p Marxists do not believe in magic and do not expect their decisions to work automatically. They hold that the accepted programme can be fulfilled if the experience and ideas of 214 the communist movement, as generalised in the documents of the Meeting, are adopted by all the Parties, win the minds and hearts of the working masses, become their fighting weapon and illumine the path for their revolutionary practical work. The main thing today, therefore, is to translate into practice the ideas proclaimed by the Meeting.

p The first steps taken by the fraternal Parties convincingly show that, with their customary efficiency and energy, Communists have started to propagate and implement these ideas. The Central Committees of many Parties have held plenary meetings and there have been functionary and general membership meetings. The documents of the Meeting are being widely popularised through oral and printed propaganda. At the CC CPSU plenum, convened immediately after the Meeting, there was a comprehensive discussion of the conclusions our Party should draw from the results of the Meeting and its documents for its future practical and theoretical work. Similar meetings were held by all Party organisations. The Central Committee is now working out concrete political, economic and ideological measures based on the results of the Meeting.

p The job now facing Communists is to bring home the ideas of the Meeting to millions, and work towards further elaboration and practical implementation of its main conclusions and aims.

p What do they concentrate on today? Along what lines will they work to carry out the tasks set in the documents of the Meeting?

p The first objective, we believe, is to work for a fresh upsurge of the anti-imperialist, revolutionary movement.

p The Meeting’s 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—contains important conclusions relating to thi tactics and strategy of the communist movement, and indicates the new reserves and possibilities of the revolutionary forces in the struggle against imperialism.

p The fraternal Parties have received a clear-cut programme of work among the working class, which is the main motive and mobilising force of the revolutionary struggle, and among peasants and progressive intellectuals. The great revolutionary potentialities of the youth have been fully revealed. The Meeting gave the fraternal Parties of Asian, 215 African and Latin American countries a platform for broadening the national liberation movement in the world revolutionary process.

p Important, too, is the Meeting’s special stress on the indivisibility of the struggle against imperialism, for peace, and the struggle for the ultimate goals of the working class, the struggle against capitalism as a social system, for the triumph of socialism and communism.

p These are Marxist, Leninist concepts. They help Communists in the struggle against imperialism, for MarxistLeninist unity, against Right and “Left” opportunism. The Document also contains many propositions addressed to all the anti-imperialist forces, thereby providing a platform of broad unity between Communists and other anti-imperialist forces.

p The second objective is that every Party should make full use of all its inner potentialities to fight for the interests of its people and, simultaneously, to fight for the common international cause.

p Communists have always been in the van of the fighters for the vital interests of the working people, heading the popular movements for peace, national independence, social progress, democracy and socialism. And now that the Meeting has highlighted the situation in which different contingents of the communist movement are working and revealed new possibilities for their struggle, success depends on the fraternal Parties’ ability to pursue a Marxist-Leninist policy, on the flexibility and manoeuvrability of their tactics, on their ability to broaden their ties with the masses and draw all strata of society into the anti-imperialist struggle.

p Naturally, in this work every Party proceeds from its own experience and takes into account the specific national features of its people’s life and struggle. However, in accomplishing concrete tasks in their own countries, the Communist and Workers’ Parties are fighting also for their general class interests on a world scale. Joint struggle against imperialism helps to reveal more clearly what policies and views are in the common interests of the communist movement, and which of them run counter to these interests and hinder or even harm the common cause.

p The nature and substance of communism are such that the communist movement is able to arrive at a correct solution of problems confronting each national contingent and 216 the movement as a whole without infringing on their independence. Proletarian internationalism and correctly understood national features and interests are inseparable from a Party’s responsibility and rights.

p The third objective is to heighten the theoretical activity of the Communist Parties and of the communist movement as a whole.

p The great Lenin taught Communists that without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement, that a Marxist must be the master of events and not vice versa. "The absence of theory,” he wrote, "deprives a revolutionary trend of the right to existence and inevitably condemns it, sooner or later, to political bankruptcy."  [216•1 

p We rely on the comprehensively developed MarxistLeninist teaching, which has been tested in the practice of revolutionary struggle and the building of socialism. But life is in constant flux. It poses new problems, confronts the revolutionary forces with more complex tasks, and requires theoretical interpretation of the changes taking place in the world. Finding answers to these new problems and providing a scientifically grounded perspective for our further advance call for the constant development of Marxism-Leninism.

