The following is an unofficial translation of the Text "Volkskrieg - Der einzige Weg zu Befreiung" which was published in the Klassenstandpunkt Magazine. The German original was taken from maoistdazibao. Corrections of eventual translatory shortcomings are pending and will be corrected as soon as we become aware of them:

People’s War – The sole path to liberation

 

„The emancipation of the proletariat, too, will have its particular military expression, it will give rise to a specific, new method of warfare.“

- F. Engels

 

This document is a contribution to the debate on the correct military line of theCommunist Party of Germany that isto be reconstituted.In the beginning, we will have a look at the text of the “Communist construction” [Kommunistischer Aufbau] thattriggered this debate. Subsequently, based on the practice and ideology of the international proletariat, we will roughly outline some aspects regarding the question of the military line of the revolution in Germany.

 

Part 1: On the Criticism made by “Communist Construction”

 

The friends of the „Communist Construction“ have published the text "1917-2017: One Hundred Years of Revolutionary Strategy", subtitled "Uprising, Urban Guerrilla, People's War - or Dialectical Development?" on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution. Since the “Communist Construction” sees the "task of the Communists in Germany in our historical period in this country" in the "creation of a Communist Party of Lenin’s type", we consider the substantive debate with them to be an important contribution to the process of struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Germany.

 

The role of the guerrilla warfare in the People's War

The chapter on People's War is introduced by a quote of the publishers of the German language translation of the document "Communist Party of India (Maoist) Urban Perspectives". That is:

"The protracted People's War consists of an analysis of society, a revolutionary program and a political-military strategy, which is consisting of guerrilla warfare, movement warfare and positional warfare. The strategic goal is the construction of base areas that keeps expanding in a protracted struggle and eventually encircle the metropolitan centers." (our translation)

Marxism-Leninism-Maoism was systematized by Chairman Gonzalo. This is known in the “Communist Construction”. It is our responsibility to impose Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, as the sole guidance and command of the International Communist Movement on the path of the Proletarian WorldRevolution. The fact that non-Maoist writings are representatively quoted here shows how much we still have to labor. Nevertheless, it would have certainlybeen possible for the “Communist Construction” to find a corresponding passage in our writings as well. But even though the “Revolutionary Construction Switzerland” [Revolutionärer Aufbau Schweiz, aforementioned publishers of “Urban Perspectives”] understands that the People's War is more than guerrilla warfare, the explanation of the Communist Constructionis as follows:

"The "protracted People's War” developed by Mao Tse-Tung as the leader of the CP-China is a strategy for revolution. It can’t, as some bourgeois authors do, be reduced to a guerrilla warfare strategy, even though the militarily is the key in the People's War. It relies militarily on the guerrilla warfare and works it out comprehensively in all its aspects.

The guerrilla was no invention of Mao. Historically, guerrilla warfare in Europe first appeared in the Partisan War of the Spaniards against Napoleon Bonaparte in the late 18th century. The new and original with Mao is therefore not the invention of the guerrilla, but that he fully grasped this form of combat (practical and theoretical), developed it and so fully exploited the potential of the guerrilla for the first time.

The People's War with Mao is based on a countryside guerrilla. The strategic goal and one of the major innovations of the guerrilla warfare in the People's War consists in the base areas. "

In reference to this quote, the “Communist Construction” even points out that bourgeois attacks reduce the strategy of the People's War to guerrilla warfare. But they themselves mention nothing of the military theory of the international proletariat, except the role of the guerrilla warfare in it and the base areas.They have understood insufficiently, as will be seen, the role of the base areas.It is about the seizure of power.

The “Communist Construction” also doesn’t understand the role of guerrilla warfare in the People's War. The guerrilla warfare has a strategic character in the People's War. That means that it is the foundation on which the construction of the armed forces and the development of movement and positional warfare is based on. Before, the guerrilla warfare was, within the regular warfare, only a supplement to the movement and positionalwarfare.

Afterwards, the purpose of the People's War is wrongly determined by the “Communist Construction”:

"Warfare serves the higher goal of conquering political power in the state."

As Marx stated in his work "The Civil War in France" the proletariat cannot simply take over the old state, but must smash it and build a new state. The phrase "power in the state" is misleading in this regard, suggesting that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism would deviate from this Marxist principle. Well, we donot expect all revolutionaries to have read“The Civil War in France", but the preface to the Communist Manifesto of 1872 clarifying this matter should be known. Though Lenin actuallyused this phrase in the "Letters From Afar", it is no coincidence that he no longer uses it in "State and Revolution". The “Communist Construction” writes next:

"This happens by first conquering a territory in remote and geographically appropriate areas (mountains, estuaries, virgin forests) and keeping it permanently against the enemy."

In the first place, People's War is not about keeping territories, but the popular masses are the decisive factor, which we will discuss later. The basic principle of war is to preserve one's own forces and destroy the enemy forces. This does not happen, however, through revolutionary forces that linger in an area, get surrounded and destroyed. This merely propagates to hand every initiative and flexibility to the enemy and to fall into passivity. Exactly the opposite has turned out to be successful: If the enemy attempts to move troops into position for the concentric attack on a base area, its individual detachments are to be surrounded and annihilated with initiative even while they converge. Hence, it’s a rough misunderstanding regarding the subject of their criticism.

“The principle of concentrating our forces to wipe out the enemy forces one by one is aimed chiefly at annihilating the enemy's effective strength, not at holding or seizing a place. In some circumstances, it is permissible to abandon certain places for the purpose of concentrating our forces to wipe out the enemy or of enabling our main force to avoid heavy enemy attacks and to facilitate rest and consolidation for further fighting. So long as we are able to wipe out the enemy's effective strength on a large scale, it will be possible to recover lost territory and seize new territory. Therefore, all those who succeed in destroying the enemy's effective strength should be commended”¹

 

The military line of the international proletariat

The friends write:

"As a military strategy and a strategy for revolution, the People's War was also successful in a number of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist wars under the leadership of the national bourgeoisie."

The People's War is the military theory of the international proletariat for the new-democratic, socialist and cultural revolution. If the proletariat doesn’t lead, it’s not a People's War. That is why the national bourgeoisie can not lead a People's War. The bourgeoisie may, in certain situations, apply certain aspects contained in the strategy of People's War, but it can not lead a People's War. If the bourgeoisie successfully applies these aspects, it merely confirms their correctness as part of our military theory.

"On one hand, various Maoist movements or parties, based on the understanding of the People's War as “encircling the cities through the villages”, try to build bases of "Red Power" and, on the other hand, give the cities a more or less extensive auxiliary function as a "side battle stage". This ranges from purely legal political support work, to logistical support of the People's War, to elements of a Maoist urban guerrilla in connection with local militias, as they are e.g. developed by the CP of Peru under its chairman Gonzalo."

This paragraph is a complete misrepresentation of the mass and military line of the Communist Party of Peru, that is to say of Marxism in this question, as expressed in their Basis of Party Unity, also accessible in German. Furthermore, it is also ignorant of various documents that demonstrate the implementation of this correct line in practice, which, amongst other things, explain the role of the city as a necessary complement in the context of the unified People's War in Peru. This paragraph equates Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to its opposite, the focus theory. This paragraph replaces the contextual debate with rhetorical tricks. The phrasings "side stage" and "auxiliary function" rhetorically suggest that the city is not considered as important as it should be. No argument for this is provided. This leads to the impression that the “Communist Construction” isn’t interested in using its document to provide more clarity, but rather to cause confusion. To equate People’s War with the city guerrilla concept of the focus theory is truly a rough confusion. Further the “Communist Construction” writes:

"However, all Maoist movements ultimately face the strategic problem of the conquest of the cities. The Nepalese Maoist Party was therefore unable, after the successful encirclement of the capital in a ten-year People's War between 1996 and 2006, to move from the phase of strategic equilibrium into the phase of strategic offensive and to the armed revolt in the cities. The final result was open betrayal by Maoist guerrilla leader Prachanda, who renounced socialism and became prime minister of the newly formed bourgeois-democratic republic."

The first sentence is ambiguous. Naturally, communists of the oppressed nations, who encircle the cities from the countryside, face in practice the problem of conquering the cities, even if they do develop work in the cities too. But certainly no communist faces a fundamental theoretical problem here. Because this question was fundamentally clarified by Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and Chairman Gonzalo. The task of the communists is the creative application of the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Gonzalo-thought to the specific conditions of their concrete reality.

The problem of the comrades in Nepal was that the revisionist leadership of their party betrayed the working class and the people. The absurdity of "multiparty competition" and the incorporation of the enemy into the structures of the New Power runs through the whole process of peace negotiations with the old state under the demand of ending monarchy. The tipping point in the end was the surrender before the impending intervention of US imperialism by means of his Indian vassals.All these are highlights of a comprehensive and systematic revisionism that, appropriately for revisionism at the height of the time, disguises itself as Maoism. A fact that has been denounced sufficiently by many sides. The "Prachandaism" is unmasked and bankrupt.

To call such revisionistsMaoists means to support this disguise, is to throw dirt on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Furthermore, at this point it must be made clear that the reason for revisionism is not that Nepalese party leaders have the same lack of knowledgeon the answers of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the questions of revolutionary practice as our friends. Revisionism is the bourgeoisie in our own ranks. The reason for revisionism is that also communists are subjects formed in the bourgeois society. As such, they carry the bourgeois society in themselves (and the feudal in the oppressed nations). They live in it and one can’t get it out ofsomeone without firstdestroying the bourgeois society. Consequently, it can and will happen again and again that communists will place themselves and their ego abovethe class and the people and become revisionists - which doesn’t change the fact, that in a case such as this, they are to be mercilessly fought. To clarify this question, which has been confused on several occasions: revisionism is the main danger for us.

The situation in Nepal is only a temporary defeat, a bend in the road. We are firmly convinced that the comrades in Nepal will win on the basis of their gained experiences, their already proven heroism and the ideology of the international proletariat! Not only because history has to go this way, but also because the People's War is a defining part of the Nepalese reality and again and again comrades rise there. Most recently, actions with explosives were carried out throughout the country during last November's elections.

 

The universality of the People's War

Further the “Communist Construction” writes:

"The lack of concepts for this question is also related, in terms of revolutionary strategy, to historical peculiarities of the Chinese Civil War and its final phase from 1945 to 1949. Militarily, Mao conquered power by transforming the guerrillas into a regular Red Army that waged and won a conventional war in a very classic way. Politically, in 1948-49, he was able to pluck the "cities" like ripe fruit, as his opponent, the Kuomintang, was completely decomposed politically and morally. "

In this section, the “Communist Construction” attacks the universality of the People's War by claiming that it could succeed only under very specific "historical peculiarities" of China. They portrait it so absurdly that no one can seriously believe that this could happen again. Just as no one can seriously believe that it actually happened that way.

The talk of "ripe fruits" and the implicit allegation that Mao Tse-Tung had used a bourgeois military line by saying that he led "a conventional war in a very classic way" is a slander² of the achievements of the Chinese masses who shed their blood in the class struggle, based on which Chairman Mao Tse-Tung was able to further develop the ideology of the proletariat.

In the following section, the “Communist Construction” points to the supposedly crucial weakness of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism:

"The question of the theory of revolution worldwide, that is, how the main battle should be fought, the conquest of the "cities" on a world scale and thus of the imperialist centers, remains open. This remains to be the crucial weakness of the theory of revolution in Maoism!"

