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p The new stage of the modern epoch has opened for the working class and all mankind new possibilities in the struggle for peace, national liberation and socialism. The social basis of the revolutionary movement has grown larger. Conditions have arisen favourable to more or less painless 86 forms of transition from capitalism to socialism. However, none of this can, in itself, lead to the victory of the revolution. These are only the objective conditions for socialist transformations that can only be accomplished through the operation of the subjective factor, of the class-conscious vanguard of the revolutionary masses. This vanguard consists of the Communist and Workers’ parties.

p “The historical experience of many countries, the experience of the class struggle,” L. I. Brezhnev told the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, “has given convincing evidence of how necessary the activity of the Communist parties is for mankind and how fruitful this activity is for social development. Guided by MarxistLeninist theory, the Communist parties show the peoples the road to the communist future. They rally the peoples to the struggle and steadfastly march in the van of the mass movements for the great goals of social progress. Communists are always in the front rank of the fighters for the vital rights of the working people, for peace. They carry high the invincible banner of the socialist revolution.”  [86•* 

p The communist movement is a powerful political movement, a force without which the proletariat and all other working people cannot successfully fight for their interests and aims.

p The first organisations of the working class were set up, above all, to champion its economic rights. However, the economic struggle could not substantially change the condition of the toiler. More and more advanced workers, therefore, came round to the thought that it was necessary to wage a political struggle against capitalism and change the alignment of forces in society. The experience of the class struggle showed the proletariat that it could achieve its aims only with the aid of a revolutionary political organisation. In the resolution of the London Conference of Delegates of the International Working Men’s Association (1871), written by Marx and Engels, it is stated: “...against this collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act as a class except by constituting itself into a political party distinct from and opposed to all old parties formed by the propertied classes ... this constitution of the working class into a political 87 party is indispensable for ensuring the triumph of the Social Revolution and its ultimate end—the abolition of classes.”  [87•*  Enlarging on the conclusions of the founders of Marxism, Lenin wrote: “In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation. Disunited by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois world, ground down by forced labour for capital, constantly thrust back to the ’lower depths’ of utter destitution, savagery and degeneration, the proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism being reinforced by the material unity of organisation, which welds millions of toilers into an army of the working class.”  [87•** 

p Lenin evolved an all-embracing teaching of the party of the proletariat as the proletariat’s principal ideological and political weapon in the struggle for power, for socialism and communism. He regarded the party of the proletariat as the force showing the true road of struggle and victory. Under Lenin’s leadership, only 15 years after its formation and passing through only two victorious revolutionary rehearsals of mass action by the working class and the toiling peasants, the Bolshevik Party, which gave the world the model for a political party of the proletariat, led the peoples of a huge country like Russia to the triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution that ushered in a new era, the era of transition from capitalism to socialism.

p Lenin and the Bolsheviks repelled all the attempts to turn the party into a debating club, into a conglomerate of factions and groups. They held that monolithic unity and intolerance of actions aimed at undermining this unity and weakening its iron discipline were the decisive conditions for the party’s strength.

p The Bolshevik Party was founded, grew and developed as a party of genuine proletarian internationalists. It is profoundly internationalist for its ideology, organisation and activity. With a membership representing the proletariat of a multinational country, the Bolshevik Party has, ever since its foundation, been an inalienable part of a single whole, a militant 88 contingent of the international communist movement. “The establishment of the Bolshevik Party marked the beginning of a new stage in the Russian and international working-class movement. For the first time, the proletariat received an organisation capable of successfully guiding its struggle for social emancipation in the new historical conditions.”  [88•* 

p In the course of history there have been many parties which had called themselves workers’, socialist, advanced, progressive and so forth. However, most of their slogans, even the finest of them, remained a dead letter. Without accepting the revolutionary, Marxist world outlook these parties were unable to break out of the vicious circle of petty-bourgeois notions of the laws of social development and of the place of the working class in modern history. Guided by MarxistLeninist theory and maintaining close ties with the people, the Marxist-Leninist parties, which are parties of a new type, have been and remain the only political organisations successfully fulfilling the functions of fighters leading the masses forward.

