THE WORKING CLASS IN REVISIONIST COUNTRIES MUST TAKE THE FIELD AND RE-ESTABLISH THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT

Zeri i Popullit daily,

dated March 24, 1968 

In all the countries where revisionists are in power, the dictatorship of the proletariat is being smashed and replaced by the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the socialist regime is being replaced by the capitalist bourgeois regime and the party of the proletariat, degenerated from within, is now but a smokescreen to conceal this treason, to suppress the vigilance and legitimate revolt of the working class and of laboring people. The vigilance and legitimate violence of the working class against the class enemies is what scares the revisionists to death. It is the only force that can subdue them, it is the only way out from this disastrous situation in which socialism and communism find themselves today in the countries where the revisionists are in power. Thus, the revival and fanning of the flames of the proletarian revolution in these countries is the <<sine qua non>> of the road of salvation. No other road, as events have been unfolded and are rolling on, can be of any stable and lasting benefit to the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism. Any other course can serve only as a posture of compromise, harmful and temporary, with grave consequences for socialism. 

It is only the working class at the head of the masses, it is only the working class headed by its real Marxist-Leninist party, it is only the working class through armed revolution, through violence, that can and must bury the traitorous revisionists. 

All the countries where the revisionists are in power, without exception, whether they are the vanguard, such as Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, etc., or those that, with different masks, conceal and camouflage their revisionist, anti-Marxist line, have turned into capitalist bourgeois countries, or are rapidly going down into this dirty morass. 

The main issue on the agenda of the revisionist traitorous cliques that are in power consists only in choosing the most reliable forms to attain the aim of restoring capitalism, of strengthening and stabilizing their positions, without arousing the suspicion and awakening the vigilance of the working class and laboring people in order to avoid any set backs, disturbances and, finally, to be in a position to suppress revolution when it breaks out. This is the essence of the revisionists' quandary. 

The other item on the agenda for them, within the framework of this disintegration, to attain the purpose of restoring capitalism, consists in the efforts of each clique to escape the tutelage of the most powerful, and yet to have its aid in general, particularly when they see their positions are weak. With this is connected the degree of interdependence, while the more powerful among them is seeking to dominate the trends and channel them towards the interest of the big State. Of course, such a thing cannot work out successfully for all parties or continually. 

Another item on the agenda of these cliques is the tendency and the great care to find different means of camouflaging the diversity of forms of action, which, sometimes, are more advanced and less camouflaged than those of the fellow cliques. These <<pioneers>> serve the capitalist forces which inspire the revisionist cliques to instigate others to speed up the course as much as possible, to break the resistance of those revisionist cliques which, out of necessity, are more conservative because the sword of Damocles -- the proletarian revolution -- hangs over the heads of them all. 

The revisionists are seeking to camouflage all lhe counter-revolutionary actions for the seizure of power and the efforts they are making to consolidate this power, by creating and inculcating into the minds of the working class the illusion that their <<Marxist-Leninist>> party is allegedly in power, that it is itself directing all this development and transformation along the <<real road of socialism and communism>>. This is the most dangerous disguise, by which the revisionists are seeking to ward off the decisive blows of the working class. Therefore, they try to tell the working class that every criticism, every revolt or opposition to their revisionist course is an anti-Marxist deviation, is a crime against Leninism, against socialism, against the party of the working class. The revisionists inject this dose of opium through the press and their false propaganda. A complete fabrication in itself, they inject it by depriving the party, in theory and practice, of all revolutionary characteristics; they inject it by making an allegedly Marxist interpretation of every political, economic and administrative action of theirs in the direction of the restoration of capitalism. This false interpretation of their foreign policy, of their relations, alliances and their underhand dealings with the capitalists is also necessary to the revisionists in order to lull the vigilance of the working masses of their respective countries. 

In all these cunning actions the revisionists set in motion the new corrupted class of bureaucrats who impose upon the working class and the masses through the force of their regime, their length of service, their rotten hearts hidden under rows of medals. Thus they create the impression in the working class that <<it is impossible that all these 'fine fellows' could betray the party, the class and socialism>>. 

Let us draw some lessons, some conclusions from this revisionist counter-revolution. 

Let us start with Hungary. In the euphoria of the advent to power of Khrushchevite revisionism, but at a moment when it had not yet consolidated its positions, world capitalism, its Titoite agency and the internal Magyar reactionary bourgeoisie launched the armed counter-revolution against the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Workers' Party of Hungary, thinking it was the weakest link of the chain of the socialist countries. And so it was indeed. Rakosi's party melted away like snow in rain. But world capitalism and Titoism had not chosen the correct moment: they were convinced of Khrushchev's treacherous line, but they did not take account of the fact that his positions were not yet stabilized and, although he hesitated to resort to tanks, he was finally obliged to do so. Otherwise his road of treason could have been compromised. But in connection with the Hungarian counter-revolution the following facts must be pointed out: 

1. The Hungarian counter-revolution was initiated by some intellectuals and students. These wavering strata, deprived of the influence of a genuine Marxist-Leninist party, became reserves and squalds of the counter-revolutionary attack under the direction of the bourgeoisie. The Hungarian writers were in the van of this counter-revolution. 

2. The Hungarian working class in general and that of Budapest in particular, despite the revolutionary traditions inherited from the 1919 proletarian revolution, was unable to defend its power and gains. On the contrary, a considerable part of the working class, especially in Budapest, was activated in favour of the counter-revolutionaries. It became therefore a reserve of reaction. This means, in other words, that the work of Rakosi's party was not well grounded, it was superficial. The working class did not fully recognize it as their leader. This was the greatest and most dangerous evil. 

3. The counter-revolution entirely liquidated Rakosi's party within a few days, while counter- revolutionary Janos Kadar promulgated the decree for its official dissolution. 