The “Communist Construction” is again causing confusion here. The wording comes from Lin Biao, who does not want to initiate the People's War as soon as possible and does not represent the World People's War as defined by the Communist Party of Peru. Therefore, Lin Biao is a right opportunist and not a Marxist-Leninist Maoist. The fact hat Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, has not yet been applied to the specific conditions in the imperialist countries is the responsibility of the Communists in these countries. Because the theory is developed on the basis of practice, everything else would be idealism. Consequently, only an idealist may accuse chairman Mao Tse-Tung and chairman Gonzalo of not having done so. Since they still have not put on paper any argument against the universality of People's War, our friends come up with the good idea to let Mao Tse-Tung speak for himself. They introduce a longer quote of Mao Tse-Tung as follows:

"By that [the assertion of the universality of People's War] they went far beyond Mao's own conceptions. He assumed that the causes for the emergence and existence of base areas ("Red Power") sprang from the peculiar conditions in China. "

This is followed by a longer quotation of Mao Tse-Tung from 1928, in which Mao Tse-Tung really states that the areas of Red Power are a Chinese specificity that would be impossible anywhere else. In 1928, the first civil war raged in China. This is before the anti-Japanese war and before the second civil war. From this point on, there were still 21 years of armed struggle left until the victory of the revolution. Mao Tse-Tung was a lot, but certainly not "God." And Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is a lot, but not idealism. Hence Mao Tse-Tung, previous to, and so without, the revolutionary practice,was unable to synthesize it into theory. Consequently, we are not shaken by the fact that, before he had the necessary practice, he has not yet developed the theory of People’s War. Such Hegelian hopes are not a matterfor the Communists, so we are not disappointed by their refutation. Because, being dialectical materialists, we know that theory is developed from practice, and theory can be used to elevate practice to a higher level, from which theory is further developed. The theory doesn’t emerge detached from practice, neither the theory of People's War. So if our friends want to stick to their argument, they have to adopt an idealistic point of view.

Incidentally, even in the works of Chairman Mao, corrections can be found on the basis of theexperience gained during the Second World War. An example of this is provided by the document "Problems of Strategy in Guerilla War against Japan". In chapter VI, subchapter 3 in the [German] Selected Works volume II it is determined that “[…] small countries like Belgium which lack this condition have few or no such possibilities.” At this point, in the English language edition, the 8^thfootnote says: „In other words, guerilla war can be victoriously waged in a country which is not large in territory [...]“

After that, the “Communist Construction” jumps back to the International Line:

“Regarding the question of the strategy of the proletarian world revolution, this answer means encircling the world "cities" through the world "village". The prospects for the revolution are seen in the oppressed countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America: only when these have "fallen" the revolution can succeed in imperialist centers - also because the possibility of bribing the working class through extra profits is lost."

This has nothing to do with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Because Mao Tse-tung states in his essay "On Contradiction" that the internal contradiction is the deciding factor:

“As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. 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. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes.”

About the realization of the International Line, it should be briefly mentioned, that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism determines the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations as the current principal contradiction on the world level - thus constituting the most important external condition for the internal contradiction of each nation. Its increasing intensification spurs the peoples of the oppressed nations more and more towards rebellion. Based on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the communist parties of the oppressed nations must lead these rebellions and initiate People's Wars everywhere as soon as possible. Because the relative "social peace" in the imperialist nations also depends particularly on capital exports to (and the plunderingof) theoppressed nations, such People’s Wars sharpen the contradiction between the proletariat and bourgeoisie in the imperialist nations. Consequently, they are conducive to the development of People’s War in the imperialist nations. But this does not mean that the Communists in the imperialist nations should be sitting back and limit themselves to an indifferent "international solidarity" until D-day.

“There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is—working wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in every country without exception. Everything else is deception […]”³

The People's War has universal validity. Before the initiation of the People's War, everything serves to initiate it, and when it is initiated, everything serves to develop it. Likewise, in the imperialist nations. The Marxist-Leninist-Maoists in the imperialist nations do not wait for the People's War in the oppressed nations, as the Jews do for the Messiah. The Marxist-Leninist-Maoists develop revolutionary practice in perspective of the People's War in their country, puttingproletarian internationalism always in the first place to serve the world revolution.

 

The People's War in one country

"Even if, according to these strategies for revolution, differing in detail,the oppressed countries would be liberated, which we doubt for various reasons, no socialism on a world scale could emerge from it. Simply because imperialism doesn’t watch idly as the (revolutionary) villages encircle its centers (of power). But as long as imperialism holds power in the centers, it also has the power to raze the "villages" to the ground if necessary. The last decades of human history have impressively proved that imperialism does not hesitate for a second to pull this option, if it is seriously cornered on any patch of this planet. The blatant threat of US imperialism by Trumps talk in front of the UN General Assembly to destroy the North Korean people by means of nuclear war, recalls this vividly!"

Starting at the false assumption that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism wants to unilaterally develop the People's War in the oppressed nations, the “Communist Construction” concludes that no socialism on a world scale can grow out of it. True, if you don’t fight for power worldwide, you can’t gainit worldwide. With this tautological statement the friends charge an open door.

However, our friends confuse things a lot when they present that socialism is impossible in one country, given the superior arsenal of the imperialists. Hashistory not shown something else? That socialism did not fail because it was militarily attacked from abroad? What is being done here is to confusethe question of restoration and counter-restoration with a purely military matter. But the struggle between restoration and counter-restoration can only be reduced to military (and external) factors with a greatly reduced understanding. The practice of the Chinese people under the leadership of Chairman Mao in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has quite clearly proved the opposite. Usually, only Trotskyists argue against socialism in one country.⁴But even in particular, this point of view is wrong. This reveals a metaphysical understanding of the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations. Although imperialism is still the dominant aspect of the contradiction, its power depends on the semi-colonial plundering and it crumbles without it. Imperialism can’t be without national oppression. Its military power certainly secures its economic power, but is also based on it. If imperialism is deprived of semi-colonies by People’sWar, it weakens it. But even if one considers the military aspect in isolation, the “Communist Construction” is wrong. History has truly shownthat the imperialists are ready to use any cruelty to secure their power, but that does not mean they succeed. The recent history of Vietnam, Chechnya and Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq, Ukraine, Syria and Mali has clearly shown that they are unable to keep the people permanently "quiet and in order". On the contrary, they suffer one defeat after another.

Fanning the fear of nuclear war ignores the fact that imperialism is planning something with the semi-colonies. It does not simply want to destroy them, it wants to use them. Something you want to use, you can not destroy. The tactics of "raze to the grounds" can be used by imperialism at mostto sporadically set an example, but not as a comprehensive tactic, because it contradicts their strategic goals. Moreover, the authors are ignorant of the meaning the use of atomic bombs would have for the sharpening of contradictions, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the imperialist nations, as well as between the imperialists and between imperialism and the oppressed nations.If the atomic bombs are used according to this purpose, then the fight becomes more difficult for the country and region in which the atomic bombs are deployed. But it is no coincidence that atomic bombs have never been used after their deployment against Japanese imperialism. The sharpening of the contradictions by their use makes it very problematic for the imperialists. Even the use of biological and chemical weapons is only possible under very extreme conditions. The photo of the shooting of Nguyễn Văn Lém caused worldwide outrage, and even before the photo of nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc, burned by napalm, was published, demonstrators were shot dead by the National Guard in the United States.⁵After that, the war was not only morally lost. In the end, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung is right when he says:

“The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the U.S. reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't. Of course, the atom bomb is a weapon of mass slaughter, but the outcome of a war is decided by the people, not by one or two new types of weapon.”⁶

We fear that a purposely created misunderstanding of this truth and the hysteria inflicted by the bourgeois media over the past few decades on the “overkill” finds its expression in the “Communist Construction” and we want to explicitly warn ofdeveloping this position. If this position is further developed, it is part of Khrushchev revisionism, serving to scare people, discourage revolutionaries from revolution and convince them of peaceful transition and peaceful coexistence. As our friends assume this fear, they are standing on the brink, and if they walk on, they will inevitably fall down. The attitude of the revolutionaries must always be to dare to struggle, dare to win.

If consequentlythought further, the metaphysical understanding of the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations would become a revolutionary theory variant of the "white man's burden". In the metaphysical understanding of the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations, a metaphysical viewpoint of the revolution, which is ultimately imperialist chauvinism, is laid out. The oppressed peoples are said to be unable to liberate themselves, which is why they should hope for the white Messiah in the imperialist centers. We very much hope that the “Communist Construction” doesn’t develop this false idea, but abandons it.

 

Foquism or People’s War

It’s not our concernto defend the theory of focus. Because we are criticizing this strategy as well. The focusand the corresponding adventurism are also an expression of a contempt for the masses, a petty-bourgeois military line and not the cause of the proletariat. Although many revolutionaries who have fought under this line belong to the best children of our class and the peoples of the world.

But the criticism of the “Communist Construction” of the focus theory, in particular the confusion of the focus theory with the People's War, must be rejected.

“Building on local traditions of revolutionary people’s leaders and riots, the urban guerrilla unites
elements of foquism (focus theory), as represented by the life and the fight of the revolutionary Che Guevara, and Maoist People's War. Militarily, at the urban guerrilla the partisans of the protracted People's War are transplanted into the cities. Politically, the decisive act of a revolutionary core (the focus), which - detached of the masses – ignites a "sparkle to a prairiefire" by serving as a model, moved into the center of the strategy.”

So, first of all, focus theory is a theory and not just the example of Che Guevara. One should take revisionism seriously and not be ignorant. On the other hand, to say it has something to do with People's War, when petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, detached of the masses, initiate the armed struggle is very ignorant as well. Although some urban guerrilla groups made rhetorically references to the People's War, an army not led by the Communist Party can’t lead a People's War at all.

“Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.”⁷

That is one of the most important principles of People's War. So how can one lead a People's War without a Communist Party? Furthermore, the key point of People's War is that it relies on the people’s masses. This is the opposite of the focus theory, which relies on the focus, on the few. The assertion that the urban guerrilla concept would be an attempt to apply People's War to the imperialist countries, the “Communist Construction” gets by again reducing People’s War to the guerrilla war, although they said at the outset that only bourgeois authors do so:

"Ultimately, the urban guerrilla only transfers Mao's military strategy (guerrilla warfare) to the imperialist centers without developing a comprehensive revolutionary strategy. How the masses, which are indispensable for the conquest of political power in the civil war, are to be conquered and organized, is either answered wrongly - in the anarchist-idealistic sense of foquism - or not at all."

It’s a great pity that the “Communist Construction” hasn’t taken note of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist mass line, whose beginnings can be found in Marx and Lenin, which was further developed by Mao Tse-tung and systematically presented by Chairman Gonzalo in the Basis of Party Unity of the Communist Party of Peru. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have to content themselves with asserting that there is no answer to the question of how to "conquer and organize" the masses, but could give us their critical thoughts about it.

