(CPI (ML) Red Star’s Reply to “Polemic of MLPD against
the Attacks Coming from CPI (ML) Red Star on the MLPD
and the Principles of ICOR” with the supplementary title
“Reply of the CC of MLPD to the Slanderous Attacks on
ICOR and MLPD by P J James, General Secretary of CPI
(ML) Red Star”, dated August 2024.]
Introduction
This is our response to MLPD’s 56-page Polemic against CPI (ML) Red Star noted above,
in continuation of our 114-page Polemics on MLPD’s manoeuvres to deviate ICOR from
its accepted/adopted positions, which was already published as an online booklet on
31 March 2024, and thus made available to all ICOR members through internet.
However, MLPD has published its ‘Polemic’ in print form for circulation world-wide.
According to MLPD’s perverted thinking, while circulation via e-mails and Internet
invariably takes place “in front of secret services and other enemies”, the same if done
through print media, it would be totally immune from such interferences! That’s why, it
is propagating baseless allegations against CPI (ML) Red Star in print form. However, on
account of financial constraints, we once again regret our inability to publish this
response in print form and circulate it among ICOR members worldwide as MLPD does.
At the outset, we mention this only to put on record our general observation on
MLPD’s strange mindset and way of presenting things. But, when we clarify our
position, MLPD stamps it as “unfounded attacks and intrigues”, whereas, while MLPD
propagates slanderous accusations against us, that should be considered as “criticism
and self-criticism”.
In fact, in the 114-page Polemics that CPI (ML) Red Star has published on 31 March
2024, and in the 5-page letter on 16 August 2024 addressed to Monika, ICOR Main
Coordinator who also represents MLPD, we had pointed out the ideological and
organisational deviations of ICOR from its founding/statutory positions solely due to
the manipulations by MLPD and superimposing of its positions as that of ICOR. Of
course, MLPD has the right to uphold its ideological-political positions as sacrosanct,
and other parties in ICOR have their right to change positions, but that should not be
dragged or superimposed on ICOR since the latter has to function based on the
positions adopted at the founding conference and as amended in successive
conferences. And since the founding of ICOR, CPI (ML) Red Star has been consistently
pursuing this approach. We have never gone or have anything to do with the internal
affairs of MLPD, rather the debate started when it began to superimpose its
Eurocentric and social chauvinist positions on CPI (ML) Red Star (and on other ICOR
members from Afro-Asian-Latin American countries) as if they are accepted theories.
Our response to MLPD’s latest tirade against CPI (ML) Red Star including personally
targeting James, its General Secretary is still in conformity with this stand.
Our response to MLPD’s vicious campaign is also in the context of the unilateral
removal of CPI (ML) Red Star from the position of Deputy Main Coordinator (we were
holding that position since the founding of ICOR) and Coordinator of ICOR-Asia,
through interventions by MLPD. Revealingly, ICOR Office led by MLPD took special care
to ensure CPI (ML) Red Star’s absence in the 5th World Conference by deliberately
delaying the sending of Commitment Form and other documents required for getting
Visa, that too under the neofascist situation in India now. Since we have already
explained this matter in detail with concrete evidence in the 5-page Letter dated 16
August (that also through Internet), we are not repeating those details here. Today, we
are responding to MLPD’s slanderous attacks on CPI (ML) Red Star after the abrupt and
unceremonious removal of Kabeer from Deputy Main Coordinator of ICOR and Sankar
from ICOR-Asia Coordinator. In the ensuing debate, we are confining to our ideological
and organisational differences with MLPD and against the manner in which they are
unilaterally superimposed on ICOR members as accepted positions.
More on the Prognosis of “New imperialist Countries”
Since much has already been discussed on this matter in the Polemics on New
Imperialism published by CPI (ML) Red Star in 2018, there is no need in repeating the
same again. However, clarification on certain conceptualisations by MLPD while
dealing with the new imperialist discourse is again required. Of particular interest in
this regard is MLPD’s relentless and oft-repeated term “solely ruling international
finance capital”. For instance, in MLPD’s Preface to the recent Polemic against CPI (ML)
Red Star, the first sentence itself starts thus: “Solely ruling international finance capital
has led humankind into a latent existential crisis: the global environmental crisis that
has begun, an acute danger of a Third World War, and the international danger of
fascism” (p 5). Of course, this is not its new formulation. In the Introduction to his
2011 book, Dawn of the International Socialist Revolution, for instance, Comrade
Stefan had opined: “The economic role of the nation-sates increasingly is being taken
over by the cartel of solely ruling international finance capital, the leading imperialist
states and the international organisations dominated by them” (pp 9-10). Elsewhere it
is also stated that this “solely ruling international finance capital” is “made up of
approximately of the 500 biggest international super-monopolies.”
Now let us clarify our position on this. Firstly, the view that 500 biggest global
monopolies alone or exclusively control and dominate all spheres and sectors of the
world and that the leading imperialist regimes and international organisations are
under their domination are not in conformity with a Marxist dialectical perspective,
nor in agreement with concrete facts. Rather, it is an economistic, reductionist,
mechanical, simplistic and dogmatic perspective that gives excessive and onedimensional focus on economic aspects in disregard of the interpenetrating politicaleconomic, historical, military and cultural spheres and their relations. Relegating state
power and concomitant political-economic and military relations to the background
and putting forward a few super-monopolies as the “solely ruling” entities is against
Marxist understanding and smack of “ultra-imperialism” or “super-imperialism” coined
by Kautsky. Here, MLPD’s frequently used formulation “petty bourgeois mode of
thinking” (in the 2011 Dawn of the International Socialist Revolution by Stefan Engel,
two whole chapters are set apart for unravelling “Petty-Bourgeois Mode of Thinking”
(pp 196-2016 and 274-292) aptly suits MLPD itself. And, our appeal to MLPD is to stop
exporting this Eurocentric conceptualisation to ICOR members and Communist parties
from other countries.
The whole “conceptualisation of new imperialist countries” is also based on this “pettybourgeois mode of thinking”. Of course, while MLPD has every right to cling on to such
an absurd formulation, what we challenge is the inadvertent and subtle way in which
this concept is dragged into ICOR resolutions and statements. Therefore, we are again
compelled to comment on this formulation. CPI (ML) Red Star is of the firm opinion
that everything is constantly changing and that this logic is applicable to the system of
imperialism too. However, this should not be construed as agreeing with the erroneous
new imperialist prognosis of MLPD. For instance, in its Polemic, referring to the speech
of P J James at the 2017 International Seminar on October Revolution held in Germany,
MLPD quotes him as saying: “We are grateful to MLPD for initiating this debate about
new-imperialism” (p 6). This does not imply that CPI (ML) Red Star upholds MLPD’s
wrong hypothesis; rather it is an acknowledgement for creating the situation for a
fierce debate on imperialism today.
