Peaceful Coexistence

[Unicorn]

This chapter in the 1972 monograph "A Critique of Mao Tse-Tung's Theoretical Conceptions" explains the policy of peaceful coexistence pursued by the Soviet Union after the 20th Congress of the CPSU.

Peaceful Coexistence of the Two Systems and the Revolutionary Movement in Individual Countries



Today, it is impossible, more so than at any other period, to consider the revolutionary movement in individual countries outside the context of international events and of the world-wide struggle between the two systems. That is why the problem of “peaceful coexistence and the class struggle" has become one of the central ones in the present-day ideological struggle between the Marxists and their ideological adversaries.

p
The line of peaceful coexistence between the two systems, for which the Communists stand, is based on the theory of socialist revolution. During the First World War, Lenin gave theoretical proof, and historical practice has confirmed this, that socialist revolution cannot win out simultaneously in all the capitalist countries. After the revolution wins out initially in one or several countries, the imperialist camp, with great economic, political and military strength, will be in existence over a whole historical epoch, which means that two fundamentally different social systems will exist side by side. The struggle between them is inevitable, but the forms of this struggle are not hard and fast, but are determined by the arrangement and balance of forces at every given period; thus, in the early years and decades of the world’s first and 102only Soviet socialist republic its peaceful coexistence together with the imperialist states was
virtually inconceivable for any considerable length of time, because the capitalists did not stop trying to destroy it by means of armed intervention; however, as the strength of the socialist state grew and a whole system of socialist countries emerged such attempts became in effect quite hopeless; imperialism was forced to accept the existence of a hostile social system and to abandon the idea of resorting to war as a means of resolving the contradictions between the two systems. Coexistence of the two opposite systems over a long period became historical reality and the struggle between them moved mainly into political, economic and ideological spheres.

p
Why can and must there be peaceful coexistence between the two systems, between states with opposite social systems, but not between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the people and the reactionaries of a given capitalist country? In present-day conditions, peaceful coexistence is a necessity first of all because if mankind wants to live and develop it has no other alternative, considering the vast and ever growing force of nuclear and other modern weapons. Peaceful coexistence is now a possibility above all because the joint strength of the working people of all the world, the strength of international communism, the strength of the socialist countries, the strength of the Soviet Union is now no longer inferior to that of the international bourgeoisie. Relying on its ever growing economic, political and military might, the proletarian states confront the bourgeois states.

p
Relations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries are quite another matter. There, the proletariat is not equal in any respect, and has no positions in the economy, politics or ideology which would be equivalent to those of the bourgeoisie. There we find a ceaseless struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors, a struggle between the exploiters and the exploited, a struggle which rules out “peaceful coexistence”.

p
However, let us stress once again that the peaceful coexistence of states is merely a specific form of class struggle in which the outcome is for one of the systems in the competition to show its decisive superiority in meeting the basic interests of the people. This specific form of class struggle exerts a tremendous influence on the course of the class 103struggle in the individual countries, and that is something that Maoists fail to understand.

p
A collection of their programme articles entitled Long Live Leninism (1960) contained the assertion that “the peaceful coexistence of different states and people’s revolutions in different countries are essentially two different things and not one thing, two concepts and not one concept, questions of two types and not of one.... What the transition will be, whether it will take the form of armed uprising or will run a peaceful course [103•1 —that is a totally different question which is basically distinct from the question of peaceful coexistence between the socialist and the capitalist countries. It is an internal question in each country which can be settled only depending on the balance of class forces in a given country at a given period. That is a question only the Communists of each country themselves can decide." [103•2

p
It is not right to identify different types of liberation movement, different forms of class struggle—international and internal—all that is elementary Marxism. But is it right to contrast them absolutely as this is being done in the above and similar passages? The CPC leaders refuse to see the real interconnection between the class struggle as it proceeds in the international arena and within each individual country.

p
Indeed, although there is not always a direct interconnection between relaxation of international tensions and the heat of the class battles in the capitalist countries, there is no doubt at all that any detente markedly facilitates the solution of the social tasks which have matured there. What is the result of every success scored by the policy of peaceful coexistence? It is the earliest realisation of the creative plans of the countries in the socialist system, and a growing influence of socialist ideas on the working people in the capitalist countries. This policy exposes the essence of capitalist exploitation, because the bourgeoisie finds it harder to evade the solution of internal problems by referring to a mythical “external” threat. This policy opens up the prospects for more effective struggle against militarism, the mainstay of international and domestic reaction, and ties the hands of 104those who want to export counter-
revolution. That is precisely what the aggressive circles of the imperialist bourgeoisie fear, and that is why they have been trying so hard to keep any form of “cold war" simmering in the international arena.