Further the friends write:

"The DHKP-C in Turkey today is a representative of the urban guerrilla concept, which has been increasingly discussed in recent years, and on which some emerging groups and circles in the imperialist centers, especially in Europe, also orientate themselves"

It remains unclear how it can be understood that the “Communist Construction”considers the urban guerrilla concept to be a mixture of focus theory and People's War, which is applied to the imperialist countries, and at the same time claim that the DHKP-C applies this military line whilefighting in Turkey, a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. We assume that this is only because the “Communist Construction” doesn’t consider Turkey to be a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. On this debate we translated an article from "Partizan" about a critique of the Third Congress of the MKP some time ago. The crux of this question is whether imperialism produces social development or whether the principles of Marxism⁸ are and remain correct. We are convinced that this is a lapse and the friends don’t close the ranks with Stefan Engel's MLPD⁹.

Moreover, it’s correct to criticize the mistakes that have been made, and the experience of our class shows that the struggle against focus theory adherents who (logically, as revisionists) fight against the Communist Party takes quite antagonistic forms and (for example, in case of the MRTA) ended with their destruction. But we want to emphasize at this point that many comrades and parts of the masses, with their actions (expressing the urge for armed struggle and its necessity), have entered the eternal heroic epic of the proletarian revolution, even though they made these mistakes. We can never leave these comrades to the enemy.

 

On the model of the Communist Construction

At the end of the text, the Communist Construction draws some general conclusions. For example:

“What we are concerned with is a rarely understood objective social dialectic that is often not recognized by the Communists because of their subjectivelyperceived weakness. That the counterrevolution is that strong and that its methods of government are constantly perfected also means dialectically that the communist and revolutionary movement is in the political struggle of overcoming both its theoretical and practical weaknesses, namely the lack of a revolutionary strategy for the imperialist centers."

The headline of the section is that practice precedes theory, but that sounds rather thatthe theory is lagging behind practice. It remains completely unclear why the “Communist Construction” considers thatto be an encouraging message that theyapparently have no answers to the practical issues.

Then the “Communist Construction” comes back to the People's War and writes:

"All Maoist parties who are still struggling today must deal with the strategic dilemma of "blocked growth". The People's War is a revolutionary strategy in which the guerrilla warfare of the peasant masses aims at tactically destroying the enemy’s power in order to accumulate its own power on the long run. All this follows the strategic stipulation of "survive to grow". But what if the guerrillas lose their strategic initiative and the whole war becomes a “trench warfare” at strategic stalemate that neither side can win in the foreseeable future? What an imperialist army can sustain for decades, especially when the losses and costs don’t exceed a bearable limit, is a strategic trap of the very first rank for the People's War. "

First, there are no Maoist parties that don’t fight. Because if they don’t fight, they are not Maoist, but call themselves that way at most.

Secondly, the People's War is the military theory to conquer and defend the power of the proletariat – towards communism (in the new-democratic revolution power under the absolute leadership of the proletariat, realised by its Communist Party, in the dictatorship of the revolutionary classes of the people, based on the workers and peasants alliance). Thirdly, during the People's War, the revolutionary forces destroy the living power of the enemy, where the enemy was decisively defeated, the New Power is built with the revolutionary army as its backbone to destroy the old power. The summary as "survive to grow" completely ignores the dialectics of construction and destruction. The basic principle of war is that we always have to do everything we can to preserve and expand our own forces, as well as to destroy the enemy. In order to preserve our own forces, we must destroy those of the enemy. But to destroy those of the enemy, we have to pay a price. Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that one must be ready to pay the highest price but must always strive to keep it as low as possible. This contradiction must be taken into account by the leadership in the planning. You can’t destroy the enemy without building your own strength out of inferiority and building the New Power. In the contradiction of construction (with its core, the new power) and destruction (of the old state) the construction is the main issue! The construction of the New Power is therefore the heart of the People's War. If one handles this contradiction correctly, then the People's War is invincible, because the objective conditions are on the side of the people.

The strategy is protracted People's War, because it is about out of inferiority against a superior enemy, if necessary for decades to fight and ultimately to win. That the word “protracted”, as a rule, is the central predicate given to the word "People's War," the “Communist Construction” has certainly not missed. Certainly, neither the fact that the protracted nature of the People's War has a prominent place in most documents about it. The only pity is that the “Communist Construction” asserts this problem as unsolved instead of dealing with the theoretical and practical answers of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Then there is a reference in the text to a supposedly positive reference point in practice:

“Remarkably a party from the “Hoxhaist"-wing tradition of the of the Marxist-Leninist movement, which, as the core of the Communist Party, is not immersed in the quagmire of the stage theory, including the liquidation of illegal structures, is going the partially reversed path - building a land guerrilla alongside the militias in the cities. The MLKP Turkey / Kurdistan, along with its own party militias, is building a military arm along with the Kurdish liberation movement, with which it has been associated for many years in a strategic alliance. First in Rojava and since 2016 with the HBDH (Halklarin Birlesik Devrim Hareketi, english: United Peoples Revolution Movement) in Turkey itself.

Last but not least, the "communist wing" in the spectrum of the urban guerrilla movement must be taken note of. The 'Red Brigades' in Italy are perhaps the best-known example of an attempt to link the urban guerrilla’s military strategy to mass struggles and the workers movement. "

It would be interesting to know what the “Communist Construction” believes: Who leads the alliance of the PKK and MLKP? The stronger PKK or the weaker MLKP; or the Yankee imperialism that transformed Rojava into his military camp and uses the Syrian Democratic Forces as his ground troops?^{10 11} For us, the "strategic alliance" is the dissolution of the party at the front. That's what we call right liquidationism.¹² But maybe we don’t really understand what the friends want to tell us. We also don’t understand and would like to know how a Communist Party can arrogate to itself the responsibilities of the proletariat of two countries. After all, the Communist Party isn’t the party of the people of one country, but the party of the proletariat. And its struggle is described very clearly in our programmatic basic document – the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

“Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.”¹³

“Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.” ¹⁴

But Lenin and Stalin also had to deal with the same problem with the "General Jewish Workers' Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia" (usually called the "Bund"). In the countries of Lithuania, Poland and Russia, it claimed the sole representation of the Jewish proletariat instead of leaving this task, for example in Russia, to the party of Lenin, so that the Jewish proletariat could be mobilized for the revolution in Russia. The "Bund" thus presented itself as a party without regional boundaries and took the stand of bourgeois nationalism. Stalin settled up with them as follows:

“The Bund is heading for separatism. And, indeed, there is nothing else it can head for. Its very existence as an extra-territorial organization drives it to separatism. The Bund does not possess a definite integral territory; it operates on "foreign" territories, whereas the neighbouring Polish, Lettish and Russian Social-Democracies are international territorial collective bodies. But the result is that every extension of these collective bodies means a "loss" to the Bund and a restriction of its field of action.“¹⁵

Lenin continued on the separatist ambitions of the "Bund":

“This slogan (defended in Russia by all the bourgeois Jewish nationalist parties) contradicts the internationalism of Social-Democracy. As democrats, we are irreconcilably hostile to any, however slight, oppression of any nationality and to any privileges for any nationality. As democrats, we demand the right of nations to self-determination in the political sense of that term (see the Programme of the R.S.D.L.P.), i.e., the right to secede. We demand unconditional equality for all nations in the state and the unconditional protection of the rights of every national minority. We demand broad self-government and autonomy for regions, which must be demarcated, among other terms of reference, in respect of nationality too. All these demands are obligatory for every consistent democrat, to say nothing of a socialist.

Socialists, however, do not limit themselves to general-democratic demands. They fight all possible manifestations of bourgeois nationalism, crude or refined. “National-cultural autonomy” is a manifestation precisely of this type—it joins the proletarians and bourgeoisie of one nation and keeps the proletarians of different nations apart. Social-Democrats have always stood and still stand for the internationalist point of view. While protecting the equality of all nationalities against the serf-owners and the police state we do not support “national culture” but inter national culture, which includes only part of each national culture—only the consistently democratic and socialist content of each national culture. The slogan of “national-cultural autonomy” deceives the workers with the phantom of a cultural unity of nations, whereas in every nation today a landowners’, bourgeois or petty-bourgeois “culture” predominates. We are against national culture as one of the slogans of bourgeois nationalism. We are in favour of the international culture of a fully democratic and socialist proletariat. The unity of the workers of all nationalities coupled with the fullest equality for the nationalities and the most consistently democratic state system—that is our slogan, and it is the slogan of international revolutionary Social-Democracy. This truly proletarian slogan will not create the false phantom and illusion of “national” unity of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, while the slogan of “national-cultural autonomy” undoubtedly does create that phantom and does sow that illusion among the working people.”¹⁶

The separatist ambitions moving the MLKP forward today are of the same nature as those of the “Bund” more than a hundred years ago. Instead of mobilizing the Kurdish part of the people in Turkey to fight against the Turkish state for the democratic revolution, it declares itself a party of the Kurdish people, thus taking the stand of petty-bourgeois nationalism.

It would also be interesting to know whether the Red Brigades should now be the model for the revolution in imperialist countries or whether they are simply mentioned pro forma, because one doesn’t want to be accused of having “forgotten” this aspect later?

Then a confusing quote follows, because earlier in the text it seemed like the friends hadn’t understood the protracted nature of the People's War:

"The role of the partisans in World War II and above all the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 after 25 years of civil war were, in contrast, the super-GAU. Something unthinkable had happened here, namely that the weaker had defeated the superior opponent. The law of number in the war, on which the imperialists rely with their superior firepower of regular armies, along with most modern war technology, seemed to be overridden by Mao's revolutionary strategy of protracted People's War."

This reference to the practice of the International Communist Movement, makes it seem like the “Communist Construction” has some understanding of the people destroying the enemy out of inferiority in a protracted People's War. When they talk about the practice of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, they admit what they don’t want to accept in theory.

However, the “Communist Construction” also reveals a deficiency here. That they are that impressed by bourgeois armies and their chic technical bells and whistles and their thinking that the irrelevance of technical superiority would only seemingly have been refuted is their deficiency of confidence in the masses, ultimately militarism. It’s not the guns that make history, but the masses. Once we mobilize the masses, guns are the least of the problems.

Then the “Communist Construction” means to have discovered a new dialectic of politics and war:

"The "hybrid war" is a total war in which the difference between soldiers and civilians disappears and all means and resources are used to achieve the military objectives and the political purposes of the war. This applies in the fight against the revolutionary side as well as in the inner-imperialist competition with opposing states."

This is not new. Clausewitz wrote in "On War" in 1832:

“War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.“

So the dialectic of politics and war has been known to the class enemy for more than 200 years. The "revolutionary side" is even more aware:

“"War is the continuation of politics." In this sense war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character. … But war has its own particular characteristics and in this sense it cannot be equated with politics in general. "War is the continuation of politics by other means." When politics develops to a certain stage beyond which it cannot proceed by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep the obstacles from the way. …. When the obstacle is removed, our political aim will be attained and the war concluded. But if the obstacle is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue till the aim is fully accomplished. … It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”¹⁷

 

On the conclusions

In the last section of the text, the “Communist Construction” becomes even more abstract and draws philosophical conclusions:

"Above all, the answer must be that there is no stone-carved answer. The future is open. The social contradictions drive the development again and again to new directions that follow no historical analogy and don’t submit to rigid schemes of successive stages."