That is, James had never endorsed the erroneous new imperialist hypothesis
promulgated by MLPD. Rather, the quoted speech, among other things explained then,
is an acknowledgement that the MLPD’s prognosis has opened up scope for rigorous
evaluation of imperialism by Communist parties and arrive at correct position from a
Marxist-Leninist perspective. In fact, two articles, entitled “India: Neo-Colony or New
Imperialist? On MLPD’s Evaluation about State Character of India” and “On MLPD’s
Thesis on New Imperialist Countries” published in May 2015 and August 2016 Issue of
Red Star, Organ of CPI (ML) Red Star, and authored respectively by Sankar and James,
then Central Committee members of the Party, had vehemently criticised this
formulation, for which Stefan had to reply on 30 March 2017 in his article, “On the
Emergence of a Number of New Imperialist Countries: Reply to …”. Therefore, unlike
MLPD’s claim, which is a self-satisfaction, in the International Seminar, James was
“grateful” to MLPD not for inventing “new imperialist countries”, but for initiating a
serious debate on it, and the 3rd World Conference of ICOR that took place after the
Seminar amply proved it. And, contrary to our understanding, it was in the abovementioned article published on 30 March 2017 that Stefan noted: “By new-imperialist
countries, MLPD mean the BRICS states Brazil, Rusia, India, China and South Africa, the
MIST states Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey, along with Argentina, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iran.”
Coming to the prognosis of “new imperialist countries”, the Polemic says: “Most of the
new imperialist countries have emerged in connection with the reorganisation of
international production since the 1990s” (p 11). If so, why “Twilight of the Gods–
…New World Order” published in 2003, does not even have a mention on the so called
“new imperialist countries” while there is elaborate analysis on Russia and China as
imperialist powers. More specifically, in that 566-page book, MLPD characterised
China as “most aggressively growing imperialist country” (p186) along with such
synonyms as “bureaucratic monopoly capitalism”, “social imperialism”, etc. MLPD’s
documents have already acknowledged Russia as “social imperialist” in the 1970s. In
the same vein, the notes, minutes and statements that came out at the time of the
founding conference of ICOR in 2010 also do not mention anything on “new imperialist
countries”. And, till the second decade of the 21st century, MLPD had no mention on
India and other neocolonial countries as “new imperialist”. It was in Stefan’s Dawn of
the International Socialist Revolution published in 2011 that for the first time
mentioned about this prognosis and only since 2015 that the revelation linking “new
imperialist countries” with the “reorganisation of international production since the
1990s” has put forward. All these arise from the basic inability of the laws of motion of
finance capital under neoliberalism. This needs a brief explanation.
In fact, unlike MLPD’s claim, rather than since the 1990s, in our view, the
“reorganisation of international production” needs to be traced back to the 1970s, and
is coterminous with the collapse of Keynesianism and emergence of neoliberalism. In
fact, it got an added vigour in the post-Cold War period since the 1990s. The material
basis of the policy-shift towards neoliberalism was the emergence of a whole set of
new technologies relating to production and processing that accomplished a multistage decomposition of production making it possible to transplant different stages of
production to remote global locations. Coupled with this, the emergence of
technologies since the late 1960s relating to transportation, communication and
information rendered industrial location and control over production as well as
management and business organisation increasingly less dependent on geographic
distances. From the 1970s onward, this enabled US-led imperialism to restructure the
basis of centralised and nation-centred production and initiate a ‘new international
division of labour’ weakening and fragmenting the collective bargaining power of
workers and snatching away their hard-earned democratic rights that came into being
under erstwhile state-led development and so-called Keynesian welfare capitalism. In
contrast, the outcome of internationalisation of production and new international
division of labour has been the so called “informalisation” of working class resulting in
the exponential growth in the number of unorganised or informal workers devoid of
centralised wage structure, collective bargaining, standardised forms of welfare, etc.,
enabling MNCs to resort to a global “flexible specialisation” of the workers with little
scope for factory-level organisation, thereby unleashing horrific super-exploitation on
the workers of neocolonial countries and biggest surplus value extraction from them
by international capital.
To put it differently, neoliberalism that began in the form of Thatcherism and
Reaganomics in imperialist
To put it differently, neoliberalism that began in the form of Thatcherism and
Reaganomics in imperialist countries in the mid-1970s and then transplanted to
neocolonial countries through globalisation, by tapping the inexhaustible supply of
cheap labour in Afro-Asian-Latin American countries, while enabled imperialism to tide
over the crisis of the 1970s, totally altered the policy-shift in dependent neocolonial
countries towards “export-oriented development” or “export-led growth” thereby
destroying the erstwhile orientation towards domestic or inward-looking development.
The 21st century technological revolutions leading to the emergence of a whole set of
“frontier technologies” beginning with digitisation and leading to the latest
developments around AI, have intensified this internationalisation process spanning
almost half-a-century. Coupled with this global integration and expansion of capital to
unprecedented levels as manifested in hitherto unknown levels of super-exploitation
of labour and plunder of nature by corporate capital, has been the spectacular growth
in the financial sphere or so called “financialisation” totally cutting off its link with real
production since the crisis of the 1970s. Its outcome has been bubbling of the financial
sphere utilising the advancements in specific technologies and relative stagnation in
the productive sphere transforming the whole world into a wasteland of
unemployment. The consequent terribly destructive trend in neocolonial-neoliberal
accumulation that delinks production from finance and that lags the productive sector
far behind, and enabling the leading corporate billionaires to make the biggest surplus
value extraction by remaining in the fast-growing speculative and money-spinning
financial sphere, also results in fabulous global wealth concentration with a few
financial corporate billionaires whose sole sphere of action is speculative financial
activities that comprise largest share of world economy today.
Obviously, the biggest casualty of this transformation in the logic or laws of motion of
finance capital has been the working class in both imperialist and dependent
neocolonial countries and oppressed peoples of the world as a whole. The complex
and multi-dimensional process of internationalisation of capital coupled with the
already noted global reorganisation of production and new international division of
labour together with the bubbling financial speculation, while resulted in new
regimentation and regulation of working class in imperialist countries led to a further
intensification of imperialist super-exploitation and plunder of labour and resources of
neocolonial countries. Simultaneously, the new avenues of multi-stage decomposition,
global relocation and dis-aggregation of production and consequent global assembling
and outsourcing under unfettered cross-border mobility of imperialist capital have
devastated even the namesake domestic industrial and productive base that were so
assiduously built up under the erstwhile Keynesian state-led development paradigm
that collapsed with the advent of neoliberal globalisation. It is here that MLPD’s
prognosis that “new imperialist countries have emerged in connection with the
reorganisation of international production since the 1990s” needs serious scrutiny.
