Sarbaharapath | Joint International Statement: On “Third Worldism” and the description of the “Three Worlds”

November 2015

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party Bangladesh

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party France

Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Centre Belgium

We wish to warn about an erroneous line that is dangerous for the International Communist Movement : “Third Worldism”. This conception negates the national frame, the dialectical movement of reality and develops ultra-leftist topics which bring only confusion.

As we know, the Communist Party of China noted in 1963, in a reply to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also known as the letter in 25 points:

“The various types of contradictions in the contemporary world are concentrated in the vast areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America; these are the most vulnerable areas under imperialist rule and the storm centers of world revolution dealing direct blows at imperialism (…).

Certain persons in the international communist movement are now taking a passive or scornful or negative attitude towards the struggles of the oppressed nations for liberation. They are in fact protecting the interests of monopoly capital, betraying those of the proletariat, and degenerating into social democrats.

The attitude taken towards the revolutionary struggles of the people in the Asian, African and Latin American countries is an important criterion for differentiating those who want revolution from those who do not and those who are truly defending world peace from those who are abetting the forces of aggression and war.“ (1)

This is the basic understanding of the world according dialectical materialism. The capitalist countries manage to organize the terrible exploitation of the semi-colonial semi-feudal countries. In this process, they are able to produce a labor aristocracy which serves capitalism. Lenin writes in his classical “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”:

“Capitalism has now singled out a handful (less than one-tenth of the inhabitants of the globe; less than one-fifth at a most “generous” and liberal calculation) of exceptionally rich and powerful states which plunder the whole world simply by “clipping coupons” (…).

Obviously, out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And that is just what the capitalists of the “advanced” countries are doing: they are bribing them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert (…).

They are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism.” (2)

On one side, we have strong capitalist countries, able to produce agents of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the working class, paralyzing in a relative manner the revolutionary activity of the working class; on the other side, we have oppressed countries in which exploitation is so strong that rebellion can develop itself in a much better manner.

Nevertheless, these are tendencies. For example, in the oppressed countries, it is possible that semi-feudalism or semi-colonialism is so strong that revolution is, in a relative manner, slowed. Religious fanaticism is a reactionary tendency which is very strong where feudalism is particularly established. Nationalism can be very developed in countries where bureaucratic capitalism knows a period of development.

In the same way, pauperism is a natural tendency of capitalism. The contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat is antagonistic and therefore the masses, even in the capitalist countries, come always more in a situation of poverty. This is the law, explained by Karl Marx in the Capital, of capital accumulation, and rejected by social-democratic reformism who affirms that the standard of living of the masses can always be better within capitalism.

“Third worldism” is here an ideology which negates the dialectics of reality. It pretends that capitalism can be peaceful and always in progress in the capitalist countries. This is counter-revolutionary. But it doesn’t express it openly: it hides its vision of a peaceful capitalism through the “revolutionary” affirmation of the “Third world”.

“Third worldism” spreads the same vision of capitalism as the social-democratic reformists, but with a tactic of pretending of being “revolutionary” in negating this so-called peaceful capitalism in the name of the “Third World”.

This is an ultra-left deviation which only helps, in fact, the popularizers of a “peaceful” capitalism, as it says the same, even if pretending to be “against”.

This is an ultra-left deviation which negates the class antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat in the capitalist countries, promoting capitulation in the name of the “superiority” of imperialism.

This is an ultra-left deviation supporting a “national” conception of the revolution, when in fact the question is always a democratic one: the struggle of the oppressed countries is not the one of a nation against another, but of the masses for democracy against exploitation and oppression organized by a ruling class of another country.

The ultra-left “Third Worldist” conception has the same view on imperialist capitalism as the social-democratic reformists, considering it as without antagonism; it has an anti-dialectical point of view, giving birth to a metaphysical conception of the “Third World”.

This is the same ideology as Lin Biao, who attempted a fascist coup in red China under the disguise of a “Third Worldist” line.

