The Importance of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations (ICMLPO) for the World Revolution
“The ideological struggle in the field of revolutionary ideology is urgent in order to overcome the onslaught of reaction. No communist, no vanguard party of the revolution, can fear these clashes of conceptions and ideas. Let the debate be opened, we must confront ideas, analyses, experiences, lessons, reasons to reach conclusions that allow us to move forward”
(Communist Proclamation of the Workers and the Peoples. ICMLPO, 1994)
Among the innumerable contributions of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to the development of Marxist-Leninist doctrine and the struggle for world revolution, the efforts of these two geniuses of humanity to build the League of Communists, the International Working Men’s Association (IWA) and to create communist parties and organisations in various countries stand out.
Likewise, when speaking about the contributions of Lenin and Stalin to the proletarian revolution and the building of the socialist society, due importance is not given to the work they did to unmask opportunism and its variants in the workers’ movement and to build the Third Communist International.
As we know, Marx and Engels played a decisive role in transforming the Congress of the League of the Just, held on June 2, 1847, into the founding congress of the League of Communists. Due to financial difficulties, Marx was unable to travel to London; it fell to Engels to defend the task of the renaming of the League and the need for an organisation of workers committed to the aim of abolishing the capitalist system.
A few months later, on November 29, 1847, the second Congress of the League of Communists took place. On the proposal of Marx and Engels, the first article of the statutes was worded as follows: “The aim of the League is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society resting on class antagonism and the founding of a new society without classes and without private ownership of the means of production.” The Congress also approved that the League should openly defend its theoretical principles and the ideas of scientific communism.
The task of drafting a manifesto with the new principles and program of the organisation fell to Marx and Engels, which led to the appearance of one of the main works of Marxism: the Manifesto of the Communist Party, first published in February 1848, two months after the decision of the second congress.
The years 1848 and 1849 were years of intense activity on the part of the League in spreading the principles of communism. However, in 1850, Marx and Engels had to confront differences within the League and drafted another important document, the Message of the Central Committee to the League of Communists, in which they affirmed the advance of communist ideas among the workers and called for the continuation of the struggle for revolution.
After the end of the League, Marx and Engels advocated the building of a new communist organisation of the working class. This struggle was successful on September 28, 1864, with the founding of the International Working Men’s Association (IWA). According to Engels, the main aim of the IWA “was to merge into one huge army all the active elements of the working class of Europe and America.” Written by Marx in October 1864, the Inaugural Manifesto of the IWA contains the following passage: “If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfill that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the people’s blood and treasure?”
In the statutes of the IWA, also written by Marx, we find the following formulations:
“Considering,
That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule;…
“That all efforts aiming at the great end hitherto failed from the want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country, and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working classes of different countries;”
At the Congress of the IWA in Geneva in September 1866, Marx sent a very detailed report in which he stressed that the main task of the International should be to unify and concentrate the still dispersed efforts of the working class in the struggle for its demands in various countries in various countries, and he emphasized that, in addition to the workers understanding the importance of fraternity in the struggle, they should act as fighters in a single revolutionary army.
In short, the workers have numbers in their favor, since they are the great majority of society, but, in order to defeat the bourgeoisie, deep cohesion, solidarity and international organisation are needed.
We believe that these small extracts from the efforts of Marx and Engels to create and develop the International are sufficient to highlight the importance which the founders of scientific socialism attached to a unified and organized action of the world communist movement.
Lenin and the Third International
V.I. Lenin was the main leader of the socialist revolution of October 1917 in Russia and the architect of the building of Soviet society, but his work to build the Communist International and develop the world revolution was no less.
Lenin was the first to denounce the betrayal of the working class and the bankruptcy of the Second International, when he exposed that the main social democratic parties that led the International supported the war and the bourgeoisie of their countries. He worked tirelessly for truly communist parties to unite against social-chauvinism and develop revolutionary tactics.
After several meetings and correspondence with left-wing socialists from various countries, Lenin managed to form a group of revolutionary Marxists, the Zimmerwald Left, during the first international socialist conference, which took place from August 23 to 26, 1915, in Zimmerwald, Switzerland. Lenin saw this small meeting of the left as the first step for the workers’ movement to take a stand against the imperialist war and to definitively break with the opportunism of the Second International.
