







Lenin and the Militarized Communist Party





We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance under their almost constant fire. We have combined voluntarily, precisely for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not to retreat into the adjacent marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation.

Lenin

What Is To Be Done? 1902





I – INTRODUCTION





The fundamental objective of this article is, just as the purpose of The El Maoista Magazine is presented, to serve the Two-Line Struggle in the International Communist Movement, raising the fundamental questions and problems of the World Revolution. Therefore the objective of this article is not to make a systematic exposition of the conception of the revolutionary party of the proletariat through the development of Marxism in its three stages, but, as part of the Celebration of the 100 years of the Great Socialist October Revolution, to show the backgrounds of the militarized communist party that are present in Leninism and the Bolshevik Communist Party, supporting the indispensable necessity of it to unleash and lead the revolutionary armed struggle as People’s War on each country, to give new impulse to the World Revolution.





Since the emergence of Marxism, the question of the Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat was taken as a key problem by its founders Marx and Engels, because the goal of Communism, human kind emancipation, will be achieved through the political emancipation of the proletarian class, which means the dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transition period for the elimination of the social classes, a condition for the transition into the classless society, a mission that demands the proletariat to constitute itself in a political party. Marx established that this party must be different and opposed to all other parties that ever existed in history, in essence, a party of the class and internationalist, corresponding to the nature of the proletariat as a single international class.





While reaffirming the principles established by Marx and Engels regarding the party of the class, Lenin emphasized:

“ the unity of the proletariat in the epoch of social revolution can be achieved only by the extreme revolutionary party of Marxism, and only through a relentless struggle against all other parties. ” . 1

Imperialism, as the superior and last stage of capitalism, as monopolist, parasitic, decomposing and agonizing capitalism, is the epoch of its complete sweep away from the face of earth by the proletarian revolution. Lenin affirmed: “ Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we shall overturn Russia! ”. 2





The Great Socialist October Revolution of 1917, to which we celebrate its centenary, marks the beginning of a New Era, the Era of the Proletarian World Revolution, of the transition into the classless society, the shining Communism. The most important, most decisive, factor for this great triumph was the existence of the Bolshevik Party. We specify: the existence of a vanguard party of the proletariat, as a combat organization, gifted with a solid guiding thought, correct general political line whose center was expressed in a correct military line and counting with a Great Leadership, the great Lenin.





In 1948, while synthesizing 100 years of struggle of the working class and world revolution, Chairman Mao affirmed:





“ If there is to be revolution, there must be a revolutionary party . Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style , it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people to defeat imperialism and its running dogs. In the more than one hundred years since the birth of Marxism, it was only through the example of the Russian Bolsheviks in leading the October Revolution, in leading socialist construction and in defeating fascist aggression that revolutionary parties of a new type were formed and developed in the world . With the birth of revolutionary parties of this type, the face of the world revolution has changed . The change has been so great that transformations utterly inconceivable to people of the older generation have come into being amid fire and thunder... With the birth of the Communist Party of China, the face of the Chinese revolution took on an altogether new aspect . Is this fact not clear enough?” 3 (emphasis added).









This great synthesis of the experience of the first 100 years of the proletarian revolution highlights the necessity of the Party as a fundamental, central and decisive question. It tells us that a revolutionary party is necessary in order to make revolution, a revolutionary party built on solid Marxist-Leninist ideological base, forged in the “ Marxist-Leninist Working style ”, which means a revolutionary party of a new type – Bolshevik, Leninist, as combat organization, of professional revolutionaries.





Regarding the relation between Communist Party and the process of the world revolution, Chairman Mao affirmed “ ... it was only through the example of the Russian Bolsheviks (...) that revolutionary parties of a new type were formed and developed in the world . With the birth of revolutionary parties of this type, the face of the world revolution has changed.” 4 (emphasis added).





Chairman Mao affirmed that: “ Therefore the united front, armed struggle and Party building are the three fundamental questions (…) Having a correct grasp of these three questions and their interrelations is tantamount to giving correct leadership to the whole ... revolution. ” 5





In his historical speech after his capture, Chairman Gonzalo established the necessity to fulfill the pending and delayed task of constituting or reconstituting militarized Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist communist parties to initiate and lead the People’s War where it was not unleashed, also to transform the current national liberation armed struggles into People’s War, everything as part and serving the World Revolution, as World People’s War.





The following fundamental principles of Marxism stand out in the struggle between Marxism and revisionism: Class Struggle, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the necessity of the revolutionary party of the proletariat (communist party), revolutionary violence, scientific socialism and the very struggle against revisionism. These, in the whole practical and theoretical process of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in its almost 170 years, were what distinguished Marxists from revisionists and other opportunists, whose most accented and sharp struggles preceded the moments of great leaps, the great revolutions. Two of these pillars have always stood out the most in the struggle against Marxists and revisionists, the question of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the question of the necessity and the class character of the revolutionary party of the proletariat.





Therefore we approach the theme of the revolutionary party of the proletariat, we remark and rethink it is the central question that concentrates all the problems regarding revolution in a country and in the world itself. Such problems, which are also the object of other articles that are published in this same magazine, are approached here only as part of the principal problem.





As part of the world counterrevolution, revisionism is in crisis because it failed on its sinister and rotten task: save the old order and defeat Revolution. Revisionism is in crisis, however not dead and is still the main danger for the ICM and the World Proletarian Revolution. It played and plays its dirty and sinister role of embellishing capitalism and dividing the masses, spreading, through all means, the illusion of “democracy as a universal value” and parliamentary cretinism as path, to traffic with the interests and needs of the masses. This is how they act, with bigger or smaller influence, through all countries of the world and in the case of Latin America they raised into the head of the old state of big bourgeois and landlords, presiding the repression and exploitation of the masses, spreading bourgeois ideology. Now they sink in even greater crisis, but they will not disappear by themselves, they are still swarming with new forms, offering themselves as luxurious auxiliary of the ruling classes, committed to the rotten task of deviating the masses from the revolutionary path.





Therefore, we must energetically repel their five attacks: to the party, to the dictatorship of the proletariat, to revolutionary violence, to socialism and to marxism . This is necessary and it must also be swept away by the People’s War, part by part, together with all reaction.





Historical experience of the proletarian revolution incontrovertibly confirms the necessity of the struggle against revisionism to sweep away its harmful influence within the Class and the People, by fighting it as the main danger for revolution and doing so through two-line struggle in the heat of class struggle and inseparably from the combat to imperialism, its lackeys and all reaction, can we maintain the red color of the party and make the revolutionary process of each country and the ICM advance, propel and raise high its New Great Wave in the path of the World People’s War to sweep away imperialism and all reaction from the face of earth.





Nevertheless, it is necessary to highlight and remark that in the struggle against revisionism, which must be waged implacably and inseparably from the combat to imperialism, its lackeys and all reaction, we must, with all forcefulness, raise what Chairman Gonzalo affirmed: that revisionism is born defeated and dead by its rotten nature. In other words, that strategically they are like imperialism and all reaction - condemned to the dark tomb of history.





And it must be done by taking the central ideological-political questions of the world revolution today as starting point, notably the problems linked to the constitution or reconstitution of militarized Maoist parties to initiate and develop the People’s War, to bring the proletarian revolution to its triumph at world scale, while sweeping away imperialism and all reaction from the face of earth, and through successive cultural revolutions to assure that the whole world enters Communism.





This process necessarily goes through the understanding and taking position on the different experiences of People’s War in the world. Regarding the People’s War in Nepal, for example, an experience of great importance in the ICM, which some have even raised it as a high summit of maoism and Prachanda as great leader of the World Revolution – Many of those who publicly reject the prachandist treason still nourish in secret the adhesion to the conception of party and revolution that is proclaimed by prachandism, such as the necessity of a new type of maoist party proposed by Battharai, apart from the revisionist “ theory of fusion ”, the thesis of “ globalized imperialist state ”, “ 21 th century socialism ” and its “ multi-party Competition ”.





In the immense majority of the countries (that are not in People’s War), to reconstitute/constitute militarized communist parties to initiate the People’s War is the principal task. In the countries where People’s Wars are being developed, the understanding regarding the militarized communist party is a decisive question to develop them until victory. In other words, the majority of the problems for the development of the World Revolution and its triumph are concentrated on this question. This is why the understanding regarding the militarized communist party is presented as a decisive question for all those who face processes of reconstitution/constitution and of unleashing the People’s War.





The development of the two-line struggle on this question is a necessary condition for the reunification of the communists in the world and to fulfill the task that was assumed by the V Meeting of MLM Parties and Organizations of Latin America to combat dispersion on the ICM and to realize the Unified Maoist International Conference, serving to raise Maoism as command and guide of the world proletarian revolution.





II – LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIK PARTY





The conception of Militarized Communist Party has the beginning of its formulation with Chairman Mao, and is developed and completed with Chairman Gonzalo, however the need for it and its realization was already put forward and took place in embryonic form with Lenin. Because of this and in order to highlight the importance of the celebration of the 100 years of the Great Socialist October Revolution, we will then highlight what was developed by Lenin regarding the principles of the party of a New Type, Communist Party, to show its full validity in the Militarized Communist Party.