It is necessary here to stress what we should really understand as “Third World”. It is Mao Zedong who popularized this concept; let’s quote him here when he made a description of the world.

“The U.S. and the Soviet Union have a lot of atomic bombs, and they are richer. Europe, Japan, Australia and Canada, of the Second World, do not possess so many atomic bombs and are not so rich as the First World, but richer than the Third World.”(3)

As we know, there was then already an attempt of the capitalist roaders in red China, led by Deng Xiaoping, to misuse this description to promote an alliance of the “Second World” to the “Third World”.

This brought a lot of confusion and a lack of understanding sometimes. Let’s see here the correct interpretation of the Communist Party of Peru through Gonzalo and Gonzalo Thought:

“The first world is the two superpowers, the U.S. and the USSR which contend for world hegemony and which can unleash an imperialist war.

They are superpowers because they are economically, politically, and militarily more powerful compared to the other powers. The U.S. has an economy centered on non-state monopoly of property; politically, it develops a bourgeois democracy with a growing restriction of rights. It is a reactionary liberalism; militarily, it is the most powerful in the west and has a longer process of development.

The USSR is economically based on a state monopoly, with a politically fascist dictatorship of a bureaucratic bourgeoisie and is a top-level military power although its process of development is shorter. The U.S. seeks to maintain its dominance and also to expand it.

The USSR aims more towards expansion because it is a new superpower and economically it is in her interests to dominate Europe to improve its conditions. In synthesis, they are two superpowers which do not constitute a block but have contradictions, clear mutual differences, and they move within the law of collusion and contention for the redivision of the world.

The second world are the imperialist powers which are not superpowers, but have smaller economic, political, and military power such as Japan, Germany, France, Italy, etc. which have contradictions with the superpowers because they sustain, for example, the devaluation of the dollar, military restrictions, and political impositions; these imperialist powers want to take advantage of the contention between the superpowers in order for them to emerge as new superpowers, and they also unleash wars of aggression against the oppressed nations and furthermore, acute contradictions exist among them.

The third world is composed of the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They are colonies or semi-colonies where feudalism has not been destroyed, and on that basis a bureaucratic capitalism unfolds, they are tied to a superpower or imperialist power. They have contradictions with imperialism, furthermore they fight against their own big bourgeoisie and landlords, both of which are at the service of and in collusion with imperialism, especially with the superpowers (…).

The contradiction of the oppressed nations, on one side, against the superpowers and imperialist powers, on the other. Here the thesis of the three worlds is delineated, and we formulate it this way because the kernel of that contradiction lies with the superpowers but it is also a contradiction with the imperialist powers.

This is the principal contradiction and its solution is the development and victory of new democratic revolutions.”

This correct interpretation was not made by numerous parties and organizations around the world. For example, the TKP/ML in Turkey and the Party of Labor of Albania had the same unilateral conception of the “Three Worlds” theory.

The TKP/ML rejected it in defending Mao Zedong who according it couldn’t have supported it and the Party of Labor of Albania rejected it in attacking Mao Zedong presented as its supporter, assimilating him with Deng Xiaoping.

In fact, the conception of “Three Worlds” was only a description permitting to apprehend in a better way the contradiction between imperialist powers i.e. between imperialist powers and imperialist superpowers; it never meant to be a concept to use mechanically.

To be scientific, we should use the same distinction within the semi-colonial semi-feudal countries. Some of them are “expansionists”, like Siraj Sikder noted it in the particular situation of East Bengal facing Pakistan and then India, which are both semi-colonial semi-feudal, but aggressive as expansionist countries.

We have also to note here that, in this particular case, the Chinese state internationally represented by third wordlists did not support the East Bengal Liberation Movement as they thought it was going against Pakistan which was their international diplomatic ally.

Siraj Sikder being a genuine communist, understanding Mao Zedong and his teachings, vigorously carried national liberation war against Pakistan. So, his guiding thought directly went against the third wordlist view that thought Pakistan, as oppressed country, cannot have a colony. The third wordlists do not find any contradiction inside a third world country.

