Proletarians of All Countries, Unite! FROM ISSUE #55 OF THE MAGAZINE RED SUN: International Situation:
The current international situation develops primarily around the principal contradiction in the world, namely the increasingly sharp contradiction between the oppressed nations and imperialism. This contradiction is now becoming centered on the just and heroic national liberation wars of the peoples of the Middle East—in Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon—against the genocidal aggression of U.S. imperialism and its Zionist monstrosity “Israel.” These imperialist wars of aggression against the oppressed nations are part of the new imperialist re-division of the world, and they are not only evidence of the deep crisis of U.S. imperialism, but of the general and final crisis of imperialism as a whole. Yankee imperialism’s aggression against Venezuela and Iran (for control of oil) is part of its plan to confront its main rival, the imperialist superpower China, thus expressing the sharpening of inter-imperialist contradiction and the struggle for the spoils: the oppressed nations of the Third World. But the fierce resistance of the immense masses—largely driven by the just and heroic historic action of the Palestinian resistance on October 7, 2023—Operation Al-Aqsa Flood—inevitably transforms these conflicts into wars of resistance and national liberation against imperialism, thereby confirming the principal contradiction. The imperialists’ response is genocide; the mass murder of all peoples who refuse to submit; which in turn generates even more resistance and hatred against imperialism throughout the world. And here it is worth noting: all imperialists—not just the Yankees—are bent on repressing, containing, and exploiting the oppressed nations. The current situation is rapidly creating more conditions for the world revolution and a leap in the anti-imperialist consciousness and action of the masses internationally, within the stage of the offensive of the world proletarian revolution, whose vanguard is the people’s wars and armed struggles under the banner of Maoism in Peru, India, the Philippines, and Turkey. But the current situation also poses problems—challenges that the communists of the world must resolve by applying the universal ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, and the universal contributions of Chairman Gonzalo; problems that are synthesized into a single problem: the need for proletarian leadership.
A Leap Forward in the International Anti-Imperialist Movement The struggle of the Palestinian people and the imperialist-Zionist genocide have led to a significant leap forward in anti-imperialist unity, mobilization, and thought across all continents, and the aggressions against Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba have further propelled this movement. The national liberation struggles of Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq are unfolding in coordination as a joint war against imperialism. The marches and demonstrations involving thousands or hundreds of thousands of people do not cease, even in the imperialist countries. The religious sectarianism that imperialism has used to divide the masses is now being overcome by the unity of the peoples against imperialism (in particular, the assassinations of religious leaders have fostered greater unity among Shiite Muslims and between Shiites and Sunnis). The proletariat in several countries is organizing strikes and blocking transport to the Zionist colony, and the social-chauvinist revisionists are being cornered by a new generation of anti-imperialist activists. The crisis of imperialism is sharpening the fundamental contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Surveys from the last few years give us an idea of the state of public opinion, although these figures come from the reaction. The 2025 Arab Opinion Index is the result of a series of public opinion polls conducted throughout the Arab world (in 15 countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, and Syria). According to this index, 67% of respondents considered the Palestinian resistance operation on October 7, 2023, to be a legitimate act of resistance. 92% expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, and among them, 69% expressed support for Hamas. 77% of respondents identified the United States and Israel as the greatest threat to the region’s security and stability. (https://arabindex.dohainstitute.org/EN/Pages/APOIsWarOnGaza.aspx) In the United States, a February 2026 poll reveals that, among voters in the last election (meaning the poll excludes that big part of the country’s working class that does not vote), support for Palestine is now greater than support for the Zionist settlement—and this in the most pro-Zionist country in the world (https://www.dw.com/en/poll-shows-us-sympathy-shift-from-israel-toward-palestinians/a-76150550). A survey in six Western European countries (England, France, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Italy) reveals that “overall, only between 13% and 21% of respondents in each of the countries analyzed had a favorable opinion of Israel, compared to 63%–70% who had an unfavorable opinion.” (The Guardian 2025). This shows that, no matter how hard the reactionaries try to manipulate and conceal the facts, they cannot hide the enormous and growing gap that exists between the positions of the ruling classes and their intellectual lackeys and the positions of the overwhelming majority of the masses. Thus, the imperialist hoax of “democracy” and “freedom” is being further unmasked, deepening the crisis of bourgeois democracy as the preferred form of bourgeois dictatorship and at the same time accelerating the process of fascistization and the resistance against it. We are thus witnessing a resurgence and strengthening of the national liberation movement against imperialism, a global anti-imperialist front taking shape. Within this movement, there is also a growing interest in Marxism and the communist movement, due to the close and indissoluble historical ties between the proletarian movement and the national liberation movement. However, it is undeniable that the role of the proletarian forces within the current movement is relatively underdeveloped; in most countries, there are no proletarian organizations capable of assuming a leading role in the struggle against imperialism, and at the international level, communists have so far been unable to assume such a role either.
