AFGHANISTAN - "The victory of the Afghan people"

We docuement an important Article from the magazin "Communist International" on the recent developments in Afghanistan.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

The victory of the Afghan people The victory of the front of resistance led by the Taliban over Yankee imperialism and its allies is a victory of the Afghan nationi in formation for the (formal) independence of the country, an important victory since the Yankees, since the bankruptcy of revisionism, as the only hegemonic imperialist superpower and self-appointed counter-revolutionary world gendarme, have repeatedly negated the right of nations to self-determination. The Afghan people have now won this at gunpoint. This victory gives courage and confidence to all freedom-loving people, everywhere. It is a victory that we celebrate with all progressive and revolutionary forces in the world and especially in Afghanistan.

Powerfully, we reaffirm what Comrade Stalin wrote on the national question: „The scores and hundreds of millions of Asiatic and African peoples who are suffering national oppression in its most savage and cruel form usually remained outside of their field of vision. They hesitated to put white and black, “civilised” and “uncivilised” on the same plane. Two or three meaningless, lukewarm resolutions, which carefully evaded the question of liberating the colonies-that was all the leaders of the Second International could boast of. Now we can say that this duplicity and half-heartedness in dealing with the national question has been brought to an end. Leninism laid bare this crying incongruity, broke down the wall between whites and blacks, between European and Asiatics, between the “civilised” and “uncivilised” slaves of imperialism, and thus linked the national question with the question of the colonies. The national question was thereby transformed from a particular and internal state problem into a general and international problem, into a world problem of emancipating the oppressed peoples in the dependent countries and colonies from the yoke of imperialism. […] Leninism brought the national question down from the lofty heights of high-sounding declarations to solid ground, and declared that pronouncements about the “equality of nations” not backed by the direct support of the proletarian parties for the liberation struggle of the oppressed nations are meaningless and false. In this way the question of the oppressed nations become one of supporting the oppressed nations, of rendering real and continuous assistance to them in their struggle against imperialism for real equality of nations, for their independent existence as states. […] the road to victory of the revolution in the West lies through the revolutionary alliance with the liberation movement of the colonies and dependent countries against imperialism. The national question is a part of the general question of the proletarian revolution, a part of the question of the dictator of the proletariat. […] Hence the necessity for the proletariat of the “dominant” nations to support-resolutely and actively to support-the national liberation movement of the oppressed and dependent peoples.” (Stalin: The Foundations of Leninism, Chapter VI; our highlights) Equally powerful the synthesis “Countries want independence, nations want liberation, and peoples want revolution – this has become an irresistible historical tendency.” (Programme for the Struggle Against Imperialism; Peking Review 25 May 1971) It is a major defeat in a series of defeats for Yankee imperialism in recent decades. Syria and Iraq are probably the best known, but let us not forget Yemen, Ukraine, Somalia, … And let’s remember the immense cost of this war: 2,448 dead Yankee soldiers, 3,846 dead Yankee mercenaries, 1,144 dead Allied occupiers and about 66,000 dead collaborators (abcnews.go.com). Plus financial expenditures of $2,261,000,000,000 from the Yankees alone (Brown University’s Watson Institute; watson.brown.edu). It is also a great defeat for all the imperialists who, in collusion and struggle among Yankee imperialism, have participated in or supported the war of aggression against the Afghan people that began under the name of “Operation Enduring Freedom” on 7 October 2001, then as “Operation ISAF” and finally proceeded as “Operation Resolute Support”. After that, the occupants simply kept the country under their occupation as a “support” to the puppet government and its troops until the recognition of their defeat in the Doha Agreement between the Yankee imperialists and the Taliban. Finally, the capital Kabul was taken by the resistance front on 15 August 2021. The developments after the withdrawal of the occupiers suggests analogies with the liberation war of the Vietnamese people. The current events are a special moment within the new period of revolutions within which we are developing, and let us not forget that the struggle of the Afghan people against the invasion of Afghanistan by the social imperialist Soviet Union was an expression of the entry of humanity into the strategic offensive of the world proletarian revolution. We highlight the document “On New Democracy” by Chairman Mao, in which he states: “… it can be seen that there are two kinds of world revolution, the