DECLARATION TO REAFFIRM THE SIGNIFICANCE AND
RELEVANCE OF THE ANTI-REVISIONIST STRUGGLE AND THE GPCR (Great Proletatarian Cultura Revolution)

01 May 2007
Signatories updated on 10 August 2007

We, the undersigned Marxist-Leninist, Mao Zedong Thought and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations, hereby issue this declaration to reaffirm the significance and relevance of the struggle against modern revisionism starting in 1956 in opposition to the revisionist content of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in February 1956 leading to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 and continuing after the bourgeoisie seized power in China in 1976. We do so after one year of activities celebrating the 50th anniversary of the anti-revisionist struggle and renewing our commitment to pursue this struggle.

We honor and pay the highest respect to Comrade Mao Zedong for leading the Communist Party of China (CPC) and all Marxist-Leninist parties in the struggle against modern revisionism. He promptly caused the publication of the editorial of the People's Daily, "On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" in April 1956 in response to the 20th Congress of the CPSU. In this congress the Khrushchov revisionist clique repudiated in February 1956 under the pretext of opposing "personality cult" the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism and the great revolutionary achievements of the Party of Lenin and Stalin in building socialism, fighting fascism and leading the international communist movement for more than 30 years.

The actions of the Soviet revisionists headed by Khrushchov laid bare the phenomenon of modern revisionism in opposition to the proletarian dictatorship and put the Soviet Union on the road of capitalist restoration. They reorganized the Soviet Party, the state, the economy and the cultural institutions in order to subvert Marxism-Leninism and the socialist system.

They opposed the dictatorship of the proletariat and propagated bourgeois populism with the notions of "party of the whole people" and "state of the whole people" and bourgeois pacifism with the notions of "peaceful transition," "peaceful competition" and "peaceful coexistence". They undertook to undermine the international communist movement and pushed "peaceful coexistence" as the general line to oppose proletarian internationalism and to attack the international communist movement and the national liberation movements.

Revisionism destroyed all the formerly socialist countries. It transformed these into colonies of social imperialism, deprived the revolutionary world movement of its revolutionary center, destroyed revolutionary parties and brought confusion, division and liquidationism into the international communist and working class movement. It had a corroding effect on the proletarian class struggle and the anti-imperialist struggle and led to defeats involving heavy losses. The process of the international proletarian revolution has been set back for decades.

There are ideological, political, socio-economic and cultural causes of modern revisionism. The major causes include deviation from materialist dialectics, abandonment or waning of the proletarian class stand and class struggle, worship of outdated or revisionist Soviet examples and the degeneration of a great number of bureaucrats and intellectuals due to their petty bourgeois social conditions and ways of thinking, which are the gateway to modern revisionism as full bourgeois ideology.

Hankering for personal privileges, nepotism, careerism, abuse of power, enrichment and other forms of self-interest, those afflicted with the petty bourgeois mode of thinking gain the upper hand among the leading functionaries in the party, state, economy and cultural institutions and give rise to modern revisionism as bourgeois ideology and as platform for bourgeois policies.

Comrade Mao defended the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism against the line of modern revisionism. He denounced the revisionists for sowing confusion in the international communist movement and generating disorder and uprisings against the socialist cause in Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

Under the direction of Comrade Mao, the delegation of the CPC pursued the anti-revisionist line in the Moscow meetings of communist and workers' parties in 1957 and 1960. Thereafter, the Marxist-Leninists led by the CPC launched an international ideological struggle on a comprehensive range of issues against the modern revisionists centered in the Soviet party.

Further on, the Marxist-Leninists led by Comrade Mao proceeded to the criticism and repudiation of the phenomenon of monopoly bureaucrat capitalism and social imperialism during the long regime of Brezhnev. Monopoly bureaucrat capitalism masqueraded as socialism while the bureaucrats and businessmen connived to steal from the state sector. In international relations, the Soviet revisionists engaged in socialist phrase-mongering and in the practice of imperialism.

Comrade Mao did not rest content with the critique of modern revisionism as it had arisen and grown in the Soviet Union and in the other countries of the Soviet bloc. He examined and analyzed the growth of modern revisionism in China, arising from both homegrown factors and external influences. Thus, he united the leading antirevisionist revolutionaries in the CPC, who rallied forces to launch the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in May 1966 in order to carry out the theory of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship. This is to combat revisionism, prevent the restoration of capitalism and consolidate socialism.

The theory and practice of continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat through the GPCR constituted a new and higher stage in the development of Marxism-Leninism. It posed a series of problems in the building of socialism, for a whole historical epoch in transition from capitalism to communism, and brought up the basic principles and methods for solving said problems, involving the existence of classes and class struggle in socialist society, the relations of the social base and superstructure, the mass line, cultural revolution, revolution and production, succession by the youth, leadership in the factories and communes and the formation of the organs of political power.