This is why, in this chapter, we will not make a complete analysis and synthesis of the history of the Bolshevik Communist Party in the preparation for the proletarian revolution in Russia, during its troubles in the democratic revolution of 1905, in the offensive of the counterrevolution and its triumph in October 1917 and in the construction of socialism, Marxism counts on the “compendium of the History of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. (Bolshevik) for such evaluation, which was elaborated under personal leadership of comrade Stalin, Chairman Mao defined well: the “ It is the best synthesis and summing-up of the world communist movement of the past hundred years, a model of the integration of theory and practice, and so far the only comprehensive model in the whole world. ” . 6 We will then center our exposition on showing some essential elements of the Party of a New Type that are necessary for the understanding on the Militarized Communist Party and its foundations and how it was already being generated in the process that would become the Great Socialist October Revolution.





In the Revolution of 1905, putting forward the question of the seizure of Power brought the military problem to the forefront. Since then, the military question started to have central presence in Lenin’s theoretical work and political formulation and his struggle to bring them into practice as military program and line of the proletarian revolution. These are incontrovertible facts of the proletarian revolution in Russia, the main source where Chairman Mao and, later, Chairman Gonzalo drank from to develop and establish the necessary and correct formulation regarding these crucial problems of the proletarian revolution: namely, on necessity of the Three Fundamental Instruments of the proletarian revolution (Communist Party, People’s Army and United Front) and principally on the Militarized Party.





Between the years 1890 and 1900, when Marxism expanded its influence over Russia, the bourgeois intellectuals approached Marxism, rejecting its revolutionary character and creating what Lenin called "legal Marxism" – ideological infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the labor movement. These different opportunist tendencies were no more than an expression of revisionism that arose within the Second International. Lenin's struggle against these different opportunist currents in Russia ( economism was the Russian counterpart of Bernstein's social-democratic revisionism) was at the same time the struggle against Western revisionism at the international level.





Stalin, in his masterly The F oundations of Leninism , in systematizing the Leninist party theory, stated:

“ In the pre-revolutionary period (...) the period of more or less peaceful development , (...) the parties of the Second International were the predominant force in the working-class movement and parliamentary forms of struggle were regarded as the principal forms (...)” 7





In Russia, the Mensheviks represented the same opportunist tendency as the Social-Democratic parties of Western Europe, the members of the Second International, who, after the death of Engels (1895), began to degenerate into "social reform" parties, each becoming a true appendix of its parliamentary fraction.





“ The Party strengthens itself by purging its ranks of opportunist elements — that is one of the maxims of the Bolshevik Party, which is a party of a new type fundamentally different from the Social-Democratic parties of the Second International.”. 8 Stalin was reaffirming the old teaching that Marx and Engels had preached since the advent of the Manifesto of the Communist Party and its struggles to furnish the revolutionary party of the proletariat.





With the advent of imperialism, these organizations turned from social-pacifists into social-traitors, social-chauvinists, openly going over to the field of the reaction as Lenin defined:

“ Socialist parties are not debating clubs, but organisations of the fighting proletariat; when a number of battalions have gone over to the enemy, they must be named and branded as traitors; we must not allow ourselves to be taken in by hypocritical assertions that "not everybody understands imperialism in the same way", or that the chauvinist Kautsky and the chauvinist Cunow can write volumes about it, or that the question has not been "adequately discussed", etc., etc.” . 9





Comrade Stalin, when synthesizing Lenin's criticism of the Second International parties, categorically affirmed:

“ It means that the parties of the Second International are unfit for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, that they are not militant parties of the proletariat, leading the workers to power, but election machines adapted for parliamentary elections and parliamentary struggle. This, in fact, explains why, in the days when the opportunists of the Second International were in the ascendancy, it was not the party but its parliamentary group that was the chief political organization of the proletariat. It is well known that the party at that time was really an appendage and subsidiary of the parliamentary group. ” 10





After the triumph of the October Revolution, the great Lenin, when speaking of the counterrevolutionary attitude and role of opportunism, affirmed the need to take the armed struggle against it:

“ The international split of the whole working-class movement is now quite evident (the Second and the Third Internationals). The fact that armed struggle and civil war is now raging between the two trends is also evident: the support given to Kokchak and Denikin in Russia by the Mensheviks and "Socialist-Revolutionaries" against the Bolsheviks; the fight the Scheidemanns, Noskes and Co. have conducted in conjunction with the bourgeoisie against the Spartacists in Germany, the same thing in Finland, Poland, Hungary, etc. ” 11





Concluding on the characterization of the parties of the Second International, Comrade Stalin stated:

“ Hence the necessity for a new party, a militant party, a revolutionary party, one bold enough to lead the proletarians in the struggle for power, sufficiently experienced to find its bearings amidst the complex conditions of a revolutionary situation, and sufficiently flexible to steer clear of all submerged rocks in the path to its goal. Without such a party it is useless even to think of overthrowing imperialism, of achieving the dictatorship of the proletariat. This new party is the party of Leninism. ” 12





Lenin took part in the unification of the Marxist groups in 1898, with the creation of the RSDLP, but it was in the Second Congress, in 1903, at the head of the red fraction in struggle against the revisionists (Mensheviks) that his theses won, constituting the RSDLP as a Marxist party. From then on, as a Bolshevik fraction, through intense theoretical-political work, he fought to furnish it organizationally.





Unlike the parties of the West, especially Europe and North America, the Leninist red fraction developed itself under conditions of uttermost clandestinity, permanently beset by the tsarist reaction. Guided by Lenin, the Leninist red fraction was forged through its direct revolutionary activity, combining new and varied forms of struggle such as armed actions, guerrilla warfare, mass political strikes and insurrections.





Lenin says that the forging of this party is not an easy problem: “which cannot be solved overnight” , and that these “organizations must be educated, must be reformed on the basis of the lessons drawn by experience in order to be up to their mission” 13





Lenin's struggle against economism and liberalism was at the center of all controversy in the early twentieth century, where the issues of organization had gained prominence and proved to be the cornerstone of the problem of revolution. To this problem, Lenin has consecrated immortal works of Marxism such as: ‘ A Letter To A Comrade On Our Organisational Tasks’, ‘Where to Begin’, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back’ and especially ‘What Is To Be Done?’ (1902), among others.





Although at the First Congress, held in 1898, the party creation was proclaimed, it had not actually been constituted. In the first Congress neither Statutes nor Programme were established, the whole Central Committee elected in Congress was arrested and it was not reorganized again. The Social Democratic Labor Party, whose left wing was led by Lenin, was effectively founded at the Second Congress in 1903 and constituted as a Marxist party as a result of the ideological smash of opportunism, in the ideological unification of the struggle against the economists . The two-line struggle in this Congress took place on the fundamental issue of Democratic Centralism in the party, opposing the revolutionary proletarian conception of Lenin to the right-wing opportunist line of the Menshevik Trotsky.





In the article Where To Begin (1901), Lenin established the necessity of facing three problems: " 1) the character and principal content of our political agitation; 2) our organizational tasks; 3) and the plan for building ... a militant , All-Russian organisation " 14 (Emphasis added) In his brilliant work What Is To Be Done? (1902), Lenin lays down the ideological and political foundations of the proletarian party , according to which in the struggle for power " the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory (marxism) ". 15 (em phasis added)





Lenin combats spontaneism, which opportunistically adapts the party to reality, and has shown that the spontaneous movement is but an embryonic form of the conscious movement, but " but only in embryo ," since conscious struggle could only be introduced from the outside as a result o f the application of the scientific ideology of the proletariat in the spontaneous movement through its vanguard party.





Was it not about marking the date of the revolution that Martov accused Lenin? Let us see, what is the opposite of spontaneous movement? The conscious movement. What is contrary to spontaneity? The plan. The plan is the superior expression of the understanding of the laws of movement and of the development of the class struggle in general and the revolutionary war in a country for the conquest and defense of the new power in particular. That is, as Chairman Gonzalo teaches us, " every plan is ideology ". Just like in What Is To Be Done? Lenin maintained the necessity for a single, centralized party of the Class, capable of placing itself at the forefront of the revolutionary movement. Lenin had already emphasized the importance of Engels' fragment in " The Peasant War in Germany ," in which he stated:

“ It must be said to the credit of the German workers that they have used the advantages of their situation with rare understanding. For the first time since the working-class movement has existed, the struggle is being waged in a planned way from its three coordinated and interconnected sides, the theoretical, the political and the practical-economic (resistance to the capitalists). It is precisely in this, as it were, concentric attack, that the strength and invincibility of the German movement lies ”. 16





Lenin combated the positions of Axelrod and Martov, who had marched along with him until the Second Congress of the RSDLP, but who aligned themselves with petty-bourgeois positions on organizational issues. Martov argued that all those, even not belonging to one of the party organizations, could be party members only because they supported it or because they were active strikers, opening space for the opportunism of petty-bourgeois intellectuals and other opportunists who did not accept the revolutionary discipline of the party.





