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

This is precisely the situation in which the leaders of theCPSU now find themselves.The stand of the Chinese Communist Party on public polemicsis known to all. From the very beginning, we haveheld that differences among fraternal Parties should be resolvedthrough private consultations. The public polemicswere neither provoked nor desired by us.However, since the public debate is already on and sincethe leaders of the CPSU have said that to conduct it is to “actin Lenin’s manner”, 1 it must be conducted on the basis ofdemocratic discussion by adducing facts and by reasoning untileverything is thrashed out.More important still, since the leaders of the CPSU haveopenly betrayed Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalismand torn up the Declaration and the Statement,they cannot expect us to refrain from defending Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism and the revolutionaryprinciples of the Declaration and the Statement. Since thedebate concerns major issues of principle in the internationalcommunist movement, they must be thoroughly thrashed out.This, too, represents a serious Marxist-Leninist attitude.The essence of the matter is that the existing differences inthe international communist movement are between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism and between proletarian internationalismand great-power chauvinism. These major differencesof principle cannot be solved in a fundamental wayby a cessation of the public debate. On the contrary, onlythrough public debate, setting forth the facts and reasoningthings out will it be possible to clarify matters, distinguishright from wrong and safeguard and strengthen the unity ofthe international communist movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninismand proletarian internationalism.Marxism-Leninism is a science, and science fears no debate.Anything which fears debate is no science. The present great1“The Historic Congress of the Leninist Party”, Pravda editorial,November 4, 1961.353