p Let us recall the history of the working-class movement in Russia. There were many of the most diverse parties, from “people’s" to “labour”, and all sought to win the people. But the people accepted only one party, the Communist Party, and placed the administration of the country and their destiny into its hands. In the other socialist countries, too, experience showed the people that the Communist parties were the only consistent fighters for their interests, and therefore even with the existence of many parties the working masses gave their support to and sided mainly with the Communists. The people themselves placed the Communists in power in the socialist countries, denying their trust and support to the other parties which refused to acknowledge the leading role of the Communist parties.

p The whole history of the modern communist movement is evidence of that movement’s growing influence among the working masses. In some capitalist countries the Communist parties enjoy very high authority and the support of a considerable section of the working class.

p Furthermore, the growing influence of the Communist parties is evidence of the shrinking positions of the Social- 89 Democratic parties in the working class. In October 1917 the number of Communists in the world hardly exceeded 400,000. At the time the Social-Democratic parties had a total of over 3 million members. In 1928 there were 1,600,000 Communists and 6,500,000 Social-Democrats. Today there are 50 million Communists and 17 million Social-Democrats.

p Other indicators are similarly significant. In the course of half a century the Communists have come to power in 14 countries with an aggregate population of over 1,000 millions. Today the Social-Democrats govern only two European countries—Austria and Sweden. In some European countries they participate in coalition governments. At the beginning of 1970, according to official data of the Socialist International, there were Social-Democrats in the governments of Britain, Belgium, West Berlin, Israel, Iceland, Mauritius, Madagascar, San Marino, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Federal Republic of Germany and Finland.  [89•* 

p One cannot, of course, deny that reforms and measures improving the life of the people and extending their rights have been carried out in some countries on the initiative and through the pressure of Social-Democrats. However, in the period that they have been in power the Social-Democrats have not so much as shaken the positions of capitalism, to say nothing of abolishing it. More than that, during sharp class collisions the Right-wing leaders of the Social-Democratic parties have openly sided with the capitalists and faithfully protected them.

p Social-Democracy promised to lead the working people to socialism by an easy road—without social upheavals, without revolution, by winning the majority in parliaments. However, the policy pursued by the Social-Democrats in practice has led them far away from socialist objectives. On basic ideological issues the leaders of present-day Social-Democracy are much farther on the Right than Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky had been.

p The policies followed by Right-wing Social-Democracy doom it to the role of servitor of a decaying system and weaken its influence on the course of the social struggle.

p The communist movement, which follows the path of 90 revolutionary struggle, has become the most influential force of modern times. This is expressed by the fact that:

p —The Communists have translated socialist theory into practice. Today they are more than an opposition force demolishing outworn practices. They have proved that they can successfully administer society and build socialism. Holding high the banner of Marxism-Leninism, the Communist parties of the socialist countries have made colossal headway in promoting economic, scientific and cultural development and creating new forms of genuine popular rule. Indeed, it is difficult to overrate the significance of this activity, which provides the prototype of mankind’s future.

p —The Communists are in the van of the struggle of the working people in the capitalist countries. The multiform reality of these countries bears out the Communist parties’ assessment of capitalist society and shows that the Communists are marking out and steadfastly leading the working masses along the correct path. In many countries the Communist parties have been conspicuously successful in rallying the working people round anti-monopoly programmes and are playing a larger role as the militant vanguard of the working class.

p —The Communists influence the orientation and ways of the national liberation movement. The struggle waged by them makes it possible to effect consistently democratic reforms, promote and consolidate national independence and fight neocolonialism. They champion the freedom, national independence and socialist future of their peoples. In young states where the Communist parties have not yet gathered sufficient strength, communist policy influences the course of the national liberation movement through the impact of world socialism.

p The role being played by the Communist parties throughout the world is rapidly growing by virtue of the fact that the tasks of the present revolutionary epoch can only be carried out by parties that know the ways and laws of the revolutionary struggle and are capable of carrying that struggle through to victory. It is only the Communist parties who are able to give a scientific analysis of the many-faceted phenomena and processes of the contemporary period, apply the results of this analysis to life correctly and lead the peoples to the triumph of socialism and communism.

p The strength and viability of the communist movement 91 have been further demonstrated by the June 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow. This Meeting was convened to reinforce the unity of the world communist movement in the struggle against imperialism, give a Marxist-Leninist answer to many new phenomena deriving from the rapidly developing political and economic processes and the scientific and technological revolution, start a determined struggle against resurgent Right and “Left” opportunism, raise a barrier to centrifugal tendencies in the communist movement and cement its ranks.

