p Encyclopaedias and dictionaries published in the West are among those which most vividly reveal the main trends in the socio-political thought of the capitalist world. Such is, for instance, the ‘pluralistic’ picture of Marxism-Leninism according to the authors of the International Relations Dictionary, published in the USA in 1969, the work of scientists from the Western Michigan University.

p Under the common heading of Communist Doctrine the following ‘variants’ of Marxism are enumerated, given in alphabetical order, according to the transcription of the respective terms in the English language. For greater clarity, we shall give them in their historical or chronological order.

p Marxism. This embraces, according to the authors, the economic, political and social theories of K.Marx and F.Engels. Note: in Marxism there is no development—it is the frozen sum total of the ideas of its founders. Moreover, the philosophy of Marx and Engels, dialectical materialism, is in effect missing, because it is by no means exhaustively covered by ’social theories’.

p Leninism. This is presented as a ’theoretical interpretation and practical application of Marxism by 125 Lenin’. Consequently, nothing is said about a further development of Marxism by Lenin, but only about its interpretation and application! Lenin’s theoretical conclusion on the possibility of the socialist revolution succeeding at first in a few, or even in one, and not one of the most advanced countries at that, is incorrectly presented as a conception of the ’possibility of the socialist revolution triumphing in countries in a pre-capitalist stage of development!.

p Stalinism. This is presented as a theoretical interpretation and practical application of the Marxist doctrine by Stalin from the mid twenties to 1953.

p Trotskyism. In full contradiction with the actual dissident and provocative role which Trotskyism plays in the international communist and workers’ movement, in the dictionary we read that Trotskyism was an ’ideology, calling upon the proletariat from all countries to unite and join efforts for the world triumph of communism’.

p Titoism. According to the authors, this is the ’theory and practice of national communism’, maintained by Tito, which made its appearance in 1948 when Tito rejected the ’monopoly approach to world communism’.

p Khrushchevism. This consisted pf the ’contributions of Khrushchev to communist doctrine and its application in the USSR during the period of 1956-1963’.

p Maoism. This is presented as a ’theory of civil war in backward peasant colonial and semi-colonial countries’ It is also pointed out that Maoism rejects peaceful coexistence in favour of the Trotskyite thesis of ‘permanent’ revolution.

p A similar ’pluralistic structure’ of Marxism is also given in the collection ’From Marx to Mao Tse-tung’ (101). As in his other works, so also in the article printed in this collection, R.Aron stubbornly defends the view that Marxism-Leninism does not represent an integrated teaching. According to Aron, the term ‘Marxism’ means either the ’ideas of Marx, such as the historian can restore them’, or the ’ideas of Marx, such as the different schools, declaring themselves Marxist, 126 interpret them, with respect to their own epoch, problems and goals’. (88, p. 15, author’s italics—A.K.). Let us note in passing that R.Aron in his article serves us yet another ‘variant’ of Marxism, which is not mentioned in the contents of the book: so-called ’Hegelianized Marxism’. As its representatives Aron mentions M. Merlo-Ponti and Jean Paul Sartre, in France, K.Korsch, M.Horkheimer, Wiesengrund-Adorno, H.Markuse, E.Bloch, etc. in Germany (88, p. 35, 36). The reader will understand that it is a matter here of bourgeois ideologists who flirt with Marxism, but belong to different philosophical and sociological trends.

p Somewhat different names are given to the different ‘variants’ of modern Marxism by Herbert Schack in his book ’Marx, Mao, and Neomarxism’ (157). According to him in our times we should be speaking mainly of ’ Soviet Marxism’, ’democratic Marxism’, ’revolutionary Marxism’ and ‘neo-Marxism’.

p Under the heading ’Soviet Marxism’ he examines Lenin, Stalin and the development of Leninism in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death. The very fact that Leninism is examined as Soviet Marxism speaks of the metaphysical, subjectivist approach of the author, which is typical, by the way, of almost all pluralizers of Marxism: their endeavour being to reduce Leninism to a variant of Marxism. In this connection let us recall the fact that as early as 1928 Sidney Hook tried to present Leninism as a ’Slav variant’ of Marxism (66, c. 68).

