered communist parties of the countries are powerlessly destructive, can `t be helped without their unified centre. Unifying the countries - is all:
"Comintern (ML) - unite the Communist parties of all countries!"
b) The Communist International is destined to lead all forms of internationalist proletarian unifications, in which all the proletarians of the countries are united.
2nd theoretical independence
The proletarians of all countries cannot deploy all their unity, are unable to build up strong, independent, class-organisations if they are n `t pervaded by the world revolutionary spirit of an uniform, monolithic theory, by common convictions and opinions and an unrelentingly will of iron. The uniformity by word and deed is impossible without its ideological base. The success of the organisational unification of the socialist world proletariat depends on the unity of its revolutionary ideology. The organisational independence of the world proletariat presupposes its theoretical ideological independence. The fight for the self-dependence is always a fight against any influences of strange class elements within the international labour movement, within its class organisations, within its class ideology.
Just this makes up the character of the Bolshevism, namely that the unification process of the proletarians can be pushed ahead not until the proletarians organise their autonomous and self-sustaining struggle against division and splitting, against revisionist “unity-making”, against “fraction-making” and “bloc-making”, against “class-reconciliatorish coalitioning” - primarily at the ideological front of class-struggle.
If the world proletariat sustains a loss of its theoretical strength, of its unity and compactness it shall lose its organisational strength, unity and compactness as well, what means nothing else but to run a risk of being taken in tow of the class-enemies.
3rd the watchword: “World proletariat – unite all countries!"
... must not be misused as a hollow formula, must not be mixed up or equated with the other watchword: “Proletarians of all countries - unite!" The one cannot be reduced, divided or absorbed by the other. In certain circumstances it could be necessary to modify the watchword by new evaluations, so that it is always a result of sincere and thorough analysis of all concrete situations of the revolutionary movements in the countries in particular and of the world revolutionary movement in general.
The formula is valid for a rather long historical period and therefore it will go through many changes in the course of time. It shall take shape in different ways whereby the global forms shall become more important and the nationwide forms shall develop modestly in the long run.
No matter in which current state the development of the proletarian world revolution would ever be - the watchword: "World proletariat - unite all countries! " has always to ensure the maximum possible output of what is achievable for the world proletariat to develop, to support, to lead the revolution in one country, in every country, in all countries.
4th it is necessary that the Communist International (Marxists-Leninist) always proves the correctness of the watchword: “World proletariat - unite all countries!" in the fire of the fight of the world revolutionary labour movement.
In which forms does the socialist world revolution appear?
How do the world revolutionaries form up ?
Manifoldness of the socialist world revolution,
expressed in every single socialist revolution of all countries ,
that is the manifestation of its uniform whole.
The versatility of the socialist world revolutionaries which is expressed in their common fight for every single socialist revolution in all countries, is the characteristic course of action of their uniform, world revolutionary practice.
with other words:
To steer socialist world revolution into the desired, required, uniformly close direction the world revolutionaries have to proceed not uniformly but differently in the socialist revolutions of the different countries since the world revolutionary conditions are different in every country and at every time (for example: Identity of the revolutionary situation of a country with the world revolutionary situation = to ease and to accelerate their coincidence, conformance, identicalness by cognisance and application according to the principles of their development)!
The idealistic monism ...
a)
( at the utmost! ) - ... accepts the materialistic base of the socialist revolution in "one" country but only for the one reason to misuse it as a mask for hiding its damnation of the socialist world revolution. Idealistic monism gives reason to the revolution in “one” country as an untrustworthy starting point to replace the idea of world revolution by idealism. Quasi the socialist revolution of the proletariat of “one” country “anointed” by the idealist spirit of the socialist world revolution; quasi the virtual equation of nationwide and worldwide socialist revolutions; quasi depressing the level of the world revolution to the level of the revolution in “one” country; quasi the replacement of the socialist world revolution by the socialist revolution in “one” country; quasi to make the socialist revolution in “one” country into an absolute one; quasi the vulgarisation of the socialist revolution in “one” country etc. All this can be exemplarily compared with Dimitrov `s right-opportunist line of the unity-front politics (popular front) beginning with the VII. World Congress of the Comintern.
or b)
(at the utmost! )- ... accepts the materialistic base of the socialist world revolution but only for the one reason to misuse it as a mask for hiding its damnation of the possibility of the socialism in "one" country. Idealist monism gives reason to the world revolution as an untrustworthy starting point to replace the idea of the socialism in “one” country by idealism ( absolute generalisation, vulgarisation of the socialist world revolution etc. All this can exemplarily compared with Trotskyism.
It is the nature of the bourgeois monism to neutralise, to play down and finally to wipe out the contradiction of materialist and idealist monism within the scientific ideology of the proletariat in general and within the science of the socialist world revolution in particular. This points to the tribute to the principles of the socialist revolution in “one” country and simultaneously and expressively to the disavowal of the socialist world revolution. Again this points as well to the contrary as to its same result.
Everything else can be derived from this standpoint of view, for instance the tribute to the existence of the working class in “one” country and simultaneously and expressively to the disavowal of the existence of the world proletariat, etc.
And the world revisionists finally tribute to the materialistic monism of the socialist world revolution in words but they deny it in deeds.
Eclecticism differs "scarcely visible" from the line of the world revolutionary ship until the course deviation can be hardly corrected so that the ship gets lurching from side to side and therefore out of control by too much counter-steering. The eclecticists then curry favour with “helping” the ship to return to revisionist port, to arrange “necessary” ( eclectic!) repairs.
The neo-revisionists, however, pretend to evade the manoeuvres of the revisionists but in deeds they steer the world revolutionary ship to the revisionist quagmire.
This small insight into the ideological "log book" of the world revolutionary dangers of navigation shall suffice to make clear that captains of the world revolution must have the guts. They must always be careful and watchful when steering the ship of the world proletariat safely to the port of world socialism in spite of all the reef, shallows and all possible obstacles all over the global sea of class struggle. They must be experienced sailors and captains, experienced and approved both on all oceans and seas and on all rivers and lakes.
They primarily have to use a perfected compass to align the map of world socialism, to redetermine the steadily changing bearing – the Marxism-Leninism.
To be bearing literate of: “World proletariat - unite all countries!" , the steering wheel mustn't handed over control otherwise this watchword doesn't lead to the victory but straight into the defeat.
The more clearly and more simply the watchword, the more easily and sweepingly it can be carried and converted by the masses but the bigger is the danger to be consciously misinterpreted and misled!
It is an active and dynamic watchword and this means that it must always be adapted to the respective changes of the conditions of a relatively long period of its working .
Since the socialist world revolution doesn't go straightly some setbacks and defeats in its development process shall be unavoidable. World revolutionaries have to take them into account by adapting the watchword appropriately elastically and by avoiding both of dogmatism and opportunism which attempt to reduce its world communist character by easing its replacement by a world bourgeois character.
So it is the world revolution which determines the heartbeat of the world revolutionaries in every country, which makes the world to their revolutionary centre which makes every country to their "home" where they get the all the right and necessary revolutionary constituent elements which they need for the erection of the proletarian world building with whose help they then will deliver 100 constituent elements in turn to every country for the erection of the country buildings, and reversely getting back 1000 constituent elements for the development of the proletarian world building etc.
Metaphorically speaking, this is the simplified core of our world revolutionary position.
From the world proletariat `s point of view world policy is the “domestic” policy, the world proletarians policy in the single countries is their “foreign” policy.
Conversely, from the point of view of the single countries the policy of their proletarians is domestic policy and the policy beyond their borders foreign policy.
It is the world proletariat which raises that proletarian internationalism of the proletariat of every country on a higher qualitative stage and which harmoniously connects the overall interests of proletarian internationalism with the single interests of proletarian internationalism in each country. And also the overall interests of the world dictatorship of the proletariat is harmonised with the dictatorship of the proletariat in each country by the world proletariat and by using the method of the democratic centralism.
A proletariat isolated from the world proletarian overall process, respectively split off by the class enemy, a proletariat busy with its own breakthrough of the imperialist chain and simply hoping to await the “support” of the world proletariat from outside, will be disappointed because – today – it is unable to lead the world proletarian process of the socialist revolution in its own country to success in this narrow-minded way. That proletariat cannot guarantee any victory if it is not integrated or if it will not be integrated in the world proletarian overall process.
However, if that proletariat leaves no stone unturned to realise the formula “World proletariat – unite all countries!” under the leadership of the world proletariat
then it is much easier to break through the imperialist chain and therefore much easier for all breakthroughs, for the break-up of the whole imperialist chain. The own breakthrough of single countries has to be brought into line with the break-up of the whole chain. That `s the clue of the Marxist-Leninist breakthrough-theory. Once broken through the isolated socialist country by itself turned out to be historically unable initialising the breakthrough of all the other countries.
The common, mutual removal of the imperialist chain by ALL the proletarians in the world – that is the AIM. And the breakthrough of the single chain-link (probably beginning with the weakest one) is left as the designated RESULT of the world revolutionary transition.
The world revolutionary overall interests determine the revolutionary interests of every country thus the world revolutionary overall process determines the world revolutionary process in every single country thus the world revolutionary overall process determines the breakout of the weakest imperialist chain-link. The breakthrough has become the matter of the world proletariat and not the matter of any other proletariat.
The overall interests of the proletarian global party determines the overall interests of the communist parties in every country. The Communist World party transforms all Communist parties of the countries into its detachments, into its sections. In the first epoch of socialism the world party was the outpost of the Communist parties with the socialist country at the top. However, in the second epoch of socialism the Communist parties of the countries change into outposts of the proletarians` world party. The “International” changes – so to speak - into the “Global”. In so far the Comintern (ML) is actually the Communist Global (ML), the first global Communist party in the history of Communism.
