BREMEN Wohlers Eichen – Wohnen auf einer Großbaustelle

Bauschutt, offene Decken, Glaswolle und Kabel, für die Mieter der achtstöckigen Großwohnanlage Wohlers Eichen in Oslebshausen inzwischen Normalität. Seit 2018 ist die Wohnanlage nämlich Eigentum der Vonovia SE und unter dem Vorwand, die Häuser in Sachen Lebensqualität und Umwelt auf den neusten Stand zu bringen, begannen noch im selben Jahr die Renovierungsarbeiten. Dafür wird nun seit fast vier Jahren die Miete ständig erhöht, doch die Renovierung dagegen geht nicht voran. Nachdem bereits im August 2019 hier ein Artikel darüber erschien, haben wir uns dort nochmal mit den Mietern unterhalten. Denn seitdem hat sich dort kaum etwas getan. Seit nun fast vier Jahren wohnen die Mieter hier schon auf einer Großbaustelle. Die Decken sind offen, die Klingeln haben keine Schalter, überall kommen offene Kabel aus den Wänden und das Treppenhaus ist voll mit Baumaterial und Schmutz. Da bekommt man den Eindruck, dass da nach ein paar Wochen Arbeit alles stehen und liegen gelassen wurde. Doch Berichten der Mieter zufolge wird dort ab und zu immer wieder gearbeitet, was dann aber entweder nicht fertig, oder aufgrund schlechter Planung wieder kaputt gemacht wird. Dazu kommen immer wieder Störungen, wie zum Beispiel am Fahrstuhl, oder das Licht im Treppenhaus funktioniert nicht. So berichtete uns ein Mieter: „Das Problem ist die Baustelle, die wir hier jetzt haben, seit August 2018. Das dauert alles zu lange, das ist so schlecht organisiert, es wird eine Sache gemacht und dann direkt wieder kaputt gemacht, z.B. wird die Wand verputzt und dann kommen die Elektriker und müssen alles wieder aufreißen um ihre Kabel zu verlegen. Dann muss die Wand neu verputzt werden. Der Fahrstuhl fällt ständig aus wenn die hier arbeiten. Man ruft da 100 mal an, aber nichts passiert. Sie machen immer ein bisschen was und dann erstmal Ewigkeiten nichts mehr. Das Licht im Treppenhaus funktioniert manchmal eine Woche lang nicht. Am Anfang haben wir 6 Monate kein Licht gehabt hier im Gebäude. Ich habe bei Vonovia angerufen und gefragt, warum, und die haben gesagt, dass sie erst entscheiden müssen, welche Schalter sie nehmen wollen … 6 Monate lang?“ Auch einige einzelne Wohnungen sind davon betroffen, wie uns berichtet wurde: „Sie haben bei mir im Badezimmer alles aufgerissen und jetzt machen sie da nichts dran, es geht einfach nicht weiter, wir leben hier wie die Tiere.“ Dass es Vonovia nicht darum geht, die Lebensqualität der Leute zu verbessern, wird hier nochmal ganz offensichtlich. Mit der Renovierung haben sie nur wieder einen Vorwand gefunden, mit Mieterhöhungen noch mehr aus uns heraus zu pressen. So wurde nach dem Bericht eines Mieters die Wohnung mit der Übernahme von Vonovia und der Renovierung fast doppelt so teuer: „Ich wohne hier seit acht oder neun Jahren, als wir gekommen sind, haben wir für 3 Zimmer 550€ warm gezahlt. Aber dann kam Vonovia und hat das Haus übernommen, und dann wurde alles schlimm. Jetzt zahlen wir 960€ für die gleiche Wohnung!“ Die Renovierung, die rund ein Jahr dauern sollte, zieht sich jetzt schon fast vier Jahre. Seitdem leben die Mieter dort unter den unwürdigsten Umständen und müssen Angst haben, dass ihre Kinder sich an den Baumaterialien wie zum Beispiel Glaswolle oder der heraushängenden Elektrik verletzen, und Vonovia besitzt sogar noch die Frechheit, in die mit Baumaterial voll gestellten Flure Zettel zu hängen, auf denen sie die Mieter ermahnen, die Flure frei zu halten. Doch eine neue Wohnung zu finden, die man sich als Arbeiter leisten kann, ist kaum möglich. Die andauernden Renovierungsarbeiten sind aber nur ein Problem von vielen, kaputte Parkplätze und ein verdrecktes Treppenhaus sind da an der Tagesordnung. So sollte zum Beispiel auch der seit 2019 kaputte Parkplatz bis März 2021 fertiggestellt werden, doch ein Jahr später ist er immer noch kaputt: „Seit 2019 ist der Parkplatz kaputt, der sollte bis März 2021 fertig sein, aber ist er immer noch nicht. Sie haben letztens erst den Bauschutt und die Baufahrzeuge da weggeräumt, aber der ganze Parkplatz ist immer noch kaputt. Bei schlechtem Wetter ist das noch schlimmer und die Leute müssen mitten auf dem Weg parken, da kommt dann auch kein Rettungswagen oder die Feuerwehr mehr durch. Das ist alles sehr gefährlich, aber das ist denen egal. Vonovia ist nicht gut. Ich habe viel telefoniert, aber Vonovia sagt ‚nicht unser Problem‘“. Und über das Treppenhaus: „Für mich ist das inakzeptabel, wir zahlen hier Miete und die steigt immer weiter und nichts passiert hier. Wir zahlen auch Nebenkosten, aber es gibt keine richtige Gebäudereinigung. Wir arbeiten beide. Die sollten machen, wofür wir bezahlen, wir kriegen da nichts von! Das Gebäude ist sehr dreckig. Einmal war auch Kot im Fahrstuhl und der wurde einen Monat lang nicht weggemacht. Ich habe Angst, in den Lift zu gehen und wieder so was Ekelhaftes zu sehen. Man kann niemanden einladen hierher, weil alles dreckig und ekelhaft ist. Unsere Etage halten wir selber sauber, weil der Reinigungsdienst kaum kommt. Ich hatte auch ein schlimmes Erlebnis im Keller, da sitzen manchmal einfach fremde Männer und machen nichts, ich habe Angst in den Keller zu gehen. Die Tür unten ist kaputt, deshalb kann jeder rein und raus gehen wie er will. Man kann nicht richtig abschließen und auch Fremde, die hier im Keller sitzen, stecken Papier in die Tür, um die offen zu halten (…) Wir haben es sehr eilig auszuziehen, aber wir finden nichts, was wir bezahlen können. Wir suchen die ganze Zeit, aber ich weiß nicht, ob wir jemals was anderes finden werden. Die nehmen Miete jeden Monat und wir kriegen nichts davon, ich finde das absolut inakzeptabel!“ Für die Mieter ist klar, dass es Vonovia egal ist, unter welchen Umständen sie da leben müssen, solange sie fett Miete kassieren können. Denen ist nämlich klar, wie schwer es für uns ist, eine neue Wohnung zu finden, die man sich leisten kann, und deswegen können sie das mit uns machen. Sie erhöhen die Miete unter dem Vorwand der Erhöhung der Lebensqualität, aber lassen einen in einem regelrechten Drecksloch wohnen. Dazu schamlose Lügen, um sich weiter ihre Taschen füllen zu können. Ein Mieter berichtete: „Wir sind im Juni 2018 hergezogen, bei der Besichtigung haben die nichts gesagt von der Renovierung, und jetzt leben wir hier die ganze Zeit auf einer Baustelle. Bis Ende 2019 sollen wir Geduld haben, hat Vonovia gesagt. Aber im kapitalistischen System sind die Menschen egal, es zählt nur das Geld.“ Und damit hat er recht. Wir leben in einem System, in dem wir Arbeiter nicht zählen, ein System, in dem mit unseren Grundbedürfnissen Profit gemacht wird und uns nur so viel zugestanden wird, dass wir da gerade noch mitmachen. So lange es dieses System gibt, wird sich aber für uns nichts zum Besseren wenden. Wir müssen kämpfen und gemeinsam dieses dreckige System zerschlagen.