p Many difficulties came to the fore during the preparations for the Meeting. However, as a result of the colossal political, theoretical and organisational work of the CPSU and other Marxist-Leninist parties, the numerous consultations between representatives of the fraternal parties, the efforts of the preparatory and working commissions and the overall striving of most of the fraternal parties for unity, it was found possible to discuss the general tasks of the communist movement in a businesslike atmosphere, bring the positions of individual parties closer together and unite them round the fundamental theoretical and political problems examined at the Meeting.

p History has placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the Communists.

p In the socialist countries they lead the way, direct the building of a new society, guide the building of a developed socialist society or accomplish the transition to communism on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory creatively developed by them and with account of the scientific and technological revolution, in other words, they provide the scientific leadership in the building of socialism and communism. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that in some socialist countries they still have to deal with furious, unremitting attacks by forces left behind by the old, capitalist system and also with enormous economic, military, ideological and other pressure from monopoly capital in the USA and other imperialist countries.

p In the capitalist states the communist movement encounters mounting resistance from the bourgeoisie, and the work of the Communist parties grows increasingly manifold due to the fact that millions of people representing various social strata are being drawn into active politics. In about half of the capitalist countries the Communist parties function 92 illegally or semi-legally. Economic and political discrimination, prison, hard labour and, frequently, assassination have been and remain the lot of the Communists in many capitalist countries. Thousands of Communists and other democrats and revolutionaries have fallen victim to the bloody repressions and terror in Indonesia, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Iraq, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Panama, Paraguay, Guatemala, South Africa, Thailand, Haiti, Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, the Philippines and many other countries. Even in the most democratic capitalist states the Communists are subjected to various forms of discrimination. The secret police keep the activities of the Communist parties under surveillance and keep special files on Communists and other progressive activists.

p In recent years the membership of a number of parties has somewhat diminished on account of brutal persecution and also errors. Some parties have been smashed, for instance, the Communist Party of Indonesia. Enormous damage is inflicted on the communist movement by the different splinter groups directed and supported by the Chinese extremists. Revisionism, which has infected some parties, is weakening the communist movement.

p However, surmounting the numerous obstacles, the communist movement is advancing inexorably. In the socialist countries the Communists are the leading force in society. They organise the historical work of reshaping social relations, work that has turned the socialist community into the decisive force of modern history. There are tens of millions of Communists in the socialist countries. The ruling Communist parties which pursue a Marxist-Leninist policy enjoy growing prestige.

p The parties fighting imperialism in its citadels have become a strong contingent of the communist movement. The largest of these parties in the capitalist countries are the Communist Parties of France, Italy, Chile, India, Spain, Finland and Japan. The smaller parties are also contributing to the common cause. The Communist parties are active in the struggle against monopoly rule, for the social and democratic rights of the working people, and against imperialist foreign policy. The Communists of the capitalist countries never lose sight of the end goal of the working class and steer a line towards the socialist revolution.

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p The fact that the Communist parties are guided by firmset norms and general laws, which they creatively apply in the specific conditions obtaining in individual countries, is the reason for the successes scored by them and the guarantee of further victories. What are these general laws?

p The Communist parties are the advanced, organised vanguard and leader of the working class and all other working people. Without their leadership the peoples could not wage a successful struggle for social rights and for power and could not build socialism. They head the masses and rely on various organisations—trade unions, youth organisations and so on. Under socialism there may be several parties, but the leading role is fulfilled by only one party—the MarxistLeninist party, which directs the development of socialist society. However, the Communist parties remain true to the Leninist postulate that the leading role is not bestowed upon them once and for all, that this role must be constantly won and maintained by furthering the interests of the people.

p An important law is that the Communist and Workers’ parties are a great creative and patriotic force in their countries. The critics of the Communist parties have frequently accused them of “destroying” the economy and the political foundations of the given country and of lacking patriotism. At one time a great deal had been written and said about the Bolsheviks of Russia being incapable of creative activity and having no patriotic feelings for their country. But life has given the lie to these critics and shown that all the Russian parties from the monarchists to the Mensheviks, who shouted of their love of Russia, were her sworn enemies, not her champions, and that they represented the interests not of the working people but of the capitalists, landowners and foreign imperialists. The CPSU was the only party that came forward as a genuinely creative and patriotic force. The same may be said of the Communist parties of other socialist countries and of the Communists of the capitalist states. It is they who are the real patriots and who fight most consistently for progress and the development of their natiqns and countries.

