Apocryphal quote, or source?

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul
- ----
If I recall the rest of the quote was supposed to go
something like: 'Seek truth from the facts, practice marxism not
revisionism. Unite and don't split. Do not form a gang of 4.'
But since the publication of the Selected Works were terminated
at volume V ( 1957) after Deng took over, the source is apocryphal.


Chris B:
--------

The source is highly selective.  But I do not see why the
quotation should be apocryphal.

He probably also made innuendos (sp?) about Deng in his last 18 months
too. The situation could well be like Lenin making criticisms of both
Trotsky and Stalin in his final utterances.

The *context* was problematic. The problem of succession so often
done badly in democratic centralist parties, the significance of the
anti-revisionist struggle, the methods of communicating between leader
and led by epigrams, the form of class struggle under socialism;

 but the general *content* in principle is fine.

 IMO it goes back to the Communist Manifesto.

"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working
class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of
the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles
by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. ...

The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based
on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered by this or
that would be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms
actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a
historical movement going on under our very eyes."

To seek truth from facts and to unite with other democratic forces where
possible, are fundamental to the marxist method.





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