LONG LIVE THE VICTORY OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLE,TARIAT! In Commemoration of the Centenary - of the Paris Commune FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS PEKING LONG LIVE THE VICTORY OF THE DICTATOR.SHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT! - In Commemoration of the Centenary of the Paris Commune by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People's Daily), Hongqi (Red Flag) and, Jiefangjun Bao (Liberation Army Daily) (March 18, l97l) FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS PEKING 1971 Karl Marx great teacher and leader of the international proletarlal Printed in th,e Peo'ple's Republic of Chi,na Frederick Engels grcat teacher and leatler of the international proletariat Working men's Paris, with its Com- mune, will be for ever celebrated as the glorious harbinget of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the gteat heart of the working c1ass. Karl Marx CONTENTS If the Comrnune should be destoyed, the struggle would ontry be postponed. I. The Principles of the Paris Commune Are The principles of the Cornrnune ate eter- Eternal for the Revolu- nal and indestructible; they will present II. It Is of the Utmost Importance tionary People to Take HoId of the Gun themselves the again and again until III. Revolution Is the Cause of the Masses in Their working class is liberated. MilIions 10 IV. It Is Essential to Have a Genuine Marxist- Karl Marx Leninist PartY 15 V. The Modern Revisionists Are Renegades from the Revolutionary Principles of the Paris Commune 20 VI. Persist in Continuing the Revolution Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Strive for Still Greater Victories 25 Ltrotes 29 [. THE PR.INCIPLES OF' TFIE IJARIS CO&IMUNE AR.E ETER.NAL March 18 this year marks the centenary of the Paris Commune. FulI of profound feelings of proletarian internationalism. the Chinese Communists and the Chi- nese people under the teaching of their great leader Chairman Mao warmly celebrate this great "festival of the proletariat"l together with the proletariat and the revoLutionary people throughout the world. One hundred years ago the proletariat and the broad masses of the people of Paris in France staged a heroic armed uprising and founded the Paris Commune. This was the first proletarian regime in the history of mankind, the first great attempt of the proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Paris Commune abolished the army and police of the reactionary bourgeois government and replaced them with the armed people; the gun was in the hands of the working class. The Paris Commune broke the bourgeois bureaucratic apparatus enslaving the people, founded the working class's own government, adopted a series of policies to safegr-rard the interests of the working people and organized the masses to take an active part in running the state. In the fight to found and defend the proletarian regime, the heroes of the Paris Commune displayed extraordinary revolutionary initiative, soaring revolu- Marx also said: The state of the dictatorship of the tionary enthusiasm and self-sacrificing heroism, winning proletariat will "be a working, not a parliamentary, body, the acimiration of the revolutionary people generation executive and legislative at the same time".8 after generation. As Lenin said: "One of the most remarkable and Although the Paris Commune failed as a result of rnost important ideas of Marxism on the subject of the the military onslaught and bloody suppression carried state" is "the idea of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' out by butcher Thiers in ieague with Bismarck, its his- (as Marx and Engels began to call it after the Paris Com- torical contributions are indelible. As Marx said: The mune)".e To persist in revolutionary violence to smash glorious movement of March 18 was "the dawn of the the bourgeois state machine and establish the dictator- great social revolution which will liberate mankind from ship of the proletariat, or to maintain the bourgeois state proletariat the regime of classes for ever".2 machine and oppose the dictatorship of the has be,en the focus of repeated struggles between While the battle was still raging in a Paris darkened this -Marxism on the one hand and revisionism, reformism,' by the smoke of gunfire, Marx declared: "If the Commune anarchism and all kinds of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois should l-re destroyed, the struggle would only be post- ideology on the other, the focus of repeated struggles be- poned. The principles of the Commune are eternal and tween the two lines in the international communist move- indestructible; they will present themselves again ment for the past hundred years. It is precisely on this and again until the working class is liberated."3 fundamental question of the dictatorship of the prole- What are the revolutionary principles that Marx tariat that a1I revisionism, from the revisionism of the and Engels, the great teachers of the proletariat, summed Second International to modern revisionism with the up on the basis o{ the pra,ctice of the Paris Commune? Soviet