The Proletariat and the United Front of National Liberation We communists, we Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, principally Maoists, reaffirm our support for every national movement and every national liberation war that fights against imperialism; we affirm that the national liberation struggles, whether led by the proletariat or by other classes, are just struggles that serve the world revolution. We also reaffirm that in order to achieve full national liberation and finally put an end to imperialism, these struggles will inevitably have to be led by the proletariat through its Communist Parties waging people’s war. The reality today is that the just and heroic wars of national liberation currently taking place in the Middle East and elsewhere are led by bourgeois forces, as in Iran, as well as in Palestine and Lebanon. The specific case of Iran has brought the question of the national united front to the fore and clearly highlights the difference between the revisionists and opportunists, on the one hand, and the communists and revolutionaries, on the other. The revisionists (inside and outside Iran) adopt either an openly pro-imperialist stance or a hypocritical stance of “condemning both the regime and the imperialist aggression.” Some even express such positions under a false “Maoist” banner. What all these revisionists have in common is that they deny that the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations is the principal one (both globally and in every country attacked by imperialism). Instead, they adopt the “theories” developed by the social-chauvinist “left” of pseudo-intellectuals in the imperialist countries; namely that “imperialism does not exist,” that “nationalism is always reactionary,” that “only the contradiction proletariat-bourgeoisie exists,” or that the principal contradiction in the world is between “democracy” and “dictatorship,” between “freedom” and “authoritarianism.” These are ideas spread and promoted by imperialism to weaken and divide the international anti-imperialist movement, and they directly serve to facilitate the genocidal war against the oppressed peoples and to maintain the dictatorship of the imperialist bourgeoisie and its lackeys. For this reason, it is essential for communists and anti-imperialists to study what Chairman Mao established on the experiences of the anti-Japanese united front in China and apply them to the conditions in each country today. When a country is under attack by an imperialist power or superpower, and it is necessary to unite all classes willing to defend the country, it is not possible to overthrow the bourgeoisie at the same time:
The proletariat’s policy within the united front is to maintain unity with non-proletarian resistance forces, while at the same time preserving the proletariat’s independence and absolute control over its own armed forces, and defending the interests of the proletariat and the peasantry within the united front. This was possible in the case of China because the proletariat had its Communist Party and its own armed forces led by that Party:
In synthesis, the policy of the proletariat in a country under imperialist attack must be: to serve the defense of the country—“to set an example in the national war”—aiming to assume the leadership of the national liberation war in order to develop it as a people’s war, carry out the democratic revolution, and continue it as a socialist revolution. If the proletarian forces are weak, if they do not have their Communist Party or their own armed forces, and the bourgeoisie leads the defense of the country (as is the case in Iran), communists must fight in this war alongside the bourgeois forces without reservation, building their Party and their armed forces in the midst of the war. If those who call themselves “communists” have not built a Party capable of mobilizing the masses and leading them in armed struggle; if they are sitting in the intellectual centers of the big cities (or abroad) and have never mobilized either the proletariat or the peasantry (or have mobilized some sector of the proletariat in the cities but not the peasantry), then their “condemnation of both the regime and the imperialist aggression” is nothing more than capitulation to imperialism and the bourgeoisie.