p The cardinal law governing the life of the Communist parties is their fidelity to Marxism-Leninism. MarxistLeninist theory enables the parties profoundly to analyse and understand the domestic and international situation, map out, in accordance with concrete conditions, the most 94 correct decisions satisfying the demands of the day and the requirements of the masses, and determine the future course of events. Marxism-Leninism is a powerful instrument in the hands of the parties. The Communists safeguard the purity of their great teaching, develop and enrich it in accordance with the changing situation and link it up with the practice of the revolutionary struggle and their own creative work.

p One of the principal laws of the development of the Communist and Workers’ parties is that they represent the alliance of like-minded Communists, who are cemented by their unity of views and action, their rigid self-control and iron discipline and their intolerance of deviations and groups within their ranks. The unity of the Communist parties is the key condition for the success of their work. They see the guarantee of this unity, above all, in further cohesion on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and in the strict observance of the principle of democratic centralism. In a speech in 1930 Sergei Kirov pointed out that “in the life, work and revolutionary struggle of the Bolshevik Party organisational questions continue, as they have always done, to play a colossal role”.  [94•*  The demand for party unity, formulated by Lenin and adopted by the 10th Congress of the RCP(B), is a paramount precept of Leninism.

p Another law of the Communist and Workers’ parties is that they are a living and active organism governed by definite laws of development. These laws include the successiveness of the general line, a constant analysis of the party’s own activities, criticism and self-criticism, collective leadership and continual improvement of the party’s structure and of all its work.

p The forms and content of the party’s activities are not unchangeable. They are modified and developed at different stages and under different conditions. The party reorganises its ranks flexibly and skilfully. However, the fundamental principles remain immutable. Therein lies the party’s great strength, viability and unconquerable might. In its work the party draws on experience, takes from the past everything progressive and positive, is not afraid to discard what has 95 grown obsolete and analyses its work critically and profoundly.

p An important law of the Communist and Workers’ parties is that proletarian internationalism has been and remains the guideline of their theory and practice. They intimately combine the interests of their country with the interests of the working people of all countries and of the entire international communist movement. This is fundamental for all parties. “For us Communists,” Waldeck Rochet writes, “the strains of the Marseillaise and of the Internationale fuse into one, and we hold the tricolour of the nation aloft alongside the red banner of struggle of the workers.”  [95•* 

p The history of the communist movement has shown how important it is for the Communist parties to abide strictly by the laws of their development. Attempts to establish non-Marxist-Leninist principles of the life and work of the communist movement weaken the parties, lead to serious setbacks and threaten the parties with degeneration.

p That is why the enemies of the Communist parties are so eager to secure transgressions of the general laws governing party life and activity and to this end they turn Right and “Left” opportunism to account. They make use of the Chinese extremists, too, who are doing much to split the communist movement. The 1969 International Meeting, at which representatives of 62 fraternal parties emphatically denounced the Chinese stand, clearly showed the harm that the Peking splitters are inflicting on the communist movement. In fact, they are saboteurs who are trying to undermine the communist camp from within. The enemy lauds the Rights and the “Lefts” not because he likes them ( particularly the “Lefts”) but because they are hitting the communist movement.  [95•** 

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p Particularly indicative in recent years was the example of Czechoslovakia, where the enemies of socialism—both external and internal—made their main assault upon the Communist Party in an effort to remove it from the leadership of the country’s socialist development.

p First an attempt was made to divest the party of its advanced, vanguard role. This was started under a slogan calling for the demolition of the existing political system as being allegedly at variance with society’s requirements during the period of the economic reform. Another thesis envisaged turning the party into an element of the political system which would include opposition parties, a Rightwing Social-Democratic Party among them. In cases where the would-be reformers of the socialist system in Czechoslovakia found it necessary to mention the leading role of the Communist Party they limited its activity to the ideological and political sphere, rejecting the need for its organisational leadership.

