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

“In the present situation of the international communistmovement, it is advantageous from the point of view oftactics to refer to the desire for peaceful transition. Butit would be inappropriate to over-emphasize the possibilityof peaceful transition.”“They [the proletariat and the Communist Party] mustbe prepared at all times to repulse counter-revolutionaryattacks and, at the critical juncture of the revolution whenthe working class is seizing state power, to overthrow thebourgeoisie by armed force if it uses armed force to suppressthe peoples revolution (generally speaking, it isinevitable that the bourgeoisie will do so).”“To obtain a majority in parliament is not the same assmashing the old state machinery (chiefly the armed forces)and establishing new state machinery (chiefly the armedforces). Unless the military-bureaucratic state machineryof the bourgeoisie is smashed, a parliamentary majorityfor the proletariat and its reliable allies will either beimpossible . . . or undependable. . . .” (See Appendix I.)As a result of the common efforts of the delegations of theCPC and the other fraternal Parties, the 1957 Declarationalso corrected the erroneous views which the CPSU leadershiphad put forward at the 20th Congress on such questionsas imperialism and war and peace, and it added many importantpoints on a number of questions of principle. Themain additions were the thesis that U.S. imperialism is thecentre of world reaction and the sworn enemy of the people,the thesis that if imperialism should unleash a world war itwould doom itself to destruction, the common laws governingthe socialist revolution and the building of socialism; theprinciple of combining the universal truth of Marxism-Leninismwith the concrete practice of revolution and constructionin different countries, the formulation on the importanceof applying dialectical materialism in practical work, the73