4. During the few days of counter-revolution in Hungary many bourgeois, capitalist and fascist parties immediately sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Thus, the Hungarian counter-revolution was suppressed by means of Soviet tanks, a thing which can no longer be repeated. The same traitor who liquidated the party, under the dictate of the Khrushchevite revisionists, promulgated the other decree for the re-founding of the new allegedly <<Marxist-Leninist>> party, the Hungarian revisionist party, a still worse one than that of Rakosi. 

The Hungarian counter-revolution was suppressed by counter-revolutionaries. Thus, both wings of the putsch were bound to come together, as they did. They would build up their own <<Hungary>>, as they did build it. They would restore capitalism, as they are restoring it. Drawing lesscns from the bloodshed and, after having paid a bloody ransom for its hasty actions, Hungarian reaction is now carrying out at leisure its reforms of radical capitalist transformation independently, and without any trouble from the Soviet forces and tanks which remain on Hungarian territory. The Hungarian bourgeoisie is, so to speak, going about its business, this time under the protection of the Khrushchev tanks. The Hungarian capitalist bourgeoisie, hostile to the working class, disguised under the <<banner of the party>>, is lulling the working class to sleep while forging new chains for it. The capitalist bourgeoisie has as its vanguard the old and new revisionist intelligentsia in complete identity of views and unity of action. 

Let us take Poland. As in Hungary, in Poland, too, in 1956 bloody demonstrations started in Poznan and were suppressed by tanks, this time Polish and not Soviet tanks. The Polish Church and reaction had a hand in it and Khrushchev was afraid of Poland detaching itself completely from the Soviet Union; therefore he threatened Gomulka with a tank invasion but Gomulka resisted and Khrushchev, willy-nilly, smiled and embraced <<the fascist Gomulka>>, as he used to describe him behind his back. 

But now, in recent days, events in Poland are unfolding otherwise. They have taken another as pect which is characteristic of all the revisionist countries. In Poland there have started demonstrations, clashes, bloody encounters between Gomulka's police and the writers, intelligentsia and students who are demanding <<freedom>>, <<full democracy>>, <<liberalism>>. This time, the Polish counter-revolutionaries, who have risen against the Gomulka revisionist counter-revolutionaries, greet and express solidarity with the Czechoslovak counter-revolutionaries. The Polish reactionary intelligentsia, directed by world capitalism, by the clergy and by Zionism, are not satisfied with the Gomulka revisionist clique and want to make short work of them, as the new Dubcek Slovak clique are doing with the Novotny revisionist clique who will be referred to below. In Poland, as it was in Hungary, the reactionary intelligentsia and the students are in the van of the claims, the party organisation is worm-eaten, the organs of the dictatorship are, for the time being, in the service of lhe Gomulka clique and the working class does not react, it does not come out in the street to do the necessary cleaning. Will the Gomulka clique be able to subdue this tide which is rising? We shall see. But of importance is the last tide which must be prepared to wipe from Poland's face all the overt and covert traitors. This salutary tide will be the proletarian revolution of the Polish working class led by the Polish Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). 

Let us take Czechoslovakia. The Soviet revisionists used to trumpet abroad that Czechoslovakia was their most powerful bastion, the most faithful country of the revisionists, and Antonin Novotny the most intimate, <<the most earnest and most authoritative man>> of the revisionist clan next to the Soviets. These claims, too, as we had forecast, come to nothing, not because Novotny and his revisionist clique were not a faithful agency of the Khrushchevites, but because they could not carry out the orders that the Moscow bosses used to give them. As a matter of fact, the dead horse of the Soviets, Antonin Novotny, sank into the revisionist mire which he himself created, while the other horse replacing him, Dubcek, has taken the bit in his teeth and is now bolting towards the western <<fields>>, where the gates of the French and West German capitalists are standing open for him as 

they had stood for their old ill-famed agents Masaryk, Benes, Tiso, Hacha and others. 

How is the new counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia unfolding? Openly, against Antonin Novotny and his clique, consequently against the Soviet revisionist yoke. 

They are openly going over to capitalism, to the system of than one party, to the capitalist State system and the undisguised liquidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the capitalist system in economy, education and culture. 

They are openly preaching not only coexistence, but solid ties with the western capitalists. Homage is being paid at the grave of Masaryk, father and son, at the grave of Benes, who are all being noisily rehabilitated, even the fascists, and all of them are being described as <<distinguished men>>, victims of the <<Stalinist terror>> and of the erroneous policy not only of the Novotny clique, but also of Gottwald, thus, of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and, of course, <<of Stalin, of the Comintern>>. 

In short, Czechoslovakia is going at a rapid tempo and without much subterfuge and demagogy towards capitalism, to the complete political, ideological, economic and State restoration of the capitalist bourgeois republic. 

By what means and forms is this process unfolding? The Czechoslovak process should not be taken separately from all the processes which are taking place in the entire revisionist herd. This is the result of the disintegration, of the great contradictions which exist within the revisionist clan within the different tendencies existing in the clan of each individual revisionist country, of the international contradictions. Thus, the Czechoslovak disintegration and the course it has taken are nothing extraordinary. Nothing should surpriee us. This is quite normal. 

So is the overt manner of their actions, and this for two reasons: on the one hand a part of the Czechoslovak people, indeed of the Czechoslovak working class also, are prepared, are predisposed for this <<liberal>> road, as the revisionists call it. Communism has been for them a mere label, an incident, and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, during the whole period from Liberation onward has not only failed to work on solid grounds, but in fact it has made little impression on the nature, the political inclinations, the political and cultural gusto and taste of a part of the people who even under the socialist regime were preserving and developing capitalist bourgeois feelings in accentuated forms. 