p The revisionists cast slurs on the party’s constructive and patriotic role. They assiduously sought to make people believe that for Czechoslovakia socialism was a period of nothing but mistakes and setbacks. They accused the Communist Party of subordinating the interests of the nation “to the interests of the Soviet Union”, deliberately misrepresenting the substance of the economic and political relations between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Demagogically using so-called non-partisanship as a screen, they demanded the transfer of power to non-party people, whom they described as people with “unsullied hands”, but who, in fact, were enemies of socialism insisting on Czechoslovakia’s breakaway from the socialist camp.

p A concentrated attack was made also on Marxism- Leninism, the party’s theoretical foundation. An attempt was made to effect a sweeping revision of the key tenets of Marxism, its philosophical and economic teaching and the fundamentals of socialist theory. Leninism was subjected to a particularly ferocious attack on the pretext that it is a purely 97 Russian phenomenon. The history, strategy and tactics of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia were revised. The Leninist principles underlying the build-up and functioning of the Marxist-Leninist Party and of its leadership of socialist construction were denigrated and rejected.

p The party’s enemies went to all lengths to dismantle it as an alliance of like-minded people and turn it into a debating club. The principle of democratic centralism was savagely attacked. New party Rules were drafted in which the party’s ability to function was undermined on the pretext of defending the rights of the minority.

p The opportunists sought to paralyse the party as an active organism and compel it to renounce its general line for an “action programme" signifying a departure from many of the fundamental provisions of party policy. They pressed for an extraordinary congress in order to give embodiment to the party’s degeneration into opportunism. Hypocritically distorting the principles of criticism and selfcriticism, the mass media controlled by the opportunists gave a biased, one-sided picture of the situation in the party. The Right-wing forces set up closed groups oriented on opportunist and nationalistic elements for whom demagogy and blackmail were a standard practice.

p Lastly, the reactionaries demanded the renunciation of internationalism in favour of petty-bourgeois nationalism and whipped up chauvinistic passions. They did their utmost to misrepresent the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

p At the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in September 1969, First Secretary of the CC Gustav Husak noted that “by their propaganda the Right opportunists in the party called in question such principles of our Marxist-Leninist teaching as the Leninist norms of the party’s organisation and life, the implementation of the party’s leading role in society, its political leadership, the internationalist character of the party and its international relations, and some basic issues concerning the economy, the socialist state and so on. From petty-bourgeois, Social-Democratic and even anarchist positions they criticised and denounced the theoretical and practical experience of the world communist movement and our own party, and used the mass media to drum these views 98 into the minds of people and party members under the demagogic slogans of abstract freedom, democracy, humanism and so forth.”  [98•* 

p At the 24th Congress of the CPSU Gustav Husak said that “the deviation from fundamental Leninist principles, from the general laws of socialist construction was the cardinal reason for the crisis development and cumulative offensive of the counter-revolutionary forces in Czechoslovakia in 1968”. The reasons behind the events in the CPC and Czechoslovakia are comprehensively analysed in a document headed “Lessons of the Crisis Development in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and in Czechoslovak Society After the 13th Congress of the CPC" adopted by the CC at its plenary meeting in December 1970 and approved by the party.

p Such are the lessons not only of Czechoslovakia but also of the experience of Hungary in 1956, when the flouting of the laws of party life seriously harmed the party. The leaders of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party stress that that crisis was precipitated in the party by flagrant violations of the principles of the proletarian dictatorship and the teaching of the party, above all, democratic centralism. The fact that errors of this kind lead to grave consequences is shown by the experience of other socialist countries, for instance, Poland, where difficulties sprang up in December 1970 for a number of reasons, one of which was the disruption of the party’s ties with the working class, with the working masses. At the 24th Congress of the CPSU Edward Gierek, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, stressed that in Poland they were “surmounting these difficulties thanks to the support of our working class, which is deeply linked with socialism, thanks to our party’s internal strength, and thanks to the assistance of all our friends”.

