By
Irina Malenko
I
have the great honour of reviewing Comrade Joma’s newest book on the Philosophy
of Marxism Leninism and Mao Zedong ‘s Thought. It is a very remarkable book in
the sense that it is a collection of his works on this topic over the last 50
years which is a very substantial period of time. It’s important first of all
because of the growing importance of the revolutionary theory for the
international communist movement. There are far too few authors these days who
properly and deeply develop revolutionary theory based on our modern
conditions, because unfortunately many younger comrades in different countries
still lack the deep theoretical knowledge of the classic works. In this sense,
this book could not be more timely. We live in the period of great changes, we
can feel it every day in our own lives. Ka Joma stressed in his various works
of the last few years that our time is the eve of the great revolutionary
changes for the whole mankind, the time of the rising tide, and we should be
well prepared for the tasks that we will have to complete, and it is our duty
to acquire the necessary knowledge in order to defeat the decaying capitalist
system and to build the better world. And I believe this book is one of the
excellent instruments for us to achieve this knowledge that we need so badly in
order to become able to do this. As professor Sison correctly states in this
book, “Having the materialist-scientific outlook and applying dialectical
materialism facilitate the understanding of all matters and the solution of
problems in the revolutionary process.” And it is really essential for us to
master it. There are works collected in this book which are aimed at audiences
with various level of knowledge of the revolutionary theory – from the basics
to in depth analysis of various classic Marxist works. If we start from the
basics, I can mention such works as (Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism: A
Primer 1981-1982 and On Proletarian Stand and Outlook: Introduction to
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, 2021). And of course if we look at in-depth analysis
of such classic works as On the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the
State by Friedrich Engels, The Discussion of Anti-Dühring by Friedrich Engels,
and The General view of Lenin’s theory on Modern Imperialism - " – all of
these works are excellent example of how the revolutionary theory should be not
just studied, but also developed in our modern times . It is about Reviewing
and Further Developing Basic Principles, as Professor Sison correctly states.
This book also gives us as foreign comrades a good guidance in the history of
the revolutionary movement in the Philippines, in the context of
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist teachings. It is important not only for the young
people in the Philippines themselves, but also for comrades in other countries
as it allows us to learn from each other’s experience of struggle. Comrade
Sison’s works clearly show us how revolutionary theory is applicable in
practice I think for our Eastern European comrades it will be of particular
importance as not many of us unfortunately have a detailed knowledge of the
history of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines. I shall mention that
the experience of the Rectification movement is particularly interesting and
important for our comrades in Eastern Europe today because unfortunately within
the revolutionary movement in our part of the world there are still a lot of
divisions and a lot of ideological confusion today. In Eastern Europe, people
of my age and older, because we studied Marxism Leninism at universities, a lot
of people think that we know it all, but in fact, quite often our knowledge is
somewhat superficial and not properly tied to practice, so I think we have a
lot of work to do in Eastern Europe in relation to this. And in order to
complete this work, we deeply need such books as this one. Also very important
for us are such works as On the Question on Mao Zedong Thought/Maoism (2019),
because in Eastern Europe we simply lack the knowledge of Mao’s works. We lack
it very badly. Unfortunately, when it comes, for example, to Cultural
Revolution in People's Republic of China, most people who grew up in the USSR
around that time, would only recall such things as “mass murder of sparrows”
and other rather peculiar things, without knowing anything of the essence of
this historical process. Comrade Mao’s works have been totally excluded from
the Soviet curriculum on Marxist revolutionary thought, so for us, to hear
about “the great contributions of Mao and the six components of Maoism" is
something of a novelty. The work “Tribute to the Great Communist Mao Zedong, 13
September, 1976” has rung a personal bell for me. I was 9 when comrade Mao
passed away. I remember it so clearly, because it was in September, and the
school year just started. At that time I didn’t know much about him, probably
like young people in Europe don’t know about Stalin these days, except for some
fake negative clichés). In our school at that time a cynical joke was going
around: Умер Мао, умер Тито, Леонид Ильич, а ты-то? Mao has died, and so did
Tito, Leonid Ilyich (Brezhnev), what about you? We were repeating it completely
without thinking, but mainly because Brezhnev was mocked with it. Relations
