Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

communist movement. This is the case both in individualcountries and on the international plane. In this prolongedstruggle, Marx, Engels and Lenin expounded the true essenceof proletarian unity on a theoretical level and, by their deeds,set brilliant examples in combating opportunism, revisionismand splittism.In 1847 Marx and Engels founded the earliest internationalworking-class organization — the Communist League. In theCommunist Manifesto, which they wrote as the programmeof the League, Marx and Engels advanced the militant call,“Workers of All Countries, Unite!” and gave a systematic andprofound exposition of scientific communism, thus laying theideological basis for the unity of the international proletariat.Throughout their lives Marx and Engels worked unremittinglyfor this principled unity of the international proletariat.In 1864 they established the First International, the InternationalWorking Men’s Association, to unite the workers’movements of all countries. Throughout the period of theFirst International they waged principled struggles againstthe Bakuninists, Proudhonists, Blanquists, Lassalleans, etc.,the fiercest struggle being that against the Bakuninist splitters.The Bakuninists attacked Marx’s theory from the very beginning.They charged Marx with wanting to make his “particularprogramme and personal doctrine dominant in theInternational”. In fact, however, it was they who tried to imposethe dogmas of their sect on the International and to replacethe programme of the International with Bakunin’sopportunist programme. They resorted to one intrigue afteranother, lined up a “majority” by hook or by crook and engagedin sectarian and divisive activities.To defend the genuine unity of the international proletariat,Marx and Engels took an uncompromising and principled standagainst the open challenge of the Bakuninist splitters to theFirst International. In 1872 the Bakuninists who persistedin their splitting activities were expelled from the Interna-307