p There are not many attempts among the rightist revisionists to explain openly and widely the necessity of pluralizing Marxism. The majority of them get entwined in the tail of the bourgeois pluralists. The difference between them is in their approach. The bourgeois pluralists usually pretend to take up the position of an ‘impartial’ researcher who allegedly objectively compares the different ‘variants’ of Marxism. Unlike them, the rightist revisionists defend pluralism from the position of ’one of the variants’, usually claiming that they have put forward the best variant: ’authentic Marxism’, ’humane Marxism’, etc.

p Lombardo-Radice sets out towards pluralism from the assertion that the question as to whether there is an integrated Marxist philosophy is still unsolved. As we have seen, this is an entirely arbitrary assertion, which has nothing in common with the truth. Having placed under unjustified suspicion the existence of a single philosophical foundation of Marxism, Lombardo-Radice hastens to utter another untruth, rejecting the indissoluble link and reciprocal dependence between the basic component parts of Marxism. He says that the recognition of the social teaching of Marxism and above all of scientific socialism is not necessarily linked up with the recognition of dialectical materialism (142a, S. 254-255). The revisionist Gajo Petrovic goes still further. According to him the fundamental principle that dialectical materialism is a 143 philosophical foundation of Marxism, and as such is the worldview of the proletarian vanguard, is a ’Stalinist conception’. That is why he has a negative attitude towards it (149, S. 14).

p Petrovic is hardly so ignorant as not to know that Marx and Engels created the three components of Marxism, the methodological basis of which is dialectical materialism. The important thing is that this assertion of his is in outright contradiction with both the spirit and the letter of Marxism.

p Let us point out that on this question again the pluralist revisionists of Marxism are not original. They repeat or ‘rediscover’ principles given them by the bourgeois ‘Marxologists’. Thus, for instance, according to the British professor of political economy, the wellknown ‘Marxologist’ and anti-communist John Plamenats, dialectical materialism is not an indivisible part of Marxism and is not of essential significance for it. Marxism in general according to Plamenats, has no philosophy of its own (38, c. 30, 31). And Sidney Hook straightforwardly declares that it is a ‘dogma’ to think that a communist has to be a dialectical materialist, i.e. that the social doctrine of Marxism is necessarily connected with a dialectical materialistic world view(153, p. 187). What is more, the modern revisionists and bourgeois ideologists repeat their predecessors on this question, beginning with E.Duhring and E.Bernstein.

p Let us only note in passing that this very old and repeatedly unmasked bourgeois revisionist attempt to deprive scientific socialism of its theoretical, methodological and philosophical basis manifested itself in the past in Bulgaria too. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, the founder of the Bulgarian Communist Party and outstanding Marxist Dimiter Blagoev refuted these views which were championed at that time by D. Mihalchev and other anti-Marxists in the country, and declared them to be groundless. (20, c. 163).

p The bourgeois revisionist conception of the pluralization of Marxism is also upheld by a number of 144 Yugoslav authors, side by side with the above- mentioned Predrag Vranicki and Gajo Petrovic: Zdravko Munishic, (147, S. 534, 535), Mihailo Markovich (146, S. 6), Veliko Korac (133, p. 77) etc. Some Czechoslovak philosophers who during the period between 1965-68 became forthright exponents of rightist revisionism also upheld the view of a pluralization of Marxism. The pluralistic positions of the Czechoslovak revisionist philosophers were particularly forthrightly upheld by Josef Kosek and Julius Strinka at the international symposium held in June 1968 in Varna on a critique of modern bourgeois philosophy  [144•* .

p The ‘pluralism’ of modern Marxism is in fact also championed by another prominent representative of rightist revisionism, Ernst Fischer. He maintains that at present there are ’four variants of Marxist ideology’ (110, c. 158).

p Certain rightist revisionists also use as an argument in support of the conception of ’Marxist pluralism’ "the bourgeois thesis of an ’absolute freedom of criticism’. The consideration is more specifically expressed that in the ranks of the Marxists different trends and directions are bound to appear, if the’freedom to criticise’ or the ’right to an opinion’ within the Marxist camp is strictly observed.

p We have already examined the question of the conflict of opinions as a natural form of development of science of general and of Marxism-Leninism in particular. Here, however, the real issue is different— that of taking advantage of the formal situation of ’freedom of opinion’ for the purpose of defending antiMarxist views inside the Marxist organizations, the ‘right’ to carry on a struggle for the purpose of imposing these views instead of Marxism.

p In this spirit the rightist revisionists of the kind of L.Kolakovski, E.Fischer and R.Garaudy proclaim the situation of ideological and theoretical confusion and babel as natural and necessary for the Marxists. In 145 support of their attempt to transfer these flaws of bourgeois ideology into the ranks of Marxism, the rightist revisionists quote certain statements by Marx and Engels, especially from their earlier writings, on the critical character of revolutionary theory. This theory according to them should subject to criticism everything that exists.

p When Marx and Engels wrote their works, their environment and social reality was a reality of exploitation. It was necessary to reveal its essence through and through. That is why, in view of the epoch in which they lived, they had good reason to raise the question of the necessity to criticise ’everything that exists’.

p Can our contemporary reality, however, be viewed in the same way, when in a number of countries in three continents a new socialist reality is under construction, in which exploitation and oppression of man have been done away with? According to the rightist revisionists, who empty Marxism of its class (and materialistic) content, there should be no difference in principle between capitalism and socialism in this respect. That is why both in the capitalist and in the socialist countries the ’philosophy of practice’, as they name their own philosophy which is devoid of class and materialist content, finds itself faced with the same fundamental task: ’mercilessly to criticise everything that exists’!

The absurdity, the non-scientific character and the dogmatic spirit of this approach are obvious. Dialectical and historical materialism is a theoretical and methodological basis for all the conscious, planned activity of the communist party and the socialist state, of socialist and communist construction. That is why it is quite natural that Marxist philosophy under socialism should first of all fulfil a positive, constructive and guiding role. It does not follow from this, however, that it becomes a groundless defence, an ’instrument for justifying the actions of the leaders’, as the anti-communists and revisionists ’wrongly maintain. In affirming the progressive socialist social system, Marxist philosophy at the same time helps to reveal—and overcome—the 146 shortcomings and mistakes which occur in the process of construction. However just as the affirmative role of Marxist philosophy is no groundless defence, so also its critical role is not and cannot be a negation of the system. On the contrary, it helps it precisely by criticising its weaknesses, and by contributing to overcome them.