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

opportunism and explaining to the masses the inevitabilityof its bankruptcy. 1For this reason, Lenin staunchly supported the Marxists inbreaking with the opportunists in many European countriesand boldly called for the establishment of a third Internationalto replace the bankrupt Second International so as to rebuildthe revolutionary unity of the international proletariat.The Third International was founded in March 1919. Itinherited the positive achievements of the Second Internationaland discarded its opportunist, social chauvinist, bourgeoisand petty-bourgeois rubbish. Thus it enabled the revolutionarycause of the international proletariat to grow bothin breadth and depth.Lenin’s theory and practice carried Marxism to a new stagein its development — the stage of Leninism. On the basis ofMarxism-Leninism, the unity of the international proletariatand the international communist movement was furtherstrengthened and expanded.EXPERIENCE AND LESSONSWhat does the history of the development of the internationalcommunist movement demonstrate?First, it demonstrates that like everything else, the internationalworking-class movement tends to divide itself in two.The class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisieis inevitably reflected in the communist ranks. It is inevitablethat opportunism of one kind or another should arise in thecourse of the development of the communist movement, thatopportunists should engage in anti-Marxist-Leninist splittingactivities and that Marxist-Leninists should wage strugglesagainst opportunism and splittism. It is precisely through1V. I. Lenin, “The War and Russian Social-Democracy”, SelectedWorks, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1952, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 403.313