The internationalisation of production and whole processes including global assembly
line associated with it under neoliberalism altered the emphasis from domestic or
nation-centred production to export or foreign market-oriented development. In the
same vein, along with unfettered and free cross-border mobility of capital, policydecisions of neocolonial countries shifted from state-led bureaucratic apparatus to
corporate board-rooms embodying unholy nexus between most corrupt political
leadership and CEOs of corporate capital – often called “crony capitalism”. Taking
advantage of this situation, the big bourgeoisie in neocolonial countries, who were
essentially ‘comprador’ in character, and who made substantial productive base during
the protective regime of erstwhile state-led development, began to integrate
themselves with global capital under neoliberal globalisation. This integration with
globalised production and global market enabled the big bourgeoisie in neocolonial
countries to become “junior partners” of imperialist capital or MNCs and making
substantial gains from neoliberal plunder, albeit with their abject and despicable
dependence on latter for the fast-developing frontier technologies ranging from
digitisation to AI. Consequently, the ruling regimes of neocolonial countries like India,
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Australia have now
become junior partners of imperialism today. While ultimately depending on
imperialism, these junior partners are in a position to bargain among various
imperialist powers too.
In this context, it would be in order to say a few words about MLPD’s oft-repeated
jargons in relation to “international industrial proletariat”, imminent “international
socialist revolution”, etc. As already noted, the new technology-based
internationalisation of production coupled with rapid growth of the so called “tertiary”
or service sectors and concomitant new international division of labour and the so
called “flexible specialisation” have led to a global disaggregation and international
“informalisation” of the working class such that the percentage of unorganised or
informal workers in total workforce with no employment guarantee, legal protection
and social security coverage has already crossed 60 percent of the total workers at the
global level. According to available data, the share of this most super-exploited
informal section in total working class comprises around 12 percent in European
Union, 44 percent in US, 65 percent in Latin America, 85 percent in Africa and 68
percent in Asia. In India, the share of informal workers in total workforce has crossed
90 percent. These unorganised/informal, diversified, part-time, casual, self-employed,
undeclared and precarious workforce, and mainly belonging to women, immigrants,
minorities and oppressed sections at a global level, are engaged in many diversified
categories such as domestic and home-based workers, street vendors and petty
traders, garment workers, waste-pickers, construction workers, gig workers and those
working in a number of micro-manufacturing and financial sectors and so on. In this
context, MLPD’s conceptualisation of a homogenous ‘international industrial
proletariat’ being ready to launch international socialist revolution is inconsistent with
concrete reality and quite insufficient to unravel the essence of the highly diversified
and heterogenous workers and oppressed peoples engaged in informal work according
to the concrete political-economic, social and historical realities of countries.
In our view, MLPD’s erroneous hypothesis on “new imperialist countries” and the
conceptualisation that vast majority of world people now live in imperialist countries is
the culmination of the mechanical transplanting of its Eurocentric understanding on
revolution to neocolonial countries in gross disregard of the concrete realities there. As
we have already explained, MLPD’s argument that internationalization of production
since the 1990s (here too, MLPD is very late in pursuing things, as this process dates
back to the 1970s) has transformed many neocolonial countries into “strong imperialist
powers” even capable to challenge old imperialist powers, is nothing but a 21st century
neoliberal apology of imperialism. On the other hand, CPI (ML) Red Star has been of
the consistent position that internationalization capital that began with the
abandonment of so called “welfare capitalism” and embrace of neoliberalism from the
1970s onward, have totally undermined any possibility of an inward-looking and selfexpanding path of ‘development’ in neocolonial countries. While neoliberal
globalization coupled with internationalization production provided new opportunities
for erstwhile comprador bourgeoisie of neocolonial countries to integrate with global
capital and have a share of intensified plunder by MNCs from imperialist countries
thereby transforming themselves as junior partners of the latter, it pushed vast
majority of the working and oppressed masses in Afro-Asian-Latin American countries
to more destitution and poverty while, at the same time, resulting in horrific levels of
wealth concentration with imperialist powers.
Coming to the case of India, in our view, the amassing of huge wealth by Adani and
Ambani like billionaires under neoliberalism is not a sufficient condition for India to be
qualified as imperialist. Even during the prewar period, when India was the colony of
Britain, Tata, Birla and similar other globally known big bourgeois sections born and
brought up under the fostering care of colonialism had amassed huge wealth and were
at par with British monopolies in terms of wealth; but still, India being Britain’s colony,
these companies operated within the colonial framework. In the same vein, in spite of
the post-Cold War integration of the big bourgeoisie from India with globalized finance
capital, and amassing huge wealth in the process, the class character of the
neocolonial Indian regime still remains essentially the same under neoliberalism. And
even today, crucial policy-decisions of the Indian regime are based on the diktats of the
postwar neocolonial-neoliberal arms of US-led imperialism such as Bretton Woods twin
(IMF and World Bank or Fund-Bank combine), WTO, etc., even as US imperialism is still
having even veto power in Fund-Bank Combine. When MLPD calls India as imperialist,
even latter’s annual budget deficit is dictated by IMF, the US neocolonial arm, whereas
Indian parliament remains as a spectator.
As we have already said, though India cannot be categorized as a mere ‘puppet’ of USled imperialism, and despite being a regional expansionist power which is capable to
bargain with imperialist powers, Indian regime still lacks the essential conditions for an
independent and self-expanding capitalist development. At the same time, unlike
MLPD’s erroneous and mechanical approach of qualifying India as “proto-fascist”
according to our understanding, Indian regime is a full-fledged fascist one led by RSS
(Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), world’s biggest and longest-running organization with
its ideology of ‘Hindutva’ or political Hinduism with its time-tested unwavering
allegiance and servility to US imperialism. And, unlike the colonial period, when
classical fascism was mainly centered in European countries like Italy and Germany, on
account of the postwar internationalization of capital, fascism is flourishing across the
world including neocolonial Afro-Asian Latin American countries. Further, as one of the
strategic junior partners of US imperialism in Asia, India also acts as a launching pad for
US machinations targeting imperialist China. While our Party together with the working
class and oppressed people of India are struggling to overthrow the Indian fascist
regime that serves neocolonial interests of imperialism, MLPD is stamping us using its
trump-card “petty-bourgeois mode of thinking”, since we are abstaining from
qualifying Indian regime as imperialist.
