» Dialectical Materialism #9 - materialisme-dialectique.com · materialisme-dialectique.com from France. The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this

» Dialectical Materialismand the Universe

(p.2)

» Maoist DeclarationMay 1, 2019

(p.4)

» On the International Communist

Movement (MLM)(p.8)

» The RIM in Belgium and France

(p.10)

» Compassion andempathy: living matter at

the heart of dialecticalmaterialism

(p.15)

» 21 Conditions ofAdmission to the

Communist International(p.16)

#9 December 2019

internationalMarxist-Leninist-Maoist Review

published as a joint initiative from Belgium and France. We promote the following websites as revolutionary media :

centremlm.be from Belgium,

materialisme-dialectique .com from France.

The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist

system; this is an objective law independent of man’s will.

However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of

history, eventually revolution will take place and will

inevitably triumph.

Mao Zedong, 1957

http://centremlm.be/

https://materialisme-dialectique.com/

https://materialisme-dialectique.com/

Dialectical Materialism and the UniverseThe universe consists of the infinite and

eternal process of the reflection of matterby the matter and for the matter.

Matter is indeed sensitive and knows initself an impression shaping it to different

degrees.

This difference in the marking of the

reflection has as its source in the fact thatthe universe is in motion and that it is

through it that the reflections andimpressions are carried.

This movement and the many aspects ofreality make that reflections and

impressions know different rhythms,different magnitudes.

We can say that the universe is thereflection of itself in an uninterrupted

process of transformations.

Its nature is the equivalent of an infinite

ocean where everything is reflected in anuninterrupted movement of waves at all

levels, at all scales.

This process of reflections and impressions

within a moving universe, with all itsdifferent aspects of matter, is thus

characterized by unequal development.

The inequality of the markings of the

reflection, of the impression, causessituations of imbalances.

There is movement because unequaldevelopment, and uneven development

because movement.

The main aspect depends on the stage of

the process.

On the one hand, the impression of

reflection in matter results in making itmore complex on the internal plane.

On the other hand, the uneven nature ofthis impression provokes breaks. The break

is precisely what characterizes a process

leading to a transformation as a

qualitative leap.

There is concretely neither cause nor

consequence, but only an internaltransformation resulting in a greater

complexity of matter, an enlargement ofits impressions, an increase in the power

of its reflections, one or more moments ofrupture, a qualitative leap.

It is this movement of internaltransformation reflected from matter in

matter which itself inscribes impressionsand produces changes. And what takes

place internally is the contradictionbrought to its conclusion.

The law of contradiction, with two polesopposed in a relative manner or not,

expressing uninterrupted antagonisticrelations, belongs to the general and

universal movement of matter.

There is neither beginning nor end,

because no process is isolated.

The reflection and the impression are

generalized and uninterrupted; everyphenomenon is related, in different ways

and to different degrees, to all the otherphenomena.

In the universe, everything is constantlytransformed, with transformations whose

reflection causes impressions, whichthemselves produce reflections, which

provoke impressions, and this to infinity.

There is consequently neither cause nor

consequence.

The process of transformation is

dialectical, it unites the particular and theuniversal, the relative and the absolute, all

being bound together and at the sametime unbound in an infinite and eternal

process.

Communism #9 December 2019 2

Any transformation is added to othertransformations and is reflected in them,

producing interaction, liaison, mediation.

Nothing is so isolated and independent.

Everything is mutually connected andinterdependent, constantly transformed and

transforming, by the reflection, by theimpression.

Absolutely everything is reflection andreflection of reflection, and this to infinity.

Matter is inexhaustible and ever morecomplex, ever richer.

No turning back is possible, never,because the movement produces a series

of qualitative leaps that has resulted in amore developed form, more intertwined

with the rest of the material.

What is called time is the description of

transformation and what is called space isthe description of matter, because the

universe is only matter, always richer,ever more complex, ever more intertwined

to an infinity of aspects of itself.

Any process obeys this mirror system. The

most developed phenomena of nature andlife correspond to major qualitative leaps

in the complexification of matter on alarge scale.

The two poles of electricity, molecularasymmetry in the domain of life in

relation to the domain of non-livingmatter, action and reaction in mechanics,

mirror neurons in brains, union anddissociation of atoms in chemistry,

childhood and parenthood, the masculineand feminine, the class struggle in the

modes of production... are examples ofcomplex expression of the movement of

matter and of a very high degree ofinterplay with itself.

This process has no beginning or ending.

There is no starting point to the universe,

nor any point of arrival.

There is no "God", no Big Bang, nosource, no beginning.

There is only a ever deeper movement ofreflections and impressions, in a spiral

movement, proceeding by jumps,characterized by unequal development at

all levels, affirming the dynamic nature ofthe internal relations taking a

contradictory dimension until the break.

In fact, not only are the developments

unequal between them, but eachdevelopment is itself unequal in itself,

because of the different density ofimpressions.

The law of contradiction applies to theexpression of the contradiction itself.

Nothing is therefore indivisible, noreternal. One becomes two and that forever

and everywhere.

