Revisionism, the bourgoisie inside the communist movement.(1)

"After socialism is been destroyed in the Sovietunion en the explosion of the country of Lenin, all communists has to understand that revisionism is the most dangerous ideological enemy of marxism-leninism. Its beyond any doubt that revisionism represents the bourgeoisie inside the communist movement[1]"

One has to be carefull by concluding that the line of one or another communist party in the world is revisionist or even concluding that the line of one or another communist party is contaminated with a lot of opportunist conceptions.However, it is my opinion that I can prove that ther is a development of revisionism in the international communist movement. That development of revisionism is based on and is using certain existing opportunist conceptions ( in different communist partys). In some partys the revionist line has become the main line in that party. At this moment this is the case of the once revolutionary Workers Party of Belgium. This was possible because the leading cadres succeeded (through different mechanisms, I will discus in later articles) in putting in the mind of the majority of the members, a conception of "marxism" or "scientific socialism" wich is in fact metafysica and idealism formulated in "marxistic fraseology". That kind of leading cadres, perhaps once entered the party on revolutionary conceptions, on a certain moment positioned themselves on bourgeois classpoint of view. Those cadres could mask their conceptions with marxist fraseology easily, because they had often an encyclopedic knowledge of publications, articles and books of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong.
While I made allready a lot of analising in dutch on my weblog, I like to begin now in English to make an analys of the text that is been put on the website of the Workers Party of Belgium, http://www.wpb.be/, on thursday, 17 November 2005, 12h40, "Contribution to the International Symposium held in Wuhan, People’s Republic of China, 13 - 15 October - Friedrich Engels and scientific socialism in contemporary China".
You can find this article by clicking under READERS’ VIEW-POINT on "Is the evolution of China favorable to the Third World? (4 reactions)" and than scrolling above the reactions. It is possible that it is taken of the website. Therefor I putted it myself on the internet ( you can read it here)

Why do I begin my analyse of the international wave of revisionism with this article?
1. This article, this speech of Peter Franssen, is ment to be an "marxistic"analyse of the analyse that the CCP made, to defend the marxist character of the economic politcs of "Reform and opening" that began in 1978. Read the introduction of this article :

"It is 110 years since Friedrich Engels, the man who along with his companion Karl Marx laid the foundations of scientific socialism, passed away. To commemorate his death, an international symposium was held in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The organisers were the University of Wuhan, the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CC of the Communist Party of China and the Academy of Social Sciences of China. 32 Chinese speakers made contributions, as well as 13 foreigners. At the request of the organisers, Peter Franssen, journalist with the Belgian weekly Solidaire and researcher at the Institute for Marxist Studies, wrote a contribution, which you can read in full below." (Peter Franssen is also member of the leading organs of the Workers Party of Belgium, "Nico" -Paul Vermeer)

A example of a "marxist apology" of cadres of the CCP of the economic policy of "Reform and opening" started by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 you can find in the book "China's socialist economy"[2] The last chapter of that book forms a summary of the whole book. I put this last chapter on internet, where you can read it here. I will analyse this later.

2. It is an article in English (wich exist of course also in Dutch - and in French) So it is perfect to begin with the making of the analys of revisionism in English ( wich is not my mothertoungue)

3. It contains several importants elements of revionism

4. The debate on the socialism in China is an example of an debate on the necessity of the socialistic revolution, the concrete task of a communistic party, of the leninist partyconcept, the evolution of socialism under the dictatorship of het proletariat

5. It put a light, for me to prove of course, on the existing dominating revisionist line in the CCP, wich is for me the most important danger for the socialism in China. This, I will prove by an analyse of the book China's socialist economy I mentioned above.

6. It is an example of existing revisionism in the Workers Party of Belgium. I wil answer in other articles the question you certainly have: "How is it possible that revisionism has developed on such a scale in a party of wich the (former) president, Ludo Martens has produced so much and important contributions to the fight AGAINST revisionism? "

I will give some parts of the analyse of Peter Franssen, after wich I make my remarks. At the end I wil made more concreet his revisionism by analysing his use of quotes of Lenin (as example)
Peter Franssen:

"What the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people have achieved since the revolution of 1949 … proved that the general line of the Chinese Communist Party is correct. The achievements of the Chinese Communist Party have only been possible because the Party took as its guide scientific socialism, the dictatorship of people’s democracy, the leadership of the Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism. Friedrich Engels is, along with Karl Marx, the man who laid the fundamental basis of Chinese Communist Party thought."