revisionist renegade clique as its centre, has com- In a word, "the working class cannot simply lay hold pletely betrayed Marxism. of the ready-made state rnachinery, and wield it for its A century's history has proved to the full that the own purposes".4 The proletariat must use revolutionary Marxist theory of the proletarian revolution and the violence to "break" and "smash"5 the old state machinery dictatorship of the proletariat is invincible. and carry out the dictatorship of the proletariat.G Forty-six years after the Paris Commune uprising, In expounding this principle, Marx stressed: The the proletariat of Russia, led by the great Lenin, won first premiss of the dictatorship of the proletariat 'ois an victory in the October Socialist Revolution through arrny of the proletariat. The working class must win armed uprising, opening up a new world era of prole- the right to its emancipation on the battlefield".T Only tarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship. Lenin by relying on revolutionary armed force can the prole- said: On the path of breaking the old state machine, the tariat overthrow the rule of rea,ctionary classes and go Paris Commune "took the first world-historical step. on to fulfil its whole historicatr mission. The Soviet Government took the second".l0 Seventy-eight years after the Paris Commune upris- flames of the revolutionary torch raised by the Paris ing, the Chinese people, 1ed by the great leader Chairman Commune are ablaze throughout the world, and the days Mao, won victory in the revolution. Chairman Mao of imperialism, social-imperialism and all reaction are blazed a trail in establishing rural base areas, encircling numbered. In celebratlng the centenary of the Paris the ,cities frorn the countryside and finally taking the Commune at such a time, the lVlarxist-Leninists, the pro- cities. He led the Chinese people thror-rgh protracted letariat and the revolutionary peopie the world over have re\zolutionary wars in overthrowing the reactionary rule all the more reason to shout with unbounded confidence: of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, in Long live the Comrrrune! Long live the victory of the breaking the old state machine and brirrging about in proletarian revohltion and the dictatorship of the prole- China the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, the tariat ! dictatorship of the,proletariat. Since then Chairman Mao In commemorating the Paris Commune, we should has been leading the Chinese people in continuing study the Marxist-Lenirrist theory of the proletarian the revolution under the dictatorship of the proietariat revolution and the di,ctatorship of the proletariat, learn and advancing triumphantly along the socialist road. from historical experience, criticize rnodern revisionism Fighting bravely, advancing wave upon wave and with the Soviet revisionist renegade clique as its centre, supporting and encouraging each other in the past cen- adhere to the Marxist-I-eninist revolutionary 1ine, and tury, the proletariat, the oppressed people and oppressed unite with the people of the world to win still greater nations of the world have been promoting the socialist victories. revolution and the national democratic revolution and have won most brilliant victories. As Comrade Macr Tsetung points out: "This is the historic epoch in which U. IT IS OF TT{E UTMOST IN{PORTANCE world capitalisnn and irnperialisrn are going down to their FOR. THE R.EVOI,UTIONAB.Y PEOPI.E doorn and world socialisrn and people's dernocracy are TO TAKE EIOLD OF TI{E GUN marching to victory."u The cause of the Paris Commune is spreading far and wide at a high'er stage in the new The historical experience of the Paris Commune has historical conditions. The world has undergone an earth- fully demonstrated that taking hold of revolutionary shaking ,change. arms is of the utmost importance to the proletarian rev- In comrnemorating the tenth anniversary of the Paris olution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Commune, Marx and Engels, with jubilant revolutionary Explaining the experience of the Paris Commune, feeling, told the European working class: "Thus the Corn- Lenin referred to Engels' important thesis that the work- rnune which the pow'ers of the old world helieved to be ers emerged with arms from every revolution in France exterminated, lives stronger than ever, and thus we may and that, therefore, the disarming of the workers was join you in the cry: Vive la Cornmune!"l2 Today, the the fj.rst commandment for the bourgeois, who were at the helm of the state. On this conclusion of Engels', Lenin the oppressed people commented: "The essence of the matter-also, by the of a country and the seizure of victory in their revolution are accomplished way, on the question of the state (hos the oppressed cla.ss invariably the power gun; arms?) here remarkably well grasped."t3 by of the they are accomplisl-red under -is the leadership of a proletari'an party, The Paris Commune was born in the fierce struggle by acting in accord- ance that country's specific gradually between armed revolution and armed counter-revolution.