p The practice of the communist movement in the capitalist countries, too, shows that in the activities of the Communist parties it is essential to apply the Leninist norms unswervingly. A wrong understanding of the role played by the party in the political struggle has always been damaging to the communist movement. In recent years the 99 attempts to spread the concept of “democratic pluralism”, i.e., of a large number of equal political parties, has had a particularly harmful effect on the activities of the Communists. This concept belittles the role of the Communist party and calls for the abandonment of the struggle for the leadership of social development.  [99•* 

p The current stage of the revolutionary movement sets the Communist parties immense problems. The ways and means of solving these problems have been clearly defined by the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. One of the prime conditions is that the communist movement must cement its ranks. “The existing situation demands united action of Communists and all other anti-imperialist forces so that maximum use may be made of the mounting possibilities for a broader offensive against imperialism, against the forces of reaction and war.”  [99•** 

p The 1969 Meeting charted the tasks of all the contingents of the communist movement at the contemporary stage of the revolutionary struggle.

p It delineated the specifics of the work of the Communist and Workers’ parties of the socialist countries. The principal task of these parties is to make considerably fuller use of the vast potentialities of the socialist system. Socialism provides all the possibilities for bringing the economic and political patterns into line with the requirements of mature socialist society and securing a further upsurge of science and culture and of the standard of living. The consolidation of socialism strengthens its positions in the global struggle against imperialism. The Communists of the socialist countries strive to promote all-round co-operation between 100 their countries, ensure further successes in the decisive sectors of the economic competition between the two systems, facilitate progress in science and technology, strengthen the unity of the socialist states as the principal guarantee of peace, and secure social progress and further revolutionary changes in modern society. They are rendering increasing assistance to peoples fighting for freedom, independence, peace and international security.

p With the class, battles unfolding more actively and on a growing scale in the developed capitalist countries, the Communists are waging a struggle for economic and social demands and for advanced democracy. They regard this struggle as part of the struggle for socialism.

p In the present situation the need for working-class unity is growing increasingly more obvious. The attainment of this goal is favoured by the mounting crisis of reformist concepts and by the differentiation among Social-Democrats, including their leadership. In the Document of the 1969 Meeting it is underscored that “Communists, who attribute decisive importance to working-class unity, are in favour of co-operation with the Socialists and Social-Democrats to establish an advanced democratic regime today and to build a socialist society in the future. They will do everything they can to carry out this co-operation”.  [100•*  It is imperative, however, that the forces siding with socialism should make a resolute break with the policy of class co-operation with the bourgeoisie and fight effectively for peace, democracy and socialism.

p In the Asian and African countries the Communists are concentrating on achieving a further activation of the masses, enhancing the role of the proletariat and the peasantry, uniting all patriotic, progressive and democratic forces and establishing co-operation with them, because this is the only foundation on which the task of national and social development can be carried out. In Latin America the Communists are working to set up broad democratic associations fighting for important economic and political aims: the overthrow of dictatorial regimes, the democratisation of social life, the implementation of agrarian reforms and the curbing of the aggressiveness of imperialism and internal reaction.

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p Many difficulties have been encountered by the international communist movement in recent years. These difficulties have been searchingly analysed by the 1969 Meeting, which indicated realistic ways of surmounting them, showed that the international working class had common ultimate aims and interests and spelled out the ways and means of attaining both national and international objectives. The development of the communist movement since the Meeting shows that the Communists of different countries are working to ensure the unity of their ranks on a world scale.

p The present immense expansion of the front of the revolutionary struggle is bringing into that struggle new contingents of working people representing different political trends and orientations. This accentuates the importance of united action on the part of the different anti-monopoly groups and revolutionary-democratic parties. Unity has been in many ways promoted by the 1969 Meeting’s appeal to all organisations representing workers, peasants, office employees and intellectuals, to all democratic parties, to national and international progressive public organisations to join forces with the Communist parties in the struggle against imperialism. The progressive movements are utilising every possibility for joint anti-imperialist action. This requires an enhancement of the ideological and political role played by the Marxist-Leninist parties in the world revolutionary process. The Communists, who are in the front ranks of the revolutionary, liberation and democratic movements, are determined to continue their unremitting struggle against bourgeois ideology, to show the working people the significance of their struggle and the conditions for victory, propagate the ideals of scientific socialism in the working-class movement and among the broad masses, including young people, uphold their principles undeviatingly, work for the triumph of Marxism-Leninism and, in accordance with the concrete situation, expose Right- and Left-opportunist distortions of theory and policy, and fight revisionism, dogmatism and Left-sectarian adventurism.

In our epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism the communist movement unites all torrents of the world revolution.