OUR CURRENT INTERNATIONAL WORK AND INTERNATIONALIST TASKS

Contribution to the 14th International Communist Seminar

By the International Department

Central Committee
Communist Party of the Philippines

May 2, 2005

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is leading the Filipino proletariat and people in two stages of the
Philippine revolution. The current stage is that of the new democratic revolution through protracted people’s
war. The next stage, which is the socialist revolution, can commence upon the basic completion of the new-
democratic revolution through the nationwide seizure of political power.

At the core of the people’s democratic state system, based on the worker-peasant alliance, is the dictatorship of
the proletariat. This has for its main component the people’s army under the direction and control of the
working class through its revolutionary party. The transition from capitalism to socialism can be achieved only
through the dictatorship of the proletariat for a whole historical epoch.

In carrying out the Philippine revolution, the CPP, the proletariat and entire people perform simultaneously
tasks that are distinguishably national revolutionary and internationalist in character. The performance and
fulfillment of both tasks advance the world people’s struggle against imperialism and the world proletarian
revolution for socialism and communism.

The revolutionary struggle of Filipino communists, the proletarians and semi proletarians in the Philippines, is
part and parcel of the revolutionary struggle of the world proletariat and people and contributes to the advance
of the global anti-imperialist movement and the world proletarian-socialist revolution. Our victories are the
victories of the world proletariat and people. So are their victories our victories.

Before and after the reestablishment of the CPP in 1968, the Filipino proletarian revolutionaries and the masses
that they lead have undertaken militant propaganda and mass actions in support of all and each one of the
revolutionary struggles against imperialism and reaction. In certain instances, the CPP has provided some
limited number of cadres and technical assistance to help other parties. But the most significant support that the
CPP and the Filipino have so far extended to other people’s revolutionary movements is the advance of the
Philippine revolution.

The CPP has received significant moral and material support from parties that uphold the principles of
proletarian class struggle and revolution, class dictatorship of the proletariat and proletarian internationalism.
The support includes cadre training and some material and technical assistance. But no amount of foreign
assistance can ever be comparable to the sweat and blood of the Filipino revolutionaries and masses. Foreign
assistance could even be harmful and counterproductive if it comes under wrong conditionalities, if it is
inappropriate or if it is indigestible.

In strategic terms, material support that we have received from abroad has hardly amounted to one per cent of
the total resources that we have raised self-reliantly through fighting and mass work. In fact, our biggest though
unwitting foreign supplier of weapons is the Pentagon. We capture the US-supplied weapons in the course of
our tactical offensives against the military, police and paramilitary forces of the enemy.

Sense of History

We Filipino communists have an acute sense of history. We are always conscious of the need to draw
principles, lessons and inspiration from revolutionary theory and practice as developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao and other revolutionary thinkers and leaders and by the great revolutionary masses of the proletariat
and semiproletariat.

On the basis of the revolutionary experience of the Filipino people and the Philippine trade union movement,
Crisanto Evangelista and other comrades founded the CPP for the first time in 1930. They were inspired by the
Great October Socialist Revolution and the Third International. But they had no explicit directive from the
Third International for the founding even as American and Chinese cadres of the Third International had since
the 1920s encouraged and facilitated the participation of worker and peasant delegates in conferences in
Moscow, Canton and Shanghai.

Under the guidance of the antifascist Popular Front policy of the Third International, cadres of the Communist
Party of the USA made representations to the US-Commonwealth government of Quezon in 1936-37 for the
release of communist leaders from prison and exile. They also advised the formation of the Communist and
Socialist Merger Party (CSMP) in 1938 that combined the communist and socialist parties and their respective
worker and peasant mass followings.

The Right opportunist influence of Earl Browder penetrated the CPP not because of the Third International but
because of the influence of the CPUSA on the CSMP general secretary Dr. Vicente Lava, who was a former
CPUSA member. The Browderite line of “peace and democracy” undermined the revolutionary resolve of the
Communist-Socialist Merger Party (CSMP) after the dissolution of the Third International in 1943.

