Cominform - Advance of the national Liberation Movements
ON COLONIAL AND DEPENDENT COUNTRIESCominform
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EDITORIAL: MIGHTY ADVANCE OF THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT IN THE COLONIAL AND DEPENDENT COUNTRIES.
One of the outstanding features of the present international situation is the unprecedented scope of the revolutionary struggle of the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries.
In many countries this struggle is of an armed nature, with hundreds of millions of working people of the countries of the East taking part in it. The scale and nature of this struggle, led by the working class and the Communist Parties, shows that the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries have resolutely taken the path of revolution against colonial slavery and for national liberation.
The mighty advance of the post-war revolutionary, liberation struggle in the dependent and colonial countries has shaken the entire system of world imperialism to its very foundations and shows that the colonial peoples refuse to live any longer in the old way, and the ruling classes in the metropolitan countries are unable any longer to rule them in the old way.
The Great October Socialist Revolution released the revolutionary energy of the oppressed masses of the colonial countries, linked their struggle for freedom and national independence with the revolutionary struggle of the working people of all countries thus opening the way to their liberation.
The Lenin-Stalin national policy, the victory of Socialism in the USSR which turned the formerly oppressed peoples of Russia’s outlying regions into equal Socialist nations who today make up the great fraternal family of Soviet peoples, gave and continue to give a powerful impulse and support to the colonial and dependent peoples in their struggle against colonial and imperialist slavery.
The victorious people’s liberation war against fascism, which the Soviet Union headed, the defeat of German and Japanese imperialism and also the fact that such colonial powers as Britain, France, Italy, Holland and Belgium have become considerable weaker – all furnished favourable conditions for struggle and for the victory of the national-liberation movement in the colonial and dependent countries.
The establishment of people’s democratic power in the countries of Central and South-eastern Europe, the increased political and economic might of the USSR and the People’s Democracies, the resolute and consistent struggle of the democratic camp headed by the USSR, against American and British imperialism – the main oppressor of the freedom of colonial peoples – weakened, and could not but weaken the entire system of imperialism and thus rendered and continue to render decisive assistance to the colonial peoples in their struggle for national freedom and independence.
The world history victory of the Chinese people over the combined forces of the reactionary Kuomintang and American imperialism is shaking proof of the advance of national-liberation struggle, of the triumph of the Lenin-Stalin teaching concerning the strategy and tactics of the Communist Parties heading this struggle.
The victory of the Chinese people is of enormous significance in strengthening the national-liberation struggle in the colonial and dependent countries.
Analysing the conditions of the victory of the Chinese people’s liberation revolution, Liu Shao-chi, Vice-President of the World Federation of Trade Unions, in his speech to the Peking Trade Union Conference of the countries of Asia and Oceania, stated: “The path taken by the Chinese people.....is the path that should be taken by the people of many colonial and dependent countries in their struggle for national independence and people’s democracy”.
The experience of the victorious national-liberation struggle of the Chinese people teaches that the working class must unite with all classes, parties, groups and organisations willing to fight the imperialists and their hirelings and to form a broad, nationwide united front, headed by the working class and its vanguard – the Communist Party, the Party equipped with the theory of Marxist-Leninism; the Party that has mastered the art of revolutionary strategy and tactics; that breathes the spirit of revolutionary irreconcilability to enemies of the people, the spirit of proletarian organisation and discipline in the mass movement of the peoples.
A decisive condition for the victorious outcome of the national-liberation struggle is the formation, when the necessary internal conditions allow for it, of people’s liberation armies under the leadership of the Communist Party.
As the example of China, Viet Nam, Malaya and other countries show, armed struggle is now becoming the main form of the national-liberation movement is many colonial and dependent countries.
In Viet Nam the armed people have liberated 90 per cent of their country from the France imperialists. The 1,50,000 France troops in Viet Nam are afraid to leave the occupied town, are bottled up by the armed forces of the VietNam Republic.
In South Korea guerrilla forces are making life intolerable for the police forces of the American-installed puppet, Syngham Ree.
In Malaya 1,20,000 British troops are bogged down in a fruitless endeavour to crush the Malayan people’s national liberation army. In the Philippines – the “model” US colony – partisan are in the field against the puppet Quirino Government.
In Indonesia, patriot forces are fighting against combined Dutch and Hatta quisling troops. Half Burma is in the hands of the People’s forces fighting against the British imperialist agency. The national-liberation movement in Latin America, Africa and the Near East is spreading far and wide.
The mass movement of the peoples in the colonies and semi-colonies, the movement that unfolded after the war and developed into an armed struggle, forced the British imperialists to make a tactical retreat. A sham independence was bestowed on India. But the interests of British imperialism remain “sacred and inviolable”. The Mountbatten have departed but British imperialism remains and octopus - like grips India in its bloody tentacles.
In these conditions the task of the Indian Communists, drawing on the experience of the national-liberation movement in China and other countries, is, naturally, to strengthen the alliance of working class with all the peasantry, to fight for the introduction of the urgently needed agrarian reform and – on the basis of the common struggle for freedom and national independence of their country, against the Anglo-American imperialists oppressing it and against the reactionary big bourgeoisie and feudal princess collaborating with them – to unite all classes, parties, groups and organisations willing to defend the independence and freedom of India.
The victory of the revolution in China and the advance of the national-liberation struggle in the colonies have thrown the imperialists, who are desperately trying to retain their grip on the colonies, into a fury. It would be a mistake to underestimate this feverish activity of the imperialists who are suffering defeat.
The Communist Parties, trade unions and all democratic organisations in the colonial and dependent countries should rally the working people and all progressive forces, daily expose the colonising plans of the foreign imperialists and the treacherous, anti-popular role of reaction which collaborates with the imperialists.
In the metropolitan countries, Communists, whose duty it is rally and unite the democratic forces in support of the colonial peoples, should remember Comrade Stalin’s words: “No lasting victory is possible in colonial and dependent countries unless a real link is established between the movement for their liberation and the proletarian movement of the more advanced countries of the West”.
Seamen, dockers and railwaymen in Marseilles, Saint Nazaire and other ports in France have, by their courageous in refusing to handle munitions for the colonial war in Viet Nam, set a splendid example of international working-class solidarity.
The experience of the revolution in Russia, China and the People’s Democracies teaches that when a people resolutely goes into struggle, and when the Communist Parties are capable of heading this struggle, no forces of internal counter-revolution and of the foreign imperialists can crush the people’s masses who have taken to revolution.
Fraternal bonds of solidarity are being forged between the working people of the West and the revolutionary peoples of the colonial and dependent countries. This solidarity of hundreds of millions of people is the rock on which imperialism will perish.
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