first belonging to the bourgeois or capitalist category. The era of this kind of world revolution is long past, having come to an end as far back as 1914 when the first imperialist world war broke out, and more particularly in 1917 when the October Revolution took place. The second kind, namely, the proletarian-socialist world revolution, thereupon began. This revolution has the proletariat of the capitalist countries as its main force and the oppressed peoples of the colonies and semi-colonies as its allies. No matter what classes, parties or individuals in an oppressed nation join the revolution, and no matter whether they themselves are conscious of the point or understand it, so long as they oppose imperialism, their revolution becomes part of the proletarian-socialist world revolution and they become its allies.” We consider it appropriate to make a few brief remarks at this joyous moment. The victory of the resistance front under the leadership of the Taliban, as a victory of the national liberation movement under reactionary banners, leads to Afghanistan becoming a semi-colony from a colony, to the shift of the main contradiction in Afghanistan from nation-imperialism to masses-feudalism. This again opens the possibility for the masses to take up the path of people’s war as agrarian war within the new democratic revolution in Afghanistan, which started with the formation of the Communist Party of Afghanistan and can only be completed through the people’s war under the leadership of the CPA. The deal between the Yankees and the Taliban clearly shows that it is the Yankees who will continue to be the main imperialist power oppressing and plundering Afghanistan. This treaty, based on the comprehensive defeat of the Yankees, guarantees that they will not completely lose everything. It is the only thing the Yankees have been able to enforce in 20 years of war. The defeat of the collaborators and land sellers and their flight underlines that they had no base, except the occupation forces, in Afghanistan. All they did was to pocket the money squeezed out of the Afghan people and other peoples of the world. Corrupt to the core, these dogs have never shown the slightest hint of national pride. 300,000 soldiers and 6,000 military aircraft on the side of the “government forces” were nothing compared to 75,000 lightly armed resistance fighters, because nobody was willing to risk their lives for these people. Their end was foreseeable and the Yankees also expected it (with the dependence of the puppet forces on US logistics, they even justified this in a certain organisational way), as the treaty with the Taliban proves. The Taliban’s diplomatic offensive, the peaceful transfer of power – something that seems to cause occasional difficulties in the USA – the general amnesty, the negotiations and offers they are now making show that despite their great military success, the Taliban do not have a sufficient basis for retaining power in the long term. The Taliban belong to the Pashtuns, who make up about half of the Afghan population. Their power base also extends into parts of Pakistan, especially the border region and the Swat Valley near the Pakistani capital Islamabad. Nevertheless, there are relevant forces within Afghanistan that are not Taliban. The Yankees will know how to use this circumstance to provoke unrest, conflict and possibly civil war again and again, such as through the son of the mercenary Mazud, who is now offering himself. We expect the revolutionaries and communists in Afghanistan to fulfil their tasks, i.e. to initiate the people’s war, to conquer and defend power with it in the new-democratic revolution, to pass without stopping into the socialist revolution and further into cultural revolutions until the whole of humanity enters communism. We therefore recall their own words of warning: „if we do not … strive for performing our historical responsibilities the country and its people will not forgive us.“ (Sholajawid, 20th April 2019) Remember glimpse: „you cannot sweeten your mouth by uttering halva, halva“ THE LESSONS OF MARXISM TO APPLY IN THE PRESENT SITUATION 1. Chairman Gonzalo, III Plenum of the Central Committee (Peru, 1992), proposes to study the forms of intervention of imperialism because in accordance with this the contradiction is defined, and in this respect he says: “… 3 documents by Chairman Mao which form a unit, entitled “The role of the Communist Party of China in the national war”, that is one, another: “The problem of the independence and autonomy of the united front”, and the third: “Problems of war and strategy”. These documents are the product of the same meeting of the CPCh leadership at which Chairman Mao discussed these three questions for the leadership and conduct of the anti-Japanese war, that is, when the contradiction between the Chinese nation and Japanese imperialism changed into a contradiction between the Chinese nation and Japanese imperialism. The main contradiction for us is between the popular masses and semi-feudalism, that is the main contradiction, but there are three contradictions, the other is against bureaucratic capitalism and against imperialism, three contradictions that exist in the country. Although that is the main one, we have to think that the development of