The CSMP had a limited knowledge of the struggle against Titoite revisionism in the Communist Information
Bureau from 1948 onwards. It was preoccupied with domestic issues, the growing attacks on the revolutionary
forces and people and eventually the outbreak of civil war. The second Lava brother to become general
secretary, Jose Lava, sought to carry out the “Left” opportunist line of quick military victory in two years’ time,
without painstaking mass work and solid mass organizing. Within the same two years, from 1950 to 1952, this
line resulted in the destruction of the main units of the people’s army based in camps in the unpopulated Sierra
Madre.

The third Lava brother to become the general secretary, Dr. Jesus Lava, adopted a Right opportunist line under
the weight of defeat and pessimism. Subsequently, he increasingly came under the influence of Khruschovite
revisionism. The CSMP continuously weakened as a result of the 1955 policy seeking to liquidate the people’s
army and the 1957 single-file policy seeking to liquidate the CSMP. Before 1960, the CSMP was practically
dead, with the general secretary merely hiding himself in Manila and with no party branch and revolutionary
mass movement left.

Dr. Jesus Lava took interest in forming an “executive committee” to revive the CSMP in 1962 only after
becoming encouraged by a student demonstration of 5000 students that literally broke up the 1961
anticommunist congressional hearings against “subversive” writings in university publications in 1961. He
invited Comrade Amado Guerrero to represent the youth in the committee in 1962, after he came from a few
months of open language study and clandestine revolutionary studies in Indonesia.

The young proletarian revolutionary cadres led by Comrade Amado Guerrero had studied Marxism-Leninism
independently of the CSMP. They studied Philippine history and current circumstances and the secretly
available writings of Filipino communists since Crisanto Evangelista. They gained access to Marxist-Leninist
literature and to the Soviet and Chinese literature through Indonesia. They studied the Moscow Declaration of
1957 and Moscow Statement of 1960 and the developing ideological debate and other contradictions between
the CPSU and the Communist Party of China (CPC).

In 1967, the contradictions between the proletarian revolutionaries and the Lava revisionist clique came to a
head principally over questions of Party history and strategy and tactics and secondarily over questions in the
Sino-Soviet ideological debate. The proletarian revolutionaries had gained the majority of young and senior
Party cadres and members.

They published their Marxist-Leninist position in Beijing Review on May 1, 1967. The Lava faction published
their revisionist position in the Prague-based pro-Soviet Information Bulletin.

Comrade Amado Guerrero and other proletarian revolutionaries reestablished the CPP under the guidance of
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought in 1968. The congress of reestablishment was grounded on a
thoroughgoing critique of the ideological, political and organizational errors of the Lava brothers from 1942
onwards and the phenomenon of modern revisionism centred in the CPSU. Our Party declared its adherence to
the principle of proletarian internationalism and regarded its revolutionary struggle and victories as contribution
to the world anti-imperialist struggle and the world proletarian revolution.

We criticized and repudiated the revisionist notion that the proletariat had already accomplished its historic
mission in the Soviet Union. We denounced as bourgeois populism the Kruschovite ideas of “party of the whole
people” and “state of the whole people” and as bourgeois pacifism and reformism the slogans of “peaceful
transition”, “peaceful economic competition” and “peaceful coexistence” (harped on as the general line as
opposed to proletarian internationalism in international relations).

When Brezhnev was in power from 1964 to 1982, our Party exposed him for extending the work of Khrushchov
in bourgeoisifying the politics, economy, culture, defense and international relations of the Soviet Union. From
1966 onwards, we upheld and supported Mao’s theory and practice of continuing revolution under the
dictatorship of the proletariat in order to combat revisionism, prevent capitalist restoration and consolidate
socialism through the great proletarian cultural revolution.

