p The main task of the international communist and workers’ movement at present is to fully utilise all the objective factors operating against imperialism, to implement the new possibilities for intensifying the anti-imperialist struggle by closing our ranks, and to do everything possible to step up and extend the popular anti-imperialist movement.

p The preparation and holding of our international Meeting have reaffirmed that the urge for unity and a common stand on the basic issues of our joint struggle are the main feature of the present stage of development of the world communist movement. Common positions on the most important issues have been found in a democratic form and through collective effort, and constructive and creative generalisation of the rich experience of the fraternal Parties has already been achieved, due account being taken of the universal validity of Marxism-Leninism and the diversity of the conditions in which Communist and Workers’ Parties have to operate. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany is of the opinion that the present Meeting, its assessments and conclusions, the jointly projected acts of struggle and, above all, joint action will accelerate the achievement of greater unity of action. United action by the Communist and Workers’ Parties simultaneously, promotes the growth of the whole antiimperialist movement.

p This process meets the demands of the present-day international class struggle. The experience of the last few years shows that the counter-revolutionary strategy and tactics of imperialism are doomed to failure wherever the revolutionary forces act in concert and cohesion, in close alliance with the Soviet Union. On the other hand, it is natural that wherever Marxism-Leninism and socialist ideology are not developed, bourgeois ideology finds room for its attempts to destroy the unity of the revolutionary forces.

p We have been shocked and angered by the aggressive armed raids organised by the Chinese leadership on the Soviet-Chinese border. These acts of armed aggression mean direct support for US global strategy and the expansionist policy of West German imperialism. If a country like the Chinese People’s Republic, which calls itself socialist, tries to bring about a change in the boundaries of the world’s first socialist state—the Soviet Union—it is playing with fire and simultaneously politically subverting the anti-imperialist struggle. 231 We are sure that such a policy also does great harm to the Chinese people and the Chinese Communists, with whom we feel closely bound up. Those who provoke clashes along the Soviet Union’s borders act as enemies of socialism. They harm the common cause of all socialists, of all anti-imperialist and peaceloving forces, of all progressive forces in the world. By their acts they encourage the aggressive circles of the United States, West Germany and Great Britain to continue the aggression in the Far East and the Middle East or to continue giving it support, go on threatening socialist Cuba, and respond to the Warsaw Treaty countries’ plan for peace and security in Europe by building up the aggressive NATO bloc and rendering active support to West Germany’s revenge-seeking policy.

p We are aware of China’s formidable problems which are yet to be solved. But their solution is not at all made easier through the attention of the Chinese population being diverted by attacks on the first socialist country, the Soviet Union. Everyone knows how much assistance the Soviet Union gave the Chinese People’s Republic before the Chinese leadership reversed the "decision* of the 8th Congress of the CPC. The so-called 9th Congress of the CPC has shown that the Chinese leadership has officially completed its departure from Marxism-Leninism.

p We call on the Chinese Communists in the interests of the common struggle against piratical imperialism to stop their hostile acts against the Soviet Union, to abandon any splitting activity inside the communist and workers’ movement and to resume co-operation with the Marxist-Leninist Parties at least in the international struggle against imperialism.

p Comrades, today the world communist movement is the most formidable political force embracing the whole world. The conditions in which the fraternal Parties carry on their struggle have become more diverse and partially more complicated. The growth of the world communist movement has created conditions which more than ever before make it objectively the central force of the whole anti-imperialist movement. The successes of each brother Party and of the whole of our movement simultaneously enhance their responsibility. The Marxist-Leninist Parties have at their disposal, in theory and practice, the necessary arsenal for evolving scientifically-based strategy and tactics.

p In the last two decades, the socialist countries, like the fraternal Parties of many capitalist countries, have scored great successes. No social system in history has ever achieved such enormous successes in a short period as socialism has done. This is an expression of its great viability, which for the first time in history gives scope to all of man’s creative abilities. What a long way the Soviet Union has gone from tsarist Russia, a country of wholesale illiteracy and bast shoes, to the most advanced industrialised and cultured country of our day! What great economic and cultural successes have been achieved by the socialist peoples of Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Mongolian People’s Republic, the Korean People’s Democratic Republic, Vietnam, Cuba, the German Democratic Republic and other countries since they threw off the yoke of imperialist exploitation and oppression! One of the most important tasks before all Communist and Workers’ Parties is to do everything to make known these historical successes, so as to give the masses in the non-socialist 232 countries the facts showing what a people can do when it has thrown off the fetters of imperialism.

