Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 19:10:42 +0100 (MET) From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens) Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #12en: 3/6 China - NE (Germany), '75-'77 UNITE! Info #12en: 3/6 China - NE (Germany), '75-'77 [Sent: 08.07.96] [Continued from part 2/6] IV. In the years 1973 to '74 there was at hand a situation as follows: Social-imperialism already was posing a very powerful threat against the West European countries. With this, there already existed the danger of a military aggression. The 'KPD' and the 'Roter Morgen', as also the 'KBW' and all other phoney"Marxist" cliques, but in particular the 'KPD' as key link among all the phoney"Marxist" parties, in a truly fabulous manner supported the doings of social-imperialism, concealed the facts of the situation, concealed the threat and diffamed us, who exposed the existence of this threat, as "agents of the Federal German government", "agents of U.S. imperialism" etc - this we still have ringing in our ears - precisely because we stood for the differentiation into Three Worlds, precisely because we correctly treated the class standpoint of the proletariat as an international class standpoint. If you take the 'Rote Fahne' [paper of the 'KPD'] of the years 1973 and '74 as an aid, you'll see how, out of the revisionist, Trotskyite standpoint and the standpoint of blending together revisionism and Marxism which the 'KPD' represented in the years 1970, '71 and '72, there grew the standpoint of actual support of social-imperialism, while out of the standpoint of irreconciliable class struggle, the struggle against social- democracy and against the trade union apparatus, there grew the standpoint of supporting the struggle of the Third World - out of the repudiation of the labour-aristocratic corruption. Our Party could therefore precisely really support the independence of the Federal Republic [of Germany], for instance, as also that of the other West European states, proceeding from the standpoint of the proletariat and as a representative of the international proletariat, without in this making a kneeling to the bourgeoisie, while it is no coincidence that the phoney"Marxist" parties precisely opposed this. * Before we now arrive at dealing with the basic turn of 1974/'75, we shall here also briefly mention some further aspects which should be considered in connection with the position of the 'KPD'. These are the activities in which that party engaged in in 1973 and '74 in the direction of dissolution of the workers' movement, at the time when the bourgeoisie made some basic decisions concerning the transference of production, how dissolution-promoting and in the last instance also how much in favour of social-imperialism the 'KPD', for instance, acted in connection with the important strike movement of the foreign workers. Take a look, for instance, at what happened at that time in connection with the Ford strike, how the 'KPD' acted then, how it at first actually constituted its leadership and then really quite rabidly betrayed the whole thing. Everything which these organizations undertake in practice leads to defeat and never to the full use of the masses' potentialities. (Note 2) [Note 2, p. 28:] As a further example should be mentioned the occasion of the visit by Brezhnev in May 1973, when the 'KPD' in contradiction to our Party declined the correct line of attack against social-imperialism and by its approach contributed to the undermining of all united struggle against social-imperialism. These things are extensively treated in the "Erklaerung des Zentralkomitees der KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) vom 17.6.73 - UEber die landesweiten Intrigen der 'KPD' und Roter-Morgen-Clique im Fruehsommer 1973 anlaesslich des Besuches Breschnews in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland". [I'll not translate the title of this declaration since it will probably be understood by English readers anyway. - RM] [End of Note 2] There are a whole series of further points which one should not fail to consider. For instance, the 'KPD' also refused to go into a united front with us, on the occasion of the war in the Middle East, against Israeli Zionism and both superpowers. V. THE TURN IN THE YEAR 1975 AND THE INTERFERENCE BY THE INTERNATIONAL LIAISON DEPARTMENT Now what took place at the turn of the year 1974/'75? At that point in time, we experienced that - since the international situation had become acute to the point when the threat by social-imperialism became publicly obvious, that our propaganda despite everything did make some cuts into that whole silence of the phoney"Marxists", that the bourgeoisie itself already was calling the threat by its proper name and was making resistance to it and finally that the People's Republic of China was making an unequivocal propaganda in this direction - the complete isolation of the 'KPD' with its propaganda came out as a result. When then Chairman Mao Tsetung, in the circumstances at that time, received the Chairman of the CSU, Strauss, and by this the absurdity of the 'KPD':s whole general idea of things was underlined indeed, then at long last they were forced to make a turn in their standpoint. But in what way did they make that turn? They made a turn in their