Our Party holds the view that the revisionist line gained ascendance in the CPSU under Khrushchov and
Brezhnev and paved the way for Gorbachov to destroy every semblance of socialism under his regime.
Likewise in China, Right opportunism and revisionism gained ascendance as to allow the Right opportunists
and revisionists to sabotage the cultural revolution and pave the way for the reversal of the proletarian
revolutionary line of Mao and for the restoration of capitalism soon after his death.

More than any other factor, it is the ideological and political degeneration of the ruling party and state
bureaucracy that has destroyed socialism. We must recognize this fact and study how for a number of decades
socialism could be built against tremendous odds and how for another number of decades the gradual peaceful
restoration of capitalism could occur through the ideological and political degeneration of the party and state
bureaucracy. We need to use the Marxist-Leninist principles explicated by Lenin, Stalin and Mao to examine
the growth of revisionism and the consequent destruction of socialism.

Current International Situation and Work

To understand fully how the world anti-imperialist and socialist movements have suffered serious setbacks and
have come to a period of temporary defeat, we have to study how monopoly capitalism, modern revisionism
and neocolonialism have coincided to unleash oppression and exploitation on the proletariat and people.

The US-led imperialist ideological, political, economic, military and cultural offensives against the proletariat
and the people, the rapidly worsening crisis conditions of the world capitalist system and the rapacity of
neoliberal globalization, the escalation of imperialist war production, the spread of state terrorism and wars of
aggression drive us to fight US imperialism, its allies and puppets.

But to bring about long lasting revolutionary confidence and steady and ever growing anti-imperialist and
socialist movements, we need communist and workers’ parties capable not only of waging the struggle against
imperialism and reaction for democracy and socialism but also of addressing the question of combating modern
revisionism and preempting it or preventing it from rising again to undermine and destroy socialism.

We as communist and workers’ parties must first do well our homework in Marxist-Leninist study and
revolutionary struggle for us to be able to contribute something significant to the international communist
movement. At any rate, meetings with other parties are occasions for learning from other parties rather than
teaching them what to think and what to do. Communist and workers’ parties can go into bilateral and
multilateral meetings in order to exchange experiences, views and ideas, engage in theoretical discussions and
agree on various forms of cooperation.

Bilateral meetings have advantages over multilateral meetings amidst the current wide divergences in the
ideological and political positions among communist and workers’ parties. Bilateral meetings can be held more
often or on a timely basis and can devote more time to in-depth discussions and study. It is easier to make
inquiries, give opinions and suggestions and to arrive at a common understanding and common positions
through bilateral meetings than through multilateral meetings where normally the parties are expected to present
and defend previously established positions.

In bilateral meetings, it is easier not only to arrive at agreements on ideological and political position and on
practical cooperation but also to define the specific responsibilities and tasks in various forms of cooperation. It
takes more time and effort to organize multilateral meetings. When these are held, the parties are constrained by
time and can only arrive at a general level of understanding and general lines of cooperation. There can only
one or a few resolutions that can be thoroughly deliberated and subjected to consensus.

Multilateral meetings can be fruitful only when they are preceded by a series of bilateral meetings, they present
occasions for bilateral meetings and they result in the establishment of bilateral relations to deepen common
understanding and cooperation. Our revolutionary homework guided by Marxism-Leninism in our respective
countries and our respective bilateral relations with other communist and workers’ parties are the building
blocks of multilateral relations and the international communist movement.
Principles Governing the Relations of Parties

The established principles that govern the relations of communist and workers’ parties are those of proletarian
internationalism, equality and independence, mutual respect, non-interference, and mutual support and
cooperation for mutual benefit. Even before its dissolution in 1943, the Third International had ruled that the
Executive Committee should desist from interfering in the organizational details of any party and in local issues
about which the party in a country knows better than any foreign party.

At its dissolution, the Third International declared the impossibility of coordinating the national sections under
world war conditions and the political maturity and independent capabilities already achieved by the parties in
dealing with the complexities of their respective national conditions. After World War II, upon the rise of
several ruling communist and workers’ parties and similar but nonruling parties in more countries, the
principles of equality, independence and non-interference came to be ever more asserted, especially in the
Moscow Declaration of 1957.

