Giovanni Scuderi
Mao on Proletarian Internationalism

 Comrades, I should like to thank our comrade organisers who have done me the honour of asking me to present a paper on the theme "Mao on Proletarian Internationalism'' to this International Seminar on Mao's Thought. This will presumably have a great revolutionary echo throughout the world and will exert a beneficial influence on the spirits and the struggles of the Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations of various countries. I should like to extend a warm and respectful greeting to the Presidential board and to all present, wishing you all fruitful work.
Proletarian Internationalism is a fundamental aspect of Mao's Thought and work. In this field too, Mao defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the unceasing struggle against the revisionists, inside and outside China, who intended to bury it.
The spirit of Proletarian Internationalism - that of reciprocal help among all peoples to promote the development and the victory of world revolution and of the struggle against imperialism, colonialism, reaction, racism, zionism and apartheid - this spirit has been expressed by Mao at its highest level, both from a theoretic and strategic point of view and from a practical and tactical one.
Mao's Proletarian Internationalism is based on the awareness that the proletariat can never emancipate itself and the whole of humanity if imperialism is not swept away by the whole world. We must therefore take sides for or against imperialism. There is no other choice. Mao explains this in these words: "We must take sides; and we are profoundly convinced that in order to gain the victory and to consolidate it we must take sides. In the light of accumulated experience... all Chinese people, without exception, must take sides - either the side of imperialism or that of Socialism. A middle position does not exist, there is no third road''.
But it is not enough to take sides against imperialism and in favour of Socialism, it is also necessary to assist actively those who struggle against imperialism. In fact, as Mao points out "the world revolution can succeed only if the proletariat of capitalist countries supports the struggle for liberation of colonial and semi-colonial peoples, and if the proletariat of the colonies and semi-colonies supports the struggle for liberation of the proletariat of capitalist countries.''
Mao's greatest contribution to Proletarian Internationalism at a theoretic and strategic level consists in the orientation which he gave to the Chinese people and the peoples of all the world in the struggle against imperialism.
At the height of the capitalist epoch, when in capitalist countries the struggles were erupting between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, Marx and Engels, for the first time in history, launched the great password "Proletarians of all Countries, Unite.'' In so doing, they laid the foundations of Proletarian Internationalism.
Having entered into the imperialist epoch, in accordance with the new international situation, Lenin pointed out that the struggle of oppressed nations against imperialism was a component of the revolutionary movement of the world proletariat, and consequently launched the great password, "Proletarians and Oppressed Nations of all the World, Unite!''
After Lenin's death, Stalin specified the sense of this password, that is that the national liberation movement must include all the forces which are opposed to imperialist aggression, without distinction of class, philosophical or religious persuasion or political point of view, even where these are opposed to Socialism. The example of the Afghan emir is famous.
Mao, in his turn, developed these passwords of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Taking into account what was new in the altered international situation, and aiming at the formation of the largest possible united international front, he formulated this other great password, "Peoples of all the World, Unite!''. At three different moments in time he said: "Peoples of all the world, unite to combat every aggressive war, whether launched by imperialism or socialimperialism, in particular any aggressive war conducted with atomic bombs as arms! If such a war should break out, the peoples of all the world must eliminate the aggressive war by revolutionary war; the preparation for this must be made starting from now.'' "Peoples of all the world, have trust in your courage, dare to fight, defy difficulties, advance wave after wave, and the world will be yours. The monsters will be annihilated.'' "Peoples of all the world, unite to defeat the American aggressors and all their lackeys!''
The proletarian internationalist Thought of Mao has played a fundamental role in the peoples' struggles against imperialism. In every phase, Mao knew how to identify the fundamental contradictions which existed in the world and the principal enemy at an international level which must be fought through the widest possible united front.
After the Second World War, he indicated Usa imperialism as the principal enemy of all peoples. On the appearance of Soviet socialimperialism, brought about by the aggression of the Ussr in Czechoslovakia, he identified the common enemy of all peoples in American imperialism and Soviet socialimperialism. And in the moment in which these two superpowers contended between themselves for world leadership and prepared a World War, through the splendid theory of the three worlds, elaborated in 1974, he invited all the peoples of the world and all the other countries to form a coalition and battle together against them.
Mao's great anti-Imperialist concepts have inspired and guided, directly or indirectly, all the struggles of peoples for their own liberation which took place in the Sixties and Seventies. Among those concepts we recall: "All reactionaries are paper tigers''; "Political power begins in the shotgun barrel''; "If we want to make revolution, we must have a revolutionary party''; "Count on your own strength''; "A weak country can defeat a strong country, and a small country can defeat a big country''; "The people, and only the people, is the driving force which makes the history of the world''; "The arms of the people, every gun and every bullet, must be preserved, must not be handed over''.
Mao gave a direct and personal contribution to the peoples of the five Continents struggling against imperialism. Apart from his numerous messages to the leaders of struggling peoples, he issued epoch-making declarations in support of: the Afro-Americans struggling against racial discrimination (1963); the struggle of the people of Panama against American imperialism (1964); the resistance of the Dominican people against armed American aggression (1965); the people of the Congo-Leopoldville against American aggression (1965); the struggle of the Afro-Americans against violent repression (1968), and the struggle of the Cambodian people and other Indo-Chinese peoples (1970).
