Dear reader,
After dealing with several subjects of vital importance for the international communist and workers' movement like the capitalist crisis, the construction of socialism or the historical role of the working class, we now present a new issue of the International Communist Review dedicated to the struggle against contemporary opportunism.
The development of the capitalist crisis has again exposed the role of opportunism, a political and ideological phenomenon founded on concrete material basis – the creation of a labour aristocracy -, which has acquired an international dimension. Given the explosive material that capitalism accumulates day after day, opportunistic forces play the role of exhaust valves of social tension, acting as agents of the bourgeoisie in the workers' and popular movement to divert it from the revolutionary path, and thereby provide an invaluable service to the ruling classes.
Just like in previous moments of History, today the bourgeoisie and their opportunistic spokesmen exert heavy pressure so the Communist Parties who stand in Marxism - Leninism abandon the strategic goal of overthrowing the power of monopolies and build socialism – communism.
The articles to be found in this volume analyze the experience of different parties in their struggle against revisionism and opportunism in their respective countries. In particular, the experience of the parties who exerted power for a given period, especially in the Soviet Union, should be highlighted due to their historical significance and their direct experience about the counterrevolutionary victory.
The various means of pressure used by the forces opportunism against the Marxist – Leninist forces are also analyzed. Among them we can highlight the effort so the Communist Parties abandon the tasks arising from their revolutionary goal and be diluted in inter-class broad fronts under the demagogic slogan of "left unity". With the same intensity, some parties are pressed to be engaged in the governmental management of capitalism and to abandon the line of rupture and revolutionary overthrow, ignoring the disastrous consequences that such commitments have meant for the communist movement throughout the twentieth century.
Other articles of this issue deal critically (with the courage that requires this historical moment) with some dangerous deviations which are taking shape in the political line of some parties that are part of the international communist movement. We can highlight the criticism to the theory of the multipolar international order and the positions that surrender before the imperialist unions, just as happens with the European Left Party, who works for the social-democratic mutation of European Communist Parties and tries to extend opportunistic positions internationally, by all means available.
As announced in the first issue of the International Communist Review, the theoretical and ideological reorganization of the communist movement can not take place without the strong confrontation of the idealist currents acting within the labour movement and against all kinds of opportunism.
We live in the historical period of transition from capitalism to socialism, opened by the Great October Revolution of 1917, in the era of proletarian revolutions, in which each Communist Party must define its strategy for seizing power, regardless of the adverse correlation of forces that may exist in a given time. As Lenin showed and was confirmed by the history of the Bolshevik Party, for revolution to be possible it is necessary that the revolutionary positions become mainstream within the working class, it is necessary to expose the opportunistic forces and ideologically defeat their political positions of integration into capitalism.
This fourth issue of the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST REVIEW aims to be a useful tool in the hands of the militants of the communist organizations who face the opportunist phenomenon in every country, a tool for struggle that makes the Marxist-Leninist positions advance within the international communist and workers' movement.