On the other hand, imperialist China with its own specificities being quite different
from that of the Anglo-Saxon West, is decisively challenging US by carving out
neocolonial spheres of influence across the world through its advancements in frontier
technologies such as digitization and AI, leading SCO, RCEP and BRICS through which it
even has proposed a de-dollarization strategy, thereby striking at the very root of
postwar US hegemony, and above all by initiating the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),
world’s biggest postwar capital export program that had already extended its tentacles
even to Latin America, often called the ‘backyard’ of Yankee imperialism. To quote a
latest example, the impact of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s launch of a free open-source
AI model on US Silicon Valley had resulted in vanishing $ 2 trillion (equal to almost 50%
of the GDP of India, world’s most populous country with around 1.45 billion people)
from US stock market on 25 January 2025 alone. Shamefully, India which MLPD
characterizes an imperialist power, still being incapable to manufacture even a
semiconductor chip, is abjectly depending on its import from imperialist China, which
has even surpassed the US by making world’s first super-fast AI chip made of carbon
thereby surpassing Silicon Valley in this filed. With India’s abject dependence on China
and US for AI technology, such an eventuality is not possible here. That’s why, taking
into consideration MLPD’s tirade against CPI (ML) Red Star for not acknowledging India
as imperialist coupled with its revealing silence on flourishing Chinese imperialism, we
are constrained to say that MLPD is performing the role of a typical apologist of
Chinese imperialism. Meanwhile, while these lines are being written, Modi regime’s betrayal of Indian
people and its bootlicking of US imperialism, now led by neofascist Trump, are exposed
more than ever. As everybody knows, on account of intensifying corporate loot by both
Indian and global capital under the fascist Modi regime, India is transforming into a
‘citadel of poverty’ and a ‘wasteland of unemployment’. As a result, hundreds of
thousands of hapless Indians, in search of livelihood and survival are illegally migrating
to imperialist countries, and more particularly to US, the so called “paradise of
democracy”, where alone around 725000 undocumented and illegal Indians are
already identified. Now, as part of his anti-immigrant policy, far-right Trump is forcibly
deporting them to India, their country of origin, in the most undignified and inhumane
manner in military aircrafts, as if these undocumented immigrants are criminals,
murderers, and drug dealers. In this regard, Latin American countries such as
Columbia, Brazil, Mexico, etc., have strongly objected to sending their nationals in
military planes and after bargaining with Trump regime, sent civilian flights for their
‘dignified deportation’. There are other dimensions to the painful and deplorable state
of hapless poverty-stricken Indian youths. According to a report, 127 poor young
Indians have illegally joined the Russian army only to become mere cannon-fodder in
the Ukraine war.
However, the Indian regime, a true lackey of US imperialism, came forward
shamelessly justifying the Indian deportees in leg-shackles and handcuffs including
women and children restrained with ropes around their legs on board the US military
plane on a 42-hour flight. In India, when public opinion against the heinous US move
started surging forward, the Modi government justified the US move as “standard
operating procedure” which was unprecedented, as it is tantamount to intimidating
the country of origin, and hence condemned by Latin American countries as most
undignified. Revealingly, even nationals of Nepal which according to MLPD is subject to
“supremacy”, “aggressive actions and interference” by India, were also given a
deportation in chartered flight. Of course, under both colonialism and neocolonialism,
the extreme imperialist servitude of RSS, the mentor of fascist Modi regime, is already
well-documented. For instance, during the late 1960s, when world people were solidly
standing with the heroic struggle of Vietnamese people against US imperialism, it was
RSS that came forward sending a letter to the then US president Johnson
wholeheartedly supporting the most heinous US military offensive against Vietnam,
and eulogizing it as “the leader of the Free World”.
Today, under global neofascism, the despicable imperialist servility RSS-led Indian
regime has crossed all limits. In the discussions with Modi during latter’s US visit,
Trump directed him to further open-up Indian market by increasing the purchases of
obsolete defense equipment, archaic modular nuclear plants, critical and emerging
technologies such as semiconductors, AI infrastructure and a number of bilateral trade
agreements pushing down Indian tariffs, transforming India into a dumping ground for
a series of consumer and capital goods from US. Trump also has put forward a plan for
strengthening the US-led Quad, in which India is also a member, which is targeted
against China. At the same time, Musk-led DOGE (Department of Government
Efficiency) had withdrawn the imperialist master’s $21 million allocation from USAID,
another neocolonial tool of US, for increasing “voter turnout in India” and thereby
bourgeoning ‘democracy’ under Modi regime, which is projecting itself as “Mother of
Democracy”.
To be precise, while the imperialist master Trump could easily superimpose his agenda
on the neocolonial lackey, Modi could not do anything in the direction of safeguarding
the priorities of Indian people. When MLPD with its baseless and distorted Eurocentric
conceptualization on “new imperialist countries”, depicting India-like countries as
strong imperialist powers capable even to challenge “old imperialist powers”, it is high
time on the part of all concerned members of ICOR as well as all Marxist-Leninists the
world over, to come forward exposing the hollowness and stupidity of this prognosis
and resolutely condemn it without any delay. Revealingly, during his first term as US
president, Trump himself had exposed how shameless are the ruling regimes of the
neocolonial countries, which MLPD categorizes as “aggressive” imperialist military
powers such as India, Saudi Arabia, etc. For instance, as we had already pointed out,
led by Saudi and others, when oil prices were increased during 2018, Trump, referring
to an earlier talk, openly said: “We protect Saudi Arabia – would you say they’re rich?
… And I love the King, King Salaman, but I said, ‘King, we’re protecting you. You might
not be there for two weeks without us. You have to pay for your military, you have to
pay.” It is a pity that MLPD, obsessed with its blurred vision on “new imperialist
countries” cannot comprehend the political undertones behind this Trumpian threat!
MLPD asks: “Does he (James) really want to lump imperialist countries like South
Korea, Brazil, Turkey or South Africa together with countries like Congo, Nepal or
Paraguay, which are subject to intensified neocolonial exploitation and oppression?
The desperate effort to label all of these countries as neo-colonially dependent
ultimately corresponds to a rehash of the Three Worlds Theory.” In the same place it
further says: “But if you ask the masses in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or in many
African and Latin American countries today, it is also Chinese, Indian, Brazilian, or
Russian monopoly capitalists who are exploiting them.” Regarding this, no elaboration
is needed further since, in our earlier Polemics, we have already expressed our firm
opposition to MLPD’s “ultra-imperialist” or “super-imperialist” prognosis of lumping
both Russia and China (the latter even successfully challenging US, the supreme
neocolonial arbiter in many fields), the only two countries that transformed into
imperialist powers during postwar neocolonialism, together with countries like India,
Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc., who are junior partners of
imperialism.
For instance, the updated Party Program of CPI (ML) Red Star states: “3.18. Meanwhile,
internationalization of production and global integration of finance capital have
enabled many of the emerging Indian corporate billionaires to become junior partners
of MNCs even while retaining their dependence on imperialism in relation to
technology and market. The Indian State’s policy decisions, both domestic and foreign,
are still subject to the diktats of neocolonial-neoliberal institutions. This has its political
ramifications. In the context of changes in inter-imperialist contradictions and shifting
of global balance of power at the international level together with cut-throat
competition among various imperialist powers for market, raw materials and avenues
of investment, the Indian state has also acquired substantial capacity to bargain with
imperialists. With the dissolution of the Soviet bloc followed by post-Cold War
neoliberalism, as junior partner of US imperialism and as its strategic ally, Indian state
has also displayed its expansionist designs in South Asia, that too within the broader
framework of its neocolonial dependence on imperialism.”