p Under the name of ’democratic Marxism’ the author examines the theory and practice of socialist construction in the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, and what he calls the ’communist liberation movement’, which includes all the major rightist revisionist manifestations in the European socialist states, which ’rose up against totalitarian communism’ (to use Schack’s expression). Of course, the organizers of the Hungarian counter-revolution in 1956, headed by Imre Nagy and the revisionists in Czechoslovakia, who 127 revealed themselves in particular in 1968-69 (Ota Sick, etc.) have not been neglected.

p H.Schack gives the honourable name of ’ revolutionary Marxism’ to Maoism. Under the same ’ variant’ of Marxism the author lists Che Guevara and the guerrilla movements, i.e. the leftist partisan movement in Latin America. Finally, under the heading ’neo- Marxism’ Schack includes an ’open complex of ideas’ within whose framework the ideological wealth of the early works of Marx and Engels has been elucidated, criticised, supplemented and deepened. Schack’s ’ neoMarxism’ is in many respects identical with the ’Hegelianized Marxism’ of R.Aron.

p Wolfgang Leonhard also comes forward with a claim to analyze and support with arguments the ’ pluralization’ of Marxism, in a voluminous work, entitled ’Die Dreispaltung des Marxism us. Ur sprung undEntwicklung des Sowjetmarxismus, Maoismus und Reformkommunismus’. (The Threefold Split of Marxism. Origin and Development of Soviet Marxism, Maoism and Reform Communism, 137).

p In his youth, Leonhard lived and studied in the USSR. Later he worked as functionary of the German Socialist Unity Party, but then crossed over to rightist revisionist standpoints. In 1949 he left the GDR and passed over into, the ranks of the active anticommunists. That is why we cannot but accept with great suspicion the strongly underlined endeavour on the part of Leonhard to present himself at all costs as impartial and objective in his analysis of the historical development and contemporary state of MarxismLeninism.

p A study of the content of the book shows that the tendentiously selected, though abundant, facts which the author uses do not lend an impression of objectiveness and win the confidence of the reader. The very title of the book ’The Threefold Split of Marxism’ shows that Leonhard has set himself the task of upholding a thesis which is untrue in its essence and diversionist in its purpose—his object is to give a negative answer to the 128 question asked in the advertising text on the cover of the book: ’Is there, in fact, any integrated Marxism?’

p The main conclusion drawn by Leonhard is that Marxism from its inception to the present day has constantly fragmented, with different ‘variants’ branching out from it, until we come to its total fragmentation in the last two decades into three mutually inimical trends.

p To lend greater conviction and visual presentation to this anti-scientific and wrong conclusion, the alleged ’process of the disintegration of Marxism’ is graphically drawn as a thick trunk representing Marxism, from which several branches spread out.

p One of the most important anti-scientific and falsifying factors in the approach of all ‘pluralizers’ of Marxism, as in the case of Leonhard, is that he hides the main source of all ideological deviations from Marxism, beginning from Bernstein and ending with Mao Tse-tung, whom he presents as taking over and continuing the ideas of Marx and Engels. Leonhard and all his fraternity simply pass by in silence, and do not even try to refute the crucial, decisive fact, which has been proved by scientific Marxist-Leninist analysis and confirmed by the real socio-political role played by all revisionist deviations from Marxism in the class struggle: that they are either an eclectic combination of Marxism with a bourgeois or petty-bourgeois ideology or simply bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideological trends dressed up in Marxist phraseology.

p In the above-mentioned ’family tree’ of pluralized Marxismi devised by Leonhard, one of the sources of all revisionist deviations from Marxism—the Marxist source, is indicated as their sole source. Nothing is said, however, about the other sources, which determine their main content: the various bourgeois and petty-bourgeois schools and teachings in the field of philosophy, sociology, ethics, political science, etc., of which the authors of the revisionist trends in question have made ample use. This is often openly acknowledged by the revisionists with the explanation that in this 129 way they have ‘supplemented’ and ’further developed’ Marxism.

p To be exact, we have to note that in a great many instances the bourgeois ‘pluralizers’ of MarxismLeninism point to many non-Marxist sources for the various ideological trends which they pass off as ’variants of Marxism’. Nevertheless, when it is a question of the character of those ideological trends, a character which most clearly reveals that they are not branches of, or trends in Marxism, but are non-Marxist trends, of which Marxism is at best one of the sources— then Leonhard, Lo’wenthal, Schack, Aron, etc. do not say anything about their most important theoretical sources, and simply stamp them ‘Marxist’.