p There is no doubt that in the historical development of the international working-class movement the conrete forms of its unity change. The emergence of new and higher forms of unity in the course of dialectical development does not mean, however, the wholesale rejection of the old forms of unity which have proved their worth in the past, but their steady further development in accordance with new conditions and requirements. Today our movement is no longer able to do only with creative activity in theory and practice by each individual brother Party. It needs the collective wisdom of the whole movement. No fraternal Party fights alone. We are confronted with a common enemy organised on an international scale. The class struggle has both national and international aspects. That is why our movement needs appropriate forms and methods of co-operation, of collective elaboration of a common stand. Our Party believes that alongside bilateral and multilateral ties, regular international meetings and theoretical conferences could become a necessary form of such cooperation. During the preparation and holding of this Meeting we have accumulated valuable experience in this respect and have learned important lessons.

p The activity of all Communist Parties in the period immediately ahead must, we believe, be decisively determined by the joint solution of the tasks formulated in the Document "Tasks at the Present Stage of the Struggle Against Imperialism and United Action of the Communist and Workers’ Parties and All Anti-Imperialist Forces" and in Comrade Brezhnev’s speech at the present Meeting. We issue a call for this also to the brother Parties not taking part in this Meeting.

p If we had engaged above all in a discussion and emphasising of differences, we believe this would have led not to unity but to even more division, to a dispersal of revolutionary forces. The way to the now necessary strengthening of the political and ideological unity of the international communist movement lies through joint action in the anti-imperialist struggle, through systematic joint effort in the realm of theory.

p Life itself, the very preparation and holding of our international Meeting have confirmed the correctness of the line mapped out by the Consultative Meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties: achievement of mutual understanding and unification of our forces through joint action. The successful collective preparation of the international Meeting, the drafting of the Main Document above all, already revealed a considerable growth in the unity of action of our communist movement.

p We are sure that the collective drafting and adoption of the Main Document and other political documents by our international Meeting will open a new stage in the development of the world communist movement. This stage will be marked by the establishment and consolidation of unity of action by the Marxist-Leninist Parties and, as a result of this, by fresh achievements and victories for the cause of socialism and world peace.

p The fundamental common stand on the basic issues and tasks of the antiimperialist struggle will blend with creative diversity of tactics and methods of activity in the various countries. We shall thereby be following Lenin’s 233 precept that it is necessary to secure application of the universal laws of the class struggle and socialist revolution "which will correctly modify these principles in certain particulars, correctly adapt and apply them to national and national-state distinctions" (Collected Works, vol. 31, p. 92).

p Our Party still proceeds from the premise that national features and interests can be correctly taken into account only if they are viewed and applied as an expression of the universal and fundamental laws of social development. It goes without saying that each Communist Party must chart the way to this by itself and follow it. Only then shall we be able to avoid the stereotyped approach to the solution of new tasks, and national narrow-mindedness, which has become an anachronism in this age of world-wide transition from capitalism to socialism and the scientific and technical revolution.

p In a few months’ time, we shall be marking the centenary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, our brilliant leader and teacher. Our Party believes that this anniversary is a fitting and suitable occasion for launching a world-wide Marxist-Leninist offensive, because the vital power of Lenin’s ideas has never manifested itself with greater force than in our day. The draft address submitted to our Meeting is an excellent document deserving the broadest" circulation throughout the world. Let the preparation for Lenin’s centenary give rise to a great initiative by all progressive forces in the struggle against imperialism, for the radiant ideals of socialism. In this context, we believe it to be an extremely important task to carry on intensified Marxist-Leninist education and training of all the members of our Party, of all the people in our republic. Our Party regards this task as the basic one in the consistent development of our Party and our whole movement.

p Our international Meeting has created substantial premises for a rise in our common struggle, and for a world-wide offensive against imperialism. In this struggle we forge the unity of our action, dealing a heavy blow at the speculations of imperialism, at all actions by the opponents of our unity.

Let us consolidate the unity of the world communist and working-class movement! Let us consolidate internationalism!