Oleg S. Chenin, 2001 President of the Soviet of the Union of the Communist Parties - Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Contribution to the International Communist Seminar "The World Socialist Revolution in the Conditions of Imperialist Globalization" Brussels, 2-4 May 2001

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Right opportunism is the accomplice of imperialist globalisation
Oleg S. Chenin,
President of the Soviet of the
Union of the Communist Parties - Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Contribution to the International Communist Seminar
"The World Socialist Revolution in the Conditions of Imperialist Globalization"
Brussels, 2-4 May 2001
The 19th Congress of the CPUS ended on October 14, 1952. At the last session, Stalin
made a brief speech. And although it is stated in the report by Malenkov that “the
contradictions which are tearing now apart the imperialist side can lead to the war
between two capitalist countries”, Stalin dissociated himself from the old dogma and
gave the following characteristic of the new situation in the world: “Before, the
bourgeoisie considered itself as the leader of the nations, it defended the rights and the
independence of the nations, placing them above all. Now there are no trace left of the
national principle. Now the bourgeoisie sells the rights and the independence of the
nations for dollars. The flag of national independence and of national sovereignty has
been thrown away.” Joseph Stalin denounced the foundation of the phenomena that is
called today globalisation.
Globalisation, a concept with several meanings, even if it is a quite recent one,
has its own history. In former times, the leaders of the Chinese empire, the roman
emperors and Great Britain have pretended that their actions had a world character. The
formation of a global social, economic and spiritual movement, grasping the entire world
and the main aspects of the life of humanity and called western civilization comes from
the 19th century. However, the second half of the past century led to specific corrections
and to complements to this process.
Let's cite again a thought by J. Stalin, pronounced in the 40s: “The more one will
go forward, the more success one will get, the more the remnants of the broken
exploiting classes will be irritated, the quicker they will resort to sharper forms of the
struggle.” This citation doesn't only aim at expressing our deep regret for having
forgotten the recommendations of this leader in recent times but also at using the
marxist-leninist-stalinist dialectic approach and at finding some optimism in the
evaluation of the current world situation, in order to examine the historic condemnation
of the globalisation and the means to defeat it.
At the middle of the 19th century, it became obvious that all the important events,
which determine the march of world history, are taking place in the countries of Europe
and in the US. “The bourgeoisie, by means of the exploitation of the world market, as K.
Marx and F. Engels declare in the Manifesto of the communist party, made

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cosmopolitan the production and the consumption in all the countries. By the rapid
improvements of all the production and communication means, it drags along all the
nations, even the most primitive, into civilization.”
It is particularly relevant when one realizes that the biggest achievements in the
development of technique, science, production forces, don't correspond to the aspiration
of mankind to the realization of a social ideal, in harmony with all the domains of social
life. The break in the social-economic situation between capitalists and waged workers,
the aggravation of the class opposition in the advanced countries of capitalism, led to
the creation by Marx and Engels of the communist ideology, scientifically founded. The
party of Lenin realized this real break in the globalising capitalist way of development,
which in fact has a world historic meaning, in October 1917.
The social-economic, organisational, ideological and strategic basis of the policy
of imperialist globalisation (ultra-imperialism of the end of 21st century) is forming before
our eyes. If one compares the important goals and values of the american-sionist
globalisation project and the ones of the socialist (communist) project, the lack of
historical perspectives of the former becomes obvious. The object of the imperialist
globalisation is, by definition, the whole world. However, in the theory and above all in
the practical actions, there is a sharp delimitation between the 'main' humanity and the
'auxiliary' and 'non-profitable' humanity, which corresponds, according to the 'civilized'
UN employees, to two thirds of the world population. Huge possibilities of action on the
world processes are concentrated in the hands of a very narrow group of peoples and
organizations. "The multinationals, as the leader of the Cuban people Fidel Castro says,
are organizations with large possibilities, a big richness and more power than all the
governments together. The more they merge, the more they become master of the
finances, of the production and of the economy of the world, run by the blind and
uncontrolled laws of their systems. In this way they accelerate even more the arrival of
the crisis."
The object of the socialist economic regulation on large scale is above all the
process of social reproduction. A unique economic centre, the state, coordinates this
process. On the international stage, a balance of gradual development is established in
the following way: on one side, between the life environment of human society and the
technical system it has created, on the other side, between the interests of development
of the various countries and some international institutions, which solve the problems of
coordination, for example in the domains of science, transportation and communication,
of the spatial conquest, etc.
The depth of the conflict between the two possible trends appears even more
clearly when one confront to each other the meaning and the goal of the economy. The
goal of the globalising regulation is the unlimited enrichment of the subjects of the
economy, that is to say of the multinationals, the control on the world economic space,
the obtaining of profit under different forms, first as financial income. The global
regulation leans on the forces of money and doesn't consider first the economic needs
but the financial needs. This tendency, as shown by Marx, -"Instead of all the physical
and spiritual feelings, one arrives to an alienation of all these feelings, to a ownership