Peter Fransen begin his analyse with two axiomas on wich no one may doubt and on wich he won't accept no discussion:
1. " the general line of the Chinese Communist Party is correct"
2. " The achievements of the Chinese Communist Party have only been possible because the Party took as its guide scientific socialism, the dictatorship of people’s democracy, the leadership of the Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism."
He denies the intern struggle WITHIN the Communistic Party of China between the real marxistic revolutionary line and opportunistic deviations and after some time with an elaborated revisionist line. It is the correct handling of that struggle between intern party contradictions, and NOT with a forced compromise ( and so a rather formal "unity") on one "general line", that resulted in the indeed important "achievements of the Communist Party of China and the Chines people".
The struggle INSIDE the CCP, and the attempt to ISOLATE Mao Zedong in the CCP in several occasions, was just a consequence of the fact that a lot of leading cadres in the CCP took NOT "as its guide scientific socialism, the dictatorship of people’s democracy, the leadership of the Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism".
In fact Peter Franssen makes here mistakes against historical materialism AND he is idealist: he claims that his IDEAS are historical facts.
Peter Franssen:

Engels was … the first to apply the method of dialectical and historical materialism to the analysis of economic relations in bourgeois society. He researched economic phenomena in their entirety, their interaction and their development. (He)…showed that private ownership of the means of production under capitalist relations is characterised by a number of laws which bear within them the death of private property. …
(Engels)…draws a sharp dividing line between the petty bourgeois, who reject capitalism on moral grounds, and scientific socialism, which shows the necessity and the historical limitations of private property and concludes that a socialist revolution is necessary to destroy the private ownership of the means of production and to allow society to move up to a higher stage, where the liberation of the productive forces is the main object.

Here lies the origin of later dogmatic conceptions ( as we will see): " Scientific socialism, which shows the necessity and the historical limitations of private property and concludes that a socialist revolution is necessary to destroy the private ownership of the means of production and to allow society to move up to a higher stage, where the liberation of the productive forces is the main object."
In fact he agrees with the revisionist theory of leading cadres in the CCP of "a long historical period of the primary stade of socialism in China", where a revolution take place in a backward economic coutry, with a majority of agricultural workers and peasants. In that stade, so they claimed, there must first be a capitalist development because the backwartnes of the production forces. For Peter Franssen ( and Deng Xiaoping) the development of capitalist production relations must make possible, the development of the production forces at a point that they could manage socialist production relations. This is NOT scientific socialism, this is a colonialist conception or even a conception of the slave-holders. In defence against anti-colonism and abolitionist movements they claimed thad slavery and colonialism, so slavery productions-relations, couldn't be changed because of the backwardness of the primitive slaves or primitive colonialised populations. Slavery and colonialism must be maintained so they claimed, to develop the production-forces (the slaves) until the point that they could handle the 'freedom" of capitalist production-relations, until the moment that the ex-slaves could handle the "freedom"of choice of the capitalist to whome they could sell their workforce and until the moment that the ex-slaves could organise their lives with the salary they got.
Peter Franssen use GENERAL conclusions of a GENERAL analyse (of Engels) as concrete and specific laws of building socialism in a specific region in the world in a specific historical situation. And further he choose a quote of Engels out of his context, were Engels made a general conclusion, so Engels "prooves"( out of his grave) the correctness of Peter Franssen ( and Dengs) analyse. That is eclecticism and dogmatism.
To know what I mean with this "accusation" of "dogmatism" it is good to read "On Practice"and "On Contradiction" of Mao Zedong. As ILLUSTRATION ( not as eclecticistic PROOF) I wil give some quotes out of "On Contradiction":