Lenin denounced the opportunist nature of this position, arguing that only those who were members of one of its organizations could be members of the party by subjecting themselves to their programme, statutes, discipline, and participating in the active revolutionary struggle.





Combating these opportunist tendencies that sought to use the workers' movement for the interests of the bourgeoisie and to transform the vanguard organization of the proletariat into an appendage of the spontaneous movement, Lenin established for the first time the necessity of a vanguard communist party as an organization of professional revolutionaries, endowed with an ideological-political-organizational steel unity, will and action unity, a combat organization to lead the class for the seizure of power, and clandestine by its very nature.





In the same work What Is To Be Done? Lenin defines and establishes the prin ciples of the clandestine party:

“ I assert: 1) that no revolutionary movement can endure without a stable organization of leaders that maintains continuity; 2) that the wider the masses spontaneously drawn into the struggle, forming the basis of the movement and participating in it, the more urgent the need of such an organization, and the more solid this organization must be (for it is much easier for demagogues to sidetrack the more backward sections of the masses); 3) that such an organization must consist chiefly of people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity ; 4) that in an autocratic state, the more we confine the membership of such an organization to people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity and who have been professionally trained in the art of combating the political police , the more difficult will it be to wipe out such an organization, and 5) the greater will be the number of people of the working class and of the other classes of society who will be able to join the movement and perform active work in it ” . 17 (Emphasis added).





In establishing the organizational foundations for the construction of an organization capable of guiding the proletariat in the political struggle for power, in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, 1904, he defined the fundamental axis of ideological-political and organizational simultaneous construction, amidst the class struggle and the struggle against opportunism.





“ In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation. (…) the proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism being reinforced by the material unity of organisation, which welds millions of toilers into an army of the working class. Neither the senile rule of the Russian autocracy nor the senescent rule of international capital will be able to withstand this army. It will more and more firmly close its ranks, in spite of all zigzags and backward steps, in spite of the opportunist phrasemongering of the Girondists of present-day Social-Democracy, in spite of the self-satisfied exaltation of the retrograde circle spirit, and in spite of the tinsel and fuss of intellectualist anarchism.” 18





In fact, when Lenin founded the Iskra newspaper in 1900 – in order to serve the task of the "creation" of the genuine revolutionary party of the proletariat that would overcome all the backwardness of the conceptions that swarmed about this question since the creation of the RSDLP in 1898 – he began his formulation of the Party of a new type, which would be completed with What Is To Be Done? , in 1902. And in this extraordinary document that he establishes the foundations and principles of the party of a new type, he advocates a " newspaper for all of Russia " As a " collective organizer ". However, at this moment he is striving for the scientific conception and foundations of the revolutionary party of the proletariat, taking the general principles established by the founders Marx and Engels as starting and placing them in correspondence with the development of capitalism, which entered into its higher stage of imperialism, as well as with the development of the class struggle and struggle in the international proletarian movement on the problem of the organization of the vanguard party of the class, a struggle in which prevailed the conception of party corresponding to the experience of the socialist labor parties of the Second International, which became an "appendage of the parliamentary minority", as Comrade Stalin later expounded in The Foundations of Leninism .





From the outset, the Mensheviks were opposed to the subordination of local organizations to the central leadership and of all militants to the party discipline, what they called "blind discipline" and "followism". Lenin unmasks opportunistic conceptions in the organizational field, which oppose to centralism in party organization, thus summarizing the essence of opportunistic conceptions in the organizational field (a fully valid and useful question for the two-line struggle in the ICM nowadays):

“ As a matter of fact, the entire position of the opportunists in organisational questions already began to be revealed in the controversy over Paragraph 1: their advocacy of a diffuse, not strongly welded, Party organisation; their hostility to the idea (the “bureaucratic” idea) of building the Party from the top downwards, starting from the Party Congress and the bodies set up by it; their tendency to proceed from the bottom upwards, allowing every professor, every high school student and “every striker” to declare himself a member of the Party; their hostility to the “formalism” which demands that a Party member should belong to one of the organisations recognised by the Party; their leaning towards the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual, who is only prepared to “accept organisational relations platonically”; their penchant for opportunist profundity and for anarchistic phrases; their tendency towards autonomism as against centralism”. 19





In what does the opportunist positions in the organizational field manifest? In all aversion to centralism, opposition to the centralization of ideology, political line and programme, therefore they express opposition in centralization in the organization and plan. “Unity on questions of programme and tactics is an essential but by no means a sufficient condition for Party unity, for the centralisation of Party work (good God, what elementary things one has to spell out nowadays, when all concepts have been confused!). The latter requires, in addition, unity of organisation, which, in a party that has grown to be anything more than a mere family circle, is inconceivable without formal Rules, without the subordination of the minority to the majority and of the part to the whole”. 20









Lenin highlights the need for secrecy, refuting the opportunist accusations that tried to drag the proletariat into the "legal" terrain:

“ Without a strengthening and development of revolutionary discipline, organisation and underground activity , struggle against the government is impossible.(...) 21 Secrecy is such a necessary condition for this kind of organization that all the other conditions (number and selection of members, functions, etc.) (...) The objection may be raised: such a powerful and strictly secret organization, which concentrates in its hands all the threads of secret activities, an organization which of necessity is centralized (...) (emphasis added)





“ if we begin with the solid foundation of a strong organization of revolutionaries, we can guarantee the stability of the movement as a whole and carry out the aims of both Social-Democracy and of trade unions proper ” . 22





Lenin emphasizes that every new form of struggle disorganizes the organizations that are not prepared for this new form of struggle. These new forms, which affirmed the path of revolutionary violence, required the formation of organizations of a new type, such as a combat organization. That is to say, this party of a new type is combined with the development of the foundations of the military line of the proletariat, serving as the principal and fundamental instrument necessary for the leadership of the proletariat and the masses in the revolutionary struggle for power.





In 1905, when the revolutionary situation was instaled and started to develop in Russia, Lenin refuted the opportunist positions that said that the "guerrillas" disorganized the popular movement, stati ng that:

“ It is not guerrilla actions which disorganise the movement, but the weakness of a party which is incapable of taking such actions under its control ” . Further he completes “ What we have said about disorganisation also applies to demoralisation. It is not guerrilla warfare which demoralises, but unorganised , irregular, non-party guerrilla acts ” . 23





Lenin, in his Marxist conviction that the central problem of any and all revolution is the question of Power, that the core of the state power is its armed force and that, according to a general law of war that only an army defeats another, he affirmed that the crucial problem for the proletarian revolution was, ultimately, that of the class constituting itself as an army, in addition to having already constituted itself as a vanguard party that leads it. That is to say that the workers and their vanguard should master the "military art" and stressed that the forge of the revolutionary party needed to take charge of the armed actions and forge itself in them. In October 1905 he wrote a draft article pointing out the necessity of the militarization of the party and emphasized how to do it:

“ The fight against the Black Hundreds is an excellent type of military action, which will train the soldiers of the revolutionary army, give them their baptism of fire, and at the same time be of tremendous benefit to the revolution. Revolutionary army groups must at once find out who organises the Black Hundreds and where and how they are organised, and then, without confining themselves to

propaganda (which is useful, but inadequate) they must act with armed force, beat up and kill the members of the Black-Hundred gangs, blow up their headquarters, etc., etc.” 24





Quoting Kaustky, when he was still a Marxist, he pointed out that:

“ It is absolutely natural and inevitable that the uprising should assume the higher and more complex form of a prolonged civil war embracing the whole country, i.e., an armed struggle between two sections of the people. (…) the Social-Democrats must absolutely make it their duty to create organisations best adapted to lead the masses in these big engagements and, as far as possible, in these small encounters as well. In a period when the class struggle has become accentuated to the point of civil war, Social-Democrats must make it their duty not only to participate but also to play the leading role in this civil war . The Social-Democrats must train and prepare their organisations to be really able to act as a belligerent side which does not miss a single opportunity of inflicting damage on the enemy's forces ”. 25 (Emphasis added).





In Guerrilla Warfare , written in October 1906, Lenin established the form to be assumed by the revolutionary party of the proletariat and its relation to the instruments and tasks of the revolution. Lenin thus synthesized the ques tion: " In a period of civil war the ideal party of the proletariat is a fighting party. " 26 This remark of Lenin is extremely important because it synthesizes the need to forge the party as an adequate instrument for the leadership of the struggle for power in the form of a revolutionary civil war. (emphasis added).