The Role of Islamism as a Leading Force of National Liberation The concrete reality in the Middle East is that the proletarian forces have not been in a position to assume the role of leading the national liberation movement, primarily for two reasons: 1) The policy of imperialism (primarily U.S.) to undermine, repress, and annihilate Marxist organizations and leaders first and foremost, and to foment bourgeois and/or Islamist organizations and leaders, who would supposedly be easier to control and to smear in the eyes of world public opinion. As part of this project, the Yankees and their Zionist agents created Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and for a time the Zionist state even gave money to Hamas (this is what gave rise to the hoax that “Israel created Hamas”). 2) The lack of genuine, principled Communist Parties and the dark influence of revisionism, linked to the role of Soviet social imperialism, the restoration of capitalism in China, and the general counterrevolutionary offensive, which continues to this day. This was expressed, for example, in the fact that the proletarian forces in Palestine were not in a position to develop the struggle as a people’s war and could not assume leadership; and in parties that submitted to the command baton of social imperialism and its policy of “peaceful coexistence.” For communists, this aspect is the principal one; revisionism is the main danger to the revolution. However, it is clear that this imperialist plan to undermine the resistance through Islamism has failed. The overwhelming hatred of the immense masses in the region toward imperialism and their unbreakable will for liberation have led Islamist movements to take on the role of leading the national struggle. Islamist movements, such as Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran, have the support of the masses not primarily for religious reasons, but because they demonstrate in practice that they are willing and able to lead the national liberation and fight imperialism. Dr. Khaled Hroub, professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Arab Media Studies, says:
In short, when the principal contradiction is between imperialism and the oppressed nation, the masses will support whoever demonstrates in practice their ability to defend the country and advance the national liberation struggle. At the same time, assuming the role of leading the national liberation struggle and the need to unite the masses for this struggle is changing the politics of Islamist organizations. In Iran, the Islamist government’s policy of uniting the people against imperialism also includes concessions to the democratic demands of the masses. Hamas, in its process of assuming the leadership of the resistance, has gradually shifted its focus from religion to the national struggle, adapting its politics to the demands of the united front for national liberation. In its new 2017 charter, Hamas abandoned the anti-communist and racialist positions expressed in its 1988 Founding Charter. Dr. Khaled Hroub says: "I would say we have been witnessing a steady increase of the nationalist force within Hamas at the expense of the religious tendency within Hamas over the past two, three decades." (Ibid.) This also involves making concessions to the demands of the women masses:
Maher al-Taher, International Secretary of the PFLP, stated the following in an interview in 2025:
The organizations of the Palestinian national liberation struggle—Hamas, the PFLP, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and others—are today fighting victoriously side by side within the National Liberation Front, with the full support and heroic participation of the broad masses. To maintain their independence within the Front and establish themselves as its proletarian leadership, the communists of Palestine will have to build their Party by applying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to their concrete conditions in order to wage protracted people’s war, build the new power, and carry forward the democratic revolution until the complete liberation of the country from the river to the sea, and then, without interruption, continue it as a socialist revolution.