The independence that Tito of Yugoslavia asserted was unacceptable because it was based on bourgeois
nationalism and was a mantle for covering a whole range of revisionist ideas and policies opposing land reform
and centralized socialist planning. The vigorous efforts of the CPSU to maintain itself as the “leading centre” of
the international communist movement through multilateral meetings stopped neither the revisionist
degeneration of the CPSU nor the assertion of independence by the CPC and other Asian parties and their
prevailing preference for bilateral rather than multilateral meetings. The CPC and other parties were concerned
about the CPSU using multilateral meetings to impose its will on other parties and using the method of majority
vote rather than consensus.

We must learn from the past. If we wish to develop systematic, periodic or regularized multilateral meetings of
communist and workers’ parties, we must adhere to the aforementioned principles governing the relations of
parties. In considering and agreeing on resolutions, we must apply the methods of democratic deliberation and
consensus. Thus, due respect is accorded to the equality and independence of the parties. Party delegations are
given ample opportunity to further consult their principals and sign the resolution with or without qualifications
or reservations.

To enhance the life and effectiveness of any system of multilateral meetings, agreements must be made only on
those issues or points where such agreements can be reached through consensus. Disagreements should be laid
aside to maintain the level of unity, common understanding and practical cooperation possible. Such
disagreements may be resolved in the future either by a rising level of common understanding or upon a change
in the situation or both.

It would be impossible to maintain the system of multilateral meetings if a single party or a few parties presume
to be the leading centre or acquire by election or appointment the power to lead the other parties. The principle
of democratic centralism does not apply among equal and independent parties. The methods of persuasive
discussion and consensus are available to them for reaching agreement on issues and courses of action.

In the last more than fifteen years, our Party has participated in a number of multilateral meetings of communist
and workers’ parties, which include the Brussels International Communist Seminar, the International
Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations, the Calcutta International Seminar on the Continuing
Validity of Marxism, the International Seminar on People’s War and the Kathmandu International Seminar on
Socialism. It has also contributed papers to other multilateral meetings in Moscow, Quito and elsewhere, which
it could not attend because of lack of funds.

The CPP is willing to participate in any multilateral meeting in which the aforementioned governing principles
on the relations of parties are followed and resolutions are processed sufficiently through democratic
deliberation and consensus. The multilateral meetings may vary according to the ideological range or focus of
the participants, such as Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, Mao Zedong Thought or Maoist or scientific socialist,
according to the topics, such as people’s war, defense of socialism or neoliberal globalization or whatever
aspect of imperialism or according to territorial scope, such as international, Asia or Southeast Asia.

Our Party recognizes that the variety of multilateral meetings of communist and workers’ parties is due to
differences in ideology, politics, topical interest or territorial scope. We are optimistic that from such variety
and differences of multilateral meetings, from rising levels of common understanding and practical cooperation
against the common enemy and, most importantly, from the forthcoming revolutionary victories shall arise
parties that would have the capability of convening all or most of the communist and workers’ parties of the
world because of the respect, experience and authority that they have gained.

Communist and workers’ parties must create and lead through party fractions or groups mass organizations of
various types (unions and cooperatives for workers, associations of peasants, women, youth, journalists,
lawyers, health professionals, scientists, engineers, cultural workers, peace activists and so on). They can link
themselves effectively to the millions of people only through such mass organizations and their sectoral and
multisectoral alliances.

Since the disappearance or diminution of mass organizations based in the Soviet bloc countries, like the World
Federation of Trade Unions, World Federation of Democratic Youth, International Union of Students, Women’s
International Democratic Federation, International Organization of Journalists, World Peace Council and the
like, the so-called nongovernmental organizations funded by imperialist governments, UN agencies and private
foundations or charities of the monopoly capitalists, bourgeois parties and religious institutions have
increasingly taken the initiative in holding international multilateral meetings in order to push the reformist
slogan of “civil society” among mass organizations.