We want to strongly contradict this thesis of historical philosophy. The future isn’t open at all, it’s necessary. Or as Marx and Engels say:

“What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”¹⁸

Just as history is fixed, there is also a fixed "stone-carved answer" namely Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, whose principles are universally valid. It’s obviously our deficiency that we haven’t sufficiently dealt with the inevitability of the revolution in the struggle for the assertion of Maoism as the new, third and highest level of the ideology of the international proletariat. The universal validity of the principles of the ideology of the proletariat is more sharply questioned by the friends in the paragraphs afterwards:

“We can neither understand 'What Is To Be Done' nor the 'History of the CPSU (B): Short Course‘ nor the Textbook by the Communist International on the uprising (Lehrbuch der KI zum Aufstand) nor the military writings of Mao or the experiences of individual People's Wars as "cooking recipes" that we just have to apply to today.

What we have to learn from the October Revolution in particular and Marxism-Leninism in general is the abstract truth - which is difficult to grasp in bourgeois thinking - that the revolutionary strategy represents a unified artistic synthesis. We must not divide the political "art of creating power" into individual stages and separate areas.

We have discussed here some basic features of the revolutionary strategy at an abstract, partly almost philosophical level. The practically oriented comrades may now ask: What does that mean in concrete? What is our strategy for the socialist revolution in Germany?

Books that theoretically generalize the practical experiences of our predecessors only provide us with tools, the general principles of strategy. How the path to the goal looks like in today's conditions, we have to find out for ourselves in practice, as Lenin and the Bolsheviks have demonstrated. Orientation for this may be provided by a dialectical motto with which we want to close the circle:

“Revolutionary politics means to wage war, always and everywhere – even if we don’t shoot a single bullet in our lifetimes (“Revolutionäre Politik heißt Krieg führen, immer und überall – auch wenn wir in unserem ganzen Leben keinen einzigen Schuss abfeuern!”)

In view of the Great Socialist October Revolution and its 100th anniversary, we consider it necessary to quote the following "dialectical motto" of the great Lenin from 1905 here:

Truth is always concrete.¹⁹

The derogatory formulation "cooking recipes" used for the principles of the ideology of the proletariat, developed out of the practice of the labor movement by the titans of thought and action - Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao Tse-Tung - is a bottomless impudence, that a Communist is unworthy. The application of these principles to the concrete conditions of practice is exactly what Communists have to do! It’s questionable what the “Communist Construction” plans to do otherwise? To reduce the ideology of the proletariat to an aesthetic pleasure, by denouncing it as artistic synthesis and ennobling that as abstract truth, while not wanting to know anything about the concrete truth - the application of this ideology - crowns the whole thing.

After all, they even realize that their entire paper, is unfitting to"practically oriented comrades" (we don’t know any comrades who aren’t interested in practice and we hope andalso - based on our experience - are convinced that that’s not the casewith the friends of the “Communist Construction” either), since it’s mere negation. We want to add: On top of that, it’s bad negation. With that they take every critical content out away from their criticism. Because a criticism that is no longer aimed at practice, isn’t a guide to action, it’s mere intellectual gimmick. Also The reference to the practice in the last two paragraphs thereforeacts rather as an alibi, and the motto acts satirical.

In addition, and the friends acknowledge that, there is no way past the practice. But as Lenin said:

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. Yet, for Russian Social-Democrats the importance of theory is enhanced by three other circumstances, which are often forgotten: first, by the fact that our Party is only in process of formation, its features are only just becoming defined, and it has as yet far from settled accounts with the other trends of revolutionary thought that threaten to divert the movement from the correct path. On the contrary, precisely the very recent past was marked by a revival of non-Social-Democratic revolutionary trends (an eventuation regarding which Axelrod long ago warned the Economists). Under these circumstances, what at first sight appears to be an “unimportant” error may lead to most deplorable consequences, and only short-sighted people can consider factional disputes and a strict differentiation between shades of opinion inopportune or superfluous. The fate of Russian Social-Democracy for very many years to come may depend on the strengthening of one or the other “shade”.“²⁰

 

Part 2: On the Revolutionary War

 

“The laws of war are a problem which anyone directing a war must study and solve. The laws of revolutionary war are a problem which anyone directing a revolutionary war must study and solve….It is well known that when you do anything, unless you understand its actual circumstances, its nature and its relations to other things, you will not know the laws governing it, or know how to do it, or be able to do it well.“²¹

So we have to study the general laws of war and the specific laws of revolutionary war, and we must also examine the peculiarities of the revolutionary war in an imperialist country, even more precisely of the revolutionary war in the imperialist FRG and solve all problems resulting from it. Thereby it’s proscribed - in accordance to the doctrines of the contradiction – to dogmatically create copies and try to approach the concrete reality of our country in a template; by doing so we would inevitably fail.

 

The need for revolutionary violence

We are supporters of the omnipotence of the revolutionary war, like all Communists since Marx:

“Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.”²²

“The emancipation of the proletariat, too, will have its particular military expression, it will give rise to a specific, new method of warfare. Cela est clair.” <That’s clear>²³

For us applies, what the great Peruvian communist José Carlos Mariátegui has stated:

“If revolution demands violence, authority, discipline, I am for violence, authority, discipline. I accept them, as a whole with all their horrors without cowardly reservations.“²⁴

Here we would like to quote Chairman Mao on the general laws of war and, for the purpose of avoiding repetition, presuppose as being read the quotation of "On Protracted War" concerning the relation between politics and criticism, which was quoted earlier:

„War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions, when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states, or political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes“²⁵

“It enables us to understand that revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society and that without them, it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power.”²⁶

„Revolutionary war is an antitoxin which not only eliminates the enemy's poison but also purges us of our own filth.“²⁷

“Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."”²⁸

“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.”²⁹

Marx and Engels have clearly emphasized revolutionary violence as an absolute necessity for the social revolution of the proletariat:

“The working classes would have to conquer the right to emancipate themselves on the battlefield.”³⁰

Learning from practice: The development of the military theory

Marx and Engels also dealt with the elaboration of the military theory of the proletariat. They have analyzed the process of their time and their uprisings. They have adopted the best creation of their time and developed it. It’s the uprising within the cities and the tactic is correctly the barricade fight.It’s fought street by street. For example, in the Commune of Paris in 1871. Thus, the main form of armed struggle of Marx and Engels is the barricade fight. But the development of military theory isn’t completed with this.

Engels, in the preface to Marx's "The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850", himself stated in his last year of his life in 1895, that the "mode of struggle", the "rebellion in the old-style" is hopelessly obsolete. But instead of drawing the consequence of declaring the armed struggle itself a failure, Engels seeks to find new methods of struggle under changed conditions:

“But we, too, have been shown to have been wrong by history, which has revealed our point of view of that time to have been an illusion. It has done even more: it has not merely destroyed our error of that time; it had also completely transformed the conditions under which the proletariat has to fight. The mode of struggle of 1848 is today obsolete from every point of view, and this is a point which deserves closer examination on the present occasion.“³¹

“Does that mean that in the future the street fight will play no further role? Certainly not. It only means that the conditions since 1848 have become far more unfavorable for civil fights, far more favorable for the military. A future street fight can therefore only be victorious when this unfavorable situation is compensated by other factors. Accordingly, it will occur more seldom in the beginning of a great revolution than in its further progress, and will have to be undertaken with greater forces. These, however, may then well prefer, as in the whole Great French Revolution on September 4 and October 31, 1870, in Paris, the open attack to the passive barricade tactics.”³²

By contrast, even back then, the Revisionists were trying to stop any application or development of military theory that needed to be done. Revisionists like Bernstein tried to replace the armed struggle with parliamentary cretinism and so, for example, the paragraph just quoted was initially deleted because of the "timid concerns" of the Berlin party executive (Engels). But Lenin reiterated the need to develop military theory and made two key contributions:

Firstly, the combat departments:

“1. Independent military action.

2. Leadership of the mass.

The contingents may be of any strength, beginning with two or three people.

They must arm themselves as best they can (rifles, revolvers, bombs, knives, knuckle-dusters, sticks, rags soaked in kerosene for starting fires, ropes or rope ladders, shovels for building barricades, pyroxylin cartridges, barbed wire, nails [against cavalry], etc., etc.). Under no circumstances should they wait for help from other sources, from above, from the outside; they must procure everything themselves.

As far as possible, the contingents should consist of people who either live near each other, or who meet frequently and regularly at definite hours (preferably people of both categories, for regular meetings may be interrupted by the uprising). They must arrange matters so as to be able to get together at the most critical moments,, when things may take the most unexpected turns. Therefore, each group must work out beforehand ways and means of joint action: signs in windows, etc., so as to find each other easily; previously agreed upon calls or whistles so that the comrades recognise one another in a crowd; previously arranged signals in the event of meetings at night, etc., etc. Any energetic person, with the aid of two or three comrades, could work out a whole series of such rules and methods, which should be drawn up, learned and practised beforehand. It must not be forgotten that the chances are 100 to lb that events will take us unawares, and that it will be necessary to come together under terribly difficult conditions.

Even without arms, the groups can play a most important part: 1) by leading the mass; 2) by attacking, whenever a favourable opportunity presents itself, policemen, stray Cossacks (as was the case in Moscow), etc., and seizing their arms; 3) by rescuing the arrested or injured, when there are only few police about; 4) by getting on to the roofs or upper storeys of houses, etc., and showering stones or pouring boiling water on the troops, etc. Given sufficient push, an organised and well-knit combat group constitutes a tremendous force. Under no circumstances should the formation of the group be abandoned or postponed on the plea of lack of arms.

As far as possible members of combat groups should have their duties assigned in advance, leaders or chiefs of groups being sometimes selected in this way. It would be unwise, of course, to play at conferring ranks, but the enormous importance of uniform leadership and rapid and determined action should not be forgotten. Determination and push are three-quarters of success.

As soon as the groups are formed—i.e., right now—they must get down to comprehensive work—not only theoretical, but most certainly practical work as well. By theoretical work we mean a study of military science, an acquaintance with military problems, the arrangement of lecture meetings on military questions, talks by military men (officers, non-commissioned officers, etc., etc., including also workers who have served in the army); the reading, discussion and assimilation of illegal pamphlets and newspaper articles on street fighting, etc., etc.

Practical work, we repeat, should be started at once. This falls into preparatory work and military operations. The preparatory work includes procuring all kinds of arms and ammunition, securing premises favourably located for street fighting (convenient for fighting from above, for storing bombs and stones, etc., or acids to be poured on the police, etc., etc.; also suitable for headquarters, for collecting information, for sheltering fugitives from the police, for use as hospitals, etc., etc.). Further, preliminary activity includes the immediate work of reconnaissance and gathering information—obtaining plans of prisons, police stations, ministries, etc., ascertaining the routine in government   offices, banks, etc., and learning how they are guarded, endeavouring to establish contacts which could be of use (with employees in police departments, banks, courts, prisons, post- and telegraph-offices, etc.), ascertaining the where abouts of arsenals, of all the gunsmiths’ shops in the city, etc. There is a great deal of this sort of work to be done, and—what is more—it is work in which even those who are quite incapable of engaging in street fighting, even the very weak, women, youngsters, old people, and so on, can be of immense service. Efforts should be made immediately to get into combat groups absolutely all those who want to take part in the uprising, for there is no such person, nor can there be one, who, provided he desires to work, cannot be of immense value, even if he is unarmed and is personally incapable of fighting.

