revolutionary translation: May 1st statement by Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia

(Unofficial translation.  To read original in Spanish click here.)


Long live proletarian internationalism!
1 May 2006

Proletarian internationalism must be the mark which characterises the 1st of May.  Since almost 120 years ago when it was declared as a day for global actions of the proleatariat, the meaning of 1 May has developed and enlargened: as a day on which class conscious proletarians of the whole world not only evaluate their situation and make plans for the short term but also celebrate proletarian internationalism and declare their decision to bring their struggle to the final goal of communism worldwide.

However, in many parts and for many years, the battle to recover the day's tradition of revolutionary struggle is hard, after decades in which the revisionists (fake communists) have stepped on its character.  It's not simply from "wickedness".  Wrong ideas do not come from a "bad character" of people, the immense propaganda apparatus of the exploiters plays a key part in putting lie after lie into the heads of the exploited themselves, principally with the mass media which influence other forms of creating public opinion.

They say that "communism is dead", that marxism, which today is marxism-leninism-maoism, is "out of style", that the proletariat doesn't need a revolutionary party because that is "imposing ideas", that the dictatorship of the proletariat (which is dicatorship against the exploiters and democracy for the people) like all dictatorship "is totalitarianism", that the people don't have the right to use revolutionary violence to free themselves from exploitation and oppression because that brings one to "authoritarianism".

All these lies, and stupidities, have soaked the workers' and peoples' movement itself and amongst many intellectuals that it has converted into its preachers, not only from superficiality but because the defeat of the great proletarian revolutions of the 20th century, the Russian and the Chinese (which were maintained from 1917 to 1956 for the former and from 1949 to 1976 for the latter) when analysed by bourgeois philosophy, by pragmatism, it brought them to skepticism, to distrust in that a really new world might be possible.

The lies that accompany the political and military offensives of the imperialists and reactionaries obey the necessity to remain in power.  And there is no question that in the realm of ideas, because as Voltaire (a radical French philosopher of the 18th century) correctly said: "those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities".  Not only do they want to put behind them generations of revolutionary and even progressive thought.  Their slander of socialism and communism as "imposing one thought", "only permitting one party", "authoritarianism", "control over individuals' lives", "obsolete", not only is it a string of lies but a grand show of hypocrisy.  All this applies to the imperialists and reactionaries!  One only has to look to find the Bushes and the Uribes and the atrocities they have committed and have had committed.

***

The true sum-up of proletarian revolutions of the 20th century is opposed to the sum-up manipulated by the exploiters, the positive was much much more than the errors (that there were) in the first attempts at building socialism.

Today more than valid it is urgent to develop real revolutions lead by the proletariat in the two types of countries, the imperialist countries and the oppressed countries.  And it is more necessary to build on the foundations established by the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution (the new democratic and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution).

In the 21st century there already exist many more material bases for building a completely different type of society in all the world, in a process which can and must be international even as it develops within the framework of the current division into countries and in accord with the particularities of each country.

In the ideological, political, organisational, and military spheres, in the mass work, the line struggle and forging of leadership, the working out of revolutionary theory and practise demand a development on the national level as much as on the international.  And this can only be done with the strengthening of an organic centre.  Such a centre exists at the international level, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the embyo of the International of a new type which is required.  And in Colombia also that centre has come to be forged, the Revolutionary Communist Group (GCR), by means of class struggle and line struggle inside the revolutionary movement.

This 1 May, the GCR renews its promise before the proletariat and the people to advance in the construction of the tools for the Colombian revolution as part of the world proletarian revolution, the principal of which is the Party; renews its promise to struggle for the unity of the communists, not as a patchwork quilt but around a truly Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line against the wrong tendencies not only about unity but also about strategy and tactics for the revolution; and renews its promise to elevate its preparation to lead the struggle against the current system based on exploitation and oppression at the same time as resistance against those.

***

This 1 May brings an acute situation of class struggle at the world level.  New waves of resistance are appearing, from the opposition to the yankee imperialists' threats of nuclear attack against Iran, through the struggles of the youth in France or the immigrants in the US, to the struggle against the feudal monarchy in Nepal.

The lessons of the people's struggle in Nepal are many.  On the one hand it clearly shows the importance of a proletarian leadership for real advances of the people.  The revolutionary war in Nepal, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), cleared the path for the peak of the grandiose people's movement against the monarchy which occurred during the greater part of the month of April, and was able to clear the path for truly revolutionary transformations which the people have gained in the revolutionary base areas of support in the countryside under the control of the people's army lead by its Party.  And at the same time it shows how the grandiose people's struggle can lose its impetus if the revolutionary edge is smoothed out as in the case of the alliance of the seven parliamentary parties who postpone the democratic yearnings of the people, succumbing to the pressure of the of the imperialist powers and India.

The Colombian people have a common enemy with the people of France, the United States, and Nepal: global imperialism and reaction.  The imperialist bourgeoisie in some countries and the ruling class lackeys of imperialism in others, have everything in common and allie themselves to exploit and oppress.  For example, Uribe and the classes which he serves are complicit in the crimes of imperialism and are its servants not only in their own country.  The proletariat has no fatherland and no doubt the Colombian proletariat will be at the height of its internationalist responsabilities, from the Andean countries to South Asia and further.  Because, we only want the world!  And we will conquer it with our class sisters and brothers of the whole planet!