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feeling" - has reached the limit where it makes the human beings completely primitive.
All the values are converted into costs, the qualitative differences into quantitative ones,
and the freedom of the person (for which so many 'global-liberal' are fighting) into a
freedom of selling and buying everything and everybody.
The goal and the meaning of the process of the socialist regulation of the
economy is the optimal development of all the sectors of the economy; the creation of a
material basis for a diversified and, in particular, spiritual development of the society and
of the human being; the aspiration to the realization of the principle of social justice, not
only in the repartition but also in all the domains of social and economic life; the
warranty for every individual, every collectivity, every people, to have equal chances of
realizing the spiritual needs of all the society and of every of its members.
At the end of the 20th century, with the development of the economic life (and not
only economic) according to scenarios elaborated by the subjects of social regulation,
the economic relations between the countries have taken the form of a financial spider-
web. The giant speculative bubble, created by the US with the help of the IMF, reached
a level of 300 trillions of dollars, for a world production reaching only 40 trillions. The
main industrially developed states like Germany, France, Italy but also Japan and China,
are more aware that their economic and political interests are now in direct
contradictions with the dictates of the dollar, with the unavoidable complete break of the
financial system, imposed to the world by the US.
Also, in the economic sphere of the countries of the 'second world', to which
belong also the countries of the former USSR, one imposes instead of the real
production of the consumption goods, the fantasy of the market, the monetary fetishism.
So, in the domain of the conception of the world, all the space is filled with an unreal
mass of ‘virtual’ information. In this technological century, the screen solves everything.
In this mass, the rejection of the necessity of social progress and the conception of 'the
end of history', the values of the bourgeois consumption and the reactionary anti-
collectivism, the propaganda for moral licence and the right of the strongest, the
contempt for work and the cult of richness, are dominating. These forms of the
'informational idealism' deprive the common citizens and the new generation of the
feeling of danger, of psychological defence with respect to the system of alienation and
exploitation. This system, with its current technical possibilities of constraint by forces,
which are not interested in the development of society but in its deterioration, leads
unavoidably to a catastrophe, nuclear or ecological, of the civilization or of the moral
standards. In the countries that present themselves as a model to imitate, the criminality
reaches record levels. The non-traditional (more exactly out of the tradition) groups of
the population are increasing; homosexuals represent almost 15% of the population, the
members of sects etc. Nevertheless from the point of view of the powerful financial
systems, which control almost all the TV networks like in the US or in Israel, where one
finds a lot of peoples with a double citizenship, such an evolution seems necessary for
the accelerated formation of a new world order and of a world government.
Another aspect of globalisation, maybe the most important, although it is the least
discussed. To broaden their zones of control, the globalisers don't generally choose,