Further, revolutionary army groups should under no circumstances confine themselves to preparatory work alone, but should begin military action as soon as possible so as to 1) train their fighting forces; 2) reconnoitre the enemy’s vulnerable spots; 3) inflict partial defeats on the enemy; 4) rescue prisoners (the arrested); 5) procure arms; 6) obtain funds for the uprising (confiscation of government funds), and so on and so forth. The groups can and should immediately take advantage of every opportunity for active work, and must by no means put matters off until a general uprising, because fitness for the uprising cannot be acquired except by training under fire.“³³

Second, the proletarian militia:

“A genuine people’s militia, i.e., one that, first, consists of the entire population, of all adult citizens of both sexes; and, second, one that combines the functions of a people’s army with police functions, with the functions of the chief and fundamental organ of public order and public administration.” and further: “If women are not drawn into public service, into the militia, into political life, if women are not torn out of their stupefying house and kitchen environment, it will be impossible to guarantee real freedom, it will be impossible to build even democracy let alone socialism.”³⁴

The Communist International didn’t get beyond this, even if there were attempts to do so, especially in the partisan struggle during World War II. Those are developing within the Chinese revolution under the leadership of Chairman Mao. Generally it can be said, that there is often a racist, social-chauvinist, imperialist-chauvinist attitude towards the Chinese revolution, stating that it was a simple peasant war in China, which – being far away - has nothing to do with us and our reality.

On the Chinese Revolution: The fight against the warlords (the feudal lords) in the north and for the building of national unity lasted three years, from 1924 to 1927. The CPC tried to implement the theory of armed uprising (Shanghai (3x) and Canton (1x) )). All four attempts of uprising were suppressed. Thus, in practice, the implementation of the theory was proved to be impossible, even though there were large proletarian cities. Chiang Kai-shek took over the leadership of the Kuomintang and ended the alliance with the Soviet Union and the CPC. Under his leadership he established fascism and massacres were carried out in the big cities. With the autumn harvest 1927 the guerrilla war begun in China. For that, the cities were the center, specified by the Party. Chairman Mao, however, went alongside miners to the peasants to the country and reached a connection between the workers' and the peasant movement there. Chairman Mao wasn’t the approved leader of the CPC at that time, but he was the leader in those areas. The development was as follows: defeats in the cities and victories at the countryside. As a result, the Central Committee decided to go to the countryside. Chiang Kai-shek wanted to smash the bases developed there. This should be done in the form of encircling and extermination campaigns. Four campaigns against the southern base areas were struck back. Counselors were sent to China by the Communist International. The work of the counselors again meant position war instead of movement war and underestimation of the guerrilla war, this time applied to the base areas. The CI believed that the CPC wasn’t proletarian enough. Therefore, 28 Chinese comrades were trained in the Soviet Union, the "28 Bolsheviks". They took over the leadership of the CPC and "systematically" put what they had learned into practice, as a mechanical copy. Then the fifth campaign against the base areas came and it was successful because the developments weren’t obeyed by Chairman Mao. The result was that 100,000 communists, fighters and masses had to embark the long march to Yenan. They marched 12,000 km while constantly battling. In addition, the deserting of Chang Kao Cho happened, who was at first accompanied by the main body of the army.

Later, imperialist Japan invaded China. They occupied northern China and installed a puppet regime. 1936, the general war against China began. The CPC proposed a united front and Chiang Kai-shek was forced to sign (he was arrested and threatened with death) by his own generals. The revolutionary forces split into the 8th Red Army as the main force and the New 4th Army - the guerrilla units. The CPC also led the fight against the systematic disruption of the united front. After defeating Japan in 1945, the CPC developed a proposal for a national-democratic government and made a peace offer to the Kuomintang. Chiang, a puppet of the US and bureaucratic capitalists, rejected this offer and civil war began. The revolutionary Chinese people achieved victory in the civil war in 1949.

The Korean War follows, with a large number of volunteers from the PR China participating. Because of that it was possible that the US and its henchmen could be pushed back, even though they used B and C weapons. Furthermore, there was a border war with India in 1962, which was instigated by the Nehru regime and conflicts on the border of the now social-imperialist Soviet Union.

There have been acts of war in small (e.g. in the area of Changshas), middle and large (e.g. in the Liaoshen campaign), as well as in megapolises (e.g. in the Pingjin campaign), fightings in the jungle, in the mountains and in the plains, uprisings (e.g, in Nanchang), guerrilla warfare, movement war and position war (e.g. in the Huaihai campaign), war against opponents who used modern weapons of mass destruction (B and C weapons) (e.g. in Korea), war against the national reactionaries (e.g. warlords and Kuomintang) and imperialist attacks (e.g. by USA and Japan) - in short, almost all imaginable forms of modern war are among the experiences of the Chinese revolution. It’s important to know these broad generalities in order to understand why this development happened there, under what conditions and on what basis.

“The People’s War is the military theory of the international proletariat; in it are summarized, for the first time in a systematic and complete form, the theoretical and practical experience of the struggles, military actions, and liberation wars waged by the proletariat, and the prolonged experience

of the people’s armed struggle and especially of the incessant wars in China. It is with Chairman Mao that the proletariat attains its military theory; nevertheless, there is much confusion and misunderstanding on this issue. And much of it springs from how the People’s War in China is seen. Generally, it is considered derisively and contemptuously simply as a guerrilla war; this alone denotes a lack of understanding. Chairman Mao pointed out that guerrilla warfare achieves a strategic feature; but due to its essential fluidity, the development of guerrilla warfare is not understood as it exists, how it develops mobility, a war of movements, of positions, how it unfolds great plans of the strategic offensive and the seizure of small, mid-sized, and big cities, with millions of inhabitants, combining the attack from outside with the insurrection from within. Thus, in conclusion, the four periods of the Chinese revolution, and mainly from the agrarian war until the people’s war of liberation, considering the anti-Japanese war of resistance between both, shows the various aspects and complexities of the revolutionary war waged during more than twenty years amidst a huge population and an immense mobilization and participation of the masses. In that war there are examples of every kind; and what is principal has been extraordinarily studied and its principles, laws, strategy, tactics, rules, etc. masterfully established. It is, therefore, in this fabulous crucible and on what was established by Marxism-Leninism that Chairman Mao developed the military theory of the proletariat: The People’s War.

We must fully bear in mind that subsequently, Chairman Mao himself, aware of the existence of atomic bombs and missiles and with China already having them, sustained and developed people’s war in order to wage it under the new conditions of atomic weapons and of war against powers and super-powers. In synthesis, people’s war is the weapon of the proletariat and of the people, even to confront atomic wars.

A key and decisive question is the understanding of the universal validity of people’s war and its subsequent application taking into account the different types of revolution and the specific conditions of each revolution. To clarify this key issue it is important to consider that no insurrection like that of Petrograd, the anti-fascist resistance, or the European guerrilla movements in the Second World War have been repeated, as well as considering the armed struggles that are presently being waged in Europe. In the final analysis, the October Revolution was not only an insurrection but a revolutionary war that lasted for several years. Consequently, in the imperialist countries the revolution can only be conceived as a revolutionary war which today is simply people’s war.

Finally, today more than ever, we Communists and revolutionaries, the proletariat and the people, need to forge ourselves in: “Yes. We are adherents to the theory of the omnipotence of the revolutionary war. That it is not bad thing; it is good thing. It is Marxist”; which means adhering to the invincibility of people’s war.“³⁵

 

On the Application

We have to concretize that, that means developing approaches to a military line, what, above all, has to be driven by the reconstituted Communist Party in this country. The military line is the law that determines People's War for the conquest and the maintenance of power. It consists of three elements:

1. The People's War, which in our specific case isn’t a unified People's War, because the New Power will only be built in the cities, while at the countryside only operational points will happen.

2. The construction of the revolutionary armed forces, which in our specific case is a Red Guerrilla Army, with the special feature of the incorporation of the militias to advance to the sea of armed masses.

3. The strategy and tactics expressed by the enemy's encircling and extermination campaigns and our counter-operations of encirclement and annihilation, which must be specified by the application of political and military plans. Those have political strategy and military strategy, they concretize in campaigns with specific content.

In addition, People's War is universal. But what does that mean? Well, first of all, it must be defined what the universal thing about the People's War is. What is its core, its essence? Regarding the basic theoretical aspects that make it up, the Communist Party of Peru has worked out four:

“1) The ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that must be specified in a guiding thought—therefore we base ourselves on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought, primarily the latter;

2) The need for the Communist Party of Peru that leads the People’s War;

3) The People’s War is specified as a peasant war that follows the road of surrounding the cities from the countryside; and

4) Support Bases or the New Power, the construction of the Support Bases, which is the essence of the path of surrounding the cities from the countryside.”³⁶

We fully agree with these four points. Transferred to reality in the Federal Republic this means for us:

1. Apply Maoism! The need for a creative application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, (today with the contributions of the Chairman Gonzalo, Gonzalo-thoughts) on concrete conditions, developing specific ideas for a specific country.

2. The leadership of the Communist Party, a militarized Communist Party.

3. People's War is war of the masses.

4. Establishment of the New Power. The main aspect of the revolutionary war. We have to destroy the enemy to create the new, not because we are nihilists. Generate solutions to the problems that change reality.

The question of ideology ranks first, because only through the consistent application of the ideology of our class, today being Maoism, the way to victory of the proletarian revolution is secured. Thereby, the important thing is the application to the existing conditions of the respective country, meaning for us the conditions of Germany. Just to give an example (which should be obvious), while for the parties in the oppressed nations the democratic revolution is on the agenda, for us in an imperialist country it’s the socialist revolution. But that doesn’t imply that there is an ideology for the oppressed nations and one for the imperialist. The proletariat is a worldwide class and therefore has only one ideology. The question of which type of revolution is appropriate for a corresponding country is therefore a question of the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The importance of ideology also is that even if the reaction can physically eliminate the leadership, then a new leadership can emerge through the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, consequently, the steady generation of leadership is one of the Communists' most important problems, especially in the imperialist countries, where we’re always very close to the reaction due to the work in the cities.

Chairman Mao has taught us that there is only one fundamental law in the world, the law of contradiction. Of course, there are many other laws, but this one is fundamental. Chairman Gonzalo has imbibed this teaching and pointed out that there is always one principal side in the analysis of contradictions, one side always is always predominating. And as truth always develops to higher levels, today we speak of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism. Because with the development to a higher level, therefore Maoism today, the ideology makes a leap to a higher truth. Therefore, there are also contradictions to the lower levels of truth, which means that the principal thing in this contradiction today is, even if Marxism is always a closed system, Maoism. For example, Engels has stated that the legalization and participation of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the electoral circus would be drowned out by the "parties of order" whereas we, „under this legality, get firm muscles and rosy cheeks".³⁷ Lenin has taken this understanding to a higher level. Should we say that both statements are equally true then? No. Lenin has reached a higher level of truth. And that's how Chairman Mao solved problems towards Lenin, such as the question of the united front, and with these developments he reached a higher truth. That is why Maoism is the principal aspect today. Otherwise we would have a situation where Marx would be opposed to Lenin and Lenin to Mao. Instead of seeing the development of Marxism, we would direct it against itself.

Because the ideology of the proletariat is always applied by the best children of its class, it’s constantly enriched with new experiences. Any solution to new problems of the proletarian world revolution is a contribution to Marxism. The titans of thought and action have provided us with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which is omnipotent because it corresponds with our criterion of truth: it reappears itself every day anew in the practice of millions of people. And only on the basis of practice, we can also advance theoretically.