Lenin established the foundation of the military line of the party defining the "revolutionary civil war" as the way of transition to socialism: " Civil war, without which not one of the great revolutions of history has taken place, and without which not a single serious Marxist has conceived the transition from capitalism to socialism. " 27





With his work Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution and the various articles that deals with the military question, Lenin fundamentally completed the theoretical body of the party of a new type. The congress of the Bolsheviks was held separately from the Menshevik conference. The RSDLP, already constituted as a Marxist party in the Second Congress of 1903, advanced in its constitution as a party of a new type through the Bolshevik fraction, although the Leninist party was not accepted and was not applied by the totality of its members. This was made in the midst of the revolutionary crisis, of the events of the Revolution of 1905, which its combats would continue until 1907, when the counterrevolution led by the Stolypin 28 reaction had defeated the revolution.





Based on the set of definitions already formulated and applied by the Bolsheviks, Lenin had established Democratic Centralism as the general principle of organization of the revolutionary proletariat, based on: subordination of the minority to the majority; of inferior organizations to superior organizations; of each militant to the Party Committee one is a member and of all party organizations and all militants, without any exception, to the Central Committee. Centralism that expresses the centralization of correct ideas, Strategic Centralization and Tactical Decentralization, as demonstrated in this report:

“ In the Bolshevik Party (…) the democratic centralism was applied. The organizations of the Party did not wait for the indications of the Central Committee, of the regional, province or city (local) committee. Without waiting for these decisions, they worked accordingly to the local conditions and the events, within the limits of the decisions of the Party and the general directives. The initiative of the local organizations of the Party, of the cells, were heightened. If the comrades from Odessa or Moscow, Baku or Tiflis had always waited the directives of the Central Committee, of the province committee, etc., which, during the years of reaction and during the war, often did not exist because of detainments, what would happen? The Bolsheviks would not have conquered the worker masses and would not have had influence over them. The province and local committees published their manifestos and fliers in all opportune case and by their own initiative.” 29





How did the discipline, established by Lenin, developed? In the resolute application of all decisions of the Central Committee, of the slogans defined by Lenin, as a combat command for the whole party . That this political line should take the form of a construction plan for an organization of revolutionaries from all over Russia. Centralism that is expressed in unity of understanding, unity of policy, unity of plan , unity of action , unity of command and unity of will . Already in 1905, Lenin, as the undisputed Great Leader of the Bolsheviks, the red fraction of the RSDLP, was recognized as the outstanding Great Leader by the vast majority of party members, even though the Mensheviks did not subject to his resolutions and directives.





Thus, Lenin, by creatively applying Marxism to the reality of revolution in Russia, has developed the Marxist theory of the party of the proletariat to a new and great leap, the Party of a New Type, corresponding to its second stage, Leninism, of necessary universal validity not only to Russia, but to advance the World Revolution. Even before the October Revolution 30 triumphed, Lenin already advocated the need to adopt the name of the revolutionary party of the proletariat in accordance with its class nature, as Marx and Engels had previously defined in Critique of the Gotha Programme , which means the name of Communist Party, as it came to take place after the triumph of the revolution, in the midst of the civil war against the white guards and the invading armies of the main imperialist powers and their lackeys, changing from the name of Social-Democratic Labor Party of Russia to Communist Party of Russia (Bolshevik).





With the triumph of the October Revolution, the Leninist Party, as a party of a New Type, proved itself to be the only one capable of leading the proletariat in the struggle for power. Lenin solves the problem posed by Engels at the end of the nineteenth century, according to which the Class did not possess the proper organizational and military forms to seize and to maintain power, however, it was necessary to develop them. Retaking the revolutionary theses of Marx and Engels, he forged the Marxist conception of the revolutionary party of the proletariat for the conquest of power, for the leadership and exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat.





In systematizing Leninism on the issue of the Revolutionary Party of the Proletariat, in The Foundations of Leninism , Stalin highlights six characteristics of the party of a new type:

“ 1 - The Party as the advanced detachment of the working class. ” – he emphasizes that it is a vanguard armed with revolutionary theory, the scientific view of the world, of dialectical materialism, of marxism. That the Party is the General Staff of the class, its political leader and military leader ;

“ 2 – The Party as the organized detachment of the working class. ” – he emphasizes that it is the vanguard detachment of the class, however it it part of the class, is the organized part of the class, it exists for the class and has its purpose in it;

“ 3 – The Party as the highest form of class organization of the proletariat ” – he emphasizes that as vanguard and organized detachment of the class, it is the superior form of organization that is linked to the whole masses of the class through intermediate and elementary forms of organization of it: trade unions, associations, etc. The revolutionary party of the proletariat, the communist party is a cadre party and has mass character;

“ 4 - The Party as an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat ” – he emphasizes that the party is not only necessary for seizing political power, it is decisive and indispensable to lead the dictatorship of the class, key to the whole transition period that is necessary to abolish classes and to enter communism;

“ 5 – The Party as the embodiment of unity of will, unity incompatible with the existence of factions ” – he emphasizes that the conquest of power and the enforcement of the dictatorship by the proletariat is impossible without iron discipline. However, iron discipline can not be attained without complete and absolute unity of will, without unity of action by the members of the party. Iron discipline does not exclude criticism and struggle of opinions, but it presupposes it, it is not blind but presupposes conscious and voluntary subjection. Such discipline is based on the principles of democratic centralism. Which means, after the struggle of opinions, after criticism is finished and a resolution is adopted based on the majority, the unity of will and unity of action of all the members of the Party is indispensable condition of this iron discipline. Democratic centralism that expresses the centralization of correct ideas and reigns the subjection of the minority to the majority, the inferior organizations to the superior ones and all to the Central Committee;





“ 6 – The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements ” – he emphasizes that in order to strengthen the proletarian parties it is necessary to purge its ranks of the opportunist and reformist elements, social-imperialists and social-chauvinists, social-patriots and social-pacifists. Also the elements of the petty-bourgeoisie and the bourgeois-turned strata of the proletariat rally to the party of the class and they bring their world view, vacillations and opportunism proper of that class into the party. In order to defend and strengthen the class character and revolutionary character of the Party, the struggle against revisionism and all opportunism must be systematic and incessant. 31





These six characteristics brilliantly sum up the fundamental principles of the Leninist party, which has been throughout its existence, a vanguard party forged in revolutionary violence and in the struggle against opportunism.





It was by combating "populist", "legalistic", "liberal" and "economist" tendencies that the Bolshevik-Leninist Red Fraction was formed, placing itself in the leadership of mass actions, and Lenin was able to develop the foundations of his military line and with it to furnish the party of a new type, which he had already formulated in opposition to the social-democratic formations of Europe and its ‘economists’ and their Menshevik representatives in Russia. In the early days of 1905, particularly with the tragic events of "Bloody Sunday," the revolutionary situation deepened and, by the end of the year, turned into a revolutionary crisis, putting the problem of power on the agenda and with it the military problem as an immediate practical matter.





In the concentrated revolutionary period of 1905/1907 and the following period of the Stolypin reaction (up to 1909), Lenin fundamentally completed the theoretical set, the strategy and tactics, as well as the military line of the party of a new type, to lead the revolution in Russia, and at the service of the world proletarian revolution. With his masterful work Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution he developed Marxism on questions of the tactics and strategy of the proletariat to fight for power in the ongoing democratic revolution and to transform it into socialist revolution, in "Guerrilla Warfare" and other writings he laid the basis of the solution of the military question for the proletariat to conquer and defend the New Power, sustaining Marxism against the idealistic wave with its masterful Materialism and Empirio-Criticism .





In the difficult period of the Stolypin reaction, fighting the right-wing opportunism of the Mensheviks and others and at the same time the left opportunism of the otzovists 32 with their occultism, Lenin solved in a masterly way the combination of strict clandestine and secret work with legal and open work. The various forms which the most advanced masses of the proletariat had created in their struggle for economic resistance, trade unions, mutual aid boxes and cultural associations were used by the Bolsheviks as strong-points for the broader and deeper revolutionary activity among them. And this energetic work continued in the following years of new rise of the labor movement.





“ The Bolsheviks started an energetic struggle to convert the legally existing societies into strongholds of our Party. By skilfully combining illegal work with legal work, the Bolsheviks won over a majority of the trade union organizations in the two capital cities” 33





That is to say, the struggle for the revolutionary party of the proletariat was a struggle of life and death, through hard two-line struggles in the intransigent defense of Marxism against capitulation and denial by Menshevism and other fractions, which in the end became liquidationist and counterrevolutionary fractions. Especially during the whole period of extreme difficulty for the revolution and for the Bolshevik party, the period of the height S tolypin reaction on the one hand, and on the other, on the international level, Lenin denounced the preparation of the war by the main imperialist powers of Europe and fought hard against the growing opportunist degeneration of the social-democratic parties of their countries. In this process of implacable struggle Lenin understands the necessity and inevitability of the split in the field of socialism, as he would formulate four years later in the midst of the imperialist war: "The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experiences of the war to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics." 34 and under this mass line Lenin carries out the reconstitution of the Bolshevik Party as a Party of a New Type, fully shaping as an authentic revolutionary party of the proletariat, later called the Communist Party of Russia (Bolshevik).