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especially after the collapse of the USSR, economic or cultural cooperation but they use
violence, with the help of the armed coalition of NATO. They insist on the lack of
casualties on their side, on 'the obtaining of a maximum profit', that is to say on impunity,
on the maximum reduction of their losses while killing a maximum of peoples by their
victims. The Gulf war is significant: for each American killed, there was 1000 Iraqis
killed. Of course, such a proportion can only be reached if one kills everybody and not
only the peoples with a military uniform.
In Korea, in 1950-1953, the U.S. “Flying Fortresses” with no risk to themselves
bombarded the peaceful population along with cultural monuments. In Vietnam, the
United States made broad use of chemical weapons and napalm. They burned entire
villages, causing the deaths of more than 500,000 inhabitants of the country. In these
pitiless wars, the United States killed the civilian population above all. If the proportion of
civilian victims reached 5% during the First World War, and 50% in the Second World
War (this was already the “brilliant accomplishment” of Hitler’s fascist Germany), in the
Korean War it was 84% and in Vietnam almost 90% of the victims were civilians. These
U.S. wars aimed at destroying the entire population of the socialist countries. And they
are prepared to carry out these wars against any people who are not in agreement with
the policies practiced by the “civilizers.”
Without doubt another factor played a role in the enormous number of civilian
victims. It involves another method of struggle against the “non-profitable” and “surplus”
population: the blockade. The population is deprived of products, of medicines—their
“peaceful” disappearance is organized. This method was also applied in Russia, with the
active collaboration of the regime that came to power 10 years ago. One cannot
characterize as “natural” the decline in population, equal to almost six million people, in
eight years. The mortality rate in the country is more than twice as great as the birth
rate. Sixty percent of the population earns an income less than the minimum needed.
The cult of violence, of promiscuity, of alcohol and of smoking dens is cultivated. The
level of instruction and education has greatly dropped. The social basis is hit hard by
alcoholism and substance abuse; AIDS and criminality are spreading.
The fundamental characteristics of the policy of globalization have quite fully
appeared in the example of subversive activities against the Soviet Union. For the
destruction of the USSR and the Soviet Socialist regime, the summit of the “elite
globalising society” mobilized all its strengths and possibilities. The massive invasion of
our country took place on three different paths: military-political, socio-economic and
cultural-ideological.
The sarcastic suggestion of one of the Slavophile philosophers of the 19th
Century to partisans of European civilization (that is, of globalization)— “weaken the
common basis” [weaken the popular principle?] that resists this civilization – was
addressed to his contemporaries. None the less it turned out to be prophetic: the road to
weakening the common basis was adopted and followed, with the aggravating condition
that it was the work of the dissident part of the Soviet intelligentsia (above all “creative”)
and of the traitors at the summit of the Party and the State. Under the slogan “return to
the main steam of world civilisation,” they used all means to undermine, shake and
destroy the roots of unity of that society, of that historical and cultural type. They

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assaulted that new socio-economic formation, which made up the basis of the
expansion and strength of the Soviet Union, that formation that could really become the
basis of solidarity among all sectors of humanity.
Precisely that solidarity, proletarian internationalism, can and should become the
principle weapon in the struggle against imperialist globalization. The intervention of the
patriotic nationalists against globalization should doubtlessly be welcomed, with them
we can collaborate, but our principle task is to strengthen the left front, the front of the
workers. That is why all deformations, false slogans, opportunist currents within this
front are deadly dangerous.
Opportunism within the communist movement in our country, in the countries of
Europe has a long history. At the 19th Congress of the CPSU we already mentioned, the
following resolution was approved:
“1. To regard as indispensable and opportune guiding the alteration of the
existing program of the party.
2. Regarding alterations of the program, be guided by the principled positions of
the work of Comrade Stalin “Economic Problems of the Soviet Union.”
4. Submit the reworked project of the party to the attention of the following
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”
Nevertheless N. Khrushchev, at the following Congress, the 20th Congress, and indeed
at an Enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee (for on Feb. 24, 1956, the Congress
exhausted the resolution and accomplished its work, but Khrushchev’s report mentioned
above was delivered Feb. 25), committed a double treason.
Instead of the program, he passed a resolution “on the cult of personality and its
consequences.” By 1961, he had in fact pushed out the members of the commission of
the program of work (Khrushchev himself was not included in the commission, as one
can see, according to his own indications), and that led to an acceptance of a “program
for the construction of communism,” whose content was anti-Marxist. It provided a rich
soil for the rapid development of revisionism and opportunism on a world historic level.
Earlier still, at the 21st Congress in 1959, Khrushchev had declared “the complete and
definitive victory of socialism in the USSR,” which was false and premature, and a
consequence of the tendency within the group leading the Party to look for rapid and
simple solutions.
From the theoretical point of view, Khrushchev’s entire 10-year period of
leadership can be characterized by the refusal of any creative development of Marxism,
as neo-Trotskyism, as an obvious evasion, as leftist posturing that inevitably transforms
itself into right-wing opportunism. This confirms the estimation of the danger of right and
left deviations in the communist movement, estimation made by Stalin: “both are worse.”
“In the party, there cannot be two sets of rules, one for leaders and one for
ordinary members...To be just and honest before the party, to refuse to allow
neither dissimulation, nor altering of the truth. For a communist to distort the facts