The second international socialist conference took place in April 1916, in Kienthal, Switzerland; the Zimmerwald left showed great unity in defending Lenin’s theses, criticizing the International Socialist Bureau[1] and demanding the resignation of all parties that had ministers in bourgeois governments that promoted the imperialist war.
With the seizure of power in Russia and the proof that the Bolsheviks’ positions on the war were correct, the conditions were created for burying the Second International and building a new International. Thus, even in the face of foreign military intervention, starvation, and saboteurs of the revolution, in January, 1919, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party decided to convene an international conference in Moscow on the future of the communist movement. The Moscow Conference concluded with the immediate convening of an international congress.
With Lenin presiding and the participation of 52 delegates from communist parties and organisations from 30 countries, the First Congress of the new and revolutionary International took place in Moscow from March 2 to 6, 1919. After an in-depth debate on the fundamental issue on the agenda of the Congress, a document on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat was adopted, the constitution of the Third Communist International was approved, and an executive committee was elected.
A year later, from July 19 to August 7, 1920, in Petrograd, Russia, the Second Congress of the Communist International was held with the presence of more than 200 delegates from 37 countries. The Second Congress adopted documents on national and colonial questions, on the agrarian question, on the fundamental tasks of the Communist International, laid down the conditions for the admission of the Communist International and advanced in the definition of the principles of organisation and program.
The Third Congress of the Communist International took place from June 22 to July 12, 1921, in Moscow and elected Lenin as honorary president. The theses adopted at the Third Congress “The International Situation and Our Tasks”, “On Tactics”, “Structure, Methods and Action of the Communist Parties” are studied to this day by Marxist-Leninist parties all over the world.
On November 5, 1922, in Petrograd, 408 delegates from 58 communist parties and organisations opened the Fourth Congress of the Communist International. On that occasion, Lenin delivered his speech ” Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution”. The remaining sessions were held from November 9 to December 5, in Moscow, and resolutions were adopted on the tactics of the International, the tasks of the communists in the trade union movement and the organisation of the Communist Youth International.
Analyzing Lenin’s enormous contribution to the building of the Third International, J. Stalin wrote: “Lenin never regarded the Republic of Soviets as an end in itself. He always looked on it as an essential link for strengthening the revolutionary movement in the countries of the West and the East, an essential link for facilitating the victory of the working people of the whole world over capitalism. Lenin knew that this was the only right conception, both from the international standpoint and from the standpoint of preserving the Republic of Soviets itself. Lenin knew that this alone could fire the hearts of the working people of the whole world with determination to fight the decisive battles for their emancipation. That is why, on the very morrow of the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, he, the greatest of the geniuses who have led the proletariat, laid the foundations of the workers’ International. That is why he never tired of extending and strengthening the union of the working people of the whole world—the Communist International.” (Joseph Stalin. “On the death of Lenin”, Speech at the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets: January 26, 1924)
Under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, the following congresses of the Third International were held in Moscow: The Fifth Congress, between June and July 1924; the Sixth Congress, between July 1 and September 1, 1928. In August 1935, under the chairmanship of Georgi Dimitrov, the Seventh Congress of the Third International was held. This was the historic congress that approved Dimitrov’s important report, The Struggle for the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism, in which he denounced the fascist offensive of the bourgeoisie to hold back the ever-deepening crisis of the capitalist system and stated that “fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital” and called on the communist parties to, “without renouncing their principles and program, promote the policy of the Popular Front to confront and defeat this offensive of the bourgeoisie” (translated from the Spanish).
For more than three decades, the Third International played a pivotal role in deepening the political and ideological unity of the international communist movement and spared no effort to promote world revolution.
As we see, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin devoted much of their energy to unmasking the anarchist, petty-bourgeois and opportunist currents in the workers’ movement, overcoming the ideological confusion in the communist movement, formulating a revolutionary program and building an international organisation… of the workers with the aim of building a new classless society without private ownership of the means of production.