DEFENCE OF MAOISM (II)

ON CONCEPTION: “The Contradiction, sole fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter” “The life of dialectics is the continuous movement toward opposites. Mankind will also finally meet its doom. When the theologians talk about doomsday, they are pessimistic and terrify people. We say the end of mankind is something which will produce something more advanced than mankind. Mankind is still in its infancy. Engels spoke of moving from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, and said that freedom is the understanding of necessity. This sentence is not complete, it only says one half and leaves the rest unsaid. Does merely understanding it make you free? Freedom is the understanding of necessity and the transformation of necessity — one has some work to do too. If you merely eat without having any work to do, if you merely understand, is that sufficient? When you discover a law, you must be able to apply it, you must create the world anew” (Mao Tse-tung, Talk On Questions Of Philosophy) We express our reaffirmation of what was established by the CUMIC in the Basis of Discussion for the Unified Maoist International Conference (UMIC) on contradiction, the “sole fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter”, which in condensed form expresses the conception of the international proletariat, dialectical materialism: its condition as materialist when it says eternal matter and dialectic when it emphasises the contradiction. Materialism is the basis, dialectics is the guidance, and the only fundamental law of dialectics is contradiction, others are derivations. In Part One we wrote that, from its very name, the UOC (mlm), was already expressing its contrary conception, moreover, if it denies the principality of Maoism, here we go deeper into the importance of the great leap that Chairman Mao’s statement on contradiction as the only fundamental law of dialectics signifies. That to defend “triplism” against “dialectical materialist monism” is to oppose the development of Marxism, seeking to set our founders Marx and Engels against the great Lenin and Lenin against Chairman Mao. This also shows why it is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism. Continuing, it is necessary to point out that although the organisation Proletarian Power of Colombia takes position for the principality of Maoism and the proposal of the Bases of Discussion, on this and other points of the ideology of the proletariat with its own reservations, it keeps silent or is silent on the class character of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and in politics the saying “he who is silent consents” is true. That is the name of the ideology of the proletariat, according to Lenin, an ideology can only be proletarian or bourgeois. So you are asked to say whether or not you recognise the class character of our ideology and what is its class character? Moreover, on the decisive question of the marrow of our ideology, Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism as Engels called it, the comrades of Proletarian Power say “We consider Lenin’s formulation of dialectics to be accurate, we would neither add to it nor subtract from it“, i.e. we must leave the question forever and ever where he left it. These comrades have not understood the task left by the great Lenin to the continuators of the revolution to deepen the understanding of contradiction as the nucleus or essence of dialectics, the fulfilment and crowning of which demanded of Chairman Mao to make the revolution in China (three revolutions) through active and potential people’s war as part of and in the service of the world proletarian revolution. Chairman Mao said: “Communism is at once a complete system of proletarian ideology and a new social system. It is different from any other ideology or social system, and is the most complete, progressive, revolutionary and rational system in human history.” (Mao Tse-tung, “On New Democracy”) And moreover, it is even more true when we consider what Chairman Gonzalo reaffirmed: “In our case, by carrying out the communist revolution, the revolution led by the proletariat in its forms of democratic or socialist or cultural revolution, we are making the only true revolution in history. Let us remember what Marx taught us. All revolutions before ours has been the substitution of some exploiters for others. Only the communist revolution replaces the power of the exploiters with that of the exploited, and is the one that initiates the process of the dictatorship of the proletariat and sets the conditions for the disappearance of everything based on classes, the state will disappear. That is why it is unprecedented, that is why it is first, true and absolutely different, new, that is also why it is so complex and will be victorious; that is why humanity will not be able to enter communism so easily, we will see great complexities and very hard struggles but we are aware that we will handle them because already from 1917 we enter the new era, the era of the world proletarian revolution, we will see situations never seen before. This is what Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao taught us. Socialism, communism will impose itself on the earth, there is no other goal for humanity because it is a necessary consequence of the unstoppable process of the process of matter, of mankind.” (Document of the II. Plenum of the CC of the PCP). The comrades of the UOC, in their position, are counter-posing “science of revolution” to ideology as the scientific conception of the proletariat; that is to say, counter-posing the scientific connotation it has to its character of being the ideology of the proletariat. The only true one because it is the ideology of the last class in history, the proletariat, which has no interest in preserving private property. Almighty, since true. With the bourgeois scientistic criterion, ideologies are denied, following this criterion, Maoism is also denied as the main one, thus denying the development of Marxism, which is by leaps and bounds and does not follow a flat, linear development. They are denying the stages in the development of Marxism. That on the basis of the previous one and as part of the same process of development there is a leap to a new and higher stage, which becomes the main one. That the new shows the victory of dialectics, of contradiction. They are denying the law of contradiction. Chairman Mao in his Talk on Questions of Philosophy, referring to communism as a social system and that, by the same token, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is applicable to communist doctrine, says: “Communism will last for thousands and thousands of years. I don’t believe that there will be no qualitative changes under communism, that it will not be divided into stages by qualitative changes! I don’t believe it! Quantity changes into quality, and quality changes into quantity. I don’t believe that it can remain qualitatively exactly the same, unchanging for millions of years! This is unthinkable in the light of dialectics. Then there is the principle, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’. Do you believe they can carry on for a million years with the same economics? Have you thought about it? If that were so, we wouldn’t need economists, or in any case we could get along with just one textbook, and dialectics would be dead. The life of dialectics is the continuous movement toward opposites … which will produce something more advanced …” Applying the quotation to the development of communist doctrine, this also develops in stages, and the passage from one stage to another means the “victory of dialectics” because it allows the new to be born. And who says dialectics, says contradiction. To think that our doctrine can remain qualitatively exactly the same, unchanged for more than 174 years since the Manifesto of the Communist Party of 1848, is unthinkable in the light of dialectics. If it were so, dialectics would be dead. But, as it is not, dialectical development will always produce something more advanced, in correspondence between objective development and the need for the development of its understanding in order to transform the changing reality. Our ideology, we repeat, being a dialectical process, is going to unfold through great leaps; three great qualitative leaps: Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao Tse-tung. But these three great qualitative leaps could not be understood without other great, medium and even small leaps. It is in this way that a great dialectical process, then, generated by the proletariat producing men that only the class can produce, that we have arrived at Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism. Next, the comrades of the UOC show their total lack of understanding of what they read, like the metaphysicians they are, they mix up the concepts in order to muddle the discussion and the clarification of the problem. They oppose their law of the “negation of the negation” to the only fundamental law of dialectics, saying that this supposed law indicates the direction or “indicates the direction of the movement”, this is apriorism [see e.g. ‘Anti-Dühring’ or ‘Criticising Lin Piao and Confuzius’] and introducing the necessity of a superior external force that orients the direction of the processes. This is teleology, the same that leads to or conceals fideism in philosophy [“Fideism is a doctrine which substitutes faith for knowledge, or which generally attaches significance to faith.” – Lenin in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy’, 1908], when it is a question of defining or taking a stand for one of the two conceptions of the law of the development of the universe, which are the metaphysical conception and the dialectical conception, which constitute two opposing conceptions of the world. Engels, in his introduction to ‘Dialectics of Nature’, wrote of this viewpoint, that is contrary to dialectical materialism, as follows: “High as the natural science of the first half of the eighteenth century stood above Greek antiquity in knowledge and even in the sifting of its material, it stood just as deeply below Greek antiquity in the theoretical mastery of this material, in the general outlook on nature. For the Greek philosophers the world was essentially something that had emerged from chaos, something that had developed, that had come into being. For the natural scientists of the period that we are dealing with it was something ossified, something immutable, and for most of them something that had been created at one stroke. Science was still deeply enmeshed in theology. Everywhere it sought and found the ultimate cause in an impulse from outside that was not to be explained from nature itself. Even if attraction, by Newton pompously baptised as “universal gravitation”, was conceived as an essential property of matter, whence comes the unexplained tangential force which first gives rise to the orbits of the planets? How did the innumerable species of plants and animals arise? And how, above all, did man arise, since after all it was certain that he was not present from all eternity? To such questions natural science only too frequently answered by making the creator of all things responsible. Copernicus, at the beginning of the period, shows theology the door; Newton closes the period with the postulate of a divine first impulse. The highest general idea to which this natural science attained was that of the purposiveness of the arrangements of nature, the shallow teleology of Wolff, according to which cats were created to eat mice, mice to be eaten by cats, and the whole of nature to testify to the wisdom of the creator.” The study of this paragraph from the introduction to Engels’ masterpiece, Dialectics of Nature, shows in that period, the first half of the 18th century, how the philosophical generalisation of the development of the natural sciences, the conception of nature bogged down in theology and metaphysics, which made an external impulse and the creator responsible for everything, was to be found in the philosophical generalisation of the development of the natural sciences, whose most general idea was that of Wolff’s vulgar teleology, i.e. something like the idea defended by the UOC comrades from Colombia of the supposed law of “the negation of the negation” with them saying “which indicates the direction of the movement“, to oppose it to the law of contradiction as the only fundamental law of the movement of eternal matter, of the self-movement of matter. Which is the essence or kernel of dialectics, which in Engels is already implicit in his introduction to Dialectics of Nature, which we will soon publish on our website with our highlights. But, as Chairman Mao pointed out, synthesising thousands of years of history of Western and Eastern philosophy, it is a process, without which it is impossible to achieve this result, to understand perfectly and handle in a totally conscious way the objective laws. And, as for the study of contradiction, the only fundamental law of dialectics, because there is no other, Chairman Gonzalo, reaffirming and specifying what Chairman Mao had established, said: “Lenin said: Capital is a monument to dialectics; a monument of contradiction, and if you think about the commodity and its definition, how he conceives it as a contradiction, then you will understand how Marx understood it. The problem, many times, is that the situation is implicit, not explicitly stated many times, this is the problem. And why is it not given, because it takes more time for a deepening on the basis of what others like Marx and Engels or the Great Lenin did, could the Chairman come to that.” (quoted in ‘Defence of Maoism (I)’) We stand for Marxism, for the defence of Maoism, we stand for the dialectical materialist conception, according to which everything is matter in motion and what explains this self-movement is contradiction as the only fundamental law of dialectical materialism or Marxist philosophy or proletarian conception. Chairman Mao wrote about this: “As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes. Thus materialist dialectics effectively combats the theory of external causes, or of an external motive force, advanced by metaphysical mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism.” […] According to materialist dialectics, changes in nature are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in nature. Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society, that is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the supersession of the old society by the new. Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all. It holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis. There is constant interaction between the peoples of different countries. In the era of capitalism, and especially in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, the interaction and mutual impact of different countries in the political, economic and cultural spheres are extremely great. The October Socialist Revolution ushered in a new epoch in world history as well as in Russian history. It exerted influence on internal changes in the other countries in the world and, similarly and in a particularly profound way, on internal changes in China. These changes, however, were effected through the inner laws of development of these countries, China included.” (Mao Tse-tung, “On Contradiction”, 1937; our highlights, ci-ic.org) Chairman Mao defines precisely what is the driving force or motor of the process of the development of nature and society without ever mentioning the famous “law” of the “negation of negation” to determine the direction of the movement, in this respect as we have already quoted him saying: “The life of dialectics is the continuous movement toward opposites […] which will produce something more advanced […]” The above quotation condenses what he wrote two decades earlier in ‘On Contradiction’, which reads as follows: “Contradiction is universal and absolute, it is present in the process of development of all things and permeates every process from beginning to end. What is meant by the emergence of a new process? The old unity with its constituent opposites yields to a new unity with its constituent opposites, whereupon a new process emerges to replace the old. The old process ends and the new one begins. The new process contains new contradictions and begins its own history of the development of contradictions. As Lenin pointed out, Marx in his Capital gave a model analysis of this movement of opposites which runs through the process of development of things from beginning to end. This is the method that must be employed in studying the development of all things. Lenin, too, employed this method correctly and adhered to it in all his writings. In his Capital, Marx first analyses the simplest, most ordinary and fundamental, most common and everyday relation of bourgeois (commodity) society, a relation encountered billions of times, viz. the exchange of commodities. In this very simple phenomenon (in this “cell” of bourgeois society) analysis reveals all the contradictions (or the germs of all the contradictions) of modern society. The subsequent exposition shows us the development (both growth and movement) of these contradictions and of this society in the [summation] of its individual parts, from its beginning to its end. Lenin added, ‘Such must also be the method of exposition (or study) of dialectics in general.’ […]“ (Mao Tse-tung, “On Contradiction”; our highlights, ci-ic.org) That is what Marxism-Leninism-Maoism says and, possibly unwittingly, aligning themselves with the revisionist Trotskyite-hoxhaite positions, the comrades of the UOC, maintain the opposite: “We consider that the philosophical basis of this error lies in the pretension of reducing the general laws of movement to contradiction, interpreting that its character of being the most fundamental law of dialectics or nucleus or essence of dialectics, means that it is the «only law of dialectics»; wrong idea that was imposed in the extinct RIM (defended also by the «new synthesis» of Avakian) and that now the comrades of the Committee try to amend in the proposal with the words «only fundamental law of dialectics», but preserving the old idea of ignoring the law of negation of negation, which indicates the direction of the movement, a law openly recognized by the masters of the proletariat: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. In short, we defend the Marxism Leninism Maoism science in development, integral, coherent and exact.“ Therefore, it is necessary to continue with the theme of our conception and the leap in the understanding of the law of contradiction by Chairman Mao Tse-tung and its significance for Marxist philosophy, the exposition of which with selected documentation will be the main content of Defence of Maoism (III). Chairman Mao is the one who took up the theoretical and practical task of deepening the understanding of contradiction as the “essence and core of dialectics”, a task formulated by Lenin, and raised Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism to new heights by establishing the law of contradiction as the only fundamental law of materialist dialectics. Maoism has endowed us with this sharp weapon to transform the world; wielding it is a theoretical and practical problem. “A plan is an ideology. Ideology is the reflection of a reality and acts on reality.” It is from the great leap in the core of our ideology achieved by Chairman Mao that Chairman Gonzalo, fulfilling the task of defining Maoism as the third, new and higher stage of Marxism, established: “Contradiction, the only fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter.” (1st Congress of the PCP, 1988) The above is the brilliant condensation, which expresses the conception of the international proletariat, dialectical materialism: its condition of materialism when it says eternal matter and dialectics when it stresses contradiction. Materialism is the basis, dialectics is the guidance, and the only law of dialectics is contradiction and the others are derivations. Concentrated expression of Marxist philosophical monism, where materialism, dialectics and the theory of knowledge from the point of view and the historical interests of the last class in history, the only class possessing the true scientific ideology, all others are inverted expressions of reality, all-powerful ideology because it is true. This condensation of our conception by the one who defined Maoism implies a leap in Marxist philosophy, that is beyond doubt; the question, whether it is a big or a great leap is something we leave for the future deepening of its understanding and deepening of the task completed by Chairman Gonzalo. Chairman Mao in ‘On Practice’ says: “In the present epoch of the development of society, the responsibility of correctly knowing and changing the world has been placed by history upon the shoulders of the proletariat and its party.” We once again reaffirm the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist position, that the only fundamental law is contradiction and the others are derivations, defended by the CUMIC in the Basis of Discussion for the UMIC. With Chairman Mao we arrive at philosophical monism; the sole law, he clearly affirmed the development of Marxism in this matter of utmost importance for our ideology: “Engels talked about the three categories, but as for me I don’t believe in two of those categories.(The unity of opposites is the most basic law, the transformation of quality and quantity into one another is the unity of the opposites quality and quantity, and the negation of the negation does not exist at all.) The juxtaposition, on the same level, of the transformation of quality and quantity into one another, the negation of the negation, and the law of the unity of opposites is ‘triplism’, not monism. The most basic thing is the unity of opposites. The transformation of quality and quantity into one another is the unity of the opposites quality and quantity. There is no such thing as the negation of the negation. Affirmation, negation, affirmation, negation […] in the development of things, every link in the chain of events is both affirmation and negation.” He goes on to explain the issue as follows: “Slave-holding society negated primitive society, but with reference to feudal society it constituted, in turn, the affirmation. Feudal society constituted the negation in relation to slave-holding society but it was in turn the affirmation with reference to capitalist society. Capitalist society was the negation in relation to feudal society, but it is, in turn, the affirmation in relation to socialist society. What is the method of synthesis? Is it possible that primitive society can exist side-by-side with slave-holding society? They do exist side-by-side, but this is only a small part of the whole. The overall picture is that primitive society is going to be eliminated. The development of society, moreover, takes place by stages; primitive society, too, is divided into a great many stages. At that time, there was not yet the practice of burying women with their dead husbands, but they were obliged to subject themselves to men. First men were subject to women, and then things moved towards their opposite, and women were subject to men. This stage in history has not yet been clarified, although it has been going on for a million years and more. Class society has not yet lasted 5,000 years, cultures such as that of Lung Shan and Yang Shao at the end of the primitive era had coloured pottery. In a word, one devours another, one overthrows another, one class is eliminated, another class rises, one society is eliminated, another society rises. Naturally, in the process of development, everything is not all that pure. When it gets to feudal society, there still remains something of the slaveholding system, though the greater part of the social edifice is characterized by the feudal system. There are still some serfs, and also some bond-workers, such as handicraftsmen. Capitalist society isn’t all that pure either, and even in more advanced capitalist societies there is also a backward part. For example, there was the slave system in the Southern United States. Lincoln abolished the slave system, but there are still black slaves today, their struggle is very fierce. More than 20 million people are participating in it, and that’s quite a few. One thing destroys another, things emerge, develop, and are destroyed, everywhere is like this. If things are not destroyed by others, then they destroy themselves. Why should people die? Does the aristocracy die too? This is a natural law. Forests live longer than human beings, yet even they last only a few thousand years. If there were no such thing as death, that would be unbearable. If we could still see Confucius alive today, the earth wouldn’t be able to hold so many people. I approve of Chuang-tzu’s approach. When his wife died, he banged on a basin and sang. When people die there should be parties to celebrate the victory of dialectics, to celebrate the destruction of the old. Socialism, too, will be eliminated, it wouldn’t do if it were not eliminated, for then there would be no communism. Communism will last for thousands and thousands of years. I don’t believe that there will be no qualitative changes under communism, that it will not be divided into stages by qualitative changes! I don’t believe it! Quantity changes into quality, and quality changes into quantity. I don’t believe that it can remain qualitatively exactly the same, unchanging for millions of years! This is unthinkable in the light of dialectics. Then there is the principle, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’. Do you believe they can carry on for a million years with the same economics? Have you thought about it? If that were so, we wouldn’t need economists, or in any case we could get along with just one textbook, and dialectics would be dead.” The life of dialectics is the continuous movement toward opposites.” (Mao Tse-tung, “Talk on Questions of Philosophy”; our highlights, ci-ic.org) In ‘Defence of Maoism (I)’, we reaffirmed the following truth: Materialism is very old, as is dialectics, they are parallel, contemporary in origin, they are more than 2550 years old in the West, we owe it to the Greeks. But it was Marx who took the idea as a derivation of matter, fusing dialectics with matter, who gave the great transformation generating the new philosophy, the full and complete philosophy not in a closed sense, that is why we cannot speak of system, system implies closed circle and knowledge is a spiral, it is not a closed circle nor are the circles that make up the spiral closed. Lenin reaffirmed materialist monism and advanced monism in dialectics, leaving the task of deepening it to future generations of Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, he said: “The materialist elimination of the “dualism of mind and body” (i.e., materialist monism) consists in the assertion that the mind does not exist independently of the body, that mind is secondary, a function of the brain, a reflection of the external world. The idealist elimination of the “dualism of mind and body” (i.e., idealist monism) consists in the assertion that mind is not a function of the body, that, consequently, mind is primary, that the “environment” and the “self” exist only in an inseparable connection of one and the same “complexes of elements.” Apart from these two diametrically opposed methods of eliminating “the dualism of mind and body,” there can be no third method, unless it be eclecticism, which is a senseless jumble of materialism and idealism.” (Lenin, “Materialism and Empiriocriticism”; our highlights, ci-ic.org) “In his Ludwig Feuerbach, Engels declares that the fundamental philosophical trends are materialism and idealism. Materialism regards nature