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ON MAO AND PEOPLE’S WAR
The seminar is convened by the Communist Party of India (ML) (People’s War), the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Communist Party of Turkey / ML and includes as participants parties upholding Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought and waging people’s wars and other parties supporting people’s war. We are gratified by the enlightening and informative written contributions, oral presentations and exchange of views on the following topics: 1. The crisis of the world capitalist system and
the ruling system in the participants’ respective countries and the meaning
of Mao’s teachings on people’s war today, and
The results of the seminar are as follows: 1. The participants have been able to raise the
level of their common understanding of the crisis of the world capitalist
system and of Mao and people’s war and have pledged mutual support under
the principle of proletarian internationalism. Moreover, even with
recognition of some differences they pledge to carry out further political
and ideological discussions and at the same time carry out common practical
tasks in struggle and in order to achieve a higher level of unity.
We agree on the following points: 1. We honor Mao Zedong as the great exponent of the theory and practice of people’s war in the new-democratic revolution in China against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. The historical experience proves that Mao’s theory and practice of people’s war is in consonance with the teachings of Marx that the class struggle must lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Mao’s proletarian revolutionary line consistently runs from people’s war and the new democratic revolution through socialist revolution and construction to the theory and practice of continuing revolution under the proletarian dictatorship -which is his most outstanding contribution to the development of Marxism-Leninism. 2. We acknowledge Mao as the master strategist of people’s war. His development of the strategy and tactics of people’s war remains unsurpassed to this day. His works on people’s war involve the application of materialist dialectics and the revolutionary class line in the process of revolutionary war. Mao’s theory and practice of people’s war consistently carries forward the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. It is a further development of Lenin’s theory and practice of the two-stage revolution, in which the socialist revolution follows the bourgeois-democratic revolution of a new type. 3. The strategic line of protracted people’s war, involving the encirclement of the cities from the countryside, is the revolutionary expression of the fundamental democratic alliance of the proletariat and peasantry. It is applicable in many countries, like those where the peasant masses are the majority among the basic producers and fight for agrarian revolution as the main component of the democratic revolution. 4. There are a number of Communist parties successfully carrying out the strategic line of protracted people’s war in accordance with the teachings of Comrade Mao. They avail themselves of the inexhaustible participation and support of the people. They have built or are preparing to build democratic organs of political power. They have consolidated and expanded the organized strength of the masses in the course of fierce revolutionary struggle. They have overcome all kinds of enemy offensives including the enemy’s use of the “low intensity conflict’’ strategy , the anticommunist ideological and political offensive related to the fall of the revisionist regimes, the misrepresentation of armed revolutionary movements as terrorism and, in certain cases, offers of peace negotiations and the sham calls for “peace and development’’. In maintaining their revolutionary position, they have outlasted the armed movements previously enjoying the support of revisionist-ruled countries as well as bourgeois mass media hype. Such movements have been betrayed by opportunist leaders and led astray to capitulation and neocolonial compromise. 5. The people’s wars and the revolutionary uprisings constitute the most advanced detachment of the struggle against the “New World Order”. Objectively, they are inflicting severe blows against imperialism, are showing that the people’s resistance cannot be suppressed, and are strengthening the self-confidence of the masses. They are giving the general signal for the advancement of the struggles against contemporary imperialism, and they are playing a crucial role in the reconstruction of the communist movement. They answer the central question of revolution, which is the seizure of political power. We are hopeful that the seminar will inspire the
parties waging people’s war as
December 1998
SIGNATORIES:
* Communist Party of Aotearoa
APPENDIX TO THE COMMUNIQUE There are twenty-seven participating parties and organizations in the International Seminar on Mao and People’s War, in accordance with the definition of a participant in the Rules of the Seminar as a party or organization which has been invited to the seminar by the convenors and has accepted the invitation. Six of the participants are Maoist parties waging people’s war and twenty-one are parties and organizations supporting people’s war. There are twenty-two participants attending the seminar, with one to three delegates per delegation. The delegates total forty-two. Five participants are unable to attend due to purely technical reasons. There is an asterisk after the name of a non-attending participant in the list of participants below. A. Maoist parties waging people’s war in alphabetical order of their countries: 1. Purba Bangla Sharbohara Party (PBSP) – Bangladesh*
Efforts were exerted by the convenors to extend the invitation to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Peru but were unsuccessful, despite request for assistance from its support organizations in Europe. However, the Communist Party of Peru will be considered as participant as soon as its Central Committee is reached and agrees to be so considered. B. Parties supporting people’s war in alphabetical order of their countries: 1. Marxist-Leninist Organizaton of Afghanistan*
The convenors of the seminar have decided to undertake the following: 1. Issue in book form the basic documents of the seminar and some of the written contributions, 2. Publish a quarterly international bulletin as a medium for parties waging and supporting people's war, and 3. Hold an annual meeting of Marxist-Leninist
parties waging people's war and every two years an expanded meeting that
includes parties supporting people's war.
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