Proletarian Internationalism and the Revolution
It is, therefore, a great mistake to think that for the victory of the revolution in one country it is enough to defeat the bourgeoisie and its government. In fact, as Stalin stated, capitalism has long been a global system of oppression and exploitation of workers and peoples, and national economies are links in a single chain, called the world economy. Moreover, the imperialist countries always act in concert with the local bourgeoisies to maintain the rule of capitalist monopolies and finance capital over nations, to create obstacles to the revolutionary movement and even to destabilize progressive governments. In reality, the national struggle is deeply intertwined with the struggle for the world revolution and the Marxist-Leninist parties, if they want to achieve victory, must deepen their unity and collaboration in carrying out revolutionary tasks.
In fact, social-chauvinism[2], by completely abandoning the principle of proletarian internationalism and becoming a reactionary current in the communist movement, claimed exactly the defense of national interests in order to support the imperialist war and plunder of the bourgeoisie. In fact, as Stalin warned, one of the dangers of the degeneration of a communist party is precisely “lack of confidence in the world proletarian revolution; lack of confidence in its victory; a skeptical attitude towards the national liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries; failure to understand that without the support of the revolutionary movement in other countries our country would not be able to hold out against world imperialism; failure to understand that the victory of socialism in one country alone cannot be final because it has no guarantee against intervention until the revolution is victorious in at least a number of countries; failure to understand the elementary demand of internationalism, by virtue of which the victory of socialism in one country is not an end in itself, but a means of developing and supporting the revolution in other countries.” (Stalin, Questions and Answers, June 9, 1925).
Developing and promoting proletarian internationalism is, therefore, a permanent task of a communist party, whether large and strong, or small and without resources. After all, every blow dealt to the world bourgeoisie by the working class weakens the class of exploiters and strengthens the working class and the struggle for socialism. In short, a true Marxist-Leninist, in addition to dedicating himself diligently to the tasks of the revolution in his country, must commit himself in the same way to the world revolution and support the revolutionary struggle in any part of the world in various ways. It means, as Comrade Enver Hoxha rightly emphasized: “If they [the Marxist-Leninist parties] act in unity and all strike at the forces of reaction together, if they expose all the intrigues which capitalism and modern revisionism concoct in various ways in order to put down the revolution and quell the class struggle, their triumph is assured. ” (Enver Hoxha. Imperialism and the Revolution. 1978)
The Importance of the ICMLPO for the World Revolution
It was with this understanding that the Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations, in August 1994, in Quito, capital of Ecuador, decided to convene a meeting with the aim of combating the attacks of the world bourgeoisie on communism and organizing the most combative and class-conscious sector of the working class. Fifteen Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations[3] were present and, after discussing the crisis of capitalism, the struggle against revisionism and the norms of operation, decided to found the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations (ICMLPO) and the journal Unity and Struggle.
In our view, the decision to build the ICMLPO and join forces to denounce revisionism and deepen the political and ideological unity of the Marxist-Leninists had the same significance, for our time, as the creation of the International Working Men’s Association and the Third International.
Of course there are differences, but for us the most important thing is to highlight what these events have in common. In fact, at all these times, capitalism was in a deep economic crisis, the bourgeoisie was carrying out a violent exploitation of the working masses, misery and poverty were growing in all countries and the contradictions between the main imperialist countries were deepening with the intensification of the dispute over markets and sources of raw materials and the increase of imperialist wars. In all these epochs, capitalism proved incapable of solving the serious problems of humanity, and theoreticians and parties that called themselves Marxists, nevertheless denied its revolutionary character, promoted class conciliation and sowed pessimism and fear among the working masses.
In his article “The Collapse of the Second International,” Lenin analyzed the period that preceded the creation of the Third International:
“The collapse of the Second International has been most strikingly expressed in the flagrant betrayal of their convictions and of the solemn Stuttgart and Basle resolutions by the majority of the official Social-Democratic parties of Europe. This collapse, however, which signifies the complete victory of opportunism, the transformation of the Social- Democratic parties into national liberal-labor parties, is merely the result of the entire historical epoch of the Second International—the close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.”
And:
“The proletarian masses—probably about nine-tenths of whose former leaders have gone over to the bourgeoisie—have found themselves disunited and helpless amid a spate of chauvinism and under the pressure of martial law and the war censorship.” (V.I. Lenin, op. cit.)
