p Marxism-Leninism is a great international theory, the ideological basis of the international communist movement. The international essence of Marxism-Leninism rests on the sound objective basis of the common condition of the workers in capitalist society as an object of exploitation, the community of class interests of all workers, regardless of nationality, their common scientific outlook, which reflects 154 their fundamental interests, their common ultimate aim in the struggle, which is to build communism, and the general features and laws of the socialist revolution and socialist construction, deduced and generalised by the international communist movement on the basis of the experience of worldwide revolutionary struggle.

p The attempts to revise the ideas of proletarian internationalism reflect the basic contradiction of present-day world development, the struggle between the growing and strengthening world socialist system, on the one hand, and the capitalist system, which has outlived its historical day, on the other. The close cohesion and co-operation of the socialist countries are of the utmost importance not only for socialist and communist construction in these countries, but for social progress throughout the world.

p However, this unprecedented process of formation of. the new, multinational, communist socio-economic formation runs on the basis of overcoming various difficulties. The Theses of the CPSU Central Committee for the 50th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution say: “The formation of international relations of a new type is a complex and manifold process linked with overcoming the grim heritage left by the age-long rule of the exploiting classes—national exclusiveness, strife and mistrust. The differences in the levels of economic and social development, class structure, historical and cultural traditions inherited from the past give rise to objective difficulties in the fulfilment of such essential tasks as the establishment of comprehensive cooperation and the organisation of a system of socialist international division of labour.”  [154•1 

p As the world socialist system and the international communist movement develops, with ever greater masses of men being drawn into this movement, and this in countries with a relatively small working class, there naturally increases the possibility of elements of the petty-bourgeois outlook being brought into the ranks of the Communist Parties, and this now and again leads to deviations from the theory of Marxism-Leninism and the principles of socialist construction. The ideological enemies of socialism are quick to speculate on these difficulties^md mistakes, seeking to falsify the 155 true nature of these phenomena, and spreading the new antiMarxist myth about Marxism-Leninism “disintegrating” or acquiring the character of “pluralism”.

p Great play is made with this new anti-Marxist version in every “solid” anti-Marxist work published in the USA or Western Europe in recent years. Take the collective work, Marxism in the Modern World, which I have already mentioned.  [155•1  It is a collection of speeches at a conference attended by 35 American and West European scientists, including such “authorities” of present-day anti-Marxism as R. Aron, B. Wolfe, R. Lowenthal, B. Souvarine, A. Ulam, and others. We find the same ideas in a book by Professor of Political Science, Bernard S. Morris of the University of Indiana.  [155•2 

p In these, as in many other studies, loud conclusions are being drawn about the “disintegration of the doctrine of world communism”, about an alleged end of the era of coherent communist ideology, and a united international Marxist-Leninist doctrine; it is asserted that on the basis of “pluralistic communism” there have arisen “polycentrist forms” of Marxism, in which “nationalism has gained the upper hand over internationalism”. All these conclusions likewise rest on falsification, that is, on a view of presentday phenomena which basically twist their substance.

p First of all, it is hardly justified to present any deviations from, or distortions of, Marxism, as new “national forms” of Marxism.

p For instance, can Maoism be seen as a “new form of Marxism”? Of course, not. The petty-bourgeois and nationalistic revision of Marxism-Leninism in China is a departure from Marxism-Leninism and clashes with the principles of the proletarian internationalism and the fundamental laws of socialist construction. The line adopted by Mao Tse-tung’s followers is a blend of petty-bourgeois adventurism and great-power chauvinism, covered up with Leftist catchwords. By implementing this line, Mao’s followers have taken the path of undermining the unity of the socialist community and the world communist movement. This line is doing a great service to imperialist reaction. Maoism, a variant of 156 petty-bourgeois ideology, is not a coherent theory, but an eclectic mixture of views hostile to Marxism-Leninism, which are adapted to nationalistic and chauvinistic plans.

p Alongside Marxist terminology, and elements of dogmatism and Leftist Ultra-revolutionary catchwords Maoism will be found to be influenced by the most diverse petty-bourgeois trends: Utopian socialism (clearly expressed egalitarian, equalising tendencies, including the extolling of universal equalisation), anarchism (the apology of violence and destruction, and the absence of the constructive creative principle), Trotskyite conceptions (the stake on artificially whipping up history, executing leaps and permanent revolution), Narodism (exaggeration of the role of the peasantry in transforming the old society), and age-old traditions of Confucian ideology with its cult of the supreme ruler and its claim on exclusiveness for all things Chinese.

p This eclectic platform is based on a rejection of dialectical materialism and its substitution by voluntarism, subjectivism, pragmatism and metaphysics.