There is no unity of the proletarians all over the world, there is no unity of the world proletariat, there is no unity of the proletariat of the countries, there is no unity of the socialist revolutions if there is no subordination of the part under the whole, if there is no subordination of the minority under the majority, if there is no subordination of the proletariat of a country under the world proletariat, no subordination of the socialist revolutions of the single countries and the world revolution, no subordination of the Communist parties under the world party etc.
The democratic centralism itself changes its character. and. So there is not alone the changing by it quantitative globalisation but the democratic centralism gets a quite new quality in the hands of the world proletariat. And though democratic centralism loses its class-character within the Communist society it will be then still valid as an everlasting principle of Marxism-Leninism.
The democratic centralism globally established helps to overcome the splitting as well in the countries as in the world and strengthens the proletarian unity nationwide and world wide. Adopting globally the democratic centralism helps to overcome the splits of the Marxist-Leninist World movement as well as the movement in the countries, helped to overcome splits in the world party as well as in the countries` parties, helps to overcome the split of the world revolution.
This is the correct application of the teachings of Lenin and Stalin related to today's global class struggle conditions against the world capital. International dictatorship the proletariat means globally centralised leadership in the struggle against world imperialism. In the world scale this international unification task cannot be handled without iron will and self sacrifice, without discipline and centralization.
Last not least the strength of the world proletariat lies in the weak side of its opponent by the increase of the contradictions and splits in the hostile camp.
Considered from a class point of view contradictions and splits take place between the big and small capitalists, between the different ranks of the bourgeoisie and also between the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie as well as the contradictions between the few petty bourgeois who advance to the bourgeoisie by the globalisation and last not least the contradictions with most of the petty bourgeoisies who are pushed into the proletariat. There is an overall contradictory class movement beyond all national bonds.
The increase and broadening of the global class contradictions have to be observed carefully to utilise them for the own unification and for the diversion and split within the adversary camp as well as for certain, possible, temporary alliances.
The bigger and sharper the conflicts of class interests in the adversary camp the more it is tied up to spend all energy for solving its own problems instead of struggling against the world proletariat. Splitting the world proletariat is much more difficult for the bourgeoisie if it is split within itself. Splitting energies within the capitalist camp is unification energy in the camp of the world proletariat.
The capitalist camp does not only decrease absolutely by losing split and separated forces but also relatively because all these lost class forces devolve to the world proletariat as its strongest class opponent.
The capitalist camp does not only become smaller but also weaker because the split and separated class forces cannot be directed against the world proletariat any more. These new class forces who fill up the ranks of the world proletariat strengthen the world proletariat in the struggle against the exploiting and oppressing classes. That `s why we Communists always document and uncover their class conflicts of interests politically: at first, to lead the world revolutionary camp to take advantages from it to strengthen the own unification forces and at second to lead the neutralised class forces from the capitalist camp to direct themselves against the world bourgeoisie ( to convince them, to force them etc.).
The appropriate tactics of the Communists must consist in utilising the advecting and proletarianising elements instead of ignoring them. Most of the elements have to be assimilated and the leftovers repelled.
To assimilate suitable elements requires concessions to the moment if these elements turn to the world proletariat in a positive sense. At the same time the fight has consequently to be directed against those elements who change sides to the world bourgeoisie.
This is not alone a complicated and strenuous but also a time consuming and lasting process which cannot be forced but which demand a great deal of pertinacious patience and manoeuvrable negotiating skill.
So the tactics consist of utilising the weaknesses of the opponent classes for one `s own strengthening – world politically utilising !
What was valid to the social contradictions is also valid to the national contradictions of the classes. National contradictions have their class roots and the world proletariat shall not ignore them but utilise them in the way we referred above.
Historical development of the obstruction, thwarting and infiltration
of the proletarians` unification endeavours
on the part of the capitalists and the exploitation - and oppression apparatus of the bourgeoisie:
Even then the factory was the highest form of the capitalist cooperation which united and disciplined the proletariat and in which they began to organise themselves. The factory workers therefore were at the top of all proletarian progressive ranks from the very beginning. The factory had not only the exploitative but also its side of the place where resistance is organised (and thus inevitably also its disorganising and divisive side) since the beginning. And in the world factories of today the world proletariat organises itself. There will be world factories when the world proletariat has long dissolved. However the principles of organising and unifying will be still valid, because every society is determined to produces its own reproduction – according to the teaching of Marxism-Leninism. Even if the principles of organising and unifying lose their class-character they are still valid for every society and the Communist society makes no exception and thus do all the hindrances of organising and unifying.
From the very beginning the capitalists tried to tighten measures of pitting the proletarians against each other and to make mischief within the factories. The capitalists fuelled the worker ` competition among each other by different pay, by different skills, between men and women, young and old, between different nationalities, between different qualifications, between different hours of working, between the organised and not organised workers, between the confessions, between different working places and working conditions etc. “Mobbing” is a modern type of more perfidious methods to control the shop floor.
The bourgeoisie incites the workers of one nation against another to separate, to split , to assimilate or to annex and occupy them. There weren't scarcely ever single competitive situations or positions of the workers which were not used as split opportunities of the capitalists. To aggravate the fight of the workers for the improvement in their pay and working conditions in the factories, the manufacturers established regularizing work orders, factory laws etc. They were supported by the governments who for their part took ruthless actions against the workers and their organisation in the factories, against their meetings and actions. The worker was disenfranchised and condemned to be wage slaveries. Standing up for the workers` rights was criminalized and forbidden. The method "a stick and a carrot" was used by the capitalists first in their factories. There were neither liberty of speech and of press nor organisational and political liberty for the workers.
Those workers who tried to withstand the violations in the factory life got punishments with all sorts of harassments, were punished with a fine, were under notice to leave, were confined to prison, were banished, tortured or even put to death.
In their history the workers have had to make countless sacrifices for their unification. The workers` blood was shed and will be shed for the purpose of their unification. The unification can neither be forbidden and banned nor be stopped by any reprisals.
If the capitalists didn't have sufficient strikebreakers from the rows of one's own, then agencies which made their profit with the renting of strikebreakers were engaged by them.
There also were laws with which foreign workers being on strike were expelled from the country, a particularly brutal form of the split of the strike front. Every colleague got to know what lock-out really means. Lock-out means increase of the strike fight.
The world capitalists won't spare no efforts to use the lock-out as an international fight remedy against global strikes to split and shatter the international strike front even by nationwide lock-outs. However new, even bigger, even more international strikes will follow the international lock-outs inevitably.
The decisive matter is not only the globally and quantitatively broadening but primarily the qualitatively higher development of the workers` resistance against global lock-outs. The economic globalisation of the economic struggles leads unavoidably to new and higher forms of political struggles. This will come to a point when the political unification shall influence and finally determine the economic unification of the world proletariat.
At first the capitalists had recruited their own spies and informers in the factories under the workers who betrayed the interests of the workers for a blood money.
Also the lumpen proletariat helped the capitalists and later on the police, too, to carry out their subversive instructions to find out where the workers meet and prepare their actions and primarily to spy out their ringleaders. They had a whole informer net in the working-class areas and natural in all sorts of working men's associations later, too. By now, the world bourgeoisie has its global, branched and differentiated information net and well-organised means to control all labour movements all over the world. If it then came to actions, then they mingled the strikers, infiltrated the actions, revolts, mutinies, rebellions of the workers to undermine and subvert them from inside. They instigated subversions and provoked attacks by "agent troublemaker" to get get hold of those workers more easily who had "gone along with that." They blackmailed and threatened the worker families to make the worker silent or incapable of action in this way. The police thugs already were with her weapons in the ambush to arrest or shoot down the workers being on strike. The workers of a factory tried for their part to find the traitor in their own ranks. Unleashing their hatred they let them run the gauntlet, took the law into their own hands and assassinated the traitors.
To prevent the workers from holding their independent or illegal meetings, the capitalists and their governments finally organised their own legal "worker meetings" to control the movement of the workers this way. Union of the workers – yes - but legally regularized by the authorities. Of course the workers made use of these arranged (capitalist) "worker meetings" for themselves to make the most of it but the capitalist finally could put sufficient pressure (for example dismissals).
Only a worker union which united workers of many factories and many places removed this dependence of the worker “representations” of the single manufacturers. Only the worker union ensured all those fight means which were possible in the capitalist society at all. However, these worker unions became only more rights when the workers started to fight for their political liberties because all forms of worker unions only proved to be a pitiful deceit without these political liberties.
The political liberties don't remove the class struggle, they on the contrary always involve more and more masses of workers, and helped them to unite as a political class. The workers could fight politically only as an organized class. This did not grow from the trees but was achieved only by hardest class struggle.
Lenin:
"How has man learned to unite? First by the guild, then according to professions. When the proletariat had changed into a class it got so strong that it took the complete state machine into its hand itself, declared the war on the whole world and won the victory. Under these circumstances guilds and professional organizations already become a little reactionary. There was a time also in the capitalism where the workers united in guilds and according to professions. This was a progressive appearance at that time. The proletariat couldn't unite otherwise. It would have to be absurdly claimed the proletariat could have immediately organized itself as a class. This lasted for decades. Nobody has fought toward such short-sighted opinions like Marx. The class develops under capitalist conditions and, if the suitable time is coming for the revolution, it seizes the authority of the state and all guilds and professional unions will become outdated appearances. They embody some backwardness, they hold us back not therefore because any bad people would sit there but because bad people and opponents of the communism there find a base for their propaganda” (Lenin, volume 30, page 505-506, German edition, free editor `s translation).