“ Unity with the Mensheviks within a single party was thus assuming the character of a betrayal of the working class and its party. Consequently, the actual rupture with the Mensheviks had to be carried to its conclusion: a formal organizational rupture and the expulsion of the Mensheviks from the Party. Only in this way was it possible to restore the revolutionary party of the proletariat with a single program, single tactics, and a single class organization.” 35 .





This process was consolidated with the Conference of Prague, 1912, with the formalization of what had already occurred in practice – the expulsion of Mensheviks, Otzovists, Trotsky’s group of Pravda of Vienna, then grouped together in the anti-party "Bloc of August" 36 . There the The Bolshevik Party was fully conformed as a Party of a New Type, Leninist party, as Comrade Stalin defined it: " The Bolsheviks

had been working to build up such a party ever since the time of the old Iskra ... a Party … different from the usual Social-Democratic parties of the West, one that was free of opportunist elements and capable of leading the proletariat in a struggle for power. " 37





The Prague Conference (6th Conference) had reconstituted the Bolshevik Party as a complete party of a New Type, had elected its Central Committee without any regard for the other fractions of the then "social-democracy". Lenin, Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, Sverdlov, Spandarian, and others joined it. Thus the Leninist Bolsheviks were able to maintain the old party banner, and while maintaining the denomination of RSDLP, it was already known among the masses of the Russian proletariat and even internationally as the Bolshevik Party. After the triumph of the October Revolution in 1918, the name of the Communist Party of Russia, which Lenin defended as the correct name corresponding to the proletariat’s revolutionary party of a New Type, would be established.





In short, between the years 1903 and 1907, Lenin fundamentally developed and forged the theory and practice of the party of a new type constituting the RSDLP as a Marxist party. Although from its Second Congress Lenin's positions in hard struggle had won in the party, it was still divided into two fractions (Bolshevik and Menshevik) each one with their own leadership and press, since the Mensheviks were not subject to democratic centralism. Thus were the III and IV Congresses and the V Conference of Tamerfors, events in which the Leninist theses on the party, tactics and strategy, as well as on the forms of struggle of the proletariat always won, however Lenin had to continue in the irreconcilable struggle against the revisionist fractions, especially the Mensheviks, who, during the most difficult period of the Stolypin reaction (especially from 1907 to 1911), went openly into the position of liquidating the party.





But the Mensheviks were not alone in this criminal act, along with the Otzovists and others, conformed then the anti-party "Bloc of August", led by the opportunist on duty Trotsky. Reaching this situation, Lenin, defining that a fraction is " a group of like-minded persons formed for the purpose primarily of influencing the party in a definite direction, for the purpose of securing acceptance for their principles in the party in the purest possible form (Marxism) " 38 defends the necessity for it to carry out the reconstitution of the party. (emphasis added)





In the period from 1912 to 1914, when there is once again a great rise of the labor movement and preceding to the war of plunder for the partition of the world between the imperialist powers, the World War I, and also during it, Lenin, in his relentless struggle against social-patriotism, social-chauvinism in which the revisionist/opportunist positions of the parties of the Second International derived, developed the military theory of the proletariat, arming the party with the military program of the proletarian revolution and precisely sharpened the line of action to transform the imperialist war into revolutionary civil war.





“ The social-chauvinists, the Russian Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries among their number, preached class peace between the workers and the bourgeoisie at home and war on other nations abroad. They deceived the masses by concealing from them who was really responsible for the war and declaring that the bourgeoisie of their particular country was not to blame. Many social-chauvinists became ministers of the imperialist governments of their countries.” 39





There were still the disguised social-chauvinists called centrists, such as Kautsky, Trotsky, Martov, etc., who, as Lenin denounced them, overturned their traitorous positions with the leftist rhetoric of the 'struggle against war': " As a matter of fact, the Centrists supported the war, for their proposal not to vote against war credits, but merely to abstain when a vote on the credits was being taken, meant supporting the war. " 40





In addition to the fierce struggle against the social-chauvinists in the bankrupt Second International, struggling for war credits not to be approved in the parliaments, Lenin led the Bolsheviks to oppose the creation of the "workers' committees of war" proposed by the Russian government. The Bolshevik Party applied the line defended by Lenin of " defeat of one’s own imperialist government in the war ”, and " the conversion of the imperialist war into a civil war ” by organizing its militants in the ranks of the tsarist army in the rear and front with intense revolutionary propaganda and agitation.





In the period of the imperialist war, in which Russia had become part of the Entende (imperialist alliance of England and France) precisely because the large coal, iron and steel, and oil companies established in the country were mainly English and French - Lenin was concluding his studies on monopolies, financial capital and its relations, formulating that capitalism had changed from its stage of free competition to that of the monopolies, characterizing such event as the superior, however particular and last, phase of development of capitalism: it is monopolistic, parasitic and decomposing and agonizing capital. Unmasking the misrepresentation of the already hardened opportunist Kautsky on this phenomenon, according to which was nothing more than "the preferential policy of capital in the dispute over the domination of the colonies and semicolonies," said that " imperialism is war. "





“ Lenin had pointed out that war is an inevitable concomitant of capitalism. Plunder of foreign territory, seizure and spoliation of colonies and the capture of new markets had many times already served as causes of wars of conquest waged by capitalist states. For capitalist countries war is just as natural and legitimate a condition of things as the exploitation of the working class.” 41





In this period the II International entered in total bankruptcy, their parties were divided as they place themselves sided with the imperialist bourgeoisies of their countries. In congresses, such as those in Zimmerwald (Switzerland), although positions against the war were approved, in practice, the vast majority of the parties yielded to rotten patriotism. The Bolsheviks were not against all wars, they were only against unjust wars and linked the struggle for peace to the victory of the proletarian cause. At the conference of internationalists in Kienthal, Switzerland, known as the Second Conference of Zimmerwald, it was possible to group revolutionary forces that would prepare the future foundation of the Third International.





It was in the midst of the imperialist war and the fiercest struggle of the Bolsheviks against all social-chauvinist opportunism, being the Leninist military line as the center and struggling to apply it, that Lenin will formulate his magisterial works Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism , The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky , The State and Revolution, among others.





And in the early twentieth century, by studying the problems of the organization of the proletariat and its va nguard to carry out the revolution, he challenged the class by pointing out that the fulfillment of this task, " the destruction of the most powerful bulwark, not only of European, but also (it may now be said) of Asiatic reaction, would make the Russian proletariat the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. " 42 With the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution, the establishment, organization, defense and expansion of the New Power, the centrality o f the military line for the Bolshevik Party was confirmed as the supreme problem of the proletarian revolution.





During the Civil War 1917-1921, Stalin, basing himself on Leninism, established the strategic axis and leadership of the movement, crushing the opportunist right-wing positions of Trotsky's leadership. These issues, as we shall see below, are the background to the Maoist understanding of the axes and sub-axes of development of the People's War.





“ The Central Committee sent Comrades Stalin, Voroshilov, Ordjonikidze and Budyonny to the Southern Front to prepare the rout of Denikin. Trotsky was removed from the direction of the operations of the Red Army in the south. Before Comrade Stalin’s arrival, the Command of the Southern Front, in conjunction with Trotsky, had drawn up a plan to strike the main blow at Denikin from Tsaritsyn in the direction of Novorossisk, through the Don Steppe, where there were no roads and where the Red Army would have to pass through regions inhabited by Cossacks, who were at that time largely under the influence of the Whiteguards. Comrade Stalin severely criticized this plan and submitted to the Central Committee his own plan for the defeat of Denikin. According to this plan the main blow was to be delivered by way of Kharkov-Donetz Basin-Rostov. This plan would ensure the rapid advance of our troops against Denikin, for they would be moving through working class and peasant regions where they would have the open sympathy of the population. Furthermore, the dense network of railway lines in this region would ensure our armies the regular supply of all they required.

Lastly, this plan would make it possible to release the Donetz Coal Basin and thus supply our country with fuel”. 43 (emphasis added)





The Bolshevik Party, as a party of a new type, was first recognized in Russia, but with the victory of the Great Socialist October Revolution and the founding of the Third International, the Communist International in 1919 44 , it became increasingly recognized throughout the world as a grand leap in Marxist theory of the party of the proletariat, necessary to all countries of the world, without any exception. Increasingly recognized as the necessary party for revolution in each country and inseparably linked with the Communist International to advance the world revolution and complete fulfillment of the gigantic historical task of the class of, through its dictatorship, eliminate the classes and bring humanity to the classless society, to the shining Communism.