Consequently, it’s obvious that by applying our ideology to the class struggle, i.e. through practice in this country, a guiding thought that systematizes the laws of the class struggle of the country, is evolved. We can see in history that even if the Communists had a program and a general political line and excellent conditions for the development of the revolution, they failed to live up to their responsibility to the proletariat and peoples of the world, because they didn’t solve the specific problems of the revolution in the respective country by going beyond the general forms. There is a very significant example in Germany, where the leadership of the – by that time - second largest Communist Party in the world, with its own clandestine and highly developed military apparatus, didn’t go beyond the general guidelines of the Communist International and didn’t creatively use Marxism to solve new problems. So it failed to initiate and maintain the revolutionary armed struggle.

The question of the party is the question of the organization of our class. It unites the best children of our class. And as already has been said: the party must always carry the rifles, never repent, otherwise the revolution gets lost. When talking about the militarized party, does that mean that every Communist must be a Rambo? No. But every member of the Communist Party must be a combatant and must be able to lead the revolutionary war in practice and theory. Because the militarization of the party describes the amount of all adjustments and accommodations that must be made in order to be able to lead the People's War under all conditions. It’s the militarization of the party that even enabled the comrades in Peru to initiate and develop the People's War.

“The concentric construction of the three instruments is the organic fulfillment of the militarization of the Party and in synthesis it is summarized in what Chairman Gonzalo teaches: “The Party is the axis of everything, it leads the three instruments in an all-round way, its own construction, it absolutely leads the army and the new State as a joint dictatorship aiming toward the dictatorship of the proletariat.””³⁸

 

On the question of People's War as a War of the Masses

On the question of People's War as a war of the masses. The People's War is the concretization of revolutionary violence as a universal law. The question that arises is the question of application.

People's War can’t be a mechanical copy of other countries. Although different revisionists like to portray it as if the People's War was a peasant war or a war "to encircle the cities from the country" (which in the end is the same attempt of falsification, but in other words), these aren’t the essential aspects of the People's War. People's War is a war of the masses and there are masses in the imperialist countries, too. In the oppressed nations, mainly poor peasants under the leadership of the proletariat, are the main force of the revolution. In our situation in Germany, this is the proletariat, and especially its deepest and widest masses, being the main force of the revolution, on which we must rely. It’s not the question of encircling the cities from the country here, but of urban work, while paying attention to the difference between large, medium and small cities. Therefore, the revisionists try to halo People's War as something that it’s not, and afterwards declare it as impossible for Germany. But "dialectical development," isn’t our question, but a dialectical application of the principles of the conduct of People's War, an application according to the conditions of the country in which we unfold our work. The main thing at People's War is the human being, and if there are comrades armed with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, then the problem of weapons can be solved quite simply.³⁹ “The Masses are the Makers of History” isn’t an empty mantra, in the revolutionary war it very clearly becomes reality. The question of whether or not the revolutionary war can exist in the imperialist countries is a question of the politicization, mobilization, organization and arming of the masses. Only with the support of the masses will the army, led by the Party, be able to wage and perpetuate the revolutionary war. There is enough evidence and experience of the international proletariat and peoples of the world, proving that it’s possible to conduct revolutionary war in the imperialist and urban areas, that it’s possible to carry out armed actions in cities for a long time.

All the armed liberation struggles in the imperialist countries - whether in Spain, in Ireland, or by the partisans in World War II - have shown that they can exist there and then, if they enjoy the support of the masses.⁴⁰ It turned out, for example, that the IRA was able to lead an armed struggle for more than 30 years without being defeated militarily. In a country smaller than a German federal state and with a population of under two million, against one of the world's strongest imperialist armies, because they had the support of the masses and built their own structures of power. In France it was possible as well to carry out armed actions in the middle of Paris in opposition to German occupation during World War II.

“On August 23, 1941, the legendary French patriot Pierre Georges [the man was a communist], known as Colonel Fabien, killed a Nazi officer in the middle of Paris on the subway station Barbes. 21 officially registered actions were carried out in July against the railway lines. From June to December 1941, the FTPF had 107 sabotage files, 41 explosive stops and 8 train derailments on their profit account. In a fascist report, 221 attacks on the Paris area are reported for December alone." And further: "Even in Paris, partisans fought so that the German soldiers in the Parisian outskirts hardly dared to go out into the streets at night.”⁴¹

In the uprisings in the French suburbs in 2005, police were lured into ambushes, heavily pelted with stones and sometimes even shot at with shotguns.

This is France in October 2016: "At an intersection near the notorious suburb of La Grande Borne in the south of Paris, two police vehicles were ambushed at the weekend. The intersection is known as a hub for narcotics and gun business and is monitored by video cameras. Criminals repeatedly tried to damage the video cameras. To prevent this, police patrols are regularly ordered to the intersection.

The patrol became a target of criminals on Saturday night. The perpetrators threw incendiary material into the police cars and initially prevented the occupants - two officers at a time - from getting out of their burning vehicles. The four policemen, including two women, suffered severe burn injuries. An official is still in mortal danger. 'They wanted to kill us,' said one of the more injured police on Tuesday at the RTL radio station. He described how the attackers had encircled the cars in “a few seconds”, smashed the windows and threw Molotov cocktails inside. “My colleague from the car behind me was on fire. I threw myself on him and ripped off his shirt” the policeman reported. He never thought that one day it could come to that.”⁴²

The example of Belgium, which is also used by Chairman Mao, has already been mentioned above. Here we want to show what concrete experiences there were in Belgium, whose regular troops were simply overrun by the fascist Wehrmacht, as well as in the Netherlands:

"In Belgium, at the initiative of the Communist Party, the Belgian partisan army had already been formed at the end of 1940. Belgium disproves the opinions expressed by many bourgeois authors about the partisan movement that the causes of the development of the guerrilla warfare are to be found mainly in geographical conditions and in racial and national peculiarities. Geographical conditions were certainly much less favorable in Belgium than, for example, in Yugoslavia or Albania. The land is mostly flat and little wooded. There is no pronounced high mountains. The population density is large, so that one might assume that the formation of partisan detachments and groups would be impossible. However, the Belgian resistance movement has proved very well that, even in such unfavorable circumstances, it was able to develop a strong partisan movement. In accordance with the circumstances, an illegal system was created for the organization of the Belgian guerrilla army, which consisted of three groups: three groups of three grouping to companies, three companies into battalions, and the battalions to Partisan Corps, headed by a commander with his staff. There were also mobile groups that were kept as mobile as possible by motor car. With such a organized organization of partisan combat, it was possible to create an underground army. The partisans usually remained at their place of residence if they didn’t live illegally. The entire country was divided into 5 sectors in which 16 partisan corps operated."⁴³

"They [the Belgian Resistance] derailed trains, caused train collisions, disrupted railroad tracks, interfered with the production of important war operations, attacked occupiers and their Belgian vassals, blew up bridges and locks, destroyed telephone and telegraph cables. In 1941/1942, the Belgian partisans carried out 1757 actions, including 246 explosions and train derailments. In the winter months of 1941 alone, 125 trains were derailed."⁴⁴

"In the final battles for the liberation of Belgium, the partisans occupied some areas even before the arrival of Allied troops and captured thousands of occupants. From September 3 to 12, 1944, the Belgian Partisan Army alone captured 23,000 soldiers and officers of the Nazi resistance in the Borinage area, captured 6 artilleries, more than 100 cars, hundreds of rifle weapons and lost only 85 fighters.”⁴⁵

In the years 1943-1945 armed units of the Communist Party developed tremendous clout against the fascist forces. In the countryside, the Garibaldi Brigade fought, in the city the GAP⁴⁶ - both under the direct leadership of the Communist Party. The latter didn’t just do logistical support tasks such as reporting activities and that kind of things, to support the partisan fight in the country. In Rome⁴⁷, Florence, Bologna, Genoa, Turin and Milan, there were separate sections with multiple cells of the GAP that caused tremendous damage to the fascist regime, including ambushes on troops, railroad and military installations, punitive actions to torturers and officers, and actions by the Proletariat, such as strikes, militarily supported. The GAP, whose members were almost exclusively members of the Communist Party, was later complemented by the SAP⁴⁸, whose mission was to provide broader support to the GAP, through direct participation in armed operations and greater mass incorporation into the armed struggle in the cities.

"In the province of Cuneo and in the Lanzo Valley, where the partisan struggle has developed a particular intensity, partisan formations and the “Cuneo”- departments of the Garibaldi Brigade" made their full contribution by supporting both the strikers in the city and the province of Turin and in their directly controlled areas. All trains that went from the Alpine valleys to Turin were stopped, especially around Pinerolo. The trains, which were occupied with evacuated workers, were prevented from continuing on. At the stations, the military commanders of the partisan assemblies improvised gatherings and aroused great sympathy for the strike. “Republican" militia members were detained and held hostages.

In the Lanzo valley, groups of guerrillas held their trains, controlled the travelers, distributed and sticked leaflets, while the functionaries of the formations spoke with the population about the aims of the strike and awakened approval and enthusiasm.”⁴⁹

"To help the trammen, the Garibaldi fighters intervened with sabotage and blew up the course of the main depots (Leonvacallo, Vittoria, etc.)."⁵⁰

"The partisans used Sunday, when the factories are closed, to interrupt the tram lines again. In fact, only a few lines can be used, while the management is feverishly trying to repair the damage. There are sabotage attempts on the land lines; a group of teenagers set out to cut the electric tram lines while a small group was surprised by the fascists while removing a track. On Saturday and Sunday evening, partisans attack "republican" militia patrols; there are dead and wounded ones, about which the press keeps strictest secrecy. “⁵¹

"The miners of Pieve and the cement factory start to strike. The partisans shut down the aerial cableway to prevent the supply of raw materials from the mountains to the cement factory.”⁵²

"We reported on the actions of the GAP in northern Italy. In all other regions these actions were intensive and effective. Main and secondary lines of the railways were interrupted in Veneto, Emilia and Tuscany. In Patro, a train loaded with explosives was blown up. Three masts of the high-voltage power line in the provinces of Vicenza and Verona and numerous electrical lines in Belluno and in the province suffered the same fate. The German command offered a sum of 100,000 lire for informers of the partisans."⁵³

This form of confrontation, the armed strike, in other words strike plus the other forms of guerrilla action are an important aspect of the work in the People's War, also being developed in the People's Wars in India and Peru.

However, in the cities armed actions were carried out independently of mass protests, which among other things aimed at the annihilation of the living forces of the German and Italian fascists.

