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

OUR STRUGGLE AGAINST KHRUSHCHOV’SREVISIONISMWhen Khrushchov first put forward the “parliamentaryroad” at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the Chinese CommunistParty considered it a gross error, a violation of thefundamental theories of Marxism-Leninism, and absolutelyunacceptable.As Khrushchov’s revisionism was still in its incipient stageand the leaders of the CPSU had not as yet provoked openpolemics, we refrained for a time from publicly exposing orcriticizing Khrushchov’s error of the “parliamentary road”.But, as against his erroneous proposition, we stated theMarxist-Leninist view in a positive form in our documentsand articles. At the same time we waged the appropriate andnecessary struggle against it at inter-Party talks and meetingsamong the fraternal Parties.Summing up the experience of the Chinese revolution, weclearly stated in the political report of our Central Committeeto the Eighth National Congress of our Party in September1956:While our Party was working for peaceful change, it didnot allow itself to be put off its guard or to give up thepeoples arms. . . .Unlike the reactionaries, the people are not warlike. . . .But when the people were compelled to take up arms, theywere completely justified in doing so. To have opposedthe people’s taking up arms and to have asked them tosubmit to the attacking enemy would have been to followan opportunist line. Here, the question of following a revolutionaryline or an opportunist line became the majorissue of whether our 600 million people should or shouldnot capture political power when conditions were ripe.Our Party followed the revolutionary line and today wehave the People’s Republic of China.370