The Second Congress of the Communist International, held in 1920, established the 21 conditions for the parties to enter it having the recognition of the universal character of the leap represented by the party of a new type, developed by Leninism, as the first condition. In the twelfth condition it stated:





“ Parties belonging to the Communist International must be based on the principle of democratic centralism. In the present epoch of acute civil war the communist party will be able to fulfill its duty only if its organization is as centralized as possible, if iron discipline prevails, and if the party centre, upheld by the confidence of the party membership, has strength and authority and is equipped with the most comprehensive powers.” . 45





Also in the II Congress it was defined:





“ The Communist International decisively rejects the view that the proletariat can accomplish its revolution without having an independent political party of its own. Every class struggle is a political struggle. The goal of this struggle, which is inevitably transformed into civil war, is the conquest of political power . Political power cannot be seized, organized, and operated except through a political party. Only if the proletariat has as leader an organized and experienced party with clearly defined aims and a practical programme of immediate measures both for internal and external policy, will the conquest of political power turn out to be not an accidental episode, but the starting-point of an enduring communist structure of society built by the proletariat. The same class struggle likewise demands the centralization and unified direction of the most varied forms of the proletarian movement (trade unions, co-operatives, factory councils, educational work, elections, etc.). Only a political party can be such a co-ordinating and guiding centre. The refusal to create and to strengthen such a party and to subordinate oneself to it implies the rejection of unity in the direction of the different fighting forces of the proletariat acting on the various fields of battle”. 46 (emphasis added).









Lenin sustains the necessity of the transformation of the old parliamentary parties into parties of a new type, as a combat party:





“ The process of transforming the old type of European parliamentary party—which in fact is reformist and only slightly tinted with revolutionary colours—into a new type of party, into a genuinely revolutionary, genuinely Communist Party, is an extremely arduous one. (…) The process of changing the type of Party work in everyday life, of getting it out of the humdrum channel; the process of converting the Party into the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat without permitting it to become divorced from the masses, but, on the contrary, by linking it more and more closely with them, imbuing them with revolutionary consciousness and rousing them for the revolutionary struggle, is a very difficult, but most important one. If the European Communists do not take advantage of the intervals (probably very short) between the periods of particularly acute revolutionary battles (…) for the purpose of bringing about this fundamental, internal, profound reorganisation of the whole structure of their Parties and of their work, they will be committing the gravest of crimes .” 47





Soon, the V Congress of the Communist International, established the campaign for the bolshevization of all the communist parties. In the Bolshevization campaign, the need to structure the party through cells of working places and housing places, as organizational forms corresponding to the needs of the revolutionary struggle, as opposed to its organization by electoral constituency, as was the rotten parties of the II International organized. He also stressed the need to avoid a mechanical application: " We must bolshevize the parties by faithfully following Lenin's legacies and taking into account the concrete situation of each country. " 48





The Bolshevization campaign was part of the struggle for the integral assimilation of Leninism and played an important role in arming the international proletariat with a combat organization. It should be noted, however, that the development of truly Leninist parties throughout the world depended on the existence of a leadership that would grasp these ideological and political foundations firmly, embodying them in application to the concrete reality, in order to develop communist parties in each country.





In this first stage of the world proletarian revolution, of its strategic defensive, despite all the colossal effort made by both the Cominter and the Bolshevik Party and the USSR, the communist movement still had a low development in most countries. Few parties understood and correctly assumed the great contributions of the Bolshevik Party, getting rid of the "Menshevik baggage." Notably, the party that advanced the most in this direction was the Communist Party of China, especially starting from the Tysuni Conference, when Chairman Mao Tsetung took over its leadership after hard two-line struggles against right-wing deviations and principally against "Left" opportunistic deviations of the majority of the Central Committee.





In this problem lies the principal cause of why the revolution was temporarily defeated in a set countries. Let us see that it was necessary more than 15 years (from 1902 to 1917), in the midst of a tortuous process, going through the defeat of the Revolution of 1905, and of hard two-line struggle so that the Leninist conception of party could be accepted by the International Communist Movement and it was, for the most part, due to the the triumph of the October Revolution which forcefully confirmed it. This is an inevitable part of the struggle between the old and the new, between the old man who resists to disappear and the new one still fragile in its emergence. But, although not deeply understood, especially on the conception of the party, Leninism was widely accepted in the International Communist Movement.





With the triumph of the October Revolution of 1917, the victory in the civil war, the creation of the Communist International, the application of the NEP and soon the beginning of the socialist construction with the Five Year Plans, it was confirmed the correctness of the Party of a New Type formulated by Lenin and this as a prominent part of Leninism of universal validity. Lenin defended and struggled for the World Party of the Proletariat, the Communist International as the Center of the Sections of each country. It is a question that the historical experience of the proletarian revolution has proved to be a long and hard struggle for fully and correctly understanding and embodying it. On this we are advancing in raising Maoism as the command and guide of the World Proletarian Revolution.





III - CONCENTRIC CONSTRUCTION LINE AND MILITARIZED COMMUNIST PARTY





As we stated in the introduction, the militarized Communist Party has its foundations in Lenin and Chairman Mao, but it was developed by Chairman Gonzalo and the PCP. Chairman Gonzalo, creatively applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the concrete practice of the Peruvian Revolution, developed, through the glorious and invincible People’s War, the theory and practice of the Communist Party, raising it to a new level, that of the Militarized Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party and the line of concentric construction of the three instruments of the revolution.





Chairman Gonzalo, smashing the revisionist conceptions that separate the organizational construction from its ideological-political base, established a clear principle of Ideological-Political-Organizational Construction - IPOC, in correspondence with the current stage of our ideology, Maoism: " On the ideological-political basis, simultaneously build the organization, in the midst of the class struggle and the two-line struggle, all within and serving the armed struggle for the conquest of Power (...) ”. 49





Therefore, in the first place, it develops on the ideological basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, Maoism which is the third, new and higher stage of Marxism, today's Marxism, and the contributions of universal validity of Gonzalo thought. Ideological base that needs to be creatively applied to the corresponding concrete reality of each revolution (the need for a guiding thought). Ideological basis that without which we can not take any correct position on any fundamental problem of the revolution in our epoch.





Second, the political line that is the ground of the class struggle. This is where the General Political Line unfolds and specifies in its five elements: 1) international line, 2) Democratic Revolution (Socialist Revolution in the case of imperialist countries); 3) Military Line; 4) Line of construction of the three instruments; 5) Mass Line. Finally, General Political Line, whose center is the Military Line, which is the basis and guide of all revolutionary proletarian action.





It defines, therefore, that the line of construction in the stage of Maoism takes place serving the armed struggle for the conquest of power. That is to say, before starting the People's War, everything is done serving to initiate it, once initiated, everything must serve its development.





This great principle of construction is a powerful guide to solve the problems of the construction of the three instruments, to initiate and develop the People's War, it is valid both for the dominated countries and for the imperialist countries.





Regarding the ideological basis, the militarized communist party contains, then, two aspects: 1) it is based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, as the third, new, and higher stage of Marxism; 2) starting from all the previous and adding Gonzalo thought to it, it is developed into a new level.

The militarized Communist Party is, therefore, a development of the Marxist conception of the party, breaks with revisionists like Avakian and Prachanda, who proclaim "originality" and "overcoming Lenin and Mao." The Militarized Communist Party represents the reaffirmation of the full validity of the principles of Marxism, through its development.





Regarding its background and foundations, Chairman Gonzalo pointed out its essential aspects corresponding to the three stages of Marxism. He states:

"It teaches us that Marx said that the working class generates organizations as its image and likeness, which means, its own organizations. In the nineteenth century, with Marx and Engels, we were gifted with a scientific conception, with its own doctrine, with its own objective, with a common goal: how to seize power and the means to do it: revolutionary violence; all this in very hard two-line struggle. Marx established that the proletariat can act as a class in no other way than by constituting itself into a political party distinct and opposed to all political parties created by the possessing classes. ” 50





Starting from this principle and in correspondence with the epoch (consolidation of the bourgeois democratic revolution), it was generally fulfilled with the creation of the International Workers Association (1864) and the social-democratic labor parties that were developed in the advanced capitalist countries, mainly with the Second International founded by Engels (1889), as Social Democrats Labor Parties in the advanced capitalist countries.





Lenin defined imperialism as the superior and last stage of capitalism, where society is militarized to the extreme, where more than ever the class struggle develops through civil war, hence the necessity of the revolutionary party of the proletariat as a combat organization endowed with a correct military line that is placed in the center of all its activity. He further argued that opportunism was the outpost of the bourgeoisie in the labor movement and that intend to combat imperialism and reaction separately from the struggle against revisionism, and all opportunism was hollow phraseology.





Lenin, stating that revolution is a war and Power its central question, under the harsh conditions of the tsarist autocratic regime, was able to use these conditions as a furnace to conceive and forge the revolutionary party of the proletariat as a Party of a New Type, establishing tactics and strategy for the proletarian revolution to triumph.





