Revisionism is the representative of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the Communist Party, the proletariat and the working masses; one cannot combat imperialism without combating revisionism. Lenin's great thesis remains valid and it is one of the leading ideological points in the Programme of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP).
Unity and Struggle: The Three Musketeers of Revisionism There is Yankee Imperialism, and also Yankee revisionism, and it infiltrates every organization that proclaims itself "Leftist" in the USA. This occurs in groups such as "Unity & Struggle Publications"; however there is unity of opposites in everything, and when revisionists raise their deceit and treason, they are actually calling on genuine Maoists and supporters of the People's War in Peru to struggle against revisionism and to crush it.
In "Unity & Struggle Publications" (USP) there are some honest supporters of the People's War in Peru; this must be thoroughly clear. At the same time, USP's leading editorial bureau is composed of three individuals who in practice reject Marxism and defend the imperialist class dictatorship in the USA. These three individuals, Amiri Baraka, Arthur Henson and Modibo, pose as "communists" who call for the reconstitution of the Communist Party in the USA.
The 3 Musketeers of USP have fabricated a "Response by Unity & Struggle Publications to MPP: Build the Communist Party on Reality, Not Subjectivism". This so-called 'Response' promotes class conciliation and capitulation, and defends bourgeois democracy. At the same time it is combined with unfounded accusations and sarcastic diatribes against the MPP, precisely because the MPP (USA) upholds, defends and applies the ideology of the international proletariat as developed by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP):Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, forged through years of People's War serving the world proletarian revolution.
The USP editors employ their "Response" in an attempt to promote themselves as "experts of Leninism", but they manipulate and distort Lenin's texts as a cover to betray the proletariat and defend the rotten imperialist bourgeois democracy. Let's look at this in detail.
As they themselves express it: "The proposal 'Revolutionaries unite' was put forth by Communists in order to reconstitute the Communist Party in the United States. But it is not a Communist proposal! It is intended to provide a framework for people of varying ideological bases to struggle for the correct revolutionary political line and practice . Nowhere is it stated or implied that we Communists will compromise or surrender our views. It is also our intention for non-communists to participate in the proposal based upon their views. The question of Communist ideology is therefore to be projected in the broadest possible setting, as a vital question for all of the advanced, not just for those who already accept it ".
So, some "communists" put up a proposal to "reconstitute the communist party," but this "IS NOT A COMMUNIST PROPOSAL". So what is it? USP's "Revolutionaries Unite" is in fact a bourgeois proposal to deceive the working masses in the US. It proclaims "Nowhere is it stated or implied that we Communists will compromise or surrender our views". Of course they do not "state it", they go right ahead and do it!
After many decades of struggle, including several armed revolutions and two major experiences of seizing power and constructing the proletarian dictatorship, the proletariat has learned that its Communist Party must be its organized vanguard in each country, with the express purpose of preparing and leading the class to seize political power, to defend, serve and combat for their own class interests, applying and further developing its own world outlook, its own class ideology: PROLETARIAN COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY. Yet the "not communist" proposal of the 3 Musketeers "is intended to provide a framework for people of varying ideological bases to struggle for the correct revolutionary political line and practice."
Essentially, the USP proposal rejects the application of proletarian ideology to transform reality; it does not uphold, defend nor apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the reconstitution of the CPUSA as preparation for revolutionary People's War in the US. Instead they uphold bourgeois democracy and practice "voter registration drives" for "voting" in elections as the way to struggle against the imperialist class dictatorship in the USA.
PEOPLE'S WAR is the highest form of class struggle, and it must be supported, prepared for, and carried out by Communist Parties relying on the working masses. The Party must lead the masses in these tasks by applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, to concrete conditions in each country, both oppressed nations and imperialist countries, considering existing national and international contexts. To develop revolutionary People's War in every country, including the US, is no small task, and sincere revolutionaries must take into account that the proletariat's struggle develops unevenly. Lenin is correct: things are not the same in all places at all times; there is contradiction, differences and similarities; there is unity of opposites and mutual transformation in everything. The new goes from weak to strong; the old goes from strong to weak.
Mao Tsetung understood this truth well, and through revolutionary practice he synthesized: "Imperialists are paper tigers. Imperialists may appear strong and powerful, but in the long term it is the masses who are truly powerful". Chairman Gonzalo also, through the application of Maoism to concrete reality, synthesized the luminous path of the international proletariat: "We are a new force with a brilliant future...the revolution will triumph!". This materialist dialectic class perspective, THE IDEOLOGY OF THE PROLETARIAT must never be pushed aside, neglected or rejected by communists; on the contrary, it must be applied to transform reality, because it truly is the proletariat's scientific guide to action, serving its own class interests, and developing further through fierce class struggle.
But rather than uphold and promote this proletarian ideology, the USP editors intend "...to provide a framework for people of varying ideological bases...." What "varying ideological bases"? In the context of "not a communist proposal" this can only mean they provide a framework for the ideological bases of the bourgeoisie! This NOT a Communist proposal is intended to impose capitalist ideology in the ranksof the revolutionary masses under the guise of "framework for people of varying ideological bases". For the 3 Musketeers, the Communist Party is the Party of "all advanced people", with diverse class outlooks and class interests, which in practice means a friendly fusion of the ideology and interests of the proletariat with those of the capitalist class! This is CLASS CONCILIATION.
