Since the appearance of civilization in Gobelki Tepe, it took humanity some 11,000 years to witness the rise of the first generation of communists, among them Marx and Engels, that is, people who combine revolutionary thinking with scientific understanding. Since this emergence, the oppressed in large parts of the world have won the greatest victories in their struggles against exploitation in the history of civilization.
This first generation of communists pursued the goal of transmitting communist ideas to the next generation through their writings and political actions (e.g., the national and international organization of the working class through the founding of communist parties and the creation of the Communist International). Building on the achievements of the first generation, the second generation of communists, including Lenin and Stalin, succeeded in consolidating a socialist state in Russia, defeating fascism and raising a socialist camp. Following the basic principle of scientific thinking, the second generation of communists also strove to pass on to the next generation the theoretical tools, including new experiences and new theoretical developments derived from them.
The third generation of communists, including Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, succeeded in consolidating democratic and socialist economies in China, the DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam and Laos. This generation of communists also understood well that they had to pass on communist thinking to the next generation.
Thus, each generation of communists was responsible for passing on communist theory, knowledge and experience to the next generation, so that the new generations would have a more solid theoretical basis and a greater wealth of experience to advance internationally in the struggle for the final victory of socialism over capitalism, or rather, the victory of socialism over imperialism. In this way, each new communist generation could build on the knowledge and successes of previous generations so that they could make new achievements in the struggles for socialism on a national and international scale. There seemed to be an unbroken and unbreakable chain of transmission of communist ideas, theories and practices from one generation to the next.
However, between these decisive processes there was a first break in this chain of transmission when Khrushchev assumed the political leadership of the USSR, broke with the revolutionary communist tradition and oriented the policy of the USSR towards reconciliation with imperialism. At that moment, the communist forces on an international scale were divided between those who adopted the conciliatory and docile positions of Khrushchev and those who continued to postulate the communist, i.e. revolutionary, path. At the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the revisionists opened almost at once a new chain of transmission, anchored not in the historical past of the communists but in that of the Bernsteinists, the Kautskyists and the Trotskyists, but this time at the head of the First Society of Free Workers and Peoples. This fact made it possible that, for the first time in the history of communist thought, revisionism succeeded in forming a genuine chain of transmission of its thought.
But this was not the most serious event in communist history. The chain of transmission of communist ideas from the present to the next generation continued, although this time the communists faced the serious problem that the First Society of Free Workers and Peoples, the USSR, was about to lose its way. Later, a real catastrophe occurred:
With the destruction of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact of Friendship, Collaboration and Mutual Assistance in 1989/90, when imperialism won a great victory over socialism (even if it did not succeed in defeating it completely), the chain of transmission of communist ideas seemed to break forever.
There was a double problem:
Faced with such a colossal debacle, most communist militants either abandoned communist structures altogether or became covert supporters of imperialist ideology. Entire communist organizations simply dissolved or were transformed into organizations that kept the name but were emptied of communist content. There were hardly any communists left “crazy” enough to continue spreading the promise of a new society that had just “collapsed”. Only a few communists, scattered sporadically across the face of the Earth, survived in structures that looked more like sects than parties and were relegated to invisibility in the various societies of the world.
On the other hand, there were no longer any young people who wanted to listen. No young person in their right mind seemed to want to adopt “old-fashioned”, “wrong” and “failed” ideas, and a new communist generation seemed impossible. What young person would want to adopt the ideas of a promise of a new society that had just “crumbled”? The new generations of young people with social concerns were absorbed by reactionary ideas disguised as progressive, which neither endangered the system of national and international exploitation nor aspired to do so. It seemed as if communist ideas were relegated to the universities and libraries of the world as academic curiosities, like dinosaur bones in museums. Those were the most dramatic years of the communist movement in its short but fruitful history.
However, there were those few stubborn communists scattered all over the world, invisible in the various societies of the world, but refusing to give up. Because they were true communists, they possessed the same qualities as the communists before them. The monumental moral strength, the incredible intellectual capacity and the unshakable conviction that, in spite of everything, it was possible to fight for a society superior to the present one and worth fighting for, made these communists neither surrender in the face of defeat nor bow ideologically to the advance of imperialism and the “theoretical” reasoning of its ideologues around the world.
With the knowledge they had inherited from the old communist generations and always with the will to continue fighting and not give up, these comrades who had survived the great defeat, who had survived dictatorships, repressions, tortures and imprisonments, who had fought underground, approached the young people to talk to them about socialism, communism and other strange things. At first they were met with deaf ears.
But they did not let themselves be discouraged, because if they did not do it before the destruction of the USSR, they were not going to do it now. They, who had a thorough grasp of communist theory, knew the most fundamental truth of the universe: if there is anything that can be demonstrated in this reality, then it is the existence of movement. Everything changes incessantly and nothing is eternal. Neither is the defeat resulting from the destruction of the USSR.
With the strength of communist theory and overcoming the vicissitudes of their own difficult lives, these communists set themselves the task of re-establishing the chain of transmission. Like Samson, with immeasurable strength, they grasped with both hands the links exactly where the chain broke due to such a colossal debacle, and over the years, with patience and hard work, they managed to unite the two parts of the chain of transmission: the past piece of communist history with the present generation of new communists. In this way, the communist future was assured.
How many times did they get tired on this road? I don’t know. How many times did they almost capitulate? I do not know. But I do know that they never gave up and after one step they took the next until they had built a real communist party.
They did not give up in the face of the collapse of the first socialist society, nor in the face of dictatorships, nor in the face of a sea of deaf ears. Today, at this very moment that we are gathered here, they have the opportunity to see a new world emerging on the horizon. And that China, a country advancing in the construction of socialism, takes in its hands the destiny of all human society, while imperialism agonizes.
I thank the historical comrades of my party:
Comrade Manolo, Luis, Betti, Roberto, Mauro and above all to the spearhead of our organization, our First Secretary Eduardo Artés Brichetti.
Perhaps they will never be engraved in stone, because these are not the historical moments in which men and women of that stature are immortalized, but they know, and we know, and we will let future generations know that they were the ones who saved the chain of intergenerational transmission of communist thought.
Let us be like them.
Honor and glory to the comrades!
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