as primary and spirit as secondary; it places being first and thought second. Idealism holds the contrary view. This root distinction between the “two great camps” into which the philosophers of the “various schools” of idealism and materialism are divided Engels takes as the cornerstone, and he directly charges with “confusion” those who use the terms idealism and materialism in any other way. “The great basic question of all philosophy,” Engels says, “especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being,” of “spirit and nature.” Having divided the philosophers into “two great camps” on this basic question, Engels shows that there is “yet another side” to this basic philosophical question, viz., “in what relation do our thoughts about the world surrounding us stand to this world itself? Is our thinking capable of the cognition of the real world? Are we able in our ideas and notions of the real world to produce a correct reflection of reality?” [*]’ ‘“The overwhelming majority of philosophers give an affirmative answer to this question,” says Engels, including under this head not only all materialists but also the most consistent idealists, as, for example, the absolute idealist Hegel, who considered the real world to be the realisation of some premundane “absolute idea,” while the human spirit, correctly apprehending the real world, apprehends in it and through it the “absolute idea.” “In addition [i.e., to the materialists and the consistent idealists] there is yet a set of different philosophers—those who question the possibility of any cognition, or at least of an exhaustive cognition, of the world. To them, among the more modern ones, belong Hume and Kant, and they have played a very important role in philosophical development.” (Lenin, “Materialism and Empiriocriticism”, 1908; our highlights, ci-ic.org) And among others, Lenin in his comments draws the following epistemological conclusion: “In the theory of knowledge, as in every other sphere of science, we must think dialectically, that is, we must not regard our knowledge as ready-made and unalterable, but must determine how knowledge emerges from ignorance, how incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and more exact. Once we accept the point of view that human knowledge develops from ignorance, we shall find millions of examples of it just as simple as the discovery of alizarin in coal tar, millions of observations not only in the history of science and technology but in the everyday life of each and every one of us that illustrate the transformation of ‘things-in-themselves’ into ‘things-for-us’, the appearance of ‘phenomena’ when our sense-organs experience an impact from external objects, the disappearance of ‘phenomena’ when some obstacle prevents the action upon our sense-organs of an object which we know to exist. The sole and unavoidable deduction to be made from this—a deduction which all of us make in everyday practice and which materialism deliberately places at the foundation of its epistemology—is that outside us and independently of us, there exist objects, things, bodies and that our perceptions are images of the external world. Mach’s converse theory (that bodies are complexes of sensations) is pitiful idealist nonsense. … He [Chernov; our note, ci-ic.org] regards only gelehrte fictions as genuine philosophy and is unable to distinguish professorial eclecticism from the consistent materialist theory of knowledge.” (Lenin, “Materialism and Empiriocriticism”, 1908) Applying the law of contradiction to the dialectical process of knowledge, Chairman Mao established that in order to perfectly understand and fully consciously make use of objective laws, it is necessary to go through a certain process to arrive at this result: “Page 446, paragraph 2 [of Reading Notes On The Soviet Text Political Economy], says that as ownership becomes public “people become the masters of the economic relations of their own society,” and are “able to take hold of and apply these laws fully and consciously.” It should be observed that this requires going through a process. The understanding of laws always begins with the understanding of a minority before it becomes the knowledge of the majority. It is necessary to go through a process of practice and study to go from ignorance to knowledge. At the beginning no one has knowledge. Foreknowledge has never existed. People must go through practice to gain results, meet with failure as problems arise; only through such a process can knowledge gradually advance. If you want to know the objective laws of the development of things and events you must go through the process of practice, adopt a Marxist-Leninist attitude, compare successes and failures, continually practicing and studying, going through multiple successes and failures; moreover, meticulous research must be performed. There is no other way to make one’s own knowledge gradually conform to the laws. For those who see only victory but not defeat it will not be possible to know these laws. It is not easy “to possess and apply these laws fully and consciously.” […] The text does not recognize the contradictions between appearances and essences. Essences always lie behind appearances and cannot be disclosed except through appearances. The text does not express the idea that for a person to know the laws it is necessary to go through a process. The vanguard is no exception.” (Mao Tse-tung, “Reading Notes On The Soviet Text ‘Political Economy’”; our highlights, ci-ic.org) Dialectical materialism, as the scientific conception of the proletariat, is the understanding of all that exists, that means understanding of the material world, understanding of the class struggle, that is the social world, and that means understanding of knowledge as a reflection of matter in the mind which is another form of matter from the point of view or position of the proletariat (monist materialist dialectical conception = the only fundamental law of contradiction, the others are derivations of this law). There is no movement without matter, no matter without movement and the motor of movement is contradiction. Also, we start from the great truth established since the beginning of Marxism, that Marxism has three integral parts: Marxist philosophy, Marxist political economy and scientific socialism. And in the great statement to define the stages of its development affirmed by Chairman Gonzalo, that the development in all of them that generates a great qualitative leap of Marxism as a whole, as a unity at a higher level, implies a new stage. A development in all three constituent parts to a higher level, then we have a universal qualitative leap. That is why we have to start from the Theory, to show the developments in those three parts, then the one who defined Maoism tells us that if we proceed in that way, it is impossible to deny Maoism, impossible! And the rest are derivations that can be included in any of the three parts. And, that the essential thing is to show that Chairman Mao has generated, as can be seen in theory and practice, such a great qualitative leap. Here, we have not focused on showing the development of the three component parts of Marxism by Chairman Mao, but in the ‘Report: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism’ you see this development (published on ci-ic.org), but will only focus on highlighting the development of Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism by Chairman Mao in terms of the core or essence of dialectics: contradiction. Therefore, in Part III or later on, we will specifically deal, through quotations from Chairman Mao himself, with the fulfilment of the task left by Lenin of deepening his understanding, taking into account, among others, the development of the particular sciences and mainly of the theory and practice of the proletarian world revolution.

DEFENCE OF MAOISM (I)

“From time immemorial, nothing progressive has ever been favourably received at first and everything progressive has invariably been the object of abuse. Marxism and the Communist Party have been abused from the very beginning. Even ten thousand years hence, things progressive will still be abused at the outset.” – Chairman Mao The slogan of the Unified Maoist International Conference (UMIC) and the birth of the New International Organisation of the Proletariat (NIOP) is “Unite under Maoism”, that is a call to the communist parties and organisations of the world to unite on the basis of unity of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism through the two-line struggle. The International Communist Movement needs to uphold, defend and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism! Of these three, the main one is application to establish a general political line and apply it to every situation, for as Chairman Mao Tse-tung stated, tactics and the application of the line to the changing conditions of reality are the very life of the party. ON THE CONDUCT OF THE DEBATE The Coordinating Committee of the Unified Maoist International Conference (CCIMU) has published its proposal for a basis of unity as Basis for Discussion, opening the debate to unify at the Conference on a solid basis of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist unity. The Maoist parties and organisations, for the most part, have taken position in favour of the proposal; but others, as has been published in our “Tribune of Debate” section, have criticised it on some of its fundamental points, in some cases because they misunderstood the plain text of the Basis for Discussion, questions which we will clarify in the course of the Debate; In some of these cases, it is a repetition of what Avakian and others argued in the early years of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) to oppose the definition of Maoism as the third, new and higher stage of the scientific ideology of the international proletariat. In that period, from the 1980s to the early 1990s, Avakian upheld ‘Mao-Tse-tung-Thought’ and, he said, that it was the same as saying ‘Maoism’, others accepted only up to Marxism-Leninism. Continuing on the current debate, others have attacked the Basis of Discussion and Maoism, from clearly anti-Marxist, anti-Maoist positions, but at least they have dared to enter directly into the debate; while one, from the outside, has attacked the Basis of Discussion and the CCIMU proposal for the Unified Maoist International Conference. It is a proposal and call for the Unified Maoist International Conference and to give life to a New International Organisation of the Proletariat, which is supported by the Maoist Parties and Organisations such as the signatories of the last declaration, The old world is in decomposition, tension the forces to achieve the new! for Mayday 2022 and many other parties and organisations. Today, it is an obvious fact that no one can avoid directly or indirectly taking part in the debate on the basis for discussion proposed by the CCIMU. This shows the great success of the preparation of the subjective conditions that lead to its realisation, to culminate this phase of discussion in the International Communist Movement, which expresses the need to unite and affiliate its still dispersed forces in a new International Organisation of the Proletariat and, after its realisation, to enter a new phase where, following the same principle of unity-struggle-unity, the differences that will still remain will be discussed within it in order to advance to a higher level of unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and to win over those forces that have still remained on the sidelines for various reasons. We salute the Maoist Parties and Organizations that have publicly articulated themselves and have entered into the public debate of the Basis of Discussion proposed by the CCIMU for the Unified Maoist International Conference, where they have exposed their positions, made their observations and criticisms, keeping within the frameworks of the two-line struggle; while, in some cases, the proposal has been directly attacked from positions clearly contrary to Marxism. The Basis of Discussion has a whole process behind it and now, after its publication, it is going through the phase of a broad discussion. In this phase, the opinions and positions of the other parties and organisations of the ICM, which did not participate in the first phase, are being sought. Our newspaper Communist International has opened the section Tribune of Debate for the discussion. As the above-mentioned positions have already been published in this section, this time we want to debate mainly on the UOC’s position against the proposed Basis of Discussion and its thinly veiled counter-position to Maoism as the new, third and higher stage of the scientific ideology of the international proletariat, and in doing so we will necessarily refer, directly or indirectly, to the criticisms and observations made by others. The document Basis of Discussion for the CCIMU is extremely clear and quite simple; but, while never being able to lower our positions, they imply some basic knowledge of Marxism and how we apply it to the current reality. We are therefore struck by the fact that some of the published criticisms of the Basis suffer from problems of understanding the actual text of the CCIMU proposal. As noted, for example, by the comrades of Proletarian Power with regard to the criticisms of the Communist Workers’ Union of Colombia (UOC), especially with regard to the basic principles of Marxism, which have to do with the development of the scientific ideology of the international proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism. But the worst thing is that they seek to cast shadows on what is in the document Basis of Discussion or to give a far-fetched interpretation of what is really there, which does not correspond, which can only be the product of a hopeless ideological and political deformation. There have also been some problems of understanding of the text of the