p Comrades, the running thread and spirit of our Document is that though the world revolutionary movement is passing through a complicated”and critical period; though on certain fronts it has received certain, temporary setbacks; though imperialist aggressiveness, and above all, US imperialism is endangering world peace and national independence in various continents; though West German revanchism is again raising its head; despite all these phenomena, the forces of socialism, democracy, national independence and peace are stronger than the forces of imperialism and reaction, and can inflict a defeat on the enemy by moving into united action.

p Imperialism cannot change the balance of forces in its favour, it cannot reverse the historical process of its doom, it has failed to secure its strategic objectives after the Second World War, despite the strength it has achieved on the basis of vast technological growth and the acts of aggression for which they are used.

p The glorious victories of the Vietnamese people, led by their Communist Party and the National Liberation Front, have proved, more than anything else in recent years, the ’greatest truth of our epoch’, the truth that where the forces of socialism, democracy and national independence are merged into one, the victory of the people and the defeat of imperialism are inevitable.

p One has only to cast a glance at the events between the two wars, and history of the last two decades to see in a moment the meaning of the shift in the world balance of forces. Gone are the days when the Spanish Revolution could be 473 massacred in cold blood and no aid could reach it, because of the barrier raised by fascist and bourgeois governments against Soviet help. Gone are the days when Abyssinia, Manchuria and Shanghai could be invaded with impunity. The new period is now exemplified by the defence of Vietnam and Cuba, aided by the might of the Soviet Union, by the aid rendered to the Arab peoples, and so on.

p This is the change in the world balance of forces which neither Washington, London, Bonn or Tokyo can alter.

p This has not come about without fearless struggle of the working class, the peasantry and other revolutionary forces all over the world. But it is historical truth that this change has been brought about dominantly by the sacrifices of the people of the Soviet Union and their Communist Party, who shed their blood in the Second World War and finally defeated Hitler and German imperialism. Thereby they weakened, the; world imperialist system, gave birth to the world socialist system, strengthened the advance of the revolutionary working class in the capitalist countries, and.b.egan the liquidation of the entire system of colonialism. It is this victory, we must not forget, which gave the crowning success to the Chinese revolution and the sacrifices of the Chinese people.

p It is necessary to remember all this not because we want to gloat over our past victories and close our eyes to the present problems and our failings, but so that we can retain unwavering faith in our convictions and ,in one another, while grappling with new complicated problems that confront us.

p It is further necessary to understand that not all the new problems have arisen because of our failings. Many in fact are the product of our advance and successes.

p _f

p It is a fact that the total volume of production and rates of productivity are higher in the capitalist world than in the socialist .world. The US imperialists, taking advantage of their geographical immunity from direct ravages of war, re-equipped its industry with new technique, based on electronics, computerisation, automation and new chemistry. The new giant monopolies, embracing whole countries and spreading into various countries, completely controlled the state, enlarged their vast rate of superprofits and made US imperialism the richest exploiter in the world.

p But all those gains led to deeper crisis in the economies of the imperialist and capitalist countries. Automation and the technological revolution led to increase in chronic unemployment and the petty rise in the wages of the employed workers secured by them after hard struggles, failed to find internal markets for the rising production. Inter-imperialist competition for markets, currency wars, company mergers and invasion of the West European capitalist countries by the aggressive dollar deepened the crisis, And in search of more profits, of more markets, the imperialist pressure on the newly liberated countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America to convert them into neo-colonial bases increased. In those countries which had-taken to, the_: capitalist path of development, the imperialists, led by the US dollar, offered collaboration, big financial credits, supplies of commodities, particularly tools and raw materials, under the mechanism of the P. L. 480. And to facilitate their neo-colonial designs, they have been trying to establish reactionary political regimes in those 474 countries which would be amenable to their pressures. Showing around their affluence and their technological achievements, they began to influence the intelligentsia of the newly liberated countries into believing in the superiority of the capitalist system over that of the socialist system.

p Though the countries of the socialist camp and particularly the Soviet Union had to spend vast resources to overcome the ravages of war on their own soil, the advantages of the socialist system enabled it to accomplish this task quickly. Despite the fact that it had to meet the imperialist threats of hot and cold wars, and at the same time give aid to the new countries of the socialist camp, like China and the East European People’s Democracies, the Soviet Union also made great strides in scientific and technological revolution, in automation and cybernetics and in computerisation. And their scientific and technological revoluijon did not create problems of unemployment or markets; On the contrary it lightened the lead of labour and led socialist men to richer life. And when the Soviet men first flew in space, the imperialist claims of the superiority of the capitalist system in science and technique suffered a defeat.

