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

ists are taking place. The revisionists are producing their ownopposites and will eventually be buried by them. This is aninexorable law.THE PRESENT PUBLIC DEBATEIn the last analysis, the present great debate in the internationalcommunist movement centres on whether to adhereto Marxism-Leninism or to revisionism, whether to adhere toproletarian internationalism or to great-power chauvinism andwhether to desire unity or a split. This dispute over fundamentalprinciples began long ago, following the 20th Congressof the CPSU. It went on in private talks betweenfraternal Parties for a considerable time until it came intothe open a little more than two years ago.As everybody knows, the leaders of the CPSU first provokedand insisted on the open polemics in the internationalcommunist movement.At their 22nd Congress in October 1961, they made publicattacks on the Albanian Party of Labour. In his address atthat Congress, Comrade Chou En-lai, the head of the ChineseCommunist Party delegation, took exception to this action bythe leaders of the CPSU, pointing out that it could not be regardedas representing a serious Marxist-Leninist attitude.What was the answer of the Soviet Party leaders? They declaredthat they were “absolutely correct” 1 and were taking“the only correct and genuinely Marxist-Leninist position ofprinciple” 2 in starting the open polemics.Then, in January 1962, the Viet Nam Workers’ Party suggestedthat “mutual attacks on the radio and in the press1N. S. Khrushchov, Concluding Speech at the 22nd Congress of theCPSU, October 27, 1961, Documents of the 22nd Congress of the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, p. 334.2“The Banner of Our Epoch”, editorial board article in Pravda,February 21, 1962.348