standpoint in such a way that they went over from saying "Nothing to be achieved by the united front" to saying "Everything to be achieved by the united front", so that they now started saying that everything had to be subordinated to the struggle against the superpowers. At that time, you had to ask yourself: In which way is this turn in fact taking place? What is a characteristic distinguishing mark of this turn? A characteristic distinguishing mark of this turn was the fact that they in no way mentioned the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT), in no way mentioned the previous struggle, that they tried to conceal the entire background of the previous struggle and now started to paint themselves out as if they had always been the vanguard of the struggle against the superpowers, completely ignoring the facts and completely twisting the history. This can be proved quite unequivocally. For this, you only have to pursue the 'Rote Fahne', which in this respect really is a good instrument, and for comparison to this to pursue the 'Neue Einheit', then you'll see very clearly who was the one showing the direction and who was trailing behind and then tried to reap the fruits of this struggle for himself. [Note: A more recent example of a "turn" like this, which some phoney forces at long last have found themselves simply obliged to make, if their cover is not to be blown entirely, was the "turn" made by the so-called "CoRIM" in March 1995 on the question of opposing the reactionary CIA/SIN "peace letters" fraud against the people's war in Peru. The "CoRIM":s silence on this, which in practice meant their stabbing that people's war in the back, at that time had already been under public attack by El Diario Internacional, for instance, and by other forces too, for more than a year.] [Note, ctd.: So when finally the "CoRIM" in March '95 found themselves forced to issue the statement "In Defence of Our"(!) "Red Flag Flying in Peru", it wasn't too difficult for El Diario Internacional editor comrade Luis Arce Borja to make people see the utter hypocracy of this by comparing it to the actions of someone coming forward to "volounteer" in the war against Hilter fascism - in 1947, two years after that war had already been finished victoriously. - The 1974/'75 "turn" by those phoney forces in Germany however was not quite so obviously easy for everybody to see through, in the conditions then existing. - RM] But not only this was inherent in this turn. There was also something else in it. With the passing of time, the class contradictions on the international level had sharpened further, both in China and also in this country, so that the time in fact was ripening for a coalescing of those forces which, on the international level, correctly were representing the two-line struggle. At that time, this had to be so. But instead of such a connection, the opposite of it came about. From this point in time on, there moved certain forces in China, who since the end of 1974 massively have supported the phoney"Marxist" parties and massively have engaged in international splittist activity. As a further basis of the turn in the beginning of 1975 there also was a sharpening of the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. And precisely at that point in time when there was this sharpening of the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, these people now adopted the standpoint of "Subordinate everything to the struggle against the superpowers". This was obvious both in the totality of their approach and also in a series of theoretical expressions. For instance, it was stated in a declaration of the Standing Committee of the Politbureau of the so-called 'KPD': "We must put the struggle against the two main perpetrators of war, U.S. imperialism and the at present more dangerous Soviet social- imperialism, at the centre of our efforts. In the light of this task, all questions of the present class struggle in our country must be seen." ('Rote Fahne', 6th annual volume, No. 15, p. 3.) And at another point, for instance, it was stated: "In the stand taken as to the superpowers there shows up the difference: Marxist- Leninist or revisionist!" ('Rote Fahne', 6th annual volume, No. 17, p. 12.) This precisely is erroneous, since class struggle remained and remains the key. These people, thus, at that point, after they earlier precisely had sabotaged the struggle against the superpowers and this struggle despite this had carried through, now tried to confound the key point and to *achieve a confusion as to main and secondary aspect*, so as once again to weaken the struggle, only from the other side. And we can clearly point out that they were exposed by us in this. For at the decisive moment, when the social-imperialists made the threat in the Bay of Luebeck, then the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) was there for the counterattack and not the 'KPD'. At that point, the KPD/ML(NEUE EINHEIT) issued a fundamentally correct call, while the 'KPD' (and likewise the 'Roter Morgen') at first in fact were silent about the matter and undertook nothing decisive against it. [Note: The text of the important leaflet "Eine Drohung der Sozialimperialisten in der Luebecker Bucht" ("A Threat by the Social-Imperialists in the Bay of Luebeck"), of 