"From the beginning of the development of the capitalism the labour unions as a transition of the fragmentation and helplessness of the workers to the beginnings of a class union meant a gigantic progress for the working class. When the highest form of class unification of the proletariat began to take shape, thus the revolutionary party of the proletariat ( which does n `t deserves its name as long as it had not learnt to connect the leaders with the class and the masses to a whole, to something inseparably connected) then the labour unions began to unbosom certain reactionary traces unavoidably, a certain narrowness of guild-habits, a certain addiction to political indifference, a certain stagnation etc.
However without labour unions and their co-operation with the party of the working class the development of the proletariat took place nowhere in the world and could not take place either “ (Lenin, Volume 31, page 35, German edition, editor `s free translation).
Why did the class struggle of the proletariat in the imperialist countries (Russia remained as the only exception until today) not lead to success, not to victory? Because the proletariat has remained in disunity in the imperialist countries. Because the proletariat not only was divided and scattered with the means of brutal violence of the police power and reactionary class judiciary but also by taking the bait of bribery, flattery, convincing the “ peaceful moderates” with little posts, by creating ranks of labour aristocracy, because the proletariat had to cope with a wage slavery combined with cultural slavery of bourgeois ideology which dangled out (socialist) hopes of the proletariat, especially the reformist and revisionist ideology ( Stalin called it guild socialism. And indeed socialism in one country degenerated to a certain amount to guild socialism, to bourgeois socialism. And again we shall have to take care about related traces of guild world socialism (globally revisionist traces) in the period of the transition to world communism).
“The main point is that I myself get maximum wage, I don't give a damn about the others!" Self-estrangement, egoisms and arousing envy that `s how the bourgeoisie alienates the worker to make him growing apart from his class, from his class-consciousness. Split and divisive activities paid by money squeezed out from the colonies and the dependent, undeveloped countries !
That `s why there came up the labour aristocracy bribed by the bourgeoisie to corrupt the class-consciousness of the proletarians by the ideology of the capital to maintain exploitation both in the capitalist and colonised countries.
he world capital rules over the working masses in all the countries with the help of a renew global labour aristocracy today.
The working masses can overcome their global split, their worldwide fragmentation, only globally organised by uniting the countries against the new global labour aristocracy: “World proletariat – unite all countries against the global labour aristocracy!”
The enmity among the working masses and among the progressive forces stirred up by the labour aristocracy (assisted by the reactionary, petty bourgeois clerisy) has its divisive source in the ideology of the world bourgeoisie. Only by its global liberation from strange class-ideologies the world proletariat will be able to overcome its own split and fragmentation on a global stage.
The global wage labourer who is conscious about the global capitalist roots of his split and division and who unites in the global struggle for the liberation of the world proletariat has marked the beginning of ceasing his life of a global wage labourer because the unification is the only source of strength of his victorious revolutionary uprising.
Therefore the bourgeois drubs his divisive ideology into the worker: "Well, you `re welcome to fight for the improvement in your situation as a slave labourer but regard any thought on the elimination of the slavery as a harmful utopia. Unite and form your own organisations – even your global organisations - to fight for the improvement of your life but regard your global organisation for liberating from the inevitableness of world wage slavery as the utmost harmful one of all your utopian dreams!”
From the very beginning the bourgeoisie tries with thousands of tricks to deflect from the purpose of the proletarians ` unity of their economic and political struggle against the class-enemy by sweeping the crying needs and burning issues under the rug and simultaneously to rivet on questions which are far away from the purpose to unify such as natural disasters, illnesses, religions, bread and circuses, amusement, distractions, addictions etc... ... short:
“The more the brains of the workers will be covered over with rubbish - the better!"
By means of more and more cunning forms of modern opiates and narcotics the brains of the working masses are globally and systematically to be drugged, are to be besotted and cheated to do not strike the idea for thinking about oneself and to take direct control of the proletarian matter, to do not listen to the Communists, that is to say: to liberate revolutionary from the slavery life by unification. The fragmentation of the proletarian strengths - this is the reactionary policy of the bourgeoisie of the beginning and this is further more carried on by revisionism within the Communist and Labour movement.
The national and colonial question is subordinated to the social question. It is to be solved in the world scale.
( on the interrelation between the global and national unification)
Neither in a nationwide scale nor still less in a world scale the national question can be solved by the bourgeoisie. The national question can only be solved by the proletariat namely both in a nationwide and in a world wide scale.
Even the national bourgeoisies would like to put their nationalist carts before the world proletarian global horse to fend the infiltration of world capital off as the competing big “foreign rule” - but please, let “our own” nationwide exploitation and oppression apparatus untouched which is indispensably needed for the domestic proletariat. However no proletariat would neither settle for the struggle against “foreign” world capital nor against any other “foreign” capital. The global nature of the proletariat is to remove every rule and all rules of capital and this means that it never would ( and could ! ) quit removing all remaining national forms of capital even the one in one `s own country. You cannot fight against world capital aligning yourself with any national capital. You can only take advantage of the contradictions between themselves for the purpose to remove capital at all. The world proletariat keeps clearly in mind that world capital once sprung from national capital. And coming to the defence of national capital means nothing else than the further renewal and strengthening of the world capital and therewith the return of the national crises of capital, too. The world proletariat will not wait for the world revolution until the capital has finished its transition of all national capital into world capital. And the world proletariat cannot struggle against world capital successfully if the proletarians of the countries do not struggle for the socialisation of all national means of production: “World proletariat – unite all countries against any national forms of capitalism!”
The world proletariat don `t want to be split and involved in both the cosmopolitan front of the world bourgeoisie (the front of the “foreign capital”) and the nationalist, self-supporting (shut-off) front of the domestic capital. And the proletariat of the countries will not be split and involved in the front “against” the world capital just to protect national capital, in the front of the domestic capitalists against the global capitalists etc. Both the world proletariat and the proletariat of a single country protect commonly their own interests – the removal of capital at all.
The proletariat is - as it is well known – is an international class and can therefore not stab their class brothers in the back – for example those in the neighbouring country - because every defence of the domestic capital is simultaneously a hostile "outside capital" for the proletarians of the other country which exploits and suppresses them, which takes their jobs off etc. This means splitting the world proletariat at long last.
For example, the world proletariat cannot struggle for secure jobs in this or that country if there are involved losses of jobs in other countries. This would stoke up the ruinous competition on the labour markets and is therefore not a good idea to lead the proletarians out of the trap of pay dumping. There will be no solidarity of the workers in the neighbourhood for the loss of employments in another country if it would cost the loss of their own jobs.
As long as the world capital is ruling it takes the capital of the national bourgeoisies in tow and in so far also the proletariat in the single countries – unless the proletarians refuse to be taken in tow, unless they form a detachment of the world proletariat in the world revolutionary struggle against world capital and so against the national capital in one `s own country, in all capitalist countries.
To so fight for job security in one `s own country the proletariat doesn't have only to ally itself to the proletarians of other countries, which fight for the same purpose on their part. The proletariat of every single country does n `t only expand its fight beyond national bonds. Internationalism is thinking outside the own country. Federalism among proletarians of all countries is not acceptable for the proletariat as a growing global class. We would be no Marxists-Leninist if we would not keep our word as proletarian internationalists if we would not keep on centralising the international class struggle. There is no proletarian internationalism without democratic centralism. The world proletariat is centralist not federalist. The world proletariat determines international relations of the proletarians of single countries from a centralist point of view. If the world proletariat grows then grows also its vital centralist necessity of the interrelation of the proletarians of different countries. Unavoidably some thoughts of internationality created and developed in single countries become a little bit antiquated and suffer under traces of national narrowness.
The Marxist-Leninist term of “international” is determined historically, which means nothing else than that it is subordinated to the changes of its own developing process. “International” in times of the Comintern has therefore not the same kind of meaning like in our times. If the nations develop and change then their interrelations develop and change, too, ineluctably. And so does proletarian internationalism. Originally the term “international” means something between (inter) national states, relating to, or involving two or more nations, cross-functional, reaching across, nation-spanning, extending across or transcending national boundaries etc. “International” is a term which developed on its basic stage of the horizontal interrelation of states (international, not-centralised, decentralised quantity). In fact we Marxists-Leninist are interested in the further development of the international horizontal towards the international vertical as its higher developed stage (global quality). We turn the interests of the world proletariat to the interrelation of the single country and the globe, the interrelation between the single part and the whole. This is different from the interrelation between parts and other parts (independently from the whole, without the whole). If there is a world proletariat coming up then the proletarians of the single countries change as its detachments and that means that the international class struggle is not any longer horizontally but vertically, a vertical unification and organisation of the proletarians of the single countries, a centralised unification and organisation.
The worker of today globalises his internationalist class struggle to that effect that he upgrades lower forms to higher forms. Achieving its new global quality means: centralising international class struggle top down and democratising bottom-up.
Today, the class struggle of the proletarians in a single countries emerges from the international class struggle of the proletarians of all countries, arises from the centralised struggle of the world proletariat.
In this international class struggle the proletarians of all countries merge to one and only global class, to the world proletariat – the highest form of the proletarian class which features the highest form of proletarian class-consciousness by its vanguard – the internationalist, world socialist, world communist class-consciousness.
We Marxists-Leninist help the proletariat to understand that the world capital determines about the destiny of every job in every country of the world at long last.