p That is why we stand for the fullest generalisation of the theoretical work of the fraternal Parties. And in this respect, we believe, there is no overestimating the value of theoretical conferences and constructive discussions. If such discussions are properly organised, if they are oriented on concrete aims and tasks, and if the most qualified MarxistsLeninists take part in them, they will unquestionably advance Marxist theoretical thinking, and we need not be apprehensive about holding them.

p Naturally, they should be conducted in a Party spirit, with creative debate allowing everyone to state or uphold his views. The journal World Marxist Review could, in our opinion, be more active in sponsoring such Marxist theoretical discussions and conferences.

p Marxism-Leninism has been and remains the ideological platform of the Communist Parties. We shall be guided by one of the Meeting’s documents—the Address on the Centenary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In it, the Communists proclaim anew their fidelity to Leninism and stress 217 its international significance. The Address is a blow at Right and “Left” revisionism.

p Lastly, the Meeting’s action platform cannot be implemented without stepping up the struggle against imperialist ideology and opportunism in the working-class movement.

p Lenin enjoined us to overcome all resistance from the capitalists—not only military and political, but also ideological, which is the most powerful and far-reaching. Communists of all countries know they must conduct a determined offensive against bourgeois ideology and expose the manhating substance of imperialism.

p The enemy gives us no respite—he does not wait for us to resolve our differences and unite our efforts in the struggle against him. On the contrary, the rulers of the imperialist powers seek to use every difference in the communist movement to further their own ends. They have set themselves the adventurist aim of carrying the war of ideas into the socialist countries and the communist movement. They are disseminating the spurious theory of a "humane socialism" —a cover-slogan for attempts to undermine the foundations of the socialist system from within—the theory of " convergence" of capitalism and socialism, of “degeneration” of the Communist Parties, and so on. In the capitalist countries anti-communism has been given the status of state policy. Hence, the most active fight against anti-communism is one of the conditions for the successful development of the world revolutionary process.

p Marxists-Leninists have always consistently fought deviations from our revolutionary teaching, namely, Right and “Left” opportunism, bourgeois distortions of our Marxist-Leninist theory under the guise of “rejuvenating” it, and hidebound dogmatism. They have never retreated one iota from their scientific principles, nor will they ever do so.

p The history of the communist movement teaches that the struggle against opportunism is especially sharp during revolutionary upsurges. Furthermore, it shows that whenever and wherever contingents of the revolutionary movement failed to smash opportunism, they inevitably suffered defeat. These are lessons of history we cannot afford to forget.

p For all their distinctions, these deviations from MarxismLeninism, whether Right or “Left”, make the Communist Parties less fighting fit and undermine the revolutionary 218 positions of the working class and the unity of the antiimperialist forces. Revisionism is doubly dangerous because, in some cases, it coalesces with bourgeois nationalism.

p Of course, the struggle against opportunism is primarily a matter for the Party concerned. But it is also true that it affects the interests of the entire communist movement, for if the struggle is neglected, it is bound adversely to affect our movement as a whole and will undermine its class positions.

p In upholding the purity of Marxism-Leninism we aim at genuine unity and at strengthening the international communist movement. At the same time, we feel that there should be a differentiated approach in the ideological struggle. It is one thing when this struggle is directed against the class enemy, against imperialism, and another when it is a struggle of ideas within the communist movement, a struggle with those who, though sometimes expressing erroneous views, remain our allies. In the latter case it is not only a struggle against erroneous and harmful views, but above all a struggle to win back to correct positions our comrades in the movement, even if they temporarily labour under delusions. Here comradely, friendly polemics, even restraint, can prove useful. Thus, the question of the forms and methods of ideological struggle now acquires fundamental importance.

A creative approach to problems posed by life is the guarantee of further triumphs of Marxism-Leninism over opportunism. We can proudly say that at no time in human history has a political movement and ideological trend played such a tremendous transformative role as the international communist and working-class movement. In the face of incredible difficulties it led the peoples of many countries on to the high road of socialist development and moulded a new world outlook and a code of morals and habits that have been adopted by tens and hundreds of millions of people. Today the entire diversity and wealth of modern society’s progress and its political and cultural life are inconceivable without the growing influence of the communist movement. The future of mankind in this last third of the twentieth century depends largely on the strength and might of our movement, on united action of the Communist and Workers’ Parties.