On the other hand, the new Czechoslovak course towards capitalism proves the further rottenness of the power of Soviet revisionism which, plunged in the morass it has itself created, is no longer able to threaten its opponents either politically or economically or even militarily. It has become a slave of the system and treachery it created. The Soviet revisionists are obliged to give a sickly smile at the calamities which are descending on them. The further Czechoslovak revisionist course now enjoys the full support not only of the U.S., French and West-German imperialists, but, of course, of the Titoites, of the <<neutral>> revisionists and, <<in petto>>, of the Hungarian revisionists as well. A more or less organized force is taking shape, always within the framework of the disintegration of and <<independence>> from the Soviet, Polish and other revisionists who are very much afraid of the spread of the epidemic which has led to the clearing out of the stables and replacing the old revisionist horses with new ones. 

The new Czech counter-revolutionaries resort to new and multilateral methods. They attach great importance to the complete taking into their hands of the internal situation, without neglecting the foreign policy. Naturally, for demagogical purposes, they often speak of friendship with the Soviet Union, in order to completely undermine it. Their principal aim is the liquidation of Novotny and of his clique which is pro the Soviet revisionist leadership, and the reduction of the relations with the Soviet Union to mere trade relations. The campaign for the liquidation of Novotny, for his exposure, for compromising him, and, finally, for his removal, was made in a round-about way. In the van of this campaign were the Slovak nationalists and their anti-Czech feelings, the old bourgeois intellectuals and the new revisionist ones as well as the students and hooligans, who came out repeatedly in demonstrations. 

The Novotny group and their Kremlin bosses set the police against them but to no avail. Novotny, 

feeling the noose tightening around his neck, called the tanks to Prague, copying the method of Khrushchev who surrounded the Kremlin with tanks and, thus, saved his head. But Novotny could not attain this aim and lost his case, perhaps his head, too. 

The Dubcek group, to cover their aims, are resorting to apparently legal forms to purge the Novotny clique. First of all, this group made sure of the army through faithful cadres, framed up the deflection of a certain army general, discredited Novotny, Defence Minister Lomsky, and set in motion the <<obedient>> party, through petitions, rallies and student demostrations, to demand Novotny's immediate removal or resignation. The whole of this operation is being very quickly carried out, quietly and without strife, amidst the frantic applause of world capitalism to whose fold a scabby goat has thus returned. 

What will the Soviets do? Nothing but to take Novotny for their collection, if he is available, and install him also in a villa near Rakosi's. 

After this purge, in Czechoslovakia they wilI strive to stabilize the situation and march triumphantly towards the West. Nevertheless, the whole situation will not end at that. There will be great frictions and fierce political and economic struggle both on the part of the revisionists as well as on that of the Czechoslovak revolutionaries. 

In these two countries, Poland and Czechoslovakia, where the revisionists are in power, the same process of capitalist degeneration is thus taking place, with the same aims, forms and methods, but with different fates, with different results. In both countries, the new revisionist cliques which want to speed up the process of the transformation of their countries into completely capitalist countries, are striving to get rid of the Novotny and Gomulka revisionist cliques, these old revisionist cliques. 

The anti-Czech and chauvinistic Slovak feelings, the radical transformation of the Czechoslovak economy into a capitalist economy, the radical transformation of the present Czechoslovak structure and super-structure which are favorable to the return to capitalism, the more active, broader economic, cultural and political ties with capitalist States, the anti-Soviet feelings, the weakening of all the ties with the Soviet revisionists -- all of these inspire and guide the new Czechoslovak revisionist clique led by Dubcek. 

The old clique and the inveterate revisionist Novotny are now isolated, smashed. Everybody leaves the sinking ship and embraces the <<new road>>. Thus, the counter-revolution within the counter-revolution fully triumphed in Czechoslovakia. 

The Soviet revisionists have lost their political authority completely in Czechoslovakia and their influence has suffered a decline. To be sure, the Soviet revisionists, as far as we know them, must have exerted great pressures to avoid their own disaster in Czechoslovakia, but they have been unable to do anything, and this gives reason to believe that the Dubcek clique are determined to advance on their road towards separation. They enjoy the guarantee of the West. The Soviets will exert economic pressures, they will stop supplying the raw materials needed by Czechoslovakia, but it is clear that the Czechoslovaks have also envisaged this eventuality and have taken and will take further measures. The interests of world capitalism are visible in Central Europe and Czechoslovakia is its epicenter. 

On the other hand, capitalist Czechoslovakia strengthens the capitalist positions of Tito and Co, helps in the complete transformation of Kadar's Hungary, with him or without him at its head; it helps the process in Poland. 

The whole of this situation which is being created in Central Europe will smash the Warsaw Treaty and the Economic Mutual Aid Council, it will lead to bilateral and multilateral alliances, in an entirely different spirit from that of the existing ones, and the Economic Mutual Aid Council and the economic relations will change. They wilI be suppressed, they will assume new forms leading to amalgamation with the capitalist ones. 

This whole capitalist transformation jeopardizes Democratic Germany, and the revisionists will push it, in various forms and ways, towards its integration with Bonn's Germany. This process is underway. The Soviet revisionists are entirely paralyzed. Economic pressures are the only weapons remaining to them. But these, too, have no effect. Capitalism has great interests in financing those who separate themselves from the Soviet Union and turn towards the West. It disposes of capital for investments, it looks for new markets for new colonies and new satellites. 

Thus, having not profited much from the allegedly internationalist aid of the Soviet revisionists, the new revisionist capitalists are changing their bus. 

This great Soviet defeat is reflected in the embarrassing position in which they find themselves at home. For a long time these separations have been taking place, and the Soviet censorship has not permitted that domestic opinion should learn anything about them. This shows how they fear their own people, the revolutionaries, as welI as the new revisionists, lest the latter, affected by the Czechoslovak disease, may burst forth in the streets against the clique, to overthrow and replace it with another revisionist clique. In this case Kosygin and Brezhnev will act in the same way as the clan of revisionist Gomulka is acting in Poland. 