"… The particularity of contradiction is still not clearly understood by many comrades, and especially by the dogmatists. They do not understand that it is precisely in the particularity of contradiction that the universality of contradiction resides. Nor do they understand how important is the study of the particularity of contradiction in the concrete things confronting us for guiding the course of revolutionary practice…..
Where our dogmatists err on this question is that, on the one hand, they do not understand that we have to study the particularity of contradiction and know the particular essence of individual things before we can adequately know the universality of contradiction and the common essence of things, and that, on the other hand, they do not understand that after knowing the common essence of things, we must go further and study the concrete things that have not yet been thoroughly studied or have only just emerged. Our dogmatists are lazy-bones. They refuse to undertake any painstaking study of concrete things, they regard general truths as emerging out of the void, they turn them into purely abstract unfathomable formulas, and thereby completely deny and reverse the normal sequence by which man comes to know truth. Nor do they understand the interconnection of the two processes in cognition — from the particular to the general and then from the general to the particular. They understand nothing of the Marxist theory of knowledge….
The principle of using different methods to resolve different contradictions is one which Marxist-Leninists must strictly observe. The dogmatists do not observe this principle; they do not understand that conditions differ in different kinds of revolution and so do not understand that different methods should be used to resolve different contradictions; on the contrary, they invariably adopt what they imagine to be an unalterable formula and arbitrarily apply it everywhere, which only causes setbacks to the revolution or makes a sorry mess of what was originally well done…."

And special on the question "development of productionforces" and "change of productionrelations":

" It can thus be seen that the nature of a thing is mainly determined by the principal aspect of the contradiction, the aspect which has gained predominance. When the principal aspect which has gained predominance changes, the nature of a thing changes accordingly….
Instances of such reciprocal transformation are found in our past experience….
Some people think that this is not true of certain contradictions. For instance, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect; in the contradiction between the economic base and the superstructure, the economic base is the principal aspect; and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the mechanical materialist conception, not the dialectical materialist conception.
True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies this is not a materialist. But it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role. When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal and decisive role…."

What Engels analised in general and concrete on the contradictions in the world at the historical moment when he,Engels, lived, is transposed on the world of today by Peter Franssen while he put his IDEA of analogy as a fact:

"The dividing line traced by Engels in 1844 today still forms the boundary between Marxism and « left-wing » petty bourgeois currents in China and elsewhere in the world. On the one hand there is scientific socialism. On the other there is a hotchpotch of moral, ethic and religious considerations, in other words idealism……
Engels tales aim at Karl Heinzen, a representative of the Utopians, and writes: “Mr Heinzen imagines that property relations and heritage rights can change at will. He cannot understand that the property relations of each epoch are the necessary result of the modes of production and the way trade is carried on in that period. ”[3]
That same year 1844 Engels wrote with Marx The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism. It was their first work in common. It is a devastating criticism of Utopianism and contains the fundamental ideas of the materialist conception of history, which proclaims that material production plays a decisive role in the development of society.
In 1844-1845 Engels and Marx wrote The German Ideology in which they show the dialectical relation between productive forces and relations of production. The historical role of capitalism and of its bearer, the bourgeoisie, was to concentrate the means of production and thereby to revolutionise society at every level. However, to the extent that the bourgeoisie accomplishes this feat, it approaches its limit, determined by the economic and social contradictions it itself has created. …
Engels and Marx had worked out the foundations of dialectical and historical materialism. Lenin later wrote : « Historical materialism was a great achievement in scientific thinking.. »[4] "

Peter Franssen speaks not of the excisting struggle between bourgeois(revisionist) line and the revolutionaiy line. This struggle is the result of the main contradictions in de actual society between capitalists and proletariat, between communism and capitalism One can say that in fact socialism is the form under wich this contradiction will be solved in the favor of the proletariat, in favor of communism.
My conclusion is (as I will elaborate further in a next article) is that Peter Franssen, although a leading cadre of a communist party, don`t aply scientific socialism but eclecticism and dogmatism. Peter Franssen aplies historical analogies instead of historical materialism.

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[1] "About certain aspects of the struggle against revisionism", Ludo Martens in Marxistische Studies no 29, march 1996, (see www.marx.be), a discussion report on the International Seminar in Janashakti, India organised by the PCI(ML)

[2] "China's socialist economy", First Edition 1981 Revised Edition 1986 ISBN-083SI-1592.5 (Hard Cover) ISBN-098351.1703.0 (Paperback)
Copyright 1986 by Foreign Languages Press Published by the Foreign Languages Press, 24 Baiwanzhuang Road, Bering, China
Printed by the L. Rex Offset Printing Co. Ltd. Man Hing Industrial Godown Bldg., 14/F. No.4, Yip Fat St., Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong
Distributed by China International Book Trading Corporation (Guoji Shudian), P. 0. Box 399. Beijing, China

[3] Friedrich Engels, Die Kommunisten und Karl Heinzen, Marx-Engels, Werke, Dietz-Verlag, Berlin, 1980, Band 4, p. 314.

[4] Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism , Collected Works, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1963, vol.19, p. 25