As it is formulated in the article "The

universe is the unity of the finite and theinfinite", published in the Journal of theDialectic of Nature in People's China inthe first half of the 1970s:

"The end of all concrete things, the sun,the Earth and humanity is not the end of

the universe.

The end of the Earth will bring a new and

more sophisticated cosmic body.

At that time, people will hold meetings

and celebrate the victory of the dialecticand welcome the birth of new planets.

The end of humanity will also result innew species that will inherit all our

achievements.

In this sense... the death of the old is the

condition of the birth of the new."•


Maoist Declaration

May 1, 2019On the occasion of this new first of May, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center ofBelgium and the Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) express theirconfidence and enthusiasm for the growing affirmation of the second wave of theworld revolution.

The first had given birth, a hundred years ago, in March 1919, to the CommunistInternational; the second will realize its objective: the world unification and therealization of socialism on all the planet.

The formation of a World Socialist Republic is unavoidable in the 21st century. Therealization of the complete unification of Humanity, on the basis of socialist relationsin the economy and throughout society, is certain. There can be absolutely no doubtabout it.

The resolution of the environmental problems, by establishing dialectical relations ofhumanity with the planet considered as a Biosphere, is inevitable. The understandingof the nature of living matter and its respect goes hand in hand with the dialecticalmaterialistic understanding of the general evolution of the eternal and infiniteuniverse.

We affirm that the mastery of dialectical materialism and its fundamental theses onthe universe are the very basis for understanding reality and transforming it.

It is undeniable that this still requires formidable initiatives. Mao Zedong had spokenin the 1960s of the next fifty to one hundred years, when humanity would experienceupheavals like never before. We are precisely in this period and it is about being onthe front line. We are on it as the vanguard of the working class in Belgium andFrance.

We say: there will be no capitulation, no turning back, no modification of theideological fundamentals, nor revision of the main principles.

We are fully aware of the complexity of the tasks incumbent upon us, but we will beable to assume them with vigor and the greatest sense of responsibility.


We are full of optimism about the future: the triumph of Communism corresponds tothe movement of the universe itself. The proletariat is the most revolutionary class inhistory.

It is true that in the imperialist metropolis, the recomposition of the proletarian fabricis still an ongoing process, which does not follow a linear path and still requires anextremely important substantive work.

There is still a titanic job to do in this area. We believe, however, that we havegrasped the necessary general guidelines. In this sense, our two organizations arefully engaged in this struggle to ensure that the proletariat recovers and goes back tothe reconquest of its identity, which has undergone profound changes due to theincrease of the productive forces, beyond deep deformations, significant errors.

This process of recomposition of the proletarian fabric corresponds to the emergenceof the second wave of the World Revolution.

And the capitalist mode of production, both in Belgium and in France, experiencessuch internal problems, because of its historical limits, it is less and less able tofreeze social relations by means of the apparatus of State and corruption of a largepart of the proletariat.

This had led, since the 1950s, to the displacement of the main contradiction in thezone of storms: Africa, Latin America, Asia. We are now in a new period.

There is also the reaffirmation of the communist ideology that arises historically,through the maturation of class conflicts and especially the driving role of diffusionplayed by our organizations.

Here we affirm very clearly that the explanations of dialectical materialism weprovide are the decisive weapons to have the necessary tools, in the theoretical andpractical, intellectual and material fields, to make advance the Cause. It is not a sidequestion or a philosophy accompanying simple demands, but the very core of thecommunist affirmation.

It goes without saying, however, that it would be wrong to consider unilaterally thatthe proletarian-bourgeois contradiction has already resumed its natural course. It isvery far from being the case. The ideological, cultural, social and political remains ofthe 1950-1980s are still widely present.

The years 1990-2010 were also marked by a strengthening of many aspects of thecapitalist mode of production, due to technological progress, the collapse of the blocdominated by Soviet social-imperialism and the integration into the world capitalisteconomy of China which has become social-fascist.

In this sense, it is incorrect to consider a movement like the "yellow vests" in Franceother than as an expression of the capitalist crisis in general and the petty bourgeoisiein particular.


There is a scissors phenomenon where everything between the proletariat and thebourgeoisie is crushed. This phenomenon is also parallel to many others which,similarly, express the fear of seeing capitalism no longer able to ensure social peace,to give free rein to small capitalists, to neutralize the working class.

Petty-bourgeois interpretations of the massive ecological crisis and the terrifyingecocide it causes, the catastrophic aggravation of global warming, the dramaticanimal condition, are also the terrorized expression of the middle strata of capitalismtaken between the hammer of proletarian demands and the anvil of capitalism.

There are actually phenomena corresponding to the historical limit of capitalism. Thetime of its world overtaking has arrived.

Discourses on a "finite world", on the need to move to "sustainable" economicdevelopment, to adopt a more "sober" way of life, are nothing more than an attemptto curb the wheel of History.

Fascism also reappears more strongly as a requirement for a retreat. Calls to be more"reasonable" are always more numerous within the parasitic intellectual strata.

All this catastrophism is fundamentally foreign to who has understood the magnitudeof the changes underway, their scale.

In reality, matter is inexhaustible and we know a time of general transformation, bothof social life and of humanity's relationship with the rest of matter. In order to live upto this process, we must liberate the productive forces by adopting the principles ofsocialism in all fields.