Many of these issues were not understood or could not have been understood through the decades of socialism in the Soviet Union. The launching of the GPCR reflected an understanding and summation of that Soviet experience, and was an unprecedented political mobilization of the masses against revisionism, this time in the CPC.

Comrade Mao successfully led the Chinese proletariat and people from victory to victory in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution against tremendous odds and against powerful adversaries. But soon after his death, the enemies of the Chinese proletariat and people made a coup and reversed his proletarian revolutionary line in carrying out socialist revolution and construction. Since then the new bourgeois rulers in China have launched the most brutal attacks against the Chinese workers and peasants. While they have continued to claim the title of the "Communist Party of China", they in fact, are now the worst oppressors and exploiters and abusers of the Chinese people.

There are manifestations of China's all-round retrogression and degradation to the status of being a big-comprador neocolonial adjunct of the US and other imperialist powers. China has completely tied itself to the policy of imperialist globalization pushed by the US and other imperialist powers. But China is also trying to become a relatively autonomous imperialist power, extending its economic investment and political influence on a world scale in places such as Africa, Latin America and Asia. It is reminiscent of a generally backward and poor but imperialist Russia before the Bolshevik revolution.

The full restoration of capitalism in China and in the former Soviet bloc countries vindicates the teaching of Comrade Mao that socialism is lost when the revisionist line prevails within the ruling communist or workers' party and that eventually the bourgeoisie within the party and state succeeds in unleashing a coup and overthrowing the proletariat.

Comrade Mao has bequeathed to us a legacy with which we can combat and defeat modern revisionism and with which we can revive and further develop the forces of socialism. We are alert to and oppose the continuing dangers of revisionism, modern revisionism and other forms of opportunism.

We reaffirm Comrade Mao's revolutionary theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We condemn the betrayal of socialism and of Comrade Mao's proletarian revolutionary line by the Liu Shaoqi-Deng Xiaoping clique and the new Chinese bourgeoisie.

We renew our determination and efforts to carry out the historic mission of the proletariat, which is to carry out a new-democratic and socialist revolution and construction. All the evils that have beset the former revisionist-ruled countries drive us to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism against modern revisionism and to pursue the revolutionary cause of socialism.

Upon the temporary success of modern revisionism against Marxism-Leninism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, monopoly capitalism headed by US imperialism has been able to launch the worst attacks against the proletariat and the oppressed peoples, such as "free market" globalization, racism, repression and wars of aggression. In response to the escalation of oppression and exploitation, the proletariat and people are intensifying their resistance through armed struggle and other forms of resistance.

It is not enough to defend Marxism-Leninism and Maoism in order to generate a new upswing in the struggle for genuine socialism. The international Marxist-Leninist and working class movement must draw the lessons from the defeat of socialism by revisionism and from the successes of the 50 years of struggle against revisionism.

The building of Marxist-Leninist parties world-wide, the overcoming of the fragmentation, the strengthening proletarian revolutionary parties closely linked to the masses and their international revolutionary collaboration are the essential ideological, political and organizational preconditions for the liberation of humankind.

It is the internationalist duty of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties to unite and to arouse, organize and mobilize the proletariat and people in their respective countries and in the world at large in the struggle for national liberation, democracy and socialism against imperialism, revisionism and reaction. We renew our commitment to persevere in the revolutionary struggle and strive to win ever greater victories under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Uphold, defend and advance the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao!
Reaffirm Marxism-Leninism-Maoism against modern revisionism!
Carry forward the revolution against imperialism, revisionism and reaction!
Glory to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!
Long live all Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

SIGNATORIES [In alphabetical order (English) by country]:

Argentina - Revolutionary Communist Party of Argentina*
Brazil - Communist Party of Brazil (Red Fraction)
Germany - Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany
Greece - Communist Party of Greece-ML
India - Communist Party of India (Maoist)**
Indonesia - Communist League of Indonesia
Italy - Committee to Support Resistance - for Communism (CARC)
Moldova - Maoist Anti-Imperialist Circle
Panama - Communist Party of Panama
Peru - Communist Party of Peru (ML)
Philippines - Communist Party of the Philippines***
Turkey - Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML)
United States - Marxism-Leninism-Maoism Revolutionary Study Group
Uruguay - Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay

(Note: Any signatory may qualify its agreement on any point in this declaration with an annotation.)

*Revolutionary Communist Party of Argentina considers that the bourgeoisie seized power in China in December 1978 rather than in 1976 (see 1st paragraph) and that China today is an imperialist country (see 15th paragraph).

**Communist Party of India (Maoist) stresses that China has completely tied itself to the policy of imperialist globalization pushed by the US and other imperialist powers (see 15th paragraph).

***Communist Party of the Philippines regards the Communist Party of China (CPC) as the Marxist-Leninist center of the international communist movement in the period after the Communist Party of the Soviet Union became revisionist and before the CPC itself became revisionist (see 5th paragraph).