the people’s war, the problem of the conquest of power in the whole country necessarily leads to a clash with imperialism, necessarily, it’s like two plus two equals four, therefore this contradiction will become the main one, why? Imperialism could not consent in any way that we take power and they simply contemplate, they could not consent to that, especially if we are in America; this as a specific question of considering Yankee imperialism as a great gendarme that aims to develop as the only hegemonic superpower, imperialism always fights the conquest of power and is determined to sink the revolution, precisely where the danger is greater it is more determined, where does the danger arise in Latin America? In Peru, that is the fact, and Latin America is the area of direct influence, the very base of its power to be able to exploit and oppress this continent and thus use this as a base to hegemonise in the world, to be the only hegemon, because it needs its own base of influence to exercise it in the whole world, just as the dreams of others are the same Yankee dream and since the 10’s it exercises this power and this influence in America … To see this we must remember or re-study what Chairman Mao says in On Contradiction … : “In a semi-colonial country like China, the relationship between the main contradiction and the non-main contradictions offers a complex picture“; and he puts forward three possibilities: the first is “When imperialism unleashes a war of aggression against such a country, the different classes in it, except for a small number of traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism“, that’s the first one, that’s right, when the imperialists unleash a war of aggression, invade a country, then obviously you invade, when Japan invades China, when Japan invades Korea or when the United States invades Vietnam or when the social-imperialism that led the USSR invades Afghanistan, there the contradiction is nation-imperialism, but what makes the difference is the aggression, it goes to conquer, it subjugates, for its world interests of whatever it is, in other words, there is no revolution, that is the third case, in other words, when there is an aggression in accordance with its world wars it attacks a country and takes possession of it, that is the first case, he says. “In other circumstances” says the Chairman, “When imperialism does not resort to war, but to relatively moderate means, political, economic and cultural means, to carry out its oppression, the ruling class of the semi-colonial country in question capitulates to imperialism and forms an alliance with it to jointly oppress the masses of the people”, when it does not attack militarily, when there is no aggression, it uses other means – political, economic and cultural means. “In such circumstances,” he says, “the . masses of the people often resort to civil war against the alliance of imperialism and the feudal class, while imperialism often employs indirect methods, and not direct action, to help the reactionaries of that country to oppress the people, and thus the internal contradictions become particularly acute, For example the Revolutionary War of ’11 in China, the 10 years of Agrarian Revolutionary War initiated in ’27, this is our case, we have initiated an agrarian war and we have to remember it, that’s why the main contradiction is against semi-feudalism, but as there are three fundamental contradictions in Peru we also fight bureaucratic capitalism and imperialism, but not as the main one, and there is an objective question for some time, how this was changing, and how the Party-Armed Forces contradiction was already in perspective, that is to say, we considered that there was a variation in the contradictions but the decisive issue was still the semi-feudal question, fighting feudalism in its general form in Peru was still the main contradiction, masses-semi-feudalism, that was the problem, that’s how it happened in Peru. Then the Chairman says: “When the revolutionary civil war develops to the point where it threatens the very existence of imperialism and its lackeys, the internal reactionaries, it usually adopts other methods to maintain its domination: either it tries to split the revolutionary front, or it sends armed forces to directly help the internal reactionaries. In such a case, foreign imperialism and internal reaction are placed, without the slightest concealment, at one pole, and the broad masses of the people are grouped together at the other, and thus the main contradiction is formed, which determines or influences the development of the other contradictions”, that is what has to happen. So the question is the question of the third point…”. So then, we have to look at the three cases that the Chairman raises, when imperialism invades, unleashes aggression without there being a revolution, which was a predominant case in the previous century that all the great powers did, and it happens in this century when there is no revolution but imperialism, because of its hegemonic struggles, leads to this, that’s how it happens. The second case is when it only intervenes indirectly, then, if the revolution advances, develops, the people’s war is ignited, how? with armed struggle, how? as an agrarian war; why? We are talking about semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries and if we talk about the relationship with imperialism what we have to emphasise is the semi-coloniality, the semi-colonial character, that has to be taken into account, of course, the problem in relation to imperialism is that it is a semi-colony, that’s why there is imperialist domination, that’s the question. And the third circumstance is, when the revolution advances, imperialism has to intervene, that’s the problem that tells us, imperialism intervenes, then polarisation occurs; The problem to bear in mind is that imperialism can intervene directly by sending many troops, or it can intervene directly as an adviser with a few troops, or it can intervene even by moving others as a multinational force, or by using puppets, puppet regimes, that is, neighbouring states that have an appetite can also use them, that doesn’t mean that it is not imperialist aggression because behind that there is imperialism that manages everything. In other words, there are different forms of intervention, and contradictions are defined accordingly. 2. In ON PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP, in commemoration of the 28th anniversary of the Communist Party of China, June 30, 1949, on the service rendered by the revolution in a country, i.e., the ongoing and coming people’s wars, to the development not only of the objective conditions but also, and mainly, for the development of the subjective conditions for the revolution, mainly for the constitution or reconstitution of the Communist Parties, which the miserable rats of the revisionist and capitulationist ROL (Modavef), the head of the new revisionism world-wide, deny in an attempt to cover up their betrayal of the people’s war and the world proletarian revolution, Chairman Mao states: “ … Their repeated struggles, including such a country-wide movement as the Revolution of 1911,8 all ended in failure. Day by day, conditions in the country got worse, and life was made impossible. Doubts arose, increased and deepened. World War I shook the whole globe. The Russians made the October Revolution and created the world’s first socialist state. Under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, the revolutionary energy of the great proletariat and labouring people of Russia, hitherto latent and unseen by foreigners, suddenly erupted like a volcano, and the Chinese and all mankind began to see the Russians in a new light. Then, and only then, did the Chinese enter an entirely new era in their thinking and their life. They found Marxism-Leninism, the universally applicable truth, and the face of China began to change. It was through the Russians that the Chinese found Marxism. Before the October Revolution, the Chinese were not only ignorant of Lenin and Stalin, they did not even know of Marx and Engels. The salvoes of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism. The October Revolution helped progressives in China, as throughout the world, to adopt the proletarian world outlook as the instrument for studying a nation’s destiny and considering anew their own problems. Follow the path of the Russians — that was their conclusion. In 1919, the May 4th Movement took place in China. In 1921, the Communist Party of China was founded.” 3. In the 3rd Plenum of the Central Committee of the PCP (Central Report, Meeting of the Northern Regional Committee), Chairman Gonzalo, on the situation of imperialism and the world revolution, on the international framework in which we find ourselves, it is not principal, but it is necessary, principal and decisive is the internal, makes a synthesis of the situation of the two hills. But, before transcribing the relevant part, we want to underline what pertains to Japanese imperialism at that time, which would now be appropriate to read it thinking of the present situation through which the revisionist “myth”, Chinese social-imperialism, is passing, a situation of declining growth and serious difficulties. The President stated: “General counter-revolutionary offensive: see the unbridled attacks on Marxism, they say “Marxism’s expiry”…. Apart from this there is a sharpening of the contradictions between imperialist superpowers and between them and the imperialist powers, between all the imperialists and oppressed nations (bypassing the two hills) at the international level, revolution and counter-revolution; it is an offensive within the period of the strategic offensive of the (world) revolution, reaction is on the defensive, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived. See how imperialism is, we must not believe what they tell us, let us remember Marx, he says: when we study reaction we must do it with a critical spirit, not with free criticism, everything we study we do it with a class spirit. Nobody is going to tell us that US imperialism is fine, it is rotten from head to toe; they say that German imperialism is a “miracle”, to see that it is the incorporation, the so-called German unity is to devour what was the GDR prostituted by revisionism, where has it led German imperialism to, to get bogged down. The whole cackling about the myth of Japan, not being in a recession, is wrong. According to economic theory, it only takes two quarters of reduced production for a recession