CPI (ML Red Star, unlike the social chauvinist and ultra imperialist positions of MLPD, is
capable to recognize the impact of Indian expansionism in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and
Nepal. That’s why, the Party Program identifies one of the tasks of the People’s
Democratic State as: “5.22. Based on equality and peaceful co-existence, establish
friendly relations in all fields with the neighboring countries. Resolve all boundary
disputes through friendly negotiations.” However, the Party is also well-aware how US
imperialism is effectively utilizing Indian regime as a strategic junior partner and as a
launching pad in its machinations against China in the context of sharpening Sino-US
inter-imperialist contradictions in the Indo-Pacific. Meanwhile, developments in US
have adversely affected the Sri Lankan projects of Adani, India’s biggest corporate
billionaire and closest ‘crony-capitalist’ of the Modi regime. Following the levelling of
bribery charges against Adani by US Security and Exchange Commission, Adani was
forced to abandon the $ 553 million funding from US International Development
Finance Corporation for the Adani-led Sri Lankan port project, one of the Indian
infrastructure projects funded by US imperialism to counter Sri Lankan projects
managed under BRI, biggest-ever capital export program in imperialist history, as
already noted. In the same vein, Adani is facing many setbacks in Bangladesh under
the Yunus-led regime there. To be precise, the straitjacket new imperialist perception
of MLPD is incapable to properly identify these concrete facts.
MLPD’s Historical Falsification of the ICM Slogan “Workers and
Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite”
To be frank, MLPD’s social chauvinist and petty-bourgeois mode of thinking is more
explicit in its interpretation of the “class slogan” of International Communist
Movement (ICM) as an “alliance slogan” and as a mere ‘extension’ of the 1848 slogan
of Communist Manifesto. In this regard, our 31 March 2024 Polemics had stated thus:
“According to Leninism which is Marxism in the epoch of imperialism, international
revolution comprises two streams: viz., Socialist Revolution in imperialist countries and
People’s Democratic Revolution in dependent countries oppressed by imperialism.
Therefore, Lenin further developed the Marxist slogan “Workers of All Countries Unite”
into the Marxist-Leninist slogan “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of All Countries
Unite”. And, it was in relation to this Marxist-Leninist formulation that the
revolutionary communist parties from neo-colonially dependent Afro-Asian-Latin
American countries have incorporated “the contradiction between imperialism on the
one hand, and oppressed nations and peoples on the other” as the principal
contradiction in their Party Programs. It was after intense debate that MLPD had to
accept the majority decision at the time of ICOR’s founding conference. Still, MLPD
continued to put both slogans, i.e., Marx’s slogan “Workers of All Countries Unite” as
well as the Leninist slogan “Workers of all Countries, and Oppressed Peoples Unite”, in
the Founding Resolution of ICOR as adopted on 10 June 2010, though the latter slogan
was sufficient as, in essence, it includes the former too.”
In the same Polemic, referring to the Main Coordinator Monika’s report to the ICC of
ICOR on the “new and attractive design” of ICOR Website with effect from 7 November
2023, that only displayed the slogan “Workers of All Countries Unite”, we also said:
“ … this so called “attractive design” has lost ICOR’s founding political essence by
displaying only the slogan “Workers of All Countries Unite”, while totally excludes the
strategic Marxist-Leninist slogan applicable to the epoch of imperialism, “Workers and
Oppressed Peoples of All Countries Unite”. By unilaterally superimposing this position
that completely abandons the anti-imperialist content of revolution in neo-colonially
oppressed Afro-Asian-Latin American countries makes ICOR more or less Eurocentric in
its orientation, and is perfectly in consonance with MLPD’s “new imperialist”
hypothesis. In this context, we are now constrained to raise our concerns on a wider
plane.” (And, following our strong criticism, later MLPD was forced to include ICOR’s
founding slogan, “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite” as additional
slogan into the Website as a face-saving exercise.)
However, to our criticism against the dilution of Comintern slogan that was adopted by
Lenin’s initiative in the 1920 Second Congress of Comintern, MLPD’s August 2024
Polemic has come with new interpretations. For instance, it says: “Theoretically, the
leadership of CPI (ML) Red Star revises Marxism-Leninism and attacks Lenin …” In our
opinion, this is a cheap and, at the same time, malicious trick on the part of MLPD.
In the meanwhile, MLPD takes recourse to a bail-out of itself, which is a somersault
too. Thus, it says: “Half a century after the publication of the Communist Manifesto,
when Lenin analyzed the rise of imperialism, he came to the conclusion that the
oppressed peoples in the colonies and semi-colonies must become strategically
important allies in the liberation struggle of the international proletariat. For this
reason, as measures of “present-day” politics, i.e., as measures arising from prevailing
circumstances, he supported the extension of the proletarian-internationalist guideline
with the slogan “Workers of all countries and all oppressed peoples, unite!” made by
the Congress of Peoples of the East, organized by the Comintern in 1920 in Baku.
According to Lenin this slogan was explicitly a slogan for the “peoples of the East”, i.e.,
the colonies.” (Polemic of MLPD, pp 27-28)
In our view, here MLPD is engaging in a typical historical falsification and the entire
explanation given by MLPD is cunning and absolutely false. Let us see, what are the
facts?
In fact, the original slogan of the ICM, “Workers of the World unite” – the clarion call or
the rallying cry from the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels in 1848 – was put
forward during the time of industrial and competitive capitalism and at the beginning
of Communist Movement when it was geographically limited to Europe and North
America, and focused almost exclusively on the industrial working class of capitalist
countries. However, following the transformation of competitive capitalism to
monopoly finance capitalism or imperialism (the trends towards which Marx had
already hinted in Volume 1 of Capital), based on an analysis of the laws of motion of
finance capital, it was Lenin who further developed the Marxist theory of imperialism.
Lenin explained how under imperialism, greater part of the planet earth is subjugated
by a handful of wealthy imperialist powers. Lenin also pointed out that the need of
extreme force to keep colonies, semi-colonies and spheres of influence under control
leads to World Wars. According to Lenin, capitalism had “grown into a world system of
colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of
the people of the world by a handful of “advanced countries,” and unravelled how the
finance capitalists of the imperialist countries had become an enemy not just to the
working class in the advanced capitalist countries but to the broad masses of the
oppressed people in all countries. “Imperialism is leading to annexation, to increased
national oppression, and, consequently, also to increasing resistance” (Lenin).