The communist and workers’ parties should encourage the mass organizations to form their respective national
and international organizations, and hold meetings to carry forward the line of anti-imperialist solidarity, prevail
over reformism and revisionism and build the international united front. While progressive or revolutionary
forces of the people take the lead and initiative, they should avoid the pitfalls of sectarianism and try to build
and broaden the united front at every turn.

Our Party holds the view that the communist and workers’ parties should not be among the participants in
international formations of mass organizations or people’s organizations for several reasons. The participation
of parties is likely to arouse ideological debates on top of the democratic dialogue over social and political
issues and to turn off mass organizations that belong or do not belong to other parties. Parties that are legal
would also have an advantage over parties that are necessarily clandestine and illegal.

At any rate, it is a long-established tradition and correct practice for communist and workers’ parties to allow
mass organizations on their own to join national and international formations. It is fine enough that mass
organizations created and led by parties have the freedom to attract and mingle with the mass organizations that
may or may not belong to other parties. Against imperialism and reaction, a united front of various forces and
tendencies is practicable within and among patriotic and progressive classes or sectors.

The CPP in Relation to Foreign Countries and Governments

In the process of waging the new democratic revolution through people’s war, our Party builds the people’s
democratic government (organs of democratic power) and looks forward to seizing political power nationwide.
We accumulate points under international law and the laws of war for the international diplomatic recognition
of the status of belligerency of the people’s democratic government through the victories of the people’s war
and the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.

International recognition of the status of belligerency is important for enabling friendly governments to have
relations with the people’s democratic government, without being effectively held liable for interfering in
Philippine affairs. In this connection, the CPP aims to develop relations with the ruling parties in governments
that are anti-imperialist, socialist or both.

The people’s democratic government has been established through the local organs of political power in the
Philippines and recognized implicitly by the reactionary big comprador-landlord government. It can sign
various kinds of contracts with other governments, without the latter becoming liable for interference or
“exporting revolution” to the Philippines.

However, there is yet to be a government willing to establish diplomatic relations with the people’s democratic
government led by our Party. We are still far from that situation where a foreign government could have
diplomatic and trade relations with the revolutionary government exclusively or with both the revolutionary
government and the reactionary government, as in the case of the opposing Confederate and Union governments
in the American Civil War or in the case of the Chinese civil wars before and after World War II.

Our Party is acutely aware of the radically changed character of the Communist Party of China (CPC) since the
second half of the 1970s and the radically changed situation in the world since the years 1989 to 1991, when the
bipolar world of the Cold War came to an end, with the implosion of the Soviet Union and the US becoming the
sole superpower amidst imperialist depredations, the all-round degradation and retrogression of countries
formerly ruled by revisionist regimes and the further impoverishment and oppression of the people in the
overwhelming majority of countries under neocolonial rule.

Our Party’s current situation differs sharply from that which obtained when our Party had close relations with
the CPC during the cultural revolution and with the Vietnamese party during its war of national liberation
against US aggression and when subsequently the CPP maintained a permanent Central Committee delegation
in Beijing, China. Our permanent delegation had close relations with similar permanent delegations of
Southeast Asian parties and met delegations from other countries and continents. The Dengists liquidated the
delegations and aimed to liquidate all the revolutionary armed struggles in Southeast Asia in exchange for
China’s accommodation by the US into the world capitalist system.

Our Party stands resolutely and militantly against US imperialism and other imperialist powers and such
multilateral agencies as the IMF, World Bank and the WTO in the evil scheme of neocolonialism (subverting
national independence through economic and financial leverage). In contrast, the CPC has pushed for the
integration of China into the world capitalist system, changed the class character of the Chinese state, economy
and culture and welcomed the neocolonial scheme. China’s long-running line of peace, stability and economic
development for Asia has somehow caused the liquidation of armed revolutionary movements in nearly all
Southeast Asian countries.