The same process as in Czechoslovakia started also in Poland but, for the time being, with different results. The Gomulka clan temporarily checked this process, not because Gomulka is more intelligent than Novotny, but because the circumstances are somewhat different in Poland, and that is why Gomulka's tactics are different and may appear <<more clever>>. 

In Czechoslovakia it started with the writers and students, but amongst them there was prevailing, in addition to everything else, the Slovak nationalist anti-Czech feeling and the Czech nationalist anti-Slovak feeling. The rest was complementary, except the anti-Soviet and pro-Western feeling which were in common. 

The process started in the same way in Poland, with the same tendencies, ideas and aims as in Czechoslovakia. The Gomulka clan also resorted to police violence, as Novotny had done, but had better success. Poland is not made up of twopeo ples, as is the case in Czechoslovakia, therefore that factor which played a role in Czechoslovakia did not serve as an instigator in Poland. Gomulka had to find a scapegoat as an object for violence and he found it in <<Zionism>>. Thus, <<the disturbances in Poland were created by Zionism>>. Gomulka does not mention the Church, because that might increase the danger of the revolt swelling and taking larger proportions. Gomulka is trying to keep the Church out of it and, in fact, the Church dit not step into the arena, although, at other times, it used to make appeals and fiery demonstrations against Gomulka. It seems that they have come to terms until this tide passes away. On the other hand, Gomulka, rabidly anti-Soviet, defends himself at these moments under the shadow of the Soviet revisionists who, in the final analysis, when they realize that they have lost everything in Poland, anyway may even dare to intervene, allegedly to save Poland, allegedly to keep the roads open to come to the <<assistance>> of East Germany, etc. 

Willi Brandt, on his part, at his party's Con- gress, declared that <<it is normal to recognize the Oder-Neisse borders>>. This was an offer to Poland to detach itself from the Soviets, it was allegedly reliance on the people, on Gomulka's <<persistent>> policy on the German-Polish borders and, finally, it was an attempt to complete the encirclement of East Germany and to form the <<cordon sanitaire>> around the capitalist Soviet Union. 

The result of all these circumstances of anti-Judaism, anti-Sovietism, etc., was that the process of capitalism in Poland should continue according to Gomulka. But this is temporary. The problem is still on the agenda. 

The Polish revolutionaries, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Poland, the people and the working class, have not yet had their say. Gomulka even led part of the working class in demonstrations. This shows how ill-defined the situation is there, how much work must be done by the new Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Poland to lead the working class to real understanding, to class, anti-capitalist, anti-revisionist positions, against Gomulka, against the Roman Catholic Church, against the Zionists. 

There are also allegedly neutral countries and parties which are developing the revisionist course towards capitalism in comparatively calm internal situations, without noisy demonstrations, but certainly with accentuated contraditions in the leadership, among the people and in the party, which now appear in unity. This sham unity is the fruit of external fear and, in the first place, of fear of the 

Soviet revisionists who have their own men within the leadership of these parties. But these <<neutral>> countries and parties are ruled over by cliques of bourgeois intellectuals who rely actively on the anti-Soviet feelings. Therefore, a little differently from the Czechoslovaks, these revisionists lay the stress on foreign policy, on relations with the capitalist states, with Tito's Yugoslavia, with Dubcek's Czechoslovakia, to counter-balance the Soviet revisionist danger. In these circumstances these cliques are purging their internal opponents who might endanger them and are making efforts to consolidate their bourgeois regimes which are being established in their countries by liquidating socialism. 

Let us now take the Soviet Union. The Khrushchevite degeneration of the Soviet Union, of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as far back as in the last years of Nikita Khrushchev's reign and later in a more accentuated manner, posed great dangers to the Kremlin clique. It not only further deepened the contradictions of this clique with the Soviet people, but it also created a section of new revisionists, opponents of the old revisionist clique, who aim at liquidating and replacing this clique with another of its kind, which would be more liberal and speed up the process of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. The garbage of the garbages were not satiated and manifested their dissatisfaction and advanced further demands. At their head, here too, were the bourgeoisified intellectuals and writers, the men of revisionist art and culture. Dissipation had deeply penetrated into the youth, the students, the hooligans. This was assuming disturbing forms for the clique. Khrushchev himself reacted several times after having felt the danger, not from the fact that they were demanding to head towards capitalism, but because they were demanding to go there without Khrushchev, with others, more by the means of efforts and deeds than by buffoonry and irregular methods. 

The clique who succeeded Khrushchev tried to do something better than their boss. They linked themselves more closely and more securely with U.S. imperialism, thus further undermining the party, the socialist economy, increasing the degeneration outside and inside. But all this activity was bound to create difficulties for and tremendous contradictions within the clique itself. The Soviet economy declined, the prestige of the Soviet Union reached its lowest ebb, the <<friends>> of the Soviet Union deserted it one after another, the alliances assumed purely capitalist, oppressive, empty and ridiculous forms and content. The resistance to the clique increased from all directions. Not to speak of the international arena, at home the Brezhnev-Kosygin group find themselves in the midst of many fires which are difficult to put out. Revisionist intellectuals, writers, student, have increased their demonstrations of protest and the Kremlin clique are obliged to arrest and jail. Thus, the jails and concentration camps are filled to capacity, not only with revolutionaries but also with young counter-revolutionaries. 

In the Soviet Union the proletarian revolution is, certainly, being organized and on the rise. The clique are afraid of this and they strike back, try to deceive and to neutralize the party of the class and the working class itself as best they can making them believe that it is allegedly their <<Leninist>> party which leads, that <<everything is proceeding along Leninist lines and with Leninist norms>>, and so on. Amongst these illusions we should also include those <<historicaly realistic ideas>> on Stalin which certain career-seeking, degenerate army generals and marshals have started to write with a view to throwing dust in the eyes of the masses and of genuine revolutionaries. But the Bolshevik revolutionaries and the Soviet working class are not to be deceived for long. They are becoming more and more aware that, in reality, power is being wielded by a clique of renegades and their bureaucratic anti-worker administration, that the party has been transformed into a bourgeois party and the dictatorship is a bourgeois dictatorship of the new capitalist class which oppresses the masses and the working class, exploits them economically for the benefit of the new revisionist bourgeoisie, does not allow them for a single moment to demonstrate their power and to demand their rights. The efforts of the revisionists to make the working class apolitical, to remove it from the political scene and to orientate it towards economism, will fail. 