p
Being unable to refute clear-cut and unequivocal propositions of Lenin’s doctrine of peaceful coexistence the CPC leaders usually resort to slander and gross distortions of the stand taken by their opponents. They assert that peaceful coexistence, which the Communists stand for, “meets the needs of imperialism and plays into the hands of the imperialist policy of aggression and war”, “signifies a substitution for the class struggle of class collaboration on a world scale ... substitution of pacifism and an abandonment of proletarian internationalism for the proletarian revolution". [104•1 They add: “It is quite wrong to extend peaceful coexistence to relations between oppressed and oppressor classes, between oppressed and oppressor nations, to impose the policy of peaceful coexistence pursued by the socialist countries on the Communist Parties of the capitalist world, or to try to subordinate to this policy the revolutionary struggle of oppressed peoples and nations." [104•2

p
But the Communists have always insisted that peaceful coexistence only extends to the sphere of interstate relations and does not in any sense mean an end to the struggle of the capitalist-oppressed classes for their social emancipation, an end to the struggle of oppressed nations for their national liberation, or any relaxation of the ideological struggle between communism and anti-communism. This was forcefully re-emphasised by the International Meeting of Communists in 1969 who declared: “The policy of peaceful coexistence does not contradict the right of any oppressed people to fight for its liberation by any means it considers necessary—armed or peaceful. This policy in no way signifies support for reactionary regimes.... This policy does not imply either the preservation of the socio-political status quo or a weakening of the ideological struggle." [104•3
105

p
But an analysis of the CPC leadership’s actual policy suggests that these phrases are part of the old “tactical considerations" attitude, and amount to no more than sheer propaganda, like the slogan about the possibility of the revolution running a peaceful way.

p
In early March 1959, Mao said in a confidential talk he had with representatives of a number of Latin American Communist and Workers’ Parties that “if there is international tension Communist Parties will grow more quickly, the rate of their development will be more rapid". [105•1 Let us add that the Chinese leaders do not confine themselves to words alone. They have tried to create conflicts on China’s borders with other countries, they have opposed the steps taken by the Soviet Union to eliminate tension in the Caribbean Sea and in the Middle East, and have long opposed any political settlement of the Vietnam conflict. Just recently, the Chinese leaders have been spreading wild ideas about a military threat to China on the part of “social– imperialism" (as the Soviet Union and socialist countries friendly to it are now being designated in Peking). Here are some of the slogans Radio Peking has been broadcasting all over the world, which come from the report to the 9th Congress of the CPC: “We must be fully prepared”, “we must be ready for their starting a large-scale war”, “we must be ready for their starting a war in the near future”, “we must be ready for their starting a war with the use of conventional weapons, and must also be ready for their starting a large-scale nuclear war”. Up to now, Peking has substituted for the clear-cut propositions of Lenin’s doctrine of peaceful coexistence sayings which date to the epoch of the Chinese emperors and mandarins, as for instance, “the state flourishes in difficulties”, “the state is destroyed unless it is faced with an external threat on the part of an enemy’s state". [105•2

p
For all practical purposes, in international affairs the Chinese leaders have long since taken for their guide this simple rule: “the worse—the better”, thereby objectively taking the attitude of splitting the united anti-imperialist camp and encouraging imperialism in its foreign-policy gambles.
106

Naturally, this policy arouses indignation of all progressive public opinion. This being the case, the Maoists have taken up the slogan of peaceful coexistence. Whereas in the recent past they did not even want to hear about peaceful coexistence, now they do all they can to prove their adherence to it. But they use this slogan for chauvinistic purposes. Although professing support for peaceful coexistence with all countries, they in the first place appeal to imperialist powers due to the general reorientation of China’s foreign policy. While struggling against the socialist community and exacerbating their relations with Asian neighbour countries (Sino-Indian relations are a typical example in this respect), the Maoists are greatly interested in better relations with imperialist countries. Hence their appeals to the USA, Britain and other countries that their relations with them should be based on the principles of peaceful coexistence. Thus the slogan of peaceful coexistence is used by the Maoists for tactical purposes prompted as they are by their chauvinistic interests and the desire to mask the anti-socialist nature of their foreign policy.
http://leninist.biz/en/1972/CMTTC290/3.3-Peaceful.Coexistence.of.the.Two.Systems

[Hit The North]

Is there any point to this anachronistic thread?

