– Hardial Bains, 1988 –
Excerpts from the Report to the 5th Congress of CPC(M-L)
The counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, its restoration of capitalism and the destruction of socialism have been a colossal setback for the working class and the communist movement. The proletariat has lost its liberated homeland in the shape of the Soviet Union, but most importantly, it has lost a model of socialist construction, the only country in the world where socialism was actually constructed under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin. The loss of this model, this terrible setback to proletarian revolution, has posed one of the greatest challenges to the class and its vanguard — the historic task to turn things around.
The Great October Revolution remains a great inspiration and the path for the workers of all lands. Any serious advance of proletarian revolution since that time has been on the path of the Great October Revolution. This will be the case in the future too — the path the Great October Revolution opened up for mankind is the path valid for this entire epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution, and it is immortal. Anyone who strayed from this glorious path would divert from the path of revolution. The path of the Great October Revolution, the main content of which is the transformation of the world from capitalism to socialism through revolution, remains valid for all countries. Forty-six years lay between the Paris Commune and the Great October Revolution, and seventy years have passed since that epoch-making event which was of such far-reaching consequences that the world has not remained the same from that time on. Before the Paris Commune, there were other great events of epochal dimensions, the French bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1789, and so on. If we look at any of these great events, we see that each of them was its own model. Developments since October 1917 confirm this as well. The Soviet Union remained a model for workers of all lands for several decades, and it was the standard-bearer of all enlightenment too. With the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, the rise of Khrushchev and modern revisionism, the international proletariat lost its model. But, the most important aspect, the heart of the matter is that the positive and the negative experience of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union is not lost to the world. The path of the Great October Revolution remains the path for the workers of all lands. History since the rise of Khrushchev and modern revisionism proves that those who want revolution, and see in socialism the salvation for their people and nations, and the emancipation of the working class and all toilers, have carried on along this path. They have created their own models through their own work. The Party of Labour of Albania, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, analyzed the positive and negative experience in the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union, and basing themselves on their own experience, the Albanian communists ensured that socialism was constructed in their country. For them, it was socialism which they saw as the salvation of their homeland, and not some idle curiosity about the Soviet Union and others. Because their aim was socialism, they made use of the entire historical experience of the construction of socialism, the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and built socialism…
The pernicious legacy of modern revisionism and the opportunist position on this question of such great importance is that when the revisionists and opportunists talk about the Soviet Union they do so in such a way as to introduce counter-revolutionary content into everything. For example, why did the workers and the oppressed look towards the Soviet Union at the time of Lenin and Stalin? They looked towards it because they wanted their own social and national liberation, and the Great October Revolution inspired them. The motivating force was their own liberation. But the revisionist and opportunist opinion about this matter is that the motivating force was to defend the Soviet Union. Wherever this line was in force, not only did the working people remain in bondage, but the defence of the Soviet Union itself became merely a phrase, and the elements and parties which adhered to this position later became the agencies of Soviet revisionism, tools of imperialism in its counter-revolutionary drive.
The Soviet Union is no longer socialist. This demoralized many and created pessimism, but it did not demoralize those who wanted the victory of revolution and socialism for their own working people, for their own advance. One also hears from the mouths of the meek and timid: “Don’t worry. If we lost the Soviet Union as a model, we have Socialist Albania as a model. This will keep us going.” No doubt — and our Party estimates extremely highly the work of the PLA during the national liberation war and throughout the period of socialist revolution and construction, all of which is a model. But what do we learn from this model? That we can inspire the workers because we have a model, or that the workers have to create their own model and find solutions themselves? Of course, we learn that workers must create their own model, but this must be done on the basis of our common ideology of Marxism-Leninism and by keeping in mind the experience of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
What is really at the heart of the matter is that those who advocate that either we must have a model, or else the class is sunk, do not want to develop the movement from the actual conditions as they exist, and organize the class according to these conditions. They are hitting at the living soul of Marxism-Leninism, the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. These champions of the line of “model” are system-catchers, and like spectators, they applaud themselves for having become fans of the best performer without having anything to show for themselves. It is also suggested that if we do not present the working class with a model, then we are abandoning the class and condemning it to spontaneity.