This is what will establish productive dynamics for the whole of life in the Biospherethat is the planet, announcing in the medium term the process of spatial colonizationand the ever greater diffusion of life.

This requires a great capacity for self-criticism, compared to the old way of life.Only collectivism is able to break the individualism and selfishness that characterizethe dominant initiatives and values in the capitalist mode of production.

Only a perspective based on the notion of totality, of universality, can allow societynot to fall under the blows of ultra-individualism, of its capricious consumption, ofits contempt for all morality and all social requirement.

The capitalist mode of production, in perdition, produces also only cultural horrorsand ideological poisons.

Contemporary art, moral relativism, the most outrageous cynicism, the cult ofexcessive egos and futile appearance, subjectivist literature, dissonant music as avalue in itself or repetitive and simplistic music with simple harmonies... Capitalismtakes advantage of the overproduction of capital to infest ever more aspects ofeveryday life.


This is vain, however. The masses feel fundamentally alien to all this decadence,even if more or less important sectors may feel fascinated or momentarilydisoriented.

The masses are on the side of transformation and culture, openness and development.Identity fixation, material fetishism, superficiality are essentially foreign to them.Here, the future is opposed to the celebration of an idealized past, Socialism to thedecadence of "culture" in capitalism, to the anticapitalist romanticism that is fascism.

In Belgium and France, the battle is therefore the one to free the initiatives of themasses, to raise their consciousness and their organizational capacities.

The avant-garde opens spaces here and, starting from workers' centrality, forms themovement bringing the emergence of the People's Democracy as a strategicproposition. It is a question of making the dominant system falter, shake it, go to itsassault for the establishment of a new State. We must be certain of victory here.

Long live the working class, the most revolutionary class in history!

Long live its ideology: dialectical materialism, today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

People's war until Communism!

Long live the second wave of the world revolution!

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Center of Belgium

Communist Party of France (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist=

May 2019


On the International Communist Movement (MLM)

The International CommunistMovement now relies onMarxism-Leninism-Maoism. Dueto the uneven development, thisstatement is complex.

Some organizations haveunderstood one aspect ofMarxism-Leninism-Maoism inparticular, others have developeda relatively fair understanding inseveral areas. There are manycases of figures.

It is well known, however, that itwas the Communist Party of Peruthat first grasped that Maoism wasthe third stage of Marxism, with itsleader Gonzalo providing theideological basis for establishingthat.

It is also well known that theCommunist Party of Perubelonged to an internationalstructure, the RevolutionaryInternationalist Movement (RIM).The Communist Party of Peruacted as a red faction tosuccessfully promote Marxism-Leninism-Maoism within the RIM.In 1993, the MRI claimed to beMLM.

Subsequently, most organizationsclaiming to rely on Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong thoughtalso claimed to rely on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

All of this had a formal dimension. Organizations such as theTKP / ML of Turkey, the Maoists of India, the Communist Partyof Philppines published for example a joint review in the 1990s,in opposition to the MRI. They ended up accepting Marxism-Leninism-Maoism - but in terms of content, nothing hasactually changed for them.

Even within the RIM, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism was formallyconceived. Its main motor, the Revolutionary Communist Partyof the United States, has thus shifted into post-Maoism, just asthe Maoists of Iran who played an important role, while a grouplike the TKP / ML Maoist Party Merkezi also strongly involveddisappeared.

This situation was aggravated by the surrender of the NepaleseMaoists under the leadership of their leader Prachanda. Theabandonment of the People's War has been a stab in the backof the International Communist Movement.

The French Maoists denounced the opportunist line ofNepalese Maoists from the outset, but the centrist forces, ledby the Maoist Communist Party of Italy, did everything toneutralize a criticism of Prachanda.

Today, the situation is as follows. There is a group around theMaoist Communist Party of Italy working to recreate a RIM, onthe same basis, without self-criticism, with a completelyminimalist line.

There is a grouping around most of the Maoists in SouthAmerica who wants more to assume Gonzalo, but in the sensethat it would be considered virtually as the fourth sword ofMarxism.

They reject the principle of a guiding thought in each country,considering that Gonzalo is a guiding thought with de factoalmost universal value.

Then there are many organizations upholding Maoism andliving away from all of this, such as the Communist Party ofIndia (Maoist), the Communist Party of the Philippines or theTKP / ML.


In addition, there is aphenomenon ravaging the ranksof the avant-gardes around theworld: the spread of modernistconcepts of post-structuralism,post-modern philosophies, LGBT +ideology being an aspect of italongside the valuing of marginalgroups as subversives, submissionto contemporary art andsubjectivism, etc.

If we add to this the total lack ofreflection on global warming orthe animal question, the almostcomplete lack of knowledge ofdialectical materialism, we have apanorama that is hardlyencouraging.

But this is only one aspect of thequestion. In fact, due to theuneven development of the non-linear movement of history, thisprocess dialectically raises aqualitative leap. This is howeverunderstandable only if oneconsiders that the MRI has not

been the center of the International Communist Movement,only one aspect.