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before the party or to deceive the party is a harmful evil and incompatible with his
or her presence in the ranks of the party. No matter what position is held, a
communist must chose cadres [leading comrades] by rating them according to the
quality of political and practical abilities. The choice of cadres by rating them
according to their relationships and relatives, or their origin or their personal
attachment is inadmissible. The violation of these norms, the choice of cadres
according to relations of friendship, of personal devotion, of regional or family
friendships, is incompatible with ones membership in the ranks of the party.”
It is typical that, exactly on this theme, with precision and including the contrary
position, he had expressed himself so emotionally at the 19th
Congress of the CPSU,
where at the request of the Central Committee he reported on changes in the party
bylaws.
Khrushchev removed Article 131 from the Constitution of the USSR:
ARTICLE 131. It is the duty of every citizen of the USSR to safeguard and
strengthen public, socialist property as the sacred and inviolable foundation of the
Soviet system, as the source of the wealth and might of the country, as the source of
the prosperous and cultured life of all the working people. Persons committing
offenses against public, socialist property are enemies of the people.
Perhaps Khrushchev’s greatest crime was to have suppressed the mechanism
for control and stimulation of the reduction of the cost price [point below which the
producer under consideration will decline to produce—tr.]. He proclaimed that the
Stalinist policy of systematically reducing prices was adventurous. This approach in
particular served as the basis for the reform of 1965, which definitively confirmed the
category of capitalist profit as a criterion to measure effectiveness in the socialist
economy.
Often one hears that the term, “dictatorship of the proletariat,” although
scientifically rigorous, seems not well thought out on the socio-economic plane, that it
incites the primitive mentality to uncontrolled violence. History has clearly proven that in
class society, the state is simply indispensable as an apparatus of violent repression for
one of the classes to guarantee its domination. Whatever the packaging of the exploiter
state – “a society of equal opportunity”, “broadest democracy,” “respect for human
rights,” etc. –it is essentially the dictatorship of the owning class, of the bourgeoisie. It’s
alternative is the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Stalin can be accused neither of conservatism, nor of adventurism.
L.M.Kaganovitch was correct when in his last memoirs he attributed to Stalin the quality
of an exceptional political prudence. And in the conclusion of “Economic Problems of
Socialism in the USSR,” he proposed to gravely but firmly introduce a broad system of
exchange of products directly between city and countryside and, to reduce the sphere of
activity of the production of merchandise in the countryside.
At present it is incontestable that Stalin was the principle economic strategist of
the country for three decades. With the exception of the first two years of the war, he
never let the annual rate of real growth of production get lower than 10%. Although they

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have tried to erase it from the people’s memory, in the years just after the war, he
carried out an annual reduction in prices as an essential element in increasing the
standard of living of the working class. Stalin clearly showed how it was possible to
direct a great country, using this power to achieve progress for socialism.
Stalin’s role was equally consequential in international affairs. Under Stalin the
external policy in the post-war period was conducted precisely to assure that the fruits of
the great victory were entirely protected, in part to secure socialism in the USSR and in
part to consolidate the socialist camp. In the latter case, it was necessary to not be
carried away by its expansion, but instead to solidly assimilate what had been won.
The Moscow conference of representatives of the communist parties in 1957 and
1960 had been visibly influenced by the Congress of the CPSU that took place under
Khrushchev. They declared that the CPSU is not the party of the working class, but the
vanguard of all the people, and consequently the thesis of the dictatorship of the
proletariat was removed from the documents of the international communist movement.
They explained events based not on the struggle between two systems but on their
peaceful coexistence. This provoked lively criticism from the Chinese Communist Party.
In the Conference declaration of the representatives of the communist and
workers’ parties in November 1960, it was said: “Now the socio-economic possibility for
the restoration of capitalism has been eliminated, not only in the Soviet Union, but also
in other socialist countries. The united might of the socialist camp solidly guarantees the
protection of each socialist country from attacks on the part of imperialist reaction. Thus
the cohesion of the socialist states in a unified camp, their solid unity and the growing
power of the camp guarantees within the framework of the entire system a complete
victory of socialism.”
This position, like a complete series of others, tilts toward exaggeration, toward
an absence of dialectics, and confuses desire with reality.
In the documents of the Conference of representatives of communist and
workers’ parties, you can find formulations throughout that would still be completely
correct today:
“Right-wing opportunism does its best to defame instruction in Marxism-Leninism;
to proclaim it out of date and to replace it with reformist ideology, denying class
struggle, socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat; to make the
contradictions of bourgeois society vanish; to deny the role of the working class
as the principle revolutionary force; to consider parliamentary methods as
absolute and to degrade the importance of the mass extra-parliamentary struggle.
As if by a rule, “left” opportunism unites with dogmatism and leads to
sectarianism.
“Though they formulate different theses, “right-wing” and “left-wing” opportunism
often intertwine—the commonality of their anti-revolutionary orientation entwines
them. Revisionism in theory opens the road to opportunist practices. Right-wing
opportunism means a slippage of positions toward liquidation of communism and
agreements with social democracy in politics and ideology. Left opportunists