Bourgeois Anti-Imperialism and the “Multipolar World” The global anti-imperialist front that is taking shape constitutes a significant leap forward as part of the offensive of the world revolution, but the lack of proletarian leadership manifests itself in ideological and political dispersion and confusion within the movement, limiting its scope and combativeness and leaving it open to division and manipulation by the imperialists. Although communist and revolutionary influence is growing among the masses, mainly due to the development of people’s wars and armed struggles under the banner of Maoism, there is considerable influence from bourgeois and anti-communist ideology: - Contempt for the masses and the idea that liberation will come from the bourgeoisie and/or the “good imperialists”; “multipolarism.” - Third Worldism/“postcolonial” ideology, rejecting Marxism by labeling it a “Western ideology.” - “Neither left nor right” positions, promoting unity with “multipolarist” factions of the imperialist bourgeoisie and even with fascists. - Racist and conspiratorial ideas, essentially arguing that the enemy is not the imperialist bourgeoisie, but certain groups of bourgeois who are “evil” and “immoral.” - Denying the principal contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations, positing the contradiction between Yankee imperialism and the peoples of the world as the principal one. Denying the imperialist character of China and Russia. All of this is closely linked to the dark influence of revisionism in the movement. The most social-chauvinist revisionists—mainly those linked to revisionist parliamentary parties—have long taken openly pro-imperialist and even pro-Zionist (or conciliatory toward Zionism) positions, but now, for opportunistic reasons, they are participating in the movement for Palestine. They defend the existence of the Zionist state, promote the “two-state solution” or variations thereof, and condemn the Palestinian resistance as “terrorist.” They condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran. The role of these revisionists in the movement is to prevent it from expanding and developing as a revolutionary anti-imperialist movement and to keep it as a “humanitarian” movement led from the imperialist countries. Linked to these revisionists are anarchist groups that “reject nationalism,” in reality rejecting the national liberation of oppressed nations (one of their theorists is Murray Bookchin, the pro-Zionist American professor who invented so-called “democratic confederalism,” adopted by Öcalan and the PKK). Some of them are also involved in the movement for Palestine, where they help to limit the movement and sow division. The Trotskyists, who present themselves as “revolutionaries” and “Leninists,” but in reality propose a so-called “world socialist revolution” to be carried out through the revisionist and social-fascist parliamentary parties of the imperialist countries. They deny the role of the oppressed nations as the base of the world revolution, and oppose democratic and socialist revolutions in these nations. Thus, the Trotskyists, fomented and/or directly organized by the imperialist states, also play a role in preventing the development of an anti-imperialist revolutionary movement. These problems stem from the current correlation of forces in the world, from a global anti-imperialist movement that is emerging rapidly at a time when proletarian forces are not yet sufficiently developed to guide and lead it. While the anti-imperialist movement of the 1960s and 1970s emerged around the Vietnam War, driven and guided by socialist China and its Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, today there is no socialist country in the world and we face a general counterrevolutionary offensive. But this does not change the tasks of communists: to develop the revolution in every country where they work and to set an example in the anti-imperialist struggle in order to assume the leadership of the movement through their Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party, preparing, initiating, and waging the people’s war; all of this in accordance with our slogan of uniting, distinguishing ourselves, and leading. In the oppressed countries, uniting the people in the democratic revolution against imperialism, semi-feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism to continue it as a socialist revolution. In the imperialist countries, carrying out the socialist revolution and destroying imperialism from within the belly of the beast.
The National Liberation Front and the “Multipolar World” The national liberation struggles of the oppressed nations today are taking place amid a new imperialist re-division of the world, in collusion and struggle between the imperialist superpowers—the U.S., China, and Russia—and with the participation of the other imperialist powers. In their struggle for the spoils and for global hegemony, the imperialists seek to use the oppressed nations as pawns, while at the same time colluding to repress them and prevent their independent development and liberation. For example, Yankee imperialism, together with the European powers, is using the nation of Ukraine as a pawn—and the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder—in its war against Russian imperialism, presenting it as a war of defense or liberation. The reality is that Ukraine is, in fact, an oppressed nation under attack by Russian imperialism, but the Zelensky regime and its armed forces are not a force of national liberation. It is a regime blatantly set up by Yankee imperialism and the European