Maoism in India, Turkey, and the Philippines exists anyway sincetheir beginning independently of the RIL. And the RIM has forexample played a powerfully negative role in the capitalistcountries. Its line was revisionist, its position that of a"contemplative criticism" as rightly pointed out in 1986 bySpanish revolutionaries.

It is true that in fact, it was a "committee" of the RIM that spokeon behalf of the latter, through the magazine "A world to win".However, the battle is political and what resulted from the RIMwas either nil or counterproductive. It can even be said that theRIL did traffic with Maoism, which led to the current situation.

For this reason, it was the Communist Party of Peru that wasthe main aspect of the International Communist Movement,not the RIM.

The concern is that the Communist Party of Peru has placeditself as a fraction within the RIM and never wanted to breakwith him, despite criticism. It was a position that had its dignityat the time. However, today, it is not possible to find orientationin this way, with a position of "fraction".

What is needed is a platform to synthesize the experiences ofthe International Communist Movement in the light ofMarxism-Leninism-Maoism.

This will necessarily be considered as something intellectual orvirtual by the opportunists. But Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is ascience and that's the basis of it all.•


Questions to the MLM Center of Belgium and the CPF(MLM) about the historical role of

Internationalist Revolutionary Movementin their countries

The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) was born in March 1984 in France, as an international group making Mao Zedonga classic of Marxism-Leninism.Was there a group from your country participating? ?

Belgium: In 1984, at the time of the founding of the Revolutionary InternationalistMovement (RIM) in Paris, some Peruvian people claiming to be a part of the struggleof the Communist Party of Peru were present in Brussels. This group was led by LuisArce Borja, director of the newspaper "El Diario International". A certain ambiguityquickly emerged, however, because in terms of representativeness, this person impliedthat he also represented the RIM in Belgium.

France: No, there was no French movement, despite the fact that the foundation washeld in Paris. The reason for Paris as a place for this is that the leader of theCommunist Revolutionary Party of Chile was in exile in Paris, his son participating bythe way in the local punk scene. The leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party ofthe United States was also in exile in Paris, a decision taken for security measures.

Did the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) havean impact on the revolutionary movement of your country??

Belgium: Unlike the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), the RevolutionaryInternationalist Movement (RIM) did not had any impact here. The Belgian militantsfor whom the powerful politico-military actions of the Peruvian masses guided by thePCP were at the top of the news came for the most part from collectives supporting theCombatant Communist Cells (CCC) and the Maoist Group Collective of CommunistAgitation and Propaganda.

However, it was well known that "El Diario International" was printed here under thecover of the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB). An antagonistic contradiction quicklyemerged as, at the same time, the PTB impelled a campaign of slander, insults, politicalbanditry against all the fighting communist current, spreading dirty words such as:"CCC = CIA","CCC = Brabant killers", etc.

As is often the case with the revisionists - here, then, the PTB - political banditry waspushed to the extreme. This was manifested by the proper beating, by 5 or 6 of PTBhenchmen, of the person in charge of the APAPC (Association of the relatives andfriends of the communist prisoners) who was also the father of one of the 4 militantprisoners of the CCC .


These villainous events took place in Brussels during a demonstration of miners fromLimbourg. The APAPC activist was thrown to the ground, punched and kicked,defamed by the names of cop and provocateur, even though he was distributing leafletscalling for solidarity with imprisoned CCC activists on hunger strike...

The opportunism of trading with the PTB, which, pretending to support revolutionaryviolence in Peru, fought it fiercely in Belgium, naturally sealed a process of mistrustwith the nucleus organized around the director of the "Diario International".

Especially since at the same time, Solidaire, the weekly PTB published, in the firstpage, the photo of the Cells activist wanted by all police in Belgium and Europe. Thefact that these two publications came out of the same press had caused a lot ofmisunderstanding in our ranks.

France: Absolutely none. The Worker Communist Party of France, an importantstructure then, was pro-Albanian and was therefore not concerned. The only trulyexisting organization claiming to uphold Mao Zedong, Proletarian Way, participated in1980 in debates leading to the birth of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement(RIM). It thought, however, that the move went either too far or not far enough, that itsapproach was abstract more than anything else.

Above all, it refused to embark on anything to formalize ideology, and it thereforeturned to the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations,a non-centralized structure of movements upholding Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedongthought.

As for the Communists belonging to the armed movement, they had a reaction ofcomplete rejection. The paper close to Action Directe, The International, had indeedlargely dealt with the Communist Party of Peru and its People's War since the early1980s. However, the RIM appeared as a "Marxist-Leninist" structure. The article TheFalse Path of the Western European 'Urban Guerrilla', published in 1985 in the reviewpublished by the RIM Committee, A World to Win, sealed this opposition. TheCommunist Party of Spain (reconstituted) made a murderous criticism of this article in1986, which was widely disseminated in Europe in the scene of the armed struggle.

The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement mainly existed through its committee based in London, and in Berlin through the

"Revolutionary Communists" of Germany and a structure of immigrants from Turkey, the TKP / ML Maoist Party Merkezi.

There was a great conflict with the autonomoms on the first of May, 1990, in Berlin, escalating in 1992 and 1993 to clashes with seriously wounded,

the use of batons, knives, etc. Did you hear about it?

