Speech from People’s Democracy Party (“Republic of Korea”) for the 2nd Session “Ideological Struggles Against Historical Revisionism and Opportunism Today” of the International Colloquium in Belgrade on June 29
Just as flint produces a brighter spark the harder it strikes, the sharper the era becomes, the more clearly the essence of error—contrasted with truth—and falsehood—contrasted with authenticity—are revealed.
World War 1 was a war among imperialist powers. Lenin established the theory of socialist revolution in a single country. He argued that due to the uneven development of capitalism in monopoly capitalism stage, competition among imperialist states for colonies would lead to the rupture of the weakest link in the imperialist chain.
Lenin waged a struggle within the Second International against revisionists such as Bernstein and Kautsky, and advocated for the “transformation of imperialist war into civil war.” Drawing from the historical lessons of the Paris Commune, he strengthened Leninism, the Bolsheviks, and the Soviets, ultimately leading the Russian Revolution to success—thereby demonstrating the scientific validity of Leninism in practice.
During World War 2, leftist opportunistic tendencies such as Trotsky’s theory of the workers’ united front posed another challenge to the international communist movement. Stalin, through the world anti-fascist front line, brought in US and British imperialism and led the Allies to victory in World War 2.
After World War 2, the imperialist camp launched the “Cold War”—a policy of isolation and containment—targeting the socialist powers, the Soviet Union and China. At the same time, they waged “hot wars”, or wars of aggression, against newly emerging national liberation states. After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev seized power and, at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956, began in earnest a revisionist line. As a result, criticism of the CPSU intensified within the international communist movement, and the ideological confrontation between China and the Soviet Union deepened. At that time, only President Kim Il Sung of the DPRK, Chairman Mao Zedong of China, First Secretary Enver Hoxha of the Albanian Party of Labor, and General Secretary Nikos Zachariadis of the Communist Party of Greece upheld the principle of ideological struggle against Khrushchev’s revisionism.
The DPRK upheld the principle of Juche in ideology, independence in politics, self-sufficiency in the economy, and self-defense in national security. Through its policy of political independence, the DPRK overcame the servility promoted by revisionists and great-power chauvinists. Through its line of economic self-sufficiency, the DPRK thoroughly adhered to the path of building an independent national economy, overcoming the revisionists’ push to incorporate it into COMECON and imposing their “integrated economy” line. Upholding the line of self-defensive national defense, the DPRK rejected “peaceful coexistence” and instead waged anti-imperialist, self-reliant armed struggles through its own force to defend the sovereignty of its people.
World War 3 is unfolding as an anti-imperialist war—a decisive confrontation between the anti-imperialist camp and the imperialist camp. As such, it is strategically and tactically crucial to scientifically define the composition and scope of both the anti-imperialist and imperialist camps. The danger of the “imperialist pyramid” theory advocated by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) lies in the fact that it slanders the anti-imperialist camp in general as imperialist. According to this theory, any country that has a market and engages in trade is considered a capitalist state, and all capitalist states are deemed imperialist. Following this sophistry, not only Russia and China, but even Cuba and the DPRK would be categorized as imperialist countries. The criminal nature of the “imperialist pyramid” theory is revealed in the fact that, while claiming to uphold Leninism, it in reality denies the essence of Leninism as defined in “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” On the other hand, as Lenin expressed in the preface to that work, due to the conditions of the time, he was inevitably limited to analyzing imperialism primarily from an economic standpoint. However, imperialism possesses military and political indicators as well, and among these, military occupation and aggression are the most decisive.
The so-called “Imperialist Pyramid” theory, which lacks even the minimum scientific basis as a theoretical framework, is currently disrupting the international communist movement. The leadership of the Communist Party of Greece is mechanically applying this pseudo-theory to reality, labeling the war in Ukraine as an inter-imperialist conflict, and taking the lead in dividing and weakening communist movements in other countries. The essence of the “Imperialist Pyramid” theory, which today stands as a symbol of revisionism and opportunism, lies in the fact that it is, at its core, a pro-imperialist theory.
Another revisionist theory is Immanuel Wallerstein’s “Modern World-System” theory. Proposed by the American sociologist and historian Wallerstein, the core of the theory lies in its understanding of world history and society as a single capitalist system. This system is categorized into a core, semi-periphery, and periphery. The core exploits the periphery by extracting cheap labor and resources, thereby generating profit. Over time, countries can shift from one category to another within this hierarchy. Wallerstein views the essence of the world system as a structure of capitalist exploitation.
One of the major problems with the Modern World-System theory is that it denies imperialism. According to this theory, the imperialist-colonial relationship does not exist, and thus, naturally, anti-imperialist struggles are also dismissed. But what is the reality? Imperialism seizes, dominates, and exploits colonies, turning them into markets for commodity sales, destinations for capital investment, sources of cheap raw materials and fuel, and strategic military bases, all while parasitically feeding off them. Modern imperialism, domestically, is characterized by state monopoly capitalism. Monopoly conglomerates control the lifeblood of the economy and state power, and use state apparatuses to seek an outlet for economic crises through militarization and arms races. As a method of colonial domination, neocolonialism exists. This is a covert form of colonial subjugation policy that installs proxy regimes within colonies and rules them indirectly. Although its method differs from the direct rule of classical colonialism, its essence as colonial domination remains the same. Replacing this imperialist-colonial relationship with a general capitalist exploitation framework of “core, semi-periphery, and periphery” is a deliberate distortion of the imperialist colonial domination system, and in effect, serves to justify and uphold the logic of imperialist rule.
We have to establish a revolutionary strategy based on a scientific analysis of the current situation. The focus of analyzing situation lies in identifying the intentions of the revolutionary target, while the focus of establishing strategy lies in the goals of the revolutionary forces. It involves goals, means, and methods; justification, capacity, operation. The essential content of such strategic and tactical formulation lies in the goal itself. The eve of war is the eve of revolution. World War 1 catalyzed the Russian Revolution, and World War 2 expanded that revolution on a global scale. The historic experience of forming an anti-fascist front that led to victory in World War 2 is today inherited and developed in the form of an anti-imperialist front. The anti-imperialist camp must transform World War 3, instigated by imperialism, into an anti-imperialist war, thereby creating a decisive moment for revolution.
In the course of revolutionary practice, the exposure and condemnation of errors that deny truth is entirely natural. The World Anti-Imperialist Platform, a autonomous alliance of more than 80 political organizations around the world who signed the historic Paris Declaration, consistently orients all its practical struggles, events, theoretical and propaganda work, and daily activities toward the three major goals: strengthening the anti-imperialist struggle, escalating the ideological struggle against pro-imperialist ideology and reinforcing the communist movement as the genuine core of anti-imperialism.
The World Anti-Imperialist Platform is striving to scientifically analyze the World War 3 crisis provoked by imperialism, to propose the consolidation of the anti-imperialist front as its strategic line, and to hasten the final victory. Under the two slogans, “Workers of the world, unite!”and “The people united will never be defeated!”, the dreams and aspirations of the people of the world who struggle under the banner of anti-imperialism—for independence, peace, liberation, and revolution—will surely be realized in the near future.