Chairman Gonzalo emphasized the experience of the Socialist October Revolution, highlighting how his triumph became true by Lenin's understanding of the essential issues for the conquest of power by the proletariat, the principal being that of the combat party , endowed with a correct military line and the insurrection as a path:





"That in the twentieth century, Lenin understood that the revolution was ripe and creates the proletarian Party of a new type, furnishes the form of struggle: insurrection and the form of organization: the detachments, which were mobile forms and surpassed the barricades of the last century, which were fixed forms. Lenin defends the necessity to create new, clandestine organizations, since the transition to revolutionary actions meant the dissolution of legal organizations by the police and that this transit is only possible if it is carried out overriding the old leaders, overriding the old Party, destroying it. That the Party should take as an example the modern army, with its own discipline and with single will and be flexible.” 51 (emphasis added)





In concrete terms, the problems that Lenin was dealing with on the theoretical and practical field regarding the party would become crucial because of the revolutionary situation and crisis of 1905. Then, in a very objective way, the problems for the seizure of Power by the proletariat were presented as practical problem for the revolutionary party of the proletariat, and already as a theoretically conceived and under-construction party of a new type, he solved the question of how to lead the class and other popular masses, especially the peasantry, in the seizure of Power.





As we could see previously, in abundant quotations from Lenin's works in Part II-LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIK PARTY, that the military and war problem was already at the forefront, as the task of the agenda for the party. Such was the resistance on this issue, not only in the Menshevik’s ranks but also in the Bolshevik’s, that the main cause for the defeat of that revolution would be because of the unpreparedness of the party for the task of assault on Power. Unpreparedness even from those who fought to apply the military action as the center of party leadership activity among the rebellious masses. For example, the plan of insurrection in December 1905, implemented with a decision in Moscow, was not carried out in Petrograd. The revolutionary party of the proletariat to lead the seizure of Power still lacked the necessary minimum experience.

Many who call themselves Marxist-Leninist-Maoists do not understand the axis of party construction, they oppose it with the claim that what Lenin had put forward as the principal was the need for an " All-Russia newspaper " that plays the role of the " collective organizer " And that, therefore, the party of a new type is thus constructed. These are mistaken in their appreciation. Others, however, openly oppose the very idea of the party of a new type with the pilgrim argument that the times are different and that does not bear any resemblance to the reality and conditions of the then-tsarist Russia, and therefore the party could not be of Leninist type, and that to attempt to do it is blind dogmatism. The latter ones are the brazen revisionists.





Lenin put forward the problem of the newspaper as a collective organizer there in those conditions of Russia, at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the conditions of dispersion of the revolutionary circles, under the heel of tsarist political police, in the midst of immense communication difficulties and an immense country. However, the role of a newspaper as the central organ of the revolutionary party of the proletariat continued and remains to be key as the political thread capable of reaching places in which party leaders and even beginner militants can not yet reach. What was not so clear at the time, but which was imposed by the life and dynamics of the class struggle with the events of the 1905 Revolution and its consequences, in the years of the beginning of the imperialist war in 1917, and with the Chinese Revolution, when became clear that it was the military question with which the construction of the party would have to be carried out unitedly, under its leadership.





That is, already in those times, the party of a new type corresponded to be already constructed around the gun . Just as Chairman Gonzalo pointed out, when he started the struggle for the reconstitution of the PCP in the 1970s, that the consruction of the party around the gun was imposed " Even more today that the militarization of the party and the concentric construction of the three instruments of revolution were established with Gonzalo thought. "





Here it is important to point out that the very urgency of the military question highlighted the problem of the united front (in this case, principally the peasant-worker alliance), the third instrument. This was imposed as a crucial problem for the party when the seizure of power was presented as the task in the agenda, given the backwardness of the country and the consequent importance of the peasant masses, added that, in the reality of the old Russia, the tsarist army was nothing more that the "peasantry in arms". It was Lenin, facing the reality and challenges of the revolution in Russia, who, while retaking from a letter from Marx to Engels, demonstrated how Marx appreciated the role of the peasantry in the proletarian revolution. In it Marx affirmed, " Here in Germany everything will depend on supporting the proletarian revolution with a new edition of the peasant wars. " Lenin advocated the unavoidable necessity for the victory of the proletarian revolution that is removing the peasant masses from the reserve of the bourgeoisie, transforming them into safe allies of the proletariat, applying what he defined, that " Marxism raised the proletariat to leader of the peasantry. "





Finally, the necessity of the Militarized Party had already been established by the facts in the vertiginous revolutionary situation of 1905, in which the question of Power for the democratic revolution had entered the agenda. Although Lenin had not formulated about the Militarized Party as such, he bravely argued and fought for placing the military and war problem at the center of the general political line of the Bolsheviks. It must be rigorously pointed out that, through the whole course of the 1900s, the true Bolsheviks, the Leninists, were in truth the red fraction in hard and irreconcilable two-line struggle for the establishment of the party of a new type. What, strictly speaking, will only be fully established with the Conference of 1912 (Prague), when it is formalized as a separate organization.





It must be emphasized that Lenin had the idea about this and fought for it since his beginning as Marxist, just like the fragment of What is to be done? that is quoted at the head of this article makes clear: " We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance under their almost constant fire. We have combined voluntarily, precisely for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not to retreat into the adjacent marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. "





With Chairman Mao, under the conditions of the revolution in a still backward country – colonial/semicolonial and feudal/semi-feudal –, conditions in which the vast majority of countries were under (ie where the overwhelming majority of countries and of the popular masses of the world were and continue to be), Chairman Mao consolidated the prevalence of revolutionary violence as path for the proletariat to conquer and defend its power. He affirmed that " Some people ridicule us as advocates of the “omnipotence of war”. Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist, " establishing that "... only with guns can the whole world be transformed " and that " Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun ," the understanding of the necessity of the three fundamental instruments of the revolution, further specifying that " Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. " 52





Chairman Mao stated in the Introducing The Communist magazine (October 4, 1939): " We have learned that without armed struggle neither the proletariat, nor the people, nor the Communist Party would have any standing at all in China and that it would be impossible for the revolution to triumph. In these years the development, consolidation and bolshevization of our Party have proceeded in the midst of revolutionary wars; without armed struggle the Communist Party would assuredly not be what it is today. Comrades throughout the Party must never forget this experience for which we have paid in blood.” 53





And generalizes it:

“ The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries” 54





Given the masterful grasp of dialectics, synthesizing the law of contradiction as "unity of opposites", that "one divides into two" and that "everything is a contradiction," he understood that the communist party is a contradiction, once the contradictions of the society, the class struggle, the contradiction between the new and the old and between the right and the wrong manifests in it, the two-line struggle must be adopted as a correct method of forging the communists and the communist party, to formulate and to defend the red proletarian line and to struggle against the contrary bourgeois lines and others that inevitably emerge within the party. Thus, in the struggle against the right in the CPCh, a new and hard struggle against the new revisionism of Khrushchev and his "Two Wholes and Three Peacefuls" was unleashed, in sustaining Marxism-Leninism and its pillars, class struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class party of the proletariat, revolutionary violence, scientific socialism and the struggle against revisionism as the main danger.





" With Chairman Mao, the class understands the need to build the three instruments of revolution: Party, Army and United Front interrelated . This resolves the construction of the three instruments in a backward, semifeudal and semicolonial country, through People's War . concretely it resolves the issue of building of the Party around the gun and that is the heroic combatant who direct its own construction, the Army and the Front. " 55 (emphasis added)





Assuming the principle that "organization must serve politics" and not the opposite, and from what Lenin asserted that "line is not enough," that there must be justified means to put it into effect, only through Maoism the proletariat was endowed with an integral military line, the People's War, which established the deeper understanding of the militarized communist party and its incontrovertible need for the process of the world proletarian revolution. It is, therefore, the indissoluble relationship between Construction and the General Political Line, in which Construction is serving the general political line and the military line as its center.





The militarized communist party is the result of the direct development of the experience of the proletarian revolution, when it entered its stage of the strategic offensive with Maoism, when society was militarized in all spheres, reaching an accented degree of decomposition, a time when imperialism and all reaction will be swept away from the face of the earth by the world proletarian revolution in the form of World People’s War.





The PCP systematized the necessity of militarizing the communist parties and of the concentric construction of the three fundamental instruments in three fundamental reasons:





“ First, because we are in the strategic offensive of the world revolution , we live the sweep away of imperialism and reaction from the face of the Earth within the next 50 to 100 years, a time marked by violence in which all kinds of wars take place. We see how reaction is militarizing itself more and more, militarizing the old States, their economies, developing wars of aggression, trafficking with the struggles of the peoples and aiming toward a world war, but since revolution is the principal tendency in the world, the task of the Communist Parties is to uphold revolution shaping the principal form of struggle: People’s war to oppose the world counterrevolutionary war with world revolutionary war. ”





“ Second, because capitalist restoration must be prevented. When the bourgeoisie loses Power, it introduces itself inside the Party, uses the army and seeks to usurp Power and destroy the dictatorship of the proletariat to restore capitalism. Therefore, the Communist Parties must militarize themselves and exercise the all-round dictatorship of the three instruments, forging themselves in People’s War and empower the armed organization of the masses, the people’s militia , so as to engulf the army. For this reason, Chairman Gonzalo tells us to “forge all militants as Communists, first and foremost, as fighters and as administrators”; for that reason every militant is forged in the People’s War and remains alert against any attempt at capitalist restoration .”