Our revolutionary forces and people resolutely oppose the US-led campaign for “neoliberal” globalization,
while China and the CPC have welcomed it and relished membership in the WTO. We are watching closely
how far China supports the US in trying under the pretext of the “war on terror” to suppress the Philippine
revolution. So far, the Chinese authorities have kept silent on the US labelling the Filipino revolutionary forces
as “terrorist.”

The US dual policy of engagement and containment vis a vis China continues to put principal stress on
engagement. In history, the US has repeatedly reconsidered its friends as its enemies and taken actions against
them, including brazen bullying, subversion, intervention and aggression, depending on what bigger advantages
the US wishes to obtain. The US has never concealed its long-term objective of removing the CPC from power
and wiping out any semblance of socialism. It also wants to prevail over the issues of Taiwan, arms
procurements, finance, trade and so on.

Our Party keeps itself informed of developments in the worsening crisis of the US and world capitalist system.
We consider the resurgence of anti-imperialist and socialist movements among the proletariat and the people to
be important and necessary for the Philippine and world revolution. Thus, we have contributed our efforts to
building the broadest possible anti-imperialist front based on the organized strength of the revolutionary masses,
with the objective of taking advantage of the conflicts among the imperialist powers.

In our Party’s experience, the communist and workers’ parties that had been most warm and eager to have
comradely relations are those truly motivated by the principles of proletarian revolution, proletarian class
dictatorship and proletarian internationalism. These are the parties that have given moral and material support to
people’s revolutionary struggles.

Our Party has always put stress on self-reliance. The foreign assistance that it has received since 1971 is hardly
one per cent of total resources raised locally through fighting, taxation and production. Of course, such
accounting does not include the priceless sacrifices of our revolutionary martyrs and heroes. We seek
unconditional foreign assistance but we do not depend on it. Without it, we can still wage the revolutionary
struggle. When we have it, we must be able to handle and absorb it properly.

Relations between the communist party of an avowed socialist country, no matter how powerful, do not
necessarily make its Philippine counterpart revolutionary or help the Philippine revolution in any way. Take for
example, the relations of the CPSU and the Lavaite revisionist group since the late 1960s. Both collaborated
with the Marcos fascist dictatorship against our Party and the Filipino people. The Soviet Union even went to
the extent of awarding Marcos with the medal of anti-fascist hero right on the eve of his overthrow by the
people.

We oppose Philistinism and do not cozy up to any foreign party just because it is big, powerful or rich. The
Lava revisionist group and the CPSU deserved each other, when the latter regarded the former as the sole
vanguard party in the Philippines and the former regarded the latter as the vanguard party of the world
revolution.
On anti-imperialist grounds, our Party pursues relations of anti-imperialist political solidarity with communist
and noncommunist parties and organizations. For such purpose, we do not require relations on the ideological
basis of Marxism-Leninism. Political relations of anti-imperialist solidarity are aimed at promoting the mass
movement or preparing the diplomatic relations of the people’s democratic government. Our experience in
conducting united front relations with noncommunist parties in the Philippines is significant. We have such
experience too, on the international plane.

But in our experience in the period of 1986 to 1988, when we tried to establish political relations of anti-
imperialist solidarity with parties that called themselves communist, the CPSU and some other parties
demanded that we reverse our Marxist-Leninist position against modern revisionism and Soviet social
imperialism, that we end the armed struggle and that we merge with the revisionist clique that had collaborated
with the Marcos fascist regime. Our Party does not compromise any of its principles in seeking party-to-party
relations. It always makes sure that its international policy does not confuse its rank and file and that it
maintains its independence from other parties.

For purposes of promoting and developing anti-imperialist solidarity, the CPP does not have to be up front all
the time. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) can relate with any party or organization
abroad. It is also authorized by all revolutionary forces in the Philippines and the people’s democratic
government to develop friendly relations with foreign governments, governmental agencies and ruling parties.
The various patriotic and progressive organizations in the Philippines are also encouraged to seek partners
abroad in people-to-people projects of cooperation.

