From: Prague, Czech Republic
Many thanks for your letter and your support. Thank you too for the copy of Revolutionary Democracy which was very interesting. I passed it on the KSCM's International Department. I have also sent a few copies of Postmark Praha to the bookshop advertised at the back of the journal, suggesting that they pass them on to customers as free samples.
As you say, it is most important that developments here are better understood, especially since until fairly recently the Czech Republic was promoted worldwide as the flagship of capitalist restoration. Now that the economy is in trouble, the social services are in a critical condition (health and education notably) and the post-socialist 'social partnership' is collapsing, this is even more true. The inability of capitalism to meet the needs of the people is becoming more and more apparent with every new day.
Thanks again for your interest and support.
With communist greetings,
Ken Biggs,
Editor,
Postmark Praha.
From Moscow, Russia
The Menshevist-socialist-revolutionary 'All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)' [A-UCP(b)], led by A. Lapin, published a new revisionist Programme. The criticism of this anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist Programme should be of interest.
Lapin's Programme is nationalistic and social-chauvinistic. Lapin's A-UCP(b) follows the Russian imperialist policy and opposes the nations' right to total separation from imperialist Russia and their state self-determination on the former USSR territory. This is a reactionary anti-Leninist policy, because it is directed against the future creation of new Soviet republics as the result of new socialist revolutions, and against their independence from bourgeois encirclement.
The Menshevik-Lapinists declare 'the recognition of the nations' right for self-determination as a priority to the nations' right for creation of an independent state'. Lapin considers that the oppressed nation must not separate from the oppressing nation, because it can 'disturb its rights and interests'.
This is a revision of Marxism-Leninism on the national question. Comrade Lenin stood on the ground, that the 'self-determination of nations' in the Marxists' programme cannot have, from the historical-economical point of view, any other meaning, except the political self-determination, state independence, the creation of the national state' (V.I. Lenin. Right of Nations to Self-De termination).
The anti-Leninism of Lapin's party is practically manifested in the support to the imperialist war of Russia against the Chechen Republic. Lapin supported the genocide of the Chechen people, declaring all of them to be the enemies of the Soviet Union, which for Lapin is the same Russian empire. In the new revisionist Programme the A-UCP(b) denies Lenin's definition of tsarist Russia as a prison house of nations and dreams of a 'Soviet' Russian empire under a false slogan of 'conservation of the association of nations, formed in the making of the multinational Russian empire and developed into the fraternal union in the course of the socialist construction in the USSR'. That is to say, the Russian empire developed into USSR! This is a social-imperialist theory.
The Menshevist-social-revolutionary Lapin's party in fact opposes the principle of mutual trust and national freedom, which was used by the Bolshevist Leninist party for the creation of the USSR in 1922. Comrade Lenin wrote 'One case is the necessity of unity against the western imperialists, defending the capitalist world. There is no doubt... - The other case is when we fall ourselves... into imperialist relations with oppressed nations, completely undermining all our principle sincerity, all our principle of defence of the struggle against imperialism' (V.I. Lenin. The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation).
In contrast, the social-nationalist-Lapinists declare, that the 'self-determination' is merely joining Russia as an autonomous state without the right to separate from the 'super-power': '...Nations, joined the unitary state and realized this way their right to self-determination, officially refuse to use it in future...' These great-power social-imperialist plans in the style of Khrushchev and Brezhnev supposedly correspond to the 'interests of the victory of socialism and communism'.
In all other parts the Programme is also anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist:
1. There is repeated an old anti-Leninist thesis of the Russian populists about the 'archaic collectivism of the peasant community', supposedly 'not killed completely by the capitalist development of the countryside'. On the contrary, Comrade Lenin in his work The Development of Capitalism in Russia proved that the only reliable ally for the working class is the poorest semi-proletariat, generated just as a result of destruction of the peasant community by capitalism.
2. There is declared as one of the 'main questions of socialist revolution' 'the necessity of using commodity-money relations under socialism'. This is Khrushchev's and Brezhnev's wording.
On the contrary, Comrade Lenin wrote: 'As regards socialism, it is well-known, that it consists in the destroying of the commodity economy' (V.I. Lenin, The Agrarian Question in Russia at the End of the XIX Century).
3. There it is maintained that the split of the Marxist-Leninists (led by the Party of Labour of Albania) with the Menshevik-Khrushchevists (led by the CPSU) supposedly 'strengthened the tendency of surrender of the positions won before'.
On the contrary, Comrade Lenin considered that 'the policy of principle is the only correct policy' (as comrade Stalin said in his speech 'About Lenin'). The Lapinists deny that the split with the Khrushchevists was as absolutely necessary and useful for world Marxism-Leninism as Bolshevism. Lapin evaluates Comrade Hoxha lower than Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung who were opportunists and anti-Leninists.
4. There it is maintained, that supposedly in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat the Soviets must 'use a part of the old 'bourgeois' state and municipal apparatus..., Proceeding from this, the A-UCP(b) sets as its aim the penetration into the old 'bourgeois' administrative bodies...' This is Kautskyism.
On the contrary, comrade Lenin wrote: 'The revolution consists in destroying by the proletariat of the management apparatus and all the state apparatus, replacing it by the new one, consisting of armed workers.' (V.I. Lenin. State and Revolution). Lapin does not wish to destroy all the bourgeois Russian state apparatus.
The analysis of Lapin's party Programme shows it is not Marxist, not Leninist, not Communist, not Bolshevist.
The international union of Marxist-Leninists should draw the necessary conclusions from this. The revolutionary cause of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha shall win!
Workers of the world, unite!
Yours fraternally,
Central Leadership,
All-Union Communist Revolutionary Workers' Guard of Bolsheviks
From: Silver Springs, Maryland, United States of America
We recently received Volume II No. 2 of your publication. We were extremely impressed with the article on the struggle of communists in the Caucasus. It utilizes a dialectical materialist method of analysis of the situation. This methodology is all too infrequently used in these difficult times. We also found the material on Molotov and Dimitrov interesting and provocative. In fact, all the articles in the journal addressed important questions of both a theoretical and a practical nature.
We have been sending you a copy of Working Peoples' News, for the last few months. We hope you have been receiving them. We have also published a book entitled In the Fight Against Liquidationism A Leninist Trend Emerges. The book has received widespread international distribution by friends and supporters. If you have not received a copy let us know and we will send you one as a gesture of international solidarity. If you see fit, we would be happy if you could review it in your excellent journal.
We look forward to hearing from you.
With revolutionary greetings,
Clara Lewis,
Editorial Committee,
Working Peoples' News.
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