Reasons for the Crisis in the International Communist Movement and the Way Out of the Crisis.

(V.I. Lenin works, Vol. 6, p. 25)

In fact, these remarkable Lenin’s words that I use here as an epigraph are in themselves an answer to the questions that we are discussing at this Marxist-Leninist Communist Seminar. Especially since it is impossible to speak about all aspects of this issue in just only 10 minutes that we are allotted.

But, using Lenin’s methods, we can choose the main link, in our case – the main reasons for these tragic defeat of world socialism, of the communist and workers movements that we are part of today. If we’ll grab the main link, we will be able to pull out the whole chain – to discover, and in some cases at least, to name all other reasons – the links of the same whole chain.

It seems to most of us thinking Marxists that we cannot deny that the current situation of this movement in the last 20 years can be called anything else but catastrophic. Those of us who have participated in the battles of the last years of the Soviet power within the CPSU in USSR, and have continued this struggle even after the victory of the August 1991 counter-revolution, of course we understood, that this catastrophe was caused by the internal state of our society and some help from foreign "friends". But we could see that Gorbachev and Yakovlev and other bastards were not parachuted to us by the CIA or other imperialist secret services. They were fed by the very system that they later destroyed, to the great misfortune of our people.

But at the same time, we have to recognize the fact that the majority, even of those who didn’t tremble in those dark days but remained communists, still did not have an understanding as to how deep was the catastrophe and the crisis, something that we realize only now. We saw this in the current state of the communist and workers parties, small groups and small sects and movements.

What was the root reason for the crisis and for the current pitiful state of the communist and workers’ movement? First of all, and the main reason, is that practically all of the communist parties, even during the Soviet days, were no longer really Marxist, Marxist-Leninist – they turned their faces away from Marx in their daily work and practice, even though they still honestly believed – and especially tried to convince the public – that they were faithful to those ideas.

How did that practical refusal of Marx manifest itself? The problem was that the practice and theory started moving parallel to each other, without crossing each other’s lines, and sometimes even not affecting each other at all. Even now, in practice, some of our comrades continue to use this all-destructive ideology of "common sense" - and every educated person should know that this is nothing more but the common man’s philosophy in daily life.

In relation to theory and theoretical work all together, most parties have an attitude that can be described in this way: "you can theorize as much as you like, and be ready, they’ll call you when they need results of your work, but until then, don’t disturb us and the work that we are doing in the center." As a result of this attitude, very often the theoreticians who were confirming what they were asked to confirm, became the most valued and thus the most successful – those who personally were quite satisfied with the situation.

It’s a pity that those that were dealing with practice, were fed up by their own experiments and reached to the theoreticians for help, but only got something that they weren’t able to use – but, what could one expect from such people?

If we could compare this method used to space science – that would be equal to the makers of space ships refusing the results of calculations based on physics and mathematics, and only use the basics such as –plus, minus, times etc. Even that common sense will tell us that in such a case, they would not be able to build a space ship able to travel in space!

This split between theory and practice didn’t just happen yesterday, but long time ago. The beginning of such a split is seen after 1953, when instead of a Marxist Stalin, came Khrushchev, a man not much burdened by knowledge or general level of development. But we should not forget that people like Suslov were still in charge of ideology – and you could not blame him for lack of theoretical knowledge. But the split after 1953 between theory and practice was becoming more and more pronounced with practice slowly abandoning theory. When Stalin was head of the state, he combined the qualities of a theoretician and practical leader. But after his death, all of this slowly came to the surface and the problems started.

"The defeated armies are good at learning", Lenin taught us. But we like to add to this that this can only happen if the defeated army and its leaders are willing to learn from their defeat – if they don’t try to disguise certain defeats as victories, or after being defeated they don’t start blaming anyone else but themselves. Instead of sober analyses, in such a case, new defeats are inevitable.

Objective analyses of the current state of the progressive movements in all of the post-Soviet states can only tell us one thing: that all the problems and defects of the CPSU model collapsed in 1991 – have been transferred into most of the new Communist Parties. We can notice, if we look realistically into them, we see the same careless attitude towards the question of cooperation between the theory and practice in their daily activities. And that is natural, since all of us, members of the XXI century, have grown in the post 1953 CPSU.

There are many communists who realize that at present there is not a high level of ideological work done that can be called satisfactory. Everyone agrees! But, what next? Unless something is done, everything is bound to repeat itself. This is because people find it easier to work in this manner. We’ll do what the leader thinks is right to do. A mistake happens? Well, we’ll do it better next time – hopefully it will be correct next time. Thus the authority of the top leaders cannot be undermined or questioned by any reference to theory and practice!

But it is even worse now that some communist parties are ongoing in pleasing the church and religion in general! What about the appearance on the pages of some party publications or in the speeches of some important communists - nationalistic and racist elements?

The creation of a united powerful communist party can only take place- if the Marxist-Leninist ideology is based on a Marxist-Leninist vision of the world. This will only happen when theory and practice will be united into one. Then the communists will really scientifically base all of their goals, solutions and the methods of realization of their noble ideas. These ideals are the most noble in the history of mankind, not just aimlessly trying this or that.

The Communist movement right from its very beginning was internationalist. Today, while imperialism is uniting and attacking us, we appear to be divided by our national territories! The need for overcoming this is recognized by everybody. But what are we doing to overcome this?

That is why our main task remains the integration of all Marxists internationally, and we must remind ourselves that we are part of the international communist and workers movement. Yes, we must admit that world socialism has suffered a serious defeat. Yes, the former socialist states have become part of the imperialist inter-state creations. The goal of moving humanity from capitalism to socialism and a communist society was never abandoned. Moreover, the question of a socialist world revolution, its possibility and its achievement is very important to us yet once again!

We will have to get quickly through the sharp theoretical discussions, struggle with the dogmatists, and revisionists within the Marxist movements and with the representatives of the fifth column inside these movements, besides the new bourgeoisie.

There are only two ways for the communist parties in their current conditions to go: either to lock themselves in the dogmatic sectarianism and to gradually disappear, or, to move on their chosen revisionist path, like so many communists in various countries did before – Solana and Roberto Prodi – just two examples.

The Communist Parties will either resurrect themselves as Marxist-Leninist Parties – or will not survive at all. There is simply no other way!