What should be under consideration is not a "Party for all", nor a broad united front, nor an open forum for all social classes, but THE COMMUNIST PARTY, the organized vanguard of the proletariat, to prepare, lead and carry out in practice the revolutionary struggle of the working class to end once and for all the criminal class dictatorship of imperialism. How can "communists" open the doors for "non-communists" to enter and "reconstitute" the CP? Would the Yankee bourgeoisie invite real communists to participate in the Democratic or Republican Party "based on their views"? The 3 Musketeers in practice call for "Proletarians and Capitalists, Unite,"! which is like putting the mouse, cat, sheep and wolf in the same cage. This can only lead to the reconstitution of a bourgeois Party dressed up as "communist", similar to Gorbachev's Party of corruption.
This "Party of All" nonsense harkens back to the Russian revisionist Khrushchev; it is part of the Programme of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In that Congress, Khrushchev also put forward the revisionist theses of "peaceful transition" (change of the social system through peaceful means, such as elections and parliament; thus, revolutionary violence is no longer necessary), and "the State of all people" (to combat the dictatorship of the proletariat and consolidate capitalist restoration in the former USSR). In essence, Khrushchev replaced the Communist Manifesto with the bourgeois slogan "liberty, equality and fraternity" from the French bourgeois revolution of the 18th century.
The 3 Musketeers of "Unity and Struggle" are followers of Khrushchev. As they advertise in their "Response to MPP": "Tell those workers that it its opportunist to agitate for the restoration of their voting rights, comrades. But first make sure you are sitting close to the door. The Workers really can fight....democracy and self-determination are becoming more and more of a burning issue of class struggle every day. Nevertheless we intend to lead the masses to fight until we get our right to vote back, and when we do --can you stand the horror of it, MPP?-- we intend to see that it is used as broadly as possible. We have formulated and distributed a whole program of school reforms in the interests of the community. We need more democracy in Newark, not less, we have fought for it for years, and we are not going to stop now, just because the thought of democratic struggles on the soil of capitalism drives MPP bughouse."
The 3 Musketeers in USP center themselves on reform, and concentrate all their energy to defend (a la Jesse Jackson) their "right to vote". It is the same ideological position of the imperialist ruling class in the USA: to "make a change" or "make a difference" through voting in elections. The 3 Musketeers defend bourgeois democracy and portray it as a principal form of struggle for the proletariat; they promote the false belief that the capitalist system "works" for the masses and that it is possible to change the social system through "peaceful transition", through "the right to vote" and elections. What is certain is that the capitalist system "works" only for the imperialists and their lackeys, for their enjoyment of the wealth they accumulate through the exploitation of unpaid labor-power, which they steal from the proletariat and other working masses.
Marx already told us:
"The oppressed are allowed once every four or five years to decide what members of the ruling class will represent them and crush them!". Lenin observed: "To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class are to represent them and crush the people through parliament --such is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics". Mao Tsetung, applying the work of Marx and Lenin to revolutionary practice, correctly synthesized: "In a society where class struggle exists, there is freedom for the exploiting classes to exploit the working people. There is no freedom to not exploit the people. There is democracy for the capitalists, and not for the proletariat and the rest of the working people. In some capitalist countries certain Communist Parties are allowed legal existence, but only to the extent that these do not endanger the fundamental interests of the capitalists. There is no tolerance beyond this limit." In the document "Elections No! People's War Yes"' the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) clearly establishes: "In capitalist societies, elections are the regular pattern of renovation of government for the bourgeois dictatorships, even in the most democratic place that one can imagine, elections are the normal means of the capitalist dictatorship's political functioning to preserve and develop capitalism." Elections are a means to give "legitimacy" and "authority" to capitalist dictatorships in all countries, including the imperialist USA; in this way, the oppression and exploitation of the working class masses are portrayed and advertised as "the will of the people", "the people voted for this" etc.
The 3 Musketeers fudge the class character of BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY; they repeat over and over only "democracy" in the abstract; this is another of their tricks to deceive the masses and serve the bourgeois dictatorship in the US. Lenin warned against this in "Political Economy in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat": "The general phrases about liberty, equality and democracy are in reality nothing more than the blind repetition of concepts copied from the mold of commodity production. To use these phrases for attempting to resolve the concrete tasks in the dictatorship of the proletariat, is equal in principle to completely going over towards the theoretical positions of the capitalists. From the proletariat's point of view the problem is formulated as follows: freedom in relation to the oppression of what social class? Equality between what social classes? Democracy based on property or based on the struggle to abolish private property? etc." Lenin shows that it is most crucial to distinguish the class character of freedom, equality and democracy, and -for communists- this must be done through the proletariat's point of view, through the class ideology of the proletariat, through the creative application of its invincible weapon of victory: MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, PRINCIPALLY MAOISM.
