p In speaking of the social class nature of the Maoist concepts, which determine China’s current foreign policy, it must be noted that they reflect the views and sentiments of the petty bourgeoisie, which, as Lenin said, easily goes over to unstable and fruitless revolutionism but is unable to show tenacity, organisation, discipline and staunchness. Lenin’s words, "petty-bourgeois revolutionism—menacing, blustering and boastful in words, but a mere bubble of disunity, disruption and brainlessness in deeds”,  [227•*  apply fully to the stand adopted by the Mao group. The petty-bourgeois revolutionism of the Chinese leaders is closely linked with their bellicose nationalism, for the same socio-economic conditions that give rise to this sort of revolutionism allow nationalism to sink very deep roots.

p An idealistic simplification of the difficulties of the 228 struggle typifies the Mao group’s approach to international problems. The Chinese leaders are obviously unable to make an objective, scientific and sober analysis of the situation and ascertain what social forces can blaze the road to the future. Their blindness to reality leads them into subjective theories and to subjectivism in their assessment of developments.

p In qualifying subjectivism as a "crime against the working class”, Lenin particularly accentuated the following feature of the proponents of subjectivism: "At every step they try to pass off their desires, their ‘views’, their appraisals of the situation and their ‘plans’, as the will of the workers, the needs of the working-class movement.”  [228•*  These words aptly characterise the present Chinese leaders, who would have people believe that only their concepts and assessments of the international situation express the interests and will of all the revolutionary peoples in the world.

p Inevitably, this gives birth to a set of preconceived notions about world development. The Chinese leaders not only try to persuade others, above all the Chinese people, that these notions are correct and infallible, but in many cases are themselves trapped by their own schemes. They would give anything to steer historical development into a course that would bear out the notorious "thought of Mao Tse-tung”. They base their calculations on the idealistic conviction that basic contemporary problems can be solved "by will”, regardless of objective laws. Voluntarism and the hypertrophied role of subjective factors lie at the root of the blind faith in the magic force of revolutionary slogans irrespective of the real state of affairs, of the belief in the miraculous power of the "thought of Mao Tse-tung”, and of the insistence that "only by conforming to the thought of Mao Tse-tung is it possible to triumph and secure the liberation of the peoples of the world”.

p Mao Tse-tung’s foreign policy concepts are permeated with pragmatism and unscrupulousness, and mirror the aspiration to make ideological principles serve political ambitions. When the Maoists had to justify their withdrawal from the socialist community and their policy of turning China into a force hostile to socialist countries they produced the 229 “theory" that "capitalism was being restored" in the socialist countries, that the "dictatorship of the proletariat was degenerating into the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”. When in 1963-64 they went over to a policy of forming alliances with imperialist circles in capitalist countries they renovated their "intermediate zone" concept by dividing this zone into "two belts”. According to the new interpretation of this concept, it appears that the imperialist countries can wage an anti-imperialist struggle and therefore "have common interests with socialist states and with the peoples of all countries”.

p The practical foreign policy actions of the Maoists arcsharply at variance with their numerous anti-imperialist, arch-revolutionary statements. Peking’s Leftist verbiage and recipes are designed to win cheap popularity and the “glory” of being the most consistent revolutionaries. While calling upon the peoples to abolish colonialism solely by armed force, the Chinese politicians prescribe a different position for themselves: they avoid any demonstrations of force and prefer "to settle peacefully, by negotiations" the question of colonial possessions (Hongkong and Macao) on Chinese territory. While constantly demanding of the peoples of Asia a “determined”, "spear against spear" struggle with United States imperialism, Mao and his group have not the least intention to counter US aggression in Asia. This is what led Peking, in 1966, to a "tacit agreement" with Washington on non-aggression, implying that neither side would hinder the other in Southeast Asia. The Maoists’ attitude to the Vietnam question is an example of their policy, which is pseudo-revolutionary in form and anti-popular in substance, and shows their utter cowardice in face of US imperialism.

p fn the present world situation when the "utmost extension of the struggle against the policy and ideology of imperialism acquires particular importance”,  [229•*  when in its efforts to halt the wheel of history imperialism is using nationalistic and revisionist elements, the practice and concepts of the Maoists’ foreign policy are especially damaging and dangerous. In effect, the Maoists are helping imperialist propaganda in its slander against socialism, in its attempts to portray socialism 230 as a social system oriented on war as a means of achieving its aims.

p Despite the screen of “revolutionary” verbiage, the Maoists have, through their foreign policy activity, laid bare the antipopular, anti-revolutionary and anti-scientific nature of their concepts, which fundamentally contradict the objective laws of world development. All the attempts of the Maoists to analyse the alignment of forces in the world and to work out strategy and tactics for the world revolutionary movement have proved to be untenable. Life has rejected their policies and “theories”. The world’s revolutionary forces, which are waging a struggle against imperialism, have displayed maturity and in Peking’s foreign policy concepts and actions they have detected the egoism of the Chinese leaders, who set at nought the destiny of their own country, and their intention of sacrificing the interests of the Chinese and other peoples for the sake of their own mercenary aims. Peking’s isolation in the socialist community, the growing distrust of the Afro-Asian countries for Chinese policy and the sharp decline of China’s international prestige are the results of the Mao group’s adventurist, Great-Power policy on the international scene, and this is a tragedy for the Chinese people. The failures of the Maoists evoke no surprise. The reasons for these failures lie not only in the viciousness and untenability of the concepts on which Maoist policy rests but also in the impressive successes of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the achievements of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and other members of the socialist community which is winning increasing recognition among the peoples of the world. Whatever efforts the Maoists make, they cannot slow down, much less stop, the operation of the objective laws of social development. All the attempts of Mao and his supporters to implement their own “thought” only accelerate the exposure and bankruptcy of their anti-Marxist-Leninist, petty-bourgeois, adventurist policy with its Great-Power designs.

Mezhtliiiinroilnayri zhizn, No. 6. 19R8, pp. 60-72