But what has happened which is of great importance is that our own work of close to a quarter of a century has become a model which we look towards and put forward. How did we achieve this? When we started we were not very experienced, and, then, many things, even those of a theoretical character, were unknown to us. We went into action for the sole purpose of accomplishing the victory of revolution and socialism. This was our motivating force. The modern revisionists and opportunists at that time, however, put forward the motivation to support the struggle of other peoples as the way to radicalize the consciousness of the people, but they did not believe that revolution was even possible at home. They believed that there was even no necessity for revolution here. This was a major battle we had to win — the same battle which has to be won all over again.
What do the workers want? If they want emancipation, then they have to activize themselves and organize. There is no other way. This is the most opportune time to beckon the class to wake up on this question which is so vital for its destiny. The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union is a very big loss, but we cannot moan about it. We have to look reality in the eye. This reality tells us that we must carry on along our path, as the Internationalists did, and our Party has been doing: finding its own bearings, opening the path for revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this respect, the work of the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha are of great importance to us, and we use this experience because we want revolution, which is our only motive. At the same time, we resolutely stand on the side of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the PLA… because we are fighting together for the same aim, the victory of the revolution and socialism on the world scale.
This view that workers need a model is an opportunist view, the view of a waverer and a coward. What the workers need is to turn themselves into a model, and they will do so. The Party makes them conscious of their task. To keep repeating how great such and such an event, a country or experience is, tells them only this much: that such and such an event, country, or experience must be great, if you are telling the truth. That is all. It does not bring them any closer to dealing with their own conditions. Why not tell them how the Internationalists and the Party have gone about dealing with this problem? Are there no lessons to be learned from our own work of close to a quarter of a century? Is this not an example of underestimating our own work?
The fact that the Soviet Union is no longer a model cannot be analyzed to mean that we should look for another model. Far from it. This fact should be analyzed to mean that the workers must turn their attention towards their situation, and elaborate their own work without sniveling and waiting for a model. Even when the Soviet Union was a model under Lenin and Stalin, it was no substitute for one’s own work. The crucial point is our own work, within the national and international conditions. For us, the work of the Internationalists is a model. They worked under very difficult conditions, and against all odds. They blazed a path, the path of building and strengthening the Party in the heartland of imperialism. They paid attention to the concrete conditions, solving concrete problems in order to found the Party. It is this path which our Party has followed. We have always been inspired by the successes of others and have considered them as our own. Being a detachment of the International Marxist-Leninist Communist Movement, we are duty-bound to base ourselves on the experience of the whole movement. This is what we do and this does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that we should give up our own experience.
Our Party is correct when it says to the workers that: “Yes, the Soviet Union has turned to capitalism. But what about you? Where do you stand? Don’t you think that you should be doing something about your situation? Let us go over your own experience. Let us, on the basis of your own direct experience, decide what kind of society you would like to have and how it will be brought about. How about sticking to this point? How about organizing on the basis of the direct experience of the workers? You are theorizing about this and that model, and talking about the whole world, presenting yourself as an authority, but how is it that in your own factory and in your own country, you do not have a clue about what to do?” It is a strange situation, comrades. Instead of taking advantage of the situation in which the workers have lost faith in the line of models, because in their minds nothing has worked in the past, there is a move to keep the workers immobile under the hoax of presenting them with another, this time infallible, model.
The Internationalists and the Party after them, as we have mentioned before, fought against those who did not want to look at the reality right here, the national situation, but looked at the international situation by detaching it from the national situation. This was extremely disruptive of the movement. This peculiar theory of models is resurrecting the same attitude and feeling, even though the words may vary. Our entire history rebels against it. Comrades, our Party will always remain ever so vigilant on this question, because it is a matter of principle, and a question of utmost importance that the workers must plunge themselves into the struggle and create their own model.