p Among the representatives of outright anticommunism of the old type let us point out Francois Fejto, the author of the ’Dictionary of the Communist Parties and Revolutionary Movement’ published in 1971 in France. As an ‘introduction’ to the dictionary we find an article entitled The Crisis in Marxist Internationalism’. Communism as an ideology, according to the author, is in a jprocess of disintegration (109, p. 11, 13). This disintegration is precisely the ‘pluralization’ of Marxist-Leninist ideology, the appearance of trends warring against each other—‘Moscow’, Maoist, Castroist, etc. (p. 16).

p In Fejto the imagined crisis of communism performs another, more special function. He is among the pessimistically inclined bourgeois ideologists as regards the present and future of capitalism. According to him modern civilization in general is in a crisis. The crisis embraces the ’church, political, cultural and social institutions’ in all countries (c. 38). Thus, the assertion that communism too is in a crisis serves him to a certain extent as consolation. The fire is not only in our own home, but also in that of our enemy!

p We might continue to enumerate the works in which the thesis of Marxist pluralism is not so much founded as propagated, but we shall not find there anything new in principle.

p One of the important common features, which shows the same starting point of all ‘pluralizers’ of Marxism is that they all display almost the same biased attitude —negative towards modern Marxism-Leninism, and favourable toward rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionism.

p The ideologists of imperialism usually present rightist revisionism in the most favourable light, as ‘creative’, ‘humane’, and ‘democratic’ Marxism. Today rightist revisionism is advertised by the most reactionary bourgeois ideologists like Lowenthal as ’ authentic’ and ‘creative’ Marxism. Only one who can believe that the time has come when the bourgeois ideologists have themselves begun to propagate the death of capitalism could take such an assertion at all seriously.

p An obvious testimony to the favourable attitude of modern anti-communism towards the rightist revisionists is the endeavour of certain authors to give a more attractive collective name to all rightist trends in Marxism and the communist movement. The wellknown ‘Marxologist’Heinz Lippman displays particular diligence in the matter. In the May-June 1970 issue of ’Problems of Communism’, H.Lippman insistently advises his colleagues to cease calling the rightist revisionist champions of bourgeois ideology in the workers’ movement by the derogatory term ‘revisionists’, and suggests the name ’reform communists’ (140, p. 15, 16). The reader has perhaps noticed that the above-mentioned W.Leonhard has taken note of this instruction, because in the subtitle of Leonhard’s book, quoted above, rightist revisionism is called’reform communism’ (137).

p The general attitude of bourgeois ideologists towards the leftist revisionist deviations, towards Trotskyism, Maoism and Marcusianism is also favourable. And precisely those ultraleftist, adventurist positions and their anti-Sovietism, which are not only farthest removed from Marxism but are also the falsest and most harmful for the working people and for their struggle, are pointed out by the bourgeois pluralizers of Marxism in great detail and are presented as being most positive and revolutionary. This is done for the obvious purpose 131 of diverting the working people who have embraced the revolutionary idea, who reject capitalism, do not accept rightist revisionism and are ready to fight for socialism, from genuine Marxism-Leninism, and pushing them along the road of ‘leftist’ revisionism, which at first sight looks rapid and ‘revolutionary’ but is in fact adventurist and condemns those who follow it to inevitable failures and disillusionment.

p The attitude of modern ’ Marxologists’ toward what they call ’Soviet Marxism’ is openly hostile and inimical, accompanied by many efforts to distort the meaning of its principles and to empty it of any content. They describe it as ossified, dogmatic, outdated , ‘etatist’, anti-humane, bureaucratic, etc. The bourgeois ideologists do this, because they understand that precisely ‘Soviet’, i.e. genuine Marxism-Leninism is really a threat to their master-imperialism.

One of the major tasks of all theorizings of the bourgeois ideologists about the many kinds of Marxism is to sow distrust and a negative attitude above all toward the CPSU and the Soviet Union, toward the socialist system which has already been set up there, and toward the construction of communism, toward the ’domestic and foreign policy of the USSR. This is so, because the CPSU is the founder of Leninism, the most experienced bearer of genuine Marxism-Leninism and because while the Soviet Union is the mightiest detachment and mainstay of the world revolutionary movement, and therefore the main enemy of imperialism.