The worker can only decide on the destiny of his job at long last when he determines himself about the destiny of the world capital. However this cannot be done any longer staying as the worker of the class of his country. He can do this only globally - by becoming an inseparable part of the world proletariat in his country.
Organising his class struggle vertically the worker reaches eye-level with the quality of the world capital which developed actually not different from world labour.
Without world labour no capital - without world capital no world labour.
If the capital strives for its reproduction on a global stage then the worker strives for the reproduction of his job on a global stage, too.
This is the globalised self-preservation fight in the capitalist society.
Self-preserving the capital has to destroy and to remove jobs of workers ( needlessly to say that we do not mean the world proletariat as the whole class because world capital cannot reproduce itself without this class and as it reproduces the world proletariat inclusively its unavoidable blood letting of jobs) in the same way as the worker on his part has to destroy and to remove the world capital self-preserving.
If the worker must fight for his job in a global scale, if he – no matter in which country – runs across the predominant world `s labour market everywhere and to any time on which the workers of all countries are forced to meet and to compete then the predominant worker of every country becomes a world labourer and then he is not a worker reproducing his country but the globe then every single country as well as all countries reproduce world capital to reproduce themselves, then no worker can reproduce himself without reproducing world capital.
It seems so as if the once self-contained class struggle in the single countries shall remain as the strongest factor. And indeed: This factor even still grows because the pressure of the exploitation of every country intensifies in addition by the pressure of the world capital into every country. But class-struggle in the countries increases through this by becoming an incitement factor of the complete world proletariat.
"The political, social and cultural conditions of its fight cannot be unimportant to the proletariat, consequently the destiny of its own country cannot be unimportant either. However the countries ` history is only important in so far as it does concern its class struggle” (Lenin, Volume 15, 1908, German edition, free editor `s translation). This was written a hundred years ago and is still valid. Perhaps we could add to “does concern its class-struggle” - its international class-struggle.
Although the class struggle in the country of one's own keeps special and different national forms today the contents is not the same any longer (as in times of Lenin when he wrote this) because the class-struggle will be determined by less inner nationwide conditions but more and more by outer, economic, political, social and cultural conditions thus by the global conditions.
Which conclusions would Lenin draw from it today?
Lenin wouldn't give up the further necessary forms of the national class struggle with regard to the over-all interests of the world proletariat. In the contrary, he would strengthen these forms by filling them with world revolutionary contents.
How so? The political, social and cultural conditions of the fight of the proletarians of all other countries cannot be unimportant to the proletariat who leads the class-struggle in one `s own country, consequently the fortune of all the other countries cannot be unimportant either.
However, the proletariat of a single country is only in so far interested in the fortune of other countries as it does concern the international class-struggle in one `s own country.
The political, social and cultural conditions of the fight of his proletarian detachments in all countries cannot be unimportant for the world proletariat who leads the international class-struggle. The fortune of all countries of the world consequently cannot be unimportant for the world proletariat.
However, the world proletariat is only interested in their fortune in so far as it does concern the global class-struggle.
This means that the world proletariat utilises the formula: "Class struggle in one `s own country!” in an internationalist way , namely as the formula: "World proletariat unite the class-struggle in all countries!"
So it is: things which seem to appear now may not appear till eternity necessarily.
A bigger and bigger proportion of the proletariat of a country gets internationalised by the world capital. The proletarians are not only transferred from one country to another, but to many other countries, all countries all over the world and the domestic proletarians on their part work more and more for the world capital instead of working for the capital in one `s own country – not for periods of generations, not for a life-time, not for decades, not for a couple of years, not for one year, but utmost for months, weeks and even for days and hours.
With other words: World capital itself equips and arms the workers of the single countries with global weapons of class-struggle in their own country, helps them to get rid of national chains (although for the purpose to tie the global chains up more easily !), provide them involuntarily their world view beyond the edge of the nationwide plates, paves the way for the proletarians global self- awareness about their coming world revolutionary power, indirectly :
There was no fatherland of the so called “” in the 19th century. The “unpatriotic bunch” of the 20th century had a socialist fatherland at least, although not yet the whole world of socialist fatherlands. The globalised (so called) “unpatriotic bunch” of today will get to work on it. However, what will the “unpatriotic bunch” do for tomorrow? The “unpatriotic bunch” of tomorrow shall liberate the world from fatherlands at all, from patriotic wars for creating the stateless, peaceful world of tomorrow, makes out of all nations a world without nations.
This is the historically pre-marked march of the "unpatriotic bunch" across their centuries, the communist way of the proletarians of tomorrow: “World proletariat unite all nations for the world without nations!" A lot of water is going to flow under the bridge of the countries until there is no country left over.
In the meantime, the countries still need themselves and the world needs the countries still either. As to us Communists, we are the last ones who would like to “steal" the world `s countries ! However the one who steals countries, who destroys nations and their unity, who snaffles a whole lot of states and who is the biggest enemy of the nations – that is the world capital, is the world bourgeoisie and neither the world proletariat nor us Communists. That `s why the world proletariat and us Communists unite and defend the nations in their struggle against the hostile world capital.
"As long as there are national and state differences between the peoples and countries – these differences shall last for a very long period even after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat all over the world - the homogeneity of the international tactics of the Communist labour movement of all countries requires not the removal of manifoldness, not the repeal of national differences (...) but such a usage of basic principles of Communism ( Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat), with which these principles will be modified in detail and correctly adapted to the national and nation-state varieties” ( editor `s free translation of Lenin `s writing: „Der ´Radikalismus` , die Kinderkrankheit im Kommunismus“).
Till now it looks like workers who edge towards the big industrial states forced by unemployment, low pay, political persecution, political discrimination etc. or emigrants who finance from there the return to their domestic countries which they once had to leave because of the fear of losing the means of their existence.
Under the conditions of the globalisation the world bourgeoisie takes advantage of the nationalist movement as a tool of class struggle against the world proletariat. The world bourgeoisie is not afraid of putting national movements on the base of socialism formally. It has remained the old aim to turn the proletarians of every country away of their great international tasks by entanglements in national and racist fights, against foreigners etc.
The bourgeois nationalism in the hand of the world bourgeoisie is to betraying the proletarians of the country into splitting off both the proletarians of other countries and the world proletariat - exactly in the divisive interest of the world capital. One cannot put on a level bourgeois nationalism in the hands of the national bourgeois in previous periods with the present bourgeois nationalism in the hands of the world bourgeoisie who force through the interests of world capital by means of the national bourgeoisies as the detachments of the world bourgeoisie. This means that one cannot either put on a level the proletarian internationalism in the hand of single countries in previous periods with the present proletarian internationalism in the hand of the world proletariat who forces through socialism by means of the proletarians of the single countries as the detachments of the world proletariat.
In the past it always was like this: the workers were cheated. Even in the first period of socialism the bourgeoisie destructed socialism and restored capitalism.
The world bourgeoisie has this ruse of class war in petto and hopes to be successful in cunning the world proletariat twice in the row. In regard of the second period of socialism the world bourgeoisie schemes in secret the struggle against world socialism, the struggle for the restoration of world capitalism by all means. The world bourgeoisie is on to every dodge to cheat socialism for a second time. The world bourgeoisie leaves nothing untried to adopt our formula : “World proletariat – unite all countries!” as her own to exchange its world revolutionary contents for the poison of bourgeois (revisionist, “socialist”) nationalism with the purpose to bring the workers to lose faith in their own power of the unity of the proletarians in all countries and to give up their struggling for world socialism.
If the world proletariat would have decided to struggle for the aims of world socialism finally then the world bourgeoisie would certainly raise a hue and cry, would launch howls such as : ”Oh what a crime, stirring up the world revolution for the destruction of the democratic civilisation `s world order - do you want the world fascism?” ( according to the well-known bourgeois argument of equating left wing and right wing, world socialism and world fascism etc. By this the world proletariat should be prevented from being driven into extremism – no matter whether it would be about the right or the left one!). However, the world proletariat sees through all these cunning bourgeois dodges which really answer the purpose for misusing our world revolutionary formula: “World proletariat – unite all countries!” The world proletariat is interested in increasing globally the class conflicts instead of blunting them by class reconciliation in the privacy of one `s own domestic country. Class reconciliation between bourgeoisie and proletariat in single countries – that `s to the world capital `s liking in its struggle against the world revolution and the world proletariat. It is world capital which pretends to defend the interests of the countries but indeed world capital is the biggest extremist against the countries, an extremist who covers his exploitation of the countries behind “a heart of gold for the countries”.
And the national bourgeoisie? Of course she prefers to praise such (naturally, to split the unity of the world proletariat!). For its nature socialism is internationalist. There is no reconciliation between internationalism and nationalism neither in the national nor in the international scale. Proletarian internationalism is the ideology of the proletariat and proletarian nationalism is – in the contrary - a bourgeois ideology. The form of socialism was national but the content was internationalist in the first epoch of socialism. Socialism had neither in its first epoch nor has it in its second epoch any kind of national character because the proletariat is a global internationalist class.
Those so called "Communists", who don `t want to know anything about the world revolution are welcome to equivocate about the socialist revolution in their own country to cover their enmity against the socialist world revolution (by reconciliation with the bourgeois ideology of “socialist” nationalism). The true purpose is obviously the misuse of the proletariat for saving the bourgeois ` ass. The bourgeoisie of the countries fear to be engulfed by the world capital, but the bourgeoisie is all the more afraid of the executioner `s axe of the world proletariat. That `s why the bourgeoisie seeks refuge in all kind of “socialisms “ (other than the world proletarian socialism!) which declare to be reconciliatory within the countries and hostile towards any foreign threats (for example that of the world proletariat).