"The blow of the groups of the Patriotic Action wasn’t less prompt. A German artillery division was attacked in the center of the city itself (in the street of September 20), and two mounted officers were killed by bombs; in front of the harbor the German patrols were attacked, having dead and wounded ones. Two Blackshirts were judged in Sestri, and in retaliation for the killing of a worker, a bomb was thrown into the barracks of the city militia. But not only the intervention of the groups of the Patriotic Action provided the fight with offensive character. Workers' groups intervened in the proletarian neighborhoods, in some cases tearing groups of unorganized workers into offensive action. In several places, the tram systems were damaged, various tram wagons were damaged by bombing, others forced to stop and made useless; in two cases, the wagons were guarded by police officers. The workers' groups disarmed the police and detained them in the hallways. "⁵⁴

"On the evening of December 23, the fascists held a banquet with the Germans: they had their bread. But they also got lead: a bomb ended the banquet with 7 dead and 15 wounded."⁵⁵

"At the same time, in various cities of Italy the party organized the Groups of Patriotic Action, the storm troopers of the national liberation war. These groups, composed of the best comrades and sympathizers, the bravest, the most devout, those ready to give anything for the future of the Fatherland, immediately began chasing the Germans and the fascist traitors. Already on September 26 last year, a German military train was derailed on the Florence-Bologna route. On the 27th, the Arezzo-GAP set a train loaded with petrol on fire, on the 29th, they blew up a flak battery and an ammunition depot of the Germans, in Milan German soldiers were attacked on the streets of Livorno on October 15, and a fascist barrack in Sampierdarena was attacked on October 20, and so one blow followed the other throughout the whole current year. In Milan, Turin, Genoa, Bologna, Florence, Padua and Trieste, German commandos were attacked during the day, police chiefs shot dead, German officers liquidated, traitors executed and comrades freed from the dungeons, as our dear Giovanni Roveda."⁵⁶

But the Communist Party of Italy not only repeatedly beat down the fascists, but also tried - even if they didn’t explicitly call it that way - to build their own power, where the fascists were struck. Power based on structures that are not unprincipled alliances of different parties, but based on the widest masses and under the leadership of the Communist Party.

"These organs are the National Liberation Committees, Peasant Committees, Village Committees, Partisans, and Patriotic Formations, etc. We have shown that these organs are the National Liberation Committees, but certainly not the present ones, which in most cases are mere party coalition committees, but mass committees. which organize the masses directly in the enterprises, in the districts, in the villages and in the cities, to express their aspirations and their will directly and immediately and are therefore not instruments of a government, which enforces their will from above, but organs of the Government of the people, the organization of the widest and direct democracy. In these National Liberation Committees, the various parties and the various anti-fascist currents will be represented along with the non-party masses, acting in the same spirit of unity and struggle in which they are already acting."⁵⁷

"Throughout this action, the struggle will be overseen, organized and guided by the fighting committees, the union committee and the communist district leadership. [...] The experiences of the strike week have shown that the masses want and know how to fight and that, being conscious of their strength, they are once again ready to go to war as soon as the union committee, the Communist Party and the Liberation Committee decide to do so."⁵⁸

However, not only in northern Italy the armed struggle was carried out in the cities, in Rome armed actions were also carried out by the armed formations of the Communist Party.⁵⁹

The Red Brigades were able to draw on these experiences in the more recent history of Italy. The experience of the Red Brigades is rich in the lessons we have to study and acquire. Something that we need to develop further in the future. It includes struggles such as in Milan in the early 1980s. In the Alfa Romeo plant ,among others, a department of the Red Brigades ("column Walter Alasia") was active.

They could move relatively freely within the plant and apparently enjoyed the support of many workers, so the organization could survive the great wave of repression in 1979/80. 80% of the organization was composed of young factory workers and that lived legally in the majority. In March 1981, a labor dispute begins in which the Brigate Rosse (BR) intervene:

"In June 1981, the BR abducted the plant’s director-general for Work Organization, Sandrucci. At the same time, the BR hold three other hostages. ... It’s a top cadre of the petrochemical plant of Proto Marghera, an important man of the DC [Christian Democratic Party; author’s note] in Naples and the brother of the traitor Peci."⁶⁰

On the results of this action: "However, it was also a widespread opinion that the column Walter Alasia qualified itself with this action to be a counterforce to the union. It was called an armed trade union movement ... This attitude was confirmed by the result of the abduction: in September, the Cassa Integrati [a form of short-time work; author’s note] was completely stopped."⁶¹

But the proletariat in Germany doesn’t have to look only at other countries for experiences of armed struggle. It has also collected many own experiences. For example, the Ruhr Red Army [Rote Ruhr Armee] and the Hamburg Uprising of 1923 [Hamburger Aufstand]⁶²

Organizations such as the RAF had (at least temporarily) the sympathy of a notinsignificant part of the masses, but they could be destroyed because they didn’t organize the masses. So the question is, how do the masses win, how do the masses organize? This leads us to the problem of the "three with". This means that the communists must live, work and fight with the deepest and widest masses. Every communist must have the opportunity at their home area to connect with the masses, to participate in their struggles and to provide to their struggles with orientation, to show direction. Everywhere they have to promote the initiative of the masses. To realize the "three with" means to actually apply the principle of dedicating the whole life of the Revolution. Who really implements the "three with", knows that the deepest and widest masses are much more the single mothers on the outskirts than the young men with pit bull in the neighborhood. Who really implements the "three with" knows that building a proletarian feminist mass organization is much more important than a rap video with masculine poses. Who really implements the "three with", builds no youth gang, but the party, the army and the front. For the masses, the communists must be normal. It must be normal for the masses to see the red flag wave and the hammer and sickle glint. This normalization is the strategic aspect of communist propaganda. Because when the masses fight, then the Communists fight with them - with a red flag and a hammer and sickle and it's normal. This is only possible if the "three with" are realized. To realize the "three with" means also to proletarianize the petty-bourgeois comrades. Not as an entertaining adventure holiday, not as an internship for the cadre file, but as a life path that you take. This means living the lives of the deepest and widest masses, with all their problems and needs. This means that at the end of the month, the money isn’t enough, the work is making sick, the doctor doesn’t care, and the children go to a bad school. That is what it means dedicating one's life to the revolution. No less, it’s said that the comrades in practice take the correct class standpoint. This is indispensable for the revolution, to ensure that the avantgarde is truly ready for anything, and can truly accept any truth of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, bitter as it may be for the bourgeois ego. And the fundamental truth for the practice of the proletarian revolution is as follows:

“In synthesis, all the mass work of the Party in the Reconstitution was to prepare the initiation of the People's War. As Chairman Mao taught us, before initiating the war, everything is preparation for it, and once it has begun everything serves to develop it. Chairman Gonzalo has applied and firmly developed this principle.”⁶³

On the question of the principles of Communists in warfare, Chairman Gonzalo said:

“Each class has always brought forth its own form of waging war, and its own strategy. And always, the superior strategy has defeated the inferior strategy, and the new class always has the superior strategy and that's what people's war is. There is evidence to prove this. There are military analysts who put it like this: communists, when they have applied their principles, have never lost a war; they have only lost wars when they have not applied their principles.”⁶⁴

Particularly noteworthy, however, are the experiences in Peru. There, on the one hand, the possibility is revealed; on the other hand, the PCP refutes the misconception that People's War is a war that only encircles the cities from the countryside.

 

The construction of the New Power

With this we have dealt with the question of the war of the masses at least so far as we can move on to the next point, the question of the New Power or the base areas. New power is to understand in the sense of state power, i.e. of a new state. In the case of the FRG, this means the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is paramount to show that the construction of the New Power is actually possible in the cities of the imperialist countries. With this we have dealt with the question of the war of the masses at least so far as we can move on to the next point, the question of the New Power or the base areas. New power is in the sense of state power, i. of a new state, to understand. In the case of the FRG, this means the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is paramount to show that the construction of the New Power is actually possible in the cities of the imperialist countries. Again, we use the different experiences that have been made in the world revolution so far. Some experiences were also made without the leadership of the proletariat, such as Northern Ireland.

Marx says on the dictatorship of the proletariat that should “be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.“⁶⁵

Although the people’s committees in Peru are a governmental system of the New Democratic state in development, therefore the mutual dictatorship of the revolutionary classes of the people in the oppressed nations, they can also be applied to the socialist state, which is the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state system is determined by the question of which class prevails? It is the content of politics. The government system is determined by the question of how the class rules? It is the form of politics.

“He establishes that the People’s Committees are materializations of the new State. They are Committees of the United Front; led by Commissars who assume their State functions by commissioning, elected by the Assemblies of Representatives and subject to recall [criticism and self-criticism implied. Author’s note]. They are, up to now, clandestine; they march forward with Commissions, led by the Party applying the rule of the “three thirds”: One third of them are Communists, one third are peasants and one third are progressives, and are sustained by the Army. They apply people’s dictatorship, enforcement and security, exercising violence firmly and resolutely so as to defend the new Power against its enemies and to protect the rights of the people.”⁶⁶

On the question of how the New Power can concretize itself or be concretized in a form, we consider the experiences from Peru:

“These Committees are made up five members, called commissioners because they are commissioned by the masses and subject to recall at any time. They are chosen by Representative Assemblies, which in turn, when possible, are elected by People’s Assemblies of all the masses in a given village. They are led by the Party, and made up of communists, ordinary peasants and other local progressive forces. Their job is to begin to create a new politics, new economics, and new culture in the countryside, as part of preparing to be abke to do so on a countrywide scale.

The Secretary among the five commissioners represents the Party and the proletariat (which is present in the countryside mainly through the Party.) The commissioner of security, also a PCP member, is in charge if the defense of this new political power, by the local population as a whole, organized into militias, along with local guerrilla forces and the mainforces of the People’s Guerrilla Army. This also means preparing the organized withdrawal of villagers from the area, in case that becomes necessary. The security commissioner is also in charge of police functions, taking measures against counter-revolutionaries who attack the new political power or common criminals who harm the masses. Robbery, drugs, constant drunkenness, prostitution, gambling, beating of wives and children, rape and other scourges which long flourished under the protection of the old established authority are now suppressed. The commissioner of production and economy orchestrates the development of a new economy based on a new kind of relations between people.”⁶⁷

“The commissioner of community affairs is in charge of administering justice. This means organizing people’s trials: a prosecutor presents the case of the People’s Committee, the accused has the right to defend himself and present evidence, while the masses of people listen and decide. Another example is the establishment of a damages committee […] This commissioner also presides over marriages. The two people who wish to marry must bring two witnesses to testify to the fact that neither is married to anyone else – that is the only requirement. Community affairs also includes registering births, stocking the people’s medical dispensary (with drugs confiscated from the enemy and herbal medicines) and health examinations of newly-weds and others. Education is guided by the communist outlook and linked with labor. […] The commissioner also organizes recreation, including sporty and culture [...] There is also a commissioner in charge of convening and planning the meetings of the Party-led mass organizations.”⁶⁸

Areas of the New Power or base areas aren’t synonymous with a "liberated area" in the sense that the reactionis no longer able to enter these areas. It’s the question of the fluidity of the people's war, it’s not about conquering and holding territories, but about establishing forms of the New Power, so to regulate the lives of the people. In the FRG it can be assumed that, above all, this work must concentrate on the proletarian neighborhoods of the cities. If in such a neighborhood the work has developed so far that one begins to regulate the life in the quarter and to make the life of the masses as good as possible, that does not mean that the old state was smashed. Here it is necessary to mobilize the masses and to create a movement. Otherwise there is the danger of becoming a complement to the old state and developing social work.

In the antifascist struggle in Italy during the Second World War, valuable experience was also gained here. The Communist Party organized street cells in the cities in addition to the operating cells⁶⁹ and groups were formed to distribute empty houses to bomb victims⁷⁰ and to procure and distribute firewood.

"Organized by the combat committees, workers' groups from Breda, Falk, and other factories started logging the trees of the avenues, and they systematically distributed the logged wood to the people who supported the operation and actively participated in it. SAP and GAP groups guarded to defend the workers' groups against the intervention of German and fascist henchmen.