Belgium: We did not have any knowledge of these Berlin incidents in Belgium. Onlyin the second half of the nineties, during meetings with activists from Turkey living inGermany, were these facts brought to our attention.

France: There was no echo on this subject in France, because the question of theRevolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) was finally settled in the 1980s,Proletarian Way setting itself aside, the Communists near Action Directe, to speak inthe widest possible sense, paying no attention to it. The RIM was considered, in thesame way as in Germany for that matter, as a foreign body seeking to settle.


So, did the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement develop itself in your country?

Belgium: The misunderstanding having been quickly established with the core of the"International Diario", we turned for a moment to the Parisian committee with whichthere were some meetings.

One of them, memorable for the hostility shown against us by its organizers, took placein spring 1991 when the "Parisians" invited us to the festival organized by the [French]Trotskyists of Lutte Ouvrière in a small town of Val d'Oise [in France]. Theseencounters, whose content was practically and ideologically poor, had only resulted inthe exchange of documents and their dissemination in our various publications of thetime.

France: A nucleus of some people diffusing the magazine A world to win and somedocuments existed at the beginning of the 1990s. It did not give anything organizedand the only hope of this group, also ephemeral, was that the RevolutionaryInternationalist Movement was developing elsewhere to gain some legitimacy.

Have you, in this or any other organizational form in the past, met people related to the Internationalist Revolutionary Movement?

Belgium: In 2010, after the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist Bloc, when we organizedourselves in our present form, there were still contacts with militants of Iranian originsaying they were "Maoists" and wishing to "work with us".

These people were advancing masked. But it quickly became apparent that these wereelements linked to the Communist Party of Iran (marxiste-leninist-maoist). Theirinsistence on bringing us into discussions around Bob Avakian's "New Synthesis"revealed that we did not share the same ideology and that it was therefore impossible tomove forward together.

France: We had several meetings in the 1990s with officials of the Committee of theInternational Revolutionary Movement (Co-RIM).

Nothing came of it productive, nor with the meeting with the past form of what hasbecome the Maoist Communist Party of Italy: talking about the Red Brigades was likepresenting the devil to the pope, literally.

The comrades of the Peruvian Popular Movement, an emanation of the CommunistParty of Peru for work abroad, presented themselves as the left-wing faction of theRIM, but many of its supporters were in fact already advocating a break-up.

On the side of Turkish immigrants, the split of the TKP / ML in TKP / ML and TKP(ML) froze their status in the RIM; only the TKP (ML) felt bound to it, but withoutbeing able to develop in our country something at this level.

At the beginning of 2000, there was also a meeting with Canadians and Nepalese, whohad largely taken control of the RIM Committee. This was an opportunity to remindCanadians of the communist character of Stalin and to explain to the Nepalese that wedid not believe in them because of the many ideological breaches in their approach.


Has there been a contribution of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement to your evolution? Do your members feel connected to it?

Belgium: In view of the presence of Peruvian elements which, from the point of viewof practice, already appear to be supporters of a right opportunist line, which will laterbe confirmed also theoretically; the 1985 appearance of the document The False Pathof the Western European 'Urban Guerrilla' published in the journal of theInternationalist Revolutionary Movement, A world to win, in which the actions of thefighting communist current in Western Europe was termed as 'continual revisionist andreformist deviations', a position that was not accepted here, it is easy to see that theRIM could not have any influence on our course.

France: Absolutely not. Nobody feels bound to the Revolutionary InternationalistMovement. We did not come to the People's War by Maoism, but to Maoism by thePeople's War; the RIM totally rejecting this concept in Western countries, it was at thevery base something that didn’t concern us.

The Communist Party of Peru, with Gonzalo at its head, considered itself as the left fraction of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement,

which finally recognized Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in 1993.So has the RIM played a positive role historically according to you?

Belgium: It was the Communist Party of Peru that represented something huge inBelgium. As for the Internationalist Revolutionary Movement, it appeared to us as aspecific form of representation of the misunderstanding that this type of parachutedstructure was able to have of the history, the traditions, the culture and the realities ofBelgium.

The very peculiar origins of a Workers’ Party of Belgium - deriving from nationalismand traditions totally separated from communism - escaped it, for example,completely ; the clarifications that we wished to offer them in this matter did not seemto interest them beyond measure.

France: The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement never had any historical role, itwas the Communist Party of Peru that had one. Since the RIM disseminated the PCP'scontributions, it was a good thing. But this was only formal and it finally made theissue of content completely lost of sight. This simply produced a "Maoism" consistingof a few recipes, sometimes even attributed to Gonzalo.

In our opinion, we must start from the principle of guiding thought and see how areconcretely embodied the conscious elements resulting from the class struggles of agiven country, synthesizing the historical reality, affirming the revolution. They are theones who will bring Maoism - it is not an "outside" Maoism that will trigger anything.


We are here in circumstances which some think to be a great defeat.

They are dreaming. Today we say to them this is barely a bend in theroad. Nothing else!

A bend along the road. And though the road is long we shall traverseit completely.