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disguise themselves under an ultra-revolutionary phrase and push the masses to
adventurist actions and the party on the road of sectarianism.
“As different as they appear to be, these deviations from Marxism-Leninism—left
or right—lead finally to identically harmful consequences: they weaken the
struggle capacity of the communist parties, they sap the revolutionary position of
the working class and the unity of the anti-imperialist forces.
“Often right and left opportunism share the common trait of capitulating before
nationalism, and sometimes pass directly to nationalist positions. Lenin
discovered this connection long ago: there is no doubt at all of the ideological and
political relationship, the connection, even the identity of opportunism and social-
nationalism.’ ”
But what is well expressed in theory is not always observed in practice. And the
poisoned seeds of opportunism sown by Khrushchev already began to send up
abundant shoots at the beginning of the 1960s.
Thus the plenum of the Central Bureau of the Norwegian Communist Party wrote
in its declaration of January 1963: “We the PC of Norway, will attend to our position
involving different questions of an ideological character.”
And then there was the position of the Italian CP: “It is possible that we will have
to find new forms of unity among the parties, while conserving the maximum respect for
the autonomy of each of them, while retaining sentiments of responsibility for which we
have always conducted ourselves with zeal, because we were the first to advocate the
rejection of the theory of the state and of the guiding party. Responsibility, democracy,
the diffusion of ideas between different parties and within each party make up the path
we must take to save and consolidate unity.”
“Italian socialist society should be based on democracy on the condition of the
principle of the free and democratic expression of the majority...” (L.Longo, interventions
of May 1963 and November 1964)
Here are still more examples: “The French Communist Party, in accepting the
multiparty system, has proposed a strict and lasting collaboration between the
Communist and Socialist parties, not only for today, in the struggle against the regime of
personal power and for democracy, but also tomorrow with the aim of constructing
socialism together, creating with their success the conditions for its occurrence, based
on a broad democratic union between the working class, the toiling peasantry, the
intelligentsia and intermediate classes.” (V. Rochet, November 1964)
“The democratic organizations in our country are now so strong, that, by correctly
using their unified power, one can eliminate the domination of capital and reach popular
power” (Program of the CP of Sweden, 1964)
If the International Congress in 1957 was held under the slogan of the dethroning
of the “personality cult,” in 1969 the principle theme was Maoism or “left sectarianism”

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according to the official agenda, and the events of Czechoslovakia of 1968. Ideological
divergences were reinforced and an open criticism manifested with regard to the CPSU.
“We estimate that the tendency to cling to these slogans and to pronounce these
ideological decrees, by those who hold on to other positions, is negative: One tries to
explain whatever divergence exists by a “deviation” from the purity of instruction, while
one doesn’t know who should be the guardian of that purity. That means in fact that not
only are these divergences exacerbated, but it also blocks the road toward
understanding the objective reasons, the real interests, that are found at their source.”
(E. Berlinguer, Italian CP) Here is located the beginning of the root of
“Eurocommunism,” that same which, in the second half of the past century, substituted
itself for Marxism-Leninism in the foundation of numerous communist parties of Western
Europe and led to their degeneration.
Now we see specifically that “Eurocommunism” is nothing other than a
contemporary form of extreme right-wing opportunism. It is responsible for the fall of the
West European communist movement. It is also the reason for the disappearance from
the European political arena of a series of communist parties, which, a half century ago,
were the vanguard, and the pride of the worldwide revolutionary anti-imperialist
movement.
That is why practically all the communist parties in the developed capitalist
countries intervened in favor of an alternative to force to resolve the crisis in
Czechoslovakia in 1968. G. Gusak made a worthy response to them:
“Imperialist circles always take sanely into account the real factors in politics and
economics. We would be eccentrics and not scientific socialists if we did not start
off with a realistic estimation of the facts.
“In the final analysis, it is people who make politics, but they do not always
possess the ideal qualities. In the stage of the passage to socialism both objective
and subjective problems arrive unexpectedly. Contradictions and differences
arise. We must distinguish their special or essential character. About specific
questions we can discuss and debate. If it involves principles of our doctrine and
our policy, we must struggle
“We are astonished that certain fraternal parties here, only superficially
acquainted with the events and with our development, draw out hasty conclusions
concerning the Czechoslovak situation. Objectively, this is opposed to our
interests.
“Our own experience shows that the slogan of sovereignty, absent of class
consciousness, is diminished and serves as a useful weapon for right-wing
opportunists, revisionists and anti-socialists.
“For us, there is no question of formal and unprincipled unity, of compromise on
principled questions. A rich experience has taught us that opportunist