By dissociating from such "Communists" and by fighting against such "Communists", we don't split our rows but dam back the infiltration of the bourgeois-revisionist ideology and we consolidate, deepen and enlarge our unity.
Without homogeneity in the basic questions of global communism, without homogeneity at the global application of the Marxism- Leninism on the permanently changing conditions the world revolutionary proletariat cannot fulfil its historical mission.
The defence of the “national culture” (in inverted commas because the bourgeoisie does actually not defend any more but betrays and degenerates the culture of the nations. In this case we don `t mean the culture of a socialist country but that of capitalist nations - once commanded by the national bourgeoisie and now by the world bourgeoisie who pretends to represent the culture of all “civilised” countries with the purpose to split, degenerate and liquidate the culture of the [proletarians of the] countries) is the proved means of the bourgeoisies of all nations with the aim to split and shatter the world proletariat and its developing global culture in all countries of the world.
The proletarians of all countries only can guarantee their international culture in their own country, this means the internationalist culture of the labour movement and the socialism in their country if they follow the watchword of the world proletariat: "World proletariat - unite the national cultures of all countries!" This can only be taken for granted by the global merge of the proletarian culture of all countries and by unfolding the own international culture all over the world on one `own part. Only the world proletariat in power will be that force which guarantees the prosperity of the internationalist proletarian culture in every single country.
Just as in times of Lenin when there were still elements of working and exploited masses within the cultural life of every country – even in low developed countries – who tended spontaneously to proletarian culture unavoidably, respectively whose life conditions made them susceptible to proletarian culture, there are also such elements in the countries who are attracted to new global forms of culture – even in low developed countries - who do not only produce globally material goods but also ideas of global proletarian culture and who feel called upon the effect that a new global type of internationalist global world proletarian culture will prosper.
We talk about international elements of the socialist culture which are globally faced with the ruling class-culture of the world bourgeoisie by means of the national bourgeoisies as the detachments of the world capital in every country.
There is neither a national nor a world culture above the classes because both are product and result of their dictatorship in the particular class society. The class struggle between the world proletariat and the world bourgeoisie is quasi a class struggle between both their cultures, too. They can coexist impossibly. This was only possible and unavoidable in times of the first epoch of socialism. There is either the dominance of the culture of the world bourgeoisie or that of the world proletariat. Historically the culture of the world bourgeoisie will be once removed by the victorious world proletariat irreversibly. The concept of the culture is a class concept. Today, the ruling culture in every country is always the culture of the ruling exploiter and oppressor classes with the world bourgeoisie on top.
The culture of the working classes of every country is the culture of proletarian internationalism. It is internationalist according to its contents and formally national whereby the national forms will disappear in favour of internationalist forms, however this will take place step by step within a longer period and not completely. There will still remain certain national elements which cannot and ought not be rubbed out totally.
"This is the general human culture on the way to socialism: proletarian is its content and national is its forms. The proletarian culture doesn't annul the national culture, it rather provides the contents of the national culture. And reversibly: the national culture does not rub out the proletarian culture but provides its national form to be able to develop. The watchword of the national culture was a bourgeois watchword as long as the bourgeoisie was at the power and as the consolidation of the nations began to take place under the aegis of the Soviet power.
Who hasn't understood this principle difference between the two different situations, this one will ever understand neither the Leninism nor the nature of the national question" (Stalin "About the political tasks of the university of the east peoples", May 18th, 1925, German edition, free editor `s translation).
The culture of the world proletariat is the world culture of proletarian internationalism. It is both internationalist according to the contents and the form - on the final stage. But this is not yet possible in the period when world socialism removes world capitalism, thus on its primary stage. In the beginning world socialism cannot skip its first period. On its initial stage world socialism cannot do without socialist nations hence without the culture of the socialist nations. In the contrary, the development of the culture of the socialist nations is basically a precondition for that subsequent period of world socialism when the nations die away by their gradual merging and when the world socialist culture begins to develop a new, higher quality without the socialist nations. Therefore the world socialist culture is interested in supporting the development of the internationalist culture in every single country. And reversibly:
The socialist culture of the nations does not hinder the development of world proletarian culture but they provide the forms for its content, enrich world proletarian culture, are complementary. The national forms of the proletarian culture change gradually into international forms until they finally completely dissolve themselves in the classless global society. They shall pave the way for new global cultural forms.
The working class is interested in the contradictions between the ruling world culture and the ruling national cultures of the bourgeoisie only in so far as they ease the international cultural war of the world proletariat by merging the proletarian culture in every country with the aim, firstly to destroy the cultural power of the world bourgeoisie and thus the culture power of the bourgeoisies of the countries and secondly to establish the cultural power of the world proletariat and thus the cultural power of the proletarians in the countries.
We fight for the world culture of the socialist world proletariat just as we are also fighting for the socialist culture of the proletariat of every country which enriches its global culture. However we don `t do this neither by subordinating other cultures violently nor by burying them with the own privileged culture as the world bourgeoisie is practising this today. We do this by sharing the proletarian culture of our own country with the proletarian cultures of all the other countries solidly. We do this by taking a more and more active role in the process of mutual cooperation, protection and prosperity with the aim to create commonly the proletarian world culture.
The international culture of the world proletariat doesn't conflict with the national culture of the workers of all countries, it rather presupposes these because the international culture of the world proletariat is nothing else but the unification, the fusion of the worker cultures of all countries on a qualitatively higher step ladder.
The socialist world revolution counts on the internationalist, proletarian culture in every nation and supports every proletarian culture to become the ruling culture of the nations.
The world capital has created its own bourgeois internationalism in the course of its globalisation with which proletarian internationalism is confronted irreconcilably and hostilely at present.
Internationalism has historical class character (internationalism = striving for an inter-state association: A) striving for a socialist inter-state association and B) striving for a capitalist inter-state association).
We approach proletarian internationalism with historical and dialectical methods and therefore we cannot ignore that there is not only the proletarian but also the bourgeois internationalism under conditions of globalisation. The bourgeois nationalism is not a static and immovable item.
Bourgeois nationalism changed under the conditions of the class struggle, under the conditions of the development of the world capital, under the conditions of the developing world bourgeoisie as an international class, has become a weapon of the world bourgeoisie. The world capital cannot develop freely if it cannot count on the national bourgeoisies. The world capital always demotes the national bourgeoisies to henchmen of the world bourgeoisie, exchanges them if they don't do what the world capital wants.
For the concentration and centralization of the world capital a certain (controlled) autonomy (independence) of the single bourgeois states remains formally indispensable despite increasing trend of global state-rationalisations and this is one of the facts why the national conflicts caused by the world capital are unsolvable for the capital – with the consequence of the further globally increasing enslavement of the peoples.
Globalisation of capital has caused the irreconcilable contradiction between the process of the economic unification of the peoples and the rigid world imperialist methods of this unification. The globalisation of capital revealed the world bourgeoisie `s total bankruptcy of solving the national question.
The opposite trend does n `t fail to appear namely the trend to revolt against globalised capitalist forms imposed violently by the centralisation and concentration of world capital. It is an unavoidable and inappeasable anti-capitalist struggle of everybody who is taken in by world capitalism. And we make no secret of the ignorance of world capital unable to smooth the ghosts which it has invoked once. World capital is the parting of the nations` ways.
Once established by capitalism the nations` freedom can only be guaranteed by the overthrow of capitalism. World socialism guarantees the solution of the national question by solving the social question globally.
A continuance of global capitalism is impossible without exploiting and suppressing the nations just like the continuance of world socialism which is inconceivable without the liberation of the nations, without national freedom in a world scale.
Every movement of separating from world capitalism, every movement which weakens the world capitalism will strengthen the world proletariat and has to be supported in the favour of the world revolution.
The movement of the single nation `s separation from the world capitalist system globalises the front of all exploited and suppressed nations.
If the world proletariat has succeeded to lead the struggle for the overthrow of world imperialism victoriously then the peoples liberated from their yoke will certainly support the establishment of world socialism. This is the way of the fusion of the national liberation movements and the proletarian movement under the conditions of the fight against the globalising world capitalism.
The inevitableness of the national liberation movements is removed by the fall of the world bourgeoisie who suppresses and exploits the nations and who is therefore the cause of the national liberation movements.
Just as the destiny of the capitalist nations is closely related to the destiny of the world capital, the destiny of every national liberation movement is also connected with the destruction of the world capitalism. That `s why the national liberation movements get a global dimension and therefore a lever of the world revolution on their part. A subsiding of the national liberation movement definitely is possible only with the fall of the world bourgeoisie.
The national liberation movements aren't aimed at this or that imperialist “great” power, against this or that national exploitation and suppression, but against the whole exploitation and suppression system of all allies of world imperialism any more: “World proletariat – unite all national liberation movements against world imperialism!”
Concerning the globalised liberation struggle of all anti-imperialist forces of all nations it is again the globalised world capitalism itself which attracts , merges, antagonises , centralises against itself all its counteracting powers. By merging a united, and anti-imperialist world front closed in itself the national question gets a global connectivity and is therefore ready for the approach of the global solution of the international question. “World proletariat - unite all nations to solve their national question!”
It `s the globalised world capitalism which brings the liberation movements of the countries and the proletarian movements of the countries together and which consequently meets requirements for the victory of the socialist world revolution.
The national question will be solved by the victory of the socialist world revolution in a world scale for long and the national question cannot be solved differently than than by the fall of the world bourgeoisie either.