Thus, as we see, all these processes have similar features, at present more visible and noisy in Czechoslovakia and in Poland, later on in Hungary and elsewhere as well. These processes will further increase the appetite of the revisionist reactionary Soviet intellectuals, and we shall witness clashes not only between them and the ruling clique, but also between the moderate intellectuals and their right wing extremists, between the genuine Marxist Leninist intellectuals and both the ruling clique and the two tendencies we mentioned. And, finally, the Russian Ivan will wake up from his heavy slumber. The Soviet working class, led by the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, must come out and will come out in the streets to have their say. They will bang their fist on the table and stage a second proletarian revolution. We are convinced that this will certainly happen, because it is a dialectical process that is bound to take place, the circumstances, the events and their unfolding making the situation ripe to this effect. When will it occur? This is not for us to decide. 

Learning from this course of events in revisionist countries, from the tactics, the forms and methods of the struggle waged by the modern revisionists against Marxism-Leninism, against the dictatorship of the proletariat, against the working class, its party and the socialist regime, in addition to what we have analyzed at other times, our Party has derived clear-cut tasks so as never to allow modern revisionism or any other anti-Marxist disease to affect the healthy body and mind of the party and of the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country. 

With regard to revisionist degeneration in certain countries, mention must be made of some typical characteristics common to all the revisionist parties. 

The working class, in the first place, and then all the working masses were indeed caught unawares. They did not react immediately and energetically against the treason committed against their great cause, which they had won and consolidated with so much bloodshed and sacrifice. The treacherous elements who usurped power in the party and in the State, not only at the beginning of their subversive activity, when they knew how to hide and organize themselves, but even later, when their attitude and their treacherous actions had become conspicuous, did not meet with any fierce resistance on the part of the working class and its party which, on the contrary, accepted the yoke of the traitors without great objections or, even when they reacted, did it half-heartedly. The party and the working class, in the first place, had lost their vigilance and the intensity of the violence which characterize and must always characterize them in the class struggle, in the struggle against each and every enemy of their class and of socialism. 

Why does this happen and what causes this apathy, this withering away of vigilance and of the use of violence taking place not only in communist parties with a short period of revolutionary probation, but also in the oldest and biggest party with a long period of revolutionary probation, as is the case with the Bolshevik Party? 

In general, there is nothing mysterious about this occurrance, but in this article we will point out some causes which appear to us as the principal and, at the same time, the most dangerous to a Marxist-Leninist party. 

Let us consider this question in relation to the Bolshevik Party, the oldest and staunchest revolutionary party, from whose achievements as well as from whose errors we all have learned. 

First and above all stands the question of the Party itself. It is here we must look for the shortcomings and errors which so tragically contributed to the emergence of revisionism and the seizure of power on the part of the Khrushchevite traitors in the Soviet Union. 

a) Surprising as this may seem, the political and ideological education of the Bolshevik Party was not always carried out at each stage at the intensity and depth required by the circumstances. Such education moreover had weaknesses of form and of method and, sometimes, also of content. Although it was talked about, the integration of theory with actual revolutionary practice was not carried out as much and in the way it should have been done to the whole of its extent, placing politics in the forefront in the direction of the revolutionization of men and women, keeping alive the proletarian revolutionary spirit of the whole party, ensuring the understanding and implementing of the party line by everybody and in everything in a revolutionary way. It is true that if it were a question of schools, training courses, forms, means, methods, etc. where one could be educated politically and ideologically, these existed in the Soviet Union. The same thing could be said with regard to the training and education of the cadres. The question isn't that in the Soviet Union the study of the infallible Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist theory was neglected, but something caused the political and ideological education to be defective. And this lay not only in the forms, the methods and the tempo which, as we said above, meant that the theory was not properly mastered and correctly put into practice. There was also a complex of other things that contributed negatively. 

b) The implementation of the norms of the Bolshevik Party or, to put it better, their deep ideological and political understanding and their actual carrying out in a revolutionary way, were not up to the mark. All these norms were correct. They were laid down and established through a titanic struggle by Lenin. They were affirmed, defended and carried out by Stalin. But in actual life, in the process of development in the practice of work and struggle, we see these norms, which at first were properly implemented, later falling into disuse, becoming rustly and, finally, distorted and turned into a sharp and very dangerous weapon in the hands of the enemies of the class and of the party. This was the case with all the revisionist parties. In these parties, they speak loudly of democratic centralism, but that is Leninist no longer. They speak of <<Bolshevik>> criticism and self-criticism, but they are Bolshevik no longer. They speak of party discipline, but it is no longer a Leninist, but a fascist discipline; of proletarian morality, but the morality is bourgeois, anti-proletarian, anti-Marxist; of free expression of opinions in the Party, about everything and everybody, but the expression of thoughts in the party spirit, in the proletarian spirit, in the revisionist countries leads to jail and concentration camps. The same may be said with regard to all the genuine Leninist party norms. Thus, the official norms, irrespective of how they are disguised, are anti-Leninist, they are bourgeois, reactionary, fascist norms. Such a departure from the Leninist norms, which make up the strength of the party as a steel-like vanguard organisation of the proletariat, and the adoption of the revisionist norms, is the greatest evil that can befall a Marxist-Leninist party. It is a terrible weapon degenerating and disintegrating the party, making it depart from its historic role of transforming society. It is a fact that this turning back has been already carried out on this issue in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in the other revisionist parties, irrespective of the fact that not all the Soviet communists approve and observe these anti-Leninist norms. It is indisputable that the revisionist norms actually prevail in this party and in other revisionist parties and are disrupting the parties and socialism in these countries. 