It was this analysis that provided the theoretical basis for a strategic and class unity of
the socialist and national liberation movements as two inseparable streams of world
revolution based on which Lenin proposed the development of a worldwide united
front of the working class and all peoples oppressed by imperialism. Only such a
strategic united front would be capable of taking the fight to towards defeating
imperialism and liberation of oppressed nations and peoples, and thereby opening the
possibility for a global advance to socialism. Thus, led by Lenin, the Second Congress of
the Comintern in 1920, updated and redrafted the slogan “Workers of the World
Unite” to “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of all Countries, Unite.” All those who read
our Reply can go through all available documents to ascertain these facts. On the other
hand, when CPI (ML Red Star uphold this Leninist position, MLPD raises slanderous
allegations against us such as ‘revision of Marxism-Leninism’, ‘attacks on Lenin’ and so
on.
In the Third Congress of the Comintern held in June 1921, Lenin reiterated his position
further: “The revolutionary movement among the hundreds of millions of oppressed
peoples of the East is growing with remarkable vigour.” He elaborated it thus:
“In the last analysis, the outcome of the struggle will be determined by the fact that
Russia, India, China, etc., account for the overwhelming majority of the population of
the globe. And during the past few years, it is this majority that has been drawn into
the struggle for emancipation with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this respect there
cannot be the slightest doubt what the final outcome of the world struggle will be. In
this sense, the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely assured.” In his
1924 book, Foundations of Leninism, Stalin wrote: “… the interests of the proletarian
movement in the developed countries and of the national liberation movement in the
colonies call for the union of these two forms of the revolutionary movement into a
common front against the common enemy, against imperialism” and “the victory of
the working class in the developed countries and the liberation of the oppressed
peoples from the yoke of imperialism are impossible without the formation and the
consolidation of a common revolutionary front.” Therefore, contrary to MLPD’s
historical falsification that the slogan “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World
Unite” is an “alliance slogan”, in the era of imperialism, it has been the strategic class
slogan of ICM since the time of Comintern for building up global anti-imperialist
revolutionary front led by the Communists.
And, very strikingly, many communist parties in imperialist countries, who were having
tacit “alliance” with their own ruling classes were in disagreement with this updated
strategic/class slogan of the Comintern proposed by Lenin from the very beginning. In
his analysis on ‘Imperialism and the Split in Socialism’, unravelling the material basis for
this unholy alliance as a “few crumbs” of imperialist super-profits from
colonial/dependent countries, Lenin showed how the “upper strata of the proletariat
in a handful of imperialist countries” have transformed into a “labour aristocracy” who
support the exploitation, plunder and war unleashed on world people by their ruling
regimes, and who work “hand in glove with the imperialist bourgeoisie precisely
towards creating an imperialist Europe on the backs of Asia and Africa”. MLPD’s
recurring Eurocentric orientation and its glaring allergy towards the slogan “Workers
and Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite” often smacks of it as a 21st century
reincarnation of the petty bourgeois and class collaborationist “social chauvinists” that
Lenin beautifully explained in ‘Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second
International’. In this context, it would be in order to reiterate that MLPD’s
characterisation of CPI (ML) Red Star as “national chauvinist” (p.14) amply suites its
own social chauvinism and Eurocentrism!
From a Marxist-Leninist perspective, unlike MLPD’s Eurocentrism (which is inherently
social chauvinist too), 21st century neofascist context calls for a strategic and classbased world-wide unity among communist parties, oppressed peoples in neocolonial
countries and workers in imperialist countries. For instance, uniting with all resistance
forces who stand up for a secular, democratic and liberated Palestine against Zionism
and imperialism is part of this strategy. However, as CPI (ML) Red Star had already
pointed out in our Polemics dated 31 March 2024, MLPD’s Eurocentric orientation and
insistence to always balance Palestinian resistance forces such as Hamas with neoZionism even prevented ICOR from issuing a Resolution on Palestine for almost one
year. Finally, a Resolution condemning Zionist-imperialist genocide came out only at
the time of ICOR’s 5th World Conference when MLPD had to shamefully yield to the
majority position on this issue. To reiterate again, today, only the Leninist slogan
“Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite” can encompass the means and
methods of resisting all forms of exploitation and oppression and, at the same time,
reject class collaborationism and social chauvinism while resolutely fighting for a
socialist future.
Of course, Lenin, who developed Marxism of the imperialist epoch, had a clear-cut
perception on replacing Marx’s slogan “Workers of the World Unite” with “Workers
and Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite”. To a question regarding
modification/updating of the slogan, Lenin unequivocally said: “Of course, the
modification is wrong from the standpoint of the Communist Manifesto, but then the
Communist Manifesto was written under entirely different conditions. From the point
of view of present-day politics, however, the change is correct” (Collected Works,
Vol.8). However, we are fully aware that MLPD’s Eurocentric orientation and
superciliousness prevents it from even making a minimum self-criticism based on this
Leninist position.
However, instead of self-critically admitting its grave mistake of abandoning the
strategic class slogan of ICM today, without any qualm, MLPD is continuing with its
arrogant Eurocentric reading and concomitant distortion and falsification of
Communist history itself. Therefore, as already noted, according to MLPD, the slogan
“Workers of all countries and all oppressed peoples, unite!” is made by the Congress of
Peoples of the East, organized by the Comintern in 1920 in Baku.” Further, in MLPD’s
view, Lenin had put forward this slogan “explicitly a slogan for the “peoples of the
East”, i.e., the colonies.” Modestly speaking, this is a travesty of truth and a grotesque
parody of history, which only MLPD can do.
In fact, the “Congress to the Peoples of the East” was convened by Comintern during
September 1920 at Baku, Azerbaijan in continuation of the Second Congress of
Comintern held in Moscow during July-August 1920. The Baku Congress to the Peoples
of East holds a special moment in the history of ICM, as it was the first practical move
to implement the decisions of the Comintern in tune with the clarion call “Workers and
Oppressed peoples of the World Unite” initiated by Lenin and adopted by its Second
Congress. In essence, the Baku Congress appealed to the exploited and oppressed
peoples in the colonial and semi-colonial countries to carry forward their revolutionary
struggles for liberation under the banner of Marxism and uniting with the workers in
imperialist countries. The Baku Congress of the East was a conscious break from the
revisionist Second International that exclusively depended on European parties totally
neglecting the national and colonial question, and as Zinoviev, one of the leaders of the
Baku Congress explained in the concluding speech, it was “heterogenous and motely in
composition”, unlike MLPD’s oft-repeated illusion of a homogeneous “international
industrial proletariat”.