Basis of Discussion on the part of other comrades. But nothing can surprise us, for it is all part of the vicissitudes of the class struggle, of the struggle between revolution and counter-revolution, between Marxism and revisionism and its expression within the ranks of the Marxists, of the Maoists, as two-line struggle. THE DIALECTICAL PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT OF MARXIST-LENINIST-MAOIST IDEOLOGY After the brief outline of the development of the present debate, let’s deal with the Statement of the Communist Workers’ Union (mlm) Colombia, “On the Proposal on the Balance of the International Communist Movement and its current General Political Line For a Unified Maoist International Conference!” We are aware that as soon as we settle accounts on this point, with this position, which denies the development of Marxism-Leninism made by Chairman Mao Tse-tung to its three component parts, we will be clarifying the different questions that are expressed on Maoism in the other positions presented publicly to the document Basis of Discussion of the CCIMU. Even more so, if on this point, there is already a position taken by the organisation Proletarian Power of Colombia, which is already a positive aspect of it and has its negative aspect, which is to refuse to admit that Lenin himself, in establishing contradiction as the essence and nucleus of the dialectic, left the task of deepening its study and understanding, that is, of developing it; a task fulfilled by Chairman Mao throughout his theoretical and practical work. Proletarian Power in its position statement “Delimiting and specifying”, on the UOC document, states: “The UOC, by pointing out what its party organisation assumes to be errors of the comrades of the Coordinating Committee, ends up obscuring some matters of principle, contradicting fundamental postulates of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Let us begin, then, by making some necessary clarifications.” (our emphasis; ci-ic.org) The comrades of Proletarian Power, in short, are pointing out two problems in the UOC’s position against the document Basis of Discussion, which we can concretise and expand on in other terms, as follows: 1. That the UOC tries to obscure the terms of the debate by seeking to ignore and contradict fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and, we add, does not speak at all about its practice in Colombia, which would allow us to verify in practice the earthiness of what they maintain in the field of theory. 2. It is an open attack on the Basis of Discussion for the Unified Maoist International Conference and its Coordinating Committee (CCIMU), behind which they seek to hide their attack on Maoism and to ignore the fact that it is the new, third and higher stage of the ideology of the proletariat, that the main thing about Maoism is that it is a new and higher stage, that is why it is the main thing. WE WILL START WITH THE NAME OF THE UOC ITSELF In their very name the Communist Workers’ Union of Colombia (Marxist Leninist Maoist) or UOC (mlm), already express their conception contrary to Marxism and its dialectical development, because by calling Marxism Leninism Maoism in abbreviations mlm, what they call “science of revolution”, without the hyphen of separation between the different phases, they are indicating that Marxism does not develop by leaps but following a flat, linear development. When the development of matter never takes place on the same level, but in a spiral. They are denying the stages in the development of Marxism, as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism. That on the basis of the previous one and as part of the same process of development there is a leap to a new and higher stage of Marxism, which becomes the main one. They are denying the law of contradiction. They are in their self-imposed mental prison: “triplism”, counterposing their “negation of negation” to contradiction as the only fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter. They claim to make “things correspond to their notions”. That is why, before proceeding further, we would like to demarcate ourselves from this anti-Maoist position by putting the following on the table for discussion: Chairman Mao Tse-tung, he said that the only law is contradiction and the others are derivations. With Chairman Mao we arrive at philosophical monism; the one law, he clearly stated the development of Marxism in this matter of the utmost importance for our ideology: “Engels talked about the three categories, but as for me I don’t believe in two of those categories. (The unity of opposites is the most basic law, the transformation of quality and quantity into one another is the unity of the opposites quality and quantity, and the negation of the negation does not exist at all). The juxtaposition, on the same level, of the transformation of quality and quantity into one another, the negation of the negation, and the law of the unity of opposites is ‘triplism’, not monism. The most basic thing is the unity of opposites. The transformation of quality and quantity into one another is the unity of the opposites quality and quantity. There is no such thing as the negation of the negation. Affirmation, negation, affirmation, negation … in the development of things, every link in the chain of events is both affirmation and negation.” (Mao Tse-tung, “Talk on Questions of Philosophy”, 18 August 1964) The comrades of Proletarian Power take a stand, thus: “2. In the debate on whether our science is primarily Maoist, the UOC document explicitly states: ‘We start from the adoption of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a new, third and higher stage of Marxism, and we even admit the Maoist denomination for propaganda purposes’. Here, it must be made clear what it means that ‘the Maoist denomination’ is admitted ‘for propaganda purposes’. Expressed in this way, it is understood as meaning that the name Maoist is accepted for practical matters, out of utilitarian practicality, because it serves propaganda purposes. To pretend to use the word ‘Maoist’ as a mere appellation for propaganda purposes would be absolutely inadmissible. The debate should focus on whether Maoism is recognised as the highest development of Marxism in theory and practice. (our emphasis; ci-ic.org) That is why we uphold Maoism as the new, third and higher stage of the ideology of the international proletariat. And, it is not a simple problem of term, at stake is whether the development of Marxism by Chairman Mao Tse-tung has universal validity or not, and if it is “ism” then it has it and if it is not “ism” then it does not have it. Therein lies the problem, so it is not a problem of term. HOW IS OUR MARXIST-LENINIST-MAOIST IDEOLOGY GOING TO UNFOLD AS A DIALECTICAL PROCESS? The Basis of Discussion takes as its starting point the Manifesto of the Communist Party of 1848, now more than 174 years since its appearance. There are antecedents; in Marx and Engels’ own work we have their participation in the League of Communists, but that league of communists was a jumble of diverse ideas, it was not a clear expression of the proletariat. It is only with the Manifesto of the Communist Party that for the first time the communists put forward their position and their programme and it is the starting point, the first stone on which our whole edifice is built, all that is the great Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; it is from the Manifesto that it remains a valid banner until communism, not, as Khrushchev said, that it had finished its mission with the programme of the CPSU of 1961, pretending to take away our class position and introduce a rotten bourgeois conception, a thorough and complete revision of the whole of Marxism. It is in the heroic epic of the class struggle that our conception, our ideology, can be generated; Only the proletariat with its great incessant transformation of material reality into productive practice, or in the class struggle whose centre is politics as the conquest and defence of power for the class by overthrowing other powers, only as the practice of scientific research, could the class, generating titans of thought and action, take shape as the great ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that we carry and will always carry. And how is our ideology going to unfold as a dialectical process? Through great leaps; three great qualitative leaps with Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao Tse-tung. But these three great qualitative leaps could not be understood without other great, medium and even small leaps. They are three concatenated stages of development of Marxism which are expressed and written as follows: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. There are three stages, one Marxism, two Leninism, three Maoism, that is what defines it. Stages of a dialectical process of development, and why is it so, because being a process of knowledge, a reflection in the mind, a reflection of matter in the mind and matter being movement, being dialectical, knowledge is so and not by simple method as some say, but by essence. Is it sometimes used, yes, but never do Marxists counterpose and even less reduce our conception to a simple methodology, that is a crass error, that is to get entangled in bourgeois theory of knowledge. Marx, Lenin and the Chairman, as well as the great Engels or comrade Stalin, if they speak of methods never refer to the reduction of the whole of Marxism to a simple methodological question, it would lose its quality of conception: being conception it has method as a derivative; after all method is procedure, nothing more. It is important to point out dialectical process, because it is in reality itself and its laws correctly grasped through practice, because it is impossible that there is knowledge without practice, this could not be; precisely that of separating theory from practice is another concession to the bourgeoisie, it is strictly bourgeois thinking, in our case of 18th century narrow empiricism. Chairman Mao, regarding the dialectical process of knowledge, in his ‘Reading notes on the Soviet Text Political Economy’, noted: “It should be observed that this requires going through a process. The understanding of laws always begins with the understanding of a minority before it becomes the knowledge of the majority. It is necessary to go through a process of practice and study to go from ignorance to knowledge. At the beginning no one has knowledge. Foreknowledge has never existed. People must go through practice to gain results, meet with failure as problems arise; only through such a process can knowledge gradually advance. If you want to know the objective laws of the development of things and events you must go through the process of practice, adopt a Marxist-Leninist attitude, compare successes and failures, continually practicing and studying, going through multiple successes and failures; moreover, meticulous research must be performed. There is no other way to make one’s own knowledge gradually conform to the laws. For those who see only victory but not defeat it will not be possible to know these laws.”(our emphasis; ci-ic.org) And, what he had expressed earlier, he sums it up masterfully: “It is not easy “to possess and apply these laws fully and consciously.” Without passing through a determined process it is impossible to reach the result.” (the second sentence is translated from the Spanish version because it is missing in the English one; ci-ic.org) The ideas of the international proletariat are the product of a very high level of elaboration, more than 2,500 years of knowledge that has been reworked from the position and interests of the international proletariat by Marx and Engels. That is their background: 2,500 years! And insurgent in the great epic of the class struggle of the proletariat, it is a fighting, revolutionary breakthrough. Materialism is very old, as is dialectics, they are parallel, contemporary in origin, they are more than 2550 years old in the West, we owe it to the Greeks. But it was Marx who took the idea as a derivation of matter, fusing dialectics with matter, who gave the great transformation generating the new philosophy, the cabal and complete philosophy not in a closed sense, that is why we cannot speak of system, system implies a closed circle and knowledge is a spiral, it is not a closed circle nor are the circles that make up the spiral closed. As a scientific conception of the proletariat, it is the understanding of all that exists, that means understanding of the material world, understanding of the class struggle, that is, of the social world, and it means understanding of knowledge as a reflection of matter in the mind, which is another form of matter from the point of view or position of the proletariat. The context in which Chairman Mao acted and the question of the new era is clearly written in the Basis of Discussion: “The triumph of the Great Socialist Revolution of October 1917 led by the great Lenin and the Bolshevik Party marked an extraordinary feat in Universal History – the end of the world bourgeois revolution and the opening of the New Era, the Era of the World Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. There were many revolutions before the great October Revolution, each one of them provided new impulse for society. However, these revolutions only replaced an exploitation system with another. The Great October Socialist Revolution (GOSR) was the first revolution that was conceived and carried out to establish a society free from exploitation and oppression – a classless society. The October Socialist Revolution represented a radical turning point in the history of humanity. It opened a New Era in the shining and long path that leads to socialism and communism.