imperialists—primarily Germany—to wage war against Russia and sell out Ukraine to the imperialist bourgeoisies of the West. A regime that was installed through a coup carried out by fascist gangs under the direction of CIA and Mossad agents, and a direct continuation of the Ukrainian fascists whom Yankee and German imperialism relied on before, during, and after World War II to combat socialism through genocide. The Zelensky regime today explicitly declares its support for the genocidal wars of Yankee imperialism and its Zionist monstrosity in the Middle East, and has even offered to provide military support for the genocide in Palestine. Unlike, for example, Iran, the regime in Ukraine is not a regime that—despite its bourgeois and reactionary nature—fights for national liberation and strikes a blow against imperialism, but rather a country-selling, bourgeois, and reactionary regime created and operating as an instrument of imperialism in its re-division of the world. The communists and anti-imperialists obviously cannot fight alongside such a regime, but must build a genuine national liberation front to combat Russian imperialism and the other imperialists: “identify the principal enemy and ward off the actions of the others” (PCP – International Line). For its part, the Iranian regime is fighting its main enemy, Yankee imperialism, while collaborating with the Chinese and Russian imperialists, receiving some support from them, and promoting their “multipolar” policy. So far, Iran maintains a certain degree of military and economic independence and does not directly serve as a tool of the superpowers China and Russia, but to guarantee its independence and “ward off the actions of the others,” Iran’s national liberation will inevitably require proletarian leadership. Let’s see what Chairman Mao said about the proletariat’s policy toward the principal enemy and the other imperialists:
If we apply this to the current situation, should we conclude that the proletariat and the oppressed peoples should form a “world peace front” with China and Russia against U.S. imperialism? This would be a dogmatic distortion that fails to take concrete conditions into account. What Chairman Mao proposed was the policy of a strong Communist Party and a large, already-armed, and independent worker-peasant movement, capable of being part of such a front without abandoning its revolutionary program. Proposing an “anti-imperialist movement” based on the ideology and policies of imperialist superpowers—such as the “multipolar world” promoted by the Chinese and Russian imperialists—is something else entirely. It is to propose a movement led by the bourgeoisie, not to crush and wipe imperialism off the face of the earth, but to pull imperialism out of its crisis, establish “peace under the bayonets,” and seek better temporary conditions for some of the oppressed nations within the imperialist system. It is to propose a movement that is not based on the mobilization of the broad working masses against imperialism, reaction, and revisionism, but rather teaches the masses to submit to and become dependent on the exploiting classes and the so-called “good imperialists.” The actions of the Chinese and Russian imperialists regarding the current Yankee-Zionist genocidal aggression confirm their imperialist and reactionary nature. As we reported in the previous issue of this magazine, these superpowers have maintained friendly relations and business ties with the Zionist state throughout the genocide, and refrained from vetoing pro-genocide UN resolutions. They, along with the Yankee and European imperialists, seek to repress, contain, and exploit the oppressed nations—that is, to prevent these countries from developing their own independent industries and economies, and to prevent the oppressed peoples from uniting and rising up for their liberation. And the imperialist methods for achieving these objectives are genocide, the destruction of infrastructure and industry, and the destruction of education and science systems, as we see now in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran. Thus, the bourgeois influence in the anti-imperialist movement limits and restricts it, putting it at risk of being used as a tool by superpowers and imperialist powers. The bourgeois nationalist regimes in oppressed countries, even when they are genuinely fighting imperialism, fear the arming of the masses. Consider the case of Venezuela, where the supposedly “anti-imperialist” and “revolutionary” Chavist regime—in reality a regime of the bureaucratic big bourgeoisie subservient to imperialism—instead of mobilizing and arming the people has allowed Yankee exploitation of the country, while attempting to change masters by inviting Chinese imperialism. Now it has culminated its betrayal and its country-selling politics by shamelessly submitting to Yankee imperialism. For the communists, the arming of the masses under proletarian leadership is what guarantees the movement’s independence and enables the “relationships of joint struggle” proposed by Chairman Mao. We emphasize that the strength of the current anti-imperialist movement lies in the vast masses, primarily those of the oppressed nations. Liberation will not come from any superpower or imperialist power, nor from the ruling classes, but from the armed sea of masses under the leadership of the proletariat through its Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Parties, waging people’s war in the democratic, socialist, and cultural revolutions until our final goal—communism. |
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