[Unicorn]

Is there any point to this anachronistic thread?
Yup, when somebody starts whining that the theory was revisionist I refer them to this thread.

[The Author]

In the initial period of the October Revolution, the imperialists resorted to violence in the form of war against the Soviet Union, which was a continuation of their imperialist politics; in World War II, the German imperialists used violence in the form of large-scale war to attack the Soviet Union, which was a continuation of their imperialist politics. But on the other hand, the imperialists also established diplomatic relations of peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union in different periods, which was also, of course, a continuation of imperialist politics in another form under specific conditions. True, some new questions have now arisen concerning peaceful coexistence. Confronted with the powerful Soviet Union and the powerful socialist camp, the imperialists must at any rate carefully consider whether, contrary to their

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wishes, they would hasten their own extinction, as Hitler did, or bring about the most serious consequences for the capitalist system itself, if they should attack the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.
"Peaceful co-existence" -- this is a new concept which arose only after the emergence of the socialist state in the world following the October Revolution. It is a new concept formed under the circumstances Lenin had predicted before the October Revolution, when he said:
Socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois for some time.[1 (http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/LLL60.html#fnp27)]
This new concept is one advanced by Lenin after the great Soviet people defeated the imperialist armed intervention. As was pointed out above, at the outset the imperialists were not willing to co-exist peacefully with the Soviet Union. The imperialists were compelled to "co-exist" with the Soviet Union only after the war of intervention against the Soviet Union had failed, after there had been several years of actual trial of strength, after the Soviet state had planted its feet firmly on the ground, and after a certain balance of power had taken shape between the Soviet state and the imperialist countries. Lenin said in 1920:
We have won conditions for ourselves under which we can exist alongside the capitalist powers, which are now forced to enter into trade relations with us.[2]
It can be seen that the peaceful co-existence for a certain period between the world's first socialist state and imperialism was achieved entirely through struggle. Before World War II, the 1920-1940 period prior to Germany's attack on the
[1] The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution (http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/MPPR16.html).
[2] Our Internal and External Situation and the Party's Tasks. page 28
Soviet Union was a period of peaceful coexistence between imperialism and the Soviet Union. During all those twenty years, the Soviet Union kept faith with peaceful co-existence. However, by 1941, Hitler no longer wanted to maintain peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union; the German imperialists perfidiously launched a savage attack on the Soviet Union. Owing to the victory of the anti-fascist war in which the great Soviet Union was the main force, the world saw once again a situation of peaceful co-existence between the socialist and capitalist countries. Nevertheless, the imperialists have not given up their designs. The U.S. imperialists have set up networks of military bases and guided missile bases everywhere around the Soviet Union and the entire socialist camp. They are still occupying our territory Taiwan and continually carrying out military provocations against us in the Taiwan Straits. They carried out armed intervention in Korea, conducting a large-scale war against the Korean and Chinese peoples on Korean soil, which resulted in an armistice agreement only after their defeat -- and up to now they are still interfering with the reunification of the Korean people. They gave aid in weapons to the French imperialist occupation forces in their war against the Vietnamese people, and up to now they are still interfering with the reunification of the Vietnamese people. They engineered the counter-revolutionary rebellion in Hungary, and up to now they are continually making all sorts of attempts at subversion in the socialist countries in East Europe and elsewhere. The facts are still just as Lenin presented them to a U.S. correspondent in February 1920: on the question of peace, "there is no obstacle on our side. The obstacle is the imperialism of American (and all other) capitalists."[1]
The foreign policy of socialist countries can only be a policy of peace. The socialist system determines that we do not
[1] Answer to the questions of the Correspondent of the American Newspaper, "New York Evenings Journal."
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need war, absolutely will not start a war, and absolutely must not, should not and cannot occupy one inch of a neighbouring country's territory. Ever since its founding, the People's Republic of China has consistently adhered to a foreign policy of peace. Our country together with two neighbouring countries, India and Burma, jointly initiated the well-known Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence; and at the Bandung Conference of 1955, our country together with various countries of Asia and Africa adopted the Ten Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. The Communist Party and Government of our country have in the past few years consistently supported the activities for peace carried out by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Government of the Soviet Union headed by Comrade N. S. Khrushchov, considering that these activities on the part of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Government of the Soviet Union have further demonstrated before the peoples of the world the firmness of the socialist countries' peaceful foreign policy as well as the need for the peoples to prevent the imperialists from launching a new world war and to strive for a lasting world peace.
The Declaration of the Moscow Meeting of 1957 states:
The cause of peace is upheld by the powerful forces of our era: the invincible camp of socialist countries headed by the Soviet Union; the peace-loving countries of Asia and Africa taking an anti-imperialist stand and forming, together with the socialist countries, a broad peace zone; the international working class and above all its vanguard -- the Communist Parties; the liberation movement of the peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies; the mass peace movement of the peoples; the peoples of the European countries who have proclaimed neutrality, the peoples of Latin America and the masses in the imperialist countries themselves are firmly resisting plans for a new war. An alliance of these mighty forces could prevent war. . . .
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So long as these mighty forces are continuously developed, it is possible to maintain the situation of peaceful co-existence, or even to formally reach some sort of agreement on peaceful co-existence, up to and including the conclusion of an agreement on the prohibition of atomic and nuclear weapons. That would be a fine thing in full accord with the aspirations of the peoples of the world. However, even in that case, as long as the imperialist system still exists, war, the most acute form of violence, will not disappear from the world.
The modern revisionists seek to confuse the peaceful foreign policy of the socialist countries with the domestic policy of the proletariat in the capitalist countries. They thus hold that peaceful co-existence of countries with differing social systems means that capitalism can peacefully grow into socialism, that the proletariat in countries ruled by the bourgeoisie can renounce class struggle and enter into "peaceful co-operation" with the bourgeoisie and the imperialists, and that the proletariat and all the exploited classes should forget about the fact that they are living in a class society, and so on. All these arguments are also diametrically opposed to Marxism-Leninism. The aim of the modern revisionists is to protect imperialist rule, and they attempt to hold the proletariat and all the rest of the working people perpetually in capitalist enslavement. Peaceful co-existence of different countries and people's revolutions in various countries are in themselves two different things, not one and the same thing; two different concepts, not one; two different kinds of question, and not one and the same kind of question.
Peaceful co-existence refers to relations between countries; revolution means the overthrow of the oppressing classes by the oppressed people within each country, while in the case of the colonies and semi-colonies, it is first and foremost a question of overthrowing alien oppressors, namely, the imperialists. Before the October Revolution the question of peaceful co-existence between socialist and capitalist countries simply did not exist in the world, as there were as yet no socialist countries at that time; but there did exist the questions of the proletarian revolution and the national revolution, as the peoples in various countries, in accordance with the specific conditions in their own countries, had long ago put revolutions of one kind or another on the order of the day to determine the destinies of their countries.