Now the question arises: had the Marxist-Leninist policy and ideology been rightly understood and implemented, as we said above, had the Leninist party norms, established in the Bolshevik party by the great classics Lenin and Stalin, been implemented in a correct revolutionary way and at all times, would there have happened what did actually happen? No. That would not have happened. But it did happen for the reasons given above and those we will set out below. 

c) The Communist Party, as a vanguard and organized detachment of the working class, must be the leader, the spearpoint; it must preserve, develop and temper the best virtues of the working class, it must be the first to correctly master and implement the ideology of the working class, Marxism-Leninism. It must be vigilant to the extreme and unyielding to the class enemy. And in order to be such, it must possess, understand and carry out the Leninist norms that make it a party of the class, capable of leading the working class and their allies towards their class goal. This is a great unity, not any sort of unity but such as we call a Marxist Leninist unity, a Marxist-Leninist unity within the party, unity of views and action on the basis of the Leninist norms, unity between the grassroots of the party and its leadership, unity within the leadership itself, an iron Marxist-Leninist unity between the party and the working class, a steel like, harmonious party-working class-people unity. And in this unity taken as a whole the fundamental idea, its basis and security is the party-working class unity, is the determined leadership of the working class headed by its party inspired, tempered, englightened by its Marxist-Leninist ideology. 

This unity is not established either in one day or in one year. It is tempered in the heat of various struggles and dangers with which the class enemy faces them, resorting to all means, objective and subjective, political and ideological, to repression and terror, coercive measures and economic disturbance, open corruption and illegal subversive activity against the working class in general, against their party as an organization, against the party members and State functionaries, the mass organizations in particular. 

We shall not dwell at length on these issues, we shall only point out, first, that the preservation of unity and its tempering are not something achieved once and for all and the communists should not rest on their laurels. Second, that unity in the social-democratic manner, unity <<of comrades>>, outside the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms of the party, unity <<not to upset>> the one or the other, allowing the violation of norms and principles, is not our unity. Our unity is not a unity for unity's sake, contravening principles. Our unity, to the large extent we mentioned, is created through struggle, is tempered through struggle and is preserved through continued and consistent revolutionary struggle. Otherwise there cannot exist Marxist-Leninist unity. 

In the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Stalin there did exist unity. Struggle was energetically waged to temper this unity, but it cannot be said that perfection had been reached in everything, for that would be a denial of the class struggle, within and outside the country, within the party ranks, that would make us forget the class enemy whose only aim it is to smash the unity, to infiltrate into the organs of the party and of the dictatorship, to riddle them with worms and destroy them, to infiltrate into the consciousness and the worldoutlook of the communists, to demoralize them and cause them to degenerate. 

Thus, in the Lenin-Stalin Bolshevik Party -- and this is proved by the successes in the building of socialism, in the construction of the first powerful socialist State in the world, -- they were advancing on the correct Leninist road. Stalin, at the head of the Bolshevik Party, fought correctly, vigorously, with deep understanding and without committing theoretical and political errors, on the road of the working class, relying on the Leninist Party, on its norms, for the aims of the class and of its party, which were the building of socialism and of communism in the Soviet Union and in the world. 

However, the question arises: if this is so, then why did the Bolshevik Party degenerate, after Stalin's death, into a revisionist party? This is a reasonable question to pose, and in order to be able to answer it, one must discover the objective and subjective reasons. We have already pointed out in other writings that this is as important a question as it is difficult to treat fully and without mistakes, if we do not base ourselves on the documents, especially the internal ones, of the Bolshevik Party, documents which we do not possess and can hardly possess, especially in the present situation. But our ideology and the experience of our party and of the other parties can help us to determine some of these reasons. We say some, because there are and must be many more. But even these thoughts may not be complete. 

Thus, it turns out that gradually, without being aware of it and relying on the great successes of the realization of the socialist construction, there was created among the party cadres and among those of the socialist State a certain self-complacency and legitimate pride, which made them, inadvertently and without knowing it, turn from their correct forms towards distorted, incorrect inclinations which were basically incompatible with proletarian morality. Marxist ideology and education condemned them in principle and in practice, when they manifested themselves in a flagrant and dangerous way, but in general these trends were developing and were not considered as dangerous. They were interweaving with the party norms and gradually gave the latter also such an anti-Marxist tinge. They intensified later and, interwoven with other non-proletarian customs, promoted the dangerous complex. 

The members of the Bolshevik Party, who were led to legendary battles by Lenin and Stalin, were cadres of a class origin and with revolutionary vigor, tempered in revolution, in struggles, in the building of socialism, in battles against Trotskyism, against deviators and other traitors. They were ideologically and politically tempered and had a firm and legitimate confidence in their glorious Bolshevik Party, in Lenin and Stalin, in the correct line and norms that they had mapped out. 