We shall arrive at our goal and we shall win! You shall see it ! (…)

What is unfolding in the world? What do we need?

We need Maoism to be incarnated, and it is being incarnated, and bygenerating Communist Parties to drive and lead this new great wave ofthe world proletarian revolution that is coming.

Gonzalo, 24th of september 1992


Compassion and empathy: living matterat the heart of dialectical materialismPublished for the first time on line in march 2015

Where does the sensation comefrom ? Such a question is a typicalerror, the produce of the feudaland the bourgeois approaches,which separate the brain and thebody. The feudal conceptionseparates them totally, whereas thebourgeois way links them in atormented way.

Both consider that the question ofthe sensation is connected to thebody, to the interpretation of thebody by the brain. A feeling, asensation, can not exist in itself; ithas an existence only in the case ofan interpretation by an individual.

The reason for thisanthropocentrism resides inMetaphysics. For the feudalconception, the mind must leavethe body and join the origin of theworld, God, which is immaterial.For the bourgeois conception, wecan not explain the origin of theworld, so we should restrain us inelaborating theory about therelationships we make with reality.

Life is seen through individuals,through their relationships. Thereis no world, no nature, only aworld, a nature existing insofar wehave a relationship to them.

This conception was necessary tothe bourgeois to justify theexistence of the capitalist, which isan individual acting through hisown understanding of itssurrounding reality. Protestantismis here the main ideologicalconstruction of this approach.

Nowadays, existentialism and allthe post-modernist variants thatexist support a terrorist version ofthis self-centeredness, this vision ofthe world based merely on theindividuals.

Therefore, in the history of sciencedominated by the bourgeoisie, itwas always considered that animalsknow no pain. They are consideredas mere mechanisms, by Descartesand Malebranche notably, withouta “conscience”.

Of course, this wrong conceptionproved more and more wrong,through the affirmation ofdemocratic and socialist thought.

One major historical event here iswhen, on 10 December 1907, in aturmoil following an dissection of aliving brown dog in London, 1,000medical students marched throughcentral London waving effigies of abrown dog on sticks, justifying andpromoting vivisection, attacking forthis reason suffragettes and tradeunionists fighting againstvivisection.

Two conceptions of the worldstruggled. Nowadays, the sensationof pets are recognized, but they arestill mistreated; the sensation ofvertebrates is also recognized butthey are considered as of minorinterest.

Moreover, the sensation of fishesand invertebrates are openlynegated, in the name of thenervous system and the brain, in ananthropocentric conception.

On the contrary, dialecticalmaterialism connects living matterto sensation.

In Materialism and Empirio-criticism,Lenin deals with this questionamong others, and remembers usthis important question :

“There still remains to beinvestigated and reinvestigatedhow matter, apparently entirelydevoid of sensation, is related tomatter which, though composed ofthe same atoms (or electrons), isyet endowed with a well-definedfaculty of sensation. Materialismclearly formulates the as yetunsolved problem and therebystimulates the attempt to solve it,to undertake further experimentalinvestigation.”

Lenin says also that we havecertainly to go in the direction ofconsidering that, in the foundationof the structure of matter, we cansurmise the existence of a facultyakin to sensation, like DenisDiderot did it.

And indeed, compassion andempathy are a proof of it. What isthe dialectical materialistconception of reflect? That thebrain reflects reality; what we thinkis an echo.

But, if René Descartes andEmmanuel Kant are right, if eachindividual is like surrounded by aChinese wall, how is it possible tofeel what somebody else feels?How are compassion and empathypossible ?


This is only possible because livingmatter knows sensations;sensations are linked to theprinciple of echo, of movement ofmatter.

That is why a revolution can occur:the masses have synthesized, atdifferent levels, the same vision ofthe world, corresponding to reality.

Revolution occurs at the generallevel, compassion and empathy atthe individual levels, but theirfoundation is the fact that matterand sensation can not beseparated.

Living matter is therefore at theheart of dialectical materialism, asit is a developed form of matter, adirection which corresponds to the

auto-movement of matter itself tomore complexity.

This is the reason why we have torecognize, cherish and defend thedignity of reality of nature, of theanimals, of each living being, whichcorrespond to the auto-developmentof matter, and participate in theglobal system of life on our planet asa Biosphere.•

21 Conditions of Admission to the Communist InternationalJuly 1920

The First Congress of the CommunistInternational did not draw up precise conditionsfor admission to the Communist International.Until the time the first congress was convenedthere were in most countries onlycommunist trends and groups. The SecondCongress of the Communist International meetsunder different conditions. At the present timethere are in most countries not only communisttrends and tendencies, butcommunist parties and organisations.

Now parties and groups often turn to theCommunist International which quite recentlybelonged to the Second International, which wishto join the Communist International but whichhave not, in fact, become communist. The

Second International has been finally smashed topieces. The parties in between and the ‘centre’groups, which realise the hopelessness of theSecond International, now try to lean upon theCommunist International, which is becomingmore and more powerful. In the process,however, they hope to retain an ‘autonomy’ thatwill permit them to continue their previousopportunist or ‘centrist’ policies. To a certainextent the Communist International is becomingfashionable.