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We are Marxist-Leninists. We have always held that revolution is each nation's own affair. We have always maintained that the working class can only depend upon itself for its emancipation, and that the emancipation of the people of any given country depends on their own awakening, and on the ripening of revolution in that country. Revolution can neither be exported nor imported. No one can forbid the people of a foreign country to carry out a revolution, nor can one make a revolution in a foreign country by using the method of "helping the rice shoots to grow by pulling them up."
Lenin put it well when he said in June 1918:
There are people who believe that the revolution can break out in a foreign country to order, by agreement. These people are either mad or they are provocateurs. We have experienced two revolutions during the past twelve years. We know that revolutions cannot be made to order, or by agreement; they break out when tens of millions of people come to the conclusion that it is impossible to live in the old way any longer.[1]
In addition to the experience of the Russian revolution, is not the experience of the Chinese revolution also one of the best proofs of this? We Chinese people, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, have also experienced several revolutions. The imperialists and all the reactionaries, like lunatics, have always asserted that our revolutions were made to order from abroad, or in accordance with agreements. But people all over the world know that our revolutions were not imported from abroad, but were brought about because our people found it impossible to continue to live in the old China and because they wanted to create a new life of their own.
[1] The Fourth Conference of Trade Unions and Factory Committees of Moscow. page 34

When a socialist country, in the face of imperialist attack, is compelled to wage a defensive war and launch counter-attacks, is it justified in going beyond its own border to pursue and eliminate its enemies from abroad, as the Soviet Union did in the war against Hitler? Certainly it is completely justified, absolutely necessary and entirely just. In accordance with the strict principles of communists, such operations by the socialist countries must absolutely be limited to the time when imperialism launches a war of aggression against them. Socialist countries never permit themselves to send, never should and never will send their troops across their borders unless they are subjected to aggression from a foreign enemy. Since the armed forces of the socialist countries fight for justice, when these forces have to go beyond their borders to counter-attack a foreign enemy, it is only natural that they should exert an influence and have an effect wherever they go; but even then, the emergence of people's revolutions and the establishment of the socialist system in those places and countries where they go will still have to depend on the will of the masses of the people there.