To them the party was everything, it was their heart, brain and eyes, that is why they defended it, were educated by it and by their great leader. But while trying to carry out the Party's and Stalin's correct line and norms, the Soviet cadres, at first not all of them and not in a clear-cut way but gradually, became susceptible to a feeling of stability which is alien, in the revolutionary sense, to development. So long as they held lower level functions, the cadres worked zealously to serve the cause of revolution in the best possible manner strictly implementing the party norms and line, maintaining close connections with the masses and with the working class. But in the long run, when the initial difficulties had been overcome, when the indispensable ideological and political and general education and culture had been acquired, having grown older and having gained seniority in the party, certain people began to be affected by the germ of the evil. Successes at work nourished the feeling of self-complacency and, parallel with these successes, the Soviet cadres began to lose their proletarian simplicity, raised unjust claims, which they considered <<politically legitimate>>, because these people had worked and fought. With their rise to responsibility there was taking shape in them the feeling of ease and complacency and they were ever more infected by bureaucratism, intellectualism and technocratism. Thus, gradually, between the cadres of the Bolshevik Party and Soviet State, on the one hand, and the masses of the Soviet people and working class, on the other, there was created a separation and inequality. Many cadres no longer listened, as they had done previously, to the voice of the masses. Among them the thought began to prevail that they knew everything themselves, that they were specialists in everything, that they stood above the masses, above the working class politically and ideologically and were more farsighted than the latter. The authority and prestige which the Bolshevik Party and Stalin enjoyed among the masses of the Soviet people and in the working class were confounded by these cadres with their personal authority and prestige. All these anti-proletarian features deformed the revolutionary concepts among these cadres. As this also infected the party line and its implementation, the revolutionary norms of the party remained formal, the life of the party itself and its organization as well as the whole Soviet State administration were in the process of becoming sclerotic. 

Therefore, the development, the endowment with education and culture of the cadres of the party, of the State and administration is one of the most important problems, but the primary and still greater duty is their political and ideological development and their permanent revolutionization. 

The danger of the bureaucratization of the cadres and of their being imbued with formal education and culture only, can create in them a feeling of superiority and arrogance, causes the features of intellectualism and technocratism to take root in them. The growth of these ideas progressively places them above the masses of the party and the class and thus gradually a situation is created in which one stratum rules over the class and its proletarian party, scleroses the party and its revolutionary norms, makes them lifeless, propagates them without zeal, deprives them of their revolutionary influence and action. Hence develops the separation from the masses and from the control of the working class. 

If the party and the working class fails to display their special and constant care for the ideological uplift of the cadres, not only through bookish methods, but through actions in daily and uninterrupted struggle, their rise to leading positions, their educational and cultural unevenness with the great bulk of the party and with that of the working class, the long period of probation in the party or in the state organs, the great disparity in salaries (a dangerous evil this) and the privileges to which they are allegedly entitled as cadres (another dangerous evil) spoil the cadre, incite him to progressively adopt, willy nilly, features which are not of the proletarian class. While such a phenomenon may occur with the cadres of worker origin and conditions, this danger is greater among those coming from the peasantry and the intelligentsia. The party of the working class must bring up the cadres in such a way that they may advance and be promoted to posts of responsibility, but they should also rightly understand, when necessary their stepping down from posts of responsibility, and this not only in cases when they do not prove themselves capable and active for the function with which they are charged or for errors in work and in life, but also in cases where they are capable and accomplish their tasks correctly. The cadres should be educated to realize that, even when they are efficient, their departure from responsible functions and their going to work among the working class and the laboring masses is a necessity. It is to the advantage of the cadres themselves and of the party, for the present and in the future. 

The three features we mentioned above -- bureaucratism, intellectualism and technocratism -- caused within the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet State a failure to appreciate the heroic revolutionary spirit of the times. At first this insidious disease did not openly attack the correct party line. The cadres remained faithful to it and to Stalin. They were ready to go through fire for him, because Stalin was a man of the class. With his Marxist-Leninist class clarity, he did not commit errors of principle, politics or in ideology, in economy or in the military field. He faithfully defended everything Leninist. He developed Leninism further. 

But in this stagnation which was gradually building up, although the Stalinist energy of the party and of the dictatorship of the proletariat was still pushing the work ahead, the party work was becoming strereotyped and inflexible. The norms were being implemented but not with revolutionary vigor. The line was being carried out but not at that revolutionary tempo. Marxism-Leninism was being taught but in such a way that it was unable to purge these dangerous inclinations. Many high party and State cadres, proud of their diplomas, were, so to speak, viewing the situation from above, and especially from the petty-bourgeois feeling of all-round superiority. They had come to believe that this was something natural, that they were superior to the bulk of the party. They were assuming the features of a class above the class and above the party. They considered themselves infallible because they were in the leadership, because they enjoyed seniority, because they possessed knowledge, thinking as if it were they who brought sunshine and rain. All these anti-Marxist viewpoints were developing willy-nilly, under cover of the party norms. These people spoke of democratic centralism, of criticism and self-criticism, of party discipline, of elections from below, but all these things had lost their revolutionary spirit. And what could all this bring about? The gradual separation of the leadership from the bulk of the party and of the party from the working class. Thus, in essence, that Marxist-Leninist unity which we mentioned above was getting weaker. Stalin forged the Leninist unity and fought for it, not- withstanding the stagnation. After his death it was proved that in the leadership and in the Bolshevik party this unity was split and the revisionists seized power. 

Khrushchev and his traitorous companions had been working even when Stalin was alive, but certainly in a very camouflaged form. After Stalin's death, profitting by the situation that had been created, they took power. They sought and are seeking to preserve the whole of the negative process and deepen it still more, carrying out the complete transformation toward capitalism and towards the liquidation of the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Stalin. The attack on Stalin was the attack on Leninism, on Marxism-Leninism, that is why they have made and are making short work of those whom they call Stalinists and, masquarading as Leninists, they are striving every passing day to deepen the process of liquidating the party as a Marxist-Leninist party of the proletariat and to isolate the Soviet working class, to lull it to sleep, to make it amorphous and apolitical, so as to avoid the blows which it may strike at them. 

Of course, there are other reasons too, but we think that those we have mentioned caused the working class of the Soviet Union and hundreds of thousands and millions of Soviet party and State cadres to be caught unawares. They thought and are thinking (for they are still not so politically and ideologically minded, and this should not surprise us) that what Khrushchev did was <<in line and in accordance with the Leninist rules>>. They were deceived by the calumnies, by the demagogy and the promises of the traitors, but this will certainly, not last for long. The eyes of the Soviet working class and revolutionaries are being opened and will be better opened and they will again recover the fighting spirit of the revolutionary struggles through which they had been led by Lenin and Stalin. They must come out, arms in hand, in the street, and they will come out, if not today, tomorrow. The situation will ripen. Time works for the proletarian revolution. 

