p We thank again the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for organising this seminar.

p The first point I want to point out is certainly that the presentations have confirmed that there is unanimity among us on a lot of topics. And on the other side it is also clear that there are divisions of opinion regarding a lot of questions. I think that this confirms the necessity of the unity of the Communist movement. A lot of divergences may just be the result of misunderstandings, of lack of information about each others’ experiences and each others’ analyses and certainly it would need a long time before we can explain to each other from where different points of view are coming and on what basis they were developed. So I really will not comment about the opinions of the comrades. I will take them into account seriously and will study all of them.

p A second point, I would rather prefer to clarify our own position and submit it to your comments or critique, if you want to. We think that a common point appearing at this seminar is to condemn the policies of Gorbachev because very clearly they led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Workers’ Party of Belgium, thinks that we should prolong our analyses and sharings about the links there could be between the lines of Gorbachev and the line developed by Krushchev and Brezhnev. It would be good in order to strengthen our unity to reopen the discussion about the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat under Stalin. We are very conscious that different opinions about that period and those experiences will continue to exist for a very long time and it is not possible right now within the Communist movement to share the same opinion about that. But nevertheless it was an important 320 period in the building of a socialist country, the most powerful that has been. So anyway we cannot avoid to clarify that assessment but let us be very patient regarding each other.

p And finally we think that there is also a need for a new evaluation of Mao Tse Tung’s contributions. I think that there is unanimity in the international communist movement that Mao has correctly led the National Democratic Revolution in his country, liberating from feudalism and imperialism in 1949. We can also reassess his position in 1956 when he was criticizing Krushchev. We think it is worthwhile to analyse that first historical experience that took place in China when a mass movement was launched against opportunist tendencies known as the Cultural Revolution. Of course, also concerning Mao different opinions exist and will continue to exist for a long time. So it is not necessary to agree and to share the same opinion on that but nevertheless it is very important and it is an experience that cannot be neglected.

p Some comrades know, our own Party did not emerge from the former Communist Party that existed in Belgium but from the revolutionary student movement of the late sixties. Comrades were asking us how our Party was able to maintain itself and to develop while most other Marxist-Leninist parties who emerged from the same background collapsed in the 70s and the 80s. There are five reasons why we were able to maintain ourselves and to develop: First, our Party always kept on the principle of linking the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism and in our case also of the Mao-Tse Tung thought with the concrete experience of the revolutionary struggle in Belgium. Practice and mass campaigns were always the main points we stressed, the point of departure to study Marxism and also the point to which study of Marxism has to lead to. Secondly, we always avoided closely following foreign parties and we always have said that the attitude toward another party never should have too much influence in our own party. Thirdly, our party has always oriented its militant concrete mass work among the working class. Many of the revolutionary forces emerging in Europe in the 60s were not capable to root themselves into the working class movement Jourth, our party has always taken the struggle between the two lines as a major ideological principle for its establishment. So we recognize in our own party that there is always both leftist and right tendencies and that without assessing 321 them in time and criticizing them in time we would have collapsed. And fifth, we have always expressed the unity of the party as one of the most important principles for the party based on the principle of democratic centralism.

Let me end with some principles we have forwarded with regard to our international relations. We have adopted a principle to develop and maintain links with all the Communist Parties and revolutionary organizations throughout the world. Even if our judgment is that may be their line is wrong. Why ? First of all we are conscious that we can be wrong ourselves in appreciating that line. So may be the error is on our side. Secondly because experience has shown us that we could learn a lot from the work done by them among the masses, their experiences and their theoretical work. Third, because even fundamental or basic divergences in ideological line may not impede certain forms of cooperations and common struggles in precise fields of work that are common to both parties. Fourth, we have also to take into account possible evolution. Certain parties we might consider as not having a correct Marxist-Leninist line, can develop and change. And finally, some parties with whom we had close links indeed did totally collapse or changed their camp. But through the fact that we maintained contacts with them now we can draw lessons of how it was possible for a party who once was revolutionary party to become a party helping the bourgeoisie more than the working class and the revolutionary movement These were some points I wanted to bring before you.