Let us now see what the Communist Proclamation to the workers and peoples, approved in 1994 by the parties that founded the ICMLPO, says:
“In recent decades, the communist and workers’ movement has been greatly shaken. The process of capitalist restoration that became widespread after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and culminated in the events in Eastern Europe, the former USSR and the betrayal of Albania, etc., are part of the action of imperialism, the reactionary, revisionist and pro-capitalist forces. Historical limitations, inexperience, lack of development of theory, underestimation of the contradictions inherent in capitalist society, bureaucratization and isolation of the communist party from the masses, etc. did not allow the communists, the working class and the people to defend their conquests and prevent capitalist restoration.”
And:
“Revisionism constitutes a danger for the revolutionary process, for the communist party and for the building of socialism. It is an essential task to combat revisionism of all kinds and in all areas. It is a danger against which the struggle cannot be downgraded or underestimated.” (ICMLPO. Communist Proclamation. 1994.)
In 2007, the ICMLPO adopted the document The International Situation and Our Tasks. “The New World Order”, capitalism and Imperialism, which assesses the present-day character of capitalist imperialism, reaffirms the revolutionary character of the working class, raises the need to build the International, and concludes:
“The defeat suffered by the working class and socialism meant a setback of half a century: the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the damage caused not only by attacks on the working class, but for various reasons. We see how defeat, setbacks and disintegration are used to sow the feeling that “struggle is useless”, that “we are fighting for nothing”, and thus propagate and legitimize pessimism, negative feelings….
“For the working class, defeat is not an inevitable fate. History moves forward with victories, but also with defeats of the revolutionary class. Whatever the degree of violence, whatever its duration, the defeat and retreat of the workers are part of this picture. What is important is that the workers learn the relevant lessons, not only from their victories, but also from their defeats. Despite the setbacks suffered, history and humanity are moving forward and the working class is maintaining its role as the motive force of this advance.”
The role of the parties that make up the ICMLPO
In these precisely 29 years of its existence, the ICMLPO and its coordinating committee, despite numerous obstacles and difficulties, have effectively fulfilled their role. Throughout these years, the Conference has significantly expanded the number of parties and organisations in its plenary sessions and spared no effort to defend the revolution, socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat and to strengthen the ICMLPO as a Marxist-Leninist alternative in the midst of so many difficulties and divisions existing in the communist movement.
It has been three decades of hard work and important victories. Political and ideological confusion, although it still exists, does not prevail at the Conference, for the red blood of Marxism-Leninism and the firm struggle against contemporary revisionism, the bourgeoisie and imperialism runs in its veins. There is not a single continent without the presence of the ICMLPO and its positions are now propagated in various languages through resolutions, manifestos and the journal Unity and Struggle.
Recognizing the immense revolutionary role of the youth, the ICMLPO organized and held dozens of Youth Camps, the International Meetings of Anti-Fascist and Anti-Imperialist Youth, contributing decisively to thousands of young people having a Marxist and revolutionary understanding of the world and deepening their commitment to the revolution on a world scale, as well as producing countless texts on the work of communists in their youth.
The advance of the women’s struggle in recent years has found support and an instrument in the ICMLPO to combat male chauvinism and patriarchy in capitalist society. Persistently, the ICMLPO called on the parties to form delegations and participate effectively in the International Women’s Conferences and organized three Meetings of Latin American and Caribbean Women’s, building in practice a revolutionary alternative for the women’s movement.
In order to develop a class and revolutionary consciousness in the workers’ movement, the ICMLPO prepared various manifestos on May 1 and the document The Daily Work of the Party of the Working Class Among the Masses, organized meetings of trade union leaders in Europe and the Trade Union Meetings of Latin America and the Caribbean (ELACS), encouraged class solidarity among workers and guided the work of the ICMLPO organisations in the working class.
In these three decades, many organisations and parties found in the ICMLPO a precise and correct orientation with respect to the international political situation and the revolutionary tasks. Our own party, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) of Brazil, learned a lot in the plenary sessions of the ICMLPO, in bilateral meetings with the parties and, mainly, from the revolutionary practice and action of our brother comrades in their countries. Undoubtedly, the RCP is still far from the objective of winning over the majority of the working class and the exploited in Brazil; we have a long way to go, but we do not hesitate to state that much of our political and ideological commitment, the development and growth of our party in the last 20 years, is due to our adhesion to the ICMLPO in 2000. For all this, we thank all the parties and comrades who, in July 1994, founded the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations. (ICMLPO) and that, for almost 30 years, they have remained faithful to the cause of the proletarian revolution and the principle of proletarian internationalism.