to occur, see in what direction it is developing, its growth is decreasing, we must not be fooled, that is why the revolution continues to be the main trend in the world. The world revolution is on the strategic offensive, they want to present things to us as if they are not like that. The fact today is that there is a general counterrevolutionary offensive, it will last for several years. The stage of the strategic offensive is decades, the general counterrevolutionary offensive will be years, more few than many… who can win? We, the class, the last class in history, the road may be long but its victory inexorable, the bourgeoisie will be able to set fire to finish it off, it will wage more bloody wars to defend itself, but the unburied corpse is its final destiny, it will go to the niche, because it turns into ashes and is scattered to the four winds to fructify, the earth has no other destiny, the other is eddies against a mighty river which is the world revolution, if we don’t think like that we are not communists, we are not revolutionaries, we would be miserable with children on our backs, the reaction’s slaves of the reaction. We are communists and we cannot judge otherwise, but analysing the problems from the interests of the class allows us to see the nooks and crannies, the whirlpools that reaction generates in the face of our inexorable advance. We have had defeats in the USSR, China, but that is not going to stop history, whirlpools are nothing more than disturbances…”. (All the underlining is from our editorial staff). FOLLOWING AN INTERVIEW ON GERMAN TV (Channel Phoenix, 19 August 2021) WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE BUNDESWEHRVERBAND (an organisation of the German armed forces) The journalist’s summary: “There are many unanswered political questions as to what went wrong in Afghanistan that led to the huge failure of the Bundeswehrverband’s mission there and the chaotic evacuation situation”. Political misjudgement of the situation The political decision to withdraw and evacuate was taken too late. The Bundeswher says political failure of the mission, this means of the political decision-makers, of the German government, it says consequences for democracy because the military does not trust the political leadership. Consequence for future missions or interventions of the German military forces, again they feel abandoned by politics, this is a new edition of the “knife in the back” version, which will grow as they fail in their interventions. The old version used by reaction and fascism after World War I of the “knife in the back”. It says, political disaster, tragedy, the worst failure of government. As for the intervention of the imperialists led by the USA, always in collusion and struggle, it shows that the imperialists without the Yankees are nothing and that the Yankees when they want to lead them into wars of aggression against the third world countries with many promises and then when they want to withdraw without the agreement of their so-called allies. Consequences for the future. This does not mean that they will not collude and fight any more in new aggressions but that they will have this burden. For the present US government, it is also a political disaster to its famous slogan “we are back”, that is to say back to its responsibilities towards the international community, that is to say back to the agreements and responsibilities taken in conclusion and struggle with the other imperialists, therefore internal and external consequences for the present Biden government. Despite the fact that the Biden administration only had to execute an agreement of the previous Trump administration with the Taliban, which shows 1. That the Doha agreement and the withdrawal is state policy, which reflects the political, military and economic situation of the contenders, in all aspects expressed on the battlefield, the current correlation of forces between the resistance to the invader and the coalition imperialists, the higher cost in relation to the new target set, that is of a government somehow willing to work together with imperialism in that country, from the target of puppet government to servile government to imperialism, pretension that is mainly to US imperialism. 2. that given the situation there, at the time of the withdrawal, the withdrawal had to be desperate because of the further deterioration of the situation for the invader due to the weakening of the puppet forces on the political, military and economic levels and thus, in order to avoid taking on greater costs of all kinds and as the sole hegemonic superpower, they have done it without consulting anyone, which is why the German imperialists and others, who thought that they would be listened to regarding the possibility for them (Germany and the other NATO members) of an orderly withdrawal until after 31 August, were not listened to by Washington, thus leaving them in a bad light and a bigger failure for these imperialist governments, and also a bigger failure for the Biden administration. It did not know how to or could not manage better what had been agreed, especially the withdrawal. Because there was an inter-party consensus in Washington, but the failure is a subject for further internal dispute in the USA, and further