This process has occurred also in the other revisionist parties, but still more deeply, for the reason that the parties of the revisionist countries, with the exception of the Polish Party, are parties which have not themselves waged the struggle, have not passed through that furnace, irrespective of their self-advertisement as allegedly old parties which have been through the fight. Their luggage on this issue -- and this is the main issue -- is very insignificant, not to say, nil. 

Moreover, these parties were revived, reorganized, and they seized power thanks to the Soviet army and to the direct aid of the Bolshevik party and of Staiin. This was a vital aid to them, not only to recover materially, but also to create political and ideological cohesion in their fold. But later, in these parties, that is in the Polish, German, Czechoslovak, Hungarian and other parties, an organisational, political, and ideological union was brought about between the communist, socialist and social-democratic parties. Thus, the social-democratic germ instead of remaining outside, wormed itself inside the party. The wine was diluted with water. Why should we be surprised that now it has turned into vinegar? While Stalin was alive, the social-democratic parties of Cyrankiewicz, Otto Grotewohl, Fierlinger, were silent, but they kept working inside, corroding, demoralizing, and seizing important positions to the best of their ability. 

When Khrushchev came to power, these elements were overjoyed. Later came the separation, and it was a radical one since degeneration had taken deep roots in these parties and in these countries. While Marxist-Leninist Gottwald turned out the armed workers in the streets and made reaction shiver and retreat into their hide-outs, the revisionist Dubcek now has a part of the Czechoslovak working class on his side. This is happening also in Hungary, but not entirely so in Poland, for the Polish working class have more revolutionary traditions to their credit. But the struggle to win over the working class and to arouse them to revolt should be the main objective of every Marxist-Leninist party. There is not and there cannot be proletarian revolution without the working class and without the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party. 

The students and intellectuals must rise up in revolution but be led by the working class and by the Marxist-Leninist party. If the contrary happens, as in the revisionist countries, if they are not placed where they belong in the revolution and if they are not properly educated to take the revolutionary road they become reserves of counter-revolution. Youth can never undertake and carry out the tasks and the role that history has entrusted to the working class. Everywhere, in everything, the working class and the party of the class must be in the van, in absolute leadership. The peasantry and the various social strata must advance on the road of the working class in alliance with them. They must be brought up with its laws and its ideology, and whoever does not advance on this road and places obstacles under the wheels must be discarded, by persuasion or by violence, as may be necessary. 

In the light of all that we have said, we see more clearly the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist road and line pursued by our party at all the stages of its development, even at the most critical moments, and its boundless loyalty towards the ideas and the revolutionary cause of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. But our party has never lost sight of the fact that no communist party, our own included, is immune from the danger of revisionism. It has always maintained a sharp vigilance against this danger, it has never rested on its laurels. Our Party has ammassed and is elaborating every day a rich experience of how to bar the road to revisionism and to the restoration of capitalism. The measures adopted by the party for the further revolutionization of the whole national life, for the perfecting and the development of socialist relations in production and of the superstructure, for purging them of everything alien, are of a decisive and vital importance to the cause of socialism. 

It has waged and is waging the class struggle inside and outside the party on a correct Marxist-Leninist basis. Since this struggle is the motive force during the whole period of the transition from capitalism to socialism, the Party has attached first-rate importance to the revolutionary class education of the working people, and especially of the growing generation, in different forms, especially through revolutionary action. It has waged and is waging a principled and consistent struggle against each and every bureaucratic disortion, for the constant deepening of the mass line in all fields, for the uninterrupted improvement of socialist democracy. Above all, special attention has been devoted to the constant revolutionization of the party and its cadres, so that the latter may never detach themselves from the people, may not lose their revolutionary features and spirit, may not become bureaucratic and may not degenerate. 

The party has never lost sight of the dialectical action of the different factors, with all their positive and negative influences. It has carried out and continues to carry out in depth all-round measures of revolutionization, of education, of work and struggle on all the fronts giving rise to a number of problems, great and small, but all of them important and closely interwoven, especially on the front of the class ideological education and of the class struggle. Thus, it has continued and continues the struggle frontally, without interruption, always mounting, always learning from the successes and shortcomings, so that the shortcomings may not be repeated and the successes may not intoxicate and lull it to sleep. Our party and people are advancing on this correct Marxist-Leninist road with firm confidence in the upbuilding of socialism and communism. 

Under the present-day conditions, when the revisionist cliques are completely liquidating all the victories of socialism in their respective countries, the working class of these countries must clearly understand that the revisionist party in power is no longer a party of the proletariat, but a weapon in the hands of treacherous leaders in tending to restore capitalism, to deceive the masses. Today there is no longer room for illusions, hesitations and procrastination. The working class of the revisionist countries is now faced with the historic necessity of taking its place again on the battlefield, of launching a ruthless and thoroughly consistent struggle to overthrow and smash the treacherous cliques, to carry out once more the proletarian revolution, to restore the dictatorship of the proletariat. This requires absolute determination, courage, sacrifices and a renewal of the revolutionary spirit and traditions of the times of Lenin and Stalin. This requires, in the first place and above all, the organisation of the genuine revolutionaries into new Marxist-Leninist parties, which should mobilize, organize and lead to victory the general uprising of the proletariat and of the other laboring masses. 

At these important moments for the destinies of revolution, none of the Marxist-Leninists and the world proletariat can remain silent and idle in the face of what is happening in the revisionist countries. Proletarian internationalism demands that all the revolutionaries raise their voices and wage a principled struggle through to the end for the destruction of the revisionist cliques in power and give all support to the working class and to the peoples that are today under the revisionist rule, to overthrow these treacherous cliques and to raise again the banner of revolution and socialism.