“ THE GREAT OCTOBER REVOLUTION OF 1917 OPENS THE ERA OF WORLD PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION What does it mean? That the world revolution led by the bourgeoisie is over, that means, it has lasted about 300 or 400 years, it is over, it is finished. If you take all that Chairman Mao Tse-tung did, plus the last part of his life, we have to take the new era as the world revolution led by the proletariat, i.e. conducted by the class. It is combined with the three types of revolution: democratic revolution, socialist revolution and cultural revolution. If you want to see the whole of Maoism, take the whole as a whole, and if you take into account the main importance that the Chairman attached to the world revolution, to which he devoted himself fully in the last part of his life, for concrete, historical reasons that were embodied, you can understand perfectly well what world proletarian revolution is. Those who criticise the Basis of Discussion for having put only new era without mentioning imperialism are thinking in terms and not in the sense of the whole unity that Maoism implies. – Yes, at the beginning it was said like this: “the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution”, it was because the main thing about imperialism is that it matures the conditions for revolution, which is a transitional stage, because after it there can only be socialism. – But imperialism will be swept away in the “period of 50 to 100” as Chairman Mao put it, and from there follows a long stretch of proletarian revolution much longer than that until that period is completed, until through successive cultural revolutions we enter communism. That is why the CCIMU document clearly states that the capitalism-socialism contradiction and the bourgeoisie-proletariat contradiction will encompass the whole era and will be solved when we all enter communism, as stated in the document: “In order to appraise the world in this New Era we see that four fundamental contradictions that are expressed: 1) the contradiction between capitalism and socialism – the contradiction between the two radically different systems will take this whole period and it will be one of the last to be resolved, it will last even after the seizure of Power; 2) the contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat – it is the contradiction between two opposed classes and will also remain after the seizure of Power, it manifests itself in various ideological, political and economic forms until its solution when we enter communism; 3) the interimperialist contradictions – these are the contradictions between the imperialists for world hegemony, it takes place between the superpowers, between the superpowers and the imperialist powers and between the imperialist powers, this contradiction will be resolved in the “period of 50 to 100 years”; 4) the contradiction between oppressed nations and imperialism – it is the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed nations to destroy imperialism and the reaction, its solution is also included within the “50 to 100 years”, it is the historically principal contradiction during this whole period of time; however, any of the four fundamental contradictions can become the principal according to specific circumstances of class struggle, temporarily, or in certain countries, but the historically principal contradiction will again express itself as such until its final resolution.” With the above, we would like to clarify our views or position on this issue in the face of criticism from some parties. THE CURRENT MARXISM THAT WE UPHOLD, DEFEND AND, MAINLY, APPLY IS MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM, MAINLY MAOISM Let us now move on to elucidate the real divergences of the UOC on the ideological level against the Basis of Discussion proposed by the CCIMU, which we have indicated as number 1. In this regard, we will see and refute the UOC’s statements and we will refer to the statements of the other parties, clarifying and deepening the understanding of the statements of the Basis of Discussion, which have a whole lot of foundations behind which we will only bring to the discussion what is absolutely necessary for the struggle and clarification. The CIMU proposal in the Basis for Discussion on this aspect states: “During more than 170 years starting from the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848, the ideology of the proletariat has emerged and developed itself in the crucible of class struggle in three stages: 1) marxism, 2) marxism-leninism and 3) marxism-leninism-maoism. Maoism is the almighty scientific ideology of the international proletariat, it is almighty because it is true; the third, new and superior stage of marxism;” The comrades of the UOC, on the ideology of the proletariat, as point 1. write: “1. On the exact denomination of the science of revolution: We start from the adoption of Marxism Leninism Maoism as a new, third and superior stage of Marxism, and we even admit the denomination Maoist for propaganda purposes, however, we consider erroneous the expression «mainly Maoist» because it corresponds to the pretension of making Maoism a «synthesis» of communism and reducing scientific socialism to the contributions of Mao Tse-tung. We consider that the philosophical basis of this error lies in the pretension of reducing the general laws of movement to contradiction, interpreting that its character of being the most fundamental law of dialectics or nucleus or essence of dialectics, means that it is the «only law of dialectics»; wrong idea that was imposed in the extinct RIM (defended also by the «new synthesis» of Avakian) and that now the comrades of the Committee try to amend in the proposal with the words «only fundamental law of dialectics», but preserving the old idea of ignoring the law of negation of negation, which indicates the direction of the movement, a law openly recognized by the masters of the proletariat: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. In short, we defend the Marxism Leninism Maoism science in development, integral, coherent and exact.” The comrades of Proletarian Power clarify and specify their position, which we quote below: “2. Here, it must be made clear what it means that ‘the Maoist denomination’ is admitted ‘for propaganda purposes’ … as a mere appellation for propaganda purposes … absolutely inadmissible. The debate should focus on whether Maoism is recognised as the highest development of Marxism in theory and practice. 3. …it is inadmissible for the UOC to try to identify the positions of the comrades of the Coordinating Committee with Avakian revisionism in phrases such as: “is in the pretence of reducing the general laws of motion to contradiction…(quote UOC) And they continue: “… the UOC must demonstrate with arguments that from the thesis that contradiction is the only fundamental law of dialectics several revisionist ideas are derived(…) the Coordinating Committee say exactly: Contradiction, the only fundamental law of the incessant transformation of eternal matter … Although the UOC stresses the word fundamental, it assumes that they said only the only law … misrepresenting the position of the comrades of the Coordinating Committee. In general, a thesis is not revisionist because it is said by a revisionist,… that is precisely what we intend to discern in depth in the line struggle at the International Conference.” Going on, the comrades of Proletarian Power – with regard to contradiction as the only fundamental law, with which we do not agree because by doing so, without saying so, they would be explicitly denying the leap implied by Chairman Mao’s statement for Marxist philosophy, for dialectical materialism – say: “We consider Lenin’s formulation of dialectics to be accurate, we would neither add to it nor subtract from it. In this respect, Mao says in “On Contradiction“: “Lenin said: ‘Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects.’ Lenin often called this law the essence of dialectics; he also called it the kernel of dialectics.” If there are sufficient arguments to leave Lenin’s formulation of dialectics behind, and to take up a new one, they should be presented to the Conference for discussion, otherwise we must reaffirm Lenin’s thesis. … that is why we recognise contradiction as the fundamental law of dialectics, which is present in all phenomena of nature, society and thought.… Faced with … the UOC text on the negation of negation and contradiction as the essence of dialectics, in order to advance in this, we invite the comrades to see, first, the implications of the use of what they mistakenly assume to be dialectics in the exercise of their critique. Comrades say: ‘we consider the expression ‘mainly Maoist’ erroneous in that it corresponds to the pretension of making Maoism a “synthesis” of communism and reducing scientific socialism to the contributions of Mao Tse-tung’ (Emphasis added). Reasoning in absolutes leads nowhere. … it is not true that the document “For a Unified Maoist International Conference” is “reducing” scientific socialism to Mao’s contributions; what is being said is that today, to be a Marxist, one has to recognise the developments of Marxism represented by Maoism. … Maoism is the touchstone between Marxists and revisionists, … because it characterises in a major way, today’s Marxism: let us insist… Maoism.” We reiterate, on what Proletarian Power presented in this part, we agree in part with their demarcation and much of what they are specifying in the debate with the UOC, but with the difference that they do not advance to understand the leap that Chairman Mao’s statement on “contradiction as the only fundamental law”, that is why the clarifications and precisions that we are making are necessary in combating the anti-Maoist position expressed by the UOC, as if it were a simple counterposition to what was put forward by the CCIMU in the Basis of Discussion. Let us see, Marxism has three component parts: Marxist philosophy, Marxist political economy and scientific socialism. The development in all of them that generates a great qualitative leap of Marxism as a whole, as a unity to a higher level implies a new stage. If there is a development in all three component parts to a higher level then we have a universal qualitative leap; that is why we have to start from theory, to show the developments in these three parts, then Maoism is impossible to deny! And the rest are derivations that can be included in any of the three parts. The essential thing is to show that Chairman Mao has generated such a great qualitative leap in theory and practice. To show the above, we publish in a separate article (see ‘Report: On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism’, PCP, February 1988, published by ci-ic.org) the generalisations of all that Chairman Mao has done throughout a whole process and in this and the following articles we deal mainly with the content of Maoism that has been attacked in the present debate or is insufficiently understood for various reasons. On the development made by Chairman Mao in Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism or the study of contradiction, we advance what is most urgent to advance in this point of the debate, because it has to do decisively with the core of our ideology and we will continue to deal with the conception in a separate article. In view of the above, we reaffirm that Chairman Mao developed the core of dialectics, the law of contradiction, establishing it as the only fundamental law. In his “Talk on Philosophy”, he said: “Engels talked about the three categories, but as for me I don’t believe in two of those categories. (The unity of opposites is the most basic law, the transformation of quality and quantity into one another is the unity of the opposites quality and quantity, and the negation of the negation does not exist at all). The juxtaposition, on the same level, of the transformation of quality and quantity into one another, the negation of the negation, and the law of the unity of opposites is ‘triplism’, not monism. The most basic thing is the unity of opposites. The transformation of quality and quantity into one another is the unity of the opposites quality and quantity. There is no such thing as the negation of the negation. Affirmation, negation, affirmation, negation … in the development of things, every link in the chain of events is both affirmation and negation.” Yes, the one fundamental law, there is no other. In On Contradiction Chairman Mao he explicitly states: “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the fundamental law of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought. It stands opposed to the metaphysical world outlook.” (our emphasis, ci-ic.org) So Chairman Mao states, the other is a derivation of the one fundamental law – the law of the unity of opposites or the law of contradiction, – as the unity of the opposites quality and quantity. And the Chairman fulminates against those who seek to oppose Marxist philosophical monism with a third law, “There is no such thing as the negation of the negation” because “in the development of things, every link in the chain of events is both affirmation and negation”. Recapitulating the process of knowledge followed to arrive at this result, which implies a leap of great importance in the fulfilment by the Chairman of the task left by Lenin, in his Philosophical Notebooks, we say: Marx and Engels said three, one being the main; Lenin, deepening the problem, developing it, said: contradiction is the key; Chairman Mao went further, he said: “the only fundamental law”. And why didn’t he say principal? In “On Practice”, in “On Contradiction” and in his Talk, why did he say only fundamental law? Why did he put it that way? Because there is no other, and if there is no other, how can there be a principal, do you understand the reason? If there were several, it would be principal, but it is the only one; we could talk about principal if we are talking about derived laws, in that case yes, but the essence of the problem is that it is the only fundamental one. Is this understood? We believe that it is not understood, and that