imperialist dispute over the failure increases the struggle. After the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban, the withdrawal not only of the imperialists’ personnel and their families, but also of the military and non-military collaborators continues and is even ensured by the arrival of new special troops of the imperialists for the mission, which indicates that it is done according to the Dohan agreement, that both sides will at least respect the agreement until 31 August. Failure of the US plans for Nation Building in Afghanistan, that is to establish a lasting colonial rule with a puppet government as the target of the invasion, a government established through elections run by them and their candidates, which can then be maintained on the basis of puppet armed forces run by them. This has failed and it has been admitted, by “contra census” interpretation of Biden’s words, that “we did not intend to build a nation but only to remove the threat posed by the presence of a terrorist government in Afghanistan. So the agreement and the exit means that they have changed the objective and are content with a Taliban government that is willing to cooperate. Taliban talks with the lackey Barsani, an Afghan intermediary of the imperialists. Taliban talks in Russia and China. All this characterises the government of a semi-colonial country, that is to say that after the withdrawal due to the failure of the occupant, it regains its semi-colonial status, because it will not be an independent country but only formally, as long as it does not complete its revolution of new democracy through the people’s war led by the Communist Party. On the other hand, it is not credible that German intelligence has ignored the under-the-table agreements between the Yankees and the Taliban. A clear sign of these under-the-table agreements is the withdrawal by Washington of the “contractors” who were in charge of maintaining the logistics of the air force of the puppet troops without which they could not carry out any combat operations and on this air force the operations of the puppet ground forces depended, thus they were structured and operated by the invader, which was one of the reasons why they could not face the resistance forces and depended on the direction and military plans of the invaders. These are the secondary causes that they have deserted almost without fighting and that the advance of the Taliban to Kabul has been so fast and “unexpected”, because the main cause of their lack of combat capability and failure to confront the Taliban without the presence of the invading imperialist troops is that they had no combat morale, that without their paying US bosses they would not fight, they are mercenary officers and troops. But all this indicates that the decision by Washington was taken and it was in fulfilment of agreements, stop doing so that you can do, etc., of the so-called contractual obligations that govern all contracts. It is important to point out that the triumph of the resistance against the invaders thus confirms that we are in the stage of the strategic offensive of the world revolution, because even if the Taliban themselves do not want it or reject it, this struggle is part of the new democratic revolution, see Chairman Mao on New Democracy. It shows that revolution is the main historical and political trend in the world today. That the new great wave of world proletarian revolution is developing and that Maoism is marching to command it with new reconstituted Communist Parties and new people’s wars to be added to the existing ones. And this is precisely at the moment and as part of the fact that we have entered a new moment of revolutions where the great explosiveness of the masses and their great activity is expressed. iAccording to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism with the universally valid contributions of Chairman Gonzalo, the Afghan nation is a nation in the making and this national formation has been in the making for many years, centuries, and it cannot be broken up into its various components such as Pashtuns, Tajiks, Nazara, Sadat, Turkmen, Baluchi, Pashai, Arabs, etc. What is required is to complete the formation of the Afghan nation by developing the new democratic revolution with people’s war until it is completed. This, in turn, is the way to really unify the country, because it is not unified, only the communists will be able to do it, both to complete the formation of the nation and to really unify the country. The miserable rats of the revisionist and capitulationist ROL are opposed to what Maoism has established on the national question, they deny the semi-colonial oppression of imperialism and, taking the case of Peru, they consider the Peruvian nation as already consecrated, as established. Why are the rats of the revisionist and capitulationist ROL opposed to Maoism and specifically to Gonzalo’s thought on this important question? Because they are opposed to the new democratic revolution, because they are opposed to the people’s war, because only through the people’s war can the democratic revolution be completed and with it the formation of the Peruvian nation and the real and concrete unification of the country to defend it against any imperialist or reactionary aggression.