The Marxist Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) celebrated its 40th anniversary with a weekend of celebration from August 25-28 in town of Gelsenkirchen. The 1500 who attended were party members from across Germany, their families, residents of the local community, and international guests representing revolutionary parties and organizations from 31 countries across five continents. Andy Koch, the National Organizer of Freedom Road Socialist Organization attended the celebration.
Contribution
The MLPD has with relentless spirit adhered to the theory and practice of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Ernst Thälmann and that under the leadership of Comrades Willi Dickhut and Stefan Engels upheld Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought against modern revisionism and capitalist restoration and embarked on important steps to promote proletarian internationalism and the united front of anti-imperialist and democratic forces. It is heartening when neo-fascist wind is blowing at it’s optimum to strangulate the oppressed forces, groups like MPLD relentlessly shimmer the torch of liberation. Willi Dickut had stood in the forefront of Hiterite fascism, who founded the new type of party. The MLPD is by-product of the struggle against the revisisionsim of the German Communist Party.
MPLD valiantly gave a fitting blow to revisionism, Trotskyism and sectarian trends within the Maoist Movement like the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.. With great consistency and clarity it defended the achievements of USSR from 1917-56 and China from 1949-78.It great priority to defending the thesis of Great Debate and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution propounded by the CCP. However it tooth and nail confronted trends propagating Universality o peoples War or ‘Gonzalo’ thought .It asserted how Mao Thought was an integral part of Leninism and not a new entity. It delivered wholehearted support to liberation struggles world over be it in Africa, Asia, Middle East or Latin America. Intensive political campaigns were undertaken to educate the working class on how capitalism bred neo-fascism and how bourgeois democracy was in essence a bourgeois dictatorship. The party deployed every ounce of energy to integrate with the broad struggles of the workers and oppressed sections, linking ideology with day to day struggles. It had branched out in huge range of spheres.
It has left no stone unturned to establish the class dictatorship of the proletariat, dismantle the capitalist relations of production by socialism for the goal of advancing to communism. Even in the hardest days the optimism that the socialist cause is certain to win worldwide victory because of the advances in the revolutionary theory and practice of the proletariat, science and technology, mode of production and the connectivity and militant unity of the proletariat and peoples of the world.
The MLPD has consistently voiced serious concerns serious concerns about the fatal schemes and actions of the increasingly conflicting monopoly capitalist powers to intensify the extraction of profits through weapons of neoliberalism and protectionism, to deploy fascist means to repress the people, to engage in war production and wars of aggression, develop chemical and biological warfare, unleash pandemics and plunder the environment to bring about catastrophe capable of extinguishing the human race.
Today the contradictions of the major imperialist powers, threaten heighten the prospect of third world war with the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. All other major contradictions in the world are intensifying: those between labour and capital, those between the imperialist powers on one hand and the oppressed peoples and nations on the other hand and those between the imperialist powers and the countries assertive of national independence and socialist programs and aspirations.
This is a time for the proletariat and the people of the world to unite and do their best to intensify the struggle against imperialism and reaction. The crisis conditions are rapidly deteriorating but they are also inspiring the proletariat and the people to retaliate and win national liberation, democracy and socialism. The current anti-imperialist and democratic mass struggles are the precursor to the resurgence of the world socialist revolution.
After the collapse of USSR and breaking of Berlin wall the MLPD undertook a sustained campaign to refute the bourgeoisie Western media that Socialism met it’s doom.It presided conference of revolutionary Communist parties in 1993 upholding Mao Thought.
In recent years MLPD has undertaken chain of mass activities in a huge range of spheres.It opposed Toxic waste, Opposed Racism in Cologne in 2016 ,Defended Dairy farmers rights, supported women teachers protest, Pledged for peace in Syria, protested nuclear plants in 2011,construction of rail projects, organised solidarity for mining sector workers ,supported Europe’s Dock workers, international solidarity with automotive workers. Campaigned for 2013 Federal election, Supported Kurdish women in Syria, opposing Hartz laws in 2004,Supported Bochel Opel workers strike ,against planned free trade agreement ,supported first International miners conference in Peru ,Supported Students protest against tuition fees, campaigned for saving natural environment, supported Steelworkers in Dulsberg in 2016 of Metalworkers Union, commemoration of centenary of Liebnekht, Luxemburg and Lenin, exposing imperialist conspiracy in the Ukraine War and link between war and Open Crisis of World Imperialist System etc.
It regularly conducts Courses for learning the dialectical method serve to enable the mem-
bers and the masses to find their bearings Courses for learning the dialectical method serve to enable the members and the masses to find their bearings independently . Rank-and-file work is discussed and members are schooled in the party groups.
The Red Foxes are a children’s group that supports the MLPD. It also had a youth wing called the Youth League Rebel.
