Liu Shao-chi Internet Archive
Delivered: May 15, 1963
Source: Peking Review, vol. 21; May 24, 1963;
Online Version: Liu Shaoqi Internet Archive, September 2016
Transcribed/HTML Markup: Mike Bessler
Following is the full text of a speech delivered by Liu Shao-chi, Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, at a meeting held on May 15 in his honour at the Nguyen Ai Quoc Party School in Hanoi. Our subheads. Ed.
Dear Comrade Ho Chi Minh,
Dear Comrade Truong Chinh,
Dear Comrades:
I am very glad to have this opportunity today to visit your Party school which is directly under the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Workers' Party and is named after Comrade Ho Chi Minh, beloved leader of the Vietnamese people, and to meet all comrades of its faculty and staff and all student comrades. Here I would like to extend to you warm comradely regards and communist greetings in the name of Comrade Mao Tse-tung. In my own name, and in the name of all comrades on this visit.
Comrade Director has just referred to China's assistance to Viet Nam. To help you insofar as our circum- stances permit is an international obligation which we should undertake. Your acknowledgement that we have fulfilled this obligation of ours is an encouragement and a satisfaction to us. But it should be pointed out that, first of all, it is you who have helped us. The socialist revolution and socialist construction which you carry out in the north, the consolidation of your state, and the valiant struggle of your compatriots in the south all constitute a tremendous support for us and for the entire socialist camp. In the cause of proletarian revolution, assistance has always been mutual. Now, there are certain people who always stress their assistance to others and disown others' assistance to them, This is flying in the face of facts. This is not a Marxist-Leninist attitude.
Comrade Director also touched on the question of the path of the October Revolution, a very important question of principle. The October Revolution has universal historical significance. The Chinese revolution is a continuation of the October Revolution. The Vietnamese revolution is also a continuation of the October Revolution. The 1957 Moscow Declaration sums up the universal truths of the Great October Revolution in nine common rules. Any proletarian revolution in the world must follow the path of the October Revolution, must follow the path already traversed by the Russians. Some people now claim that it is not necessary to do what the Russians have done. This is utterly wrong.
Comrades here are studying Marxism-Leninism. Normally this study is a regular task for Communists, but at present a campaign to study Marxism-Leninism is of particular importance for the raising of our Marxist-Leninist level.
The international communist movement is now in a crucial period of utmost importance. An acute struggle on a worldwide scale is going on between the Marxist-Leninists and the modern revisionists over a series of important problems of principle. The polemics are centered on whether the people of the world should carry out revolutions or not and whether the proletarian Parties should lead the world's people in revolutions or not. The course of this struggle has a bearing on whether the entire cause of the proletariat and the working people throughout the world will succeed or fail, and on the destiny of the whole of mankind. On questions of such an important struggle of principle, we cannot act as lookers-on or follow a middle course.
The modern revisionists, donning a cloak of Marxism-Leninism, are actually wantonly adulterating Marxism-Leninism, emasculating Marxism-Leninism of its revolutionary soul, repudiating the historic necessity for proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship in the period of transition from capitalism to communism, negating the leading role of the proletarian Party, substituting hypocritical bourgeois "supra-class" viewpoints for Marxist-Leninist viewpoints of class analysis, and substituting bourgeois pragmatism for dialectical materialism. They are trying their utmost to benumb the revolutionary will of the working class, to tamper with the essential contents of socialism and communism as strictly defined by Marxism-Leninism and in fact to restore or preserve capitalism. Under such circumstances, the militant task of all Marxist-Leninists is not to evade the challenge of modern revisionism, but to unite in defence of the purity of Marxism-Leninism, to smash this attack completely, to hold aloft the red banner of revolution, and to show the proletariat and the working people the correct direction for struggle and the road to victory.
In order to smash the attacks of modern revisionism, we should first of all seek guidance from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin conscientiously study their works and grasp this incisive weapon —Marxism-Leninism We should also make a serious study of the lessons provided by teachers by negative example, including the writings of the modern revisionists and those of Bernstein. Kautsky, Plekhanov, and other old-line revisionists, as well as imperialist evaluations of modern revisionism. We should also, of course, read the writings of modern revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. In this way we should be able to make a comparative study and see on each question now under controversy what Marx. Engels. Lenin, and Stalin had to say: what the old-line revisionists had to say: what the modern revisionists have to say: what the imperialists have to say: and what the modern revolutionary Marxist-Leninists have to say. In this way we should be able to understand truly how the objective situation develops and how modern revisionists distort and tamper with Marxism-Leninism. The revisionists would then be unmasked and their features clearly exposed to public gaze. This is, I think, a method of study which links theory with practice: this is the Leninist method of study. By so doing. we could surely raise greatly our theoretical level of Marxism-Leninism and increase a hundredfold our strength and confidence in combating modern revisionism.
All of us have read some of the Marxist-Leninist works. Some comrades might think that it is not necessary to read again what they have read before. This is not true. When we read Marxist-Leninist works in the past, we often failed to understand them deeply and forgot them alter reading, because we did not read with a view to solving any particular question. Now the case is different and we acquire a deep understanding since we recd them over again with the object of answering the challenge of the revisionists. For the many propositions advanced by the modern revisionists are not "creative developments" of Marxism-Leninism as alleged. but a repetition and development under new conditions of the opportunist viewpoints of Bernstein. Kautsky. and other old-line revisionists. Most of their arguments were repudiated long ago by Marx. Engels. Lenin, and Stalin.
While opposing revisionism, the main danger confronting the present-day international communist movement. we must also oppose dogmatism. oppose all forms of "Left" opportunism. Dogmatists do not formulate their line and policies by integrating the universal truths of Marxism-Leninism with specific revolutionary practice at home and abroad. They copy from books literally and from the experience of other countries indiscriminately, and parrot others on important international issues. The history of the development of Marxism-Leninism is one of fighting against and overcoming all kinds of opportunism. It is our firm belief that, although the present struggle against revisionism will be a protracted and complicated one with twists and turns, invincible Marxism-Leninism will surely overcome revisionism and develop in the course of the struggle.
Let us hold still higher the revolutionary banner of Marxism-Leninism and march forward vigorously to win victory in the struggle for world peace, national independence, democracy, and socialism!
Workers and oppressed nations all over the world unite, oppose our common enemy!
Long live invincible Marxism-Leninism!