In due time, the people’s democratic government in the Philippines will gain diplomatic recognition as a result
of the arduous revolutionary struggle of the Filipino people and such revolutionary forces as the CPP, the NPA
and the NDFP. We strive to raise higher the level of the people’s war, raise higher the flag of Red political
power before the eyes of the world and contribute to the rise of the anti-imperialist and socialist movements and
governments.

At present, US imperialism looks so powerful and acts so arrogantly and so brutally. But it has overreached and
overextended itself. It is increasingly strained between trying to control the oil sources and supply routes in the
Middle East and Central Asia on the one hand and paying direct attention to East Asia on the other hand. As the
US sinks deeper and longer in a quagmire in Iraq or in the whole of the Middle East, the proletariat and people
of China, North Korea, Philippines and other Asian countries will have better opportunities for advancing the
struggle for national independence against the US imperialists and their puppets.

US strategic planners calculate that the US can use a broad spectrum of economic, financial, military and
diplomatic instruments to isolate, weaken and eliminate any potential rival or recalcitrant state and dominate the
whole world in the 21st century. They also calculate that they can decide the time and circumstances to use their
high-tech weaponry for pre-emptive strikes and full-scale aggression. But US imperialism has also exposed its
weaknesses in an all-round way to the people of the world as well as to countries that are wary of its extremely
rapacious and aggressive character.

The ever worsening crisis of the US and world capitalist system has led to the escalation of imperialist plunder,
state terrorism and wars of aggression that inflict terrible sufferings on the proletariat and the people of the
world. But the same crisis generates the people’s resistance and the clamor for national liberation, democracy
and socialism in the various countries and continents of the world.

Conclusion: Evaluation

It will take time to build the ideological, political and organizational unity of communist and workers’ parties at
a level comparable to that in the 1930s or that in 1950s. Let us remember that the 1960 Moscow meeting of 81
communist and workers’ parties was precisely the prelude to great divisions in the international communist
movement. There is no golden era to hold up as an ideal and to which we can return so easily by simply holding
multilateral meetings.

Certainly, unity of the international communist movement on the ground of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian
internationalism is always a desirable and necessary goal. But to proceed with the project, we need to recognize
how much destruction modern revisionism and reformism have wrought in stages over a long period on the
great cause and achievements of socialism. These involved the undermining and breaching of socialism,
misrepresentation of revisionists as communists and capitalist restoration as socialist reforms, and finally the
uncamouflaged full-scale capitalist restoration in the years of 1989 to 1991.

In the present period, bilateral and multilateral meetings among communist and workers’ parties are feasible
and must be held to raise the level of common understanding about the history and current circumstances of the
international communist movement, analyze the current situation and agree on what the communist and
workers’ parties can do individually and collectively for the resurgence of the revolutionary mass movement of
the proletariat and the people against imperialism and for socialism.

Through such meetings, we can raise the level of common ideological and political understanding and through
successes in the revolutionary struggles against imperialism and for socialism we can build the basis for
resolving and overcoming the current differences among the communist and workers’ parties. The important
thing now is for all of us to follow the principles of proletarian internationalism, equality, independence,
noninterference, mutual support and cooperation in the relations of communist and workers’ parties.

We must integrate Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions of our respective countries, lead the
proletariat and people in revolutionary struggles against imperialism and reaction and thwart revisionism and
reformism.

With experience, strength and ideas drawn from revolutionary struggles in our respective countries, we as
communist and workers’ parties have much to share when we meet among ourselves, such as we do now in this
seminar. We can exchange experiences and analyses, raise the level of common understanding in ideology and
strategy and agree on the coordination of struggles and on the various forms of cooperation. With successes in
doing so, we move steadily towards a unity of unprecedented significance, effectiveness and proportions. ###