This is an important particularity of third worldism: it rejects dialectics and so the contradictions of the oppressed countries, which are not “national states” but semi-colonial semi-feudal countries.

In early 70s, the pro Moscow groups supported the Indian expansionism and its lackeys while the pro China third worldists supported Pakistani expansionism and its lackeys.

Everywhere in the world, in the oppressed countries, we can see that the revisionists support bureaucratic capitalism and feudalism, in a nationalistic approach, working at the same time for imperialists and expansionists that they choose as being “progressive”.

In the imperialist countries, this trend exists also, particularly in the second world and its games against the superpowers.

In Belgium and France, for example, imperialist countries, organizations claiming Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought and politically active in 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s all refers to the “three worlds” in all their theoretical productions; but there was in no way a right understanding of the “three worlds” as a “tool” for a better understanding of the contradictions between imperialist superpowers and imperialist powers..

Here, however, the most negative example of a mechanistic misuse of the “three worlds” as “overall strategic course of action” has to be credited to the Belgian organization AMADA-TPO becoming in 1979 the PTB-PVBA – who forgot opportunistically that a theory which knows no class can never be a theory of the proletariat..

Thus, in its “Agenda for peace, national independence, people’s democracy and socialism”, dated from May 8, 1976, AMADA-TPO explained that as part of the analysis of power relations between “rising and aggressive Russian hegemonism and US imperialism in decline which is in a defensive position”, it would be necessary to understand NATO as a framework within which it would be possible to conclude a defensive alliance with the United States, based on the principles: “sovereignty, independence and “rely on its own forces”, equality and mutual non-interference”.

Tumbling in the most complete subjectivism in wishing to form a united block with the US imperialism and the Belgian bourgeoisie, AMADA-PTO analyzed thus NATO as a “shelter” where it would be possible to support all the trends moving in the national claims mentioned..

It is not difficult to understand that these designs have nothing to do with the “three worlds” popularized by Mao Zedong and Gonzalo, since for AMADA-TPO, NATO, although understood as completely under the thumb of the US imperialism, became the guarantor of equality, mutual non-interference, national independence.

To support their “scientific evidence” on “American imperialism in decline”, it was particularly refered to Hua Guo Feng and Deng Xiaoping quotations drawn from “Beijing Review” of the end of 1976, so after the victory of the anti-Party revisionist clique in China.

AMADA-TPO was having a mask of a Marxist-Leninist organization Mao Zedong Thought; in practice, it was already a populist organization, advocating basically a “social” line and celebrating fascist China of the period after Mao Zedong.

A very similar evolution was followed by the French PCMLF.

This shows the necessity of an analysis of reality, on the basis of dialectical materialism, through participation to the class struggle and with the birth of a guiding thought; revolution can not be base on subjectivism, on rupturism, even in the name of the third world.

Ultra-leftist deviation is always based on subjectivism. It is the pretension of saying “no” individually to oppression, without any scientific understanding of exploitation.

There are nowadays two main “Third Worldist” structures in the USA for example, the “Revolutionary Anti-imperialist Movement” and “Leading Light”. Both pretended to be Maoist, to abandon it those last months: after having pretended to be of proletarian nature, they can only tip always more in subjectivism. This phenomenon already happened in the 1970’s-1980’s, with the Weather Underground in the USA and the Red Army Fraction in Western Germany.

Those genuine revolutionaries failed to build a guiding thought, to find a revolutionary way in their own country, and so they found “elsewhere” the motor of the revolution. Let’s quote here the Red Army Fraction:

“If the people of the Third World are the vanguard of the anti-imperialist revolution, then that means that they objectively represent the greatest hope for people in the metropole to achieve their own freedom.

If this is the case, then it is our duty to establish a connection between the liberation struggle of the peoples of the Third World and the longing for freedom in the metropole wherever it emerges. This means in grade schools, in high schools, in factories, in families, in prisons, in office cubicles, in hospitals, in head offices, in political parties, in unions—wherever.