In the first period of socialism the national question of the single socialist country was solved temporarily, but finally it can only be solved globally by the mutual support of all countries – thus in the second epoch of socialism.
The dictatorship of the world proletariat does not only cause and seal but also guarantee the solution of the national question in the world scale and in the perpetuity thus for each of the nations.
The bourgeoisie failed to solve the national question for over hundred years. The bourgeoisie shattered and destroyed the nations by countless wars and two world wars, fuelled enmities and conflicts among each other and is still unable to turn around national crises. Us Communists shall solve this question within a couple of years after having consolidated the socialist world revolution – and all this by peaceful agitation and propaganda. This shall take place unavoidably because we have removed the antagonistic contradictions by the global establishment of world socialism.
Who separates the particular national question from the world question which is an inseparably linked component of the question of the general socialist world revolution separates it from becoming solved, restores the national question, smuggles in bourgeois nationalism.
Who wants to see the growing difference between bourgeois nationalism under the aegis of the single national bourgeoisie and under the centralized aegis of the world bourgeoisie is just as little a Marxist - Leninist as people who don't want to admit the difference of proletarian internationalism under the aegis of the dictatorship of the proletariat in "one" country and under the centralized aegis of the dictatorship of the world proletariat.
Denying the admission of this fault would endanger and harm the socialist world revolution seriously. With this fault the victory of the proletarian world revolution would be questioned completely. If the national question changed under conditions of globalisation then the solution of the national question changes as well.
Entering the global stage the world proletariat gets its own outlook of the solution of the national question such as the working class in the “one” socialist country has had its own opinion about it. The nature of the solution is still the same but the way of the solution is not the same because of the two different periods.
It is still difficult for many a Communist to accept the dialectics of the changing national question.
The solution of the national question is inseparably bound to the solution of the question of the socialist world revolution today. Firstly this is a principal question which has to be fought through and carried into the Marxist-Leninist world movement. And secondly It has become a question which must be solved practically by the proletariat.
In organizational regard the national question of the world proletariat can only be solved with the help of the centralised proletarian world party and not federally, thus by the lose alliance of the parties in single countries which pretend to advocate the world party but who are neither willing nor able to subordinate under the Marxist-Leninist principles of the world party.
If one would confine oneself to the former type of socialism in “one” country as the last and finally closed stage of socialism, if one would renounce the global stage of socialism, if one would not bother to enter the second epoch of socialism – then one won `t need the world revolution, then one won `t need the world party. Besides Lenin and Stalin, the leaders of the world proletariat did never think and act like this. In the contrary, they led the Marxist-Leninist struggle against these revisionist thoughts. In first line they were internationalist and centralist leaders of the world proletariat, of the world revolution and leaders of the Comintern. In second line they were the leaders of their own beloved socialist fatherland. Lenin and Stalin struggled for a strong socialist Soviet Union to serve the world revolution of the world proletariat and not the other way round.
The VII. World Congress of the Comintern opened the revisionist about-turn. Following this revisionist line led unavoidably to the dissolution of the Comintern. This was the leave-taking of the world revolution. From then on the solution of the national question was wrest from the world proletariat and the single Communist Parties were left to their own devices - unable to uphold their close formation as sections of the world party. What followed was the revisionists coming into power by social-fascism and social-imperialism. The new formation of the Marxist-Leninist movement derived from the struggle against modern revisionism. In the year 2000 the solution of the national question returned to the world proletariat due to the foundation of the Comintern (ML).
One cannot leave the solution of the national question to single Communist parties because the proletariat of every country has to deal with the political domination of the world bourgeoisie who plays with the destiny of the nations.
The national question therefore became a matter of the world proletariat who struggles against the world bourgeoisie dominating the nations. To solve the national question on an nationwide stage the proletariat has to disempower the world bourgeoisie on a worldwide stage. There is no other way out to solve the national question.
Every nation has undoubtedly the right to decide freely on its own destiny as far as it doesn't curtail the same right of all other nations, no matter whether it is a bourgeois or proletarian nation. It is also uncontentious that every Communist party must decide on the solution of its own national question but this matter of a course is not the point.
The point is that the final solution of the national question can be guaranteed not until the world proletariat comes into political power, not until the world bourgeoisie is disempowered, nut until the nations are liberated from world capitalism. Left on their own the proletarians of a single country are neither able to liberate from world capitalism nor to solve their national question. Neither the world revolution nor the revolution in one `s own country, neither the solution of the social nor the national question lead to success single-handedly. If all these questions become global questions they cannot be solved but globally.
"Thus the principle of the international combination of the workers as an inevitable point at the solution of the national question” (Stalin, volume 2, page 333, German edition, free editor `s translation).
Proletarian internationalism is an instrument of the class struggle of the whole world proletariat - thus a class instrument in the hand of one class.
Bourgeois nationalism was the decisive instrument against proletarian internationalism in the first epoch of socialism thus at times of Lenin and Stalin. Proletarian internationalism `s lever and base was then the dictatorship of the proletariat in "one" country.
Bourgeois nationalism and proletarian internationalism were the two predominant instruments of the two world camps, that of the capitalism and the socialism.
In the second epoch of the socialism -that is under today's conditions – bourgeois internationalism is an instrument of the world bourgeoisie against world socialism. Proletarian internationalism is fought by bourgeois internationalism to prevent the socialist world revolution.
Such as bourgeois nationalism is used for the split and division of the working class of the countries, bourgeois internationalism is used for the split and division of the world proletariat. The class struggle around the national question generates more and more international forms in times of globalisation.
So it is not a matter of the existence of the nation at all, not a matter of the form of the nation (= retaining unchanged) but a matter of the nation `s class contents, a matter of changing the capitalist nations into socialist nations.
“On the ruins of the old, bourgeois nations the new, socialist nations arise and develop which are much more merged than any bourgeois nation because they are free from antagonistic class contradictions which erode the bourgeois nations. A socialist nation represents much more the whole people than any bourgeois nation” (Stalin, “The national question and the Leninism”, 1929, German edition, free editor `s translation).
At long last, it no longer only deals with the single nation in itself but with its inter-state association. The question is whether the nations remain in the hands of the world bourgeoisie or change hands to the world proletariat. More and more it deals with the mutual, united liberation from the foreign rule of capital, which hinders and destroys the social and national life in all countries. Because of this the decisive, common step of the revolution is the fall of the world capital.
To liberate from both the "own" one and the "foreign" bourgeoisie, from both the national and the world bourgeoisie, the anti imperialist strengths of all countries must unite under the leadership of the world proletariat if they will win.
So bourgeois internationalism grows out of bourgeois nationalism by the globalisation of world capital. Not this or that “civilised” nation struggles against this or that “terrorism” but the whole “civilised” world struggles against worldwide “terrorism”. The nations take part in this worldwide struggle not under their own leadership but they share the leadership of the world bourgeoisie.
If fatherland `s defence is an expression of bourgeois nationalism then the defence of the “civilised” world expresses bourgeois internationalism.
Single interests of national bourgeoisies are subordinated under the over-all interests of the world bourgeoisie just as bourgeois nationalism is subordinated under the bourgeois internationalism – national cultural slavery paves the way for world cultural slavery without abdicating by some reactionary “rebel” of neo-nationalism and neo-fascism.
There is no doubt about the interaction of bourgeois internationalism on the one hand and of world proletarian internationalism on the other hand. The polarising struggle between bourgeois and proletarian internationalism decides over the solution of national question.
Now there are two watchwords of internationalism which face each other antagonistically:
The internationalism of the world proletariat who moves up the global ladder and the internationalism of the world bourgeoisie who redescends . At the time of Lenin the nationalism of the imperialist “Great” powers predominated all the other nationalisms and now it is the nationalisms of the “Great” powers which have grown together and integrated themselves by their over-all world capitalist interests. However, the nature of the bourgeois ideology is both the same, so that we can still assume what Lenin taught about
“ both the big class camps of the whole capitalist world (...) and both the kinds of policies (rather: both the world ideologies) on the national question” (Lenin, Volume 20, page 11, "critical remarks on the national question", free editor `s translation).
Lenin talked with good reason about the two tendencies of capitalism which form together the “world principle of the capitalism", namely:
"The first tendency: Awakening of the national life and the national movements, fight against every national oppression, forming of nation-states. The second tendency: Development and multiplication of the miscellaneous relations of the nations, pulling down national borders, forming of the international uniformity of the capital, the business life at all, the politics, science etc., " (Lenin, ibid page 12, free editor `s translation).
And due to the objective conditions of the principally further developing society `s order the global order of the world bourgeoisie will be replaced by the global order of the world proletariat , not because the world proletariat will “make it better” than the world bourgeoisie, not because the world proletariat is “more clever” or “shrewd”, not because of the “majorities” of the masses etc., but because global capitalism of the world bourgeoisie ( inclusively all the capitalist nations) shall collapse due to the unsolvable contradictions which are self-produced by maintaining the thriving for maximum-profits. The self- destruction of capitalism takes place in spite of and independently from the will of every capitalist order of the society. And the ideology of the bourgeoisie shall follow the downfall of its class. In so far the destiny of the national question is equal to the destiny of world capitalism. The solution of the national question is brought about the collapse of world capitalism.
Today's watchword of proletarian internationalism: “World proletariat - unite all countries against the world bourgeoisie!" is faced by the world bourgeois watchword: “World bourgeoisie - `unite´ all countries (rather: assimilate them by the world capital !) against the world proletariat!"
The transition of the capitalist nations into socialist nations is a question of the struggle for or against their assimilation by the world capital.