p The adults of the competition between the two systems, the differences in the approach of the imperialist and socialist camps towards the problems of mankind and particularly die vast millions in the newly liberated countries could best be seen in India, a country of five hundred million people, the second largest mass of humanity, next to that of China. It can also be seen in the history of development of many other newly independent countries of Asia and Africa.

p The problems of the newly liberated countries of Asia and Africa arise neither because of the so-called population explosion nor because the people of these countries are incapable of governing themselves, The problems arise primarily from the immense poverty and backwardness which the imperialist exploiters have imposed on them and their continued opposition to allow these countries to develop in peace and to return to them even a fraction of the loot that they carted away before being driven out.

p This surely is not to deny the new problems which have come on the scene.

p First and foremost, the alignment of class forces which brought about the sweeping unity of the people in the struggle for national freedom from foreign rule, does not and cannot continue after the achievement of independence when the problem of radical structural changes in the economy of the country come to the forefront.

p Monopolists, bankers and speculators and similar sections of the bourgeoisie which mushroom after the end of colonial rule, resist the new socio-economic reforms with all their might and strength. They ally with landlords, princes and religious-feudal elements to suppress the new upsurge of the people which wants to move forward from national independence to social liberation. What is worse, they begin to enter into a growing collusion with imperialism, with foreign private capital, against the common people, even at the cost of mortgagipg the newly won independence of the country.

p In a number of countries, confronted by a growing popular and democratic opposition, and above all, by the militant unity of the working class and the advance of the movement of the peasantry and landless labour, these forces of 475 foreign and internal reaction whip up mass religious fanaticism, linguistic chauvinism, inter-tribal conflict, and so on, for disrupting the fighting unity of the toiling people which they can no longer suppress by bullets and batons alone.

p And then new problems arise among the revolutionary classes also.

p The wretched living and working conditions of the working class in the newly independent capitalist countries of course do not change without grim and bloody battles. All the same, the ruling bourgeoisie constantly attempts to tempt and entangle the working class, the more so the large numbers of new entrants who have no traditions of class struggles, into the web of conciliation, arbitration and similar traditional bourgeois techniques of labour control. The rulers favour trade unions bossed over by their political parties against genuine, militant, class trade unions.

p An effort is made, in the countryside, with varying degrees of success, to develop a stratum of rich peasants and capitalist landlords by various forms of state aid. This stratum, because of its influential social, economic and political position in the rural areas, takes an offensive against the poor peasantry and rural labour, and strives to disrupt their unity.

p A number of Left and democratic parties, mainly petty-bourgeois in composition, ideology and leadership, join hands, by and large, with communist forces in the worker-peasant movement in respect of the struggle for economic demands and protest actions against governmental repressive measures. But they also fall victim to adventurist and opportunist tactics in various spheres of political activity. Essentially Left-nationalist in character, they often take chauvinistic and even anti-Soviet postures on questions of foreign policy.

p The upsurge of youth has become a characteristic feature of many newly independent countries also during this decade. Primary and secondary education, and even polytechnical education, has expanded rapidly in comparison with the conditions under foreign rule. Youth coming from the better paid industrial working class now goes in for collegiate education. The number of middle and lower middle class youth who combine part-time service with attendance at academic institutions which conduct their classes in the mornings or evenings, has grown at a phenomenal rate. Not only the economic, but even the social and cultural distinction between them and the educated workingclass youth has been substantially erased.

p But national economy, which has not grown commensurably with the bare needs of the people, has not even kept pace with the demands for employment of the vastly increasing numbers of the educated youth. Educated unemployment has reached unprecedented heights. Meanwhile the economic and cultural aspirations of youth, fed by growing knowledge of world developments and events resulting from the expansion of the mass media of information, have increased as never before.

p It is this vast and yawning gulf between new aspirations and their nonfulfilment, and the resultant massive discontent and bitterness, that has brought about what is literally a new explosion of youth in India and certain other newly independent countries. It is essentially a very healthy discontent, indicative of a new and militant enthusiasm in the younger generation.

p Naturally it has created problems, which in reality are a challenge for the Communist and other revolutionary parties in those- countries. What is called the adventurism and sectarianism of youth is in the main an expression of impatience, exuberant energy and lack of experience among youth rather than of serious belief in this or that adventurist theory. However, it is absolutely a political problem, and not a law-and-order problem as the bourgeois rulers make it out to be.

p The more serious problem is of youth that get drawn into organisations based on religious or linguistic fanaticism. It is more difficult to wean them away from such ideological affinities and draw them into organised, mass militant action than the section that is fascinated by adventurist slogans.

Comrades, our Party in India is facing and grappling with all the problems stated above, problems of the struggle for strengthening and carrying forward the country’s national independence in the direction of thoroughgoing changes in the political, economic and soeiaMife of the people which would enable them to take to the non-capitalist path of development on the road to socialism.