p In waging the ideological war against rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionism, the Marxist-Leninists and the communist parties in general also always take into consideration the practical political activities, the political attitudes and the conduct of the persons championing revisionist views, and still more those of organizations and movements that have adopted an ideology influenced by revisionism. When taking into account both their words, i.e. ideas, and their deeds, Marxists give precedence to deeds.

p The international communist movement is working for the establishment of a world front of all forces which can be mobilized for a struggle for peace, democracy, national liberation and socialism, and every Marxist Party is working for the setting up of national fronts in each country for the struggle to defend the interests of the working people against reaction and capitalism. In pursuing such a revolutionary policy, the Marxist-Leninist parties also work in cooperation with movements and organizations that are under revisionist ideological influence, irrespective of their ideological and theoretical differences with them.

p It is of great importance to see in this light the attitude of the modern rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionist trends towards the public forces which are guided by creative Marxism, and the attitude of these revisionist trends towards each other.

p The accusations addressed by the rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionists against modern Marxism-Leninism and its creative application by the CPSU, the USSR and the other Marxist-Leninist parties and socialist states 152 are often diametrically opposed to and in large measure refute and negate each other.

p Thus, according to the ‘praxists’, L.Kolakovski, R.Garaudy and E.Fischer, i.e. according to the leading rightist revisionists, the main flaw of modern ’Soviet Marxism’ lies in the fact that itcontinuesto pursue the dogmatic, bureaucratic, etc., policy of Stalin and Stalinism. According to the Maoists, on the other hand, the main flaw of the ’Soviet revisionists’ consists in the opposite—that they have deviated from the revolutionary and internationalist line of the CPSU of the time of Stalin and Stalinism.

p However, although they criticise Marxism-Leninism and the strategy of the international communist movement worked out by it from different and at first sight contradictory starting points, the rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionists on certain basic questions make a united front against Marxism-Leninism, the world socialist community and the international communist movement. This clearly reveals the class nature of the revisionist ‘criticism’ of genuine Marxism-Leninism and real socialism.

p The socio-economic system in the Soviet Union and the other socialist member-countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance is called non-socialist, exploiter and capitalistic by the rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionists, and S.Stoyanovich, R.Garaudy, etc., maintain, side by side with the Maoists and Trotskyites, that a new dominating and exploiter stratum or class is being formed in those countries.

p At some crucial moments in the modern struggle between the forces of progress and revolution and the forces of imperialism and reaction, when a position has definitely to be taken on one or other side of the barricades, the positions of the theoreticians and propagandists of modern rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionism come still closer to each other. And this is not all. In such cases they very often findithemselves in the same camp with the most reactionary and aggressive forces in the world, against the international communist movement and the world socialist 153 systern, headed by the USSR. A very clear demonstration of such unanimity of opinion between the rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionists and the imperialist aggressors was their attitude towards the conspiracy of the rightist revisionist and reactionary forces in Czechoslovakia and its frustration with the help of the Warsaw Pact states in 1968.

p It is easy to understand why the standpoint of the rightist revisionists may often coincide with those of the imperialists, when we take into consideration the scientific Marxist-Leninist assessment of rightist revisionism as an instrument of bourgeois influence, and in a certain sense as an agency of imperialism within the ranks of the workers’ movement.

p At first sight it seems difficult to explain how the ‘leftist’ revisionists can take the same side as the imperialists. In this connection the question has to be clarified of the attitude of the two kinds of revisionism towards each other with a fuller revelation of their social and class character.

p So far we have pointed out, in particular, those things which distinguish rightist from ‘leftist’ revisionism—both with respect to their main social support, and with respect to the main content of their ideological platforms, also pointing out their final goals: the rightists, who desire to reform capitalism gradually, the ‘leftists’ whose aim is to call the people ruthlessly to armed uprisings and revolutionary wars.

p On this basis there no doubt exist contradictions between them, and they reject each other. But this is only part of the truth.

p There are a number of reasons acting in favour of an attenuation and ironing out of the differences between them and bringing them closer together.