p Mao Tse-tung’s line, both in its practical and its theoretical forms, is a source of profound concern and alarm within the world communist movement. This line runs counter to Marxism-Leninism and to the interests of the great Chinese people itself. L. I. Brezhnev observed: “The Soviet people will give a resolute rebuff to the great-power, antiSoviet policy being conducted by this group, a policy which has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism. But at the same time we want to emphasise once again that our Party does not and will not carry on any struggle either against the Chinese people or against the Communist Party of China.”  [156•1 

p The departure from Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and from the basic laws of socialist construction cannot but create a serious threat to a country’s socialist gains. A Party’s erroneous line may markedly slo\V down the operation of the objective laws underlying the development of socialism. That is why all those who cherish the cause of socialism and proletarian internationalism are deeply agitated over the state of affairs in China. The injury being done to the cause of socialism by Mao Tse-tung’s policy is undoubtedly considerable. However, the 157 overwhelming majority of the Communist and Workers’ Parties are taking effective measures for the purpose of strengthening the cohesion of the communist movement, and there is no doubt, that despite all difficulties the cause of proletarian internationalism will win out.

p Now and again, bourgeois ideologists try to back up their claim that Marxism-Leninism is “disintegrating”, a claim directed against the internationalist essence of the MarxistLeninist doctrine, with the idea that Marx had allegedly belonged only to the West, while Lenin and Leninism allegedly represent the product of “Russian backwardness” or specific conditions. This line of fighting the internationalist substance of Leninism is closely connected with the attempt to deny the international experience of the October Revolution, and both echo the old assertions by the reformist theories about allegedly local, and narrowly national character of Leninism (Adler, Kautsky, Sukhanov, etc.), although presentday bourgeois ideologists have refurbished their arguments now and again.

p Some bourgeois “Marxologists”, like the Jesuit philosopher, Professor of Freiburg University, Bochenski, have suggested that Leninism (that is, the Marxism of the present epoch) is “purely Russian” because it is a product of Russian culture, constituting a “cultural sphere which is alien to Western Europeans”.  [157•1 

p At the basis of this “cultural sphere” lies the “Russian soul”, one of whose main features is that the Russian intelligentsia allegedly rejects “all the spiritual values” of the West.

p However, every person who can read and write knows that these inventions are completely at variance with the wellknown historical facts, testifying to the extensive and systematic cultural ties between the USSR and other countries of the West and the East.

p Of course, the idea is to try to deny the international importance of Leninism, to separate Lenin and Leninism from Marxism, and to present Leninism as being narrowly national, so as to split up the coherent international communist ideology into national segments, and to disrupt the continuity between the international Leninist stage in the 158 creative development of Marx’s theory and the international teaching of the founders of Marxism.

p The fact is that neither Leninism is exclusively “Russian”, nor Marxism specifically “European”.

p “The international character of Leninism is determined by the following circumstances of its origination and development.

p “First, for a number of historical reasons Russia at the turn of the century found herself to be the central point of all the principal contradictions of the world imperialist system, and the October Revolution became the starting line and pivot of the present-day revolutionary process....

p “Second, the international character of Leninism is determined by the many-faceted experience of the October Revolution itself, and also of the experience of socialist construction in the USSR which followed upon its victory.

p “Third, in virtue of Russia’s situation in between the advanced capitalist countries of the West and the colonial, semi-colonial and dependent countries of the East, the working-class movement in Russia inevitably merged with the West European revolutionary working-class movement, on the one hand, and with the national liberation movement of the colonial peoples, on the other. Leninism summed up experience on a world-historical scale.

p “Fourth, Leninism did not originate in a vacuum, but on the sound basis of Marxism.”  [158•1 

p As a result of the further development and enrichment of Marxism, on the basis of its fundamental principles, Leninism has quite naturally become the great internationalist ideological and theoretical basis of the present-day communist movement.

Leninism is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, the epoch of the collapse of colonialism and the victory of the national liberation movement, the epoch of mankind’s transition from capitalism to socialism and the construction of a communist society. The Appeal of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties “Centenary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” says: “All the experience of world socialism and of the working-class and national liberation movements has 159 confirmed the world significance of Marxist-Leninist teaching. The victory of the socialist revolution in a group of countries, the emergence of the world socialist system, the gains of the working-class movement in capitalist countries, the appearance of peoples of former colonial and semicolonial countries in the arena of socio-political development as independent agents, and the unprecedented upsurge of the struggle against imperialism—all this is proof that Leninism is historically correct and expresses the fundamental needs of the modern age.”  [159•1