Again, MLPD’s historical falsification crosses all limits when it says that the slogan
“workers of all countries and all oppressed peoples, unite” was “made by the Congress
to the Peoples of the East explicitly as a slogan for the “peoples of the East”, i.e., the
colonies.” In this regard, our analysis of the available documents of the Baku Congress
of the East, reveals that this claim of MLPD is nothing but a cunning and concocted
idea to hoodwink the entire members of ICOR. Our request to all fraternal parties in
this regard is to be cautious of not falling into this Eurocentric trap set by MLPD. For,
the Baku Congress never went for formulating any such new slogans, rather its
deliberations were strictly in conformity with the slogan “Workers of all Countries and
all Oppressed Peoples Unite”, as formulated by the Second Congress of the Comintern,
and the Baku Congress itself was held as a practical implementation of this updated
Comintern slogan.
This is evident from the “Manifesto of the Congress to the Peoples of the East”, which
upholding the Comintern position concluded thus:
“Long live the unity of all the peasants and workers of the East and of the West, the
unity of all the toilers, all the oppressed and exploited. Long live the battle
headquarters of this united movement – the Communist International! May the holy
war of the peoples of the East and of the toilers of the whole world against imperialist
Britain burn with unquenchable fire!” (Let’s hope that MLPD will not be agitated by the
term “holy war” in the quotation and that it will not immediately resort to a
Eurocentric stamping of it as jihadist, Islamist, fascist, terrorist, etc., as it had been
doing for almost one year in the case of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance organization.
Holy war implies class struggle in Arabic). Here, it would be in order to remind MLPD to
once again go through the “Manifesto of the Congress to the Peoples of the East”
without delay, and desist from distorting historical facts based on its subjective wishes.
MLPD should also have the minimum prudence to acknowledge the fact that the
Second Congress of Comintern that for the first time adopted the clarion call “Workers
and Oppressed Peoples of the World Unite” took place during July-August 1920,
whereas the Baku Congress to the Peoples of the East that was convened based on this
Comintern slogan followed it in September in the same year.
On MLPD’s Approach to the Palestinian Liberation Struggle
CPI (ML) Red Star in its 114-page Pamphlet published on 31 march 2024 and circulated
among ICOR members had already exposed MLPD’s sectarian, social chauvinist and
Eurocentric approach to the Palestinian Liberation Struggle. Later the booklet
“Palestine Question: From a Left-Democratic Perspective” authored by two Polit
Bureau members of CPI (ML) Red Star, Kabeer and Sankar and published by Red Star
Publications, the publication division of the Party on 26 November 2024, had brought
out the despicable position of MLPD like depoliticized European Left who have fallen in
to the “neutral trap”, of balancing Palestinian resistance with Zionist horror. In this
booklet Palestine Liberation, we had also explained how MLPD’s approach of balancing
Hamas-like resistance forces with neo-Zionist Israeli regime shares the same
wavelength as that of US abstention from a UN Resolution condemning Israel solely
because it refrained from simultaneously condemning Hamas! Since many debates on
this issue are there, we are not going to repeat them again. However, in spite of
releasing a more or less correct Resolution, thereby surrendering to the majority
position in this regard, MLPD’s August 2024 Polemic again repeats its erroneous
position without any let up, and hence, some clarification is still needed.
To be precise, the basic flaw with MLPD, here too, emerges from its erroneous “new
imperialist hypothesis itself, and dragging it into the discussion on Palestine question.
Thus, according to MLPD, Israel is also among a whole set of “new imperialist powers”
like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Iran. CPI (ML) Red Star has already exposed
this evaluation of as MLPD’s fictitious thinking. For instance, take the case of Zionist
Israel, which is invariably fascist, but not imperialist. In our view, Israel is a postwar
neocolonial “military outpost” of US imperialism serving latter’s geopolitical interests
in West Asia. The Zionist project was superimposed on the Palestine people in 1948 by
US-EU imperialists with the support of Soviet Union which had already diluted its
international tasks with the 1943 Dissolution of the Comintern that in 1919 had
assessed “Zionism as a reactionary colonialist movement whose aim is to build, with
the assistance of British imperialism a Jewish state upon the backs of another people.”
To quote from our Palestine Question: “The creation of a Zionist state was offered by
the US-Europe administrations, and West Germany in particular, as an easy way out of
the worst excesses of antisemitism ever seen. Israel was the first to declare its
recognition of “a new Germany”- in return it received a lot of money (payment of DM
3 billion – approximately 714 million dollars based on 1952 exchange rates), but also,
far more importantly, a carte blanche to turn the whole of Palestine into Israel” (p.21).
Here too, some more clarifications are needed.
Firstly, coming to MLPD’s categorization of Israel as imperialism, we want to state our
position clear. There is no dispute over the fact that Israel displays all the
characteristics of a regional expansionist power effectively serving the geopolitical
strategy of US-EU imperialists in the Middle East. Since 1948, the US has provided with
over $310 billion in economic and military assistance to Israel. Even the “Iron Dome”,
the much-trumpeted defence system of Israel is provided by US imperialism. The
primary sources of arms for Israel even today are US and Germany. And, relations with
Israel since the time of Cold War initiated by Truman are the most strategic in US
foreign policy, which is also influenced by the Zionist lobby and its Political Action
Committee in the US. Further, US is the only imperialist power that recognized
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and has used its UNSC veto power 42 times against
resolutions condemning Israel. If the US withdraws its military and political support to
Israel, it will be well-nigh impossible for Israel including its “settler colonialism” even to
survive.
Second issue is connected with MLPD’s straightjacket position on international socialist
revolution as well as Eurocentric and social chauvinist antipathy towards people’s
democratic revolution. It is quite logical on the part of such an organization to sideline
the strategic importance of anti-imperialist struggle for national liberation as well as
that of the movements and organizations engaged in this task including the need of
acknowledging the strategic role of such forces. Here comes the question of Hamas.
For us, Hamas is not a Marxist-Leninist organization; at the same time, we
acknowledge it as a Palestinian resistance organization. We are saying this only
because of MLPD’ s highly erroneous approach of unnecessarily stamping Hamas as
“terrorist”, “jihadist”, “fascist”, etc. It is not CPI (ML) Red Star, but MLPD that instigated
a discussion on Hamas. In fact, it was MLPD that dragged this issue into ICOR
discussions after negatively branding Hamas without anybody seeking a clarification on
it. For instance, without anybody asking any question on MLPD’s approach to Hamas,
MLPD says:
“The MLPD stands on the side of the Palestinian liberation struggle and exactly for this
reason not on the side of Hamas and other Islamist-fascist organizations such as Islamic
Jihad. Because these do not stand for liberation struggle. Cooperation with them,
unfortunately also by progressive Palestinian forces., will cause great damage to the
movement. It is the mark of a “cross-front” policy, which we fundamentally reject” (p.