The desire of certain leading ‘centrist’ groups tojoin the Communist International is an indirectconfirmation of the fact that the CommunistInternational has gained the sympathy of theoverwhelming majority of class-conscious workers


all over the world and that it is becoming aforce that grows more powerful each day.

The Communist International is threatened by thedanger of being watered down by elementscharacterised by vacillation and half-measures,which have not yet finally discarded the ideologyof the Second International.

Moreover, to this very day there remains insome big parties (Italy, Sweden, Norway,Yugoslavia, among others), whose majorities haveadopted the standpoint of communism, asignificant reformist and social-pacifist wingwhich is only waiting for the opportunity toraise its head again, to start active sabotage ofthe proletarian revolution and thus to help thebourgeoisie and the Second International.

Not a single communist may forget the lessonsof the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The fusion ofthe Hungarian communists with the so-called‘left’ social democrats cost the Hungarianproletariat dear.

Consequently the Second Congress of theCommunist International considers it necessary toestablish quite precisely the conditions for theadmittance of new parties and to point out tothose parties that have been admitted to theCommunist International the duties incumbent onthem.

The Second Congress of the CommunistInternational lays down the following conditionsof membership of the Communist International:

1. All propaganda and agitation must bear areally communist character and correspond to theprogramme and decisions of the CommunistInternational. All the party’s press organs mustbe run by reliable communists who have provedtheir devotion to the cause of the proletariat. The

dictatorship of the proletariat must not be treatedsimply as a current formula learnt off by heart.Propaganda for it must be carried out in such away that its necessity is comprehensible to everysimple worker, every woman worker, everysoldier and peasant from the facts of their dailylives, which must be observed systematically byour press and used day by day.

The periodical and other press and all theparty’s publishing institutions must besubordinated to the party leadership, regardless ofwhether, at any given moment, the party as awhole is legal or illegal. The publishing housesmust not be allowed to abuse their independenceand pursue policies that do not entirelycorrespond to the policies of the party.

In the columns of the press, at public meetings,in the trades unions, in the co-operatives –wherever the members of the CommunistInternational can gain admittance – it isnecessary to brand not only the bourgeoisie butalso its helpers, the reformists of every shade,systematically and pitilessly.

2. Every organisation that wishes to affiliate tothe Communist International must regularly andmethodically remove reformists and centrists fromevery responsible post in the labour movement(party organisations, editorial boards, tradesunions, parliamentary factions, co-operatives, localgovernment) and replace them with testedcommunists, without worrying unduly about thefact that, particularly at first, ordinary workersfrom the masses will be replacing ‘experienced’opportunists.

3. In almost every country in Europe andAmerica the class struggle is entering the phaseof civil war. Under such conditions thecommunists can place no trust in bourgeois


legality. They have the obligation of setting up aparallel organisational apparatus which, at thedecisive moment, can assist the party to do itsduty to the revolution. In every country where astate of siege or emergency laws deprive thecommunists of the opportunity of carrying on alltheir work legally, it is absolutely necessary tocombine legal and illegal activity.

4. The duty of propagating communist ideasincludes the special obligation of forceful andsystematic propaganda in the army. Where thisagitation is interrupted by emergency laws itmust be continued illegally. Refusal to carry outsuch work would be tantamount to a betrayal ofrevolutionary duty and would be incompatiblewith membership of the Communist International.

5. Systematic and methodical agitation isnecessary in the countryside. The working classwill not be able to win if it does not have thebacking of the rural proletariat and at least apart of the poorest peasants, and if it does notsecure the neutrality of at least a part of the restof the rural population through its policies.Communist work in the countryside is taking onenormous importance at the moment. It must becarried out principally with the help ofrevolutionary communist workers of the townand country who have connections with thecountryside. To refuse to carry this work out, orto entrust it to unreliable, semi-reformist hands,is tantamount to renouncing the proletarianrevolution.

6. Every party that wishes to belong to theCommunist International has the obligation tounmask not only open social-patriotism but alsothe insincerity and hypocrisy of social-pacificism,to show the workers systematically that, withoutthe revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, nointernational court of arbitration, no agreement on

the limitation of armaments, no ‘democratic’reorganisation of the League of Nations will beable to prevent new imperialist wars.

7. The parties that wish to belong to theCommunist International have the obligation ofrecognising the necessity of a complete breakwith reformism and ‘centrist’ politics and ofspreading this break among the widest possiblecircles of their party members. Consistentcommunist politics are impossible without this.

The Communist International unconditionally andcategorically demands the carrying out of thisbreak in the shortest possible time. TheCommunist International cannot tolerate asituation where notorious opportunists, asrepresented by Turati, Modigliani, Kautsky,Hilferding, Hillquit, Longuet, MacDonald, etc.,have the right to pass as members of theCommunist International. This could only lead tothe Communist International becoming somethingvery similar to the wreck of the SecondInternational.

