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

evolution, at a particular historical stage the proletariat andits party in one country or another marched in the van of themovement.Marx anal Engels pointed out that the trade union movementin Britain and the political struggle of the French workingclass were successively in the van of the international proletarianmovement. After the defeat of the Paris Commune,Engels said that “the German workers have for the momentbeen placed in the vanguard of the proletarian struggle”. Hewent on to say:How long events will allow them to occupy this post ofhonour cannot be foretold. . . . the main point, however,is to safeguard the true international spirit, which allowsno patriotic chauvinism to arise, and which joyfully welcomeseach new advance of the proletarian movement, nomatter from which nation it comes. 1At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian workingclass, standing at the forefront of the international proletarianmovement, won victory in the proletarian revolution for thefirst time in history.Lenin said in 1919:Hegemony in the revolutionary proletarian Internationalhas passed for the time being — but not for long, it goeswithout saying — to the Russians, just as at various periodsof the nineteenth century it was in the hands of the English,then of the French, then of the Germans. 2The “vanguard” referred to by Engels, or the “hegemony”referred to by Lenin, in no way means that any Party whichis in the van of the international working-class movement canorder other fraternal Parties about, or that other Parties must1Frederick Engels, “Prefatory Note to The Peasant War in Germany”,Selected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Eng. ed., FLPH,Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, p. 591.2V. I. Lenin, “The Third International and Its Place in History”,Selected Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2, p. 203.332