Mao gave concrete and specific directions to Marxist-Leninists throughout the world to guarantee the success of the revolutionary and anti-Imperialist struggle. One above all is worthy of the greatest consideration. In 1956, meeting the representatives of several Latin-American Communist Parties, he emphasised that "it is absolutely necessary to integrate the two factors, the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism, and the specific situation of your own country''. Effectively this is the key to success in all the phases of the revolutionary struggle. As the history of the international workers' movement and common practice demonstrates, Marxism-Leninism-Mao's Thought is invincible and infallible. If the revolution undergoes defeats, or fails, the responsibility is not to be attributed to that, but to our own errors of right or "left''. Even though these errors may be made in good faith, or through a subjective inability to manage Marxism-Leninism-Mao's Thought, or through an insufficient knowledge of it or through inexperience.
Mao, struggling against the revisionists Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Tito, Togliatti, Thorez, Gomulka, Nagy, Browder, Miyamoto, Dange and others, has safeguarded the sacred principles of Proletarian Internationalism, and has enormously enriched the Marxist-Leninist anti-imperialist line.
The defence of Stalin's great work, of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism, of the world-scale value of the October Revolution, of the right and necessity to make Socialist revolution on the part of the proletariat and of the peoples who live in capitalist and imperialist countries, of the right to and necessity for wars of national liberation for those peoples oppressed by imperialism and colonialism, of the necessity for the proletariat and the peoples who live under Socialism to see the revolution through to the end, of the duty on the part of the peoples who have already brought about the victory of the revolution to help those peoples who are still struggling for their liberation - as well as the denouncement of the theory of a peaceful passage towards Socialism through the so-called "parliamentary method'', these represent the fundamental pieces of the great mosaic of Mao's Proletarian Internationalism.
He always maintained that the foreign policy of Socialist countries has to rest on three legs: on Proletarian Internationalism where we are concerned with relationships of friendship, reciprocal help and co-operation between Socialist countries, and support of the revolutionary struggle of oppressed nations and peoples; on peaceful co-existence with countries with different social systems, on the basis of the five principles (reciprocal respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, reciprocal non-interference in internal affairs, reciprocal equality and interest, peaceful co-existence); and finally on the struggle against the imperialist policy of war and aggression.
Of these three legs Mao gives prominence to Proletarian Internationalism, which is the fundamental principle of the foreign policy of Socialist countries and Marxist-Leninist Parties. Ad regards peaceful co-existence, he makes a fundamental clarification, that it is not possible to effect this in the relations between proletariat and bourgeoisie in capitalist and imperialist countries, or between oppressed nations and peoples and the oppressing countries, that peaceful co-existence cannot be the foreign policy of Marxist-Leninist Parties, and that, in any case, the class struggle and the revolutionary struggle of the peoples cannot be subordinated to Socialist countries' policy of peaceful co-existence. In 1946 Mao pointed out that the compromise on certain problems between the Soviet Union on one part and the United States, Great Britain, and France on the other "does not require that the peoples of the various countries of the capitalist world follow this example, making compromises in their own countries. The peoples of these countries will continue to conduct different struggles relative to their different situations''.
As long as Mao was alive the People's Republic of China was the red bastion of the world revolution. Proletarian Internationalism has always been the principal guide of its foreign policy. This has been evident in a tangible sense beginning with the help - even to the point of blood - which it gave to Korea in 1952 in the war of resistance against the United States, evident in the role played at the Bandung Conference of Afro-Asian countries in 1955, at which its representatives proclaimed that all countries, great and small, strong and weak, must have equal rights in international relations, and evident, from the presentation in Mogadishu in the Somali Republic in February 1964, of the eight Chinese principles for the supply of economic help which was extremely advantageous to the peoples of the Third World.
We have seen it successively, without a break in continuity, in an impressive crescendo, especially during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in the multiform support which Mao's China gave to the national liberation struggles in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, and to the mass revolutionary movements in Western Europe, North America, Canada, Japan, and Oceania.
At a distance of some years after Mao's death, revisionist China gradually trampled Proletarian Internationalism completely underfoot, severing all help and support for the revolutionary struggles of the peoples. At present the revisionist and fascist band of the political smudge Deng Xiaoping practices an extremely powerful chauvinistic foreign policy which obstructs and sabotages the construction of the Marxist-Leninist Parties of various countries, the national liberation struggles, and world revolution. But it will not always be so. It is inevitable that the glorious Chinese proletariat will return to power, once it has reappropriated to itself Mao's Thought and line, once it has constructed an authentic Marxist-Leninist Party, a broad united revolutionary front and a strong Red Army, and once it dares to raise itself up in arms.
In spite of the great changes which have occurred in the world since Mao's death, we are still in the epoch of imperialism and world revolution. For this reason we cannot do without Proletarian Internationalism, which, besides, will always be necessary, even when the proletariat is in power in every country.
Let us raise high to heaven Mao's great password, "Peoples of all the world, unite to defeat the American aggressors and all their lackeys!'', and let us work with alacrity and confidence, helping each other like brothers, to assemble around it our respective peoples, to reawaken the revolutionary conscience of the masses and to relaunch the revolutionary struggles so as gradually to free the globe from imperialism.

Firenze, 5th October 1993 

This report was presented to the International Seminar on Mao's Thought that took place in Gelsenkirchen (Germany) on the 6th and 7th November 1993 to celebrate the centenary of Mao's birthday.