The 3 Musketeers cry out "We need more democracy"; for them, the proletariat in the US already has "democracy" and "needs more", that is more BOURGEOIS democracy. Let's look at the existing "democracy" in the United States. On the average, less than 40% of registered voters participate in US presidential elections, and even if a candidate gets a majority of that 40% (actually a minority of the total population) that is not decisive, because each State has a number of "electoral votes"; the largest States such as California, Texas, New York, etc. have the most; therefore, a candidate wins the election by winning in the States with the most electoral votes. Look the local elections, who cares about voting? The masses know better. It brings nothing good to them.
Now, who controls the political structure in each city or State? The monopoly capitalists and big bankers through their political parties (Republican and Democrat) and mercenaries in the Local, State and Federal bureaucracies. This rotten bourgeois democracy is imposed, maintained and defended by the brutal police and armed forces, with reactionary violence. It is a capitalist class dictatorship.
Mao is quite correct: "There is democracy for the capitalists, and not for the proletariat and the rest of the working people". Under such a system the workers are "free" to sell the only commodity they posses in order to survive: their labor-power, to generate much more wealth while their wages shrink, while the capitalists appropriate (steal) and accumulate most of it as surplus-value, and enjoy it as their "private property," "freedom" and "democracy."
In synthesis, bourgeois democracy and bourgeois freedom are the ideological products of the capitalist system of exploitation, today developed to its highest and final stage, imperialism; and they are the means for the imperialist ruling class to maintain its rule and to force the proletarian masses to work their skins off for the capitalists. It is thanks to the scientific work of Karl Marx that today the international proletariat is able to understand this bitter truth. Even so, the 3 Musketeers are trying to insert themselves well in the system (as well paid elected officials.) They say: "we intend to lead the masses to fight until we get our right to vote back," which only serves for maintaining and legitimizing the imperialist dictatorship as "the will of the people."
The 3 "communist" Musketeers combine their defense of bourgeois democracy with unfounded accusations and ridiculous sarcastic slanders against the MPP: "outrageous travesty of principals"; "MPP...'superhuman geniuses'"; "so many sectarian, opportunist errors; "MPP, the Henry Ford of the Left, with its 'history is bunk' attitude"; "MPP stands in contempt of its responsibilities before the science and international communism"; "textually MPP is almost completely ignorant of Lenin"; "pretense of priestly authority"; "MPP's ideology...purely theoretical theoreticalness"; "metaphysical, mechanical...", "MPP nailing its own members," and finally throwing the towel in desperation "fuck you Quispe," blah blah blah.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS LAUNCH MAD ATTACK And how do the 3 Mouseketeers go about "proving" their prodigeous allegations? By eking out quotes from their "not communist" proposal to reconstitute the CP, and by misquoting Lenin. Whatever happened to "Build the Communist Party on Reality"? Now "reality" goes out the window and revisionism takes over."The Communist Party, the organized vanguard of the proletariat, must be reconstituted ont the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Principally Maoism," this, in essence, was MPP response to USP's proposal, but when the debate comes down to this question, USP brings out its sarcasm and its cries of "need more democracy".
The misquotes and slanders of the 3 Museketeers are a prelude to their attempt to portray the members of MPP as "cops". They label MPP as "The Inspector Clouseau of the Left" and claim "MPP acts like a two-bit cop...", simply on the basis of MPP having said, "Unity & Struggle must practice self-criticism for past opportunist practices with the Rainbow Coalition...". They even quote as their source a Canadian FBI undercover "journalist" K.K. Campbell (and his snitch Jay Miles/Detcom) to throw their black vomit. This accusation simply puts them in the same camp as the counterintelligency operation known as MIM, the same MIM who says "MPP police plot," "We will stop support for the People's War in Peru For Now", and promotes the revisionist RCP-USA as principal leader of RIM: "Gonzalo, the leader of the Peruvian revolution, signed a paper with the RCP-USA and named the RCP-USA as the 'principal leader' of the RIM" (MIM Notes 111, April 1996). All cheap lies to spread confusion, treason and capitulation. Who believes these fruitcakes? Nobody.
Unity & Struggle Publications (USP) is being manipulated by a revisionist clique of renegades who in practice serve the interests of the imperialist dictatorship in the USA. These renegades take an anti-proletarian line, promote class conciliation and capitulation, and defend the rotten bourgeois "democracy" of the capitalist system of exploitation.This clique attempts to deceive the working masses that the Communist Party of the Proletariat should be a "Party for all social classes." In short, the three renegades are followers of the Russian revisionist and puppet of imperialism Nikita Sergeivich Khrushchev. Revisionists are "communist" in words and NOT Communist in deeds.
CONCLUSION It is the duty of all Maoists and international supporters of the People's War in Peru to struggle against both imperialism and revisionism since they are two sides of the same coin.
ELECTIONS NO! --SUPPORT, PREPARE AND CARRY OUT PEOPLE'S WAR! THE PEOPLE'S WAR IS INVINCIBLE!
PROLETARIANS OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE!
November 1996. MPP PRENSA PROLETARIA INTERNACIONAL.\