Against everything that openly negates, suppresses, and destroys this connection: consumerism, the media, co-management, opportunism, dogmatism, authority, paternalism, brutality, and alienation.

“This means us!” We are revolutionary subjects.

Whoever begins to struggle and to resist is one of us.”

This is subjectivism. Revolution in the imperialist countries do not depend of a “connection” with the Third World, but of a guiding Thought which is in the frame of the World Revolution. To say something else means to negate the antagonistic contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat in a capitalist country.

In each country, the contradiction is internal; as Mao explained it in “On contradiction”:

“The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development.”

In this sense, Third Worldism is a reactionary ideology, bringing only confusion and which bourgeois goal is to block the study of reality through dialectical materialism, nowadays: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

Let’s study Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, unite under the banner of Maoism!

Reject subjectivism, forge the revolutionary conditions for a guiding Thought!

People’s War until Communism!

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(1) First document

On June 14, 1963, the Communist Party of China replied in a letter to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; it became then famous as the letter in 25 points. The eighth point deals with the question of Asia, Africa and Latin America, presented as the “storm centers of world revolution”.

(8) The various types of contradictions in the contemporary world are concentrated in the vast areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America; these are the most vulnerable areas under imperialist rule and the storm centers of world revolution dealing direct blows at imperialism.

The national democratic revolutionary movement in these areas and the international socialist revolutionary movement are the two great historical currents of our time.

The national democratic revolution in these areas is an important component of the contemporary proletarian world revolution.

The anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the people in Asia, Africa and Latin America are pounding and undermining the foundations of the rule of imperialism and colonialism, old and new, and are now a mighty force in defense of world peace.

In a sense, therefore, the whole cause of the international proletarian revolution hinges on the outcome of the revolutionary struggles of the people of these areas who constitute the overwhelming majority of the world’s population.

Therefore, the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle of the people in Asia, Africa and Latin America is definitely not merely a matter of regional significance but one of overall importance for the whole cause of proletarian world revolution.

Certain persons now go so far as to deny the great international significance of the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples and, on the pretext of breaking down the barriers of nationality, color and geographical location, are trying their best to efface the line of demarcation between oppressed and oppressor nations and between oppressed and oppressor countries and to hold down the revolutionary struggles of the peoples in these areas. In fact, they cater to the needs of imperialism and create a new “theory” to justify the rule of imperialism in these areas and the promotion of its policies of old and new colonialism. Actually, this “theory” seeks not to break down the barriers of nationality, color and geographical location but to maintain the rule of the “superior nations” over the oppressed nations. It is only natural that this fraudulent “theory” is rejected by the people in these areas.

The working class in every socialist country and in every capitalist country must truly put into effect the fighting slogans, “Workers of all countries, unite!” and “Workers and oppressed nations of the world, unite!”; it must study the revolutionary experience of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, firmly support their revolutionary actions and regard the cause of their liberation as a most dependable support for itself and as directly in accord with its own interests. This is the only effective way to break down the barriers of nationality, color and geographical location and this is the only genuine proletarian internationalism.

It is impossible for the working class in the European and American capitalist countries to liberate itself unless it unites with the oppressed nations and unless those nations are liberated. Lenin rightly said,

“The revolutionary movement in the advanced countries would actually be a sheer fraud if, in their struggle against capital, the workers of Europe and America were not closely and completely united with the hundreds upon hundreds of millions of “colonial” slaves who are oppressed by capital” (Lenin, The Second Congress of the Communist International).

(2) Second document

Here an excerpt from Lenin, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, dealing with the question of the labor aristocracy.

“It is precisely the parasitism and decay of capitalism, characteristic of its highest historical stage of development, i.e., imperialism. As this pamphlet shows, capitalism has now singled out a handful (less than one-tenth of the inhabitants of the globe; less than one-fifth at a most “generous” and liberal calculation) of exceptionally rich and powerful states which plunder the whole world simply by “clipping coupons”. Capital exports yield an income of eight to ten thousand million francs per annum, at pre-war prices and according to pre-war bourgeois statistics. Now, of course, they yield much more.