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compromises resolve nothing and that sooner or later they boomerang against
the revolutionary movement and the working people.”
But the final document of the 1969 International Conference read:
“Communists give a decisive importance to the unity of the working class and
speak out for collaboration with socialists and social democrats in order to
establish a progressive democratic current and construct a socialist society for
the future.
“Imperialism is powerless to recover the historical initiative that it lost, to reverse
the current development of the world. The world socialist system, the world
working class, all the revolutionary forces determine the principle road of
development of humanity.”
This oriented the party toward leniency, widening without foundation the social
base of the party.
Thus all the negative tendencies in the worker and communist movement,
including in the Soviet Union, have their source in a history not so far in the past. The
events at the end of last year, of which we informed the fraternal parties, and whose
initiators were the modern right opportunists with the head of the leadership of the
greatest Communist (by name only) party of the Russian Federation, and find their origin
there.
For the conference participants, it is interesting to know one of the declarations
of G. Djuganov to the “Plenum” of Jan. 20, 2001, which the control commission of the
CPU-CPSU of February 24 had elsewhere recognized as contrary to the party rules and
illegal: “One of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th
Century was the creation of a
great union, which was the flame and hope of all the workers, and the creation of the
European Union, which today prospers and carries out its policies quite intelligently and
clear-sightedly.”
And again an opinion of the ex-brother in arms G. Djuganov to the Russian
National Patriotic Union: “The European social democrats of the 1990s integrated
themselves into the global process in a masterful fashion, finding the “happy medium”,
which at the same time took account of the laws of human evolution, including the
globalising processes of the 1990s, and of the national specificities that would be able to
resist the erasure of national identity.” This declaration was made when in the
countryside of Serbia, of Kosovo and Metohia, uranium shells continued to sow invisible
and silent death. Those were the traces of NATO’s bombing and shelling,
unconditionally supported by the European social democrats who formed the core of the
Socialist International and directing the governments of 13 countries of Western Europe.
Here is an example with which our “constructive-intransigent” opponents are trying to
inspire the people.
We remain firmly based on class positions, revolutionary, proletarian, and lead a
determined combat to attract broad masses of workers to our sides.

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Lenin’s formulation remains useful today: “Opportunism consists in sacrificing
fundamental interests in order to gain a specific an temporary advantage. Here is the
key to the theoretical definition of opportunism.” This position is concretized by the
words of comrade Gus Hall, who recently died:
«In the current situation, excessive appeal for the ‘independence of the party’ can
lead to nationalism. The cadres, educated through the ideas of autonomy and
independence, can be transformed into people carrying out a policy of narrow
nationalism.
“The parties have transformed themselves into powerful mass organizations. It
was a positive phenomenon. But what is negative, is that they have become
broad parties, of all the people, starting off from positions of nationalism and the
absence of classes. They have transformed themselves into mass parties at the
cost of retreating from vanguard working-class positions.
“The balance of forces is different today, the pressure from the adversary is
different, and as a consequence the influence of opportunism has changed. But
as the struggle between two opposing classes lasts, it will be necessary to
struggle against opportunism.”
Comrade Kim Jong Il, leader of the Korean people, speaks in an expressive and
convincing fashion of the extreme danger of opportunism, whose essence consists in
signing on to “global” civilization, that is, U.S.: “Today the most dangerous and harmful
thing is kowtowing to the imperialists in the United Sates. Closely related to the
sentiment of fear, admiration of the United States, that kowtowing has caused great
damage to the revolutionary struggle of the peoples. It serves as the most harmful
ideological poison; it paralyzes the people’s class-consciousness.
Today we can say it clearly: without victory over opportunism we cannot expect
unity of the communist movement. But without that unity we cannot defeat the mortal
danger for all humanity that imperialist globalization represents.
Moscow, March 2001.