National Liberation Revolutions - Ways and Means of Accomplishing the Socialist Revolution
The national liberation movement is of tremendous importance to the development of modern history and a crucial factor of social progress. It is a component of the single world revolutionary process of our day.
The peoples of the new sovereign states, which have risen on the ruins of the colonial empires, come forward as builders of a new life, as active participants in world politics. They play an immense role in resolving the main problem of modern times, that of averting another world war, of preserving and consolidating peace. With the peoples of the socialist countries they form two-thirds of mankind, a powerful force that can curb the imperialist aggressors.
The significance of the national liberation movement is that it deals the political, economic and military-strategic positions of imperialism crushing blows.
The disintegration of the colonial system is sapping the economic strength of the imperialist countries inasmuch as it has perceptibly narrowed down the sphere of profitable investment, the relatively stable and, mainly, vast markets, and sources of cheap raw material and manpower.
Moreover, the liberated countries themselves are reaping benefits from the collapse of colonialism. Having won political independence, they are able to promote their economy and culture, and choose the road of social development. Some of them have given indications of an aspiration to make a clean break with capitalism and follow the noncapitalist road.
Thus, the main significance of the national liberation movement is that it undermines imperialism, destroying its immediate reserves and helping mankind to move from capitalism to socialism. For that reason the Communist and Workers’ Parties have assessed the disintegration of colonialism as “second in historic importance only to the formation of the world socialist system".
The Danger of Neo-Colonialism
Although most of the colonial and dependent countries have won political independence, the liberated peoples cannot feel secure. The imperialists are attempting to rejuvenate the colonial system, seeking not only to preserve but also to intensify their exploitation of the new sovereign states. Tens of millions of people (in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia and elsewhere) still languish under the yoke of colonial oppression. Imperialism remains enemy No. 1 of the national liberation movement, and the world’s freedom-loving nations are therefore fully determined to fight for genuine freedom and independence against imperialism. One of the cardinal tasks of the African, Asian and Latin American peoples is to combat new forms of colonial oppression which come under the heading of neo-colonialism.
Neo-colonialism is an economic, political, military and ideological programme designed to preserve imperialist domination and ensure maximum political control and economic exploitation of the developing countries. In other words, neo-colonialism is a synonym for imperialist economic, military, political and ideological expansion against peoples who have liberated themselves from colonial rule or are fighting for liberation.116
Through this expansion the imperialist powers retain control of the economy of various countries and intensify the economic exploitation of these countries. Although most of the Asian, African and Latin American countries have won political independence, many of them remain economically dependent upon the imperialist powers. A considerable number of the industrial enterprises and the bulk of the natural resources in these countries are in the hands of foreign monopolies, thus allowing them to continue reaping staggering profits. The annual cash profits alone now amount to nearly 6,000 million dollars. It is not difficult to picture the changes that could be wrought in the national economy and in the standard of living in these countries if this money were at their own disposal.
Neo-colonialism also finds expression in the economic “aid” extended by the imperialists to the undeveloped countries. This “aid” is far from being disinterested as the ideologists and politicians of neo-colonialism would have people believe. It has a definite purpose, that of imposing economic agreements, which would allow foreign monopolies to preserve and consolidate their economic position and thereby subordinate the economic and political development of these countries to their own mercenary objectives. As a rule, this “aid” is granted on terms infringing upon the national dignity of the recipient countries, denying them the possibility of choosing their own road of development and serving as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon their internal and foreign policy. Many of the agreements under which this “aid” is granted envisage the employment by the recipient countries of a large number of economic and financial “advisers”, who propound imperialism’s neocolonialist policies. While feigning to champion the economic growth of the newly liberated countries, the imperialists force them to take the capitalist road of development, for this alone allows them to keep these countries in bondage to imperialism.
CENTO, SEATO and other military and political blocs, into which the imperialists have drawn some of the Asian and African countries, are another vehicle of enslavement, of colonial exploitation.
In combating the liberated nations, the imperialists do not 117stop before exporting counter-revolution, before direct military intervention in their internal affairs. In 1956 the Anglo-French-Israeli imperialists tried to bring Egypt (now the United Arab Republic) to her knees by force of arms, and in 1961 the U.S. imperialists launched aggression against Cuba, and today are fighting a criminal war against the Vietnamese people.
The neo-colonialists attach considerable importance to their ideological aggression against the forces of progress, socialism and peace. To further this aggression, they have enlisted the services of reactionary bourgeois ideology, which is doing its utmost to halt the growth of the spiritual consciousness of nations, obstruct the stream of advanced ideas and thereby ideologically disarm the national liberation movement. They whitewash colonialism, present history in a rosy light and embellish and camouflage the exploiting nature of their relations with the undeveloped countries, thereby trying to prevent the peoples of these countries from finally and completely liberating themselves from colonialism. They argue that the Asian, African and Latin American peoples are unable to resolve their destinies independently, and speak of the civilising mission of imperialism, of economic and political unity between the former colonies and their erstwhile imperialist masters.
In order to disunite the peoples, shake the unity of the forces of democracy and progress and thus safeguard their domination, the imperialists use a tested weapon of the reactionaries like nationalism. Marxism-Leninism is intolerant of all manifestations of bourgeois nationalism and requires that a distinction should be made between the nationalism of ruling nations (dominant-nation chauvinism and racism) and the nationalism of oppressed nations. The unquestionably reactionary ideology of dominant-nation chauvinism and racism, which justifies the domination of one nation by another, is flatly rejected by scientific communism. On the other hand, the nationalism of oppressed nations is directed against imperialism and contains elements of struggle for independence and is, therefore, progressive and supported by the proletariat. On this score Lenin wrote: “The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support.” Such, for example, is the nationalism of some of the present-day African and Asian countries. The progressive trends of this nationalism manifest themselves in struggle against imperialism, colonialism, feudal reaction and backwardness, in the course of which are awakened the political consciousness of the people, primarily of the peasant masses.
At the same time, nationalism always harbours the threat of being stripped of its democratic content and turned into dominant-nation chauvinism and racism. For that reason, while supporting the liberation trend in the nationalism of oppressed peoples, Communists consistently champion proletarian internationalism, which consolidates the international solidarity and friendship of the working people of all races and nationalities. By demonstrating that the class struggle plays the decisive role in any social movement, including the national movement, and calling for unity among the working people of all countries, Marxists–Leninists combat the ideology of bourgeois nationalism and win the masses over to proletarian internationalism.
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