Lenin taught: “There will remain the one world historical tendency of capitalism (...) namely blurring the national differences and assimilating the nations which emerge more and more powerfully, and which form the greatest motive powers of the transition from capitalism into socialism” (Lenin, ibid page 13, free editor `s translation).
The class struggle of both these two watchwords for the establishment of socialist respectively for the maintenance of capitalist countries is a fight for the international solution of the national question, is the fight for the solution of the international social question, is a fight for or against the socialist world revolution, is a fight for or against world socialism.
Today, the assimilation of the nations is one of the greatest motive powers which transform the world capitalism to world socialism .
The awakening of counter motive powers as a consequence of the assimilation policy of the world capital was correctly foreseen by Lenin.
Being forced by global assimilation policy of the world capital provokes the world revolutionary resistance of the nations, wings their hopes and will to fight for their national freedom.
If we would slip up to capitalist assimilation policies, if we would force the merge of socialist nations by violence, this would drive them into capitalism `s arms. Stalin spoke out on assimilation policy:
"It is, of course known that the policy of the assimilation is hostile to the people, is a counter revolutionary policy, a corruptive policy which has to be excluded absolutely from the armoury of Marxism - Leninism " (Stalin, " the national question and the Leninism, 1929, German edition, free editor `s translation).
The point is to free the assimilation policy from its imperialist and social-imperialist chains. Assimilation in the hands of the imperialists is reactionary however in the hands of the proletariat it is revolutionary because it improves the prosperity of the single socialist country as well as the prosperity of the whole World Union of all socialist countries ( see the last Lenin quotation above). From proletarian assimilation benefits the single nation as well as the whole world socialist system. Proletarian assimilation is based on voluntariness to become a motive power of world socialism. Assimilation policy in the hands of social imperialists is counter revolutionary either. The assimilation policy of the revisionist Soviet Union was a social imperialist, chauvinist assimilation policy to subdue all the other Soviet countries.
To certain degree we can speak about the restoration of capitalism as a special form of the world capital `s assimilation policy. In this sense the restoration of socialism cannot be the same assimilation policy to establish world socialism.
If the international dictatorship of the proletariat has freed the suppressed countries, then these will have to recover from their yoke of capitalist slavery. And therefore they need some time for themselves to relieve suspiciousness towards the dictatorship of the world proletariat.
All this isn't settled with any decrees but takes a whole period of the nations` rebirth (“rebirth” - here not meant as a new edition of nations of the 19th century but understood as the nations` process of transition from dying capitalist nations giving birth to the socialist nations). There isn't any nation which is to one half capitalist and to the other half socialist. In the period of world socialism there are no capitalist or “half-capitalist” countries, not any “interstage,” but only socialist nations which are more or less advanced. Anything else is “socialist” castles in the air! The first epoch of socialism was the epoch of the interstage, the co-existence, of socialist and capitalist countries. The second epoch of socialism is the epoch without any capitalist nations.
The development of the second epoch of socialism is not at all straightly but subordinated under its own contradictory principles of growing. However these contradictions are not antagonistically any more. Well, there are a lot of remains and relict of bourgeois nationalism, there are contradictions among the new socialist nations which have to be overcome by class-struggle against those reactionary forces who are dreaming of the restoration of the capitalist world namely the revisionists. These developing problems cannot be solved just by resolutions.
This requires the further development of Marxism-Leninism, requires a higher quality of the proletarian internationalism, requires the advancement of socialist internationalism. Socialist internationalism is advanced proletarian internationalism, is the internationalism of the socialist nations in the second epoch of socialism. Socialist internationalism is the motive power of the socialist world proletariat to merge the union of socialist nations for the purpose of creating a one and only socialist world nation.
These are future theoretical tasks which we have to carry out if we want to convince the world proletariat of the advantages of world socialism. The world proletariat wants to know everything about the aim and purpose of the future world order. The world proletariat will not be contented with just destroying the capitalist world order. The world proletariat likes to know how to establish a better world , how to improve the world according to one `s own wishes and demands.
The world proletariat will remove the national oppression in the world scale. The world proletariat wrecks the national privileges of nations opposite other nations. The world proletariat supports the unity of the economic and political interests of all nations.
However, this doesn't mean yet that we abolish the national differences, the national languages, cultures, life-forms etc.. One cannot abolish them. They die away like the classes. We should have in mind that nations at all, no matter if they are capitalist or socialist , have basically class character. If one wants to remove the inevitability of the nations ` class character, the national differences and contradictions etc., then one has to remove the nations at all. However one can neither force the abolishment of the differences and contradictions among the nations nor the replacement of nations at all.
On the contrary, the free development of the national cultures under the conditions of the dictatorship the world proletariat is the only revolutionary watchword of the world socialist nations. For its merging a socialist nation must be ripe enough.
What is a fusion in its pre-mature, immature stage worth for world socialism, worth for the single socialist nation? This would cause the motive powers of merging to change into its own stumbling blocks and at least aggravate and complicate the merging process and stop it at the worst. Nobody is served with that but the restoration of the capitalism. The removal of the world capitalism is the first prerequisite for the fusion of socialist nations but the completion of the whole fusion process lasts for a longer historical period. This depends on the single nations themselves last not least and on the solidary support of the whole socialist world community .
"It seems almost incredible that we are both supporters of the future fusion of national cultures to a common culture (both in form and content) with a common language and simultaneously supporters of the prosperity of national cultures at this moment, in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. However, this is n `t an odd thing at all. The national cultures have to get the opportunity to unfold and to develop and to tap their full potential to level the playing-field of merging to a common culture with a common language in the period of the victory of socialism in a global scale. The blossoming of cultures – nationally formal and socialist in contents - under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat in ONE country for the purpose of their merging to a common ( both in forms and contents) socialist culture with a common language, when the proletariat was victorious in a world scale and when socialism is adjusted to everyday domestic life – this entails the dialectics of Lenin `s questioning about national culture” (Stalin, On the deviation of the national question, 27th of June, 1930, German edition, free editor `s translation).
Stalin differed both the two epochs of socialism and struggled for the completion of the first epoch in preparation of the second period. That `s , what `s all about it: “World proletariat – unite all nations for world socialism!” - “World proletariat unite all national cultures and languages!”
If everybody is equipped with all those means of communication which allow to use and exchange all languages of the world ( and this is easily conceivable in our era of communication) then the world speaks in one language which means that the world enables the countries to communicate with every language. So to speak the global language is neither communicating in any exclusively one national language (as the over-all language) nor in an eclectically contrived language ( al language which would be a mix of all languages) but in a global system of communication which settled the technical problems of global translations. Speaking the global language means to be able to solve the translation problems from any language into any other by global equipments of communication technology which can be used by everyone and all. The pre-condition of the common language of the world is the technical solution of translating any language into any other language. Philosophically speaking we shall reach the accordance of the common global language with every single native language. One language – this would not mean: one of all the single national languages but the one language which can be used as one for all of them, for their common usage. This one is not meant as one part in itself but as such one whole which unites all parts to be used universally. One language means letting all languages ( and even not only the national ones but actually all usable languages at all). Communication with all languages so that the world understands itself as well as the nations understand the world better than from the edge of the national plate. The identity of the common and the single language opens the entrance to the realm of the freedom and emancipation of all languages, the emancipation of the common world language. In this way the native language is not bound to the understanding among natives themselves any longer but usable for the understanding of the whole world community and reversibly the world community gets a better understanding of any native speaker and thus of everybody. To speak in one global language is applicable to live in one global community – at first with all united nations then with merged nations thus with one big global nation - or more precisely without any nations. The new world language will be a homogeneous product of the world community itself – independently from the nations` different languages, independently from classes etc. This is what Stalin meant with tapping the nations` “full potential to level the playing-field of merging to a common (...) language in the period of the victory of socialism in a global scale.”
The coherence and cohesion of parts and the whole concerning the nations and their languages can be generalised in terms of the “individual” and the “society”:
The individual plays a part in contributing to liberate the society such as the society plays a part to liberate the individual. This way the individual liberates from the society and reversibly the society liberates from the individual. By their mutual liberation they can both liberate from themselves if they commonly succeeded to get rid of their class character. This is the way to the absolute liberation of both the individual and the society. This does not mean at all that their coherence and cohesion will get lost. In the contrary, this means that they can unfold both their further development on a higher stage. The point is that only such forms of interdependence shall disappear which forced them to be involved in struggles of classes, in struggles of survival etc. With the mutual removal of all these forcing inherent necessities their interactions can then be based on both their own free will. There will be co-operation of their own accord. It `s up to them to decide whether to unite or to separate. The individual can move about freely and the society can move about freely either.
If the world capital comes to the point where even the last individual of the world is involved in it then this last individual of the world will come to the point of the removal of world capital. Making the last individual “happy” means the “happy-end” of world capital.
We are enemies of the bourgeoisie `s national and world “culture”. We distance ourselves from any “culture” of exploiters and suppressors. We fight against all of them because they try to prevent the world proletariat from bursting one `s slavery chains of culture . In principle there is no difference of being kept on nationwide or world wide cultural leading – strings. That `s why both the whole world proletariat and the proletariat of every country has to stand in a common front against those people who try to construct any “contradictions” between nationwide and worldwide bourgeois “cultures” just to divide and split the globally united cultural front against the bourgeoisie more easily. You cannot support the struggle against the “culture” of the world bourgeoisie by supporting the “culture” of this or that national bourgeoisie and vice versa. The world proletariat relies on its own independent culture to lead the global cultural front against the bourgeoisie.
The separation and renunciation from world capitalism and merging for world socialism is not the same step for the nations, this needs time and cannot be achieved in the same breath.