between USSR and China at that time were perhaps at their lowest point. So,
there was no opportunity for us to familiarize ourselves with his teachings. In
this sense, it is very important for us to realize now (better late than
never!) what we are actually lacking by not knowing his works. As comrade Sison
states in his book, we need to “underscore Mao Zedong Thought as the further
development of Marxism-Leninism. We studied avidly Mao’s theoretical and
practical contributions to philosophy, political economy, social science,
rectification movement, people’s war, and the theory of continuing revolution
in socialist society.” He speaks of the fact that “Maoism as the third stage in
the development of the universal theory and practice of the revolutionary
proletariat”- it is something that we need to reflect deep upon. It’s actually
only thanks to my Filipino comrades and to Ka Joma personally that I began to
read his works. Thanks to you, I realize now that there is a need to break
through the demonising of comrade Mao and this continuing dismissive attitude
towards his works as it often still happens in Eastern Europe. We overcame this
about Stalin, because his works were also not available to the general public
in the USSR during the Brezhnev’s years. We can and should overcome this sort
of attitude towards comrade Mao’s works as well. This will allow us to enrich
our theoretical knowledge and also practical knowledge of how to apply this in
the struggle, how to evaluate properly the mistakes of our own past that could
have been prevented. Soviet bureaucrat communists after Stalin were quite often
arrogant and a bit chauvinistic, even though they’d have denied it. Hence this
attitude that only our Soviet theoretical works were correct, dismissive
attitude towards works of comrades from other countries. Today we are paying
the price, among other things, also for this attitude. What I also find
particularly inspiring in Ka Joma’s works, is that it's always not just theory
– it is also about this theory’s detailed application in practice. Here I can
name such works as: Build the Bolshevik-type of Party and the Revolutionary
Mass Movement, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought as Guide to the Philippine
Revolution and Development and Current Status, and Prospects of Maoist Theory
and Practice in the Philippines. I was actually present at some webinars that
you have held recently, on works of Engels and on dialectical and historical
materialism. And in a way, it brought me back to my student days in the Soviet
Union, I must admit that during those days, I found particularly challenging to
understand the concept of dialectical materialism. But now, over the years, it
became a lot more clear to me. Not only I began to understand it properly,
instead of just trying to memorize things, but I also began to realize how
essential this knowledge is for becoming a true revolutionary and for being
able to see a clear path towards communist future. Some of these works of Ka
Joma are already translated into Russian and published in our Magazine which is
called Contemporary or Marxism Today, it’s been published in the Ukraine, but
in Russian language, it is an international magazine which is available in
different countries and also online. It is such works as Some Questions on
Dialectical Materialism, Lenin at 150: Lenin Lives! And Significance of the
Paris Commune of 1871 and its Relevance to the World Proletarian Revolution One
of the most important and urgent tasks of the communist movement is the
struggle against revisionism (just to give you an example, in Russia we have a
very difficult situation now, we already had 4 main communist parties during
the last 30 years, but now there are also splits and divisions within these 4).
I think many communists in our part of the world – because they lack this clear
and concise knowledge of Marxist theory, they feel sort of lost. And without
defeating our ideological opponents who pretend to be true revolutionaries and
who try to sow confusion among those comrades who are not soundly ideologically
prepared, without defeating such revisionists, we can’t successfully march
forward. So, in this sense, such works as Stand for Socialism against Modern
Revisionism and On Trotskyites and Other Slanderers , I think, are very
important. I think most of the works that are included into this book, are very
important to translate into other languages. We already made a suggestion to
publish a compilation of comrade Sison’s most important works in other
languages, even several volumes of such works. Maybe we in Eastern Europe
should prepare a compilation of most important works of contemporary foreign
comrades on the issue of how to build a Bolshevik’s type of Party. For example,
we could take Ka Joma’s work Build the Bolshevik-Type of Party and the
Revolutionary Mass Movement and to publish it in combination with Ludo
Martens’s “Party Of The Revolution”. Such publication would help us to vastly
improve our ideological and political education, and to move us towards our
mutual goal, and that is not just to explain the world around us, but also to
change it. I sincerely would like to thank Ka Joma for such an excellent book
and I think all of us will be looking forward to read more of his books this
year and the years ahead. Thank you very much!
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