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

Thirdly, the history of the international communist movementdemonstrates that proletarian unity has been consolidatedand has developed through struggle against opportunism,revisionism and splittism. The struggle for unity is inseparablyconnected with the struggle for principle.The unity the proletariat requires is class unity, revolutionaryunity, unity against the common enemy and for the greatgoal of communism. The unity of the international proletariathas its theoretical and political basis in Marxism-Leninism.Only when it has theoretical and political unity can the internationalproletariat have organizational cohesion and unity ofaction.The genuine revolutionary unity of the proletariat can beattained only by upholding principle and upholding Marxism-Leninism. Unity bought by forsaking principles and by wallowingin the mire with opportunists ceases to be proletarianunity; instead, as Lenin said, it “means in practice unity ofthe proletariat with the national bourgeoisie and a split in theinternational proletariat, unity of lackeys and a split amongthe revolutionists”. 1He also pointed out that “as the bourgeoisie will not dieuntil it is overthrown”, so the opportunist current bribed andsupported by the bourgeoisie “will not die if it is not ‘killed’,i.e., overthrown, deprived of every influence among the Socialistproletariat”. Hence, it is necessary to wage “a mercilessstruggle against the current of opportunism”. 2Faced with the challenge of the opportunist-revisionistswho are openly splitting the international communist movement,the Marxist-Leninists must make no compromise inmatters of principle, but must resolutely combat this splittism.This is an invaluable behest of Marx, Engels and Lenin, as1V. I. Lenin, “The Honest Voice of a French Socialist”, CollectedWorks, Eng. ed., International Publishers, New York, 1930, Vol. XVIII,p. 329.2Ibid.317