But if we bear a helping hand for the breakthrough and finally the removal of world capitalism then we bear a helping hand to unite and merge the socialist countries in the socialist World Union, too. This way the world proletariat shall approach all its unification tasks.
To clear the way for getting rid of bourgeois influences the world proletariat will need a whole period of world socialism. The world proletariat has to gain its own experience before its unification under the banner of world communism can be realised.
You can join communism not until you departed from capitalism completely. The proletariat unites for the purpose to secede from capitalism. The proletariat secedes from capitalism for the purpose to unite in socialism. The proletariat goes a long way round the world before it arrives in one `s own socialist country: Breaking through the structure of the nation, overcoming the national barriers, uniting globally, building up own global structures and from there turning back to the removal of the bourgeois national structures and then to the up building of socialist structures in one `s own country. The proletariat of a single country unavoidably has to pass through its global, dialectical metamorphosis before it is able to move from its capitalist nation into its socialist nation. That `s the proletarian metamorphosis of the first into the second epoch of socialism, the metamorphosis of the socialist revolution.
" `Separation for the purpose of unification`. This may hardly be conceived. This sounds downright paradoxically: Whilst this `contradictory` formula reflects that vital truth of the Marxian dialectic which gives the Bolsheviks the possibility of storming the most unconquerable fortresses in the field of the national question” (Stalin, "about the deviations in the national question, June 27th, 1930) .
So the unification process of the world proletariat is a process full of contradictions, a process of two sides which have an effect on each other and - only by being able to have an effect on each other they actually lead to the unification.
The national bourgeoisie always endeavours to separate the workers of her country from the workers of the "foreign" country to split them. Whilst the proletariat of this country always endeavours to overcome its split of the proletariat of another country.
The fight of the proletarians of every country against the national bourgeoisie is the essential content of the same internationalist struggle for unification of the world proletariat both in the suppressed nation and in the suppressing nation, however, formally this struggle of unification cannot be the same under conditions of globalised world imperialism.
The unification of the proletarians in the imperialist countries will be eased under the conditions of the globalisation, for example the unification process of the proletarians of the countries within the European Union.
At the same time the unification process with the proletarians of those countries will be aggravated which will be increasingly suppressed, exploited and split by the imperialist European Union. Therefore it is indispensable to unite both the unification processes in the suppressing and suppressed countries. For the example of the European Union the proletarians within the European Union have to unite commonly with the proletarians of those countries, who are increasingly exploited and suppresses by the advancing imperialist European Union. And the proletarians of all involved countries have to unite commonly against the united European imperialism.
The world proletariat may not be misled that there would be “no use” of fighting against national suppression solely because world capital pulls down all national barriers by itself. There is no polar opposite between national and international division of class struggle against national and international suppression and exploitation. It is impossible to let the proletarians of their country fight against their own national suppression on the one side and to let the world proletariat fight against its “own” global suppression on the other side.
It is a naive fallacy that the struggle against national exploitation and suppression would serve the world capitalists allegedly who thereby could force the national bourgeoisies to defend their “rights” still more vehemently. By this the “own” proletariat would be brutally exploited and suppressed under the pressure of the world capital and therewith the unification process of the proletarians of all countries would be aggravated. This would result in a class pact with the national bourgeoisie and therefore in the neutralisation of the influence of the world proletariat in its struggle against world capital in a national scale.
The world imperialism has won over the socialism, why it would be “useless” to give some thought to political world democracy – that `s what the “economists of globalisation” are talking about.
In the contrary, just because the global monopoly capitalism negates the nations` struggle for democracy the global struggle for and against world democracy shall meet with its enormous sharpening in every country, shall meet with world revolutionary importance.
To ignore, negate or underestimate the struggle for world democracy in every single country borders on committing a crime against the socialist world revolution.
If one stops fighting for global democracy only because world imperialism does abuse this as a deceit at the world, one has already stopped fighting for world socialism. If one stops fighting against the national oppression only because world imperialism abuses the national oppression as a justification to invade any country, then one has stopped fighting against world imperialism.
If world imperialism rambles on the "defence of the civilized world" by robbing and murdering the peoples with force of arms, this is then deceit. However, if one really defends the civilized world against the barbarism of the so called “civilised world”, whether against the modern barbarism of the world imperialists or the medieval barbarism of the reactionary rulers in any country, this is not at all a deceit then. We do not play neither into the hands of the world capital nor into the hands of the reactionary capitalist nation if we call for the real democracy of nations which world imperialism misuses to mask its modern, globalised colonialism.
The fight against any national oppression is an internationalist duty of the world proletariat if this serves the revolutionary fall of any foreign rule.
If the masses of a nation fight against any aggression and rapine of a foreign regime then it is progressively, it is to be supported solidarily and unconditionally - then it is a (global ) defence of this fatherland because the defence of any fatherland suppressed by another country, by an alliance of countries or even by the “civilized world” itself, serves also to all the other suppressed nations, serves to their common freedom. This globalised national liberation struggle serves to the world revolution of the proletariat. Therefore the necessary international alliance of the suppressed countries against the international alliance of the suppressing countries to strengthen the class warfare of the world proletariat against the world bourgeoisie, therefore our formula: “World proletariat - unite all countries!"
If the masses of any nation try to free themselves from their own bloodsuckers , then this again is also progressive and has to be supported solidarily and unconditionally by the masses all over the world. And finally, if the masses of any nation try to free themselves both from their inner and outer bloodsuckers then this has to be supported by the masses of other nations and last not least by the world masses themselves solidarily and unconditionally.
But the masses of any nation can neither take shelter from foreign bloodsuckers to get rid of one `s own bloodsuckers and more less this can be done by the masses of another nation who support them.
That `s why the nations need to give themselves a helping hand to get rid of both their inner and outer bloodsuckers: “World proletariat - unite all countries!" The world proletariat shall support the socialist reorganisation of every country in which it was victorious (step by step)
In the heroic fight of every single suppressed nation against the complete world alliance of the world capital the proletarians of the whole world shall form the united front of all nations in the spirit of proletarian internationalism.
The ancient imperialist split of the world proletariat by the privileged proletarians in the suppressing countries and the underprivileged proletarians in the suppressed countries shall fall by globalised labour slavery and pennilessness. One of the most important brake shoes of the unification of the proletarians of all countries falls by world capital itself. The conditions of the ripening of the world revolution converge in a world scale. We mentioned already that this is a case of objective processes, because world capital strives for the world capitalist development in all countries, i.e., for the power of world capitalism in every single country by the replacement of its ancient capitalist structures in favour of global structures to submissively obey as world capital `s national detachments.
The world proletariat cannot defeat the world imperialism not until the solidarity of the proletarians of the imperialist countries will be organised together with the proletarians of the suppressed countries (and reversibly the solidarity of the proletarians of these countries is needed for the common fight against world imperialism).
The world bourgeoisie `s proclaiming of globally equal rights of all nations and the removal of all antagonistical differences between the suppressing and the suppressed nations went bust.
For the world proletariat it is, however, a really just demand, the world proletariat fights therefore for winning over all the nations to make easier and accelerate this demand, the world proletariat unites all nations for this demand!
The victory of the socialist world revolution over the world bourgeoisie, the victory over the global suppression of world imperialism is completely impossible not until any unequal treatment of nations, any national suppression, any privileges of nations, exploitation of nations will be removed. The world dictatorship of the proletariat is a great dream not until the world proletariat grows up as a self-independent, revolutionary class, not until the world proletariat has formed its detachments in all countries. Otherwise the world bourgeoisie maintains, renews, reconquers or restores world power.
The world proletariat will be able to cause the connection of the proletarian detachment of every country only to such degree as it manages to convince this department to do not remain as the world capitalist detachment. Convincing the workers of a country of the proletarian world revolution means to convince them of the necessity of changing all the nations from world capitalist detachments into detachments of the world proletariat.
We have started with forcing the revisionists to act against our world revolutionary formula.
Unavoidably the revisionists have to revise our formula on the formal bottom of Marxism-Leninism and to exchange its world revolutionary spirit by bourgeois contents.
They have to refute our formula by effecting quite the reverse.
It is now up to them to direct our formula against ourselves and to split the world proletariat.
We will even more successfully aim their intentions against themselves ! We fight revisionist fire with revisionist fire!
Now then ! Take up your revisionist arms ! You'll get them readily defined:
“World proletariat - unite all countries!" in words, split all countries against the revolutionary world proletariat in deeds!
Communist International - unite the Communist parties of all countries!" in words – split all Communist parties of the countries against the Communist International in deeds!
From now on we have to fight against both these revisionist formulae by all means !
World proletariat – unite all countries against revisionism !
If we have seized control from the revisionist weapons of the world bourgeoisie then this will ease the unification process of the world revolutionary proletariat in all countries and then the world revolution will not be too long from now.
The victory of socialism in the world scale will be a victory over revisionism in the world scale, too !
Arise
ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For
reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of
cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise,
arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the
dust to win the prize.
Refrain:
So comrades, come
rally
And the last fight let us face
No more deluded by
reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will
take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if
those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They
soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our
own side.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we
in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains
of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their
booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do
their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
World proletariat - unite the socialist revolutions of all countries, unite all countries to the socialist world revolution !
The world communism will triumph !
Long live the socialist world revolution !
Long lives the international dictatorship of the proletariat !
Long live Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha!
Long live the Communist International (Marxists-Leninist) !
Executive Committee of the Comintern (ML)
31st 12th 2006
(Wolfgang Eggers)