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

the bourgeoisie, they want the proletariat to co-operate withit. This was what the revisionists of the Second International,such as Bernstein and Kautsky, did. At a time when theimperialists were most afraid that the proletariat of all countrieswould unite to turn the imperialist war into civil wars,they came forward to create a split in the internationalworking-class movement and advocate co-operation betweenthe proletariat and the bourgeoisie.The splitters in the communist ranks are those who, to meetthe needs of the bourgeoisie, split with Marxism-Leninism,with the revolutionary proletarian party and with the revolutionaryproletariat and the broad masses of the labouring people;and they remain splitters even when for a time they arein the majority or hold the leading posts.In the days of the Second International, the revisionists representedby Bernstein and Kautsky were in the majority,and the Marxists represented by Lenin were in the minority.Yet obviously it was Bernstein, Kautsky and other opportunistswho were the splitters, and not revolutionaries like Lenin.In 1904 the Mensheviks were the splitters although theyheld leading positions which they had usurped in the centralorgans of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Leninpointed out at the time, “The leading centres (the CentralOrgan, the Central Committee, and the Council) have brokenwith the Party,” 1 and “the centres have put themselves outsidethe Party. There is no middle ground; one is either withthe centres or with the Party.” 2In brief, opportunism and revisionism are the political andideological roots of splittism. And splittism is the organizationalmanifestation of opportunism and revisionism. It canalso be said that opportunism and revisionism are splittismas well as sectarianism. The revisionists are the greatest andvilest splitters and sectarians in the communist movement.1V. I. Lenin, “A Letter to the Zurich Group of Bolsheviks”, CollectedWorks, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1962, Vol. VIII, p. 63.2Ibid., p. 64.316