24.04.1975, was actually telephoned to Berlin(West) by Klaus Sender from his exile here in Malmoe, Sweden, at the time. In this connection, at that time some unusual events, to say the least, took place in Sweden which constitute a rather long and quite instructive story by themselves. It would carry too far to go into them here. I'll save that for some other posting. - RM] The position of the 'KPD' was characterized by opportunist irresolution. And it must be pointed out here that they, despite their exposure at this point, were wholeheartedly supported by the abovementioned forces in China, that at a quite particular point in time, when the weakness of these organizations showed up in a quite unprecedented way, suddenly, like a wedge of attack, those revisionist elements in China came forward and supplied these people with fire support. In this connection it is necessary to name the International Liaison Department of the CC of the Communist Party of China, the 'Hsinhua News', the 'Peking Review' and also Yao Wen-yuan. These forces massively intervened in the two-line struggle, supporting alternately the 'Roter Morgen' and the 'KPD'. The 'Gang of Four' had an important hand in this. But it seems to us that they were not the only forces but that there were also certain other elements, leaning towards Right opportunism and today supporting the 'KPD', who engaged in this policy. At the hands of these people, of the 'KPD' etc, this political line - *their kind* of political line of support of the idea of the Three Worlds - became an idea of liquidation of the proletarian revolution, became an anti-means against the proletarian Party, once again. While on our part it had been a conclusion drawn >from the proletarian class struggle, on the part of these people it was now the other way around, it was a conclusion in order to combat the proletarian clas sstruggle. While at that point in time it was already very necessary absolutely to uphold class struggle and in a correct manner to connect the idea of the Three Worlds to this, these people were now using it to suffocate the class struggle. That, by the way, precisely is characteristical for the 'KPD'. It used the idea precisely in the wrong way. Our Party at that time asked itself the question: What character does this turn really have? Does it serve actually to augment the struggle against the superpowers, or does it serve to keep phoney"Marxism" on its feet under all circumstances and to help the superpowers now in other circumstances and to undermine the struggle against the superpowers by a fake opposition? That was a very important question for us. And our Party took up such a position after this turn that it said: At those points where those organizations are actually combating the superpowers, we will go together with them, at those points where they are obstructing the struggle, we must combat them - in order to test the truthfulness of the declarations they had made. Our Party very soon got an opportunity to test this. At a meeting in Frankfurt in May 1975, the 'KPD' declined going into any united front whatever, in the struggle against the superpowers as well, with us, who were the ones who had led the struggle against the superpowers. Now what character does such a turn then have? It of course has no other character than that of an attempt once more to occupy the Party, in a new way, after this had been very much endangered for these people because of the international questions. It must be stressed here that the International Liaison Department and similar Chinese organs, with complete disregard of the facts mentioned concerning the development of the struggle, in that situation where the thing to do precisely was to test these organizations as to the veracity of their statements, massively have supported these organizations and decisively have helped them at a weak spot, at which in fact their entire construction started shaking under their feet. These forces have massively intervened here and have gone against our Party in a way which no other revisionist was able to do. Our Party at this point was deprived of the fruits of its combat, when we had recently been saying: *The position of the 'KPD' will inexorably expose itself in its contradiction to the masses*. So it has done too, since they during two years have stood in contradiction to the correct line in international questions and have actively combated it. And at this point, when we issued the call on the occasion of the threat by the social-imperialists in the Bay of Luebeck, things had developed so far that we could say: Now we will dictate to the 'KPD' a unity with us, to the extent that they must now give up their standpoint of ignoring and combating our Party. We however will demonstrate that the correct line will carry through and that one must perservere in the construction of the Party also as a small organization in relation to such forces, that is, it is also a question of bourgeoisie or proletariat whether an organization like the 'KPD', which here is continuing to occupy the movement, until its next dastardly crime, carries through or whether finally we, because of the correctness of our cause, do so. [Continued in part 4/6] --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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