The fighting committees and the liberation committees not only took the initiative in logging but also tried to solve the food problem directly. The slogan was "to get the food, the wood and the coal where they are", namely in the German and fascist camps, and to organize the "direct exchange between city and country". Through these practical measures, the local liberation committees developed and became the unifying organs of struggle and people’s power.”⁷¹

And all this in the midst of the fascist occupation. The possibilities for the creation of the New Power are thus also given in the cities. In addition to these tremendous successes, there are also very admonishing negative experiences and shortcomings from Italy in the same period. So it’s said among other things: "... we can’t demand that only we and always we’re the first. ... It’s better to make a concession in order to come to union ... "

And further it’s explicitly criticized: "In many partisan units, in many liberated areas the greeting with the clenched fist is usual, there are hammer and sickle and a whole series of communist symbols instead of the symbols of the CLN [National Liberation Committees; Author’s note]. "

And that although it has been analyzed in the strikes of Milan: "It is enough to say "the party", because it’s clear that only one party is really on the plan: the Communist Party, the Workers' Party."⁷²

Here, the dangerof subordinating everything to the front during the fight and, in the end, not building the dictatorship of the proletariat reveals itself. Thus, through the struggle led to a large extent by the Communist Party and that cost the lives of many good comrades, a bourgeois republic and not a state of dictatorship of the proletariat was established.

Also, the work of various organizations in Turkey today, for example in some quarters of Istanbul, proves the possibility of building the New Power in the cities.

The greatest experiences of building the New Power in big cities come from the Communist Party of Peru. In Lima, where almost one-third of the country's population lives, they had originally planned to not build New Power, but merely building resistance centers using the People's Revolutionary Defense Movement (MRDP), in which the party operates. But this work developed so well that the party was also able to build New Power here. These experiences are summarized by the PCP as follows:

“About three years ago, at Lima's MRDP meeting, we discussed the names of organic forms, which will manage the new forms of struggle that will link the workers' struggle with the struggle in the young towns and other neighborhoods (barrial): People's Committee, People's Struggle Committee or simply Struggle Committee. We saw how the People's Committee was not convenient because it could be confused with the People's Committee we organize only in the countryside due to the character of the democratic Revolution. Later on, we discussed how to go on finding forms of Power in the city, because, if we are going to conquer Power in the whole country, we must organize the cities to control them from the underground, and manage everything until the time comes for the final insurrection. We concluded that a Struggle Committee was convenient. However, this is to undermine the Old State in the cities and have the masses follow an organized direction. It is a germinal base that allows the management of Power. The issue is to create means of united action under the leadership of the Party or joint actions united organically with the exercise of authority. We can conceive it as another form of struggle in the people's Power, along with the other five forms, as an additional form of war only in the city. Then the Struggle Committee would be a 6th form of Power and the first germinal form in the city.

The Struggle Committee would have 3 mile stones. The 88th meeting of the MRDP is to apply the Second Session of the Congress: Struggle Committee to coordinate workers and masses in the neighborhoods and young towns, assuming functions; Preparatory Session of the Second Plenum of the Central Committee October-November 1990: Struggle Committee to provide unity, organization and authority; and today, in 1991, the Struggle Committee as we said before the sixth form and first germinal form in the city. Why so today? Because of the development of material reality, These are the facts. The growth of our mass work in and for the People's War has generated it that way.

The main thing is to apply the principles and not to lose direction. Ideas come from practice. We would not have achieved that much by only storming our brains in 1988, nor would we have accomplished it how we have today. At the time it was correct to discuss it, and that is how we delineated the general road. Now the moment has come and reality shows us how to build it. It is the sixth and first form of power in the city, a model to organize germinal forms of the New Power in the cities. We insist that it is not the form of Power we created in the countryside, but a different form. Let's keep in mind its direction and purpose:

First Struggle Committee: TO COORDINATE WORKERS AND NEIGHBORHOOD MASSES (YOUNG TOWNS).

Second Struggle Committee: UNITY - ORGANIZATION – AUTHORITY

Third Struggle Committee: SIXTH FORM AND FIRST GERMINAL FORM IN THE CITY. IT IS NOT THE NEW POWER AS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. TO PREVENT AND OPPOSE IT BE CONSIDERED IN THE SAME WAY AS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. TO CONSIDER IT AS GERMINAL FORM, A NEW AND SIXTH FORM ARISING IN THE CITY LINKED TO PREPARING THE INSURRECTION AND IN FUNCTION TO THE CONQUEST OF POWER COUNTRYWIDE. AN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF CONSTRUCTING THE CONQUEST OF POWER, IN THE CITY, IT IS NOT A COMPLEMENT OF THE ACTION THE OLD STATE TRIES TO DO. QUITE THE CONTRARY, IT AIMS AT NEGATING IT, UNDERMINING IT AND, IN RESPECTIVE, DESTROYING IT TO FORM THE NEW POWER.“⁷³

So the First StruggleCommittee is coordinating the masses in the quarters. The Second Struggle Committee organizes unified actions of the various mass organizations in a quarter, starting to organize the lives of the masses in the quarters and starting to exercise authority, in other words to build state power. The Third Struggle Committee is then the first form of New Power exercised in the cities, whose goal is to eliminate the old state and its rule. Thus, the little builds up to the big and exercises the New Power out of the underground. This work developed so well in some quarters of Lima that the party openly exercised control, but later came to the conclusion that this had gone too far.⁷⁴

This is a completely different understanding, a very different practice than, for example, in the case of Nepal:

"The CPN (M) [Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist); Author’s note] sent an exalted negotiating team ... An office has even been opened in Kathmandu, press conferences have been held, talks have been held with other parties and civil society actors, and mass rallies have been organized. ... At their own discretion, the Maobadi already controlled 80% of the country. The aim was to encircle the cities and at the same time organize an uprising in the cities by building a united front against the king.”⁷⁵

People's War at the countryside and mainly legal democratic work in the city, with the aim of replacing the king with a bourgeois republic - this is the basis of the temporary defeat of the People's War in Nepal. Not only theoretically, but also practically, the four points mentioned above have been used in the history of the International Communist Movement. Not only theoretically, but also in the practice of the world revolution, it’s applicable in the imperialist countries.

 

The principles of the People's War

Finally, the ten military principles of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, that are to be applied, are quoted:

“(1) Attack dispersed isolated enemy forces first; attack concentrated strong enemy forces later.

(2) Take small and medium cities and extensive rural areas first; take big cities later.

(3) Make wiping out the enemy's effective strength our main objective; do not make holding or seizing a city or place our main objective. Holding or seizing a city or place is the outcome of wiping out the enemy's effective strength, and often a city or place can be held or seized for good only after it has changed hands a number of times.

(4) In every battle, concentrate an absolutely superior force (two, three, four and sometimes even five or six times the enemy's strength), encircle the enemy forces completely, strive to wipe them out thoroughly and do not let any escape from the net. In special circumstances, use the method of dealing the enemy crushing blows, that is, concentrate all our strength to make a frontal attack and an attack on one or both of his flanks, with the aim of wiping out one part and routing another so that our army can swiftly move its troops to smash other enemy forces. Strive to avoid battles of attrition in which we lose more than we gain or only break even. In this way, although inferior as a whole (in terms of numbers), we shall be superior in every part and every specific campaign, and this ensures victory in the campaign. As time goes on, we shall become superior as a whole and eventually wipe out the entire enemy.

(5) Fight no battle unprepared, fight no battle you are not sure of winning; make every effort to be well prepared for each battle, make every effort to ensure victory in the given set of conditions as between the enemy and ourselves.

(6) Give full play to our style of fighting - courage in battle, no fear of sacrifice, no fear of fatigue, and continuous fighting (that is, fighting successive battles in a short time without rest).

(7) Strive to wipe out the enemy when he is on the move. At the same time, pay attention to the tactics of positional attack and capture enemy fortified points and cities.

(8) Concerning attacking cities, resolutely seize all enemy fortified points and cities that are weakly defended. At opportune moments, seize all enemy fortified points and cities defended with moderate strength, provided circumstances permit. As for all strongly defended enemy fortified points and cities, wait until conditions are ripe and then take them.

(9) Replenish our strength with all the arms and most of the personnel captured from the enemy. Our army's main sources of manpower and materiel are at the front.

(10) Make good use of the intervals between campaigns to rest, train and consolidate our troops. Periods of rest, training and consolidation should not in general be very long, and the enemy should as far as possible be permitted no breathing space. These are the main methods the People's Liberation Army has employed in defeating Chiang Kai-shek. They are the result of the tempering of the People's Liberation Army in long years of fighting against domestic and foreign enemies and are completely suited to our present situation . . .. our strategy and tactics are based on a people's war; no army opposed to the people can use our strategy and tactics.“⁷⁶

The People's War is protracted. Germany is an imperialist country whose prosperity rests on the exploitation of the proletariat and the extra profits from the oppressed nations. German imperialism, our enemy, is strong. The Communists in Germany are weak, and will remain so even after the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Germany. The Communist Party of Germany will reconstitute itself on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and bring forth a guiding idea for the revolution in Germany. German imperialism is in conflict with the people of Germany, and this contradiction is becoming more and more acute, and will be much more in the wake of the People's Wars in the semi-colonies. The Communist Party of Germany will be an expression of the ideology of the proletariat, which is true and therefore omnipotent. As a consequence the People's War in Germany will be victorious. But German imperialism is still strong and the forces of the revolution are weak. As a consequence the proletarian revolution can’t win quickly. So the People's War is protracted, but invincible. The protracted People's War divides into three periods, the strategic defensive, the strategic equilibrium and the strategic offensive.

“But the objective fact is that there is a large disparity between the forces of the enemy and our forces and for us to go from weak to strong requires a period of time, one in which the defects of the enemy are exposed and our advantages are developed. Therefore, we say that our army appears weak but is strong in essence and the enemy’s army appears strong but is weak in essence. Thus, to go from weak to strong we must carry forward the protracted war and this has three stages: The first is the period of the strategic offensive of the enemy and the strategic defensive of our forces. The second will be the period of the strategic consolidation of the enemy and of our preparation for the counteroffensive. The third will be the period of our strategic counteroffensive and of the strategic withdrawal of the enemy.”⁷⁷

The strategic problem of the Communists being one against ten is solved by the tactics of pittingten against one. A principle of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that Li Tso Peng⁷⁸ summarized as follows:

“The method of concentrating a superior force to destroy the enemy forces one by one also embodies the idea of despising the enemy strategically. For only strategically despising the enemy and displaying a revolutionary and militant spirit “pitting one against ten” can we remain cool-headed in face of a enemy and not be overawed by his truculence or confused by a complex situation; only in this way will we dare to concentrate our forces and deal the enemy’s blows. On the other hand, victories won in a succession of campaigns and battles – by the use of this method – will further educate the people and their army and enable them to see clearly through their own experience that the enemy can be defeated and that it is entirely correct to despise him strategically. This will inevitably increase the confidence of the people and their army in their struggle against the enemy and encourage them to fight and win still greater victories.”⁷⁹

We hope that with this work we have been able to make a small contribution towards reconstructing the great and glorious Communist Party of Germany on the correct basis and with the correct perspective.