One predominant weakness today is its failure to penetrate into the trade Unions organise the immigrant community and properly establish links with the liberation struggles in the 3rd world. It has also failed to break links completely from Revisionist groups, internationally. The party must strive to extricate itself from mechanical approach and economist tendencies prevailing within Communist movement world wide and devise new methods of working amongst the people. A review must be conducted on the reasons for the setback of he Communist Movement, paving way for penetration of worst ever crisis of capitalism to sow seeds of neo-fascism.
The celebration further enlightened and inspired the Party cadres and members as well as mass activists to further arouse, organize and mobilize the German people for the socialist cause and thus to further encourage fraternal Parties to advance in lighting the torch of struggle in the direction of socialism.
The MLPD Party Programme is a treasure house for any cadre to grasp essentials of Marxism-Leninism and the problems the people are facing today. Its chapters comprise Internationalized Capitalist Production and the General Crisis of Capitalist Society ,The Social Development in Germany and the System of the Petty-Bourgeois Mode of Thinking ,The Working-Class Movement and Women’s Movement in Germany and the Struggle over the Mode of
Thinking of the Masses ,The Existential Danger of a Global ,Environmental Catastrophe
and Socialism/Communism as Social Goal .
In 2012 secretary Steven Engels deduced that since the beginning of the 1990s the imperialist world system has undergone an essential change due to the reorganization of international production. The struggle of a leading stratum of around 500 international supermonopolies from the banking, industrial, trade and agricultural sectors for control of the world market has since put its stamp on world events. The chronic over- accumulation of capital since that time increases the general crisis-proneness of the imperialist world system.
Steven Engels’s ‘On the Emergence of New Imperialist Countries ‘ is a masterpiece .It summarises fundamentally and concretely analyzed new manifestations and essential changes using the dialectical-materialist method: state-monopoly capitalism in the Federal Republic of Germany, the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and in China, the emergence of neocolonialism, the reorganization of international production and the development of the environmental crisis.
Quoting Engels “Under pressure from the crisis of their bourgeois refugee policy since 2015, more and more governments in Europe man- ifestly have shifted or are shifting to the right. That goes for
the Merkel/Gabriel government in Germany too. They justify this with a supposed “fight against terrorism.” On this basis, as never before since the Second World War openly reactionary, racist, nationalist to proto-fascist movements and parties have gained strength or are becoming stronger everywhere. At the same time we witness the beginning of a progressive change of mood among the working class and broad masses. Even now this movement far surpasses the worldwide anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1970s in scope, diversity and content. A new youth movement, critical of society and transcending national boundaries, encompasses hundreds of thou- sands of people. It heralds a new upsurge of the international revolutionary and working-class movement.”
Celebration Report
The celebration concluded on Saturday, August 27, with the unveiling of a new statue of German revolutionary thinker Karl Marx, which now partners the statue of Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin which has stood on the lawn of the MLPD headquarters complex since 2020.
Before the unveiling, MLPD Chairwoman Gabi Flechner led a ceremony honouring comrades holding more than 40 years of membership. These veterans were nearly all retired industrial workers, with decades of experience organizing in the factories and mines of Germany while also building revolutionary organization. Today, the membership of the MLPD remains more than 70% workers, and includes many nationalities.
The weekend program included seminars, workshops, discussion forums and cultural performances. Topics included the history of the MLPD, the importance of theoretical work in party-building and current work among the industrial working class.
A discussion on the importance of theoretical work in the task of Marxist-Leninist party building was inaugurated with a presentation by Stefan Engel, who was chairman of the party for 35 years. He currently presides the publication of of the MLPD’s theoretical organ, Revolutionärer Weg (Revolutionary Way). Engel explained the methodical way in which the party trains all cadre not only to read and study the classics of Marxism-Leninism, but to imbibe the dialectical method, which stands at the root of these writings and to learn to apply it in context of current conditions.
Fraternal messages were delivered from the Communist Party of Phillipines and the TKP (ML), Both expressed great admiration for the dedication of the MLPD.
Immediately before the opening event of the celebration weekend was the first ICOR (International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations) Women’s Conference, an endeavour to build and advance theory and practice of revolutionaries on aspect of the question of women’s liberation. Many in attendance will participate in the upcoming World Women’s Conference in Tunis, Tunisia September 3-10. Monika Gärtner-Engel, a long-time MLPD leader, current head of the party’s international department, and main coordinator of ICOR, addressed the conference, emphasizing that women constitute a large and expamding section of the working class, and that the struggle against oppression of women is of vital importance for revolutionary organizations to undertake.
The day after the MLPD 40th anniversary weekend, a joint international seminar of ICOR and the MLPD was held. The international representatives from 31 countries discussed along with German comrades the subject of the development of new imperialist countries, the monumental task of party building and strategy to devise an international united front to challenge war and fascism.
Harsh Thakor is Freelance Journalist who has done extensive research on the Communist Movement worldwide.