8. A particularly marked and clear attitude onthe question of the colonies and oppressednations is necessary on the part of thecommunist parties of those countries whosebourgeoisies are in possession of colonies andoppress other nations. Every party that wishes tobelong to the Communist International has theobligation of exposing the dodges of its ‘own’imperialists in the colonies, of supporting everyliberation movement in the colonies not only inwords but in deeds, of demanding that theirimperialist compatriots should be thrown out ofthe colonies, of cultivating in the hearts of theworkers in their own country a truly fraternalrelationship to the working population in thecolonies and to the oppressed nations, and ofcarrying out systematic propaganda among their


own country’s troops against any oppression ofcolonial peoples.

9. Every party that wishes to belong to theCommunist International must systematically andpersistently develop communist activities withinthe trades unions, workers’ and works councils,the consumer co-operatives and other massworkers’ organisations. Within these organisationsit is necessary to organise communist cells whichare to win the trades unions etc. for the causeof communism by incessant and persistent work.In their daily work the cells have the obligationto expose everywhere the treachery of the socialpatriots and the vacillations of the ‘centrists’.The communist cells must be completelysubordinated to the party as a whole.

10. Every party belonging to the CommunistInternational has the obligation to wage astubborn struggle against the Amsterdam‘International’ of yellow trade unionorganisations. It must expound as forcefully aspossible among trades unionists the idea of thenecessity of the break with the yellowAmsterdam International. It must support theInternational Association of Red Trades Unionsaffiliated to the Communist International, atpresent in the process of formation, with everymeans at its disposal.

11. Parties that wish to belong to the CommunistInternational have the obligation to subject thepersonal composition of their parliamentaryfactions to review, to remove all unreliableelements from them and to subordinate thesefactions to the party leadership, not only inwords but also in deeds, by calling on everyindividual communist member of parliament tosubordinate the whole of his activity to theinterests of really revolutionary propaganda andagitation.

12. The parties belonging to the CommunistInternational must be built on the basis of theprinciple of democratic centralism. In the presentepoch of acute civil war the communist partywill only be able to fulfil its duty if it isorganised in as centralist a manner as possible,if iron discipline reigns within it and if the partycentre, sustained by the confidence of the partymembership, is endowed with the fullest rightsand authority and the most far-reaching powers.

13. The communist parties of those countries inwhich the communists can carry out their worklegally must from time to time undertake purges(re-registration) of the membership of their partyorganisations in order to cleanse the partysystematically of the petty-bourgeois elementswithin it.

14. Every party that. wishes to belong to theCommunist International has the obligation togive unconditional support to every sovietrepublic in its struggle against the forces ofcounter-revolution. The communist parties mustcarry out clear propaganda to prevent thetransport of war material to the enemies of thesoviet republics. They must also carry out legalor illegal propaganda, etc., with every means attheir disposal among troops sent to stifleworkers’ republics.

15. Parties that have still retained their old socialdemocratic programmes have the obligation ofchanging those programmes as quickly aspossible and working out a new communistprogramme corresponding to the particularconditions in the country and in accordance withthe decisions of the Communist International.

As a rule the programme of every partybelonging to the Communist International mustbe ratified by a regular Congress of the


Communist International or by the ExecutiveCommittee. Should the Executive Committee ofthe Communist International reject a party’sprogramme, the party in question has the rightof appeal to the Congress of the CommunistInternational.

16. All decisions of the Congresses of theCommunist International and decisions of itsExecutive Committee are binding on all partiesbelonging to the Communist International. TheCommunist International, acting under conditionsof the most acute civil war, must be built in afar more centralist manner than was the casewith the Second International. In the process theCommunist International and its ExecutiveCommittee must, of course, in the whole of itsactivity, take into account the differing conditionsunder which the individual parties have to fightand work, and only take generally bindingdecisions in cases where such decisions arepossible.

17. In this connection all those parties that wishto belong to the Communist International mustchange their names. Every party that wishes tobelong to the Communist International must bearthe name Communist Party of this or thatcountry (Section of the Communist International).The question of the name is not formal, but ahighly political question of great importance. TheCommunist International has declared war on thewhole bourgeois world and on all yellow social-democratic parties. The difference between thecommunist parties and the old official ‘social-democratic’ or ‘socialist’ parties that havebetrayed the banner of the working class mustbe clear to every simple toiler.

18. All the leading press organs of the parties inevery country have the duty of printing all theimportant official documents of the ExecutiveCommittee of the Communist International.

19. All parties that belong to the CommunistInternational or have submitted an application formembership have the duty of calling a specialcongress as soon as possible, and in no caselater than four months after the Second Congressof the Communist International, in order tocheck all these conditions. In this connection allparty centres must see that the decisions of theSecond Congress are known to all their localorganisations.

20. Those parties that now wish to enter theCommunist International but have not yetradically altered their previous tactics must,before they join the Communist International, seeto it that no less than two thirds of the centralcommittee and of all their most important centralinstitutions consist of comrades who even beforethe Second Congress of the CommunistInternational spoke out unambiguously in publicin favour of the entry of the party into theCommunist International. Exceptions may bepermitted with the agreement of the ExecutiveCommittee of the Communist International. TheExecutive Committee of the CommunistInternational also has the right to makeexceptions in relation to the representatives ofthe centrist tendency mentioned in paragraph 7.

21. Those party members who fundamentallyreject the conditions and Theses laid down bythe Communist International are to be expelledfrom the party.


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