This stratum of workers-turned-bourgeois, or the labour aristocracy, who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal prop of the Second International, and in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers. take the side of the bourgeoisie, the “Versaillese” against the “Communards”.

Unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and its political and social significance is appreciated, not a step can be taken toward the solution of the practical problem of the communist movement and of the impending social revolution.”

(3) Third document

This document comes from the from the verbatim record of a discussion on February 22, 1974 between Mao Zedong and Kenneth David Kaunda; it was presented in China as the point of view of Mao Zedong about the “Three Worlds”.

“Chairman Mao Zedong (hereinafter referred to as Mao): We hope the Third World will unite. The Third World has a large population!

President Kenneth David Kaunda (hereinafter referred to as Kaunda): That’s right.

Mao: Who belongs to the First World?

Kaunda: I think it ought to be world of exploiters and imperialists.

Mao: And the Second World?

Kaunda: Those who have become revisionists.

Mao: I hold that the U.S. and the Soviet Union belong to the First World. The middle elements, such as Japan, Europe, Australia and Canada, belong to the Second World. We are the Third World.

Kaunda: I agree with your analysis, Mr. Chairman.

Mao: The U.S. and the Soviet Union have a lot of atomic bombs, and they are richer. Europe, Japan, Australia and Canada, of the Second World, do not possess so many atomic bombs and are not so rich as the First World, but richer than the Third World. What do you think of this explanation?

Kaunda: Mr. Chairman, you analysis is very pertinent and correct.

Mao: We can discuss it.

Kaunda: I think we can reach agreement without discussion, because I believe this analysis is already very pertinent.

Mao: The Third World is very populous.

Kaunda: Precisely so.

Mao: All Asian countries, except Japan, belong to the Third World. All of Africa and also Latin America belong to the Third World.”

(4) Fourth document

Deng Xiaoping, the head of the pro-capitalist fraction in the Communist Party of China, presented publicly the conception of the “three worlds” at the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly on April, 10, 1974, as Chairman of the Delegation of the People’s Republic of China. Here is an excerpt presenting it.

“The United States and the Soviet Union make up the First World. The developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and other regions make up the Third World. The developed countries between the two make up the Second World (…).

Innumerable facts show that all views that overestimate the strength of the two hegemonic powers and underestimate the strength of the people are groundless. It is not the one or two superpowers that are really powerful; the really powerful are the Third World and the people of all countries uniting together and daring to fight and daring to win.

Since numerous Third World countries and people were able to achieve political independence through protracted struggle, certainly they will also be able, on this basis, to bring about through sustained struggle a thorough change in the international economic relations which are based on inequality, control and exploitation and thus create essential conditions for the independent development of their national economy by strengthening their unity and allying themselves with other countries subjected to superpower bullying as well as with the people of the whole world, including the people of the United States and the Soviet Union (…).

The Third World countries strongly demand that the present extremely unequal international economic relations be changed, and they have made many rational proposals of reform. The Chinese Government and people warmly endorse and firmly support all just propositions made by Third World countries.”

(5) Fifth document

The difference between the red line of Mao Zedong and the black line of Deng Xiaoping (or Lin Biao) was not understood in countries like France and West Germany. Therefore, in those countries, the Chinese position was taken as a whole as an “anti-imperialist” line seeing the “Third World” as the new protagonist of the world history.

The imperialist “metropole” would, according this line, not possess a revolutionary contradiction anymore; the genuine revolutionaries would have to follow the “Third World”. This was a position very strong in the student movement in France and West Germany; in this last case even appeared an armed organization basing its line on it.

Here is the conception of the Red Army Faction, in a statement made on November 1, 1972, following the kidnapping and execution of eleven Israeli athletes and officials by the Palestinian organization “Black September”, during the Summer Olympics in Munich.

“Black September’s strategy is the revolutionary strategy for anti-imperialist struggle, both in the Third World and in the metropole, given the imperialist conditions created by multinational corporations (…).