37). Of course, MLPD has set apart the entire pages from 37 to 39 in the Polemic
against CPI (ML) Red Star for identifying and questioning MLPD’s Islamist, jihadist and
fascist stamping on Hamas. In our view, this is a case of Islamophobia now widespread
among many self-professed communist parties in Europe, and MLPD is just one among
them. Suffice it here to quote from our booklet, Palestine Liberation once again:
“A revealing trend in this context is the utter ideological-political bankruptcy on the
part of the so-called Left, especially the Eurocentric, self-professed revolutionary left,
who being along the same wave-length as Islamophobic far-right ruling sections of
Europe, now resorting to a balancing between Palestinian resistance and Zionist
genocide. This depoliticized Left ideologically shares the same position as that of US
which abstains from UN resolutions condemning Israel, with the reasoning that they
do not simultaneously condemn Hamas. This despicable position arises from the
failure to comprehend and uphold the birth-right of the oppressed to resist and throw
away oppression by all available means.”
It continues: “Of course, this position of the present-day depoliticized European Left is
not an overnight development. During the classical fascist days of Europe, though
efforts were there on the part of Comintern to take a historically correct position on
Zionism in the 1920s, in course of time, and especially when the EU-US imperialists
took on a decision to atone for their anti-Semitism by unilaterally superimposing the
Zionist nation on Palestine, the Soviet Union and the European Left in general became
apologists of that position. Today’s pro-Zionist position of many left parties in Europe is
a hangover of that tradition” (p.4). MLPD that always speaks about international
socialist revolution from rooftops is a typical example of this colonial hangover.
Therefore, in our view, the year-long inability on the part of MLPD to declare
unwavering solidarity with the Palestine struggle (an aspect already discussed at length
in detail in our 114-page Polemics), was due to its ideological bankruptcy in
appropriately evaluating the concrete situation in Palestine and objectively analyzing
the class forces involved in the struggle. Obviously, this emanates from its erroneous
approach to imperialism, anti-imperialist forces and in relation to the mechanical
approach to neofascism. It is connected with MLPD’s basic inability to comprehend the
strategic class essence of the anti-imperialist democratic revolution, especially in the
context of 21st century neofascism.
Resolutely Condemn MLPD’s Stamping of “Petty-Bourgeois Pretension to
Leadership” on CPI (ML) Red Star
In its Polemic, MLPD has specifically set apart another 10 pages (pp 42-52) for a series
of wanton accusations against CPI (ML) Red Star. As we have already pointed out in the
114-page online Polemics, this arises from an imperialist and supercilious mindset. The
reasons are obvious. As all ICOR members and our fraternal Parties know, the moment
MLPD had come up with its “new imperialist” prognosis in 2015, our Party started
exposing and opposing it through articles published in the Party Organ Red Star. In the
3rd World Conference of ICOR in 2017, with the support of many parties from AfroAsian-Latin American countries, we resolutely continued this ideological struggle
defeating MLPD’s move to superimpose its “new imperialist” prognosis on ICOR. And,
in 2018, CPI (ML) Red Star brought out the 196-page book entitled Polemics on New
Imperialism published by Red Star Publications explicitly stating our position.
However, on account of our inner-party differences (as explained in the earlier 114-
page online document), CPI (ML) Red Star had failed to appropriately bring to the
notice of ICOR members its perspectives on MLPD’s ideological-political-organizational
approaches to many international questions at the proper time. The main hurdle was
the reluctance of Sanjay, Party’s representative and Deputy Main Coordinator, who
supported MLPD’s erroneous line, to take Party’s line to ICOR. Only after the 12th
Congress of CPI (ML) Red Star in 2022, and following his removal from the post of
Deputy Main Coordinator, and Kabeer, Polit Bureau Member of CPI (ML) Red Star,
taking charge as Deputy Main Coordinator, that the Party could carry forward its
ideological struggle in the proper manner. By then, MLPD and the Main Coordinator of
ICOR Monika, started taking an antagonistic approach to Kabeer, often naming him as
“designated” Deputy Main Coordinator, and effectively avoiding his participation in the
ICC meetings by not sending required documents for Visa in time. And, along the
sidelines of ICOR’s 5th World Conference, in violation of all accepted procedures,
Monika convened an Asian Conference in Germany and removed Sankar, Polit Bureau
member of CPI (ML) Red Star from the post of ICOR-Asian Coordinator, followed by the
removal of Kabeer from the post of Deputy Main Coordinator. All these details are
there in the online documents already published by us.
In our view, MLPD’s oft-repeated eloquence on proletarian internationalism is mere
rhetoric and a cover for its imperialist and big-brotherly mindset towards parties and
organizations from Afro-Asian-Latin American countries. Its tirade against CPI (ML) Red
Star and branding us as “petty-bourgeois pretension to leadership” emanate from
MLPD’s intolerance towards our independent ideological-political position which we
are not prepared to surrender before any “big brother”, especially when it comes from
an imperialist centre. This intolerance of MLPD has been reflected on many occasions.
For instance, as we have already reported in the 114-page Polemics, on 28 April 2023,
the MLPD sent a threatening letter to P J James, General Secretary of CPI (ML) Red Star
raising baseless allegations. In another Letter dated 28 June 2024 addressed to NCP
Mashal (MBS), Monika, as representative of MLPD and often acting like a spokesperson
of the break-away Sanjay faction, even raised many accusations against James, and at
the same time spreading misconceptions. For us, this is an ongoing process since
September 2022.
Therefore, the new set of tirades against CPI (ML) Red Star spread across 10 pages in
the MLPD’s Polemic are not new to us. As we have already said, its roots lay deep in
the bureaucratic and imperialist mindset inherent in a party like MLPD for whom
parties and organizations from neocolonial countries should act as obedient vassals.
This is very insulting to communists and revolutionaries. As a Party, while it is
indispensable to have healthy ideological debate for arriving at a correct international
line and for more clarity on international tasks, like other genuine communists, CPI
(ML) Red Star is against unprincipled unity and super-imposing of one’s line on others.
Hence, there is little sense in repeatedly replying to MLPD’s each and every allegation
against us. And from our experience, the so-called ‘proletarian culture of debate’ that
MLPD so assiduously repeats makes little sense.
In our opinion, both the ideological line and methodology for its implementation now
pursued by MLPD, are not conducive for a revolutionary international platform of
communist parties. As the Main Coordinator of ICOR, unless MLPD is ready to alter its
basic orientation, especially that related to the core issue of concretely analyzing
today’s imperialism, the only option before us is carry forward uncompromising
ideological struggle without any let up. At the same time, it is the solemn task of
Marxist-Leninist parties, especially those in oppressed and dependent neocolonial
countries, to strive forward for achieving ideological clarity on the anti-imperialist and
antifascist struggles and work together sharing theoretical understanding and practical
experience on a fraternal basis while carrying out both national and international
tasks. It is with this perspective that we are sharing our views among all fraternal
parties and ICOR members.
International Department
CPI (ML) Red Star
New Delhi
11.03.2025