p In the first place, both rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionists roughly speaking have a common, i.e. petty-bourgeois, social and class basis. Hence the vacillations, contradictions and inconsistency which are typical of both the rightist and the leftist revisionist and opportunist trends. Let us recall that Lenin repeatedly called attention to this community of basis. When 154 examining the petty-bourgeois vacillations of tne two revisionist trends, he wrote: ’Petty-bourgeois reformism. . . and petty-bourgeois revolutionism. . . are the two ‘currents’ of these vacillations.’ (15, c. 1).

p A common feature of rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionism, closely connected with their common pettybourgeois social basis, is nationalism. In very rare cases some ‘leftist’ extremist movements manifest in their policy the reverse side of nationalism— cosmopolitanism. Anti-Sovietism also develops on the basis of nationalism.

p In the third place, both the rightist and the ‘leftist’ revisionist trends have a common scientific theoretical and methodological basis—a deviation from materialist dialectics and from the class approach, manifestations of subjectivism, dogmatism and eclecticism. On such a basis both a moving apart and a moving closer together of the positions of the two kinds of revisionism is possible.

p Of decisive significance for the rallying together of the rightist and leftist revisionist trends is the political factor, which is not always properly assessed. It is not bourgeois ideology nor the reverse form of revisionism, but Marxism-Leninism that is in fact the main opponent to those ideologists championing both rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionism. That is why, especially in an atmosphere of strongly aggravated ideological and political struggle, a convergence of views is obtained both between the champions of rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionsim, and between them and the representatives of bourgeois ideology. A united front is thus set up against their main enemy—Marxism-Leninism.

p Let us also note the following. Purely rightist, and especially purely leftist revisionist deviations are rarely encountered. Both in Trotskyism and in Maoism the leftist features and elements are also mixed with rightist-opportunist features and elements. It would be still more exact to say that in the course of development, as a manifestation of precisely petty-bourgeois inconsistency and vacillation, there is often a passing over from ‘leftist’ to rightist positions, and vice-versa. 155 It was no accident that during the struggle against Trotskyism in the USSR the following phrase, typical of Trotskyite vacillation was wide-spread: ’you set out to the left, but end up on the right’.

p This is in still larger measure true of the ideological and political development of Maoism. Extreme antiSovietism, the obvious volte-face to bring about a rapprochement with American imperialism in foreign policy, combined with the setting up of a military bureaucratic dictatorship in the country and with a preponderance of the elements of Confucianism, panChinese chauvinism and racism in the ideology of Maoism; these are symptoms of a sharp turning point to the right, which threatens the basic revolutionary gains of the Chinese people. The joint support which the Maoists rendered to the reactionary military regime in Pakistan against the liberation movement of the 75 million people of Bangladesh in 1971-1972 is an event in which the Maoist government once again, as in 1968, took the side of reaction, against the forces of peace and progress.

p To sum up: For the Marxist-Leninists and for the international communist movement the main enemy is imperialism and the reactionary bourgeois ideology, Marxists consider rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionism as a champion of bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideology among the working people and the working class. However, to the social movements which are under the influence of a reformist and revisionist ideology, the Marxists extend a hand for joint struggle in the name of peace, democracy, national liberation and socialism.

p For the bourgeois ideologists and imperialists the main enemy is Marxism-Leninism, the world socialist system and the international communist movement. The imperialists are trying with considerable success to use the rightist revisionists as their direct agency, and support the ‘leftist’ extremists for diversionist purposes, because in them they see an instrument for introducing dissension among the revolutionary forces.

p As to the rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionists, in their ideological equipment the most effective part is usually 156 that which divides them from, and not that which brings them closer to Marxism-Leninism. Insofar, however, as there are elements and parts of Marxist ideology in rightist and ’leftist* revisionism, and what is more important, when substantial strata of the working people are under the influence of these ideological trends, it is possible, mainly under the pressure of these working people, to achieve united action between such public organizations and the Marxist revolutionary movements, in the name of certain revolutionary goals The uncompromising, highly principled struggle against all non-scientific and Utopian aspects of their ideology, however, is a condition sine qua. non, if we do not wish to obtain a negative result for the Marxist movements from their united action with organized forces which are under revisionist influence.

The main criterion—practice—confirms, therefore, that both rightist and ‘leftist’ revisionism by virtue of their main ideological content belong to pettybourgeois and not to proletarian and socialist ideology. They are not, and it is not correct to consider them to be, ‘variants’ of Marxism-Leninism, although thev do contain some elements of it.