“ Third, because we march toward a militarized society . By militarizing the Party, we complete a step toward the militarization of society which is the strategic perspective to guarantee the dictatorship of the proletariat . The militarized society is the sea of armed masses which Marx and Engels spoke of, that guards the conquest of power and defends it once conquered. We take the experience of the Chinese Revolution, of the anti-Japanese base at Yenan, which was a militarized society where everything grew out of the barrels of guns: Party, Army, State, new politics, new economics, new culture. And in that way we develop war communism.” 56





It is therefore a matter of constructing parties that are adequate to the needs of the world revolution as an instrument capable of solving three fundamental tasks:





1) Initiate new People’s Wars: Problem of how to initiate the armed struggle as People's War;

2) To develop the PW for the conquest of Power;

3) Defend and develop the New Power, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, preventing the capitalist restoration.





These three reasons, taken as unity, correspond to a set of necessary modifications for the Communist Party to be able to absolutely lead the other two fundamental instruments of the revolution, People's Army and Front-New State, to carry out the democratic revolution (in the case of the vast majority of countries in the world), uninterruptedly going into the socialist revolution (current stage of the developed capitalist countries) and cultural revolutions for everyone to enter together into the shining communism.





But let us see how Chairman Gonzalo defined the militarization of the communist parties:





“ The militarization of the Communist Parties is the political guideline with a strategic content, since it is ‘ the set of transformations, changes and readjustments it needs to lead the People’s War as the principal form of struggle that will generate the new State.’ Therefore, the militarization of the Communist Parties is key for the democratic revolution, the socialist revolution and the cultural revolutions.” 57





“ In the First National Conference (November 1979), Chairman Gonzalo expounded the thesis of the necessity of militarizing the Communist Party of Peru; afterward, in the first months of 1980 when the Party was preparing to initiate the People’s War, he proposed to develop the militarization of the Party through actions, basing himself on what the great Lenin said about reducing the nonmilitary work in order to center it on the military; that the times of peace were ending and we were entering into the times of war, so that all forces should be militarized.” 58





The understanding and application of the Strategic Axises and Plans, just like the People’s War in Peru has developed, is a key issue in the development of the People's Wars. It is a great development of Marxist theory that is based on what was provided by Chairman Mao:





“ Takes the thesis of Chairman Mao that the task of strategy as science is to study the laws of the direction of the military operations that influence over the war situation on its whole as a starting point. The task of the science of the campaigns and tactics is to study the laws of the direction of the military operations of partial character. And makes a strategic development of how to conduct the war in the whole country and on each zone, taking into account its relation with the international situation; puts forward the axises, sub-axises, movement directions and lines of movement which allow us to keep the strategic course of the war at any circumstance and to face all kinds of political and military operations that the counterrevolution may set up. ” 59





This development raises the role of the communist party in the revolutionary war which promotes the development of the People's War by linking the construction of the Party with the fluidity of the revolutionary war. Therefore the Strategic Axises of Construction from which the directions of movement, sub-axises and lines of movement that are interrelatedly designed on the national territory for the conquest of Power in the whole country are established. Axises on which the operational strategic plans and its campaigns are developed, to open and develop guerrilla zones aiming for base areas, to conquer them, to defend them and to expand them, until the conquest of Power in the whole country.





“ The national Military plan, strategically centralized and tactically decentralized, taking that every plan is ideology, which must reflect reality and the mishaps it may express, as a starting point; taking from Stalin, who links strategy with tactics and establishes the strategic-operative Plans, which are concretely of how strategy is related to tactical operations; then, each Committee has to elaborate its strategic-operative Plans within a general Strategic Plan and specifically in the Strategic-operative Plan that is common to the whole Party”. 60





Its design, therefore, is based on the growing understanding of the laws of revolutionary war in general and the specific laws of revolutionary war in the country or reality in question, on the correct analysis of the fundamental classes of its society, and on the role of each class in each stage of revolution, starting from the knowledge and mastery of the very laws of its economic-social development, that is, of its history (guiding thought).





Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that the every plan must be based on the situation of the international and national class struggle, the struggle between revolution and counterrevolution in general, and how it impacts the more specific spheres of society, on the hill of revolution and on the hill of counterrevolution:

“ For the elaboration of the Plans, we must always consider the following general alignments: 1) the international class struggle between revolution and counterrevolution; ideology; international communist movement; RIM 2) the class struggle in the country; counterrevolution; political situation; counterinsurgency warfare. 3) the development of People’s War; evaluation; laws and lessons. 4) Necessity to investigate. 5) The People’s War and construction. 6) The People’s War and the masses. 7) The two-line struggle. 8) Program and schedule. 9) Attitude and slogans. To be superior to the difficulties and to achieve higher victories!”. (PCP – Military Line – 1988) 61





Such a question, as we can see, is a fundamental part of the need for the guiding thought to correctly lead a revolution, this is why he also emphasized that "plan is ideology", it needs guiding thought.





“ Furthermore, it links the whole process of construction with the fluidity of the People’s War , given that ‘the mobility of the military operations and the variability of our territory confer a variable character to all the construction works’, as said by Chairman Mao” . 62





The construction process takes place as clandestine construction, in combining two armed party networks, the territorial network that encompasses a jurisdiction and the mobile network whose structure moves. Work networks, whose combination of its actions fit and serve the needs of the preparation and leadership of the People's War. Party work in which the relation between secret work, which is the principal, and open work is subject to that the first gives the content and the second the form.





Just like the historical experience of the revolutions demonstrates, the leadership is a key and decisive question. This leadership is the conformation of a group of acknowledged political great leaders, with a solid grasp of revolutionary theory and of practical movement, forged and proven by the class struggle and two-line struggle, and principally of a great leader with an ascendancy among the others. This was how the PCP specified:





" Every revolution, in its process of development, for the struggle of the proletariat as a ruling class and, above all, of the Communist Party that unfold its inalienable class interests, generates a group of great leaders and especially one who represents and directs it, a great leader of acknowledged authority and ascendancy. ” 63





Just as evidenced by the experience of the struggle of the oppressed for their liberation over the millennia, the oppressed have always elected their great leaders. In the epoch of capitalism, Lenin defined that the revolutionary party of the proletariat is a party of revolutionary great leaders. Thus he specified the relation between great leaders, party, classes and masses, basing the necessity of the Great Leadership, a great leader of ascendancy over the others for their knowledge, grasp of theory and practical movement, acquired authority and that is sustained in the guiding thought that is conformed by and in this same process. 64





Therefore, the formation of a Direction, of the contingent of great leaders, is not a simple task, "a direction is not improvised" as Lenin said, but " only a handful to assume the construction of a party is enough so that it develops and grows " ( ...). Which means the most important is not "how many we are, but if we want".





Chairman Gonzalo further explains us that, in the process of conformation of a leadership, its contingent and the men and women who compose it, can only develop unequally and by leaps:





"And these great leaders do not come in large quantities and it takes time for their forge (...) In decades, a revolution generates a handful of great leaders, leaders are generated in a larger amount, a larger amount of cadres and a whole mass of militants. " And he continues showing that every revolution needs a head, a Great Leadership: " However, the principal is that a great leader is generated, a single head that clearly stands out, far above of the rest, and this is what we have to understand and it is not because of the will of anyone, it is the reality of the revolution itself, the class and the party, that demand and promote this conformation.” (...) 65





"Engels insisted on this and told us that even a literary movement has a head that represents it (...) We have the three grandest ones (Marx, Lenin, Mao Tsetung) great leaders of the world revolution, because that is their extent; it is subsidiary that they were also great leaders of their parties and of their concrete revolution because the principal is that they are great leaders of the world revolution and therefore established the great process of the development of Marxism shaping Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. " . 66





It is noteworthy that the question of the Great Leadership was already recognized in the Manifesto of the Communist Party , in its foreword of 1883, Engels states:





“ Marx, the man to whom the whole working class of Europe and America owes more than to anyone else (…) The basic thought running through the Manifesto - that economic production and the structure of society of every historical epoch necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently (ever since the dissolution of the primeval communal ownership of land) all history has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between exploited and exploiting, between dominated and dominating classes at various stages of social development; that this struggle, however, has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression and class struggles - this basic thought belongs solely and exclusively to Marx ” . 67 (emphasis added)





In addition, it is necessary to highly take into account what the struggling masses put forward to us, with their flair and instinct, to have "a head", so they say and claim as a condition for their success to be possible.





However, against all the attacks of revisionism it is necessary to emphasize that it is Great Leadership, which is based on a Guiding Thought and not the opposite. It is not, therefore, a matter of individuals, but of the creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism and contributions of universal validity of Gonzalo thought to the concrete reality. Great Leadership, which as such, never dies and is the guarantee of triumph.





Construction Line: a party essentially built around the rifle





In " On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism " (First Congress, 1988) the PCP states:

" The problem of the construction of the instruments of revolution posed to the Party the understanding of the interrelation between the Party, the army and the united front; and to understand and manage the interrelated construction of the three in the midst of wa