The bomb attack on the Strüver Corporation in Hamburg was an attack on one of Israel’s military suppliers.

With their action at the Olympic Village, they brought the conflict between the imperialist metropole of Israel and the Palestinians from the periphery of the system into its centre—they tore off the FRG’s “constitutional” mask and revealed the true objective nature of imperialism’s facade: that they are waging war against the liberation movements of the Third World and that their final objective is strategic extermination and fascism (…).

The problem with opportunism is that by making use of it Negt reveals things about himself, but nothing about the world. Having analyzed the system, the revolutionary subject bases his identity on the knowledge that the people of the Third World are the vanguard, and on an acceptance that Lenin’s concept of the “labor aristocracy” regarding the masses in the metropole cannot be discounted or dismissed. On the contrary: everything starts from that point.

The exploitation of the masses in the metropole has nothing to do with Marx’s concept of wage labourers from whom surplus value is extracted.

It is a fact that with the increasing division of labor, there has been a tremendous intensification and spread of exploitation in the area of production, and work has become a greater burden, both physically and psychologically.

It is also a fact that with the introduction of the 8-hour workday—the precondition for increasing the intensity of work—the system usurped all of the free time people had. To physical exploitation in the factory was added the exploitation of their feelings and thoughts, wishes, and utopian dreams—to capitalist despotism in the factory was added capitalist despotism in all areas of life, through mass consumption and the mass media.

With the introduction of the 8-hour workday, the system’s 24-hour-a-day domination of the working class began its triumphal march—with the establishment of mass purchasing power and “peak income” the system began its triumphal march over the plans, desires, alternatives, fantasies, and spontaneity of the people; in short, over the people themselves!

The system in the metropole has managed to drag the masses so far down into their own dirt that they seem to have largely lost any sense of the oppressive and exploitative nature of their situation, of their situation as objects of the imperialist system. So that for a car, a pair of jeans, life insurance, and a loan, they will easily accept any outrage on the part of the system. In fact, they can no longer imagine or wish for anything beyond a car, a vacation, and a tiled bathroom.

It follows, however, that the revolutionary subject is anyone that breaks free from these compulsions and refuses to take part in this system’s crimes. All those who find their identity in the liberation struggles of the people of the Third World, all those who refuse, all those who no longer participate; these are all revolutionary subjects—comrades (…).

If the people of the Third World are the vanguard of the anti-imperialist revolution, then that means that they objectively represent the greatest hope for people in the metropole to achieve their own freedom. If this is the case, then it is our duty to establish a connection between the liberation struggle of the peoples of the Third World and the longing for freedom in the metropole wherever it emerges. This means in grade schools, in high schools, in factories, in families, in prisons, in office cubicles, in hospitals, in head offices, in political parties, in unions—wherever. Against everything that openly negates, suppresses, and destroys this connection: consumerism, the media, co-management, opportunism, dogmatism, authority, paternalism, brutality, and alienation.

“This means us!” We are revolutionary subjects.

Whoever begins to struggle and to resist is one of us.”

(6) Sixth document

Gudrun Ensslin, as a member of the West German Red Army Faction, produced a statement on January 19, 1976, about the Soviet Union, during her trial. She gives the position of the RAF: the Soviet Union is a passive ally and the only enemy would be the USA. Therefore, the organizations defending the Maoist line are wrong because they would help the USA in denouncing the Soviet Union.

“We have clarified the historical and current dialectic between the liberation front on the periphery and the development of class struggle in the metropole – the dividing line between labor and capital – which has developed into a front (…).

Using the Maoist sects in the Federal Republic for the political line: the USSR as the main enemy, which strengthens NATO, is objectively reactionary.

Their ludicrous anticommunism extends to neutralizing the developing anti-Americanism and hampering awareness of the relationship of forces developing between revolution and imperialism, the transcontinental process in and from which the guerilla in the metropole fights.