is why we insist. Honestly, we believe that they are simply repeating what they read; because if they understand this, why is it that they do not make a great effort to handle the contradiction, what does the practice show: a great handling of the contradiction or serious limitations in its handling? We are not saying that they don’t know it, that they are not aware of it. We know it by hearsay! We know that the law exists, but do we understand what is meant by the “only fundamental law”? If so, where is the practice, what does the practice prove, it doesn’t prove that we handle it as such. It is a problem of theory and practice, or do you think that the problem of philosophy, and in this case of dialectics and contradiction, is to know, to know it by hearsay? Chairman Mao himself, in his talk, tells us that he came to Marxist philosophy by the path of class struggle. Lenin said: Capital is a monument to dialectics; a monument of contradiction, and if you think about the commodity and its definition, how he conceives it as a contradiction, then you will understand how Marx understood it. The problem, many times, is that the situation is implicit, not explicitly stated many times, this is the problem. And why is it not given, because it takes more time for a deepening on the basis of what others like Marx and Engels or the Great Lenin did, could the Chairman come to that. We, in particular, must “emphasize that he [Chairman Mao; ci-ic.org] masterfully applied the law of contradiction in politics” like no one else! THE COMRADES OF THE UOC WANT TO STRIP MARXIST IDEOLOGY OF ITS CHARACTER AS THE SCIENTIFIC IDEOLOGY OF THE PROLETARIAT Moving on, let us turn to what the UOC said in its first words when referring to Maoism. We Maoists are against the attempt to reduce Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the scientific ideology of the proletariat, to science, calling it “science of the revolution”, as the comrades of the UOC do; Moreover, they write “Marxism Leninism Maoism” without the “-” of the order of the stages of the process of its development, with which they deny the development by stages, when it is common knowledge that every process of development has phases or stages, so when they write “mlm” they are denying the development of Marxism even though they write that it is “science in development, complete, coherent and exact”. Thus, these comrades, despite their particularities, follow the practice of Avakian who removed from the mouthpiece of the RCP USA, which was called The Revolutionary Worker, the denomination “Worker” to call it only “Revolution” in order to reconcile himself with the sectors of the so-called “left of the Democratic Party”, in the case at hand, the comrades pretend to strip Marxist ideology of its character of scientific ideology of the proletariat, reducing it only to “science of the revolution”. They speak of science repeatedly counterposing its name to Marxist ideology, forgetting that Marxism is scientific ideology of the class. It is the ideology of the international proletariat to express the conception of the proletariat, the last class in history, whose understanding of the world is scientific. It is scientific, but this does not detract from its character as ideology. When one insists too much on substituting the term ideology for scientific or science one is falling back on bourgeois criteria, on bourgeois philosophy centred on the theory of knowledge. The bourgeois school in its rottenness denies ideologies and denies the necessity of philosophy and pretends to reduce it to method. For us philosophy is the core of ideology. What happens is that the ideology generated by the exploiting classes is inverted because it gives an idealist explanation of history. Our ideology is scientific because it is a true reflection of their practice and their class character. It is omnipotent because it is true (Lenin). What lies at the heart of this substitution of scientific ideology of the proletariat for that of simply “science of revolution” is the revisionist Althusser’s imputation to Marx of having created scientific socialism as a new science but not having given it its doctrinal, philosophical foundations. That is the basis of this criterion. If you analyse the work of this individual, you find that he is going to suggest that the foundations of Marxism had to be laid by fusing Spinozism with Kantism, which is another bourgeois philosophy. Here we can see his nefarious position. In essence, what does it imply? A re-edition of the theses of the old revisionists, like Kautsky, who maintained that Marxism had no philosophy and that Marxist philosophy was kantism; in other words, he put bourgeois philosophy as the basis of our conception, in the end an agnosticism, that is, an incapacity to know. Since the Communist Party Manifesto of 1848, when Marxism, the ideology of the international proletariat, was born, it has had three component parts: Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism, Marxist political economy and scientific socialism. In Marx and Engels, the founders, there is a whole foundation, there is a profound understanding, and bear in mind what it means to insist repeatedly on certain terms in the belief that they are elevating Marxism, when in fact they are bastard concessions to the bourgeoisie. While claiming that it is a “science in development”, they deny the need for the development of the core of our ideology, which is Marxist philosophy, and then go on to deny the development of Marxist political economy and scientific socialism by the Chairman, as we shall see in due course. SYNTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORE OF OUR IDEOLOGY Chairman Gonzalo, in his Seminar on Philosophy (1987), summarises or synthesises the development of the core of our ideology, Marxist philosophy, and states the following: “Marxism: for Marx and Engels, contradiction is the main law, Plekhanov stated that Marxism posed monism. Materialism is the basis, dialectics is the guideline, and of this the main thing is contradiction. They do not go so far as to state what is the medulla. Lenin proposes what is the core and leaves the task of deepening. With comrade Stalin there is a regression because he raises four features. Chairman Mao states that the only law is contradiction and the others are derivations. With Chairman Mao we arrive at philosophical monism: the only law. This does not imply that the system has been concluded. Questions concerning freedom, on the one hand it is consciousness of necessity and the other aspect is transformation of necessity and this is the main one. Marx defined Dialectics: the most general laws of the development of the natural world, of the social world and of knowledge, understanding as such the reflection of material reality in the mind of man. The difficulty would be in the laws. It is Chairman Mao who proposes a single law, considering the law of contradiction as the only law and he will define materialist dialectics as the study of the law of the development of the natural world, of the social world and of knowledge, that is to say like Marx but instead of laws he says law.” (our translation; ci-ic.org) Therefore, in the development of this part of our response to the criticisms that have been raised against the Basis of Discussion against what is new in the development of our ideology, we will document it in the next article with verbatim quotations from Chairman Mao’s work. The UOC aligns itself with and is actually taking as its teachers the revisionists Althusser and Kautsky, pretending to reduce our ideology to “science” to “scientific socialism”, basically making bastard concessions to the bourgeoisie, that is why they say: “we consider the expression “mainly Maoist” erroneous in that it corresponds to the pretension of making Maoism a “synthesis” of communism and reducing scientific socialism to the contributions of Mao Tse-tung.” Here, too, they are clearly denying the universal value of the development of Marxism-Leninism made by Chairman Mao Tse-tung by reducing it to mere contributions, for if they are mere “contributions” they are denying the universal value of the development of the ideology of the proletariat made by the Chairman, they are denying Maoism as the new, third and higher stage of Marxism. That is why they are rabidly opposing in Marxist philosophy that the law of contradiction is the only fundamental law. And they falsely accuse the proposal of the CCIMU (Basis of Discussion) of pretending to “make Maoism a “synthesis” of communism”. That will be their interpretation because of their inverted perception of reality with their mantras of “negation of negation”. EVERYTHING IS MATTER IN MOTION, EVERYTHING IS CONTRADICTION! Fall backwards, if you didn’t know it! Everything is matter in motion, everything is contradiction! Such is the Marxist philosophical monism that came with Chairman Mao. And that is why the movement of matter: of nature, of society and thought “is existent Contradiction itself” Let us quote Lenin on this point: “Movement and “self-movement” (this NB! Arbitrary (independent), spontaneous, internally-necessary movement), “change,’’ “movement and vitality,” “the principle of all self-movement,” “impulse” (Trieb) to “movement” and to “activity”— the opposite to “dead being”—who would believe that this is the core of “Hegelianism,” of abstract and abstrusen (ponderous, absurd?) Hegelianism?? This core had to be discovered, understood, hinüberretten, laid bare, refined, which is precisely what Marx and Engels did. The idea of universal movement and change (1813 Logic) was conjectured before its application to life and society. In regard to society it was proclaimed earlier (1847) than it was demonstrated in application to man (1859).” (Lenin, “Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic”) The development, the process, processes, is spiral, as Lenin points out in the following on his reading of Hegel in the Philosophical Notebooks, quote: “Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endlessly approximates a series of circles, a spiral. Any fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete, straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire, into clerical obscurantism (where it is anchored by the class interests of the ruling classes). Rectilinearity and one-sidedness, woodenness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness—voilà the epistemological roots of idealism. And clerical obscurantism (= philosophical idealism), of course, has epistemological roots, it is not groundless; it is a sterile flower undoubtedly, but a sterile flower that grows on the living tree of living, fertile, genuine, powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge.” The UOC claim to be the masters of Marxism and dialectics, after they changed the name of their theoretical journal “Contradiction” to “Negation of the negation”, of course, because they consider this a law of dialectics comparable to the law of contradiction, they pretend to give lectures on the subject. Basically they are against Lenin and Chairman Mao, for they are in fact advocates of “two unify into one”, they blatantly deny what is in On Contradiction (1938) verbatim in his speech of 27 January 1957, in “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People” (1957), where the Chairman says that after 28 years of leading the people’s war in China he has fulfilled the task left by Lenin in 1915 of deepening the understanding of what he established in this respect, and in his Talk on Philosophy (1964), from which we extract the relevant part against the accusation made by the UOC that the definition of Maoism as the third, new and higher stage of the ideology of the proletariat is intended to “make Maoism a “synthesis” of communism” as the main thing. With what Chairman Mao stated in his Talk on Philosophy, the Chairman’s development of Marxist philosophy on the law of contradiction should be made clear, and the thesis of those who hold the “law of negation of negation” as a fundamental law of dialectics comparable to contradiction and where the revisionist thesis that “two combine into one” is crushed, should be set out with concrete examples of synthesis according to Maoism. We hope that they will listen to Chairman Mao’s injunction: “We must take life as our starting point in discussing the unity of opposites (Comrade K’ang Sheng: ‘it won’t do merely to talk about concepts.’)” The Chairman furthermore says: “What is synthesis? You have all witnessed how the two opposites, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, were synthesized on the mainland. The synthesis took place like this: their armies came, and we devoured them, we ate them bite by bite. It was not a case of two combining into one as expounded by Yang Hsien-chen, it was not the synthesis of two peacefully, coexisting opposites. They didn’t want to coexist peacefully, they wanted to devour you. Otherwise, why would they have attacked Yenan? Their army penetrated everywhere in North Shensi, except in three hsien on the three borders. You have your freedom, and we have our freedom. There are 250,000 of you, and 25,000 of us. A few brigades, something over 20,000 men. Having analysed, how do we synthesize? If you want to go somewhere, you go right ahead; we still swallow your army mouthful by mouthful. If we could fight victoriously, we fought if we could not win, we retrated. From March 1947 to March 1948, one whole army [of the enemy] disappeared into the landscape, for we annihilated several tens of thousands of their troops. When we surrounded I-ch’uan, and Liu K’an came to relieve the city, the commander-in-chief Liu K’an was killed, two of his three divisional commanders were killed and the other taken prisoner, and the whole army ceased to exist This was synthesis. All of their guns and artillery were synthesized over to our side, and the soldiers were synthesized too. Those who wanted to stay with us could say, and to those who didn’t want