The struggle for peace and the struggle for socialism are two different kinds of struggle. It is a mistake not to make a proper distinction between these two kinds of struggle. The social composition of those taking part in the peace movement is, of course, much more complex; it also includes bourgeois pacifists. We Communists stand right in the forefront in defending world peace, right in the forefront in opposing imperialist wars, in advocating peaceful co-existence and opposing nuclear weapons. In this movement we shall work together with many complex social groups and enter into necessary agreements for the attainment of peace. But at the same time we must uphold the principles of the working-class party and not lower our political and ideological standards or reduce ourselves to the level of the bourgeois pacifists in our struggle for peace. It is here that the question of alliance and criticism arises.
"Peace" in the mouths of modern revisionists is intended to whitewash the war preparations of imperialism, to play again the tune of "ultra-imperialism" of the old opportunists, which was long since refuted by Lenin, and to distort the policy of us Communists concerning peaceful co-existence of countries with two different systems into elimination of the people's revolution in various countries. It was that old revisionist Bernstein who made this shameful and notorious statement: "The movement is everything, the final aim is nothing." The modern revisionists have a similar statement: The peace movement is everything, the aim is nothing. Therefore, the "peace" they talk about is entirely limited to the "peace" which may be acceptable to the imperialists under certain historical conditions and it is designed to lower the revolutionary standards of the peoples of various countries and destroy their revolutionary will.
We Communists fight in defence of world peace, for the realization of the policy of peaceful co-existence. At the same time we support the anti-imperialist revolutionary wars of the oppressed nations and the revolutionary wars of the
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oppressed peoples for their own liberation and social progress, because all these revolutionary wars are just wars. Naturally, we must continue to explain to the masses Lenin's thesis that the capitalist-imperialist system is the source of modern war; we must continue to explain to the masses the Marxist-Leninist thesis that the replacement of capitalist-imperialism by socialism and communism is the final goal of our struggle. We must not conceal our principles from the masses.
I have taken the liberty of quoting from "Long Live Leninism" (http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/LLL60.html) in order to provide the reader an alternative view on this concept of peaceful co-existence. Soviet literature from the revisionist period has a lovely tendency to muddle matters, to confuse readers. Hence the reason for a secondary source to compare and contrast.

[Lamanov]

Mao can wake up and drop dead again. "Peaceful coexistence" was in partial practice ever since Rappalo agreement. It was in full swing during "National Front" politics when Moscow and Communist parties rallied to support "liberal democracy" in opposition to Hitler.

You Stalin-lovers are just so full of shit.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Unicorn, why do you post article upon article of old text? These works are too bloody long for a forum topic.

[The Author]

Mao can wake up and drop dead again. "Peaceful coexistence" was in partial practice ever since Rappalo agreement. It was in full swing during "National Front" politics when Moscow and Communist parties rallied to support "liberal democracy" in opposition to Hitler.
Yes, that's what part of the pamphlet I quoted was referring to...no need for the "history lesson."


You Stalin-lovers are just so full of shit.Like you "Council Communist Ultra-Lefts" are any fucking better, mixing up socialism with state capitalism and then preaching "Worker's Control," which is just a colorful euphemism for real state capitalism under your leadership. The naive believe that rhetorical bullshit, the politically educated know better.

[Unicorn]

Joe Hill's Ghost,

Everyone is welcome to add their two cents on the topic. It is not necessary to read the whole chapter and indeed it is not very readable when posted to the forum. I recommend clicking the link and read the chapter or the whole book on leninist.biz.

[Lamanov]

Like you "Council Communist Ultra-Lefts" are any fucking better, mixing up socialism with state capitalism and then preaching "Worker's Control," which is just a colorful euphemism for real state capitalism under your leadership. The naive believe that rhetorical bullshit, the politically educated know better.

The "naive" also know about Kronstadt, Catalonia, Aragon, East Berlin and Budapest.

[The Author]

Criticism of the "second type" as opposed to criticism of the "first type." And concrete examples of fighting for real state capitalism under your banner as opposed to "actually existing socialism."