As long as their obscure line is based on defending the fatherland, they represent a chauvinist variation of the masses’ revanchism. Strengthening NATO here and agitating for illegal struggle in the GDR, their instrumentalization by the CPC repeats the tragedy of the parties of the Third International in the crisis of 1929-1933 as a farce.

They long ago abandoned the terrain on which the real potential for an anti-fascist Federal Republic lies – that of resistance: the form of defensive that they want to organize doesn’t simply anticipate defeat – it accepts defeat before the struggle has begun.”

(7) Seventh document

As soon as Mao Zedong died, Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor of Albania changed their position and denounced him as a counter-revolutionary. One of the main argument was the question of the “Three worlds”, like here in this excerpt of a letter from the CC of the Party of Labor of Albania to the CC of the Communist Party of China, in 1978.

“After its rapprochement with US imperialism and overtures to the United States of America and its allies, the leadership of the Communist Party of China proclaimed the anti Marxist and counterrevolutionary theory of the “three worlds,” which it presented as a strategy of the revolution, and made efforts to impose it on the Marxist Leninist communist movement and all the peoples of the world as the general line of their struggle (…).

At present, the Chinese plan to become a superpower has found its concentrated expression in the infamous theory of “three worlds”. The theory of “three worlds” seeks to replace Marxism-Leninism with an eclectic amalgamation of opportunist, revisionist and anarchic syndicalist ideas and theses, it seeks to dampen the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat and its class struggle, advocating an alliance with the bourgeoisie and imperialism.

Alleging that time is not ripe for revolution, the theory of “three worlds” seeks to preserve the status quo, the present situation of capitalist, colonialist and neo-colonialist oppression and exploitation.

Under the hoax of defence of national independence from Soviet social-imperialism which it regards as the only danger and threat today, China requires the peoples to give up their struggle for national, economic, and social liberation, to submit to US imperialism and the other capitalist powers of the West, the former colonialists.

It presses for the strengthening of the Common Market and the European Union, organisms set up to keep the proletariat of Europe in capitalist bondage and to oppress and exploit the peoples of other countries. By fanning up the armaments race of the superpowers and relying on such instruments of war of US imperialism as NATO and other military blocs, the theory of “three worlds” instigates imperialist world war.

The theory of “three worlds” is a smokescreen to hide China‘s ambition for hegemony over what it calls the “third world” (…). The implementation of the theory of “three worlds” led the Chinese leadership to unite even with the “devil”, to unite with the US imperialists and the monopolists of Europe, with fascists and racists, kings and feudal lords, most rabid militarists and warmongers.

Pinochet and Franco, former nazi generals of the German Wehrmacht and the Japanese imperial army, dyed-in-the-wool criminals like Mobutu and bloodthirsty kings, American bosses and presidents of multinational companies, became its allies. This anti Marxist line led China‘s leadership to unite with Tito, Carillo and other revisionists. At one time, it was against Tito, whereas now it has united with him. This testifies to its lack of Marxist Leninist principles, to inconsistencies in its line.”

(8) Eighth document

In Turkey, the TKP/ML thought that, as the “Three Worlds” theory was promoted by Deng Xiaoping, there couldn’t be another interpretation of it by Mao Zedong: there could be only a mere rejection. Here is the position of the TKP/ML, through an excerpt from a document published on September 9, 1979, on the third anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death.

“Presently, the attacks directed against Mao Tsetung are being unleashed not only by the ruling classes. Internationally, the discussion of whether Mao Tsetung was a genuine communist or not has been brought to the agenda.

This has been initiated by the PLA (the Party of Labour of Albania) which led the national and democratic revolution in Albania, guided the Albanian proletariat in the construction of socialism, and along with the CPC struggled against Khrushchevite modern revisionism and which we still consider to be Marxist-Leninist.

The PLA in an irresponsible manner has declared the struggle of Mao Tsetung and the CPC under his leadership as anti Marxist-Leninist and counter-revolutionary. It has claimed that Mao Tsetung is responsible for the counterrevolutionary theory of “3 Worlds” and that the traitor Teng-Hua clique is continuing the line of Mao Tsetung.