to stay we gave money for their traveling expenses. After we had annihilated Liu K’an, the brigade stationed in I-ch’uan surrendered without fighting. In the three great campaigns – Liae Shen, Huai-Hai, and Peking-Tieltsin – what was our method of synthesis? Fu Tso-i was synthesized over to our side, with his army of 400,000 men, without fighting, and they handed over all their rifles. One thing eating another, big fish eating little fish, this is synthesis. It has never been put like this in books. I have never put it this way in my books either. For his part, Yang Hsien-chen believes that two combine into one, and that synthesis is the indissoluble tie between two opposites. What indissoluble ties are there in this world? Things may be tied, but in the end they must be severed. There is nothing which cannot be severed. In the twenty–odd years of our struggle, many of us have also been devoured by the enemy. When the 300,000 strong Red Army reached the Shen-Kan-Mng area, there were only 25,000 left of the others, some had been devoured, some scattered, some killed or wounded. We must take life as our starting point in discussing the unity of opposites (Comrade K’ang Sheng: ‘it won’t do merely to talk about concepts.’)” “While analysis is going on there is also synthesis, and while synthesis is going on, there is also analysis. When people eat animals and plants, they also begin with analysis’ Why don’t we eat sand? When there’s sand in rice, it’s not good to eat. Why don’t we eat grass, as do horses, cows and sheep, but only things like cabbage? We must analyse everything. Shen Nung tasted the hundred herbs and originated their use for medicine. After many tens of thousands of years, analysis finally revealed clearly what could be eaten, and what could not…” “What’s the method of synthesis? Is it possible that primitive society can exist side by side with slave-holding society? They do exist side-by-side, but this is only a small part of the whole. The overall picture is that primitive society is going to be eliminated. The development of society, moreover, takes place by stages … This stage in history has not yet been clarified, although it has been going on for a million years and more. Class society has not yet lasted 5,000 years… In a word, one devours another, one overthrows another, one class is eliminated, another class rises, one society is eliminated, another society rises. Naturally, in the process of development everything is not all that pure. When it gets to feudal society, there still remains something of the slave-holding system, though the greater part of the social edifice is characterized by the feudal system. There are still some serfs, and also some bond-workers, such as handicraftsmen. Capitalist society isn’t all that pure either, and even in more advanced capitalist societies there is also a backward part. For example, there was the slave system in the Southern United States. Lincoln abolished the slave system, but there are still black slaves today, their struggle is very fierce.” “One thing destroys another, things emerge, develop, and are destroyed, everywhere is like this. If things are not destroyed by others, then they destroy themselves. Why should people die? Does the aristocracy die too? This is a natural law. Forests live longer than human beings, yet even they last only a few thousand years. If there were no such thing as death, that would be unbearable. If we could still see Confucius alive today, the earth wouldn’t be able to hold so many people. I approve of Chuang-uu’s approach. When his wife died, he banged on a basin and sang. When people die there should be parties to celebrate the victory of dialectics, to celebrate the destruction of the old. Socialism, too, will be eliminated, it wouldn’t do if it were not eliminated, for then there would be no communism. Communism will last for thousands and thousands of years. I don’t believe that there will be no qualitative changes under communism, that it will not be divided into stages by qualitative changes! I don’t believe it! Quantity changes into quality, and quality changes into quantity. I don’t believe that it can remain qualitatively exactly the same, unchanging for millions of years! This is unthinkable in the light of dialectics. Then there is the principle, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’. Do you believe they can carry on for a million years with the same economics? Have you thought about it? If that were so, we wouldn’t need economists, or in any case we could get along with just one textbook, and dialectics would be dead. The life of dialectics is the continuous movement toward opposites. Mankind will also finally meet its doom. When the theologians talks about doomsday, they are pessimistic and terrify people. We say the end of mankind is something which will produce something more advanced than mankind. Mankind is still in its infancy.”(our emphasis; ci-ic.org) In short: Chairman Mao, studying the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, contradiction, applying it to study the continuous movement of eternal matter towards opposites, establishes that it is contradiction which explains the idea of universal movement and change, i.e. which indicates the direction of movement, and not a supposed law of the negation of the negation. The Basis of Discussion makes a big statement which is essential: they are three stages, one Marxism, two Leninism, three Maoism, that is what it defines. But, they are stages of a dialectical process of development, because being a process of knowledge, a reflection of matter in the mind and matter being movement, being dialectical, that is what knowledge is. But these stages are three great qualitative leaps that could not be understood without other great, medium and even small leaps, and with these incessant leaps, which, given their very elementary magnitude, we do not consider. That is why the UOC denies the definition of Maoism by denying that it is principal and by denying the development of the philosophy by Chairman Mao, centring on contradiction as the only fundamental law of the movement of eternal matter. Marxist philosophy, conception of the proletariat – dialectical materialism – contradiction being the core – contradiction, the fundamental law of dialectics – not principal because there are no other fundamental laws of dialectics. Chairman Mao’s definition of philosophy as the study of contradiction as the law of the development of nature, society and thought. Therefore, it is necessary to rectify, to know how to read and study and to think. The documents precisely move communists to think, to develop the initiative of understanding in order to be able to transform. When one says mainly Maoism, it indicates that we are facing an immense dialectical process that Chairman Mao summarises and personifies. When they say they admit only up to Maoism as a tactic, but not mainly Maoism, what they do not want to recognise is that there is a leap, they are not up to date, they are not in time with the dialectical process and they are lagging behind. They do not recognise Maoism as the third stage of our ideology, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. OUR POSITION ON THE QUESTIONING OF THE CCIMU PROPOSAL AS REPRESENTING A PARTICULAR NUANCE OF THE ICM 1. On the “particular nuance” of the International Communist Movement at the present time. In the UOC’s Pronouncement, after setting out their general considerations on what they consider to be the initial basis of unity, “achieved in the struggle against “avakianism””, they state: (The CCIMU proposal) “does not represent a common general basis of unity, to continue the struggle around the divergences that for now are legitimate within the revolutionary communists, since such a proposal only expresses the position of a particular shade of the communist movement.“ Two things are clearly expressed in this position of the UOC: 1. That they are for another common ideological basis of a Programme of immediate political struggle of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists; 2. That they are against the document Basis of Discussion “because the proposal only expresses the position of a particular shade of the communist movement”. We have already touched on the point 1. on the real divergences of the UOC, on the ideological plane against the Basis of Discussion proposed by the CCIMU, and we will refer to the approaches on this plane of the comrades of Proletarian Power, which we will continue after we have dealt with the observation 2. that the UOC launches against the Basis of Discussion. As the name suggests, these are the Basis of Discussion proposed by the Coordinating Committee for the Unified Maoist International Conference (UCIMIC), which represents a tendency or nuance of a good number of Maoist Parties and Organisations of the world, i.e. a fraction of the ICM, to overcome the differences and achieve unity through the two-line struggle on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, mainly Maoism. Hence the slogan Unite under Maoism! Therefore, we take the accusation of the comrades of the UOC as true, because we consider that, instead of being a mistake, it is a positive thing. Because the proposal of the CCIMU follows the Leninist tradition of unifying the movement under the reddest shade of the movement, as is clear from these quotations from Lenin: “And you emphasise that ‘we need to put forward a slogan that would unite everyone’. Let me say frankly that what I fear most at present is just this kind of blanket unification which, I am convinced, is the most dangerous and the most harmful thing for the proletariat. After all, Kautsky has already invented, in Neue Zeit, an ultra-‘unifying’ theory.” (Lenin, “Letter to Alexandra Kollontai”, 28 November – 8 December 1914). “We know about all these fashionable and trenchant phrases. Only there is not a grain of truth or sense in them. There can be no strong socialist party without a revolutionary theory which unites all socialists, from which they draw all their convictions, and which they apply in their methods of struggle and means of action. To defend such a theory, which to the best of your knowledge you consider to be true, against unfounded attacks and attempts to corrupt it is not to imply that you are an enemy of all criticism.” (‘Our Programme, Second Half of 1899) “It is precisely because Marxism is not a lifeless dogma, not a completed, ready-made, immutable doctrine, but a living guide to action, that it was bound to reflect the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of social life. That change was reflected in profound disintegration and disunity, in every manner of vacillation, in short, in a very serious internal crisis of Marxism. Resolute resistance to this disintegration, a resolute and persistent struggle to up hold the fundamentals of Marxism, was again placed on the order of the day.” (Lenin, “Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism”, 1910) “Marx … (in) his letter on the Gotha Programme, in which he sharply condemns eclecticism in the formulation of principles. If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders, then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles, do not make theoretical “concessions”. This was Marx’s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek—in his name—to belittle the significance of theory! Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. Yet, for Russian Social-Democrats the importance of theory is enhanced by three other circumstances, which are often forgotten: first, by the fact that our Party is only in process of formation, its features are only just becoming defined, and it has as yet far from settled accounts with the other trends of revolutionary thought that threaten to divert the movement from the correct path. On the contrary, precisely the very recent past was marked by a revival of non-Social-Democratic revolutionary trends (an eventuation regarding which Axelrod long ago warned the Economists). Under these circumstances, what at first sight appears to be an “unimportant” error may lead to most deplorable consequences, and only short-sighted people can consider factional disputes and a strict differentiation between shades of opinion inopportune or superfluous. The fate of Russian Social-Democracy for very many years to come may depend on the strengthening of one or the other ‘shade’.”(Lenin, “What is to be done?”, Autumn 1901 – February 1902). We consider it necessary to explain the Marxist criterion that until the Communist International has been reconstituted as the World Communist Party, the General Staff of the international proletariat, all the declarations of a Party, a joint Party or an international organisation, however wide it may be, will only represent the position of a part or fraction of the ICM, which we will always fight for as its red fraction. So the proposal of the Basis of Discussion, prepared by the CCIMU, has never pretended to represent all the forces of the ICM (nor could it), but only a component of it, its left and red fraction, with the aim of promoting the two-line-struggle for the UMIC and the NIOP, for a General Political Line for the International Communist Movement and the World Proletarian Revolution. These Basis of Discussion after the discussion of the same, with the criticisms, contributions, improvements as a product of the two-line-struggle whose breadth depends not only on the initiative of those who are organising the UMIC, but also on all those who are about to unite sincerely, frankly and loyally under Maoism and really do so in order to discuss our differences together. With what has been said, we are also clarifying to the comrades of Proletarian Power, with regard to the publication of the Basis of Discussion in order to open the debate as widely as possible within the international communist movement, what is the way or path to be followed to establish the basis of unity of the UMIC and the NIOP.