p In my opening statement I said that this seminar is an oppor tunity for us to exchange views and hopefully to find in the process that we have more things in common than things that we differ in. I am happy to say that, after hearing the papers presented here and the discussions, we do have many things in common. However, we should not fear our differences, so long as we agree to respect each other’s views and agree to support one another in our common struggle.

p I agree with our Australian comrade that we should now learn to accept a culture of tolerance amongst us. I think we should learn the rules of the debate. We should learn to exchange views without resorting to name-calling. Now, allow me to clarify our Party’s position with respect to revisionism.

p Despite our situation, our CC was able hold its 1 Oth plenum last year and in this plenum we came out with a document that explains our stand for socialism, against modem revisionism. The first point I want to clarify is, we never questioned the model of socialist construction under Stalin. Neither did we question the model of socialist construction in China. In that document you will see that we say that there are no models to follow. Each party will have to find its own path for constructing socialism.

p The second point that I want to clarify is, in that document we also stated that revisionism in the former Soviet Union may be traced to 1936 when it was proclaimed that there was no exploiting and exploited classes in the Soviet Union, not 1956.

p And the third point that I would like to clarify is, when we submitted our proposal to take up Mao’s theory on the continuing 353 revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, it was an honest proposal for the parties to consider. It was not meant to criticise any Party, here present or any Party that is absent.

Our party is a small party that is waging armed struggle. We have had only 25 years of experience, of practice, but we stand by our analysis and think that this is scientific.