This grave error of the PLA has pleased the opportunists and revisionists of all hues worldwide and become a source of strength for them in sabotaging the proletarian led revolutions.”

(9) Ninth document

In Peru, the Communist Party of Peru understood the things very differently: Mao Zedong used the concept of “Three Worlds”, but in a manner which was of course totally different from Deng Xiaoping. Here is what is said about it in the “The International Line” of the Communist Party of Peru, published in 1988.

“In the current situation and in perspective we have entered the strategic offensive of the world revolution, we are within the “50 to 100 years” in which imperialism will be sunk together with world reaction and we will enter the stage when the proletariat firmly takes root in power and establishes its dictatorship.

From there forward the contradiction will be between socialism and capitalism on the road toward Communism. The fact that restorations have occurred in the USSR and China does not negate the strong developmental process of the international proletariat, but shows how fierce the struggle is between restoration and counter-restoration is from which the Communists draw lessons to prevent the restoration of capitalism and to definitively establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.

We reaffirm the thesis of Chairman Mao Tse-tung that a period of struggle has begun between American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism ; thus the two principal enemies are defined at the world level, for those who make democratic revolution or socialist revolution, including those who make nationalist movements, and what corresponds to them is that each revolution or movement specifies its principal enemy and seek to combat the dominance of the other superpower or of the other powers. In Peru, Yankee imperialism dominates us in collusion with the big bourgeoisie and the landowners.

However, at the world level there is contention between the two superpowers for world hegemony. We fight against American imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism, but we can not allow its substitution with the domination of social-imperialism, nor of some other power.

In Afghanistan, the direct aggression is by Soviet social-imperialism that contends for hegemony with Yankee imperialism, China, as well as with other western powers, and there a struggle must be waged against social-imperialism as the principal enemy and not to permit the entry either to the domination of American imperialism nor of other powers; the problem is that the struggle is not correctly unfolded due to lack of political leadership, of a Communist Party.

In synthesis, there are two superpowers that are the principal enemies with one being the principal in each case, and we do not overlook the actions of the imperialist powers.

We consider Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s thesis that three worlds are delineated just and correct and that it is connected with Lenin’s thesis on the distribution of forces in the world based on the analysis of classes and contradictions. We reject the opportunist and revisionist misrepresentation by Teng Hsiao-ping of the three worlds that follows at the tail of the U.S. or USSR in order to betray the revolution. Starting from this, President Gonzalo analyzes the current situation in which the three worlds are delineated and further demonstrated that they are a reality.

The first world is the two superpowers, the U.S. and the USSR which contend for world hegemony and which can unleash an imperialist war.

All this gives us the basis on which the Communists can establish the strategy and tactics of the world revolution. Chairman Mao Tse-tung had come to establish the strategy and tactics of the world revolution but the Chinese revisionists concealed it. Therefore, it remains for us to extract from his own ideas, especially if there are new situations in sight.

Our Party sustains the view that in the current world there are three fundamental contradictions:

1) The contradiction of the oppressed nations, on one side, against the superpowers and imperialist powers, on the other. Here the thesis of the three worlds is delineated, and we formulate it this way because the kernel of that contradiction lies with the superpowers but it is also a contradiction with the imperialist powers.

This is the principal contradiction and its solution is the development and victory of new democratic revolutions.

2) The contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which has as its solution the socialist revolution and within that perspective, the proletarian cultural revolution.

3) The inter-imperialist contradictions between the superpowers themselves, between the superpowers and the smaller imperialist powers and, finally, among the imperialist powers themselves, which leads to war for world hegemony and imperialistic wars of plunder which the proletariat must oppose with people’s war and in the long run, world people’s war.

We do not list the contradiction socialism-capitalism because it exists only at an ideological and political level, since socialism does not exist anywhere as a state; today there is no socialist system. It existed, and to say that it exists today it is to claim in essence that the USSR is socialist, which is a revisionist position.”