Criticism and self-criticism
Finally, we would like to pose a question: considering the role of the ICMLPO, have we, the parties and organisations that make it up, devoted enough energy and work to developing the ICMLPO?
We don’t think so. We are too involved with national tasks and rarely discuss the decisions taken by the ICMLPO in our parties. A simple question is enough to conclude how incorrect this behavior is: what would happen to the international communist movement, to our parties, if in July 1994 the comrades who were in Quito, in the name of important national tasks of the revolution, stayed in their own countries? There is no doubt that the feeling that “the struggle was useless” and the pessimism about the world revolution would have caused far greater damage.
If we consider that the attitude of the comrades of the parties that founded the ICMLPO was the most correct, the most consistent with the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and the correct way to combat contemporary revisionism, we should reflect on whether, at the present time, our commitment to the plenary sessions and meetings promoted by the ICMLPO are in line with the need to build a powerful Marxist-Leninist movement in the world. There are various facts that show that our commitment to the ICMLPO is still weak. One example is the work with the journal Unity and Struggle.
Of course, our parties are facing many material difficulties, as this is the situation of the working class and we are parties and organisations of the working class. But, if we intend to strike deeply at the world bourgeoisie, which rules and controls immense and powerful means of communication, such as television, radio, cinema, Internet, etc., we cannot underestimate the work of agitation and propaganda and the strengthening of a Marxist-Leninist organisation in the world.
The journal Unity and Struggle aims to spread Marxism-Leninism among communists, to train our fighters and fight for the political and ideological independence of the working class. Indeed, the journal is an excellent means to propagate the ICMLPO and its ideas in the international communist movement, upholding Marxism-Leninism as the future and the only guarantee of peace and happiness for humanity. But in order for the journal to fulfill this goal, our parties need to devote more time to writing the articles that they send to the journal; each organisation has to translate the articles and ensure the printing of the journal so that it is truly studied by the revolutionaries in all countries. Our experience shows that few activists read the journal in PDF format or online.
We also consider that in the national meetings of our parties it is necessary to discuss more deeply the meaning of the founding of the ICMLPO, of its existence for three decades, as living proof that the glorious army of the revolution is invincible, and to advance in the discussion of our next step in relation to the building of the Conference.
Furthermore, Marxism-Leninism is not and never has been a nationalist ideology; its goal is the destruction of world capitalism, the end of class society throughout the planet and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat as an indispensable step to bring humanity to communism.
In short, every party and organisation of the Conference needs to participate more actively in promoting the world revolution; after all, our homeland will be closer to the revolution the weaker capitalist imperialism is in the world.
Central Committee
Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) Brazil
September 2023
Bibliography:
Revista Política, No. 16, August 1995. PCMLE
Unity and Struggle journal, 2014. ICMLPO
Karl Marx. Biografía (Biography). Avante Editions. 1983.
V.I. Lenin. The Bankruptcy of the Second International. Collected Works. Progress Publishers.
Georgi Dimitrov. Unidad de los trabajadores contra el fascismo (Unity of the Working Class against Fascism). Ediciones Manoel Lisboa, 2014.
Joseph Stalin. The Foundations of Leninism.
This article was published in Unity & Struggle, No.47, November 2023
- The International Socialist Bureau was the executive organ of the Second International, created by decision of the Congress of 1900. ↑
- “Social-chauvinism is an opportunism which has matured to such a degree, grown so strong and brazen during the long period of comparatively ‘peaceful’ capitalism, so definite in its political ideology, and so closely associated with the bourgeoisie and the governments, that the existence of such a trend within the Social-Democratic workers’ parties cannot be tolerated.” (V. I. Lenin. “The Collapse of the Second International.” Collected Works, Vol. 21, June 1915) ↑
- Communist Party of Germany (KPD), Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), Communist Party of Chile (Proletarian Action), Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE), Communist Organisation of Spain “October”, Communist Party of the Workers of France (PCOF), Organisation for the Construction of the Proletarian Party of Italy, Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist) -PCMML, Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic (PCT), Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey (TDKP), Revolutionary Communist Party of Burkina Faso, Revolutionary Communist Party of Ireland. ↑